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

[lomonaaeren]

Part Three.


Title: Kinder, Kindler, Kindlier (4/?)
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.

Part One.

Thank you again for all the reviews!

What had Potter done?

But that question couldn’t occupy Draco for long, because he was fairly sure he knew the answer. Potter was the stupid one, not him.

Which left the real question, once the one he had thought about had cleared away like smoke and let him see behind it.

Why had Potter done it?

Draco watched him the majority of that day, while he set other simple potions brewing and checked on them occasionally, while Severus wrote letters and made bargains by Floo and arranged the new displays of jewels, of stones, of animal skins and wings and legs, and Potter finished constructing one of the rooms he would use and set about decorating the inside walls with protections. Apparently he was still worried about assassins, and while Draco didn’t think he needed to be worried, it would be nice to have the wards sheltering them from real threats.

His mind turned in several directions. Perhaps Potter meant to mock him when Draco believed his ruse.

But who would Potter mock him to? Besides, if he did that, Severus would not be amused, and would deprive Potter of something he seemed to want.

Maybe he doesn’t really want to work with us. Maybe this has all been a trick from the beginning.

But that didn’t seem right, because he’d written that letter to Severus in the first place, and he’d spent all this time and work on the shop, and—

Admit it, Draco. He would have to care a lot about your opinion to do that, as well as all the work on Severus’s shop and the Manor.

The simpler explanation was probably the true one, Severus had taught Draco during his fourth year, when he’d written some deeply convoluted essays to try and figure out the “secrets” of simple potions. If all the texts, ancient and modern, agreed that powdered amethysts were required in a Stomach-Soothing Potion, it was probably simply because amethysts were neutral stones, non-reactive with a large number of ingredients, rather than because there was something special about the color purple.

Potter wanted to work with them. Maybe the real reason was the one he had told Draco; maybe it was something else. But he wanted to, and to do good work, he had to get along with them. He was probably tired of the way Draco brooded—Merlin, Draco was tired of it himself—and that meant he’d ask and see if he could fix the problem.

Gryffindors always think that asking can fix the problem.

Except, Draco noted by the end of the day, it seemed to have worked. He was more energetic than he’d been since Potter had sent that absurd letter to Severus. He hadn’t messed up one potion, the way he had the other days. He had thought about Potter instead of how no one was appreciating or seeing him.

Potter had appreciated him.

And Draco wanted to ensure that it happened again, and there was also a squirming sense of obligation in his mind, more uncomfortable than any life-debt.

So he had to talk to Potter.

*

“Potter.”

Severus lifted his head. He had spent the afternoon absorbed in separating a shipment of skins from one another; the thoughtless supplier had mixed in leopard with jaguar with cheetah with spotted false nundu. Severus would not be using them again.

It had meant that Draco evidently thought himself unobserved, and so he had gone to talk with Potter. Severus hissed and shifted nearer so that he could overhear the conversation. He was pleased with Draco’s work, for the most part, but disappointed at his constant need to interrupt Potter and drive him away. If he tried to do it again, Severus would give him a scolding, and, to be sure that it would take, one in front of Potter.

“Yes, Draco?” was Potter’s pleasant reply.

Severus paused, wondering what motive Potter could have for that and what the expression on Draco’s face was now.

Then he realized he could move forwards and see at least one of those things for himself, easily. He resisted the temptation to roll his eyes. He had really been a spy for too long.

He was in time, peering around the corner, to see Draco thrust his hands into his robe pockets and give a gusty sigh. Severus would have glared at such childishness, but Potter simply watched Draco, his wand poised in the air. Severus shook his head when he noticed the wards that Potter had been weaving pause along with him, glowing and shimmering in place like obedient fairies. He had never known any wizard who could coax simple spells to do that, let alone complex ones like wards. Potter’s innate genius for defensive magic at work, that.

“I was thinking about what you said the other day,” Draco said.

Potter nodded. Severus remembered that they had been standing close to each other yesterday, their gazes intent, when he walked into the shop. He had suspected a row. Hearing that it had not been made him put a hand on his heart to check that it was still beating regularly and that he had not passed into some strange trance state.

“I—I haven’t appreciated what you’re doing, either.” Draco spoke the words almost mechanically, as though he was plowing through them and counting the beats until he was done in his mind. “It can’t have been easy to reach out to us like this and decide to come and set up shop with people who’ve always despised you.” He took a deep breath and met Potter’s eyes with a courage Severus would have named as beyond him a moment ago. “Thank you.”

Potter could have spoiled the moment in so many ways. Gloating triumph would have been Severus’s choice for disaster, followed by awkwardness that would make Draco feel he had wasted his apology.

Instead, Potter nodded, gave Draco a quiet smile, said, “You’re welcome,” and turned back to his work. The wards once again began dancing.

Draco stood there for a time. Severus didn’t know if he was wishing for more interaction or watching the intricate way that Potter’s wards curled around one another.

He turned away in the end, and Severus swiftly slipped back to his own post. He wondered if Draco would notice the trailing edge of his robe, but Draco seemed incapable of noticing anything except his own emotions. He picked up a vial and stared at it for a full minute, as Severus could see by watching from the corner of his eye, before he shook his head and began to attend to the bubbling cauldron in front of him.

That was it, then. Severus could feel the slackening of tension in the shop. Draco and Potter would speak to each other more quietly from now on, and this was the beginning of a tentative friendship. Two days ago, Severus would have given much for that impossible vision.

Now, his muscles were coiled against it, and he would have liked to speak sharply to someone about what had happened.

Why? You should be grateful that the feuds between Potter and Draco won’t ruin your displays or make your customers run away.

It took Severus the rest of the afternoon to find the answer. He had had to know and judge his own reactions when he was a spy, but there had always been layers of his mind that he left well alone, and the peace since the war, the lack of need for his spying skills, had thickened the defenses that he built against the knowledge. He had to relentlessly ask himself questions until the solutions came to him out of self-defense.

They may have a friendship, but it leaves me outside it. I want them to pay attention to me.

*

Harry wondered if Snape had noticed what he was doing.

Harry had spent most of the morning working quietly with his wards, as usual, and he had expected to eat lunch alone, since Draco’s mother had called him back to the Manor to eat with her. But when he came out of his section of the shop, casting a spell that would leave the dust clinging to the walls and floor instead of to his robes, he found Snape waiting for him, body “casually” arranged across the exit to the street.

Harry paused and looked at him uncertainly. Did he want a duel? Had the kindness he had shown Harry the other day been an illusion after all? Harry didn’t want to look as though he was tightening his grip on his wand, but he was. At least he had it already out, so he didn’t have to think up a half-hidden way of drawing it, which would probably have failed anyway.

“Sir,” he said, because he had to say something, and the air between him and Snape was growing and expanding with all sorts of things he would rather not think about. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” Snape said, then didn’t add anything else.

As the moments passed, Harry’s stomach seemed to contract and throb like a second heart, and Harry decided that he had to have food before he died of it. When in doubt, self-confidence often works, he reminded himself, remembering some experiences he’d had with the wizarding public. He nodded to Snape coolly and strode ahead, as if he fully believed that Snape would move out of his way.

Snape turned, so that he was only half blocking the door, and said, “I wished to inquire if you wanted to join me for lunch today.”

Harry paused in shock. He hoped his face didn’t wear a blank, gaping look, the way his mind did.

“Of course,” Snape said, and these words came out smoothly, unlike the jerky ones from before, “if you have other plans, I can quite understand.” He started to step away, so used to rejection that he was anticipating it even here.

“No,” Harry said hastily, “no plans.” He knew he didn’t look graceful or composed, but that didn’t matter. When had he ever been one of those things in front of Snape? He turned to look up at him, striving to understand, wanting to know what was happening behind those black eyes, behind that sallow face. “I assumed you wouldn’t want company,” he added, “based on our past. But perhaps that was a stupid thing to assume.”

“It was,” Snape said, relaxing enough to lead Harry further into the shop. Harry assumed they would eat at one of the tables where Snape spread out specimens and considered their quality for inclusion in his goods, but Snape continued walking, to the stairs at the back that led up to his living quarters, and Harry was reminded once again that he was stupid to assume things.

Perhaps he had gulped or squeaked, because Snape turned around and looked at him closely. “Is something wrong, Mr. Potter?”

Harry cleared his throat. “No, nothing. P-please lead on, sir.”

Snape watched him with a suspicious eye as they climbed the stairs, but Harry was too busy trying to imagine what his rooms looked like to really care.

The rooms were small, dim, and packed with irregular pieces of furniture, tables, and more crates. Harry avoided a chair that looked like a copy of an antique done in dust and wool and took a nervous seat on the cushions of a couch that might have been a bit sturdier. If nothing else, the cobwebs would probably hold it together.

“All right?” Snape said, and Harry knew that the man was watching him narrowly, and that the wrong reaction could be even more fatal here than it had been in the conversation with Draco.

But at least he had initiated that one, and had some idea of where it was going. Here, he had nothing to follow but his instincts. Harry smiled and looked straight at Snape. “Sure,” he said. “What’s for lunch?”

*

Severus felt as though he were walking on autumn leaves. They could crack and hiss at any moment and betray his presence, or at least the subtlety with which he was trying to work.

He had never imagined that a fitting recipient of that subtlety might be Harry Potter.

But he would not watch a friendship entwine two people who were sharing working space with him and leave him outside it, yet again. It had been that way at Hogwarts. Even the other professors who called themselves his friends ceased their jokes when he walked into a room, and gave each other significant glances that he could not interpret.

He and Draco were alike. Severus had no illusions that Potter would ever manage to intrude on that likeness and enter their intimacy uninvited. But as to what would happen, he was unsure.

And he knew, if Draco did not, the power of Potter’s draw. Draco had turned his head to watch him walk past in school, even on the days when he did not dare engage him due to the presence of professors. He would stop speaking to someone else and sneer, his eyes tracking Potter without a word, then continue the conversation as if unaware of his own pauses.

Perhaps Potter would find that attractive in return. That unwavering attention, the lightness and grace of Draco’s form, even the sharp way he spoke, were all means of deepening their friendship.

If Severus wanted anything comparable with Potter, he would need to work at it.

So he prepared the simplest lunch he could, one he thought would be to Potter’s taste: tuna sandwiches, the bread ancient but subjected to a Freshening Charm, the fish left over from a shipment. He cast several more charms that ought to dissipate every taste of age. He had watched the way Potter looked at the dust and webs around them and suspected that he would be especially careful of the food.

Once, Severus would have been ashamed to keep his personal quarters like this, but his rooms at Hogwarts had not been separate from his private potions lab. He had to keep them clean because his work was there. But when he worked on another floor, there seemed little reason to tidy a room that was, after all, only meant for eating and sleeping.

He took the plate of sandwiches out to Potter. Potter watched him for a moment before taking one. Severus bristled, wondering if the idiot still thought that Severus was out to poison him.

But Potter took a large bite without waiting for Severus to take one, and when he shut his eyes and hummed under his breath in bliss, Severus had to concede there were more innocent explanations for the hesitation, such as Potter wondering which sandwich would please Severus more.

“Oi,” Potter said. “This is good.” He ate several more bites in such quick succession that Severus avoided looking at his mouth, imagining that he would see bits of bread and fish clinging to his teeth, and then reached for another sandwich.

Severus ate more daintily, watching the man who had been the boy he knew. Potter still ate like a seagull, all gullet and no discrimination, but at least he did not actually lick his fingers after he was done. He simply flopped back on the couch and closed his eyes with a tiny, happy sigh.

He opened them again an instant later and looked at Severus with a faint speckle of a blush on his cheeks. “Sorry,” he said. “That was rude. But I’m always hungry after I finish putting up wards like that.”

“You need not instruct me on the theory of wards,” Severus said, his voice a hiss before he could stop it.

Potter promptly sat all the way up again, his fingers clasped tightly together in his lap, relaxation banished back to whatever strange realm it had come from. “Right,” he said. “Sorry.” This apology was more rushed than the previous one, but also more formal, and he went on looking fixedly at his hands when it was done.

Severus ate two more bites before he could stand it no longer. He had invited Potter up here to understand him, and this was not working. “Why did you write to me?” he asked.

Potter blinked. “I thought I explained it all in the letter,” he said, affording Severus a single glimpse of green eye before he was looking at his hands again. Severus choked hard on the mouthful he had, suddenly remembering the moment when he had thought that those green eyes were the last sights he would see in this world. Potter rambled distractedly on, not noticing that momentary hitch, thank Merlin. “I wanted to be involved in something greater than just an endless round of casting wards for people. And if we join our businesses—”

“I did not mean that,” Severus said. “Yes, you explained it well enough. But why did you take the risk? I cannot imagine that your friends were pleased.”

For the first time since Potter had started working beside them, he laughed. Severus felt as though someone had slapped his face with a cold cloth and woken him out of slumber. He remained still, and that was a good thing, because it allowed Potter to continue and deprived Severus of a chance to sneer defensively, as he might have if left on his own.

“They both think I’m mental,” Potter said. “Or I should say all of them, since I’m still close to the rest of the Weasleys.” His face softened in a way that made a single, steady ache pulse down Severus’s spine. “But because they think that, they also think this is a temporary aberration. They’re determined to wait it out and see if I get better.”

“Will you?” Severus was proud of himself for keeping his voice neutral.

Potter glanced up at him, and Severus wanted to flinch back. It had been a mistake to begin this conversation, a mistake to let Potter into the shop, a mistake even to accept his help so that he could be cleared from the ridiculous charges the Wizengamot brought against him. This was too sharp, too deep, too intimate, and too…many other adjectives. Severus should have remembered that he was distant from others for a reason. He should have remembered the distance that lay between him and Potter in school, and not tried to bridge it. It did not matter that this grown-up boy was Lily’s son, not when he was also James Potter’s and the former object of Severus’s distinct unaffection.

“I don’t think so,” Potter said, as if he were unaware of all the thoughts dashing like comets through Severus’s brain, though Severus had feared they would be perfectly visible on his face. “After all, it’s a bit much to want this and then turn around the next day and declare that I want something else.” He folded his hands across his stomach, the heel of his right palm close to his wand.

“And is that the only reason that you would stay here?” Severus found himself asking sharply, as though Potter had struck him across the face. “Stubbornness? Refusal to admit to your friends that you may have made a mistake in coming in the first place?”

Potter stared at him with narrowed eyes, and Severus looked away. He should have remembered that his old self, the man Potter had thought he was working with, would never have said such a thing, would have cared so little about Potter’s presence that it was nothing to him whether Potter stayed or went.

But when Potter spoke, there was a slowness in his voice that suggested simply that he was trying to understand, rather than about to explode in mockery. “No. I do want this.”

“Why?” Severus turned back. If he could not fully grasp what Potter intended to do, he could still go on the offensive. “There is no reason for you to sacrifice your future for such a strange ambition as working with us.”

“I know.” Potter raised an eyebrow. “If I thought it a sacrifice of my future, then I wouldn’t have come here.”

“Tell me why you did.” Severus leaned forwards this time. Potter was too calm, too unruffled. Severus wanted to see him shuffle his feet and look away. Maybe that would make it easier to deal with his own unfortunate, highly-pitched desires. “Tell me.”

“Because you were kind to me, that day you thanked me for helping you,” Potter said. His eyes were big and drowning in sincerity, and tempting though it was to reject what he was saying, Severus had to believe it, simply because only Potter would be that utterly sappy. “I hadn’t ever expected kindness from you. That’s not why I helped. And it woke me up, and made me start wanting to do bigger things with my life.”

Severus gestured around the dusty rooms with a contemptuous snort, inviting Potter’s disapproval, inviting all the usual reactions. “This is not a bigger thing.”

“It’s more than what I was doing,” Potter said. “I told you. The dull routine…this is different. And there’s another reason.”

Severus stared at him, waiting for it.

“It was you,” Potter said. “No, I didn’t expect kindness, but I was thrilled to get it. I thought at first that it was simply an inspiration, but when I heard that Draco was going to be working with you, I realized I wanted something more than that. I wanted to be with you, next to you, and see how you went about your daily life.”

“My work cannot possibly interest you,” Severus said. He had said similar things to Lily, many times, and to other people, other Death Eaters, who had attempted to insinuate themselves into his life. Take the interest and point it back as a weapon at the heart of someone who would threaten him. It had always been his way.

“I didn’t say that it did,” Potter replied, with the exaggerated patience that Severus was beginning to hate. “What interests me is you. The way you go about your life. The way you arrange things. I like watching you do that, though I haven’t managed to watch a lot because I’ve been so busy on the other side of the shop. But I like knowing that you’re there and doing it.” A smile tugged up the side of his mouth. “And I like knowing that you can make tuna sandwiches.”

Severus said nothing at all. He could have found a defense against words such as these had he not been staring with such witlessness, perhaps, but the stare deprived him of energy. Potter hesitated, then leaned forwards and waved a hand in front of his face.

“Are you all right?” he asked. “You look odd.”

Severus snapped his mouth shut and stared at the far wall while he thought of the best response. “That still seems an odd reason to sacrifice the business that was making you money and keeping you in good odor with the public,” he said.

“My real customers will find me here,” Potter said, with a small shrug, as if he honestly didn’t care. He does not need to, when he has the Potter and Black fortunes locked in his vaults, Severus thought, but the words lacked conviction even in his head. “And if they don’t want to come to me now that I’m working with Death Eaters, as Draco has reminded me, then I don’t think they need my services. They probably only wanted a ward-maker who was famous.” Potter’s face turned pensive. “If I could give away all that damn fame to someone, then I would. It’s ridiculous, how many people act as though it’s a gift.”

“It is a gift,” Severus said. “What I could not do with it in your place!”

Potter glanced at him. “I did look up spells that would transfer something like that from one person to another,” he said. “And you were one of the candidates that I considered transferring it to. But, in the end, I couldn’t find a spell that was safe enough. Too many of them seemed as if they would kill either me or the recipient. I had to give up.”

“I am glad that there are some limits to your recklessness,” Severus said automatically, but his mind was reeling. He considered giving me his fame? He has something priceless in his hands, and he considered giving it up to me even before I thanked him.

“I would seem an odd destination for your fame,” he said, because it had to be said. “Why would you consider me and not one of your friends?”

“Because you could use it,” Potter said, with a simple shrug, as though they were discussing something as ordinary as the weather or Draco’s frame of mind. “It’s like you just said. It would help you, while it hasn’t helped me.”

He cocked his head suddenly, and stood up. “It sounds like Draco is back. We should probably go down and reassure him that we’re still here, or he might think we’ve abandoned him.” He chuckled. “He seems oddly prone to ideas like that.”

Potter moved towards the stairs, but Severus locked the door with a nonverbal spell. He could not let this go, not yet.

Potter studied the door, lifted an eyebrow, and then turned and stared at Severus expectantly. “You seem serious,” he said. “What about?”

Severus looked at him. He had hoped to clarify and strengthen his relationship with Potter by inviting him into his rooms. He had not realized what would happen to him instead.

No one had ever spoken of giving him such a gift before—and never because, simply said, it would be useful to him. They had owed obligations to him, or been part of the same House, where to strengthen one person was to strengthen the House. Severus did not know how to deal with this overwhelming strangeness.

But he would have to find some way to deal with it, because Potter was peering at him with curiosity, and Severus did not want to inspire him to think about the reasons behind his silence longer than necessary.

“I wish to know why you would have given away your fame instead of using it,” Severus said. It was not in the least what he wanted to know, but it would answer a few of his questions about Potter, and that was enough for now.

Potter stood there with his eyes half-shut for so long that Severus began to suspect he did not know how to respond, either. Then Potter said slowly, “Every time I thought I could use my fame for large things, instead of small ones, it didn’t work out. It was good for inserting an interview in the Quibbler during my fifth year that Voldemort really had come back, but not so good for making Umbridge shut up about the Ministry’s lies. It was good to attract customers to my business, but not enough to make them leave me alone, or leave you alone.” He looked at Severus as his lips twisted in a bitter smile. “I reckon you never saw the newspaper article where I asked for people to stop harassing you and other former Death Eaters? It ran in the Quibbler.”

Severus had to take a few deep breaths to control the immediate hostile reaction that Potter’s demanding notice of his fame aroused in him. Then he said, “No. I was not aware you had done such a thing.”

Potter shrugged. “I thought it was safe to have Luna interview me, and if it had worked I would have considered letting someone from the Prophet write an article. Instead, I got lots of Howlers telling me that I didn’t lose anyone important in the war, and that was the week you had three attacks in a row on your shop. I can’t use the fame. It uses me.”

Severus remembered that week, of course. He did not know what to say. Perhaps Potter could have learned to make capital of his name, his face, his reputation, if he had only tried. But to retreat from a failed effort was certainly what Severus would have done himself, so it was hard to blame him for that.

There were footsteps on the stairs then, and Draco’s voice calling, “Where are you?” Severus wondered if there was a tinge of jealousy in his tone. As far as Draco knew, he was the only one besides Severus who had ever seen his personal rooms.

Apparently, Potter had a different interpretation of Draco’s words. “He sounds worried,” he said, and his stance was relaxed, his eyes nothing more than appealing as he tilted his head at Severus. “Open the door, please.”

Severus did, and Potter stepped out to reassure Draco and condole with him. A moment later, Severus heard a low chuckle, and realized that Potter had said something that made Draco laugh—an occurrence that he had once been sure would never take place, at least with intention on Potter’s part.

This did not truly contradict his impressions of Potter so far, Severus told himself sternly as he came out of the room and into the shop again to join his two partners. It simply meant the man was more complex and strange than he had supposed, and he knew that already.

He had thought he knew that.

But for all his wisdom, watching Potter move about the shop—really watching him, not assuming that Potter’s actions were familiar and thus needed no attention—began to teach Severus that he might not know everything there was to know about Harry Potter.