[From Litha to Lammas]: Dancing on a Volcano, Harry/Draco/Astoria, R, 2/3
Part One.
Title: Dancing on a Volcano
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Draco/Astoria, established Draco/Astoria
Content Notes: Angst, threesome, ignores the epilogue, violence, minor character death
Wordcount: This part 6300
Rating: R
Summary: Having Astoria Malfoy assigned as his Auror partner is certainly a surprise, but not an unpleasant one for Harry, it turns out. As he and Astoria learn to guard each other’s backs, save each other’s lives, and even spend ordinary days together, Harry discovers that he’s being invited into something fragile and rare…something that also involves Astoria’s husband, Draco.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “From Litha to Lammas” fics, being posted between the summer solstice and the first of August this year. It should have three parts.
Thank you for all the reviews!
Part Two
“We thought you’d prefer a private Healer coming here rather than transport to St. Mungo’s.”
It was the first thing Astoria had said when he woke up, and Harry supposed she’d taken his confused blinking as a sign that she had to explain why he was in a posh bedroom instead of hospital. He coughed and nodded, then glanced gingerly down. He sighed when he saw all his bones seemed to be back in the right place, although he had a hell of a star-shaped scar stretched across his chest.
“What did the Healer say about Draco?”
Astoria, whose face looked as if she had taken liquid exhaustion and smeared it all over it, blinked at him. “What?”
“Well, he was limping the last time I saw him.” Harry reached up and traced a hand over Astoria’s face before he thought of the consequences. “And you had a scratch here, but the Healer seems to have got that.”
“Yes,” Astoria whispered, sitting still under Harry’s touch for a long second. Harry cleared his throat and took his hand back. Astoria blinked and seemed to wake from a trance. “Yes,” she said, more strongly. “Draco’s fine. A slight wrench to his kneecap, nothing more.” She bit her lip and shook her head. “Do you realize that you saved all our lives, Harry?”
“You seemed to be holding your own.”
“We were almost exhausted because the shield was draining so much from us. We would have fallen when it did. And Draco’s parents are staying with us right now because they’re trying to reconcile with him.” Astoria blinked her eyes very fast, but Harry caught the glint of tears. “Not to mention the house-elves. I count them even if Draco’s parents don’t. Harry…I don’t know how we’re going to repay you.”
She sounded sincerely distressed. Harry shook his head irritably at her. “Getting me to the Healer can count as repayment, if you like.”
“It’s just…”
“I don’t want that kind of thing clouding the air between us,” Harry said firmly. “We’re still Auror partners, as far as I’m concerned. And you saved my life. I didn’t even know I had that wound. Too much adrenaline. And Draco’s parents weren’t directly in danger, and probably not the house-elves, either.”
“Are you dismissing my life?”
Harry turned his head to see Draco lounging against the open bedroom door. He blinked. He’d never had the chance to see desperate relief on Draco Malfoy’s face, but it didn’t make him look bad. At all.
Harry shut away inappropriate reactions and cleared his throat. “I am not. I’m just saying that you don’t need to carry away the burden of a debt. What happened to the wizards we fought?”
“All safely under custody in the Ministry. Along with the one who was in your house.” Draco’s mouth quirked a little. “Although they can’t wake that one up. A few people are angry about that.”
Harry snorted. “That’s what happens when I cast the Dreamless Sleep Spell high on adrenaline. I can go to the Ministry and wake him up when I’m cleared to leave the bed.” A glance at Astoria and Draco both showed that he probably wouldn’t be leaving the bed when he thought he was ready.
“There’s a version of the spell that matches the effect of the potion?”
Harry blinked at Draco. “Yes. You didn’t know it?” Now that he thought about it, he realized that was one of the spells Hermione had found in an obscure book somewhere and taught both him and Ron. Harry had just thought that people like the Malfoys would be some of the ones who had those obscure books around.
“No. I’ve never heard of it.” Draco hesitated. “Would you teach me?”
“Sure.”
Draco and Astoria exchanged another silent, speaking glance. Harry had no idea what that was all about. He tucked his hand under his side so he wouldn’t pick at the bandages and asked, “What can I have to eat?”
“The Healer was insistent about you eating as much as possible, to rebuild your strength, but also as slowly as possible.” Astoria eyed him. “So I thought we’d start with a small bowl of whatever you like best.”
“Treacle tart.”
“Not on the menu.”
“You’re a cruel, cruel woman,” Harry said, and sighed as a tray floated in with a bowl of steaming soup on it. At least it seemed to be a thick soup that smelled of several different kinds of vegetables, not just broth. He pushed himself up in the bed, and hissed as he felt the tug of the bandages and tight skin on his chest.
“You could have asked for help,” Draco said quietly as he waved his wand and Harry felt his arse leave the bed. He tried to concentrate on the feel of the magic, since this was a charm he’d never felt before, but it tingled along his skin and was gone the minute he was leaning against the pillows.
Harry shrugged, and hissed again. “I honestly forgot,” he said. “It doesn’t hurt much.” He ignored what seemed to be outraged glances from both of them as he dug into the soup. His muscles ached a little, but the soup, which probably had a potion mixed with it, was wonderfully filling. “Did those cloaks let them through the wards?”
“Yes,” Astoria said, after a moment in which she stared at Draco and he stared at her and then they shrugged simultaneously. Harry hid his smile in the bowl of the spoon. “But not only that. There’s someone who released the ward patterns to them.”
Harry choked on his soup. “Someone from the Ministry?” That was the only place it could be. Aurors and Auror trainees were required to register their ward patterns, which made it easier to slip through wards without breaking them, with the Ministry when they entered the program. As far as Harry knew, no one had ever released those patterns or been accused of doing so.
But he also couldn’t imagine that the paranoid Malfoys had let anyone else have their ward patterns, either.
“Yes.” Astoria sighed, and the exhaustion became prominent on her face again. “So we’re assigned to this case until further notice, at least once you’ve recovered. They did want us to come in and give testimony right away, but I told them that you couldn’t be moved, which is true. So they took my Pensieve memories and investigated the outside of the wards here and at your cottage.”
Harry nodded. Honestly, that was as useful as testimony right now, especially since he’d been so busy fighting that he hadn’t even noticed his chest getting half-caved-in. “You aren’t in any trouble, are you? No one thought you were the ones who wounded the Great Hero Harry Potter?’
“Maybe they would have thought that, but we’ve been partners long enough and worked well enough together that no one suggested it.”
“Good.” Harry finished the soup and looked around, hopeful that he might get treacle tart now. But Draco gave him a stern look and Levitated in a platter of small sandwiches that mostly seemed to be overflowing with slices of cheese.
Oh, well. Still good. The things the Malfoy house-elves made always were. Harry attacked them enthusiastically.
“My mother and father would very much like to meet with you.”
Harry glanced up with his mouth full, and swallowed when he saw the serious look on Draco’s face. “Is this about the busts? Because I refuse to either apologize for or replace those.”
Draco blinked, shocked out of his gloom. Then he half-laughed. “No. It’s about the life-debts they owe you.”
“I refuse.” Harry sipped from the glass of water that Astoria had silently put on the table near his elbow.
“I know you don’t like my parents much, Harry. But I can assure that you that my father would never-”
“No, I mean that I refuse to claim a life-debt from them. I didn’t come here to save them. I came here to save the two of you.” Harry let his glance encompass both Draco and Astoria. “My saving of their lives was only incidental. So they don’t owe me anything. And honestly, I’d rather that you stopped thinking you owe me anything, too. Debts are no basis for a friendship.”
Draco licked his lips. Astoria only looked thoughtful, but he still seemed shocked. “Is that what this is? A friendship?”
“Well, let me think.” Harry finished the last sandwich and leaned back again, still sipping from his water. “I saved your lives, Astoria’s saved mine, the two of you respected my privacy and made sure I didn’t die, we laughed and talked the other night easily enough, and I destroyed your ugly art. So what do you think, Draco?”
Draco blinked, and blinked again. Then he smiled helplessly, seeming pleased. “All right. No debts. And I’ll tell Mother and Father they don’t have to talk to you. Honestly, they weren’t looking forward to doing it anyway.”
“I do so hate to please your parents,” Harry said, with a dramatic sigh. “But I’ll have to live with it.”
*
“Mate!”
Ron came up and hugged him right in the middle of the Ministry. Harry blinked and clapped his back, shifting a little as he saw how people were staring at them. Then he felt how Ron was trembling, and wrapped his arms around him in return, no longer caring about the stares.
“Hey,” he said into Ron’s ear. “I’m all right. The Malfoys made sure of that.”
“I know, but when I heard-ugh.” Ron pulled back with a sigh and stared at him, then peered at the edge of the long bandage still in sight, reaching up past the top of Harry’s robe towards his collarbone. “How did that happen?”
“I still don’t know,” Harry admitted. “One of them got me during the fight, but I don’t remember which one. I was flying on adrenaline the whole time. And my robe only fell away enough to expose the wound while I was fighting the last of those grey-cloaked bastards, so I could have had it when I got to the Manor, or only after I got there.”
Ron shook his head. “Well, come on. They need you to wake up that one you put the Dreamless Sleep Spell on. They can’t do it.”
“You know the incantation,” Harry said curiously as they walked towards the lift that would take them to the holding cells. “Why couldn’t you?”
“Do you know how much power you put into that spell, you crazy prat? He’s breathing like he’s in a coma.”
Harry snorted, and punched Ron’s arm. He waited until they were in the lift and the whirring noise it made as it descended might cover the words to murmur, “You should know that someone in the Ministry released my ward patterns to the attackers. Astoria and Draco’s, too.”
Ron’s face jerked into a grimace. “Change ours. Right.”
Harry nodded, and they rode the rest of the way down in silence. He didn’t know that someone was spying on them in the lift, but he also didn’t want to take the chance.
*
“You were mad then, Harry. I just thought I ought to let you know.”
Harry laughed. He was leaning back on an insanely comfortable chair in the Malfoys’ best sitting room, with Draco across from him and Astoria in a chair between them that made the whole thing a half-circle. There was a delicate crystal goblet of Goldborne, which had the potency of Firewhisky but a smoother taste, in his hand, and they’d just had a dinner the Malfoy house-elves had made in honor of Harry being there.
And being fully back to work. Astoria had stopped acting like Harry needed her to shadow him everywhere, but she’d stood up from her desk that afternoon and looked at him with a raised eyebrow, and Harry didn’t need any more prompting to accept the invitation.
“It was the best option I had,” Harry protested, and took a small sip of Goldborne. He didn’t want to be too drunk to Apparate. “What was I best at? Flying. So I decided that I could outfly a dragon.”
“I thought you were going to die,” Astoria said. “I think I hid my head in Daphne’s robes most of the time.”
“Sorry,” Harry said. “I’ll try not to make you think I’m going to die so often in the future.”
“I’m sure everyone would appreciate that.” Draco set his own goblet aside on a small rosewood table and leaned forwards. “Now. I have to admit, I’m curious. You said you could teach me this Dreamless Sleep Spell?”
“Sure. It’s not complicated, just not known much outside this one book Hermione found, I think.” Harry drew his wand and stood up, glancing around. There wasn’t anything in here that would serve for a demonstration. “Can I use this on a portrait you don’t care much for?”
Draco blinked. “It affects portraits?”
“And werewolves, and house-elves, and all sorts,” Harry said with a nod. “But I don’t think Merle would forgive me if I used it on an elf here. He’d probably think I was trying to put a sock on them.”
Astoria hid her laughter with her hand. Harry gazed at her wistfully for a second and then told himself to stop it. He didn’t want to mess up either his friendship with the Malfoys or their Auror partnership with nonsense like that.
“Yes, this way,” Draco said, and led Harry back to the room of portraits in tarnished silver frames that Harry had seen the first time he visited. He zeroed in on a particularly unpleasant-looking woman who was muttering at him in what he thought was French.
“You swing your wand back and forth, right to left and back again,” Harry said, demonstrating. “You have to make it gentle, as if you’re barely holding onto your wand. And then…Somnium Profundum!”
The woman in the portrait fell asleep abruptly, her head lolling against the back of the chair she was sitting in. Harry chuckled and glanced at Draco, whose eyes were wide and fixed on him.
There was something familiar about that gaze, but Harry told himself that if even there was, it didn’t matter, because Draco was married.
“Think you can do it?” he asked, stepping back.
“What was that wand movement again?”
Harry repeated it, and Draco turned to face another portrait, this one of a man with silver hair who hadn’t deigned to speak. He narrowed his eyes when he looked at the two of them together, and gave a long, deep sneer.
“All right,” Draco said, and settled himself, and took a deep breath. And then he didn’t move or cast the spell.
“Draco? Are you all right?” Harry glanced around for Astoria and saw her standing in the doorway, but she didn’t move nearer or say anything, only raised a pointed eyebrow at him. Harry turned back to Draco. At least Astoria didn’t seem to think there was any reason to be concerned or intervene.
“Yes. I just-it’s been a long time since I cast magic that…” Draco hesitated, then continued, “That my father wouldn’t approve of.”
There were so many depths behind those words that, for a moment, Harry wasn’t sure what to do with them. But he ended up stepping up and standing behind Draco, his hand coming to rest gently on top of Draco’s. “It’ll be fine,” he murmured. “There must be a reason you chose this portrait, right? Think of that and not your father.”
“Yes.” Draco straightened his back. “He used to tell me when I was little that I would never amount to anything.”
Harry scowled at the portrait, who only offered another sneer. “Use that, then. Turn your anger into magic and use it to fuel the spell.”
Draco remained still for a moment, as though he still didn’t think he could. And then he gestured sharply at the portrait, casting the spell nonverbally. From the bunching of his muscles under Harry’s touch, though, Harry was sure that he was practically shouting the incantation in his mind.
The portrait had time to look surprised before he slumped over. Harry squeezed Draco’s hand and stepped back, glancing around to see that the other portraits’ occupants had studiously decided to look elsewhere.
Harry grinned and turned back to Draco. “Now you’ve done it. You’ve done magic that your father wouldn’t approve of.”
“Yes. Yes, I have.”
Draco’s smile was bright as his eyes rested on Harry, and so was Astoria’s.
*
“I just don’t understand why we haven’t found more evidence!” Astoria sat back from her desk and raked her hair out of her eyes. “Any unauthorized access to the ward patterns’ records should have been caught by the trap spells that are on the office they’re kept in. No one could have disabled those spells without destroying the walls they’re embedded in.”
Harry nodded slightly. “Which means the access wasn’t unauthorized.”
Astoria turned to him, her eyes widening. For a moment, her hand slid down her side to grip her wand. “You mean…”
“It has to be an Auror.”
Astoria’s eyes darted to the doorway. Harry flicked his own wand, keeping it down at his side below his desk, and Astoria sighed as she saw the web of charms he’d laid over the office to keep their conversation private, which lit up briefly like they’d been struck by lightning.
“I was afraid of that,” Astoria whispered. “Draco even suggested it. But I was sure that he was being paranoid.”
“Why?” Harry asked as gently as he could. “You know plenty of people still hate him, and you by association.” And there were people with fair reasons to hate the Malfoys, Harry had to admit, no matter that he was friends with them. But that didn’t justify giving a bunch of revenge-obsessed bastards the means to get through their wards.
“The Aurors let me into their ranks. Why would they do that if they just wanted to kill us?”
“I don’t think it’s the entire department,” Harry murmured. “All it takes is one person with a grudge. Believe me, I know.”
Astoria gave him a small smile and nodded. “You would.” She looked down at her hands. “So, what do we do about this?”
“How good are your house-elves at spying?”
Astoria gave him an utterly blank look. “You’re saying that we should…send house-elves to spy on these people?” She sounded uncertain.
Harry grinned. “What? Is that the kind of thing a pureblood would never come up with?”
“Yes, actually. Well, combine not thinking of it with the fact that most people just-assume that most pureblood houses have defenses up to keep out house-elves who don’t have permission to be there.”
“Do they?”
“It’s something Lucius added to the wards after you freed that elf of his. But it’s also as expensive as a prize-winning Abraxan, and has to be renewed every fifteen years. It wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of people didn’t renew those spells once they’ve been let lapse.” Now Astoria was grinning back at him. “And of course, if they aren’t purebloods, they’re less likely to think of house-elves at all, or have any who might report the movements of our house-elves.”
Harry nodded. At the moment, he had no idea who might have betrayed them. The Aurors who were recorded as accessing the archives of the ward patterns were all friends, comrades, or at least cordial, nodding acquaintances, with no grudges against either him or the Malfoys as far as he knew. But it did give them a list of names that they could work through.
“You have Merle, and Diana, and…who else? How many?”
“Five. We’ll have to be careful.”
“Very.” The last thing Harry wanted was another house-elf death on his conscience. “But I think we have a way to at least begin our investigations.”
“Yes.” Astoria eyed him contemplatively. “Do you have the wards on your house that keep out house-elves who don’t belong there?”
Harry laughed. “No. Hermione would murder me if I had a house-elf at all, so I never thought about it.”
“Then you’ll stay with us at the Manor behind our wards that do have that, won’t you? Just in case someone decides to employ the same techniques, or thinks to try using an elf as an agent.”
Harry hesitated. Astoria withdrew a little and bowed her head half an inch. “Of course, I should have thought about your privacy,” she murmured. “You could have your own bedroom in the Manor, in another wing, but I appreciate that’s not the same thing as having your own house.”
“I was thinking of your privacy, honestly. You and Draco have spent five nights of the last seven with me, not to mention how much time I was laid up in your house before that. Don’t you want time by yourselves?”
Astoria glanced up at him, her smile radiant. “If we do want that, Harry, we have no trouble telling you so. That’s the nice thing about my having taught Draco that I wasn’t going to tolerate his sulky little silences he got into the habit of using with his parents.”
Harry nodded. “All right. I’ll go home tonight and pack up the things I’ll need, then come to the Manor.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“You’re that sure that those bastards might attack me while I’m going there?”
“Might being the operative word,” Astoria murmured. “But I see no reason why I should chance losing my partner. And it’ll take less time with two of us to cast the packing spells.”
Harry didn’t think that, actually, but he was hardly about to refuse the company of someone this concerned about him. The concern was…nice. More than nice.
Draco and Astoria are both lucky, lucky gits.
*
“So let me get this straight.” Hermione’s voice was softly amused, and her face practically shone with it, even though the color was distorted by her head hovering in the green flames of the Floo. “You’re living with the Malfoys until further notice. Astoria went with you to make sure that everything was packed up properly. They’ve set up a whole schedule so that you don’t need to run into Mr. Malfoy One and Mrs. Malfoy One.”
“Astoria and Draco would probably really object to those descriptions,” Harry said mildly. He was lounging near the hearth, which Merle had cast Cushioning Charms on, all the while staring at Harry suspiciously. “I’m pretty sure they always think they’re Number One.”
Hermione rolled her eyes. “So, this is all in the name of protecting you?”
“They’re my friends, Hermione. And my Auror partner. Yeah, it’s kind of weird.” Harry rolled his neck and tried not to think about the fact that he was inside the house where Hermione had been tortured and Ollivander and Luna and Dean had been held prisoner. But then again, it wasn’t like Astoria and Draco were asking him to spend time in the cellars, and the room where they’d been taken by the Snatchers seemed to be sealed up behind large doors covered with enough spells that Harry didn’t think they were used at all regularly. “But they protected me when I got that wound, and they protected my privacy, and they feel like they owe me life-debts. I don’t think they’re going to harm me.”
“I’m not worried about that,” Hermione said, to Harry’s surprise. He’d thought she’d Flooed him to caution him. “I just wonder whether they’re looking for more than you want to give.”
“They haven’t asked me for money or to speak up for them in public, either.”
“Also not what I’m worried about.” Hermione sighed. “Ron shared a memory with me of the way Astoria looked at you when you walked back into the Ministry after being wounded. Do you think she’s going to ask you on a date?”
Harry spluttered. “Hermione. She’s married.”
“If Draco agreed…”
Harry shook his head. “I can’t really imagine either of them doing that.” He thought about the silent conversations he’d witnessed between them, how fondly Astoria spoke of Draco, how Draco would look at Astoria with a little glow of pride in his eyes when she was talking about some achievement of the past (and downplaying it, because she always did). “They have an enviable marriage. I’m glad they’ve found each other. I can’t imagine either of them wanting another lover.”
“Okay.” Hermione shrugged. “It just seemed strange to me, that’s all.”
“I am safer here behind the wards than I would be in my house. Especially given how easily that wizard with the grey cloak got past them.”
“That’s true.” Hermione’s eyes lingered for a moment on the bandages that Harry knew were still visible beneath his shirt. “All right. I’ll leave you alone. Have a good evening.” And the Floo winked out.
Harry stood up and made his way to bed, shaking his head a little on the way. Astoria seeing him as a potential lover? He should be so lucky.
*
Astoria held up her fist and unfolded her fingers one by one. One, two, three.
Harry nodded to her, and then together they crashed through the door of the warded enclave whose location they’d got from one of the captured wizards’ memories.
The door had been a small wooden one set into what appeared to be a blank face of rock on a mountain in Wales, and Harry and Astoria rolled straight into a half-maze of low dark tunnels with people running around in confusion. Grey cloaks were everywhere, but Harry raised the spell that would let him see magic, and that made them at least seventy-five percent less effective. And he had another spell up his sleeve, one that he would use if he had to.
Behind Astoria, the eight other Aurors assigned to this raid were pouring through. Harry heard a low incantation from in front of them, and smoke billowed towards them, blinding the glimpses they’d been getting of the enemies’ headquarters and, from the swearing one of his colleagues was doing, affecting consciousness or throats somehow.
Astoria snarled a spell Harry didn’t know, and the smoke flowed away from the middle of the tunnel, retreating to the sides. Harry nodded to her and made his way forwards, crouching. He narrowed his eyes as another suspicion came to him, one that he didn’t like.
Before he could pursue the thought too far, a rock crashed down in front of him. “Fall!” Harry called over his shoulder, and held Astoria back with one arm lifted in front of her.
Astoria eyed him. Harry grinned at her a little. Yes, she wasn’t the reckless Gryffindor here, but she had still almost been hit by a falling stone.
The tunnel in front of them filled quickly with the debris from half the ceiling and at least one of the walls. Harry, Astoria, and four of the others were kept busy for several minutes casting spells that would stabilize the stones and keep the dust at a minimum. The others were securing the door behind them as an escape route.
“Now what do we do?” complained Dawlish’s whiny voice. “They’re getting away while we stand here! And if we try to shift the rocks, we might bring the whole tunnel down on us.”
Harry decided that there was no point in keeping his spell in reserve anymore, although this wasn’t the purpose he’d originally thought to use it for. “I can do something about that,” he said, and walked up until he was right at the edge of the rockfall. For a moment, a sense-memory of the Chamber of Secrets consumed him so completely that he thought he smelled the musky scent of basilisk.
Harry shook that away, and raised his wand. “Hydrus!”
The magic that poured out of his wand looked like more smoke at first, and Harry heard a few Aurors muttering complaints under their breaths. But it quickly solidified into a blue snake that almost filled the tunnel in front of him, one with several gently swaying heads on necks as long as a giraffe’s. The hydra glanced back, multiple pairs of golden eyes fixed on him.
“Clear the way,” Harry told it.
The hydra turned and shot all seven heads towards the rockslide. In seconds, each pair of jaws was busy. Five of them lifted the stones out of the way, while two of them thrust up against the ceiling and held it there. That switched to three heads as more and more of the pile got cleared, with smaller stones rolling behind them for the Aurors to deal with and larger ones being spat out on the other side of the pile. Astoria was taking great glee in smashing the rolling rocks to splinters with her wand.
The pile was dealt with in far less time than it would have been otherwise, and Harry patted the hydra’s flank as he walked past it. The other Aurors followed him, although only Astoria looked easy about it.
“Damn Parselmouths,” Dawlish muttered, in a tone that made it clear he had meant to be heard.
Harry rolled his eyes, although he noticed that Astoria turned to glare at Dawlish. He nudged her with an elbow. They couldn’t afford dissension in the ranks right now. Astoria sniffed and took the lead.
They emerged into what was obviously the workshop, a larger space with scattered forges, complete with lumps of stone that looked like they were meant to stretch human skins. Harry squeezed Astoria’s hand as she stared at the ranks of skins tucked neatly into open cabinets. Astoria swallowed and nodded.
“I’m all right,” she murmured. And then she abruptly turned and tackled Harry, bearing him to the floor.
Harry controlled his impulse that would have made him strike back at her, staring upwards in time to see the riffle of the pendulum, previously invisible against the ceiling, that could have taken his head off. He grabbed Astoria around the shoulders and rolled with her, shielding her as spells struck from multiple sides of the cavern.
The grey-cloaked wizards had chosen to make their stand here. Despite the magical toll it would take, Harry raised his wand and called another hydra. They were going to need the help.
*
“So we know part of the reason they got away with it so long,” Draco muttered. He had a cup of Goldborne in his hand again. “They had help from the goblins.”
“Yeah.” Harry relaxed back in his chair and stretched his legs. He always felt more cramped after a day of paperwork than after a week of work in the field. And since they had apparently found the source of both the grey cloaks and the stronghold where their enemies-calling themselves the Shadowmasters, the dramatic berks-actually lived, he and Astoria had had nearly a full week of paperwork. Not to mention the interviews and their attendance at the interrogations. “I started worrying about that when I saw the size of the tunnels. Of course, the Shadowmasters,” and he snorted, “confirmed it, but that place wasn’t built for humans originally.”
Draco sighed. “Have you found out why?” He swirled his Goldborne and stared at it for a moment, as if he was seeing something exciting in its depth.
“Goblins don’t care about humans much, except as a source of wealth,” Astoria murmured, leaning on her elbow. She shot a tired smile at Draco. “Murders didn’t matter to them. The grey cloaks were a new source of investment, one that might stand to make them a great deal of money.”
“And if they did hear about the way the Shadowmasters were targeting Aurors, they wouldn’t have cared, either,” Harry added. “They have lots of reasons to hate the Ministry. And me.”
“Because you broke into the bank during the war and rode a dragon out.” Draco’s voice was flat.
“And he used hydras in the battle, too,” Astoria added musingly.
“I decided I was going to embrace being a Parselmouth after the war.” Harry waved a hand. He knew that Astoria and Draco didn’t really have a problem with it. “And the dragon was a happy coincidence. The only way we could escape with something we needed to defeat-” He peeked at Draco. “You-Know-Who.”
“Contrary to the rumors flying around from certain newspaper reporters, speaking his name doesn’t pain people with Dark Marks,” Draco said. “And I did decide that I was going to leave the past behind.” He took a deep breath and sat up.
“You’ve decided then?” Astoria asked. Suddenly there was nothing tired about her, even though she reacted to paperwork a lot like Harry did. Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes sparkled gently.
“Yes.” Draco stared at her, and then turned to face Harry.
Harry choked on the Goldborne he’d just sipped. This wasn’t about saying Voldemort’s name. This was about something far more important, something that involved him.
“Draco?” he whispered.
“Astoria and I love each other,” Draco said.
“I don’t doubt that.”
“But-we’ve been aware that you were intertwined in our magic since our marriage began,” Draco said in a low voice. His eyes didn’t shift from Harry, and Harry wondered how he could have thought Draco hesitant, even with his reluctance to cast magic at that smug portrait. “All the life-debts our family owed you, that you owed us. The fact that you defeated Voldemort, and I bore the Mark. And Astoria’s magical compatibility with you which was part of the reason she was assigned as your Auror partner. We used to discuss inviting you over for dinner and seducing you.”
Harry stared at them. He was aware his jaw was hanging open, and he doubtless looked less than attractive. But this was the one possibility he’d never thought about, even when he knew that he was attracted to both Draco and Astoria and saw the way they sometimes looked at him, or he thought they looked at him.
Not that one of them might have the other’s permission to seek out a lover-which he still couldn’t imagine-but that they might want him together.
“Really?” he whispered.
Draco half-smiled. “Yes. Of course, it went nowhere. We had our careers to think about, and dealing with my parents, and the rehabilitation of the Malfoy reputation. And we didn’t think you would be interested. We thought-well, I thought,” he added, as Astoria gave him a chiding look, “that you could be holding onto the past and never want to see us or be in the Manor again.”
Harry didn’t think he should tell them his conflicting thoughts about that, so he looked at Astoria. “And you’re on the same page?”
“I would have had no problem making it known if I wasn’t.”
Harry had to smile. That was true enough.
“You’ve saved my life now,” Astoria whispered. “Both our lives. All our lives, although I know you don’t like to think about that. And I do try not to think of it as a debt, because I know you don’t want me to, but that enmeshes you in our magic, Harry.” She licked her lips. “I don’t think Draco could have cast that spell to put the portrait to sleep without your magic being wrapped around ours.”
Harry paused, startled by the thought. Huh. Well, that was a thing.
“Is it just the magical compatibility, though?” he had to ask. “And the enmeshment, I suppose. You do want me, and not just because of the magic?”
“If you knew how many times I’ve touched myself thinking about you,” Astoria murmured.
Harry felt his face go incredibly red. But he glanced at Draco, and Draco smiled and dropped his eyes.
“I wasn’t brave enough to do the kind of wanking Astoria did. And I wasn’t sure until we really got to know you. But-yes. Harry.” Draco’s eyes shone at him. “You’re brave and you have a sense of humor and you’re a great listener and a great friend and you’re fit. So. Yes.”
Harry smiled helplessly. “This is pretty new to me,” he admitted. “I’d thought about you, but not that deeply. And I tried to dismiss it because I thought you’d never want me that way. Not as a couple. And I couldn’t stand the thought of coming between you in any way.”
Astoria propped her chin her on her hand and smiled at him. “I hope the thought of coming between us is different now.”
Harry had to laugh. “You’re going to kill me with blushing. But-yes. It has. It is. Let me…let me think about it.”
“Of course.” Astoria rose to her feet and glanced at Draco, and another of those silent communications passed between them. “But can I ask for a kiss?”
Harry felt his breath coming short as he stared at her, and saw her determination as she fought beside him and her smile when she watched him interact with the house-elves and the curve of her neck and the sweep of her glorious hair.
“Of course,” he echoed her.
Astoria stood and sauntered across the room towards him, very consciously rolling her hips and flashing him a wicked grin. Harry let himself look and feel openly for the first time, and by the time Astoria bent down to kiss him, he had the courage to open his mouth and extend his tongue for a taste of hers.
It was warm and thick and hotter than the Goldborne, and Harry shivered as she pulled away. “Think about it,” she advised him softly as she turned and left the room.
Harry glanced at Draco. Draco cleared his throat. “I’m not brave enough to ask for a kiss without knowing if you might change your mind,” he admitted. “But that was really fucking hot, Harry.” He let his gaze linger for a second on Harry’s groin, where his robes weren’t hiding his reaction, and then he stood up and followed Astoria.
Harry leaned back and swallowed the last of his wine. He did have to think. He didn’t want to make the wrong decision, or a hasty one, and this had been so unexpected.
But he was shivering, and it had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with desire.
Part Three.