[One-shots]: No Gracious Influence Shed, 2/3, Snape/Harry/Draco, NC-17, Beltane fic
Second part of a long one-shot. Don't start reading here.
Draco read through the ritual once more, moving his lips gently, and not caring if Potter or Severus saw him doing so. Severus wasn’t in the right frame of mind to object right now, anyway. He lay in the middle of his bed and glared at Draco as hard as he could, and that was hardly going to make Draco change his mind.
Potter stood by the bookshelves, glancing back and forth as if he could read their contents through the spines and tell what Draco had in mind. But Draco was pretty sure that only this book had the proper ritual.
They would probably explode when he explained it, Draco thought cynically. He picked up his wand and held it ready as he tucked the book under his arm, and both Severus’s and Potter’s eyes came back to him.
“Listen,” said Draco. “We need a ritual that gives us the effect of Potter’s presence, but not his actual presence, since both of you find that objectionable.”
Potter snorted. “Don’t tell me that you don’t, Malfoy.”
Draco shrugged a shoulder. Honestly, he didn’t know what he found objectionable at the moment. All his concern was for Severus and making sure he survived his illness. He could still feel contempt for Potter’s shitty flat if he was standing in it, but he wasn’t right now. “I don’t think physical presence is needed, though, because Severus didn’t get worse when Potter went outside and further from him.” He was looking between the two of them now, at a point in the air, speaking calmly. “We need only a sort of spiritual presence. That means a bonding ritual.”
“No-”
“Draco, you will not-”
“Silencio, Silencio,” said Draco, twice in a row, and went on with great satisfaction. “The ritual I found is complex, but it only needs to be done once. And it will prevent any further illness or Potter from needing to spend all his time with us, either, if he wants. So.”
Potter’s brow was furrowed, and he looked as if he might not have said anything even if the restriction was lifted from his mouth. Severus, of course, was practically foaming. Draco considerately ended the spell, and, out of equal consideration for himself, stepped back out of foam-spraying range.
“I will not share something as intimate as a bond with Harry Potter,” Snape snarled. Potter’s eyes went to him, but the expression in them didn’t change. Potter seemed to be seriously thinking about it, Draco thought. At least he hoped so. That would leave him with only one ranting, screaming person to calm down. “You ought to know that, Draco.”
“You already shared one with him, because his magic, or the Hallows, whatever you want to attribute it to, was preserving your life,” said Draco indifferently. He loved Severus, but he didn’t love this side of him, and he was going to go to battle to keep him alive, no matter what. “This time, you’ll have a different kind of bond, one that doesn’t have to falter at a moment’s notice. I think that would be enough of an incentive for you to pay attention to me.” He shrugged a little when Severus went on staring. “Maybe not.”
Potter must have ended the spell on himself nonverbally, because he cleared his throat a second later. “This is probably the best solution,” he said.
“Better than you as a vegetable?” Severus sneered. “At least that way, you would no longer have the capacity to torment me.”
Potter turned away from him and towards Draco. “The reason I’ve avoided the wizarding world is because the staring and pointing and attempts at getting autographs won’t stop,” he said bluntly. “But this way, not only do you not need to come looking for me again, you won’t have any incentive to flaunt it. This is probably as good as it’s going to get.”
“Yes, Potter, because you so hate attention,” Severus drawled.
Potter might not have heard. He nodded to Draco. “Snape wouldn’t start falling ill again as the bond went on? It would always stay as stable as it’s going to be at the beginning?”
“Yes,” said Draco, blinking a little. He hadn’t expected Potter to know that bonds sometimes required regular periods of renewal, at least if they came from a certain class of rituals. “If we perform it on the day that I want to perform it.”
Potter nodded again, eyes so distant that Draco wondered what he was seeing. “Good. Then I can go back to my flat now?” He turned and looked at Draco again.
“Running away before we can even have the discussion, Potter?” Severus asked again. His words were as soft as poison.
“I thought I’d leave before you fretted yourself to death,” Potter told him brightly. “I didn’t think there would be any discussion if you just wanted to sit there and throw things at my head.”
Severus drew himself up to spit something else, and Draco cut in. “You should at least hear the explanation,” he told Potter. “It’s a sex ritual.”
Potter went pale for a second, and then shrugged and nodded. “Better than a sacrificial one,” he said.
“You couldn’t even stand to slit a rabbit’s throat?” Severus laughed like a crow choking.
Potter turned to face him, movements slow and deliberate. Draco caught a glimpse, then, of the man who had defeated the Dark Lord, someone he hadn’t seen in eight years. “You know as well as I do that for the kind of bond Malfoy is talking about, it would have to be more than a rabbit. I’m not sacrificing a human.”
Draco had expected Severus to have some comeback to that, but he only stared at Potter as if he was disgusting, and said nothing else. There seemed to be no response to Potter’s declaration-not that it needed one, Draco decided abruptly a second later, since they weren’t sacrificing anyone either way.
Before Severus could find an answer, Draco cut in as smoothly as he could. “That’s right. A sex ritual does need to take place on Beltane, however. The greatest day of fertility. That means we have a month to prepare.”
“All right,” said Potter, and held out a steady hand. “Can I see the description of the ritual?”
Draco pushed the book at him, tapping the page with one finger. Potter pushed his glasses up his face as if in answer, and started reading. Once, he grunted. Once, he paused and looked up at Draco. “What about the blood?”
“Spilled once from each of our veins, into the potion we’ll brew before the ritual begins,” Draco said calmly. “Not used from anyone else or anything unwilling.”
“Good,” said Potter. Severus snorted loud enough to wake the dead. Potter only turned another page, and paused with his head tilted absently in front of the next page. “There’s one problem we’re going to have, Malfoy,” he said. “This ritual is adaptable, a bit, but it says that a previous bond between any two of the participants has to be taken into account.”
“Yes?” Draco asked cautiously. He didn’t understand what Potter was talking about. He knew that neither he nor Severus was bonded to anyone, and that Potter could be after years in the Muggle world defied belief.
“You and Snape have a bond based on isolation, don’t you?” Potter looked up, and his eyes flickered once from Draco to Severus. “Your family rejected you, Malfoy. Snape, I don’t think you’re close to anyone still alive except Malfoy himself.” He drew his wand, and Draco hadn’t even begun to tense before he flicked it. “Iugum Acclaro!”
There was a soft, complicated glow that seemed to start in Draco’s bones, and then he glanced down to see a pale red light encircling his left wrist, tying it to Severus’s right.
“Yes, I thought so,” said Potter, nodding as if he was some learned professor and they were the hapless students. Draco did have to bite his lip severely to avoid snapping, but at least Potter went on and explained instead of leaving them in the dark, and didn’t even sound too professorial while he did it. “Your magic has reached out for each other’s and bonded you. It’s what happens when wizards or a pair of them are alone for too long without close emotional connections to anyone else magical.”
Draco shook his head slowly. He did remember something like that being a part of his study of bonds, the one he had made when amassing these ritual books. “Okay, fine. But what does that mean for the ritual?”
“Where have you seen this before?” Severus added before, now like a sneezing crow. “Where did you learn that spell, Potter?”
“Ron and Hermione’s magic bonded like that when they were searching for her parents in Australia,” said Potter, without turning a hair. “They were the only two wizards within miles for months at a time, not interacting with anyone else who had magic on a regular basis, and when they found it painful to be apart after they got back to Britain, Hermione investigated why.”
Draco opened his mouth to say that he and Severus didn’t have trouble being apart, then closed it again. Quite often, they weren’t far apart. Severus would be in the back of the shop brewing, or Draco would come home early if there were few customers. And Draco was always eager to get home at the end of the day, though he wouldn’t have attributed it to this.
“How did your friends get themselves unbonded?” Severus demanded.
Draco couldn’t help it; he flinched hard enough to make the glowing leash of light that tied him to Severus flicker. Severus lashed him with a glance and turned back to Potter, who was shaking his head.
“It’s permanent,” he said. “Unless you were to have a duel to the death, or near-mortal wounding. And I don’t think you are.”
Severus bowed his head. Draco said nothing. He turned and looked at Potter again. “You think we can’t use the ritual because of that?”
“I know we can’t.” Potter held out the book towards him again. “You’ll need to choose another one. I don’t think a bonding ritual is a bad idea,” he added hastily, maybe seeing Draco’s anger in his furrowed brow and glittering eyes if nowhere else. “We just can’t use that particular one.”
Draco clenched his hand into a fist for a moment, then gave a sharp snort and shook it free. “Yes, we can still use this one.”
“I just told you-”
“It merely means that you’ll have to bond with both of us,” said Draco relentlessly. “Both me and Severus, not Severus alone.”
It was interesting to see the way that that made Potter sway on his feet, where just hearing about the original requirements for the ritual hadn’t. He reached out a hand as if to catch himself, but ended up weakly slapping it against the wall. He staggered and stood there when he’d recovered with his head lowered, not looking at either one of them. Draco gave him a small, nasty smile and didn’t say several cutting things that he could have.
“There’s no other way?” Potter whispered.
“What other way can you think of?” The leash of light that tied him to Severus was getting annoying. Draco banished it with another flick of his wand and moved toward Potter, halting about halfway between him and Severus. Maybe he should get started on making his symbolic gestures now, he thought. “A bond to both of us would mean that we could use that ritual.”
“But you don’t need me to stabilize your magic,” said Potter grimly, and his eyes found Draco’s. There was something deep in them that Draco didn’t think was simply Potter’s stupid reluctance to use his power. “What is a bond like that going to do to you?”
Oh, of course, Draco thought after a minute when it felt like his heart was going to stop. It’s Potter’s stupid concern for everyone interfering, as usual.
“It’s not going to do anything more to me than it will to you,” he said. “Don’t worry about that. We’ll have the ritual, and you and I will only need as much contact as you and Severus will.”
Potter acted like he was going to say something else for a second, but then his eyelids fluttered once, and when they came back up, there was a shutter in place across the front of his gaze. “All right. What do we need to do to prepare for the ritual?”
“It’ll be the night of Beltane,” Draco began, brisk now. “I need you to take some of the books I have here with you and read them, so you know what’s expected of you. And we’ll need you to visit at least once every few days, to ease Severus’s pain until we get to that point. He was getting worse until you arrived…”
He knew, as he spoke, that Severus’s eyes rested on him. He knew they would have a confrontation almost the exact moment that Draco sent Potter home.
He didn’t mind. He was, if anything, rather looking forward to it.
*
“A Beltane rite? A double bond?”
Severus started his voice out low. It had more impact than he’d anticipated. It made Draco pause in shutting the door after Potter, rather than just turning around at once, and when he did turn, his head was up and his leg raised in the middle of a step like a deer startled by a sound in the forest.
It was such moments that had first made Severus think he might have a chance with Draco. He had seen a vulnerability in him as a boy that he didn’t think anyone had, and where lay vulnerability, there lay other treasures that different people might never have seen, nor known how to value.
“Yes,” said Draco. The vulnerability was there, Severus thought, under the surface. It was never far from the surface now, not once you knew it existed. Draco had survived a war, and the rejection by his parents once they understood he would never become a properly-married, politically-manipulating member of their society, but he had done it only because he had Severus at his side. He would have crumbled on his own.
And knowing that, Severus abruptly decided, head clearer than it had felt in a long time, I should have known better than to think he would let me go.
“You could have respected my wish,” Severus whispered, and he knew Draco would know they were no longer talking about the Beltane rite, which Severus had never specifically forbidden because he hadn’t thought Draco would do anything so mad.
“I could have,” said Draco. “And watched you die. There was no other choice.” He came and stood by Severus’s bed, looking down, at the same distance he had been when the visible leash of light connected them.
Severus made a hard gesture with one hand, and then managed to restrain himself. He simply sat up and swung his legs over the side. He was tired of lying down, and he felt more refreshed out of Potter’s presence than he ever would in it. “This would be easier if it was anyone but Potter.”
The signs of Draco’s understanding, and his relief, were subtle; his mouth drooped slightly as though it would begin a frown, his eyes narrowed instead of widened, his hand made a gesture that wasn’t languid. “Yes. Well. There is no reason that it has to be, after we get the bond established. We don’t need to spend more time than occasional visits with him.”
“We must spend time together,” Severus said, and reached out to catch Draco’s wrist between pinching fingers.
Draco held his breath as if he wished to die that way until Severus added, “And perhaps we can do it without misconceptions separating us.”
“Yes,” said Draco, that deep light shining out of him like a lantern buried at the bottom of a cave. Severus was more than content knowing no one but him had ever seen that light, or ever would. “I’d like that.”
Severus squeezed back once more, and then began to climb out of bed.
He had a life to live, and a light to cultivate, and a ritual to make tolerable.
*
Harry got out of bed and walked across his bedroom until he could touch the wall. Yes, all right. He went back and lay down again. This time, he kept his eyes still and his breathing steady, doing the best he could to fall asleep that way.
The sensation remained, anyway. The walls were pressing in on him. The room was smaller than it had been since he first rented the flat and decided that the rooms were precisely of a size to suit him, especially since he lived alone and rarely had guests over.
Harry finally scowled and got out of bed, going to the kitchen where he kept some Firewhisky in a specially enchanted jug, a gift from Ron. He sipped it and stared at his reflection in the shiny surface of the oven.
It wasn’t that Snape and Malfoy’s house was particularly expansive, he thought. Or that he envied their gardens with their spiky plants, or the bookshelves with lots of magical tomes, or even the rock from which you could watch the sunset. It was that-
There was a subtle hum of something in the background when he was there. Harry would have said it was magic, except he had stopped missing magic a long time ago. Anyway, he could still go to Diagon Alley in disguise when he wanted.
Unless it was a different kind of magic. The kind that relied on glances exchanged by two people who understood each other, hands clasped in good fellowship, bitten lips and averted eyes.
Harry shook his head savagely. He reminded himself that he’d had the chance for companionship, a partner, if he wanted them. He was the one who had gone off to the Muggle world and told Ginny not to wait for him. And he’d deliberately kept himself distant from most Muggles, too. His dating was casual, just like his friendships. He couldn’t imagine dating someone who didn’t know about the wizarding world, and he couldn’t imagine himself revealing it, either.
It was at least one reason he had hoped he could give up his magic. Then he could be a normal Muggle and find someone to love without worrying about it.
But standing there with his face reflected in the stove, so that he could see at least part of the faded lightning bolt scar, his mouth full of Firewhisky and his veins singing softly with the echo of the first spells he had cast in months, he knew he wasn’t going to be normal.
Harry closed his eyes. His greatest fear at the moment was that it might be too late for him to be anything else.
*
They had three days of peace.
Then Draco woke up at two in the morning as a fist thumped solidly into his back. He rolled, gathering his wand up in his hand, ready to strike out if he had to. He knew that he was breathing hard, more than he should, but he’d been startled out of a dream.
He realized it was a nightmare when his eyes landed on Severus’s puce face, already illuminated by the faint light of his own Lumos Charm, and Draco launched into action. He’d learned a spell by necessity that would force air into someone’s body, given how dangerous some fumes were when inhaled.
The spell seized Severus’s lungs, and Draco felt them bending, flexing, resisting more than they should have. He pumped in more air and more magic, his head turned grimly to the side so that he could breathe other air and Severus would have the fresh.
For long moments, moments that clung to Draco’s heart like a Dementor, it didn’t work. Severus’s face was going a deeper blue color, and his arms were falling limply to the bed. His eyes were closing. He looked as if he was giving up, which was something that Draco had never seen before, not even when he knelt before the Dark Lord and had to kiss the hem of his filthy robe.
Draco’s magic reached out, and he remembered what Potter had said, or showed them, the other day. He forced the magic along the bond that connected him and Severus.
Severus’s magic lashed and circled around his, and the bond flared into being, so bright that it made Draco shut his eyes defensively. But he kept feeding the power, and the bond conducted it into Severus’s body. For a moment, Draco felt the continued resistance, which he reckoned was probably the remnant of the hole that needed to be patched with Potter’s magic.
And then it bulged and rippled, and faded away to nothingness with a long hissing noise. Draco was pumping in air and power, and Severus was breathing, and Draco fell back on the pillow and lay there trembling. He wondered for a second if Potter had had to push against similar resistance when he brought Severus back to life, the resistance of death.
Well, if he did, he didn’t bloody do it right, Draco thought savagely a second later, as he listened to Severus’s hoarse wheezing. When Draco tried to move, the bond tugged at him, and he understood. Severus would breathe only as long as Draco was right beside him, or at least within the small distance the bond implied, to keep feeding him the magic. They needed some other solution to let Draco move away.
They needed Potter.
Luckily, their owl was well-trained, and would come to Draco without being coaxed with treats, and he had ink and parchment and a quill in the bedside table.
*
Harry opened his eyes to a frantic pecking on the window, and ended up grumbling as he climbed out of bed. “Yes, I’m coming-stupid bird-” he muttered as he flung open the window and let the owl in.
It didn’t come to him right away, of course, the way that Ron and Hermione’s well-trained owls would have. Harry had to chase it around the room. It seemed it objected to a naked wizard instead of one wrapped in robes or at least pajamas, and it fluttered up into a corner of the ceiling and clung there like a bat. Harry finally used a Summoning Charm on it, and another one that conjured a soft shield on the arm and shoulder that the owl slammed into. Ignoring the attempts to injure him with beak and talon, he pried the owl loose.
The letter was short and to to the point.
Potter, Severus started struggling to breathe five minutes ago. Get your arse over here.
It wasn’t signed, but then, with the reference to Snape by his first name, it didn’t need to be. Harry groaned breathlessly anyway and turned to struggle into robes. The owl was already flying out the window. It had probably been reluctant to bring the message because it was the middle of the night and it knew it wouldn’t be staying for a reply.
That didn’t improve Harry’s temper, and he slammed out of the flat in a foul mood. Then he had to go back and get his wand, so he could Apparate. And then he found himself imagining what Malfoy would say if he admitted that, and his temper expanded until he felt as though he was carrying a spiked rock around in his chest.
Fine. I just won’t admit it if he does ask, which he shouldn’t. Why would he care?
And Harry vanished, refusing to admit the purr that seemed to roll through his body when he used his magic that way.
*
Draco knew when Potter had arrived even before he heard the pounding at the door, because Severus’s breathing immediately sounded deeper and stronger, and Draco could move further away than the bond would ordinarily permit.
Draco smoothly and quietly unlocked the door with a spell. He hoped Potter would have the sense to come in on his own, and it seemed he did. Draco heard someone picking their way through an unfamiliar dark room, a stumble, a curse, and then the soft whispered incantation that Potter used to cast a Lumos on his own wand. Draco watched with half-lidded eyes as he found his way up to the bed and bent over Severus.
Severus’s breathing shuddered out once, in a sigh, and for a moment, Draco feared horribly that it wouldn’t be renewed. Then he heard it change in a different way, and lifted his head, shocked. No. Strange as it seemed, Severus had simply gone to sleep.
Draco shook his head for a long moment, then focused on Potter. “You’ll have to stay here while we prepare for the ritual. I’m not going to chance losing him again.”
Potter looked at him in the light of the Lumos, his eyes glinting like a cat’s. Draco thought it a far more fitting look than the one that had consumed him when he was stuttering in the middle of his flat earlier. “I can’t stay in the house.”
“You have to, Potter, or he’ll die,” said Draco. Stark and simple seemed to be the way to go with this Harry Potter, who had shut himself so entirely off from the world.
That got him bared teeth from Potter, and a simple, “I have to be nearby. But I can’t be in the house for his sake and yours as well as mine.” He went on before Draco could ask what in the world he meant. “I’ll build a little house for me outside the circle of your wards. That should be near enough for you to summon me if you need me.”
“Inside the wards,” Draco countered. “Or he could get sick and I might have trouble reaching you in time.”
Potter nodded, although with a tightness around the corners of his mouth that made Draco think he was resisting a grimace. “All right. I’ll take some time to build the house, probably.” He took another glance at Severus. “Is he going to be all right if I go to get the building materials?”
Draco looked flatly at Potter and wished he could make sense out of the thoughts that seemed to be circulating behind those equally flat green eyes. “Why don’t you just Transfigure things into wood and nails, or whatever you need? Or stone?” Draco had never built a house himself and was vague on the details, but it seemed to him that Transfiguration would be cheaper than buying Muggle materials.
“I haven’t done that sort of magic in years, and I’m rusty on it.” Potter waved his hand. “You didn’t answer my question.”
Draco shrugged back. “I don’t know. He’s asleep now, but he could wake up choking any second, and it was only the bond between him and me that allowed me to keep him alive for as long as it took you to get here. Are you going to receive an owl that I send to you while you’re traveling?”
Potter looked at Severus in utter silence, then nodded and pulled a chair from over near the table where Draco usually sat when he was doing the apothecary’s accounts. “All right. I’ll sit here.”
Draco paused. He didn’t know what he’d expected, but it wasn’t for Potter to simply sit down with his hands folded on his lap and no expression at all on his face.
“You can sleep on the floor, if you want,” Draco suggested. “Or I could Transfigure some pillows and blankets for you, if you like.”
“No. I’m fine.”
Well, what annoys me right now is his bloody martyrdom, Draco thought, and turned away from Potter, to snuggle back into the bed beside Severus and get some sleep. Some people who didn’t have Potter’s bottomless vaults had to get up and go to work in the morning.
*
Severus opened his eyes, and frowned. His throat felt strangely rough, as if he had been screaming during the night, but he didn’t remember that. He reached up and traced his fingers slowly around the edges of his neck, wondering if he would find them swollen. Was he sick?
Then he turned, and saw Potter sitting slumped on the chair beside the bed, staring into space. His eyes moved at once to Severus’s face, proving Potter wasn’t asleep. Severus stared with his hand closing into a fist.
He could easily enough guess why Potter was here. He turned a venomous glare on Draco, who, unfairly, was sleeping like a Kneazle, and made another attempt to clear his throat that only resulted in more rattling. “He summoned you here? And why?”
“You woke up unable to breathe,” said Potter. His voice was calm and so neutral that Severus would have expected it to come out of the mouth of someone he was discussing Potions with. “Malfoy was able to keep you alive because of the bond between you, but he couldn’t move very far. He sent me an owl.”
“Yes, Octavian would have been good enough to come to him and let the message be attached instead of needing to be chased,” Severus muttered, and then jumped as he realized he was discussing this with Potter, of all people. He shook his head. “Why did you stay?”
“Malfoy didn’t know if you would get sick again or not.” Potter only shook his head when Severus started to open his mouth again. “But I won’t be underfoot for much longer. I can build a house outside yours, in the circle of the wards. Then I’m near enough to be summoned when things start to go wrong again, but far enough away that you don’t need to think about me from day to day.”
“This is outrageous, Potter,” Severus said, when he was sure he had chosen the right word. “I did not choose to be bound to you.”
“If you think you have another ritual that will work, then you’re the best one to talk Malfoy into it. I don’t think he’ll listen to me. But this situation will only last a month. We can go back to our own lives when it’s done.”
Severus hissed deeply, a noise that made his throat throb. He would have done something about that, but Potter waved his wand, and a glass came flying towards him. He used Aguamenti nonverbally to pour water into the cup, and held it out to Severus. Severus took it and cast his own spells on it to determine if the water was pure.
Potter watched him do it, without expression.
“Why are you doing this?” Severus whispered, when he had drunk. “I seriously doubt that you harbor any desire for me.”
“Considering that the ritual calls for you to shove your dick up my arse, I don’t have to,” said Potter, and Severus was still reeling from his crude language-which might be why Potter had chosen those words, he realized abruptly-when Potter continued. “But I did something that should have worked, and didn’t. Something that wronged you when it shouldn’t have. So this is the way to make up for it.”
“Martyr,” Severus whispered. “Hero.”
“You don’t mean that,” said Potter, and there was a slight glint in his eyes that Severus was surprised he could see, with as low as the fire had sunk. “You mean, someone who likes playing them.”
“Yes,” Severus hissed, and drew the word out as if he was the one who had Parseltongue. I would certainly have made better use of it than Potter has. “You cannot respect my right to die with dignity? In peace? For someone concerned with making up for his mistakes, you have not made up for your worst one.”
“With the bond you have with Malfoy, you’ll probably drag him into death with you, if you die,” said Potter bluntly. “And I don’t think that he’s chosen either to lose you or lose his own life. So no, you’re not the only one with a say here.”
Severus drew his wand and pointed it at Potter. Potter only looked back with a sort of world-weary expression, and Severus realized abruptly that Potter probably wasn’t afraid. He certainly didn’t act like it, and he might think that he had the ability to out-duel Severus despite his utter lack of any formal dueling training.
“You didn’t know about that bond when you came here.”
“No.” Potter shrugged. “But I do know that the ritual Malfoy wants to do will make sure that you aren’t as dependent on him anymore. You’ll be stable, without the need for my constant presence, or his. So you could go ahead and kill yourself after that, if you wanted.” He paused. “Not that it won’t still hit him hard, but you could go ahead and be the selfish bastard I always knew you were.”
Severus found his mouth dry, which he had never thought it would be in a conversation-a confrontation-with Potter. He had imagined what he would say to him since he had figured out that Potter had saved his life with magic. He had imagined scoldings, and Potter admitting he was right, and apologies, and Potter marching away with his nose in the air because in the intervening years he had turned into James Potter Mark II.
But he had never thought the rise in Potter’s voice would come when he was arguing on Draco’s behalf.
“I will have no reason to die if this ritual works,” Severus snapped. “I was expressing my discomfort with your need to play the hero that overrides everything else-”
“Good,” Potter said. “So glad that we had this little talk.” He flicked his wand, once, and Severus flinched and countered with a spell that told him what one Potter had used. It seemed to be a simple Monitoring Charm, of the kind most parents used on young children. “That will tell me if you’re in distress,” Potter went on, standing up. “And in the meantime, I’m going to go and get my building materials.”
“Why wouldn’t you Transf-”
“Because I wanted a normal life,” Potter said. “I’m not going to get a completely normal one for the next month or so. But there are some things I don’t want to give up.” And he walked out the door.
Severus was still staring after him when Draco stirred and murmured, “Should I be worried that you were so engrossed in the conversation with him, you didn’t even notice I was awake?”
Severus winced and shook his head, although he wasn’t entirely sure that it was in answer to Draco’s question. “I cannot figure Potter out.”
“I don’t know that we need to,” Draco said calmly. “The ritual will blend our bodies briefly, and our magic permanently, to give us a sense of Potter’s magical presence. But we don’t need him here all the time after that.”
“Just for the next month,” said Severus, and held Draco’s eyes.
“Yes,” Draco said, without shame. “That does mean that you’ll have to be the one who deals with him more, while I’m at the apothecary earning a living.”
Severus winced and looked away. But at the same time, a warm sensation was stirring to life in his stomach. At least he and Draco retained their closeness which meant they could almost read each other’s thoughts. Severus had thought that ability lost in the wake of his illness and their arguments about it. When Draco stirred as if he would get out of bed despite the absurdly early hour, Severus reached out and traced his finger up Draco’s arm.
“Shall we?” he asked, and Draco answered him with an eager moan and reaching arms. Severus smiled into his mouth. Should Potter come back and walk in on them, well, he was due for an education in their bodies anyway.
*
Harry came back to Malfoy and Snape’s house probably an hour later with a pocketful of shrunken supplies, mostly lumber and nails, but with other things, too. He didn’t mind using magic to help him construct the house. He just wasn’t going to Transfigure or conjure everything.
He’d also brought some chairs and the couch and bed from his flat, shrunken along with everything else, and a trunk of clothes. He would be in a pretty alien place, he thought. He wanted the comforts of home with him.
Which meant it made no sense, when he Apparated into the little bowl between the mountains where Snape and Malfoy had their house, for him to take a deep breath of the air as if it was especially clear and fresh there. It wasn’t. It was just air, that was all.
You’ve never been that good at actually lying to yourself, have you?
Harry sighed silently and set about starting to put the house together. Honestly, he did know what he needed. Some exposure to magic made him brave enough to say things to Snape that he’d thought he’d never say, and Apparate everywhere despite not doing it more than once every few months for years, and agree to a ritual that could change a lot of his life if he let it.
But this was also going to be a strange, hectic month in his life, and he would still have to go back to normality at the end of it. He couldn’t let himself fall so far into the strange mirror-world that he was thinking it would last.
Because it wouldn’t.
Harry worked steadily through the morning, laying the planks together by hand and forcing the nails in with magic, smoothing out chinks or filling them with earth that he transformed to mud with the Aguamenti Charm. He knew some pretty good spells for smoothing out the mud and making it water-tight when he tried. He’d deliberately studied some spells that could have made him and Ron and Hermione more comfortable during their Horcrux hunt after he moved to the Muggle world.
Not that he would ever do it again, but to prove they could have been more comfortable, more normal, even in the middle of that other strange and hectic time.
At last he was done. He stepped back from the house and considered it, then snorted. Pretty primitive, with planks for the floor and a pointed roof that he’d reinforced with stone and tile, and windows that didn’t have any glass in them yet, and shelves projecting from the inside walls that looked more like fungal outgrowths on the wood.
Well. The point wasn’t for it to be pretty or graceful. The point was for it to hold him.
Harry set about unshrinking his furniture and positioning it inside. He already knew he would have to go back to his flat for some rugs, and to a few more shops for curtains. He would see about filling in the windows with wards and the like. More useful for keeping out air and insects than glass, really.
Not that I can afford to stay here. I can’t be just a freak even among people who can do things Muggles can’t. I can’t. Not anymore.
*
Draco stepped a little anxiously into the Potions lab. He’d firecalled several times during the day, and each time Severus had been fine, if a little annoyed at being interrupted. But that was the sort of thing one planned for when one’s lover was a Potions master, and Draco would rather hear his acerbic voice than a thousand gentle ones.
But he hadn’t heard from Potter, and he had thought he would. Or else from Severus complaining about Potter. It was a wonder to see Severus turning away from a cauldron he had obviously just finished enchanting clean and blinking at him.
“You’re all right, then,” said Draco, his glance sweeping around the lab. It looked as clean as it always did. It wasn’t the Hogwarts dungeon, but everything was made of stone and metal, both for ease of cleaning and because fumes and acids were less likely to dissolve them and eat their way into the floors and leave the ceiling full of holes.
It was Severus’ lab, the same as always, the glass vials of all different shapes slotted neatly into their shelves and herbs and vegetables and flowers and crocodiles’ feet dangling on chains from the ceiling to dry. Severus gave him another odd look and moved across to the basin that stood in the back of the room, where he would wash his hands.
“Why would I not be?”
“Well.” Draco smirked a little, and lounged against the door. “I did wonder if Potter was going to make himself obnoxious to you, and you would fire that spell off that you told me about and test the effectiveness of a Draught of Living Death with human skin added.”
“Didn’t I tell you?” Severus was distracted as he wiped his hands carefully, once on a white cloth, once on a blue. He’d been working on a mystic potion today, then, Draco thought, one of those where the positioning of the cauldron and the brewer’s mindset were as important as the actual ingredients of the potion. “They tried the variant with human skin last year at Durmstrang. Shreds donated by the victim of a Flaying Charm at their version of St. Mungo’s. The potion’s effectiveness decreased.”
Draco opened his mouth to ask whether Severus was making a joke, and then closed it again. No, he wasn’t. Severus was entirely serious. His mind only ran on potions, and nothing else, when he was working.
Draco found himself smiling. This was a side of Severus he liked to see. This was a side he wouldn’t mind seeing more of. He slinked up to him and wrapped his arms around his waist. “Dinner at Diagon Alley?” he murmured into Severus’s neck.
Severus drew a sharp breath, and Draco knew his mind had turned most satisfyingly away from Potions. Then he said, “No. Because we would have to take Potter with us in case I had an attack while we were out.”
The anger about Potter was like pounded iron at the back of his voice, but Draco knew a way even around that. He leaned back, the velvet robes he wore in the shop for the sake of attracting clients rustling around him, and smiled up at Severus. “Then you’re not eager to test Potter’s ridiculous little claim?”
“Which one?” Severus’s tone said there was a whole constellation of ridiculous claims Potter had made, and he couldn’t be bothered with testing them all.
“His claim that he can’t live a normal life in the wizarding world because everyone stares at him.” Draco snickered. “I mean, I would expect some staring, but not the sheer amount he seems to think will damage his life. You aren’t eager to parade him past some people and see them turn their eyes away, distinctly uninterested in Potter?”
Severus pondered a moment. “He might receive some attention that would make it inconvenient for us to eat our dinner.”
Draco shrugged. “Then we glamour him once we’ve made the point and go to a different restaurant.”
“There is that.” Severus’s smile stretched, crocodile-like, across his face. “Well. Let us take him out, and see.”
*
Severus eyed Potter sideways. He, of course, had brought no robes with him. When Severus had asked why, Potter had blinked at him and said, “Well, the ritual is going to be naked. And I’m not going out in wizarding public. So why should I need them?”
He’d stood in the door of the primitive little house he’d built, holding it mostly shut so that Severus couldn’t see inside, as if he didn’t have a right to look inside buildings built on his property. Severus could hear artificial laughter, and wondered for a second if Potter had the wireless on. Then he saw a flicker of equally artificial light, and curled his lip. Potter had brought a Muggle telly along, then.
The sight touched off a wildly burning spark in Severus that he hadn’t known was buried there. He leaned forwards until he was in danger of breaking his nose on Potter’s fingers and said, “Then I will Transfigure your Muggle clothes into something more appropriate. We are going out to eat tonight.”
“Have fun, then,” said Potter. “But you don’t need me.” And he started to shut the door again.
Severus kicked it open. “For someone supposedly so unselfish, you easily forget how much I need your company, even though I despise it,” he hissed, and stormed into the little house.
He had to stop. For one thing, Potter hadn’t retreated, despite the door slamming against his legs. He stood right there.
For another, his eyes were wild with rage, and pinned on Severus’s face. And the sight made Severus stare at him, his own rage vanishing into a void inside him.
This was the thing he had been missing without knowing it. He had expected Potter to explode at him before this, waving his wand and casting curses and shouting about how unfair everything was and how he was too special to be bound to two Slytherins for life.
But somehow Potter had deprived him of that satisfaction, of yelling back at him and showing how the situation was even more unfair to Severus himself. And he had done it in a way that made Severus feel as though he couldn’t fight back; this unmoving Potter would simply absorb his blows and render them useless.
Severus opened his mouth. He was going to say something brilliant, witty. He didn’t know what, but he knew what it would have been.
“Get out,” said Potter.
And the fire was already out of his eyes, denied to Severus as if it had never existed, like a door slammed in a warm house that left him outdoors. Potter flicked his wand carelessly as he turned to what was indeed a Muggle telly placed in front of the couch; it must be modified to work on magic, and that proved that Potter didn’t have the Muggle life that he so hypocritically said he wanted, he was-
A wind blew Severus backwards, and he was outside the house again, his heels having skidded smoothly across that plank floor. Potter said only, “I’ll come with you. Ready in half-an-hour,” and the door shut.
Severus stood there for long seconds before he stirred and got ready to move.
It was-he didn’t know exactly what he felt, only that anger was not his predominant emotion.
*
Dinner was just as excruciating an experience as Harry had known it would be.
He found himself sitting in a restaurant that must have opened since the last time he’d visited Diagon Alley, called the Ocean View, filled with tables suspended on nearly invisible glass platforms over illusions of swirling sea. Dolphins leaped beneath them, and breezes filled with the scent of salt blew past them.
If Harry had come across this restaurant in the Muggle world, he would have enjoyed it freely. This was incredible, really, and the food was also good. Harry had steak that was cooked as though someone had known exactly where to turn the flames to make every bit hit his taste buds.
But the staring had begun the moment they walked into the Ocean View, even though Harry had Transfigured his Muggle clothing into a desperately ordinary set of black robes and arranged his hair so that it covered his scar. Apparently his glasses and his eyes were recognizable enough to people that they no longer needed the scar to be a signal.
Murmurs swept the restaurant, but most people fell silent, except for some parents explaining to small children born in the past eight years who he was. Harry could feel the pressure of their eyes, though. It was there while Malfoy and Snape, never speaking to him, ordered their food and then discussed some aspect of the Potions business they owned together, and Harry sat at the table with a single goblet held in his hand. He never emptied it of the water, because that might cause some server to come up and ask if he needed more, and that would give them an excuse to gape. The server who accompanied their floating dishes on a glamoured “boat” across the “water” was indiscreet enough, staring with dropped jaw.
Face it, it’s better than them thinking that you’re crazy or evil or the Heir of Slytherin or in league with Voldemort.
But in some ways, it wasn’t. Yeah, Harry was grateful that he wouldn’t have people actually launching curses at him or talking about how he should be taken to Azkaban. The staring, though-it cut against all his instincts, the ones that said he should hide and sneak up on an opponent to disarm them, or avoid attracting the notice of the kids in his class in case they bullied him, or stay silent in the cupboard and hope the Dursleys had forgotten him in the good way.
He missed home so hard that his blood thrummed with it. Yes, he had wanted to visit the wizarding world again, and there was a subtle magic about Malfoy and Snape that called to him, the way that the bond between his friends often had. That was comforting.
No one ever stared at him in the Muggle world, though. He was ordinary there. For a little while, he had thought that maybe the Dursleys were right and his looks were just that freakish, but when Muggles walked past him without a second glance, his spirits had lifted. He was normal. He could have a quiet life or a loud life, just as he chose, and people would appraise him the way they would any stranger.
Here, though, the fucking defeat of Voldemort followed him, and he would never have a moment free of it.
“You look as though you’re going to suffocate, Potter,” Malfoy, who was seated across the table from him, hissed abruptly. “If you stopped hunching like a reluctant zoo exhibit, don’t you think they’d stop paying attention?”
“No,” said Snape crisply. “Because he is the Savior.” The sneer on that was bitterer than any Harry had heard from him in the Hogwarts years. Well, he was probably still thinking about being pushed out of Harry’s house earlier, or the whole untenable bond situation in the first place. “And he enjoys the circus in his heart of hearts. No one could not.”
“I don’t like being looked at,” Harry said, the only bit of truth he would offer them, and went back to his steak. At least he could make that last, with small bites, and he would until it became obvious that Snape and Malfoy were ready to leave.
“That’s why you played Quidditch, of course,” Snape said, his voice soft and hissing. “Because of the lack of staring from the crowds.”
Harry looked at him and laughed. He heard conversations hush at nearby tables as people tried to figure out what he was laughing about. But he didn’t care, almost, at this point. He would be out of here in a few minutes at the most, and then he would hole up in the house until Beltane came and they could perform the bloody rite. No more of this, ever again. Snape and Malfoy could send him a bloody owl if they needed him.
“Yes, because the concentration on the Snitch left me so much time to notice the staring,” he said, and stood up and dropped seven Galleons on the table. “That ought to cover it.” He moved towards the door.
“Potter, you have to-” Malfoy began.
“I don’t care,” Harry said over his shoulder. “I told you why I don’t like being stared at, and you still pick at me. I’m getting out of here. Enjoy your date.” And he made his way directly to the Apparition point. A few people tried to stand up in his way, but Harry fixed his gaze above their heads and marched on as if he would plow them down, and they moved out of the way.
Yes. This was strange, Harry had to admit as he stepped out into the air of Diagon Alley and breathed deep again before he Apparated. He would be bonded to Snape and Malfoy, and that would be weird.
But then he could go back home. And this would be only another aberrant part of his life like the Horcrux hunt. He’d never have to think about it again, any more than he had to think about Voldemort now.
Part Three.
This entry was originally posted at http://lomonaaeren.dreamwidth.org/765072.html. Comment wherever you like.
Draco read through the ritual once more, moving his lips gently, and not caring if Potter or Severus saw him doing so. Severus wasn’t in the right frame of mind to object right now, anyway. He lay in the middle of his bed and glared at Draco as hard as he could, and that was hardly going to make Draco change his mind.
Potter stood by the bookshelves, glancing back and forth as if he could read their contents through the spines and tell what Draco had in mind. But Draco was pretty sure that only this book had the proper ritual.
They would probably explode when he explained it, Draco thought cynically. He picked up his wand and held it ready as he tucked the book under his arm, and both Severus’s and Potter’s eyes came back to him.
“Listen,” said Draco. “We need a ritual that gives us the effect of Potter’s presence, but not his actual presence, since both of you find that objectionable.”
Potter snorted. “Don’t tell me that you don’t, Malfoy.”
Draco shrugged a shoulder. Honestly, he didn’t know what he found objectionable at the moment. All his concern was for Severus and making sure he survived his illness. He could still feel contempt for Potter’s shitty flat if he was standing in it, but he wasn’t right now. “I don’t think physical presence is needed, though, because Severus didn’t get worse when Potter went outside and further from him.” He was looking between the two of them now, at a point in the air, speaking calmly. “We need only a sort of spiritual presence. That means a bonding ritual.”
“No-”
“Draco, you will not-”
“Silencio, Silencio,” said Draco, twice in a row, and went on with great satisfaction. “The ritual I found is complex, but it only needs to be done once. And it will prevent any further illness or Potter from needing to spend all his time with us, either, if he wants. So.”
Potter’s brow was furrowed, and he looked as if he might not have said anything even if the restriction was lifted from his mouth. Severus, of course, was practically foaming. Draco considerately ended the spell, and, out of equal consideration for himself, stepped back out of foam-spraying range.
“I will not share something as intimate as a bond with Harry Potter,” Snape snarled. Potter’s eyes went to him, but the expression in them didn’t change. Potter seemed to be seriously thinking about it, Draco thought. At least he hoped so. That would leave him with only one ranting, screaming person to calm down. “You ought to know that, Draco.”
“You already shared one with him, because his magic, or the Hallows, whatever you want to attribute it to, was preserving your life,” said Draco indifferently. He loved Severus, but he didn’t love this side of him, and he was going to go to battle to keep him alive, no matter what. “This time, you’ll have a different kind of bond, one that doesn’t have to falter at a moment’s notice. I think that would be enough of an incentive for you to pay attention to me.” He shrugged a little when Severus went on staring. “Maybe not.”
Potter must have ended the spell on himself nonverbally, because he cleared his throat a second later. “This is probably the best solution,” he said.
“Better than you as a vegetable?” Severus sneered. “At least that way, you would no longer have the capacity to torment me.”
Potter turned away from him and towards Draco. “The reason I’ve avoided the wizarding world is because the staring and pointing and attempts at getting autographs won’t stop,” he said bluntly. “But this way, not only do you not need to come looking for me again, you won’t have any incentive to flaunt it. This is probably as good as it’s going to get.”
“Yes, Potter, because you so hate attention,” Severus drawled.
Potter might not have heard. He nodded to Draco. “Snape wouldn’t start falling ill again as the bond went on? It would always stay as stable as it’s going to be at the beginning?”
“Yes,” said Draco, blinking a little. He hadn’t expected Potter to know that bonds sometimes required regular periods of renewal, at least if they came from a certain class of rituals. “If we perform it on the day that I want to perform it.”
Potter nodded again, eyes so distant that Draco wondered what he was seeing. “Good. Then I can go back to my flat now?” He turned and looked at Draco again.
“Running away before we can even have the discussion, Potter?” Severus asked again. His words were as soft as poison.
“I thought I’d leave before you fretted yourself to death,” Potter told him brightly. “I didn’t think there would be any discussion if you just wanted to sit there and throw things at my head.”
Severus drew himself up to spit something else, and Draco cut in. “You should at least hear the explanation,” he told Potter. “It’s a sex ritual.”
Potter went pale for a second, and then shrugged and nodded. “Better than a sacrificial one,” he said.
“You couldn’t even stand to slit a rabbit’s throat?” Severus laughed like a crow choking.
Potter turned to face him, movements slow and deliberate. Draco caught a glimpse, then, of the man who had defeated the Dark Lord, someone he hadn’t seen in eight years. “You know as well as I do that for the kind of bond Malfoy is talking about, it would have to be more than a rabbit. I’m not sacrificing a human.”
Draco had expected Severus to have some comeback to that, but he only stared at Potter as if he was disgusting, and said nothing else. There seemed to be no response to Potter’s declaration-not that it needed one, Draco decided abruptly a second later, since they weren’t sacrificing anyone either way.
Before Severus could find an answer, Draco cut in as smoothly as he could. “That’s right. A sex ritual does need to take place on Beltane, however. The greatest day of fertility. That means we have a month to prepare.”
“All right,” said Potter, and held out a steady hand. “Can I see the description of the ritual?”
Draco pushed the book at him, tapping the page with one finger. Potter pushed his glasses up his face as if in answer, and started reading. Once, he grunted. Once, he paused and looked up at Draco. “What about the blood?”
“Spilled once from each of our veins, into the potion we’ll brew before the ritual begins,” Draco said calmly. “Not used from anyone else or anything unwilling.”
“Good,” said Potter. Severus snorted loud enough to wake the dead. Potter only turned another page, and paused with his head tilted absently in front of the next page. “There’s one problem we’re going to have, Malfoy,” he said. “This ritual is adaptable, a bit, but it says that a previous bond between any two of the participants has to be taken into account.”
“Yes?” Draco asked cautiously. He didn’t understand what Potter was talking about. He knew that neither he nor Severus was bonded to anyone, and that Potter could be after years in the Muggle world defied belief.
“You and Snape have a bond based on isolation, don’t you?” Potter looked up, and his eyes flickered once from Draco to Severus. “Your family rejected you, Malfoy. Snape, I don’t think you’re close to anyone still alive except Malfoy himself.” He drew his wand, and Draco hadn’t even begun to tense before he flicked it. “Iugum Acclaro!”
There was a soft, complicated glow that seemed to start in Draco’s bones, and then he glanced down to see a pale red light encircling his left wrist, tying it to Severus’s right.
“Yes, I thought so,” said Potter, nodding as if he was some learned professor and they were the hapless students. Draco did have to bite his lip severely to avoid snapping, but at least Potter went on and explained instead of leaving them in the dark, and didn’t even sound too professorial while he did it. “Your magic has reached out for each other’s and bonded you. It’s what happens when wizards or a pair of them are alone for too long without close emotional connections to anyone else magical.”
Draco shook his head slowly. He did remember something like that being a part of his study of bonds, the one he had made when amassing these ritual books. “Okay, fine. But what does that mean for the ritual?”
“Where have you seen this before?” Severus added before, now like a sneezing crow. “Where did you learn that spell, Potter?”
“Ron and Hermione’s magic bonded like that when they were searching for her parents in Australia,” said Potter, without turning a hair. “They were the only two wizards within miles for months at a time, not interacting with anyone else who had magic on a regular basis, and when they found it painful to be apart after they got back to Britain, Hermione investigated why.”
Draco opened his mouth to say that he and Severus didn’t have trouble being apart, then closed it again. Quite often, they weren’t far apart. Severus would be in the back of the shop brewing, or Draco would come home early if there were few customers. And Draco was always eager to get home at the end of the day, though he wouldn’t have attributed it to this.
“How did your friends get themselves unbonded?” Severus demanded.
Draco couldn’t help it; he flinched hard enough to make the glowing leash of light that tied him to Severus flicker. Severus lashed him with a glance and turned back to Potter, who was shaking his head.
“It’s permanent,” he said. “Unless you were to have a duel to the death, or near-mortal wounding. And I don’t think you are.”
Severus bowed his head. Draco said nothing. He turned and looked at Potter again. “You think we can’t use the ritual because of that?”
“I know we can’t.” Potter held out the book towards him again. “You’ll need to choose another one. I don’t think a bonding ritual is a bad idea,” he added hastily, maybe seeing Draco’s anger in his furrowed brow and glittering eyes if nowhere else. “We just can’t use that particular one.”
Draco clenched his hand into a fist for a moment, then gave a sharp snort and shook it free. “Yes, we can still use this one.”
“I just told you-”
“It merely means that you’ll have to bond with both of us,” said Draco relentlessly. “Both me and Severus, not Severus alone.”
It was interesting to see the way that that made Potter sway on his feet, where just hearing about the original requirements for the ritual hadn’t. He reached out a hand as if to catch himself, but ended up weakly slapping it against the wall. He staggered and stood there when he’d recovered with his head lowered, not looking at either one of them. Draco gave him a small, nasty smile and didn’t say several cutting things that he could have.
“There’s no other way?” Potter whispered.
“What other way can you think of?” The leash of light that tied him to Severus was getting annoying. Draco banished it with another flick of his wand and moved toward Potter, halting about halfway between him and Severus. Maybe he should get started on making his symbolic gestures now, he thought. “A bond to both of us would mean that we could use that ritual.”
“But you don’t need me to stabilize your magic,” said Potter grimly, and his eyes found Draco’s. There was something deep in them that Draco didn’t think was simply Potter’s stupid reluctance to use his power. “What is a bond like that going to do to you?”
Oh, of course, Draco thought after a minute when it felt like his heart was going to stop. It’s Potter’s stupid concern for everyone interfering, as usual.
“It’s not going to do anything more to me than it will to you,” he said. “Don’t worry about that. We’ll have the ritual, and you and I will only need as much contact as you and Severus will.”
Potter acted like he was going to say something else for a second, but then his eyelids fluttered once, and when they came back up, there was a shutter in place across the front of his gaze. “All right. What do we need to do to prepare for the ritual?”
“It’ll be the night of Beltane,” Draco began, brisk now. “I need you to take some of the books I have here with you and read them, so you know what’s expected of you. And we’ll need you to visit at least once every few days, to ease Severus’s pain until we get to that point. He was getting worse until you arrived…”
He knew, as he spoke, that Severus’s eyes rested on him. He knew they would have a confrontation almost the exact moment that Draco sent Potter home.
He didn’t mind. He was, if anything, rather looking forward to it.
*
“A Beltane rite? A double bond?”
Severus started his voice out low. It had more impact than he’d anticipated. It made Draco pause in shutting the door after Potter, rather than just turning around at once, and when he did turn, his head was up and his leg raised in the middle of a step like a deer startled by a sound in the forest.
It was such moments that had first made Severus think he might have a chance with Draco. He had seen a vulnerability in him as a boy that he didn’t think anyone had, and where lay vulnerability, there lay other treasures that different people might never have seen, nor known how to value.
“Yes,” said Draco. The vulnerability was there, Severus thought, under the surface. It was never far from the surface now, not once you knew it existed. Draco had survived a war, and the rejection by his parents once they understood he would never become a properly-married, politically-manipulating member of their society, but he had done it only because he had Severus at his side. He would have crumbled on his own.
And knowing that, Severus abruptly decided, head clearer than it had felt in a long time, I should have known better than to think he would let me go.
“You could have respected my wish,” Severus whispered, and he knew Draco would know they were no longer talking about the Beltane rite, which Severus had never specifically forbidden because he hadn’t thought Draco would do anything so mad.
“I could have,” said Draco. “And watched you die. There was no other choice.” He came and stood by Severus’s bed, looking down, at the same distance he had been when the visible leash of light connected them.
Severus made a hard gesture with one hand, and then managed to restrain himself. He simply sat up and swung his legs over the side. He was tired of lying down, and he felt more refreshed out of Potter’s presence than he ever would in it. “This would be easier if it was anyone but Potter.”
The signs of Draco’s understanding, and his relief, were subtle; his mouth drooped slightly as though it would begin a frown, his eyes narrowed instead of widened, his hand made a gesture that wasn’t languid. “Yes. Well. There is no reason that it has to be, after we get the bond established. We don’t need to spend more time than occasional visits with him.”
“We must spend time together,” Severus said, and reached out to catch Draco’s wrist between pinching fingers.
Draco held his breath as if he wished to die that way until Severus added, “And perhaps we can do it without misconceptions separating us.”
“Yes,” said Draco, that deep light shining out of him like a lantern buried at the bottom of a cave. Severus was more than content knowing no one but him had ever seen that light, or ever would. “I’d like that.”
Severus squeezed back once more, and then began to climb out of bed.
He had a life to live, and a light to cultivate, and a ritual to make tolerable.
*
Harry got out of bed and walked across his bedroom until he could touch the wall. Yes, all right. He went back and lay down again. This time, he kept his eyes still and his breathing steady, doing the best he could to fall asleep that way.
The sensation remained, anyway. The walls were pressing in on him. The room was smaller than it had been since he first rented the flat and decided that the rooms were precisely of a size to suit him, especially since he lived alone and rarely had guests over.
Harry finally scowled and got out of bed, going to the kitchen where he kept some Firewhisky in a specially enchanted jug, a gift from Ron. He sipped it and stared at his reflection in the shiny surface of the oven.
It wasn’t that Snape and Malfoy’s house was particularly expansive, he thought. Or that he envied their gardens with their spiky plants, or the bookshelves with lots of magical tomes, or even the rock from which you could watch the sunset. It was that-
There was a subtle hum of something in the background when he was there. Harry would have said it was magic, except he had stopped missing magic a long time ago. Anyway, he could still go to Diagon Alley in disguise when he wanted.
Unless it was a different kind of magic. The kind that relied on glances exchanged by two people who understood each other, hands clasped in good fellowship, bitten lips and averted eyes.
Harry shook his head savagely. He reminded himself that he’d had the chance for companionship, a partner, if he wanted them. He was the one who had gone off to the Muggle world and told Ginny not to wait for him. And he’d deliberately kept himself distant from most Muggles, too. His dating was casual, just like his friendships. He couldn’t imagine dating someone who didn’t know about the wizarding world, and he couldn’t imagine himself revealing it, either.
It was at least one reason he had hoped he could give up his magic. Then he could be a normal Muggle and find someone to love without worrying about it.
But standing there with his face reflected in the stove, so that he could see at least part of the faded lightning bolt scar, his mouth full of Firewhisky and his veins singing softly with the echo of the first spells he had cast in months, he knew he wasn’t going to be normal.
Harry closed his eyes. His greatest fear at the moment was that it might be too late for him to be anything else.
*
They had three days of peace.
Then Draco woke up at two in the morning as a fist thumped solidly into his back. He rolled, gathering his wand up in his hand, ready to strike out if he had to. He knew that he was breathing hard, more than he should, but he’d been startled out of a dream.
He realized it was a nightmare when his eyes landed on Severus’s puce face, already illuminated by the faint light of his own Lumos Charm, and Draco launched into action. He’d learned a spell by necessity that would force air into someone’s body, given how dangerous some fumes were when inhaled.
The spell seized Severus’s lungs, and Draco felt them bending, flexing, resisting more than they should have. He pumped in more air and more magic, his head turned grimly to the side so that he could breathe other air and Severus would have the fresh.
For long moments, moments that clung to Draco’s heart like a Dementor, it didn’t work. Severus’s face was going a deeper blue color, and his arms were falling limply to the bed. His eyes were closing. He looked as if he was giving up, which was something that Draco had never seen before, not even when he knelt before the Dark Lord and had to kiss the hem of his filthy robe.
Draco’s magic reached out, and he remembered what Potter had said, or showed them, the other day. He forced the magic along the bond that connected him and Severus.
Severus’s magic lashed and circled around his, and the bond flared into being, so bright that it made Draco shut his eyes defensively. But he kept feeding the power, and the bond conducted it into Severus’s body. For a moment, Draco felt the continued resistance, which he reckoned was probably the remnant of the hole that needed to be patched with Potter’s magic.
And then it bulged and rippled, and faded away to nothingness with a long hissing noise. Draco was pumping in air and power, and Severus was breathing, and Draco fell back on the pillow and lay there trembling. He wondered for a second if Potter had had to push against similar resistance when he brought Severus back to life, the resistance of death.
Well, if he did, he didn’t bloody do it right, Draco thought savagely a second later, as he listened to Severus’s hoarse wheezing. When Draco tried to move, the bond tugged at him, and he understood. Severus would breathe only as long as Draco was right beside him, or at least within the small distance the bond implied, to keep feeding him the magic. They needed some other solution to let Draco move away.
They needed Potter.
Luckily, their owl was well-trained, and would come to Draco without being coaxed with treats, and he had ink and parchment and a quill in the bedside table.
*
Harry opened his eyes to a frantic pecking on the window, and ended up grumbling as he climbed out of bed. “Yes, I’m coming-stupid bird-” he muttered as he flung open the window and let the owl in.
It didn’t come to him right away, of course, the way that Ron and Hermione’s well-trained owls would have. Harry had to chase it around the room. It seemed it objected to a naked wizard instead of one wrapped in robes or at least pajamas, and it fluttered up into a corner of the ceiling and clung there like a bat. Harry finally used a Summoning Charm on it, and another one that conjured a soft shield on the arm and shoulder that the owl slammed into. Ignoring the attempts to injure him with beak and talon, he pried the owl loose.
The letter was short and to to the point.
Potter, Severus started struggling to breathe five minutes ago. Get your arse over here.
It wasn’t signed, but then, with the reference to Snape by his first name, it didn’t need to be. Harry groaned breathlessly anyway and turned to struggle into robes. The owl was already flying out the window. It had probably been reluctant to bring the message because it was the middle of the night and it knew it wouldn’t be staying for a reply.
That didn’t improve Harry’s temper, and he slammed out of the flat in a foul mood. Then he had to go back and get his wand, so he could Apparate. And then he found himself imagining what Malfoy would say if he admitted that, and his temper expanded until he felt as though he was carrying a spiked rock around in his chest.
Fine. I just won’t admit it if he does ask, which he shouldn’t. Why would he care?
And Harry vanished, refusing to admit the purr that seemed to roll through his body when he used his magic that way.
*
Draco knew when Potter had arrived even before he heard the pounding at the door, because Severus’s breathing immediately sounded deeper and stronger, and Draco could move further away than the bond would ordinarily permit.
Draco smoothly and quietly unlocked the door with a spell. He hoped Potter would have the sense to come in on his own, and it seemed he did. Draco heard someone picking their way through an unfamiliar dark room, a stumble, a curse, and then the soft whispered incantation that Potter used to cast a Lumos on his own wand. Draco watched with half-lidded eyes as he found his way up to the bed and bent over Severus.
Severus’s breathing shuddered out once, in a sigh, and for a moment, Draco feared horribly that it wouldn’t be renewed. Then he heard it change in a different way, and lifted his head, shocked. No. Strange as it seemed, Severus had simply gone to sleep.
Draco shook his head for a long moment, then focused on Potter. “You’ll have to stay here while we prepare for the ritual. I’m not going to chance losing him again.”
Potter looked at him in the light of the Lumos, his eyes glinting like a cat’s. Draco thought it a far more fitting look than the one that had consumed him when he was stuttering in the middle of his flat earlier. “I can’t stay in the house.”
“You have to, Potter, or he’ll die,” said Draco. Stark and simple seemed to be the way to go with this Harry Potter, who had shut himself so entirely off from the world.
That got him bared teeth from Potter, and a simple, “I have to be nearby. But I can’t be in the house for his sake and yours as well as mine.” He went on before Draco could ask what in the world he meant. “I’ll build a little house for me outside the circle of your wards. That should be near enough for you to summon me if you need me.”
“Inside the wards,” Draco countered. “Or he could get sick and I might have trouble reaching you in time.”
Potter nodded, although with a tightness around the corners of his mouth that made Draco think he was resisting a grimace. “All right. I’ll take some time to build the house, probably.” He took another glance at Severus. “Is he going to be all right if I go to get the building materials?”
Draco looked flatly at Potter and wished he could make sense out of the thoughts that seemed to be circulating behind those equally flat green eyes. “Why don’t you just Transfigure things into wood and nails, or whatever you need? Or stone?” Draco had never built a house himself and was vague on the details, but it seemed to him that Transfiguration would be cheaper than buying Muggle materials.
“I haven’t done that sort of magic in years, and I’m rusty on it.” Potter waved his hand. “You didn’t answer my question.”
Draco shrugged back. “I don’t know. He’s asleep now, but he could wake up choking any second, and it was only the bond between him and me that allowed me to keep him alive for as long as it took you to get here. Are you going to receive an owl that I send to you while you’re traveling?”
Potter looked at Severus in utter silence, then nodded and pulled a chair from over near the table where Draco usually sat when he was doing the apothecary’s accounts. “All right. I’ll sit here.”
Draco paused. He didn’t know what he’d expected, but it wasn’t for Potter to simply sit down with his hands folded on his lap and no expression at all on his face.
“You can sleep on the floor, if you want,” Draco suggested. “Or I could Transfigure some pillows and blankets for you, if you like.”
“No. I’m fine.”
Well, what annoys me right now is his bloody martyrdom, Draco thought, and turned away from Potter, to snuggle back into the bed beside Severus and get some sleep. Some people who didn’t have Potter’s bottomless vaults had to get up and go to work in the morning.
*
Severus opened his eyes, and frowned. His throat felt strangely rough, as if he had been screaming during the night, but he didn’t remember that. He reached up and traced his fingers slowly around the edges of his neck, wondering if he would find them swollen. Was he sick?
Then he turned, and saw Potter sitting slumped on the chair beside the bed, staring into space. His eyes moved at once to Severus’s face, proving Potter wasn’t asleep. Severus stared with his hand closing into a fist.
He could easily enough guess why Potter was here. He turned a venomous glare on Draco, who, unfairly, was sleeping like a Kneazle, and made another attempt to clear his throat that only resulted in more rattling. “He summoned you here? And why?”
“You woke up unable to breathe,” said Potter. His voice was calm and so neutral that Severus would have expected it to come out of the mouth of someone he was discussing Potions with. “Malfoy was able to keep you alive because of the bond between you, but he couldn’t move very far. He sent me an owl.”
“Yes, Octavian would have been good enough to come to him and let the message be attached instead of needing to be chased,” Severus muttered, and then jumped as he realized he was discussing this with Potter, of all people. He shook his head. “Why did you stay?”
“Malfoy didn’t know if you would get sick again or not.” Potter only shook his head when Severus started to open his mouth again. “But I won’t be underfoot for much longer. I can build a house outside yours, in the circle of the wards. Then I’m near enough to be summoned when things start to go wrong again, but far enough away that you don’t need to think about me from day to day.”
“This is outrageous, Potter,” Severus said, when he was sure he had chosen the right word. “I did not choose to be bound to you.”
“If you think you have another ritual that will work, then you’re the best one to talk Malfoy into it. I don’t think he’ll listen to me. But this situation will only last a month. We can go back to our own lives when it’s done.”
Severus hissed deeply, a noise that made his throat throb. He would have done something about that, but Potter waved his wand, and a glass came flying towards him. He used Aguamenti nonverbally to pour water into the cup, and held it out to Severus. Severus took it and cast his own spells on it to determine if the water was pure.
Potter watched him do it, without expression.
“Why are you doing this?” Severus whispered, when he had drunk. “I seriously doubt that you harbor any desire for me.”
“Considering that the ritual calls for you to shove your dick up my arse, I don’t have to,” said Potter, and Severus was still reeling from his crude language-which might be why Potter had chosen those words, he realized abruptly-when Potter continued. “But I did something that should have worked, and didn’t. Something that wronged you when it shouldn’t have. So this is the way to make up for it.”
“Martyr,” Severus whispered. “Hero.”
“You don’t mean that,” said Potter, and there was a slight glint in his eyes that Severus was surprised he could see, with as low as the fire had sunk. “You mean, someone who likes playing them.”
“Yes,” Severus hissed, and drew the word out as if he was the one who had Parseltongue. I would certainly have made better use of it than Potter has. “You cannot respect my right to die with dignity? In peace? For someone concerned with making up for his mistakes, you have not made up for your worst one.”
“With the bond you have with Malfoy, you’ll probably drag him into death with you, if you die,” said Potter bluntly. “And I don’t think that he’s chosen either to lose you or lose his own life. So no, you’re not the only one with a say here.”
Severus drew his wand and pointed it at Potter. Potter only looked back with a sort of world-weary expression, and Severus realized abruptly that Potter probably wasn’t afraid. He certainly didn’t act like it, and he might think that he had the ability to out-duel Severus despite his utter lack of any formal dueling training.
“You didn’t know about that bond when you came here.”
“No.” Potter shrugged. “But I do know that the ritual Malfoy wants to do will make sure that you aren’t as dependent on him anymore. You’ll be stable, without the need for my constant presence, or his. So you could go ahead and kill yourself after that, if you wanted.” He paused. “Not that it won’t still hit him hard, but you could go ahead and be the selfish bastard I always knew you were.”
Severus found his mouth dry, which he had never thought it would be in a conversation-a confrontation-with Potter. He had imagined what he would say to him since he had figured out that Potter had saved his life with magic. He had imagined scoldings, and Potter admitting he was right, and apologies, and Potter marching away with his nose in the air because in the intervening years he had turned into James Potter Mark II.
But he had never thought the rise in Potter’s voice would come when he was arguing on Draco’s behalf.
“I will have no reason to die if this ritual works,” Severus snapped. “I was expressing my discomfort with your need to play the hero that overrides everything else-”
“Good,” Potter said. “So glad that we had this little talk.” He flicked his wand, once, and Severus flinched and countered with a spell that told him what one Potter had used. It seemed to be a simple Monitoring Charm, of the kind most parents used on young children. “That will tell me if you’re in distress,” Potter went on, standing up. “And in the meantime, I’m going to go and get my building materials.”
“Why wouldn’t you Transf-”
“Because I wanted a normal life,” Potter said. “I’m not going to get a completely normal one for the next month or so. But there are some things I don’t want to give up.” And he walked out the door.
Severus was still staring after him when Draco stirred and murmured, “Should I be worried that you were so engrossed in the conversation with him, you didn’t even notice I was awake?”
Severus winced and shook his head, although he wasn’t entirely sure that it was in answer to Draco’s question. “I cannot figure Potter out.”
“I don’t know that we need to,” Draco said calmly. “The ritual will blend our bodies briefly, and our magic permanently, to give us a sense of Potter’s magical presence. But we don’t need him here all the time after that.”
“Just for the next month,” said Severus, and held Draco’s eyes.
“Yes,” Draco said, without shame. “That does mean that you’ll have to be the one who deals with him more, while I’m at the apothecary earning a living.”
Severus winced and looked away. But at the same time, a warm sensation was stirring to life in his stomach. At least he and Draco retained their closeness which meant they could almost read each other’s thoughts. Severus had thought that ability lost in the wake of his illness and their arguments about it. When Draco stirred as if he would get out of bed despite the absurdly early hour, Severus reached out and traced his finger up Draco’s arm.
“Shall we?” he asked, and Draco answered him with an eager moan and reaching arms. Severus smiled into his mouth. Should Potter come back and walk in on them, well, he was due for an education in their bodies anyway.
*
Harry came back to Malfoy and Snape’s house probably an hour later with a pocketful of shrunken supplies, mostly lumber and nails, but with other things, too. He didn’t mind using magic to help him construct the house. He just wasn’t going to Transfigure or conjure everything.
He’d also brought some chairs and the couch and bed from his flat, shrunken along with everything else, and a trunk of clothes. He would be in a pretty alien place, he thought. He wanted the comforts of home with him.
Which meant it made no sense, when he Apparated into the little bowl between the mountains where Snape and Malfoy had their house, for him to take a deep breath of the air as if it was especially clear and fresh there. It wasn’t. It was just air, that was all.
You’ve never been that good at actually lying to yourself, have you?
Harry sighed silently and set about starting to put the house together. Honestly, he did know what he needed. Some exposure to magic made him brave enough to say things to Snape that he’d thought he’d never say, and Apparate everywhere despite not doing it more than once every few months for years, and agree to a ritual that could change a lot of his life if he let it.
But this was also going to be a strange, hectic month in his life, and he would still have to go back to normality at the end of it. He couldn’t let himself fall so far into the strange mirror-world that he was thinking it would last.
Because it wouldn’t.
Harry worked steadily through the morning, laying the planks together by hand and forcing the nails in with magic, smoothing out chinks or filling them with earth that he transformed to mud with the Aguamenti Charm. He knew some pretty good spells for smoothing out the mud and making it water-tight when he tried. He’d deliberately studied some spells that could have made him and Ron and Hermione more comfortable during their Horcrux hunt after he moved to the Muggle world.
Not that he would ever do it again, but to prove they could have been more comfortable, more normal, even in the middle of that other strange and hectic time.
At last he was done. He stepped back from the house and considered it, then snorted. Pretty primitive, with planks for the floor and a pointed roof that he’d reinforced with stone and tile, and windows that didn’t have any glass in them yet, and shelves projecting from the inside walls that looked more like fungal outgrowths on the wood.
Well. The point wasn’t for it to be pretty or graceful. The point was for it to hold him.
Harry set about unshrinking his furniture and positioning it inside. He already knew he would have to go back to his flat for some rugs, and to a few more shops for curtains. He would see about filling in the windows with wards and the like. More useful for keeping out air and insects than glass, really.
Not that I can afford to stay here. I can’t be just a freak even among people who can do things Muggles can’t. I can’t. Not anymore.
*
Draco stepped a little anxiously into the Potions lab. He’d firecalled several times during the day, and each time Severus had been fine, if a little annoyed at being interrupted. But that was the sort of thing one planned for when one’s lover was a Potions master, and Draco would rather hear his acerbic voice than a thousand gentle ones.
But he hadn’t heard from Potter, and he had thought he would. Or else from Severus complaining about Potter. It was a wonder to see Severus turning away from a cauldron he had obviously just finished enchanting clean and blinking at him.
“You’re all right, then,” said Draco, his glance sweeping around the lab. It looked as clean as it always did. It wasn’t the Hogwarts dungeon, but everything was made of stone and metal, both for ease of cleaning and because fumes and acids were less likely to dissolve them and eat their way into the floors and leave the ceiling full of holes.
It was Severus’ lab, the same as always, the glass vials of all different shapes slotted neatly into their shelves and herbs and vegetables and flowers and crocodiles’ feet dangling on chains from the ceiling to dry. Severus gave him another odd look and moved across to the basin that stood in the back of the room, where he would wash his hands.
“Why would I not be?”
“Well.” Draco smirked a little, and lounged against the door. “I did wonder if Potter was going to make himself obnoxious to you, and you would fire that spell off that you told me about and test the effectiveness of a Draught of Living Death with human skin added.”
“Didn’t I tell you?” Severus was distracted as he wiped his hands carefully, once on a white cloth, once on a blue. He’d been working on a mystic potion today, then, Draco thought, one of those where the positioning of the cauldron and the brewer’s mindset were as important as the actual ingredients of the potion. “They tried the variant with human skin last year at Durmstrang. Shreds donated by the victim of a Flaying Charm at their version of St. Mungo’s. The potion’s effectiveness decreased.”
Draco opened his mouth to ask whether Severus was making a joke, and then closed it again. No, he wasn’t. Severus was entirely serious. His mind only ran on potions, and nothing else, when he was working.
Draco found himself smiling. This was a side of Severus he liked to see. This was a side he wouldn’t mind seeing more of. He slinked up to him and wrapped his arms around his waist. “Dinner at Diagon Alley?” he murmured into Severus’s neck.
Severus drew a sharp breath, and Draco knew his mind had turned most satisfyingly away from Potions. Then he said, “No. Because we would have to take Potter with us in case I had an attack while we were out.”
The anger about Potter was like pounded iron at the back of his voice, but Draco knew a way even around that. He leaned back, the velvet robes he wore in the shop for the sake of attracting clients rustling around him, and smiled up at Severus. “Then you’re not eager to test Potter’s ridiculous little claim?”
“Which one?” Severus’s tone said there was a whole constellation of ridiculous claims Potter had made, and he couldn’t be bothered with testing them all.
“His claim that he can’t live a normal life in the wizarding world because everyone stares at him.” Draco snickered. “I mean, I would expect some staring, but not the sheer amount he seems to think will damage his life. You aren’t eager to parade him past some people and see them turn their eyes away, distinctly uninterested in Potter?”
Severus pondered a moment. “He might receive some attention that would make it inconvenient for us to eat our dinner.”
Draco shrugged. “Then we glamour him once we’ve made the point and go to a different restaurant.”
“There is that.” Severus’s smile stretched, crocodile-like, across his face. “Well. Let us take him out, and see.”
*
Severus eyed Potter sideways. He, of course, had brought no robes with him. When Severus had asked why, Potter had blinked at him and said, “Well, the ritual is going to be naked. And I’m not going out in wizarding public. So why should I need them?”
He’d stood in the door of the primitive little house he’d built, holding it mostly shut so that Severus couldn’t see inside, as if he didn’t have a right to look inside buildings built on his property. Severus could hear artificial laughter, and wondered for a second if Potter had the wireless on. Then he saw a flicker of equally artificial light, and curled his lip. Potter had brought a Muggle telly along, then.
The sight touched off a wildly burning spark in Severus that he hadn’t known was buried there. He leaned forwards until he was in danger of breaking his nose on Potter’s fingers and said, “Then I will Transfigure your Muggle clothes into something more appropriate. We are going out to eat tonight.”
“Have fun, then,” said Potter. “But you don’t need me.” And he started to shut the door again.
Severus kicked it open. “For someone supposedly so unselfish, you easily forget how much I need your company, even though I despise it,” he hissed, and stormed into the little house.
He had to stop. For one thing, Potter hadn’t retreated, despite the door slamming against his legs. He stood right there.
For another, his eyes were wild with rage, and pinned on Severus’s face. And the sight made Severus stare at him, his own rage vanishing into a void inside him.
This was the thing he had been missing without knowing it. He had expected Potter to explode at him before this, waving his wand and casting curses and shouting about how unfair everything was and how he was too special to be bound to two Slytherins for life.
But somehow Potter had deprived him of that satisfaction, of yelling back at him and showing how the situation was even more unfair to Severus himself. And he had done it in a way that made Severus feel as though he couldn’t fight back; this unmoving Potter would simply absorb his blows and render them useless.
Severus opened his mouth. He was going to say something brilliant, witty. He didn’t know what, but he knew what it would have been.
“Get out,” said Potter.
And the fire was already out of his eyes, denied to Severus as if it had never existed, like a door slammed in a warm house that left him outdoors. Potter flicked his wand carelessly as he turned to what was indeed a Muggle telly placed in front of the couch; it must be modified to work on magic, and that proved that Potter didn’t have the Muggle life that he so hypocritically said he wanted, he was-
A wind blew Severus backwards, and he was outside the house again, his heels having skidded smoothly across that plank floor. Potter said only, “I’ll come with you. Ready in half-an-hour,” and the door shut.
Severus stood there for long seconds before he stirred and got ready to move.
It was-he didn’t know exactly what he felt, only that anger was not his predominant emotion.
*
Dinner was just as excruciating an experience as Harry had known it would be.
He found himself sitting in a restaurant that must have opened since the last time he’d visited Diagon Alley, called the Ocean View, filled with tables suspended on nearly invisible glass platforms over illusions of swirling sea. Dolphins leaped beneath them, and breezes filled with the scent of salt blew past them.
If Harry had come across this restaurant in the Muggle world, he would have enjoyed it freely. This was incredible, really, and the food was also good. Harry had steak that was cooked as though someone had known exactly where to turn the flames to make every bit hit his taste buds.
But the staring had begun the moment they walked into the Ocean View, even though Harry had Transfigured his Muggle clothing into a desperately ordinary set of black robes and arranged his hair so that it covered his scar. Apparently his glasses and his eyes were recognizable enough to people that they no longer needed the scar to be a signal.
Murmurs swept the restaurant, but most people fell silent, except for some parents explaining to small children born in the past eight years who he was. Harry could feel the pressure of their eyes, though. It was there while Malfoy and Snape, never speaking to him, ordered their food and then discussed some aspect of the Potions business they owned together, and Harry sat at the table with a single goblet held in his hand. He never emptied it of the water, because that might cause some server to come up and ask if he needed more, and that would give them an excuse to gape. The server who accompanied their floating dishes on a glamoured “boat” across the “water” was indiscreet enough, staring with dropped jaw.
Face it, it’s better than them thinking that you’re crazy or evil or the Heir of Slytherin or in league with Voldemort.
But in some ways, it wasn’t. Yeah, Harry was grateful that he wouldn’t have people actually launching curses at him or talking about how he should be taken to Azkaban. The staring, though-it cut against all his instincts, the ones that said he should hide and sneak up on an opponent to disarm them, or avoid attracting the notice of the kids in his class in case they bullied him, or stay silent in the cupboard and hope the Dursleys had forgotten him in the good way.
He missed home so hard that his blood thrummed with it. Yes, he had wanted to visit the wizarding world again, and there was a subtle magic about Malfoy and Snape that called to him, the way that the bond between his friends often had. That was comforting.
No one ever stared at him in the Muggle world, though. He was ordinary there. For a little while, he had thought that maybe the Dursleys were right and his looks were just that freakish, but when Muggles walked past him without a second glance, his spirits had lifted. He was normal. He could have a quiet life or a loud life, just as he chose, and people would appraise him the way they would any stranger.
Here, though, the fucking defeat of Voldemort followed him, and he would never have a moment free of it.
“You look as though you’re going to suffocate, Potter,” Malfoy, who was seated across the table from him, hissed abruptly. “If you stopped hunching like a reluctant zoo exhibit, don’t you think they’d stop paying attention?”
“No,” said Snape crisply. “Because he is the Savior.” The sneer on that was bitterer than any Harry had heard from him in the Hogwarts years. Well, he was probably still thinking about being pushed out of Harry’s house earlier, or the whole untenable bond situation in the first place. “And he enjoys the circus in his heart of hearts. No one could not.”
“I don’t like being looked at,” Harry said, the only bit of truth he would offer them, and went back to his steak. At least he could make that last, with small bites, and he would until it became obvious that Snape and Malfoy were ready to leave.
“That’s why you played Quidditch, of course,” Snape said, his voice soft and hissing. “Because of the lack of staring from the crowds.”
Harry looked at him and laughed. He heard conversations hush at nearby tables as people tried to figure out what he was laughing about. But he didn’t care, almost, at this point. He would be out of here in a few minutes at the most, and then he would hole up in the house until Beltane came and they could perform the bloody rite. No more of this, ever again. Snape and Malfoy could send him a bloody owl if they needed him.
“Yes, because the concentration on the Snitch left me so much time to notice the staring,” he said, and stood up and dropped seven Galleons on the table. “That ought to cover it.” He moved towards the door.
“Potter, you have to-” Malfoy began.
“I don’t care,” Harry said over his shoulder. “I told you why I don’t like being stared at, and you still pick at me. I’m getting out of here. Enjoy your date.” And he made his way directly to the Apparition point. A few people tried to stand up in his way, but Harry fixed his gaze above their heads and marched on as if he would plow them down, and they moved out of the way.
Yes. This was strange, Harry had to admit as he stepped out into the air of Diagon Alley and breathed deep again before he Apparated. He would be bonded to Snape and Malfoy, and that would be weird.
But then he could go back home. And this would be only another aberrant part of his life like the Horcrux hunt. He’d never have to think about it again, any more than he had to think about Voldemort now.
Part Three.
This entry was originally posted at http://lomonaaeren.dreamwidth.org/765072.html. Comment wherever you like.