The Chosen One ~Drarry (Finished)

Let me help you (Draco)

Snape made me come back to his office after lunch, and I had guessed why already. "You wanted to see me Severus?", making it clear from the beginning that I wasn't to be patronised by him.

He twitched at the use of his first name, but passed over it. "I wanted to talk to you" he said gravely. "About the marks on your arms." I turned to go, over with this conversation already, but he grabbed my sleve to make me stay.

"Let go of me" I growled, struggiling, even though his grip was stronger than iron. In the end I stayed, knowing he could stick me to the wall if he wanted, and I didn't want to take that option. "It's none of your buisness."

"No" he said, as I sat down on the chair opposite his desk. "But it doesn't stop me being worried about you, Draco. It's a dangerous game, and people are started to suspect you."

"I know, your little crowd of teacher friends are talking about me behind my back" I snapped, fingering my sleve as I often did when I was uncomfortable.

"No, not just them. Potter is suspicious, he has tested the blood on the floor after your episode in the toilets. He knows it was yours, and he's worried about you."

"Potter" I spat. "Always sticking his nse where it's not wanted. So now he thinks I'm a freak too? Great."

He suddenly leapt up, and came to my side of the table, grabbing my shoulders. "You are not a freak. He is worried about you. I am just telling you to be cautious. And," he said as I shook him off, and turned to go, "If you ever wanted to talk, in confidence, my office is always open."

"I don't want your molly-coddiling Snape." I said, backing out, starting to get scared for his sanity, he was acting so out of the blue. "I am perfectly fine, I need to concentrate on my mission, as you seem so certain that you won't be to one to kill him."

"Don't change the subject. Let me see your wrists Draco." I swiped away from him, pinning my arms to my sides. "I could help the pain, stop infections. I can help you Draco, you know I can."

"I am perfectly capable of doing that myself." I said stubbornly, looking longingly at the exit. But eventually I weakend, and apprehensively held up my wrists for him to inspect. Looking at me for permission, he carefully pulled down my right sleve, unravelling the dirty bandages I'd utsed to try and stem the blood flow. He sucked in his breath, holding my wrist up to the light to see the damage I'd done in the past year.

"What have you done to yourself" he whispered, turning his back to me to get his wand. He muttered a spell to spiffoon the dried blood off, to reveal raised lines and dips on the snowy white skin, pink and puffy, purple and looking like extra veins. They seemed pretty permament. "And is this all of them?" he asked quietly. I shook my head, too tired to try to lie. I rolled up my other sleve, where my dark mark would soon lie, I dreaded, that I'd tried to keep clean, except a few cuts that remained, as though they had escaped from the other side. Snape wordlessly cleaned these too.

"I have more" I said gravely, my throat feeling as though I'd swallowed sandpaper. Shaking slightly, although I tried hard to surpress it, I unbuttoned my shirt enough to show him the marks on my collar bones, sat there as if it was a shelf. After he'd used his spell on these, I pulled down my trousers to show him the ones on my hips, and eventually my thighs, feeling exposed as I stood there in my boxers, littered with the marks of the past year's anxiety.

"And is that it?" he asked finally, looking as though he'd just seen a ghost- or the wizard equivillant-, failing to grab hold of his famous Snape composure. I nodded, and he stood up slowly. "I'll be checking you Draco. If things get this bad again, tell me."

"Get this bad- I'm about to become a murderer Snape!" I cried, struggiling to keep control of my emotions myself. "I'm about to kill the most powerful sorcerer in the whole history of magic, and I'm not even of age yet! They'll send me to Azkaban if I don't kill myself first!"

Snape pulled me into a tight, protective hug, trying to calm me down. "Not if I can help it. I'll kill Dumbledore, and let you take the glory. Then we'll both survive."

"I couldn't do that" I wailed, pushing my head into his chest to pretend as though I wasn't crying, and he let me, Severus Snape, the man who hated children. "He'd still be dead Snape, and you'd have killed him!"

"The thought of it dosen't exactly fill me with joy, granted", he admitted, his great frame swaying slightly as he held me up. "But if it means keeping you safe, then I'll do it." I looked up at him in surprise, and he gently unattached himself.

"You'd actually do that?" I whispered, shocked. He was willing to kill a man who'd protected him for so many years, and risk Azkaban, for an underage kid? He nodded, and I tried to compose myself, impatiently wiping a stray tear off my cheek. "Why?"

"People think that Slytherins are willing to chuck away all their loyalties to keep themselves out of trouble. But this isn't true- you know that- we protect what we think is right. And I know you'll be a brilliat wizard when you're older, and can chuck all this away. I'm not destined for anything else other than a long, dull life at a school where the student hate me before they've even walked through the door." He smiled dryly, cleaning off my bandages before sanitising the fresh wounds and wrapping my arms up again. "Get new bandages once in a while Draco- these one's will give you a nasty infection."

"Do you really think that's top of my list of priorites right now?" I asked sarcastically, my old defence swagger returning.

"It should be, now. I'll sort the rest of this mess out- if you concentrate on getting better." I nodded, embarrassed, and turned to go at last. 

However, before I left, I had to turn to my Professor, and say, "Thank you." Two meaningless words, but they meant a lot, in his books at least. His face contored into one in great delirium, as much as his skin would allow anyway, and I left to go to Transfiguration. Potter, Weasley and Granger were already there, and I aimed to enter the classroom with them, and sit in my usually isolated seat. However, McGonagall stopped me as if she was a bouncer, checking me for I.D.  before letting me through.

"Ah, Mr Malfoy! You actually turn up to one of my lessons today! Are they actually worth your time today?" she said posoinously. I surpressed a scowl, seeing that would get me no where, and tried to go past, but she called me back. "Do you have your homework?"

"No" I answered. Of course I hadn't done my stupid coursework- my mind was too full of ways to bunk of my headteacher, your boss Miss, and that balanced with an overwhelming urge to kill myself and just generall lack of sleep meant I was unable to even remember your crappy homework. I struggled to telopathically send these thoughts to her, knowing that if I said them out loud she would surely expell me, and that would be massively inconvinent. I walked past her, and sat in my usual place- the front, where I was under the eye of my suspicious teachers, and were there was conciderably less people. McGonagall glared at me, before adressing the rest of the class with some shit that we'd never need to know in two years time. Slowly, I flicked through my textbook, to find some tedious spell about turning animals into glasses. Handy. Hey, maybe it would be a way to dispose of all the dead animals I had alledgedly been raping though, hey. Bored out of my mind, I put my chin on my hand, worrying about what Snape was planning on doing. Risk Azkaban? Sure, Voldemort would be able to get him out with a simple snap of his fingers, but his name would be blackened forever, and Voldy wouldn't be around forever to protect him, neither would Dumbledore, the blindly loyal head master, if the plan went ahead.

"Potter!" the formidable woman suddenly screeched, shaking me right out of my half-doze, and it wasn't even me she was yelling at this time. "What is it that you find so compelling that you are unable to do your work?"

"Oh, sorry Professor. It's nothing" he replied, sounding as tired as I was. Shut up Potter, I thought darkly. You've got everyone to protect you, you're not being asked to commit haneous crimes, and you have no pressure comming from your family. Maybe get your head out your arse and do some work rather than whinning? Incredibly, Golden Boy was called out of lessons by Snape for some reason or another. He'd probaby done some more abysmal potions homework, if his classwork in that subject was anything to go by. I trusted Snape, more than my own father, who was admittedly not a brilliant role model to compare him to. I trusted him not to blow my confidence. There again, you couldn't trust anyone these days.