Something New

Rating: M

Pairing: DM/HP/GW with permutations and past relationships

Summary: Post-war. After serving a three year term, Draco returns to Wizarding society but can't get the Golden Pair out of his head. Will be a two-shot.

Warnings: Slash, ménage-a-trois, pegging

The sea is strangely calm as the Ministry boat rows across the league of dark water separating Azkaban from dry land. I'm reminded of the river Styx … only I seem to be going in reverse. Is it possible to cross the river again?

Somehow I feel like I should be surprised to see them standing on the shore waiting for me. I'm not.

She hugs me. He shakes my hand. I nod stiffly, but can't think of anything to say. I haven't spoken much the last few years. And it's probably too late for anything I wanted to say, anyway.

Ginny grabs my hand, freezing cold little fingers clutching mine, the last thing I feel before the crush of apparition.

It's been three years since I heard the doors clank shut and the darkness envelop me, and here I am again, a free wizard. Or anyway, mostly free. Back in Grimmauld Place.

The house hasn't changed much since my temporary incarceration here the summer after the war, that delirious prelude to my inevitable conviction.

I permit myself the tenuous luxury to wonder, could we go back to the way things were?

I get my answer when I see the ring – a rock the size that could get caught in your hair, or gouge out an eye. It glitters on her hand and she shrugs off her cloak, and tosses it over the back of a chair. I throw mine on top of hers, covering it.

"Tea?" she calls on her way down into the kitchen, but neither of us answer because she'll make it whether we affirm or not.

Potter and I stand in the sitting room. He shuffles his feet.

"You're marrying her," I inform him unnecessarily.

Potter nods, and takes a breath like he wants to say something… but doesn't.

I take a moment to question whether this is a much improved level of discourse compared to three years in a dank cell. Then Potter bites his bottom lip and I decide I'd rather be somewhere, anywhere, other than here.

And then suddenly she returns bearing a laden tea-tray, red locks cascading down her back, eyes bright and hopeful, but what is there to hope for?

Except, "I hope you two have a wonderful life together."

Ginny's shoulders sag a little; Potter winces. "Draco…" she starts, but I don't really have anything to say, do I?

"Congratulations," I say, and drink the tea she's brought me. The sugary sweetness is just right – and isn't that a troubling thought? That she bothers to remember how I take my tea.

"You're the first to hear," Potter tells me, and sits down on the couch. Ginny drops down beside him, and I find myself sitting, too, on the old green chaise.

"We're announcing it on Harry's birthday tomorrow. Will you come? Please come…" she implores. I force a smile, and it's probably more like a grimace.

"I hardly think your friends and family want me there," I remark.

"We do, though," Potter says firmly. "If it weren't for you, we…"

"Bollocks," I tell him. But I concede anyway.

I stay the night in the guest room that was once, for a short time, my room. The familiarity rubs like a blister.

Breakfast is awkwardly familiar, too. Ginny is already downstairs, in a pink shift and oversized slippers, when I arrive in the kitchen. She smiles at me, places an empty cup on the table and pours out some tea – jasmine – and leaves the sugar bowl next to it. I'm still stirring when a plate of eggs and toast materialises in front of me, and I can't lie, I'm starving.

She sits down in the chair next to me, hot mug in one hand, and places the other one down on my knee. "Draco," she starts, and I try not to react to the overwhelming impulse to shove away from her… or into her. "We missed you."

I don't answer.

"We waited. We tried to wait. But everyone expected us to… and my parents… and then we had a scare last year, and Harry just… well you know how impulsive he is."

I nod. Why is she even explaining this to me? I don't need to know.

"I just need a few days to find a place to stay," I say. Her hands pulls back from my leg immediately and there is something like… pain? Maybe… in her eyes and she searches my face, but I have no idea what she's looking for.

"If that's what you want…" she starts, but my bitter bark of a laugh cuts her off. Of course it's not, I want to say, but how can I?

Upstairs, I send a few owls, back some things. I have some money – not enough to live on for long, but enough to rent a room for a few nights if I have to. I wonder if the Leaky will admit me? Knockturn's probably my best bet.

"You don't have to go," Potter tells me from the door. I don't turn around. He doesn't leave, though, but steps into the room and closes to door behind him. The air suddenly feels thick and I think that I won't ever leave at all if I don't leave right now.

He walks up, and I can feel him behind me even though he isn't even touching me, and then a broad hand slips over my shoulder and runs slowly down my arm, and I shiver, because it's been so long.

"Harry…" I whisper, a plea.

He pulls me around to face him, hands on my shoulder, eyes seeking mine, searching, and I don't know what he wants from me. I can't do this. I can't stay here and be happy for them.

It takes every ounce of will I have to wrench myself from him and walk away.

I move out. It takes me three days, but I find a rat's nest little place in Knockturn Alley and hide myself away. Potter tries to help, but I'm too well hidden. I get a job stocking the shelves at Wrackwort and Sons. Their family was always loyal, if secretly, and they are willing to take me on as long as I stay in the back and don't interact with the customers. As if I'd want to.

I learn fairly quickly not to go out except to work, and not to leave Knockturn Alley. The two times I try to use the floo at the Leaky I'm accosted. The second time I barely make it away and have to spend the night trying to heal my own foot, which takes forever.

Sometimes, people still spit on me.

Knockturn Alley isn't much better, though. Again and again, men solicit me, and I'm tempted, but not desperate enough.

I spend Christmas alone.

But by spring, at least, I have some money, and I can afford a better place, one that isn't right next door to the room shared by three prostitutes on alternating nights.

In my new place, I even have a window, and although I can only see the brick wall of the neighbouring building, it's still more natural light than I had.

The shower only sometimes works, but I manage.

And once it starts getting warmer, I don't spend all my mental energy casting warming charms every half-hour.

Most nights, (unless I've gone to a Muggle pub and picked up a bird, or permitted some wayward John to throw me over the furniture just to feel alive again for 23 short, painful minutes) I think about Ginny and Harry.

I imagine them together, touching and kissing and rubbing and moaning and licking and fucking until I've wrung every last drop of desire out of my spent cock and I fall asleep unsure which of the two of them I'd rather be.

I haven't seen either of them since the engagement party last year, but of course they invite me to the wedding.

I almost don't go. I very nearly decline the invitation, but in the end I confirm sans a plus-one. I still plan to have dragon-pox, or a serious splinching accident, or be in some other way incapacitated on the day in question.

Somehow I show up all the same. I've always had a masochistic streak, I suppose.

The dump her parents live in is appalling, of course, but that's nothing new. Still, Potter's spared no expense, it seems: the lawn outside had been set up with tents and flowers and fairy lights; a string quartet plays something Muggle in a corner.

I attempt to mingle.

After the third trip jinx leaves my Bloody Mary splashed across the front of Lady Pendleton's pale blue chiffon robes, dripping gruesomely down onto her silk shoes, it becomes abundantly clear that no one wants me there.

She catches me behind the broom shed about to apparate the hell out of there, her thin, bony white fingers wrapping firmly around my wrist.

I turn. She looks up at me, rich, chocolaty brown eyes gazing up into mine. "Please stay."

I scowl, try to pull away.

"For me," she pleads. Then, "for Harry."

Small white fingers reach up and thread through my hair, pulling the bangs out of my eyes. I can smell her warmth and sweetness tinged with an edge of nervous sweat, a drop of which has beaded along her right temple.

I want to lick it off.

Instead, I close my eyes and nod once, curtly. I can feel the relief in her dropping shoulders even from here, but she still catches me by surprise when she presses a pair of warm, just-barely-damp lips to my throat and whispers, "thank you."

I linger in the kitchen, where the elves eye me warily. They are from Hogwarts, of course, and free, probably. And probably friends of Dobby's.

I feel stupidly guilty, then, thinking about the horrible night at the Manor. I handed off the bloody wands but that knife… honestly, what sort of witch throws a knife?

I leave, wander out. They'll start soon. Apparently Minister Shacklebolt's officiating. Potter would have the Minister of Magic, wouldn't he?

They've seated me with his family, rather than hers, I notice gratefully. As I slide along the transfigured bench to sit beside Andromeda Tonks and Cousin Teddy, I reflect that perhaps they could have been my family, too.

Andromeda smiles warmly. I wonder if she spoke to Mother before the execution. I look around and try to avoid catching too many hostile eyes.

That's when I see him for this first time in a year. He's standing in a Muggle tuxedo, hair brushed and somewhat tamer than usual, glasses miraculously straight, a trio of orchids pinned to his lapel. His hands are clenched, and I know he's nervous.

Then he catches my eye and smiles.

I feel like I've been kicked in the stomach. Something warm trickles down to fill cavity left behind, and I feel my own cheeks heat when I see him flushing, eyes lit up. He thought I wouldn't come.

His lips part, like he wants to mouth something to me, but then the music is starting and he jerks up a little, nervously, and turns, and so do I – we all do – and there she is.

Cream becomes her. She's a vision in raw silk, a goblin-made tiara (where is that from, I wonder?) in her bright red hair. She's never looked so beautiful in her entire life, I think to myself.

Not even rolling out of bed in nothing but a t-shirt, all legs and freckles, shivering over the lighter on the balcony of some chilly summer morning.

I chance a look at Potter, and I can see it – the daze of desire, the enchantment, all of it, mirrored in him. He glances over at me, and I see him see it in my eyes, too. Only he's standing up there and I'm here, sitting with the widows and children.

When she reaches him, she grasps his hand, and squeezes, hard.

I swear I can feel it around my throat.

She glances at the other Weasleys filling the rows, then quickly over to me – and flashes a smile like the gouge of a fingernail dragged down my spine.

Potter glances over at me, later, during the readings, just at the moment that he hooks a finger around two or three of hers. His smile is not as sharp as hers – no… more like the dull thud of a skull knocked against a cold stone wall, to be followed by hasty fingers and a bristled, probing mouth.

Why am I here? Why am I doing this to myself?

I think I can't take it any longer, but then it's over, almost.

Potter pulls out the rings. He slips one plain gold band on Ginny's hand, where it fits snugly against the engagement ring with a satisfying clink of metal on metal.

And then she slides a single band onto his hand. It looks odd – like two rings fused together – probably some pathetically symbolic gesture, to represent their dyad unity.

I want to retch. Or sneer. Or something.

Shacklebolt's low, booming voice has said the words and I cannot watch, but cannot look away as they collide, gently, yearningly, into each other.

I don't stay for the reception. What would be the point?

After they ride off on that ridiculous Hippogriff (and that was certainly his ideas because she would never have come up with something so absurd) I apparate to the nearest pub, install myself at the bar.

I probably shouldn't be here. Or anywhere. Really, I know better. I should go home. Or at least find a Muggle bar. Instead I decide to get thoroughly pissed.

Somewhere around the fifth or sixth scotch, someone tall and indistinguishably menacing sidles up to me, and suddenly I feel a shard of white hot pain slicing through me and someone – is it me? – screams.

Then: darkness.

"Seriously, Draco? We've been gone one day. Not even."

She sounds tired, but also like she might be smiling. Which seems odd, but then I can't really be sure, because I'm not really sure what she's talking about.

It's morning. The hospital sheets are stiff and the lights are too bright. I still can't seem to move anything, though, so I can't really look away from her.

"I didn't ask you to come," I tell them.

Potter huffs in a corner somewhere. Ginny rolls her eyes and kisses my forehead, heads for the door, a quiet "decent cup of tea" dribbling from her lips in explanation.

Potter stands up, I think. I can't see him and I can't really move, but I can hear him over there, creaking and rustling. He still shuffles his feet like a schoolboy.

He's at the side of the bed now and I gaze up at him as imperiously as I can manage, what with the whole lying-half-naked-and-immobilised thing.

Speaking of which—

"Looks like a hate crime, as far as the Auror office can tell. You were hit with a cocktail of curses, including one to the spinal column," Potter says, but he sounds tired, not anxious, so I decide it's not as absolutely and horrendously terrifying as it sounds.

"They – the healers – put a immobilo on you," he adds. "I told them not to, but you were having seizures…"

"It's fine," I say. "I'm fine." He sighs in that impossibly exasperating way. "You should go," I tell him, probably a little more coldly than I really meant to.

Ginny's just come back, a hot cup of tea in each hand. I wonder stupidly if she still takes hers with lemon, and he his with too much milk and no sugar.

"We've cancelled the trip, Draco, we're not going anywhere."

"Don't be absurd," I say. She chuckles, and I want to trip her. Potter makes that abominable sighing sound again, and I can just see out of the corner of my eye, that he's moved up to stand behind her, thick arms folding around her slight frame.

"You should go," I tell them, swallowing thickly, wishing I didn't sound so bitter.

They don't go, though. Of course not.

Ginny leads Potter to the chair I cannot see, and they sit. I close my eyes and imagine they've transformed it into loveseat. How fitting.

I can already taste the bile.

Eventually a doctor comes in, explains: "you've been cursed, you'll recover, but you need bed-rest and help. Do you have someone who can take care of you?" I shake my head, no, and the doctor scribbles on her parchment. "You'll need to find a place to stay, or someone who can stay with you for a while, or you might have permanent damage." I nod, but she sees that I'm only trying to appease her. Still, she sighs, apparently trying to appease me, too.

The next day, a middle-aged nurse who clearly remembers not just the second, but also the first Wizarding War, informs me curtly that I'm free to go. I hear in her tone the implied, I hope next time they do a more thorough job.

I'm just struggling to button up my shirt when Ginny comes in and strides over, all brisk efficiency. He cold white hands slip effortlessly between mine as she does up the last three buttons. Potter shuffles in behind her, shoulders my bag. She stands beside him and they look at me.

"I thought you had a honeymoon to be on," I remark. Potter rolls his eyes. Ginny does too.

Somehow they convince that I should not go back to my own flat, and before I can really stop them, we're back in Grimmauld place, and Ginny's unpacking my things, and I'm feeling nauseous, more than anything else, but maybe also a little grateful. But mostly nauseaus.

And then there's the fact that it shouldn't be so easy for them, should it? I don't know. Maybe it should. They were together before me, so why not after? But why is it so hard to move on, I want to ask.

Why does every women I fall into bed with have red hair? Why do all the men still wear glasses?

I suppose, for her, it's no great loss. One cock is as good as another. But Potter – what must it mean for him? To have her, but no one else?

Or maybe they have someone else. Many someone elses, plural. That's something I can't bring myself to think about.

Is it possible to be jealous of two people?

I've been back at Grimmauld Place three days when I finally feel up to walking again. Ginny's been in and out of my room the whole time, and Potter's been reading me the paper in the mornings before he shuffles off the Auror school, which I've helpfully pointed out is the most absurdly predictable waste of his time imaginable. He smiles, refuses to rise to the bait.

When either of them is in the room with me, I seem to manage. I still want to throw Potter into a wall sometimes, or call him Harry... and I still want to twist my fingers in Ginny's hair and pull, hard. But I manage, so long as I don't have to see them together.

It's the middle of the night, and I'm trying to quietly slip out of my room, which is across the hall from Potter's room, which is their room now, I guess. I wonder vaguely if she's moved those hideous curtains out of what used to be her room.

I hate change.

The tiles on the floor of the loo are cold and the ringing of the water through the pipes echos in my skull. I can barely stand the bright lights, but it's too dark without them, and I haven't brought my wand.

My hands are still freezing as I pad back down the hall to my room in the darkness, and that's when I hear them.

Wet sounds, gasps, a growl.

The faint blue light of a low flame is flickering against the wall where the bedroom door is just barely opened. I step into the beam of light, peer in.

Skin.

The light is faint, but the blue flame throws their bodies in relief against the walls beside the bed, and suddenly my mouth is dry.

He's on his hands and knees facing away and she's behind him. Other than the rippling wave of red hair down her back, they are still: a bizarre tableau, panting heavily. I'm not sure what I'm seeing.

But then he nods, and she starts to move, and I realize when they're doing and gods I nearly come in my pants at the thought of it. I want a better look, want to see the thing she charmed to herself, the dildo she's using to fuck him. But all I can see are her soft hips moving rhythmically, pounding faster and faster into him. And he's groaning, and whimpering.

I can't stop myself; I reach down to press the erection now straining against my trousers. He's whining, "yes, yes," as I rub myself faster. I want to be where she is now, burying myself inside of him… making him beg, "please, please fuck me…" And gods I want to be where he is, too, being filled by her, being fucked. He gasps as she pounds him, reaching around to stroke his cock, and I'm stroking mine now, hand shoved down the front of my trousers and praying they don't turn around because I can't possibly stop and fuck - I explode in my hand when I see him stilling, convulsing, come spurting out onto the bedding.

Still dazed, I pull my hand out of my trousers and back away from the door. My knees are weak, and I lean against the wall outside of their room gasping in the darkness.

I can't stay here.