Chapter 1

A/N: Many thanks to my two wonderful betas, Dreamy_Dragon and AngelMischa.

Warning: I fiddled a bit with the general flow of events and ignore some deaths described in DH to make this story work. Additionally, I've sent Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy to Azkaban. Please forgive me for taking this liberty – I still hope you will find the story enjoyable.

Chapter 1

"Are you awake?"

"No."

"Haha. Very funny. Well, I'm coming in, and I will switch the light on."

The door was pushed open, and a slim figure came into the dark room, carrying a tray with a bowl of soup, a mug of tea, and a treacle tart. It was a young man, and he approached the darkness without hesitation. He had done so several times before – the room was always dark, and the man inside never welcomed neither light nor his host's entry.

Draco Malfoy shivered under his clothes. Goose bumps ran up his arms when the door fell shut behind him and whilst his eyes adjusted to the absence of light. The man who inhabited the small room insisted on keeping the windows open all the time, and although it was summer, the weather was unfriendly outside. Nasty, rainy, and cold.

It perfectly resembled the mood inside the room.

"Lumos," the young man now muttered and put the tray on a small table next to a big old chair that stood beside he window. A small light emerged from his wand and showed blond hair, a pale, unhappy face, and dark rings under grey eyes. It was clearly a face that hadn't seen the sun for a while. Or a smile.

Thoughtfully, Draco had a quick look around. Yes, his... guest was up. As usual. And yes, the bed had not been slept in again. What a surprise. Of course the curtains were drawn closed, so only the wind found its way in but not the light. Never the light.

The man who sat in the old armchair was nothing more than a shadow in the dark room: black hair, black eyes, black trousers, and black shirt. His face was pale, though. And he completely ignored the young blond man standing next to him. Actually, he seemed to ignore his entire surroundings. He just sat in the chair that stood so close to the window.

Not that it made much sense, this chair standing there: there was no view to enjoy, and it was only colder there than in the rest of the room.

"Get out," the man's weak voice now murmured, the same voice that had denied being awake. "Get out and leave me alone."

"Not before you have eaten that soup," the younger man said, his worry well disguised by a bored tone in his voice. "You haven't eaten anything for two days. You either pick up that spoon, or I will spellbind you again and feed you. You didn't like it last time, so I leave the choice to you today."

A deep sigh emerged from the man who was sitting in the chair by the darkened window. This sigh said a lot: it spoke of pain and loneliness; it revealed despair and the deepest depression. "I'm not hungry," the man said and turned his head away from the light and the young man standing next to him.

Draco pulled a stool close with his foot and sat down. "You are never hungry, Snape," he stated tiredly. "Since I brought you here and you awoke in my house four weeks ago, you haven't been hungry. But that doesn't mean that I will let you starve to death. You know that." Draco picked up the bowl and the spoon and held it out to his former Potions master until the man in the chair gave in. Draco watched as Snape took them and began to eat, slowly forcing down each little bite.

Long before the bowl was empty, Snape handed it back and stared into nothingness once more. He didn't touch the tea and the tart.

This is getting on my nerves, Draco thought bitterly and went to open the curtains.

"Don't," Snape objected hoarsely. He even made the effort to lean forward so he could get up whenever Draco came too close to the windows and the curtains.

Draco turned to Snape. "You are too weak to stand for more than a moment. And if you jump at me, your wounds will tear open, you will start bleeding again, you will collapse, and I will have to carry you to bed and stitch you up once more. You will scream, I will hate it, and haven't we been there before?"

"Precisely," snapped Snape, barely sounding like himself. "So leave the damn curtains closed and get out." Leaning back into the depths of the chair, he was barely visible in this room full of shadows and the small light that emerged from Draco's wand. Just his hands and his face stark white against his black clothes. Hands too thin for a man his size, and a face too haggard for someone who was supposed to get better after having survived death so narrowly.

Despising the thought of causing Snape more pain than he already suffered from, Draco stepped away from the curtains. "A bit of light wouldn't do you any harm; it might even brighten your mood," he pointed out, but Snape didn't react.

Desperate to get a few more words out of the silent man, who seemed closer to death than to life now than he had been four weeks ago, Draco asked, "Why do you still insist in wearing this shirt, Snape?"

Again, no answer. Well, it wasn't a surprise, really. There were days when Snape didn't open his mouth at all, just as there were days when he didn't seem to sleep. Most days, actually. To Draco, who had been stuck in this house with Snape since he had taken the nearly dead man here, it seemed like an eternity already. Although Snape never asked for company, never got out of his room and managed to look after himself concerning his personal hygiene so that Draco didn't have to do more than bring him some soup every now and then. Still, sometimes the young man wished he wouldn't have found Snape. Or that Snape hadn't been alive.

Draco's eyes fell on Snape's chest, clearly visible beneath the ripped fabric of the torn shirt Snape insisted on wearing. He saw the long, deep, only half-healed wounds cast by Nagini, and it made him shudder despite the fact that he had regularly changed the dressing until only a few days ago. For some reason, the wounds healed badly, but Draco didn't dare to contact a Healer. No one knew they were here; even his direct neighbours considered the house abandoned.

Draco didn't know why Snape insisted on wearing the ripped and torn shirt, but when Snape didn't bother to answer him, Draco turned and picked up another shirt from the table that stood in the corner. It was black, it was Snape's size, it was made out of silk, and it was new. Not crumpled, not often-washed, not fading and certainly not damaged by snake fangs. "Your shirt needs a wash. And you know I can't perform a cleaning charm because it would mess up your wounds even more. Here, put that shirt on until I'm back with yours." But to himself, Draco thought, If this is a day like all the other days, he will give me that caricature of a shirt and sit here half naked, shivering, and with chattering teeth until I'm back.

He was right. With painfully slow movements, Snape unbuttoned the few buttons that were left on his shirt, shrugged out of the garment, and dropped it to the floor. As expected, he ignored the new silk shirt Draco held out to him .

"Give it another week or two, and you will have faded away, Snape," Draco said quietly, picking up the shirt.

"Fine with me," Snape whispered, wrapped his arms round his waist, pulled his legs up, and closed his eyes. He seemed deliberate to shut out the small bit of world that was left to him: the room, the dark curtains, and Draco, who was still standing in the doorframe.

Shaking his head sadly, the young man left, taking his wand with him and thus the light he knew was nothing less than a torment for Snape.

********************

Draco went downstairs and slumped on a chair in the small living room. Leaning his head back, he closed his eyes and thought back to the night he had found Snape.

*****************

Draco had managed to escape Harry's grip and was just about to sneak out of Hogwarts looking for his parents when he saw Granger running towards the matron, who was checking on a badly wounded Remus Lupin. He overheard the Mudblood telling Madam Pomfrey that Snape had been attacked by Voldemort's snake, that he was currently lying unconscious on the floor of the Shrieking Shack and that, although she had been able to still the bleeding, he needed help immediately if he weren't to die.

Granger had stated that Snape was unconscious, but the young man expected to find a corpse – no one survived an attack by Nagini. Wonder why the beast attacked him? he vaguely wondered whilst rushing on. Draco knew for certain that Snape was Voldemort's most devoted follower – but then, the snake was as mad as its master. And it didn't matter anyway. Draco only wanted to get Snape's body and bury him somewhere where no one would ever find the grave and desecrate it. It was the least he could do.

Snape was ice-cold – loss of blood, Draco guessed – but the big wounds in his neck and his shoulders were more or less healed. Guess the Mudblood has performed a stitching charm, Draco thought, close to a panic. That's why she wanted Pomfrey to check on him – well, I won't allow them to save his life only to take him to Azkaban afterwards, that's certain!

And Draco hadn't even told him that Voldemort had lost. He hadn't dared to, fearing it would kill Snape if he knew that twenty years of spying on Dumbledore had been in vain.

*****************

Snape's wounds didn't get better whatever Draco tried to support the healing process. The man had lost his will to live, and only because Draco blackmailed him every other day to eat at least a bit of soup, death hadn't found him yet.

The young man was close to a breakdown. And therefore, for the first time in over a month, he got up from his kitchen chair, left his house, warded and locked it, and got down to the local pub to get royally pissed. He didn't even bother to disguise himself – if anyone recognised him, at least this catastrophe would end.

Prompt Inspiring fic:

30. Remember these old fics where Snape was being portrayed as a closet sensualist? Now we know that he never was one – but maybe we can get him there. After a near miss with death, Severus is in bad shape physically and heavily depressed to boot. Draco feels the life debt he owes the man requires him to instill some joie de vivre in his former professor. And who better to introduce one to the pleasures of life – from fancy cuisine to fine clothing to good wines and better company – than a Malfoy? If you absolutely MUST, could be a slash, but I'd prefer a friendship fic. (Malfoy Matchmaker, maybe?)