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Love, Free as Air	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Threesomes/Moresomes Views: 32706 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and I am not making any money from this story.

Chapter List
- 5
- 6
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Chapter Six�Words of a
Wise Bird

�� Malfoy,
can I talk to you for a minute?�

�� Draco
looked up in surprise. He had just come into the house from tending to the
garden, and his mind was still full of roses and vines, morning glories and the
way to train them around the trellis, which made it hard to concentrate on what
Potter was talking about. He might even have thought he was back in Hogwarts
for a moment, except Potter�s voice was too polite.

�� Potter
stood on the perch that they�d installed in the drawing room, staring at him
intently. Draco nodded and dropped onto the couch, stretching his arms along
the back. With Severus, he would have cast a Cleaning Charm to remove the sweat
and grime first, but it wasn�t as though Potter could possibly care about that.
�Yes. What is it? Did Severus threaten to pluck you bald again?� That had
happened three days ago, apparently, the first time that Draco had left them
alone in the lab together.

�� Not this
time.� Potter shook his head in that gesture that looked so unnatural on a
parrot. �I wanted to talk about you.�

�� Draco
snorted. �If this is another plea for me to leave Severus, you�re forgetting I
have to change slowly.� He thought spending time by himself in the garden, meditating
and tending the flowers, and beginning to study the esoteric magic he�d been
interested in years ago was a pretty good start. At least it saved him from
trailing after Severus and whining for his attention all the time.

�� No,�
Potter said, though he sounded uncertain. �I just�� He sprang into the air and
fluttered his way over to land on the couch beside Draco. Draco flinched a bit
in spite of himself. He still wasn�t used to having a bird of Potter�s size
flying at him. �Snape was talking to me about other Slytherin students who�ve
been arrested after the war.�

�� Draco
frowned in confusion. �You do get on the strangest topics,� he said.

�� Snape
intended to torment me with guilt,� Potter said, stretching out a leg and then
turning it into a whole-body stretch with both wings extended one at a time.
Draco watched in fascination. He wasn�t used to anything about Potter the bird yet, including all his movements.
�I�m more bothered that I never knew.�

�� Draco
shrugged. �The sentences were short, for the most part. I�m sure they�re all
out by now. No reason for you to have known or interfered.�

�� I should
have,� Potter said, but he went on before Draco could ask what that meant. Everyone knew he hadn�t been
sympathetic to Slytherins in school. Did he imagine that Pansy and the rest had
sat in their Azkaban cells dreaming of his interference? �Snape seemed more
affected by their imprisonment than I realized.�

�� Draco
smiled wryly. �Potions master is by far the biggest part of him, but there was
no reason that he needed to accept
being the Head of Slytherin House if he didn�t want to. There have been Heads
in the past who weren�t part of their House as students.�

�� But I bet
Snape thought no one else in the school would do a good job at the time he
accepted the post,� Potter said, bobbing his head up and down.

�� That
startled a laugh out of Draco. �See how well you already know him,� he said.
�That�s exactly what he told me about his reasons for accepting.�

�� Hmmm.�
Potter walked in a small circle. �Would you say that he only brought up the
imprisonment of those students to affect me and get me to shut up? Or would you
say that he feels there�s an actual injustice there that should be remedied?�
He slid his neck to the side. �Would Snape have helped them if he could have
stayed in the wizarding world, if the Wizengamot had acquitted him?�

�� Only doesn�t apply to Severus very
often,� Draco said dryly, �whether it�s in discussions of his motives or
anything else. I�m sure he brought it up for both reasons. But yes, I do think
that he would have tried to help Pansy and the rest if he was free to do so at
the time, especially since they were arrested after he was and he didn�t know
anything about it until we�d fled. Fuck, I would have.�

�� Potter
stared at him with his beak parted and long grey tongue showing. Then he shut
it and bobbed his head again. �That�s bloody decent of you, Malfoy.�

�� Draco
raised his eyebrows. �Why the interrogation? Were you that bothered by not
paying attention to every detail of the arrests? We heard about your sickness,
you know. I didn�t expect you to make my mother�s trial to testify, and you looked
awful when you did. It�s hardly surprising that you missed some of the news.�

�� Potter
froze in the act of shaking his tail.

*

�� Harry hated
thinking about the three months immediately after the war, when he had drifted
in and out of a strange sickness that the Healers couldn�t name or cure.
Sometimes he would be almost fine, if weak; other times he was lost in feverish
dreams and thought waking was another dream. He knew people, and then he
didn�t. He could walk by himself, and then only with someone�s support or
leaning against a wall. He heard Dumbledore�s voice explaining the
circumstances of his death to him and Voldemort�s voice whispering and
shrieking and cackling, and then he didn�t.

�� Hermione
had looked through book after book and finally told Harry, teary-eyed, that she
thought it came from being dead. �There�s only one case that�s similar to it,
and that�s a witch who was briefly brought back to life after her heart stopped
beating,� she said, sitting on Harry�s bed in Grimmauld Place and clutching
both his hands. �She had the fever and the weakness and the dreams, too. It
doesn�t say she heard the voices, but I don�t think she told her Healers
everything. Oh, Harry!� And she�d
flung her arms around him and clutched him tight.

�� Harry had
held her back and shut his eyes. He�d known without asking that Hermione was
afraid because the witch had died.

�� But the illness
began to wane after the third month, and Harry was finally able to get back to
what he had wanted to do from the beginning: testify at the Death Eater trials
and enter the Auror program. Neither of those had worked out the way he wanted
them to, but Harry had been working on becoming an Animagus at the same time,
and that had made his life richer and compensated for some of the
disappointments.

�� Now, Malfoy
had reminded him�

�� Harry knew,
though, that Malfoy had no idea what the illness had really been or why
thinking about it was hard for Harry. Only Ron and Hermione knew what had
actually happened when Harry walked into the forest to meet Voldemort, and
Harry intended to keep it that way.

�� He came
back to himself and craned his neck up to see Malfoy. �I should still have
tried to find out,� he said quietly. �If I was the hero I liked to think of
myself as, then I should have tried.�

�� Malfoy
laughed aloud. Harry flinched automatically from the loudness of the laughter,
but then relaxed and sat beside Malfoy. He was sure that he made Malfoy and
Snape flinch more often than that from his screeches.

�� Are you
looking for reassurance?� Malfoy asked, chuckling. �That you are some kind of
hero after all, even if your own conscience says you aren�t? You won�t find it
here.�

�� No, of
course not,� Harry said, and sat on one leg to look more relaxed than he
actually was. It was harder to lie as a bird; his body often reacted before he
thought about what was happening. �So. You think Snape cared for his students,
if not as much as he cared for his brewing.�

�� Yes.�
Malfoy looked wistful for a moment, started to open his mouth, and then pinched
his lips into a thin line.

�� Pretend
I�m an ordinary bird,� Harry suggested softly, �if that would make it easier
for you to talk with me.� He had tricked dozens of confessions out of criminals
by looking cute and sweet and harmless, and got plenty of information by being
the only audience that someone could talk to most of the time. He wasn�t going
to use this information against Malfoy in the same way, but he did think Malfoy
needed a listener.

�� Malfoy
licked his lips and leaned back against the couch, taking his face further
away, which was the opposite of the way it usually worked. But then he spoke,
voice choked, and Harry knew he had taken the invitation after all. �I used to
think Severus cared for me like that. I don�t think it anymore.�

�� Why do you
think he changed his mind?� Harry scratched the back of his head and tried to
look as if he was less interested in Malfoy�s words than he really was. It
would probably encourage him to talk more. �There could be lots of reasons, of
course, but which do you think is the most likely one?�

�� Malfoy
sighed. �I don�t think he changed his mind. I think I fooled myself, and he
only pretended to what he thought would get him out of prison and into the
open.�

�� Harry
pressed briefly against his elbow, hoping that the brush of his feathers might
reassure Malfoy. �But he must have cared for you a little, to put up with you
for years and become your lover, right?�

�� Malfoy
shook his head. �Even that might have been convenience. I was with him, and if
he�d sent me back to the wizarding world, I could have betrayed his location.
And as for becoming my lover�he�s told me his right hand is a better lover.�

�� Harry
choked, and then ducked his head to attend to his breast feathers. The more he
learned about Snape, the stranger it seemed that the man hadn�t self-destructed
as the result of all the bitterness and spite in his body coming to a boil at
once.

�� Maybe someone should arrange that he should.

�� But the
wistfulness in Malfoy�s face argued against it. Strange as it seemed, someone,
somewhere, had managed to come up with genuine love for Snape. Harry wasn�t
going to try and take away that love unless Malfoy managed to overcome it
enough to leave Snape.

�� I want to help them both. But if I can only
help one, my priority�s going to be Malfoy.

�� I�m sure
that�s wrong,� he said, when he felt safe to talk again instead of simply
flapping off down the corridor to the lab and trying to bite off Snape�s
fingers one by one. �I�m sure you�re a good lover.�

�� Malfoy
turned his face and raised an eyebrow. �Oh, you would know about that, would
you? Had a lot of boyfriends?�

�� Harry felt
the temptation to freeze again. But this was only teasing, it wasn�t a
reference to something that he felt was a personal weakness, and so he felt
free to spread his wings. �It�s not that,� he said. �It�s just that you
actually think about other people, unlike Snape. That must make you a good
lover, unless you do things like stab them in the eye with your penis all the
time.�

�� Malfoy
laughed again. Harry was ready for it this time, and half-hoped that Snape was
hearing it in his lab. When was the last
time you made him laugh like that? Think about what it means that someone who�s
trapped in a bird�s body and who last argued like a child with Malfoy when he
saw him, can make him laugh, and you can�t, you dried-up stick of evil.

�� Compassion
and care for others has less to do with being a good lover than you think,�
Malfoy said. �If you do manage to draw Severus�s attention, then�� He sighed in
longing. �You don�t know what he can do when he brings his focus to you.
Imagine being the center of all the fixation he has on potions.�

�� Harry
didn�t want to imagine it, partially because this was Snape, but also partially because he�d had enough of attention
during his life, thank you. �Anyway. I think you must still be a better lover
than he is.�

��

Malfoy gave him a smile that
quirked sideways. �It�s too bad that you aren�t in a human body, or we could
test that.�

I
have to stop freezing like this. Luckily, this time Harry found another
retort that should make Malfoy laugh and take his mind from any dangerous
implication. �And then, what, for comparison�s sake I could kiss Snape? No,
thanks. The closest I ever want to come to his mouth is as a bird, when I might
bite his tongue since he refuses to do it himself.�

�� We�ll have
to agree to disagree,� Malfoy said, waving a hand. �And you�ll have to accept
that, in this case, I have more experience than you do.� He cast a glance down
the corridor that led to the lab, his emotions shifting again. �Not that it
really matters, when Severus doesn�t know or care that I�m alive.�

�� He stopped
you from leaving, didn�t he?� Even though
he shouldn�t have. Harry was just glad the subject of the conversation had
changed away from kissing Snape. He had enough nightmares without that.

�� Yes, he
did,� Malfoy said thoughtfully. �I wish I could be sure about his motives for
doing so, but it�s its own sign of hope.� He hesitated for a moment, then said,
�And you think I ought to leave him?�

�� If he
doesn�t change,� Harry said. More hopeful
than ever. He would have liked to hop up on Malfoy�s shoulder and run his
beak through his hair, but people who weren�t used to that tended to flinch and
try to hit him. Besides, Malfoy was leaning too far against the back of the
couch to make it practical. �I reckon it�s possible he might.�

�� I don�t know
if I should think too much about that or not,� Malfoy said, and rested his head
back against the couch with a sigh. �It might persuade me to stay when I would
be better off going.�

�� Harry
nodded, and then they sat there in gloomy silence until Malfoy cleared his
throat and turned further back to face him. �Well, that�s something we can�t do
anything about right now. What�s something we can?�

�� Do you
have a Pensieve?� Harry asked. �And can I borrow your wand?�

�� The
questions were worth asking even without positive answers, for the sheer look
of befuddlement on Malfoy�s face.

*

�� Severus
stepped around the corner into the drawing room and narrowed his eyes. Usually,
by this time of the evening, Draco was in his room reading and Potter was
dozing in his cage. Severus had looked forwards to having the drawing room
largely to himself so that he could get on with some of the research that he
needed to do on Animagi.

�� Instead, he
could hear both of their voices from the garden, and sitting alone on the table
in the middle of the drawing room was Draco�s large, silvery Pensieve.

�� Severus
walked up to it, examining the sides. Yes, he could see the light scores that a
parrot�s claws might have left in the metal. The baffling thing was why Draco
would have let Potter see or use it.

�� The
Pensieve was full of brimming silver memory. Severus cast several spells that
would identify other liquids mixed with it or curses on the Pensieve itself,
and encountered nothing. He decided that he was foolish to fear Draco, as cowed
as he was ordinarily, striking back at him in this fashion. Potter might have,
but since Potter could not have used the Pensieve by himself, Draco would
easily have prevented him from leaving a trap.

�� Then what it is here for?

�� Severus
walked several times around the Pensieve, looking for signs of a more subtle
nature, and still there was nothing. He finally sat down on the couch in front
of the Pensieve and locked the door that led from the house into the garden
with a negligent wave of his wand. Draco could still pass through it with a bit
of work, but the noise should warn Severus and give him time to withdraw from
the memories.

�� In the end,
the only way he could learn why this had been left here�for him; Draco would
not have been careless enough to leave private memories out�was to lower his
head and enter them.

�� The usual
odd sensations came and went in the back of his head, and then Severus found
himself standing in the middle of a dungeon corridor, watching as he lectured
Potter and his two friends. Judging from their size, they were in fourth year
or thereabouts. Severus would have been disturbed he could not remember the
incident himself, but there had been too many cases like this.

�� Severus
moved up around the group, wondering what he was supposed to find or see. There
were mutinous expressions on the faces of the three children, no surprise
there. And he himself looked as he always did. This did not seem to be a time
when Potter had got some surprising and unnoticed revenge on Severus.

�� When his
past self had turned and strode away, the Weasley brat said bitterly, hands
clenched into fists, �What a bastard!�

�� Old
instincts died hard; Severus had opened his mouth to take points for language
before he remembered that this was a memory. Luckily, the Granger girl seemed
to agree with his opinion, since she frowned at the boy and said, �Well,
there�s no need to talk about him like that, Ron.�

�� But he is,� Weasley said, and began marching
down the corridor in the opposite direction, which Severus presumed led to
Gryffindor Tower, as if he intended to meet Severus on the way and pound him to
pulp. �Don�t you think so, Harry?�

�� Potter said
nothing. He looked pale and shaky, and Severus mentally corrected his
estimation of the time. This still looked like the brat�s fourth year, but
something had just happened, perhaps the confrontation with Crouch, Jr., that
rendered Potter less likely to speak up than usual.

�� Harry?�
Weasley was grabbing Potter�s arm and looking at him with truly disgusting
solicitousness.

�� I just
think there are some things about him we don�t really understand,� Potter said
shortly, and shook off Weasley�s hand, and strode ahead.

�� The memory
blurred, a clear indication of its ending and a passage to another memory, and
Severus laughed, though he was the only one who would hear. Potter had wished him
to see a moment when he had defended Severus in such a lukewarm fashion? Why?
Severus would hardly come to think that he was right for that reason, or treat
him in a more good-natured manner.

�� More likely this is a ritual to assuage his
own guilt, which would have arisen in him when I told him about the imprisoned
students he did not care enough to save.

�� The next
memory showed Potter alone, sitting on a bed and staring at a book in his arms.
Severus glanced around, noting that he was in the Gryffindor boys� bedroom, and
then stepped to the side so that he could read the title of the book. Potter
looked older than in the prior memory; he might have been sixteen or seventeen.

�� The book,
to Severus�s surprise, was an ordinary Potions textbook, which there was no
reason for Potter to look at as if it was precious. But then Potter turned the
page, and Severus saw his own handwriting slashing across the paper as though
he had made his nervous, defiant proclamation aloud.

�� This book is the property of the Half-Blood
Prince.

�� Severus
narrowed his eyes. Yes, he remembered the Sectumsempra
curse that Potter had used on Draco now. What surprised him was that the
boy would be obsessively tracing his finger over the words on the page, the
words that gave Severus�s ridiculous name, going back to the beginning when he
was finished. If this was before the incident in the bathroom, Severus would
have expected Potter to be investigating the spells; if after, flinging the
book from him in horror.

�� But then
Potter proved that it was even later in the sixth year than Severus had
thought, because he whispered, �How can you possibly be Snape? How? When you seemed so smart and
complex and�and someone who understood.�

�� Severus
froze, his heart pounding. Yes, he had told Potter that he was the Half-Blood
Prince when he and Draco fled Hogwarts at the end of Potter and Draco�s sixth
year. He had been driven to it by offended pride that Potter would attempt to
use his spells, and by a desire to destroy the value that Potter placed on the
book. At least, if he couldn�t hold Potter down and yank the knowledge of
Severus�s personal magic forcibly from his head, he could make sure that it was
tainted.

�� But it
hadn�t worked. Potter still gazed at the words as if he liked them, as if they
offered up a secret of some kind, and his brow was furrowed with what looked
like painful puzzlement. He leaned back on the pillow and whispered again,
though Severus was standing close enough to the boy to hear the words clearly.

�� You had
enemies. I knew that. You came up with spells that would defend you against
them. Well, fine. I�d do the same thing, if I could use my wand during the
summers.

�� But I
never thought you would be�you. I
just thought you were a pure-blood from the beginning. I thought you�I mean,
the Prince�had to know some of the same things I did, because I had a
Muggleborn mother, too. And then it turns out that you�re such a different
person, or two different people, and I can�t separate one from the other.�

�� He fell
silent, still frowning. The blurring this time came up and shoved Severus along
to another memory before he could decide what in the world Potter had wanted
him to see that one for. It was a moment of weakness and stupidity only, of no
value to anyone save Potter�s foes.

�� Well, and
perhaps the newspapers. But submitting such a story, even anonymously, would
draw more attention to Severus than he liked.

�� The third
memory showed Potter sitting up in his bed in the Gryffindor room again, but
this time he was very much the young man Severus had seen when he thought he
was dying, with Lily�s eyes and a face marked by war. He was frowning at
Granger, who shook her head and said, �I�m not lying, Harry. Snape really is
alive. Someone found him in time and gave him the antivenin. A few people said
it was Malfoy, but I�m not sure about that.�

�� Potter drew
up his knees in front of himself and wrapped his arms around them like a child.
Severus waited eagerly for the breakdown or the temper tantrum that would
follow at the news of his escape from death.

�� But instead
Potter whispered only, �I�m glad.�

�� Severus
could not have been more stunned if Potter had tried to apologize for peering
into his Pensieve during his fifth year. Granger couldn�t seem to believe it,
either. She leaned nearer and said, �What, Harry?�

�� Potter
turned to her. �He was a hero,� he said simply. �He saved us all.�

�� The memory
ended, and this time Severus found himself able to draw his head out of the
Pensieve without being pushed to another. He sat still, frowning, trying to
find commonalities between the three memories and seeing none. The last two
could perhaps be vulnerable moments, taunting material, but the second much
less so, and the first was something that would matter to no one but Potter.

�� I was
trying to make you see that you have good qualities.�

�� Severus
started badly. Potter sat on the ledge of the window, which of course Severus
had not locked, looking him calmly in the eye. That he had to turn a moment
later and pick at an itch under his wing did not improve Severus�s temper.

�� Do you
seriously think that I did not believe in my intelligence, my bravery, my complexity until you told me?� Severus
asked coolly. �Do you think that I am yet another fool who requires you to
validate my existence?�

�� Potter
lifted his head and gave Severus a look he probably imagined he was noble,
though on a parrot it came closer to being cross-eyed. �I think you didn�t
realize I thought that about you, that anyone other than yourself could.
Because, after all, you disregard Malfoy�s opinion.�

�� And he flew
back into the garden, leaving Severus sitting still for longer than he wished
to, nearly paralyzed with anger.

*

�� k lave
demo: You�re right that Snape is facing the most change, though it�s going to
be very reluctant on his part.

�� Draco hasn�t
yet decided exactly what he wants�a hindrance to manipulation.

�� lryn: Thank
you!
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Love, Free as Air