Part Two of 'Kinder, Kindler, Kindlier' (Snape/Harry/Draco)

[lomonaaeren]

Part One.

Title: Kinder, Kindler, Kindlier
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Snape/Harry/Draco
Rating: R
Warnings: Threesome (there are Harry/Draco scenes). Slightly AU from DH in that Snape survives. Profanity, sex, angst.
Summary: The third law of motion does not apply to relationships.
Author’s Notes: This started life as a tiny one-shot, but didn’t stay there. It will probably end up being posted in seven or eight parts, perhaps a bit more or a bit less.


“And then he dared to speak to me about the Dark Lord,” Draco said, slamming his mug into the table as if he assumed that one or both of them should break under the treatment. “And about Hogwarts. As though those wounds have healed!”

Severus said nothing. He had his back turned to Draco for a good reason: because his expression would probably either drive Draco into self-defensive raptures of explanation that Severus had no wish to hear, or because it would frighten him into shutting up and leaving. And Severus still enjoyed Draco’s visits, despite his whining.

At the moment, he was checking his latest shipment of carbuncles for flaws. The dim red stones sparked and shone as he turned them in the light, but few of them had the structural integrity that was necessary to so many potions. Severus’s mouth tightened with annoyance as he set the first few cracked ones aside. He sometimes wondered if his suppliers sent him a higher proportion of flawed stones on purpose, to settle imaginary scores from the war, but he doubted that he could ever prove it, even if it was so.

“Severus! Are you listening to me?”

Perhaps granting him permission to call me by my first name was a mistake. But still less could Severus imagine Draco calling him by his last name, the way Potter did, or referring to him as “professor” when he hadn’t held the rank for years. He turned around and frowned less forbiddingly than he wished he could. “One can hardly avoid listening,” he said, “when you fill this room with your voice.”

Draco leaned back and gestured around at the room above the shop that was all the living space Severus had. It was a dusty, dim place filled with crates of supplies, barrels that Severus intended to place in the shop below soon, and rejected ingredients he needed to ship back to their suppliers. Cobwebs obscured the one window, and boxes sat on the chairs. “Why don’t you move to someplace larger?” Draco asked. “And get a larger table? My feet ache from kicking the legs all the time.”

Severus set his mouth. Most of the time, Draco seemed to understand that not everyone had as much money as he did, and he refrained from referring to the size or appointments of Severus’s room. But this time, he was more self-absorbed than usual, whining about everything from the conversation with Potter to the (inevitable) ending of his love affair with the former Miss Parkinson, and Severus was not inclined to be so forgiving.

Speaking to Potter did me more good than I believed it would, he thought. It is time to see if the same cannot happen if I speak my mind to Draco.

“What do you imagine a larger room would cost, Draco?” he asked quietly. “Especially when many people would be reluctant to lend space to a former Death Eater?”

“Well, don’t rent, then,” Draco said, with a little flap of his hand and the uncomfortable expression on his face that he seemed to get every time the topic of money came up. “Buy a house. Then you’d be able to do anything you liked with the property, and no one could complain.”

Severus laughed without amusement. “And that is a fantasy that shows how sheltered you are. Where am I to get the Galleons to buy this house? And the furniture to fill it? And, as I suppose you would demand in your next fantasy, the cauldrons for my private lab?”

Draco shook his head and stared down at the mug of Firewhisky in his hands, his eyes haunted and his brow furrowed. He avoided Severus’s eyes as if Severus intended to destroy him with a glance. “I don’t know,” he mumbled. “I was just thinking that it could happen, and—and then I’d like visiting you more often, that’s all.”

“The temptation of your continual presence is no prize,” Severus, more bluntly than he might have were he not so irritated, and turned to his sorting again. There were two fine carbuncles in the next handful. He set them aside with the other unflawed ones, and that made seven.

Draco stared at him with wide eyes, and then frowned. “Sir?” he asked, turning back to a more respectful mode of address now that he thought he might be in trouble. It was exactly the same as he had done in school, and Severus experienced a mingled wave of nausea and weariness.

Has he grown up at all since then?

The man he saw before him now was not an adult, no matter how tall he might be. He had made a career of feeling sorry for himself since the war and starting love affairs that were doomed to failure—with married lovers, with lovers who were only interested in his money, with former friends who would fuck him out of pity. And what was worse, Severus thought, his resentment building like a dark wave, was that Draco knew that. He was intelligent enough to describe exactly how he was fucking himself over, during the few nights when he got so drunk in Severus’s presence that he became honest.

But he wanted to have an excuse to wallow and sulk and not move on to doing anything more worthwhile with his life. And he did have it, because his mother would hint and sigh but not actually attempt to change him, and Lucius was too busy dreaming of future prestige to notice his son’s present troubles.

“Listen to me, Draco,” Severus said, and he did not know if he was speaking more because he wanted to see Draco do something with his life, or to relieve his own feelings. “You are nothing more at the moment than a spoiled, rich brat who doesn’t know how to count Galleons, use your skills to earn yourself a living, be a generous lover, or anything else.”

Draco’s mouth fell open. Severus did not enjoy the opportunity to count his tonsils.

Then Draco shut his mouth and began to splutter. There were words in there like “father” and “war” and “trust,” but Severus didn’t enjoy the chance to listen to them, either. He knew the excuses Draco would make.

They were all based on fear. Severus had suffered from the same crippling lack of courage after the war, the temptation to huddle in his house and never go outside it so that no one could taunt him. In his case, he hadn’t been able to afford the luxury because he had had to work and earn money to keep food in his mouth and a roof over his head. But Draco had been able to do exactly as he liked, and it was that which had corrupted him.

“You can improve,” Severus told him fiercely. “That is the maddening thing. Unlike Potter in Potions, you have talent. You can be better than you are, greater. But you refuse, because you might fail. If you did as you should, if you once made proper use of your gifts, then you would not recognize yourself. Fear controls you, not the desire to live a full life that you would like to pretend you have but which is being opposed by other people. Right now, no one cares enough about you to oppose your wishes, because of what you have made of yourself.”

Draco’s mouth gaped again. He shut it more quickly this time and shook his head. “You don’t know the vile things that they say to me when they meet me in Diagon Alley,” he said.

“Yes,” Severus said. “Words, and nothing else. You have done nothing that requires more. And that means that the insults linger in your mind more than they would if you had good work to counterbalance them, the consciousness of something greater that they could not touch and could not corrupt.”

Draco shook his head again. “There’s nothing I can do,” he said. “Not when the world hates me so much.”

Severus stared at Draco, then gestured around the room. “This is not a large shop,” he said. “There are some people who will never buy from me. But I have achieved a place that will give me a living, despite the number of people convinced I was a traitor and the worst Headmaster the school had ever seen. Do not tell me that success is impossible when the world hates you, Draco.”

“I don’t know how to do this,” Draco said, lowering his head and whining as though he expected Severus to demand a success of him the next day.

And that was when Severus discovered that, after all, he had some spark of kindness left under the gruffness that survival had made necessary.

“Then I will help you,” he said gently.

Draco stared up at him. “You said—”

“Find your will first,” Severus added hastily, turning away. He would not be a rescue service for Draco, another person he could depend on and then accuse when they wouldn’t carry him everywhere he wanted to go. “Decide what you want to do. Then come back to me and we’ll talk about it.”

*

Potter was at the Manor again, doing the wards on the back windows this time. Draco stood behind one of those windows, wrapped under a Disillusionment Charm so that Potter wouldn’t see him, and watched him with a slow, burning resentment.

Potter was concentrating on the hang of the ward, his frown purely detached, purely speculative. Draco had watched him all morning and had expected to see him show hatred at some point, because of course he would not want to work for the Malfoys. But Potter had acted as distantly cool and professional as Severus did when he sold ingredients to someone who mentioned personal grudges while in his shop.

But I’m the one Severus offered to help.

In the end, that was so true that Draco had to drop the Charm and wave to get Potter’s attention. Potter glanced in through the window, blinked—Draco hoped he was wondering why he hadn’t spotted Draco the first time he looked into the room—and then nodded and waved back as if he assumed they were exchanging friendly greetings.

“You idiot,” Draco said, then realized Potter probably couldn’t hear him through the thick glass pane. He flicked his wand and temporarily banished it.

“Malfoy,” Potter said, with a glare that he probably imagined could fry Draco in his tracks. It was more intimidating than Draco wanted to admit, of course, but that was part of Severus’s instructions: not to allow people who expressed dislike to affect him. “I was binding the wards to the glass.”

“What does that matter to me?” Draco drawled. It was a perfect drawl, he thought. He hadn’t used one like it in years. He had tried to drawl his farewell to Pansy, to make her see what she was missing by choosing her husband over him, but she had only laughed. It was good to know he hadn’t lost his touch. “I wanted to tell you that I’m going to start my own potions business.”

Potter blinked at him, then shrugged. “Congratulations, I reckon. But why did you want me to know that?”

Because you’re not the only successful one, Draco wanted to say. Because Severus still speaks to me and not you, even though I know that you go over and renew his wards every month and try to act like you’re his friend. But Potter would laugh at the words, so Draco sneered, curled his lip up, and said, “Because you’re here.”

“Fine,” Potter said. “Can you put the glass back now? I shouldn’t leave half-finished wards hanging about too long.”

Damn him. Draco leaned insistently forwards. “I thought I might partner with Severus. He offered to help me, you know.”

A glint of interest in Potter’s eyes before he turned his head away and tried to use the same bored expression from before. “What does that matter to me?”

“It does,” Draco said. “It must. You go and renew the wards on his business every month, and you wouldn’t do that if you weren’t interested in him.”

Potter’s hand gripped the top of the ladder as if he were about to wrench it off, but he didn’t respond to Draco’s taunting, instead simply cocking his head and raising his eyebrows. “Good luck to you, and good luck to him. Maybe you’ll even last a single day before you insult one of your clients so badly that they tell everyone else to avoid your shop.”

Draco straightened up with an offended snap of his shoulders, and wished he was wearing a cloak so that he could billow it around himself and look more dramatic. “I know enough not to insult my clients!”

“Oh, really?” Potter surveyed him with lazy eyes. He had released his grip on the ladder, Draco noted with an outrage that he couldn’t define. It was as though Potter was more confident when he could insult Draco. “You’ve insulted me and tried to make me care about your little, insignificant affairs even though I’m putting the wards on the Manor. It would be so easy for me to leave a little gap or loophole in the defenses that someone else would notice, but you never would, because you would be looking at it from the inside…”

Draco realized he was gaping, and quickly shut his mouth. “You wouldn’t do that,” he said, and really, he was almost sure. “You would never be able to get away with that.”

“Really?” Potter lifted his wand. “I’m better than anyone else, which is why your parents hired me. I wouldn’t be able to do the potion-brewing you can. Why would you assume that you can recognize the flaws in my wards?”

Draco stared at Potter. Potter looked back with a clear and deadly expression that didn’t harmonize at all with what Draco knew about him.

Potter was a hero. He’d proven it with the way he spoke up at the Wizengamot trials and worked to make sure that everyone except the very worst Death Eaters was cleared. He was patient, and kind. He wouldn’t do something like this.

“You wouldn’t do that,” Draco said, speaking out of his knowledge, and hoping against hope that Potter wasn’t like some of his friends who had changed since school and now cared about things they never used to care about. “Not really. You might threaten it because you’re disappointed, but what you’re disappointed about I don’t know. And I haven’t insulted you,” he added belatedly. “All I did was tell you about my good fortune and take away the glass. Here, you can have it back.” He waved his wand, and the pane returned to the window. It probably brought the last remnants of the wards Potter had been casting with it, because Draco was just that good.

Potter stared at him from behind the glass. Draco looked back with some triumph, and then Potter began casting the wards again.

Draco went to the library and stared brooding into the fire, wondering about two things. Why had Potter cared so much that Draco was going into business with Severus? As he’d said, it really shouldn’t have mattered to him.

And why had Draco wanted him to know? He hadn’t even told his parents yet, because he knew they would ask questions about how it led towards marriage that he wasn’t ready to answer yet.

Before now, those questions would have circled around his head like water around a drain, and occupied so much of his attention that he couldn’t do anything else. But now, thanks to Severus, he had something else to think about, and he moved on to potions and the kinds that he would brew first, the kinds that he would be able to make from the ingredients Severus had available in his shop, and the kinds that there would be most demand for.

When he emerged from his study clutching a list of names, Potter was already gone.

*

You’re being ridiculous.

Harry sighed as he slid off his cloak and hung it on a peg next to the door, followed by his formal robes, lined with leather and dragonhide so that he would be less injured if a ward exploded while he was working. He kicked off his boots next and went to sit in a chair in the middle of the room, his usual seat when he wanted to think about something uncomfortable, including his mistakes.

He glanced once at the blocked Floo connection—Hermione was supposed to call him about getting together for dinner tonight—but ended up leaving it closed. Hermione would send an owl or Apparate in if she couldn’t firecall him, and it would give Harry a little more private time to sort out his feelings.

He shut his eyes and concentrated on his breathing, a trick the one Mind-Healer he had visited after the war had taught him. It was the only trick he had taught Harry, because the next time Harry arrived at his office, he’d found what seemed like the entire reporter population of London waiting for him.

Harry growled and forced away the memory of that betrayal. He wanted to think about why he’d reacted so strongly when Malfoy had told him that he and Snape were going into business.

So they were. So what? It would probably lead to a higher level of notoriety for a while, but in the end, it was likely to increase the profit for both of them, and it meant that Malfoy was taking charge of his life in the way that Snape’s words had encouraged Harry to take charge of his own. There would probably be some attacks, but Harry had confidence in his wards; the attacks would annoy Snape and Malfoy, but not injure them.

Maybe Snape won’t even need me to come back anymore, if the shop does so well that some of their customers develop an interest in protecting it.

Panic gripped his throat at the thought, and Harry had to pull at the collar of his shirt before he could come to terms with it.

He didn’t want that to happen. And he didn’t want Snape to forbid him to come back because Malfoy didn’t like him, either. He had to be in the shop sometimes, had to listen to Snape’s sullen words and watch the ingredients arranged in barrels and on tables. He didn’t learn anything from that; this wasn’t some desperate attempt to teach himself potions five years too late, because he knew he wouldn’t be able to. But the desire was there anyway.

Why?

After a short time of pondering the question, Harry decided it didn’t matter, not much. He probably wouldn’t be able to answer it, and while he spent time brooding on the possible answers, Snape and Malfoy would move into their partnership and he would be left outside.

Maybe it was enough that Snape’s words had been the ones that gave him an interest in life outside his daily routine again, and that meant he wanted to continue the association.

Harry did something he could never have dreamed of doing two days ago, and seized a piece of parchment and wrote down the first suggestion that came to mind. He signed his name so that Snape would know it wasn’t a prank and then ran out to find a post-owl.

Only when he came back home did he realize what he’d done, and wince when he thought of what would probably happen.

But it was done now. And at least if Snape rejected the proposal, that might provide the sting necessary to force Harry into doing something else with his life. He’d felt more wide-awake since Snape’s kindness to him, he’d talked and thought about doing great things, but he hadn’t actually begun them.

Close one possibility, and others have to open, Harry told himself firmly as he began to make dinner.