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The Glass of Heart's Desire	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Threesomes/Moresomes Views: 13568 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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Chapter Eight—Planning Things Forward
            “Harry?”
            Harry tensed once before realizing that he recognized the voice and turning around. Draco stood behind him with one eyebrow raised, holding out a glass of wine to him. Harry nodded and accepted it. He didn’t try to sip from it, though. As nervous as he was at the moment, he would end up spilling wine all over the sleeve of his expensive robes.
            Much more expensive than he had ever worn before. But this was the Ministry gala where Severus planned to announce his presence to the world, and that meant only the right kinds of robes were acceptable. Draco had insisted.
            “Are you still sure this is the right plan?” Harry asked the question in a low voice, although some people were gaping at them already. To see Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy together was an unusual enough sight. They had started the rumors swirling of someone who had lived through the war, someone who had rightfully escaped prosecution, someone who would be joining them tonight, but at the moment, even Ministry officials Harry knew had listened attentively to the rumors seemed to think they were a more interesting sight.
            “It’s the one Severus wanted,” Draco said, and under the cover of turning to put his champagne flute on a passing tray held by a house-elf, he grabbed Harry’s wrist and squeezed it. “Do you want to bow out of the picture for right now? My reputation is good enough to support Severus on my own.”
            “But it’ll take some damage when people figure out that he’s been the one brewing your potions,” Harry muttered, shaking his head. “No, I’ll stay.”
            Draco sniffed. “I like that. My potions. No, only some of them, and not even all of those.”
            Harry could only manage a half-hearted smile, though, and Draco seemed to know it. He stepped back and eyed Harry up and down.
            “What really has you so nervous tonight?” he asked. “You told us that Weasley already knew about Severus, and you were the one who chose this gala. Do you think that they’re going to sack you from the Aurors when they find out that you knew about Severus’s whereabouts?”
            “Not so much that,” Harry admitted, although he thought some of the sour bile in the back of his throat did come from that potential source. “More that…I don’t know what people are going to say when they find out we’re lovers. I don’t—I trust you. I don’t trust them.” He jerked his head at their audience.
            “Ah.” Draco moved closer and stood leaning against the wall next to him, raising a privacy ward at the same time. That drew more gapes, but Harry tried to comfort himself with the notion that when Severus walked into the ballroom, they would all be gaping at him instead. It actually wasn’t that comforting. “Think of it like this. Is it worse to be found out as my lover, and Severus’s, than to be found out as our friend?”
            “It’s the combination,” Harry explained miserably, well aware that he was breathing too fast and that he wasn’t the one who had the right to be nervous tonight. Severus was the one who would soon come out of the wings and have to occupy center stage in front of all those greedy eyes. The least Harry could have done was keep his issues out of the picture to better support Severus. “I know it’s silly, but knowing that I have two lovers, and they’re men, and they’re people who went through trials or would have if the Ministry had known they were still alive, and they’re people I used to not get along with. It’s all that.”
            Draco nodded once. “Would it help you to think of this as a battle?”
            Harry blinked, and touched his wand. “Not unless you think Severus really will need a bodyguard from some of these people, the way we discussed.”
            Draco’s smile lit his whole face, and made Harry relax in a way that he hadn’t known he still could. “No, silly,” he murmured, reaching up and touching Harry’s jaw. That made a spectator startle and drop a glass, which was loud enough to be heard through the privacy ward. “Not unless there’s someone here with a much deeper grudge against Severus than I can imagine is at all possible at this date and time. No, I meant, would it help you to think of it as a battle against enemies, the way you head into every time you pick up your wand as an Auror? That seems to be the only arena you’re confident in.”
            Harry snorted. “I’ll have you know that I handle Ministry galas just fine.”
            “Oh, of course,” Draco said. “I’ve attended a few, you know. You stand in the corner, scowling at everyone, and especially scowl at the people who invite you to dance. You discuss some business with the Head Auror and the Minister. The only people you smile at are your friends or the other Weasleys. Then you escape as early as possible.”
            Harry felt his face burn. It was weird, but he seemed stripped as bare as he’d been in the bed, in a way, as bare as he’d been when Draco and Severus asked to see his scars. No one else had ever noticed that it was nervousness, not just disdain for the people who wanted his autograph and presence, that had kept him from having greater success at Ministry galas, dances, and parties.
            “Fine, but not because I’m about to throw up or anything,” Harry said. Draco was still giving him that considering glance that saw straight into his soul. “Just because I don’t like them.”
            Draco nodded. “Severus chose this as the place to make his announcement that he’s alive because it’s a refined place, a place where people are likely to stare and gossip instead of reacting with violence, and a place where your reputation as well as mine is known. Everyone will be staring at him. And you and me, yes, but we’ll support you, and we’ll support him, and you’ll support me.” He smiled. “It’s going to cause a splash that’ll last for a long time, but really, we're all the better for it, aren't we? At least it’s not going to involve Aurors hunting him down or reporters immediately besieging you.”
            Harry still told himself he was being silly, and maybe he was, but he could breathe more easily now, and that wasn’t a small thing. He nodded and smiled at Draco. “Having someone to fight for will make this better.”
            What Draco might have said, he didn’t actually get to hear, because at that moment the door to the ballroom opened and Severus stepped inside, looking around as haughtily as though he expected the crowds to part for him. And they did, but it was with a whispering and hissing that Harry knew meant they actually, might, seriously attack. He put his hand on his wand again anyway.
            Draco took his hand and shook his head at Harry. He moved forwards at a stately walk to receive Severus. Harry swallowed, reminded himself that Draco probably knew the rules of battle on this kind of field better than he did, and followed him.
*
            Severus had underestimated how overwhelming it would be, to step into the middle of a room and find himself the center of all eyes. It was an experience that he hadn’t had since the last time he had been in front of Potions students.
            And then, he had known that he controlled all the important variables in the situation.
            He refused to flinch from the way that someone pointed at him, at the way that two Aurors bunched together at the sight of him, at the way that hands immediately went to wands. He sought out Draco and Harry with his eyes instead, and found them coming towards him, Draco walking a little faster than normal. Harry walked without trying to keep his hand away from his wand, snapping glares at the more persistent of the starers.
            Then other people saw Draco and Harry coming towards him.
            The murmurs immediately turned and started running the other way. There were even angry hisses mixed in—and Severus didn’t assume that all of the crowd had suddenly decided to remind Harry about his ability to speak Parseltongue. They were calling his name in loud, shocked voices. Some of them were trying to remonstrate with Draco, which would have worked better if Harry and Draco hadn’t been moving past them so rapidly. And then they ranged themselves on either side of Severus, and most of the voices ceased.
            Into the silence, Harry spoke loudly. “This is Potions master Severus Snape, a spy for Dumbledore’s cause, who survived the downfall of Voldemort and the end of the war. And he’s been making a living through selling very fine potions since, including some that many of you have probably consumed.”
            Dropped jaws answered that, but Severus knew it was true. A lot of the people in this room were his customers, even if they had thought that they were mostly dealing with Draco.
            “I sold the potions, and helped him make them,” Draco added, angling his body alongside Severus’s as if he thought he would have to fend off an attack from the left. Well, the thickest cluster of people was there, so perhaps so. “But you’ve used and admired the work of his hands as much as mine. If you dare despise him now, then everyone who makes a disparaging remark had better not buy from us again.”
            A daring move, Severus thought, as Draco’s eyes swept from face to face, but an effective one. The people who used their innocuous potions often came and asked for less innocuous ones later—not necessarily illegal, but made with regulated ingredients, and not available in the quantities they wanted from legitimate apothecaries. Draco and Severus could ruin reputations if they stooped to blackmail.
            Suddenly, some people found something to do on the other side of the ballroom. But the Aurors Severus had noted earlier were still striding towards him, and they didn’t slow down even when Harry obviously and ostentatiously took a step in front of him.
            “Severus Snape,” said the one in the lead, with a nasal voice that Severus took an instant dislike to, “you are under arrest.”
            “For what?” Harry demanded, and stole the attention of some gapers back again.
            “For the crimes of murder, torture, being a Death Eater—” said the smaller, but louder, of the pair.
            Harry shook his head, a superior smile on his face that shut them up immediately. Severus suspected that not many people had ever been privileged to see Harry using his power like this. He put out a hand and rested it on the small of Harry’s back, beneath the fall of his sleeve, in support and appreciation.
            “No,” Harry said. “I looked up those charges before he returned to public view, you see. The Ministry accepted the memories that I could provide them, and the documents Albus Dumbledore had left, including a second will that gave several things to Severus Snape if he survived the war. Dumbledore talked about the Unbreakable Vow he subjected Potions master Snape to in that will, as well. It’s not common knowledge, because the Ministry was a bit embarrassed that someone they’d been prepared to try as a Death Eater was actually a hero, and they thought he was dead, so they never enacted the will. But it was all publicly recorded. I can show you the records if you want.”
            “I’d like very much to see them,” said the one with the nasal voice, who hadn’t left off aiming his wand at Severus.
            “Of course,” Harry said, and snapped his fingers. “Accio Severus Snape’s legal records.”
            The Aurors started back, staring even more openly now. They seemed to think that Harry had done wandless magic. Severus thought he and Draco were the only ones who had noticed that Harry had used the snap of his fingers to distract them from the wave of his wand.
            The only ones who had noticed, and the only ones who would appreciate Harry the way he deserved. Draco leaned in from the other side, pressing hard on Harry’s shoulder, as though to enforce that decision.
            Harry tilted his head back, and for just an instant, his eyes fluttered the way they had when Draco entered him. Severus hissed in quiet amusement and nodded to the Aurors ahead of them.
            To his credit, Harry could snap back to business in instants, and he reached out and easily caught the dusty box of trial records soaring its way to him. “Now, let’s see,” he said, digging through the papers inside. “Yes, this is the record of the memories that I showed the Ministry, and this is a copy of the will that Dumbledore made.”
            The baffled Aurors were lowering their wands, although they glared suspiciously at Severus for as long as they were leaning forwards and reading the records. Then they turned their backs and left the ballroom altogether, walking as though someone had replaced their backbones with iron rods.
            Harry chuckled and waved his wand at the box, probably sending it back to its proper place in the Ministry Archives. “It’s not my fault if I’m right, is it?” he asked the world at large.
            “I think that there would still be people asking you to explain why you looked at the records at all,” said a witch who had approached them from the side Harry stood on. Severus regarded her warily. She didn’t move like an Auror, which was a point in her favor, but he recognized the look of intense curiosity on her face. If she wasn’t a reporter, she wasn’t far removed from one.
            “Of course,” said Harry, giving her a little bow. “Madam Fogstorm, this is Potions master Severus Snape, and Potions master Draco Malfoy. Madam Fogstorm holds a position in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement,” he added, turning to Severus and Draco, his voice determinedly casual.
            That there was no more information available than “a position” told Severus it was one of those positions that were not talked about much in public. He managed a polite nod of his own, while Draco immediately moved forwards with his hand out. “Do you feel like shaking hands with a former Death Eater?” he asked.
            Madam Fogstorm faintly smiled, but shook it. “A Death Eater who stood his trial and paid the penalty,” she said, and then leaned around Severus and looked at him. “As well as one who did not.”
            “I explained that,” interrupted Harry blandly. “The Ministry didn’t see much point in trying someone who was dead.”
            “And now that he’s alive?” It was hard to tell who Madam Fogstorm was talking to among the three of them, only that she expected an answer.
            Harry shrugged. “The Wizengamot made a decision, based on the information they had at the time. I don’t imagine there’ll be a problem, unless some of the legacies that Dumbledore would have left to Potions master Snape in his will belong to other people who would make a fuss if they were taken from them.”
            “I have no intention of trying to claim them,” Severus said at once. Harry had told him about Albus’s second will yesterday, but there was nothing among the bequests that excited Severus. It was enough to know that Albus had made provisions for Severus in case he survived the war. “The Ministry has nothing to fear from me.”
            “Not even an exciting new political player, arrived on the scene?” Madam Fogstorm murmured, in what sounded like a deliberately provocative voice. Her eyes darted from him to Harry and back.
            Not someone who will try to make Harry Potter political? Severus understood the message well enough.
            He half-ducked his head and let his eyes widen, saying nothing. He did not yet know whether Harry would welcome an induction into politics or not. For that reason, he would leave it up in the air.
            Madam Fogstorm studied him for a moment longer, then turned to Harry. Harry seemed to understand the silent message, which surprised Severus. Perhaps he had seen it before. He smiled thinly and shook his head. "As long as the Ministry obeys the rules it's set up for itself, it has nothing to fear from me."
            "There might be good reasons for breaking those rules sometimes," said Fogstorm, and looked to Draco's face as if she might find better sense there.
            "They would have to be good reasons, to be worth the consequences," Harry said, lifting his chin. Severus had never seen him like this before, poised and confident and at the same time politely forbidding. "Especially consequences that they seem to fear so much."
            Severus held back a snicker. They should fear the consequences of Harry Potter becoming political. He had a name too potent for the Ministry to just let him bob along in the stream.
            "They are," said Madam Fogstorm, "or might be." Then she nodded at them and strolled away, and some of the murmurs and stares went with her. There were people who would be curious about such a high official in the Ministry and what she might have to say to Severus, Severus thought, but more, they would consider him acceptable now that she had spoken to him.
            "Shall we?" Draco asked, extending an arm to Severus. Harry hesitated, then did the same on his other side.
            It was not exactly like the vision he had seen, Severus had to admit, as he clapped his hands into place and let Draco and Harry escort him into the middle of the party. It was fragile, and different, and dangerous, and new, and desirable
*
            Draco watched in amusement as the fifth wizard drifted up to Severus. The evening since Madam Fogstorm's acceptance and Harry's facing down of the Aurors had been full of people trying to feel out Severus and determine whether he would support their pet projects. They ought to know what the answer was before they accosted him, but it seemed the gala was full of people who hadn't been Slytherins and didn't remember the dreaded Potions Professor of Hogwarts well enough.
            He saw Harry's eyes flicker past him, and thus wasn't surprised when a loud voice spoke at his shoulder, although it was obvious that the voice had been meant to make him jump. "Excuse me."
            Draco turned around and regarded the burly wizard in front of him with a bland smile. The wizard had the subdued black robes that most Ministry officials wore at parties like this, but he put his head back and regarded Draco as if he was a viper crawling into the middle of much greater splendor. Draco thought that was because of his bad behavior in not dancing to the man's tune, more than anything else, and bit his lip before he spoke, so that his voice wouldn't quiver with laughter.
            "Yes?"
            The wizard folded his arms. He had thick black braids in his hair, and, more unusually, similar braids in his beard, which swung back and forth as he leaned in to stare at Draco. "Are you aware that you're in the same room with many people whose families were hurt or inconvenienced by your Death Eater activities during the war?" he demanded.
            "He's also in the same room with a lot of his Potions clients," Harry said, before Draco could decide on the best response. "And people who escaped prosecution by pleading the Imperius Curse, although it might only have been fear and not the Imperius Curse that made them go along with what Voldemort wanted." The man flinched as though he was going to jump out of his skin, which made Draco feel better about his own involuntary response. "What's your point?"
            "Only that he doesn't always attend the Ministry galas, and he should have considered what would follow when he did." The wizard glared at Severus. "And in the company of someone who was considered to be dead."
            Draco inclined his head. "I have considered it." He waited, and the wizard's face turned plum while he struggled with his emotions.
            "Well?" he finally demanded, when Draco only stood there in peaceful silence and sipped champagne from his glass.
            "I have decided that I can bear those consequences," Draco said, and turned to exchange smiles with Harry and Severus. Severus was apparently attending carefully to his conversation with the petitioner wizard in front of him, but he flashed a half-smile in Draco's direction.
            The hefty wizard looked back and forth between all three of them, and then gave a shocked gasp and straightened his shoulders. "Well, I never! You think you can get away with a relationship like that, in front of all the eyes of normal people?'
            Harry didn't shrink or flinch, but Draco could guess how the words must have struck him. He reached out and closed his fingers into a circle around Harry's wrist, gently stroking. By the time he let go, Harry's breathing had quieted. "Yes," he said. "I think we can. Because of who we are, and the length of time that's passed since the war."
            The hefty wizard apparently had nothing to say to this. He stood there fuming for a few minutes, and Draco leaned his chin on his fist and looked benignly at him. Then the wizard turned and stomped away across the ballroom without saying goodbye.
            "You were magnificent."
            Draco's smile turned sly as he looked at Harry from under lowered eyelids. He was afraid he couldn't help it. Harry was gazing at him with something that almost seemed like hero-worship. "For facing down a tiresome busybody who had no plans to punish us anyway? Why is that?"
            "Because you know the right words and you have the right attitude to face them with," Harry said simply. "I never do."
            Draco reached out and smoothed his fingers gently down Harry's shoulder this time. "I think you faced down the Aurors who were coming for Severus pretty well. And you came in with a defense for me from this fellow."
            Harry didn't immediately refute what he'd said. He stood there, thinking, instead, and Draco saw a small smile work its way across his mouth when he considered what he had done so far this evening already.
            "Yeah, sometimes I'm pretty awesome," said Harry, and his hand settled on Draco's shoulder and squeezed. "But it helps when I have awesome help."

            Draco had to bite his lip to avoid laughing again, but this time, it was with a sense of pure joy. Severus had managed to detach himself from his conversation with the tiresome wizard, he saw, and was waiting for them a short distance away. He turned Harry towards him. "Shall we?"
            Harry nodded, and they crossed the small expanse of floor that separated them. Draco didn't miss the way that Severus smiled as they came to a halt near him, or the way that Harry relaxed.
            Or the way that his own heartbeat slowed down and his breathing deepened. Relaxed but alert, ready to take on the world.
            Do I dare show a relationship like this? Not only do I dare, but I'm eager for the consequences.
*
SP777: I think some of the sex scenes in my H/D stories are just as intense? Not sure what you mean.
BAFan: Thank you! I hoped that would be the impact.
Ciara_D: Only one more chapter after this, but I think you can see some of how its develops here.
Lyran: Thanks so much! I have a ton of stories; I hope you enjoy all of them!
Lenneth: Thanks! I do try to write a variety of SSHPDM stories, but I think this one has been my favorite to write for a while, maybe because the stakes aren’t as high and so it’s possible to be less angsty.
Jester: Thank you!
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The Glass of Heart's Desire