"That's why you started on your room today, isn't it?" Harry suddenly realised. "It wasn't just to tire Draco. You wanted him to feel like he was still a part of the family!"
"True," Snape admitted. "This incident can only exacerbate his sense of himself as less worthy of my love than you are. I thought excluding him from our project, even to do his lines or schoolwork, would be inadvisable to say the least."
"Well, let's go take our food in there and have a picnic of sorts then." That plan was short-lived, though. Draco had already fallen into a coma. Harry sat on his own bed with his plate on his lap, and finished his meal there while watching his brother.
"You really do have quite a loyal sense of family yourself," Snape said from his position leaning against the door jamb. "But there's nothing you can do for him at the moment." He crooked a finger. "Come play chess with me."
Harry shook his head.
"Harry," Snape interrupted, "that wasn't a request. Do as I say and come play chess. I don't want you brooding any more than I wanted Draco to, earlier."
"This isn't brooding. I want to watch for when--"
"When your brother needs assistance, we will know."
Words which proved to be prophetic, Harry later thought.
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It started with an ear-splitting scream.
Through the open bedroom door Harry saw Draco sitting straight up in bed, his hands reaching out as though to shove somebody away. His mouth was wide open, his eyes so wild the silver in them looked molten.
"No!" he shouted, pushing out again as though trying to move the immovable. "Go! Run!"
Harry was at Draco's narrow bed in a flash, Snape beside him.
Grabbing one of his brother's hands as it madly kept shoving away at nothing, Harry held it tight. "It's all right, Draco."
But it wasn't, for in that moment Draco turned those wild eyes on him. "Harry, no! Go! Now, Harry, now!" And with an almighty yank, Draco pulled his hand free from Harry's grip and reached out to thrust Harry away from him. "Go! Run! You aren't ready for him, Harry! Get the bloody hell out of here!"
Harry lay sprawled, inanely thinking that Draco could really shove hard when he wanted to.
"Go, go, GO!" Draco started screaming, the word a litany that seemed to sear straight through Harry. "Get away! Go!"
He lunged off the bed without warning, launching himself at Harry, and would have landed atop him if not for their father's speedy intervention. Arms stretched wide, he grabbed hold of Draco and propelled him forcefully back to the bed. "Severus, do something!" Draco screamed, the sound that time so high-pitched and shrill it was a wonder the windows didn't break. "Merlin's beard, he's going to be a Gryffindor, isn't he? Get out of here, Harry!"
Snape looked over his shoulder as he grappled with his son, who was flailing to be let loose. "Harry, perhaps you should leave and close the door. I think that will quiet him. Somewhat."
Harry nodded and left, closing the door as his father had said before slumping onto the couch and hanging his head in his hands. Random thoughts flitted through his mind. Draco throwing something at his bedroom door because Harry had said to Ron and Hermione that he didn't trust him. Draco saying he couldn't tell Harry his problem because Harry was his problem.
Draco, almost paralyzed with dread when he'd finally admitted that he'd been at the Death Eater meeting on Samhain.
And now this.
Draco living out his worst fears under the horrible influence of Venetimorica.
The poison had other effects of course--horrendous ones--but the primary magical one was to force the victim into a place where their most horrible, mind-shattering nightmares seemed to become the stark reality right before their eyes.
Harry had known what was coming, in a sense, but he'd thought Draco's worst fear would be something else entirely. Lucius throwing him headfirst into a pit of snakes, perhaps. Or Nagini eating him. Or being tortured for information, Lucius casting that spell to deliver a wizard's beating, over and over.
He hadn't known that Draco's worst fear would be for Harry.
The screams in the bedroom continued unabated, mindless pleas for Harry to get out before it was too late; Draco didn't seem to have noticed that Harry had got out.
And then the screams changed to half-gulping noises and broken sobs that made last night's tears seem a mere drop in a cauldron. Draco was screaming still, but this time in anguish, Harry's name the only distinguishable word. Thumping noises punctuated the distraught boy's voice, as though he was trying his best to leap off the bed and Snape was restraining him.
The noise of fabric ripping made Harry think Draco must have started tearing at his bed curtains.
And through it all, Snape's voice. A constant, steady drone telling Draco that Harry wasn't in danger, that Harry was fine and Draco would be feeling better soon. But Draco wasn't listening; he was only wailing in incoherent grief, like everything that mattered in the whole world had just been ripped straight out of his hands.
Harry wrapped his arms around himself and rocked like a small child trying to comfort itself as the horrible noises went on and on.
He couldn't have said how long it lasted. It seemed like hours before the sounds died off and Snape opened the door, looking much as if he'd been wrestling with an enraged hippogriff all this while.
Harry looked blearily up, his eyes stinging like they were bloodshot. It reminded him, anyway, that he was overdue for his elixir. Fishing it from his pocket, he wordlessly extended it to Snape, who applied it in equal silence.
Resisting the urge to rub his eye, Harry put his glasses back on. "How is he?"
Snape dropped down into a chair and pushed his hair out of his face. "Comatose again. For the moment." He took a few minutes to simply recover, his breathing ragged, nodding in wordless thanks when Harry got up and brought him over a glass of cool water. "You do realise what that was all about, I trust?"
Harry weakly nodded. Snape had told him that Draco felt he needed Harry on his side, but Harry hadn't really understood how deep that feeling went. "Draco thought I was in danger and he was trying to save me."
"At first. Then he thought you'd died and the war was certainly lost and Lucius was going to skin him alive. Literally."
"Oh, God." Harry thickly swallowed. "You tried to tell me, but I... I didn't really get that he felt as dependent as all that on my..."
"Patronage," Snape dryly said. "And it's no wonder you didn't understand. You don't view yourself as the vanguard of the Light. Not as he does."
"I don't want to be some... hero he clings to for safety!" Harry ground out, digging his fingers into the fraying fabric of the sofa. "I just want to be his brother."
"You are that to him as well, I'm sure." Snape sighed, the noise of it exhausted. "But the reason he's so loyal to you is the former, of course."
"Of course," said Harry, more bitterly than he'd intended.
Snape stared at him for a long, considering moment. "Give him time," he finally said. "Something a casewitch once said to me, if you recall."
Harry was hardly going to forget. He'd called himself Snape's adoptee instead of his son, and instead of telling him how horribly hurtful that was, Snape had just gone on loving him as he was, flaws and all. Well, after one short sneered comment on the matter. Snape wasn't perfect, either.