Draco openly smirked. "There, see? Spoken like the good little half-Slytherin he is." After that, though, his tone became morose. "Though why I should care is anybody's guess. Honorary, schmonarary. Do I get my crest back? Because I don't want it. Why should I give a shrivelfig what becomes of Slytherin after what they've seen fit to do to me? As far as I'm concerned, the lot of them can burn."
"Draco, they didn't all scheme against you," said Harry. "You told me yourself that some of them are worth saving."
"Hmm, well my youthful idealism has died a tragic death. They did all scheme, every last one of them. That Slytherin plague was just a tad too convenient. If you ask me, they were up to something."
"I thought you believed Pansy cursed them all on the way down!"
Draco's voice went cold. "Did you or did you not hear me state not ten seconds past that my youthful idealism is as dead and gone as she is? She'd just had Corpus Aqueous cast on her! It's not too likely she was coherent enough to form a last thought, let alone hex an entire House from afar! Would you do us all a favour and get your damned Gryffindor head out of the clouds, or perhaps your arse?"
"Draco, any more talk like that and you will find your urgent shopping spree cancelled for an indeterminate amount of time!"
"Oh, fine." Draco beamed a wholly insincere smile over at Harry. "I'll just go wait in the sitting room. If you could manage not to detain Severus for too much longer, I'd be oh-so-everlastingly grateful."
With that he was stomping to the door and slamming it behind him.
Snape shook his head, then walked across the room to rest his large hands on Harry's shoulders. "That was well done of you."
"Huh?"
"Your attitude toward Draco's ill temper. Your forbearance has not gone unnoticed, Harry, and since I know you're more than capable of returning his verbal sparring in kind, I can only assume the casewitch must have spoken to you about the matter?" Snape tightened his fingers and then let go.
Hugging the praise to himself, Harry nodded. "Oh yeah, we talked. It looks like Draco's running true to form. I wish I knew how long it's likely to last. He's being a right pain."
"Quite." Snape sighed. "Are you certain you won't come along to Hogsmeade with us? You're most definitely invited, no matter what Draco has to say on the subject. Don't you need new clothes as much as he does?"
"I could use some things but it can wait. I mean..." Harry's lips twisted. "I don't think I need things in the same way Draco does. Well, how could I? I grew up pretty much expecting nothing in the way of gifts, but he sort of takes them as his due or something. I think this Hogsmeade demand is... I don't know. His idea of a father is probably someone who buys him stuff. So he's seeing if you will."
"His motivations hardly excuse his comments to you." The Potions Master frowned. "Hogsmeade, Harry?"
"No thanks. I need to start working on a well-wish for him, actually."
Snape raised an eyebrow. "Your forbearance apparently knows no bounds."
"Well, I'm trying." His mind though, wasn't on Draco's snide remarks. Harry was wondering how to broach the subject of money. His face heated just thinking about what he had to ask, but it was his own fault things were like this. That had been deliberate, though. He'd known this would be hard, but he'd still wanted that experience of being someone's child, so now he was left with no choice but to go ahead and plunge past his discomfort.
"Um, about the well-wish. I still have to do some research and talk to Professor Sprout and such, but it might end up that I need to buy some things. You know how we agreed on an... um, allowance for me but you said I wouldn't need the actual cash until I'd moved out? Well, I've moved out. So could you... er..."
The look on his father's face was exasperated and amused all at once. "Yes, of course. It shouldn't embarrass you to ask me for things, Harry. I wish you'd do it more often."
Like Draco? Harry pushed the thought away. "Sorry."
"And I wish you'd do that less often," chided Snape.
"Well, I'm a mess inside like you said," retorted Harry. "But if you want me to ask for things, I'll go ahead and mention that I think my back allowance is up to about forty Galleons by now."
"Forty-four, though I certainly don't keep coins in the lab."
Harry followed his father out to the living room. Draco was standing by the front door, obviously impatient to be off. When Snape walked past him and down the hall to his bedroom, the blond boy gritted his teeth. "What, what now?"
"He has to get some money."
"Oh, please. We're not going to Kathmandu. Don't you think Severus has accounts with all the merchants in town? He can sign a vault draft, but you wouldn't know about that, would you? You didn't even know about shopping owl-order until I enlightened you, and then what did you do but order me that demon's amulet--"
Harry gritted his own teeth, managing not to yell back only by remembering his father's compliments. Snape appreciated his forbearance, so forbearance it would be, no matter how it made his jaw ache. "He needs it so he can pay me my allowance."
"Oh, allowance." Draco's teeth glittered as he grinned, and not maliciously, either. More like he'd just had a marvellous idea. "I want an allowance, too!" he shouted the moment Snape came into the room. "How much are you giving Harry? Because I want at least as much!"
Snape's hands tightened on the velvet pouch he was holding, but he answered in a level voice. "Forty-four Galleons."
Draco gave off a horrified gasp. "Only forty-four Galleons a week? That's practically child abuse, it is--"
"We'll have no jests in this home about child abuse."
"Oh, right. I forgot about the Muggles who used to starve Harry and beat him half to death--"
"They never really beat me, exactly--"
"Don't defend them," snapped Snape, before turning an angry gaze on Draco. "You did not forget about the Dursleys. And furthermore--"
"Well I'm trying to. He's practically a Muggleborn. But like I said, I've done my best to overlook the matter of his breeding--"
"And furthermore," continued Snape, raising his voice, "I was talking about you as much as Harry, is that clear?"
"Yes," said Draco, suddenly subdued. He looked down as though all at once unable to face either one of them.
The Potions Master raked his hands through his hair, his expression for a fleeting instant saying that he didn't know how to proceed. But then he must have decided, for he said in a much softer voice, "As for an allowance, you are certainly welcome to the same as Harry, though I never agreed to any such ridiculous sum as forty-four Galleons a week. That amount represents his allowance from the time we first settled the matter of one."
Snape counted out forty-four Galleons for each of them, the action leaving the velvet pouch empty. Draco muttered something that sounded suspiciously like pauper, but Snape pretended not to hear it, so Harry pretended as well. When Draco shoved his money in a cloak pocket, though, the motion screamed resentment. "Just how long do you think it'll be before the goblins let me have my new vault so I can have some decent spending money?"
"If my money offends you I can take it back."
"It doesn't offend me." That, Harry thought, was about as big a lie as he'd ever heard Draco utter. "I'm just used to more, that's all."
"You're used to so much that you saw fit to spend more on a shirt than most wizards earn in a year," said Snape. "It's poor strategy to flaunt wealth to that degree, and as my son, you will not do it again, not even when you can afford to."