[Wednesday one-shots]: Currents of Silver, 7/7, S/H/D, R

[lomonaaeren]

Part Six.

Title: Currents of Silver (7/7)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Snape, then Harry/Snape/Draco
Rating: R
Warnings: Angst, violence, gore, minor character deaths, AU in that Snape lived, non-linear timeline (flashbacks interwoven with the present)
Summary: Harry and Severus are dwelling comfortably in both the Muggle and wizarding worlds. When Draco Malfoy comes to them for help in finding a killer who can slip back and forth between the two worlds, complexities from the past flare to life and change the course of their lives as well as Draco’s case.
Author’s Note: Another Wednesday one-shot written for fight_wit_pocky’s request: Harry/Snape/Draco

Harry and Snape are in an established relationship. They live comfortably in both the Wizard and Muggle worlds. Harry works in a office where he is a psychologist to his Muggle clients and a Mind Healer to the Wizard ones. Severus owns a shop that sells both medicines and potions, depending on the customer. Draco, an Auror, comes to them for help with a special case.

This is a long one-shot-much longer than I initially thought-that will need to be divided into chapters of varying lengths. It should probably be five or six of them long.

Part One.

Thank you again for all the reviews! This is the last chapter of Currents of Silver. Hope you enjoyed.

“Hello,” Harry said, stepping around Malfoy a little as he came into the kitchen, because Malfoy was eating a bowl of porridge standing up and showed no sign of moving. “What are you doing here?”

Malfoy glanced up. There was a level of pallor to his face that Harry couldn’t remember seeing even when he was describing how much the murders had baffled the Aurors. Harry shut up and went to get his own breakfast, but he watched Malfoy cautiously over his shoulder.

“Eating,” Malfoy said, and swallowed once more before dumping the mostly-empty bowl on the table. Harry rolled his eyes and used his wand to send it to the sink.

“Yes, but why here rather than your own flat?”

“I assumed I was welcome here.” Malfoy snatched an apple from the bowl in the center of the counter and started to tear at it ferociously.

“You are.” Harry turned his back, though, because the last thing he had time to do today was play guessing games with Malfoy.

There was silence for a few seconds as Harry sliced bananas for himself and Malfoy murdered the apple. Then Malfoy sighed and admitted, “We still don’t know exactly what the bands of silver in the case mean.”

Harry turned around. “Are you being blamed for that?” He’d thought Malfoy wouldn’t be, after what Severus had told him about how much respect Malfoy had among the Aurors, but he didn’t know that much, after all.

Malfoy shook his head and swallowed one more bite before tossing the apple into the bin. “They simply want no loose ends. This case is full of them. No original spellcaster, no person they can arrest and tell the families that there’s someone who’s going to Azkaban…”

“They believe you, though? They have to!”

“They believe me. They just find it unsatisfying. And sometimes people like to come up and talk to me during breakfast if I try to eat it in my office. I’d rather be here.” Malfoy snatched a slice of Harry’s banana next.

Harry watched him, not trying to say anything. He supposed he could understand, but all it reminded him of was how glad he had been to leave Auror training behind.

“I expected quiet, though,” Malfoy added, looking at him. “Not a welcome.”

Harry sneered to himself. Any sympathy showed to Malfoy was just an invitation for an insult, wasn’t it? “I won’t say anything else,” he said, and turned back to gathering the slices of banana so he could roast them over a small fire. “Then you can go and do whatever you needed to.”

Malfoy’s hand caught his arm. Harry hastily levitated the dish with the banana pieces higher so that it wouldn’t get burned from the bottom and turned around to glare. “I’m trying to make breakfast-”

He lost his breath. Malfoy was leaning closer to him, staring into Harry’s eyes as if he wanted to know what color they were. But that excuse didn’t work for him, Harry thought, struggling to keep his balance. Everyone knows what bloody color my eyes are.

“I came here because I wanted quiet,” Malfoy said, when the air between them had become so heated with the reflex of their own breaths that Harry was stiffening his muscles in anticipation of a duel. “But I’ll take a welcome.”

Harry swallowed. Malfoy had said that and then not moved away, which made Harry think something else was coming. “What is this, Malfoy?” he asked, stirring a hand between their chests.

“Whatever you want it to be.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Hmm. Then maybe I’ll make the first move and you can tell me if it’s something you like.”

Before Harry could say anything, Malfoy had leaned nearer and covered Harry’s mouth with his own, jaws open as if Harry was another apple he was going to devour.

Harry actually thrashed like someone was holding his hands down before he got hold of himself. Then he knew it was up to him. He could stand there and let Malfoy keep kissing him, lips scraping across his and tongue darting out teasingly, or he could shove him away, or he could shove him away and yell for Severus.

His curiosity was greater than anything else, and he wanted to see what would happen. So he opened his mouth.

Malfoy grunted in shock and tripped forwards as if he’d been counting on Harry’s lips to balance him. Smiling, Harry caught his shoulders and turned him, and kept kissing him, feeling the heat of his mouth, the taste, the slipperiness as Malfoy pulled his tongue back and Harry tried intruding his own.

“Can anyone join this?”

Severus had entered the kitchen, then. Harry leaned back without speaking, and felt Severus’s arms encircle his waist for a minute, before he leaned past Harry and kissed Malfoy in turn. His cheek clipped Harry’s cheek, which only made Harry chuckle a little more and pull his head back further. Malfoy’s eyes were still wide, his eyelashes fluttering, but he let Severus kiss him, tilting his head further back and back.

“Yes, I think,” Severus said at last.

In response to a question no one asked, Harry thought at first, but he was wiser than that. He turned around and looked at Malfoy, out of breath and with one hand clutching the kitchen counter as if he would never let go again.

“Why?” Harry asked quietly.

*

Because you’re irresistible.

But Draco knew saying something like that would destroy his chance of being with Potter and Severus. Perhaps not Severus alone, but that wasn’t what Draco wanted now. And he’d had enough of sabotaging himself.

“Because I realized that you were jealous of me,” he murmured, pulling himself up and away from the kitchen counter, but not away from Severus or Potter. Severus’s gaze was too intense to meet right now. Draco contented himself with turning to Potter. “You weren’t-inhuman. Unattainable. So high above me that I might as well not even try.”

“I was never that.”

“But I’m talking about the way I thought about you. I thought for years that you were better than me and I was jealous and you wouldn’t even look at me or acknowledge me.” Draco raised a hand when Potter’s mouth started to open. “I’m talking about what I thought, not what was true.”

Potter closed his mouth and nodded slowly.

“So now I know that you’re not. You’re-like me. I don’t have to stand around being jealous and never thinking Severus is going to look at me because he has someone so much better.” Draco deliberately leaned back so that Potter grabbed his shoulder to keep him from crashing to the floor. Draco sighed and closed his eyes, luxuriating in that touch. “Because you’re both within reach.”

“But I don’t understand how this works.” Potter’s voice was subdued. “Do you want me to leave the house so that you and Severus can be alone, then? Or-do we-go first?”

Draco opened his eyes and traded a glance with Severus. He silently asked with his eyebrows whether Severus wanted to be the one to explain, and Severus inclined his head and took up the challenge. Perhaps for the best, since he knew Potter better, Draco thought, leaning back again.

“Not take turns,” Severus murmured, his fingers stroking through Potter’s hair for a moment before he moved them on to Draco’s. Draco tilted his head forwards and closed his eyes. He’d once tried to get Pansy to do this for him, and then house-elves. Neither had worked. “Both at once.”

“Oh. He-wants that?”

“I’m here, and can speak for myself,” Draco said, turning his head. “Yes. It was always the case with Severus. With you, it took longer. But I never thought you were ugly. Just impossible to be with.”

“Because ugliness is the prime consideration?”

“If I thought you were ugly,” Draco insisted, leaning forwards, “I wouldn’t be here at all.”

Potter smiled at that, unbelievably. Draco didn’t see what was so funny. It was only the truth. And Potter would probably be more upset if Draco lied.

“Beauty is not the prime consideration for Harry,” said Severus, with a faint smile in Potter’s direction. Draco cocked his head and thought about speaking the name “Harry” in a context that didn’t involve suspects called that or him bitterly spitting about his schoolboy acquaintances at someone who’d asked. Yes, maybe he could do that. “As you can see by his choice of me.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Potter-Harry-hissed, twisting backwards and kissing Severus in the same motion.

Draco watched them, and felt as though-as though someone had stopped hitting him who had been hitting him for a long time, maybe. Where before he would only have thought about how it should be him there instead, now he could think there should be him there too.

“Not as ridiculous as you are, in your naiveté,” said Severus patiently, when their lips had parted again. He turned slightly to the side, so he was holding Harry and Harry was holding Draco and none of them were in danger of slumping to the floor. “Now. I suggest we take this out of the kitchen. It is one of the less comfortable rooms in the house to be doing this in.”

Harry’s face turned as red as a fireball at those last words. Draco blinked and tried to imagine what it would have been like, the apparently inevitable time that Harry and Severus had done this in the kitchen.

But he couldn’t imagine; there were too many possibilities, making the facets of his mind open up in too many different directions. And besides, his breath was getting short with the desire to try them himself.

*

There had been years when Severus had warned himself against indulging too much in desire. He had wanted to be powerful and in control; he had joined the Death Eaters. He had wanted Lily back; he had driven her further away. He had desired acknowledgement after the war; he had it, but not in a form that contented him ninety percent of the time.

Now, though, there was only pure desire, and he was enjoying himself.

Harry didn’t seem to know how to undress Draco, so Severus did it for him. Then Harry sat off to the side and stared while Draco lay back and spread his legs and Severus conjured enough lube to overflow his hand like a waterfall. A little amused, Severus moved his head at Harry, and he jumped and scrambled over to sit beside Draco, cupping his hip.

Severus couldn’t blame him for being hesitant. As far as he knew, he was still Harry’s only sexual partner. And Harry had made the choice to come to Severus purely of his own will, as opposed to being swept along the way he is now.

“I am going to enter his arse, because I want to,” Severus said. He watched Harry jump and flush, and added, “Do you wish to watch only, the first time? I would not blame you.”

He was thinking of Harry as he had been, a virgin, but that was seven years ago. This Harry was one who turned a steadily more brilliant red, but lifted his eyes to Severus’s face and said, “No. I want to-touch him. I want to-do something while you’re fucking him.”

Severus wished he could recover quickly from the effect of that word on him, but he could not. Not quickly enough, at least, to put in his voice before Draco’s drawling one said, “I think I’d like it if you’d suck me, Harry. You know. That way, I could fill your mouth the way I always wanted to.”

“Dreamed about choking me with your cock a lot, did you, Malfoy?” Harry’s eyes were narrowed and focused, but Severus thought that better than nervous.

“No,” said Draco. “I thought about getting you to shut up. But this is better than anything else I dreamed of.”

Severus, watching with a sense of satisfaction, saw how Harry’s eyes widened. Perhaps it was just Draco’s blunt admission. Perhaps it was the audible catch in Draco’s breath. But Harry nodded and sat back to watch Severus undress Draco.

Severus remembered the drunken confession Draco had given him one night when he’d showed up at Severus’s house and Severus had been unable to make him leave for several hours. Apparently, Draco had detailed fantasies not only about shutting Harry up but about the order in which he wanted Severus to take off his clothes. And Severus had finally let him stay in order not to Splinch himself if he tried to leave, and had had to go to bed with those words echoing in his ears.

If he were not so determined to make Draco say those words sober, he might have tried to act on them in the morning. Of course, Draco had been gone then.

Now, eyes locked on Draco’s, Severus lifted his robes up a little and drew his nails down Draco’s chest. Draco stared at him, and Severus dipped briefly into his mind, knowing the intrusion wouldn’t be resented.

Draco hadn’t known Severus remembered his little confession, although the words had remained burned into Draco’s own memories. With a small, malicious smile, Severus set about making them a reality.

He would never have done this with Harry. Harry had needed wisdom and gentleness the first time, and even the strength they’d showed each other afterwards had been shown in full knowledge of what lay underneath. But with Draco, there was an element of being able to do exactly as he wished, because Draco would wish it also.

Gentleness could come later.

After the scratches on Draco’s chest came the rough squeezing on his collarbone and shoulders, as Severus took the robe off over his head. Then he twisted the collar to the side and let it give just the promise of choking Draco before he finished the motion and removed the robes altogether. Draco was breathing as though he’d run a race by then, and when the robe was gone, he pulled Severus down and kissed him, hectic and fierce.

He rolled to the side in the next second, so fast that he almost tugged Severus with him, and kissed Harry. Harry kissed back, a speculative gleam in his eyes as he looked at Severus.

Severus smiled a little. It seemed he was not the only one to be discovering new pleasures today.

*

Betrayal. Bewilderment. Shock. Anger. Hurt.

Harry knew those were possibilities for things he could feel as he watched Severus have his way with Malfoy. But he didn’t feel them. There was lust, a lot of lust, and surprise. And he wanted to see what would happen.

Maybe it wasn’t love, the way it had been his first time with Severus. But on the other hand, he wasn’t the man he had been then, either, any more than Malfoy was the boy he had been at Hogwarts, or the man Harry had first dueled or who had ripped through his mind on Auror orders when he left the Ministry.

It was time to figure out who he was.

Someone who enjoyed this, he knew. Harry felt the warmth melting through his body, flooding his fingers. He reached out and toyed with Malfoy’s bare hip, and felt Malfoy shudder as Severus clawed at him again.

It wasn’t the kind of thing Harry had ever liked or thought he would like. But he found that he was enjoying watching the red lines of scratches sprout on Malfoy’s pale skin. And when Severus removed his pants and Harry could see Malfoy’s cock springing up, he reached out and touched it.

Malfoy convulsed with shock beneath him. Harry blinked, then grinned. He thought he knew a little of what Malfoy had been experiencing now, when he said it made him feel better to find out that Harry had been jealous. It made Harry feel pretty good to know he could affect Malfoy like that.

Harry didn’t bend down and lick Malfoy’s cock, not yet. He toyed back and forth with it, and felt the continual shocks that leaped from his hand through Malfoy’s body. Severus had never done that.

Severus was less responsive.

Harry waited until Malfoy was focused away from him, on Severus, as Severus smeared lube around his entrance and hissed instructions at him that Harry didn’t bother listening to. He thought he knew what Severus was saying, and it was worth listening to, but it wouldn’t be for him. Then he bent down and finally licked a stripe up the side of Malfoy’s cock to see what would happen.

An actual yelp, and an apparent attempt to levitate off the bed without a wand. Harry laughed aloud and helped Severus hold Malfoy down.

Malfoy turned and glared at him. Harry waited. If Malfoy thought Harry was laughing at him, that would be bad, but not irreparable.

But instead, Malfoy muttered something that sounded like “Ridiculous,” and turned his head haughtily away. Severus promptly kissed him. Harry waited a second, then bent down and kissed the tip of Malfoy’s cock, too.

Malfoy twitched. Harry didn’t think he could help it. Then he reached out with a fumbling hand and caught Harry’s fingers.

Harry snatched his hand and kissed it, too. Then he reached down and urged Malfoy to hold himself, murmuring encouragement when Malfoy seemed as if he would reach for Harry again instead.

Malfoy tried to say something. Harry shook his head and muttered, “This time, I want to make you feel good. Maybe next time?”

Malfoy’s mouth was filled with Severus’s tongue in the next instant. But he looked Harry in the eye and nodded.

Harry grinned and bent down. He was going to find out how someone besides Severus tasted for the first time. He couldn’t wait.

*

Draco felt as though his mind had leaped off a cliff and forgotten to tell his body. Or maybe it was the other way around.

Because he could feel the slow, steady slide of Severus’s cock into him, and himself clenching hard around it, and at the same moment he could feel Harry’s tongue sliding slowly up his erection.

This wasn’t a dream. He had never dreamed anything like this. This was intense, real, heat slamming into him, and pleasure a second later.

Draco did lift a hand from the bed and reach for some kind of hold, some anchor that would tie him to this reality. He’d been aiming for Severus’s hair, but ended up with his shoulder instead. And then there was Harry’s head, moving under his arm, bobbing determinedly up and down.

Draco groped. He could feel Harry’s hair-he wanted to hold skin-

And then Harry lifted his head and winked at him, and Draco’s hand slid away, and Severus struck so hard inside him that Draco rolled away from Harry almost convulsing.

He found himself staring up into Severus’s eyes as Severus lifted his hips and pushed into Draco’s body again. Draco grunted in response. It felt-it felt beyond anything he’d ever felt before. There was sex, and there was this.

“Remember this,” Severus whispered to him, harshly enough that Draco shuddered all over in response. “I would not want to do it again merely to teach you where you belong with me.” And then he closed his eyes, and his face went red, and he thrust.

That was the best one of all. Draco tried to show him that by clawing at Severus’s sides, but again his hands would never stay in one place. And then Harry bent down and sucked at him again, and nothing was in one place. Draco was soaring, falling, wheeling in places that made both darkness and stars explode behind his eyes.

He blinked, and he was still lying in the bed, of course. But that was what it had felt like.

“Draco? Can you hear me?”

“Were you worried about me?” Draco pinched his lips at Severus and fluttered his eyelashes. Severus stared down at him, grunting slightly, his hips shifting gently. It thrilled Draco that even when he was concerned about him, Severus couldn’t completely keep from moving.

“I have no wish to face a murder charge when I could not even name the weapon I used in polite company.”

Draco laughed, and the sound seemed to unknot a lot of things in his chest and pour them out. Then he sighed, because Severus had gone back to thrusting and Harry was still sucking, although he pulled his head free every now and then to breathe. “I’m fine. More than fine. I thought you knew that.”

“Not right at that moment,” Severus muttered, but he once again began to fuck Draco with more than enough strength. Draco lay back dizzily and considered Severus, how often he had seemed like a tower wall against the Death Eaters, and how he had sworn an Unbreakable Vow just to protect Draco, and especially about how they had survived and come through the war and ought to have done this a long time ago.

Harry sucked again, and Draco’s thoughts spun and rattled. He tensed.

“Already?” Severus asked, and how dare he sound smug. Draco knew how to get back at him, though, knew as though they had been lovers for years. He waited until Severus had started to redden even further and close his eyes, and then he squeezed down with his inner muscles. He tried not to thrust too deeply into Harry’s throat at the same time.

Harry gagged anyway. But that was nothing against the rush of victory that drowned Draco when Severus’s eyes flew open with a surprised grunt and he stopped moving for a second. Then the next second, his movements started again, almost vicious.

Harry had to pull back and use his hand on Draco instead. That didn’t bother Draco. Merlin, he was almost spent, and he hadn’t even come yet. He lay back with his head shaking a little with the motion of the bed and gasped.

In the end, he wasn’t sure who gave him that last pleasure, Harry or Severus, hand or hips or cock. He only knew it was there, and it was better than he’d imagined, better than he’d hoped, spinning him around once again without letting him move. He sighed and heard Severus sigh, and turned his head a little towards Harry.

Harry was stroking himself, kneeling there on the bed. Draco couldn’t see him because of the angle his own hips were at, though, and his head on the pillow. He cleared his throat a little. Severus looked up from where he was chasing his own pleasure, his eyes sharp despite the right they’d have to be hazed.

“I don’t think-” Draco battled to get the words out. “We should let Harry come on his own. Should we?”

*

He’s serious about using Harry’s name, then. I am pleased.

In truth, of course, Severus was pleased about so many things right then that it was hard to distinguish between them. But he cleared his throat and nodded and managed to do what he had thought was impossible a short time ago: hold off his climax. He drew his wand, and Harry pulled his hand back and eyed him, a little surprised.

Severus realized with a small jolt that Harry was still dressed, although he’d undone his Muggle trousers to reach his cock. He smiled at Harry, and Harry didn’t smile back. He only narrowed his eyes and craned his head to the side instead.

“Severus, I swear, if you do that-”

“What will you do, then?” Severus breathed, and reached out with one hand, dropping his wand on the bed again. God, he was going to lose his balance and fall over on Draco, and that was going to embarrass him more than anything he’d done so far. “Draw your wand and curse me? Try to fuck me when you’re so close to coming that I can smell it?”

Draco was shaking with silent laughter below Severus. He only hoped that Harry hadn’t noticed it, or Severus might have a greater tax to pay than he wished to.

“This,” Harry said, and did what Severus had hoped he would, shoving forwards until his cock rested against Severus’s palm.

Severus curled his hand around him and stroked, long, loose motions. Meanwhile, his hips were pumping faster and faster, and he had to give up the notion of Harry coming before him as his hips jerked and he hunched forwards, hand dropping for a second.

Harry was incredibly impatient, which of course he was, since he was Harry. He leaned across the bed and rubbed his cock against Severus’s arm. Severus felt the wetness there at the same moment as he felt himself pushing it into Draco, and Severus sighed out and let himself fall on the bed. It wasn’t so terrible, now. At least he had made both of them come.

He turned his head and met Harry’s eyes with a look that he suspected was drunken with happiness, because Harry laughed and shoved him. “You look ridiculous.”

“But happy,” Severus murmured. He was normally never this exhausted after sex with Harry. Nevertheless, he felt himself drifting away, and couldn’t even regret the potions that he wouldn’t be able to brew today.

“I need to go,” Harry said, sounding enormously reluctant. “I have appointments this morning.” But before he dragged himself out of bed, he bent down and kissed Severus on the forehead. Severus lay, watching from beneath mostly-lowered eyelids by now, for what would happen next.

And it happened. Harry turned, hesitated, and bent over Draco, kissing his forehead, too. Draco managed to make his hand stir and swiped it along Harry’s arm. “Stay,” he whispered.

“Later,” Harry whispered back, which Severus thought was one of the most hopeful words he’d ever heard, and strode out, already tidying up his clothes and hair and groin with easy swipes of his wand.

I want to stay awake. I want to see what happens next.

But apparently, all that happened next was sleep.

*

“Thank you for seeing my daughter, Mr. Potter. Mercy, come here,” added Alton, fussily, tugging her back towards him.

Mercy looked at Harry for a second, then ducked her head. Harry smiled at her. He didn’t think, from what Alton had told him about her, that she was normally this shy. But maybe she felt the magic in the air, the same way Harry had done when he was a child and around other wizards without knowing it.

All the little people who bowed to me or vanished around the corner the next instant. I don’t want Mercy to have to grow up wondering, or have her parents think she’s crazy or lying. And with her father under Harry’s care, Mercy might think she was crazy more easily than other kids were.

“Hello, Mercy,” Harry said, holding out his hand. “My name is Harry Potter.”

Mercy looked up at him, shook his hand, then said, “I remember your eyes.”

“You never saw Mr. Potter before, Mercy, don’t be silly-”

Harry raised one hand to calm Alton down, not looking away from Mercy. “What do you mean?”

It seemed that having him ask that question in a calm tone, instead of an upset one, gave the little girl courage. Mercy straightened her spine and answered like they were two adults meeting over a business lunch. Or at least teenagers, Harry thought, concealing his smile. “I mean I dreamed of your eyes. And you were in a dark place and you fell in front of a beam of green light. It was the same color as your eyes. Then you got back up again.” She hesitated. “I have a lot of strange dreams. I don’t want to remember all of them. But I like remembering that one.”

Harry smiled slowly. A Muggleborn witch, without a doubt. And possibly a Seer. He was glad that students at Hogwarts didn’t take Divination until their third year, though. The last thing Mercy needed was Trelawney getting hold of her when she was still really young and impressionable.

“I think things like that can happen,” Harry agreed calmly. He sent a mild charm at Alton that made him cough and stand up.

“Have to run to the loo. You two going to be okay by yourselves?” He glanced back and forth between Harry and his daughter as though he thought they were going to start fighting.

“Of course, Daddy.”

“Yes,” Harry said, and waited until Alton had walked out of the room before he turned to Mercy.

She had questions ready on the tip of her tongue, though. “Can you do the things I do? You feel like it. What are they? Who are you? Can you make my daddy better?”

“I’m going to try to help him. And it’s called magic. We’re wizards, you and I. Well, I’m a wizard and you’re a witch. Watch.”

Harry flicked his wand and made a soft bubble of light come off the end of it and dance around the room, a variant of the basic Lumos Charm. Mercy watched with her mouth open, the light shining in her brown eyes. Then she whipped around to face Harry.

“When will I be able to do that? How come you have a wand? How come I can see you in my dreams?”

Harry laughed and did his best to answer the questions. He had already made another decision, too, and he didn’t put away his wand when Alton came back from the bathroom. Alton paused in the doorway with his eyes wide and his hands slowly forming into fists by his sides.

“This it. I’ve gone mad, and they’re going to haul me away and lock me up with all the other blokes who’ve gone mental.”

“No,” said Harry, with a faint smile. “You just need to learn more about the truth, and then that will give you a foundation to build on that will defeat the ghosts in your mind. I promise, Alton,” he added, when his patient hesitated, looking more resentful and confused than ever. “Your daughter and you need to go into this new reality together. You’ll have company.”

Alton swallowed and glanced at Mercy. Harry thought maybe the happy expression on her face finally convinced him that this wasn’t a lie or a bad thing, because he walked further into the office and collapsed back into his chair, shaking his head.

“Right. What are you?”

“He’s a wizard!”

Harry grinned and explained again, while Alton apparently tried not to look like he was putting his head in his hands, and the ball of light drifted gently around them all. Harry felt a warm contentment in his stomach as he spoke. This was a new beginning, and Harry had always valued them.

And that made him more prone, when he came home, to accept other new beginnings.

*

“You don’t often cook, I take it,” said Draco, leaning back in his chair and admiring the stunned look on Harry’s face as he stared around the kitchen. “Why? It’s not as though you don’t know how to.”

“Because it takes time away from potions.”

Draco smiled, and concealed the smile behind a full plate Severus handed him. Of course that was the reason.

And there was so much to eat. Severus had baked a loaf of bread that sprawled almost the length of the table. There was fresh fruit, with berries piled as high in baskets as apples would reach, and wheels of cheese that Draco had never tasted before but resolved to have the house-elves in the Manor learn how to make, or purchase. And there were so many liquids, probably modified potions. Draco didn’t care about that, though. They tasted like oranges and rose petals and made his lips tingle with their fizz. They could stay.

When the mounds of food had sunk enough that they could see each other across them, Severus leaned forwards, with his elbows serenely on the table, and told Harry, “We were thinking of having Draco staying with us.”

“Well, yes,” said Harry, swallowing around a ragged chunk of peach that Draco thought was a little too big for him. At least, his voice sounded choked. “I was thinking you would think that.”

Draco exchanged a look with Severus and then turned to Harry. “You don’t understand.”

“I know.”

Draco shook his head. “No, you still don’t. I wasn’t thinking of moving in, or at least not right away. I have the Manor to keep up, and it’s a hard thing to do. And anyway, I know as well as you do that you and Severus have a separate, special life that I don’t want to intrude into. It would take time to get me integrated into. I know that.”

“Then I want to know what you’re proposing.”

“That sometimes Draco would join us,” Severus said. “For meals. In bed, if you wished to. Or was what we did this morning something you wished to do only once?”

Draco tightened his hand on his fork. He wanted to say that Harry seemed to have liked it more than that, and he wanted-he wanted more than Severus, honestly. He wanted to touch Harry and learn how he laughed and see what they had been missing for years, behind all the jealousy and resentment.

But more than that, he wanted Harry to make the decision. Of course Draco knew what choice he hoped for, but there was simply no way to make it for Harry.

“I-I wouldn’t be opposed to trying again. It’s just, it sounded settled.”

And he thought that we’d already made his decision. Without him, Draco completed in his mind. Of course he would be upset. He shook his head a little and smiled at Harry across the table. “Listen, Harry. This whole thing is a process of trying. I don’t even know how tolerable we’ll be around each other when it comes to fitting into the Muggle world, or whether you’ll find me tolerable when I’m not working on a case. What I want to do is try. Not say good-bye and then resume our separate lives.”

Harry’s expression was remote. Draco started to speak again, and Severus reached out and put a hand on his. Draco shut up.

“I could try,” Harry finally finished. “Like I said, as long as it’s not settled.”

Severus, not Draco, was the one to snort, although Draco didn’t know if he felt the same flash of fierce joy in his chest that Draco did. “Settled? Things are a long way from settled between us. And I hope they will never be completely so.” He stood up and held out one hand to Draco and one to Harry. “Come. Let us go into the drawing room and discuss it further.”

Draco smiled, and felt the joy leap and flash into flame.

*

Severus leaned back in his chair and watched Harry and Draco for a moment, discussing matters with each other on the other side of the room. Some things they had to say were private, Severus knew. There were tensions there that he might know all about, from private, separate confessions, but they weren’t his to settle. He would simply have to wait.

Harry finally nodded and said, “Then we’ll try,” and faced Severus. “You know it’s not completely the end of the case? They still haven’t learned the reason for the silver bands. It might be an old deposit of silver under Hogwarts, for all they know. Or something to do with the symbolism of tarnishing. Or just the way the emotional magic ended up playing out. Emotional magic like the kind that was stalking me hasn’t been studied all that much, you know. Some of it might manifest as silver.”

Severus could have lectured him on what was known and not known about emotional magic; it tied into Occlumency. But he was more than content to nod and ask, “So that gives a reason for Draco to continue with us, if anyone asks? He’s still looking into the case, into that one aspect.”

Draco nodded eagerly, but Harry was the one who said, “No.”

Severus felt as though all of the pivoting emotions in the room had turned and were about to fall on Harry. “What do you mean?” he asked neutrally. Harry knew what he was doing, Severus hoped.

“I mean-it’s a reason for Draco to come and speak to us, and I hope we’ll find out the truth someday.” Harry was flushed. “But-I don’t want to hide the truth if anyone asks us. We’re trying things out, and seeing what works. If my friends want to know what’s going on, that’s what I’m going to tell them.”

Severus thought for a minute. He had no hesitation for himself, but for Harry, who had suffered sometimes from their world’s-one of their worlds’-desire to have definite names for him and what he did. “There might be people more upset by that than the most shocking combination of bodies,” he said, in warning. “Uncertainly makes most people uncomfortable.”

“It makes me uncomfortable. But I think something greater can come out of it, and I want to see-what happens. And people I don’t know can sod off, and people I do know can ask.”

Draco was gazing at Harry adoringly as he said that, and Severus concealed a smile that would have been the wrong kind behind his cup. He nodded. “Then I have no problem saying that. All of my remaining friends have other things to be concerned about.” He looked at Draco. “Will that cost you respect with the Aurors?”

“I have respect there. Colleagues-not friends. I’ll tell them the truth if they ask me, the same way as Harry.” Draco shrugged. “And I’ll go on solving cases incredibly well, and they won’t be able to shrug me off that way.”

“Good. Draco.”

Severus smiled one more time at the expression on Draco’s face when Harry said his first name, and added, “Then I see no reason not to try.”

The End.

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