Chapter Twelve of 'Valerian'- Phase Two

[lomonaaeren]

Chapter Eleven.

Chapter One.

Title: Valerian (12/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Severus and Draco/Astoria, past Harry/Draco
Content Notes: Angst, manipulation, past infidelity
Rating: R
Summary: Harry dated Draco until Draco fell in love with Astoria, and never really got over his broken heart. Now Draco is getting married, and wants Harry to construct a unique magical gift for his bride on the grounds of Malfoy Manor. As Harry labors on his creation, telling himself not to be petty, Severus Snape watches to make sure that he doesn’t mess it up—and also, soon, for other reasons.
Author’s Notes: Several people are angsty and not at their nicest here. Don’t read if that bothers you. Also, this is a sequel to my short fic “Aconite,” which you should probably read first, and while this will be much longer than that story, it will be irregularly updated.

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Twelve—Phase Two

“You claimed to have information about Draco Malfoy.”

Harry smiled a little. He could feel the magic around the reporter pulling and tugging at his disguise, which at the moment was represented by a heavy hooded cloak. But the cloak was more than physical, and interwoven with his magic so that no one—and no curse or breeze or physical effect—could remove it without his permission.

“Yes,” Harry said. The cloak also shaded his voice in much the same way it shaded his face, making it darker and deeper and more mysterious. “And information about Harry Potter. Would the payment be higher for that?”

There was a shaky gasp, and the reporter raised his hand to clutch at his own pointed hat, which cast its own kind of illusion over his face. Harry had ignored that. The owl had gone to a certain wizard, Gerald Handley, and he was nearly as rapacious as the old Rita Skeeter. It was unlikely that he would have sent anyone else in his place to meet with the mysterious informant in the mouth of Knockturn Alley.

“Mr. Potter has been—private for years,” Handley breathed. “If you really have something about him…”

“I do.” Harry inclined his head.

Handley might or might not be able to make out the motion in the gloom of Knockturn, but that didn’t seem to matter. Harry could see how jittery with excitement he was, and that was good enough for him.

“What is your price?”

“I want to make sure that you’ll do your level best to publish the articles in not only the Daily Prophet but overseas newspapers,” Harry said. “And that you’ll your own words but not your own facts.”

“I don’t even know what that means.”

“I’ve read some of your writing, Mr. Handley. You have a way with fine sentences—and also with forgetting that some of what you describe, to use a technical term, never happened.”

Handley pouted at him for a second, or so Harry assumed he was doing in the shadow of the hat. Then he sighed. “Fine. As long as you know that the facts you can tell me are true. I don’t fancy being sued by Potter or Malfoy.”

Harry gave a dark laugh that he knew didn’t sound anything like his own, not that Handley probably would have known his voice anyway. “I think I can promise you the story of the century, Mr. Handley. And even wizarding law recognizes truth as an absolute defense against libel, does it not?”

“Do you actually have proof?”

“Pensieve memories. Would you like to see one as a taste?”

Handley almost hopped from foot to foot like a small child who needed to use the loo, and Harry knew he had him. Even his attempt to straighten up and say in a more dignified voice a second later, “I might,” didn’t lessen that impression.

“Come, then,” Harry said, and drew his wand to gesture and remove the Disillusionment Charm on the Pensieve and pedestal already standing ready. The memory floated placidly in the middle of the Pensieve. Harry watched as Handley lowered his head and disappeared into it, then smiled a little and leaned back against the wall of the alley to wait.

The memory was of a conversation he’d had with Draco in the last few months before Harry had “discovered” him cheating with Astoria and Draco had ended the relationship. It was a real memory, but with a bit of judicious editing at the end and beginning. Harry knew the conclusions Handley would draw already when he came out, and he was looking forward to building on them.

It didn’t take long for Handley to come boiling out of the memory with a gasp, and stare at Harry. “He—he suggested…” He let the words trail off as if he didn’t believe what he was about to say himself.

Harry nodded, doing his best to seem bored. “Potter didn’t know it at the time, of course, which was why he looks so wide-eyed and naïve in that memory. But yes—”

“Potter donated his money to charities for emotional abuse victims and Draco Malfoy collected it,” Handley whispered, apparently wanting to name the conclusion for himself.

Harry turned his hands palms upwards. “You might say that.” In reality, the conversation he’d shown Handley the memory of was one with him and Draco speaking about charities in general, and the idea of donating money to people one had hurt. Harry had been trying to convince Draco to donate some of his money for victims of the war. Draco had always refused.

Which, given that he has dust where his heart should be, isn’t that surprising.

“I know what conclusion I can draw from that conversation.” Handley’s fingers twitched for a second, and then he reached down and grabbed a notebook from a pocket, almost tearing it open along the way. “I can’t believe—this is the story of the century.”

“Well, keep in mind that Malfoy is certainly going to deny that it’s true, even though it is,” Harry drawled. “That’s one risk that comes with publishing something like this.”

The edge of Handley’s long nose, the only part visible, twitched for a second, making him look oddly like a rabbit. “I don’t care,” he said a second later. “I’ll take the chance. I have to—I’m going to sell so many newspapers.”

Harry nearly rolled his eyes, but he realized that, for Handley, something like that really did matter more than money or the fame he might get. “Very well. I have to go.”

“What other Pensieve memories might you have for me?”

Harry chuckled, darkly enough to make Handley draw back from him and twitch again, as if he had suddenly remembered they weren’t that far from the heart of Knockturn Alley. “Don’t get greedy, Mr. Handley. I think if you do some investigating, you’ll find plenty of material to support your story without the Pensieve memories.”

“Y-you’re right.” Handley hesitated. “Potter gave you those memories, right?”

“You might say that.”

“Then tell him I’m sorry.”

That nearly made Harry take down the hood of his cloak, but after a second, he thought he knew where Handley was coming from. Someone who valued money so much would be more indignant about the loss of Harry’s Galleons than he would about the actual mistreatment Harry had endured.

On the other hand, if it got Handley to do part of the work, why should it matter what his motivation was?

“I’ll pass along your condolences,” he said, with enough irony in his voice that Handley flinched a little, and then turned and Apparated out of the alley, back to his workshop. He was laughing when he landed.

“What is so funny?”

Harry smiled at Severus, and saw the way he stared for a moment, as if the smile was so rare that he wanted to treasure it. Harry pushed away the thought of the reasons why Severus might feel that way, and shook his head. “I think there are going to be so many pernicious international stories about Draco Malfoy and his theft from his unsuspecting partner that he won’t know how to react.”

Severus seemed to be in that state, himself, as Harry brushed past him and went towards the sheet of glass on the table. “I thought you didn’t really want publicity.”

“The wrong kind.” Harry grinned at him over his shoulder as he spread his hands over the glass. “This is the right kind.”

Severus was watching him, and Harry knew that, but for the moment, he wasn’t interested in turning away from the sheet of glass. And he really would need uninterrupted concentration. He glanced over his shoulder. “Would you mind waiting outside?”

A second later, he wanted to wince. He didn’t have a right to demand that—

But Severus, for some reason, looked relieved. “Of course.” He turned and walked out of the workshop, letting the door fall shut as softly behind him as Harry imagined that he might handle the door of his own potions lab.

Harry blinked. Well, for whatever reason, that had gone better than he’d imagined. He faced the sheet of glass again and closed his eyes. The sensation of Astoria’s magic, contained in that little bauble, spread out and down from his hands.

He half-smiled. Draco and Astoria were going to get such a surprise.

*

He is allowing himself to make demands without instant apologies.

Severus leaned his back against the outside of the workshop and looked up at the soft cloud-filled sky overhead. He found it hard to name the exhilaration flooding through him. A week ago, he would have thought that being exiled from the workshop while Harry constructed his revenge would irritate him.

But then, a week ago he hadn’t known what was behind Harry’s odd deference to Draco and insistence that Draco was the one who had made all the discoveries and inventions that Harry could in fact claim.

I am happy because he is healing.

Severus shook his head, in self-mockery more than anything, and then looked up sharply as a silver shape formed in front of him. It swirled, after a second, into a ferret’s shape. Draco had never been happy that his Patronus had taken the form that Crouch had forced him into during his fourth year.

Then again, given what he now knew about Draco, Severus thought the little bastard ought to have been grateful he could cast a Patronus at all.

“Severus, I need you,” said the ferret in Draco’s voice. “Something is going wrong in the gardens.” Even asking for assistance, and with the Patornus disappearing a second after he had, he sounded prideful.

Severus smiled. He hoped that “wrong” thing was the first installment of Harry’s revenge, and he admitted to himself that he was far too curious to stay here.

The only thing he worried about was what Harry would think when he came out and found him gone, but he didn’t want to interrupt what was probably delicate work on the sheet of glass, either. In the end, Severus wrote a short note on a scrap of parchment torn from a recipe he kept in his pocket, and pinned it to the ground with a conjured rock.

Then he Apparated to Malfoy Manor to see what was going on.

*

Harry felt a tug at his mind, but he ignored it until he had finished etching the latest pattern in the glass. Then he lifted his head and closed his eyes, turning his head in the direction of the tug.

He had begun building the “wedding gift” out of glass because it was the right material for the job, but now he was glad he’d chosen it because it allowed him to witness what was happening in ways that stone or wood or even paper wouldn’t have. His mind lifted, wafted through what he supposed he could call the astral world on the wings of the connection to his magic, and settled into one of the glass panes he’d laid over the grass in the gardens of Malfoy Manor.

What he saw was distant and distorted, as if he was peering through a mirror underwater, but he could see Draco waving his arms and Astoria standing with her hands over her mouth. Severus stood not far from them.

With his better knowledge of the man, Harry knew Severus wasn’t stoic the way he looked, but fighting for control of his expression.

Harry grinned, and watched.

*

“I do not understand what is going on,” Severus said, as primly as he could when he wanted to howl. “I am not an expert on magic of this sort the way Potter is.”

“Potter isn’t an expert, either!” Draco snapped. “I’m the one who came up with all his supposed innovations, as I’m sure he told you.”

That, Severus thought, with a coldness that he didn’t permit to show outside himself, means I shall have no mercy on you. He shrugged. “If you are an expert, then I do not know why you called me for help.”

“I wanted you to see it.”

“And if I said that I had no interest in seeing you and your bride that way?”

Severus thought that, in truth, only the fact that he’d already seen this particular image in Harry’s mind enabled him to keep his calmness now. He watched in silent disdain as Astoria stood against the wall, naked, and Draco knelt in front of her with his mouth between her legs. Knowing it was the moment they had reenacted and that Draco had bound Harry’s memories to to wreck his mind affected Severus far more than the fact that there was a naked woman in front of him.

And a naked Draco, but if Severus had ever had the capacity to be enthralled or embarrassed by Draco in that position, it had melted into repulsion now.

“You could still help me figure out a way to stop it!”

“As I said, I’m no expert. Perhaps you should Floo Potter, after all. He’s the only one who could probably tell you why that event is taking place in the glass.”

Draco glared at Severus, then turned away, tapping his fingers on the expensive crystalline wristwatch he was wearing. Severus eyed it and wondered how he could best break it without Draco noticing.

“Did Potter tell you that he entered the house without permission not long ago?”

You mean, the event you arranged with the contradictory orders of a house-elf that nearly destroyed his mind? Severus shrugged a little. “He might have mentioned it. In truth, assuming that we would ever speak casually, I would expect to hear more important things from him.”

Draco grunted a little and stirred restlessly. “Well, he might have come across me and Astoria—in that position. A similar one, I mean.”

No, that exact one, which you made the basis of your warped Legilimency, Severus thought, and then banished the thoughts from his mind. He really was coming too close to an outburst, or at least a pointed remark that would ruin the plot he and Harry were brewing. “Again, speak to Potter. Why would it be so distressing for him that it is showing up in the glass? I do not know. I am not an expert on Potter.”

“It’s not distressing to him! It’s distressing to me! And my fiancée,” Draco added after a long beat when Severus honestly wasn’t sure that he would say anything like that, his glance darting over his shoulder towards Astoria.

Severus turned to her to find her with her hands over her face, shaking so hard that he would have felt sympathy for her had it not been so thoroughly drained. She was not an architect of this plan, but she had helped lay the foundations. “You will still have to speak to him. I have no idea where this came from.”

Draco narrowed his eyes. Severus returned a bland look. Draco was enough of a traditional Legilimens to be able to feel no lies in that blunt statement, but he had probably expected to find some.

Severus didn’t know, though. Even with Harry’s mastery of enchantments and enchanted materials, projecting an image like this should not have been possible in a glass. A Pensieve, yes, or the mind of another person, but even then, the practitioner should not have been able to stand at such a distance.

Draco made a huffing noise and stormed away. Severus allowed himself one quiet chuckle before he turned to follow.

He found Astoria standing there with her arms folded, her lip projecting and her sullen gaze trained on him. “You know,” she said.

“Generally, when those words begin a sentence, more must follow it,” Severus prompted after a moment of silence.

Astoria flushed in a way that some might have compared to a rose growing up her white cheek, but which Severus could only think of as a poisonous vine. “You know that Potter found us in—that position.”

“Well, yes. Your fiancé just told me.”

Astoria stomped one slippered foot, which only made Severus think how foolish she had been to come into dew-soaked gardens in delicate slippers. “I mean that you know how Potter is doing this!”

Severus laughed and shook his head. “Just because I know one thing doesn’t mean I know everything, my dear girl.” The last words made his mouth burn as if he had swallowed bile, but he had done worse for the sake of people he trusted less than he trusted Harry. “I still think that you ought to ask him.”

“He hates me.”

“But he loved your fiancé enough to make a wedding gift for you. Surely that speaks to some level of care.”

“He hates me for being the one who took his place.”

“From everything I’ve seen of Harry Potter during the time that I’ve been babysitting him,” Severus said dryly, “it’s that I thought he was still too hopelessly in love with Draco to object to what he wanted him to do.”

Astoria narrowed her eyes. They were green, yes, Severus found himself thinking, and emotion lit them, but nothing like the vicious brightness that had lit Harry’s since he had come back to himself. Severus preferred that deeper color and stronger emotion over every iteration of green eyes he had ever seen, even—

Even Lily’s.

He felt as though a Blasting Curse had hit him in the throat. He barely managed not to lift his hand to touch the scars that Nagini had left on him, barely managed to listen to Astoria’s next rambling monologue about how she wished Draco hadn’t committed Potter to make this gift, how he hated her, how she knew it, and the rest of a pile of Kneazle droppings.

In the end, Astoria seemed to realize she didn’t have a sympathetic audience, and stormed off towards the Manor. Severus stood where he was, staring at the glass without seeing the image reflected in it, and thought.

Harry meant more to him than Lily.

Or, well, Harry’s happiness and strength at the moment meant more to him than Lily’s. Plenty of people would think that was natural. After all, Lily had been dead for years, and Severus had betrayed her in the end, and Harry was alive, and Severus had helped to free him.

But—

He’d never had a thought like that, never, since Lily had died. She had remained the center of his self-loathing and his mental life, even if most of the time he hadn’t dared to probe at that bleeding wound.

What did it mean for him, if the wound healed?

Severus exhaled hard, and turned and went back to Harry’s workshop, to find out what it would mean.

*

“How did you make the image appear in the glass?”

Harry glanced up with a grin as Severus stopped in the doorframe of his lab. “Did you like it?”

“I don’t imagine that anyone could like looking at that.” Severus’s voice was the kind of low drawl that Harry had once been unable to imagine hearing without someone getting into trouble. Right now, the trouble was all for someone else, which made it perfect for him. “But I am intrigued to know how you made it appear there.”

Harry shrugged. “It wasn’t that difficult. The glass is set in the larger matrix of the maze I’m building. I have a connection to it since I’m the builder and laid every piece of the maze as it’s currently constructed. Then the glass has the connection to Astoria since I used the sense of her I got from the original bauble she sent me to start building the maze, and it has a connection to Draco because the maze is on his Manor’s grounds. Plus, that memory is emblazoned in the minds of all three of us for different reasons. I triangulated with the three senses of our magic, with the magic of the grass that hosts the wood and the glass and the other materials, and created a separate matrix in the glass that could host the image if at least one of the three of us was there. The senses of our magic created the potential, and the presence of one of us activated the potential. It wouldn’t appear if someone totally unrelated—you, for example—was there. Although,” Harry had to add, caught by the idea, “since you were the one who pulled me out of Draco’s Legilimency trap, I might have been able to alter the image so that it would draw on my sense of your magic as well, and—”

He fell silent as a heavy warm hand came to rest on his arm. Harry blinked and looked up. Severus was looming over him, his eyes so wide that Harry thought he was angry at first.

“What’s wrong?” Harry whispered, aware that his voice came out husky, and also that he couldn’t do anything about that.

“You are remarkable.”

Severus’s voice was low and as heavy as his hand, and when he shifted closer, Harry swallowed as his heart burst into motion. Severus lowered his head, then paused when his lips were only a few centimeters from Harry’s.

“Tell me that you want this.”

Harry was fleetingly surprised for a moment. He would have expected to be asked if he didn’t want this. But then he understood. Both of them had had enough of being tolerated, of being grudgingly wanted.

Harry lifted his hands. “Yes. But a kiss. Nothing more right now.”

Severus didn’t answer with words, but the kiss blazed through Harry like honey set on fire. He drew himself back long before he was ready to end it, because—

Because it ached so sweetly that he felt unease prickling at his stomach. He was wondering, now, if he could actually have what he wanted without paying for it in some unacceptable fashion.

He swallowed and opened his eyes. “You just suddenly decided to do that?” he whispered.

“Perhaps some people are charmed by a beautiful face,” Severus said. He had his head half-lowered, and it was hard for Harry to see his expression. “Perhaps some by money. We both know someone who holds that as his main motivation.” He was silent again for a moment, his fingers gently exploring down Harry’s shoulders. “I am charmed by intelligence.”

He paused. Harry found himself waiting, not breathing until that caught up with him and he had to expel everything in a huge rush of air.

Severus gave him a faint smile. “And I did not decide suddenly to do that. I wanted to. I simply chose the moment when I did not want to wait any longer.”

Harry blinked, and decided, tentatively, that he didn’t need to worry about paying an unacceptable price for this. Unlike anyone he’d tried to date before, Severus knew exactly what a price like that would be, and how Harry had paid it in the past.

He found himself running a hand through his own hair, and switched it to Severus’s. Severus closed his eyes and stood very still, like a lion attuned to a human touch. Harry decided he wouldn’t tell him about that comparison.

“I’m—honored,” Harry said at last. “And surprised. But not that intelligence is what charms you.” He paused, because suddenly he didn’t want to say the next words that had come into his head, but Severus would be able to tell if he held back. “Surprised that you can see it in me.”

Severus blinked once, then said, “I realized this afternoon that I have never seen eyes as intense as yours. Or—where the emotion mattered to me more. Not even Lily’s.”

He bowed to Harry and swept out of the workshop. Harry stared after him, then turned back to the work that was now more important than ever.

Because he was going to get his revenge. And ensure that there was no way Draco or Astoria could strike back at Severus for not stopping him.

Because he wanted to see what happened after this.