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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-Nine—Comforts of Trust
            “Are you all right?”
            Draco turned his head languidly and smiled at Potter as he came up beside Draco, one hand outstretched as though he was going to stroke his shoulder. Then Potter halted, looked at Rabastan still caught in the floor and down at the Nundu’s cage, and took a step back.
In truth, the spell that Potter had cast, the one that allowed Draco to control the walls and floor of the manor house, had worn off a minute ago, so Draco didn’t have the power to do something like that to Potter anymore. And Potter ought to have known that from the bond. Draco frowned at him and pushed himself up on his palms, ready to demand what exactly Potter was doing, if he couldn’t sense Draco was no longer dangerous.
I can sense that, said Potter in the back of his head, in such a disgruntled voice that Draco did have to smile. But I can’t sense if you want me to touch you or not.
Draco blinked a little, and nearly replied aloud. But he remembered their audience, Rabastan’s head still hovering above the floor a mere meter away, and did it silently. You can touch me. I want you to.
There was one more pause, which felt incredulous—and irritating—to Draco, and then Potter’s hand came to rest on his shoulder. Draco turned and sighed, resting his cheek on the back of Potter’s hand for a moment. He could have stood on his own by this point, once the shaking inspired by the spell retreated from his limbs, but he wanted the touch of his bondmate.
            He could feel Potter blanch at that. You know this bond is only temporary. Only until Snape’s potion is ready.
            The potion that all of us helped make, Draco corrected, and looked up at Potter, making sure he held those troubled green eyes. And I know. But for now, I want to know that someone who helped me rescue myself is also going to help me to my feet.
            “You can’t hold a Nundu captive,” Rabastan struck in then, apparently resenting the fact that they were trading glances in front of him. “It’ll break free eventually and kill you as it should have.”
            Potter flowed around in a circle to face Rabastan. In that grace, Draco saw Rabastan’s doom far more surely than he did in Severus’s face. Severus had slowly come out onto the balcony, but stood there, observing.
            “I know a spell that will kill it if I have the time to cast it,” was all that Potter said, though, his voice soft and calm. “Ordinarily, I wouldn’t, not if the Nundu was charging me to attack, but now? Yes, I do.”
            Rabastan eyed him as though not knowing whether to believe him. For that matter, Draco didn’t know whether to believe him, despite the confidence he could feel radiating from Potter in what was almost a cold aura. Sure, Potter thought that he could take down a Nundu, but he might be wrong about that.
            Potter turned away from Rabastan, apparently dismissing him utterly, and focused on Draco. “Are you ready to go home, then?” he asked.
            “Yes, of course,” Draco said. “But that leaves a Nundu and a pair of Lestranges that we need to decide what to do with.”
            “I’m going to kill the Nundu, I told you.” Potter made a sharp little motion with one hand, his eyes cold and bored. “There’s no way we could move it safely elsewhere, and very few people who could take it alive. I’ll kill it.”
            “That does not tell us what to do about the Lestranges.” Severus, who spoke with a faint frown on his face that he usually used only when confronting a potion that was not behaving as he thought it should. This time, Draco thought, the renegade potion’s place was occupied by Potter.
            “I know that,” Potter said, even though Draco hadn’t actually seen any sign that he did. “But I don’t trust the Aurors with them anymore.” He stepped forwards and rested his wand against Rabastan’s throat. “Who let you in through the wards of Malfoy Manor?”
            Rabastan laughed breathlessly. Draco wanted to shake his head. He couldn’t do that, buried up to his neck in stone and with someone’s wand all set to curse him, but then again, he thought, Rabastan had probably been half-mad even before Azkaban.
            “The name would mean nothing to you,” said Rabastan. “It meant nothing to you before.” He grinned at Potter, and then spat on the floor at his feet. Draco thought it was probably the only gesture of defiance left to him. “But someone in the Manor as a prisoner, as you must have assumed.”
            “That is impossible,” said Severus, breaking in to soothe his pride, Draco was sure. Well, sure and he could feel it through the bond, throbbing like a broken tooth. “They are under a Draught of Living Death I brewed.”
            Rabastan laughed louder. “And no magic can contain a Nundu, and no magic could have trapped us like this.”
            Severus frowned, apparently concentrating. Then he stepped around Rabastan and knelt behind him. Draco opened his mouth to ask why.
            Shut up, Draco, Severus said to him, even as Rabastan craned his neck back as far as he could to look Severus stubbornly in the eye. Draco supposed that he wanted to see death coming, if that was what this was.
            “Legilimens,” Severus said, the moment their eyes met.
            Draco nodded in approval. Rabastan might have Occlumency shields, but they were more likely to be tattered when Rabastan was caught off-guard and in an awkward position like this, thinking about something else.
            It seemed they were. Rabastan stiffened, or so Draco saw in his shoulder blades where they projected above the floor, and then gave a deep gasp ripped up from his lungs. Severus never moved, only knelt there so quiet and intense that Draco wouldn’t have been surprised to see a small spike extend from his eyes and join them to Rabastan’s.
            Potter shifted beside him. Draco glanced over and saw that he had taken up a guard position near the railings of the balcony, looking over it and into the corridor beneath them as though he wanted to watch the Nundu’s cage.
            I made it as sturdy as I knew how, Draco said, and then winced. This time, his pride was the painful thing. He wondered why it was so much worse to be suspected of doing something wrong by Potter. Potter obviously trusted Draco enough to rescue himself, or he would never have cast the Land’s Transformation Curse.
            I know that, said Potter, and then twitched his shoulder at Severus and Rabastan. I don’t like watching him Legilimize someone.
            Draco opened his mouth to speak, then shut it again. Not only did he not want to say too much in front of Rabastan, just in case he managed to listen and then repeat the wrong words to the wrong person later, but it told him a lot about Potter right now, to hear that.
            Potter turned to him with a mask for a face. We still don’t know each other very well. Snape still doubted that I would be able to cast the spells necessary to hold the Nundu back.
            But we trusted each other. You trusted me to know what to do with your spell. Draco leaned on the railings near Potter and folded his arms. That’s not just any old trust. You know that.
            Potter stared at him, and then turned his head to the side. Draco remained calm next to him. He knew he was right, and from the uncomfortable twitches that invaded Potter’s arms as he stood there, he knew it, too. It only remained for Draco to make Potter see that the trust could extend to other things than the heat of the moment.
            At last Severus straightened and stepped back from Rabastan. Rabastan let his chin fall onto the stone, breathing harshly. Draco thought he was on the edge of unconsciousness, but he still shook his head when Severus opened his mouth to speak aloud. He didn’t want anything revealed that way if they could possibly help it. He sent a little warning pulse to Severus when he thought Severus was going to push it.
            Finally, Severus nodded, in the way he would to Draco and never to Potter, and said to both of them, His name is Lancelot Nelson.
            Draco frowned a little. He was familiar with a pure-blood family called Nelson, but he thought it was a common name in the Muggle world, too, so the Auror who had betrayed them could as easily be Muggleborn.
            Then he heard Potter’s hiss. It wasn’t a loud sound, but it came up from his lungs like a kettle’s noise nonetheless, and was in the deadly glare that he threw at Rabastan. His fingers had curled hard around his wand.
            You know this prodigy? Severus didn’t put nearly enough passion into his mental voice as Draco thought the revelation deserved, but Potter didn’t notice.
            Yes. He was—he pretended to be one of those pure-bloods who told me that they were glad I’d defeated Voldemort. Potter moved a step closer to Rabastan, as if he couldn’t help himself. He told me that he understood I was plagued with fans who wanted autographs and photographs and time with me, and that he would never bother me with that. In fact, he said he would cover for me if I ever needed to escape a crowd situation quickly.
            Draco winced a little. Potter hadn’t exactly considered Nelson a friend, said the purity of the pain in the back of his mind, but he had considered him someone he could depend on. To know that his concern, his “interest” in Potter, had come from some other place entirely, probably made him question a lot of his past interactions with people.
            Perhaps you should question them, said Severus, his voice like acid being etched along plates. Perhaps you should understand that not everyone is obliged to worship you, and that—
            Potter turned to face Severus and threw a silent, tumbling ball of emotion at him. Draco was only caught in the edges of it, and he was still scorched, the way he would be from a fireball thrown in a narrow room even if he wasn’t the target. He reeled a little, and put out a hand to catch the balcony railing.
            Potter’s shoulder was what caught him instead, and Potter held him up, peering into Draco’s face as if he could see every blow Rabastan and Rodolphus had given him. “I shouldn’t have done that with you nearby,” Potter murmured. “You’re not well.”
            “What did you show him?” Draco whispered, murmuring the words almost against Potter’s lips. They were that close, and it seemed right to speak aloud when they were.
            Potter cocked his head to the side, grasping Draco’s thoughts, and moved to the side, so that Draco was leaning on the wall instead. More than I should have, was all Potter said, as he bent down and began casting some healing charms on Draco’s broken ribs. Draco, nearly having forgotten the pain in the cacophony of the rest of his body, closed his eyes and bowed his head, gasping in relief as the agony receded. Something I think he needs to understand, but he doesn’t trust me anyway, and he’ll trust me less after this, for ambushing him.
            Draco opened his mouth to say that he didn’t think it would matter one way or another, what with Severus’s dislike of Potter, and then saw the fixed, rigid expression on Severus’s face. He seemed to be standing in one place, still sorting through whatever emotions and memories Potter had suddenly introduced him to.
            See? Potter mumbled, as he tapped his wand against one of Draco’s bruises and it vanished. Not the smartest thing for me to do.
            On the contrary, Draco said, after he had studied Severus for a moment. I think it’ll do him a world of good.
*
            Severus had not really meant the retort he’d given Potter; it had been habitual, the remnants of his old, instinctive reactions to hearing pain in the boy’s voice. Potter had no time for childish pain, not when he had larger concerns. When he was still a boy at Hogwarts, Severus had wanted Potter to focus on the Dark Lord, not how much he hated Occlumency lessons with Severus or the latest trick Draco had played on him. But he had hated them, at times, as much as the Dark Lord. Severus did not understand it.
            But Severus had not meant it. He had only launched an idle taunt.
            He did not deserve to be engulfed by the pain and the memories that Potter had thrown at him in turn, as sharp as though they had been dipped in salt, and wounding Severus through the stomach and the brain and the bond in turn.
            Potter gave him memories of a crowd at his first real speech, the day after he had defeated Voldemort. The name was one that Severus had fought to keep out of his mind for years, but now it ached up and down inside his mind, all because this was Potter’s memory and the way that Potter would think of the Dark Lord.
            The crowd had included grieving parents and relatives of those who had died at the Battle of Hogwarts. They had been motionless at first, watching Potter as he stumbled through memorized words about loss.
            As Harry did. In the middle of that overwhelming experience, sensations and colors recreated as though he was there, Severus had to think of Harry the way he did of himself, the way he did of the Dark Lord.
            Harry reached the end of his speech, and there was a long, blank indrawing of breath, when no one moved. Then one of the women in the back of the crowd stood taller and said, “And what about you?”
            Harry looked at her, his uncertainty making the air around Severus glisten and ache. “What do you mean?”
            “What else have you lost? What else are you going to do? What are you going to do now? Will you join the Aurors?”
            Someone else joined in, speaking as quickly as though they thought Harry would slip away if they didn’t throw nets of words around him. “Will you participate in the capture of the Death Eaters? Will you attend the funerals? Will you—”
            “—Say that you were fighting for Dumbledore? That’s what someone said, that you were Dumbledore’s man—”
            “—Make another speech? The Ministry could use your help, and there are some people who still don’t believe that You-Know-Who is gone forever—”
            “Could you sign this paper? It was the last thing th-that my sister held before she died, and I know she died thinking of you. She was just a s-silly fifth-year Ravenclaw, she had no business fighting…”
            The requests swirled around him, pressed in on him, and Harry’s face changed slowly. At the same time, because it was a memory that Severus was inside, even more intimately than he would be inside a Pensieve memory, Severus grasped what kind of change was occurring in his mind.
            This was far from the first time that a crowd had asked things of Harry Potter. However, he had thought things would change after he killed Voldemort. He had thought they had to, because the wizarding world would either decide that he should have done it more quickly or they would decide that he had fulfilled his purpose and they had nothing to ask him anymore.
            But now he saw that wouldn’t happen, and they just pressed in closely and yelped for more and more pieces of him.
            It would take some more incidents like that before Harry would understand fully that it wasn’t ever going to go away, that the expectations would always be there, and that people would always think that he should be doing something other than what he was doing. If he became an Auror, there would be people who would think that he should have been a Quidditch player. Play Quidditch, and he was taking time away from the serious business of saving the world. Stay in public, and he should retire to a reclusive existence; not be available to his fans, and he was risking irritating them because they had questions and needs that only he could address.
            There were so few people he could trust to not want that. So few people who thought of him as a normal person, sometimes irritating, sometimes annoying, sometimes helpful, sometimes wonderful. His friends were on the list, and, he had thought, some of his instructors and other Aurors who had seen that Harry had the ability to go through the Auror program but didn’t want more of him than that.
            It was one reason he had decided that he was going to be the best Auror he could be. Sure, he was still aiming for the top, but at least it was the top of a group of extremely skilled wizards, and it was only doing one thing, not the thousands and thousands that the public thought he should be able to accomplish.
            And he enjoyed the training, and he enjoyed the feeling of saving people.
            But he hated it that people didn’t see him, didn’t get that he was an ordinary person. And now he had to cross Nelson off that list. He had thought Harry deserved to suffer, and whether it was for being the Boy-Who-Lived or for some other reason, it still meant that Harry couldn’t trust him.
            Severus sorted through the memories, and reached the memory at the end, the memory when Severus had been crouched behind Harry as they came to rescue Draco.
            Severus had flinched and not raised the shields that he should have, because he had thought they were going to die. He had not trusted Harry to reliably report what Draco had said, that they were facing a Nundu; he had thought they were facing an unknown danger. He had been going into the manor house essentially blind, and panicked because he had no chance of a plan and no foreknowledge.
            He had not trusted the shields Harry had raised. He had not trusted that Harry had a plan with the clot of dirt from Malfoy Manor’s grounds, instead of pointlessly showing off because he could. He had not trusted that Harry could grasp what Draco wanted to tell him and pass along the knowledge instead of distorting it somehow.
            Not even with a bond to his mind that would reliably tell him if Harry was lying had Severus trusted him.
            There was no reason not to trust him. But Severus had not. He had not seen Harry, or Potter, as an adult; he had reacted, and spoken just now, as though Potter was no more than that mindless, rule-breaking boy.
            To yield to such a perception, when he knew better than anyone except Draco how untrue it was, was unworthy of him. And to be irritated that he had not been more useful during the battle was not a reason to make him lash out at a bondmate.
            Severus released his breath in a rush, and the last of the ball of fire, or emotions, that Potter had flung at him dissipated in the same moment. Severus shook his head and looked up at Potter, who looked back steadily at him.
            “You distrusted me,” Potter said. “Although the bond should have told you I was telling the truth. You panicked when you had no need to, because you could feel that I had a plan. Or you ought to have been able to feel it.” He paused. “Did you block that out? Not acknowledge it? I would like to know, in case it happens again.”
            Severus grimaced. He had never enjoyed apologies, but he had to admit that apologizing like this would at least be less humiliating than doing so in front of one of the crowds whose presence Potter had made him feel so effectively.
            “I trusted the prowess of the Lestranges more than I trusted yours,” he said. “And I did not think that you could counter a Nundu, or that you knew what you were doing with the dirt you had brought along.”
            Potter stared at him steadily. “Then why not be prepared with more spells yourself? If you didn’t trust me to fight, that should have been a reason to struggle all the harder.”
            Severus grimaced and shrugged. No more did he enjoy this. But enjoyment had little to do with necessity. “Because we had arrived too soon. Because I did not have the chance to make plans. Because—” He paused on what was more distasteful than all the rest, and then forced it out. “Because I was still caught by surprise that you wanted me away from the wards and inside the Manor. Because I did not trust that you had any concern for me, even if my being captured meant that you would be tortured in turn. Because I thought you hated me as much and as blindly as I hated you, and dealing with the discovery that you did not threw me too off-balance to be able to recover quickly.”
            Potter only stood there, and even without the barriers in place on the bond to keep their minds from intruding too much on each other’s, Severus didn’t think he would have had any idea what Potter was planning. Then Potter shrugged a little and said, “So you thought I would let you be captured or die in battle. With a Nundu. If there was a Nundu at all. You had no idea who to trust, how far to trust, what to do.”
            “That is true,” said Severus.
            Draco stood motionless, except for the slow turning of his head as he looked back and forth between them. Then he said, “Could one of you Summon my wand? I think it’s important that we cast a Memory Charm on Rabastan, so there’s no chance that he can remember any of this.”
            I agree, said Potter, so suddenly that Severus started from the sudden reactivation of the bond. And maybe then we can stop ignoring the truth? I was ignoring the truth that part of your actions were compelled, and that I was furious because I couldn’t always compel or control you. And you were ignoring the fact that I was telling the truth about what I heard from Draco and what I felt about you. Do you acknowledge it now?
            Severus nodded slowly, although it felt as if something huge and fragile hung from his head and might be broken by the motion. I do.
            Do I get any say in this? Draco asked, his voice as radiant as light on water. Was I ignoring anything that you can scold me for now?
            Of course you were, said Potter. You were ignoring the perfectly sensible precaution of staying inside at night instead of venturing outside near the wards.
            Draco began a long-winded defense of himself, but Severus tuned it out. He watched Potter instead, and the way that he calmly answered Draco, and the way that he took over casting the Memory Charm on Rabastan from Draco, when Draco actually tried to cast it without a wand.
            Severus had not been a coward, then, had not lost his fighting ability. He had simply passed too deeply into distrust and paranoia, which had left him as rootless as Potter had been before in a similar situation.
            Potter turned his head and caught Severus’s eye. He nodded slightly, his face calm and wise.
            And perhaps the fact that I can apply such words to him is a sign of how far I have come.
*
ChelseaPlume: Sorry! I was trying to convey the mindset that Snape explores more fully in this chapter, but because the last two chapters were mostly either from Harry’s or Draco’s POV, and Severus himself was not in the right frame of mind to explain it, it didn’t come through the way I wanted it to. Suffice it to say, the “weirdness” that Harry heard in Snape’s mental voice when he told him to get back inside Malfoy Manor really fucked Snape up. He was too concerned with the idea that Harry might really care about him and what that meant—because Potter could not care about him, that is ridiculous—and that made him a much less effective fighter than he should have otherwise been. However, he will play a major part in the last part of the story.
moodysavage: Thanks! I do think it matters a lot that Draco didn’t have to be rescued like a child. He had his moment of stupidity with walking outside, but it’s over now.
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The Wages of Going On