Notes: I was handing out drabbles and Ayla Pascal asked for a Snape/Lucius/Harry. I threw out the drabble idea and turned it into the itty bitty ficlet below.

Warnings: Slash. Character death. Threesome.

death of rectitude.

The heat is getting to them. It makes their hair seem too thick (on some it is) and their clothing too heavy, even the almost sheer cotton shirts feel suffocating.

(It has to be the heat, they say, peeling off their shirts to feel no relief from the damp August air.)

Harry turns to Ron. I'm going out, he says.

(He looks elegant, refined, but they know better. They know what he looks like when despair seizes his mind, what he looks like when there is nothing left but hate and want and push and shove.)

His feet march past the cobblestone path cutting down the centre of the graveyard. He doesn't want to visit the graves. He knows he ought to, but selfless as the propaganda sells him as, he fears the disparaging guilt.

(This is all your fault, they say, and he believes them. My son died because of you, and he knows it's true.)

Ron would tell him, You did what you had to. You did the best you could, mate.

It's not enough, it never is. He misses them all.

(Vaguely, Harry knows that this is wrong. Knows it is wrong when he allows Snape to press him against the wall, press his lips to his, press his groin into Harry's stomach because Harry is still so much shorter.)

A leaf falls from an overhead tree and Harry catches it, folding his hand around it. It should feel cool, at least a little, to his touch, but nothing feels cold anymore and only Harry knows why.

(He knows that it is wrong when Lucius holds his hands around Harry's neck, digging into his windpipe, just like he knows that it is wrong that he likes it.)

Harry walks a bit more, not having any idea where he is headed, despite having lived in the crumbling flat that does more to aggravate Harry and Ron than house them for five months.

(Air. He needs air and he needs this, harder, please, HARDER.)

There's a pond on his right, so he crosses the street and doesn't check for cars. He wades in to his ankles, reaches down, and retrieves a relatively flat rock. He throws it, flicking his wrist. The stone, instead of skipping, falls directly into the water with a dissonant note and a plentiful splash.

"What are you doing out here on a day like this?"

Like what, Harry asks. Severus points to the sky. Oh. So a storm is brewing, then? Thunder, lightning, the whole shebang?

"And if you're not careful, you may find yourself caught in it."

Harry blinks his eyes once, twice, and steps out of the water. He feels bad for the fish, suffocating in the heated water, their oxygen dissolving to the surface. The fish will die, and it is just one more thing Harry cannot help.

Let's go inside, he says, and not for the first time he thinks about how many of Lucius's features Draco had inherited.

They smile, lips curling like a warning. Severus cocks his head toward the other side of the road, and Harry sees a cheap hotel. He wonders where Hermione's cool logic is.

Oh, that's right. He killed her, too.

(He blacks out before Lucius lets go and after he comes, and suddenly it feels a lot less wrong.) -fin