Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

The Wages of Going On	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Threesomes/Moresomes Views: 43959 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 7
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

Chapter List
- 1
- 2
- 3
Thank you for all the reviews!
Chapter Two—Bargain
            Severus did not know where he was, and he did not understand what he was feeling.
            Which meant, as he’d had reason to fear, that Potter had failed, and the Lestrange brothers had taken them.
            He turned his head to the side and spat out what felt like a huge wad of thick and congealed fluid, but turned out only to be a little saliva when it emerged onto the floor. He hawked again, and finally managed to bring up the last of what was in his lungs. There was no blood in it.
            He did feel something else, though, something that cut through the confusion in his head and body like light through mist. His pulse surged and fluttered as though responding to an imaginary drumbeat, and there was a painful swelling between his legs.
            Severus opened his eyes and concentrated. Not an aphrodisiac potion, or he would have recognized the taste in his mouth. Instead, the confusion came from—
            He turned his head, and saw the glittering ritual circle, and let his eyes slip shut again.
            “Potter,” said Draco, and Severus settled back on his heels and turned his head and counted heartbeats, long and loud and sick. He wondered what would happen when he saw them, whether he had been designated victim or rapist in the game that Rabastan and Rodolphus had set in motion. Perhaps both. There were three victims here, after all.
            He saw Draco first, crouched on hands and knees, his head hanging down, and blinked. Draco made his pulse speed up, but did not increase the intensity of his desire. It was not what Severus had expected. There was a preexisting tangle of bonds between him and Draco, the Unbreakable Vow and the life-debt that Draco owed him for stepping between him and Death Eaters a few times during the war, that would have made a natural candidate for Rabastan and Rodolphus to try and corrupt.
            He followed Draco’s gaze to Potter, spitting blood on the floor, his body so still that it looked as if he would spring away and break the ritual circle any second. His hair hung tangled and filthy around his face, and some of his teeth dangled out at the roots, and from the way he stood and the ragged state of his shirt, Severus could already make out blossoming bruises.
            It didn’t matter. Everything in Severus stood up and screamed in response—some things standing up more literally than others. He pressed his hand between his legs, because he couldn’t help himself more than because it soothed anything, and swallowed.
            Draco had lunged as though he meant to run at Potter on all fours like a tiger, and then restrained himself with a grip that Severus thought admirable. It was becoming harder to do. The fog had not closed back in, but the terrible clarity that had replaced it had its own problems.
            “Explain,” Severus said, grateful that a word, and not simple drool, came out.
            Potter nodded. “Rabastan and Rodolphus were setting up a ritual that would force your minds closer and closer together, until you went mad and your brains literally turned to liquid trying to live up to it,” he said. “Then they decided it would be more fun to toss me into the ritual circle. Now it can’t be used for the purpose it was being used for. The bond still exists, but it’s trying to stretch around three people instead of two. It’ll force us closer and closer together in body, and then, after you’ve raped me, it’ll go back to trying to bind your brains, only it’ll affect us all together this time.”
            Draco moaned, softly. Severus understood. After the war, what Draco had come to fear the most was death, the idea that he would lose his life and not be able to use the second chance he had unexpectedly received. Severus did not feel the same attachment to life itself, but to the gift of being able to live free and be able to practice potions as he pleased, he did.
            “This is all your fault, Potter,” Draco whispered hoarsely. “If you’d kept us safe, the way the Ministry said you were supposed to…”
            “Shut up and listen.”
            Draco did, although Severus saw the way his eyes flickered and knew he was as surprised as Severus about the fact. Maybe his own desire was making it harder to talk. Severus saw the way Draco’s fingers dug into the stone, and the way his gaze traveled up and down Potter’s body.
            Because he was doing the same thing, thinking about the way Potter might be made to bleed more, and from more places, and the way he might be made to submit. Never any thoughts that Severus had thought, or wanted to think, but they were there, forcing their way in, clamoring, shouting, stalking.
            “I think that it’s best to get the first part of this done and over with.” Potter grimaced as he spoke, but all Severus could think was how attractive his lips were when they curled that particular way. “If we do, there’ll be a brief reprieve because physical unity, of a sort, will have happened.” He looked as if he wanted to spit again, but he kept pushing on, speaking so steadily that Severus was impressed in spite of himself. “And there’s something about me that Rabastan and Rodolphus forgot. Or maybe they never knew, I don’t know. I think I can use it to break us free of this circle.”
            “What is that?” Severus stood up and walked a step closer. He could not help it, he argued with his own horror and disgust a moment later. A physical rope extending from Potter’s groin to his would not have been stronger.
            Potter looked straight at Severus, not flinching. His eyes were a darker shade than Severus had ever seen them, and not wild—not with lust, anyway, as Draco’s were becoming. They were wild with determination. Potter wanted to survive, and that might help Severus do so. “My Parseltongue. It might be able to disrupt the ritual.”
            “Why not use it now?” Draco gasped the words. He was on his feet, body inclined back from Potter, but feet slowly skidding forwards. “There’s no reason not to use it now! Unless you secretly want us to fuck you, or something.”
            “Because I don’t use it often, and I would need several minutes to concentrate.” Potter tossed his hair out of his eyes and wiped his bloody mouth. “And you’re not going to give them to me, are you?”
            Part of Severus’s brain said, That makes no sense, he would have had the time before we woke up—
            But the rest of him accepted the challenge in those words, accepted them as though he had been waiting for them for years, and he stepped forwards and wrapped his arms around Potter’s waist. “No,” he whispered into Potter’s ear. “No, we are not.”
            Potter shut his eyes and tilted his head back, and Severus kissed him, for the moment neither knowing nor caring where Draco was.
            The kiss turned savage sooner than Severus had thought it would, his tongue twisting out of his control, his teeth biting whether or not he wanted them to. His hands slid down Potter’s waist to his arse and seized enough skin and flesh that Potter hissed. Severus shuddered. He knew it was not Parseltongue, but that did not matter.
            And then Draco was shoving at Severus from the right, and his thoughts seemed to flicker and dance and jump in Severus’s mind, like a distant wireless he could catch a whisper of. Mine, mine, he’s mine too.
            Severus fell back a step and let Draco have his turn, although it was difficult. He satisfied himself with noting that Draco kept his hands above Potter’s arse and gripped the middle of his back instead, until Potter winced. Draco must be making the bruises that the Lestranges had inflicted on Potter worse.
            Severus’s common sense, his hatred, his anger, were wisping away in the wind before the insistent pressure of the ritual, or changing. Now he knew that he might miss his chance with Potter unless he took him now, and his hatred burned like lust, and his anger surged as he remembered how Potter had defied him as a boy and failed to guard him and Draco from this fate. Severus had thought he would always get away with it. Potter was a hero, as Albus had said to Severus more than once, and then a sacrifice. He certainly would have got away with his defiance if either he or Severus had died during the war.
            The roaring storm rose in Severus’s head, and the last truly coherent thought he could say he experienced was, I would not have chosen this, but I am going to enjoy it.
*
            Draco wanted to conquer Potter.
            He would have said that he wanted to destroy him, once. He wanted Potter to pay attention to him, and then he wanted to turn away and wave a hand and devastate Potter with his lack of attention, the way that Potter had devastated him once. It would have been wonderful. It was something he had dreamed of until he woke up hard with wanting it, in a way different than any other desire.
            But now he didn’t want that. Because to make the fantasy complete would mean he had to leave Potter alone and go away, and that was not happening.
            He waited until Severus had had enough of kissing Potter for the moment, and then flung himself on him again. Potter grunted as he went down on the floor. There was blood on his teeth, and Draco caught his breath. Did I put that there? God, I hope I put that there.
            He bit Potter’s neck, and Potter arched beneath him and gasped. The breathlessness of the sound went straight to Draco’s groin, and he rolled Potter over and tore off his trousers, then his pants. The Lestranges must already have done some of that, to judge by the ragged state of his clothing, but Draco dared to hope they hadn’t done this.
            “Ever done this before, Potty?” he whispered into Potter’s ear. “Ever had someone utterly take you, and not care?”
            Potter’s shoulders tensed, but Draco slammed him back to the ground before he could even think about getting up. He was fumbling for his own trousers, panting hoarsely, when Severus’s hand clamped onto his and held them in place.
            Draco glared up at him. If Severus thought that he was going to stop this, going to make Draco reconsider, then he was mad. Draco could see the way Severus kissed Potter, looked at him, and he wanted this with the same intensity Draco did.
            “No,” Severus whispered. “If you simply plunge into him and tear him, then there will be blood.”
            “So what?” Draco had never thought Severus the kind of person to care about that. He would have seen and done worse things in his Death Eater days than shed blood.
            “I do not want that,” Severus said simply, and knelt beside Potter, who still lay face-down on the floor. He gripped Potter’s chin and turned it. Draco licked his lips. He could see the appeal of that, actually, the way he had been able to see it in the blood on Potter’s teeth.
            “You are not going to just lie here,” Severus told Potter. “You are not the innocent martyr, and you are not the hero.”
            Potter only blinked at him. Draco wondered why. Where were the panting whimpers about how he’d never asked for this, and they would regret it later? Even knowing that they had no choice about fucking him, Draco expected that, because Potter thought the world was fair, and this wasn’t fair.
            “You are going to feel,” Severus said, and kissed him again, the way Draco had, but deeper, thrusting his tongue in until Potter choked.
            Draco reached under Potter’s hips, since Severus seemed to be occupied with his mouth, and gripped Potter’s cock. It was hard, and Draco smirked. He ran his fingers up and down, and he finally got an arch and a shudder out of Potter, a sigh that seemed to originate from somewhere at the bottom of his lungs.
            “It’s affecting you, too, isn’t it?” Draco whispered to Potter, although he could hardly answer with the way Severus was thrusting his head back with the force of his kiss. “It’s making you want this, when you never would?”
            Potter moved his head in a nod. Draco pinched his cock, and a moan came out around Severus’s thrusting tongue.
            Good.
            Severus was right. They could satisfy their urges, but that wouldn’t make up for feeling them in the first place, for Potter doing what he’d done. It might let Draco dominate Potter, but it wouldn’t let him win, or conquer, the way that he now felt he needed to.
            He tore open Potter’s trousers this time, and gathered up his arse in both hands. There were some bruises on it, probably from where he’d fallen, but it was firm, and it was hard with enough muscle that Draco could claw at it. Potter grunted and glanced back once at Draco before Severus turned his head again.
            “Here,” Severus said harshly, and thrust two fingers at Potter. “I dislike blood, but we have little other choice.”
            Potter promptly opened his mouth and let the fingers in. This time Draco was the one who moaned, and Severus was the one who glanced at him, his eyes having dark sparks in them that Draco would have been terrified to see ordinarily. Now, this was the kind of sight that belonged in this circle.
            “Yes,” Severus whispered. “Willing is always better.” He leaned in and began to murmur soft words into Potter’s ears. Draco no longer cared about making them out.
            Draco moved back to Potter’s arse and spat on his own fingers. Then he pulled Potter’s cheeks apart and began to move his hand in.
            Potter bucked this time, but he didn’t move his hands back. He dug them into the floor instead, into the gritty stone, and arched his back in acceptance of what Draco was taking.
            Draco laughed, and the sound bubbled and rang in the chamber as though there were a thousand people laughing with him. He didn’t care. This was beyond anything he had envisioned. This was gorgeous. Potter participating in what was being done to him, wanting it, drawing them both deeper in with his mouth and his arse.
            For this, Draco could wait a little.
*
            Snape was talking to him, a constant stream of words, probably more words than Harry had ever heard from him in a detention, pouring them out, while his fingers kept working in and out of Harry’s mouth as though he wanted to pierce through Harry’s tongue. Harry just kept sucking. Too much pain, and he wouldn’t be able to do what he planned to do.
            Yeah, Parseltongue might work on the ritual, in some way. But Harry doubted it. He was still going on the information he had learned about rituals in Auror training, but that was all he did have to go on, so it would have to suffice.
            He closed his eyes as Malfoy worked his arse open. No, this had never happened before. No one had ever done this to him before.
            That was the point.
            He focused as hard as he could, so hard that the words Snape was murmuring to him became inaudible and the fingers in his arse faded, on what he wanted. On the fact that they were taking his virginity from him, on the fact that that had been a prime sacrifice in ritual ever since magic began.
            On the fact that it would bind him, Snape, and Malfoy together in a way, unite them, tie them together. The way the original bond had wanted.
            He thought he felt a faint buzz in his head, as though the bond was taking an interest, loosening a little. He gasped, and Snape’s fingers pulled out.
            “Stay there.”
            Harry started and opened his eyes. Snape had moved around behind his arse with Malfoy. Harry didn’t turn to look. He didn’t think this would be made better by looking. He kept his hands beneath him, his arse arched, his legs splayed. Snape and Malfoy were talking to each other, but he didn’t listen to that, either. Or to his hard cock, which had its own ideas about what it wanted to go on.
            He focused on the bond, and threw everything he could at it. All the will, all the fierce desire that he had ever had when cramped into a little cupboard, and the yelling had dimmed around him and left only the core of life that was him.
            He was going to make it. He was determined to make it. He was not going to succumb merely to the lure of the fucking, the way it seemed Snape and Malfoy already had, and he was not going to think that everything would be finished by the fucking.
            He was going to concentrate on the bond. He was going to will it to accept his virginity as the only price it would demand, the only thing that need tie them together, and that would be enough.
            Because it would.
            He concentrated so hard that the entrance of Snape’s cock into his body came as entirely a surprise, and he gasped and jolted.
            The buzz of the bond in the back of his head intensified, even as Snape bent over, near his ear again, and hissed, “If you think you can escape into your silence, you should know that Draco will have you after me.”
            And he’ll fuck me harder than you will? But that was the kind of thing there was no point in saying. Besides, Harry was back to concentrating on the bond, forcing himself now to feel the pain. It was painful, no matter the spit easing the entrance. Of course it would be. And there were no protective spells or cleansing charms, since no one had a wand.
            Harry fought himself back into his body, though, and felt the sensation of splitting apart, the aching in his arse, the pain as Snape rode him. This was what it was like to have your virginity taken. He was paying the price.
            He was going to pay it to both of them. He told the bond to pay attention to that, focused on the buzz in the back of his head and the random surges of desire that seemed to pass through his body straight to his cock and united the sensation as closely as he could with the sensation of being rocked into, and even the way that Malfoy had caught and was holding his hands as though he thought Harry would try to get away if he could.
            This was all part of it. This was what the bond wanted, union, coming closer to them.
            The buzz grew in intensity, and Harry took a harsh swallow of air. He thought it was going to work, that the bond would take this kind of union as enough and relax enough to let them out of the circle.
            That was the point he’d got to when Malfoy rather roughly disrupted his concentration by pulling his head back, nearly snapping his neck, and kissing him.
*
            It was warm and tight and wonderful, and more wonderful because the spit easing his way hadn’t been enough.
            Severus could admit that to himself. The desire inside him was sharp and glass-like, cutting him when he touched it. So he might as well spread the pain around, and he fitted his hands into the bruises along Potter’s spine and pressed down.
            Potter hissed in response. Severus looked up to find out why he wasn’t getting more of a reaction, like a yell, and discovered that Potter’s mouth was full of Draco’s tongue.
            Severus smiled. He enjoyed, too, the angle that Draco was holding Potter’s head at, the way his tongue delved and dipped into Potter’s mouth, the way his lips moved so that Potter had no chance to turn elsewhere. He’d been rather cooperative so far, but that could change any more. Draco was the one to show Potter that his choice wasn’t really a choice, that they were the ones in command here, and he couldn’t flee.
            “There is no escape,” Severus whispered. He couldn’t remember what he’d been saying before, and really, it didn’t matter, not when every thrust forwards was punctuated by warmth and the sensation of someone holding onto his cock as though they were going to hold it forever. Rocking back out was wonderful, too, the dragging sensation. “You cannot—cannot—hold back from us.”
            Potter’s eyes rolled towards him, and then closed. Severus came on the overwhelming nature of that look, the way Potter had gazed at him, and yielded. Yielding was what he had wanted from Potter, he realized as he collapsed over his back, panting, his skin soaked with fluid. For Potter to admit that he was right about the detentions, that he had given more than enough years of his life to protecting and providing for Potter. For Potter to stay within boundaries because he respected Severus, or was afraid of him.
            To be sure, this was rather different than wishing Potter obeyed the rules of a classroom. But it was similar enough that Severus understood both the pleasure that rushed through his bones and the source of the deep satisfaction behind the pleasure.
            “My turn.”
            Draco was shoving at Severus’s shoulders, and his thoughts jigged and blurred in the distance, although for some reason Severus thought he could read them less well than before. That was the opposite of what it should have been with such a powerful bond, but Severus was not about to question their good fortune. He rolled over to the side and let his legs fall back, groaning as his cock came out.
            Draco pressed up to Potter’s arse, murmuring something, and pinching Potter’s cheeks before he dived in. Potter dropped his chin to the floor, his hands digging in again. Severus heard a fingernail break.
            He crawled his way around to Potter’s head, and lifted it up by his chin again. Potter stared at him, dazed. Severus frowned a little. There was still something missing, something that made him wonder what Potter felt.
            “You know that we are fucking you?” he whispered, and slid his hand beneath Potter’s body, aiming for his cock. He’d thought it hard originally. If it was now, then perhaps Potter was still moving with them, participating with them, because he couldn’t do anything else.
*
            It was harder to focus now, with his arse so draped and wet and Malfoy pushing in where Snape had been, uttering hard, filthy words that would probably hurt Harry if he paid attention to them, if he believed in them.
            But Harry could feel the bond’s buzz, and it had softened. It no longer wrapped around his head and pressed as if it could force the bones of his skull into a different shape. It had retreated, too, and was a gentler sound in the distance. Harry didn’t know if he had deceived it or promised it something it would accept, but he was willing to believe that it would wait to see what happened.
            And then Snape came along with that ridiculous question about them fucking him, and reached down to his erection like Madam Pomfrey checking for a fever.
            Harry couldn’t help it. He snickered once, and then the laughter came out. He ducked his head and buried it between his arms, laughing and laughing.
            At least, until Snape’s fingers curled around his erection and pulled, hard enough that the pain overwhelmed the pleasure. Then Harry’s head flew back and he gasped, and his fingers curled in the middle of the stone, and he knew that he would probably have fingernails all jagged and torn when he got out of this. If he got out of this.
            Maybe the bond had been protecting him in some way, or his concentration had. Because now he wasn’t just thinking about being in his body as his virginity was taken, he was in his body, the sweat sliding down the middle of his back and his knees bleeding as Malfoy’s thrusts slid his body across the floor and his teeth aching as Snape kissed him again, and his neck hurting as Snape twisted him around, throwing him to the floor.
            “Yes, you are,” Snape whispered, which probably only made sense in the private Snape-world that Harry would never share, and then his hand came down and squeezed and stroked, even as Malfoy groaned at the change in angle and repositioned Harry’s legs so that he could go on thrusting.
            Harry gasped and panted. Maybe he said some words, too. He could never know. They all broke apart, impaled on Snape’s tongue, the instant they emerged. And Snape wouldn’t stop kissing him and holding his jaw as though he wanted to measure the words Harry spoke that way, and he wouldn’t stop stroking him.
            The strokes worked together with the lingering urges the bond had implanted in him, and the thrusts Malfoy was implanting in him now, his cock stroking Harry from the inside. He felt a bubble of heat rise up in his head, and spill out his mouth in an undignified wail as he came. Malfoy came while Harry was still shaking, the pleasure winding through him, so intense that Harry didn’t know whether he was feeling good because he’d come or because of the bond or because Malfoy was coming in him.
            But he still wanted to live, he didn’t want to drown in pleasure and he didn’t want to live for the moment, and he reached out towards the bond the instant he caught his breath. There it is. I’m bound to them. I was never with anyone before, and now I’ve been with two lovers at once, two people so different from me that they would never have fucked me without you. Isn’t that enough?
            There was one buzz that went on so long Harry’s teeth ached. And then it faded, and Harry felt the longing that had crowded his stomach fade at the same moment.
            Harry closed his eyes and reached out with one hand, towards the edge of the ritual circle and the invisible stone wall that had been there before.
            His hand passed through.
            Harry gasped deeply enough to make Snape snarl—but then, Harry thought his breathing probably made Snape snarl—and rolled over, his legs falling open. He could feel things leaking out of him as Malfoy pulled out, but he didn’t care. What mattered was that he was free, and he had survived, and the bond wasn’t going to kill them.
            He pulled himself together as fast as he could, wincing at the stabbing pain in his spine as he started to crawl to his feet. They had to get out of here now, and find their wands. Harry assumed his was somewhere nearby. He held out his hand, and called on it with the last little remnants of his will he hadn’t burned up pushing the bond to do what he said.
            “What are you doing?” Malfoy surged up beside him with more energy than anyone should have after such a fucking, snatching Harry’s hand and staring at it suspiciously.
            Harry rolled his eyes, and his wand soared through the air and smacked into his palm. “Summoning my wand,” he said. “It’s one of the few things I can do without it.” He paused and swallowed. God, his voice sounded horrible. Well, he’d been whimpering and probably screaming while they fucked him, and his spine felt as if someone had jabbed a poker up it, and he had swallowed blood. But just now, he didn’t care. “Accio Snape’s and Malfoy’s wands!”
            For a moment, he worried that the Lestranges had snapped them—it made sense that they hadn’t wanted to get rid of Harry’s, because it would make for a nice kind of proof that they had him—but then the air trembled, and the ebony and hawthorn wands flew over to him. Harry sighed and tossed them back to their respective owners.
            The next thing he did was cast a Cleaning Charm. Sweat stopped inching down his spine, the blood vanished from his mouth, and the things he did not want to think about were gone from his arse. Harry tested his balance and nodded. He thought he could walk out of here, and if he could walk he could call for help.
            “Can either of you send a Patronus?” he asked, looking around at Snape and Malfoy. “I feel like I’m going to collapse.”
            But both of them were gaping at him, and neither looked like they were going to be much help. Harry sighed. So he had to do this, too. His one consolation was that after tonight, they were unlikely to want him near them ever again, and so this would be the last thing he needed to do for them.
            “Expecto Patronum!” he called, focusing on an image of the Auror office he shared with Ron, and how happy he would be to see it again.
            The stag leaped into being, cantered around, and stopped, staring at Harry and scraping its hoof. Harry could only imagine that he must look a sight, even to a magical silver animal. He smiled a little grimly and said, “I’m all right, Kingsley, and so are Snape and Malfoy. The Lestranges set up a magical ritual that was meant to destroy us, but we survived it. I’ll be bringing Snape and Malfoy in as soon as I can. I’ll try to Apparate back to the safehouse. Have people waiting there.”
            The stag dipped its head the instant he stopped speaking and bounded out the nearest tunnel. Harry turned around to see if there was any way he could cast Reparo on his clothes. He didn’t fancy arriving in front of Aurors half-naked.
            Malfoy seized him and shook him. Harry clenched his teeth to keep from biting his tongue and filling his mouth with blood again.
            “What?” Harry snapped, tearing himself away as soon as he could. He wavered and almost fell, but Snape cast a spell Harry hadn’t heard before, and his legs seemed to stiffen. Harry nodded curtly to Snape and turned back to Malfoy. “I know I didn’t keep you safe. I’m sorry. But they’ll assign you different guards as soon as they can, and we’ll catch Rabastan and Rodolphus.”
            “I’ve asked you twice now, and you’ve acted like you didn’t hear me.” Malfoy’s eyes were so narrow that it was easy to miss how pale his face was, and the fact that he hadn’t used his wand yet was because he couldn’t stop his hand from shaking. “How did you disrupt the bond? Make it so the ritual would just accept our—our fucking as enough?”
            “I told you,” Harry said. “I used Parseltongue. The Lestranges didn’t know about that, so they didn’t plan for it.”
            “Bollocks,” Malfoy snapped. Snape was silent behind Harry, but that didn’t prevent Harry from feeling that he agreed with Malfoy. “I would have heard you hissing. I heard everything you did during—that.” He flushed, but the flush just made him look hectic and sickly, not strong. “You didn’t hiss.”
            “Except when penetrated.”
            Harry didn’t turn to face Snape. It would cause more problems if he did. “All right, fine,” he said. He couldn’t see that it mattered now. They could hardly despise him more than they did, the Auror who hadn’t kept them safe and got them into this situation in the first place. “I told you Parseltongue because it made a good excuse, but I was a virgin. Magical rituals place this huge importance on virginity, and it’s used as a sacrifice all the time. I bargained with the bond. I kept concentrating on it and telling it I was a virgin, and that because you were the ones who took it from me, that was enough to tie us together. I kept saying that and willing it and feeling it, and the bond was meant to create a union, so it accepted you taking my virginity as one. It shouldn’t come back.”
            Malfoy now looked ill. Harry wondered whether he usually didn’t want to fuck virgins, and then shook his head. It didn’t matter. Only someone horrible and stupid would tease Malfoy about that at this point, and Harry liked to think he wasn’t horrible, although he did sometimes have to acknowledge that he was stupid.
            “Mr. Potter.”
            Harry rubbed his eyes and turned around to face Snape. Malfoy might hate fucking virgins, but Snape would be worse about it, no matter what the reason, because he always was.
            “Can we walk as we talk about this?” he asked. “I have no idea where we are, except that we’re somewhere near the ocean, and I can’t have the Aurors come here. And the Lestranges might come back, and I’m so fucking tired.” He winced as his voice broke on the last words, but maybe if he gave Snape what he wanted—weakness, a victim—he would agree that they could leave now.
*
            Severus did not know what to say. He had called for Potter’s attention, and he’d got it, but the words that came along with it, and the words that came before it, and the look in his eyes—
            They deprived Severus of words.
            But it made sense to leave the area before the Lestranges came back, and also that there would be anti-Apparition wards up that made it impossible for them to leave without getting outside. Severus turned and led the way to the nearest of the tunnels. That was the way Potter’s Patronus had traveled, and it made sense that it was the shortest route to the outside.
            Behind him, Potter limped. Severus imagined for a moment what his arse must look like, and banished the image. For many, many reasons, it was wrong for him to think of it.
            His head reeled, clear of the bond. His wand was in his hand again, and his mind circled around what had happened to him and what Potter had confessed.
            A virgin. Yes, that would make sense to clear the bond from their minds. Virginity was the most powerful sacrifice of all, even when unwillingly given. And Severus did not think Potter’s had been exactly that, influence of the bond or no.
            I bargained with the bond.
            Potter had said that in the same tone that he’d told them he was a virgin, as if there was just embarrassing truth and nothing extraordinary about it at all.
            “For fuck’s sake, Potter.”
            That was Draco. Severus turned around with a scowl. It would be like Potter to insist on the importance of their leaving, and then delay them.
            But he saw Draco slinging an arm around Potter’s shoulders, and understood. Potter was having trouble walking. His bruises flared through the still ragged clothes he wore. His head lolled now and then, as though the fierce effort of concentrating on and bargaining with the bond had left him all the weaker when it passed.
            Severus knew himself well enough to feel the distant pressure of shame behind his teeth, and also the deeper satisfaction when he thought of the reasons why Potter had trouble walking. He would never have fucked Potter if he was himself, but that it had happened…
            He knew himself too well, perhaps. He understood his own reactions.

            And that would not let him hide from the satisfaction that had nothing to do with the sex, and everything to do with the fact that there had finally been a situation that both of them could not escape.
            By the time they got to the entrance of the building, Potter had shaken off Draco’s hold and was walking on his own, though from his set jaw and glazed eyes, Severus could guess at the effort it took him. If he was fool enough not to admit that effort and ask for help, however, there was little they could do.
            Potter did turn once and look back at the building. From the outside, Severus noted, it did not resemble anything dangerous. The entrance was a low-set stone door, leading back into a hill of green turf. It would take a subtle wizard to notice the wards that danced around it, the sensation of lightning in the air that waited for its chance to spring out.
            “All right,” Potter said at last. “I think I remember enough for Apparition coordinates now.” He glanced at Draco. “Can you Apparate on your own, or do you need help?”
            Draco rolled his eyes. “You think your beaten-up arse can help me?”
            “That’s not an answer.”
            Severus frowned. That was a reply that palpably diminished his satisfaction, and it took him a moment to realize why. Potter was not broken by this experience—something Severus would not have wished—but he was not changed, either.
            Severus knew he had been changed. He could feel the realizations hovering at the edges of his mind, the way the bond had done when it was formed first, waiting for him to notice them and deal with them.
            But Potter looked at Draco with the same steel face and still expression he had used when they were fucking, and it seemed that he did not intend to give them anything more.
            “No, I don’t need help,” Draco said, finally, so grudgingly that Severus knew he would have spit out broken teeth more gracefully.
            Potter nodded and turned to Severus. “What about you, sir?”
            “I am not hurt that badly.” Severus studied Potter for a long second, his eyes running up and down the boy’s body, and some of the words spilled over in spite of his control. “What about you? Can you Apparate?”
            Potter raised one eyebrow. “I’ve done it with worse injuries than this.”
            “Then that line about being a virgin was a lie after all?” Draco spoke with a breathless splutter, lurching towards Potter and nearly falling.
            “How can it be, when it appeased the bond?” Potter’s voice was utterly indifferent.
            Draco retreated, his arms folded around himself. “I just meant—you’ve never had pain in your arse like that before, then.”
            “No.”
            “Then you’ve never Apparated with wounds like that before.” Draco hawked for a moment as if he would spit at Potter’s feet, but either good sense or the way he caught Severus’s eye restrained him from falling to that level, and he looked away, his eyes lowering for a long second.
            “Maybe not,” Potter said. “But, no offense, I’d rather not have either of you Apparate me right now.”
            And he vanished while Severus was still thinking what to say to that and Draco was opening his mouth.
            Draco caught Severus’s gaze again, and blushed violently. He stared at the ground, kicked with his feet at nothing in particular, and finally whispered, “I don’t know what to do.”
            “I do not think that there is an accepted code of manners as to what to do in this situation,” Severus said calmly. “Right now, we should go back to the safehouse and wait for the Aurors.”
            “Because you agree with Potter?” Draco looked up into his eyes, the boy seeking guidance, the way he had for the last five years.
            “No,” Severus said. “Because the Ministry would be reluctant to believe that we were not involved in the Lestrange brothers’ plan otherwise, and because we still need protection. The Lestranges did not succeed in killing us, but they are not currently under guard.”
            Draco immediately agreed, and held out his arm. Severus took it. Draco was the only living person he would trust to Apparate him.
            He closed his eyes, and then opened them again. Even the blackness of Apparition was preferable to the visions that filled them right now.
*
ChelseaPlume: Thank you! I want this to be a story that deals with the consequences of what happened, the angst and the drama and the adventure and everything else. Hope I set it up well enough to interest you.
BAFan: At night!
(Seriously, I’m really excited to write this story, so I hope that it does well).
A: Thanks! Here’s the next chapter.
- 1
- 2
- 3
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

The Wages of Going On