"You'll have to soak it in that solution all night. Honestly, what were you thinking picking a fight at a time like this?" Poppy hissed at him as she dunked his hand in an opaque milky solution.

"I wasn't picking a fight," Harry retorted sullenly. "I didn't even go for my wand."

She sniffed. "Most likely because your hand was on fire."

"It wasn't at the time!"

He collapsed onto the bed, wheeling the cart that carried the bowl closer to him.

"Of all the stupid things to do," Poppy muttered, wiping her hands on her apron. "Actually waiting for it to catch on fire."

He flicked her a defiant look. "It's not like I wanted to be used like a matchstick. They targeted me because I took a stand for the Slytherins. And I shielded it. Watching me cry over it would only escalate the problem."

"No!" she sang, not looking at him, making his eye twitch. "Heaven forbid you make a fuss over anything. Even when you're on fire."

"It's not even third degree!" he glared at her, curling his lip. "I get worse burns than this cooking breakfast."

"Mr. Potter," she said, giving him a shrewd look. "Unless you happen to cook your bacon barehanded, I don't see how you could possibly make such a claim. Maybe you should have a supervisor while in the kitchen," she said, half seriously, completely rolling over his protest.

He snapped his mouth shut. She walked away, a small smirk playing the corners of her lips. He sulked, muttering curse words beneath his breath.

"Detention, Mr. Potter."

He jumped, finding Severus in the doorway.

Draco, Ron, and Hermione were already in the infirmary, watching Harry argue with the matron. Draco sent Severus a distressing look, like a boat lost at sea finding salvation on a previously empty horizon. Harry stretched his fingers to relieve the spike of apprehension.

Hermione grabbed his wrist with none of the professional disinterest of Madam Pomfrey. "Don't move," she ordered viciously. "They'll start to scar."

"I doubt Mr. Potter needs another scar," Severus said scathingly, sweeping into the room. "Though perhaps he merely favors pain."

Harry flushed and glared at him.

"Thank you, Severus," Poppy said, floating the potions that trailed behind him into her medicine cabinet with her wand.

Harry recognized the sleeping draught and fixed her with a sickening smile.

"Not thinking of knocking me out are you, Poppy?"

"Merlin forbid I should do myself the favor," she muttered waspishly, not turning around.

She disappeared into her office, not doubt to update the charts, and leaving the five of them alone. Ron and Hermione squirmed relentlessly, all of a sudden aware of the dangerous feeling in the air. Severus did nothing.

"Hermione," Harry said diplomatically. "You have to admit I can't do my homework like this," he said, gesturing to his submerged hand.

She frowned at him, wanting to blame him but morally unable. She ended up glaring at the appendage, opening her mouth no doubt to gave a myriad of spells that could take notes for him.

"Oh, leave off, 'Mione," Ron said blithely, touching her shoulder. "It's only one day."

Thankfully, she surrendered, though not without a sigh.

"I want that new journal on blood purity," she said, gathering the books she had taken from the dorm for class. "And new tips for my quills," she added, daring him to argue.

"Done," he said tactfully. "I'll even buy a box of ginger snaps."

Her lip twitched but she nodded, ignoring the subtle dig. She made for the door, prepared to only be a few minutes late to her first class.

"Hey, mate," Ron started.

Harry used his free hand to wave him off. "Of course. I don't think I could have convinced her without you."

Ron smiled, clapping him on the back. He gave Severus a confused glance but ran out after his girlfriend anyway. Harry really did love that boy.

"I didn't know Gryffindors haggled," Draco murmured, moving to sit beside him.

"Slytherins don't have a patent on trade," he responded, as usual, finding Draco's estimates of his house amusingly lacking. He'd chosen the side with his wounded hand and sat almost without touching him, which was odd. Severus lingered like stubborn cloud of smoke, staring at the wall. Harry studied Draco, the silence not so unbearable but still faintly tense with the unsaid.

Finally, impatient Draco sighed. "Did you mean what you said?"

"Which part?" Harry said, frowning. Honestly, he could only really remember being angry and not so much the exact words that had come out of his mouth.

Draco gave him a frustrated frown. "About Slytherins. About me," he said, getting to the root of the matter.

Harry concentrated and remembered. "About you being like him? No, of course you're not," he said, incredulous that Draco could even think he was.

Draco glared at him. "I bullied you."

Harry laughed. He didn't mean to, but it came out anyway. Sometimes, he found Draco too adorable.

"We were kids. And I spent half my time trying to get you into trouble. Did I ever tell I polyjuiced myself into Crabbe and followed you into the Slytherin commons to ask you whether you were the Heir to Slytherin?"

Eyes wide, Draco shook his head.

"I did." Slowly, he stopped smiling. Gently, he slid his hand towards Draco's shirt, moving where he knew the scars were. "I cut you open on a bathroom floor. When the worst you ever did to me was shrink Hermione's teeth."

"After I tried to kill you," Draco muttered, looking away.

Harry smiled and took up his hand. "It's in the past. I don't care about it."

Draco shook his head. "How can you say that?" he whispered. "How can you not care?"

Harry shrugged. "I just don't."

Draco glared, refusing to look at him. Harry sighed, releasing his hand.

"Maybe it's because I'm used to people trying to kill me."

"That's not a good reason!" Draco yelled at him, snapping around to accuse him with stark, silver eyes.

Harry, given the chance, pecked his lips. Draco twitched, leaning away. The glassy look in her eyes yielded to confusion, always wary that he was being made the fool.

"Do you want me to hate you?"

"No," he admitted sullenly.

Harry leaned back. "You act now like you had a reason to treat me like you do now. But we weren't friends, Draco. We couldn't even be acquaintances back then," he said darkly. He looked at him. "I don't believe that you felt guilty for all you did back then. I don't. We've just both changed. And I think it's stupid that other people can't acknowledge that." He thought of McGonagall and Templeton and all the others losing so much because they were blinded by the past.

"You're greedy," Draco said in astonishment.

Harry blinked and faced him. "If you mean I don't release the things I have, yes." That was something he discovered when he accepted Ron back time and again.

Things changed, but Harry didn't think he could ever acknowledge that the things he held once did not belong to him. Death took too much already.

He frowned, an unpleasant thought ringing in his ears. "You don't think you can leave me, do you?"

Draco gave another startled look, like a stick had been a snake. Harry's eyes narrowed, and it was all he could do to sit still and not grab his hand. Eventually, Draco shook his head, his wary expression turning into something cat-like and pleased. Harry suspected he'd get the mickey teased out of him for that revelation, but he didn't much mind. He relaxed, no longer tense and ready to jump from the bed. As if he'd need to block the exits.

Stupid.

Draco peered into the solution, confident and comfortable once more. Harry allowed his gaze to move from him to his other lover. Severus was staring at him, face blank but stern. Harry didn't know what he was thinking at all. He felt the edge of a cliff between them and had no clue how to broach it.

"What?" he finally croaked.

If anything, Severus' face seemed to go colder. He turned away.

"I should have realized that your suicidal tendencies had not diminished even with the end of the war."

"Now, wait a minute-" Harry started.

Severus gave him a single, furious glare, stripping the words from him a moment. With effort, he calmed himself, knowing emotional responses would yield him no ground with the man. This was going to be like pulling thorns.

"Yes, I was irrational," he admitted. "I shouldn't have opened the letter, and I shouldn't have let Templeton goad me."

"And yet you did," Severus said, cool and dry.

Harry held back a wince with practice. "I was wrong."

Severus was silent, but Harry could tell he was coming up short, so used to feeding off tensions. Calm acquiescence was as indigestible to him as stone. Harry stared back with eyes full of banked fire. Eventually, Severus sniffed.

"Foolish. Reckless. Nothing about you has changed."

Hackles rising, Harry could not let that one pass. "Plenty has changed, Severus. No, I am not rational like you," he said before Severus could interrupt him. "I still hope that one day I don't have to be afraid of my own post."

"Stupid," Severus snarled, grabbing hold of either end of the cart between them. "It is foolish to wish for such a thing. You'll always get burned." He flicked his hand towards the burn scattered along his knuckles, visible through the pool, contemptuously. "Accept your situation."

Harry knew that Severus would extend him no sympathy. Still, he had expected some resentment from that fact. He found none in himself. Only the resolve to fight for himself. The same resolve he had to catch the snitch.

He took a moment and stepped back from the situation, watching how he and Severus interacted, and he could see that he'd scared him. The man who had always tried to protect him even when he hated him.

He took a deep breath. The true was, he didn't want to. He didn't want to believe that it would always be like this. There will always be fanmail and death threats mixed in with the messages from his friends. He would always be in the public's eye. He would never have the simplicity in life that he craved.

But he'd done worse things, harder things. He'd buried Neville. He'd watched his godfather and his headmaster die. And he was stupid and weak to cling to a world that didn't exist, as foolish as clinging to the dead.

Severus wasn't saying it was easy. He was saying though that it was necessary. And he wasn't a child to curse his fate anymore.

"I'll try," he said, running a hand through his hair and looking away.

Severus snorted quietly, upset (rightfully so), not believing him. Words were weak in the face of action then.

"I think you've proven that you can't be trusted with your own life," Severus said without forgiveness.

Unexpectedly, Harry snorted. Severus' stare hardened, and he quickly backpedaled.

"I'm sorry," Harry said. "It's not because it's funny. I wasn't laughing at you." His voice fell. For no reason he could fathom, he thought suddenly of Dumbledore.

He face swam so clearly before him, the portrait in McGonagall's office. He didn't know why that one persisted before all the others, but it hung in his mind's eye as persistent and pestilence. The smile, telling him everything had been taken care of, assuming the trust that Harry had been too willing to give. Never once had he asked Harry what he wanted, unable to both trust him with his life and fight a war.

It was quiet, and Harry looked up.

He gave a sardonic smile. "I'm not going to go on a pathetic spiel about my life. Really, I'm sorry I laughed. I shouldn't have."

Severus' glare was hot as baked steel. Even his nostrils felt the heat, flaring.

"Do you even realize I'm more concerned about how you purposefully ignored your own pain to get into a pissing contest with that Ravenclaw than that you opened a blatantly suspicious and hostile letter with little precaution?"

Harry felt the world tilt on its head.

"What? Why?" he said in daze, trying and failing to reread their conversation.

"Why?" Severus repeated a slow-simmer tone that reminded Harry somewhat of a smoldering volcano.

"Harry, do you like pain?" Draco asked seriously.

Harry grunted. "No. I do not like pain. Try not to sound so eager about it either."

"Then why, pray tell," Severus said, "do you seem so resolute in inflicting yourself careless injury."

"You think I wanted to get my hand burned off?"

"I am not speaking of your hands," he said that scathing voice Harry had not heard since before the war and he was botching potions.

Harry shook his head. "I don't understand."

Severus' hands made a twitch that might have been meant to knock the cart aside, but he clenched his fingers over the metal and turned away with a snarl.

"Harry, you… That's not normal." Draco said, sitting up to look at him with unusually concerned grey eyes.

Harry made a sound of exasperation. "Nothing is permanent. I mean, I have a few scars but they don't interfere with anything."

Draco seemed to suddenly get as frustrated with him as Severus and stood. "Don't you know what something like that means?"

"No," Harry replied mulishly, trying not to get irritated.

"It means you don't care about whether or not you get hurt," Draco said with a glare. "I mean, what is that, Harry? How can you let your hand catch on fire? Doesn't it hurt?"

"I had it shielded."

"Why didn't you scream?" he said. "Why didn't you run to the infirmary? Your hand was on bloody fire!"

Harry buried his face in his hand, ignoring the slight shaking.

"Alright," he said. "You're angry at me because I didn't express that I was hurt? But that's silly. When everyone was watching me, looking for weakness. Wasn't it better that I ignored it?"

Draco shook his head. "How can you be so practical about it?"

Harry looked at Severus, but the man gave him no ground. "Even I would have healed first. It is not weakness when people expect you to be wounded. You came across as monstrous."

Harry swallowed. An image surfaced. Would people liken him to Voldemort again? He licked his lips.

"Did I... did I scare you?"

Draco glanced at Severus. Severus blinked slowly before answering, "No," he said softly. "I have seen the Dark Lord, and you are not him. But others will not know."

Harry exhaled loudly.

"I wasn't scared of you, Harry," Draco said. "I was scared for you though. I just... I don't understand how you can treat it so casually," he said in desperation. "It's pain."

Harry dare not say that he was used to it again. He knew that other people were different. Pain had never excited him, though he'd met Death Eaters like that. But he could work through it because there were times when he had to. He could even remember times in his childhood when he'd had to cook and clean when Dudley had broken his toes.

Draco stared at him with bright eyes. "You don't have to actually cut up your arm or be suicidal to hate yourself, Harry."

He drew in his breath. The infirmary went quiet, both Slytherins watching him with something that he once would have called hate. He closed his eyes. He was such an idiot.

"I don't hate myself," he said softly. "Not like that. I promise."

"How exactly do you hate yourself?" Severus asked.

Stepping into dangerous territory, Harry nonetheless answered honestly. "The same way normal people do. I think I could have done better in this or I regret doing that. I'm not trying to punish myself. I just... I had my hand warded against anymore, and I knew Poppy could heal me. I didn't think it would be such a big deal."

Severus eyed him shrewdly. "You do this often."

He shrugged magnanimously. "When it benefits me."

Severus narrowed his eyes, but it was Draco who spoke. "That's Slytherin."

Harry rolled his eyes. "The way you assign qualities to certain houses is ridiculous."

Draco frowned. "That's the point of houses."

"Yeah, well it's naive. Hermione is just as ambition as either of you, and I'm just as greedy. Both of you are just as brave, if not more." The potion had crystallized above his wrist. It flaked, and he flicked it off. "Dumbledore was more manipulative than any Slytherin I've ever met." He let it fall to the floor.

"That reminds me," the blond drawled. "How did you get those three bints to apologize?"

"My inherent charm of course," he said with a smarmy smile.

Severus snorted. Harry laughed, dropping the act. "Maybe I was a little harsh," he said, recalling how angry those howlers had made him. "I gave them a few nightmares."

"Potter, you best not have dappled with potions on the black market," Severus said.

"You make a cute, mother hen," Harry had the nerve to say. "No," he answered when a vein in Severus' neck popped. "I used Legilimency. I'm a much better Legilimens than a Occlumens," he told Severus. "Fred and George let me practice with their dreams, but that's the extent of what I can do."

"If you can do that much, you should practice," Draco said. "Father always said that was a useful skill," he said with only a small wince at mentioned his father.

Harry shook his head. "I'm fine with it as it is."

Draco frowned and opened his mouth. Severus made a cutting motion with his chin. Draco's gaze immediately zeroed in on it, and he fell quiet, though he looked confused. Harry, who much more perceptive than Severus had ever guessed, gave him a grateful smile and turned to Draco.

"Riddle was a natural Legilimens."

Recognition dawned on Draco's face, and he frowned. "That doesn't mean you're like him."

"Actually, it does," he said casually. "But I'm choosing not to let it be a part of me. Being able to read people's minds doesn't mean that you can understand them."

"Very perceptive, Potter," Severus said in a tone that Harry wasn't sure was a compliment.

"When are you going to start calling me Harry," he bristled. "I feel like I'm twelve whenever you call me Potter."

"Perhaps that is your own fault," he retorted.

Harry gave him a leer. "Pedophile."

Severus gaped at him. Draco sent him a cautious look, moving as if from a volatile cauldron. But Harry sent him a tender smile, deftly defusing a bomb.

"Mr. Potter, I would say that is entirely inappropriate."

"You think?" he said cheekily, tilting his head.

Severus opened his mouth but was interrupted.

"Alright," Pomfrey said, floating freshly cleaned bedpans from her office. "Bed, Potter."

"What?" he said, turning fast to look outside. "It's not even noon."

"You heal faster when you are sleeping, Mr. Potter, as I have told you on numerous occasions if you would deign yourself to listen."

"Poppy, I can't sleep in the middle of the day!"

"Which is why I have a perfectly good sleeping draught on hand," she said with a hawkish glare.

Harry eyed the vial in her hand distastefully before looking up. "You just want me asleep so you can ravage me."

"Out! Everyone out!"

"Wait!" Harry shouted as she began manually shoving the two Slytherins towards the door, both of whom looked equally affronted and amused. "Five more minutes. I won't even make you spell it down my throat."

She eyed him distrustfully. "Five minutes, Potter. You renege and hag nose pustules go into your next dose."

Harry sniffed at the threat. "As if you haven't warded the place against my magical signature anyway."

She gave him a truly Slytherin smirk and retreated to her office again.

"I'm beginning to think that woman was once in Slytherin," Draco said appreciatively.

"Hufflepuff," Harry said. "But close."

They both sneered at him. He chuckled.

"You have four minutes and thirty seconds to kiss me goodbye," he said to Severus. "She'll keep me in here for a good week and the place will be swarming with Gryffindors. I can manage to sneak in Draco, but I probably won't see you until the harpy gives me clearance."

Severus raised his brow but slid past the cart. Draco pulled the curtain closed.

"Keep your hand in the solution."

"Yes, si-"

Severus gripped the hair at his nape firmly, pulling his head back. Harry had a penchant for looping his arms around his neck and was quite frustrated to be handicapped, placing only one hand against his neck. He delighted in the feel of Severus' pulse. Though by no means old, Severus nevertheless had very distinctive cords in his neck. They cut softly across his palm, displaying the bob in his Adam's apple.

Harry curled his tongue underneath Severus', drifting his eyes shut. Severus remained tame, neither restricting the boy or encouraging him. Merely letting Harry do as he saw fit. Harry opened his mouth wider and massaged his lips the way that Draco had taught him. Severus smiled faintly into the kiss.

"You do realize I can't wank in here, you nasty git," Harry said three minutes later, eyes hooded.

"We'll talk later," he said, moving with Draco towards the door.

"Can't wait," Harry said, smiling.

Draco darted forward quickly and pressed a chaste kiss to his now swollen lips.

"I'll keep him busy 'til then shall I?"

"You two are fucking horrible."