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Severus lay on the floor of his potions lab, staring up at the ceiling. His breath and his pulse fluttered in and out of being, and he could see spirals dancing and exploding in front of his eyes. The phoenix mark on his arm shone as if it would rise off his skin and fly for help, but Severus knew that was only an illusion born of desperate hope.
Dying after all, he thought, and shut his eyes. It seems that my owl to Potter was not in time.
He knew it had to be the bond that was killing him. The pain had begun in his arm and crept slowly up to his shoulder. Intent on the Veritaserum he was brewing—he needed to have a stock ready by the time Potter visited—he had ignored it at first. Some of the ingredients used in Veritaserum were corrosive. It was entirely possible that he had spilled some on his skin. But the pain had spread so slowly that he knew he still had time to clean it off before it damaged him.
He had thought.
What irritated him most at the moment was that the Veritaserum would be ruined by the length of time he had lain on the floor writhing, beyond the skill of even a master brewer to restore.
What grieved him most was the fact that Draco was dying, as alone as he was, in his room upstairs. Severus had long since reconciled himself to the thought that he would not die a natural death. But having fought so long and so hard for Draco, and then seeing this fate descend on him—
Do not be literal if you can help it, Severus, he thought then. You cannot see him. You might as well die speaking truth in your mind, if no place else.
His hands flailed and scrabbled and grasped at air. His mind stood back in some disgust and watched his struggles. He could not help trying to survive, even now. But he knew that he could not. If the pain had been in his arm alone, he would have managed to drag himself to his feet, find Draco, and Apparate with him to the Ministry, where Potter would surely be at this hour, having been accepted into the Auror training program. But this pain was throughout him, dull and persistent. Certain.
Like the boy's damn emotions that I will die not feeling again, he thought, and closed his eyes, because he desired to die looking into the darkness he believed would claim him. He did not intend to flinch, even at the end.
I am no coward.
Footsteps slapped on the flagstone floor, and Severus forced his eyes open despite his resolve. If Draco had somehow managed to stand and come looking for him, that was a sign of hope. Severus would do his best to leave the boy with words of wisdom. He needed to reconcile with Potter for his own good. Severus had thought that their slow deterioration meant they had time before something drastic happened. But obviously not. They understood too little about this bond, and—
He wondered if returning hope had deluded him when he realized that the man kneeling over him was Harry Potter. But no, the blaze of his phoenix marks lit his face, more powerfully than would have happened if Draco's single one had been shining.
"Snape." Potter's voice was low but frantic. "You're dying. What—what do I do? How do I save you?" He stuck out a hand and laid it on Severus's phoenix, as if he imagined that would convey some miraculous healing.
Severus envisioned the words he needed to speak strung out in a sentence in his mind and concentrated on rendering his breath regular. He could speak. He had done harder things. And if he had once imagined he could rest, well. Clearly his life was simply one hard thing after another.
And I am still alive.
"Open—the bond. We need—emotions. Owl—said so." There was more that he wanted to say, the arguments that would convince Potter. And sure enough, the boy's brow furrowed and he shook his head a little, showing he didn't believe Severus. He actually opened his mouth to object, to say that there should be something else he could do, rather than sharing his precious feelings. Severus knew the words as if he'd heard them many times, but for the moment, he was too weak to oppose them before they were said. He watched in weary disgust as Potter's lips formed the first word.
And then Draco screamed from upstairs.
It was worse than any scream Severus had ever heard, a ripping, sobbing squeal that sounded as if it had been dragged out of the depth of Draco's soul with hooked claws. The sound swelled, and Severus realized his cheeks were damp with the sweat that had broken out on them in response to the cry.
But it was the best thing that could have happened at the moment, because Potter gave a dry sob of his own and let the barriers down.
Severus gasped and sat up as suddenly as Potter had when Granger had cast the Awakening Charm on him in the Hogwarts hospital wing. Electricity sizzled and danced along his nerves. His hands felt ten-fingered and longer than normal, tangling around each other. He swam in a sea of grief and recrimination, but the emotions were sweet in their very richness, and because they flowed from a separate bundle of personality in the back of his head. This was not guilt for his crimes.
He had never felt so good, except the brief moments in the immediate aftermath of the bonding when Potter had also let his emotions flow freely.
He looked up and realized that he had laid his hands on Potter's shoulders, drawing him closer. Potter stared at him, and Severus's mind swam with memories, too: the moment when Potter had peered from behind the crate in the Shrieking Shack and seen him and Draco chained; his first Potions class, as he compared his first glimpse of Severus with one of the last; the night when Severus had run from Hogwarts after Dumbledore's death. They flooded together with the emotions, and Severus shuddered, back arching with a thrill that was almost sexual.
The memories were not pleasant, but their very distinctness from his, the fact that they came from a different mind, was intoxicating. Severus had lived alone in his head for too long, his Occlumency barriers up to prevent any unnatural sharing. He had drowned in his memories of the wars with the Dark Lord because there was no one to whom he could confide them, and he was not willing to listen to the ridiculous, babbled secrets of others simply on the off chance they would listen to him without judgment. Dumbledore had usually known what his grievances were without his speaking them, but that was unpleasant in its own way.
But Potter's memories could place him at a distance from certain events, at an angle from others, and let him come to peace with them finally.
Severus had not suspected this would happen, though he had caught glimpses of Potter's memories that first night as well. Now he thought himself stupid for not suspecting it.
And he knew there was no way he could give this up, not when the floodtide of Potter's guilt dislodged his own from its deep place in his soul. He was instantly addicted. He dug his fingers further into Potter's shoulders.
Potter wrenched free from him with a violent shudder. He cleared his throat and kept his eyes on the floor as he moved away. Severus watched him in silence, controlling the impulse to reach out again. He wanted to—and that was a side-effect of the bond he had not counted on, that the memories and emotions were stronger when Potter was closer—but what he felt was enough to sustain him for right now. The bond was pumping life and health into him. His mind sharpened and expanded as though he could figure out potions that had puzzled him for years.
I am not willing to live without this again.
"I should go check on Malfoy" Potter muttered, and then whirled and trotted out of the lab.
Left to his own devices, for the moment, Severus flicked his wand and quietly brought down the wards on Spinner's End, the ones that would prevent Apparition, Portkeys, or brooms from entering the premises. Potter was not about to run away again, not before they had time to talk.
And then his mind turned, with energy that filled it like a skylark's song filling the air, to the new facet of the bond that had revealed itself to him.
To have Potter close is desirable, as the emotions are stronger then. And if guilt feels this good, one must wonder what pleasure would feel like. Joy.
The body's desire.
Severus let a small smile curve his mouth, though the amusement was partially turned against himself. He suspected he would regard the prospect with more horror later, when he had got used to the emotions and was somewhat in his right mind.
For the moment, however, his major thought was, Draco will not like this at all.
*
Draco wasn't stupid. The pain eating him alive had faded the moment the bond opened again. And now that he could hear Potter climbing the stairs towards his room, he had the temptation to simply lie back on the bed and swim in the flashes of blue-black lightning and ghostly landscapes that Potter opened in his mind.
But that was no reason to make it easy for him.
When the door opened, he was in the perfect position to raise a brow and say acidly, "Finally figured out that running away wasn't the best thing you could have done?"
Potter snarled at him, and his anger wheeled in a moment—Draco had a vision of an eagle—to strike out at a perceived enemy instead of against himself. It was a whole new set of sensations. Draco gasped, his hips snapping forwards once. He wanted so badly to thrust, or even better to grab Potter by the shoulders and drag him close, embrace him, run his fingers up to the skin behind his ears so he could feel vicariously what it would be like when Potter squirmed—
He froze. What am I thinking?
Potter didn't seem to have noticed anything wrong, maybe because he hadn't opened the bond back the other way so he could feel Draco's emotions. His face twisted, and he snapped, "I'm sorry, Malfoy, but I didn't fucking know!"
Draco caught his breath and swallowed as Potter moved a few steps closer. Who would have thought a short distance could make that much difference? And his traitorous body again squirmed with the thought of what would happen should Potter's skin rest against his. Draco had thought a vivid imagination a bad trait when he had to torture people at the Dark Lord's command, but it appeared it was even better for torturing himself.
"And ignorance is always a good excuse for almost killing people," he said, but he missed the bright tone that would have made that one of his better efforts. His voice ended up sounding full of this disgusting longing instead.
Potter eyed him in silence for long moments, his arms folded. His anger turned back again, like a lightning bolt stabbing his forehead for the crime of losing the scar. Then his face crumpled, and his shoulders heaved, and for a horrified moment Draco thought he would witness Harry Potter's tears.
It made him uncomfortable, how eager part of him was to see that.
Stupid bloody bond, he thought, and shifted, though not hard enough to make Potter look up—he hoped.
But then Potter jerked his head up and spoke in a flat voice, his eyes fastened on the wall beyond Draco's head. "Yes, it's a stupid excuse. I shouldn't have done that. I'm sorry. Clearly the bond is more complicated than I thought it was, and my plans to stay away but still give you the benefits of the bond aren't going to work."
"You can't stay away," Draco said. "Are you mad?" He should have said something stronger, he knew, something to sting, but he couldn't. Maybe because he knew that behind Potter's supposedly emotionless eyes and voice was a surging, leaping sea of panic and pain and self-loathing that felt familiar. Draco had tasted it in the hospital wing. Apparently Potter spent most of his time awake hating himself, at least at a low level of his thoughts.
Potter glared at him, and there was pain behind his eyes and there was anger, and they fought so fiercely that Draco saw them both as clashing waves of the same height and couldn't tell which would win. "You don't like me," he said. "I'm willing to stay here to save your lives, but you can't blame me for trying to keep out of your way as much as possible. I thought, maybe a Homunculus—"
"You're so generous to us," Draco said, flopping back on his bed and turning his head away as if he had nothing better to look at. He yawned delicately. "Or do you extend your bounty like this to every person you nearly slaughter?"
"And this is exactly why I don't want to stay here!" Potter yelled. The anger won out over the pain, and Draco saw the eagle again. He shivered. "Because you'll insult me and never forgive me, and it might be comfortable for you, but it sure as fuck won't be for me! People keep telling me how important life-debts are, but it seems that the person who owes them is entitled to all the consideration, and sod what that consideration costs the person it's owed to!" He turned around and punched his fist into the wall.
Draco jumped and gasped at the flash of pain that tore through his body, not so much because it hurt as because of the intensity. Meanwhile, Potter made a disgusted sound and sat down on the chair Draco had placed near the door. Draco glanced at him and saw him running his hands wildly through his hair, tearing at individual strands, making it stand on end even more than before.
Draco hadn't known that was physically possible.
"You nearly killed us," Draco said, and tried to keep his voice even and failed miserably. He'd never known how volatile Potter was. His emotions shifted every second, and it would take Draco a lot of time to adjust to them, like adjusting to being on a ship while it was pitching around during a storm. "That'll take a while to forgive."
"A while?" Potter looked up and snorted, and the anger rolled back again, drenching Draco in stabs of hot and cold. "I'm not stupid, Malfoy. I know you won't ever forgive me. You'll just wait until I've almost forgotten about it, and then mention it to make me feel guilty again."
Draco sneered. "You're stupid if you think that the only emotion we want to feel from you is guilt."
"You might think you can cause something else, but you can't." Potter sounded exhausted now, and the image Draco received was of a flat grey plain, covered with ashes. "Maybe you'll even try to, but you won't succeed. I'm going to be uncomfortable for the rest of my life." And there was the hiss and crackle of self-loathing again, as if Potter knew he sounded like a miserable whiner when he said those words and hated himself for saying them.
"You're giving up before we've even properly started," Draco said. "Before we've tried living together an hour, right after a shock that gives us every right to be angry at you. Are you always this into fatalism, Potter? I'm astounded that you lasted as long as you did against the Dark Lord."
Potter glared at him again, but the anger was less than it had been, or else Draco was getting used to it.
"His name was Voldemort," Potter said. "You might try mouthing it."
Draco shook his head. He had some balance now, and some understanding, and Potter wasn't about to distract him. "That isn't important right now," he said. "Reconciling you to the inevitable is."
"I'm reconciled," Potter said harshly. "You need me to live with you. You need me to share my emotions with you. Those two things together will destroy my privacy. And then Snape said something about sharing magical power. That'll probably render me weaker than I was. I'll do it, because I'm the one who started these bonds in the first place, but I'm not going to enjoy it. You can't expect a prisoner to enjoy his prison." He stood up and turned to walk out of the room.
Draco felt well enough to wave his wand and lock the door. Potter whirled around, his anger leaping through the bond again. This time, Draco envisioned it as a beast rather like a red kangaroo with long, drooping claws.
"Listen to me, Potter," Draco said, and then cast a Silencing Charm when Potter tried to speak anyway. The look of outrage on Potter's face was priceless, though Draco liked the slide of honey-sweetness through the center of his chest even more. "If you're determined to make this intolerable for yourself, of course it will be. But surely you see that it doesn't have to be? We can teach you things. We can make this house as comfortable as the little flat you're probably living in now, and less crowded than the Weasleys'." It was an effort to force himself to say the proper last name instead of "Weasels," but the whole point right now was not offending Potter. "And there's no reason sharing magical power has to make you weaker. If anything, it gives you a reservoir to draw on if you're in danger. And I think you'll be in danger fairly often, if you're training to be an Auror." He hesitated, then canceled the Silencing Charm.
"None of that makes up for the loss of mental privacy," Potter said. His eyes were a little wild. "I have enough people spying on me already—reporters, fans, rogue Death Eaters. And now I have to have two of the people who've always hated me in my head all the time."
Draco shrugged. "I don't see what you're objecting to. You can do the same thing to us. At least it's equal." He had to swallow bitterness, then, as he remembered a condition of the bond. "Or even tilted in your favor, because you're the one who can shut the conduits down and reopen them at will."
Potter's incredulity tasted like blue lightning. "Do you think I'd do that again, when I know that you need the conduits open to survive?"
At least we can count on his stupid heroism, once it's aroused, Draco thought smugly. "You can still open them further," he said. "You'll feel our emotions the same way we can feel yours."
"No." Potter folded his arms and looked away. The phoenixes on his arms had a slight shine to them still. Draco wondered how they must have blazed when Potter was receiving the warning that Draco and Severus were dying, or whatever had really summoned him.
"Why not?" Draco held onto his temper with an effort. He was the one offering all the options, and Potter was rejecting them, like an idiot.
But then, he's Potter. Of course he's an idiot.
On the other hand, since we depend on him to survive now, we'll have to teach him to be less of one.
"I'm not going to invade your privacy just because you invaded mine," Potter said bluntly. His mind roared and surged and leaped again, and Draco was glad that he didn't live inside Potter's skull. Absorbing those feelings secondhand was tiresome enough.
Draco immediately thought of three ways he could take advantage of Potter's moral goodness, but he attempted to suppress his thoughts and focus on the immediate problem. "All right," he said. "No one can force you to. But you should know that, as long as you're with us and willing to spend the money, we can buy a more comfortable house. And our paths don't have to cross all the time. Just enough to keep us healthy."
Potter eyed him, his emotions swinging back into a quiet sea. Draco wondered if there was a sun shining on it, too, and fought the urge to giggle. "That's the first sensible thing you've said all day, Malfoy." He took a breath and shifted closer to the bed. "I had another idea, too. If I fight for your names to be cleared completely, then you can take your own jobs and have more choices. And then you won't have to spend as much time contemplating the bond and nothing but the bond."
Draco narrowed his eyes. That last thing seemed like an odd consequence for Potter to hope would come out of their increased freedom and time outside the house. Of course, he's seeing all this time in terms of himself, which is natural for someone as selfish as he is. I shouldn't be surprised.
"We'll have to talk to Severus about this," he said, and stood. It was the first time in days that he had moved somewhere with a purpose, he thought absently as he stepped past Potter and opened the door. The increasing closeness of the other boy made him shudder and struggle to keep his expression blank. Suddenly the emotions seemed to flood him completely instead of staying in a separate bundle at the back of his head. "Sit down as—" He hesitated. "Well, sit down all together and talk about this."
Potter nodded. Maybe he thought his face was tightly controlled, but Draco had access to the soft, subtle rub of hope, like sheer silk, behind it. "Yes, all right. Surely we can settle on something that will keep us away from each other as much as possible."
And you are still focused on that, Draco thought, shaking his head in slight disgust. If he felt better the closer he was to Potter, Severus would feel the same. Draco couldn't see him agreeing to a schedule that would keep them in different parts of the house or awake at different hours.
"Surely," was all he said aloud, and then he followed Potter out the door, noting absently that he had grown a little more certain of himself since Draco saw him last. He had a purposeful stride that made his Auror trainee's robes swish about him, anyway.
*
"A Homunculus Charm will not work," Snape said, with the kind of flat tone that Harry had dreaded when he was still a student serving detentions. He reminded himself that he was no longer a child, and forced himself to meet Snape's eyes evenly. "We need your physical presence. Among other things, the impact of the emotions lessens when you are further away, and I doubt that you want to test the bond with distance right now."
Harry shuddered. "No." The memory of Malfoy's scream was still with him.
He had caused that. He would have to remember that, and keep it in mind when he was tempted to break away from all the demands Snape and Malfoy were heaping on him.
But, at the same time, he felt a wild resentment that he would have to give up so much he'd counted on having. Privacy, space, quiet. A set of rooms that for the first time in his life he didn't have to share with anyone. A bed he could make love to Ginny on.
Snape grimaced, and Harry abruptly remembered that they could read his memories, if not his thoughts. He cleared his throat and tried to push on despite his flaming cheeks and Malfoy's snickers. "All right. How many hours would I have to spend with you every day, then? Auror training is demanding. I can't be here all the time."
"I understand that," Snape said calmly. Malfoy was sitting straight up and giving Harry an offended look that said he didn't. Harry rolled his eyes at him, and Malfoy promptly looked away and snapped his mouth shut. He seemed determined to prove that he could be more mature than Harry if it killed him. At least it made him a touch more pleasant to be around. "The nights and one hour each during the morning and evening should be sufficient, I believe."
Harry relaxed minutely. That was far more tolerable than the imprisonment he'd envisioned, stewing in his room whilst Snape and Draco did their self-contained activities, never able to go outside without one of them complaining at him.
See? You can work this out, Hermione would probably say. This isn't going to be the end of your life.
And Harry now felt a little silly thinking it would have been. He still didn't like them in his head and his space, but with his being at Auror training most of the day and Snape and Malfoy busy with their own pursuits, at least the time they'd have to annoy each other would be limited.
"I'm sorry I reacted the way he did." Harry rushed through the apology so he could say he'd done it and moved on to something more important. "And the magic sharing? I don't know how we're going to accomplish that."
"We could force the bonds open all the way," Malfoy suggested, with an eagerness in his voice that made Harry certain that would hurt. The sadistic little git was probably looking forward to his pain.
"In a traditional bond, so we could." Snape leaned forwards, and Harry thought his words were meant at least as much for Malfoy as for Harry. "But this bond is unlike normal ones in many different ways. Among other things, the tendency to hunger means that we must be sure we do not simply consume Mr. Potter's magic."
"Yeah, I'd like that, thanks," Harry said tersely. Snape had explained about the Horcrux in him—and wasn't that something he would have liked to have known about before now—giving them a hunger for his emotions. "I'd like not to end up a Squib."
Malfoy gave him a superior look. Harry didn't know what about. He rolled his eyes again and focused on Snape. Incredible as it seemed, he was being more tolerable about this than Malfoy was. "So what do we do?"
"There are potions that could help us," Snape said meditatively, "but their effect is temporary. I would not want to renew the dose every few days, as it would mean I would brew nothing else." Harry experienced a small throb of satisfaction at that. Snape showed some inclination to focus on things besides Harry, then, which would make it easier to keep him at a distance. "An anchored spell would make more sense."
"Anchored spell?" Harry said, when both of the other two stayed silent. Malfoy looked as baffled as he was, but he was too cowardly to admit his ignorance, so Harry would.
"A spell embedded in something and meant to be permanent," Snape answered, "such as the magic that guarded the Dark Lord's Horcruxes or the spells on the Sword of Gryffindor. Technically, those are called artifact enchantments, whilst the ones on human bodies are anchored spells, but that is a pedant's distinction without merit." He continued whilst Harry was still choking over the idea of Snape rejecting a pedant's distinction. "In this case, more than one thing makes me believe that an anchored spell would be best. They usually require an addition to the body to function, such as a wound." He held up his left arm, where the phoenix shone. "We have powerful magical symbols on us already."
Harry stared down at his own entwining of phoenix parts and nodded. "All right. But I have one more question."
"Only one?" Malfoy taunted. "You're slowing down."
Harry opened his mouth to retort, but he was behind Snape, who gave Malfoy a glance of cold disdain and said, "We should work together if we wish to do more than survive, Draco."
It was worth not completely understanding Snape's words—of course they should be working together if they wanted to just survive, let alone do anything more—to watch the way Malfoy flushed and dropped his eyes. Harry cleared his throat to draw attention back to himself. "What happens if two or all of us are trying to draw on each other's magic at the same time? If I'm in danger and reach for the power to cast a hard curse when you're brewing, for example? Would that cause a problem? I don't want to do anything that will let people down when I'm an Auror or make it more dangerous for them to be around me."
Snape examined him in a silent, judging way for a while, which made Harry wonder what hidden mistakes his words contained. But Snape nodded. "The spell I intend to use can sense more urgent need. If you could possibly lose your life, the magic would circulate to you, as opposed to remaining for my potions project."
Harry nodded and searched his mind for another objection, but couldn't find anything. And he was going to try to live with this. He had promised. He rose to his feet. "Let's do this, then."
"You must cast the spell, as the one who forged and wields the bonds," Snape murmured. He moved towards Harry, halting a few inches away. "I will teach you the incantation and the wand movements. Lift your wand."
Harry did. Snape went on staring at him, eye to eye. Harry wondered if he was using Legilimency, and then decided it didn't matter. The bonds granted him a more intimate access into Harry's mind than Legilimency ever could, and that access was permanent.
Harry shut his eyes for a moment and shuddered.
"You are deeply distressed at the thought of sharing yourself with someone." Snape's voice was slow and deep. His fingers landed on top of Harry's, trailing up his wrist to the fingertips. "Why is that?"
"I don't like it," Harry said shortly. Snape's eyebrow went up as though he could sense some other answer behind the one Harry had actually given him. Harry ignored that. The short words he'd spoken would do for Snape. "Now, what is the spell?"
"Communico veneficium usque," Snape breathed. He was close enough now that Harry could smell that breath. He shuddered a little. He had always assumed that Snape would stink of dead and rotting things, but instead it was as if he'd been chewing a few of the more pleasant-smelling leaves he used in his potions.
And then Snape's fingers slid over his hand again, and Harry took a step back. Snape didn't need to stand quite so close, and he'd said nothing about the bond requiring physical contact, instead of just Harry staying in the same house with them, so he didn't see any reason to offer it.
"Communico veneficium usque," he said, doing his best to imitate Snape's cadence and pronunciation.
Then he gasped. A shivery warm sensation spread through the phoenix marks on his arms, nothing like the burning that had told him Snape and Malfoy were in danger. It felt as if he were submerging his arms in the Prefects' Bath. Harry shuddered and bent at the waist, trying not to show weakness, trying to grimace so that they would take the expression on his face for pain, and perfectly aware that they could read his emotions all the same, and probably his physical sensations.
Malfoy gasped, too. Harry looked at him and saw him writhing on the sofa as he'd writhed in the bedroom upstairs. Harry swallowed and looked away queasily, only to catch Snape's eye. His expression was a rictus, lips pulled back from the teeth in what could have been a snarl or a smile. He didn't seem to know how to deal with what he was feeling.
Fountains of golden light rose from all three of their phoenix marks and then settled back into the bodies. Harry felt heavy, as if he'd eaten a large meal. He raised his wand without thinking about it and murmured, "Lumos."
The burst of light that tore through the room nearly blinded him. Malfoy cried out and said something about "warning someone, you imbecile." Snape, on the other hand, simply moved nearer and closed his fingers into a ring around Harry's wrist.
"I believe it works," he whispered.
Harry shuddered again, this time because Snape's breath brushed his ear. He was good and sensitive there, as Ginny had already discovered. He stepped back again, pulling free of Snape's grasp. Snape let him go slowly, opening the ring of his fingers so that his nails brushed Harry's skin on the way off. Harry glared at him in puzzlement. He would almost accuse Snape of touching him like a lover, except that that was, well, ridiculous. Why in the world would Snape want to do that? He would have mentioned it if they had to—to touch or something.
"Yeah," Harry said, and damped the Lumos. "Well. Good." He looked at Snape. "I'm going to go back to the Ministry and talk to the Minister now, if he'll see me. I want to get your names cleared so we can buy a house and go around in public more easily."
"That would be welcome, of course," Snape said, in a careful voice that Harry didn't understand. "There are many potions ingredients I find it difficult or impossible to obtain whilst I am still under suspicion like this."
"Yeah, and it's not fair to either of you." Harry nodded quickly to Malfoy, making sure that he didn't make eye contact with the git. He would probably be smirking, enjoying Harry's embarrassment from Snape's touch. "I wouldn't feel right about being the only one who can leave the house on a regular basis."
"A sense of fairness," Snape said, and then cut himself off as though the half-sentence made sense, gazing at Harry in an expectant manner.
Harry coughed, cleared his throat, and then said, "Well, see you tomorrow," and turned and walked out of the house, the wards parting easily to let him out.
He breathed more easily in the clear air of Spinner's End. Yes, it was dirty from the town's factories, but at least he wasn't around Snape and Malfoy.
He sighed and shook his head, thinking of the many things he had to do: speak to the Minister about clearing Snape and Malfoy's names, ask Hermione about the magical theory behind the bond, reassure Ginny that she wouldn't be less important to him even though they were living apart, and begin setting up the barriers that would ensure Snape and Malfoy never got any closer to him than they needed to. That would probably involve learning something about potions and something about the Quidditch openings around Britain, so that he would sound informed about things they liked to do and better able to persuade them to do it.
Hermione'll probably ask me why I'm so adamant on staying away from them.
And I know the answer. To make my own life more tolerable. I don't care how necessary it is; I'm not going to live with people who insult me all the time and do everything they can to make me feel miserable. The Dursleys were bad enough. A hostile Snape and Malfoy would be a nightmare. I'll inspire them to do other things, be as polite as I can around them, and show that I'm just—a thing in their lives. After a while, when they get used to treating my emotions and the shared magic as part of the background, it should get easier.
Harry relaxed and nodded to himself. Yes, all right, he could do this. He couldn't avoid it, so he would endure it. As Snape said, he would work out how they could all survive.
And he would live in the hours he spent away from the house, the times when he was around his friends and the Weasleys and Ginny and the Auror instructors.
Feeling considerably more hopeful than he had when he arrived, Harry Apparated.
*
"I saw that." Draco was incredulous, folding his arms and vibrating with energy instead of leaning languidly on the walls as he had before Potter came. "The way you were touching him. What was that all about?"
Severus watched him in thoughtful silence. Revealing the truth now might frighten and infuriate Draco, but if he figured it out on his own, then he would distrust Severus more than he currently did.
And Severus did not want that. To do more than merely sustain the bond, to live through it and exploit it to its proper potential, every single relationship between the three of them had to be strong. He would not seduce Draco as openly as he would seduce Potter, who would probably not be able to name his motions seduction until some considerable time had passed, but he would still do it.
And the first step in overcoming Draco's distrust and my own distaste for the thought of sleeping with a child is to treat him as an adult.
"You cannot have failed to consider what would happen should Potter feel pleasure, and we feel that with him," he said, flattering Draco's intelligence and speaking the truth at the same time.
Draco's eyelashes fluttered. Severus suspected he was imagining how good he would feel if that happened, and trying to prevent himself from having a physical reaction.
"I—yes," he said. His voice had dropped into a huskiness that Severus found far more attractive than anything he had ever noticed about Draco, in part because he was now encouraging himself to find things about Draco and Potter attractive. "But he has a girlfriend. What makes you think that he'll consent to sleep with the two of us, and men besides?" His voice was muffled at the end, and he turned away.
Severus smiled faintly. He could feel Potter's determination surging through him like surf. Perhaps that made his own perceptions keener, but he knew what Draco's last statement meant. He hated the thought of being bested by anyone else, especially a Weasley.
And I suspect he will not need much encouragement to be jealous over Potter.
"Because we can offer him more than others can," Severus said simply, "thanks to the bond. We must simply prove that." He paused, but Draco kept looking away and didn't react, so he had to add, "You can start by being more pleasant to him."
"He wouldn't believe in it," Draco muttered.
"Potter has an immense—an almost silly—capacity for forgiveness," Severus said. "No, he will not believe it at first, but he will if it is repeated often enough. And being pleasant to him will become natural to you, too, if you repeat it often enough." He paused, then continued, a bit more sharply, "Unless you think you're simply constitutionally incapable of it, and that I alone should sleep with him—"
"No!" Draco whipped around, his fists clenched. "If we're going to do this, then I'm in it as an equal partner."
And there is the man I was looking for. That flare in Draco's eyes was not simply the mulish stubbornness that still drove Potter, but the will of a committed adult. Severus nodded to him with a faint smile. "Very well. Then, when he next returns, be pleasant to him and see what happens."
Draco opened his mouth to protest, then swallowed. At least he saw when he had been trapped, and had the graciousness not to protest. "All right." He paused, then continued in a yearning voice. "Do you think he can really get our names cleared?"
"It may take time, but yes, I do." Severus allowed himself a moment's smugness then. If he had to be marked again, and bonded forcibly—and accidentally—into an arrangement where he needed another's emotions simply to survive, then he could have had much worse partners than the Chosen One, with all his power and fame behind him.
Potter would never use that fame in ways that he morally disapproved of. But Severus believed they would become close enough over time that neither Severus nor Draco would need him to.
A vision was in his mind, the way it often was when he worked on a potion for the first time and envisioned the completed product. He saw the situation as it was at the moment, and the situation as it would be, when they were comfortable, settled in their bonds, and joined in all the ways that could bring all three of them the most pleasure and profit.
It was the first vision of happiness that he remembered having which had some chance of lasting. Severus intended to hold onto it.
