Silence seemed to rebound within the room as he closed the door tightly behind himself. There were just ten minutes to do what he needed to do. Slip his paper into the stack, and get credit for an assignment he hadn't had ready when class had started that morning.

Draco's hands shook as he hurried towards the desk, twitching the end of his wand sporadically. A heavy non-detection spell cloaked him from sight, magical or otherwise, but he could still sense the buffeting magical currents of wards not properly disabled. One wrong step...

There were no papers, no parchments, no scrolls atop the desk's varnished surface. Startled by the neatness, Draco placed a hand down on its surface, fingernails nicking into the black and peeling down to the grain. After so much trouble, he couldn't be thwarted.

Inside the desk, of course. He all but leapt towards the heavy drawer at the front of the desk. He found to his pleasure that it was unlocked, and he wrapped fingers around the heavily worked metal handle. There were parchments, previously crumpled, or rolled, pressed out flat. Draco noted that they weren't in any particular order, so he slipped his sheet in halfway through the stack. Mission accomplished...

Something caught his eyes from within the deep drawer, tossed carelessly into a corner. It was a dirty-looking, palm-sized bit of stone, caked in mud, but there was a strange glint to one edge. Like the privileged boy that he was, Draco pocketed the stone, and the closed the desk drawer.

It lay in his pocket, forgotten, until later that evening.

He was in the dormitory stripping away his clothing to get ready for a bath when its presence announced itself to him by thumping against his leg. He reached into his pocket and pulled it out, feeling muddy dirt spill down from his fingers. Was it his imagination, or was his pocket nearly full of dirt, too?

Grey eyes peered into the darkness of that pocket; it was not his imagination, after all. There *was* a great deal of dirt in there.

"What on earth..." Draco murmured to himself, examining the stone again. He wondered what it was, curiosity rising again as he began to thumb off flakes of dirt and mud carefully. Perhaps he could clean it when he went to bathe.

Could it be a stone that made dirt? He wasn't sure what use it could be to *anyone*, nor why Professor Snape would have something like that. Unless he'd taken it from a Weasley -- those pranksters could take any innocuous thing, even dirt, and make it into something twisted and for their own laughter. But he had seen a glint to it, and that had been why he'd pocketed it in the first place.

Yes, Draco decided. He'd try to clean it in the bath and see what happened. Perhaps, if he was lucky, it would reveal a beautiful, clean stone underneath all of that muck. Otherwise, he'd have a bathtub full of dirt to clean, and he truly hoped *that* didn't happen. The house-elves at Hogwarts were whiny about such things.

"Hey, Draco, what's that in your hand?" Gregory had probably been watching him for some time, because the book he was pretending to read was only held in one hand, upside down. It was a quaint pose, too familiar. Neither Crabbe nor Goyle was half so stupid as the Gryffindors seem to think.

"Oh, just something I picked up on a walk today. It seemed..." What, what was a word that would pass Goyle's inspection? "...interesting. It looked shiny under the mud, so I thought I'd bring it in and wash it off and see what was underneath.

Both of Draco's flunkies were well aware of Draco's penchant for shining things, jewels, pretties. If there was a chance that he'd stumbled across something, then they both knew he'd try to make sure that it was what he thought it was. "Oh, have fun in the tub, then."

With a smirk, Draco went about gathering his bath things. The little magical bucket that held everything he needed for getting clean gained the stone, and he stood straight, grabbing for his green silk pajamas. "I'll be out in time for dinner," he said. "If I'm not, come knock." Draco often attended supper in his pajamas; after all, robes were easily closed tightly enough that no one noticed.

"I will." They always did -- Gregory would probably bring him clean robes, too, thoughtful boy that he was. No point on putting the day's dirty robes back on after a nice long bath. He swung his little bucket in his hand as he walked out of the dorm, and could swear he heard the stone shifting about at the bottom.

Well, it probably *did* just a bit, skittering from edge to edge, bottle to bottle. If he didn't know better, he'd swear it was looking for a way to escape.

The trip to the baths was a spectacularly short one, and Draco was pleased to find them unoccupied. It only took a moment to set about running a deep tub full of silvery foam, and then he began to delve into the bucket for his rock. He dug beneath bottles and face cloth and towel, frowning.

It was hiding from him.

Now he was sure that, whether it was pretty once he cleaned it or not, he'd keep it. The stone was certainly enchanted, to have the will to hide from him as it had, scraping dirt off of itself against the bottom of the bucket.

To get to it, he had to lift every piece out, one by one, and once it was in his sight, the thing held still with false innocence.

"You don't fool me," he told the rock, clutching it in his palm. "You don't fool me a bit, not at all." It remained quiet, even as he held it while he undressed. "I think I'll keep you. You won't get away from me, even if I have to wrap you 'round in magical thread and hang you from my neck!"

Yes, if he wrapped it up in thread..

Well, he had to clean it first. However was it making such a *mess* of itself? It seemed to be dripping, very slowly, little flakes of dirt into his hands, onto the floor.

"What possesses you to remain so very dirty? If I wash you off, surely you can't just keep on exuding mud everywhere, and then I'll keep you close to my heart." The thing nearly thrummed at those words, and Draco raised an eyebrow at it even as he slid into the bath. "Now, no getting away from me, understand, or you'll end up in the lake with the mermen and the monsters."

At first there was the predictable bubbling cloud of mud in the water. Grey, only it *faded* away into clear the further it went into the water. But still a film of opaque grime clung to the submerged stone, hiding away the colors Draco suspected it had.

"You're going to give way to me, you know," Draco told the stone, feeling a bit silly for talking to it. "You're going to show me your colors. I know they're there." His thumbs rubbed gently at the stone, and a sudden urge spilled into his belly. Picking it up, he brought it to his lips and kissed it.

That kiss seemed to give way to the film coming off beneath his thumbs. It felt suddenly *warm*, but not hot, and each swipe of his fingers revealed a silvery black sheen to it, and a shape that was quite distinctive. The silvery black stone, smooth and un-pitted, held ripples of color -- green, blue, red, all blending smoothly and not breaking the sheen of it -- and was shaped distinctly like a flattish heart. Not the sort that one would draw on a card, but a more realistic asymmetrically shaped one.

"Well, well. What have we here?" Draco asked it softly, kissing it again as he washed it one last time. "How lovely you are..."

It seemed to gain more natural shine, and that last bit of water sluiced away the final bits of the dirt. It seemed to all disappear, once the little obsidian heart had been washed clean. It didn't talk back to Draco, but it seemed appreciative of his actions. It *felt*, more importantly, appreciative.

"There, now," he whispered to it gently, settling it comfortably in the fluff of his towel as he began to wash himself. "Don't you feel so much better for being clean now? I would, were it me. Bathing is wonderful, you know." He was mad, talking to a rock and kissing it.

Hopefully Gregory wouldn't come to fetch him early for dinner. He didn't want to be *caught* conversing with a rock. For a few moments, he returned entirely to washing -- quickly, to make up for a bit of lost time. And when he looked to the stone again, it had seemed to settle deeper into his towel.

"Ahhhh," Draco laughed. "You enjoy your new home, I see. I'm glad. I'll keep you quite safe. You want to reside 'round my neck, don't you, stone? I should name you, I suspect."

He'd garnered quite the new pretty, in a corner of Snape's desk. The potions master probably wouldn't notice it was missing, and probably didn't even know what sort of thing it was -- after all, it had been sitting there shedding dirt without any hint of the care he'd granted it. It deserved to be in *his* care. He'd just get a bit of charmed string, wrap it up, and never have to worry about losing it.

For whatever reason, he felt it important to not lose it.


A knock on the door caught his attention before Goyle came in, Crabbe lingering near the doorway out in the hall. "It's time for dinner," he said, clean robes in his hands for Draco.

"Oh," Draco said. "Thanks. I need to fetch something before we go down..." He stood from the tub and lifted the rock to cup it in his palm as he began to dry himself off, the tub draining itself automatically.

He slipped on his pajamas, careful to keep that stone in his hand as he did so, magicked his soaps into the little bucket, and then slipped on the robes. "What do you need to fetch?" Goyle asked him.

"Some twine," Draco replied, "though I'd prefer a soft, silken string. My new pretty is awfully nice." He held it up for just a moment so that Goyle could see it, but then held it close to his chest again as he began to get dressed one-handed.

"What sort of thing is it?" Goyle asked curiously.

"Can we play the question game later? I can run down and get you some string, Draco," Crabbe prompted.

"Thanks, Vince," Draco declared as he finished dressing. "It's just a rock, really, a very pretty one, but..." A secret smile danced over his lips, one that Goyle knew well as acquisitiveness.

"Uh-huh." Goyle looked disbelieving, as he picked up Draco's bucket for him, and magicked it into a book. Vincent was already starting down the hall at a jog, and would probably catch up with them before the Great Hall.

With one last little polish against a sleeve, Draco sighed and slid his feet into slippers before transfiguring them into regulation school shoes. At least the inside would be very comfortable, he decided as they headed upstairs to get something to eat.

And at least he had his new prize.

~~~~~

The meeting the evening before had passed... hellishly. Severus had spent most of the day trying to not think on it, but that wasn't an option once he reported his actions to the Headmaster. And McGonagall. And Flitwick. Testing poisons on muggles, and when one had proven resistant to it, he'd had to drink it himself. Even after a year, there was still enough doubt that his slightest of failures were looked upon as betrayal. Then the begging to be given the antidote from Voldemort's very hand, to be spared...

Severus Snape kept himself carefully detached from the retelling that he was giving. It was so easy, after all...

After all.

"Severus, if it gets any worse," Dumbledore said, "you must withdraw. I cannot risk your death or worse on the gamble that you might discover something which could help us."

"Then who will do the job in my stead?" Severus tented his fingers in front of him, pressing down an sudden, involuntary shiver. As if there were eyes behind him, watching him. He glanced, half-suspicious, to Minerva and then to the Headmaster. "Would you?"

"Severus..." Dumbledore began.

"Don't be ridiculous, Severus," Minerva told him sharply. "No one can do what you're doing; but we won't have you dying for your pride or Albus's idiocy in sending you."

"It's a bit late for me to back out of it now." He calmed a little, not feeling that closely watched feeling any longer. Without that sensation, it was easier to keep his voice a level hiss, to not think as he spoke. "If I betray them again, openly..."

"I know," Albus sighed, stroking his beard. "I know. But I want you to be especially careful now, Severus. Especially so."

"I've worked very hard, Headmaster, to be careful. More than you beli... believe." His voice faltered as a trickle of unorganized feelings and sensations dripped over him.

"Severus?" Minerva asked. "Are you quite all right?"

A tightness pulled at his chest, threatening to blossom outwards. He sudden felt warm, too warm, too -- he dropped his head downwards, a hand over part of his forehead, shielding his eyes as if suddenly ill. "I... perhaps." Merlin, what was going on? A sick aftereffect of the poison, or..?

"I'll call Poppy," Dumbledore decided as Flitwick charmed a blanket from thin air and Minerva transfigured his chair into a cot.

"You seem flushed, Severus," the Gryffindor said, flustered.

"I am f-fine, simply..." His voice faltered again, thanks to a hitch in his chest. That tightness seemed to spread, from his chest to his sinuses, building behind his eyes so that they throbbed. It was almost foreign to him, thanks to the still strangely detached quality about it. That same detached quality that he'd been used to since the Headmaster had asked him to take on that duty. But it felt like tears. It felt like he had to cry.

"Fetch Poppy!" Minerva snapped, which sent Dumbledore into a tizzy of action. He called for the nurse, who came so immediately to the office that it was much like Apparation, despite the fact that one could not do such a thing at Hogwarts.

It was just fast feet. Not that the thought soothed Severus, as he struggled to shove down the urge to cry -- but it was almost like tears of relief, which he had no right to cry. Each hitch was harder than the first, and he held himself steady, one hand shielding his eyes, the other covering his mouth. It had to be the stone. The spell he'd cast over it must be failing, and the past year and some months of emotions were washing back over him.

"There, now. There, there," Poppy soothed, and she removed his hand to press one of his own flasks close to his lips, filled with a soothing potion.

It helped somewhat; the liquid had a warm tang to it, and her hands eased him to lay down for a moment as he finally did give in to the backlash. It was washing over him still, though there was some warm feeling starting to seep in. The potion, or the sensation of the few good memories that he'd consciously registered?

Whatever the case, it felt immensely *good* of a sudden, good enough that it nearly triggered tears of its own.

"What's wrong with him, Poppy?" Albus fretted worriedly.

"It's of his own making," she said simply, stroking hair back and away from his face, his fingers.

Severus finally felt it start to ebb away, to some faint background buzz. Of course, the thing wasn't finished -- it was probably the first of many waves the failing stone would give out. He took a moment to regather himself, wishing that good feeling had lasted as long as the urge to cry. Well, one could never get what one wanted all of the time. Or, any of the time. "I... I will rectify it, Headmaster," he murmured roughly, starting to sit up slowly.

"Are you going to be all right?" Albus asked him seriously, a hand going to help him. The cot was re-transfigured, the blanket left laying about him. "I'm not quite sure that we should allow you to do anything more than go to the infirmary, Severus."

"No, Headmaster, I need to try to... nullify this as soon as possible." He half-tugged the blanket closer, and then on a second thought started to shakily stand up.

"You will be careful, Severus?" the Headmaster asked.

"And request help if you need it?" Poppy prompted.

"Of course," he lied, pausing a moment to make sure he was steady on his feet. "Continue with your meeting. I will be in the Hall for dinner..." After he slipped down to the dungeons and cast a nullify, even a temporary one, over the stone. He needed the stone so *desperately*....

"I will be listening for you," Poppy assured him sternly, and then she headed for the door. "And I shall accompany you at least part of the way down."

"How kind of you, Madam Pomfrey," he vaguely sneered. The door opened in front of his hand, and for a moment a sudden wash of warmth threatened to spill him down the stairs. But he caught himself with the wall, palm of his hand smacking into and scraping against it.

"Of course," she answered him dryly. "Kindness, indeed. Can you walk down by yourself, Severus, you stubborn goat?" Her hand fell lightly onto his elbow. "I rather think not."

For a moment, she caught him smiling. Mouth poised in something akin to delight, before it slipped away as quickly as it had fallen on him. "Perhaps a bit of aid wouldn't be misplaced." He kept his hand against the wall firmly, just in case; those sensations, relief and tenderness, were notably absent from his life, even in tiny doses, as were all other emotions he considered weak -- most of his fear, his hatred, his disgust, his ability to care.

"Well, then, that I can grant," Poppy smiled, and she steered him downstairs slowly enough that he could catch the last worried fragments of conversation behind them. Minerva's soft words of fretfulness combined with Albus's equally quiet reassurance despite the deep distress Severus could hear beneath it was enough to make his emotions pulse wildly once again.

He'd never been a very emotional man. To suddenly have it *thrust* upon him in such concentrated strength, after his voluntary hiatus from it all was more than he could easily handle. He closed his eyes again, and found it easier to walk without faltering. "Simply a spell of mine... that's not holding up as well as I suspected."

"I think perhaps, Severus, it's not holding up at *all*. What on earth have you done to yourself?" Poppy asked him, leading him carefully along the way to the dungeons.

"It is... hard to explain." He let her guide him, as she'd offered and he'd requested. "Suffice to say that I imbued an object with the entirety of a part of myself, for safe keeping, and it seems to be... returning. In waves."

"Oh, Severus," Poppy sighed. "That's never a good idea, you know. There are so many warnings for that sort of thing... Not that you've ever been the sort to accept warnings, that much is true," she said thoughtfully.

"There are warnings against what I'm *doing* at the Headmaster's behest. Warnings that bear more serious consequences. I'll simply deal with the stone this evening, and find a substitute soon."

"Ahhh, so that's what you've done," the nurse murmured. "Not the best of ideas, Severus, to so separate your heart and emotions from the rest of you."

"Why not? It allows me to remain rational." Sane, he wanted to add, but it didn't feel like a very strong argument in that moment.

"But you lose so much, Severus. Is it worth rationality to have no heart?" Poppy asked him gently. "To love no one?"

"You say that as if there were something for me to lose there, Madam Pomfrey," he scoffed at her, turning them both down a winding hallway that spiralled down past the dorms and into the more comfortable parts of the dungeons.

"It's a terrible thing to love no one," she told him with a simple nod. "And worse to have no one love *you*."

"I asked you for a hand in getting down here safely, Madam Pomfrey, not a lecture on the state of my life," he told her firmly. In years past, perhaps it would've had a growl and snap of irritation, but that was gone, too. It had brought her fewer injuries from his classes than in previous years, but something was missing and Severus didn't notice or couldn't bring himself to care.

"See? You can't even get up the sheer gumption to be truly angry with me," she chided. "It isn't good for you. You should undo whatever it is that you've done, Severus."

"I'm going to ask you why, until you give me a clearer answer. It lets me continue with my duties..." He paused before his door, and pulled down the wards with a mechanical mutterance.

"It makes you inhuman. It steals away the essence that is the Severus we all know and love so well -- and no denying that anyone loves you, for you know that would be a lie," the woman told him.

"Then why are you all speaking up *now*? It's been a year and a half. It might as well be forever, it might as well go on forever. I don't feel that any of it's missing. I don't have to *feel* anything." Hatred, fear, disgust, shame, humiliation, it only registered as a slight mental notation. It was almost comforting.

"Had we known you'd separated yourself so, I'm sure someone would have done something sooner. I've been watching you, afraid that you would perhaps kill yourself, actually," Poppy informed him firmly. "Had I realized it was a spell..."

"Of course." That was almost patronizing as he pushed open his door a bit unsteadily. He felt the oddest flush of... pride? wash over him, and then quick as it had started, it was gone. Severus drew himself up a little taller, glanced around his quarters for a moment. It didn't feel any closer, that pulse, but perhaps he was wrong.

Perhaps.

But what if...?

"Severus," Poppy said, "you *must* place things back as they were. This will do you more damage than you believe..."

"No more of these vague warnings -- if there's some dire threat that I didn't read about, I'd prefer to be told outright, rather than have it hinted at." He moved towards his desk, listening intently to the whisper of the air in the room. His desk had jostled a little in his absence. The stone, of course, but it was a strange occurrence... Severus pulled the large main drawer open and started to dig beneath papers to look for it.

"You know as well as I do that once everything is replaced, it could cause your very heart to stop with the well of emotion that will be produced."

"Which is why I'm going to deal with it as soon as possible, before the damned thing fails on me." His motions became just a little frantic, a little too hurried, but he didn't give voice to his motions, even when he jerked the drawer out of his desk, and started to take it apart piece by piece.

"Hiding from you, is it? Would you like for me to help you search?" Poppy asked him, raising an eyebrow. She knew well the spell that would accomplish what Severus had done.

"Bugger it... yes." He tossed a stack of to be graded papers from the drawer down beside it, and started to move quills and little bits of *things* that his desk had gathered over time.

With some care, Madame Pomfrey began to help him search through the desk, fidgeting aside things just as efficiently as had he. She even searched through the stack he'd tossed atop the thing, but by the end, she was quite sure of one thing.

It had gotten away from him. And *that* was *bad*.

"It's gone," he murmured, staring at the drawer. "It couldn't have just *gotten* out of my desk. Someone has it, they must..."

"Call it to you," Poppy urged. "It will have to come. It couldn't have attached itself to someone else so quickly..."

Call it to himself. Call it... "I would hope." Severus abandoned the desk, moved to slump into the chair behind the desk. Call it. All he supposedly had to do was concentrate, and it would come. Merlin, he hoped it clocked a few students in the head when it did so.

The Word spilled from his lips, and they waited.

And waited.

And waited.

"It's not coming," Poppy sighed. "It's attached itself to someone after all. Severus, who might have dared to come and go into your desk?"

Severus glanced around in the air, and then his expression fell deeply sour. "Potter. It wasn't seen or sensed, but the drawer apparently moved."

"Harry Potter isn't the sort of boy to just *take* something, Severus," Poppy said sternly. "Surely he can't be your only suspect?"

"Perhaps not, but..." he glanced to his watch, and started to his feet again. "The Headmaster will be at dinner by now. I can make it there on my own, Poppy -- and I'll speak with him about this then."

~~~~~

"Please pass the provolone," Draco requested of Crabbe most politely just as he felt the stone, now caught about his neck, begin to jiggle. It almost seemed to be a *worried* motion, which was odd in and of itself.

Crabbe was quick about sliding the tray of cheese over towards Draco, but he was also eyeing the hemline of Draco's robes. It seemed to be twitching ever so slightly, more than enough to catch his eyes. "Are you sure that thing's safe?"

"It's fine," Draco assured the larger boy firmly, grey eyes slightly narrowed in his acquisitiveness. "It's simply... excited." Well, that wasn't *quite* true. It was trying to go somewhere again, but Draco had already decided that he would kiss it into submission once he was alone with it again.

It was a lively thing, and it wiggled a bit more before falling mostly still. But that worried thrumming seemed to get harder against his chest, reverberating against his skin.

"Oh, well, if that's all -- pass the turkey?"

The platter went to Crabbe easily enough as Draco finished off the sandwich he was making and stuffed it into his pocket inside a napkin. "I'm going back up to the room," he said, taking a last swallow of pumpkin juice. "I'll see you there."

"Already?" Gregory didn't seem approving -- after all, pudding hadn't arrived on the table yet. He was of the opinion that everyone, Draco included, should eat as he did. "Well, we'll see you there, then."

The blond gave a wave and stood to abandon the table, giving one quick glance up at the professors. Professor Snape, it seemed to him, was a bit pale and fretful. He wondered why, but he didn't make any connection between the man's behavior and his little stone, so neatly caught up against his chest. There was no reason for him to make that leap of thought, after all. Sometimes, the professor simply *did* look a bit unwell around the edges. And his little stone had proven itself unpredictable since the moment it had tried to hide away under his soaps at the bottom of his showering bucket.

The foyer beyond the Great Hall was comfortably empty, and the temptation to kiss away the stone's discomfort was riding high in Draco's mind. Since he was alone, he obeyed the temptation, lifting it to feather sweet kisses over the surface of it, even caressing over the spots covered in his silken string.

"There, there," he soothed. "It's quite all right, really. Everything is fine."

It gave one last worried-feeling jitter, and then started to warm towards him -- he could feel it against his hand, the smooth obsidian surface seeming to ebb and grow a little. It was enough to make him laugh softly with delight and buss it with kisses once again, rubbing it against his cheek.

"You can sleep with me," he told it. "We'll run up and I'll eat my sandwich. I've got some butterbeer stored away, too, so I won't suffer without supper, and some chocolate. Then, it's bed for us!"

He half-wondered if he should feed the surely sentient rock -- and what if it wasn't a stone after all? It responded so delightfully to his attentions, that he wondered if it wasn't a *something*, a creature, perhaps, that had been transfigured into a stone?

"You wouldn't happen to be hungry, would you?" Draco asked it, just to be sure. It seemed to shiver no to him, and he laughed as he headed down the stairs towards the dungeon. "Well," he murmured. "Shortly, we'll go to bed... and everything will be quite nice, then."

The stone fell a little heavier against his hand then, as if it were settling there against his skin in delight. So, the stone did want to go back to the dungeons and sleep, then. Or, 'sleep', perhaps? It seemed to have vague ideas and whims, proof again that it was sentient.

Well, one way or the other, Draco was quite delighted to have it, and he remained so, even as he ate his sandwich and stripped down to go to bed. It was such a *wonderful* thing he'd found in Professor Snape's drawer.

As he drifted off to sleep, hands gently holding the stone close, he wondered why the Professor could have been ignoring such a splendid thing.

~~~~~

It had started, subtly, towards the middle of dinner. A warm flush stole into pale cheeks as Severus picked at his food, and delayed telling the Headmaster of his dilemma. Only the warmth grew, and then flooded over him with pleasure and comfort.

It was more than disturbing. It was completely and utterly *horrifying*. There was no question that the feeling was coming from his lost stone... only... Where could it be??

He lurched to his feet, brushing past the Headmaster's chair as he tried to control the lurching urge to just melt into a contended puddle. "I need to speak with you immediately, sir."

"Of course, Severus. Are you not feeling any better?" Dumbledore asked worriedly. "You seem..." Pale, relaxed, disturbingly slack. "..unwell."

"Yes." He didn't bother to deny it, and added almost hurriedly, "I'll be waiting for you in your office."

"Of course," Dumbledore agreed. "I shall join you shortly." Those twinkling blue eyes were disquieted as he watched the Potions master remove himself from the evening meal. "Minerva, if you would."

"Of course, Albus," she said, also seeming uneasy about Severus's condition. "Do let me know if there is anything I can do." After all, the way the potions master was suddenly acting felt very much as if it were cause for concern. He had just reached the doors of the great hall when a shudder seemed to overtake him, and he had to rest a shoulder momentarily against the inside of the door. Then he picked up his pace, and hurried out of sight.

With little show, Albus rose and headed out of the Great Hall, hurrying along towards his office. He expected to see Severus somewhere along the way, but he was not surprised when he didn't. Severus, after all, knew just as many interesting shortcuts as he himself did and doubtless he had used them.

So it was less of a surprise when he reached his own office, to find Severus sitting there already. The door closed behind him, curled up in his customary chair, looking no less *strange* than he'd looked before. A high flush had risen into his cheeks.

"Severus..." Albus looked at him for a moment, blue eyes gone intensely serious. "Tell me what it is that has gone wrong."

"Someone has stolen my heart." It rose to his mouth before he thought to explain it, and then it sounded ludicrous.

"....your heart?" Albus said with some surprise. "Well, my dear boy, I believe that I shall assume you mean your emotions?"

"Yes." That was added in a rawer tone than the first, and he straightened in his chair as another flush of that warm slipped through him, edging on arousal. "I've separated them from myself, Headmaster, and they're in a stone... that's gone missing."

"Ahhh. I see." Dumbledore seemed to consider it for a moment. "I suspect that you have tried calling it to you, for surely you would have thought of that already."

"Yes." He closed his eyes then, making sure that he wasn't looking at the Headmaster while an erection throbbed to life of its own will. "It didn't come."

"Well, then," Albus said seriously. "I suppose we'll simply have to find it, then."

An understatement, but the potions master accepted it as he folded his hands in his lap to help control himself. "Wherever it is, it's... failing me."

"Your heart is... stopping?" Albus asked, horribly concerned now with Severus's lost creation. "This cannot be good!"

"Not stopping, but it seems to be..." He trailed off, eyes closing tight for a moment. So warm, and for a moment the sensations felt as if he were in the bed of a lover and not sitting very stiffly in a chair in the Headmaster's office. "Leaking things back to me."

"Leaking..." Albus said thoughtfully. "What is it leaking back to you, Severus? I've noticed you seem... Uncomfortable, flushed..."

"They're good feelings, I suppose, if they had a context," Severus murmured, looking at the wooden bead on the Headmaster's desk, rather than the Headmaster himself.

"Then perhaps, for the moment, that is not so bad. You often deny yourself feelings such as those, you know," Albus said, "and it's good for you to feel them every so often."

"Headmaster, I haven't felt anything in quite some time. Good or bad. If this stone *is* failing me, then it could kill me, when it does stop working." So much for the Headmaster's splash of optimism.

"Yes..." Dumbledore said slowly. "That *is* something to fear. I suppose we will simply have to watch all of our students and see who might have found it. There is likely no other way to find it."

A needle in a haystack, then. "It was stolen out of my desk," he murmured, "from my office. Which was locked and warded. The wards saw nothing, but felt the presence of something when the drawer opened."

"Then that discounts many of our students; not only those who might not be brave enough to do such a thing, but also those without the magical talent to actually accomplish it. That makes it a very small list," Albus mused, glancing at him with those twinkling blue eyes. "A very small list. Perhaps no more than two or three students from each house..."

"And how do you suggest going about checking that list...?" A slip, and the student could realize what *power* he held over him.

"You're a professor, Severus. I'm sure you'll think of *something*," Dumbledore answered, expression wryly amused. "Undoubtedly the student who took it will consider it some sort of prize. It will likely be placed upon display. Keep an eye on the older students, especially, and I don't doubt that it will be found."

Severus started to stand up then, expression a dour one. "All right, Headmaster. I'll do just that, since you're proving to be no help. Until it's found, I doubt my effectiveness as your spy, however."

"Then I have my way all around!" the old man said with no small amount of delight. "You must rest from those efforts, Severus, even as you must find your heart. We'll make up a list of students, and undoubtedly that will tell us who has it with more ease."

"Potter. I suspect Potter has it," Severus said right away, as the feelings -- mercifully -- started to abate a little.

"Harry, I'm afraid, would be unlikely to take something that does not belong to him; though I'm sure that you will keep an eye on him all the same, Severus?" Albus asked him gently.

"Yes." Who else would? His Slytherins -- would they dare...? "I'll address my own students in the common room tonight." Not on the exact nature of what was going on, but he'd pick something vague enough -- go over the school's punishments for stealing, and perhaps leave his office door unlocked so that if the perpetrator were among his students, it could be put back in his desk without his knowing who had done it.

"Of course, there are only a few members of Slytherin capable of such a thing, as well..." the old man murmured seriously. "I'm sure you're aware of who they are, Severus."

"I am, but I don't believe that they'll confess or simply give it back to me if they think I know who they are." He started towards the door then, wanting to be someplace secure, and by himself for a few moments before he addressed the students. And perhaps it could wait another day...

"I hope you find your heart soon, Severus," Albus bade him.

Severus gave a bland, derisive snort, and started to move down the stairs. He'd start the next day, yes...

Elsewhere in the castle, the little obsidian stone jittered against Draco's chest for a moment.

~~~~~

"Professor Snape's calling a house meeting," Crabbe declared, shaking the edge of Draco's bed. "Get up, get up!" On Saturdays, it was Draco's habit to sleep until dinner if he thought he could get away with it, and time permitted. So his very early wake up call was most disruptive.

"Tell him I died," Draco moaned against his pillow, and he meant it. He didn't *want* to get out of his nice, warm bed. In fact, he refused. Well, all right, perhaps he'd only refuse so long as Professor Snape didn't come to get him yet.

"He doesn't look very pleased, Draco -- I'd really not try his temper today." Crabbe pulled at Draco's shoulder again, pulling him up until he was seated instead of snuggled in.

"If it would make him any happier, I *could* die," Draco offered, most unhappy at being awake and sitting up on the edge of his bed.

Crabbe stared at him a moment, then murmured, "Eh, that rock of yours is dirty again." Indeed, the front of his underrobes were smeared with that powdery mud. "Toss something on over you, we've got to go..."

"Oh, hell," Draco muttered, and he rose and began to dress. "Now why did you go and get me dirty all over again? That wasn't very nice of you, was it?" he sighed, pulling dark robes over the underrobes he preferred for sleeping in.

The stone just jittered beneath his two layers of robes, ebbing out dark-feeling waves to him, and flaking those little bits of dirt.

"Strange pet," Crabbe commented, edging towards the door. "Well, we'll be waiting for you. It's down in the commons."

"Yeah, yeah," Draco agreed, sighing and kissing the dirty little thing once Crabbe had gone. "What's gotten into you, you silly thing?"

It shuddered a bit *more* dirt at his kiss, then seemed to soothe a little and stop. The mere touch of his fingers on it seemed to calm it, even if there had been that last puff of dirt to deal with. And that was easy to dust off of his clothing, before he slipped it back out of sight under his robes.

"There, now, that wasn't so very bad, was it?" Draco asked before he headed down towards the commons room himself. Might as well get whatever lecture Snape had planned over and done.

But it had already started when he strolled down the stairs, and he found that Snape had his back to the stairwell he'd come down.

"--and no less. Allow me to remind *all* of you that thievery is not tolerated in this school, and should one of my students be involved in this, your punishment from me will far outweigh anything the other heads of house will come up with for you."

Ooh.

Well, then.

Obviously something important had been stolen; probably by some Gryffindor, though Draco had no doubt that the rest of the school must suspect Slytherin House. He made no particular connection to himself or his little pet stone, however. Why should he?

"Now, if one of you *has* stolen it, I'm giving you a day's grace -- you can return it until tomorrow, to my office, without punishment." He gave a firm look about the room, and tacked on, "as long as I don't see you returning it, that is."

"What's he talking about?" Draco hissed as he got near enough to Crabbe for the other boy to hear him.

"He says someone's taken a very important periapt." The last word sounded like Crabbe was mimicking Snape's words. For a moment, they felt the head of the house's eyes fall on them -- drawn by their talking, no doubt, and then he turned his attention away.

"That is all."

Draco's eyes widened slightly as his hand came up uncertainly for a moment to touch his chest, resting just over the little stone heart that lay there. An amulet, missing... One that would hold emotions or healing charms or the like...

Suddenly, things seemed *very* clear.

He'd not only gotten a strange little stone -- he'd gotten a sheer *delight*.

It was lucky for him that Snape had already left the room, missing the gesture of Draco's hand lifting to touch over the very periapt he was seeking. How could Draco return something so... *strange*, but oddly useful? Especially not when he so adored it already...

Well, perhaps he could make a copy of it, and keep the original. Perhaps Snape wouldn't notice if he did that... It was something to think about, anyway.

"That wasn't worth getting out of bed for," Goyle sighed, poking at Crabbe's side. "Let's go get breakfast." The rest of the house seemed to have that very same idea, after all.

"*I'm* going back to bed," Draco lied. "Bring me back one of the cranberry muffins, would you?" He'd spend the intervening time trying to make a copy of his new little prize. Then he could slip it into Snape's office, and Snape probably won't notice for some time that it wasn't the original. If he ever noticed -- Draco did enjoy overestimating his general skills in things. But could copying a stone be so very hard?

Surely it couldn't be *that* bad, he decided on his way back down the stairs to the sixth year boys' dorm. Surely it would be easy. He'd learned the charm for it in first year, so why not?

It turned out to be one hell of a lot more difficult than it looked.

To start, the stone didn't enjoy having spells cast at it. It would shudder, and try to hide from him. Once it skittered off of the desk and onto the floor, exuding a puff of reddish dust.

"Oh, come on," Draco cajoled. "You want to stay with me, don't you? You know I love you. It would be terrible to go back to staying in a drawer, wouldn't it?"

A little more dirt, grey again, shed into his hand when he picked up the obsidian stone, and then it seemed to settle down once more. He was right, after all -- despite his spell-casting at it, the way that Draco was treating it was better than putting it away into a drawer.

"I promise I'll make it up to you," the blond faintly cooed. "I'll take you to the bath with me again tonight. You enjoyed that, didn't you?"

The stone fairly purred in his hands at that. So when he laid it down again, it didn't skitter away or try to hide. It simply laid there, glistening as spell after spell was cast at it. Little clouds of reddish dust would occasionally puff out of it, but finally Draco happened upon a spell that created an exact duplicate just beside it; only it didn't bear the string that Draco used to hold it around his neck.

"There, now," he sighed. "That wasn't really so bad, was it? The others will be back from breakfast soon, and later tonight, you and I will slip in and put the duplicate in the drawer, won't we?"

"Hey, Draco -- you should've been at breakfast!" Gregory called down the short stairwell to him -- and he was supposedly in bed sleeping.

With a fair jump, the blond landed in the center of his bed, both stones grasped tightly in his palms, and jerked the covers over his head. He moaned as though in protest and waited to be 'awakened'.

"Draco...?" Gregory and Vincent peeked into the room, eyeing the lump in the sheets. "Draco, I've got your muffin for you... get up, so I can tell you what you missed!"

"What did I miss?" Draco asked curiously as he sat up, rubbing an eye with a fist. "Thanks," he said as the taller of his two thugs handed over his muffin.

"Professor Snape coming into the Great Hall. He was going up the set of stairs to the head-table, and he just collapsed. Fell right forwards like he'd forgotten how to walk." Goyle perched on the edge of Draco's bed, pulling out a scone that he'd pocketed. "Got right back up, and turned around. Had some sort of fit just inside the hall, and then the Gryffindor bitch helped him out of the hall."

That startled Draco no small bit as he took his breakfast. "Is he all right?" he asked, mind making hurried connections. Two stones, now. Little red puffs of mineral dust...

"Don't know." Vincent moved towards his own bed, to lay down on it and dig out a book. "Do you want to go outside today once you're done there?"

"Mmmm, sure, maybe go flying..." Draco said thoughtfully as he nibbled at his breakfast. "Might be nice to do some Potions work..."

"Well, I wouldn't try to get Professor Snape's help today," Gregory decided as he stood up, too. "I'm going to take my broom and do a bit of flying -- if you want to come...?"

"I'll follow," Draco agreed as Crabbe flung his book back onto the bed and headed out with Goyle. It was just as well; it gave him more time to do what he needed to do.

Both of his flunkies knew full well that he could show up when they were going to land, or not show up at all -- saying that he'd show up left it an open option for Draco, and meant he probably wanted to try some dangerous experiment instead.

And once they were gone, Draco picked the two stones up from the sheets. One seemed oddly lifeless, while the one with the string seemed to just be jittering with life.

"It's all right," he whispered to it tenderly, now realizing what it must be, thanks to Goyle's explanation of Snape's behavior. "It's all right. I'll love you and keep you well if you won't tell on me..." And he kissed it again, most tenderly, before slipping it beneath his robes. Who cared if it was a bit dusty again now that he suspected exactly what it was?

After all.

Snape probably hadn't used any of his emotions in years, and Draco *so* wanted to see them.

The stone settled against his chest, seeming to snug and weigh heavily against him. It liked him, and certainly liked the way that he treated it. That alone narrowed down the chances that it would 'tell' on him. Now, what to do with the imposter stone...?

Well, the only *real* answer was for him to slip into Snape's office again and hide it in the desk. It might be a good idea to check and find out where the professor was before he did that, though. Perhaps he'd just make a quick run by the infirmary and hope that the Professor might be there...

And the professor might actually appreciate the visit, if he had it in him to do that. It was very likely he was in the infirmary, particularly after such a public mishap as what had happened. Not that anything was happening then; the stone lay heavy against his chest, warm but unmoving, as he started out of the dorms.

Up a myriad of stairs, he went, travelling forever to get to the infirmary. It had always seemed silly to Draco that it was so very far away from the dungeons; but he supposed that the Gryffindors needed to be close to it much more than anyone else did, so he ignored that fact easily. They were the ones who fell out of their tower so high when they leaned out the window to look at pretty things, or so he liked to assume. The Gryffindors *were* always getting hurt, and if worse came to worse in Slytherin house, Snape knew how to keep things under control until Madam Pomfrey could arrive. But the infirmary was a bustle when he peeked in through the door.

For a moment, he thought that Potter must be in there somewhere with all of the commotion; but he didn't *see* the little prat, so he slipped in quietly to try and find the Professor on his own. "Professor Snape, sir?" he asked quietly, hoping anyone who *wasn't* Snape would ignore him.

But that was the commotion. He could hear Snape's voice hissing, as he neared where the professors and Madam Pomfrey were gathered, "I'm fine, Merlin damn you all! Leave me be!"

"Sir?" Draco asked, peeking around one of the professors. "Crabbe and Goyle said that you had an attack in the Great Hall. Perhaps you should just lay down and do what Madam Pomfrey says...?"

He was half-seated on the edge of the bed, and hadn't at all expected a *student* to sneak into the infirmary and say such a thing. "Mister Malfoy, perhaps you should *leave*," he growled blandly. Draco finally noticed, then, how... dull, how flat the professor's temper had seemed in most of the recent months he could recall. As if it were a false temper, rather than the real thing.

And the stone against his chest seemed to exude heat for a moment.

"Professor, really, I think you..."

"Come along now, Mister Malfoy," McGonagall bid with her mouth pursed firmly. "You don't want to disturb the Professor.."

"But.."

"Come along."

Snape had started to lay down, even as McGonagall started to pull Draco away from the professor. "Professor Snape needs to be left alone for right now, Mister Malfoy. Whatever your problem is, it will have to wait."

"But..."

"No more 'buts', Mister Malfoy. Be along on your way," he was told, and Draco abandoned the infirmary with a look on his face that directly contradicted the glee he felt at how easy it would be to slip in the false stone in Snape's office.

"There," he whispered, and kissed the stone with delight. "That's not so bad, then, is it?"

It was even better knowing that, perhaps, the stone transferred the warm glow he could feel at his fingertips to Professor Snape. If he left the false one in the desk, then he could keep the real one, and put it to *real* use.

Once he settled on what that use would be.

The options were so delightful. He could have what he'd always wanted -- namely, Professor Snape in the palm of his hand. That would be a delight, wouldn't it? To have him worshipping Draco, willing to do anything that Draco wanted...

The heart that he was still cupping over with one hand, hiding it from sight as much as he was holding onto it, gave a suddenly very fearful jitter, and his hand felt wet.

"It's all right," Draco whispered, a soothing promise. "I'll make sure that it's all right..."

There was, when he peeked at the stone, a smear of blue-clear on his palm and fingers -- as if it didn't like what either he had been thinking, or there was something the professor had felt and disliked much the same. But it was so strange to feel a stone being deeply saddened, particularly in his hands.

"It's not that I want to hurt him," Draco promised the stone. "It's that what I was thinking was what I've always wanted, since I was barely eleven..."

And he never expected his casual greed to garner a chance for him. And with the professor in the infirmary, it would be doubly easy to slip the stone into his desk and get away with his currently only vague plan. The stone in his hand seemed soothed by his words, fell quiet and still again.

"It will be all right," Draco promised the stone again, and they happily went off to replace the false version in the Professor's desk. Getting what he wanted *and* not getting caught for it.... What could be better than that?

~~~~~

He watched, numbly, as the flat stone set in the gargoyle's belly replayed the scene from his office once more, under the watchful eyes of both he and the Headmaster.

That evening, when he'd returned from the infirmary back to his rooms, he'd checked his desk, and there was... a stone. Not the stone, but a stone. And the Slytherins were carelessly stupid if they'd thought he'd simply let the thief get away with the crime so *easily* as he'd let on to them.

But now he wasn't sure what to do, as he watched, for a second time, Draco Malfoy slip into his office.

"Well, Severus?" Albus asked him, eyebrows raised. "Will you be so very quick to judge your own student as you seemed to be willing to judge Harry Potter?" It was said with no small amount of seriousness, and yet there was that disgusting twinkle in the old man's eye.

"Yes." Severus stared at the picture for a moment more, watching Draco with the two stones -- one worn around his neck, the little bastard -- and the other slipped into the desk drawer. "This..." He tossed the palm in his hand once, with no reaction at all when it landed in his palm, "is an imposter stone."

"And how will you get your own back without Mr. Malfoy learning of the importance of the thing?" Albus asked curiously. There was something about the entire matter that simply reeked of too much trouble all over a simply thing.

"I believe he's already discovered the importance of it," Severus murmured slowly, "and that is why he went to the trouble of creating an imposter stone." And he must have rocks for brains if he'd thought that it *wouldn't* be noticed.

Unless him noticing was just what Draco wanted him to do.

That was the problem with dealing with Slytherins; trying to decipher the meaning behind any given action to which they might commit themselves, or more specifically attempting to figure out *if* there was any meaning behind an action. It was maddening.

"And so now what shall we do?" Albus asked. "I can expel him, if you wish, and take the stone back from him..."

"No." He would have gleefully rallied for Potter's expulsion, and it wouldn't have come about. So there was no reason to expel Malfoy... "I'll deal with him myself. Give me a pen, sir, and a piece of parchment..."

"What do you plan on doing, Severus?" There was no denying the old man's curiosity, even as he gave Severus what he had requested.

"Telling him that I expect to see him in my office at..." He glanced up to the clock, noting it was seven. "Eight sharp."

It was obvious that the information wasn't enough to satisfy Dumbledore. "And what will you do to him?"

"That will depend on whether he gives me the stone back... and what his intent was. If it was for shits and giggles, he's going to serve out the rest of the *year* in detention," Severus told the Headmaster dully, as he scratched out his missive on the parchment.

"That seems lenient enough, even for you, Severus," Albus decided with a nod. "Would you like for me to send Fawkes with your message?"

"Yes." He signed his name sharply, then folded the parchment. It was easy to turn over to the Headmaster, though he had to wonder at the man's words. "You wish for me to be lenient with him, Headmaster?"

"It wouldn't be a bad idea..." Albus replied, an expression on his face that Severus couldn't quite place. "You must, of course, deal with your Slytherins as you believe necessary, Severus, but with things as they are currently in our world, I cannot believe that leniency would be misplaced."

"There's little point in expelling him," the head of Slytherin house shrugged after a moment. "Nothing to be gained. And if he'd taken the stone for some cruel purpose, he would have done more than he has."

Dumbledore watched the Potions master as a shudder rippled through him, bringing with it a gasp that seemed to obviously be pleasure. "Of course, Severus," he said blandly.

Severus closed his eyes tightly then, fingers curling knot-like over the arms of the chair. "Just... send the note, Headmaster."

Silently, the old man took the note from Severus and tied it to Fawkes's leg. "Deliver this to Draco Malfoy in the Slytherin dorms," Dumbledore told the phoenix with a smile, brushing his fingers over the bird's feathers. Fawkes took off in a flurry of gold and silver, leaving the two men alone. "Would you like for me to help you to your rooms, Severus?"

"N..." Another sharp shot of pleasure struck him, before fuzzing into warmth and thick comfort. "Yes. Perhaps I should Floo..." Once he was in his quarters, he could find things to *do* to distract himself from the oddly intense sensations.

"The Floo powder is just on the mantle there. Do you think you can make it that far by yourself?" It was obvious that Albus was worried about him.

Silence for a moment, and then Severus started to stand. All seemed deathly quiet, so perhaps Draco had set the stone aside for a moment. He could hope that held until the note was received, which would be in short order. "I should be able to."

"If you need anything..." Dumbledore began.

He needed to retreat to his rooms, wrap his hand around his cock, and do something he hadn't done in a very long time. "Nothing you can help with, Headmaster," was the dully chuckled response.

"Of course." It was disgusting; he was absolutely *certain* that Albus knew just what he planned to do, but that was so Albus, wasn't it? "Do be careful, Severus."

A pinch of Floo powder later, and a muttered request to go to his office, and Severus was free of *facing* the Headmaster's disturbing knowledge. Though he wasn't free of his own personal torment, as a warm feeling started to build to a shiver that crept up his spine even as he patted soot off of himself.

If he got *any* harder, he'd be able to pound a nail through his own Potions table with his dick and no other help. It was disturbing.

Perhaps it was a sign to simply settle into a chair, slip a hand into his trousers, and... But the action had previously been futile. The friction, the tensing was with him, but those shivery feelings, the ones that made him want to moan, channeled themselves straight to the stone. So after the first few times, he'd stopped bothering with it. Now it seemed to be going in reverse? The sensations coming to him without the touch of his hand.

It was so close, so very close, and it had only just started. He wondered *how* Draco could possibly be drawing such feelings out of the stone and back into him. He wondered what the boy was *doing* with it, what could make him feel this way. It was so good, gathering between his legs, and in his belly, and strangely enough even in his chest.

Detention for a year with Filch. It would serve him right, the little bastard was probably laughing his heart out as he did Merlin knew what to *Severus's* heart. The little shit...

For a moment, his anger pushed back the arousal the stone was emitting back to him. It was enough time to close a few doors, and settle down behind his office desk, pose an impatient one. He wouldn't touch himself, and let the bugger have that power over him.

Only... Damn, it felt *so* good. So very good, and his hand involuntarily snuck down as if to touch despite himself. So good...

Then clearer thoughts reminded him that stroking himself off wouldn't add to those sensations as he wanted. It would only make a mess in his trousers and robes, and that it wouldn't effect the good sensations at all.

How long could it *possibly* be until eight o'clock? It seemed like an eternity, though a glance at the clock revealed it to be only fifteen minutes or so, and at that glance, the sensations momentarily stopped.

He let out an almost relieved noise, then let that hand smooth down the front of his robes despite that he was seated, and bulging in his trousers. Perhaps he'd put the stone in his Gringotts vault, and never have to worry about it.

The Headmaster was mad, after all, if he thought Severus would so easily give up on such a convenient tool.

Now, if only the pleasure didn't resume....

It seemed as if thinking about it was enough to bring it back. What *could* the Malfoy brat be doing to so bloody delight that fucking stone?

Severus had to jerk his hand away from himself curling the fingers forcefully into fists. Little under fifteen minutes remaining. Just so short a time, and he could ride *that* out... It wasn't as if he were young and urgently horny. It only *felt* as if he were young and urgently horny.

Maybe it was rubbing off from Malfoy...

That made him groan, the sudden thought of the blond boy naked in his bed with his hand between his legs and Severus's heart laid against his bare chest. It was an eye-crossing perverted thought, but Severus couldn't seem to help it.

Sex was a powerful magic in its own right, and if the Malfoy brat realized he could manipulate him for at least another few minutes until the appointed meeting... If he arrived. If he bothered. If he didn't know how worked up that particular twisted thought was making his Potions professor.

Fucking Morganna, Severus hoped he didn't have a clue. Malfoy *was* his best student, though....

A groan caught in his throat at an even sharper stab of sensation, one that made his cock pulse almost with anticipation. Was the stone somehow feeling back to Draco what worked, and what didn't? He didn't know. He couldn't say. His brain was surely shutting down and that wasn't good because there a bare handful of minutes lay between that moment and eight o'clock, hardly more than five. Surely whatever Malfoy was doing...

A firm knock came on his door just then, obviously from the blond boy's knuckles.

He couldn't answer for a moment. Snape had to sit upright in his chair first, back straight, jaw firm, gaze flat. "Enter." Cock hard as a rock. Hands fists.

"You asked me to come, Professor?" The sheer *innocence* of that statement, accompanied by the boy's mode of dress, was almost enough to bring him off in that moment. Since it was a weekend, the dress code was not readily enforceable, and Draco was obviously aware of that. The way that his black pants clung to him could have been called obscene, but the green silk shirt through which all of his white flesh could be seen was certainly worse.

"Close the door." Very seldom did Draco abandon his robes. The gesture stank of purposefulness in Severus's mind. "Sit down, Draco. Then give me back the stone."

"The stone, sir?" Draco asked hesitantly. So, it was going to be like that, was it?

"You know what I'm talking about, Mister Malfoy," Severus murmured stiffly, as he unfisted his hands, and brought them into sight, tented atop the desk. "I watched you put your poor replacement in my desk drawer. And the Headmaster watched, also."

"You said there would be no repercussions," Draco said softly by way of reply. "I've given you what I had to give; and what remains with me does not want to leave."

"There would be no repercussions if you'd given me a stone that isn't a useless piece of *lava*." There should have been more outrage in Severus's voice, but it funnelled away to the real stone that Draco had *somewhere*. In that moment, he might have gladly killed to know where it was. "You didn't leave me the periapt, which is what I expected back in my desk. Now, give it to me."

"It doesn't want to go back to you, I'm afraid," Draco sighed dramatically. "It wants to stay with me. I take care of it, and keep it clean and make it happy..."

Severus's left eye twitched, the muscles spasming ever so faintly as he extended one hand across the desk at the boy. "It's not a *pet*, Malfoy, nor is it something to play with. You could be put into Azkaban for the sort of magical manipulation you've pulled on me."

The pallor that chased across the boy's cheeks when accompanied by the tremble of his lips made Severus's belly wrench with regret at the obvious fear. "I didn't know what it was, sir! But I'm afraid it's hidden itself now. It knew that we were coming to see you, and it didn't want to come..."

No, that had to be a *lie*. Draco had been toying with him just moments before he'd knocked on the door. "Where is it?"

"I don't know, sir. I was taking a bath, and I bathed it and laid it on my towel, and it was gone when I got out." That wasn't a lie, either. It *had* been gone, but he had felt it watching him, felt its appreciation when he'd fondled his own bare flesh for its pleasure. Draco didn't doubt that it would come to him if he called.

"Merlin." It wouldn't answer to Severus, and there was little possibility that it would answer to Draco, the potions master thought. He drew his hands back, rubbing them over his face in a miserable seeming gesture. "Dismissed. Get out of my sight before I do something rash to you."

That seemed to be all the invitation that Draco need as he moved closer, hands lightly stroking down Severus's forearms, momentarily bared by the motion he made to cover his face. "You can do anything rash to me you like, sir..." he invited quietly.

It was vaguely comfortable, as always, that the seeping sensation of desperation was whisked away from him as soon as it started. "I feel nothing, Mister Malfoy. Is that what this is about?"

"You should be able to feel *something*, sir. Feeling nothing is never a good thing, is it? I've never thought so," Draco said, slowly moving closer to him, settling into his lap with his knees spread wide over Severus's thighs.

It seemed as if it were almost nervousness that settled in his chest, before disappearing. Snape pushed at Draco firmly, with a threat of violence behind the gesture if he didn't move. "There's nothing. The periapt holds everything, you damned little bugger."

"But you could call it back to you. You could take your emotions back from it. *Severus*..." Just the sound of his name on those lips seemed so exquisite, his entire body clenching at it. "Please..."

"It doesn't listen to me. Draining it would take a vast amount of time... You don't understand how complicated this is." How complicated it was becoming, particularly with a student straddling his lap so.

"I know it doesn't want to be trapped in a stone. It exudes dirty little shivers when it hurts and clear beauty when it's pleased. It's very pleased about me," Draco whispered, face pressed to his now. "Oh, it's *very* pleased about me, Severus. And I'm very pleased about it... and you..."

"Help me find it." He was tired of arguing, of word games. So Malfoy, the insane boy, wanted him? Pity the poor taste, but Severus wasn't above trying to use such beautiful leverage to his advantage.

"And what will you give me in return?" Draco asked him, lips caressing over one high cheekbone, just in front of his ear. "What will you give me to have it back?"

It was rape, wasn't it? On both sides. Draco had already committed it mentally, and was twisting his arm for the real thing, And Draco was a minor, so if he did... if he did... "I'll give you what you want."

"Then I'll find it for you if you'll put it back." Draco's hand momentarily pressed against the left-center of his chest, a heated touch that was distinctly disturbing.

"It's been a very long time... but I will." Gringotts was a tempting idea, but what if it *did* start to fail? As much as he detested feeling pain, sorrow, so many of the things that he had felt on a regular basis, the idea of dying far outweighed the gains the spell granted him.

Warm, damp lips shifted, moving down to steal his mouth, kiss him passionately, just a bit clumsily, as if the boy was uncertain what to do from the angle he found himself at. "Accio," he whispered huskily, "periapt."

That now too-familiar warmth seeped into him, as the periapt settled into Draco's hand, still on its string. For a moment, Severus kissed the boy back, then closed a hand over the one that Draco had called the stone with. "Let me end the spell..." It would take so much time, but it would be worth it to not face such trouble and humiliation again.

With shaking fingertips, Draco let the stone go. The periapt itself seemed set to weep at such a thing, jittering its betrayal at him for letting it loose from his own careful grasp. "I'm sorry," he bade it sweetly. "He's going to take you back now. He'll treat you properly, I'm sure of it..."

That didn't seem to reassure the stone.

Severus ran a thumb over its smooth surface, wondering at it. How someone could treat a stone so sweetly, as if it were something more than his emotions shoved into a small thing. As if it were better, or...? It didn't matter, now that he had it again. "You'll have to leave me alone as I undo the spell, Draco Malfoy."

"It doesn't want me to leave," Draco murmured, feathering a kiss across the bridge of his nose as if it wasn't some unpleasant feature more often cursed and laughed about than kissed.

How was he supposed to cast a spell in such a crowded, cramped-feeling position? "Fine." He'd just have to bear it. Carefully, he shifted to sit further back in the chair, slipping his wand down from his sleeve. A touch of the tip to the top of the stone, and he started to breathe the words that would release the spell -- hopefully in a trickle of emotion that wouldn't over-run him.

They were anxious to get back to him, though, it seemed, for the stone itself jiggled with excitement and the stream of pure sensation, *feeling*, seemed to burst into him even as he tried to go slowly.

"Calm down," Draco soothed, petting the stone tenderly. "You don't want to kill him. He's you."

It was barely gripped in his fingers as all the sensations flooded in at once -- and none of them as pleasant as the sensations Draco had been teasing him with. Pain, and anger, fear and hatred all washed through him, battering him as he tried to not shake with it, to not shudder or shiver.

"Shhhh." The boy's soothing was more irritating than anything else, particularly since it was directed at the stone as much as it was directed at him. "You can touch me. You can hold me. I'll take the edge off of it for you if you want..."

Take the *edge* off of it? He couldn't coherently work out what Draco meant by it, despite that the boy had been straddled over his thighs with obvious intent not long ago. "It, ugn... isn't so simple..." He shuddered, jaw clenching tightly, as an old cruciatus echoed through the stone to him. There were so many days of the day to day grind tucked away in it, and those spikes of misery from meeting with the Death Eaters... All at once, and the little trickles of pleasures he'd passed up on were lost in the rush of *that*. No wonder the stone was eager to get rid of it.

Fingers traced his face as he suffered, lips smoothing over his own, over his brow. There was no denying that the boy was trying to give him comfort, even as aggravating as it was.

"Leave... leave, Draco. This will take..." He stiffened for a moment, then relaxed with a wave of melancholy, almost to the point of seeping back into the chair. "Time."

"You're hurting," Draco disagreed. "You shouldn't be alone, sir..."

"Why not?" His voice sounded tired, and sour to his own ears, a slow sound as that first wave was followed by others. And the little stone in his hand seemed delightful to shed it all off. It would have been a delightful thing to watch, he supposed, if it didn't weigh him down to listless depression.

"So much emotion, returned to you so quickly..." Draco's fingers felt good upon his shoulders, soothing, massaging. "It can't be good for you, can it? And you promised if I gave it back..."

He had promised to give Draco what he wanted. But it wasn't a very appealing idea in that moment, massaging fingers or no. "I did." His hand loosened its grip on the stone, so moved his hand, swinging it inwards in case it fell. Better in his lap than clattering across the floor.

"Sir, if you like, I can help you to bed until you're feeling better.." Now that Severus's emotions had returned, surely, *surely* he'd still be adored, Draco thought.

The head of Slytherin house sighed, and didn't bother giving Draco a reply for a few moments. The boy wanted in his bed, still -- how remarkably strange. "I would... appreciate the help." Since the waves of emotion were threatening to kill him, as the melancholy ebbed away only to be replaced by seizing fear.

The violent trembling was enough to frighten the blond; he'd only wanted the same love and adoration that the stone was offering him, not to kill the professor. His arms wrapped tightly about Severus and he rocked his body slightly, clutching at the dark-haired man. "Professor..." he whispered. "It will be all right..."

"Will it?" Severus barked in rough reply. He trembled again, trying to not let his heart race and race as it wanted to do. Breath slowly, ride that out, too.

"Yes," Draco promised him. There was something to be said about that delicious petting, so tender that it was almost bizarre, considering. "It will."

"Help me to my bed," he finally requested, unable to get up with Draco so firmly atop him. "This will take... time." It was repetitive, perhaps, but it was the best he could do.

"I didn't mean to harm you, Professor," Draco said, moving himself to help Severus rise and move towards the door that undoubtedly led to Severus's rooms. "I didn't even know what it was when I took it. It just... called to me."

"Why... do you think it called to you?" Severus clutched his hand tighter around the stone, and for a moment it made him spasm as he stood with Draco's help. The thing was becoming palpably less full.

"Well, I'm not the sort of boy to take things of yours, for one, and for another, even if I *were*," Draco reasoned as they moved slowly, "what would the likelihood be of me wanting a dirty, mud-covered stone?"

"Whim." The same likelihood that would make him want a dirty, tired professor. A sick whim, he mentally clarified, as he pushed open the door of his bedroom.

"We all have them, I suppose," Draco semi-agreed as he led the professor to his bed and began to help him sit down on it. "But I think perhaps it was something more than that."

The green bed sheets gave way, thick and fluffy, and tempting in ways that Severus hadn't thought of them being in a very long time. But he was still clutching the stone, bearing through another strike of self-loathing. "Yes?"

"I think perhaps it wanted me to set it free, to go back to being you," Draco said most seriously as he knelt to remove Severus's shoes. "It loved being washed off and kissed..."

"You washed it, when I was in a staff meeting," Severus told him blandly, pushing down the newest wave of sensation. "You've made me cry, Draco."

Hands stroked tenderly over his face as he was helped to lay back in his bed, covered over carefully by the boy. "I'm sorry I made you cry, Severus. I never wanted to make you cry. I didn't know then what it was."

He made a noncommittal noise as response to Draco, closing his eyes as Draco pulled the sheets over him. Fear was starting in on him again, gnawing at his senses in pulsing points. "I expect you to be more careful with magical objects from now on..."

"Of course," Draco agreed, crawling into the bed himself and wrapping warmly about Severus's covered body. "I'll be very careful."

"Merlin, you're warm," he sighed, shifting his head on the pillow for a moment. It was strange how *cold* was seeping into him. A chill of terror?

"I'll keep you warm," Draco promised him as he began to shudder with cold. "It will be all right, Severus. It can't be easy, gaining your emotions again..."

"Remind me... Merlin, to hurt the next person who compares you to your... your father." The gestures Draco was making were warm, sweet, not at all what he expected -- and then again, it was what he expected, because Draco would go to great lengths to get what he wanted.

"Naturally." There was laughter hidden in that word, but Draco couldn't help it. He *was* very much like his father; both in looks and in the intention of having his desires filled. "It will be all right," he whispered again, and kissed Severus's high cheekbone. He hoped that it would. After all, he'd wanted the professor since before he even knew what lust or infatuation or love truly was.

The professor shuddered half in reaction to Draco's kiss, half to what was still flooding through him. "You should... sleep."

"I won't," Draco murmured, "until I know you'll be all right."

"Then you have a long wait..." Severus swallowed, pressing on with, "and I'm becoming too tired to keep speaking to you. It... is getting to be a bit too much."

"Then relax," the boy whispered, "and rest. I can be patient, and you need to doze if you can..."

He shifted one arm beneath the sheets to rest his fingers against Draco's side through the many layers, and then forced himself to relax as a wave of hatred slipped up from the stone in his other hand. He could doze for just a moment...

~~~~~

Morning brought with it an awareness and a presence, warm against his side. His body responded to it with an alacrity that he had forgotten ever having felt before.

"G'morning," the presence greeted, proving itself to be Draco Malfoy. "How d'you feel this morning?"

Wonderful? Not quite. Stiff from not moving, and still tired from the strange mixture of things he'd experienced. That he now had to experience once more, because of Draco's insistence. "Better," he murmured, sitting up a bit slowly. He brought the stone out from under the covers, and peered at the now lifeless thing.

"How much..." A hand stroked down slowly from his shoulder while he was preoccupied, making its way through the layers of clothing that he still wore before reaching his erection. The fingers slowly curled around it, giving a heart-stopping caress. "Better?"

"Merlin, you little bugger!" It startled him, too, a flush of arousal tinging his face at the feel of Draco's unquestionably chilly fingers. He grabbed the other Slytherin's forearm, though, and held his hand still.

"What?" Draco asked innocently, managing to squeeze his fingers slightly one more time. "You like it. I can tell. And you *did* promise..."

"Your hands are cold," he chided almost darkly, adding, "it's poor manners..."

"Oh, is that all?" Draco's mouth curved upward in a smile as he removed his hand and slid it between his own thighs to warm it. "That can be fixed, then."

"You're lucky that today is a weekend, Mister Malfoy," Severus murmured, as he started to unbutton his wrinkled robes in a quick manner. It was comfortable to get out of the constricting clothing. "I will need to teach you discretion, it seems."

"I can have discretion, when it's necessary," Draco disagreed. "For the moment, it truly isn't necessary. After all, there's only you and me..." And those grey eyes took him in as he undressed, greedy in their wanton knowledge.

"Tell me again why I shouldn't throw you out of my bed?" Severus asked, shifting to sit forwards so he could remove his jacket and throw it towards a chair some feet away.

"Because your heart doesn't want you to," Draco replied, pressing his lips against the skin revealed at the side of the man's throat. "Because I worship you..."

"Worship?" He sneered that, twisting to catch Draco by the wrists. It was a smooth motion that pinned Draco down against the bed. Somewhere between them, the empty piece of obsidian landed.

The boy gasped, mouth suddenly trembling even as silver-grey eyes stared up at him challengingly. "Worship," he said the word again. "I have since I was eleven."

"Most boys idolize book characters. Am I a mere creation of your mind, Draco Malfoy? You'll be greatly disappointed when I fail to live up to your expectations." If he hadn't already failed to live up to them, he noted to himself.

"I'm not some sort of ridiculous Gryffindor," Draco answered stiffly, which was amusing considering the pressure Severus felt against his thigh. "I'm fully aware of the realities involved here."

"Are you?" He shifted his fingers, clutching tighter at his student's wrists -- student, Merlin, Draco was a student of his -- and then started to spread Draco's arms apart, ignoring that it was pushing pillows onto the floor. "Do you want me to make slow, tender... love to you, Draco?"

The boy's breath seemed to catch, and his legs momentarily tightened around Severus's knee where it was now pressed against Draco's thighs. "I don't think you want that," he decided, watching Severus with a look of blatant knowledge. "I think that would only come after true, thorough *fucking*."

"But do you even know what that's like...?" He leered down at Draco, still keeping his arms and thus the rest of him, firmly pinned to the bed.

"I daresay I'll find out," Draco replied, thrusting his hips up hard against Severus's.

The professor was glad he was still half-dressed; otherwise his will to make it last would've crumpled. As it was, his fingers twitched at Draco's wrists. "You've done this before," he guessed slyly at the boy.

"I've done a lot of things before," Draco agreed, wrapping his legs up and around Severus's thighs, his heels digging into them as he pressed himself upwards again.

Knowing that Draco had committed acts of sexual congress eased away Severus's last guilt. "That is good to know, Mister Malfoy." He dropped his own hips against Draco, pressing hard and fast so that their groins met and sparked with pleasure and a tinge of pain.

It dragged a moan of pure enjoyment from the boy beneath him, a fact that delighted Severus in many more ways than one. "Good," the blond managed to get out before he lifted his head and sought out Severus's lips.

Kissing made it more than *simple* sex, and Severus was hesitant for a moment before he shifted his head down a little, twisting so he could kiss the boy without his nose getting in the way. The motion of hip to hip, however, didn't stop. It was a steady roll that seemed to pave the way to more pleasure for them both, and the way that Draco moaned against his mouth swore to him that it would be good. There was no doubt now that the boy would be an enthusiastic lover.

He started to suck Draco's tongue into his mouth, savoring the way that Draco squirmed when he did it. The roll of their groins and thighs heightened, and Severus found the fingers of one hand slipping from Draco's wrists to his robes, intent on taking them off of him. They remained where he had held them even as Draco shuddered, delighted to have Severus pulling his clothing off of him.

"Do you like what you see?" the blond asked him huskily. "Your heart certainly did..."

Sleek, pale lines, a firm boy's body laid out for him as he parted school robes easily. Then he magicked them out of sight so he wouldn't have to face the Hogwarts crest when he bent down to bite one faintly perked nipple.

The sound of pure pleasure that gained him was a delight, Draco moaning loudly and flexing his entire body as if to gain more of it. "Oh, God, Professor," he groaned, trembling. "That feels..."

"Tell me how that feels," he demanded, stopping long enough to mumble his request against Draco's chest. "I want to hear everything."

"That feels so *GOOD*," Draco moaned, arching his back to press himself towards the man. "It will feel so good for you to fuck me... I've wanted, for so long..."

"You will wait a while longer," Severus moved to bite and twist the other nipple, savoring the slow torture he was inflicting on Draco by doing that.

"Fuck, yes!" The young man's delight was delicious, and the steady, frantic thrum of Severus's heart more than proved that Draco was right about his little stone. It *had* come to adore him. There wasn't much reason to not adore and want the boy. He was devious, sexy, and willing, all of which were a good start in Severus's opinion. He bit a little more, then started to kiss and suck a wandering line down Draco's chest.

"Oh, yes..." Draco sighed, and his hands came down to caress over Severus's shoulders, his entire body twisting with delight beneath those lips. "Yes..."

"You've been sucked off before?" As much as Severus hated to unpin Draco, he had to -- though his fingers fastened over the boy's waist, holding him down there as he loomed over a bobbing erection.

The feel of it, the *need* for it, made Draco gasp out an answer. "Yes!" Admittedly it had been Pansy, but that didn't make any difference, did it? Sucking was sucking.

"And yet you still have little idea what someone skilled can do." The gift of age, the only gift Severus could think of -- having both experience, and patience in bed. He smirked a bit to himself, a wicked curl of lip, before he let his tongue slip from his mouth to skate the tip of Draco's cock. It obviously affected the boy, making him moan and push up to meet Severus's mouth as if he wanted more.

Of *course* he wanted more; he was a boy, not quite an adult, and there was just something about oral sex that was completely irresistible at that age.

The appeal of putting something taboo into one's mouth. But Severus wasn't going to put it *into* his mouth just yet. He was going to toy with Draco, pinning his hips more against the mattress as he tongued the boy's foreskin. "Tell me... what you like, Draco. If you've done this before..."

"That!" Draco sighed, squirming beneath Severus's hands as if to push himself upward. It only resulted in him being held down to the mattress more tightly. "I want you to suck the head. Please."

Such a polite request. He decided to take pity on Draco and not follow it to the exact letter. Just slowly slipping his mouth down over Draco's cock, and sucking hard would be more pain than pleasure. But idle sucking, the press and lick of his tongue, now that would be pleasure. So slowly, Severus did kiss the tip, then duck his head until he could suck and lick just the head.

The way that the blond's body writhed beneath him, shuddering, thighs parted even as his knees turned back in to clutch at Severus, said much about his enjoyment. "Oh, yes," Draco managed to gasp out. That was better than anything Pansy could EVER imagine doing. "Oh, yes, oh, *yes*..."

The boy's legs clutched at him around the shoulders despite his best attempts to hold Draco still; pinning his waist couldn't control the rest of him, though. 'Yes yes yes' seemed a good affirmation of Draco liking what was being done. Perhaps a little more... Severus took in perhaps half an inch more, and then slipped one hand from Draco's waist to the base of his cock.

The reverent breath that left those pretty pink lips turned to a moan, one blissfully aware of what Severus was doing. "Please, sir," he begged, shuddering beneath the man's mouth with the sheer *wonder* of what Severus was doing. "Oh, God, please..."

Ah, desperation was what he'd been waiting for. He swallowed Draco then, down until his lips touched his fingers, tongue pressed up against the underside of Draco's cock until he pulled back to suck again before taking him in all the way. It was hard to tell how long it would take Draco to realize he wouldn't be able to come with the fingers wrapped tight around his cock.

He was muttering under his breath and rocking up to that touch, groaning from deep in his chest. "Please, sir. Oh, please, sir, please, please..." It felt so wonderful, that nearly expert sucking of his cock, and he wanted to come, but he wanted Severus to come as well.

Severus hadn't thought it was possible for such a lean chest to let loose such beautifully deep sounds of pleasure. He closed his eyes for a moment, listening with ears and his heart as he sucked, noting that he felt particularly... happy. Warm. Comfortable. And that it felt as if it were spreading. He sat up, taking his mouth off of Draco's cock. "I'm going to fuck you," he informed Draco, hands sliding up along the boy's body once more.

Draco nodded, mouth gone dry from the panting breaths. "That's what I want," he said hoarsely. "That's what I've wanted since first year. You're so magnificent..." Oh, and he was, standing at the front of a classroom with fury and pride in his eyes. "Please, sir..."

"On your stomach, now." His hands were moving to help turn Draco, to goad him into moving -- and as Draco did so, there was the fire he hadn't seen in the professor's eyes in many months. It wasn't a fleeting flash, but a low smoldering in dark pupils.

Draco was just as madly in love as he'd been the moment he'd seen Severus storm into the potions classroom.

He lifted his hips slightly to facilitate Severus's movements, a pillow stuffed beneath them to lift him up to the man easily. The crush of his cock into the feather thing made him sigh with pleasure and squirm for just a moment.

It wasn't half so pleasant a sensation as having lips wrapped tightly around it, but the anticipation of what it was heralding was so much better. Hands were dragging over his back, idle fingers almost gently exploring his spine -- or so it seemed until Severus slipped his pinkie into the wrinkle of muscle hidden between two firm cheeks.

The blond gasped and arched upward, eyes squeezed tightly shut. Oh, that was a bit much, wasn't it? But he wanted more, and he wanted more badly, and he knew that it got better very quickly. Draco gave a short writhe and settled that touch within himself.

"You're very sensitive," the head of Slytherin house observed, as he bent to press a kiss, and a faint bite, to the small of Draco's back. He held his hand still, for the moment. "Tell me you need lubrication."

"I n-need..." God, his voice was mangled with desire. "Lubrication. Make me wet, oh, Merlin, and fuck me, fuck me, sir, please, sir, I need..."

"Something you've never had before?" Almost too desperate. Draco seemed almost scared, and it made his heart thrum partly in concern, but mostly anticipation. He wanted it almost as badly as Draco did. "Stretch your legs apart."

Looking back over his shoulder, Draco obeyed, eyes momentarily scorching Severus with the sheer heat in them. "I need you to fuck me," he answered, offering the entirety of himself to the older man.

He twisted the finger he had in Draco then, pulling it back far enough to tickle a second finger at the edge, dry. And then Draco felt almost the splash of a tap turned quickly on and just as quickly off. The pinkie, and then the one beside it slid back in with sudden ease. "In time."

"In time!?" he gasped out, shuddering and pushing himself back on that touch. Oh, it was MUCH Better now. "In time, I'll fucking explode!"

"I'll tie a string around your cock." It was warmly more promise than it was threat, but as hard as Draco was, it *seemed* more threat than promise. Severus slipped his free hand between Draco's legs and the pillow, worming it there, and gave his new lover's cock a teasing tug. "Don't tempt me."

"I hope I'm tempting you to do more than that," Draco panted, tightening around Severus's fingers for a moment to tease at him. His own eyes closed and he buried his face in the sheets, moaning at the feel of it.

Two mere fingers, and he could feel the ripple when Draco squeezed. It seemed dizzyingly tight, and the boy did have a point... of sorts. With another kiss to Draco's back, he pulled the fingers back. "No more tempting, then."

The groan that Draco gave was a temptation all by itself, but the boy couldn't help it. Not when it felt so good, not when he wanted fucking desperately, not when Severus was *touching* him that way...

"Don't scream." It was all the warning he received, before both of Severus's hands slid down to his ass, spread apart his cheeks so that he could clearly see the press of his cockhead against Draco's wrinkled muscle. But that position was only held for a moment, before he leaned into it without hesitation.

Draco couldn't help screaming, but at least he muffled the sound in the bed, fingers clenching with the sudden fullness and almost pain. It hurt, it hurt, but it would get better. Oh, it would get so much better if he could just hold on for another moment...

Buried into Draco only halfway, Severus stopped the drive of his hips and moved his hands to clutch at the boy's hips. "Now," he panted, "tell me how that feels."

"Hurts..." It was almost whined out, such a sweet sound. The sound of spoiled brat was so deliciously rich in the way that Draco said it. "Please. Please, I want more..."

Hurts, followed quickly by 'want more' was particularly pleasing to his ears -- and yet neither could compare to Draco's shaking, ever so faint, the protest of his internal muscles against the intruder that was the older man's cock. And since Draco wanted more, he gave more by pushing in until his balls pressed against Draco's ass.

"Oh. Ohhh..." The whine was still there, but it was changing into something that was much more pleasure than it was anything else. "Oh, please, sir. Please sir, please, I want, I'll do anything, if you'll just..." Push it in past that place he'd scraped that Draco loved pushing against with his own fingers, if he'd just rock against it steady and *good*....

"Move?" Severus almost chuckled, as he drew his hips backwards before plunging forwards in a quick motion. He was still vaguely tempted to fuck the boy slowly, but he wanted it then, and there would be time for slow at a later date.

The yelp that Draco gave was delicious, and the way that he pushed back to meet Severus was even better. It was obvious that the boy wanted it, and even more obvious that he enjoyed it. "Oh, fuck, yes, fuck me, fuck..."

"Your father's hair would curl if he heard... uhn, *that* from your mouth." Severus did just what Draco was begging for -- thrust hard, so that his skin and his cock caressed Draco from entry to as far as it reached.

Draco didn't *care* what his father's hair would do; he just wanted more, and getting it made him whine softly, shuddering with pleasure under Severus's onslaught. "Please," he shuddered. "Oh, fucking MERLIN, yes!" It felt so good, and he couldn't help tightening in reaction, shuddering against Severus's motions.

"Never tell me 'no'," Severus purred, giving a particularly sharp snap of his hips that drove him to the hilt into Draco. Then he pulled back out just as quickly, calling into a pattern that drove Draco down into the pillow beneath him. The cries that corresponded to his motions were choked, quietly sobbed and broken with pleasure. There was no doubt of that, not when Severus reached around and found the boy's cock thrusting so hungrily against his fingers, the cushion supporting him, anything he could reach.

"Yes, sir!" Draco sobbed, slamming his hips back desperately to meet Severus's motion. "Oh, Merlin, fuck, fuck, I'm, I can't, I'm...!"

Completely at his control. Severus's fingers clutched, squeezed and jerked to wring the pants and stammers out of Draco's lips, the semen out of his cock. His own pants and strain towards completion were all but forgotten when he heard Draco's voice break on a sound of pleasure.

The boy clutched around him, spasming with satisfaction as he came against hand and bed. Draco's cry was incoherent, but so utterly *pleasing*, and he felt so good around Severus's flesh. He leaned into Draco then, hips driving in as hard as he could manage for the last few staggered thrusts. His own hand was half-crushed between Draco and the pillow and mattress, when he gave a last sensual grind of his hips against Draco's, trying to drag out the shuddering sensation of releasing into Draco's tight body.

The boy's breaths were still panting loosely from him by the time that Severus recovered and withdrew, a luscious motion of his entire body that made Draco shudder. "Oh, sir," he moaned. "Oh. Yes..."

Draco was turned over in the same smooth gesture that Severus used to wipe his palm clean on the pillow beneath Draco's hips. "You enjoyed it, then," he noted with a twinge of a pleased smirk.

"When can we do it again?" was the response that he'd hoped to get. "Soon?"

"Not this morning," came the scoff of noise, as he shifted to lay beside Draco in an almost artful sprawl.

"Perhaps tonight...?" His hand was creeping to caress across Severus's lower belly, teasing at him. "Perhaps all night?" Draco was a spoiled brat, and there was no denying that.

"Perhaps..." Severus twisted his head to peer at Draco, frowning a little to himself for a moment. "You're quite serious, aren't you?"

"Of course I'm serious," Draco agreed, slightly affronted. "I've wanted you since first year."

"No, about all night. I don't think you can keep it up for that long." He turned his head away then, lips curling up in wicked self-satisfaction as he closed his eyes to laze in bed a moment longer.

"I can keep it up longer if it means I get more of you." Draco seemed to know just what he was saying, and the way that Severus turned away gave the boy the opportunity to press his lips against the older man's throat.

"Stop that, I'm trying to rest." He didn't twitch or try to push Draco off of him, though, in clear contrast to his words. Draco's lips were soft and warm, perhaps a little chapped, but arousing. "I need to speak with the Headmaster..."

"You can speak with him later," the boy whispered into his ear, sucking at the lobe with delicious little pressures of his teeth.

It was a long time before Severus spoke to the Headmaster.

~~~~~

He could still feel his earlobe tingling when he walked the corridor that would take him to the Headmaster's office. Draco had found his one weak spot, twisted it sharply, and wrung at least one more erection out of him. And put it to wondrous use.

"Ahhh, Severus," Albus said from around a corner, nearly startling him clean out of his shoes. "You seem much more well-rested than you were when last I saw you."

"I slept the night through," Severus agreed. It was hard to not draw in shocked sucks of air, or gasp a little, but he set his jaw firm before speaking. "Once I managed to get my stone back. It's a simple piece of obsidian now."

"Ah, that's very good. I don't suppose you want to have young Mr. Malfoy expelled, then," Albus said seriously.

"No, Headmaster. He'll be serving detention for a few weeks, but he's simply a spoiled brat much as his father was." Severus glanced over to the gargoyle, and then moved to turn away. "Have a good day, Headmaster."

"Good day, Severus," the old man told him. "Oh, and Severus?"

Sudden tension settled in the muscles of his neck as he half-turned to look at the Headmaster. "Yes?"

"DO make sure that he occasionally gets back to his dorm in time for a bit of a nap before breakfast?" Dumbledore said lightly as he stepped into gargoyle's niche and the stairs began to rise.