lomonaaeren | Part Eighteen of 'Their Phoenix'

Title: Their Phoenix (18/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Threesome, Snape/Harry/Draco. (Harry and Draco do develop their own sexual relationship within the threesome). Some Harry/Ginny and Snape/Draco near the beginning of the story.
Rating: NC-17.
Warnings: Magical bonding, slash sex, violence, profanity, massive denial. Springing-from-DH AU; it starts deviating from the moment Voldemort confronts Snape in the Shrieking Shack.
Summary: AU. Voldemort has learned who the true master of the Elder Wand is, and he plans to kill Draco along with Snape. Harry is desperate to save them, because Dumbledore would have wanted him to. But with wild magic, Horcruxes, and Dark Marks all involved, Harry may have condemned all three of them to something worse than death.
Author’s Notes: This is One of Those Bonding Fics. It’s also One of Those Threesome Fics, and also One of Those Fics With Harry-in-Denial. If that sounds like what you’re looking for, then come right in. I’m sorry to say that I have absolutely no idea how long this will be, and it will also be irregularly updated, whenever I finish a major “part.”

Part One.

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Swanfair greeted Harry briskly as she stepped through the front door of the house. “Is it your plan to humiliate the Ministry into compliance, then?”

Harry took her cloak, giving it a shake to ensure that he would feel any weapons concealed in it, and looked her over carefully. She didn’t seem unduly agitated; her cheeks were pale, her tone chiding instead of upset. Harry had wondered how she would react to the fact that they hadn’t discussed their latest tactic with her before they used it. So far, it seemed the answer was “well.”

Remember that Swanfair is an actor born, and she will not show you anything that she does not want you to see, said Severus’s voice crisply in his head.

Then what’s the point of looking for clues in her expression and gestures? Harry snapped back, but he managed to compose his face by the time that Swanfair looked at him again. Speaking to two people at once, one in front of him and one inside his mind, was confusing, and he had made Severus and Draco promise not to babble when he was actually talking to Swanfair. “I decided that humiliation was as good a tactic as any,” he said evenly. “After all, the Minister hasn’t responded to threats and reasonable outrage so far.”

“It is an innovative tactic, not one I would have expected of you. Some Gryffindors, or those who have been members of House Gryffindor, consider themselves too pure to use it.” Swanfair sat down on the couch in the ground floor library and offered him a thin smile. “Most interesting are the details of your childhood. Are those true, or did you make them up?”

Harry wanted to grumble under his breath. Draco and Severus had absorbed those details in silence when they’d asked him for something sufficiently pathetic, and Harry still didn’t know what they’d thought of them. He’d agreed to reveal them only because he knew that they would get lost in the flood of media coverage of the Auror raid and half the people who read them wouldn’t believe them anyway. Of course Swanfair would focus in on the one area where her penetration wasn’t wanted.

But he didn’t see much point in denying them when he’d put them out in public of his own free will. And they couldn’t hurt him anymore. He would never see the Dursleys again. If Swanfair tried to use the psychology caused by his abuse against him—not that Harry could see how she would—then Draco and Severus would be sure to tell him she was doing it and bring her up sharply.

“Those are true,” he said. “In case anyone checked on them, I didn’t want our enemies to be able to accuse me of lying.”

Swanfair’s smile froze for a moment. Then she said, “There are many varying definitions of strength and weakness.”

Harry barely managed to keep from blinking. What the fuck is she on about now?

“I have never subscribed to the idea that one definition, and one definition only, is true, and the rest false,” Swanfair said. “Each has its own portion of truth, and those portions depend on the existence of other kinds for their sense.” She was leaning forwards, peering intently at Harry, as if he should give her a wise nod and respond with some other kind of platitude.

Harry had no idea what she was driving at, and Draco and Severus remained silent in his head, which was a good sign that they were as baffled as he was. He shrugged at last, when he realized that Swanfair really was waiting for some sign before she went on, and said, “The only kind of strength I know much about is courage. I’ve had a lot of experience of that.”

“But you can learn more.” Swanfair smiled. It was the warmest expression Harry had ever seen from her. “I am now confident that you can, after seeing your performance.” She rose to her feet and turned to find her cloak. Harry stood up as well, blinking. He had thought that she’d come to discuss strategy, and that meant she’d be here for at least an hour.

“Our party needs a concrete set of tactics in the short term,” he warned her. “I’ve already had several disappointed letters because we don’t seem to be planning anything.”

Swanfair ducked her head, the corners of her mouth twitching in a way that Severus identified in a murmur, when Harry asked, as an attempt to conceal laughter. “Shacklebolt is Minister on sufferance alone,” she said. “We needed a strong hand in the wake of the war, to control the Ministry and separate those who were loyal to the Dark Lord from those who were compelled into his service by fear.” She looked at Harry, her face smooth and stern again. “Scrimgeour is dead, so that we have no one who was legitimately elected to the position ready to take over again. We shall demand an election, of course.”

Once she said it, it sounded like the only reasonable thing to do. Harry wished, just for once, that he could get ahead of her and suggest something that would take her aback. Now, he had to nod wisely and act as if the thought had been at the top of his mind all along. “Yes, we shall,” he said. “I’ll write letters to Mrs. Zabini and the others who contacted me telling them that. Should I ask them to keep it secret?”

Swanfair worked her hair out from under her cloak. “What need? This is not a plan to be approached with an air of deception. What we plan to do is not illegal, but an enactment of the rights of every British wizarding citizen. Let rumor flourish. It will be another thing to trouble Shacklebolt.” She paused and cast Harry a sly sideways glance. “Always assuming that his ulcers are not enough.”

“Oh, he’s having trouble with them?” Harry assumed an earnest expression with difficulty, since both Severus and Draco were laughing in his mind. “My uncle had trouble with them, too.”

Thwarted in her search for whatever she had hoped to find in his face, Swanfair nodded curtly and stepped out the door. As usual, Harry watched her to the edge of the garden and beyond the wards, then shut the door gently behind her.

It’s difficult to conduct serious meetings when I have to listen to two gales of laughter, he snapped to his bondmates.

That doesn’t matter, Draco said. The important thing is that Shacklebolt has the ulcers and that you didn’t stumble too badly in front of Swanfair.

His condescension rasped like sandpaper. Harry bristled and started to retort, but Severus spoke aloud, stepping out of the sitting room where he had been concealed. “I am more interested in what she meant by definitions of strength and weakness.”

“So am I,” Harry said. “But you heard everything we said to each other, and I didn’t see anything especially incriminating on her face.”

“I will sit in on the next meeting, I think.” Severus turned in the direction of the library, probably to look up references in obscure books that would make sense of Swanfair’s oblique words. Draco headed for the potions lab, a relieved expression on his face; he had made no secret of the fact that he thought the meeting with Swanfair was holding him away from some important brewing. Harry shrugged and went to open the front door.

“Where are you going?” That was Draco’s voice, sharp in a way that made Harry pause and turn around. Draco had his eyes narrowed and his hand clenched on the handle of the door to the potions lab. His knuckles were white, Harry saw in surprise. He shot a bewildered glance at Severus, and saw that he was looking at Harry with a level gaze, his face more blank than he usually made it around them.

“To visit Cadell,” Harry said slowly. “He invited me on a private tour of Honeydukes to try some of the new chocolate that the owners are making. I told you that yesterday.” He could have sent a number of sharp thoughts about their failing memory, but he chose not to. From the way Draco glared at him, Harry wondered if he had been thinking too loud again and they had picked up the thoughts anyway.

“I see,” Draco said. “A private tour.”

Harry glared back now. He didn’t know exactly what Draco was implying, but he knew that was the same tone Draco might have used to talk about Ginny, and he didn’t want Cadell to wind up on the wrong end of Draco’s wand. Especially now, when everyone will be watching us to see if we actually do ever hurt our enemies or our friends. We could persuade Ginny to keep it quiet because the Weasleys are so close to me. Cadell doesn’t have reason to do that.

“Yes,” Harry ended up saying, when Draco said nothing else. “That’s right. I told you about it yesterday,” he repeated. “I’ll be careful, and I think Hogsmeade is safer for me than most other places right now, given the sympathy we know most members of the village feel for us.” He glanced at Severus for support, and found his face still blank. Harry sighed in frustration. “Look, if I vanish or get in trouble, at least you’ll know exactly where to look.”

“That is true,” Severus said, and Draco turned and stared at him. Harry wondered if Severus had sent a fleeting thought to Draco. They’d already discovered that two of them could hold private conversations the third couldn’t hear.

At the moment, Harry barely felt any jealousy about being left out. As long as Severus told Draco not to be an idiot and let him leave, then everything would be fine. Harry had long ago accepted that he would never understand all the sources of Draco’s moods and the way they changed like Dudley’s desires for new toys.

“Let him go,” Severus said, at which Draco looked mulish. “You know what we agreed upon.”

Harry sighed in relief. It looks like they agreed that Cadell isn’t dangerous, or at least Severus thinks that and is trying to convince Draco.

“I don’t—” Draco started.

“Your opinion does not count in this case.” Severus’s voice deepened to a hiss. “Harry is right that the young man is well-known, and because he works in Hogsmeade, the area is safer for Harry than visiting his friends in some remote place or even than flying in a meadow. You know that, Draco.”

Draco strained forwards as if again an invisible barrier, his eyes fastened to Severus now. Then he glanced at Harry, gave a clipped nod, muttered something about how their lives were dependent on him and he should remember that, and disappeared into the potions lab with a resounding slam of the door.

“I apologize for Draco,” Severus said, with extreme dignity. “I believe that he is still troubled by the incident of the Gut Chewing Curse.”

Harry managed a shaky laugh. The anger on Draco’s face had made him wince. He wondered what he would have seen if he’d opened the bonds fully. “For that matter, I’m still troubled by it. Tell him I understand.” He looked earnestly at Severus. “You had the chance to read Cadell’s mind when he came up to us in the garden. You don’t think that he means me harm, do you?”

“Illegal use of Legilimency, Mr. Potter?” Severus asked, in the same tone that he had used when Harry asked if he would be assigned a detention at Hogwarts. “That is a dark suggestion you are making.”

Harry folded his arms. “Come off it. I know you did.”

“I saw no harm in him,” Severus said. “A pleasant young man, with a normal life and normal memories. I am sure that he has never carried the Dark Mark or lost most of the people he cared about because of the orders of a madman.” He turned about and stalked towards the library with his spine stiff.

Harry watched him in silence, respecting the bitterness in his voice. I shouldn’t forget what he’s gone through. And I should show him my memories as soon as I can work out how to make the bond show images like it does thoughts. Maybe that will ease some of his burden.

He still couldn’t help a lightening of his mood as he ducked out of the house and shut the door behind him, though. Severus and Draco had gone through so much, and they sometimes made statements so subtle, that being with them was like living in a constant sea of unexpressed meaning. Harry was happy to be associating with someone as simple and straightforward as Cadell for once.

*

Draco stood with his hands on the edge of the Taylor Transfigured Jointing-Table and shut his eyes. Bitterness and rage and jealousy roiled around in him and came together like a blood clot, choking off his breath and his sight.

He had thought that Harry would tire of Caesarion when it became clear that the young man was just simple and straightforward, and nothing more. He hadn’t shared any history with Harry. He didn’t share a bond. He made him laugh and smile, but Harry’s friends did that, too, and he wasn’t always running off to spend time with them and leaving Severus and Draco behind.

Besides, he didn’t look at any of his friends with the same speculative gleam in his eye that he looked at Caesarion with. Maybe he didn’t know about that gleam—and how could someone reach the age of eighteen and still be as innocent as all that, especially when Draco knew he’d had sex?—but it was there. He preferred Caesarion to Draco and Severus as far as looks went. That was clear.

How can he? Draco wanted to pace back and forth, but Severus had taught him too well to control himself in the potions lab, lest he break something or disturb a delicate simmering cauldron. So he stood still and forced himself to plunge into the swirling darkness of his own feelings, stronger than he had realized they could become, even with the provocation of Harry’s preference of someone else to drive them. I know I’m handsomer than Caesarion. I know that Severus could make Harry moan, if all he wants is someone who would be good in bed. I know that we’re sparkling and witty conversationalists, and I know that he’s laughed in our presence. We worked well together when the Aurors came. I don’t understand what he might be seeking outside the bond.

Draco gave a mighty shudder and opened his eyes. He didn’t understand any of it. Even Harry’s emotions provided no clue; they were mostly foamy bafflement at the idea that Draco and Severus were so hostile.

That meant that he had to stop trying to guess what Harry wanted and what would impress him, and do something he did understand. Maybe Harry didn’t want Caesarion so much as he thought that Caesarion didn’t have Draco and Severus’s flaws.

He had expressed dissatisfaction with Draco’s temper. Draco could work on improving that. He had shown that he was disappointed with the way Draco treated and worked with his friends. He could try that.

And of course he would work on potions as well. Because even though Harry didn’t know enough about brewing to be impressed by that, Draco wanted to become better at that for himself, and for the look of approval in Severus’s eyes.

And self-confidence is always attractive.

Draco turned around and got to work.

*

Severus stared unseeing at the words in front of him for long moments. He was imagining, instead, what Caesarion was probably saying to Harry as they strolled through the aisles of Honeydukes.

When he looked down, his fingers had pressed creases into the page. He cleared his throat in embarrassment and returned to his studying. He managed to read three sentences before his mind went wandering again.

Draco had proven more powerless to restrain his jealousy than Severus had suspected he might, the bond between them raging with storm and tsunami. In truth, he could not blame his lover. Harry was exasperatingly oblivious. Severus knew why, but he had not the least idea, as of yet, how to challenge that drowning in the abyss of the conventionality without making Harry feel as if they were forcing him into an epiphany he did not want to have.

Severus would ordinarily have acted without regard for the feelings of the other party involved. After all, what did it matter what Harry wanted? He would need to acknowledge plain truth. And it was plain truth that Severus and Draco wanted him—as Harry had admitted he knew—and that they could please each other better than any other partners, concerning the bonds between them.

Harry does not think that way.

It was a struggle for Severus to force his mind into the cramped confines of thought that Harry seemed to prefer, but he managed at last, because Harry himself had confessed what the problem was. If he hadn’t, God knew how long Severus would have knocked his head against an unyielding wall.

Harry saw love relationships as pairs, and nothing else. He probably even valued that, because there was a certain romance about the idea that only one other person in the world would ever perfectly understand you, and that that person would never leave you alone or turn on you.

How can he still believe that after the way his link to Weasley ended?

Then Severus snorted. There, he had enough experience with Gryffindors to provide the answer. Rather than give up an ideal, they would assume that something was merely an imperfect rendition of that ideal. Harry had probably already decided that his bond with Weasley was not an example of true love, and so it was natural and necessary for it to end. Maybe he didn’t think that Severus and Draco had true love, either, but he was not about to interfere and try to find a place between them.

A place between us. A brightly colored picture distracted Severus for a time, and then he sighed in disgust and put it aside.

Draco has been a bad influence on my libido.

Back to Harry. The boy would still be looking for one person who understood him perfectly, one who was his match in every way. That perfect conception was another barrier in their way, as he was all too conscious of the gaps in understanding between himself, Draco, and Severus.

But they would struggle through it. They must.

Severus started at the force of his own thought. When did yielding Harry up to the clumsy attentions of another lover cease to be a choice? It may be the choice that we have to make, if he is content with Caesarion or finds that contentment with someone else.

And yet, the thought of that happening was a gnawing within Severus. He wanted Harry to enter their bed of his own free will, yes, but he also wanted him because Harry was generous, and fiercely protective of them, and able to accept the inevitable when it was shoved into his face—something Severus had not previously believed of him—and a good listener when he chose to exercise that faculty, and absurdly shy when he did not need to be, and beautiful.

I want him. And I deserve to have what I want, after what I suffered in the service of both Dumbledore and the Dark Lord.

Severus found himself faintly smiling, in a way that renewed his determination to outwait Harry’s experiment or flirtation or dalliance with Caesarion.

I simply never believed that I would want Harry Potter.

*

“And this is where they make the chocolate that covers the outside of most of the magical sweets.”

Harry knew his eyes were wide with fascination as he leaped down a step into the vast room behind Honeydukes, but he didn’t care. It was Draco who would have taunted him for showing too little knowledge around a new thing or person. Cadell didn’t seem to have that capacity.

Cadell, in fact, was the most relaxed person Harry had been around in some time. There was always a subtle tension when he was with Draco and Severus; Harry was reminded that they were high-strung, with reason to be, and that any gesture that seemed innocent to him might rouse a thousand bad memories for them. Cadell, though, was as straightforward as Harry had thought he would be. He laughed at Harry’s simplistic jokes, and he discussed sweets with a relish that showed he enjoyed them instead of having fine tastes in food that Harry couldn’t understand, and he was willing to explain things that Harry didn’t understand a second time.

Harry hadn’t realized how much he was straining to keep up with the magical theories that Draco and Severus handed him until he felt a knot of tension in his brain come unwound with Cadell.

They’re more intelligent than me, he thought. I was sure I’d accepted that, but apparently I haven’t done it yet.

The machinery Cadell was showing him now was a gleaming assembly of parts, some of which looked like broomsticks and some of which resembled the wrenches that Harry had sometimes seen Uncle Vernon using. Harry looked around and watched as the machines moved up and down in the burning light of the torches, casting sweets into deep basins, pouring streams of chocolate over them, measuring and weighing huge cups of them, and then packing and wrapping them in neat boxes.

“I’m surprised you do it with machines,” he said, the first thing that came into his head. “Wouldn’t most people use house-elves?”

Cadell grinned at him and ran his hand through his hair, making it stand on end. Harry grinned back. He found that gesture endearing. “Well, they probably would, but Grandmother and Grandfather don’t like to. They think it’s slavery. I have another cousin, a Squib, who’s a great engineer. He studied Muggle machines and figured out how to build magical equivalents. This way, we don’t have to do everything ourselves, but we don’t have to employ anyone who won’t like the work, either.”

“My friend Hermione Granger would like them,” Harry said happily. Yes, there are things I can talk about with Cadell that it would drive Severus and Draco mad if I mentioned. “She wants to free house-elves from slavery.”

“Really?” Cadell led him among the pumping machines, towards a back door that had a torch stuck in a sconce on it and a carving that resembled a dragon twining up it. “What are her arguments? Most people I know assume that house-elves just like to serve.”

“She doesn’t think that that desire is natural.” Cadell opened the door for him. Harry nodded his thanks and stepped out into a small garden full of tall purple and yellow flowers. He looked around in wonder. Giant butterflies, most of them blue with black edgings to their wings, danced among the flowers. “She thinks it was bred in,” Harry finished absently, but he was no longer thinking of Hermione and house-elves. “Where did this come from? I didn’t think anything was behind Honeydukes.”

“My family’s garden. My grandparents had to cast privacy charms on it because third-years from Hogwarts were getting into it and ripping up the flowers.” Cadell rolled his eyes and snorted as he shut the door behind him. “How do you like it?”

Harry gave him a curious glance. One thing his association with Severus and Draco had been good for was teaching him how to read expressions. Cadell looked nervous, biting his lip and darting his eyes around as if he were wondering how he could improve the garden for Harry. “It’s beautiful,” Harry said honestly. “Is it a practical garden, too? I mean, do you have vegetables and—and Potions ingredients? Or is it just flowers?”

“Flowers, for the most part.” Cadell led him further into the garden. There were small dirt paths among the flowerbeds, Harry saw when he squinted, though from a distance, the garden looked like one blazing mass of thick greenery. “My grandmother says that it’s bad enough she has to make her own sweets, she wants to buy her vegetables like everybody else.” He led Harry around the tight corner of a stone wall, which seemed to be there mostly to give morning glories a place to go up, and gestured ahead of him. “There are hothouse charms on it to make it grow this way in March, of course,” he muttered. “Still, I think it looks well enough.”

Harry looked up and felt his breath catch. In the center of the garden was an enormous blue flower, bigger than some trees Harry had seen, edged with black on the petals so that it resembled one of the butterflies at rest. More butterflies surrounded it in drifting, undulating chains, and a beehive hummed under one of the giant leaves. “It’s pretty good,” he agreed. “Are there hothouse charms on the rest of the garden, too?”

“Oh, yes,” Cadell said. “My grandmother never wants to be without flowers.” He hesitated so long that Harry turned towards him, wondering what was wrong.

Cadell reached out a hand. His eyes were bright and uncertain.

“Look,” Cadell said. “I want you. I’ve known that since I saw the way you smiled at me in your garden the other day. But I don’t know if you want to date me. I thought I’d ask, though.” He finished with a quiet dignity that Harry thought was impressive, given his pale cheeks and the way he had almost started to stutter. Harry would have stuttered worse than that if he was asking someone to date him.

“I—don’t know,” Harry said.

He forced himself to look carefully at Cadell, the way, he suddenly realized, that he’d carefully been avoiding doing since they met. He didn’t want to seem too impetuous. He didn’t want to irritate Draco and Severus, since they wanted him but would never break their love relationship for him.

But did that mean he had to avoid dating forever, just because his bondmates would have liked to have sex with him? Harry didn’t see why. In time, their desire would fade, because someone might feel physical passion but not feel love because of it. And they were already in love with each other.

“I’ll understand if you don’t want to, because you don’t like me or you don’t date men.” Despite his stately words, Cadell blushed. “But I thought I would ask. It would be stupid of me to simply let the chance pass by if it turned out that you did like to date men, after all.”

“I’ve only ever dated a girl,” Harry said. “But sometimes I’ve thought…” And that was the truth, even though his thoughts so far were limited to a few admiring glances at Draco and Severus and the blended dreams they’d had.

But why should he allow his bondmates to set a limit on his life? There was really no reason. He didn’t want to remain celibate for the rest of his life because it might hurt them. They certainly showed no sign of noticing his jealousy, except for the conversation Severus had had with him the other day when they were setting the traps up in the house. And Harry didn’t know what to make of that conversation, honestly.

Just like so many other conversations I have with them. They’re deep and subtle and experienced in all kinds of politics and magical theory, and I’m…not.

Cadell was more like him. Harry allowed himself, for the first time, to consciously admire the crisp curls of Cadell’s hair and the blue of his eyes. That blue was really startling, more like a tropical sky than the color of Ron’s eyes. Or Draco’s, for that matter.

He stepped forwards, reached out and clamped his hands down on Cadell’s shoulders—he had the vague idea that it was a good idea to be firm when you were kissing a bloke—and kissed him clumsily.

Cadell reached up with a satisfyingly surprised exclamation, caught Harry’s face, and redirected some of his force into a better kiss. Harry smirked a bit and let himself be so directed. His tongue tingled when Cadell’s touched it, and that wasn’t so different from what he’d done with Ginny. He stepped closer, pleased to find that he was only an inch or so shorter than Cadell. Being around Severus had the tendency of causing him to exaggerate height differences in his mind.

A few hazy minutes passed, and Harry decided that he could learn to like kissing a bloke, and that Cadell had an agile tongue, and that the thick smell of flowers all around them made a nice accompaniment to things. Cadell shifted sideways, trailing one hand down Harry’s chest, and curled his fingers around the bottom of Harry’s shirt.

Harry stepped back and shook his head. He knew he looked flushed and he was panting, which meant he also looked ridiculous. But he didn’t think he was ready for more just yet. His erection was embarrassing enough.

“Well,” said Cadell, his voice thick and seeming to travel from an extra distance before the words emerged from his throat. “What did you think?”

Harry licked his lips and said, “I think it’s something I want to try more of.”

Cadell’s smile made Harry feel as if he were standing in a private beam of sunlight. “Good. I was so sure—I didn’t know if I’d be good enough for you.”

Harry grinned back at him. I know the feeling, he wanted to say. Sometimes I wonder if I’d be good enough for my bondmates. I wasn’t good enough for Ginny.

But he didn’t want to compare his old relationship with the new one, so he said, “You shouldn’t believe everything you read in the newspapers. I want some companionship and loyalty and good sex, that’s all. And someone who respects my bondmates.”

“I can certainly give you that.”

Cadell reached out and cupped his chin, initiating the kiss this time. Harry closed his eyes and indulged in some uncomplicated happiness for once.

*

“But I don’t think the pamphlets should say anything about pure-bloods.”

Draco closed his eyes and told himself that he had promised to hold his temper with Harry’s friends. That he hadn’t made the promise to Harry didn’t matter. In fact, making a promise in private was a better bond, because that meant he was unlikely to give up in disgust when Harry gave no sign of noticing his sacrifices.

As he hasn’t so far.

“It’s really no different than writing pamphlets about different issues and distributing them to people we know would be interested,” he said evenly. “Some pamphlets emphasizing why Minister Shacklebolt isn’t best for Muggleborns will go to them. Why can’t we have pamphlets emphasizing why the Minister isn’t good for pure-bloods?”

“Bringing blood into it is a stupid idea.”

Spoken with all the assurance of someone who idealizes politics, Draco thought, and opened his eyes again. They were in the library, and Granger was trying to make the chair in which she sat look like a throne. Her hands were clasped in front of her, and she fixed him with an earnest gaze that made Draco have to check his sigh.

Yes, she thinks that you can do everything you need to with a few dazzling moves and shining words, and then everyone will fall into line. I bet she’s read novels about it. But of course everything is simpler in a novel, or you couldn’t tell a story.

Draco knew what kind of story he would have liked to be in: one where the plot ran straight and smoothly to the end, with appropriate rewards for the hero, him. It didn’t matter that other people probably wouldn’t want to read it. He would find it interesting, and he thought that his opinion ought to matter, as the protagonist.

“But blood already is in it,” Draco said, “and trying to ignore the shadow of the Dark Lord and the war would be even more stupid. Pure-bloods and Muggleborns are already suspicious of each other, Granger, for reasons that have nothing to do with Harry. It’s better to openly acknowledge the differences and try to forge alliances that way.”

“No,” Granger said, with determination that reminded Draco of a goat. “It’s better to treat everyone equally, whether they’re a pure-blood or a Muggleborn.”

Draco snorted at her, inwardly proud of himself for not throwing up his hands. “You’re not arguing for equal treatment, you’re arguing for identical treatment. Which is precisely what won’t work.”

Granger hesitated. Draco gave her a faint smile. He knew the swift blinks Granger’s eyes made. He had finally caught her attention with his wordplay and given her something to think about.

“I didn’t think about that,” she said. “But would they resent identical treatment?”

“Yes,” Draco said instantly. “You might value all people the same way, Granger, but you can’t treat them in the same way. Would you demand that someone who’s missing his leg walk like a person with two of them? Would you demand that someone who’s been tortured and abused half his life act exactly like someone who had a happy childhood?”

His mind returned, briefly, to Harry’s revelations about his childhood. He had put them aside for the moment because he had no idea what to do with them. Harry didn’t seem to require comfort. He didn’t seem to think much about them at all, once he had realized that Severus and Draco were not about to scorn him for “weakness.” Draco could feel a throb in the bond between him and Severus now and then that he thought was Severus turning over those same facts and trying to make them fit.

There were certainly traces of the childhood Harry had led in the adult he was now, but Draco knew it would be folly to try and link everything Harry did with his abuse, and they had enough problems understanding Harry already.

Right now, for example, Harry was with Caesarion and the bond ran with happiness like a chuckling river, dotted here and there with flashes of pleasure. Draco had to ignore it or else he knew that he would lose his temper with Granger.

“I never thought of that.” Granger’s voice was low, but it held no resentment. She was the only person Draco had ever met who didn’t resent challenges to her ideas because they gave her new perspectives that she hadn’t thought of before. She looked up at him with a smile and thrust her hand out. “Thanks, Malfoy. You gave me something to think about.”

And that’s just what I like, Draco completed the sentence silently. He managed to return the smile and the handshake. Sometimes his skin still felt as if it were crawling when he was around Muggleborns, but so many of his parents’ prejudices had proven wrong that he was embarrassed to acknowledge that now. “You’re welcome,” he said. “Now let’s think about what candidate we’re going to support in the election.”

Granger gave him a startled look. “We’re calling for a general election without knowing that?”

“Yes,” Draco said. “But Swanfair has a list of candidates.” He fetched out a crinkling sheet of parchment that had been folded in his pocket. “I’ve written something about their politics beside each name. Look at them and tell me what you think.”

Granger bent attentively over the parchment, and Draco nodded in satisfaction. He had managed to make something productive out of this meeting, and he and Granger were on the road to being comrades, if not friends.

And Harry was not here to see it.

Draco took a deep breath. Not everything I do has reference to him. I should value this because it’s my own accomplishment, not because he would value it.

And, after that, it was a little easier to stop paying attention to the bubbles of joy breaking from the bond with Harry and concentrate on politics.

*

Severus waited outside the training room for Ledbetter to depart. Normally he left first and Harry and Draco lingered, but Draco had a new potion that he wanted to experiment with and Harry had a pile of letters to answer. That left the old Auror in the training room, deliberately gathering himself up with groans that made Severus twitch in reluctant sympathy. Sometimes he had felt like that after a long day of watching over Potions classes, constantly on the alert for anything to go wrong, though he was younger than Ledbetter.

The man stepped out of the room at last, and paused, with his eyes fixed on Severus. They reminded Severus of a bulldog’s eyes. Ledbetter was someone who would clench his teeth into a single enemy and hold on until they died if he had to.

If he had to. Severus reminded himself that first impressions were not always right, and that Ledbetter had shown swiftness as well as deliberation in removing himself from the Minister’s employ.

Severus bowed slightly. “I have something I wish to speak to you about, Ledbetter,” he said.

“Lead the way, Snape.” Ledbetter’s voice was low and grating. He kept one hand on his wand. Severus didn’t mind. His fingers were not far from his own. It would have been the height of foolishness to do otherwise, when he knew that this man disliked and distrusted him.

They went into the kitchen, where Severus had a pot of tea ready and waiting. He heated it with a Warming Charm and held a cup out to Ledbetter. He accepted it but simply cradled it in his palm, not drinking it.

Of course not, Severus thought. I might have poisoned it. He could appreciate the man’s instincts if not the consequences for himself of those instincts. He sipped from his own cup and said, “When you first came here, our wards warned us that you had evil intentions towards the inhabitants of this house. I will know the reason for that, though you seem a strong ally now.”

Ledbetter said, “I had no hostile intentions towards Potter. But from what I understand of those wards, hostile intentions towards some of the inhabitants are quite enough.”

“It is a new thing for me to be so deeply hated by someone who has not met me,” Severus said. “The particular brand of loathing I inspire usually demands a closer acquaintance.”

“I know that you committed murder,” Ledbetter said. “I know that you participated in torture. I know that you used Dark magic. And I know that Malfoy’s done the last two, if not the first. That’s enough for me to hate you.” He gave Severus an unnerving grin. “It’s nothing personal. I hate everyone who’s done the same things, and I think you should all be rotting in Azkaban.”

“You are training Draco,” Severus said. He did his best to focus on the emotions the bonds were pouring into him at the moment, the starting and stopping fire of Harry’s concentration on the letters, the crashing waterfall of Draco’s mind in labor, so that he would not have to think of his own. He did not understand Ledbetter, and he did not want to react with rage and frustration because of that. “Why would you do such a thing if you believe that he might use that knowledge for evil?”

Ledbetter was silent for long moments, looking into the tea as if he were trying to detect the exact nature of the poison that he believed Severus had used there. Then he looked up and shook his head.

“One thing makes this all different, and makes my loathing for you irrelevant,” he said. “The bond.”

Severus raised his eyebrows. “I did not take you for someone who had read the fairy tales of bonded couples and believed them.”

Ledbetter snorted. “Not a couple,” he said, his sarcasm of the kind that Severus admired. He somewhat regretted that he was not teaching at the moment and did not have as much reason to adopt it. “A bonded couple vanishes into bed and you don’t get any more sense out of ‘em than you do out of a pair of lovebirds. But a triad is different. A triad spreads its energies. And you’re devoted to Potter whether or not you want to be. That should control your actions in the future. If he’s willing to ignore your pasts, then I can do the same thing, while still hating you. I’m not the one who has to live with you.”

He leaned back against the counter and gave Severus another grin. “Of course, if Malfoy does misuse the knowledge I’m giving him, or if you attempt to kill or torture someone else, no matter what the reason, I’ll have you in Azkaban so fast that you’ll still be blinking and wondering where those grey walls came from.”

Slowly, Severus inclined his head. The philosophy that guided Ledbetter’s life was not one that made any sense to him—indeed, he thought it incoherent and self-contradictory—but it was enough for him to know that the man was an honorable enemy. He shared the same goals that Severus did: keeping Harry and Draco alive and free. That he might feel cordial loathing along the way was neither important nor worth wasting thought on.

“You should know that Harry would fight for us if that happened,” he did say.

“He hasn’t got any choice,” Ledbetter said placidly. “I understand that. But neither do I have any choice about what I do.” He shrugged and set down the teacup on the table. “Pleasant talking to you, Snape.” He strode out of the room.

Left alone, Severus smiled thinly. Our allies are a strangely assorted lot, but I dare say they will do.

*

“I think it’s great that you, er, have a boyfriend, mate.”

Harry took a deep breath. All evening while he had dinner at the Burrow, the ice between him and Ron had grown deeper and colder. Ron had avoided his eyes, talked to Hermione whenever Harry opened his mouth to get his attention, and stared desperately at Ginny as if he thought that a welcome diversion would be her leaping on Harry and punching him for breaking up with her.

(Even though it was the other way around. Harry was sometimes depressed that no one remembered that).

Harry had told the Weasleys about Cadell. Mrs. Weasley had exchanged mysterious smiles with Mr. Weasley; Harry decided that they were thinking he must be gay and it was no wonder he and Ginny hadn’t worked out. Ginny had managed a respectable smile and congratulations. George had burst out laughing hysterically for some reason. Bill, who was visiting alone because Fleur had gone to France to be with her parents for a week, shook his head and said something about size and hardness that Harry pretended not to understand.

Ron had stared with his mouth hanging open, and then he’d stood up and asked Harry to go for a walk in the garden. Harry had followed him with a dry mouth. This is the moment that either makes or breaks our friendship, I think.

When they’d walked for ten minutes in silence, Harry’s dread had increased. And now Ron had said this, and he had permission to react.

“Thanks, mate,” he said, and clapped Ron’s shoulder. “I never wanted to break up with Ginny, but I think she needs things I can’t give her, and Cadell can give me things I want that just weren’t there with her.”

Ron turned to face him, and he was actually smiling. Harry found himself taking huge breaths in relief, as though he were trying to breathe through smoke. “One thing in particular, right?” he asked, and lifted his eyebrows.

Harry felt himself turn red. “You’re as bad as your parents,” he muttered. “And George. I don’t know if I’m gay.”

Ron blinked and looked uncertain again. “But if you’re sleeping with a bloke—”

Harry wasn’t about to reveal to his friends how far his experiments with Cadell had gone, especially since he always shut the bonds to Draco and Severus when the “experiments” started. That was private information, and neither his bondmates nor his friends could have it. “It doesn’t work that way,” he said firmly. “I didn’t make a decision to stop liking girls or start liking blokes. I don’t know what I am yet, come to that, and I think I’ll wait a while to decide.”

Ron nodded slowly. “Yeah, all right. I reckon people have given you labels all your life, and it’s nice to be uncertain where you belong for once.”

Harry looked at him in mock amazement. “Sometimes I think that you’re just a normal chess-player and war hero, and then you come out with an insight like that.”

More red-faced than when he’d thought they were discussing gay sex, Ron pushed him, and Harry pushed him back, and Ron slipped in the wet grass and punched Harry in the knee, and they were all right again.

*

Harry stepped out of the Burrow and stood smiling up at the stars. A cool April breeze traveled past him, and he smiled more widely. That had gone much better than he had thought it would, and now he thought his relationship with the Weasley family would slowly turn back to normal. Not the kind of normal he had once thought it would be, where he was Ginny’s boyfriend as well as Ron and Hermione’s friend and the other Weasleys’ adopted son and brother, but a settled part of his life that he was always welcome in.

And he had his bondmates, and he had his boyfriend. His life was unusual, but it wasn’t the punishing kind of unusual anymore. Harry no longer felt as though he were condemned to live out his life alone or in the company of people who would never understand him. Draco and Severus had been calmer and gentler lately, with more of a tendency to explain, as though Harry’s failure to understand some of the things they talked about was making its way through the bond.

Harry whistled as he took out his wand to Apparate.

A deliberate blow came down on the back of his neck, throwing him forwards. Harry found himself scrambling in the grass, trying to breathe. The blow seemed to have frozen his lungs and chest as well as numbed his neck.

Roll to the side, the memory of Ledbetter’s voice said in his mind, while Harry’s brain created a picture for him of where the attacker must be standing and sent him tumbling madly in the opposite direction.

Harry heard something solid connect with the dirt behind him and a soft hiss of frustration. His lungs were working again, and his neck throbbed with pain, and he was angry. He grabbed for his wand—

Another blow hit him, this time just above his waist. Harry went sprawling. His wand flew from his fingers, and he thought he saw it roll behind a clump of grass before his eyes slid helplessly shut and his eyesight fuzzed and fizzed.

“Got him,” someone said.

Harry felt the soft shimmer of heat above his phoenix marks, but he had no idea if they would bring Draco and Severus to his aid or not. He had no idea how to stand, although he badly wanted to. For a moment, he entertained the terrifying thought that he was paralyzed and would never walk again.

Then another blow hit the back of his skull, and he entertained no thoughts at all.

Part Nineteen.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

slashpuppy.livejournal.com

Ack! Another cliffie! I canna take the stress! :-)

Hmmm, who could the attackers be... aurors, Swanfair trying something on again, friends of that Huxley woman, friends of Ginny, some unnamed others... the plot thickens!

I'm thinking it's aurors only because of how quickly they incapacitated Harry. That, plus aurors might have easy access to the Weasleys' property... and the attack seemed to have happened within the Weasleys' wards just as Harry stepped out of the Burrow.

I wants to read what comes next!!!

*waits impatiently for the next chapter*

From:

Part Eighteen of 'Their Phoenix'

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