Snape looked from his son to Nott's flat trouser legs and back. "A little?"
"All right. Completely. I'm sorry, sir."
"Desist with the use of sir, if you would."
"Yes, s--" Harry cleared his throat. "Um, sure, Dad."
Snape stared at him for a moment longer. "All in all you did well." He quickly warded the building, then turned back to his son. "It is unlikely, though not impossible that someone may look for Mr. Nott here. Now, to interrogating him. The Stupefy is wandless, I think? I'll reverse the effect, then. You don't look quite up to the task."
"I'm all right--"
"You sustained a serious injury and then had to follow it up with the kind of magic that every wizard in the world would find debilitating. Your good hand is shaking and your face is tinged with green. You are manifestly not all right. I'd take you to the infirmary this instant if we didn't urgently need to understand just what we may be facing!"
Harry saw through all that to the love beneath, and abruptly sat down. "That'd be nice if you'd undo the spell, then." He almost added, And Dad? I love you, too, but decided Snape wouldn't much like that with the other Gryffindors standing right there.
Snape's smile was thin as he summoned a short crate that could serve as a seat. Only when he was settled on it with his long legs extended in front of him did he point his wand at the unconscious boy. "Finite Incantatem."
Nott came awake still screaming about his legs.
"Yes, pity, that," said Snape in a thoroughly unsympathetic voice.
The boy on the floor jerked himself into a sitting position, leaning on his hands for balance. "Pr- Pr- Professor Snape?"
"Perhaps you'll be good enough to explain why you thought you'd survive such an imprudent attack on my son, Mr. Nott."
Nott's face drained of blood as he tilted it up to look at his Head of House. "I didn't know he could do this to me, did I?"
Snape's expression grew positively malevolent. "I was referring to myself. What made you think you'd survive my wrath? He's my son, Mr. Nott. My son." Snape glanced up at Ron and Hermione as though warning them not to interfere. "You can't be so ignorant as to not realise that I've killed before, and for far less cause than this."
Harry stomach plummeted even though he was almost sure his father wouldn't really kill the boy... the other part was certainly true, though. Snape had killed people before. Harry tried hard to push that from his mind.
Nott's face was pasty by then. "You're a teacher! You can't--"
"I'm a Death Eater, Mr. Nott. The fact that I no longer ally myself with Voldemort hardly changes what that means. And I'd think you know quite well what it means." Snape tapped his wand to Nott's sleeve and began to trace the outline of a Mosmordre spell there.
Harry's stomach squirmed, and the feeling only got worse when his father flicked his wand upward and summoned a few of the eggshell fragments, then allowed them to rain down onto Nott's face. The boy shook his head wildly to get them off him. "You don't like them?" questioned Snape in a mild voice. "A pity, as you're about to lose your arms as well. Harry, perform the armshell spell, if you would--"
"Wait!" screamed Nott, flailing his arms out as though to implore Harry. He ended up losing his balance and flopping to his back, but he pushed himself up again straight away.
Ron tensed, his wand trained on Nott.
But Nott thought better than to flail about again. "Please don't! I'll tell you everything--"
Harry caught his father's gaze and understood. Well, sort of. He didn't really like threatening Nott, but there probably wasn't an ideal way to go about this. "Why should we believe a word that comes out of your lying mouth?"
"I'll take truth serum!" screamed Nott, his eyes wild. "Don't change my arms into eggs, Potter!"
"Hmm, he'll take truth serum," Harry said in a thoughtful voice, letting it be Snape who admitted --or not-- that he had an illegal supply.
Snape raised an eyebrow. "Oh, he'll definitely do that. You can't even depend on your parents to refuse on your behalf, can you, Mr. Nott? I do believe you've already reached your majority. How very convenient."
Nott gulped as though he was only then realising what he'd gotten himself into. "Er..."
"The spell, Harry?"
Harry lifted his wand as though to hex the other boy.
Nott's mouth shot open like a fish maw gaping for air.
Snape chuckled darkly as he drew a vial of clear fluid from his robes. He dripped three drops past Nott's trembling lips, then paused for a moment to allow the boy to recover. "So, who caused Pansy Parkinson to fall from the Owlery, Mr. Nott?" he asked, his voice that time smooth, with no threat left in it.
Nott's pupils were dilated, his gaze unfocused as he looked around the dusty room. "I did."
"How?"
Nott blinked several times. "I shoved Draco Malfoy into her until she toppled out the open window."
"Why was Mr. Malfoy unconscious?"
"We hexed him when he was kissing Pansy in the supply closet."
"Whom do you mean by we?" pressed Snape, his voice suddenly gone intense.
"I--- we--- I---" Nott sucked in a huge breath and then looked like he was choking on it. "I--- we hexed him, we hexed Pansy, we dragged them both under the invisibility cloak Malfoy had with him and sneaked them up to the Owlery. I-- we hexed Pansy again, Corpus Aqueous. I-- we shoved Malfoy against her until she fell, and then I-- we tried to use the Portkey but it didn't work...!!!"
Harry mouthed, we who? at his father, but Snape gave a tiny shake of his head.
"Lucius Malfoy gave you the Portkey?" Nott nodded. "For what purpose?"
"To take Draco Malfoy straight to him," whispered Nott, still gasping for breath. "Wherever he might be."
"Why did you not use the Portkey at once? Why take Draco up to the Owlery at all? Why kill Miss Parkinson?"
Nott reached down and began to pat his empty trouser legs, over and over. "Mr. Malfoy's instructions. He wanted Draco framed for murder so he'd be expelled from Hogwarts in case we couldn't get him off school grounds."
Just like I thought, Harry mouthed as he glanced quickly at his friends, who were gaping much as Nott had earlier. But that made sense. They'd only recently realised just how angry Lucius was with Draco.
Snape's expression grew hard, as though he were bracing himself. "Did you kill Miss Parkinson because she was truly trying to escape from a future as Voldemort's sworn servant?"
Nott laughed, the sound harsh. "No."
"Then what were Miss Parkinson's motives in writing to Draco?"
"I don't know."
A rueful look stole into Snape's eyes as he rephrased his question. "What did Miss Parkinson say to you of her motives for writing to Draco Malfoy?"
"She agreed."
Harry wrinkled his brow, but it was Snape who asked the question on everyone's mind. "She agreed to what?"
"To take a love potion so she could convince him she was really in love."
Snape's eyebrows rose up towards his hairline as Hermione gave a little gasp and grabbed for Ron's hand. "A love potion? That's simply awful--"
"Quiet, Miss Granger," said Snape. "Mr. Nott, summarise for me the discussions leading up to such an action on Miss Parkinson's part."
Nott stopped patting his trouser legs and leaned back on his palms, his face going almost slack. "Pansy hated Malfoy and wanted revenge for the way he hexed her into St. Mungo's. He'd humiliated her before all Slytherin by choosing Harry Potter over the Dark Lord. She wanted to kill him. I-- we told her we had secret instructions to kill Draco in a particularly public way. By throwing him from the Owlery so the whole world would know what fate awaited a traitor like him. She wanted in. Pansy said she'd do anything if she could be the one to push him out the window."