"You certainly do, but this was not done on impulse," Snape corrected in a hard tone. "Venetimorica takes days to brew. So answer me, Draco. Why did you expose yourself to the risk of Azkaban? Why did you practically invite the Aurors back into your life?"
"I didn't think about Azkaban or the Aurors! I just wanted to--"
"What, Draco?" Snape softly pressed when Draco abruptly fell silent.
"I just wanted to see if you'd stick by me!" Draco yelled, red-faced. "Or maybe I just wanted to see that you wouldn't! I can't be perfect like Harry, and I figured you might as well know it!"
"Oh, Draco," Harry murmured. "That's just ridiculous. I'm not perfect."
"Don't I know it," snarled Draco. "But he thinks you are!"
"On the contrary, I recognise your brother's flaws perhaps better than you do, and I love him regardless," said Snape. "And the same is true of my regard for you."
"Oh, you still love me, do you?" Draco crossed his arms in front of his chest. "I tried to poison your precious Slytherins and you still love me. Sure you do."
"I do, though I am not so foolish as to expect you to believe it." Snape paused a moment, his dark eyes lost in thought. "The depth of your anger with Slytherin worries me, but I think what concerns me more is the self-destructiveness I see in all this. Draco... in your efforts to prove to yourself whether I would continue to claim you as my son or not, you have placed yourself at enormous risk." He held up a hand when Draco opened his mouth. "This time we managed to contain the damage, thanks entirely to Dobby the house-elf. But if you continue in this vein, you will commit a crime I cannot possibly save you from. It was luck alone that saved you this time, in fact."
"I won't do anything else," Draco said, grey eyes earnest. "I won't."
"I think you believe that," Snape murmured. "I think you intend the best, Draco. But I can't believe it, because I know you. Your rage will come stealing back, or your insecurities, and you'll find yourself doing something even more heinous than this in your quest for vengeance and affirmation."
"No, no--"
"And when you do," Snape went right on, "I will not stop loving you. But love won't keep you out of Azkaban , nor should it--"
"Why shouldn't it? You'd be in Azkaban right now, wouldn't you, if you hadn't been kept out because Dumbledore saw something worth redeeming in you!"
"We are not discussing me."
"Well I think we should," retorted Draco. "How many people have you poisoned, Severus?"
Harry's stomach churned. He didn't want to hear the answer to that.
"If you think I have not paid for my misdeeds you are sorely mistaken," Snape replied in a level voice. "Azkaban would have been a mercy compared to what Albus asked of me. Or did you think it was a simple matter to present myself to the Dark Lord as his faithful servant while I was working actively against him? And then, years after his supposed demise I was asked to take up my penance once again, an almost certain death sentence. But I undertook it without so much as a complaint, Draco."
Harry nodded, remembering the look on his father's face when the headmaster had asked him to resume his old role. Resolution and resignation.
"We must all pay for our misdeeds, Draco. You included," Snape continued. "And after all, it is your future at issue here. I do promise to visit you faithfully, whenever I possibly can, and I feel certain Harry will come often as well--"
Draco looked ill, his defiance from the moment before utterly wiped away. "But... I'm not going to Azkaban. You said I'd been lucky this time..."
"This time, yes." Snape sighed and rubbed his temples. "I am trying to help you see where this present course of yours will take you. I don't need a N.E.W.T. in Divination to ascertain the certain future in this case."
"I won't do anything like this again!"
"But I think you will. Do you know what makes me think that, Draco? Your utter lack of remorse. The only thing you regret is not planning this better. Venetimorica may not be lethal, but an overdose of it could well end some innocent child's life."
"They weren't innocent, not the ones I intended it for--"
"No, they were guilty," Snape acknowledged. "But now so are you. Their crime does not excuse yours. Revenge and justice are different things entirely, Draco. But this too is something you fail to grasp. You believe your anger casts all other arguments aside. Not even the fact that Dobby the house-elf took your foul poison moves you. I fear you have no empathy for anyone."
"I'll learn some then," Draco said, shivering. He looked down at his hands, now clasped in his lap, and Harry saw a teardrop fall onto his clenched fingers. "I am angry, Severus. Angry enough to do this, which I see now was utterly stupid... but I don't know how to stop feeling this way, or feeling like it's just a matter of time before you can't be bothered dealing with me. But I'll work on it, I will. And I'll do my lines. And I'll stop baiting Harry. And I'll let the Aurors figure out who killed Pansy and what to do about it. And I'll catch up with all my assignments, I promise!"
Snape ignored everything except Draco's I'll work on it claim. "Do you understand that you need help to deal with these feelings and the self-destructive tendencies that result from them?"
"I... nobody can help me, I don't think."
"Now that is simple egotism," Snape gently rebuked him. "Your problems are so singular that nobody can offer assistance? I rather doubt it. Which is not to say that your problems are not serious. Indeed, they are, and you do need help. Do you want it, though?"
"I..." Draco mutely nodded, his eyes clenched closed as though he were ashamed to admit it.
"And now we come to my own egotism," Snape continued, still in a voice so gentle that Harry felt soothed as well. "I thought that having a father--a real father--would be enough to heal the terrible wounds on your soul, but I see now that you need professional assistance."
"I... yes," Draco said, the words barely audible.
"You'll start receiving counselling straight away," murmured Snape. "Your therapist has requested that Harry and I attend the first session with you; I suspect she wishes to get a sense of the family dynamic. After that you'll have the majority of sessions in private, I believe."
Draco seemed dazed. "My... therapist?"
"It's all arranged," said Snape, nodding.
"So that's what you went out last night to see to?"
Their father nodded again. "There still remains, however, the matter of your punishment. I have thought a great deal on what might serve. More lines are almost pointless in your case, I believe, and you've no privileges left for me to revoke. But neither of those would be of much use, anyway. What you need most is to understand that what you did was wrong, and I don't think you can at this point. However, there is something that might help you learn to empathise with your would-be victims or rather, with the one victim you did garner. Something that might render you sorry--truly sorry, that is--that you ever hatched a scheme such as this."
Draco's brow was furrowed; he clearly had no idea what his father had in store for him.
But Harry did. Those instincts that Snape had praised were running at full tilt, and he suddenly knew exactly what the man was about to demand.
Harry went cold all over. So cold he was shivering. Snape flicked a glance his way, but other than that, didn't pause in the least as he waved his wand toward a crate in the corner.
The lid on the crate popped off and a plate of fairy cakes floated upwards then made their way through the air to settle onto the table, right in front of Draco.
Draco might not have Harry's instincts, but he could see what was plainly sitting in front of him. "I'm not eating one of those and you can't make me," he said at once, features hardening as he glared at his father.