Part Six of 'Their Phoenix'

[lomonaaeren]

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“We can’t prosecute him.”

Harry had been leaning back in the chair in Kingsley’s office, feeling contentment travel through him like warm water. He had been sure, after Mark Pepperfield told his story in stumbling words and didn’t even try to lie, that Kingsley would see the necessity of immediate prosecution. But those words went straight through him like a hot wire-a sensation that Ledbetter had introduced him to last week.

He must have heard wrong. Maybe Kingsley meant that the Ministry couldn’t prosecute Pepperfield, but the Wizengamot could. Harry took a deep breath. “Who can?”

Kingsley slowly shook his head. He was watching Harry with a concentrated sadness that Harry only now noticed-noticed because there it was so concentrated that Kingsley seemed to be hiding another emotion underneath it. But what? “No one can, Harry. No evidence of what he did exists.”

“Bollocks,” Harry said, loud enough that he almost startled himself. “He attacked Malfoy in front of a shop full of people! Maybe they won’t enjoy being called as witnesses, but we can call them. And there’s Pensieves, and-”

“You don’t understand.” Kingsley spoke with intense softness, too, which more or less forced Harry to shut up and listen. “You didn’t take Malfoy to St. Mungo’s. By your own admission, he doesn’t have a mark on him. And Pepperfield’s story will seem to be a lie if you show that he wasn’t actually affected by the Scalding Arch Curse.”

“Then we can take him to St. Mungo’s!” Harry stood up, running a hand through his hair. He didn’t remember being this frustrated since he was trying to figure out the clues to the Deathly Hallows that Dumbledore had left him. “Honestly, sir, do you really think we should just leave Pepperfield to go free and brag that one can do whatever one wants to to an exonerated Death Eater and get away with it?”

“Taking Malfoy to St. Mungo’s would expose the existence of the bonds,” Kingsley said firmly. “And that, we absolutely cannot do.”

Harry hesitated, thinking of the balance he’d fought so hard to maintain during the last months, giving the majority of his time to his friends and Ginny whilst sleeping in the same house as Malfoy and Snape. Then, not without regret, he demolished the whole structure in his mind. “I’d rather that people knew about it, and plagued me with requests for interviews and spread rumors about me, instead of trying to kill Malfoy and Snape,” he said.

“That’s impossible,” Kingsley repeated.

Harry stared hard at him. Kingsley looked back without flinching, which at least convinced Harry that it was a serious reason, whatever it was. “Suppose you tell me why it is,” he muttered at last.

“Sit down.”

Harry flushed as he realized that he’d acted like a schoolboy, rather than an Auror under the Minister’s employment, by marching up and down the way he’d done, and challenging Kingsley’s decisions. He took a deep breath and sank back into his chair. Yes, he would use the power of his name to do things like get the pardons, but he was trying to show that he didn’t think so well of himself as to try and upstage the entire Ministry’s structure.

“That’s better.” Kingsley leaned forwards. “You remember what I said about not allowing Malfoy and Snape to control you?”

“Of course.” Harry twitched restlessly, and forced his hands into position on the armrests of the chair. “But I don’t see how making the bonds public would allow them to control me. They still can’t hurt me through the magic the way I can hurt them-”

“I know that,” Kingsley said. “But you’re already the focus of publicity and controversy, Harry. Many people are declaring that you’ll be the best Auror in a hundred years, simply based on your record during the war. I don’t think anyone has ever been allowed to enter Auror training without sitting his NEWTS first.”

Harry nodded a cautious agreement. “I knew that, sir. I understand and appreciate the risk that you took by accepting me into the program, and I’d like to thank you again. But-”

“And that means,” Kingsley said quietly, “that we have to be extremely careful who you’re seen in public with. If someone knows that he can bring you charging into danger just by kidnapping or hurting Malfoy and Snape…imagine what would happen. The risk would increase exponentially beyond what it is simply by Aurors having families. Your friends the Weasleys still place themselves in danger by associating with you. But they’re not bonded to you, and they’re famous in their own right, so someone would be more likely to notice if one of them disappeared. Snape and Malfoy have almost no one who will aid them, let alone freely.” He waited, but Harry still glared at him, so he added gently, “I’m asking you not to talk about the bonds in public because it would mean that our best Auror, the one we’ve taken a chance on, and the one who’s coming to be seen as the face of the Ministry, whether he likes it or not, would be more at risk.”

Harry took a few deep breaths to calm himself down. You should have known this would happen. Politics don’t stop happening just because the war did, and you’re always going to be a political, and controversial, figure.

“None of that means you can’t punish Pepperfield,” he said. “He doesn’t know how hurt Draco is or was, and the people in the shop saw the original curse happen, not what he looked like afterwards.”

“How do you explain that you were the one charging to his rescue?” Kingsley asked.

Harry gave him an incredulous glance. “He was recently pardoned by the Ministry, and he’s known to be at a higher risk that other people. He couldn’t be carrying some device that would let off a warning call to the Aurors when he was hurt by Dark Arts? And I couldn’t happen to be the Auror that responded? And that’s another thing,” he added. “You ought to prosecute Pepperfield for use of Dark Arts, too.”

Kingsley nodded slowly. “That’s a good idea, actually, Harry. We’ll start manufacturing those devices and issuing them as soon as possible, to make the lie truth. And it wouldn’t involve a word about the bond.” He smiled at Harry. “I’m glad that you’re taking this so well.”

Harry smiled back, but in the back of his head, a small discontent gnawed itself a place and lay down to brood.

I’m not going to forget that you didn’t think of this solution yourself, that you were perfectly willing to sacrifice Draco and let someone who hurt him walk away because of the way it might have impacted me. Draco and Snape have even fewer friends than I thought. Their lives don’t really matter to you except in an abstract way.

Maybe that’s another reason I have to be their champion.

*

“Potter.”

“Snape.” The boy’s tone was not snappish, at least, though he nodded briskly to him with a dark scowl on his face. Then he turned to the door and gestured with his wand. Severus tensed without meaning to. Usually, Potter carried his books with him. That he was bringing something else in behind him probably indicated the arrival of an idiotic friend.

Instead, what floated in was a tray covered with a delicious-smelling array of platters. Severus licked his lips before he could stop himself. “What is that?”

“A meal from a restaurant that just opened in Diagon Alley.” Potter shrugged, and his eyes darted away from Severus. “The restaurant’s called the Blue Moon. Draco mentioned that he wanted to eat there, but he doubted they would accept a former Death Eater among their clients, since the owner’s Muggleborn. So I got some food from it and brought it here so that we could share.” He was glaring at Severus again by the end of it, as if he expected him to jump up and start checking the food for poisons.

Severus cleared his throat. “And you and Draco will take it to his rooms to share, I suppose?” An aching jealousy filled him-he had not spent much time with Draco today-but just for a moment. He had never intended to have Draco exclusively to himself, after all; he had envisioned a triangular relationship from the beginning.

“What?” Potter stared at him. “Of course not. It’s for all of us to share.”

Severus stared back in confusion.

Potter gave a colossal sigh, as if Severus was the one who regularly screwed up simple potions. Then he faced him and folded his arms across his chest as if he wanted to prevent Severus from looking too closely at his internal organs. “Look, Snape,” he said. “I don’t like you. You don’t like me. But we both like Draco.” He looked uncertain for a moment, maybe wishing he’d chosen some other word for his own feelings, but soldiered on. “I don’t think it’s fair that he should have to choose between us when we’re both here, and it would be stupid to shut you out when you’ve probably been brewing potions all day instead of talking to him. So we’ll all eat down here.” He turned away and marched into the small kitchen, the platter of food accompanying him, as if he considered the subject closed.

Severus laid down his book slowly, watching Potter’s back as long as it was in sight. Then he stood and turned up the stairs to call Draco down. He felt very much as if he were in a dream.

Potter is acting-like an adult.

Severus remained silent throughout dinner, which was an excellent array of salads, sliced fruits, lightly toasted bread soaked with butter, and three whole roasted chickens; the Blue Moon appeared to have gone to the extreme in order to please the Boy-Who-Lived. He ate and savored the meat that hardly touched his tongue before it dissolved, as well as fresh blueberries that he hadn’t eaten in too many years, but his eyes were on Potter and Draco, involved in an animated discussion of Quidditch. Draco’s face was flushed, and he smiled continually, when he wasn’t scowling. Once, the conversation nearly became an argument, as Potter rose, with his hands in fists, to defend the honor of the Chudley Cannons.

Then Draco asked him to think seriously about the team’s chances of winning their next game, and Potter paused, rolled his eyes, and sat down again. From that moment forwards, the talk proceeded more smoothly.

And Potter, though he glanced uneasily at Severus most of the time when he deigned to notice him, was unfailingly polite when he passed him the fruit or the bread. He did go out of his way to avoid letting their fingers touch, but Severus was rather inclined to regard that as a hopeful sign than otherwise.

When the evening ended and Potter vanished into his own rooms, Draco turned to Severus with a glowing face. “He said that he’ll take us to look at houses in Hogsmeade tomorrow. On the outskirts of Hogsmeade, so that we can have some privacy,” he added quickly. “But can you believe it, Severus?”

Severus spent a moment thinking. His whirling thoughts contained the conversation Potter and Draco had had yesterday, the outrage Potter had displayed over the Scalding Arch Curse, and the fact that Potter had very carefully mentioned nothing about the Pepperfield boy who had attacked Draco.

“Yes,” he said. “I think I can.”

*

“You’re willingly spending a Saturday in Malfoy and Snape’s company?” Hermione raised an eyebrow as she pointed at Harry with a piece of toast. “I’m amazed.”

“Shut up, I can do nice things for other people, sometimes,” Harry muttered as he ran a hand through his hair. He’d half-promised Ginny they would go shopping for Christmas presents today, but luckily Ginny had said she would probably be busy helping her mother decorate the Burrow, and the promise wasn’t firm. “And right now, I feel like being nice to them.”

“Are you going to spend part of Christmas with them?” Hermione asked in a far too innocent tone. Harry glared at her, but she had a book up as a convenient shield. Uneasily, Harry noticed the title: Bonds and Accidental Magic.

“Of course not,” Harry said. “I mean-they’d want to be alone. And I already told Mrs. Weasley that I’d be over here.”

“Why not bring them?” Butter wouldn’t have melted in Hermione’s mouth, from the way she spoke.

Harry snorted before he could stop himself, in sheer incredulity. Then he rolled his eyes. The impact of the gesture was lost because Hermione still had the book up, but that didn’t stop him from making it. “Oh, yes, Hermione, I can see it now. Malfoy making polite conversation with Bill about the scars he caused by letting Greyback into the school. Snape doing his best to control his sneer as he listens to Mr. Weasley talk about Muggle things. Both of them seated around the table-oh, my God.” That vision was actually horrible enough to make Harry shudder. He shook his head. “It would never work.”

Hermione sighed and lowered her book. “I’m worried about you, Harry,” she said, and from the way she looked down and traced a finger over the table and whispered, Harry knew it was the truth. The amusement she’d shown a moment ago was gone as though it had never existed. “It’s not good for you to keep the two halves of your life separate like this.”

Harry tried to smile, though he had the feeling it didn’t reach his eyes. “You think my life is only divided in two? Your fractions are all wrong, Hermione. I’m Harry the Hero, and Harry the Trainee Auror, and Harry the Boyfriend, and Harry the Friend, and-”

“You know what I mean.” Hermione glared at him.

“When you express yourself that badly, I don’t have to listen.” Harry snatched up an apple from the bowl of fruit Mrs. Weasley kept in the middle of the table and grinned at her.

“Bollocks,” Hermione snapped, which made Harry’s mouth fall open in surprise. “It’s just-I’m getting worried about the way you ignore Snape and Malfoy.” She shoved her book across the table at him.

Harry looked down, resigned to more paragraphs of dense magical theory that he wouldn’t understand.

To his surprise, this was by far the most readable of the books Hermione had shown him, though still dry. And it was the first one that had said anything specifically about accidental magic. He sat down as he read on.

Bonds created by accidental magic are among the most unpredictable of bonds known to wizardkind. Each forms in unique circumstances, and therefore their purposes are hard to grasp. However, certain useful generalizations can be drawn from the many cases summarized in the first half of this book:

One. Accidental magical bonds are always powerful. They will strive to accomplish their purposes to the best of their ability, no matter what stands in their way.

Two. Accidental magical bonds seek optimization. It is not enough for them, say, to guarantee merely the physical safety of the members of the bond, should they be formed in circumstances that demand the saving of a life. (See the case of Eva and Frederich M. earlier in this volume, in which the father wished desperately for his daughter to recover from a fatal case of dragonpox). They will work towards other forms of safety, so that the protected ones will not fall victim to mental illness, either, or wounds that would kill others. Likewise, those bonds that thrive on affection will seek to establish more than one kind of affection.

Three. Accidental magical bonds are prevalent. They inevitably become the center of the bondmates’ lives; the bonded are the most important people in the world to each other. This can become problematic when, say, a child bonded to a parent grows up, and prevent normal relationships being formed with others.

Harry looked up slowly, blinking. Hermione met his eyes and spoke quietly. “It’s the last part that I’m most worried about, Harry. I don’t want to see you tugged away from us by this bond. I think it would be a better idea to integrate Snape and Malfoy into the rest of your life, so you don’t feel you have to choose between them and us.” Her face softened. “Especially because, if the book is right, they would win.”

Harry sat down and wiped his hand across his mouth. Then he closed his eyes and buried his head between his hands. “I feel like I’m going to throw up,” he whispered.

There was a loud gasp, and Hermione conjured a basin and thrust it towards him. Harry held it under his mouth and breathed as hard as he could through the thick bile rising in his throat. When the temptation passed, he looked up at Hermione and gave a shallow, jerky nod.

“Oh, Harry,” she said, reaching out to stroke his hair away from his forehead. My unmarked forehead, Harry thought, and tamped down a bubble of hysterical laughter, but just because my scar vanished doesn’t mean I’m free. “Why?”

“All my life,” Harry whispered, rubbing his fingers together, “I’ve had something hanging over my head. Something I had to pay attention to, something I couldn’t do anything about. Voldemort, the prophecy, the fact that I was a wizard, the fact that the Dursleys hated me-it was always something. I tried to accept them or get rid of them. And when I thought I had, here comes the bond. And there’s no escaping this, and there’s no accepting it.”

“I don’t think the last part is true,” Hermione whispered, taking his hand and squeezing. “I can understand why you don’t like being bonded to them against your will, but, Harry-maybe you’ll come to appreciate them like you appreciate Ron and me?”

“Not even you can sound very hopeful about that,” Harry noted wryly. He took a few more deep breaths. The moment of weakness was passing.

Merlin’s bloody balls. Anger surged up and pushed the nausea away. I hate it, but I’ll live with it. I hated the Dursleys, too, and most of the time I felt that living with them would never end. And I used to think that Voldemort would kill me, so I could never be free of him, either. But I adjusted to what the Dursleys did to me, and I adjusted to having Voldemort after me. I’ll adjust to this, too. I refuse to let it control my life.

He stood up. “Well,” he said, “I’m off to keep a promise.”

Hermione stood, and stared at him with something like hope in her eyes. “I was afraid that you wouldn’t do it after you learned about this,” she breathed.

“No.” Harry shook his head and gestured violently at the book. “That’s-that’s horrible, and I wish I didn’t know it, but I can’t let it influence the way I act towards Snape and Malfoy. In one way or the other,” he added, when Hermione’s eyes widened. “I can’t ignore them and hope everything goes the way I want it to, because people still hate them and will attack them. And it’s worth being friends with people I’ll have to live with. I’ve been in the opposite situation,” and he was thinking again of the Dursleys. “But I won’t abandon you for them, either.”

“There’s the other problematic part of what the book says,” Hermione said, sounding as if she were trying to break bad news to him gently.

“What’s that?” Harry tapped the side of his head, hoping that would still the whirring, and then grimaced at himself. It’s not worth throwing up over. Nothing is, except maybe that photograph of a baby mauled by a werewolf that Ledbetter showed to you the other day.

“That the bonds seek optimization,” said Hermione. “And that that’s particularly true of bonds that demand some degree of affection.” No wonder she’ll study law, Harry thought. Big words sound natural in her mouth already. “I can’t imagine a better candidate for that kind of bond than one that actually feeds on emotions. So you’ll probably become closer to Snape and Malfoy, and-and maybe they’ll want more of you than just friendship.” By the end, her face was bright red.

Harry stared at her, then snorted. “Good guess,” he said dryly, “except that they already have each other for that.”

Hermione blinked, then clapped a hand to her mouth. “You mean-they-the two of them?”

Harry nodded. “And I have Ginny,” he said. “So I don’t think the bond would demand something like that. Why would it? It already brought Snape and Malfoy together.” And I do have to try and be more polite to Snape, because Draco likes him, or loves him, and he seems not to do badly by Draco. “That ought to be enough for it.”

Hermione took a deep breath that seemed to blow most of the concern out of her. “Ought to be, but maybe won’t be,” she said. “Maybe you’ll become lovers with them, Harry.”

“Three people together is ridiculous,” Harry said. “I don’t care,” he added when Hermione opened her mouth to argue with him, “it just is. Maybe novels talk about that, but real people don’t work that way.” He was delighted to see a faint flush climb Hermione’s cheeks. I was right, and she is reading romance novels! She’d probably say it was “part of her education in wizarding culture” or some such. “And I won’t let worry over the bond make any difference to me. I’ll still treat them in a friendly manner, and I’ll still go out with Ginny. It ought to be possible.”

“Of course it should be,” said a bright voice from the kitchen doorway, and Ginny popped her head in. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

Harry smiled at her, but then her eyes flitted away from him, and he felt a little ache in his belly. Lately, something seemed to be bothering Ginny. But whenever Harry asked what it was, and offered to talk with her in private, she smiled bravely and insisted that nothing was wrong. Harry had at last given up asking.

I don’t want to lose her.

Maybe everything wasn’t perfect, maybe they sometimes argued and he sometimes had the feeling that she was staring over his shoulder at the wall and was bored with him, but so what? Whoever had said that any relationship was perfect? Maybe his parents’ marriage had been, but they’d only been together for four years before they died. He and Ginny had the rest of their lives to work out their problems.

“Of course it will be,” Harry said, and resolved to sound as bright and cheerful as she did. “I promised Snape and Malfoy I’d go look for a house in Hogsmeade with them, Gin. That’s all right, isn’t it?”

Ginny hesitated, looking at him. Then she whispered something. Harry, straining his ears, thought it was, “What would happen if I said no?”

But then another smile marched across her face, and she flipped her hair behind her shoulder. “’Course, Harry. I promised Mum I’d help her decorate, anyway.”

And then she turned and bounced out of the kitchen, leaving Harry staring after her. He glanced at Hermione, wondering if she would say something. “I think she’s upset,” he said. “But I’ve done everything I can think of to make her happy. What would work?”

Hermione put her hands over his. “If I knew that,” she said gently, “Ron and I would never argue again. The only thing I can say is: don’t ignore her. If she asks you to spend time with her that you haven’t promised to Snape and Malfoy, then spend it with her. Come for dinner as much as you can. Show that you appreciate her.”

“I’ll try,” Harry said. “I never was very good at that kind of thing.”

Then he remembered again that he had the rest of his life to get better at it, and smiled. He could actually set out to meet Snape and Draco again in a cheerful mood.

*

Draco narrowed his eyes. Maybe Harry, deeply involved in an argument with Severus over the merits of a house with a pre-prepared potions lab, didn’t notice, but Draco did.

All the eyes that followed them. All the muttering that chased them. The way that some people dared to look in a hostile way at Harry, as if he were somehow tainted just by being with Draco and Severus.

Draco suffered a momentary urge to flinch. There were more of these people than there were of the three of them. They might hurt him as badly as Pepperfield had, with the Scalding Arch Curse. Though Harry had healed the pain completely, Draco was still not fond of the memory of the few minutes he’d spent under it.

But then he remembered that if he flinched now he would be flinching all his life, when he entered considerably larger arenas than Hogsmeade-the way he wanted to. So he put up his head and walked on, his eyes focused straight ahead, not openly watching the envious and idiotic hordes. That would be granting them a dignity they didn’t deserve.

I have my life. I didn’t die at the Dark Lord’s hands. I won’t be a slave or a coward.

Harry shook his head at last, rolled his eyes, and said, “Fine, I’ll ask about one with a pre-prepared Potions lab, just to put a stop to your whinging,” and vanished into the house of the woman who knew all the properties for sale in Hogsmeade. Draco was surprised to see Severus look after him with a faint smile on his lips, instead of the deadly scowl that the “whining” comment once would have provoked.

Or maybe…not all that surprised.

Draco stepped close to Severus. “Have you noticed the hostility directed at us?” he murmured. “It might get worse if we live here.”

Severus glanced around with the air of an eagle being asked to notice crows. “Of course it will,” he said. “Briefly. Then they will see that their precious Chosen One is living with us, and they will have to reverse their opinions. I predict an equally brief period of mindless adulation and attempting to court our favor.” He sniffed. “And then they will settle back in mingled wonder and confusion, and we can lead something like a normal life.”

Draco laughed in spite of himself. “Have you thought about what you’d like to do for Christmas?” he asked, slipping an arm around Severus’s waist. That earned him more stares. Draco stared back at the rudest person, a woman with two children beside her, and she flushed and turned away at last. “Mother might welcome us to the Manor, now that I think about something other than Potter day and night.”

Severus slowly inclined his head. “A night in the Manor would be…acceptable.”

“Good.” Draco leaned his head on his shoulder so that he could murmur in Severus’s ear. Some things he was willing to commit to the censure of public opinion, and some he wasn’t. “I can’t wait until I can fuck you in my own bed. It’ll put paid to every one of my pale teenage fantasies. I never imagined anything like what you did to me last night.”

Someone would have to know Severus very well indeed to see that the dark fire burning in his eyes was pleasure, rather than contempt. He snorted a bit. Then he said, “I would also not be averse to further experiment. But please, Draco, spare me stories of your childhood. I saw more than enough of it to content me.”

Draco laughed, but not for long when he saw the subtle way Severus’s face stiffened. Severus still hated to be reminded of the age gap between them, Draco knew, and appeared to regard himself sometimes as if he were an old man preying on a child.

Draco didn’t understand that, frankly. He knew he would never fit in comfortably with someone of his own age. They were trying to bury their experiences during the war, or they hadn’t suffered like he had.

Draco wasn’t interested in doing that for the sake of some bright new summer of the future. The things that marked him had happened, and he would use the memories to strengthen himself and as a warning against ever becoming involved in anything like the Death Eaters again. He didn’t want to marry and have children, the way Pansy was already doing. He didn’t want to retreat into the safety of his family home and never come out again, the way Theodore had done. He didn’t want to flee to another country, like Blaise. Britain was his home, and he intended to make a stand there. Severus, and Harry in a lesser way-so far-were part of his life. Why deny them?

But one of the things that would make Britain a comfortable home was humoring Severus’s little fancies, so Draco stopped laughing and patted Severus’s shoulder. “I know,” he said. “I promise that I won’t make you relive any Potions classes.”

“Particularly not ones with Longbottom involved.” Severus shuddered, his voice sounding dipped in acid.

Draco leaned heavily against Severus, and he slipped an arm around Draco’s shoulders in response. Draco was still the one who had to initiate the kiss, however. Severus was oddly shy about demonstrating affection in public.

It took less than a moment before the incredulous, offended stares faded from his notice. Severus had improved at kissing in the weeks since they started sleeping together. He had a wonderful manner of filling Draco’s mouth with his tongue in a way that still allowed him to breathe and not choke.

Someone coughed, and Draco pulled away from Severus’s lips to look about. Harry, flushed and wearing a faint grin, stood politely looking away, whilst the bond surged with bright red fireflies of embarrassment. Draco licked his lips and thought about leaning in for another kiss, but Severus stepped stiffly away from him. Draco kept the arm around his waist, and raised his eyebrows at Harry.

“Yes?”

“Three houses have a pre-prepared potions lab, and the owners are looking into selling them.” Harry addressed the list he held more than the two of them. Luckily, he seemed to have overcome his mumbling habit. Draco refused to have a lover who mumbled. “One in the center of Hogsmeade, two on the outskirts-”

“The one in the center may be discarded,” Severus said, his voice cool. Draco closed his mouth, which he had opened to say the same thing.

Harry snapped his head up and stared at them incredulously. “Come on, Snape. Are you going to run away from your enemies forever? You should-”

“Living on a day-to-day basis with slighter protection than you have,” Severus said harshly, “and with, in the case of a house in the center of Hogsmeade, more neighbors, makes one consider many matters of simple practicality.”

Harry shifted his gaze to Draco, but Draco looked back and nodded. He intended to make people accept him-eventually. That was no reason to run stupid risks, as a house in the center of the village would be.

Harry rolled his eyes, but turned and led them away in silence. Draco and Severus followed, Severus walking slowly enough that Draco could keep his arm in place without effort.

The fools around them would not know how profound an interest and affection that bespoke. Draco would rejoice in his private knowledge.

*

From the moment he saw the second house, Severus knew this was the place.

It was two times larger than Spinner’s End, but not sprawling, not taking up space in the wasteful way that Malfoy Manor did. There were two rooms on the second floor fitted as bedrooms, and far enough apart that Potter need not be disturbed by the sound of Severus’s and Draco’s activities. A bathroom was off one bedroom, and Potter volunteered at once to move into the other. Severus wondered idly how much of that was due to Gryffindor nobility and how much to the fact that the bedroom at the front of the house had a large window, taking up more than half the eastern wall.

The first floor contained another bathroom, two rooms that the present owner appeared to be using as pure storage space and which might easily serve that function or as studies when they moved in, and a wood-paneled, empty room that Severus patrolled with an approving nod. He would never match Minerva’s skill in Transfiguration, but he knew enough to easily shape the walls into shelves; this would be the library.

The ground floor was the largest, and held a kitchen, two private eating and sitting areas, and a room with an odd tiled floor that appeared to have been used as an aviary in a circle beyond the entrance hall.

And the potions lab.

Severus opened the door with a reverent hand. The owner, who had gone to the Continent to seek better treatment for a war injury than St. Mungo’s could afford him, had of course taken all his ingredients with him, but Severus knew expert care when he saw it. The shelves were numerous and of varied kinds: flat and plain for boxes, covered with notches for vials, full of the round depressions that were best for stacking cauldrons. And the shelves were even of different materials. Severus approved. Not everyone knew that metal, stone, and wood were necessary for a lab because potions ingredients sometimes reacted badly to being placed in contact with one or the other.

The shelves were at eye level. Cabinets and cupboards crowded the walls at knee height, for the storing of ingredients used less often. They, too, were of metal, stone, and wood. And in the center of the immense room were a number of tables, including a Taylor Transfigured Jointing-Table, which Severus examined with slightly trembling fingers. The table could be sized appropriately at the tap of a wand, and had a “memory,” such that it would automatically Summon the last cauldron and ingredients one had worked with when used.

“The owner said that anything left in the house is for us,” Potter said.

Severus started. He had not heard Potter enter the room, and was unnerved to think that he might have been caught staring dreamily at the table. He turned around and tried to make his voice harsh in compensation. “You are sure of this?”

Potter leaned on the door of the potions lab, and his faint smile refused to waver, though he redistributed his weight when Severus moved a step closer to him, a step that could have been threatening. “I’m sure,” he said. “I asked Mrs. Redberry, and she gave me the instructions the owner left. He didn’t want to take a lot with him. It reminded him too much of his old life, he said.”

“He was a fool not to take this,” Severus said under his breath, and turned back to the Taylor Table, to see if another claim about it was true. Yes; a single brush of his wand from the wooden side to the stone side was enough to extend the wood or the stone in a long swathe, and then to transform it back again when the wand passed the other way.

Though he had not meant it to happen, Potter overheard him. “Yes, it looks like that from the way you’re regarding it, sir,” he said calmly. Neutrally.

Severus turned to regard him. That same neutrality had been behind everything Potter said to him this morning, even the arguments. He was moving as cautiously as possible in the way he treated Severus.

Whilst Severus reckoned that caution better than hostility, it was still not like his relationship with Draco or Potter’s friendliness with Draco, either of which he would have preferred. And it was clear that it would be up to him to change matters. Potter would not risk exposing himself to the ridicule he still thought Severus likely to heap upon him.

“My name is Severus,” he said, quietly but emphatically.

A wrinkle crossed Potter’s brow. “I know that, sir.”

Severus experienced actual physical pain from holding back the comment on Potter’s intelligence that rose to his lips. “I meant,” he said after a moment, “that you should call me by that name.”

He was unprepared for the way Potter’s eyes flashed and the bond heated like iron plunged into fire, his temper rising to the surface for the first time in several days. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “And then I suppose that you’ll call me by my first name, instead of choking on it? I know that you won’t,” he added bitterly, instead of allowing Severus to get a word in edgewise. “You enjoy the sound of my last name too much. It reminds you of my father and all your old injuries, and allows you to go on mumbling over them and chewing on them and brooding over them-”

Severus had done harder things than speaking the word he said next, in a low tone that undercut Potter’s blathering, but he could not remember them at the moment.

“Harry.”

Potter caught his breath, and stared at him, his words dying away into nothing. Then he narrowed his eyes. “That was just once,” he said.

“Harry. Harry. Harry,” Severus said, lightly, half-mockingly. “I could go on, but when one repeats a word so often, it tends to dissolve into nonsense,” he added. “And I do not want that to happen.”

He did not realize the impact that his last words would have on Potter until after he said them. Potter swallowed convulsively, eyes never leaving him. Severus stared back, fascinated in spite of himself. He thought he had lost the last chance of seeing eyes that color look at him with anything other than hatred after his seventh year.

Then Potter looked away, seeming to wrench himself free of Severus’s gaze with a physical effort, and nodded. “All right,” he said. “Severus. I reckon I can do that much,” he added in a choked tone, “for Draco’s sake.”

And he left the lab before Severus could reassure him that it was not only for Draco’s sake that he wished to hear the name.

It was then, standing alone in the potions lab of his new home as he had stood alone in the old one when he came to his epiphany about Potter needing genuine emotions from him, that he blinked, realizing what he had just done.

That was genuine. I didn’t calculate. I acted only on what I wanted, what I would like to have, and what I saw in Potter’s eyes.

For the first time in two decades, Severus had done something new to himself.

And, he thought as he braced himself with a hand on the Taylor Table, he could stand doing it more often.

*

Harry took a step outside the house and gulped in a deep breath of the cold winter air, hoping that would clear his head of the mist that seemed to have clouded it during the conversation with-Severus. That conversation had seemed awfully and solemnly important, instead of simply an agreement between two adults who probably should have agreed with each other a lot earlier.

For Draco’s sake.

But he said it wasn’t only for Draco’s sake.

Harry shook his head impatiently and moved a few steps away from the house, smiling faintly as he heard Draco’s whoop of joy from the study, or the room that would be the study. He’d probably discovered a hidden tunnel or something else of vast importance to a Slytherin.

It sounded important to him.

But I can’t allow it to be that important to me.

Harry paused, a new thought blowing through his head like the wind whirling snowflakes along beside him.

Why, though? Why would it really matter if-Severus, damn it-did care about whether you said his first name, instead of joking around and pretending to care?

Harry sighed. It doesn’t matter, not really. I’m letting something bother me that shouldn’t.

He dismissed the thought from his mind with a physical shove, and turned to more important matters. They would need to go back to Mrs. Redberry and negotiate the price of the house. The money would come mostly from Harry’s vaults, of course, probably the Black vaults, but he knew that-Severus-and Draco would insist on paying what they could. They would hate to be regarded as charity cases.

And then he would sneak back to Hogsmeade after he took Severus and Draco to Spinner’s End, so that he could find Christmas presents they might like. And a Christmas present from Ginny, which he had put off until the last because he wanted it to be special.

Severus and Draco’s gifts would be delivered by owl. Harry had decided he should do that much.

I’ll do a lot for them. But not everything. I don’t see how anyone could accuse me of ignoring or neglecting them or the bond if I give them part of my attention and not the whole.

There are other people in my life.

It was of one in particular-red-haired, bright-eyed, and hard to understand-that Harry was thinking as he wandered back into the house to the sound of Draco’s shout.

Part 7.