lomonaaeren

Chapter Eight.

Title: Love, Free As Air (9/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Warnings: Sex, angst, profanity, a bit of violence. Ignores the epilogue of DH.
Pairings: Snape/Harry/Draco.
Rating: R
Summary: Trapped in his Animagus form, Harry stumbles on Snape and Draco, who disappeared from the wizarding world years ago. His first task is to become human again. His second might be to help Snape and Draco with the same problem.
Author’s Notes: This story is being written for

heeroluva, who won a charity auction at

gulf_aid_now to raise money for the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. She gave me the plot, for which I thank her. I’m not sure how long this story will be, though I estimate somewhere between 15 and 20 chapters. The title comes from a quote by Alexander Pope.

Chapter One.

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Nine—Letters Out of Silence

Severus had not anticipated how silent the house would be with Draco gone.

It should have been easy to adapt to. He had often wished for silence during the evenings, when he wished to read and Draco would annoy him with conversation. He had not wished to discuss mundane things like their meals, the gardens, the birds that Draco had seen and counted that day, or Draco’s schooldays, all of which Draco had thought to introduce as fit topics of conversation. Severus had never needed chatter to make his life complete, and that had been as true when he sat at the High Table in Hogwarts as it was now.

So when the quiet descended on the house for the last time, as the door banged behind Potter and Draco, Severus opened his mind in welcome.

But the silence endured. It lay there for hours in the evening like a great hunting beast in the drawing room with Severus, and it padded into his room after him and lay stretched across the foot of the bed. And then it followed him into the gardens and the lab, and blocked the orders he would have given with a muffling paw.

Severus coldly analyzed these reactions as the first signs of someone who was going to go slightly mad with isolation. As long as the madness got no worse than that—as long as he didn’t start believing the hunting beast was real—he thought he could bear it.

But bearing was not the same as enjoying.

Severus sat on the couch and read, and the turning of the pages was loud in his ears.

He measured Potions ingredients and realized that he had paused in his counting, anticipating the interruptions that Draco often made and which were, now, never to come.

He cleaned the vials in his lab until they shone, and still the thought that he could see only his own face reflected in them made him turn away abruptly.

He could analyze that reaction, too, and he did as he ate his third dinner alone, the scraping of the fork on the plate enough to put his hackles up as Draco’s voice had once done. He had grown used to having Draco around in the past few years. He had tolerated his presence rather than liked it, but it was still a mixture of habit and well-worn use that made him turn, expecting someone to demand things of him that Severus had no intention of offering. It would take him some time to become used to being alone again.

Six years of company, against three days of loneliness, where the loneliness was severe enough already to amount to a disease.

Severus did not like the odds, and that was the reason—the only reason—that he turned to the quills, ink, and parchment that waited on the desk in his bedroom, largely unused except when he was writing to one of the clients who knew his assumed name. And then he paused there, because he had fallen out of the habit of writing personal letters even more than out of the habit of being alone.

In the end, he snarled at himself and wrote the letter as it came to him, ragged words and all. Draco would not be a stylist concerned with such matters in the same way Severus himself was. He had never cared that much about writing, as opposed to the content of the writing. Lucius had liked to boast that he was raising his son in the first style of elegance, but Draco had never had much elegance of habit. He frequently dragged his sleeve across the page and blotted it, or dripped ink on the paper enough to obscure the words while he stared dreamily out the window.

Severus stopped short then and examined the emotions that budded in his own mind with suspicion. Was he regarding Draco’s habits, which had annoyed him so much at the time because they wasted parchment, fondly?

Severus shook his head and went to find an owl to send the letter. There were always several that remained near the house, half-tame, and would work for the promise of food. Severus preferred not to keep a single, identifiable post-owl that someone could follow back to him or come to know by name and sight.

He would send this, and Draco would feel the pull to respond, and perhaps to return.

Severus hastily qualified that in his own mind. He would not be able to bear it if Draco returned permanently. But a flying visit, where he knew that he possessed the power to exile Draco from the house again at once if his behavior did not please him, would do nicely.

*

Draco still couldn’t really believe that Harry Potter was living in the house of his Black ancestors.

The place was dim and gloomy, suiting its name, Number Twelve Grimmauld Place. But Potter had carried an—an atmosphere with him into the place that had changed it, transformed it, and probably had as much to do with the way Draco felt there as the changed decoration and the coats of paint on the wood.

A single house-elf lived here, and seemed to keep mostly to the kitchens, though from the ecstatic way he bowed to Draco, Draco had the feeling that he would be happy to leave it and come up to tend to Draco’s rooms at any time. The sheer relief of not having to keep up with his own chores if he didn’t want to made Draco close his eyes and stand there in silence for long moments after Potter had introduced him to Kreacher.

And most remarkably, Potter had seemed to understand why he might want to do so. He had remained by his side in calm silence until Draco remembered himself and opened his eyes, and then escorted him upstairs to see the rooms that would be his.

Rooms. Draco had had only a single bedroom for so long that he’d been able to forget what it was like to have several assigned to him, for his exclusive use. This “wing” was a bedroom, a bathroom, and a large, empty room that Potter told him he could furnish as a study, a library, or anything else that caught his fancy, so it was small, but Draco didn’t care. For personal reasons, the choice to come with Potter had obviously been the right one.

His bed was enormous, made of ebony, hung with curtains of dark blue silk that Kreacher carefully dusted and preserved every day; Draco thought they would have collapsed into mold long ago if not for him. The window looked out over a small, bleak lawn, quite a change from the gardens around the cottage, but Draco already had plans for changing that. There was also a desk and a chair in the room that Draco had sat down uncomfortably at only once, before he came in and found that Kreacher had cushioned the seat of the chair.

That was the real difference, Draco thought, not that he was living in a larger house or one without gardens or even one with a house-elf. He was living in a place with someone who had consideration for him. He had forgotten what that felt like.

And it didn’t seem to matter that it was Potter. The man had consideration anyway, or extra consideration, maybe, given who he was. He didn’t remind Draco of their days at Hogwarts, other than by the inevitable things like the memories he stirred when he looked at Draco with those green eyes. He didn’t make any mention of payment. He gave Draco the books he asked for, lavish meals, time alone, time in the same room even if they didn’t speak, and he got Potions ingredients after only a brief consultation with Granger. When Draco asked what he’d asked her, Potter grinned briefly and said, “If you think I can walk into an apothecary and actually know what black lilies or some of the other ingredients you named look like, you’re flattering me.”

Potter’s friends, now, Draco thought as he leaned back in the big, comfortable chair that Kreacher had dragged into the study for him and stared out the window. Potter had shown him the simple enchantment that would give him a variety of views, and Draco had chosen a field of snow with moonlight playing over it.

Potter’s friends were surprising.

Weasley had stood guard for him in the camp and then, afterwards, when he visited Potter’s house, watched Draco with a curious eye but not an overly cautious one. If he rarely spoke to Draco directly, well, what did they have to say to each other? Civility was more than Draco had hoped for.

As for Granger…

Draco shook his head. He felt almost as if he should be exchanging tales of commiseration with Kreacher and any werewolves who might happen to be about. They were some of the few people in the world who would know what it was like to be one of Hermione Granger’s causes.

Granger had been sitting in the kitchen the first morning that Draco came down. She had sprung to her feet at once and advanced with her hand out. Draco hadn’t been able to decide whether he wanted to shake or not because she’d made the decision for him, pumping his hand until his wrist hurt.

“I think it’s awful, that they would have tried and condemned you,” she said warmly. “I think it’s noble that you escaped rather than sacrifice yourself to an overeager Wizengamot. And now we can work on freeing your mother, too!” She turned away, tucking a curl of unexpectedly sleek brown hair behind her ear, and picked up a stack of parchments that were as tall as her shoulder, at least sitting on the table. “Now, I’ve been looking into the laws that govern your situation, and…”

And on and on she went, naming so many laws and exceptions and loopholes they could use to try and make sure that he would go free that Draco was dazed. Where had she found them all? She could have had, at most, about sixteen hours to gather the information at that point, if Potter or Weasley had owled her the minute Draco came into the Auror camp, and she must have spent some part of that time sleeping. But there the information was, and there she was, and Draco sat back while the words poured over him and enjoyed, again, the consideration.

He wondered if he was getting too soft, if Severus would have said so with a sneer in his voice. Where was the endurance that had let him bear six years of poor treatment? Where was the self-sufficiency he had been dreaming of wistfully when Potter stumbled into his life?

But maybe that was still to come. Draco admitted that he could enjoy what he had for the moment without wanting it to continue forever.

He was starting to settle into this routine, becoming confident and hopeful that he would escape being sent to Azkaban after all, when Severus’s letter came and upset all his balance.

*

Harry sighed. “No,” he said. “I’m not saying that he did nothing during the war. Of course not. He refused to identify us at Malfoy Manor when he had the chance. That counts as doing something.”

The Wizengamot member he was dealing with sniffed disdainfully. Harry had known she would. Her name was Maria Hellebore, and she was so old that Harry thought all human sympathy had withered in her veins. “You do understand, Mr. Potter,” she said, “that I am only taking your call personally because of who you are?” She shifted, and Harry wondered if it hurt her knees to be down in front of a fireplace like this. He hoped it did. “Otherwise, a secretary would be here, and you would not stand much chance of convincing one of our secretaries that young Malfoy deserves to escape Azkaban.”

“I’m not saying that he absolutely must,” Harry said. “I’m saying that he should have a fair trial, and that means I’ll stand with him. If you choose to take that statement as a threat, it’s your right.”

Hellebore regarded him with sleepy dark eyes for a long moment. Her mind had been sharpened, if anything, by age, and Harry hoped that he wasn’t making the mistake of underestimating her. But he didn’t think so. He was simply determined that Malfoy should have actual fair treatment, and that was running up against Hellebore’s apparent idea that justice should not be talked about until the Wizengamot had determined it.

“Very well, Mr. Potter,” she said finally, stiffly. “I will tell you when a date is set for the trial.”

Harry smiled with only his teeth. He knew this particular delaying tactic. “Within the week,” he said casually, and moved as if he would close the Floo connection.

Hellebore blinked behind her glasses. “And what makes you think that the Wizengamot will come up with such a date to oblige you?” she asked softly. “The business of wizarding government does not wait on the impatient tempers of two young men who have not made the contribution they ought to make to the wizarding world.”

Ah. Someone else who thinks I should have been an Auror. Harry found those people irritating, but he also found it useful to identify them, because then he would know how to fight them. He gave another one of his not-smiles again and said, “Because I know that otherwise the Wizengamot will delay this and delay this, attempting to wear our wills down with suspense, until they have enough information gathered to, as they think, put Mr. Malfoy into prison without argument. And because I want to prevent that, because I want to make sure that he gets a fair trial this time instead of the biased thing he would have had years ago, I’m going to have a trial date within the week.”

“Or?” Hellebore said.

“Or the Daily Prophet gets an exclusive story about how Malfoy was kind to me when I was injured,” Harry said coldly, “and, incidentally, about how the Wizengamot is attempting to delay his trial because they’re still incensed about their own incompetence in allowing him to escape six years ago.”

There was a little silence, and then Hellebore bowed and said, “You shall have your trial. But I feel obliged to warn you that you will not have many friends there.”

Harry sneered at her and shut the Floo connection. As if either of us have many friends there in the first place.

As he stood up, he paused. There was something wrong, he thought, but he didn’t know what it was. He turned his head from side to side, listening for any disruption in the wards around the house, but heard nothing. He snapped his fingers and summoned Kreacher.

The house-elf appeared still bowing and gasping; he had evidently been making dinner, since he was covered with dough. Harry smiled at him. “Kreacher, did you just admit someone to the house? Or is something else wrong?”

“No, nothing wrong, Master Harry!” Kreacher paused, his ears standing out from the sides of his head, and suddenly looked hunted. “Unless Kreacher has been leaving Master Harry’s bed unmade!” He turned around and would have slammed his forehead into the wall if Harry hadn’t put carefully restraining hands on his shoulders. He didn’t want Kreacher hurt, but he also didn’t want his hands covered with food.

“That’s all right, Kreacher,” he said. “As long as you don’t see anything wrong, then nothing can be. I trust you.”

Kreacher stood up so tall that Harry thought he would float right off the ground, bobbed his head, clicked his heels together, and then vanished back to the kitchen. Harry stepped out of the library, where he’d firecalled the Wizengamot, and wandered slowly along the corridor, listening.

He didn’t find the source of the wrongness until he went to the first floor, rather than the second. Then he could hear the unusual silence coming from behind the door of Malfoy’s robes. There was always some noise there, as if Malfoy was trying to make up for the years of silence and constraint in Snape’s presence: the rustle of a page, the chanting of a spell, the sound of furniture being dragged about. Harry knocked.

The silence remained unbroken for so long that he was considering kicking the door down, but then Malfoy said in a dead voice, “Come in.”

Harry opened the door and saw him sitting in the large chair that he had requested for his study, staring out the window. In his hand was a letter that bore a spiky handwriting Harry recognized instantly. If years of seeing remarks on his essays hadn’t made it known to him, watching Snape write notes for the potions in the last fortnight would have.

He stepped up to Malfoy’s side and took the letter gently from his unresisting fingers.

Draco:

You are not the man I thought you were. No, of course you are not; you were always a boy. You have abandoned me without care. The moment Potter walked into your life, he was enough to turn your head, and thus I came to know where your heart has always lain: with someone who could give you the greatest advantage, not with someone who you pretended to genuinely care for.

Harry held back the incredulous snort at the idea that Snape would accuse someone of looking out for his own advantage. It was clear that the letter had devastated Draco, and Harry didn’t want to sound like he was mocking his pain. He put a hand on Draco’s shoulder and pressed down gently as he continued reading.

Six years of companionship mean nothing to you. You wished to reduce our relationship to sex and nothing more. The minute I stopped giving in to your importunities, you began to whine. You remain young, younger than anyone else I have ever known, with less self-control, less skill, and less talent. You will find no happiness in the outside world because you carry that youth with you. I would give you a year, perhaps less, before you end up as Potter’s pampered pet and spoiled fucktoy.

There was no signature, Harry thought, as he handed the letter back to Draco with his heart thudding in his ears. There didn’t need to be.

“Draco,” he said quietly. He hoped his use of the first name would jolt Draco out of his trance, and so it appeared. He started, blinked, and looked up at Harry with a hopelessness that was at least better than the motionless mask his face had worn a few moments before.

“He wrote that letter to hurt you,” Harry said. “That’s the only reason. He’s wounded himself and lashing out.” He drew a deep breath and thought carefully about what to say next. He couldn’t ask Draco not to let the letter hurt him; Harry knew as well as anyone else that intimate feelings like that were often beyond control. But he would try something similar. “Do you want to go back to him?”

Draco’s eyes glowed with fire, and he lifted his head in a way that Harry had come to know well. “Of course not! I meant it when I said that I wasn’t a coward, and I wasn’t going to go crawling back.”

Harry nodded and smiled at him. “Good. Then we can try something else. Write a letter back to him. Tell him what you felt—”

Draco shook his head. “Since he wrote this to hurt me,” he said, and crumpled Snape’s letter violently in his fist, “I won’t give him what he wants.”

Harry felt his smile grow wider, and hoped that it was mostly admiration of Draco that drove the expression, rather than pleasure that Draco would turn his back on Snape. “Then write a letter back that mocks him. That would be a response that he didn’t expect, don’t you think? He thinks of you as weak and fragile, based on that letter. Silence or a wounded cry for him to stop would be what would please him. Do something that displeases him.”

Draco abruptly considered Harry with a skeptical look. “You sound like you’re enjoying this a little too much.”

Harry hesitated, then shrugged and admitted honestly, “Yes, I am. But I don’t enjoy seeing you hurt. I’d just like to see Snape suffer a dose of his own potion, for once.”

Draco closed his eyes. Then he murmured, “Find me ink and parchment.”

Harry went willingly for them, and decided that he would keep as silent as possible while Draco was writing, and not try to read it. Draco deserved the chance to make some decisions on his own, for once.

He managed to do that, and Draco was silent in return, except for the scratching of the quill on the parchment, until the owl had carried the letter out the window. Then he turned around, stood from the chair, and studied Harry.

“What?” Harry asked. He had expected Draco to be caught up in his own memories of Snape and feelings at the moment. There was a scrutinizing spirit behind those steady grey eyes that surprised and pleased him at the same time.

“No one has ever displayed this much tenderness for me since I stopped being a child,” Draco murmured. “Why are you?”

“I don’t know that it’s tenderness, exactly,” Harry said. “I just want you to have a fair chance. That’s what you haven’t had so far.”

“Mmmm.” Draco studied him once more, then stepped past him. Harry relaxed, thinking the interrogation was over, only to freeze when he felt Draco’s fingers sliding along his neck and into his hair.

“Thank you,” Draco said, voice deeper than Harry had heard it before, and he left the room.

Harry stood where he was, staring after him.

*

Severus smiled grimly when the post-owl brought Draco’s response back. He could not have written it more than an hour after receiving it, at least if Severus’s estimation of the travel times was correct. He opened the letter and settled down to read either the plea to leave Draco alone or the pathetic, childish defiance he expected.

It was neither.

Severus:

I had hoped that you would have learned better by now than to take your disappointment out on me. Obviously what you want is what you accuse Potter of wanting: a toy who will obey your every whim. You think that you only had to wind up me when you wanted and I would go, and you could stand me in a corner the rest of the time and ignore me.

Does it surprise you that the toy has a will of his own? That I might go and live with someone else because I’m sick of not having my freedom, or a social life, or the ability to do something different with all my decades than sit in an isolated cottage and watch myself decay?

I can imagine nothing more terrible than spending my life with you—the version of you that exists right now. I thought you were different, and that’s my delusion, for which I have to pay the price. But you gave up the chance to get to know me and live with me and really love me, for which you’ll pay a price even if you don’t recognize it as such.

I’m not coming back.

Draco.

Severus sat still.