FIC: There Is No Resurrection of the Dead (4/7)
Title: There Is No Resurrection of the Dead
Author: Xandra ( gypsyflame)
Pairings: Harry/Draco, Snape/Draco, Snape/Harry/Draco, slight Draco/OMCs
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: About 35,400
Warnings: EWE, drug abuse, self-harm, non-explicit masochism, voyeurism
Summary: Auror Harry Potter is hopelessly in love with his partner, Draco Malfoy. But just when it seems like they might take their relationship to the next level, Draco’s old lover reappears. Apparently, rumours of his death have been greatly exaggerated…
A/N 1: Betaed by fbowden. Flic, I cannot express how much I appreciate all the time and effort you put into this fic with me. Your sharp eye, your keen insights, your emotional support…I’m not exaggerating when I say this would never have been finished without you. Thank you.
A/N 2: Story title comes from 1 Corinthians 15:12- “Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?” Quote at the end of the fic comes from the same passage. Also, despite the opening scene, this is not a self-cutting, emo!Draco story, so please don’t let that deter you.
This fic is completed, but in the interest of not spamming people’s f-lists, I’ll be posting the chapters two a day, until the final chapter is posted on Thursday.
Knowing that Draco needed some time alone, Harry decided to leave him to his own devices for the rest of the day- after telling Kreacher to inform him immediately if Draco tried to leave, of course. Harry didn’t think he would, not after last night, but better to be safe than sorry.
Draco was holed up in the library, the only room at Grimmauld Place in which he felt truly comfortable. For his own part, Harry wandered around the house aimlessly. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had this much free time; there was always work to do or a mission to accomplish. He liked the feeling of having a purpose. This puttering about made him feel useless.
He could have looked up one of his friends, of course, but he didn’t want to leave Draco alone, and he didn’t think Draco was ready for any kind of socializing. Maybe he should invite Andromeda and Teddy over for tea. It had been a long time since he had seen his godson, and Draco might find the presence of his aunt and cousin comforting-
The doorbell rang. Harry frowned. Although the portrait of Mrs. Black had been removed years ago, none of his friends ever rang the doorbell. Actually, none of his friends ever came to the door at all. If they wanted to see him, they normally just Flooed in.
On guard now, Harry drew his wand and quietly made his way to the front door. He wasn’t worried about Draco, who was rather like Hermione in that few things could distract him from his reading. Harry cast a quick spell on the door that turned it into a one-way mirror: he would be able to see through it as if it were a window, but the person on the other side would continue to see a normal, solid door. When he saw who was on the other side, though, he sighed, put away his wand, and opened the door.
“Are you serious?” he said.
Snape glared at him. “Draco is not at home. This was the next most likely place to find him.”
“He doesn’t want to see you,” Harry said, although not cruelly.
“Then he can tell me that himself.” Snape pushed past Harry into the entrance hall.
Harry rolled his eyes. “Why don’t you come in?” he muttered, closing the front door.
“Where is he?”
“In the library, but-”
Snape immediately started for the stairs.
“You can’t just-” Harry began to protest to his retreating back, but Snape ignored him. Harry cursed. Thinking fast, he Apparated to the drawing room, which was next door to the library. He might not be able to stop Snape, but he could at least keep an eye on him.
He cast the same spell on the wall dividing the library and the drawing room that he had on the front door. The wall instantly became as clear as glass, and Harry could see Draco curled up in an armchair, an enormous book on his lap. Another spell created a one-sided conduit for sound. Now Harry could see and hear everything that went on in the library, without being seen or heard himself.
He didn’t feel at all guilty. With Draco as raw as he was right now, there were too many ways a meeting between him and Snape could go wrong. Draco could end up hurt. Hell, Snape could end up hurt. From his current vantage point, Harry would be able to ensure the safety of both without making them uncomfortable with his presence. If anything went wrong, he would be able to intervene right away.
Harry had just gotten both his spells in place when the sound of knocking came from the library door. Draco twitched impatiently; he hated to be interrupted when he was concentrating on something.
“You don’t have to knock, Potter,” he said without looking up from his book. “It’s your-”
Draco stopped speaking abruptly as the door opened, and slowly lifted his head.
When he saw Snape standing in the doorway, he leapt to his feet, sending the book tumbling to the floor. The two wizards stared at each other for a long moment- Draco in shock, Snape expressionless.
Finally, Draco said, “I can’t believe Potter let you in here.”
“I did not give him much of a choice.”
“Oh, please,” Draco scoffed. “He could easily have stopped you, if he’d tried.”
Harry’s heart gave a pleasant little lurch.
“That may be so,” Snape conceded, surprising both Draco and Harry. “He cares for you.”
Draco seemed uncomfortable. “We’re not children anymore. We’ve been through a lot together.”
“Yes. The bond created by multiple mutual life-debts is notoriously strong.”
Harry knew that to be true. Auror partners often had the close bond that came with working with the same person every day in life-threatening situations, and that bond was only intensified every time one partner saved the other’s life. In the five years that they had been partners, Harry and Draco had saved each other’s lives dozens of times.
Snape stepped into the library and shut the door behind him. Draco backed up a little. Snape definitely noticed, as evidenced by the tightening of his lips, but he chose to ignore it. “I never expected you to become an Auror.”
Draco went on the defensive. “It was the only way to repair the damage-”
“I was not criticizing your decision,” Snape interrupted him. “Far from it. I am…proud of you.”
Harry could see Draco’s right hand flexing, as if he was itching to grab his wand. “I’m twenty-five, not sixteen,” he said. “I’m not going to swoon because you approve of me.”
Snape raised his eyebrows. “You are still as ridiculously bloody difficult as you were at sixteen.”
“I’m choosing to take that as a compliment.”
Draco was wearing a cold, haughty expression that Harry had seen a million times before, but when Snape said, “Draco,” so softly that Harry could barely hear him, the mask shattered.
“Why didn’t you tell me what you were going to do?” Draco said, his voice breaking slightly. “Was it because you didn’t trust me? I never would have told anyone-”
“I know that,” Snape said. “It was not that I did not trust you, Draco. It was that I did not trust myself.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I knew that if I told you what I was planning, if I told you I was going to fake my own death and go into hiding, that you would want to come with me. You would have left your family, your friends, your future. For me.” Snape shook his head, as if he still couldn’t quite believe that anyone would care for him enough to do such a thing. “And I would not have been strong enough to deny you. I never have been.”
“Why would you want to deny me?”
“Because you deserved better!” Snape said harshly, and Draco blinked in surprise. In the drawing room, Harry sat down hard on the settee.
Snape took a few moments to collect himself. When he spoke again, his voice was low and strained and full of self-loathing. “You were only seventeen. You had your entire life in front of you. You deserved more than to be tied forever to a bitter, jaded man twenty years your senior. Eventually, you would have grown to resent me, and I would not have been able to bear that.”
If Snape had expected his confession to soften Draco, he was disappointed. Draco looked angrier than ever. “You are such an idiot. You always doubted what I felt for you. You never trusted me, not with anything that mattered. To you, I was always just a silly little boy with a crush. What did you think, that I’d grow out of it?”
Snape took another step closer. This time, Draco remained where he was. “I made a mistake,” Snape said. Harry could see how much it cost him to admit it.
Draco, however, was unimpressed. “Too bloody right, you made a mistake!”
“I know it has been difficult for you-”
“You don’t know anything,” Draco spat. “You think you know because you’ve watched me, spied on me. But you have no idea what it’s like inside my head.”
“Because I, of course, know nothing of self-hatred,” said Snape.
All of the fight seemed to go out of Draco then. He closed his eyes, looking defeated. Snape moved closer, barely more than an arm’s-length away. “You were not a masochist before my death,” he said.
Draco opened his eyes. “No. I wasn’t.”
Then Snape was right next to him, reaching out to caress his cheek. Draco took a sharp breath. “Don’t,” he said softly, but he didn’t pull away from the touch.
Snape grasped Draco’s chin, tilting his head up so he could look him in the eye. “You did the best you could, given the circumstances.”
“No, I didn’t,” Draco said. He lifted his hand to cover Snape’s. “Didn’t you miss me at all?” he asked brokenly, and Snape kissed him.
Harry knew he should stop watching. There was obviously no danger to either Draco or Snape anymore, and thus no reason for him to keep watching them. But he couldn’t make himself end the surveillance spells. There was always a chance that Draco would push Snape away, that Snape would try to force him…
His self-justifications sounded hollow even inside his own head. The truth of the matter was that he was watching the man he was in love with kiss someone else, and he couldn’t look away, no matter how painful it was.
Snape’s kiss was tentative at first, as if he was unsure how it would be received. When Draco let out a soft sigh and kissed him back, he moved more confidently, deepening the kiss and shifting his hands to rest lightly on Draco’s waist. Draco slid his hands through Snape’s hair.
Their kiss was soft and slow and familiar, and Harry wasn’t sure anything had ever hurt this much. Draco was the first to pull away. He looked into Snape’s eyes with an expression that Harry couldn’t decipher. Snape remained still. After a long moment, Draco’s grip on Snape’s hair tightened, and he pulled his head down for another kiss.
This one was rough and passionate, all teeth and tongue and roving hands, and Harry’s breath caught. Snape pulled Draco to him, hands moving to squeeze Draco’s arse. Draco slid easily into the tight embrace, his body twisting sinuously as he rubbed his hips against Snape’s.
Harry could feel his cock rising; he struggled to ignore it. But this kiss was so different from the first one- that one had been about love and regret and a thousand reasons why Harry would never get what he wanted, while this one was driven by pure lust. What man wouldn’t respond to such a scene?
Snape was kissing Draco’s throat now, sucking at the juncture of neck and shoulder, and Draco’s legs seemed to give out. Snape caught him and lowered them both to the floor. He undid the first few buttons of Draco’s shirt before giving a frustrated growl and ripping it open in one smooth movement, running his hands over Draco’s bare chest possessively. Draco arched into the touch.
Harry was gripping the edge of the settee so tightly his knuckles were white as he tried to keep from touching himself. This was the Draco from two nights ago, eyes dark and skin flushed in arousal, and it was the most gorgeous fucking thing Harry had ever seen. Even Snape, who wasn’t an attractive man by anyone’s standards, moved with an intensity that sent shivers down Harry’s spine.
Snape pinched Draco’s nipples roughly, and Draco’s hips jerked. He tugged at the shoulders of Snape’s robes. Snape got the message, shrugging out of the garment with impressive speed. He moved over Draco to kiss him again, grinding their hips together, and Draco pulled his shirt free of his waistband. He slid his hands along Snape’s sides.
Snape shuddered and broke the kiss, pulling away and sitting up on his knees so that he was straddling Draco. One touch to his shirt collar made all the shirt’s buttons fall open, and he tossed the shirt aside. His hands moved to the buckle of Draco’s belt, as deft and sure as they had always been when working on a potion, and soon Draco was completely naked, save for the torn shirt that framed his chest.
God. There was no way Harry was going to be able to keep his hands off himself. Draco was the very picture of debauchery- his hair disheveled, his lips kiss-swollen, his long legs sprawled open to display his cock, stiff and proud and glistening with precome. Snape appeared to be thinking along the same lines. He raked his eyes over Draco’s body, taking in every inch.
Harry had seen Snape lose control in anger more times than he cared to remember, but he had never seen him like this. His black eyes, normally so cold, were burning with heat, and his jerky movements were those of a man trying desperately to retain some semblance of self-control. It was surprisingly hot.
“Seven years,” Snape said hoarsely, and Harry’s cock jumped. It had never occurred to him that Snape’s voice might be considered arousing, but hearing it now, thick with lust and desperation, it absolutely was. Harry was so startled by his own reaction that he almost missed the rest of what Snape was saying. “Seven years watching you jump from bed to bed, when you should only have been in mine. Knowing you were letting other men kiss you, touch you, fuck you…”
He took hold of Draco’s cock and stroked it slowly as he spoke. Draco arched up against his hands. “Severus, please,” he said, his voice strained.
“I’m going to fuck you,” said Snape, working open his own belt buckle. “I am going to fuck you, and you are going to remember who you belong to.”
“Yes,” Draco hissed, spreading his legs further to accommodate Snape’s descent between them. “Yes.”
Snape didn’t even bother to remove his trousers, just pulled his cock out. Harry gaped. Snape was…big. Really, really big. Not freakishly so, but he definitely had the largest cock Harry had ever seen outside of pornography- long and thick and for a sudden fleeting moment, he wondered what it tasted like.
Harry’s breathing became fast and heavy. He had to touch himself, he had to, or any moment his balls were literally going to explode. Shoving his misgivings to the back of his mind, he fumbled with his own trousers and nearly shouted in relief when his hand finally closed around his cock.
He looked back at Draco and Snape. They were kissing again, their cocks rubbing against each other in a sticky slide as Snape groped for his wand in the pile of clothing. When he finally had it in his grasp, he pulled back. Draco let his arms fall to his sides. They stared at each other for a long, breathless moment.
“Tell me you want me,” Snape said.
“I do.” Draco took a deep, shuddering breath. “I want you.”
Snape’s grip tightened convulsively on his wand. He tapped it against Draco’s hip and muttered a spell that was unfamiliar to Harry but which he seriously hoped involved some kind of lubrication, because the next thing Snape did was drop his wand and sink himself balls-deep into Draco’s arse.
Draco made a strangled noise that was half scream and half moan. His hands scrabbled against the carpet, searching for something to hold on to, and he locked his legs tightly around Snape’s waist. Snape remained still for a moment, mouthing at the skin of Draco’s throat. Then he lifted his head to watch Draco’s face as he withdrew agonizingly slowly, inch by inch, before slamming back in with one quick, smooth thrust.
The gasping moan that Draco made went straight to Harry’s cock, making his hand move faster. If he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine that Draco had made that noise for him. But it was impossible to keep his eyes closed when he knew what was going on in the next room, impossible not to watch Snape’s slow, forceful thrusts and the way Draco writhed underneath him.
“Those other men,” Snape said in a rough voice, “they didn’t fuck you like this.”
“No,” Draco said. He touched Snape’s face lightly. “Nobody has ever made me feel the way you do.”
Harry tried to ignore the hurt such a simple statement caused. Instead, he concentrated on the way his hand felt on his cock, the way Draco looked while he was being fucked by someone who really cared about him. Later. He could think about it later.
Snape pulled out until only the head of his cock was still inside Draco. “I remember…” he muttered, and then changed his angle slightly before driving back inside.
Draco screamed, his head falling back and his shoulders arching up off the floor. Harry nearly came just at the sight of him.
Snape fell into a punishing rhythm, his thrusts hard and fast, hitting the same spot over and over again. Draco’s low, continuous moans sounded like sobs. He was gripping Snape’s arms so tightly that Snape was surely going to have bruises tomorrow.
“You belong to me,” Snape said softly.
“Yes,” Draco gasped. “Please. Oh, Merlin, Severus, please, I need-”
“I know what you need.”
Snape supported himself on one arm, using his other hand to wank Draco roughly. Draco only lasted a few more thrusts before he came, his entire body shaking as he cried out in pleasure.
After that, Harry couldn’t hold himself back anymore, and he stroked his cock once, twice more before coming harder than he ever had in his life. He slumped against the back of the settee, hand and trousers spattered with come, and watched dazedly as Snape’s thrusts lost their rhythm before he finally let out a low groan- the first such noise he had made the whole time- and collapsed on top of Draco.
For a few minutes, none of them moved. Then Draco spoke.
“Do you still love me?”
Snape looked Draco in the eye. “My entire life, I have never loved anything more.” Draco closed his eyes. Snape hesitated before saying, “Do you-”
“I still love you,” Draco said. He opened his eyes. “I don’t know if I can ever forgive you.”
“Perhaps you would be wise not to.”
“Perhaps you should let me be the one to decide that,” Draco said sharply.
Snape didn’t answer. He brushed a lock of Draco’s hair off his forehead, and that one tender gesture brought Harry crashing back down to reality. He was sitting on his drawing room couch, covered in his own come, having just wanked to the sight of Draco Malfoy and Severus Snape having sex. A Draco Malfoy and Severus Snape who had no idea Harry had been spying on them like an enormous pervert.
Harry ended the surveillance spells. He had never been more disgusted with himself, and he had done some pretty cringe-worthy things in his time. But this- betraying Draco this way, taking advantage of his trust- was by far the worst.
***
After cleaning himself up, Harry headed down to the kitchen and made some tea, his movements stiff and mechanical. He couldn’t take his mind off what he had just seen- not the sex, although that was sure to be burned into his memory forever- but what had come after it. For some reason he felt like it was a worse offense to have seen such a private, tender moment than to have watched them have sex. The betrayal was more personal. And he deserved every bit of pain that witnessing it had brought him.
He sat down at the kitchen table with his cup of tea and stared into it, wondering why he had bothered making it when he felt too nauseous to actually drink it. Maybe he had subconsciously hoped to find the ritual comforting. If so, his subconscious must be mightily disappointed.
The tea had gone lukewarm by the time a sound at the door made Harry look up. Draco was lounging against the doorway in that irritatingly blasé way of his, but his eyes were serious.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hi.” Harry gestured to the kettle still on the stove. “Tea?”
“No, thank you.” Draco came in and sat opposite him. “I…I appreciate everything you’ve done for me the past few days. I owe you a debt I can never repay.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” Harry said, offended by the very idea.
“I disagree.” Draco raised his hands to forestall Harry’s objections. “Let’s just leave it at that, okay?” He looked down at the table, his fingers tracing the knots in the wood. “I’m ready to go home.”
“Your back won’t be healed until tomorrow at the earliest-”
“Severus is coming with me.”
Harry’s entire body felt frozen, like he was trapped under an iced-over lake with no hope of coming up for air. “Oh.”
“I don’t know if I can ever trust him again, but I owe it to him to at least try.” Draco’s anxious expression begged Harry for reassurance.
“Of course,” he said numbly.
What about me? he shouted internally. What about what you said you owe me? But that was an irrational thought. Draco didn’t know how Harry truly felt. At most, he knew that Harry found him attractive, and that didn’t mean anything. Most people found Draco attractive.
“So, I’ll see you Monday?” Draco rose at Harry’s jerky nod and turned to leave.
Leave. Draco was leaving. He was going to walk out of Harry’s kitchen and into Snape’s arms and Harry would never, ever have another chance.
“I love you.”
Draco turned around with a puzzled frown. “Is this one of those Muggle partnership trust-building exercises that I never understand? Because-”
“No.” Harry stood, feeling like he might throw up any moment but determined to see this through. “I love you. I’m in love with you.”
Draco just stared at him as if he expected Harry to suddenly shout, “April Fool’s!”
Harry took a steadying breath. “It’s why Ginny and I broke up.”
“You broke up with Weasley because of me?” Draco said incredulously.
“Actually, she broke up with me because of you.”
Draco’s mouth worked open and shut for a few seconds before he said, “Could you possibly have found a worse time to tell me this?”
“Probably not,” Snape said from the doorway.
Draco and Harry both jumped, but Harry regained his composure more quickly. He lifted his chin and looked Snape directly in the eye.
“I’m sorry, sir, but this is something I have to say.”
He expected Snape to hex him, or at the very least launch into one of those furious tirades he was so good at, but Snape just leaned against the wall and gestured for him to continue. He didn’t even look angry. If anything, he looked…amused.
Unsettled by this strange reaction, Harry suddenly didn’t know what to say. Draco, too, gave Snape a baffled look before turning his attention back to Harry.
Looking at Draco, Harry was able to find the words he needed. “I know you don’t feel the same way, and that’s fine. I know you love Snape, and that’s…there’s nothing I can do about that. But I couldn’t let you leave without telling you the truth.”
Draco bit his lip. “Why aren’t you more upset about this?” he said to Snape.
He snorted. “Pardon me if I do not find myself threatened by Potter.”
“That’s not what I meant. You don’t even seem surprised.”
“I am not.” At Draco’s raised eyebrows, Snape sighed. “Five minutes in the same room as the pair of you, and anyone who is not blind, deaf, and dumb would know that Potter is in love with you. He is not exactly renowned for his subtlety.” He shot Harry a wicked smirk. “Everyone knows, Potter.”
Harry stared at him. He was lying. He had to be lying. He’d been so careful not to reveal his true feelings! There was no way.
Draco was looking at Snape with a growing expression of disgust. “You knew he was in love with me?” he said. “You knew he was in love with me- and you fucked me in his house?”
Snape’s expression clearly said, So what?, but he apparently had sense enough not to say it aloud.
Draco looked back and forth between them, shaking his head. “I can’t…I can’t deal with either one of you right now. I’m going to Blaise’s, and I’m going alone. Do not contact me. I will tell you when- if- I’m ready to talk to you.”
He Disapparated. Harry knew he couldn’t have left the house; Grimmauld Place was warded so that it was impossible to Apparate into and out of, although Apparition was possible once inside. Draco would have to Floo to Zabini’s. Harry briefly considered going after him, but knew that would be a horrible idea. Plus, he still had Snape to contend with. Snape, who no longer looked even remotely amused.
“Excellent work, Potter,” he sneered.
“You think this is my fault?”
“Draco is in a fragile state. The last thing he needs to hear are your insipid declarations of love.”
“Yeah, well, at least I didn’t pretend to be dead for seven years,” Harry retorted childishly.
Snape’s glare could have wilted flowers, but Harry refused to back down. He glared right back, tamping down on the sudden image that sprang to mind of Snape’s eyes hot with lust instead of anger. That was the last thing he needed in his head right now.
Realizing he wasn’t going to win this one, Snape made a disgusted noise and whirled around, storming out of the kitchen in a dramatic swirl of black robes that Harry rather envied. Once he heard the front door slam, Harry headed for the Floo.
His so-called friends had some explaining to do.
***
“Uncle Hawwy!”
Harry bent down and lifted his three-year-old goddaughter into his arms. “Hello, Rosie. How’s my best girl?”
She gave him a wet, smacking kiss on the cheek, and Harry immediately felt a little less upset. He looked over at Hermione, who was standing up from the spot on the living room floor where she’d been playing blocks with Rose.
“Harry! I thought we were having dinner tomorrow.”
“We are. I mean, we were.” He set Rose back down.
She looked around expectantly. “Where Dwaco?”
Harry winced.
“Hugo’s finally down,” Ron said as he walked into the room. He stopped short when he saw Harry. “Hey, mate! Didn’t know you were coming over.”
“I need to talk to you both,” Harry said.
Hermione noted the seriousness of his tone. “Rose, sweetheart, why don’t you go and play in your room?” When the little girl showed signs of wanting to protest, Hermione added, “You can have a biscuit afterwards.”
“Two bikkits.”
“All right,” Hermione sighed, and Rose scampered off triumphantly.
“Little negotiator, that one,” Ron said in a proud voice.
“What’s wrong, Harry?” Hermione asked.
Harry didn’t know any graceful way to ask what he needed to, so he just blurted it out. “Did you know I was in love with Draco?”
“Of course,” Hermione said.
“Who doesn’t?” said Ron.
Harry slumped onto the couch and cradled his head in his hands. “Oh, God.”
Hermione sat down next to him and touched his shoulder gently. “Did you…did you tell him?”
Harry nodded without looking up. Ron sat on his other side and clapped him on the back. “About time! You know, the lads in the MLE have a pool going about when you’d get the bollocks to tell Malfoy- er, not that I participated, or anything-”
“Ron.” Harry could hear the glare in Hermione’s voice. He lifted his head.
“Why didn’t you tell me I was being so bloody obvious?” he said. “All this time, I thought I was being so careful, and it turns out everyone in the fucking wizarding world was laughing at me behind my back!”
“Oh, Harry, it’s not like that,” Hermione said. “Nobody’s laughing at you, I swear.”
“At least not where any of your friends can hear them,” Ron added.
“Everyone thinks it’s rather sweet, actually.”
Ron snorted. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
“Well, I think it’s sweet,” Hermione sniffed.
“How long have you known?” Harry asked.
Ron and Hermione exchanged a quick glance, and Ron shrugged.
“All along,” said Hermione. “Ron and I saw it coming from a mile away. You were so upset when Robards assigned Draco as your partner. It was like sixth year all over again.”
Harry remembered that. He had been willing to testify at Draco’s trial to keep him out of Azkaban, but had felt that allowing Draco into the Auror training programme was going a bit too far. When he’d found out that Draco was going to be his new partner, he’d nearly exploded everything in Gawain Robards’ office. Then he’d spent the next few weeks convinced that Draco had some kind of ulterior motive, and trying to convince everyone else as well. He was still ashamed of how he’d acted back then.
“Then you went on that first mission, the one you still won’t talk about, and when you came back…it was like you were a different person, at least as far as Draco was concerned.” Hermione smiled in remembrance. “Suddenly you were calling him by his first name, and rhapsodizing about what a good Auror he was, and every five minutes it was ‘Draco says this’ and ‘Draco thinks that’.”
“We thought he’d cast Imperius or something,” Ron said frankly.
“Ron thought that. I was just glad you were finally getting along.”
That mission had been Harry’s first encounter with the Renegades- and the first time he’d started seeing Draco as who he had become, instead of who he had been in the past. He’d been reluctantly impressed with Draco’s skill throughout the entire operation, and when their cover was compromised, Draco had saved Harry’s life. Of course, he’d been completely snotty and sarcastic about it and had made everything about a hundred times more difficult than it really needed to be, but his intentions had been pure, and that was what mattered.
“At first, we thought you were just becoming friends, building a partnership,” Hermione continued. “But then we started noticing little things- the way you looked at him, the way you lit up whenever he came into a room, they way you would get so incredibly angry whenever he talked about his lovers. And eventually Ginny noticed, too.”
“I thought she was the only one who did,” Harry said. “I thought it was just because she knew how I acted when I felt like that about someone.”
“Well, at that point, it was still mostly a secret. Not many people knew. But after Ginny broke up with you, it was like you didn’t even bother trying to hide it anymore. Pretty soon, everyone who saw you two together picked up on it right away.”
Harry was horrified. “I didn’t know. I thought I was hiding it so well. Nobody ever said anything!”
“Like what?” Ron asked. “‘Sorry you’re in love with a guy who’s still in love with a dead man’? Come on.”
“You could at least have warned me I was making a total fool of myself!”
“There’s nothing foolish about being in love,” Hermione said firmly. “Nobody thinks any less of you for caring about Draco. In fact, I would say that a lot of people admire you for being so patient. That’s why you’ve never said anything, isn’t it? Because you were waiting for him to get over Snape?”
“Yeah.” Harry gave a bitter laugh. “And look how well that turned out.”
“So you finally told him,” Ron said. “Because Snape came back?”
“Because he told me he was going to give Snape another chance.” Harry raked his fingers through his hair, an old nervous habit. “I honestly didn’t mean to tell him. It just sort of…came out.”
“What happened?”
“Snape was there. I mean, I knew he was there, in the house, but I didn’t think he was actually standing there listening-”
“Snape heard you?” Hermione exclaimed.
“He heard everything.”
“But you still have all your limbs attached,” Ron pointed out.
“He wasn’t angry.” At their disbelieving looks, Harry said, “He already knew. He thought it was funny, like it was some kind of joke to him.”
“Oh, Harry, I’m so sorry.” Hermione squeezed his shoulder.
“That bastard,” Ron said. “He hasn’t changed at all.”
Hermione looked at him intently. “What did Draco do?”
“He left. He was so upset, Hermione.” Remembering Draco’s expression as he’d looked back and forth between Harry and Snape brought a fresh wave of pain and guilt crashing down on Harry. “I shouldn’t have told him. He was already in a bad place, with Snape and everything that happened last night, and I just made it a million times worse. God, I’m such a selfish idiot.”
“The last thing you are is selfish,” Hermione said, sounding indignant. “Although you do seem to have a flair for spectacularly bad timing.”
“Don’t I know it,” Harry sighed.
“He’ll come to his senses,” said Ron. “He’d have to be mad to choose Snape over you.”
“You don’t know him the way I do. Draco loves Snape more than anything. Look what he put himself through because he felt responsible for Snape’s death! And Snape may be a bastard, but I know he loves Draco.” Harry shook his head. “I have no right to come between them. It would be better for everyone if I just backed off.”
Hermione said softly, “It wouldn’t be better for you.”
She was right, of course. It would kill Harry to let Draco go. But it was the right thing to do.
Chapter Five
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