"Shall we?" asked Snape, waving toward the door. "It's quite a walk."
Rhiannon glanced at Draco. "Too bad we can't--" She giggled a little, shaking her head as if she'd said too much.
"Can't what?" asked Harry.
Rhianon's gaze grew flustered as she glanced frantically at Draco, clearly looking for some sort of guidance. "Can't . . . um, take the car. I do know where Uncle Stanley keeps a spare key, but he'd pitch a fit if I used it without permission."
She's lying, Harry recognised. Too bad we can't what . . . Well, he didn't know what she was talking about, and didn't think he'd probably be able to figure it out.
"It's not that long a walk," said Draco as he opened the front door and held it for her.
Rhiannon nodded, but her glance at him as she passed him seemed to hold some secret depth of meaning that escaped Harry.
The pavement wasn't wide enough to walk four abreast, so Draco and Rhiannon led the way, their arms linked together as they all set off toward the squib home. Or orphanage, Harry told himself. Best not to call it that other name, not in front of Rhiannon. Hopefully, Darswaithe would know not to. Draco wouldn't have called her a Muggle, but he'd probably told Darswaithe that she was Muggle-raised, right? That she'd never been to Hogwarts, never even heard of it? That she didn't know the first thing about magic or squibs?
Harry slowed his steps a little to put some distance between Draco and himself, then quietly spoke to his father, walking beside him. "I'm a bit concerned that Darswaithe might say something he shouldn't. I mean . . . well, you know. The statute and all."
"Draco would have been sure to advise him on that, particularly once he knew that I'd been invited." Snape shrugged. "I doubt you have anything to worry about. Especially considering . . ."
"Considering what?"
Snape glanced over at Harry, his dark eyes gleaming. "Don't tell me you didn't notice."
"Notice?"
"The young lady's rather . . . erratic manner of speaking, a few moments past?"
Harry had noticed that, yeah. It would have been hard to miss. But he'd chalked it up to sex. Something to do with sex. Don't you wish we could . . . Harry hadn't seen her face when she'd said that, but she'd probably had bedroom eyes. Harry's throat went tight. This was awful. He wished he could be happy for Draco. Normally, he would be. But to have Draco fall so hard, so fast, for someone he was going to despise when all was said and done? Harry cleared his throat. "So she was a little bit on edge, or nervous, or something. What's that got to do with the statute, anyway?"
"She wasn't nervous. That comment about the car was pure fabrication."
Snape was pretty good at recognising lies, Harry remembered. He'd even known when Hermione had been lying during a seer dream. Not that Harrry could figure out what their talk of it being a long walk had to do with Rhiannon and Draco being lovers. "Um . . . why would she make up stuff about borrowing the car?"
Snape clicked his teeth slightly as he walked along. When he glanced at Harry, ahalf-smile was hovering on his lips. "She'd rather not have walked, yes. Not when she was wishing we could Apparate, instead."
Harry's mouth fell open. "He . . . she . . ." He glanced to the couple ahead of them to make sure they were still intent on their own conversation. Which of course, they were. Draco and Rhiannon had eyes--and ears--only for one another. They were holding hands now, their fingers twined together, their arms swinging in tandem. The whole thing looked like they wanted to find the nearest bed and tumble into it.
"How do you know?"
Snape shrugged. "It was fairly obvious to me that Draco had demonstrated it to her. And who wouldn't want to Apparate, once they knew it to be an option? I'd guess he's shown her a wide range of spells, by now. Speaking of which, I cast a discreet privacy charm a moment ago.You can speak freely."
Good thing. "Draco can't show her any magic! The Ministry would have a fit!"
"Ah, but your brother has arranged to be a few weeks older. Don't use his new shampoo, by the way, unless you want your birthday to change as well."
That only made Harry gape all the more. "I . . . what?"
"My privacy charm won't keep this conversation under wraps if your brother turns around and sees you looking so stunned."
Harry clamped his lips together and nodded. By then, Draco and Rhiannon were quite a distance ahead of them, but best to be cautious, right? He struggled to find a normal-looking expression, and was pretty sure he failed. It felt to him as though his face was screwed into tight lines. But maybe that was because he didn't have the slightest idea what to say.
Or maybe he did. "I thought you said that Draco needed to learn that the rules did apply to him. But you've found out he's using illegal underage magic and you haven't done anything about it?"
Snape made a languid gesture, that strange half-smile still lurking in his expression. "Technically, he's not underage any longer. He genuinely is older, as these things go."
"But the aging potion itself, wasn't that illegal?"
"Oh, certainly, since his intent was to circumvent Ministry regulations."
"Which brings me back to him needing to know that that law applies to him!" Annoyed, Harry glanced up at his father. "Why haven't you given him lines or something?"
"Do you want me to?"
"Well, no, but you have to do something, don't you?"
Snape sighed, just a little. "Perhaps when you're a father yourself, you'll understand. There's a great deal going on at once, in this situation, and I have to do as I think best."
"It's best to let him cheat the Ministry?"
"Cheating them by three weeks is not such a serious matter." Snape lifted his shoulders. "And if the result of that is to bring your brother closer to the lady of his choice, I think he'll learn far more from breaking the law than from abiding by it."
Learn more . . . Oh. Learn by experience. Snape never had objected to Draco being involved with a Muggle, and now it seemed like as far as Snape was concerned, the more involved Draco got, the better.
"After all," Snape continued, "the old adage that familiarity breeds contempt isn't always the case. When it comes to your brother, I think a lack of familiarity is far more the problem. When I realised that he had made himself older so that he could demonstrate some magic to her, and thus share with her his true nature . . ." Snape slowly nodded. "Considering her true nature, I decided I approved of the idea."
Harry smiled, a little wryly. "So he's told her. Which brings us back to the statute. You know, the one about secrecy?"
"Technically he should wait until after marriage to tell her anything, but that's rarely enforced. It's simply not very practical."
"So it's all right to ignore laws that don't make sense?"
Snape angled him a glance. "Ah, that's an old debate, and a complex one. Do the ends justify the means? We'll discuss the matter at length in your upcoming ethics course."
Harry mulled that over for a while. "You aren't angry with Draco, then?"
"Annoyed, perhaps. I'd rather he consulted me before taking a dubious potion. But in the main, in this situation I do believe I'll let him make his own mistakes."
"How'd you know, anyway?"
"I felt a burden lift."
"Excuse me?"
Snape shrugged. "I'm legally his father, which implies a whole range of responsibilities, including magical ones. When those responsibilities came to an end, I could feel it. An odd sensation, but not so difficult to figure out. It also wasn't difficult to realise that Draco's 'shampoo' must have been responsible. He'd been Occluding when he spoke of it, so there was obviously something odd going on. I suspected pheromone enhancers until later that evening, when I realised the truth."
"Pheremone enhancers?"