[Wednesday one-shots]: Opening Salvo, S/H/D, PG-13, 5/5
Part Four.
Title: Opening Salvo (5/5)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Snape/Harry/Draco, established Snape/Draco, mentions of past Harry/Ginny
Warnings: Angst, suicidal thoughts, AU in that Snape survives
Summary: Harry, consumed by his memories after the war, finds himself guided by Luna to Severus and Draco, who have lived in seclusion since the end of the Death Eater trials. Now Harry is face-to-face with old enemies he testified for and a place of peace where he has no choice but to think.
Author’s Notes: Another one of my Wednesday one-shots, written for an anonymous prompt that asked for: Harry living in the Muggle world, struggling with PTSD, and being brought by Luna to Draco and Severus, who owe her and Harry debts; angst with a happy ending. This will probably have five parts.
Thank you again for all the reviews! This is the last chapter of “Opening Salvo.” Thanks for reading along.
“I can’t believe how far you’ve come in only a fortnight.”
Harry snorted a little and wrapped his fingers around the cup of tea he’d brewed for himself before coming out here. Another new thing. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cooked anything so complicated. “Admit it. You mean that you can’t believe I’m here and walking around on my own.”
He sat on the edge of the little stone wall that surrounded the goat pen. Malfoy-well, Harry supposed he should acknowledge him as “Draco” now that he was on such good terms with him-still stood behind him, on the ground. Harry knew that wasn’t for the goats’ sake. Even if a few of them were very good at getting out of their pen.
“You almost weren’t.”
Harry shrugged. “It was only a headache. Snape-I mean, Severus-says that lots of people get them after Legilimency of the kind he was using on me.” He drank the rest of the tea. He preferred a burned tongue to letting it get too cold.
Another new thing. He had preferences again, opinions that didn’t depend on how much trouble it was to get up from a certain specific position in bed.
“It nearly killed you.”
Harry stared at Draco, who was leaning his folded arms on the pen wall and still staring at Harry. “You didn’t mention that.”
“Severus thought it would have discouraged you at the time. But you were magically and physically exhausted, and reordering your thoughts like that caused what Severus refers to as earthquakes in your mind.” Draco exhaled hard and looked away with a small frown. “I know you don’t remember, since you were asleep. But we were working hard to keep you alive.”
“No,” Harry said a second later. “I didn’t know. So that’s another thing I owe you for.”
He had discovered that he loved saying things like that, about the debts he owed them, if only because it made Severus scowl and Draco blush like he was a rose. “Stop talking about debts,” Draco said, and cleared his throat. “I mentioned it because you sounded like you were treating your own life casually again, not because I want you to feel you owe me something.”
“I won’t be taking it casually again.” Harry leaned back and watched the small clouds overhead, thick enough to reduce the sunlight to water but still far brighter than his mood for the past month. “I don’t think I can.”
For a moment or two, there was silence. Harry had started to turn towards Draco to figure out why he didn’t start another conversation, at least, before he was surprised by the feel of a hand stealing into his.
Harry gripped Draco’s hand and held on tight enough that he thought even Draco winced. But he didn’t let go, and they stood and sat there like that until the goats’ hungry bleating reminded them it was long past the time when Draco would normally have fed them.
*
Severus watched as Potter walked towards him and sat down in the chair on the far side of the lab. He did it the way Draco would have, quietly and without asking for attention. He simply waited there, and watched the bubbling cauldrons.
Severus decided, after a moment, that it was safe to turn his back on him. Not that he thought Potter would literally stab him there, but there was a time when he wouldn’t have trusted Potter around potions for fear that he would make the potions explode by sheer force of his incompetence.
Not now. Again it was easy to forget Potter was there, the way he would have with Draco, as Severus moved between the couple of cauldrons that needed his attention, flicking in small bits of leaf here, a stirring rod there, a touch of magic in the first to stabilize the ingredients that might have blown up otherwise, and a hand on the rim of the second to test how hot it was and whether it would need more additions soon. In both cases, he brought the draught to a successful conclusion and stepped back with a roll of his shoulders.
Slight applause startled him, although he didn’t have anything in his hands that he could drop now. He turned to find Potter leaning forwards on his seat, smile warm and eyes moving slowly around as if he expected to find another potion Severus needed to tend to.
“Why are you clapping?” Severus demanded.
“I felt like I should.”
Severus only blinked, having no real answer for that. Then he managed to ask, “Was there something urgent that brought you here?”
“What can be urgent, here?” Potter asked, and instead of condemnation of the valley and the way Draco and Severus lived, it sounded like praise. He stood up and added, “I wanted to talk to you, but I thought it could wait.”
Severus nodded slowly. Then he removed the heavy protective robes he’d been wearing against these potions splashing and said, “Let’s go outside.”
Potter followed him without question. He was moving a new way, Severus thought, squinting back with one eye, or at least a way that was new in the last two weeks. He looked long-limbed and loose now, the way injured unicorn foals would walk as they regained their basic trust in the world. When he sank down on a stone near the house, which Severus chose in recognition of his limited strength, his eyes wandered in several directions before they returned to Severus.
He’s seeing, now, Severus thought, as he Transfigured a rough stump too low for sitting into a chair. Not simply taking in.
“I wanted to thank you for all you’ve done,” Potter said, and smiled at him. “Last night I wrestled the basilisk memory.”
“You did what? I told you to speak to me before-”
“I know, but it came to the surface, and you were asleep,” Potter said simply. “I didn’t want to wake you up, so I fought it. And subdued it.”
Severus eyed Potter, searching for the marks he thought would have been left by such a battle. In truth, the boy-young man-didn’t look bad. A bit of tiredness around the eyes, of tension in the hands he clenched on the edges of the stone. But it should have been far worse than that.
“The next memory you wrestle shouldn’t be alone.”
Severus considered he had spoken only common sense, and he was stunned by the ungraceful way Potter’s mouth fell open and he started to splutter. “What? But-I mean-I’ll be at home by then.” Now he was sitting up and projecting a much more familiar stubborn jaw, which didn’t appear to have been affected at all by his exertions last night. “You should know that, sir. What am I supposed to do, call you through the fireplace and have you guide me through it after I’ve already woken up?”
Severus studied him in silence for long seconds. He had discovered it was the most effective way to make Potter-Harry-squirm, and not something that required as much effort as the insults he would have used at Hogwarts.
Insults towards Harry are simply too much effort, nowadays.
“You did know that,” Harry added tightly, studying Severus all the while as if he thought he was playing a joke. “You did know that you were training me to be independent.”
“Independent shouldn’t mean living on your own and having no one to care for you.”
“Well, eventually Ron and Hermione will be back from Australia-”
“You told me that even before they left, you were drifting apart from them. Helped, I think, by your excuses of ‘wanting to leave them some alone time’ and ‘everyone has to grow up sometime.’”
Harry only went on staring at him, but now in a way that suggested he hadn’t expected Severus to remember those words. “Um, yes,” he conceded finally. “But that doesn’t mean-of course, I hope you’ll let me come and visit sometimes-”
“You can stay here.”
Harry looked at the house, so plaintively that Severus couldn’t help looking with him. But this wasn’t a part where Draco had carved one of those whimsical little faces that he took so much delight in putting everywhere. Only blank wall looked back. Severus considered Harry blandly far sooner than Harry gave up on the wood and turned to him.
“Look,” Harry said tightly. “You can’t-”
“Why not?”
“Do I have to remind you that the same objections would apply? To spending time with you and Draco that they do to spending time with Ron and Hermione, I mean. You’re a couple. Since I’ve been here, you haven’t had time alone.”
Severus had to snort. “You are not very observant if you think that we haven’t managed to do exactly what we want when we want to.”
Harry’s face turned the most fascinating shade of red at that. Severus laughed in a way that he hadn’t since one of the goats found its way into the lab and ended up covered in blue and purple spots that turned out to be permanent. “You’re not very observant.”
“Well, I mean, it’s nice that you got some private time.” Harry appeared to be wrestling with himself, not a memory. “Fine. But I still need to go home.”
“Oh, yes, I agree. To put your affairs into order and retrieve any of the possessions that Luna didn’t see fit to bring with you when she moved you.”
“But-how long do you think I’ll need to stay with you?”
Severus paused. Perhaps he’d mistaken the source of Harry’s reluctance. “You don’t want to be here?”
Harry closed his eyes. His face turned even redder. Severus waited, thoroughly mystified now. He could grasp the concept of a Harry who felt he was intruding and one who wanted to be by himself, but not this hybrid.
“I would like to stay here,” Harry whispered. “I would-I like being with you, and I like William, and I’m learning a lot about memories and relaxing that I can’t learn on my own. But I don’t feel like I have a place here. You and Draco are still-alone together.”
I thought your main objection was that we would not be alone together. But Severus was wiser now than to say such things. In truth, he had been for some time.
And there had been something he had noticed and discussed with Draco in the past few days. Draco had responded in a way that told Severus he had much the same thoughts. It was a fault of Draco’s that he would never have been the first one to bring it up, though.
Still so delicate around me, after all these years. Severus put a hand on Harry’s shoulder. Harry jumped, shocked out of his own mumbling recital to himself. Severus nodded to reassure him and spoke.
“Draco and I would like you to stay,” he told Harry. “You fit in-comfortably. You need guidance, and we don’t want to see our work put into healing you wasted.” Harry’s face changed subtly, and Severus saw he would have to move faster than he’d believed. It seemed Harry didn’t have all that much delicacy to respect after all. “But we also enjoy your company. So does William, which is a better recommendation than you know. And there is something else. Something I thought of, something Draco thought of, but something which you may not have thought of.”
From the look on Harry’s face, he hadn’t. “What do you mean?”
Severus thought of the best way to phrase it. “We have a balance here. Routines, yes, but more than that. We are more open than we used to be. I do not think you could have envisioned me accepting you and wishing to help you heal like this before. And I do not think you could have opened your mind to Draco and me unless you knew, on some level, that we had changed.”
Harry nodded slowly. “Of course not. And the people you used to be wouldn’t have wanted to help me, anyway.”
Severus did not flinch, because it was true. “But there are-different kinds of balance. Draco and I have achieved one by living here, taking care of animals that Luna brings us, brewing potions, staying distant from annoyances such as the delivery of the Prophet. That does not mean it is the only kind of balance we could ever achieve.”
“So you wouldn’t mind if I stayed here?”
Severus took a moment to watch Harry, tracing the lines of strength that his life had carved into his face. Yes, there were lines of pain and worry there, too. But Severus thought both they and Harry had spent too much time thinking about them. Harry was turned towards him, lightly perched in his chair, fingers tapping like the restless wings of a grasshopper.
“Not at all,” said Severus. “And there might be other ways the balances among us could change. Two legs are strong. So are three.”
Harry was still frowning, so baffled that Severus felt compelled to reach up and touch his face. Then Harry made a noise, but it was strangled, and he grabbed Severus’s hand and forced it down.
“What does Draco think of this?”
Severus felt a quelling look was called for then. “Do you imagine I would even have considered such a thing without consulting him?”
“Oh.” Harry stared at Severus’s hand, and then around, as if looking for interruptions from a goat or William.
Severus reached the rest of the way, giving Harry plenty of opportunities to evade him if that was what he wanted. But Harry held still, although his eyes were huge, and Severus gave his face a single quick stroke from the faded scar on his forehead down to his chin.
“Now,” Severus said, and stood slowly. His legs had cramped, and the scars on his throat ached. Before he could explain where he wanted to go, though, or why, Harry had already moved to his side, offering automatic support. Severus blinked and then gave a thin smile that he didn’t think Harry appreciated the import of.
Harry didn’t know the extent of Severus’s injuries from the encounter with Nagini. He had watched Draco handle Severus gently in the past few days, though, and had evidently picked something up from that. He maneuvered Severus, or rather helped him maneuver, over some stones and roots and down the slope of the hill to the shade of a tree where Draco was examining an injured pig that he’d found “somewhere.”
Severus suspected “somewhere” involved Muggle farms that didn’t properly care for their animals. As long as Draco didn’t get caught-and considering he brought Severus some fascinating ingredients form those farms-Severus supposed he couldn’t complain.
“Are you all right, Severus?” Draco asked the question without looking up from the pig, and made Severus relax for a long moment before he could figure out why. Draco would have looked up around most people, his eyes not necessarily hard but tracking. Most of the time, Luna was the only one he would have accepted this way, as though her presence was natural and the pig more important.
For him to accept Harry…
“I am well,” said Severus, although he was glad to lean against the tree. “And Harry has questions for you.”
Draco smiled and nodded without looking away from the pig, which currently had a deep incision in its side. It squealed and kicked twice with its trotters, but calmed as Draco laid a hand on its shoulder. “Give me a few moments, and I’ll answer them properly.”
Harry seemingly had no objection to that. He leaned against the tree beside Severus, and watched Draco heal the pig with a vivid interest that made Severus idly wonder whether he had ever considered healing as a career.
Perhaps we can discuss that, too.
But it could wait. That Harry had agreed there were other things to discuss was already a brighter beginning than Severus had dared to envision.
*
Draco leaned back on his heels and shook his head. Someone had shot at the pig with a Muggle gun, and Draco had had to extract the bullet, calm the pig’s fear, and heal the initial damage as well as the damage he’d made cutting in to get the bullet out. It had taken him nearly an hour, but the pig was asleep now, and she would have a slow but successful recovery process.
When he looked up, it was with quiet enjoyment and satisfaction, and meeting Harry’s eyes didn’t change that.
“Severus told you that we’d like you to stay here?” he asked, and stood to wring the sweat out of his shirt. Before he could finish it, Harry’s wand moved in a swift movement, and the shirt was dry, as was his skin beneath it. Draco smiled and sat down on the other side of the pig, closer to Harry and Severus, although close enough to reach her if she needed him.
“Yes. But-as a friend or-guest or-”
Words were sticking in Harry’s throat. Not a surprise, Draco thought. Harry was both oblivious of the private time he and Severus had snatched and utterly unsuspicious that they might want to spend more time with him, let alone that they might want something more even than that.
“As someone who could be those things at first, and then become something more,” Draco said. “Maybe. You don’t have to if your path doesn’t lead in that direction.”
“I thought you were going to say-if I didn’t want to.”
“I reckoned that was obvious. But right now, I don’t think you know what you want.” Draco stood up and moved in to feather his fingers through Harry’s hair. Harry looked startled for only a second before he dipped his head in acceptance. “It would be better if you had some time to think about it first.”
Harry blinked and nodded. His eyes and breathing were steady again, and he focused on Draco with the kind of brilliant intensity that had sometimes made Draco breathless when they played Quidditch opposite each other. Well, now it could make him breathless for a different reason, Draco thought.
And from the way Severus was watching them, it might do the same thing to him.
They’d talked about this, with and without words, healing unicorns and brewing together and making love and sitting together in the evenings after Harry had gone to bed. They’d both been intimately involved in getting Harry to this point. And they’d both had connections to Harry from the past that were impossible to ignore.
They would never abandon each other for the sake of dating Harry Potter. On the other hand, if Harry wanted to join them…they would like that.
“I do need some time to think about it,” said Harry, who had apparently decided to talk with words again. “Is that all right?”
“Of course,” said Severus, and Draco was glad he had been the one to say this. Harry needed to know how much both of them were waiting to surround and cradle him, should he accept it. “We just said that.”
Harry turned with his eyes snapping. “Considering how much trouble we got into by not saying things in the past, I thought I should.”
“I cannot remember that I ever caused trouble by holding my tongue. Perhaps someone else should have, more often.”
Draco leaned back with a smile as he listened to Severus bait Harry, and Harry rise to it like a leaping dolphin. And there was a similar grace in the way Severus’s neck turned, as if he had forgotten the scars there, and the way Harry glanced at Draco, inviting him into the conversation.
Draco fully intended to enter it. But he would choose the right place, to fire the right insult.
Or the right comment. Or the right compliment. The right message.
We’re a long way from having things settled. But we’re exactly where I want to be.
The End.
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