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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-Seven—Out of Danger
            “Hold that one’s head, will you?”
            Harry mutely held the head of the prisoner Draco had indicated, watching as the thick, murky potion flowed into the man’s mouth. For a moment, he snorted and acted as if he would start awake, but Draco reached out and massaged the Auror’s throat roughly. He swallowed, then moaned and fell back against the floor.
            “So the Dreamless Sleep Potion will still hold them for now?” Harry had to admit to cursing himself when he realized that he hadn’t asked Severus that question. The answer would have told him whether he had to keep leaping at shadows or not. He had already drawn his wand twice since they had come down into the cellars, and that only because he saw the shadows of Draco’s movement out of the corner of his eye.
            “Yes,” said Draco, and shook hair out of his face. His expression was unexpectedly brilliant and direct. “What did your friends say when you took them Severus’s apology?”
            “You want to know that?” Harry froze, and Draco had to reach over and tap his wrist to get him to let go of that Auror and move on to the next one in the line.
            “Yes. I want to know if we’re about to be invaded by an angry Weasley assault. Is it so strange that I’d ask?”
            “I just thought you wouldn’t be interested enough to ask,” Harry said, and shook himself, and applied his brain to the actual problem. “Ron didn’t believe the apology at first. I made him believe it. I think Hermione accepted it faster.”
            “And so no invasion is imminent?” Draco heaved Stockwell out of the line, frowned at her, and nodded at Harry. “I think we should give her a double dose. It won’t hurt her, and she was the one who was in possession of the most secrets and masterminded that ritual they were going to use on you.”
            “All right.” Harry arranged himself so that he could comfortably hold Stockwell’s head and pry her jaws apart at the same time. “No, no invasion. Hermione wanted the apology, I think. She wants to think that Severus isn’t such a bad sort and she could get along with him.”
            Draco paused as though he thought that was strange again for some reason, but poured the potion down Stockwell’s throat before Harry could ask about it. Then he did a second dose and stepped back, looking up and down the line. “I think that we’ve done everything we can here. They shouldn’t remember anything, including their original plan to pin you down in that ritual square and ask about the Dark Lord.”
            Harry grunted. “Good.” He briefly regretted not using Veritaserum on more of the Aurors, but he thought Stockwell had been the leader, and they had used it on her. They could view the Pensieve memory if there was something important they were forgetting. He turned towards the stairs.
            Draco followed him, closely. Harry glanced back at him in irritation. “You know, you don’t need to constantly baby-sit me. I know that Severus thinks I get into danger all the time, but he and you have got into your fair share of it, too.”
            Draco said nothing. Harry rolled his neck to ease a few of the twinges of pain in it, and added, “And you’re not bonded to me anymore, so it’s not like you can feel what I do.”
            A soft smile slid across Draco’s face. “Is that the only reason you think we might follow you about? How funny.”
            Harry stopped on the stairs and turned around, nearly causing Draco to fall backwards down the steps. “Stop with the bloody Slytherin mind games,” he snapped. “Stop with the staring and the riddles and so on. Maybe I would have understood what you meant with the bond, but it’s gone, so I don’t. Just say what you want to say.”
            “Have you ever considered that it’s not that simple?” Draco folded his arms. “If we’re going to reduce everything to House traits, Gryffindor forthrightness isn’t always the solution, either.”
            “No, but it’s faster.”
            That made Draco smile again. “Fine. So it’s obvious that all of us are having a hard time letting the bond go. Severus hasn’t even left the house yet, and there’s no reason for him to stay close to me at all times. And you wouldn’t keep coming back here if you couldn’t stand us.”
            Harry shrugged tensely. Despite everything, he hadn’t expected Draco to come out and say it like that. “Okay. But once we get through the investigation into if your Dark Mark is coming back to life, then we won’t have any reason to be around each other.”
            “The bond’s over, true. However, have you considered that its emotional effects don’t dissipate so fast?”
            “Well, yes,” said Harry. “Of course. Otherwise, we would have wanted to go our separate ways before now.”
            Draco sighed and looked at the ceiling for a moment. “And we don’t, and we’re still concerned about each other, and Severus wrote a whole mocking letter to a friend of yours he never would have normally spent a moment on because of the lingering effects,” he said. “So the concern that you’ll fall into danger is more of the same sort of thing.”
            Harry stared back. He had considered that, of course he had, but he had thought it was too straightforward for a Slytherin like Draco or Severus to admit to. Maybe they could admit they were concerned about him if they had a million hours, ten thousand bottles of Firewhisky, and a locked room they otherwise couldn’t get out of. However, what they did in reality was write taunting letters to Hermione, and let Harry force apologies out of them.
            But Draco was different from Severus. And he was looking at Harry with the same sort of patient glare that he often used on Severus. Harry didn’t want to be classed as stupid or stubborn.
            “Fine,” he said. “Thanks for letting me know. That doesn’t mean you need to follow me so closely you trip me up on the stairs.”
            Draco snorted behind him, and Harry turned and climbed again, listening to the sound of Draco’s footsteps. Sure enough, he dropped back a little, and let Harry have the literal space to climb in peace.
            Bewilderment still rang at the back of his mind. Did they think that more of those Aurors were going to Apparate through the wards of the Manor and grab him?
            On the other hand, no one could have predicted that Harry would have his ribs almost torn out of his chest because of the bond, or that the Aurors would grab him in the first place to do a knowledge ritual.
            Better safe than sorry, I suppose.
*
            Severus looked up when Harry and Draco came into the library. Harry was still glancing at Draco in a way that told Severus a significant conversation had taken place. Severus held back his immediate inquiry. He thought that matters would improve all the more for being left alone until Harry was ready to speak.
            “You have administered the potion to all the Aurors?” he asked, laying his Prophet aside. There was still nothing in the paper about the Lestranges, about the suspicions of the Dark Lord returning, about Harry retiring from the Aurors, about anything. That was all to the good. Severus did not want any whisper of this to get out. It was bad enough that their enemies had known enough about the bond to hurt them with it.
            “No, we thought we’d leave a few unmedicated for fun and profit,” Harry snapped, and flopped into the chair that Draco had used the last time they were in the library. “Of course we did.”
            “And you haven’t heard back from your contacts at St. Mungo’s, of course.” Draco took a perch on a high stool that he used most of the time for reaching chained books that he couldn’t Summon, inspecting Severus’s face.
            “Not yet,” said Severus. “I do not think it will take them very long. They value my potions more than they value protecting the privacy of one particular Healer. And as long as I insist that they leave her punishment up to us, they will see no reason to become involved.”
            “That’s what it’ll be, won’t it?” Harry murmured to himself, and tapped his wand against his knee. “Punishing her for what she did to us.”
            “If it turns out that she did in fact do it,” said Severus. “She might be innocent, as hard as that is to contemplate.”
            “It’s harder to contemplate Kingsley turning traitor on me,” said Harry.
            “But you have plenty of practice in thinking about hard things now, after being with us,” said Draco, and only shrugged when Severus tried to give him an eloquent look to tell him to shut up. “You’ll have to face the possibility, if it comes up.”
            “I never said I couldn’t.” Harry’s glare looked like a Paint-Stripping Potion. Draco didn’t appear to be affected. “Just that it’s harder for me to think that a friend might really have turned against me.”
            “And against us,” said Draco. “And against the concept of justice, unless you think that we deserved to be tortured by the Lestranges because we’re Death Eaters.”
            “You know I don’t fucking think any such thing.” Harry bounded to his feet and turned away from them both to pace across the library. “How are we going to get the Aurors back to the Ministry without being suspected?”
            Draco opened his mouth to say something, but Severus frowned him down. Draco sometimes went too far in the name of “honesty,” which he said he’d needed to practice since the war and so thought everyone around him should also practice. Severus disagreed. At the moment, he was in the mood to pick at Harry, and it was needless.
            Draco leaned back, shrugging. That left the burden of the answer on Severus, but he had had time to think about that problem and the solution, so he did not mind giving it. “We will turn them loose with their wands at a great distance from the Manor. They can Apparate back to the Ministry or to their homes on their own. I rather think that most of them will choose to go home first. That will make the reports, as much as they can remember anything to report, suspect and scattered. And that, in turn, will make the Ministry less likely to come close to the truth.”
            Harry halted and gave him an intensely grateful glance. Severus chose not to acknowledge the snort Draco gave. Draco could have come up with this himself if he was less involved in teasing, or Harry if he had less to think about.
            “All right. Should we all take them to individual places, or leave some in small groups?”
            “Take them to individual places,” Severus said. “The forgetfulness potion will wake them up slowly, counteracting the Draught of Living Death, but only over days. We can leave them in deserted places hidden or in places they are likely to be found, whichever we prefer.”
            “Deserted places,” said Harry, at once. “Otherwise, someone might find them and think they’re in a coma and take them to St. Mungo’s, and the more people do that, the more of a consistent pattern they might notice.”
            “Meanwhile,” said Draco, “I think we should do a mixture. That’ll make it harder to notice the pattern at all.”
            He and Harry glared at each other. Severus sighed and pinched the center of his forehead. “You’re right, Draco. The scattered pattern is less likely to result in detection. Now, Harry, are you angry at Draco for a reason, or not?”
            “Only because he keeps acting like I’m idiot and haven’t even considered the possibility that Kingsley is betraying me.” Harry went back to prowling around the library. “And because he told me that you and I and everyone else are suffering emotional aftereffects from the bond. I know that.”
            “But you’re not coming up with plans to deal with the possibility. What are we going to do if Shacklebolt betrayed you after all? Or are you still determined to ignore the fact that we care for your safety?”
            “I’ll deal with them as they come up!”
            “Children,” said Severus, in the mild tone that never failed to attract Draco’s attention. It attracted Harry’s too, and made him bristle, but at least that was better than persisting in this futile argument with Draco in which, Severus thought, they did not even substantially disagree. “Yes, we need only consider possibilities that Shacklebolt is the traitor if we uncover definitive proof that the Healer is not.”
            Harry shot Draco a triumphant look, which disappeared as Severus went on, “The problem of being emotionally entangled after the bond, if it is a problem, is here right now, and must be dealt with now.”
            “Fine.” Harry swung around again. “Look. I don’t mind if you’re concerned about me. I only mind when you do stupid things like writing the letter to Hermione. But when I leave here and go back to—well, I can’t go back to being an Auror, but go and do whatever I’m going to do to replace that, it’s probably going to be dangerous. You can’t follow me around all the time and prevent me from getting in trouble, okay? My friends live with it. If you want to think you’re my friends, you will, too.”
            “I don’t think we’re the same as your friends,” said Draco, with a frown that Severus knew meant he had thought about it deeply, however mocking it sounded on the surface.
            “Right, you’re not,” said Harry, his face looking like he really wanted to slap someone but was restraining his hand. Severus was started to find that he recognized the expression; then again, perhaps he had seen it often when Harry was in school. “So it’s even more imperative that you realize you can’t keep me from doing things.”
            Ah. Severus understood much better, now. He moved, enough to draw Harry’s attention to him and away from Draco’s mouth, which was, unfortunately, opening again. “We are not trying to keep you from doing things.”
            “Good,” said Harry after a moment. “Then what’s the catch? Why do you care if I go down and feed the potion to those Aurors or not?”
            “Because we care about you,” said Draco, and walked his fingers down the arm of his chair, shaking his head. “I already said this.”
            “But you’re talking about following me around and not wanting me in danger. That sounds like trying to keep me from doing things.” Harry had folded his arms and seemed in serious danger of turning his back on them. Should he do that, Severus thought it unlikely they would manage to attract his attention again.
            “We may not be your friends,” said Severus. “That does not mean we will not be concerned when you dash into danger. We may not be bonded anymore. That does not mean we will try to hold you captive.”
            “So it’s something in between, is what you’re saying.” Harry sat down again, which Severus considered progress, and looked from one to the other of them. “Maybe it’s something that really doesn’t need a name.”
            “A name would help us talk about it,” Draco began.
            “But would make it more embarrassing, perhaps,” Severus cut in smoothly, identifying one of Harry’s concerns, since he shared them. “Yes, we need not name it. Only accept that we would like to know when you go into danger. Taking the Aurors to individual locations should not involve it, or should involve an acceptable amount of risk. Otherwise, I would not have proposed it.”
            “As long as you want to know and you’re not going to do anything to stop me.”
            “I still don’t understand this obsession with risking your life,” Draco muttered, shaking his head. “You’re free now. You don’t need to go back and be an Auror like your friends might have been expecting. Why wouldn’t you want to go off and try something else? Something that doesn’t involve danger at all?”
            “Because being an Auror was important to me.” Harry narrowed his eyes. “That’s over now, but not through any choice of mine. So I want to do something that’s as like it as possible.”
            “Very well,” said Severus, cutting short another discussion that he suspected would be mainly mocking on Draco’s part. Harry had stated his objections; Draco understood them, because he was not stupid. Whether or not he could argue Harry out of them was not something worthy of being tested, in Severus’s view. “Then we will wait a bit longer for news from St. Mungo’s to arrive, and then we will begin to take the Aurors to a list of locations I have already made up. That is acceptable?”
            He glared at Draco, who rolled his eyes but nodded, and Harry, who was already nodding. “The owl wouldn’t try to follow you if it doesn’t come before we leave? Because someone might notice a man with an owl going after him in a Muggle area.”
            “St. Mungo’s owls are well-trained and fast flyers, but even they cannot keep up with an Apparating wizard. One that missed me would be far more likely to wait at the Manor for my return.”
            Harry nodded, and for a few moments they sat in silence. Draco was looking at Harry with a complicated expression that Severus could not divine and perhaps did not wish to. He was no longer absolutely sure about what Draco wanted from Harry, the way he would have been with the bond, but he thought that that way lay danger.
            So tense was the atmosphere that Severus was not surprised to see Draco almost leap out of his chair when the owl knocked on the window. A second later, he shook his head and went to fetch the owl, bringing it inside and taking the parchment off its leg.
            “Let me see it first,” Severus commanded, extending his hand. “My contacts are shy and sometimes overly literal. If I must be able to tell them with truth that I read it first, it is a distinction worth preserving.”
            Draco sighed soundlessly, but brought the letter to him. The bird, meanwhile, had circled off and perched on the edge of a high shelf, beak buried in its breast feathers as though it hadn’t had rest in ages.
            “Open it, then,” said Harry, leaning forwards like a hound about to take off in the chase.
            Severus gave a little shrug, the only sign of irritation he would show, and then unrolled the scroll. There was only a single name in the middle of the parchment, which Severus hoped was the one he had asked for. Sometimes his contacts’ shyness, so useful in other matters, got the better of them.
            “Irene Tarriash,” he read aloud. “I am not familiar with the name. Does it have some sort of significance to you?”
            He glanced at Harry and Draco both, but Harry was the one who drew his eye, even before he bared his teeth. There was a deep glow in his face, the very lines of his face, that made him fiercer.
            “Oh, yeah,” Harry breathed out. “Yeah, I suppose I should know who a Tarriash is.”
*
            Draco enjoyed watching the way Harry’s face had changed. Harry had been intent on Severus and what he would say, but he was also tapping his hand on his leg. Part of him was distant from this, Draco thought, already focused on the trials they would go through taking the unconscious Aurors to various locations.
            But now he was as focused as a lion ready to leap on prey. He almost caressed the parchment, his eyes deep and alight. Draco wanted to move around to the side to see the expression better, but Severus asked a question and changed Harry’s face before he could. “Why should you know a Tarriash?”
            Harry gave them both a sour smile and put the parchment down. Draco sighed out a little. “Because the first arrest I made on my own was of a Dark wizard named Herman Tarriash who had been a suspect in several other crimes, but had managed to make those investigating Aurors think he’d been unfairly accused.”
            “How did you capture him when those others had failed?” Severus sounded a little disgruntled, or maybe disbelieving. Draco didn’t know why. Seeing Harry in this mood, it seemed perfectly obvious to him how Harry had managed it.
            “Because I was patient enough to keep watching him even when we were supposed to have given up and left him alone.”
            “I believe that is illegal.” Severus sounded more amused than anything else as he reached out to take the parchment back from Harry.
            Harry shrugged, relinquishing it. “Nothing wrong with watching the things someone does in public, and the people they choose to visit, and the shops they patronize. I never even followed him into a shop. It was enough to put the pieces together, and prove that he was familiar with some places and people he’d claimed not to know anything about. But his family would not shut up about it. How dare I arrest one of them, and so on.”
            Draco frowned. The way that Harry was describing the family made them sound like one of the pure-blood ones with enough power to throw their weight around, but he’d never heard of them. “Who are they?”
            “Muggleborns who only marry other Muggleborns, but then all of them take the same name, no matter who marries who,” said Harry. “They say that they have an illustrious founder. I don’t know, I’ve never heard of him. All that mattered was that we did catch Herman, and manage to connect him to a bunch of other crimes, and he’s spending a lot of time in Azkaban now.”
            “I wonder that you didn’t recognize this Healer, if you knew Tarriash,” Draco said. He knew, from the way Severus frowned at him, that he was being provocative, but again, that was on purpose. He wanted to see the way Harry’s eyes widened and filled with fire.
            He got his wish, but mostly because Harry was glaring at the past, he thought, rather than him. “I never saw her. But I heard the name. She’s his sister. It makes sense that she would blame me for it, even though she should really blame her brother and all the Aurors in general.”
            “If you were primarily the one who handled the case, the way she chose to blame you makes sense,” Severus cut in. “But in the meantime, we need to discuss how to track her down. I would be surprised if she’s still in the open.”
            “Really? I wouldn’t.” Harry shrugged. “She took the risk of coming up and treating me without a glamour or anything, and she couldn’t have disguised her trail that way if one of your contacts was able to tell you that she was the Healer of record. No, the Tarriashes are arrogant. She probably thought I would never find out the connection.”
            “We have the motive, then,” said Draco. “And we know where she’s likely to be. Do we really have to wait to go after her?”
            “Yes,” said Harry, giving him a surprised look for the first time since the conversation began. “I can’t just march up and arrest her anymore. I have to hide and watch her, and learn her routine, and—”
            “I believe this is the place where we demonstrate our difference from your friends,” said Severus. Draco caught on to what he meant immediately, and smiled. “We do not have to accept your going into danger or become Aurors. We will simply go with you.”
            Harry hesitated.
            “She betrayed us, too,” Draco pointed out. “I don’t think she cares that much, but she did. We thought we would be safe behind the wards, in the safehouse. We weren’t. Is it really so strange that we would want revenge?”
            Harry lifted his head. “Of course not. Let’s go, then.”
            “A modicum of planning is still necessary,” said Severus in a half-strangled voice, and stood up, and left the lab.
            Harry blinked at Draco, who shrugged casually back. He had to struggle to hold his laughter in, but it was exultant laughter, not mocking.
            It would just be difficult to explain that to Harry.
*
pittwitch: Thanks!
BAFan: Well, this chapter does suggest a conclusive answer to that question, I think. ;)
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The Wages of Going On