Harry saw it then. Draco could ask the elves for food but not potion ingredients, so he hadn't found a way to restore the things he'd used. He couldn't even owl-order what he needed, not as long as his new vault was being held up by the goblins. He'd probably spent his all forty-four Galleons of his allowance that day in Hogsmeade... one more example of his lack of impulse control.
"Draco, just tell him the truth!" Harry shouted, his head aching from the amount of manipulation he'd witnessed in the past fifteen minutes. "I know you were brewing it! I saw you brewing it, for God's sake!"
Draco grabbed an empty flask and hurled it against the wall. "Fine, I was brewing it! Satisfied, Potter? I was brewing it but those damned fairy cakes are nothing to do with me! The elves must have stolen it, that's what happened, they stole my potion to frame me 'cause they're mad about my room too, I bet--"
"They don't even clean your room any longer! They don't give a flip if you live in a pigsty!"
"I've had enough of this," Snape suddenly announced. He touched the tip of his wand to the palm of his hands and murmured a spell, then reached inside his waistcoat pocket to pull out a folded sheet of parchment.
"Oh sweet Merlin," Draco thickly moaned, then quickly added, "The elves, you know, they can forge anything--"
"Interesting you should mention forgery," Snape mocked, his dark eyes glittering. "Illuminating, one might say. It might interest you to know, Draco, that when your teachers mark your homework, they have ways of knowing who has done the actual work involved. Or at least, who has done the writing. This card accompanied the fairy cakes, but you know that, don't you?"
Draco started shaking, his teeth audibly clicking together.
"It purports to be from Lucius Malfoy," Snape went right on. "But I rather doubt that. Don't you? Fairy cakes being... well, not at all Lucius' style. If he wished to reward his loyal Slytherins I think he'd send bank drafts. Even if he wished to poison them he'd come up with something a bit more refined than fairy cakes. But I know a little spell that will reveal the true author of this message."
Brandishing his wand, Snape swept it skyward in an arc that almost made him seem an avenging angel as he grated, "Quis vocaris!"
He struck the parchment, hard, and the ink forming the message all at once rushed towards the centre of the sheet to form a great messy splotch. But then the ink stain began moving outwards again, droplets separating themselves and drifting to become large letters.
Ten large letters in all.
DRACO SNAPE.
"Ah, so accurate," mocked Snape, his voice oozing menace. "Right down to your new name. My name too, as it happens. Do you think I want it splashed across the Prophet and the Quibbler, Draco?"
"That spell's a lie!" Draco shouted in desperation. "Harry, that's not a real spell! He's making you think I did it when I didn't--"
"First the elves are framing you and now Severus is?" Harry shook his head. "Draco, please just tell us the truth!"
"I am, Harry!"
Harry marched across the room to his brother and grabbed his shoulders to shake him. "Draco, we'll still love you!"
The Slytherin boy bared his teeth, looking like nothing so much as a trapped animal as he wrenched himself away. "I didn't do it, Harry, I swear, I didn't do it! It's the elves, all the elves--"
"The elves are constrained from harming Hogwarts' students as you well know," said Snape from across the room.
"Well then it's that one horrible elf!" Draco shouted, grabbing another flask though this time he didn't throw it. "That Nobby, or Snobby, or whatever his name is, that one Harry freed! He hates me and he's not constrained, now is he? He's not bound to Hogwarts! He gets paid, the nasty little green-eared shite!"
"You're the nasty little shite here!" Harry screamed, clenching both his hands. It was either that or hit Draco straight in the face, which was actually sounding better and better. "Don't you get it? Do you really think Dad found those in the common room like he said? Since when does Severus go there in the middle of the day? Dobby found out they were poisoned and he came and got me! He could have gone straight to Dumbledore. Hell, with Venetimorica in the icing he could have called in the Aurors, Draco! Dobby saved you!"
"He did not! He's in on it, I'm telling you--"
"That really is quite enough, Draco!" roared Snape. "I had hoped it wouldn't come to this but it seems you leave me no choice!"
The flask Draco had been holding abruptly slipped from his fingers to shatter against the floor.
Snape made a noise of positive disgust, then spoke in a more moderate voice. "You may know a great deal about potion-brewing, Draco, but you apparently know very little about how new formulations are developed. When I conduct my own experiments and a potion has an unintended side-effect, how do you think I determine where I went wrong?"
Clearly taken aback by the change in topic, Draco stammered, "You... you keep records, I would think..."
"Magical records."
Draco, Harry noticed, stopped breathing.
"Yes, that's right," continued Snape in a bored voice, though it was hued with fury. "I can go back to any point in time and watch myself brew. The walls are spelled to show me everything that happens in this room, should I care to ask. So Draco, shall I ask?"
"I.... I.... Well, I did brew some Venetimorica; I told you that," Draco weakly asserted.
"You tainted the fairy-cakes in here as well," said Snape with conviction. "Of course you did. The tools you would need are right here, and besides, you wouldn't risk contaminating another room if you could avoid it. The only question is, do you want Harry to see you doing it? Harry, the vanguard of the Light? Do you want him to watch you dropping poison onto confections that you will then proceed to send to children?"
Draco lurched backwards only to find himself up against a wall. "No," he thickly admitted.
Snape took several steps forward. "Then tell the truth!"
The Slytherin boy worked his jaw awkwardly, as though he'd forgotten how to form words. But finally he croaked, "I did it..."
"You did what?" Snape demanded, his voice still hard.
"Everything you said!" Evidently realizing that he had to be more specific, Draco recovered enough to stand up straighter against the wall. "I made the poison and applied it to the icing and then I sent the fairy cakes over to Slytherin, all right?"
"No, it's not all right. It's hideous," said Snape. "You're forgetting the card."
Draco shook. "I... I wrote it out in Lucius' hand, close as I could without magic, anyway."
"And?"
A whisper. A bare whisper. "I signed his name."
"The penalty for forgery is in fact five years in Azkaban," announced Snape. "Trying to poison children will at least double it."
"It's not like it was fatal!" rallied Draco. "For Merlin's sake, it was just Venetimorica, Severus! I wasn't going to kill anyone!"
"Just as well, since the penalty for that would be the Dementor's Kiss." Snape glared. "Draco, what you have done is very serious! I don't believe you have the faintest concept of that!"
"What..." Draco swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat, his eyes huge once more. "What are you going to do?"
Snape's nostrils flared. "What do you think I'm going to do, Draco? This isn't a simple hex in a hallway." He backed away, shaking his head. "Go to bed, Draco. I have things to arrange."
"What things?"