Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Ashborn	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Threesomes/Moresomes Views: 36149 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, and I am making no money from this story.

Chapter List
- 10
- 11
- 12
Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Eleven—Sending Gifts

            “I have never heard of a werewolf leader called Laughter.”

            Draco concealed a sigh. Potter was the one to say what he wanted to, grinning at Kleianthe and taking a bite of the apple that he’d brought out to the garden. “And because you’ve never heard of him, or her, or whatever, then they must not exist?”

            Kleianthe’s nostrils flared, and for a moment Draco actually thought she would dance backwards and paw the air at them. “This alliance is a serious matter,” she said. “You must be careful not to insult us.”

            Potter nodded, not looking at all abashed. “But just because we’re serious doesn’t mean that we have to be humorless.”

            Draco watched him from the corner of his eye. He had thought that Potter seemed less tense, less preoccupied, in the last few days—more loose and lazy and open. Draco would have thought Parseltongue lessons with Severus would have the opposite effect on him, but then again, Potter never did what anyone would have expected. Maybe knowing who his enemies were had that effect on him instead.

            Potter caught Draco’s eye and raised his own brows questioningly. Draco shook his head violently and turned away. He hated the way that Potter sometimes looked at him, as if he expected things out of him that Draco didn’t want to give, or didn’t know how to give. It wasn’t that great an annoyance, truthfully, but everything seemed to cut deeply into Draco now. Anger became rage, irritation hatred.

            “We wish to be present when the fosters that the werewolves may send you arrive,” said Kleianthe.

            “Are your people enemies?” Potter asked in interest. “I mean, I know that you live in the Forbidden Forest together, but do they hunt you or anything? I’ve never heard of that.”

            Kleianthe lowered her head, the iron chain on her wrist flashing as she crossed her arms over her chest. “And because you have never heard of it, that means it must not exist,” she said. Draco almost wanted to applaud. There was a neat turning of Potter’s words back on him.

            Potter, though, just grinned at her and gave her a little salute of the kind that a duelist might use to acknowledge that his opponent had got in a spell to sting him. “Not really. I just wanted to know. There’s so much that we don’t know about you. I only took three years of Care of Magical Creatures, and we mostly covered the pets that Hagrid bred. Or unicorns, once. Nothing like centaurs.”

            “We would not fit in such a class. We are ourselves.”

            Draco didn’t recognize the voice at first, and looked around in wonder. Then he realized it was Thera, the other adult centaur who almost never spoke. She had pressed forwards and stood next to Kleianthe, eyes wide with what looked like awe at her own daring.

            “Then you can talk to us, if you wish, and tell us the true state of things.” Potter at once turned to face her, reaching out with one hand and then pulling it back as if he had just remembered that she might not like that. He clasped his hands together behind his back instead and turned to study one of the scrubby pine trees that grew in this garden. Draco stared. Had he thought about the gestures he was making, or were they the result of instinct? He thought that Potter might actually end up a good diplomat, if so. “Do werewolves hunt centaurs? Do they trouble them? I’ve met centaurs like Bane who thought that killing me simply for being human was a good idea, and werewolves are human most of the month.”

            “It is not that simple,” Kleianthe said, taking over and baring her teeth at Thera when she tried to reply. Draco clucked his tongue thoughtfully. So it wasn’t just fear of humans that kept Thera silent most of the time, then. “There are contradictions and complexities and contacts between us that you can never understand.”

            “Not if you don’t explain them, no.” Potter beamed mildly up at Kleianthe.

            Draco began to feel left out, and decided to draw the conversation back to his dream. “Did the werewolf I described sound familiar to either of you?”

            Kleianthe shook her head hard enough to snap her hair behind her like a mane, but Thera responded. “Yes. I think her name is Sunflower. I’ve seen her hunting along the borders of our territory before, but she always turned away when I tried to talk with her. I think she’s shyer and more disdainful than most of them.”

            “Then why did I end up in her dream?” Draco asked, puzzled. It made sense that he’d spoken to Sidereal, since he considered himself a leader of the centaurs—or at least Kleianthe and Thera referred to him that way, and he hadn’t disclaimed it when Draco met him—but a random werewolf was odd.

            “I don’t know.” Thera braced herself and swished her tail hard when Kleianthe glanced her way, but didn’t shut up. “Sometimes, though, I’ve seen her observing me when she thinks no one is watching, and following some of the younger foals from place to place to watch them shoot. I think she’s curious about us and wishes for some more extensive contact.”

            “It isn’t your place to offer that opinion unless you’re asked for it, you know,” Kleianthe said.

            “My opinion?” Thera stamped a hoof. “Sidereal chose both of us for this journey. Do you want me to go back home?”

            Kleianthe looked taken aback, and shuddered her skin as if to remove flies. “No. But be careful of what you say about werewolves.”

            “I thought you were supposed to give us information,” Potter pointed out, with that same fearless confidence that Draco admired and found disturbing. “Not conceal it from us. Or does this relate to a private centaur quarrel?”

            He’d given them an out, Draco knew, but neither of them would take it. The centaurs had so far been the epitome of courtesy and reserve, discussing the alliance with only small forays into other topics. Now that they were arguing in front of someone else and Potter was being the polite one—with Draco helping—they didn’t want to refuse an opportunity to get back on the same footing.

            “It has to do with the way that some of the centaurs think about werewolves,” Kleianthe said, staring at the ground and slowly scraping a hoof back and forth as if she were drawing a fascinating pattern in the dirt. “As you say, they are human for most of the month. There have been times that we killed one, mistaking it for a human intruder into the territory. New werewolves or those who hate their beast forms don’t always show the nails and the fangs and the golden eyes that some of them do. And then there have been demands for compensation—the werewolves will accept money or rare meat as a weregild—”

            Draco was pleased to see that Potter looked confused at that word, at least. It was good to discover something he didn’t know.

            “And some of our people, like Sidereal, have agreed to that while others argued that it was the responsibility of the werewolves to keep their new ones away from their territory, if they were so concerned about the consequences of intrusion.” Kleianthe grimaced as if she’d bitten into a sour apple and shook her head. “You can imagine how well that has gone over with some of those who wanted to pay the weregild.”

            “What faction do you belong to?” Draco asked, after waiting for Potter to ask it and being disappointed. It did them little to know about centaur politics in the abstract unless they also knew what political orientation the ones they dealt with subscribed to.

            “The young werewolves have never started the trouble,” Thera said quietly. “They overran our borders in ignorance. And the other members of the packs have sometimes sacrificed people they didn’t like that way, or ones who might have challenged them and won. Let us pay a weregild if we must. It is the least we can do.”

            Kleianthe didn’t answer, but the pace of her tail was frantic.

            “Should we not have contacted the werewolves?” Potter asked. He could make bluntness a weapon for himself, then, not just a liability. Draco would remember it. “I thought they were your preferred partners in the alliance, more than the merfolk, at least.”

            “I have known two centaurs who died at the hands of werewolves,” Kleianthe answered, her voice quiet, passionless. “They are not the innocent victims that Thera paints them as.”

            “Some of them are,” Thera said. “The ones who tend to die are. The leaders are crafty enough to hold back and let someone else take the blame.”

            Kleianthe reared.

            Draco knew there was probably an attack coming on Thera if she planned to make an attack at all, but he couldn’t help himself. He scrambled out of the way, his wand in his hand and a defensive charm on his lips. Severus had had a few fights to win when he wanted to take the Death Eaters and mold them into the Ashborn, and this reminded Draco too much of that for him to be comfortable.

            Potter stepped between him and the arguing centaurs, lifted a shield that sparked and looked as if it might be an offensive spell at the same time, and asked, “Could you please stop this? You’re scaring the children.”

            Draco ground his teeth, hating that Potter decided he was too young to matter because he’d had a normal reaction to a fight—

            Then he realized that Potter was looking at the centaur fillies, rather than Draco. The young centaurs were huddled in the corner of the garden, their arms around each other and their eyes so wide that Draco winced. He could remember looking like that, and he hoped he would never have to again, no matter what else he did.

            Kleianthe crashed to the ground and turned away, rattling her arm hard enough that the iron chain sang. Thera stood where she was, watching Kleianthe with a weary expression on her face.

            “So far,” Potter said into the ensuing silence, “you’ve emphasized again and again that we don’t know enough, that we can’t hope to construct an alliance anything like the old one if we don’t learn more. But when we try, then you bring up centaur political arguments in the middle of the garden where the point is that you came to live and foster your children in peace.”

            “We did ask them to explain,” Draco murmured to the back of his neck. Standing this close, he could smell Potter’s scent. It was disturbing. Most of the time, he was only near enough to someone else to smell Severus’s.

            “Yes, but there’s a difference between explanation and violence,” Potter said. His voice continued to scrape along. “Well? What do you have to say for yourselves? Is this alliance at an end, and are you going to leave and refuse to talk to each other the way that you should, being allies? The way that you insisted Draco and I talk to each other?”

            Draco opened his mouth to say that Potter had no right to call him by his first name, then closed it again, feeling the heat of embarrassment in his cheeks. Way to undermine the alliance if you had spoken, stupid.

            Kleianthe stared at the grass. Thera remained gazing at her face, although she said nothing, and Draco suddenly wondered whether the person who spoke all the time might be the weaker one in an alliance after all.

            “Now,” Draco said. He hadn’t known he was going to say anything until he did. His voice had the same calm tone that it had with Severus the other night. If you use your words wisely, you don’t need to use them all the time. “Are you going to do this without the screaming and kicking? If not, perhaps we should start negotiating with your daughters.”

            Thera smiled. Kleianthe finally looked up and turned away so that she was looking at Thera instead of either one of them. That was fine with Draco. He had tried to get used to it, the way the centaurs went bare-breasted all the time, but it was difficult.

            “Well?” Potter asked, when some time had passed and nothing but the singing of birds and the chirping of insects filled the garden.

            Kleianthe sighed hard enough to make branches rustle and put her hand out. Thera clasped it quickly, glance flickering across her face as if she thought that Kleianthe would seize her and pull her close to crush her throat. Not a bad tactic, Draco thought. Usually, he was poor at seeing chances like that unless Severus had pointed them out to him or he’d specifically read about them in books. He would have to remember this one.

            “I am sorry,” Kleianthe said. “I should have—should remembered that this was an alliance and that we would settle the issue of werewolves killing centaurs if we manage to bring them into it.”

            “Yes, you should have,” Thera said, and nothing more. Kleianthe’s back stiffened. Draco moved cautiously away from those hooves that she had cocked in the grass right now. No rule saying that centaurs couldn’t kick back at people standing on the ground, even if horses didn’t do it most of the time.

            “Thera?” Potter’s voice had a laugh in the back of it. “Don’t you think that you apologizing would help, too?”

            “If I must,” Thera said, and then gave a quick, dazzling smile that Draco knew he wanted to see again. Yes, there was a reason that Sidereal had sent both of them, and simply because Thera had let Kleianthe take the lead didn’t mean it must be that way. Out of all the insights to come out of the morning, Draco thought that one the most valuable.

            “I understand you,” she told Kleianthe. “But I think it best to take the middle road and hope for the future. Otherwise, it will poison the alliance from the beginning, as we are one of the founding species.”

            Kleianthe jerked her head up and down in what might have been a nod or a mere irritated gesture, and then turned away. Draco watched her as she began to graze, tearing leaves from a young tree. She had to stretch her neck to reach them, and chew harder than normal to swallow them. She channeled tension into eating, then, and into effort. He would have to remember that as they dealt with her.

            “Good,” Potter said briskly to Thera. “Do you have any other ideas for who we should contact next?”

            Thera nodded. “No vampires currently share the Forest with us, and they suffered under the Ministry. They were allies of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, after all, and most people will remember that—”

            “They weren’t,” Draco interrupted. He knew that he had only ever seen one vampire working with the Dark Lord, and that had been when he wanted a few special missions accomplished. No groups had come and subordinated themselves. Draco had not even been sure that organized groups of unregistered vampires existed. That seemed to be a tale that people liked to scare children with.

            And I’m not a child. No matter what some people think.

            “Or will think they remember that,” Thera finished smoothly. “They would not be willing to listen to a pure-blood, though.”

            “Why not?” That startled Draco. From what he had read, it was pure-bloods who had masterminded the alliance, and Muggleborns could fit in only if they accepted the rules, passed several tests, and agreed to have children who would be half-blood at the very least. The issue then had not been the genetic or even the magical component so much as the fact that they wouldn’t have spent their childhood around other members of the alliance, and ideas, such as multiple marriages, that came easily to people reared in that way had proven foreign to them. There was always some jealous Muggleborn, the histories had assured Draco, either demanding greater individual attention than they had a right to or wanting some lover to be exclusively faithful to them when their other lovers hadn’t agreed on that.

            “Because it was pure-bloods who cast them out of the last alliance before it ended.” Thera eyed him. “The vampires were denied their required amount of blood after a war with a magical community on the Continent. Perhaps they should not have pressed the claim so strongly, when most of the surviving wizards were still exhausted and recovering, but then again, the wizards should have thought of that probable consequence before they had a war. As if one must have one.” Her tail swished, and Draco thought the words aimed at Kleianthe as much as anyone else there. “So. The pure-bloods declared the vampires had violated the terms of the alliance when they took a few less than willing victims—although some half-bloods had offered to help the vampires—and severed their ties to them. That was the beginning of the end, truly, although the desire to pursue individual power for the family did not help, either. When the wizards could turn on one magical creature species, of course the others began to wonder how long it was before they were next.”

            “Would they accept a half-blood negotiator, then?” Potter’s eyes were heavy-lidded and thoughtful.

            “You’ve barely learned how to dream so that you can reach a magical creature,” Draco said, sneering at him in a way that didn’t seem to impress Potter. Draco knew he hadn’t put much effort into it, but he would still have appreciated more of a reaction.

            “That doesn’t matter,” Potter said. “It worked. If you tell me what to say, then I think I can make the vampires listen to me.”

            “What makes you assume that I know anything about them?” Draco sneered again. “Wizards who willingly let vampires drink their blood are likely to end up as those who will permit anyone to touch them.”

            “What makes you assume that I was talking to you?” Potter shot back, and faced Thera. “What else do you know? More history than anyone else here, it seems.”

            Kleianthe loudly crushed a twig with her hoof, but didn’t turn around. Draco knew how she felt, and he would have turned his back in the same way if he thought Potter would pay him any attention.

            “That the vampires consider themselves to be ill-treated by the Ministry,” Thera answered, speaking thoughtfully. “Even more so than the werewolves, because the Ministry has made more of an effort to exterminate vampire flocks than the packs that live in the Forest, and they are dangerous all the time, not simply at the full moon.”

            Draco could have told her something about how dangerous werewolves were, as he thought of Fenrir Greyback, but he held his tongue. Why should he let them have the benefit of his expertise?

            Because you are in the same alliance. And quarreling and arguing does no one any good, in the end.

            “So they would respond to the offer of having somewhere to go that wasn’t the Ministry?” Potter nodded. “I can see that. And it’s not as though they don’t deserve some of the respect the stories talk about. If they can control their bloodthirst.”

            “Some can, some cannot.” Thera smiled at Potter. “But that should be of little concern to you in a dream.”

            Oh, for fuck’s sake. “You do remember that vampires are capable of possessing someone’s mind if they can see into their eyes?” Draco interrupted loudly. “I would think that would still apply in a dream. For all we know, the vampire might be able to ride someone’s mind back and control their bodies in the waking world.”

            Potter glanced at him, but the light in his eyes was dull, his attention far away and unconcentrated on Draco. That made Draco want to tear something apart. “Does the possession work like Legilimency? On the same principles?”

            That was a more sensible question than Draco had expected. “Yes,” he said. “Vampires have the natural ability to perform Legilimency, but they don’t need a wand and they don’t need permission and they can use your memories to perform certain tasks.”

            “Then it isn’t a problem,” Potter said coolly. “Legilimency doesn’t work on me anymore.”

            He turned back to speaking to Thera, leaving Draco to stare at the back of his neck and wonder what he meant. No one was immune to Legilimency. Some people thought they were, but in practice all that meant was that it was a bit harder to get past their mental shields and find some specific memories. An Occlumens who was careless or tired could be as vulnerable to the intrusion of a skilled Legilimens as anyone else.

            Draco shuddered. Or when you’re exhausted with pain, and you keep sobbing that you’re sorry for your failure, and the Dark Lord tells you that you have to look up and meet his eyes again…

            “Malfoy. Malfoy! Are you all right?”

            Startled, Draco nearly moved away. Potter was shaking Draco’s head on his neck, and his eyes were wide and worried. Draco lifted his hand as if to swat Potter’s away, but found himself covering Potter’s fingers with his own instead.

            “That looked like a memory that was too strong for you.” Potter leaned forwards as if he thought that Draco had been overdosing on Dreamless Sleep and wanted to see the telltale red cracks in the whites of his eyes. “Something from the war, probably. I get them sometimes. Are you all right?”

            Draco swallowed and then clasped his fingers down harder. “No one is immune to Legilimency,” he said. “I think you should reconsider going after the vampires and listen to what I have to say. I’ve seen some of the weaker people the Dark Lord taught Legilimency use it to break a mind. You can’t resist a vampire you contact in a dream. You might not be there physically, but they’ll be used to dealing with a mental and spiritual realm, and more powerful than you can imagine.”

            Potter stepped back, but dropped his hand so that he could squeeze Draco’s arm. “I don’t think you know what I mean,” he said, which might be true, but was still annoying enough to make Draco scowl at him. Potter merrily ignored that. “I don’t think I’m immune because of Occlumency shields or any particular skill. It’s just my fucked-up memories from the war that guard my mind. Snape’s tried more than once to read my mind since I’ve been here, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s the most powerful Legilimens still alive. I’ll be careful around the vampires, but I won’t be helpless.”

            “Memories?” Draco shook his head, not sure what he was hearing. “That’s impossible.”

            “It ought to be,” Potter said simply. “I’m used to the impossible being possible around me, all the time.” He nodded at Thera. “And if what she said about pure-bloods is true, then I really ought to be the one to go. You would be in more danger than I would, even if you know how to hold Occlumency shields.”

            “And you care about my safety,” Draco muttered, but he found that he didn’t have the will to make it a question.

            Potter glanced at him and raised his eyebrows. “Well, yes, of course. The people in this garden are the only ones who keep me from dying of boredom.”

            Draco nodded. He didn’t know what he felt right now, and he wouldn’t explore it. It would only either tangle him in complexities he couldn’t navigate or it would weigh him down with thoughts that he didn’t want to think. “Fine. Then will you try to contact the vampires tonight?”

            “If Thera can tell me where they dwell.” Potter turned back to her and asked a few more questions. Kleianthe’s stamping grew faster in response, but she didn’t turn around, so Draco reckoned she wasn’t as irritated by Thera being the one to offer that information as she appeared.

            He himself was…

            He was pleased that Potter took enough of an interest in him to save his life. But all Potter’s motives for that seemed shallow, not the kind of deep and inherent nobility that he would have expected from a Gryffindor hero.

            On the other hand, if he did show you that kind of heroism, then you would mock him for it and tell him that he didn’t know what kind of person you were. Perhaps it’s for the best that he only wants to save you because he’s bored.

            And now Draco had a new goal: to prove to Potter that he wasn’t only a helpless child or damsel who needed to be saved.

*

            Harry stopped and stared. Bellatrix bumped into his back and stopped with a grunt. She no longer seemed to have malice shining out of her eyes when he asked her a simple question, and she no longer objected to what he did as long as it wasn’t stopping to talk to an Ashborn. Harry reckoned that was one of those consequences of the better treatment that Snape had promised him; he no longer looked through Bellatrix’s eyes or touched her Mark to spy on Harry.

            That didn’t explain the thing in the middle of his bed, though.

            After a few seconds, when it hadn’t done anything, Harry moved forwards and regarded it. The reflective, shining silvery paper, bound with a green bow, stared back. Harry would have thought it was a birthday or Christmas gift from one of his friends, but both of those were months away, and Harry knew that Snape would never have allowed a gift like this to simply pass through the owl post. It was too large.

            “Go on, then.”

            Harry stared suspiciously over his shoulder. Had Bellatrix just urged him towards the gift? It seemed so, because she was the only one there and so the only one who could have spoken, although the voice hadn’t sounded much like hers.

            Probably Snape speaking through her. That made it all the more imperative, in Harry’s view, for him not to just go ahead and touch the package. He circled around the bed instead, studying the corners for some sign of something sharp or dangerous buried beneath the paper. There was nothing. The package was perfectly square. It was probably a box inside.

            Harry grimaced and rubbed his left shoulder reflexively. He had reason to know how dangerous a simple box was, at least when it carried a Horcrux.

            “Well?” That was Bellatrix, and she had taken up a posture near the door, leaning on it and staring at Harry intently.

            Harry shrugged back to her and cast a spell that would at least tell him if any hexes were on the box. No, it seemed not. A few more incantations to reveal more potent curses produced nothing, either.

            Well, then.

            Harry licked his lips and reached out, ripping a long strip of the shiny paper away from the side in a flickering motion that barely let his fingers brush the box.

            It tore. The surface of a box did shine through, but a much flimsier one than Harry had thought would come out. Not wood or stone or even lacquer, but a paper box of the kind that you might get from a Muggle shop. Harry shook his head and blinked. Had someone sent him a Muggle toy? Why?

            But standing there wouldn’t tell him why, so he gingerly tore off a few more strips of the paper.

            The box underneath looked to be plain white cardboard, with the edges of gauzy tissue sticking out from under the top. Harry poked it. It made no noise, even when he pushed it so that it slid across the bed.

            He readied his wand and flipped the top off, then jerked himself backwards before any explosion could pour into his face.

            Under the lid was only something that was pretty obviously flat and soft beneath another layer of paper. Nothing blasted him or poisoned him, no matter how long he stood there. At last, Harry sighed, acknowledged to himself that Snape probably didn’t want to lose a hostage, and used his wand to edge the paper up.

            It was a mass of grey fur. Then Harry moved it, and it was a jumper of some kind, like the ones that Mrs. Weasley sent him for every holiday, except grey, and ridiculously soft and warm-looking. Harry picked it up and stared at it.

            He had no way of knowing that the size was right, although it looked like it. And he had no reason to appreciate the ridiculous, sliding material under his fingers. Cashmere? He had no idea. He had no idea if that was even something they made jumpers out of.

            The rest of the box, when he looked through it, turned out to be more of the same. A pair of Muggle jeans that looked as if they would fit him. Another jumper, black. A few ordinary shirts, black and white and grey, neutral colors. And at the bottom, a pair of boots that looked as if they could pass through swamps and still come out neat and shining.

            Harry rolled his eyes and set the boots aside. Then he turned and faced Bellatrix. “I know you’re there, Snape,” he said. “And I think it’s creepy, for the record, that you look through the eyes of your Ashborn like that.”

*

            Touching Bellatrix’s Mark, touching her mind, looking through her eyes, Severus wondered for a moment how Potter had known it was him. Then he shook his head. He did not have time to indulge questions like that. Potter had not reacted to the gifts as expected, and so he would ask that, instead.

            “The clothes are not your size?” he asked. “Or not in colors you like?” He had thought neutral colors were best, but on the other hand, given the huge and jewel-toned murals that Potter had covered his walls with, perhaps it would have been best to choose garish red and gold and purple after all.

            “That has nothing to do with it,” Potter said, with a faint, irritated twitch of his head, as if he didn’t grasp why Severus would have the need to ask that question, either. “The point is that you can’t bribe me.”

            “The clothes are not a bribe,” Severus said. “You need do nothing for me in return. They are a gift. You need new clothes.” Potter did. He had brought a wardrobe with him, of course, but they were a mixture of re-sized and re-patched school robes and Muggle clothes that overlapped the boy in waves. Severus had thought it best to start there, as it was a material object that Potter could accept and appreciate, and his reaction to it would tell Severus much about his reaction to other tactics he could try.

            “Right,” Potter said. “I’ve heard that before, from the Ministry and from the Death Eaters and even from Voldemort.” Severus did not know if he prevented his flinch from working its way through Bellatrix’s body; his control was not that precise, whatever Potter thought. “There’s always a hook somewhere.”

            “Not this time.” And Severus was telling the truth. It would have availed him nothing to set a hook, when what he wanted access to were Potter’s unmediated responses, swirling out of him as he wore the clothes. And perhaps Draco’s responses when he saw Potter in the new clothes. Severus had had enough of Potter changing the currents of his life. He would change a few of his own, and see what happened.

            “No.”

            Severus came back from his own speculations, deep thoughts that Potter could never understand, in time to see him shove the clothes across the bed to the edge with nothing more than a blast of wandless power. “Pardon?” Severus asked, his rough edges smoothed out by Bellatrix’s voice. This was an advantage to speaking through someone else; less of his expression and telltale emotions showed.

            “I said, no.” Potter’s eyes focused on him, flaring, furious, the eyes of a wild creature, and Severus was abruptly reminded that Potter had spent most of the past three years running from people who wanted to capture him, being captured, surviving torture and abuse, killing, and destroying the Horcruxes of the most powerful Dark Lord in fifty years. “There’s always a catch somewhere. Take it and choke on it.”

            Severus waited until his immediate angry response had subsided. Something that strong would show through the flesh mask that Bellatrix had become, no matter how he much he hated it. “I am telling the truth. Do not disdain my gifts because of where they come from.”

            Potter stared at him, then snorted. “What better reason is there to disdain them?” This time, his power threw the clothes at Bellatrix.

            Severus fumbled for a moment, caught between his own reflexes and Bellatrix’s ancient instincts and the ones he had drilled into her, to respond if a threat came flying at her. In moments, he had them back under control, but by that point, a jumper was draped across his face and the shoes had thumped painfully into his legs. Her legs. It was hard to tell the difference between one body and another, in this state.

            “No,” Potter repeated softly, his voice absolutely clear. “I’ll eat your food and live in the rooms that you give me. Those are necessities. Food, shelter, water. But there’s no need for clothes like that.” He gestured at the ones on the floor, and then lay down triumphantly in the middle of the bed, as though taking up more space than he needed was a sport.

            Severus stared at him, still caught speechless. He had Potter’s reaction to the gifts, yes, but they made no sense. There was no reference to anything Severus had done to him since he had come among the Ashborn, or even something Severus had done to him in Hogwarts.

            This was refusal of…everything.

            Severus thought he understood better, now, why Potter’s presence in the Ashborn’s fortress was changing both him and Draco. There were no echoes to Potter. None of the normal human motivations that Severus was used to dealing with, greed or longing to survive or longing for revenge, were there. Potter might want to stay alive, as he had showed by surrendering to a hostage bargain rather than simply fighting Severus to the death, but not enough to really mind it if he died.

            Potter let out a soft sigh and shook his head. “Are you going to follow Draco in thinking I’m suicidal or something? I’m not. I don’t plan on flinging myself dramatically from the top of a tower or getting the centaurs angry and letting them kick me to death. I agreed to be your hostage, and I will be. But I didn’t agree to be your plaything, and if you try to treat me like one, then I’ll refuse to go along with it.”

            Severus withdrew silently from Bellatrix’s mind. It amused him to think of Potter talking to her long after Severus had gone, and insulting her with savage words that were meant for her master’s ears, even if he would not be there to hear it.

            He opened his eyes in his lab, and seated himself in his chair, clapping absently. The deer automaton brought him a vial of Calming Draught, and Severus drank it with care. That was the best way to let the potion work on his mind as well as relax his body and ease his tension.

            Very well. He had avoided the truth long enough, let it chase him in circles like a stubborn Kneazle who did not want to let its owner heal a cut.

            He could not bribe Potter. He could not make gifts to him and get the boy to trust him that way. He could not successfully compete for Draco’s attention with Potter when he knew so little about the reasons Draco had begun to change in the first place.

            There was little he could do if he did not accept that he had failed so far, and that honesty might be the only course.

            Well, then. He would leave Potter alone for now, but behave differently to Draco. Severus suspected one of two things would happen. Either Potter would stomp up to him demanding to know what he intended for Draco and how he could stop it, or Potter would learn to live with him.

            It might take a long time. But Severus had flailed about as though he had only a few days for long enough now. They had the rest of their lives, as Potter would doubtless remind him. Potter was a hostage here, he was not leaving, and his presence would neither fit neatly into Severus’s established routine nor prove easy to conquer.

            Severus clapped his hands for the deer automaton again, and gave it certain orders. Perhaps Draco would not enjoy Severus’s company at the moment, but he was unlikely to follow Potter’s example and refuse his gifts.

*

            Draco stared at the mug of spiced and steaming hot chocolate between the silver antlers of the stag kneeling in front of him. The deer remained in the same place as he took out his wand and performed several passes above the cup, looking for traces of the common potions that he knew Severus preferred for enslaving minds.

            No traces came up. The chocolate was exactly what it seemed to be, a gift, and the smell of his favorite spices and the heat on his hand when he reached out was making Draco hungry just standing here.

            “Fine,” he snapped at the stag, although he knew it wouldn’t speak to him and he knew that Severus couldn’t look through its eyes as he could look through the eyes of the Ashborn. “Tell him that I accept, but I think his messenger is creepy.” He snatched the mug away, stepped back, and kicked the door shut.

            Then he put the mug on the shelf next to the bed and stared at it until it grew cold. A Warming Charm would make it steam again, of course, but Draco held off for the moment, closing his eyes.

            What was Severus playing at? Was this in the nature of a—a courting gift, or something more drastic? If Draco drank it, then would he wake up to find himself imprisoned in a tower like some maiden in a fairy tale?

            No. I doubt Severus is that desperate. He has to know that that would make him lose me forever.

            Draco licked his lips, then nodded decisively, although who was there to see his decisive nod, he didn’t know. He wanted Severus back. He wanted to matter to him. He wanted to matter to Potter, too, but that was a different kind of mattering. Potter was above him, or acted that way, because he just did. Severus had once been warm to him, and Draco wanted the warmth again.

Perhaps that was even what Severus had been trying to say by making Draco’s gift a gift of heat, come to think of it.

Draco cast the charm, picked up the mug, and toasted the empty room, wondering if there was another way that Severus could see him. Possibly. Or perhaps he would be satisfied with the stag’s empty antlers when it came back to his rooms.

“Here’s to you,” he told Severus, and drank the mug.

It was delicious, and filled his mouth with tingling warmth, and made him neither sleepy nor sick. Draco didn’t think the vast, nostalgic yearning that filled him at that the result of any potion.

*

unneeded: Thanks! As you can see, Severus’s tactic was nothing too ominous. He wanted to see how Harry reacted, and the reaction stonewalled him enough to make him look elsewhere, at least for now.

Shadowdog85: Thanks!

AlterEquis: Not as dangerous as it’ll become once they get the vampires involved.
- 10
- 11
- 12
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Ashborn