Draco's silver eyes almost bugged out, the question was so bizarre. "About half-past eight, I think..."
"Look at your watch," Snape purred, menace in each syllable.
"What's this all about?" Draco asked, glancing to Harry for help. But since Harry had none to offer; he mutely raised his shoulders.
"Look at your watch!" Snape barked.
A bit unnerved, Draco did, then retorted, "It says Time for cocoa, Severus! So you're thirsty, are you! Shall I Floo for refreshments?"
Snape's hand lashed out to grab Draco's wrist and yank it close. He peered down at the watch himself, then shook his head. "Pardon my presumption. I thought it would point to Time to apologize."
"Oh." Draco took a step back, then glanced from Harry to Snape and back. "Well, actually, it did say that all day yesterday."
"Yes, I know," Snape drawled. "Did you in fact apologize? Harry here seems to have missed it."
Harry held up his hands. "Whoa. I wasn't complaining. I said we worked it out."
"We did, Severus," Draco insisted, and when the Potions Master still looked skeptical, added, "We're not first-years. We don't need our Head of House to tell us what to do and when to do it."
"Good. Now sit down, both of you." He pointed his wand at the two leather armchairs.
"He just told us what to do and when to do it!" Draco complained to Harry.
"Better just do it," Harry advised.
When the boys were both in their place, Snape began to pace back and forth in front of them, as though considering his words. At length he stopped in front of Harry. "You," he said, enunciating each word clearly, "are my son."
Walking two paces, he looked Draco in the eye. "You are my son in all but name."
Stepping back from them both, he continued, "We are a family, gentlemen. Granted, we are far from typical. An orphan by circumstance, an orphan by choice, and a man who never thought to be a parent at all, but here we are. A family. And as a family, we need to reach an understanding. Namely, that this ridiculous rivalry between the two of you has got to stop. As I have told you both, I care about you both."
Draco had looked a bit apprehensive toward the start, but by the end he was his usual scathing self. "All this because I don't like Harry's snotrag friends?"
"You don't care for Mr. Weasley," Snape conceded. "But that is not what has made you be so rude about his presence here. Your worry is that in going to such lengths to have him reconcile with Harry, I am somehow choosing Harry over you."
Draco opened his mouth to reply, but Snape shook his head.
"And you," he accused, stepping back to Harry, "worry just as much that Draco's love of Potions will have me preferring his company to yours."
"You do spend a awful lot of time hovering over a cauldron together," Harry murmured.
Draco's mouth dropped open still further. "For pity's sake, Harry! You had a mother and a father willing to die for you, and now you have Severus here who'd do the same! All I've got is a Death Eater foaming at the mouth to torture me, and a mother who hasn't bothered her pretty little self one bit over that fact!"
Snape looked a bit put out by that, Harry thought. "Were you not listening? You have me just as much as Harry does," he insisted, the words not quite a roar, but not too far off, either.
His arms crossed, his eyes hooded, Draco drawled, "Well, I appreciate all you've done for me, Severus, and I understand that you'd have liked to adopt me as well, --dearly liked, I think you said-- but the fact remains that I don't have you the way Harry does."
Snape summoned a third chair over from the wall and sat in it, leaning forward to speak about as intently as Harry had ever seen. "What do you think a family is?" he asked Draco, black eyes steady. "A piece of paper stamped and approved by some imbecile working for a Ministry adjunct office?"
When Draco said nothing, Snape briefly rubbed his temples.
"He's awfully tired," Harry told Draco. "Your fault. Don't give him my sleeping draught again. He ended up comatose."
Draco's silver gaze shot to Snape's. "Oh. Oops. Sorry there, Severus."
Snape huffed. "Harry tried to talk to me in the night and thought I was ignoring him, Draco!"
"I didn't think so," Harry insisted. "I just... um, wondered."
Draco huffed too, then. "Honestly, Harry. You ought to know better than that." Then he grew a bit more repentant. "I didn't do it in order to worry you."
Harry nodded. "Right. Well, enough of that. Like I said, Severus here is pretty tired. If you ask me, we ought to fetch him some cocoa and send him off to sleep."
"Mr. Potter, I do believe I can regulate my own bedtime, thank you."
"You're welcome," Harry said sweetly, turning back to Draco. "Do you know what kind of cocoa Severus likes best? Chocolate, double chocolate, chocolate mint?"
Draco smiled at Harry's easy tone, and said in a mock whisper, "Well, I don't know as Severus is really the cocoa type, but if we want to get some down him, I say we throw in a splash of Galliano."
Turning a mild glare on Draco, Snape growled, "Mr. Malfoy. Don't you think you've laced enough drinks for the time being?" Relenting then, he loftily informed them, "I'd be delighted to have Harry serve up cocoa once we've finished. Now, answer my question, Draco. What do you think a family is?"
"As far as I can tell," Draco answered in a cool, smooth voice --a defensive voice, Harry thought--, "a family is made of people dedicated to turning you into what they want. People who toss you away without a qualm once they've decided you're not worth the effort."
So much bitterness, Harry thought. But he could empathize. Probably Snape could, too, based on what he'd said a few moments before. The Potions Master wasn't going to admit to his own pain so openly, though; he'd never discussed his family, not even when Harry had hinted at it before Christmas. Wanting Draco to feel like he wasn't alone in his sentiments, Harry added, "Yeah, sometimes families really ronk. Mine was more the lock-you-in instead of the chuck-you-out type, though."
Snape grimly regarded them both. "I'm tempted to assign twenty inches on the topic."
Uh-oh. Harry could tell he was seriously contemplating it. "I say we learn by experience," he volunteered, smiling brightly, and not just in jest. "Really, sir. A wise man once told me that's the best way to make a concept sink in."
"Remarkable lack of subtlety," Snape lamented, ignoring the praise. "However, as an idiot child demonstrated to me not so very long ago, some things need to be talked through." He paused, a look of extreme exhaustion pulling at his features. "In all the ways that count, both of you are equally my son, is that much clear?"
"Guess we really are brothers in that case," Draco joked, but Harry didn't laugh, not that time.
"Then as brothers," Snape continued right on, "the two of you need to start communicating better."
"Oh, sweet Merlin, he's been reading that damned book," Draco moaned.
Snape ignored him. "Constructive criticism is in order, I do believe. Emphasis on constructive or there may yet be essays assigned tonight. Harry, you go first."
"Sir?"
"Tell Draco something he does that bothers you, and suggest a way for him to improve."
Harry thought this was stupid, and unlike Snape, but perhaps the man's fatigue explained a great deal. Probably it was better to humor him. "Um... hmm. Well, he--"
"Talk to Draco," Snape sighed, sounding a bit impatient that time.
"You call my best friend a weasel."