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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.

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Chapter Twenty—A Bloody Time
            Severus held himself still as Potter moved through his mind, although he could not help wincing now and then. Potter, as a mostly untrained Legilimens, had none of the delicacy of touch on which Severus prided himself.
            Although you didn’t show much delicacy with him, did you?
            Severus did not nod; he held himself rigid. Anything that might disrupt this process and have it begin again was unendurable.
            That sort of insight, that niggling combination of guilt and self-doubt, was what he had offered his own memories to propitiate. He didn’t like being haunted by little reminders of his own complicity in Potter’s suffering. If he gave Potter something he had not wanted to surrender—his mental privacy—then he would pay the price, and it would be a price profound enough to soothe the guilt, and that meant the guilt would leave him alone and he could be normal again.
            Years of service to Albus were not enough to pay for your guilt in causing Lily’s death.
            Severus’s intention did not change, however. Yes, he had suffered from causing that, but Lily had mattered far more to him than Potter did. He suspected that much of his own horror at himself when it came to this particular action, raping Potter in the bonding ritual, was because Potter was Lily’s son.
            So far, not much emotion on Potter’s part had come through the bond. Severus could not help wondering what he was seeing.
*
            Harry looked around. He had gone into Snape’s mind seeking memories of Hogwarts, ones that would explain the hatred that he knew Snape had felt for him. Sure, he might say that he didn’t hate Harry now, but he had in the past, and Harry was going to find the proof of that and drag it into the light.
            Just to make sure that Snape saw it, too, and stopped trying to excuse himself.
            He had landed in an unexpected place, though. Harry had expected a Potions class, or maybe one of the detentions which Snape oversaw with such seething malignancy. Instead, he was standing in the middle of Dumbledore’s office.
            “Severus. I wanted to talk to you about your treatment of young Harry.”
            Harry turned around, swallowing a lump in his throat, as much as he could. It went down all choked and spiky. He hadn’t realized how much he had missed Dumbledore. The real one, the one with the voice of the old man who had loved Harry and sacrificed him, not the voice of his portrait.
            Of course, Harry should have known better than to think things would be back to normal even if he did see Dumbledore like this, because that was too much to ask from the world. Instead, Dumbledore sat behind his desk with his blackened wrist and hand on display. Harry shuddered and turned his eyes away from it, back to Snape.
            Snape sat in the chair across from Dumbledore, his face so pointed and ugly that Harry took a step back before he realized it. This was the way that Snape had looked in the ritual, the few glimpses Harry’d had of his face.
            That meant…
            Did that mean the ritual had made Snape back into the person he’d been when he was getting ready to kill Dumbledore? Or save Dumbledore’s life?
            Harry shuddered a little. Or maybe he just always looked that way when he was under intense stress. It wasn’t as though Harry had had an easy life, either.
            “You know that I don’t care about that, Albus.” Snape’s voice was so low and charged Harry wanted to snort. Of course Snape didn’t care about someone who he claimed tormented him every day, the boy who was the son of the man he’d hated and the woman he’d loved. Snape stared at Dumbledore’s hand. “That’s what we should be concentrating on. Restoring you to health.”
            “Severus, my boy.” Dumbledore’s voice had acquired a tone that Harry had never heard before.
            “No.” Snape rose to his feet, and whirled around to face the door. Then he tied his hands together behind his back as though that would make up for the sudden movement, but Harry could see them. They were trembling. “Don’t say it.”
            “I am not going to recover.” Harry had always thought that Dumbledore had a kind side to him, but he couldn’t see it at the moment. Dumbledore spoke without mercy.
            Snape bowed his head. Harry stared at his back. Did he already know that Dumbledore was going to ask Snape to kill him? It was impossible to tell.
            “Then my concern should be how I am going to conduct myself in the Dark Lord’s ranks,” said Snape, and Harry reckoned he did know. “Or protect myself in protecting young Mr. Malfoy, the way his mother forced me to swear.”
            “But Harry comes into this, as well.” Dumbledore shifted a moment, looking as uncomfortable as Harry had ever seen him, and then stood up and came around the desk, touching Snape’s shoulder with his healthy hand. There was no sign that Snape noticed. “You know that I told you he would have to be the one to face Voldemort, in the end.”
            This time, Snape flinched, but it was at the name. Or the name was the excuse, anyway, Harry thought, watching closely. “That bloody prophecy,” Snape said. “I suppose you think that I should play some part in making sure it comes true?”
            “It’s more than the prophecy.” Dumbledore’s voice dragged so much that Harry closed his eyes. He knew what was coming, now.
            Silence. Snape didn’t move or speak, and finally Harry opened his eyes again. He had come to see this memory, so he might as well watch it.
            “You think that he needs to die so he dies.” Snape’s voice had sunk until his breath hardly made it out. Harry saw him reach forwards and plant his closed fists against the door. A second later, his forehead followed it. Dumbledore’s hand never left Snape’s shoulder, and the look of pity never left Dumbledore’s face.
            “I know that you hoped he could survive,” Dumbledore whispered. “But there’s so much that needs to be done, Severus. I need your help. I need to explain to you. I need you to become used to the idea that Harry Potter is a sacrifice.”
            “I wish his name was Harry Evans!”
            Harry winced again. He was starting to wish he had chosen any other memory to land in. He didn’t like what he heard in Snape’s voice, the anger and the pain that was uglier than the way he’d screamed at Harry when he threw him out of his office in fifth year when he found Harry spying on his Pensieve.
            And there was something else in his voice, too. Yearning, probably, Harry thought. Maybe he would have been okay with Harry being the son of Lily and someone else as long as that person wasn’t a Potter.
            “I know,” Dumbledore said, and pressed down with his hand once before removing it at last. “But it is not.”
            Snape seemed to get control of himself as he stood there. He stiffened all over and moved his head as if something was wrong with his neck, and then turned around and nodded at Dumbledore.
            “And wishing will not change things,” he said, then moved back and sat down in the chair in front of Dumbledore’s desk as if he had never moved in the first place. “Very well. Tell me what you want me to do to pretend to heal you and protect Draco Malfoy and ensure that Harry Potter takes his rightful place in the prophecy.”
            Harry moved a little, so that he could see both Snape and Dumbledore as Dumbledore sat down again, but the face he found it the hardest to take his eyes from was Snape’s, despite the fact that he didn’t get the chance to see his old Headmaster alive every day.
            So this was where Snape got the ability to insist that the bond was something they had to live with, like a disease. Or like the fact that Harry’s mum was dead and Harry was going to die too. He acknowledged it, and then he went on.
            Harry felt the corner of his mouth twitch sharply and his face heat up. He didn’t want to admit, he wouldn’t admit it to anyone except himself, he would shut that part of his mind so that Snape and Malfoy couldn’t find it…
            But he envied Snape. That kind of facing up to the bond was what Harry had thought he was doing after the ritual. He had thought that he could make it go away because he was so determined to beat it. But that wasn’t the same as accepting it and working through it anyway, the way Snape had proposed and the way they were doing now.
            Now Harry understood, fully, why Snape had offered Harry the chance to look at some of his memories. He didn’t do it out of the goodness of his heart. He didn’t even do it, exactly, to even the debt because he had seen some of Harry’s. It was all part of that acceptance and adjustment process, living through what would otherwise kill them.
            That’s what I want. To have that kind of strength. To be that kind of person.
            Perhaps, if he looked at other memories, he would gain that kind of strength. Harry turned to the door that had appeared on the far side of Dumbledore’s office and opened it, fully expecting to confront at least one more memory on the other side.
            He stepped straight into Snape’s office, in his fifth year, and flinched despite himself as Snape hurled the jar at his memory-self’s head.
            Snape was raging, actual spittle flying from his jaws as he seized the memory-Harry’s arm and tossed him into the corridor. Harry stared at him, and then down at his little boy self, cowering and smaller than Harry ever remembered being. For that matter, he didn’t remember cowering, either.
            Slow anger stirred to life in him. So Snape did get angry just like everyone else, he didn’t just bloody accept things all the time, and his words about not hating Harry when Harry was a student was a lie like everything else, too.
            But then…
            Harry paused, and stepped out of the memory. He was floating in the middle of Snape’s mind now, in the middle of a black corridor that looked familiar. He might have seen it before when they were working on the bond.
            He didn’t think that Snape had been pretending in the last memory—the first one, that was, the one in Dumbledore’s office. He didn’t have any reason to lie in front of Dumbledore. And Dumbledore would probably have known the truth, anyway. Snape had certainly had no reason to think that somebody would view that memory sometime, and put in lies in the way he stood and moved and talked because of that. He’d protected his memories with Occlumency shields, not lies at the time.
            So his pain was real. And his anger was real. Harry stood there, and tried to think of how both things, both emotions, could be real at the same time.
            Oh, he meant—he knew both could be. Hadn’t he loved and hated Dumbledore at the same time, all sorts of times, since his death? He knew that Dumbledore had done what he had to save the wizarding world, but it still hurt to be reminded of just how little worth Dumbledore had placed on Harry’s own life to do that.
            Yet at the same time, he hadn’t told Harry the truth about the prophecy for some time because he loved him too much to do so. And Harry could see him holding back on telling Harry the truth about the Horcux for the same sort of reason, because it was too difficult.
            Even though he didn’t have the same level of difficulty telling the truth to Snape, knowing it would hurt him.
            Harry sighed. Well, Dumbledore was a long way from perfect. That was no revelation.
            But it didn’t help him with his Snape problem. Could those two emotions towards the same person really coexist in one mind? Sure, Harry had his conflicting emotions towards Dumbledore, but they weren’t that extreme. And the war was over now. Snape didn’t need to preserve Harry’s life because he was the key to killing Voldemort.
            Maybe that hadn’t been enough for Snape’s guilt, though. And it was true that he needed Harry to live now because the bond might drag all three of them into the grave if Harry died.
            Harry hung there in blackness, and considered it. He could have gone in search of more memories. Snape had given Harry free access to his mind for exactly that reason.
            But in the meantime, Harry thought he had some of his answers. He and Snape had both been wrong. Snape had felt hatred towards him, no matter what other name he might have given it or what he might have misremembered.
            And Snape was capable of caring whether Harry lived or died. That wasn’t enough to build a foundation on, Harry thought. Not a strong one. But one that would last until the point where they figured out how to dissolve the bond.
            As he rose to the surface of Snape’s mind, Harry hoped that was exactly what would come out of this. A temporary alliance, so that he could begin to trust Snape enough to surrender control about the building of roads.
            He grimaced, and hoped that it would never have to be anything more than that.
*
            Severus opened his eyes carefully. The insides of his head felt flayed. Well, Potter had never been a particularly careful Legilimens, and Severus had known that and invited the boy into his mind anyway. That meant any pain he got out of this was Severus’s to experience and flinch away from.
            “Here.”
            Severus looked up, squinting blearily. It seemed that he was lying on the ground, on a pallet that Potter had presumably conjured for him. Potter was holding out a goblet, filled with a pure white potion that Severus could have identified by smell from a dozen paces away. He tried to surge up and bat it out of Potter’s grasp.
            But his head screamed at him with flashes of darkness and bursts of light, and he merely ended up back on the ground once more. Severus moaned quietly, one hand clasped to his brow. Meanwhile, the smell of the potion was moving near him again.
            “Yes, I know what this is,” Potter said. “And I prepared it in the right way. I had one of the Malfoy house-elves bring me the potion and the clean goblet and the lavender water it needs to be cut with. So there.”
            The pain was growing bad enough now that Severus nearly did not care if Potter was babbling nonsense and only thought he had prepared the highly poisonous potion the right way. At least the death it brought would be quick. He reached out, blindly groping, and Potter let him have the goblet.
Severus held the goblet to his mouth, and gulped. A burning coolness in his mouth gave way to the taste of crushed lavender flowers, and Severus grunted in surprise. Yes, it had been prepared the right way.
Of course, the mere fact that he was still sitting here and drinking it instead of writhing on the ground in agony was proof of that.
Severus kept his eyes closed as he sipped, and felt Potter crouching beside him. He felt him through the bond as well, of course, but this was a different kind of awareness, the simple feeling of a body beside another, and Potter’s arms folded over his knees, and his breathing soft and still as he waited for some acknowledgment.
“Where did you get the Potions knowledge to prepare this?” Severus finally asked, still not looking at Potter.
            “From Auror training.”
            Not as informative as Severus could wish, but at least it answered some questions and made the answers to others that Severus could have asked obvious. He sipped some more, and swished the potion around in his mouth, and waited. Still he felt none of the tingling or numbness that would have signaled ill effects. He sighed at last and opened his eyes, the last pain of the headache draining out like water through a channel.
            Potter was looking off into the distance, across the Manor grounds, but he turned and met Severus’s eyes, apparently because he knew Severus was ready for it.
            There was less hatred there. Perhaps. Severus was not sure. He finished the last of the potion and put the goblet on the ground. “Did you see what you expected?”
            “Yes,” Potter said. “I saw the memory of me being thrown out of your office in fifth year again. I saw that you hated me.”
            Severus turned his head away. If this particular peace offering wasn’t enough, then he didn’t know what else he could offer. He had let Potter have control of the telepathic portion of the bond, he had offered free access to his memories…
            And that was the strangest part. Potter had chosen to watch only something he already knew about? Apparently reinforcing his negative knowledge of Severus was superior to finding out anything new about him, something that might have let them work together.
            “I also saw the time that you told Dumbledore you wished my last name was Evans,” Potter added.
            Severus felt himself freeze with his eyes open. He left them that way, looking across the Manor grounds, towards the point where he had so often Apparated in when he was on his way to Death Eater meetings here.
            So it was not that Potter had chosen certain memories to look at, the way that Severus had chosen to look at Potter’s memories of the rape. It was simply that he had landed randomly in a memory, and decided then that he knew all about Severus from that.
            “Those memories contrasted with each other,” Potter added musingly.
            Severus did not point out the obvious, that they would. He braced his hands beneath himself instead, ready to get back to his feet. His head had stopped pounding, and they still hadn’t started working on building those mental roads. Put it off as even he wanted to, they would have to do it sooner or later. “Do you wish—”
            Snape.
            Surprised, Severus glanced back into Potter’s eyes, and told himself it was his imagination that that glance made the contact through the bond more intense. Potter shifted and stood, staring at him the entire time. Severus stiffened his muscles so that he would not step away. The only person he could remember looking at him that way in the last few years was the Dark Lord.
            I see now some of what’s going on in your head, Potter said. It doesn’t make it any easier to forgive you. Just because you protected me while I was still in Hogwarts doesn’t mean…
            He didn’t speak the rest of the words, but Severus could follow them, and would have been able to even if there was no bond. Doesn’t mean that I think what you did was right or justified.
            There was a long pause, as though Potter had been speaking aloud, and needed to get his breath. Then he said, But I see that you’re as tangled and mixed-up as I was, or maybe still am. So that makes it easier to understand you, a bit, and that you have something in common with me. I think that’s what we ought to focus on when we’re building the roads.
            Severus was glad for something solid in the realm of thoughts to fasten on to. Then you think roads build of mental chaos and confusion will lead somewhere?
            Roads built of emotions might. They might even let you purge some of your guilt the way I purged my rage. Potter’s voice was rock-calm. I think we should begin with those.
            Severus could have reminded him that he was the one who had to be in charge here, but he didn’t. After all, Potter was in control of the telepathic side of the bond, but Severus was the one who had reached into his mind to initiate it. Who began it did not necessarily mean that the same person would end it.
            Very well. Severus closed his eyes and visualized a road. The same picture always came to mind: one of the Roman roads that he had seen in both Muggle and wizarding history textbooks, running straight and strong and true. True, this one was done in huge white flagstones, as if new, and most of the pictures didn’t look like that. But that was what he saw.
            Potter swooped over it like a hawk shitting on a roof, and added new touches. Ramparts of black light running along the sides of the road, to shield it from attacks from the outside. A secure point, almost a fortress, at the near end, so they could retreat if they were attacked.
            And an image that Severus did not understand, of waters swirling together away from the road. Severus frowned, and raised the road in response. He did not want to fear being drowned in those emotions when they were walking from one place to another.
            Potter shoved the image of swirling waters back at him, and when Severus responded with nothing but wordless questioning, said impatiently, Don’t you see? If we know how deep these feelings run, and where they are, then we won’t trip into them unexpectedly. We can walk where they aren’t.
            Severus could see the sense of that, although he still wasn’t happy including them in the same image as the road. But he had to admit, he did not see how else to solidify rage and fear and guilt. They would not make the stones he had envisioned. Nothing that strong could be built out of them.
            This is the best way, said Potter, and although his tone made Severus grind his teeth, he shook his head. He had put up with far worse in his time, including from Albus. Potter had nothing on Albus when it came to annoying Severus, he reminded himself. Albus was cheerful about it, while Potter at least seemed to suspect that surliness was the natural mode for a confrontation like theirs.
            You can think that all you like.
            Yes, I can, said Severus, and built up the image of the road again, with its sturdy stones in the middle, and its ramparts alongside it, and its fortress at one end, and its water running away from it…
            And its destination?
            Severus couldn’t tell who asked the question, him or Potter, but that only annoyed him for a moment. He was more interested in the question of where the road should go, and although he had the impulse to seek the Lestranges right away, so as to be rid of this bond, he knew it would be better to go somewhere more peaceful first.
            And if we know the place, then we can make sure that it’s where we meant to go.
            Potter, that was, and he made even more sense than before. Severus grimaced and nodded. Yes. The Burrow, then?
            Potter paused, then nodded, and began to feed magic into the image.
            Severus’s first inkling that something had gone wrong came from the shudder of the road in his mind, and the feel of flagstones beneath his feet, and the sudden whirling of colors that invaded his vision, obscuring the sight of the Malfoy gardens and their imaginary road, both.
*
SP777: I usually update it once every five days or so.
ChelseaPlume: I don’t think either Severus or Harry understand it as a gesture of trust, exactly, but it can function that way. It certainly lets Harry understand Severus better.
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The Wages of Going On