Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

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.

Chapter List
- 4
- 5
- 6
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Five--A Stretched Bond
            "What's this about, Harry?" Hermione stood up as soon as he came back into the office, her hand stretched out as if she could catch his arm and soothe his anxiety that way. "Ron said something about how Snape and Malfoy wrote to you? And they blame you for not keeping them safe?"
            Harry winced a little when he saw the depth of the fire in Hermione's eyes. The lie about Snape and Malfoy had been a convenient excuse for why he had to go answer their letter right that instant, but he had to correct this now.
            He cast Locking Charms on the door, and then sat down in the chair behind his desk. He had to take a few deep breaths before he could go on, and in that time, Hermione's face had already begun to shift. She knew, Harry thought. Not specifically what it was, but that it was something that had nothing to do with Snape and Malfoy being bastards.
            Well, not like that.
            Ron stood behind Hermione, his face quiet and solemn, although red. He kept his eyes fastened on Harry, and seemed to intend to react based on how Harry did. Harry had to admit he liked that.
            "Listen," he said. "The Lestranges tortured me separately from Snape and Malfoy for a while." Hermione's mouth twitched as if she wanted to give him the exact amount of time that had passed on the outside, but she didn't try, for which Harry was grateful. "Then they took me to a room where there was a ritual circle. A copper one, in the floor. They already had Snape and Malfoy inside. They were using this telepathic ritual on them. It would have tried to make them one, but eventually, their brains would have leaked out their ears."
            "Literally?" Hermione was pale.
            Harry nodded. "Literally."
            His tongue tried to stick to the roof of his mouth. Harry unstuck it and continued speaking. He was master here, not his body and the stupid memories it was trying to conjure up. He would do as he wished.
            "The Lestranges rolled me across the circle and into the middle of the bond as it was forming. That made it change. It had to accommodate three people instead of two. There was no way to escape it, except if we gave a sacrifice to appease it."
            Ron had tightened his hand on his wand. Hermione shifted in her seat. "What sacrifice?" Her voice was little more than a breath.
            Harry felt a slight surge of shame and embarrassment. He focused on that, in preference to the feelings clambering up his spine and trying to overwhelm his stupid mind. Yes, he should have told his friends about this long since. Not the ritual, but the sacrifice. "My virginity."
            They both stared at him, eyes so blank with shock that Harry smiled a little. No, he hadn't been remiss in hiding it, then. No one had known.
            He wondered for a second how long he would have gone on hiding it and not having anyone suspect it if Snape and Malfoy hadn't--
            The feelings were there, chewing on his thoughts, trying to climb out his mouth. Harry snarled them back, and they shut up. His darkness was deeper than theirs.
            "They--" Ron stopped. Harry didn't think it was because he was too squeamish to say anything else. He just didn't know what word to use.
            There was part of Harry that loved him for that, and always would. He sat straighter, bracing himself on the love that he had for his friends, and muttered, "Yes. They fucked me. That's the only word that fits."
            Ron closed his eyes for a second, and then came around the desk and clasped his hand on Harry's shoulder. "Do you need me to hunt them down?" he asked quietly. "Or was it not that kind of fucking?"
            Hermione had one hand to her mouth and looked as if she was about to cry, but she sat up straight when Harry caught her eye and said, "What happened?"
            "The bond would have destroyed all of us trying to achieve a mental union." Harry found it easier to tell this part, because he'd already reported as much, in much the same words, to the Healer who had tended him after the ritual, and to Kingsley. "So I gave it a physical one instead. I was bargaining with the bond all through the ritual, telling it that I was willing to let them close and give them something I'd never given anyone. I think it worked. At least, we're not feeling our brains leaking out through our ears yet."
            "Is it there?" Hermione had reached out and taken his hand, and seemed to be willing strength into him. "The bond?"
            Harry grimaced, then nodded. "I get random little flashes from them, knowledge of what they're thinking about and believing. But that letter this morning..." He couldn't help it, he let his disgust and hatred well up, and Hermione and Ron both tightened their holds. "They want to meet and talk about the bond. They want to help me hunt down the Lestranges, they said."
            "And they don't understand that you have no interest in that," Hermione whispered.
            Harry half-smiled at her. "I would take them down if they crossed my path. But..." He strengthened the Silencing and Locking Charms on the door, then turned back. "Kingsley thinks there must be a traitor in the Aurors, and I agree. Someone with specific information attacked those weak places in the wards on the safehouse. There's nothing else that could have made them look like that, or tear like that."
            Hermione looked more ill than ever. Ron just nodded, the corner of his mouth grim. He had probably suspected it before this, Harry thought, and not talked about it because he would assume that Harry was too sensitive about the whole subject of his torture.
            "You want the traitor more," Hermione concluded.
            Harry nodded. "Snape and Malfoy want revenge on the people who tortured--us. I can't say I blame them. But that's not my focus, and they're not going to make me into someone responsible to them."
            "Of course not," Ron muttered, roughly. "You shouldn't have to do anything with Snape and Malfoy unless the bond becomes imperative."
            "Not even then," Harry said, tensing, and knowing that neither of them would miss it. "Not even then."
            "Harry..."
            Harry laughed harshly. "No," he said. "You don't understand. I confirmed this by looking it up yesterday. I was the one who made the sacrifice to appease the bond. If there's any penalty from that later on, the bond will focus on me. It won't affect Snape and Malfoy. I don't need them, and I won't let them--near me again."
            "You don't need to let them touch you." Hermione's eyes were so wide and distressed that Harry felt as though he could see through them, all the way to the bottom. They were quivering with tears, and Harry bit his lip to avoid saying something contemptuous. Hermione was only trying to help him, and he would rather have some of her help than none at all. "But you need to meet with them. Talk with them. Do they know the bond won't affect them if it turns savage?"
            Harry tensed further. He wanted to explode out of this room, away from the friends who should be comforting him and instead were urging him to see those--them again.
            But he knew he could never outrun most of the demons that were preying on him right now, considering he carried them in his own mind. He subsided back into his own seat with a sigh and said in a clipped voice, "They don't know. But I'm not going to meet with them unless it's imperative. I'll send a letter to them. That's all."
            "If the bond draws you towards them?" Hermione's hand trembled in his.
            "Fuck, Hermione, whose side are you on?" Harry hissed at her, and her face turned paler and she bowed her head.
            "Yours," she whispered back. "Only and always yours, Harry, but we need to know how this might manifest. We need to know if something is likely to happen that would mean you have to spend even more time with them. I want to help you break free from them. But--you've been so hurt..." Her hand tightened in his, gave a few jerks as though she was having a seizure. "I don't want to see you get hurt further."
            "Me, neither." Ron pressed down heavily on his shoulder, and Harry tensed for a different reason. Ron seemed to sense the difference, and backed off with his hands raised. "Sorry, mate."
            Harry sighed and rubbed his forehead. The pain was settling now that he had told someone, as he had thought it might. So that was good, he thought. His breathing settled, too, and he no longer felt as though something else would leap to the forefront of his mind and control his tongue.
            "Fine," he said. "I'll send another letter and offer to meet with them if they notice something happening with the bond. Nothing else. I don't want their help to hunt the Lestranges."
            "'Course not," Ron said, and rubbed Harry's hair, which Harry had to admit brought back fewer memories at the moment than clasping his shoulders did. "You don't need them. You've got us."
            Harry smiled at Ron, but shook his head. "Thanks, you lot. But, seriously. What kept me alive was thinking that I'd just started my life, my real one, the one I trained to get. I chose to be an Auror. I didn't choose to be a hero, or someone who survived the Killing Curse, or an orphan, or--" He thought he controlled the impulse to spit, but Hermione sat a little back out of the way anyway. "A sacrifice. I mean, I chose the way to appease the bond, what to give up. But I didn't choose to be in that situation in the first place."
            "I know perfectly what you mean," Hermione told him, quietly, but with such ferocity in her eyes that Harry was sure she understood. "And I think you deserve all the time and peace in the world to recover." She paused. "There's some books I can give you that might help you understand."
            "I still don't understand why you don't want revenge on the Lestranges," Ron struck in, while Harry was opening his mouth to react to the offer of books.
            Harry shut his mouth and sighed. "Because I want to be a good Auror," he said. "And a good Auror might follow the orders from his superiors, which in this case I'm doing." He caught the quick flash from Ron's eyes, the smothered nod. He now knew Harry was acting the way he was on orders. "But he doesn't go out and seek revenge. What Malfoy and Snape want is their business. They can hunt them down, if they want. I wouldn't exactly shed any tears if I heard that Rodolphus and Rabastan were dead. But I would have to arrest them and bring them in, because that's the way justice is done by Aurors. I don't want to get involved in it."
            "Did you tell them that?" Hermione asked.
            Harry scowled at her.
            "I'm sorry," Hermione whispered, and squeezed his hand again. "But I think they won't stay away or stop interfering in your life unless they understand exactly the way you feel. It's like telling them that you'll be the one to take the brunt of the bond if it starts acting up. They would probably be perfectly well-pleased to step back, but they have to know, or they'll fling more letters at you full of insults and accusations."
            Harry grimaced. He really had no desire to speak to Snape and Malfoy, even in writing. That would be giving them too much acknowledgement, too much power over him.
            But Hermione was right, the way she usually was, and Harry finally rolled his eyes and said, "All right, I'll put that in the letter, too."
            "I'll help you write it, if you want," Hermione said quietly.
            Harry thought about it, and then nodded. With someone at his side, he was less likely to burst out into angry recriminations than if he was doing it by himself.
            By the book. That was what he had had to learn when he became an Auror. He could be great at breaking the rules and falling into the solution of a problem by accident. But when he was in Auror training, he had finally learned that he wasn't so great at doing it by himself. He needed Ron and Hermione there with him, and Ron was the only one who had decided that he also wanted to be an Auror.
            So there were other ways to do things, and Harry's first instincts weren't always the best answers. Not that he would know that without his friends. He wished the bond could be transferred to them. He would trust them with access to his mind and feelings and whatever else the bond might be conveying.
            "I'll go to the Ministry archives and find everything I can on bonds," Ron said, hovering behind them.
            "Do that," Hermione said, but Ron looked at Harry before he left, and Harry gratefully nodded to him, too. This way, things would get settled, and Ron would have a useful task to perform, which he would like.
            Hermione squeezed Harry's hands once more and said, "I hate to ask this, but I have to know. Do you feel like they raped you?"
            Harry closed his eyes as he answered. "They did, but I don't want to curl up and cry about it. I don't have time. I need to complete this investigation, and I need to make my peace with what happened. I'm busy."
            When he opened his eyes, Hermione was just nodding. Harry felt fire leap up in his heart. He still had the steel will and determination that were partially built out of the ashes of what had happened to him, but he had his friends, too. He might not be able to be an Auror with them, but he could accomplish great things with them.
            Just wait and see.
*
            "Severus? There's a letter."
            Severus looked up. He had been attempting to brew, in the lab that Draco always set aside for him when he visited, but it had been no use. His hands were still shaking after the snarl that had come out of Potter's Patronus hours earlier.
            It made no sense. Severus had seen Potter's Patronus before, most recently a few days ago when Potter had sent it to warn him and Draco that someone had broken into the safehouse and he would try to hold them off. But the Lestranges had overpowered Potter, swarmed up the stairs, and captured them both. Severus should have felt outrage when he saw the silver stag, or the loathing he attributed to all his memories of James, not as though someone had set the earth reeling beneath him.
            Now he put his finger in the Potions tome he held and asked, "Who is it from?" He knew Draco would not have brought one of the silly party invitations that he often received or a letter from his parents up to Severus.
            Draco pushed the door of the lab the rest of the way open. His face was strange, and the guilt in the back of Severus's head writhed like Nagini as he set the letter on the table next to Severus's abandoned ingredients from this morning. "From Potter."
            Severus grunted and turned back to his book. "I have no desire to read it." The mountain of steel in the back of his mind had cast enough shadow over his thoughts for the day.
            "But I read it," Draco said. "And Potter is bloody protecting us again, Severus. And he says that we can hunt Rodolphus and Rabastan, and he wishes us good luck, but he doesn't want to get involved."
            It sounded so much unlike what Potter would say that Severus turned around and stared. Then he stood and came forwards to touch the letter. Draco stepped out of the way and turned as if admiring the neatly labeled shelves of Potions ingredients along the far wall, although Severus knew that he would not do such a thing in truth. He was trying to give Severus a chance to recover his lost composure.
            Not that Severus should have lost it in the first place. Not that he should have been able to tell so much about Draco's motives without Draco telling him.
            It might be due to the expanding influence of the bond.
            Severus grimaced and continued reading the letter. It contained what Draco had said it did, flowing smoothly from the beginning.
            Snape, Malfoy,
            I'll write to you together since you sent me a joint letter, and I can sense both of you through the bond without sensing you separately.
            I made the sacrifice for the bond. I was the one who negotiated it. That should mean that any further sacrifice the bond would demand would fall on me. You don't need to worry about it, even if it seems the bond is deepening or expanding. Any urges that you feel to get in contact with me before then are probably just the bond trying to force us together. I have no doubt the bond would like even more union than it's achieved. That doesn't mean we need to give it what it wants.
            It would identify me as the stubborn factor that prevents us from meeting, since you did in fact offer that. So it would attack me. I'll let you know if that happens, and meet with you if it's really necessary. Until then, we don't need to see each other--which I'm sure you'll prefer, and I'd like it that way, too.
            In the meantime, I hope that you'll have good luck with the hunt for the Lestranges. That doesn't mean that I'm going to help you. I would get in trouble if I did that, and I made the sacrifice partially because I was so determined that I would survive and make myself into a good Auror. A good Auror doesn't hunt down and kill criminals because they tortured him. We would all become vigilantes if that happened.
            I won't stand in your way. I hope you find them, because you can take care of them. I just won't join you for it.
            Harry Potter.
            Severus imagined, for a moment, the way Potter might have wrestled with putting "Dear" at the beginning of the letter and "Sincerely" at the end, and then probably decided it was the more honest course simply to leave them off. He tried to feel bitter about that, but he couldn't. It was true, all of it. He touched the paper and wiped his fingers back and forth along the top, wondering if Draco was feeling even more bitterness through the bond from him.
            "Severus? What do you think?"
            Draco had paced back around to face him. Severus looked up, swallowed, and gave his answer. "I think he's right, that the Aurors would not look kindly on him joining us in our hunt."
            Draco smiled, and the patch of emotion that represented him in the back of Severus's mind twisted and brightened. "That's what I thought." He paused, and then narrowed his eyes. "What about meeting him? You don't think he's right that the bond would make him pay if it changed, because he's the stubborn one?"
            Severus said nothing. He sat down again and put his finger back in the Potions book, but didn't glance at the page. He simply found the position more comfortable as he tried to work out the tangled emotions that filled him concerning Potter.
            He wanted to be free of the bond. He did not want to deal with Potter again. Of course it would be best if he could achieve his goal without further contact with the brat.
            But--
            Potter had already been sacrifice for them twice, if one counted his defeat of the Dark Lord. Was he always to play that role? Would Severus always owe him, without any ability to pay him back?
            "I think he is right," Severus said at last. "Whether we want to grant him the privilege of always standing up for us, shielding us, is another matter."
            Draco stared at him, jaw dropping open, and the patch of emotion in Severus's mind now shimmered with fleeting stripes of deep grey. "What? Privilege? What makes you think--"
            "Is not anything to do with us a privilege?" Severus slapped a hand on the book and turned to face Draco. "To guide us, to protect us, to save our lives? Potter did that, and turned away as if we were worth nothing. He now proposes that we are not worthy to stand at his side to meet the bond, should it turn on him."
            Draco stared at him again, then took a seat on the far side of the lab. "But I don't want to meet the brunt of the bond if it turns on us," he said, simply and clearly. "I really don't want to, Severus."
            "Then you need not," Severus said. "But I think Potter is wrong. The bond might be angriest at him for resisting the pull, but if we were simply not there with him, it might also turn on us. I care too much for my own safety and future to put it solely in Potter's hands."
            Draco sat still, head bowed. Severus waited. He knew it was harder for Draco. Severus would not have chosen to become what he had, a spy and a warrior, but because he had been through the experience, he could think of facing danger more calmly than Draco could. Draco was a coward at bottom, whom the promise of death at the hands of the Lestranges had been enough to scare, even before they began the torture.
            Draco lifted his head and said, "I have my pride."
            "But," Severus said, waiting.
            "I don't want to deal with Potter," Draco said. "I don't want to deal with this bond. If he's right and it starts pulling on us more sharply, then I'll decide what to do then. Until then...I don't want to see him, Severus."
            Given the guilt that symbolized him in Severus's mind, that made sense, and Severus could not truly fault him for it. He only nodded and said, "Then I will send him a request to meet with him by myself."
            Draco curled his hand sharply in towards his chest. Then he nodded once, stood up, and walked out of the lab.
            Severus picked up the letter and read it again. He would have to decide carefully how to respond, especially since Draco would not be joining with him this time.
            But satisfaction coiled in the same place where Potter's Patronus had left him brooding. He would do what had to be done, and also what should be done, to recover his pride. He had not endured what Potter had in the ritual circle, but he had endured enough.
            He would have his own freedom and pride back. It would be done.
*
            Genuka: Then I rejoice in being evil!
            ChelseaPlume: Thank you! Writing about the way that bonds work is one of my favorite parts of this kind of fic.
            No, Harry doesn't want directness, but coming through Hermione, it makes a lot more sense to him. That doesn't mean he's going to be receptive to the meeting that Severus wants, though.
            Hermione would always try to convince Harry to see them again and free himself that way, although if Harry had seemed more fragile she wouldn't have pushed for it quite so soon.
- 4
- 5
- 6
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

The Wages of Going On