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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 Thirty-Three—Reckoning
            “I could get used to the sight of you sitting by my bed.”
            As Draco had expected, that simply made Potter roll his eyes, before he leaned in and helped Draco sit up against his pillows so he could reach the tray the house-elves had brought more easily. Draco was actually much stronger than he’d been when Potter escorted him up the stairs, but he didn’t mind the extra help. It was nice to know that Potter wouldn’t snap at him as Severus sometimes did or torture him or turn away from him.
            I heard that.
            Draco flinched mildly as Severus slipped into the room. He looked back and forth between the two of them, seeing who knew what, before he announced, “The potion has a few more hours left to simmer. Then there will be an hour when I will need help tossing certain kinds of ingredients into the potion on a predetermined schedule, while I stir.”
            Draco felt a great, waiting stillness settling into the middle of his stomach, and wondered for a second where it had come from, before he realized that Potter was leaning forwards. Hard to distinguish his emotions from Potter’s, at this point in time. “And then?” Potter asked, softly enough that Draco felt more than heard the words.
            “Then it will need a few minutes to cool and allow some of its ingredients to settle into new positions,” Severus replied, sitting down in the same chair he had taken when they were discussing the Banishing Curse.
            “And then?” Potter repeated, his body tense enough to quiver. Draco looked back and forth between the faces of his bondmates, and caught his breath at what was in the bond. Severus was teasing Potter. He did it with a straighter face than Draco could have managed, but that was what he was doing.
            What happened while I was asleep?
            Later. Potter was the one who replied, his eyes on Severus’s expression. Severus understood the signal in those words, or had tired of his teasing, and simply nodded.
            “Then we may drink it.”
            Potter closed his eyes in what seemed like an expression of relief too great for words, then sighed and leaned back against his chair. The bond jumped and danced between them. Draco winced. His head was the only part of him that still hurt after his rest, but plucking the bond made it feel like someone was twanging a harp along his thoughts.
            Could you not do that, Potter?
            Sorry, Draco, said Potter absently, and stopped, turning to Severus. Draco turned with him, but shut his open mouth at what he saw in Severus’s slightly narrowed eyes.
            You do not refer to me by my first name.
            He doesn’t call me by mine, either, Potter said, standing up as if he thought he needed to come between Severus and Draco. It doesn’t matter.
            Severus’s face grew pinched, but he nodded. Draco sat up, though. He knew that expression from before the bond had begun. Severus only looked like that when something did matter, but he was trying hard not to let it.
            “Why don’t you call him by his first name?” he asked Potter, aloud. “I can understand our reasoning for not calling you by yours. You might resent it. But I never said that you should call me by mine, you just started doing it. I don’t know why you can’t do the same for Severus.”
            Potter answered them in images, not words, each one pointed like a broken bone. He showed Draco the picture of himself after he had been captured by the Lestranges, and Potter had helped him to his feet. He showed Severus himself brooding, and the way he had swept around the classrooms in Hogwarts when Potter was young, and how he brewed. All of those pictures were closed-off, so composed and cold that they felt like marble walls to the touch.
            “Fine,” Draco said. “But if it’s only out of pity, then I’d prefer that you stop.”
            Potter shrugged as if his shoulder joints were locked up and suffering from pain. “As you will.”
            Draco made a groaning noise and rolled his eyes at Severus. Severus took over what might be said to be his side of the negotiations, although his mouth was puckered with distaste. “It is more than pity that leads you to call Draco by his name. We can tell that from the images you showed us. Because you pity me somewhat, for not having words and being expert in an art that you despise.”
            “I don’t despise it,” said Potter. “I know what potions can do.”
            “I don’t want you to call me by my first name if it’s only out of pity,” Draco said, his words utterly calm and regular. “That’s what I meant. I do like to hear you call me Draco. But Severus and I would like to be treated equally.”
            Potter turned and eyed Severus. “And you won’t explode on me?” he finally asked, his regard so wary and considering that Draco half-wondered if he still thought of Severus as an enemy. “Or tell me that I’m a disrespectful whelp for presuming where I’m not wanted?”
            “That is what you thought I would say?” Severus was holding himself with much the same care as Potter.
            “No,” said Potter. “I thought you’d say worse.”
            Severus sighed and touched his forehead with one hand, smoothing up and down. Not quite a headache, Draco thought, but getting there. “I do not want to be your enemy. I thought we had settled this.”
            Potter’s face worked; then he nodded. “I just didn’t know it mattered to you, or I would have been calling you Severus earlier,” he said. He still spoke as though Severus was a word in a foreign language that had suddenly materialized in English, but he no longer sounded as though they were forcing him into it. “I can do it.” He paused, then added, “Sorry.”
            The quizzical expression in Severus’s eyes made Draco think he would ask what Potter was apologizing for, but mercifully, he refrained and let the apology sit there. “Good,” said Severus. He measured Draco with his eyes next. “Are you recovered enough to drink the potion?”
            Draco snorted. “I’ve been letting Harry here pamper me, but I’m strong enough.” He registered the fleeting burst of surprise from Potter that he would call him by his first name in turn, but ignored it. “I only need to make sure I can take the heavy metals that will invade my body, right?”
            “It would also help to be able to stand upright without swaying and not fall into the potion or drop the vial,” Severus murmured.
            Draco rolled his eyes, gulped a little more of the soup that the house-elves thought appropriate for him, and laid the tray aside. “You’re not usually this snippy about my ability to recover from injuries, Severus,” he murmured, and stood up from the bed, carefully stretching his arms above his head and then holding his hand out in the position that he would usually use to scoop up a vial. “See?”
            Severus reached out and poked him in the shoulder with a solid finger. Draco swayed and had to clutch the bed. Potter—Harry—stood there, careful, watching. Draco shook his head at him and maintained his footing without help a second later.
            “I doubt anybody will be poking me during the potion-drinking,” Draco said.
            Severus went on studying him, and Draco shivered with the anxiety from Harry’s direction, the fear that they would have to put off the potion for another day. Harry might call them by their first names and rescue them from torture and delight in his ability to perform torture rituals with them, but he didn’t want to be bonded to them.
            No, I don’t, said Harry, very gently. I think that we aren’t enemies anymore, but we aren’t lovers or friends or anyone for whom this level of intimacy is appropriate.
            You have strange ideas about appropriateness, Draco sent back, frowning. This bond is unique. How would we know what’s appropriate?
            True enough, Harry said a moment later, and sounded as if he was trying not to laugh. Anyway. A few more hours, you said, Severus?
            The pause before Severus’s first name was still obvious, but not as much as it would be if he had spoken aloud. Severus seemed to appreciate that, from the way that the bond in the back of Draco’s mind lightened. Yes. But I will require you in the lab before then, to show you where the ingredients are that I want you to cast in the cauldron and how fast you should do so. It will be a kind of dance.
            “I’m a good enough dancer when my partner helps me along,” Harry said.
            Draco didn’t take that as a challenge, though from the way Severus’s shoulders tightened, he might have. Draco nodded to Harry instead. “Well, then. Consider me your partner.”
            Harry raised an eyebrow at him. Draco raised one right back, and reached for his soup.
*
            Severus stepped out of the way as Potter—Harry carried a large pine branch over. The house-elves had fetched it from the grounds of the Manor. Harry began stripping needles from the branch and letting them fall into the secondary cauldron Severus had set up to contain the fast-brewing part of the potion, his movements swift and efficient.
            He whirled out of the way the moment he had placed nineteen needles in the cauldron, because Draco was coming behind him, carrying strips of orange peel and preserved lemon rind. He cast the spell that would scatter them appropriately, while Severus watched him narrowly, his hand on the stirring rod that he would need to move in the first cauldron with its cooling potion approximately now.
            As Severus stirred, he kept count of the beats of the rod against the cauldron, as automatically as he counted heartbeats in a stressful situation, without taking his eyes off Draco. But Draco betrayed no weakness, no trembling in his wrists or slurring of words. He would be able to finish his part in this preparation. Severus was certain now.
            The heavier part was still Potter’s.
            Harry, said Potter, and brushed past him, this time carrying a smaller clump of wild iris that Severus had had preserved under various charms in his store cupboards for a long time. It was every other petal that Harry began to pull loose and drift into the cauldron, exactly as Severus had said he should. Then he paused and cast an Aguamenti Charm at just the right time, too, soaking the ingredients in the cauldron so far with a stream of neatly placed water.
            You dance better than you said you did, Severus said, as he finished the stirring and lifted the rod out of the cauldron, then turned his head to count the bubbles that exploded on the surface. With the bond, he could keep easy track of what Harry was doing at the moment, as well as the way that Draco was trundling the cage that held the next ingredient across the lab.
            With the bond, Harry echoed, not a mocking tease of his own thoughts but an actual answer, as Severus realized a moment later. Harry dropped the iris on the floor and stepped smartly back and to the right, letting Draco bend down in front of the caged and spitting cat. He trimmed its claws with a flash and thunder of minor spellcraft, and the shavings flew towards the cauldron, caught up in the Whirlwind Charm that Harry cast.
            Of course, Severus realized a moment later. They had been relying on the bond to make this possible in the first place, but for some reason, once they were in here and moving in circles around each other, neat steps, precise movements, it seemed larger than that. It seemed like a natural consequence of their harmony together.
            The last time it will ever be so.
            Yes, was all that Harry said. Draco didn’t respond with anything other than a grunt; he was concentrating too hard on cutting exactly the right amount of claw-shavings from each of the cat’s four paws.
            Severus raised an eyebrow and turned back to the potion. The fifth bubble of a particular size had exploded. He lifted the first cauldron off the flame and turned to the second cauldron. Harry had cast a quartered circle, gleaming and made of soft fire, in the air above the second one, and was busy making sure that all of the claw-shavings Draco had clipped off fell through the lines into correct quarters of the cauldron.
            I could do more, Draco said, or thought, or perhaps not even that conscious. It was a sullen throb at the back of Severus’s mind. Draco had moved out of the way, drawing the wheeled cage with the cat in it to the back of the lab. They would let it go once they were done with the potion.
            I know you could, said Severus, and pressed soothing gentleness down into the back of Draco’s mind at the same time as he sent a small wave of approval towards Harry. Harry turned his head to the side so they could see the neck, and dismissed his flaming quarter circle with an easy wave of his wand. But I did not want to trouble you for blood so soon after you had finished your recovery.
            Draco smiled sourly. Or you wanted the more powerful magical boost you thought we would get from Harry’s blood.
            Both can be true.
            Draco laughed. Severus frowned, afraid that the sound would make Harry start and disturb the steadiness of his hand, but it seemed he needn’t have worried. Harry drew back his hand and flicked his wrist hard, once. The wand drew a long, light line of blood down the back of his left wrist, and blood leaped out of it. Harry directed the drops into the cauldron the same way he had the claw-shavings.
            Perhaps the bond was responsible for that steadiness, as well, Severus thought, as he moved forwards to grasp the lip of the secondary cauldron from the left, while Harry took it from the right.
            Of course it was. You think I would come into a potions lab without it to guide me?
            Severus had the fleeting, rippling thought that he might be capable of guiding Harry in the making of a sufficient potion without the bond, if he would listen, and then together they poured the contents of the secondary cauldron into the first, combining the potions.
            The fumes produced on first meeting were dark green and potentially lethal. Severus raised his wand to cast the Bubble-Head Charm, only to find the spell already surrounding his face. It seemed Harry had cast it over all of them at once, and stood with his body partially shielding Draco, as if he believed the fumes would fly over to attack him especially.
            I’m not a child, and I would appreciate it if you would stop treating me as one, Draco said sullenly, and shoved Harry aside so that he could watch the mixing of the potions.
            The water sizzled, and the air filled with a strong smell of pine resin. The next moment it was, briefly, the scent of irises in bloom, and then came thick copper and ash, salt, baking bread. Harry wrinkled his nose. Pity that it won’t be that appetizing when we drink it.
            We can use the bond to overcome any problems of taste as well, said Draco. The way we did the magical exhaustion in the Banishing Curse ritual.
            Harry moved his head in agreement, and then they watched again, Harry and Draco knowing from Severus what they should be looking for. A single, spreading ring of gold appeared on the potion’s surface, and Severus tensed. If the gold touched the sides of the cauldron, then the potion would be defective, and they must begin all over again.
            But the gold faded before it could get there, into a uniform, smooth, and brilliant green.
            Severus nodded twice, once to Harry, once to Draco. Then a third time, for himself. The potion had worked the way he wanted it to, and it would be foolish to hold off on drinking it any longer.
            Then let’s, and get this over with, said Harry’s harsh voice in the back of his mind.
            Severus managed to refrain from rolling his eyes, although he wanted to. He stepped forwards and reached for the three vials he had laid on the table earlier, scooping them up and handing them out. Harry and Draco’s hands were in the right place to accept them. Draco Transfigured his into a goblet, perhaps simply to show off how much his magic had recovered. Harry ignored Draco as if what he did didn’t matter, instead simply staring into the cauldron.
            I believe we should all drink it at the same time, Severus said. He wanted to give Harry first choice in dipping up the potion from the cauldron, but if he didn’t move him soon, he was afraid that Harry would never move at all.
            Harry promptly started, nodded, and reached out. He didn’t need the hissed warning that Severus tried to issue, not to dip his sleeve into the potion, but Severus hissed it anyway, because it made him feel better. Then Harry held up his full vial in front of him, and moved aside so Severus could insert his vial and Draco his goblet.
            Harry looked at them from the other side of the table. Severus blinked at him. Harry’s hold on the vial was harsh, trembling. He opened his mouth as if to speak, then shook his head and grimly held up the vial to his mouth instead.
            The important thoughts he might have stated were all coming through the bond, anyway, Severus thought, and held up the vial.
            Drink, he sent through the bond, and Draco and Harry nodded and swallowed the first gulp of the potion at the same time.
*
            Harry now knew what it felt like for his brain to be on fire.
            The fire seared through the center of his forehead, and made him worry for a mindless moment that Voldemort was back, before he remembered the far more likely culprit. He heard the vial break as he dropped it. He knew another numb second of stupid thoughts, that Snape was going to be upset about it.
            Then he remembered to call him Severus.
            Then his fingers went cold, at the same moment as the fire surged through his memories. Suddenly he was seeing the copper circle that the Lestranges had imprisoned them in, but it was on fire the way the Room of Requirement had been when he and Draco rode through it on his broom in seventh year. Harry reached back to the memory of the troll he’d fought beside Ron and Hermione, and the troll was surrounded by leaping red-gold flames. He thought of his friends, and they were encircled by fire as they stood waving to him from one of the photos on his mantel.
            He didn’t want all of his memories to be consumed, but he had no idea how to fight it, or if he even could now that the potion was free and tearing through his blood. He opened his mouth to shout at Snape—
            Severus—
            And felt two enormous tearing sensations at his temples, to left and right, which sent him to his knees. Harry wrapped his arms around his neck, wincing, silent. The pain was so great it’d stolen his voice as well as his balance, and he didn’t know what he would have said, anyway, as the weights fell away and he found he could breathe.
            Instinctively, he still reached out for the bond, to feel if Draco and Severus were in pain, too, and to lower the barriers that kept them from exchanging the full range of thoughts with one another.
            But they were gone. And Harry wavered on the floor and ended up falling onto his hands and knees, which reminded him so much of the posture that he’d ended up in again and again when he was doing Occlumency in Snape’s office that he couldn’t help but laugh.
            “What are you laughing for?” asked a harsh voice in front of him, a voice that it actually took him a minute to identify, when three minutes before, before the potion, it would have been automatic.
            Harry had to turn his head and look, now, to see whether it was Draco or Severus. Or should he call them by their last names, now that they were no longer bonded? No, probably not. They would still be cooperating in the search for Voldemort and whether there was something that could be learned through his scar, and they would probably want the courtesy of being called by their first names.
            It was Draco. He leaned back on his heels and stared at Harry, strange and disheveled. Harry wondered, now, how long he had mostly been seeing Draco from the inside of Draco’s own head, so that Harry wasn’t as aware of what he looked like physically.
            Harry reached out mentally, snorted at himself, and said, “This just reminded me of another time I kept falling to the floor.” He turned and glanced at Severus.
            He, of course, had managed to remain sitting up, or perhaps had simply sunk to the floor in a sitting position in the first place. His face was pale, and sweat had broken out on his forehead, but he inclined his head to Harry as though they were having a polite discussion.
            “I believe I share the same memories,” he said, and then glanced at the broken vial Harry had dropped. Maybe Draco had had the right idea, Harry thought, Transfiguring his own vial into a goblet. Severus drew his wand.
            Harry tensed, and that was another strange thing. A few minutes ago, he would have known beyond a doubt that Severus was drawing his wand to repair the vial, as he did, instead of threatening him.
            But he would have to get used to it, to freedom and loss. He sat up himself and nodded to Severus. “I’m going home. I’ve got to see my friends and tell them what happened.” And enjoy being by myself in my head for the first time in weeks.
            The thought was his alone, without an echo. Harry felt his hands beginning to tremble, and clenched them furiously.
            “Yes,” Severus said, without blinking. “Perhaps Draco would welcome you back to the Manor within three days? It would take me at least that long to brew the potion I was telling you about anyway, the one that will keep the memories of the Aurors you captured locked in the back of their minds,” he added, for Draco’s benefit.
            “Three days is good,” Harry said, and knew that they were looking at him oddly, that he probably sounded odd. He didn’t care. He knew he had to get away from them as soon as he could, and he nodded to them and smiled and stood up and walked out of the room, clutching his wand.
            He Apparated as soon as he was beyond the wards. He didn’t even bother to Summon the few things he had brought with him, like other robes. They would come to him as soon as he wanted, or he could leave them there until he came back. It wasn’t like he didn’t have others.
            He Apparated to the doorstep of Grimmauld Place and let himself inside, then ran up to his bedroom and slammed the door.
            And then he leaned against it and laughed, laughed until his stomach hurt, until his reeling mind hurt, until his face threatened to split, laughed with joy, because he was free.
*
BAFan: Thanks! It was a long road, but they did get there at last.
SP777: No, there are some chapters left, but it’s not going to be that much longer.
ChelseaPlume: Thanks! I think that Harry is realizing now how good Severus is; he certainly wouldn’t have accepted his offers to help with the investigation into Voldemort or that potion to take away the Aurors’ memories if he still distrusted him.
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The Wages of Going On