Part Twenty of 'Their Phoenix'

[lomonaaeren]

Title: Their Phoenix (20/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Threesome, Snape/Harry/Draco. (Harry and Draco do develop their own sexual relationship within the threesome). Some Harry/Ginny and Snape/Draco near the beginning of the story.
Rating: NC-17.
Warnings: Magical bonding, slash sex, violence, profanity, massive denial. Springing-from-DH AU; it starts deviating from the moment Voldemort confronts Snape in the Shrieking Shack.
Summary: AU. Voldemort has learned who the true master of the Elder Wand is, and he plans to kill Draco along with Snape. Harry is desperate to save them, because Dumbledore would have wanted him to. But with wild magic, Horcruxes, and Dark Marks all involved, Harry may have condemned all three of them to something worse than death.
Author’s Notes: This is One of Those Bonding Fics. It’s also One of Those Threesome Fics, and also One of Those Fics With Harry-in-Denial. If that sounds like what you’re looking for, then come right in. I’m sorry to say that I have absolutely no idea how long this will be, and it will also be irregularly updated, whenever I finish a major “part.”

Part One.

Thank you again for all the reviews!

I am sorry.

That was the only line in the letter, other than the signature that let him know it was from Kingsley. Harry blinked and turned the letter back and forth, then cast a few spells that Ledbetter had taught him which would let him see charmed writing. Surely there had to be some hidden message?

But he couldn’t find any. In the end, Harry sat on his bed and gnawed his lip and decided, tentatively, that maybe Kingsley was coming back to the right path at last. He had to realize that there was little more he could do now, when all his traps to try and force Draco and Severus into Azkaban had failed.

At least, Harry thought he had to realize it.

Maybe Draco or Severus would know better than he would. Severus, at least, had worked with Kingsley in the Order of the Phoenix, and seemed to have some personal knowledge of him. Harry stood up and opened the door of his bedroom, carrying his wand with him openly. If there was a hex on the paper that was meant to be triggered only when one of his bondmates touched it, he wanted to be ready to cast a countercurse immediately.

Only when he stepped into the corridor did he realize that Severus and Draco’s door was closed, with a shimmer of privacy spells about it that meant one specific thing.

Harry felt his ears heat up as he stared at the door. He meant to turn away and go immediately back into his room. Really, he did.

But he found himself remembering the afternoon when he had intruded on Severus and Draco, and the way that Draco’s skin had shone as he slept in Severus’s arms, and the way that Severus’s eyes had locked on him and narrowed in something like-

Something like invitation.

Harry shook his head and turned away in confusion, barely remembering to seal Kingsley’s letter back in its envelope and toss the envelope into his room before he left the house. His thoughts were running riot, and he could only hope that Severus and Draco were too involved in what they were doing to pay attention.

He hadn’t mistaken the invitation. He knew that. It had been one of the few times he had seen Severus with his barriers completely lowered.

But it didn’t make sense. He knew that Severus and Draco either had to be in love or something a lot like it. Harry couldn’t imagine Severus sleeping with someone he didn’t trust deeply or have complete control over. And it had become only too obvious in the last few months that he didn’t have complete control over Draco. So it had to be trust.

He was less sure of Draco’s motivation, but having seen the way he looked at Severus, he could accept trust, and confidence, and probably also love.

So they were together. They weren’t seamlessly together, the way that Harry had once pictured sharing his life with Ginny, without problems and without quarrels, but they were paired, and Harry didn’t see a place for himself in that.

They wanted him, but that desire had to fade because they were content in bed with each other. Yet they didn’t seem to agree. Instead, it sometimes seemed as if they wanted to cheat on each other with him, and Harry had problems with that. It was part of the reason he had been glad to find out that Cadell wanted to date him. It gave him an extra shield against any temptation that he might have to help Draco or Severus cheat on each other.

Because, as he knew from the heavy swirl of his blood and the half-erection between his legs right now, he desired Draco and Severus right back.

Harry shook his head and scribbled a note that he left on the table in the kitchen. His thoughts made no sense, and would inevitably end up getting all of them in trouble and muddying the bond. It was for the best that he had a boyfriend he could go to to help him with things like this.

*

Draco lay panting beside Severus, his eyes half-closed and his arm flung over Severus’s shoulder. His body ached, his thighs trembling from strain, his back twitching and flexing as though it still remembered the positions he had made it assume. But his mind was quiet, and he could think of little save stroking Severus’s stomach with first one finger and then another.

Severus stirred. “I marvel that you still have such coordination after a bout like that,” he said. His voice, Draco was pleased to note, was hoarse.

Draco smiled and buried his face against Severus’s neck so that he could feel the smile. “What’s the matter, old man? Did I wear you out?”

Severus tensed and then relaxed again, apparently too exhausted to move. “It would take more than the attentions of a single young lover to wear me out, Draco.”

“But what about two?” Draco reached out with his free hand and began to trace his fingertips slowly over Severus’s neck, a light touch that he knew drove him mad. He didn’t miss the slight shiver that ran from Severus’s body into his, and ducked his head to let Severus feel another smile. “What if we had Harry in bed with us? Would you consent to call yourself old and worn-out then?”

Severus rolled over before Draco realized that was what he was going to do, pinning Draco to the bed. It was a position that Draco had become very familiar with over the past few months, and he started panting automatically. Severus gave him a smug look, though you had to watch both his drooping eyelids and the slow widening of his smile to get the full effect. Draco knew that he would never have shown as much to someone else.

“If such a thing happened,” Severus murmured, pausing between words to lick a leisurely trail up the front of Draco’s right leg, “then I might think myself lucky and blessed. I might expect to understand and be understood, and find nearly as much intellectual as physical stimulation in the challenge. Nearly,” he added.

Draco smiled and opened his mouth to respond, and then shut it and rolled over, burying his face in the pillow. Severus paused, licked his leg once more, and withdrew.

“He may not be with him,” Severus said neutrally.

“When does he ever close the bond now, except when he’s with him?” Draco drove his hands into the pillow, picturing Harry and Caesarion entwined, and hating the picture. Caesarion had no right to touch Harry like that. Harry had no right to look so happy with anyone else. “I hate this, Severus. I know that he has to come to us of his own free will, but I want so much to simply smash Caesarion’s face in.” He rolled back over to look up at Severus. “Are you sure there’s no chance that he was involved with the attack on Harry?”

“I read his thoughts the next day,” Severus reminded him. This time, the hand he rubbed up and down Draco’s hip was soothing rather than arousing, or at least he meant it to be, from the soft black river that flowed through their bond. “He merely suspected something was wrong because Harry hadn’t shown up on time for their date. He knew nothing of the Aurors, or Shacklebolt, or the weapon that injured Harry.”

Draco nodded slowly. “I could bear this better if Caesarion was sly, or manipulative, or anything but innocent,” he said.

“I know.” Severus tangled his fingers in Draco’s hair, which calmed him and irritated him at the same time; he was remembering the way he had touched Harry when they rescued him from the Ministry. “We must simply put up with things and hope that Harry will not be too long in discovering that the boy can give him nothing but innocence.”

“I’m glad that you think he’s a boy and not a man.” Draco looped his arm around Severus’s neck. “Why does he want a boy and not two men?”

“Patience,” Severus said, and kissed him.

Aching legs or not, Draco rolled Severus over to have another go of it. He was going to show Harry bloody Potter that he wasn’t the only one who knew how to have fun, or sex.

*

“I have consulted with Mrs. Zabini, with the Greengrass family, and with several of my other allies over the list of names that you chose.” Swanfair was brisk today, as she had been since the day that she looked into Harry’s eyes and then began to talk about strength and weakness, taking a series of papers out of her robe pockets while she was still shedding her cloak. “All of them agree that she would be the best choice.”

“She?” Harry asked politely. He, Severus, Draco, and Hermione sat on the couch in the downstairs sitting room. Ron hovered behind them, scowling. Hermione had told him to stand there and look intimidating, and to refer any questions Swanfair might ask him to her. Ron looked annoyed about it, but Harry suspected he was secretly glad to have an excuse to keep out of the politics. Merlin knew that Harry would have liked to do the same.

“Her name is Estella Colben,” said Swanfair, and handed the series of papers to Harry, who placed them on the table in front of the couch. Swanfair raised an eyebrow, as much to say that she couldn’t do anything about it if he chose to share this information with other people, and sat down opposite him with a prim cross of her legs. “Young enough to be flexible-and malleable-but old enough to have gained some political respect. Open to your ideals and to ours, since she has a pure-blood father and a Muggleborn mother.”

Colben is the name of no family I recognize, Draco said into Harry’s head, his voice as prim as Swanfair’s stance.

Then why did you pick this candidate out of the list? Harry picked up the first paper and held it so that the others could see it. It showed a witch in her late thirties with brown skin, dark hair that she wore twisted on top of her head, and a direct gaze. Her eyes were blue-grey, which made her look a little like Sirius. Harry checked a sigh while Hermione said something approving about how she didn’t look pretentious.

She was one of Granger’s choices. Draco’s words stretched in Harry’s thoughts like an angry cat, while he sat still on the couch with a porcelain mask of perfect boredom. Harry worked hard not to glare. Draco had been abrupt and short with him ever since the rescue from the Ministry, and Harry couldn’t understand why. It wasn’t as though he had deliberately tried to put himself in danger. Besides, occasionally I am capable of judging someone by more than their last name.

Then you have no reason to complain about her being from no family you recognize, Harry snapped in silence, and turned away as Draco gave a wordless hiss at him. “What pure-blood ideals does she share?” he asked Swanfair, taking up the next paper. It was a copy of a Daily Prophet article that said Colben had helped to open an orphanage after the war, and a center for war-scattered families to find each other. The photograph to that one showed her standing in front of a building with a glittering stone façade and several children gathered around her. At least the children were smiling, Harry thought. She seemed to be incapable of it. “Was her father a Death Eater?”

“Neutral in the war,” Swanfair said with some relish. “I told you that she appeals to both sides, and a Death Eater could never appeal to someone like Mrs. Zabini.” She darted a sharp glance at Severus that amused Harry.

Does she think you want to become Minister? he asked Severus while he nodded to Swanfair. “That’s a beginning,” he said. “Have you approached her about it? Did she seem as though she would be enthusiastic about it at all? What sort of political talent does she have?”

She is not as intelligent as I thought she was, if she believes that.

“Yes, yes, and a moderate amount,” Swanfair said. “She will have to rely on advisers to make some of her decisions for her.” She produced a modest smile. “Luckily, she does know how to delegate.”

Harry had to sit and blink a moment so that he could sort out the answers to his questions, and then he nodded. “Does she actually have charisma in person? These pictures make her look as if she never smiles.”

“You remember that I told you about different kinds of strength?” Swanfair caught his eye and gave him a deep, meaningful look that Harry tried to counteract as well as he could with a bland expression. “Colben has strength of the stern kind. She is able to make insults look silly. She studies the issues before she is called upon to speak of them and expresses herself well when she does. One office she won’t need filled is that of people to write speeches for her. Other people can take up the duties of smiling for her and ensuring that the public likes her well enough.” She leaned back and divided a significant gaze between Harry and Draco.

“Besides,” Hermione added fussily, “you know that appeal to the public isn’t the most important thing anyway, Harry.”

Harry gave her a quick smile, and then squeezed her shoulder when he realized how anxious her eyes were. She probably does think that I’m being corrupted by all the Slytherin things that I have to do. “I know that,” he said. “But I know it’s important. I’m not going to pretend it’s not. And I don’t want us to choose a candidate that will just end up losing in the general election.”

Slowly, Hermione nodded. She still looked unhappy, but until she had proof that they were doing the wrong thing in supporting this Colben, Harry knew that she would cooperate.

“We have an excellent chance of winning, with this one,” Swanfair said. “Of course, just because the people I have asked have no objections does not mean that you will not.” She looked at them.

“I knew a Death Eater named Colben in the first war,” Severus murmured. “He did not last long before the Dark Lord killed him, but he was there.”

“A distant cousin on the mother’s side,” Swanfair said instantly. “As for why the Dark Lord killed him, we have evidence that he was seeking to spy on the Dark Lord for the sake of his family rather than serve the pure-blood cause wholeheartedly.”

“Evidence?” Draco asked.

Swanfair smiled again. “What looks enough like evidence to the untrained eye, and a tragic story that the Colbens were practiced in telling before we sought out Estella.”

Draco gave his first smile of the day, stiff and reluctant. Harry frowned at him, wishing there was some way he could open the bond between them without alerting Draco. He wanted to know what Draco was feeling, and since Draco turned his back on him whenever Harry approached, it seemed as though the bond was the best way to learn about it.

Except that that would feel like spying, and Draco would take it as a gesture of the kind Harry didn’t intend.

With a sigh, he turned back to Swanfair. “Has she ever done anything that anyone could think objectionable?” When Swanfair opened her mouth, an indignant expression on her face, Harry added hastily, “Not something that a sane person could think objectionable. But remember, not all the people we’re dealing with have the same sane standards that we do.”

Swanfair subsided with a faint chuckle, and then sat gazing at the far wall. “Nothing except remain neutral in the war with the Dark Lord,” she said at last. “And I would not think that would count with most of our audience, as many of them were ‘neutral’ themselves. Fleeing him was not the same as fighting him.”

“It still might be something they’d try to bring up,” Hermione said, and bent over a piece of parchment that she cradled on her knees, writing a few scratchy words with a quill. “So we’ll be ready for it.”

“A wise move,” said Swanfair, with the same strange expression on her face that Harry had seen her wearing every time she looked at Hermione, a mingling of respect and contempt. It seemed Swanfair hadn’t moved past her own blood prejudices. But as long as she didn’t allow those prejudices to control her actions, Harry saw no reason to try and harass her out of them. “Now, when Estella makes her announcement that she intends to run for Minister, I think it would be well to have all of you beside her. Mr. Potter for obvious reasons. Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger, because you show that she could appeal to Muggleborns and pure-bloods between you. Mr. Malfoy, to show that she has some appeal to the pure-bloods who are not blood traitors as well.” She ignored Ron’s spluttering to stare at Severus. “And you-I am not sure which group you could represent.”

“Is it not obvious?” Severus asked, in that smooth tone that always made Harry unsure of what he would do next. “Those who have been lost to the Dark Arts-temporarily. And then we realized that we could not live like that, and turned to the light.” He drew back his sleeve and showed the phoenix mark in flight towards his wrist. “Having the bond represented by a creature of light has proven convenient several times. I think it will prove useful again.”

Swanfair nodded, though her unwavering gaze on Severus made Harry think that wasn’t the answer she’d wanted to hear. “Yes. Very well. As long as you are prepared to give appropriate details about your experience in the war.”

Does she really think that Severus would disdain to do that? Harry thought incredulously. She’s underestimating him in both courage and discipline.

Severus gave him a narrow, pleased gaze that showed he might have caught the edge of that thought, and then nodded to Swanfair. “I know which details we will use already.”

Swanfair nodded back and stood. “I will leave the rest of the articles I have found about Estella, and her own statement about why she is willing to become a candidate, here,” she said, in response to Harry’s inquiring gaze. “So that you can make decisions about the aspects of her you refuse to speak about in front of me.”

One faint smile, and then she was gone. Harry glanced at Severus, who moved at once to the wall to track her progress through the wards and make sure she actually had gone to the Apparition point without trying to set traps.

Hermione and Ron, who Harry thought was talking mostly to be released from silence, immediately started arguing about Colben and whether it was possible for someone with a Muggleborn mother to be prejudiced against Muggleborns. Severus was concentrating on Swanfair, a frown puckering between his brows that Harry thought was a sign Swanfair had tried to leave them a small gift.

Harry turned to Draco.

“Look, can I talk with you?” he asked, making sure to keep his voice low. Embarrassing Draco when they were already having tensions was not on the agenda. “I know that you have some sort of problem with me, and I would-”

Draco, who had been looking at him with a mild sneer, immediately jerked back from him. “Of course it’s my problem, and not yours,” he said, and then turned to stomp up the stairs.

Harry followed him, utterly baffled. “Well, maybe it’s mine, too,” he said, trying to keep his voice to a mild hiss, since Ron had glanced at them with interest from the corner of his eye. “But I don’t know that, because I don’t know what’s upset you.”

Draco whipped around to face him, arms folded and face distorted with the force of his anger. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw Severus step towards them, hand on his wand and eyes bright and watchful. Ron and Hermione had stopped pretending to pay attention to their conversation at all and were staring.

“You wanker,” Draco said. “There’s only one thing that could have upset me this much, and you know it. The thing you keep trying to pretend isn’t there, the thing you run away from as hard as you can.” He took a step towards Harry, looking as though some outside force had compelled him against his will to do so. “The thing that stands between us as a barrier because you won’t admit the truth.”

“I’ve admitted as much of the truth as I can!” Harry wanted to throw up his hands, but that would make him look foolish in front of his friends. “The bond doesn’t have any barriers holding it back anymore! If you would just tell me what else you want me to do, then I’d do it!”

Draco opened his mouth, but darted a glance over Harry’s head suddenly. Harry turned and saw Severus frowning.

“Are you warning him not to discuss it?” Harry demanded. “What’s wrong with you? How can I possibly try to make it up to him until I know what I’m supposed to have done?”

“If we did tell you,” Draco said, his voice muffled with something that sounded like a choking ball of pure frustration, “then you’d take offense. And if we don’t tell you, then you go around claiming innocence. There’s no way we can tell you, no way that you won’t take offense.”

He bolted up the stairs before Harry could grab his arm, the way he wanted to do, and try to reason with him. Severus placed his hand on Harry’s shoulder when Harry was about to walk up the stairs after Draco.

“I think it best if I speak with him,” he murmured, and moved off, his robes swishing softly around his legs.

Harry folded his arms and stood at the bottom of the stairs, almost choking on pure frustration himself. He was tempted to ignore Severus’s warning and go up anyway, but he knew Draco would snap at him again, and he was tired of being blamed for things that he hadn’t done.

Or which I’m not conscious of doing, at least.

He looked at Ron and Hermione. “Sorry you had to see that,” he muttered, and rubbed a hand over his eye, trying to overcome the feeling that Draco had punched him in the face when Harry went to embrace him.

“I reckon things like that have to happen sometimes, living with two Slytherins,” Ron said, with a shrug.

“Domestic quarrels often do happen.” Hermione spoke with a tiny, enigmatic smile that Harry had no desire to try and understand. He was fed up with riddles and mysteries. If someone wanted him to understand something, they would need to explain it straight out. He’d always said that, and he’d always accepted that it was a deficiency of his own mental power that made it that way, but for some reason no one seemed to listen to him.

“Right,” he said, and sat down on the couch beside his best friends, relieved that he only had to speak with them for a while. “So, what do we think about Estella Colben?”

*

Draco was pacing in wild circles around their bed when Severus stepped into the bedroom and shut the door behind him. Severus had expected that. The bond between them had shrunk to a pinpoint, overgrown by Draco’s anger the way the stairs had been overgrown by the vines they had used to trap the Aurors.

“I don’t understand!” Draco spat, the moment Severus shut the door behind him. “He knows that we want him, and he still goes out and spends time with that-that boy! And then he acts as if he doesn’t understand simple jealousy!” He spun around and stared at Severus. “How much clearer do we have to be with him?”

“Speaking of Harry’s boyfriend will only make matters worse,” Severus murmured, leaning against the wall. This was not the moment to try a comforting touch. Draco in this mood was a firework that needed to spin and spark and snarl itself out. “You know that. It will make us seem as if we are urging Harry to leave him behind for our own selfish reasons, when we must wait until Harry has abandoned him on his own.”

“But that could take years, as happy as he seems right now.” Draco collapsed onto the bed, disarranging his hair without a care for how it looked, which told Severus more openly than anything had so far how upset he was. “And I want him, and we were the ones who rescued him from the Ministry, and I want openness between us the way we were having a few months ago, and instead Harry closes the bond and gives all his openness to someone who doesn’t deserve it!” He flopped backwards on the coverlet and scowled at the ceiling. “And then he has the nerve to ask what my problem is,” he muttered.

Severus sat down on the bed beside his lover and looked at him until Draco coughed, flushed, and sat up. Severus nodded.

“You must not forget what is due to your own dignity and your own happiness, Draco,” he said. “You must think on what you are without Harry, what you may be if you never have him.” Draco darted him a sharp glance, but Severus chose to ignore it. He did not really believe, any more than Draco did, that Harry would never lie in their bed; the difference between them was that he had the skill and experience of concentrating his thoughts on other things, while Draco obsessed with the enthusiasm of youth. “The article that Skeeter wrote presented you as a hero, someone who could tenderly heal his bondmate instead of taking revenge, and I do not think the letters in praise of you have stopped coming yet. Have they?”

Draco ran a hand through his hair again, this time to smooth it back into place. “Well, no,” he said.

Severus nearly smiled. Flattery was a very simple potion that one could administer to make Draco agreeable, and in small enough quantities, it was not poison any more than a Calming Draught was. “And you know that you have a skill in Potions that Harry would never match if he labored for years. You understand equations and measurements, while he is impatient with exact limits and dashes ahead.”

“That’s true,” Draco said. He leaned his head on Severus’s shoulder and closed his eyes for a moment.

“And whether Harry becomes our lover or no,” Severus said, lowering his voice and running his hand up Draco’s shoulder, “I will always appreciate you in a way that I cannot appreciate him. You shared more of my experiences. Your mind is more in harmony with mine. When we did not have the bond, I still often understood what you were feeling. Though I will admit it is more convenient to have the bond,” he added, as his link with Draco purred like a petted cat. “Harry is half-crippled by moral scruples that I cannot understand. I accept yours and agree that they are the best for you to act by. And mine are not so different. On a level of similarity, Draco, we exist together.”

Draco lifted his head and smiled at Severus. “I need to hear more about why you like me,” he said innocently, while the bond danced up and down with blue lightnings of deviltry. “You know, to comfort my poor abused and battered pride.”

Severus smiled, but made sure the smile was narrow, so that Draco knew what kind of praise he was likely to get. “You can still manipulate others,” he said. “Not as well as some of the Death Eaters, but you use your manipulation for more wholesome ends, and it serves those ends well. You can control your temper when pressed to it, as you proved in the Ministry.” He was beginning to think that a Calming Draught might not have been necessary for Draco that evening after all, though he was glad he had given one if only to avoid having Skeeter record an embarrassing scenario. “You are beautiful-you are,” he added, as Draco gave a small, uncomfortable wriggle. He suspected that Draco still sometimes mentally thought of himself as the thin, pale, terrified boy he had become under the Dark Lord’s slavery, and he did not often look in mirrors any more to contradict the impression, having other things to occupy him. “You are intelligent in areas other than Potions. You-”

He paused, because the bond between them had grown restless again, and not in a sly way. “What is the matter?” he asked softly.

“If I’m all those things, and you can see them so clearly,” Draco muttered, pulling away, “why can’t Harry appreciate me?”

Severus sighed and stood. He could have said many things, including the fact that Draco had never complimented him in the way that he had just complimented Draco, and that he was as resentful of Caesarion as Draco was. But Draco had darted back into the mood where it was better to leave him alone.

“He will, someday,” he said.

Draco shot him a dark look. “Of course. When his perfect boyfriend somehow messes up, which I don’t think will ever happen.” He planted his elbows on the windowsill and scowled down at the Hogsmeade street below.

Severus shut the door quietly behind him. One of the many advantages of the bond was knowing when comfort would be merely spurned, so that he need not waste his time.

He went down the stairs to work in the Potions lab. Between Draco’s darting moods and Harry’s stubborn blind innocence, Severus felt the need to be among substances that would only explode in predictable ways.

*

Harry laughed and lay back on the bed, stretching out a lazy arm to Cadell. Cadell barely managed to open one eye, shaking his hair back from his face. It clung to his skin as if he’d walked through a wave. Harry half-expected to see foam dripping down his cheeks, and knew he would taste salt if he licked Cadell.

His tongue was worn-out, though, and his jaw ached hard enough to make him rueful about any new use of his mouth at the moment. He had found out today that he could, in fact, suck someone else’s cock, and even swallow when someone else came in his mouth and gave him no warning. (That had been good for several abject apologies from Cadell). The taste wasn’t too bad, and eventually, Harry reckoned, one got used to the pain and soreness of it, or learned to manage oneself so that the pain and soreness never occurred in the first place. But he didn’t know how to do that at the moment.

Then you need more experience.

Harry smiled, but there was a reservation in himself that he didn’t understand. Somehow, he felt he had done everything he could with Cadell now that they’d wanked each other in different positions and sucked each other off. Which was ridiculous, because there was plenty more that two men could do together. Cadell had explained it to him in exquisite detail, delighting in his blush.

But still that reservation remained.

Harry shook his head and lifted himself on his arm to look at Cadell. Cadell opened the other eye and gave him a smile of surpassing sweetness.

Cadell was handsome, Harry thought, seeing him with an outsider’s eye. His features were more regular than they seemed at first glance, and they showed his emotions more reliably than Draco or Severus’s faces would ever show theirs. And those brilliant blue eyes were open and deep and gave Harry everything he could want, from admiration to comfort when Cadell listened to Harry’s stories about the frustrations of his life.

But that openness also made Harry feel as if he knew everything there was to know about Cadell as a person-at least for the moment. He could probably leave for a few years, come back, and be delighted with the changes time had wrought in Cadell. But at the moment, there was nothing new for him to find.

Cadell was uncomplicated. Harry understood him. Understanding should equate to affection, not boredom. But Harry was horribly afraid that it wasn’t going to work that way for him.

“Harry? What’s wrong?” Cadell lifted a hand to trace the line of Harry’s nose and then up and around the circles of his eyes. “You look as though you’re trying to decide the best way to break bad news to me.” His eyes darkened even as he tried out a smile.

Harry leaned down towards him and kissed him in answer, his eyes shutting as he felt the powerful, warm slide of Cadell’s tongue along his. Cadell made a soft murmur of complex pleasure and wrapped his arms around Harry’s neck. Harry at last surrendered to part of the confused feelings jumping up and down in him and embraced Cadell back.

Yeah, maybe he’s not the person I’ll always need, Harry thought, as he perched himself on top of Cadell’s chest and began to kiss down it, licking his skin every three kisses. It tasted as salty as he had thought it would. But he’s the person I need for right now. He tells me when he’s worried, instead of assuming that I should always know and getting huffy with me for not being clairvoyant. He has needs and wants that I understand. He doesn’t make a virtue of his own obscurity.

“Oh, Harry, just like that,” Cadell urged, twining a hand in his hair and flinging his other hand across the pillow as Harry probed Cadell’s navel with his tongue. “Yes, please.”

For a moment, Harry, as if he had leaped into a different body, imagined himself pleasuring Draco in bed. Draco would sneer, of course, and tell him that his efforts weren’t good enough, and Harry couldn’t imagine him asking for anything. It would be all demands.

And he would probably roll over and storm away from bed if Harry did anything that he didn’t like.

Severus would be an even more challenging lover, with long stares to express his displeasure and a turned shoulder when Harry was clumsy or ineffective. Harry wondered if he had any warmth at all, or was a marble statue in bed.

Harry shook his head, giving a small growl. He wasn’t going to encourage Severus and Draco’s apparent attempts to emotionally cheat on each other with him. He shouldn’t be doing it, either, by thinking about his bondmates when he was sleeping with Cadell.

Besides, he had more important things to think about-like whether he could manage to suck Cadell’s renewed erection without choking this time.

*

Draco was aware that he was in a dangerous mood; it took no slight trembling of the bookshelves in the ground floor library to tell him so, and he wished they would stop.

The bond had been shut from Harry’s side for hours this time.

Draco glanced up at the clock. Yes, it had been three hours since he had last felt any emotions from Harry, that time a swelling of pleasure that made Draco pant and dig his nails into his palms and harden, and then as suddenly cut off before it could crash. Harry had nearly forgotten about the bond in the buildup to orgasm, Draco supposed, but then he had remembered, and conscientiously cut his bondmates out of the sharing.

Draco didn’t want to share in Harry’s orgasm with someone else, he reminded himself. If anything, he or Severus should be with Harry now, showing him what men could do instead of a boy.

But I still want to know what his pleasure is like, and the fact that he doesn’t think us worthy of sharing that with him-

Draco grabbed a book on Defense Against the Dark Arts from the shelf and sat down in a chair. Ledbetter had recommended this one, after sneering at several of the books that Draco had bought on his own, and when Draco had ventured into Flourish and Blotts to buy it, matters had gone very differently than they had during the Pepperfield attack. Draco had been received with respectful murmurs and sidelong admiring stares, and three people had come up to him before he left the shop to tell him how brave he was for walking into the Ministry to rescue Harry and then trusting Severus to handle the Minister while he healed Harry.

“You must trust them so much,” a witch with grey hair and misty grey eyes had said, touching Draco’s wrist with one gloved hand. “I can’t comprehend trusting anyone but my husband that much.”

Draco had smiled and murmured his thanks, and used that admiration to counter the other, hostile sidelong glances that he sometimes did get.

No one was going to attack them in public without swift retaliation now. Public opinion was swinging to their side. Draco had received letters telling him that he had virtues the writers had never thought they would see in a Malfoy, and that he was not his father, and that-these were rare, but they came-they would sleep with Draco any time he was so gracious as to request it.

Draco’s hands tightened on the book, and he ended up setting it aside and folding his arms, hissing like a teakettle under his breath. He knew it, and he tried to stop it, and his mind refused to listen to him.

The only two people I want to sleep with are already in a bond with me, and one of them is pleased to oblige me any time I want to and he isn’t busy with Potions. But the other one wouldn’t know what sexual tension was if it hit him across the face.

The bond opened again suddenly, and Draco gasped and blinked, Harry’s relief and smugness bathing him. Harry had obviously enjoyed a profitable afternoon as far as pleasure went, Draco thought, digging his nails into his palms again against the surge, the flood, of sapphire waves dancing under sunlight. Harry was happy.

Draco would have been happy, too, if he could have been sure that Caesarion had nothing to do with Harry’s mood.

And Harry was here. The front door shut, and Draco heard his footsteps traveling rapidly towards the stairs, as if he didn’t want to meet anyone who might be on the ground floor.

That means he didn’t open the bond the moment he left Caesarion, but only when he was almost home. He probably forgot about it. He probably didn’t care that he was experiencing other emotions he could have shared with us.

That seemed like the ultimate insult, or at least the last drop of rage that could be poured into Draco’s cup before it overflowed. Without being sure of what he was going to do, he rose to his feet and flung the library door open.

Harry paused in the corridor, gaping at Draco as if he had stolen all the biscuits and had been caught with the crumbs around his mouth. Draco felt a mean satisfaction in that for a long moment, before he noticed a bit of crusted white in Harry’s hair.

Draco instantly envisioned where Harry’s head would have to be in relation to Caesarion’s body to get splattered like that.

It was unfair. When he would have given so much for a kiss from Harry, and Caesarion, without doing anything, got so much more.

“Where have you been?” Draco asked in a guttural tone, as he prowled closer.

Harry blinked at him, and then seemed to notice the direction of his eyes and reached up to feel at his hair. He flushed and hastily muttered a Cleaning Charm, flicking his wand so that the semen disappeared. Draco laughed, the dangerous feeling boiling in him again. He had seen it, and did Harry imagine that hiding it at this late date would make any difference? Draco knew perfectly well what Harry had been doing.

And he hated it.

“With my boyfriend, of course,” Harry said. “I told you that was where I was going to be.” He glared at Draco in an insolent way, considering the contrition Draco thought would be appropriate. “You should have guessed as much when I shut the bond.”

Draco bared his teeth. “Three hours, Harry,” he said. “What kind of date with your boyfriend takes three hours?”

Harry cocked his head and lifted his eyebrows above a thin smile. “The kind of date that’s mostly done in bed.”

Draco felt as though his fingers were on fire. He wanted to reach out, tear back Harry’s clothes, and cauterize the marks of Caesarion’s touch. Then he would brand his own mark on Harry, who would sigh and moan for more. Draco knew that he was better in bed than Caesarion without hearing any of the details of that boy’s exploits. Severus was not shy about telling Draco when he fell short of perfection.

“What’s the matter?” Harry asked, dropping his voice into a tone of mock sympathy. “Jealous because Severus has been too busy in the lab of late to give you the attention you need?”

Draco snapped.

Severus couldn’t ask him to control himself any longer, he thought, as he grabbed Harry’s shoulders and wrestled him against the wall. It was inhuman, when Harry laughed like that and provoked like that and then had the temerity to gape at Draco in shock and indignation as he was forced backwards.

“Severus and I want you,” Draco said, staring into Harry’s face. Harry went on gaping. Draco didn’t care. “You know that. If you didn’t want us back, all right, fine. But I’ve seen the jealousy on your face when we share something you don’t. Do you really think that going out and finding some sort of inferior lover who can’t even feel your emotions will solve the problem?”

“I want you, but I can’t have you!” Harry snapped, trying to reach up a hand and claw at Draco’s shoulder. Draco twisted around and pressed an arm against Harry’s chest, trapping him more firmly than before. “I know that. I’ve accepted that. Do you really think that me spending the rest of my life pining away for you will solve the problem?” He imitated Draco’s tone perfectly.

“You can have us,” Draco said.

Harry froze, then shook his head. “I won’t help you cheat on Severus, even if you want to.”

“Severus wants you too, you wanker.” Draco was panting with excitement, soaring on a hot wind that was carrying him at last over the barriers that had been in his way: pride and a sense that Harry should understand something so simple without explanation. Well, if Harry needed a clear explanation, then Draco would give him one. “We won’t end our relationship if we sleep with you. What we want is a triangle. A circle, like the bond is now.” He dug his fingers further into Harry’s skin, reveling in his wince and the heady power of the emotions slithering down the bond like honeyed snakes. “A relationship involving all three of us, where all three of us sleep together.”

Harry’s jaw fell open. Draco tossed his head back and laughed, while he leaped the final barrier and came down on the other side with his pride still intact, despite having to lead Harry into the truth like a child.

“I-you can’t-Hermione said something about threesomes, but no one in real life-” Harry’s words tumbled to a stop, as if his flush had burned them up.

“My dear simpleton,” Draco said, tracing a line on Harry’s forehead where the scar had been, “a bonded pair or triad isn’t like other relationships. We can do what we like, as long as we don’t hurt each other. I’ve been raised with stories of bonded wizards who had relationships involving three or four people, and because the bond is so rare and so honored and so impossible for people outside the bond to comprehend, their decisions were presumed sacrosanct. People outside the bond didn’t judge.” He leaned forwards so that Harry could feel Draco’s hot breath on his face and Draco could feel the trembling of Harry’s body. “Do you really want to resist this forever?”

Harry shook his head dumbly, and finally found his voice. “I-I-what would happen if we tried and then hated each other?”

“With the bonds open all the way,” Draco murmured, “we would have arguments, but we would not hate each other. Understanding breeds affection too deep for that.”

Harry swallowed. “I just-I didn’t know. I still don’t know. I think the whole thing is ridiculous.”

“That erection I can feel tells me otherwise,” Draco murmured.

Harry blushed more deeply, and looked away.

And because he was right there and because Draco knew that Harry wouldn’t resent him for it, he reached out and caught Harry’s cheek and turned his head forwards again and kissed him.

Draco closed his eyes at the sweetness of it. Harry’s lips, dry and chapped and firm against his. His skin, stinging warm with the blood in his cheeks. His hair, rustling under Draco’s gripping fingers. His hasty breaths, increasing in pace as they stood there. His emotions, rioting through the bond like drunken kangaroos because of Draco.

Then Draco pulled back, smiled at Harry’s dropped jaw, said, “Tell me when Caesarion can match that,” and went out into the garden.

He needed to be in a place where Harry couldn’t immediately see his ecstatic leaps in the air. Not only because of the kiss, and not only because it looked as though Harry might be capable of coming around-though those were the main impulses of his joy-but because he had learned something about himself.

If what you need is simplicity and straightforwardness, Harry, I can provide that. It won’t kill me to act a little less like the stereotypical Slytherin.

Draco licked his lips and grinned, then jumped over one of the boulders that Severus hadn’t managed to destroy and landed with a laugh and a twist that spun him around until the garden and the sky danced in dizzy flashes past his eyes.

And simplicity even tastes good.

Part Twenty-One.