Chapter Thirteen of 'Love, Free as Air'- Shifting

[lomonaaeren]

Chapter Twelve.

Title: Love, Free As Air (13/21)
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 Thirteen—Shifting

Harry studied the list in front of him dubiously. It claimed to be a list of the most popular potions sold in Britain. Harry had picked it up for Draco from a shop that specialized in selling potions ingredients and textbooks, so he thought it should be accurate, but he really didn’t know enough about the subject to be sure.

He kept his eyes fastened on the parchment, although they badly wanted to look up when Draco came down the stairs and slid into the chair on the other side of the table. Kreacher had reported that Draco had never come back for his dinner last night after he bolted upstairs. Harry hoped that he would eat a large breakfast now. He didn’t want to drive Draco away from his meals because of what he did or said.

“Potter.”

Harry started and glanced up. Considering what had happened between them last time, he hadn’t thought Draco would be the one to begin the conversation. But he nodded, cautiously pleased. “Draco,” he said.

Draco closed his hand into a fist around his knife and took what sounded like a deep, calming breath. Then he turned around, glared into Harry’s eyes—obviously the calming breath had failed—and demanded, “Why do you call me by my first name when I keep calling you by your last name?”

Harry blinked. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Do you want me to stop?”

“I want an answer to my question.” Draco sounded as if he was grinding his teeth.

“Because I want to,” Harry said, deciding that he could be honest if he couldn’t be less irritating. “Because I feel closer to you than I did, now that we’ve gone through what we did. And we’ll be going through more of that,” he added, “since Hermione is doing the research to find out how we can free your mother.” He hesitated, then pushed the parchment he’d been reading across the table. “I picked this up this morning. I thought you might be able to choose the potions you’re best at brewing and focus on them first, so that you can build up a reputation as a Potions master.”

“I never took my mastery,” Draco muttered, although he picked up the list and scanned it with an unenthusiastic look.

“There must still be potions you can brew,” Harry said, and tried not to feel as though he were tossing hollow cheerful words at a sullen teenager. Draco has the right to be sullen, given all the pressure that you and Snape are putting on him. “And I can lend you money for the ingredients, until the Wizengamot processes the paperwork and gives you back access to the Malfoy vaults.”

Draco laughed, and the sound was so derisive that Harry winced. “And you really think that they will? Oh, poor naïve Potter.”

“Yes, they will,” Harry said. “I agree that ordinarily, they’d delay and try to avoid giving you your rightful possessions. But this time, you have Hermione on your side. They’ll speed up the process just to get rid of her.”

Draco gave a smile that looked as if he’d had it pried out of him against his will. “You’re right about that.” He paused, and then, as if he’d remembered that he was supposed to be angry, his forehead tightened again. “I want to know why you think I’d accept a loan. It’s condescending.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “How is it condescending to lend money to someone who can eventually pay you back? Now, if we’d lost the case and there was no option but for you to earn money illegally or live off me for the rest of your life, then I agree, it would be condescending to call this a loan.”

Draco leaned back in his chair and shut his eyes, breathing to calm himself down again. He dug his fingers into his arms. Harry eyed them in concern, and was just about to stand up and come around the table to free Draco’s fingers gently when Draco looked at him again and said, “I don’t need your help.”

“All right,” Harry said. “Does that mean that you want to move out and find a house of your own?” He was determined to give Draco what Draco wanted, even though his heart gave a great, sudden thump at the thought of losing his company.

“Stop being so fucking calm about this!” Draco leaped to his feet and leaned over the table. It caused the dishes to tilt alarmingly, and Kreacher appeared with a squeak to rescue them. Draco didn’t seem to notice. “How can you act as though you just want to help me and nothing more?”

“Because,” Harry said, holding himself tightly under control, “that’s what I do want. You’re the one who has to make the choices, but I’m the one who can help supply you with the time and freedom to make them. If you want to leave, then you can. I won’t hold you here. You aren’t a prisoner.”

“But you have the right to demand that I be,” Draco whispered. “You’ve done so much for me.”

Harry winced, thinking of the way that the debt would curdle in the back of Draco’s throat. Someone as proud as he was had probably been smarting about the debt he owed all along, but while he was still reeling from the novelty of his freedom and the hope of winning the trial, it was possible to ignore the bitterness. Now it had all fallen on him at once.

“No one has the right to demand your gratitude or hold you prisoner because they helped you,” he said as gently as he could. “It’s true that I like helping people, and so letting me do it pays me, in an odd way, and pays Hermione, more than it would someone like Snape. But if you want to walk away from us, then you can. If you want to go back to him, you can.” God, those words were hard to say, and Harry had his doubts about whether Draco would really be making a free decision if he went back to Snape or simply letting his fear of the outside world control him, but it wasn’t his placed to say so. “It’s up to you.”

*

Draco wished that Harry Potter didn’t have to be so fucking Gryffindor about everything.

He’d thought the git had changed when he first discovered who he was, because there was no way that he would have helped Draco in school, and neither would Granger. But it seemed he had only changed in order to become more annoying and more generous and more determined to let Draco have his freedom.

Draco stared into the anxious green eyes across from him and bit the inside of his cheek. Then he said, “What if I don’t want either of those? What if I want to stay here and yet not receive any of your help?”

“Then you can do that,” Potter said at once, as Draco had known he would. “It might mean a delay in how long you have before you can start brewing potions, though.”

Draco shuddered, feeling as though someone had stroked a feather over his skin. In a way, he was desperate to begin earning his own money at once, because that would mean he had a shorter period of time until he could move out from under Potter’s roof.

Then he thought of living alone, and the dizziness and the despair almost overwhelmed him. What would he do, living alone? Potter’s company was almost intolerable at times, but it was better than nothing.

“I have to think about it,” he muttered. He would have liked to go upstairs and shut himself in his room again, but he was too hungry for that, having abandoned his dinner as a matter of principle last night. He sat down and reached for the marmalade.

“Yes, I thought you might,” Potter said quietly.

Draco shuddered again, but this time it was truly a flicker of irritation rippling across his skin, rather than a feather-touch. His life and all their lives, he thought irrationally, would have been easier if Harry Potter was a bit more selfish.

Then he wondered whose lives he was thinking of. It took him the full breakfast to track the thought to its origin and realize that he was thinking of himself, Potter, and Severus as some kind of strange unit.

*

Being honest was harder than he had expected.

Severus had spent years thinking that Gryffindors were simply foolish, too foolish to master the deceptions and defenses that would guard their feelings. Now he was inclined to think they were both strong and insensitive, because they did not appear to think continually about how others would see their actions, emotions, and decisions.

Severus had too much of the sensitivity, however, and so tore up the letter he was writing to Potter several times before he was satisfied by what emerged.

Potter:

These are the changes I will promise to make. I will not spend my entire day in the lab, but at least three hours outside it. Those hours can be spent taking meals with Draco, speaking with him, reading in company with him, and doing other things, should he give me the chance to make up for what I have failed.

The second change involves my teaching. I spent more of my time brewing the potions I was an expert in than in instructing Draco how to become an expert. I am willing to help him attain a Potions mastery.

Show this letter to him and ask if it is acceptable. If it is, then I would ask that Draco and you both visit me within a week.

Severus Snape.

Severus leaned back in his chair and stared at the letter. There were all sorts of twists of phrase in there that could make him vulnerable, especially the implication that it was a failure for him to have done what he had done in the past.

But he could not think of any other way to write it. If he did not make promises of some kind, he would never get Draco back, and if he did not do as Potter suggested, then he might give up Potter’s mediation.

Besides…

Severus twitched, and was glad that he could at least still distinguish between ideas that it was appropriate to put into a letter and ideas that it would never be appropriate to do that with.

Besides, the thought ran, he would be flattered to see Potter in his house again. He wanted to look at him with new eyes, the understanding that those memories had been real, and, that for the first time since Albus, he had someone who understood his faults and yet appeared to value him.

Severus grimaced and shook his head. He would have to remember to be careful when Potter and Draco both came to speak with him, if they ever did. He would betray too much to Draco’s quick eyes and Potter’s knowing ones—unexpectedly knowing, and probably worse now that he was an adult—if he simply acted as he did when alone.

He rose to his feet and went to the lab, but as always, the silence spilled in after him, and it was a long time before he felt comfortable beginning his brewing.

*

Draco sat still for so long after Harry had shown him Snape’s letter that Harry was afraid the letter had distressed him. He tried to keep his concern out of his eyes as he dug into the lunch Kreacher had provided, sandwiches covered in thick sauces with only a bit of meat or lettuce peering out here and there. Harry didn’t know exactly what the sauces were made of, and he didn’t plan to ask as long as they continued to taste good.

“I want to go home.”

Draco’s voice was so soft that Harry didn’t think he’d heard him correctly. He swallowed and asked, “What?”

“I want to go home.” Draco turned and stared at him. “I should never have left Severus in the first place. I should have remained with him and tried to work out a solution to the problems, instead of dashing off with the first person who offered.”

Harry hissed and shut his eyes. “And do you think he would have offered these changes if you hadn’t gone?” he asked. Rational, try to be rational and understand. “I don’t think so. Things would have stayed exactly the same. You’d been trying for six years to get him to pay more attention to you, and he didn’t. Why do you assume he would have started if I hadn’t come?”

“You don’t know him.” Draco didn’t say more than that, and when Harry opened his eyes and looked at him, his face was white and flat. He toyed with the letter as though it drew his fingers against his will.

“I know him well enough to know that he’d sunk into a routine,” Harry said quietly. “You had become routine for him. I know that it made you miserable, and you actually made the decision to leave him twice, although he persuaded you out of it the first time.” His voice started to sour, and he swallowed to try and control it. “Do you think it would have changed on its own? Be honest.”

“I don’t have to be.” Draco stood up restlessly and turned his back on the table. “You said I was free to make my decision, and I’ve made it. I want to go back to Severus.”

“I hoped that you would make the decision because you really were considering your desires and your needs,” Harry said, deciding that he might as well go full steam ahead. Draco wasn’t listening to sensible words. He might need a bit of a shock. “Instead, it sounds like you’re afraid of your choices and you just want to retreat into your safe little cave and pull the door shut after you.”

Draco whirled around, his face now so bloodless that Harry half-thought he might faint. “You don’t understand! It’s not fear!”

“Yes, of course not,” Harry said. He stood up and leaned across the table to emphasize his point. Draco acted like it was a hardship for him to listen to Harry when he was being nice and trying to give Draco as much freedom as possible. So Harry would be a bit more callous and give him what he wanted. “That’s why you’re talking about nothing changing, rather than going back to Snape and making a compromise. Only people who are afraid act as though change is evil and an intolerable situation is better than it is.”

Draco shut his eyes. Then he asked in a clipped voice, “Are you going to lecture me, or are you going to help me pack? Or were all those grand words about standing by me no matter what I chose just hot air?”

Harry shook his head. “I’ll help you pack. And then I’ll go with you to meet with Snape, because he said in his letter that he wanted both of us to be there.”

Draco frowned at him. “But I don’t want you to.” He said it in such a petulant way, turning his head to the side, that all of Harry’s suspicions were confirmed. Draco was acting childish, knew he was acting childish, and still wanted help to hold those suspicions down in his own mind and convince himself that he was making a mature, thoughtful decision instead of a stupid one.

“Snape does, though,” Harry said, and gave him a smile that he suspected was unpleasant, because Draco flinched. “You have to consider his wants, too, since you’re going back to live with him and you think that you can change him by working things out. It wouldn’t be a very good sign to ignore his words from the beginning, would it?”

Draco stomped out of the room. Harry rolled his eyes and made to follow, only to pause when Kreacher popped into the kitchen and looked anxiously at him.

“Should Kreacher be saving Master Harry Potter and Master Draco Malfoy’s lunch, sir?” He was wringing his hands, and it would probably progress to ear-tugging in a minute, which was hard to get him to stop.

Harry sighed. “Why don’t you put it under Preservation Charms and pack it up, Kreacher? And make an extra lunch that we can take with us.” It occurred to Harry that Snape might welcome something he hadn’t had to cook himself as a peace offering when they all but fell into his lap that afternoon.

Kreacher beamed at him, bowed, and then Apparated out of the kitchen. Harry stood a moment listening to the loud banging noises from overheard before he followed, slowly.

*

Draco didn’t understand why other people didn’t understand why this was so hard for him.

The whole world was open around him, but to get on in it, he was dependent on help. He hated that. He wanted to be free as soon as possible, but he also wanted to be protected. It would have been pleasant if Potter had let him stay in the house but made the decision for him, perhaps by forbidding Draco to leave or telling him that he had to spend a certain amount of time brewing potions to repay Potter for his hospitality. That way, Draco could have—

Could have rebelled and felt justified in leaving.

Draco clenched his jaw. He seemed to have become a lot more reflective lately, since he had left Severus. He hated it.

Yes, he knew it was wrong to leap back into Severus’s house and act as though nothing had changed and he should never have left. He’d needed to leave. But he didn’t know what to do now. Waiting too long to make up his mind would make him look weak. Relying too much on Potter’s money and help would make him look weak. At least Severus had never acted as though he thought that Draco was weak for living with him.

No, he thought you were childish instead.

Draco straightened his spine and took a sip of the tea that Severus had had waiting for them when he and Potter arrived. Draco still didn’t know how he had done that, since Potter had sent the owl telling Severus what would happen less than an hour before they left. Severus had always seemed too busy to brew more tea than would fill a single cup, and Draco had drunk that by mistake before and gagged from the foul taste.

Severus sat on the edge of the couch in the drawing room, staring at them both with brilliant eyes. Draco could read emotion on his face better than he’d been able to in years, and he didn’t think Severus was staring at him with more yearning than at Potter.

What does he want with him? At the moment, Draco thought he would be happiest if Harry Potter simply departed from his life and never reminded Draco of his existence again.

“So,” Potter said. “That’s the way things have worked out. Draco would like to come back, and we’d both like to see if you’d make the changes that you talked about.” He sipped at his tea and put it down on the table next to him, smiling at Severus with only a hint of tightness around his mouth. “Are you going to?”

Severus said nothing for long moments, though his hands twitched in his lap. Then he turned to Draco. “Why do you want to come back?” he asked.

Draco opened his mouth, then shut it. He hadn’t expected Severus to ask that question. He had sounded so desperate to have Draco back in his owls, why wouldn’t he simply accept his fate for fear of frightening Draco away again?

“I should never have left,” he said.

Severus’s eyes flared. “Yes, you should have,” he said.

Draco gaped at him. Severus raised his eyebrows, and Draco became aware of how unattractive such an expression was. He shut his mouth and scowled at the floor.

“If you had not left,” Severus said, “I would not have realized that you needed to. You would have not have lived free of the threat of Azkaban, with the choice to return into the larger wizarding world. I would not have promised to makes these changes.”

Draco shook his head. He had to admit the truth of what Severus was saying, but since when had Severus started to admit that truth? “You would have made the changes eventually, when you saw how miserable you were making me.”

Severus gave him a thin smile. “I did not care for six years, or five, if you wish to accept the hypothesis that our first year with each other was happy. What would have changed my mind, except a threat with such weight?”

Draco shook his head again. “But you have to realize that it’s intimidating for me to leave,” he whispered. “Coming back was the best option.”

“That’s what I don’t understand,” Potter said, leaning forwards. “For weeks, you said that it was the worst option, unless Professor Snape changed.” The “Professor” title was a concession to politeness, Draco thought, but it sounded horrid and fake and Potter should have known better than to use it. “And he did promise some changes, but he hasn’t put them into practice yet, and he hasn’t discussed whether he thinks it’s best for you to just move back in and try to take up where you left off. I don’t understand, Draco. What are you coming back to? What made you change your mind?”

Draco turned on him. He had intended to control his tongue and his temper. Potter lived in a world so different from his that he thought an attempt to explain would be stupid, anyway. But this was the last straw. Why couldn’t Potter stop pushing and pushing and pushing and just accept that some things were hard for other people that weren’t hard for him?

“It’s hard to make a decision,” he snapped. “I don’t know what I want yet! I don’t know what would be best! What if I make a mistake? What if I do something that causes others to hate me, to laugh at me, to humiliate me?”

“You keep going through it,” Potter said slowly, a perplexed look in his eyes. “I was worried about my decision to leave the Auror program, because I knew that some people would hate me for it—and some of the other Aurors still do—and it would hurt Ron, because he always thought we would be partners. The problem is that you can’t please everyone no matter what, so it’s best to please yourself.” He paused, an arrested look on his face. “Or are you thinking about making a social comeback someday, and that’s why you’re worried about what other people might say?”

“I’m not thinking of that,” Draco said. It was hard to keep the words coherent. He was shaking. “I’m not thinking of anything. I don’t know what I want to do yet, and you keep pushing me to make a decision!”

“Even staying in my house and not doing anything right now is a decision of its own kind,” Potter said quietly. “It’s fine if you want to do that, but you have to choose that, rather than someone else choosing for you.”

“And I want someone who will,” Draco said bitterly, even as he knew that that wasn’t what he wanted at all. He wanted to make the right decision, the one that wouldn’t let him fail, the one that would ensure he never made a mistake again. He was so tired of failing.

And he knew that decision didn’t exist, either, but that didn’t stop the desire.

He stalked out of the drawing room and into the gardens. He needed peace and distance and to breathe, and he wished there were people in the world who might understand how someone could want security and freedom at the same time, who could understand that of course Draco would make mistakes but why he might want the assurance that he wouldn’t.