𝐀 𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐓𝐋𝐄 𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐂𝐄

Chapter 22

Chapter 22: "Chapter Twenty-Two"

Never had such joy reigned in the family room of the Large Family. Never had they dreamed of such delights as resulted from an intimate acquaintance with the little-boy-who-was-not-a-beggar, and who was not so little anymore. While everybody adored the stories he invented, they wanted to be told over and over again of the stories of his real life, the stories he had lived. They loved to hear tales of the cold and miserable condition of the attic while they sat curled up next to the warm fire, comfortable and well fed and happy. It must be admitted, however, that the coldness and bareness sank into insignificance when Melchisedec was remembered, and one heard about the sparrows, and the things one could see if one looked out the window at the world at night.

They laughed and laughed as Draco related the stories he had invented for each of them, especially Fred and George, who felt quite as if they should like to attempt acrobatics, but were prevented from this (and breaking several lamps) by a particularly well-cast Petrificus on Snape's part.

They laughed even harder at Draco's relation of his conversations with Godric Gryffindor, not because they were particularly funny, but because Snape would always scowl so funnily, and exclaim, "Typical, that my Dragon should choose to consort with a Gryffindor," but in such a tone that it was impossible to think he wasn't joking.

But the thing they loved best was the story of that first night, the banquet and the dream that came true. Draco told it for the first time the day after he had been found. After he'd finished, he turned his attention to Snape. "That's my part," he said. "Now won't you tell your part, Uncle Severus?" He had asked Draco to always call him Uncle Severus. "I don't know your part, but I am certain it must be beautiful."

So he told them how, when he sat alone, dull and irritable, ("That's hardly unusual!" George had piped up, earning him a glare and a Silencing charm), Ram Dass had tried to distract him by describing the passers by, and there was one child who passed more frequently than others, and who would often look in at the window as if he were trying to place himself inside the scene. He had become interested in the boy, partly because he had been so preoccupied with the thought of the boy, and partly because Ram Dass had related his interactions with Draco, from the encounter with the monkey to the description of the attic to the look and bearing of the child. Ram Dass had watched Draco on many a night, and had seen his kind heart, his patient ways.

One day, Ram Dass had mentioned the idea of lighting a fire in Draco's grate while he was out, and the thought had so delighted Snape that Ram Dass had enlarged upon it, suggesting other little things that could be accomplished. He had had a childlike enthusiasm for it, and it had made Snape's days interesting and purposeful rather than dull and tiresome. On the night of the banquet, Ram Dass had been watching from his window, waiting with the items, and, as he had seen Draco's face, so filled with sadness and weariness as he had laid down to sleep, he had Apparated inside the room and had begun bringing things over with Percy's help.

Percy's siblings looked at him in surprise, amazed that he had never mentioned such a thing, but he merely shrugged, flushing in a satisfied manner as his mother gave him such a tearful hug and murmured about what a wonderful boy he was and how proud of him she was.

"I am so glad," Draco breathed, "that it was you who was my friend."

There were never such friends as these two became. Somehow, they seemed to suit each other in a wonderful way. Snape had never had a companion he liked quite as much as he liked Draco. In fact, he had never had a companion he could tolerate as much as he could Draco. In a month's time, he was, as Mr. Weasley had prophesized he would be, a new man. He was interested in many things, and slowly left the shadow of his dreary life as a Death Eater, the life that had hardened and embittered him, behind.