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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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Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Twenty-Two—A Choice of Truths
            “There’s something more going on, isn’t there?”
            Harry started. He had come into the Burrow to wash his hands after he had spilled most of a glass of water on himself, and he hadn’t thought that anyone else was inside. But Hermione had come in behind him, and now she stood with her hands braced on the kitchen table, as if she would guard the door that he needed to use to get back into the garden.
            What’s the matter, Potter? Malfoy’s voice was implacably calm and cold in the back of his head. The bond is vibrating as though someone plucked it.
            Just talking with Hermione, Harry shot back, and then thickened the barriers between himself and the others as much as he could. No matter how this discussion went, he didn’t want either of them telling him that he should be doing something else.
            “I don’t know what you mean,” Harry said, and tried a little sneer out for effect. “If you think that Snape and Malfoy and I are the best of friends, then your observational powers are failing you, and you ought to try harder.”
            Hermione didn’t budge, and she didn’t look as though she intended to let him drive her away, either. She only stood looking at him, and Harry found himself lowering his eyes, his face flushing.
            “I know that you aren’t best friends,” Hermione said at last. “Anyone could see that from the way you act. But something happened that made you change your mind about trying to use the bond. What was it?”
            Harry sighed and glanced at the door out into the garden. If he had been able to get out and into public, he wouldn’t have told her this. Hermione wouldn’t have been able to challenge him in front of the Weasleys or Snape and Malfoy.
            But it was bloody hard to keep a secret from her when she chose to dig into it, either.
            “Can you call Ron in here?” he asked. “I don’t want to repeat this more than once.”
            Hermione looked at him for so long that Harry thought she would insist that he confess to her alone. He gave her a flat stare. He might not have as strong a will as he wanted, to keep his friends safe, but he was only going to say this once. If Hermione wanted him to stay here and say it, then she could be the ones who told Ron later.
            Finally, Hermione nodded. “I will.” She reached out and squeezed his arm. “I know it doesn’t feel like it, Harry,” she murmured, leaning towards his ear, “but we really are going to be there for you no matter what.”
            You’re telling them? Snape asked from the back of his head as the door opened and Hermione came back out.
            Harry started in annoyance, but when he tested the barriers between their minds and his, they were still strong. He couldn’t tell what Snape was feeling. Snape must have reasoned it out from seeing Hermione disappear into the house after him and then come out alone.
            Yes, was all he sent back, and then tightened the barriers as hard as he could, so Snape and Malfoy wouldn’t catch any more emotions from him.
            Ron walked into the house first, when they came back, much faster than Harry had thought Hermione would persuade him to come. He seemed to be concerned, maybe in the same way that Hermione was. He stared at Harry while Hermione cast a Locking Charm on the back door.
            “I got kidnapped when I decided to investigate something at the Ministry,” Harry said. He had no idea whether it was a real clue or not, and he wasn’t about to put them in danger from it if it wasn’t. “Snape and Malfoy rescued me, but I—I used a spell that killed several of the Aurors who had kidnapped me, Ron.”
            “Are you sure they were Aurors?” Ron asked, quietly.
            “Absolutely,” Harry said. “I didn’t know the leader, Stockwell, but they moved like Aurors. They were trained like them. They were working on a ritual that was supposed to tell them the truth about my scar.”
            “They thought there was something wrong with your scar?” That was Hermione, on the alert for prejudice, as always.
            Harry closed his eyes. “They thought there was a possibility of Voldemort coming back.”
            He was glad that he had his eyes closed when he heard the convulsive movement Hermione made. He kept them closed for long enough that he thought Hermione had probably had time to recover, and then opened them again.
            Hermione was leaning forwards with her fingers tight around the back of the chair in front of her. “That’s not a good reason for kidnapping you,” she whispered. “For conducting a ritual on you that could have been fatal.”
            Harry smiled. He knew that Voldemort coming back was one of Hermione’s worst nightmares, but she was conquering those fears, for him. “I know,” he said. “It’s not like I thought so, either. But I discovered that I wanted—I wanted to survive Voldemort even more than I did the first time. I like being alive. I don’t want to change that. And it would be...convenient if we had a few extra weapons and a way to find the Lestranges. Searching among the Aurors could still be possible, but might also be shot at this point. So I agreed to strengthen the bond with Malfoy and Snape, as long as I got to be in charge of the telepathic part. It turns out they need to be in charge of the other parts, which sucks, but I can live with it as long as the bond becomes a weapon.”
            “Then, when you don’t need it anymore, you’ll destroy it,” Ron said, nodding, his face lightening. “I like that plan. You can always get rid of something when it stops being useful to you.”
            “I’m not sure that bonds are in that category,” Hermione began.
            “I don’t know yet, either, not for sure,” Harry cut her off smoothly. He didn’t want Hermione to start arguing with him, and get them into a discussion about bonds that wasn’t going to go well no matter what. “But what matters most is that I’ve come up with a way to probably frustrate my enemies and get the bond to stop bothering me, because I’ll have the amount of contact that it needs, or whatever the fuck else it needs. I hate it, but I would rather have my life at the end of it than die along the way because someone else thinks my scar is helping Voldemort to return, or because the bond kills me.”
            “It was trying to kill you, wasn’t it.” Ron folded his arms. He hadn’t even bothered making that a question.
            Harry shrugged. “Yes, but really, it doesn’t matter that much. What does is that we got here, and we might be able to use those roads to walk into the heart of our enemies’ strongholds. They can go anywhere. Slow and not worth the time when you’re going to a place that you know, like here, but we had to test it and see if the road actually worked.”
            “There’s another thing,” Ron said. “You came right through the wards. The road appeared like—like this snout poking through the grass, and none of us knew what it was. You’re lucky that I remembered that part about the roads and the bond, because Mum and Dad were ready to hit you with a bunch of spells.”
            “Thanks, then,” Harry said dryly. “Well. That’s another way that it could be useful, too. I’m sure the Lestranges, and whoever else we might wind up tracking in the Aurors, will have a ton of spells all over their houses.”
            “Oh, Harry, be careful,” Hermione whispered. “Both when you start searching, and when you start trying to get rid of the bond. I don’t think it’ll be as easy as you think it is.”
            Harry had to laugh at that. “When is it ever as easy as I want it to be? I’m sure that it’ll be pretty bloody difficult, actually.”
            “I just think that this might hurt you more than you know.” Hermione didn’t look away from him, and Harry had to appreciate that, too. His friends wouldn’t abandon him no matter what he said, what he did. That was comforting to know. “You don’t know how to break the bond right now. Won’t it be harder once it’s firmly established?”
            Harry shrugged. “I don’t know. Right now, we don’t have any more idea how to break it. It could be a good weapon. You don’t throw away something while it could still be useful.”

            Hermione nodded, but reluctantly. “Is there anything we can do to help?”
            “Research the rituals that we’ll be able to use to break the bond once this is done,” Harry said. He had thought about still ordering them to stay out of it—they should be safer now that they had this knowledge, but he still didn’t want them really involved—but he knew neither one of them would ever agree. “I won’t have the time now that I’m on this kind of hunt, and I really would like to get rid of the bond the moment I don’t need it anymore.”
            Hermione nodded. “We can do that. I think I remember something from one of the Veela books that might help…”
            Harry let her ramble on, listening and making agreeing noises when she pressed him, but mostly letting the words wash past him. As he had told her, he couldn’t care that much about the breaking of the bond right now except as an end goal. He would labor towards it, more than he would spend time thinking about it.
            But when he could…
            Then he knew that, once again, he would thank whatever fortune or fates had put such good and dedicated friends at his side.
*
            Do you think that we might begin to study how to combine our magic soon?
            Draco managed not to roll his eyes, since he was in the middle of a conversation with the Weasley parents right now, and it was stiff and awkward enough without him making it more so. But he waited for a pause in the conversation, provided by his taking a sip from his glass of water, and shot back, You think that’s a good thing to suggest to Potter today? Along with everything else that’s happened?
            A sort of frowning pause. Draco knew that he couldn’t tell as much about Severus’s emotions as he would have been able to if Potter had left the bond more open, but this was a familiar enough sensation from the bond without mental communication that they had “enjoyed” before the telepathic part was established.
            The sooner this is done, the sooner we can be separated.
            Draco sighed. Mrs. Weasley noticed and peered at him. “Are you hungry?” she ventured after a moment, as if wondering whether Draco would reject any offer of her food as dirty and insect-covered.
            Draco managed a smile. Here was an excuse that would win him a bit of uninterrupted time to talk to Severus, since Mr. Weasley had dropped out of the conversation for the moment and was tugging at his robe collar instead. “I could use something.”
            “You should have said so earlier!” Mrs. Weasley rose to her feet, visibly relieved to have an excuse to go inside herself. “Of course I can cook something! We have biscuits left from the other day, and some of my bread, and…” She bustled off towards the house, muttering. It looked as if she had a bit of trouble getting through the door, but it unlocked a moment later, and she disappeared inside.
            Mr. Weasley was still sitting back and looking as if he wished that desperate discomfort could make him disappear, so Draco pursued the conversation with Severus. You ought to know that research done hastily is worse than none at all. I would like to wait to separate us both from the bond until we have time to study it, which won’t be until much later.
            Severus moved restlessly on his chair, but calmed down when Mr. Weasley looked at him. I do not want more of this. I do not want many other days bonded. I want to be free.
            And now you sound like one of the Gryffindors you were always teaching us to despise in school, Draco murmured back. Would you have accepted wanting to be free of class as an excuse for a melted cauldron?
This is considerably more important than Potions class!
Draco sent, as best as he could when Potter had blocked most of the bond, an image of himself reeling back, clutching his heart in shock. You think that something might be? Are you all right? Bring me the smelling salts!
Severus went coldly silent in response, and remained that way through Mrs. Weasley bringing out the food, which Draco had to eat and make admiring noises about. Luckily, it wasn’t that difficult. It was good food, and with it to talk about, and conversation about Cooking Charms that was preferable to freezing silence, the time flew until Potter came outside with his friends again.
Draco checked Potter’s face and wondered. He looked a little more settled and calm, but on the other hand, he had looked like that before when he was about to do some mad thing. On impulse, Draco reached for the image of the steel mountain in the back of his mind.
It felt so different that he had trouble locating it at first. When he did, he did have to gape. It was running with water, cloaked with trees that softened the effect of its sharply angled sides. The sky above it, always grey or blank before in vision, was now soft and blue.
Did that mean that Potter had changed his mind about the bond?
But Draco rejected that idea as soon as it appeared to him. Of course not. Potter had every right not to change his mind about the bond, and at the moment, no reason to change it.
But it meant that he was no longer engulfed in that killing determination that had nearly made him die before, Draco decided after a moment. His mind could be more subtle now, could bend into more shapes. He could engage with the bond or defy it, instead of only defying it all the time because that was what he was locked into.
            Have you done speculating about my motives?
            Draco pulled back with a jerk. He had grown used enough to the non-responsiveness of the bond while Potter had it closed that he had forgotten Potter would be able to feel his poking around better than Severus could. Sorry, he sent before he could stop himself.
            A dark chuckle followed him, making the sides of the mountain shake as if Draco was standing on them in the middle of an earthquake. You spend a lot of time apologizing. What makes you think that’ll make it better?
            Draco rolled his eyes. I spend a lot of time apologizing because I think it’s the right thing to do, and to make myself feel better. I don’t think it’ll make what happened to you better because nothing can do that.
            Potter was silent. Draco pulled out of the conversation and opened his eyes. Severus was still, and Draco didn’t try to reach out and discover what he was thinking, because it would be hard work with little reward.
            “Don’t you think that you ought to stay here for the night, Harry? You’ve been through enough today.”
            That was Granger, and Draco nodded firmly when he heard her. They had been forced into enough proximity to make the bond work today. Potter probably would be better off if he had some distance from them and could think about other things.
            You think it’ll be easier for you to manipulate me if we’re apart for a little while? I promise, Malfoy, it won’t be easier. I want to kill you. I want to crush you. The only reason I’m putting up with you is that there are some people I want to kill and crush more, and I can do that with your help.
            Draco ignored that. He saw little profit in communicating with Potter about the rape at the moment. Apologies didn’t do anything, nor did future plans, so he would keep to the present. Stay here, then. Let us know what you want to do about the prisoners that are in Malfoy Manor, or about when you’re ready to try and combine our magic.
            Potter sneered hard enough that Draco looked at his face in involuntary reflex. A sneer like that had to leave some impression on his face—didn’t it? But no, Potter looked as normal as he ever had when they were sitting here and chatting.
            You don’t have any right to hate me, Malfoy.
            If you think this is hate even though we have access to each other’s minds and emotions, then I give up, Draco snapped back, and stood up. Severus and I will Apparate to the Manor. Contact us when you’re ready to work on combining our magic.
            I won’t be ready. Speaking with Ron and Hermione has made it clear that they’re the kinds of friends you’ll never be able to compare with.
            For fuck’s sake, Potter. Draco was at the limit of his patience. I don’t want to be your friend. You’ve made it clear that it would be unwelcome in any case. I don’t even want to be your bondmate. I just want to do something that will actually contribute to our survival. If you want to murder us, fine, but you can’t do that until the bond is over, anyway, without condemning yourself to death. And you wouldn’t have any means of finding the Lestranges without us. I’ll tell you the same thing I told Severus: none of us like this, but we have to live with it until we can get rid of it.
            You’ll never make up for what you did.
            Draco wondered why in Merlin’s name he was the only sensible one around here. Was he the only one who remembered the wounds that the bond had inflicted on Potter, and could have inflicted on the rest of them, the last time that Potter had decided the bond was worth resisting? Was he the only one who realized that the bond was a horrible thing, but something they had to face and fight, like a disease?
            Snape used those comparisons, too. They didn’t convince me.
            Maybe one of Potter’s friends would have been calm and patient under Potter snapping like that, but Draco would leave them to it. Then don’t be convinced, and stay here until all of us die because your ribs were snapping.
            He got exactly three steps away before Potter blared into his head, I didn’t say that I wasn’t going to work with you! Just that you weren’t going to convince me.
            Draco swung around. He was so sick and tired of this, he thought he could have let Potter torture him in return, if that was what he wanted, just to get this over with. Then I don’t care, all right? We won’t talk about this again. I won’t try to convince you. I won’t apologize. I won’t compare you to anything, or the bond to anything. Just stop trying to accuse me of vague crimes when we both know exactly what I am guilty of!
            Potter stared at him, and said nothing. Draco collected Severus’s eyes with a glance, and led him out of the Burrow’s garden, with a curt good-bye to the Weasleys. He reckoned that Potter could make their apologies for them better than they could do it themselves.
            Draco stomped to the edge of the wards, irritated with himself, with Severus’s silence, with Potter’s aggression, with everyone’s inability to get rid of this bond. Even knowing that they would be able to do it in the future didn’t soothe him, right now.
            And if the book on bonds was right and he was the one who would have to control the combination of their magic, then he was going to spend a lot of time with a worse headache and running in worse circles than he did now.
            His heart and his head and his mind ached. He would ask the house-elves to make him one of their more indulgent meals, he decided, and then find one of the novels he had loved when he was a child, and take them up to his room and read and eat. That ought to soothe him the way that brewing soothed Severus.
            You see now how impossible it is to work with Potter? Severus’s voice was triumphant, and darker and bitterer than Draco could deal with at the moment. It was like being in swirling muck up to his ankles when all he wanted was to be clean.
            He faced Severus. Severus stiffened up, probably because they were still in sight of the Burrow if anyone was looking, but Draco didn’t care. He was tired and, more than that, weary. He was just so—

            They ought to be past by this now. They ought to be working on the present so that they could face the future. And Severus wouldn’t stop being smug and touchy, and Potter wouldn’t stop blowing up, and they wouldn’t stop their useless complaining, since they both fully intended to continue working on this.
            He picked up all that knowledge and flung it at Severus, in a complicated, tangled explosion of emotions that made Severus stagger. His hand was up, clasping his cheek, and he stared at Draco as though Draco really had punched him instead of letting him know exactly what he felt.
            Stop it, Draco told him sharply. You’re going to work with me as much as Potter is, or I’ll know why not, and in the meantime, all it is is more useless complaining. You’re both of you stubborn gits to work with, Potter for more reason, but you’ve also both made it obvious that nothing I can do will change things for the better. So I’m going to rest, and make sure that I can actually keep my part of the bargain.
            “Draco…” Severus breathed.
            Draco stood there watching him for a second. But he followed that with no apology, no other word, spoken or telepathic.
            So Draco turned, and Apparated, and left Severus there, to follow as best as he could. Or, for all Draco cared, he could summon one of the roads and walk home.
*
ChelseaPlume: Thanks! I hope you enjoyed Harry’s telling of Ron and Hermione. And now Draco is exasperated again, but Harry and Severus are both still committed to working with him; Draco is just fed up about the complaints along the way.
Ciara_D: Yes. And before they settle into some kind of acceptance of what happened.
SP777: Now Draco is wondering the same thing.
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The Wages of Going On