"All set," he said, planting himself alongside the table in the dining alcove.
Snape looked up from his book. "Draco. How many lines have you completed?"
Draco set aside his quill and flexed his hand. "One thousand eight hundred and ninety-seven. And a half."
Harry thought Draco must have done nothing but, all night long, to have gotten so far.
"Do I need to count them to be sure of that?" drawled Snape.
"No."
"Very well. You may leave those here. I trust you have packed plenty of spare parchment and ink?"
Draco sighed. "Yes, and my lesson schedules and all my books."
Harry thought of saying that he'd be happy to help Draco get caught back up in his subjects, but he decided it would make him sound too much like he was trying to show Draco up.
"Very well," Snape said again. "Harry, if I may have your permission to charm your pet into a bracelet once more?"
It was nice, Harry thought, that this time Snape had asked. But really, they ought to be asking Sals. He held his hand out for his snake and had a brief chat with her about the matter, then nodded.
"So, we'll Floo to Grimmauld Place and Apparate from there as usual," Snape announced as Draco walked off to get his things. Unlike at Christmas, when he'd insisted on taking his entire trunk, this time the boy reappeared carrying a serviceable duffel much like Harry's. That made sense, in a way; Draco didn't actually have a trunk any longer. Harry supposed Snape had purchased him the duffel on their Hogsmeade trip.
"I can't Apparate without a wand," Draco said when he came back.
That surprised Harry. He didn't think wizards needed wands for that. Not that he knew of, anyway. Though perhaps Draco needed one because he had learned to Apparate when he was really too young to be doing it.
"You can't Apparate with one, either," announced Snape in a hard voice. "As you're not yet licensed."
"You never cared about that before--"
"A mistake in retrospect, as you appear to have concluded that disregarding one law means you can disregard them all."
That certainly shut Draco up. He hefted his duffel over his shoulder and went into the fireplace to wait.
------------------------------------------------------
When they arrived in the meadow outside the cottage, Snape staggered slightly. Apparently side-along Apparition with two passengers and all their gear was no simple accomplishment. But Snape couldn't bring them one at a time without leaving Draco alone at some point. He seemed resolved to avoid that if at all possible.
Harry took a moment to let his queasiness pass, then looked around. Wildflowers were blooming along the low stone wall which marked the boundary of Snape's property, and the trees beyond that were swaying in the breeze. Devon was lovelier than ever, he thought, beginning to walk over to the cottage.
Draco sat down straight away at the small square table opposite the door, and began pulling supplies out of the duffel he'd plunked down at his feet.
"That can wait," Snape announced. "It's time you and I had a serious talk about what you did."
Suddenly feeling a bit uncomfortable, Harry murmured, "Right, I'll just stow my stuff and go outside for a bit of flying--"
"Don't be absurd. You're in this family as well." Snape pointed a finger at the tattered couch beneath the window, and waited until Harry and Draco had settled in. "Now, you've put me in an awkward position, to say the least, Draco," Snape began. "As Head of Slytherin I take my students' safety very seriously. You've endangered them, and I don't believe you really even comprehend that."
"Well if you take your students' safety seriously, then don't you want Pansy's killers to pay for what they did?" cried Draco. "I understand I endangered them; don't you understand they deserved it?"
"Leaving aside the issue of whether it's up to you to decide who deserves what, you in fact endangered far more than merely the conspirators. What about the first-years, Draco? Don't you think they'd be tempted enough by fairy cakes to ignore that note you forged? Some of them are still only eleven years old!"
Harry had a sudden, awful memory of Larissa piling her hands full of sweets.
Snape must have been thinking the same thing, for he went right on, "And what about the concentration you used? Did you take into account that someone half your size might decide to eat two, three, or even four fairy cakes? Did you think at all about the fact that for my loyal Slytherins could easily be misconstrued? What if students who had nothing to do with Pansy felt pressured to take a cake in an effort to have themselves classed as loyal? Your former name carries great weight in Slytherin, as you well know."
Draco began twisting his hands together. "I didn't think of that. I was just so angry, Severus!"
"So angry you didn't stop to think of Harry either, apparently," said Snape in a scathing tone. "He has access to the Slytherin common room, now--"
"Harry wouldn't eat a cake that said it was from Lucius!"
"No, but who better to blame for those cakes once students had fallen ill? Harry has an even better reason than you to hate Lucius, Draco!"
"Well, then, whoever was investigating would have just used that Quis vocaris spell to find out who the note was from!"
"But you didn't know that anything written within the confines of the castle would respond to that spell," Snape pointed out as he finally dropped down into an armchair facing the couch. "Hence you put your brother in danger."
"Oh, I did not! Even without that spell it would've been laughably simple to trace those cakes back to me and... oh."
"Yes," said Snape in a deep voice. "You didn't think this through very well. Had any students taken ill, you wouldn't be sitting here talking with me. You'd be talking with Aurors by now." Snape made a deprecating noise. "Or not by now, certainly, as I'm well aware how slow Venetimorica is to take effect. On wizards, at least. We're fortunate that Harry's elf-friend had a more rapid reaction. But you planned for your House mates to be home on holiday before they took sick, obviously."
Draco nodded as though wary of what Snape might say next. It turned out to be a good instinct.
"Did you spare even one second's thought to the fact that the Muggleborns' parents would have no idea in the world what might be wrong?" Snape roared. "The Muggleborns whose trust you claim to want?"
"The Muggleborns weren't supposed to eat them!"
"And we've already established why that was a particularly foolish presumption on your part, have we not?"
Draco scooted back into the corner of the couch. "All right, all right! It was a bad idea all around! I was just so... so angry!"
Snape breathed in deeply a few times. "Angry does not excuse behaviour like this, Draco. Now, you keep mentioning the Aurors. I'd like very much to know why you didn't think of them a good deal sooner. You surely must realise that had your horrid little plan succeeded, the Slytherins would be comparing notes upon their return from holiday, and it would be only moments before they identified those fairy cakes as the common element in their illnesses. And that the elves would immediately recall those distinctive cakes along with who ordered them. Why didn't you think of all that before you set this in motion?"
Draco looked even more shaken than before. "I... I don't know!"
"It isn't like you to overlook such weak links in a chain," Snape continued. "Why did you?"
"I don't know!" Draco cried again. "You know I have that impulse-control problem--"