lomonaaeren

Part Seven.

Title: Kinder, Kindler, Kindlier (8/12)
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.

Harry leaned his forehead against the warmed wall of the greenhouse and panted. His body felt as if it were on fire, his muscles aching though they hadn’t been frozen, his tongue numb in the front and tingling with sensation at the back.

How did—why would Snape—

How had that happened?

Harry coughed. His throat stung now as if he had swallowed too much lemonade, and it took some persuasion to make his legs support him again. But he had come here to do more than think about the kiss between himself and—and Severus—and he wanted to look around. The greenhouse was one of the most interesting parts of their new home for him, and if he could find something that would distract him from his pressing thoughts anywhere, it would be here.

He looked around, and felt his eyes widen.

The greenhouse was full of pots, trays, tables, and also one large bed of dirt that seemed to be in a low, continuous pot, but looked as if it were floating just above the ground itself. Nodding flowers rose from that bed, looking like lilies, though too big for them. Leafy green heads projected out of the pots. The tables held packets of seeds, shears, gloves, and a book whose spine said Gardening Charms.

“I knew they’d made some progress here,” Harry muttered, thinking of the way he’d heard Draco and Sn—Severus—talking about planting Potions ingredients in the greenhouse. “I didn’t think it was this much.”

“Do you like it?”

Harry whirled around. He had been sure he was alone, or he wouldn’t have spoken aloud. Too many times, some harmless thing he’d been muttering to himself had been reported in the papers under a concerned headline of, “Is Our Savior Going Mad?” and a photograph of him with his eyes darting in as many directions as possible.

But Draco unfolded himself from behind the nearest large table and stood there looking at him. Harry would have felt better about it if he could have been sure of what emotion was narrowing Draco’s eyes and tightening his face.

But he couldn’t, so he gulped and plunged ahead. “Yeah. I came here to plant some seeds, but you don’t need much help, do you? I thought you were in the library,” he added lamely, and tried to smile, and knew he failed.

“I went there first,” Draco said. “But I need to look up several spells that I don’t feel like looking up this morning. I wanted to work with my hands first.” He smiled at Harry and picked up a pair of gloves from the table, tossing them to him. “You can help. Start working.”

Harry pulled on the gloves and did what Draco told him. It wasn’t much different from what they’d done in Herbology—examining seeds to make sure their cases weren’t damaged, sorting various mysterious leaves by size, and watering some of the tall, nodding flowers. Harry could have asked questions, and he thought Draco was waiting for him to, but he wanted the simple, soothing silence, and he embraced it.

Several times, he could feel Draco watching him, but he didn’t look up to meet his eyes. He wanted to forget about Severus’s kiss and his own reaction to it if he could. It embarrassed him. Why should he have reacted so strongly to a touch from a man he had known he was taking as his lover?

Why shouldn’t he?

Why was he here? What was he doing here, anyway? Shouldn’t he have resisted or fought back more, somehow? Shouldn’t he have said that he had dated only women and refused Draco and Severus when they figured out what he desired?

But that was part of the change he had wanted, the change he had admitted to Severus with a depth and thoroughness he didn’t feel ready to show even Draco yet. He was tired of making decisions and then discovering afterwards that he’d done it for reasons that weren’t the ones he knew, ones that weren’t available on the surface.

This time, he was admitting that he might be wrong instead of being able to list all the neat reasons that would satisfy his friends. This time, he knew he would clash with Hermione and Ron and perhaps the rest of the Weasleys—except maybe Ginny, who often understood far more than the others credited her with. This time, he was saying “I don’t know” and leaping ahead without understanding why.

It was a luxury he’d had only a few times in his life, and almost all of them were when he was younger.

He would at least try. He didn’t think that he would destroy his life, or Draco’s or Severus’s, if it didn’t work out the way he hoped it would. They were all stronger than that.

He thought.

He hoped.

“Done.”

Harry blinked and looked up. Yes, he had reached the end of the row of flowers he was watering, and Draco had stepped back from whatever he was doing at the latest table with an expression of satisfaction. Harry cast the enchantment that would stop the water flowing from his wand and pressed his fists into his back, stretching and flexing as he worked the kinks out.

Draco stepped towards him, casually, but with a firmness to his movements that made Harry look at him. Draco smiled, winked, came closer still with the same unhurried stride that he would probably use to approach a friend he’d known for years, put his arms around Harry’s neck and shoulders, and kissed him.

Harry opened his mouth without thought. This was a kiss that seemed to soothe the rawness his kiss with Severus had left. He slid his tongue into Draco’s mouth, braver than he had been the last time they touched, exploring. Draco moaned, and Harry smiled. He had done that.

Draco pulled away at last, blinking as though the lights of the greenhouse were startlingly bright after the darkness behind his eyelids. Then he looked at Harry and whistled. “You needed that,” he said.

“Yes,” Harry murmured. He felt as though he had dropped from a great height and finally got over the shock of it. He put his arms around Draco and sighed. “Severus talked to me and kissed me,” he said. “It was—more intimate than I expected. I told him these things that are true, but I was trying to avoid thinking about, because I don’t like them very much.”

“What kind of things?” Draco was trying to look wise. Harry thought it would be kinder to let him imagine that he’d succeeded.

“Things that made me Slytherin. He wanted to know what else about me was Slytherin, other than almost being Sorted into it.”

Draco sighed. He placed one hand on Harry’s back and began to work the fingers as if he was massaging, digging into Harry’s skin and muscles. Harry let his head drop back and didn’t try to disguise the pleasure in his movements or his moans.

“Severus is smarter than either of us,” Draco said at last.

Harry hummed. He would agree to anything Draco wanted as long as he continued to stroke his back like that.

“But he doesn’t realize how overwhelming his intensity is, sometimes,” Draco said. “And he believes in one reality. Under the surface, past the lies that we tell ourselves, he really does think that there’s a truth everyone can see and accept, if they’ll be brave enough. That’s his truth, of course.”

Harry snorted, but he couldn’t be angry when Draco was finding spots of tension that hadn’t ever unwound for anyone else. “He did look smug about something.”

“He thinks you’re coming around to the one truth,” Draco said. “And the way he kissed you was his way of showing you he’s happy about that.” He lowered his hand.

Harry sighed and smiled. He hoped it was a wry smile, since that was what he was aiming for, though from the glance Draco gave him, it might not be. “Then I hope I’ll get used to it,” he said. “It’s like living in the middle of a whirlwind.”

Draco gave him a light kiss. “Luckily, you have me to ground you,” he said. “Did you ever think I’d say that?”

“No,” Harry said, and the confusion and too-true truth of the morning finally broke from him in a gale of laughter. “Never.”

Draco smiled at him.

*

Draco turned around in the middle of the shop and studied Severus’s display. Then he stepped through the arched doorway that now separated his section of the shop from Severus’s—thanks to Harry’s skills with a wand—and studied that part, too.

It was a neat, clean, trim place, with wooden walls that shone white thanks to several Household Cleaning Charms Harry had learned from Granger during her quest to take away house-elves. The entrance was of stone, and so was Harry’s part of the shop, because that supported his heavy wards better. The front door led into Severus’s section, partially because there were more displays there—crates, tables, barrels, flat trays, and cages for the few animals sold alive—and so a would-be thief or attacker would have less room to run or turn.

Draco’s section had a single, golden cauldron on display on the central table, protected by some of Harry’s wards so powerful that they created a shimmering haze in the air around it. The counter was towards the back of the shop, and the wall behind that was covered with holes that contained vials of brewed potions. Draco had a parchment list up behind it of prices for the most common potions as well as the prices for commissions. His section was the darkest, the coolest, the shadiest, the most open. People would be tempted to linger there and talk with him, which was exactly what they wanted. Draco knew his potions would be harder to sell compared to Severus’s ingredients or Harry’s wards; they already had established reputations.

Three steps took him under another arched doorway and down into Harry’s section. The walls curved fantastically overhead, leading up to a ceiling that looked almost pointed at first, due to the tricks that Harry had forced the stones to perform. There were several different tables Harry had covered with precious objects protected with visible examples of his work, and photographs of warded houses on the walls. Draco smiled when he noticed a picture of Malfoy Manor there. He could only imagine what his father would say if Draco told him that.

Harry didn’t have a counter, but a series of chairs standing in a half-circle, where he could sit and chat with his clients. He was sitting in one now, looking around and nodding critically to himself.

He caught Draco’s eye and pointed at the far wall. “I already told Severus about this, but you should know, too,” he said.

Draco looked over and blinked when he saw another door there. “Won’t that mean people walk in here without coming past my displays and Severus’s?” he asked, working hard to keep the disapproval out of his voice.

Harry shook his head and bounced his ankle off the leg of the chair. “This door only opens out. It will give us an extra entrance in case of an attack that we can’t face off or a bad fire, but no one can even see it from the street.”

Draco smiled at him. “Such cleverness needs a reward,” he murmured, edging forwards. He loved to watch Harry’s lips part, his pupils dilate, and the brilliant flush spread along his throat.

“Not now,” Severus’s voice said from the doorway behind him. Draco jumped, and then cleared his throat and tried to pretend that he was simply interested in the nearest example of the wards. Harry chuckled. “We have our first clients,” Severus said.

There was something peculiar in his voice. Draco turned his head, and saw the way a muscle in Severus’s cheek twitched, the way his robes rippled. That might have indicated that the spine beneath them was as straight as a poker.

“Severus?” Harry asked uncertainly, standing up, probably in response to the same faint signals Draco was getting from him.

“You know them,” was all Severus had time to say before voices split the cool, untainted air of the shop.

“Harry!”

Granger and Weasley trotted out from behind Severus and down the steps, ignoring him as if he wasn’t there. Their eyes were only for Harry. Granger was already holding out one hand, and Weasley looked uneasily at the stone walls as if he assumed they were trapped and would fall in on his best mate’s head. Draco snorted. You’d think he’d be experienced enough with Harry’s work by now to recognize it.

“I didn’t know that you actually intended to go through with this,” Granger said, eyes bright with concern, “this—going into business. Why?”

Weasley’s eyes snapped down. “He can if he wants to, Hermione,” he said, in a tone that had the sound of a long-running argument. “But it isn’t like you not to tell us, mate,” he added. “We thought this was only a temporary thing.”

Harry drew himself up to face them more bravely than Draco had thought he would. These, after all, were not people whom Harry wanted to alienate, or was indifferent to alienating, such as Draco’s parents were. And it would be easy to make them think Harry had betrayed them, as sensitive as they still probably were to Slytherins even years after Hogwarts. Draco wrapped his hands together behind his back, so they wouldn’t see the most obvious sign of his nervousness, and didn’t look at Severus. He knew that Severus would do a far better job of hiding his emotions than Draco could.

“I want to work with them,” Harry said quietly. His throat jumped, but his eyes didn’t blink or dart. He didn’t look embarrassed, only a bit sad and concerned. “I let you think it was temporary because I wasn’t up to an argument with you right then. And you said a lot that convinced you of what you wanted to be the truth.” He looked steadily at Weasley, who flushed and ducked his head.

“But—” Granger sounded like a lost child. “I mean, why?” She turned to glance at Draco and Severus. “I know they’ve changed since the war,” she said, though Draco was sure that was only a courtesy rather than a deeply-held belief. “But your business is successful on your own, Harry. And you know we’ve never got along.”

“We’re getting along now,” Harry said. “More than getting along, in fact, or we wouldn’t have opened a business together.” His eyes went to Draco and Severus’s faces, and in them was a question. Draco knew what the question would be even before he thought deeply about what Harry’s eyes held, and he nodded immediately.

Severus took long enough that Draco glared at him, because he didn’t want to catch Harry between the rock of his friends and the hard place of Severus’s desire for privacy. Then Severus gave a nod like the flick of a whip and glanced away.

“We’re dating,” Harry said. He immediately smiled, almost in spite of himself. Draco was glad that Severus had turned back in time to see the smile. He started, transfixed, and Draco gave his own grin, certain that if anything could reconcile Severus to this invasion of his space, Harry’s smile would.

“Which one?” Weasley turned his head, blinking at Draco and at Severus, as if he found them both odd choices for different reasons. Draco tried not to scowl. If someone had proposed this to him so much as a month ago, he would have felt the same incredulity.

“Both,” Harry said. He cleared his throat, but his smile remained. Draco thought it was the lack of right words that baffled him more than anything else. “I mean, all three of us are dating the other three. The other two. We’re—I’m dating Draco and Severus, and they’re dating each other, and they’re dating me. At the same time.”

Draco moved a step forwards in the silence that followed, instinctively wanting to protect Harry, and Severus moved with him.

“Well,” Weasley said, in a calmer voice than Draco would have expected out of him, “I never thought that would happen.” He turned around and looked at Draco and Severus together, and Draco didn’t think he wanted to know what thoughts were traveling behind the git’s eyes. He was probably conjuring up images that he had no right to conjure up. “As long as you want to be with them,” Weasley added, “I don’t think it does any harm.”

Draco rolled his eyes. “Thank you for that ringing note of approval, Weasley,” he said. He knew it should be thankful that it wasn’t a denunciation and Harry wasn’t going to have to fight as hard a battle as Draco had assumed he would, but he had to say something like that. Otherwise, it would look too much like getting along.

Severus shifted his weight, but it was Weasley who replied. “Be grateful that’s all,” he said. “Hermione?”

Only then did Draco realize Granger was rocking back and forth in place, looking overwhelmed. She glanced from Harry to Draco, from Harry to Severus, and back again, shaking her head several times. Then she said, “But how did it happen? I mean, Harry, you were dating women—”

“Not very often, not for very long, and not very well,” Harry said. His best friend’s support, or maybe the interlude between the times he’d had to speak, had given him what sounded like strength. He was smiling now, his arms folded, and he had moved a step closer to Weasley. “Maybe this is why. Really, Hermione, I don’t care. I’m doing what will make me happy.”

“Why didn’t you tell us right away?” Granger reached out and took Harry’s hand. “Were you that afraid of our reactions?”

“Yes, with who I’m dating,” Harry said.

Granger looked at the floor and gave a breathless little, “Oh.” Then she flung her arms around Harry and squeezed hard enough to make him give a pained gasp. Draco tossed Weasley a stern glance, but the idiot was grinning. He seemed to think it was just fine if his wife choked Harry to death.

“I’m sorry,” Granger said, her voice muffled by Harry’s shoulder. “I didn’t consider what I was doing when I treated it as weird that you wanted to go into business with them. I’m sorry.”

“No harm done.” Harry patted her shoulder briskly and held her away from him, smiling. “Now, I think I heard the front door open, which means we’ve got customers here, so why don’t you and Ron go home? I’ll come and have dinner with you tonight.”

Draco held his tongue; Harry was supposed to have dinner with them tonight. But he thought it would be the wrong time to press about that.

“Of course.” Granger wiped her eyes once, though Draco hadn’t seen her shed a tear, and nodded to Weasley. “We’ll see you later.”

Weasley punched Harry on the shoulder and said something Draco couldn’t hear—not for want of trying—then followed his wife. They were left alone in a silence that Harry seemed half-defiant about, ready to protect. His eyes darted from Severus to Draco, and he stood up taller, straighter, the line of his neck rigid.

“I expected a much worse confrontation than that,” Draco said at last, because it was stupid of them to just to keep standing there, even though Harry’s line about the front door opening had been a transparent means to evict his friends.

“Indeed,” Severus drawled, sounding relieved that someone had said something first. “I had expected threats to dismember us if we hurt you, at the very least.”

“Oh, they’re Gryffindors,” Harry said, who had flushed but was smiling at them. “The threats were practically implied.”

And that seemed, as much as it surprised Draco, to be that.