"Oh, my apologies, Miss Granger," snarled Draco. "Forgive me if I was trying for once to treat you as an equal. Won't happen again. Have I offended your delicate ears?"
"I think my ears will survive," Hermione said in a mild voice.
"But what happened to your trunk, Draco?"
The Slytherin boy shot Harry an irritated glance. "You really are dense, aren't you? It was a wizarding trust. Magic? You have heard of it, I think?"
"Don't be a prat!"
Draco looked about to make a scathing retort, but he got a hold of himself and nodded instead. "Right. Yes. Well, it's all gone. Not just my access to the funds but everything I've ever bought with them. Trunk, books, most of my clothes... from the feel of it, right down to the pants I had on under my trousers. Well, they weren't so clean. I hope they show up right in the middle of the celebration party Lucius and my darling mother are no doubt holding as we speak." He drew in a shaky breath. "Well. This certainly simplifies my packing. That's something, I suppose."
"You were buying most of your own clothes?"
"Unlike you, I liked to be independent." Draco affected a shrug, but it didn't look as careless as usual. "Besides, Lucius didn't approve of the diamond buttons. Good thing he bought most of what I've got on now, though, or I'd be standing here starkers."
Ron probably didn't even hear the starkers comment, Harry thought. He was wrapped up in two words only. "Diamond buttons!"
Draco rounded on Ron. "Oh, yes. But they're gone now, along with every last Galleon I had to call my own, even the ones I withdrew in the past week trying to stave off disaster. Not that my nominal control would let me take out much, but that's a moot point now, isn't it? It's all gone back to Lucius. So just go ahead and laugh, Weasley! Well? Go on, laugh! Say it! Draco Malfoy's as poor as a Weasley! Write home, tell your friends, do your fucking worst!"
"Actually," said Ron with a not-so-nice gleam in his eye, "you're even poorer than we are. At least we have a house."
Draco lunged, only to be restrained by Snape's quick reflexes.
"Maybe you two should just go," Harry sighed. "I'll see you... I don't know. When I can, which might be quite a while."
Snape shook Draco slightly. "Behave yourself." Then letting him go, he turned to Ron and Hermione and spoke in cold, clipped tones. "Your efforts to exonerate Draco did not go unnoticed, I do assure you. Perhaps in future, Miss Granger, you will consider before you put quill to parchment that such things often last a great deal longer than one intends and can have less than salutary effects. Now be gone, both of you."
He all but herded them from the room.
"What the bloody hell did all that mean?" Harry heard Ron asking on the way out.
"Thanks for trying and by the way that letter you wrote was a disaster all around," Hermione translated.
The thud of the door closing behind them announced to Harry that he was alone with his family. At last.
"So I'll pack as well," Harry said in a definite tone. "Oh... most of my stuff's up in the Tower."
"So it is," said Snape in an hard tone. "Except items such as cloaks and maps, items no student should have. Shall we add picture frames to the list? I thought you had acquired a shred of common sense living here, but it appears I was mistaken! Risking yourself to the vagaries of untested magic once was not enough for you, I see! You had to do it again!"
Harry tried to brazen it out. "Well technically it wasn't untested this time--"
"Oh no?" Snape glared down at him. "I suppose the frame began to pass sounds through for no reason at all?"
Oh, yeah. "All right, it was untested," Harry admitted. "I'm sorry. It won't happen again."
"No, it won't," Snape agreed, the claim delivered in a precise tone that was nothing short of chilling. "Because quite obviously, you can't be trusted! You're not to be alone in your room again, is that clear? And may Merlin help you if you disobey me on that account!"
Harry's mouth fell open. "But it's my room!" he protested, more than a little shocked. But then he remembered the other punishments his father had doled out. Five hundred points, ten thousand lines. This was more of the same, really. Overkill. "Listen, you're supposed to send me to my room when I'm bad, not tell me I'm not allowed in there!"
"And you are supposed to respect my opinions and value my guidance, are you not?"
The words struck a chord in Harry, which puzzled him until he remembered the forms he'd filled out right before the adoption. Snape was throwing his own words back at him.
"I do respect your opinions and value your guidance, I do! I just... I had to know! I had to stand by Draco!"
The Potions Master brushed his hair back from his face. "I'm not going to argue this now, Harry. You will go to the Tower tonight and come back down here tomorrow for the first of your Potions tutorials. Those are long overdue."
"Potions!" Harry erupted. What the hell was Snape going on about? "What about Argentina?"
"You may be certain that when I have something to tell you about our plans, I will tell you. As I do believe I mentioned. Now, do as I have said and go catch up to your friends. Draco needs to collect his things and leave for Devon." Snape waved his wand towards the wall that flanked the hallway, presumably to halt Ron and Hermione. Harry wasn't sure what spell would do that.
"If Draco's going to Devon I want to come as well," he protested. "We're in this together. Besides, you remember last time, he went a bit barmy--"
"Excuse me," Draco said in a pleasant tone, though under it lay all sorts of sharp spikes. "I am actually still here in the room listening. And for your information, I'm not going to slit my wrists or do whatever it is the Muggle-raised among us do when they're distraught, Harry. After all, it's not as though my whole world has collapsed. I'll still have my N.E.W.T.s to fall back on. Oh, but I won't. No matter, there's always enough money to keep me in silks. Oh, but there isn't. But at least the love of my life will stick by me. Oh, but she won't, ever, will she, because she's dead dead dead--"
"For God's sake, get him a calming draught," Harry begged his father.
"Ha, very funny. If I take another swig of that swill I will die, Potter. I've had it with being coddled."
"Harry, go to the Tower as I said. I will stay with Draco in Devon."
"Why can't I come?"
"Because my patience has a limit and you have exhausted it!" Snape shouted. "How can I be any more clear? You disobeyed me over the frame and now you are disobeying me again! Go catch up to your friends!"
Harry took an abrupt step back.
Snape paused, breathing rather deliberately for a moment, before appearing to calm. "Harry, Draco is what matters tonight. If you could think of someone other than yourself for five contiguous seconds, you would realise that he needs time alone with his father."
Harry had been thinking of someone besides himself, but he could also see what Snape meant. "All right, I'll go to the Tower," he said, chewing his lip. A chance for Snape and Draco to have a father-son chat was a good idea, even if the way Snape had gone about it, it had sounded more like get out of my sight.
It wasn't that, though. He had said to come back in the morning, after all. "What time for my Potions tutorial, sir?"
"Eleven," said Snape in a heavy tone. "If I am not here, wait for me. Do not attempt a Potion unsupervised. Do I have to ward the lab and your room to enforce my rules or can you act your age for once?"