Again, a pause as though Draco were struggling to make sense of the question. "Oh. Um, yeah. Couple of times, or maybe three... this awful feeling kept... anyway, you said to stay in the house but I was going barmy..." A loopy looking grin curled his lips. "Potion made it better. Thanks, Sev. Um, Severus."
Snape looked positively disgusted. "You must be considerably over the usual dose to think calling me Sev is appropriate at any time," he scorned, standing up so that he could fish in his voluminous cloak for one of the many potions he seemed to always carry. His hand emerged with a single dose vial held between long, elegant fingers. "Antidote," he said briefly, extending it towards Draco.
Harry leaned forward to grab his father's wrist before Draco could take hold of the tiny glass vial. "Maybe it's better to let him stay... er, relaxed?"
"After he's only recently emerged from Somulus? I think not," Snape retorted, staring at his wrist until Harry released it.
Draco grinned again, the expression even more silly than before, but his face was washed clean of any humour whatsoever the moment he swallowed the potion. He stretched, grimacing, muttering something derogatory about the couch. Then he seemed to remember he wasn't alone. "Oh. Sorry, Severus."
"That's three times now you've said sorry," Harry pointed out, concerned, and not just about the fact that it wasn't like Draco to apologise so profusely. There was also the fact that he'd apparently spent the whole evening on the couch, just staring into the blackness... of course the Calming Draught might account for that, but that was a concern in of itself.
To Snape as well, who proceeded to rasp, "Explain yourself. What did you think you were doing, taking an overdose of Calming Draught after I had specifically cautioned you to use it sparingly?"
Fidgeting a bit, and then actually sitting on his hands in an effort to still them, Draco admitted, "I was trying to stay in, that's what I was doing. I told you I wouldn't do anything stupid." He glanced at Harry's eye. "Anything else stupid, I mean... but I kept having such an awful urge to go outside for some air. The draught was all I had to help with it." He cleared his throat nervously, his gaze skittering over Snape and Harry both before fixing itself on the floor.
"The word tomorrow means nothing whatsoever to you?"
"Well, it was almost midnight," Draco muttered. "Technically that's tomorrow. And I couldn't breathe."
Harry noticed then that all the windows were open, and remembered all the times Severus had said Breathe, you idiot child to him when he was panicking. But Draco had been here all alone with only a potion to help him... When Harry thought about it, his heart sort of twisted inside his chest.
"We're here now," he offered with another encouraging smile. "We'll help you."
"Ha," Draco said, his usual personality back in force by then. He looked down his nose at Harry. "Nobody much can help me, the headmaster made that much clear. If Lucius can get the Board on his side, then that's it. I'll be kicked out of Hogwarts, and nobody can do a thing to get me back in, not even famous Harry Potter."
Ignoring that last bit, Harry confessed, "You know, I don't know much about boarding schools; it's not like the Dursleys were ever going to pay for me to go to one, but that no appeals rule strikes me as a little harsh."
Draco's face transformed itself into a scowl. "I know you were raised without a shred of proper culture, but do try to keep in mind that you're not in the Muggle world now, Harry. Hogwarts is a wizarding school, in case you hadn't noticed. Is your brain completely pickled? Only a blithering idiot would think that Hogwarts would have to be run remotely like whatever passes for education where you're from--"
"Too bad you can't have more Calming Draught," Harry interrupted.
Draco looked about to make a scathing retort, but a glance from Snape cut it off. Merely sighing, then, the boy groaned, "If I get expelled, they'll probably take away my wand. Or break it, even... Severus, do they still do that?"
"After your dabbling you hardly deserve to keep that wand, do you?"
Personally, Harry thought Snape could stand to be a little more compassionate. Draco had made some dreadful mistakes, but he hardly needed them thrown in his face at the moment. He wished he could tell his father as much, but the mood Snape was in, it would just lead to an argument.
"We did find your wand, though," Harry thought to say, trying his best to stay positive. That was what Draco needed, surely? A little bit of hope?
"Can I have it back?" Draco asked, his voice slightly more cheerful. "I mean, at least until they--"
"No," Snape answered, his tone short. "Albus has it for the moment, and it will stay in his possession until further notice. You may use the wand I showed you."
"That old thing..."
"Was my grandfather's," Snape announced, his voice dangerously level.
"Oh." Swallowing his complaints, Draco gave a sharp nod. "Well in that case, I'm honoured," he softly admitted, the formal tone of the words reminding Harry of the well-wishing ceremony. "All I meant was.... well, it works all right for me, but you know how it is. It's just not what I'm used to."
It was the first time Snape had mentioned anything much about his family, though of course the fact that his grandfather had possessed a wand was hardly news. Harry wanted to ask a few leading questions, but it hardly seemed the time. And besides, at that moment the door creaked open.
"Bit chilly in here," remarked Albus Dumbledore. A slight wave of his wand had the windows shutting themselves and the curtains fluttering half-way closed.
"You have been to the Ministry?"
"No, back to Hogwarts, Severus." Turning toward the couch, the headmaster glanced at the two boys sitting together. "And how are you doing... Draco?"
Harry was sure that slight emphasis on the name was no mistake. Dumbledore was making a point. Too bad Harry wasn't sure what it was. It could be that the headmaster was recognizing a mistake and correcting it... or the name could simply be strategy. Or maybe, he thought, he'd been a bit wrong about the names business to begin with. Now that he thought about it, hadn't that Christmas present from the headmaster to Draco been labelled with just the boy's first name?
Whatever the truth was, the shift wasn't lost on Draco himself. He started, then shrugged. "Um, I suppose I'm all right." Harry could see him hesitate, then plunge ahead, "It... It was Pansy who fell, then? There's no doubt, none at all, no possible way she's..."
Seating himself on the low table to face Draco, the headmaster shook his head. "I wish I had better news to bring, my boy."
Draco drew in a long, shuddering breath and blew it out like a sigh. "I think I won't really believe it until I... I don't suppose I might be allowed to go to her funeral?"
Harry was a little bit surprised when Dumbledore didn't answer that, even though Draco had clearly been speaking to him, not Snape. The headmaster actually took a step back as he waved for the Potions Master to speak.
"I am sorry, Draco," Snape answered, a little of the compassion Harry had hoped for there in his voice, at last. "The Parkinsons want the funeral held at Hogwarts, but they were adamant that you not attend. They know you put their daughter in St. Mungo's some months back; when we told them of the accident they assumed straight away that you were responsible. We did our best to dissuade them..." Snape shrugged as though to say that as expected, it was a lost cause.
Draco nodded, the motion jerky and disjointed, his eyes blinking so furiously that Harry was sure he must be near tears, though of course the Slytherin boy was far too proud to actually break down in front of Harry. "Can I at least see her beforehand?" he said, the words about as close to begging as Draco Malfoy could possibly come. Or perhaps he could come closer than Harry realised, for he continued, "Please? Please, Severus. Just one minute, that's all I need. I... it's all so... it's like I can't believe it, like it can't be true, but if I saw her..."