Consensio 1: The Glass Menagerie (B)

Harry made his way to the dungeons a little cautiously. He had every right to visit Professor Snape, and there could even be a whole range of reasons why. Still, since Halloween there was an overwhelming sense of being observed that Harry couldn't quite pin down. Sometimes this student, sometimes that small group, often no one in particular and just a general sense of being The-Boy-Who-Lived one more time.

Not everything about the tournament had been disastrous, Harry thought, as he swung down the last flight of steps. That afternoon with Severus, well hour or so with Severus, had seemed so different from anything before it, and somehow that was about the tournament too. He reasoned to himself that it wasn't much, really, but that last long kiss had seemed, warm, or something different anyway, and he'd been so hard so fast at that kind of touch, and that second time it felt like he'd come in Severus 's arms as well as under Severus's hand. But Harry had hardly seen him since, and it was starting to seem, sometimes, like he'd dreamt the whole thing. It also suddenly seemed like a much bigger and more important risk – Severus and him.

Even with the Rite, they'd probably both be in trouble if anyone really found out. Crabbe and Goyle teasing him certainly didn't count. Never mind Dumbledore, really, the possibility that Sirius might find out didn't bear thinking about. And if the Rite really was cancelled now, as McGonagall insisted, and although Dumbledore was clearly being more cautious it was being actively discouraged, where would he and Severus stand? The Rite had seemed so inevitable, unavoidable, like a strange undercurrent propelling them in suspicious but inexorable ways, bringing them, maybe, to do things they'd never do.

Harry had been waiting for some kind of invitation to talk, but he couldn't just let Snape make that decision now.

In the Potion Master's corridor there were no passing students, but there was a pretty awful stench and an open door to Ron's workroom. Ron leant half through the door, one knee on the floor, stacking large books to prop the heavy door open. He pulled a face and Harry had to laugh. Ron looked disconcerted at being caught unaware.

"It blew up, burned or boiled over?"

"Something got exposed to heat when it shouldn't," Ron said, "and turned blue and runny and foul. Merlin, how disgusting is this smell?"

"Um, freshening charms, Ron? First year? And aren't there vents?"

"Yeah, but I swear this smell is weighted down, so the vents aren't helping much." He waved Harry through the door and then, neither of them breathing, they ran quickly into his room.

"Shut the door," Harry said, his eyes watering.

"And leave Snape's stuff in an open room? Not worth my life."

"Clean Air charm, Ron."

"Not going to waste the spell. It'll clear, eventually." He gave the room through the door a worried look. "I think. I'll give it an hour."

Harry didn't waste time glaring. "Invecto," he said distinctly, encompassing the room with a casual roll of his wrist.

Ron rolled his eyes.

"That stuff could corrode our eyeballs or something," Harry said.

"I'm only allowed four spells a day," Ron replied, immediately beginning to straighten things around the room. "I'm not going to waste one on a bad smell when I might really need it later."

"What are you talking about?"

"Snape," Ron shoved some clothes on top of the dresser into the dresser, "allows me four spells a day. Any four, but only four." He moved books from the chair onto the dresser. "It encourages something or other; I forget which important thing it encourages." Finally he gestured at the chair when Harry just stood there. "Well, sit down."

Harry sat. He hadn't actually come to see Ron, but Ron was rifling through a cupboard for something and it seemed rude to say. . .

"Chocolate Frog? " Ron said, shoving a box back in Harry's direction.

"How does he check?"

Ron turned back to him, with two bottles of Florian's Instant Chill Cordial. "Huh?"

"Snape, how does he check your spells."

Ron prodded Harry with one of the bottles until he took it and moved to the bed. "Priori Incantatem, of course. How else?"

"Seems a lot of trouble."

"He thinks it's important," Ron said, shrugging as if he'd given up everything under that heading long ago.

Harry opened the bottle, and looked around the room as the pop and rush of cold subsided. It still didn't look any more like Ron than last time he saw it.

"So, how many days?" Ron said, from the end of the bed not covered in stacked papers.

"Three," Harry replied automatically, sipping his drink. Cola, which was a relief, really, after some of the things Florian's Cordial had predicted him wanting to drink.

"So, it's pretty serious then."

"Sorry?"

"You and Snape. If you're getting anxious after three days, that's a bit more serious than anything you've had before."

"I never said I was anxious."

"You saw him in class today, and yet you said three days."

Harry didn't answer, because it was true, but a classroom hardly seemed to count.

"Well, he's in a staff meeting," Ron said, "which usually means he'll be back around nine in a really foul mood. You might want to leave it till tomorrow."

"Oh."

"Or, you can hang around and talk to me, if I'm not too pathetic a second choice."

Harry almost said something reassuring, or defensive, or both, but Ron was grinning, curled up against the wall with his drink. "So, has Hermione seen the sty you call a room lately?" he said instead.

"Hey I'm in the middle of stuff, and compared to our dorm-room. . ." Ron stopped. "You're having me on."

"Could be. Is the old Ron around anywhere?"

Ron pulled a not-this-again face, and Harry had to laugh because he looked a bit like Hermione.

"I'm not so different," Ron said.

Harry moved over to the bed, smiling a little at Ron's flinch when he shoved a pile of carefully stacked papers to one side. "Right, no different at all."

"You seen Hermione today?" Ron said, after an embarrassed pause. "I had to work through lunch on Snape's new project."

"Only at breakfast. She's off with Cho, I think. What project?"

There was a definite and much longer pause. "I'm not sure I should say."

Harry couldn't help feeling a bit miffed that Ron thought he had to keep Snape's plans a secret from him. "Fair enough, I'll ask him myself."

"Okay," Ron said, and the pause was obviously a bit tense this time, "but he's a stickler about that kind of thing no matter how much he might like you."

Harry knew it was a stupid thing for them to be snarking at each other over. "He likes you too now," he said, quashing thoughts about how much more absurd it was they were sitting here talking about who Professor Snape liked.

Ron gave a wry sort of snort. "Sure, we're mates."

"I didn't mean that."

There was a long, awkward, irritating pause. "Ron. . ." Harry began.

"What's going on upstairs?" Ron said, before he could say anything really.

"Well. . ." and it was obviously better to have something to talk about. "The Ravenclaws are walking round in little huddles like someone's threatened them. McGonagall cracks down on anything that looks like it's to do with the Rite, but only in Gryffindor. She even confiscated Lavender's stack of Supplements."

"It's not like it's not on the front page as well," Ron laughed. He sobered immediately, though, when he noticed Harry's expression. "I saw the cover story today."

Harry closed his eyes and tipped his head back against the wall. He really didn't want to talk about it with anyone but Severus.

~~~

Severus threw his door open with a gesture from some way down the hall. If he made it inside without turning back to curse one or more of the current staff members into very unpleasant puddles it would be a favour to the world bordering on a miracle.

There were other things he could do with his time. In fact, if Lucius didn't produce some conclusive proof that Voldemort was effectively in the world again, or about to be so, then he really could see no reason for continuing this farcical situation. He patently did not give a damn about the imbeciles he was teaching, or the ones he was supposedly working with. Although 'working with' was the most unacceptable euphemism for whatever one did under Albus's watchful eye.

He tossed the newspapers on the table, although there were things he'd rather do with them, and would have slammed the door shut, a gesture which usually kept Weasley away for the duration of the evening, thankfully, but Harry was standing in his doorway.

"Do you have no discretion, Mr Potter?" he spat out in surprise that was even more infuriating than the boy's presence here, now.

Harry shifted a little without answering, looking disturbingly young in his black school robes and nervousness.

"Come in, then," Severus growled, "if you're coming in."

He strode to the cabinet and poured himself a Macallan's and water, hesitating over the irritating question of whether or not to offer one to the boy. He really should just ask him to leave, come back tomorrow if he had to when the sting of this evening had faded.

The boy was leaning against the lounge, his hand curled around the upholstered back, his eyes on his hand as if. . .

"Don't be maudlin, Potter," Severus snapped, looking away again to pour the other drink, "it's not a memorial to your lost innocence."

After only a second Harry said, "I gather the meeting was more than ordinarily bad?"

Severus turned to deride the brat for presuming to know the first thing about what he had to deal with on a weekly basis, let alone under these circumstances, but Harry was smiling at him in a very amused way. Severus shoved the glass in his direction and sat down.

"I would have thought you had enough to worry about, Potter," he gestured generally in the direction of the stack of newspapers, "without taking the trouble to come and gloat over my difficulties with the other staff."

Harry placed his untouched drink on the side-table and reached for the papers. Severus didn't actually know which of them the boy had seen, and if he didn't know the details Severus probably shouldn't have told him quite like that.

"Leave them," he said, crossly, as much because it was irritating to have to think about the boy's delicate sensibilities as because he'd probably put himself in the position of having to explain things now.

Harry glanced back at him, perhaps expecting something more.

"Will you just sit down? I am trying to relax."

Harry looked at the top paper on the small stack and ran his fingers over the page. The picture of Castor Zabini smiling at some business triumph above a caption that marked him as fatally splinched in the Halloween attack on Harry Potter? The pictures of Sangermano and Everson under arrest, virtually suspended between hulking pairs of Aurors as they were escorted from a Ministry interview? Or the picture of Harry Potter receiving his award for winning the exhibition of Combined Magics, a smiling Madame Vermeel pinning the ornate gold and green pin to his chest under the headline 'Boy Who Lived Will Testify'?

"Harry, come and sit down."

"I've already read that one, anyway," Harry said as moved back and slid onto the couch. "How long before the trial do you think?"

"Impossible to estimate at present, I would say, given the conflicting interests." Harry was looking at the floor rather sadly, but honestly it was hardly Severus's role to comfort people, and in any case he was hardly likely to be much good at it.

The boy nodded, unsurprised of course, and why would he be? A strange thing to call a childhood, really, not that the generality of people would bother or understand enough to make the distinction. And, another part of himself objected, it was not as if other people didn't have difficult times at this age.

When the silence was edging towards something uncomfortable, Severus said, "You needed to speak with me?"

Harry looked up then, trying not to show his embarrassment – his teeth scraped his bottom lip, his eyelids dipped and his breath rather fluttered, and Severus saw him begin the repression charm with something like satisfaction. He needed practice, of course, but the instinct was already there.

"I wanted to speak with you," Harry said.

Severus had to privately applaud the qualification, but he didn't reply.

"Have the negotiations been cancelled?" Harry finally asked, looking away under cover of retrieving his drink, which he merely nursed in an uninterested way.

"That's a very good whisky, and you might at least taste it."

Harry looked at the glass in surprise. "Oh. I had a Florian's with Ron, and they're always kind of sweet and filling." He dutifully sipped at the drink anyway, and Severus didn't smile at the grimace Harry tried not to show.

"Thank you. It's very nice."

"Really?"

The boy nodded.

"And what do you particularly appreciate about it?"

Harry almost blushed, he was so close, and Severus didn't know whether that or his cross repression of the blush was more amusing.

"Have they?"

"You heard the Headmaster's edict. The Rite is no longer welcome in Hogwarts, and indeed will not be supported by the school in any respect until the proper investigations have been completed, at which time. . ."

"But students who've already begun," Harry interjected.

"Only with the express permission of their parents and, I might add, before you venture into any plan to produce a commensurate permission, it will hardly seem necessary any longer for me to continue with the performance of participation in the Rite."

"Malfoy has said so?"

"The Headmaster has said so."

"Oh." Harry took a mouthful of his drink, and didn't bother to hide the grimace this time. "So that's it then, I suppose."

"It seems so."

"You must be relieved," Harry said, looking up at him with transparent intent.

"It will certainly make things simpler, and the staff are of course uniformly relieved to be rid of the foolishness of recent months."

"So you are relieved," Harry insisted, still watching him intently, as if he was likely to see anything Severus didn't want him to see.

"The situation has certainly improved in the last week."

"I don't want to call it off."

Caught up in something a bit like surprise, even though he'd known the boy would feel that way, Severus hadn't expected the hand on his thigh, or that even through the thickness of his teaching robes he could feel the heat. There were a number of appropriate and useful responses he was still considering when Harry slid up beside him, his hand resting now at the top of his thigh.

"I want you to call me Harry," the boy said, ducking his head, although Severus had the distinct impression he was looking for signs of arousal rather than hiding his own embarrassment this time.

"I most certainly will not," Severus replied, despite the pause which may very well have been less than convincing. He pushed Harry's hand away, but their fingers tangled together as if they were somehow almost holding hands, which would have been ludicrous, if that's what they were actually doing.

"You already have," Harry said.

Severus could never have honestly claimed he didn't realise the boy was sliding across his legs long before the weight of him pressed them both into the lounge, and in plenty of time to avoid the kiss. Of course that didn't mean he wouldn't claim it, if pressed.

In the hot wet moving minutes that followed he felt the shift in Harry's confidence too. Hands sought out his neck and his hair and the boy pressed enthusiastically against him, sighing against his skin and finally fumbling for the buttons on his trousers.

~~~

When Remus came in, Draco was still poring over old letters trying to find the right way to compose a request for an enormous favour from someone he barely knew without actually mentioning Narcissa's name but still implying her consent. It really did have to be written now if things were ever going to be managed at the end of the school year. At the end of all school. To be honest, Draco had never given much consideration to leaving home and every time he sat down to do this it seemed rather more difficult than it ought to be. He had brought the Praetimiterre over to the table to keep the urgency of the situation in mind, but had ended up replaying the image there many times, wondering why this was the one his father had chosen. His first summoning spell that worked on a living thing, perhaps, as it certainly wasn't the first spell his father had watched him cast.

"Are you done?" Remus said, unbuttoning his outer robe.

"Not really."

Remus removed the silver Praetimiterre ball from under Draco's hand, and took it back to the mantle where, although they never discussed it, it was always kept.

"How was the meeting?" Draco said, packing away his writing things without having finished the letter yet again. In the back of his mind some kind of cynical echo asked him how much more banally domestic this could get – when your werewolf comes home from work, do make sure to ask after his day. He sniffed in dark amusement and then realised that, of course, Remus was watching him.

"Particularly tedious, then?" Draco said, folding the papers into the writing folio and drawing his wand for the usual sealing and shrinking.

"There's been a complaint lodged about my relationship with you," Remus said, rather stiffly. "To the Headmaster for now, but Arthur insists that if something is not done he will take matters further."

Draco completed his spell and returned the wand to his robe. "Arthur?"

"Arthur Weasley."

Draco took his favoured seat in the window and looked outside. Arthur Weasley. "Why?"

"I think he finds the possibility that our relationship may be sexual morally objectionable, and he wishes the Headmaster to, I believe the phrase was 'clarify the situation'."

"Which means?"

"I will talk to Albus about it tomorrow."

"I want to be there," Draco said, keeping his eyes on the dark grounds, but attentive to Remus moving around the room, setting the stronger wards they now placed on the room, making them tea as he always did at this time. Your pet werewolf, Draco, how charming.

"All right. The Animagus meeting is at seven, so I'll ask Albus to see us directly afterwards."

Draco watched him pour the tea, once more on the edge of astonishment that Remus, what was it, that Remus respected him. If he wanted to be there, well it was his business too and he should be there. Astonishing really. Remus brought the cup over to him, obviously tired, possibly sad, maybe even deeply anxious.

"Any other news?" Draco said, attempting lightness and rather surprised that it sounded quite as it should.

Remus sat down in the armchair near the window, turned the cup in its saucer a time or two. "I suppose you will hear, although it is confidential."

He looked up, and Draco nodded a general non-committal agreement which, for some reason, Remus generally accepted.

"Filius is to be charged on various counts for making the charms that were used to attack you and Harry."

Draco found himself on the edge of his seat with hot tea in his lap. He swore loudly, floated the cup, fished for his wand, and by the time he'd cleaned things up Remus was laughing at him.

"I'm not sure," Remus said, still smiling, "if Filius would be more pleased or more offended that you would be so surprised at the idea that he has some dark agenda."

"Professor Flitwick?"

"The front pages will certainly have some version of it in a day or so."

Draco didn't bother to take his seat again, and hesitated by Remus's chair. "I don't believe it," he said.

"Nor do I," Remus said, running a finger along the edge of Draco's sleeve, "but the papers, I think, would like to convict sufficient people that the whole thing can be put away without condemning the Rite itself. I suppose. . ."

Draco watched Remus hesitate, almost holding his breath, as Draco's fingers brushed across his never smooth jaw. He bent slowly to kiss him, watching that half smile appear. It seemed good enough for now.

~~~