"What would Snape tell me?" Harry questioned, his voice lilting.
Draco gave him an incredulous look, but quickly covered it by looking particularly bored. "Hmm, you know, I didn't bring my books along on this little jaunt. I need a break from all the studying. But have you figured out what we're going to do out here day after day in the wilds of... Cornwall?" he hazarded a guess.
"We're in Devon," Harry corrected, impressed that Draco was just one county off. Just how well did Draco know England? "What did you think Snape would tell me?"
Instead of answering, Draco pressed his own attack. "You said you had to talk to me. So, talk."
Harry chewed his lower lip. "Actually, I was hoping you weren't too terribly mad at me. I mean, Snape said you left because I was... uh, crying so much--" Harry blushed, but soldiered on. "I wondered if there might be more to it?"
Draco made a scoffing noise. "Oh, I knew well enough that Severus would end up giving you the vengeance-is-bad-for-you speech, and frankly, I didn't want to hear it again." Harry must have looked a bit confused, since Draco shook his head and drawled, "Well, really, you don't think Severus was pleased about that little Pansy incident, do you?"
His brow furrowing, Harry averred, "But that was self-defence--"
"More like the heat of the moment," Draco admitted. "I'd already taken care of the snake she set on me. I didn't have to smash her into a wall, or follow it up with-- well, never mind. The point is, Severus lectured me endlessly afterwards, and he had that look again." He shrugged.
"Oh. Well..." Harry's throat convulsed as he struggled to find the right words. "Um, what I said about your father... that was sort of a heat of the moment thing, too, I think. I mean, it seemed really real at the time, but after talking with Snape?" Harry shrugged too, then, and began rubbing his hands together to warm them.
"That's the thing about the heat of the moment," Draco sighed. "At that moment, you just can't stop yourself. Listen, Harry. It doesn't matter whether or not you want to kill my father. I've been well aware for quite some time that at some point, you might just have to. In battle, or self-defence, or...." Shuddering, Draco looked away as his words trickled to a halt.
"How can that not make you mad?" Harry cried out. "He's your father!"
"Well, leaving aside the fact that he'd just love to kill me," Draco quietly said, "I know that if it comes down to that, you're too Gryffindor to really enjoy it."
"I wouldn't count on that," Harry darkly muttered.
"No, you are," Draco stated with confidence. And then, more urgently, "Don't stoop to their level, Harry. You're better than that. And besides, all this slow, lingering death crap.... it's really...."
"Horrible?"
Draco's eyes looked like burnished steel in the dying light. "Inefficient," he corrected. "Stupid. Like I said before, you'd be dead ten times over by now if the Dark Lord was more intent on winning than on nursing his grievances. So don't you nurse yours, all right?"
Draco looked a bit as though he might say something else, but he abruptly shook his head instead. "I have to finish unpacking. Why don't you go see what Severus plans for us to do about meals way out here in the middle of nowhere?" His features wrinkled a bit. "I don't suppose there's a house-elf coming to take care of things like that?"
"I wouldn't think so," Harry murmured, starting to walk back alongside Draco. He thought of Kreacher, and all at once knew that Snape had no intention of allowing a house-elf anywhere near this cottage. Too much risk. Of course a Hogwarts house-elf could probably be trusted, and Dobby would certainly never do a thing to harm Harry, but that wouldn't make any difference to Snape. Reasoning as he went, Harry went on, "Snape must have gotten this place ready all by himself. I mean, stocking it, cleaning it up a bit..."
Draco was looking at him strangely, Harry noticed, and it wasn't merely because Harry ought to realize that with magic, such chores weren't all that arduous. "What makes you think he came here and cleaned?" he asked, a frown furrowing the skin between his eyes.
"This is where he brought me after Samhain," Harry murmured. "He took care of me here until everybody was sure the Death Eaters wouldn't launch a full-out attack on Hogwarts. I can't remember it all, but I have this idea he didn't take much time away from me to straighten up..."
Draco growled something under his breath, and lengthened his stride until he was practically stalking toward the cottage.
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The scent of lamb stew hit Harry the moment he opened the rough-hewn cottage door, and he knew at once that the food hadn't been conjured up from nothing. Snape was sitting cross-legged on the hearth rug, leaning slightly toward the fire. In his right hand he held a long-handled wooden spoon, and what was he doing but stirring the cauldron that was floating in mid-air, suspended low over the flames. In his other hand, he held a wand.
Apparently, Harry mused, Severus Snape knew how to cook. This didn't come as an enormous shock to Harry, since the man had spent his life brewing Potions. Compared to them, simmering a stew was a straightforward procedure. Of course, wizard cooking was a bit different from the Muggle kind, mostly because there were so many shortcuts one could take. Just like Mrs. Weasley had made cheese sauce swirl from her wand one time, Snape had all sorts of tricks up his sleeve. It was actually quite fascinating to watch. A few blades of rosemary minced themselves on a chopping block at the table before streaming across the room to deposit themselves in the cauldron. A moment after that, a single clove of garlic was rising from the broth and vanishing itself away.
Snape evidently knew what he was about. Harry didn't think that the man often cooked while at Hogwarts, but maybe he'd learned because he came here in the summers and didn't bring along an elf to rely on?
That made Harry wonder if he'd be spending the summer here as well.
Assuming, of course, that Snape still considered the cottage safe.
Draco apparently did find it an enormous shock to realize that Snape could cook, and he obviously didn't find it very wizardly. Personally, after Draco's awful gaffe about not liking the house, Harry would have expected the Slytherin boy to be a bit more careful what he said, but he wasn't. He was impossibly rude about everything, just as if he were trying to provoke the man into a full-fledged argument.
Snape had enough forbearance to ignore Draco's scathing commentary, everything from don't you think this is beneath you? to you're really too tall to pull off this elf act.
Snape might have an astonishing amount of patience with it, but Harry didn't. "Cut it out," he finally hissed. "What's your fucking problem?"
"Language, Harry," Snape mildly rebuked, perhaps to prove that he wasn't as deaf, after all.
"Snape there knows what my problem is," Draco snarled.
Snape? Draco never called the man that. Definitely, the Slytherin boy was angry. But at what? He couldn't be that upset that the cottage was a bit rustic, could he? The only other thing Harry could think of was that Draco hadn't appreciated finding the Death Eater clothing, but why blame Snape for that?
Harry waited until Snape had moved slightly away, then said under his breath --not that Snape couldn't hear him; that man heard everything-- "Listen, I'm sure the professor just forgot he'd left his robe and mask here--"
Draco gave him a derisive glance. "Didn't I tell you he's got plans inside plans?"