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Their Phoenix	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Threesomes/Moresomes Views: 68678 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 6
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter; that belongs to J. K. Rowling. I am making no money from this fic.

Chapter List
- 1-Their Phoenix
- 2-Part 2
- 3-Part 3
- 4-Part 4
- 5-Part 5
- 6-Part 6
- 7-Part 7
- 8-Part 8
- 9-Part 9
- 10-Part 10
- 11-Part 11
- 12-Part 12
- 13-Part 13
- 14-Part 14
- 15-Part 15
- 16-Part 16
- 17-Part 17
- 18-Part 18
- 19-Part 19
- 20-Part 20
- 21-Part 21
- 22-Part 22
- 23-Part 23
- 24-Part 24
- 25-Part 25
- 26-Part 26
- 27-Part 27
- 28-Part 28
- 29-Part 29
- 30-Part 30
- 31-Part 31
- 32-Part 32
- 33-Part 33
- 34-Part 34
- 32
- 33
- 34
Thank you again for all the reviews!

�� An owl
brought a letter in Shacklebolt�s handwriting to Severus on the morning of the
gathering Swanfair was to hold.

�� For long
moments, Severus sat holding it, looking back and forth from it to his book. He
had immersed himself in the history of belladonna for most of the morning.
Various Potions masters had various things to say about its effectiveness in
more than a few potions, and Severus had at last become interested enough to
purchase this book, which purported to resolve those conflicts. He did not want
to drag himself away.

�� On the
other hand, he was also not sure that he wanted Harry or Draco to read this
letter.

�� True, they
would know the contents soon enough; Severus was not sure that it was possible
for them to keep secrets effectively from one another anymore. But there was a
difference between yielding the information to them when they asked or
overheard his thoughts, and letting them read the words written on the paper.

�� Shacklebolt
would probably not have been able to figure out that of course Severus�s
bondmates would see words he had meant to write only to Severus. Harry�s
friends had quickly discovered that they shouldn�t complain to him about
Severus and Draco by letter, but Severus no longer had any faith that the
former Minister of Magic was as intelligent as two nineteen-year-old wizards.

�� He slit
open the envelope.

�� Severus, was the salutation, which made
Severus sigh in relief. Perhaps the letter would not be intolerable to read, as
it would have been with a Dear or
other sign of affection before his name. Severus objected to swallowing such
thick, fake treacle first thing in the morning.

�� I know that you have no reason to believe
anything good of me. Bu try to hear me out, please.

�� You were absolutely right that I was jealous
of you for being taken into Albus�s confidence about his death. I spent a month
after you fled asking myself what had happened, how he could have been so
mistaken as to your essential nature. Then I learned that he wasn�t, that he
trusted you more than anyone else, and with reason. My confusion changed to
resentment. I would have given so much for that trust. I thought I had given much; Albus regularly trusted me with
difficult tasks in the Muggle world, which most of the Order couldn�t have
handled. Then I discovered that I was left outside the enchanted circle of his
deepest confidence.

�� I never thought I would have to deal with
the consequences of that choice. When Harry ignored the bonds, I presumed you
would wither away into obscurity.

�� Severus
curled his lip. Yes, this was a good sign of Shacklebolt�s lack of
intelligence. Severus had been committed to dangerous tasks, he had been a
Slytherin in school, he had been Head of
Slytherin, he had attained a Potions mastery. What in any of that pointed to contentment
with an obscure fate?

�� Then I realized that you wouldn�t, and I
would have to face you over and over again. Harry claimed he would try to leave
you out of public affairs, but almost immediately after that, he asked for
pardons so that you could travel freely through the wizarding world. I knew
what would happen then, even if he didn�t.

�� I didn�t want anyone to know of my jealousy.
But Huxley exerted pressure on me. And Harry was there, constantly being hurt,
constantly needing defense, constantly requiring me to pay attention to him.
Where he went, you were.

�� It was inevitable.

�� That doesn�t mean I am proud of what I did.
I am not. But I want you to know that I didn�t lose my mind randomly, and that
you�re not the innocent that you probably like to think you are. Every action
you perform has an effect on someone else, even if you don�t think it will.

�� Yes,�
Severus said aloud in his disgust, �because I should have been concerned, when
Albus made me murder him, about what the effect on you would be.�

�� Harry and
Draco�s emotions popped up in the back of his head like floating question
marks. Severus ignored them for the moment and bent his head so that he could
finish the letter. His rejection of Shacklebolt�s words and position was so
strong that he knew he might not ever read the rest if he put it aside at the
moment.

�� I have decided that I need to leave the
Ministry, so that it can have a chance to recover from the damage I�ve
inflicted on it. That lesson about the consequences of your actions and how you
can�t anticipate them all but are still responsible for them also applies to
me.

�� I hope that my successor isn�t Colben. I
don�t think she has the experience or the resources necessary to survive past
the election. Those resources would include good advisers. Harry is more
intelligent than he gives himself credit for, but he�s still only a teenager
who did one remarkable thing.

�� And again
you assume,� Severus whispered, watching the letter flutter in his breath,
�that she would listen only to Harry and no one else, and that I would not
offer my advice, to be delivered through Harry as necessary, if she refused to
accept it directly.�

�� Draco�s
curiosity jumped up and down in the back of the bond like a child who wanted a
sweet held just beyond his reach. Harry�s retreated, as if he could feel
something from Severus that made him less interested in the letter.

�� You were the one that prompted many of my
actions, even if you never knew it, so I write this letter as a farewell, and a
warning. Keep a leash on Harry if you can. He doesn�t know that lesson about
consequences, and neither does Malfoy.

�� Kingsley Shacklebolt.

�� Severus
laid the letter aside on the table, shaking his head. It was the mixture of
self-defensiveness and unsolicited advice that he would have expected if anyone
had told him to guess what it contained. It made him sure that Shacklebolt had
resigned the Ministry as much to protect his own reputation as to try to give
someone a chance in office who would do better than he had.

�� I don�t understand why people write letters
like that, Harry said abruptly. I
mean, he must have known that you wouldn�t believe him. So why bother?

�� You have too much faith in his intelligence
and perceptiveness, Draco answered at once. Yes, he probably suspected that Severus wouldn�t believe him, but he
let his hope smother that. He couldn�t resist the chance to give one last
lecture.

�� Harry sent
an impression of shaking his head so that the bond rippled and danced, but
didn�t otherwise respond. Draco withdrew, so Severus curled his lip at the
letter and set aside all thoughts of it the same way he had done with the
physical parchment, returning to his ruminations on belladonna.

�� Draco came
down into the library a short time later and �casually� picked up the letter so
that he could read it in another room. Severus let him. There was, after all,
nothing hurtful in there, nothing that touched chords of privacy in his soul,
and so nothing that he would not have wished Draco to see.

*

�� Harry was
nervous about what would happen when they confronted Swanfair�they�d tried to
anticipate her so far, and she�d still managed to get through their
defenses�but he had to admit that Draco�s energy was infectious.

�� Draco was
brilliant: radiating golden joy down the bond, his facial features shining with
smugness, his eyes like ice that had attained warmth without melting. He
touched Harry and Severus constantly, small fluttering touches on their
shoulders and backs and cheeks that startled and aroused Harry. He winked, he
laughed, he told outrageous stories that he broke off halfway through to check
the time, and altogether he made Harry wonder what would have happened if he�d
ever offered encouragement to Draco in Hogwarts.

�� The same thing you said to me once, Draco
responded when he caught the edge of that thought. It wouldn�t have worked, because we wouldn�t have Severus.

�� Harry
turned to study Severus, who stood near the fireplace, a book open in his hands
and a frown on his face. Even awaiting their departure, he studied. But there
was one difference to mark this out as a special day: he wore a robe of black
silk, with emerald-green snakes cavorting up the sides.

�� You will give me a fine conceit if you carry
on looking at me that way, Severus said, his expression and the direction
of his gaze never changing.

�� You deserve a fine conceit, Harry
responded. Especially because you�re
handsome, and because you belong to me.

�� Severus
shifted, looking up then, and Harry shivered in delight as he realized the
claim of ownership was entirely mutual.

�� Draco
turned around and smiled tolerantly at them, as if he was indulging the pranks
of children. Harry refrained from rolling his eyes, but it was difficult. Only
the fact that Draco belonged to them both as firmly as they belonged to each
other kept him from looking silly.

�� Nothing can make me look silly at the
moment. Draco spread his hands to appeal to some invisible admiring
audience.

�� Just make
sure that you don�t approach Swanfair with exultation in your face,� Severus
said, shutting his book and setting it on a shelf with obvious reluctance.
�Remember what aspect we are supposed to be presenting.�

�� Draco
scowled at Severus, perhaps for urging caution, perhaps because he didn�t want
him to speak aloud when they had been communicating mentally, and then smiled
and spun towards the front door. �I am incapable of maintaining a bad mood
right now,� he said with a sharp sigh. �Come with me.�

�� Harry
followed, with Severus in tow. Harry could remember a time when he would have
felt uneasy with Severus at his back, and expected a knife or a wand pushed
into his shoulder blade, or at least a poisonous potion forced down his throat.

�� Now he felt
nothing but wonder to be between his two lovers�wonder that he could ever have
thought anything else right.

�� Severus
growled in his mind. Stop having such
thoughts, he demanded. Or you will
force me to kiss you here, and perhaps forget about waiting until Swanfair has
been handled.

�� Harry
turned back to look at him, keeping a solemn expression on his face. Severus
narrowed his eyes. Of course, he could feel through the bond that Harry was
planning something, but he didn�t know what it was.

�� Breathless
at his own daring, Harry ran a tongue around his lips and gave Severus a slow wink.

�� Severus�s
eyes darkened to the point that Harry thought he would keep his promise. He was
certainly moving forwards, one hand extended as if he would grip Harry�s
shoulder and spin him back around, when Draco interrupted.

�� You flirt
like children,� he said. He was standing in the doorway, his eyes merciless, a
faint cruel smile lingering around his mouth. �Have you forgotten what we�re
here to do, who we�re going to confront?�

�� Harry winced.
He couldn�t help but wonder if Draco felt left out. Harry and Severus had been flirting lately, playing coy
games that they could both tolerate in the wake of a honest declaration. Draco
hadn�t received as much concerted attention from either of them.

�� Are you kidding? Draco raised a
supercilious eyebrow and turned to face Harry for a moment. His smile had
become warm again, and once again his eyes resembled ice in their sparkle,
rather than their coldness. I know that
you both admire me for the plan that I came up with to destroy Swanfair�s
confidence. I would rather have that kind of admiration than the childish kind
I could arouse with flirtatious gestures.

�� Harry
snorted, reassured, and felt Severus�s hand on his shoulder. He turned around,
prepared to pay the price for his teasing.

�� Even when
that price was a kiss that left him trembling and needing support to walk out
the door, he still thought it was a good exchange.

*

�� Tonight is my night.

�� Draco had
never felt like he owned a piece of
time before. He had seen other people believe in it and act like it, though.
Bellatrix, when she tortured someone for the Dark Lord. She knew that she could
linger over the pain as long as she needed to, shaping false-tender words with
lips near the prisoner�s ear, long nails stroking a pale cheek. And the Dark
Lord had thought he owned the moment when Harry had destroyed him, when he had aimed his wand at a kneeling Draco and Severus.

�� But this
time was Draco�s.

�� He could
feel the last bits of his old self sloughing as they approached the hall where
the pure-bloods awaited them. He was no longer the cowardly little boy whom the
Dark Lord had controlled with threats to his parents. He was not his parents�
child. He was not the shadow of a more powerful and brilliant person, whether
that person was his father or Harry.

�� He was
himself.

�� And for the
first time, Draco had the impression that himself might be a person that he
would like and appreciate.

�� He felt the
ground as soft as air beneath his feet when he opened the door and walked into
the hall. Severus came behind him, and behind him was Harry with his Invisibility Cloak. They had chosen that as
more reliable than any of the glamours they might have used, and easier to end
on time than Polyjuice Potion. They couldn�t know when the moment to reveal
Harry might arrive, not exactly.

�� Draco was,
however, confident that they could seize it when it did.

�� It was
really extraordinary how he felt, he mused as they moved on, to the private
room at the back of the hall that Swanfair had agreed they could use,
supposedly because Draco and Severus were too sensitive to bear the stare of too
many eyes. Confidence slithered through him and sharpened his mind and
clarified his perceptions. He knew that
he could handle whatever happened, not because he was arrogant but simply
because he knew that he could. It was a fact, like the way his eyes could
perceive light.

�� And then he
realized what the difference was. His realization ran like golden trickles of
sunlight up the bonds, and his bondmates responded with gentle questions that
would have sounded insipid spoken aloud.

�� I feel like an extraordinary person for the
first time, he told them. I�m not
measuring myself against anyone, because Swanfair doesn�t count. She�s so
clearly going to lose. I�m complete in myself. I don�t need to cheat, or worry
about my marks, or fear that someone outside me is going to cast me down into
the dirt again. I�m fully and simply myself.

�� Harry
caressed his hair through the bond. Severus rubbed the back of his neck. Draco
listened to his moment singing.

*

�� Swanfair
had no idea.

�� Severus
could not glance into her eyes from this distance to be certain of that, but it
was visible in her behavior, in the way that she stood on the stage before the
crowd of pure-bloods exhorting them, in the too-wide gestures of her arms, in
the loud laughter that bubbled out of her throat when she had to answer some
importunate question. If she expected any kind of check or contradiction, she
would have been more cautious, more chastened, aware that something could
happen at any moment to change the situation and she should be calmer now lest
she looked the more foolish afterwards.

�� But she had
no trace of that awareness.

�� Severus smiled
thinly. It suited him that the woman who had done her best to kill his bondmate
should climb a mountain. The fall would hurt her the more when they pushed her
off it.

�� Or when Draco pushes her off it, he
thought, his gaze going sideways so that he could focus on Draco. Draco stood
halfway between him and Harry, arms folded and head cocked as he listened to
Swanfair, an absolutely relaxed expression on his face. He wasn�t smiling, but
if he had been Severus�s enemy, Severus would still have been reluctant to go
up against him. Someone who looked like that most often had better weapons in
reserve than smiles would have been.

�� More and
more, Severus was becoming conscious that he loved his bondmates in different
ways. (He could speak those words in the most private part of his mind, the one
walled around with Occlumency, where he knew that neither of them would catch
the outer edge of his thoughts). Draco was the one whom Severus admired more,
because he could see the qualities that made Draco what he was more easily and
trace the way he used logic and cunning to solve a problem. Harry�s logic was
usually opaque. Draco was the more open.

�� How Granger and Weasley, and Harry himself,
would laugh if they heard that!

�� But it was
the truth. Harry might betray his emotions, but until recently, Severus had not
understood what caused those emotions. He understood Draco at a more
fundamental level. He had only to say something in a certain way, turn his head
in a certain direction, or look at Severus with a cocked eyebrow, and Severus
knew what set of values or causes or passions he was being invited to share. He
knew them from their beginning to their ending, because Draco�s mind was so
very like his own.

�� He could
flow with Draco in perfect confluence. It had not taken them long to master the
new bond between them, not only because they both wanted to do so, but because
they both worked on the problem in the same way.

�� Draco was a
comrade, a colleague, in a way that Harry could never be. With him, Severus could
have the kind of intellectual discussions that took place between Potions
masters and other experts on the same subject. Severus was close to him without
effort, and many times that was exactly what he wished for.

�� With Harry,
he had to strive far more. Their experiences might be similar, but trusting to
that and treading across that surface without care was like expecting to walk
confidently on a frozen pond. The dark water beneath the ice bubbled and
churned with the alien impulses and contrary lessons that they had taken from
those experiences.

�� Harry called
forth the part of Severus that enjoyed puzzles and intellectual games, that
dealt with difficult potions, that had sometimes exulted�in a most perverse
way�in the challenges that spying had set him. Severus would approach him with
care, tentative, half-confident, and Harry would give him a puzzled look and
explain that that wasn�t what he meant at all.

�� Harry
controlled himself more than most people realized. There was a giant preserve
of emotions in him that he had no intention of opening to the public. He kept
his most precious smiles and his most valuable laughter for a charmed circle of
a few intimates that he seemed to have chosen randomly.

�� To be
admitted to that charmed circle, and now to know that Harry wanted to give up
some of his control in order to sleep with him�

�� It made
Severus hard thinking about it, and it gave him the patience to endure past the
moments when it seemed that he had made his best effort and still didn�t
understand Harry, and never would.

�� Severus was
not concerned about those different kinds of love. Harry and Draco were
different people. They were equal in his regard, but not identical. Why should
he love them in exactly the same way?

�� He would be
astonished if they did not love him in a different way than they loved each
other, for that matter.

�� His life
was not the way he had envisioned it during the rare moments when he let
himself think about surviving his masters, but he would not have changed it.

�� And now
Swanfair had finished speaking, and turned to gesture at the curtain to the
side of the stage, no doubt thinking Draco would walk out and give her a
grudging bow like a crown to be placed on her head. Draco surged forwards, his
steps as light and perfect as if he were treading a tightrope to the
confrontation.

�� Behind him
came Harry.

�� And then
Severus, who nonetheless took a moment to revel in what was happening between
them before he followed.

*

�� Because
this was his night and he was alive to every alteration in it, Draco knew the
edge of the moment he was standing on.

�� There was
the moment when the pure-bloods in the crowd, some of them resentful, some
relieved, but all interested, awaited his entrance and his bow to Swanfair.
Draco was sure she had prepared them for the gesture even though she had not
mentioned it by name. They charged the air with their expectations, and those
expectations had the power to twist reality into conformation. Draco knew that.

�� And this was the moment, the shining slice
of time, when Draco took that pliable reality and shaped it the way he intended it to be shaped, by doing
something as simple as bowing deeply to Swanfair, nearly folding himself in
half. There were a few anxious titters from the audience, as they wondered why
he had turned a gesture of submission into one of mockery when he was the one
who had agreed to bow in the first place.

�� He kept his
eyes on Swanfair�s face, as she looked over his dipping back and saw Harry
advancing behind him, free of the Invisibility Cloak now.

�� And this was the moment when her plans collapsed
like ice in summer, and there was shock in her face that poisoned the triumph,
and the hand she had raised as if to bestow a blessing on him fell limp and
useless to her side.

�� Draco found
it hard to breathe through the sweetness.

�� The next
moment, the audience was yelling, was clapping, was cheering, was laughing, and
the moment which Swanfair might have seized and turned back into her own
channels was gone forever. Even if she tried to speak now and make some
gracious announcement about how she had suspected this all along and was
determined to allow Draco his little joke, no one could have heard her.
Everyone would remember the look on her face better than they would remember
any words that she might speak, anyway.

�� Draco rose
and stepped back so that he was standing next to Harry, slinging his arm around
his bondmate�s shoulders. Harry had told Draco that he wanted to speak to
Swanfair, just to hammer home the point for those pure-bloods who might be slow
to follow him or who would think this was a glamour or Polyjuice. Some people
probably would think that it was
glamours or Polyjuice, as Draco was aware, but Harry needed this as much as
Draco had needed the initial moment of revenge to soothe his rage and grief, so
he allowed it.

�� Severus
stepped up behind them and held his wand unobtrusively between their bodies. If
Swanfair decided that revenge tasted better than the restricted role in
pure-blood politics they intended to leave her, he would be ready.

�� Too bad
for you,� Harry said calmly, �that we expected something like the Impassioned
Fever Potion to come from your hands. We had the antidote already waiting.�
More excited speculation from the audience, but not enough to overwhelm Harry�s
voice. What he said was a lie, of course, but Draco was well-aware of how
powerful lies could be at this moment. �You intended me to miss the election.
You should have realized that we would have anticipated a tactic so obvious.�

�� And then he
looked at Swanfair and shook his head like a sorrowful mentor who had seen his
best student fail a practical exam.

�� Draco
wanted to laugh. He hadn�t told Harry to add that headshake, but it was
perfect, the kind of thing that would also stamp itself in the minds of his
audience.

�� Swanfair,
very pale about the lips, bowed back to them. Draco approved. Under the
circumstances, it was the best thing she could do, courteous and not requiring
them to duel her or destroy her�and weak. Everyone who mattered and could think
about things in the right way would see her bow as only an echo of Draco�s
earlier, unforgettable one.

�� So be it,�
Swanfair said. �I acknowledge myself beaten.�

�� Again, it
was the only thing she could reasonably do, but her allies and dependents would
not so soon forget a confession of weakness.

�� Swanfair
turned to face her audience and bowed to them, too. Draco wondered for a moment
whether that would help her to regain some footing with them, but then decided
that it wouldn�t. Even if she meant it sincerely, there were simply too many
who would see it as an attempt to curry favor, or realize that there was no way
Swanfair was that humble.

�� They had
one more surprise, but Draco was content to let it wait for its proper time.
Swanfair made a pretty little speech about being mistaken, and didn�t say
anything about what she had made the mistake about. Then she turned to Draco
with a jerky motion like an automaton and held her hand out. Draco took it and
bowed low over it. He hoped that she could feel the mocking smile that he
pressed against her skin in a kiss.

�� Swanfair
then turned towards the far side of the stage, after the briefest of nods to
Harry and Severus. Draco suspected, from the twitch at the corners of her
mouth, that she was about to break down and didn�t want them to see it.

�� Someone
cleared her throat.

�� Swanfair
froze, staring straight ahead. Of course, that made sure she couldn�t see the
person who stepped out from behind Draco, but maybe that was the idea. Maybe
she�d simply had enough of humiliation for one day.

�� I am
disappointed by some of the revelations made today,� Colben said in a solemn
tone as she stepped around Draco and into the middle of the stage. �I had
thought that my allies were truer to me, and to the political cause that they
professed to serve, than this. But I find now that they can act against one
another without caring about how that might affect my chances for election.�
She gave a delicate sigh. �At least I learned this before I came into office and
had to consider rewards for faithful service.�

�� Swanfair
turned her head back without turning her body. �You knew what I was from the
first,� she said, speaking to Colben as intensely as if they were the only two
people on the stage. �You accepted my help knowing
what I wanted.�

�� Power,�
Colben agreed. �But this is not power. Your machinations have only landed you
more distant from it, not near it.�

�� Draco knew
that implied that Swanfair had had more control over things than she really
did. But it was a frame of mind that the pure-bloods watching breathlessly in
the audience would share. Swanfair had taken a risk, thrown her dice and
gambled with stakes that she did not yet have. She had to be prepared to accept
the consequences of any risk, especially since everyone would have said how
brilliant she was if her plan had worked.

�� She was
responsible�or irresponsible, as the majority of the public inclined to think
that way in the first place would see it.

�� Swanfair
made another bow, to Colben this time. Her jerkiness and the abrupt way she raised
her head to stare gave her away. Her mask of perfect control was cracking. �Can
you blame me for having tried?� she asked.

�� When it
caused potential damage to me?� Colben raised her eyebrows. �Yes.�

�� Swanfair
stood straighter, then, and swept her hair back into a tight tail that she
began to tie with a wandless spell. Draco understood what came next from the
severe lines on her face. She would go away to nurse her humiliation, and in
the meantime make sure that no one else could profit from that humiliation.

�� If Draco
had entertained hopes of coaxing her back to work with Colben and Harry, he
would have been disappointed. Because this was exactly what he had hoped would
happen, he smiled, and let her see him smiling.

�� Swanfair
looked blankly at him for a moment, then faced Colben. �I was incautious in the
political arena,� she said. �You are right to chastise me. I am right to leave.
I will go home, and mediate on my great deeds in the past, and consider whether
the world has room for someone like me anymore.�

�� She turned
and marched off the stage with great dignity.

�� In the end, Draco thought, stepping back
towards Harry and Severus so he could feel physical as well as emotional warmth
from them, this is worth no more as a
gesture than Shacklebolt�s resignation. She�s doing it to oblige herself and
not anyone else. Our only failure is if we believe her.

�� From the
way Colben waved a vague hand at the departing Swanfair and then turned to face
the crowd, Draco didn�t think they needed to worry about that.

�� You did this, Harry breathed into his
mind. I�m so proud of you.

�� Severus�s
approval was lower, without words, but there.

�� And because
his moment was past, Draco let himself bask in the praise as he had earlier
basked in the excitement. No emotion that intense could last forever, and he
was glad he had experienced it once without being destroyed by it.

*

�� What you
did was magnificent,� Colben said, her hand firmly clasping Harry�s as she
stared into his eyes. She didn�t smile, but she didn�t, often, and Harry had no
doubt that she meant every word of her approval anyway. �I do not expect Swanfair
to be a trouble to me as she has been in the past.�

�� Thank
Draco,� Harry felt he had to say, because, after all, he wasn�t the one who had
come up with the plan to make Swanfair irrelevant. �He coaxed her into setting
up a situation where she would be exposed and stripped of her power.�

�� Colben turned
her head. Draco straightened from talking with Severus and gave her a brief
bow. His eyes were challenging, but Harry knew, from the bond between them,
that that didn�t come from hostility to Colben; he simply didn�t understand her
very well, and was wary of either impressing or disappointing her.

�� He
understands more about politics than I had thought he could, with that last
name,� murmured Colben.

�� He learned
in more than one school,� Harry said, drawing out the words until she looked at
him again, and then tilted his head at Severus. Severus looked both pleased and
embarrassed, scowling as if he had no wish to receive the tribute that Harry
knew he desired. That was understandable, considering how many people had
pretended to sympathize with him only to turn on him in the end. But Harry didn�t
intend to let him treat the present like the past, no matter how much he would
have liked to.

�� Besides,
Harry trusted Severus to let him know if he went too far. He couldn�t believe
he�d once thought those dark eyes and that rugged face unreadable.

�� I see,�
Colben said. Her voice had cooled and deepened, and Harry had the impression
that he had left with something to think about. She bowed to him, said, �I
shall have to reconsider some of the appointments that I intended to make in my
new administration,� and then turned and went to deal with the pure-bloods that
wanted to throng around her.

�� Harry
couldn�t hide back his grin as he went over to his bondmates and leaned against
both of them at the same time, forcing them to support him. �How would you like
to be advisers to the new Minister?� he asked.

�� Nonsense,�
Severus said, his voice repressive in that way that meant he was actually
trying to conceal his interest. �There is no reason to think that Colben will
become Minister at this point, let alone that she would wish to appoint us to
high positions.� His voice quivered with hope, however, and gave him away.

�� If you
really thought that was true, you wouldn�t support her,� Harry answered
peacefully. �I know that you�ve vowed not to support a losing cause again.�
Severus tensed briefly, as he often did when Harry hinted at mentioning his
Death Eater days, but Harry increased the strength of his hold around Severus�s
shoulders, and he relaxed again.

�� She is not
Minister yet,� Severus said. �It
would be as well not to count on gifts that may never materialize, because they
are dependent on her good will rather than the will of the people.�

�� Harry
closed his eyes and said nothing, because he was sure he had made his point,
and Severus and Draco would not thank him for continually trying to make it.

�� Do we want
to stay here and let the pure-bloods talk to us?� Draco asked, in a neutral
voice. His bond was smooth and neutral as ice at the moment, too, as if his
desires to stay and go were equally balanced.

�� Harry
opened his eyes. He wanted the pure-bloods to have a chance to know�if they
could hint it delicately enough, of course�that Draco was the one who had come
up with the plan to humiliate Swanfair, so that they would give him all the
proper credit.

�� He didn�t expect
the way that Severus�s hand tightened possessively on the back of his neck and
Severus murmured, �There was something else that was promised to us�to me�when Swanfair was defeated. I believe
it is time now for that promise to be fulfilled.�

�� Harry felt
dizzy with how fast he grew hard, and from the light that he could see invade
Draco�s eyes. He did manage, by
concentrating, to shut his eyes and murmur, �I�d like that.�

*

�� The world
for Severus was nothing but joy.

*

�� k lave
demo: Thank you. I do try to forget that characters have both flaws and good
points, though I feel more free to abuse my OCs than the canon characters.

�� I�m afraid
there probably won�t be a sequel, as I couldn�t think of another plot that
could come after this one.

�� Alliandre:
Well, I don�t want to reveal all that details yet, but that scene will be in
the next chapter.

�� I know what
you mean. And I do think I write a lot of similar sex scenes and character
psychology. The problem is that, writing about rivals and opponents as often as
I do, I don�t want to leapfrog straight into a sexual relationship unless the
characters are already messed up (as they were in �Leader of Men�) and thus
have more important dysfunctions on their minds than whatever sexual tensions
sleeping together is likely to cause. I simply can�t buy that Harry and Draco,
for instance, were in love with each other all through school, or that one kiss
is enough to make Harry leave Ginny, and so on. I see decisions regarding how
to get together as fairly momentous.

�� jennifer: I
think your question just answered itself!

�� Blood on
the Water: Thank you so much!

�� helga1967:
Thank you!

�� Shadow
Lily: Thank you! I hope you enjoyed this chapter.
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