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Ashborn	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Threesomes/Moresomes Views: 36149 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 3
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Chapter Nine--Power Plays

            "Our thanks."

            That was all Kleianthe said before she ripped into the food that Draco had brought, a delicate sundae of cream and chocolate that she didn't want to share with her children, but Draco had noticed she hadn't given Potter that much. Or perhaps she meant to share the thanks with both of them.

            Draco looked over at Potter triumphantly, but he was watching the fillies gambol with a fond smile that meant he probably hadn't even heard Kleianthe. Draco set his jaw. This would have been easier with a rival for power who noticed when his power base was shifting and might be stolen from underneath him.

            But Kleianthe had paused in her eating of chocolate and was staring at him, so Draco reckoned it was up to him to make the first move in their "conversation." With any luck, Potter would react scornfully and the centaurs would that he was permanently ill-natured and there was no use trying to include him anyway. "I think we should talk," he said.

            Potter smiled without looking at him. "It sounds like you're chewing on a mouthful of your own teeth when you try to say that, you know," he murmured.

            Draco clasped his hands and rolled his eyes up at the heavens, not so much praying for strength as showing Kleianthe that he was trying, truly he was, but it simply wasn't enough. "We need to speak about more than your hatred of Severus and your hatred of me," he said.

            "Then let's," Potter said, and moved on before Draco could reflect to that ground-stealing tilt. "For one thing, are you going to dream of and reach out to more magical creatures? I could, I reckon, but I'm not sure I'll be good at it. And it might upset Snape more than it's worth, to bring some of them here."

            "You would need very large reserves of water for the merfolk to visit, let alone live here," Kleianthe said with a nod, and swallowed the last of the chocolate, then licked her fingers, completely unselfconscious. Draco could only wince and decide that the centaur version of polite table manners didn't match up very well with its human equivalent. "That is one reason not to reach out to them immediately."

            "You're right," Potter said, with a seriousness that made Draco shake his head. One moment he admits uncertainty, the next he acts as if he knows all about it. "And I wouldn’t have thought of it. That's another reason I need your help to make the decisions." He turned and stared at Draco, drumming one hand lightly on his leg.

            "This is only a game to you," Draco said. If Kleianthe wanted Draco to be honest about the state of the alliance between himself and Potter, then he would, although he doubted this was the kind of honesty she'd had in mind. "It's not to me. It's more than that, and it always will be. This is my life."

            Potter shrugged. "If you tell me what I should do next, I'm willing to listen, as long as it doesn't involve hurting my friends or breaking my Vows. There's not a whole lot I can promise other than that."

            "I mean," Draco said, and he knew his teeth were grinding and for once he didn't care, "that you don't take me seriously. You see me as an obstacle or a child to be humored. How can we make any sort of alliance at all between other kinds of creatures if we can't make you take me seriously as a human ally?"

            Potter was staring at him as if he'd never seen him before. Draco folded his arms and sneered back. At least that was a beginning, a pointer towards the final step of getting Potter to notice him at all.

*

            Well. That makes sense.

            Harry still didn't think he was wrong that Snape was mistreating Malfoy, and Malfoy was making excuses for it because he thought Snape was a hero and the one who had protected him from a much worse fate. But in that case, attacking Snape would only make Malfoy more and more loud and defensive, Harry thought. He should do something else instead, something that would make Malfoy likely to listen to Harry in the first place instead of snapping up defensive walls.

            "I'm sorry," he said. "But one of the reasons I can't take you seriously is that you keep swinging back and forth between emotions. One moment you want to talk to me as an ally, then you appeal for help, then you tell me I'm an idiot and threaten to kill me. What is it you want?"

            Malfoy's hands slowly closed into strong fists, as if he wanted to punch Harry but the desire was coming on him slowly. Harry stood there, watching his hands, his brain whispering to him about the right places to jump. He had no desire to hurt Malfoy, especially not in front of the centaurs. But he wasn't willing to be a punching bag to satisfy Malfoy's inconsistent wishes, either.

            "I want respect," Malfoy said. "Your notice. A reaction from you besides a calm look and an insult that rattles me while never touching you."

            Harry shifted from one foot to the other. The words went into him like a bolt of lightning, eerily similar to something Hermione had told him as they lay under a dripping hedge, hiding both from the rain and from the hunting Death Eaters.

            You've isolated yourself, Harry. You always hold back your anger and respond with amusement, or with these plans that keep us safe when someone is trying to kill us. I don't know how, but you've lost yourself, and I don't know how you'll get it back.

            In the end, he'd killed Voldemort without getting it back, and then he'd come to live with the Ashborn and thought that was a good thing. He had to hold something in reserve from Snape and Malfoy and the Ashborn because otherwise he might forget they were his enemies, and they never would.

            But Malfoy was different from everyone else in the fortress, except maybe the centaurs, which meant that Harry might be able to be different with him, too. He exhaled hard and lifted his eyes. Malfoy blinked and stared back, then touched his wand with one slow hand.

            "All right," Harry said. "You're a little wanker most of the time, and you frustrate me, because you never grew up and yet you still think you're the center of the universe. I reckon you're snapping because I made you think about other things, and you don't like that. But I feel sorry for you, and you exasperate me, and most of the time I can take you or leave you because you don't really want to listen to anything I say, you just want me to agree with you." He paused. "That clear enough?"

            Malfoy opened his mouth far enough that Harry could see his tongue and most of his teeth, then closed it again. The bob he gave of his head looked jerky and uncoordinated, but he seemed to gain control of himself again after a moment. The click of his swallow was still audible from a long distance, Harry thought, but he was doing better than Harry had thought he would have with that mass of words.

            He glanced at Kleianthe. She was still watching them with what looked like contentment, although her tail swished fast enough that he added an edge to that emotion that it wouldn't have in a human. And wonder of wonders, Thera, who usually kept a distance, had stepped closer, although the muscles of her long legs were bunched and her tail flicked like a cat's.

            "I--didn't know that you thought about me that way," Malfoy said. "Because you never said."

            "That would have damaged things back when I still thought you would listen to me," Harry said. "Now I don't care as much, because I know that you want to get along with me for the sake of the alliance." He paused, but Malfoy only kept staring at Harry as if he'd never seen him before. Harry rolled his eyes. "Truce?"

            "You're harsher than you know," Malfoy said, crossing his arms. "You're still the stuck-up little noble pissant that I knew in school, but you think you're not, and that makes you more dangerous."

            "Are we going to stand here trading insults all day?" Harry thought the centaurs would grow bored listening to that even before he would. "Or are we going to think about ways you could earn my respect?"

            Malfoy chewed his tongue for a second, probably because whatever he had wanted to say immediately would have been stupid, and he knew it. At last he said, grudgingly, "What do you want me to do?"

            "What do you like to do?" Harry asked. "What are the things in your life that don't revolve around the Ashborn and Snape?"

            "Your grand plan is to have me talk about myself?" Malfoy put his head on one side and surveyed Harry up and down. "Funny, you don't look as if you'd been into one of Severus's potions that gives you cramps and headache if you don't do what the person who gave it to you wants."

            Harry smiled tightly. As a matter of fact, he had felt off that morning when he first woke up, as though his eyes had acquired the slight mistiness they used to have before he got glasses. And his head had hurt, and his gut had cramped. But those symptoms were gone now. Harry thought the fresh air was helping. "I want to know because I can only respect people who actually seem like independent beings, and not servants or slaves. Otherwise, yeah, it'll only be pity."

            "All of us are servants of Severus, whether you know it or not," Malfoy said. "He built this organization, this fortress, the structure of the Ashborn as well as the bonds of Legilimency that keep their minds roped--"

            "But what is he doing with it?" Harry demanded. "It seems like a mobile shield, and not much else. What would you be doing if you had it?"

            Malfoy blinked. "I would use it to build a pure-blood culture and alliances," he mumbled, but Harry's words had knocked the wind out of him for some reason, and what he said sounded less than definite.

            "That's your latest obsession, yes," Harry said. "And you probably do want to get married and have children at some point." He leaned forwards intently. This was the first time that he felt like he was getting somewhere with Malfoy. "What do you like to do beyond that? What were you going to be, when you still thought that life would proceed normally? What did you dream of when you were in the midst of the war and didn't know if it would end?"

*

            Those were toys, Draco wanted to say. Those dreams, those aspirations for a silly boy whose parents were still alive and who had never tortured anyone. Put away because I grew up.

            But he could hear what Potter would say in response to that even before he said it. That the kind of growing up Draco had done was more like growing sideways, creeping under Severus's protection and stunting himself with it, like a forest tree that tried to stand tall in the shadow of a giant.

            The truth was, Draco could name who he was most easily in relation to others. Severus's lover. Severus's lieutenant. Part of the Ashborn. Potter's rival. His parents' son. The last Malfoy.

            Nothing that said anything about who he was beyond that, who he was on his own, if you stripped him down to bare essences. Once he had thought he would find out what he was like, pared down, in the Dark Lord's dungeons, but Severus had been with him then. That was the first time Draco had felt like a shadow in the wake of an intense sun. Severus, trapped by an enemy and plotting to escape, was all burning light.

            But when they had broken free of the enemy and escaped, Severus became...

            Yes. More of a shadow. More of the chill darkness that Draco had thought he would leave behind forever when he broke away with him from the Dark Lord's rule. Those first days, of capturing Death Eaters and changing their Marks and their minds so that they became Ashborn, had been exciting.

            But since then, excitement was rare on the ground.

            Draco shivered and reached for the one honest answer he thought he could make, at least if Potter was the one asking. "I don't know what I want yet," he said. "Other than power, and safety, and freedom, and a family." He wouldn't speak the word love in front of someone like Potter. "But I will."

            And Potter smiled at him as if he had filled the garden with sunlight instead of a bland answer, and nodded. "Fine, then. We'll eventually get along." He turned back to Kleianthe. "Is that the kind of thing you were thinking of when you told us to speak?"

            Draco glanced at the centaur. He had fallen so deeply into his own head that he had almost forgotten she was there, but she was, and she glanced at him with the same deep, calm eyes as before. Her hand toyed with the iron chain that decorated her wrist.

            "Essentially," she said. "I think that we should discuss more definite plans for the alliance. If you plan to include the merfolk, then we will want to be present when you communicate with them."

            Draco relaxed, licking his lips. He had survived the first challenge, and in such a way that Potter was less than the ultimate git about it that Draco had thought he would be. That was--odd, but welcome.

            And as he started recovering from the spell that Severus's shadow had cast over him, then perhaps he could learn more about what he wanted.

*

            Severus watched the snake automaton going about its duties. Its jewel eyes shone, its tongue flickered constantly as it slithered around the inside of the storage room that it had come to inspect, and its segments flashed whenever it turned a coil and caught the light from the torches anew.

            He wished he could be as metallic, as cool, as distant from the frustration that once again roared within him.

            He had opened a potion near Potter's room that drifted in and covered the walls with fumes that would eventually reach out to him and make him sick, irritable, and unable to sleep. It had seemed the best way to begin, as Potter had resisted Severus's interference in his food without complaint so far. He might do the same thing if he began to sicken from it.

            But Potter had arisen in the morning just as usual, not acted tired, and not used glamours on his face to conceal marks of sleeplessness, at least not that Bellatrix could detect. Severus wanted to eat his tongue. What would it take to reach the stupid boy, to make him understand who he was dealing with?

            Dumbledore's remnants, the Dark Lord's dross?

            Severus went still. He knew that was not a leftover voice from one of his enemies whispering in his head. He had scrubbed his mind thoroughly of any trace of the Dark Lord's presence, and Albus, skilled as he was at Legilimency, had never been able to penetrate the shields that Severus had raised for the Dark Lord.

            But he had not had such thoughts as that before. He could only assume they were inspired by Draco's defection and Potter's stubbornness.

            He watched the snake automaton again as it left the room, forcing himself to contemplate nothing but the metal until his fury ebbed and he could think rationally once more.

            He did not have to despise himself, not now. He had risen far for a man who had been a mere tool caught between two masters. He had done so little with his talents as either spy or Potions master when he was young, but now he had shown how he could make a life out of the first and a living out of the second.

            But who is there to be impressed? Albus and the Dark Lord are dead. Draco is alienated from you. The Ashborn think only what you tell them to think. Potter has not bowed his head to your bit and bridle yet.

            He could have answered that he had the respect of his colleagues, other Potions masters who knew what he could do and admired his experimental results, but even that was not true. He did not dare publish under his true name, which meant his alter ego was still a newcomer in the field. He might have some interest at the moment, but it would take years until they thought him someone who made Potions a career and a love, not simply a young experimenter caught up in the first flush of enthusiasm.

            It was...

            There was nothing to his life if he thought about it like that. Nothing he had fought for in the last three years had come to pass, unless he counted a minimum sense of safety, and Potter disrupted even that.

            Severus closed his eyes. He knew he stood on the edge of an abyss. He knew there was a path around it, running silent in the darkness.

            He did not know how to take that path yet.

            But he was wise enough to realize that he should concentrate his energy at the moment on finding it, instead of tormenting Potter.

            Another way that he balks me.

            Several crates of ingredients he did not recognize vanished into billowing black-green flames. Severus watched them until they had burned out and taken his rage with them, and then went back to his rooms to read and to think.

*

            Sharing space with Malfoy turned out not to be as much of a problem as Harry had first thought.

            They talked about the centaurs and with the centaurs, mostly. By the end of the week, they'd hammered out a solid plan to reach out to their next few allies, or at least the beings who had been part of the ancient pure-blood alliances: the merfolk, the small groups of werewolves and vampires who dwelt in the Forbidden Forest and mostly avoided contact with humans, the unicorns, and the "drakes." Harry thought they were related to dragons, but Kleianthe and Thera didn't seem to understand the difference, only that there was one, so Harry let the subject die until they met one.

            Malfoy was tolerable when he wasn't talking about Snape and how he worshipped him. Even funny, although Harry was sort of reluctant to admit that. He could joke about things that weren't insults to Harry's friends; he could laugh when Cadmaea finally got up the courage to approach him and then he leaped a foot in the air in turn; he was the one who pointed out a smear of chocolate on Harry's cheek that the centaurs were too polite to mention.

            Life settled into a regulated pace. Harry didn't feel sick or irritated after that first day, and Snape avoided him. Malfoy sometimes found him in the library to ask neutral questions, but didn't try to restrict his reading anymore. Harry read novels, and fairy tales, and history, and books about Quidditch, and he wrote letters that the snake carried back and forth.

            Ron and Hermione's letters were still hard to read, though. Harry told himself he wanted them to move on; their lives wouldn't be complete until they did, which meant that his would also be incomplete. But they talked about so many people he would never see again and so many things he would never do.

            He restricted himself sharply when he caught those thoughts, though, and he would do exercises in his rooms or go find another book to read. You shouldn't have chosen this if you were only going to whinge about it.

            All in all, he thought he could survive and endure, and he went on thinking that until the day that Snape appeared in the library and asked to talk to him.

*

            Severus had watched Potter for some time before he had approached him. That was enough to let the starbursts of hate flare and die in his mind as he thought of various words, and then managed to look at Potter and see what was there instead of what he had thought was there.

            Boy. But he was no longer a boy. He had grown into a man. The boy Severus had remembered, the one who had cornered him the night after he killed the only man who believed in him and screamed insults at him, could not have killed the Dark Lord.

            James's son. But he did not speak to Severus in the same way, or about the same things. He was separated from his friends, which meant separated from fellow bullies, and there were no young Slytherins here he could intimidate in any case. And his heritage came just as much from his mother's side of the family, although Severus often found that even more painful to think about.

            Dumbledore's chosen object.

            That one was harder to get over. If Albus had placed more trust in Severus, so much of what Potter had had to do could have been avoided. Severus would have learned more, and done more, and been acknowledged as a hero by the wizarding world. Potter would have known more but done less, and might have been kept very firmly in place by Severus's growing power.

            But then, all those choices rested with Albus, not with Potter. The boy could not act on facts he did not have.

            Come to that, Severus was still not sure how he much he did know. That the boy had not accused him of Albus's murder in the same way suggested some growth or discovery in the three years since that night on the Tower. But he had not defeated the Dark Lord in the way that Albus had thought he would have to, by dying. So he might not have known that such a sacrifice was required.

            Could the Dark Lord still be alive, clinging to the Horcrux in Potter?

            But Severus, though the chill of the thought was like the chill of space between the stars, did not entertain that suspicion for long. He had felt the evidence of his Mark, which had changed and dimmed and begun to shrink when the Dark Lord died. That had not happened when he had confronted Potter as a toddler and been merely sent away. He was gone, and they were free.

            Free to choose other paths, including, in this case, the path around the abyss.

            Severus straightened himself and approached.

            "Potter."

            Potter had had his head bowed over a book, his frown sharp as he tried to work out a meaning obviously beyond his abilities. (Severus had seen nothing in this grown version to counteract his assumption that Potter was, generally, unintelligent). Severus had seen his chair pushed close to the table. He had apparently ignored the signs such as the opening door and the approaching footsteps that someone else inhabited the library.

            But now he was on his feet, not tangled up trying to escape from his seat, and the chair was on the other side of the room, the book shut and under one arm, his wand hand turned towards Severus. He opened his mouth in a silent snarl and shook his head when he realized who was standing in front of him, then dropped his hand.

            "What is it?" he asked shortly.

            Severus spent a few moments studying him, not answering. The boy was incredibly quick when he must be, but not quick enough, except in a Quidditch dive, to fool Severus's eyes. Severus had never seen him move like that, which meant his reflexes were another legacy of the war.

            Positioned towards the exit, holding the book in case someone had come to destroy it, but ready to move. Severus had the impression that if he had been there to attack Potter, Potter would have tossed the book into the air or to the side and been able to use any part of his body that he had to in the escape or the fight.

            "I wanted to speak with you," Severus said, and kept his voice softer than he would have otherwise. Potter still glared at him. Well, perhaps he remembered the times that Severus had hissed insults at him in a low tone. Severus did not alter his voice, though, for the sake of not making Potter more suspicious. "About doing other things for me such as awakening the snake."

            "That automaton is awake now," Potter said. "What else can you possibly want from me?"

            Severus paused. "I assumed that you would like your friends to visit again," he said. "That you would enjoy longer trips away from the fortress, supervised by the Ashborn. Even hostages in active wars are allowed more freedom than you often have been."

            "How wonderful of you to notice," Potter said. "And you would offer me these benefits now--why? There's no reason that you should need to offer them to me, and I know you better than to think you would give me anything that's not required for me to stay alive."

            Severus breathed out his irritation, breathed in calm. He despised Potter's quick judgment, his apparent inability to trust that Severus might mean his offer--

            And they were the same traits that he would have expressed had their situations been reversed, he the hostage and Potter the captor.

            "I wish to offer you more benefits so that you will cease to trouble the Ashborn," he said. "To humiliate me, and to seek ways to change things beyond my back."

            He expected many responses from that. Surprise, outrage, feigned surprise, feigned outrage. He didn't expect the way that Potter's arm wrapping the book and his lips both relaxed, his eyes narrowing as though he wanted to hide the light that appeared in the back of them.

            "It bothers you that Draco is changing, doesn't it?" Potter whispered. "That he's gaining some sense of independence and the right to live a life that doesn't involve hanging on your every word. It troubles you that he might actually emerge from this as someone who’s a whole person. That's the kind of trouble that you'd like to stop me causing." Potter lifted his head, and Severus knew that he had seen unicorns who looked less proud. "Nothing you could offer me would be enough."

            Severus grimaced and shook his head. "Potter, are you mad? I have long since ceased to think that Draco must be an adjunct to me--"

            "But you're upset when he isn't." Potter leaned nearer, increasing the distance between him and the door. Severus knew he could not count on that as a sign of increased trust, however. "You wanted him as this enchanted young lover who could make you feel younger, desired. That doesn't include him having a life of his own, though it might include hobbies like establishing the pure-blood alliances. But you don't respect those hobbies, or you wouldn't have ensured that there was only enough food on my trays when the centaurs first arrived to feed either them or me, but not both."

            "Respect for Draco has little to do with respect for you," Severus said, and pounded each word home like an iron nail. The conversation was turning from the track that he had intended it to take. "I did not--"

            "He was the one who invited the centaurs," Potter said. Another step closer, and Severus saw a dark shimmer flare up around Potter's shoulders and neck. Or did he imagine that he saw it? He had sometimes imagined such things during the hardest days of his confinement by the Dark Lord. "He's the one who's been talking about building this culture and this alliance with other beings. And you wanted to starve the centaurs? That's disrespect for him, yes. You're saying that he can play with his little hobbies as long as they don't inconvenience you, but the moment they do, he'd better pack them away and listen, the adults are talking."

            Severus watched the dark shimmer and said nothing for a moment. Yes, the shimmer was there, but it faded as Severus watched.

            He had seen it before, or imagined that he saw it before, around the heads of those about to die. Or, he realized later when it often faded as those Death Eaters left the Dark Lord's presence, those who felt they were about to die. Death averted, they came closer to life, and so lost the feeling. Severus did not know for certain what had caused his ability to see those auras, if it was real, but suspected one of the experimental potions the Lord had had ingest during some of those darker days.

            Why would Potter feel--

            He thought Severus might kill him. And still the suicidal brightness shone in his eyes. Still he faced Severus without a trace of fear that Severus, experienced both in detecting teenage wrongdoings and in the gathering anger or terror in an adult that might make them lash out, could have sniffed out.

            So Severus had his answer to one question: why Potter had endured the starvation for two days instead of complaining or asking for more food or dividing his share with the centaurs. He did not fear dying from lack of food. He did not see it worth his while to complain to Severus.

            But he asked the question, because he wanted to see Potter's response. "Why did you not ask me to stop the starvation, if it troubled you so much?"

            “Because you were more likely to refuse if I asked,” Potter said. “Given your disrespect for the centaurs and Draco in general, why should I imagine that it would be different? So I gave the food to the centaurs and found other means to feed myself.”

            “Not well,” Severus said, looking at the prominent bones in Potter’s face.

            Potter opened his mouth. Severus thought he was about to say something, but he began to give a wheezy laugh instead, leaning against the table and shaking his head. Severus waited some time for the frenzy to subside, and it did not.

            “Why do you laugh?” he asked finally. “If you wish to make fun of me, there are other ways you could do so.” He had not realized how much he still hated to be laughed at, no one had done it for so long—except the Dark Lord, and he had other forces backing the laughter that made it impossible to feel the same way. It made his skin feel hot and tight, and too small for the back of his neck.

            “Because you’re blaming me for not feeding myself well when you were the one who was starving me,” Potter choked, wiping tears away from his eyes with the back of his hand. “If I had managed to get full meals, then you would have accused me of stealing. There’s no way to win, and you wonder why I’m laughing?”

            Severus sat stiffly in his chair. He had the vague feeling that anything he tried to say or do now would only make him look more ridiculous, and he did not want to.

            This was the risk you took, that you agreed to, when you decided that you should confront Potter in this way. You will not always know what to do, and you may look ridiculous. But you will not lack a sympathetic audience, if you choose to cultivate it, along with the antagonistic one.

            “You will not suffer the like again,” Severus said, because he wanted to say it and because he felt the need to regain control of the conversation. “Whatever I must do, you shall have regular food and shelter and water and no direct pain.”

            Potter gave him a faint half-smile. “Sure, Snape. Whatever you say.”

            “You do not believe me,” Severus said, and he felt a distant kind of insult. Of course Potter would not trust him, and his self-evaluation and self-worth did not depend on the trust of a boy—

            Who was not a boy. Who was the one causing him to fall into all sorts of old habits he had thought overcome, simply because Severus had hated one of his parents.

            Yes, this would be harder than he thought.

            Potter shook his head. His smile had vanished, and he had a familiar expression on his face. Severus realized after a moment of staring that he had seen it in the mirror, on a day when the students in his Potions classes had been more troublesome than usual. “You don’t understand, still. You can make certain promises and certain Vows, and I’ll accept them. I would never have agreed to be a hostage if I thought that you had a way to break the Unbreakable Vows and live.”

            “Then tell me.” Severus realized that he was on his feet, leaning forwards over the table. He had made as many accommodations as he could when dealing with Potter, and he did not know why the boy was now intent on disregarding those sacrifices.

            Because he does not see them and understand them in the same way that, say, Draco would. Draco would grasp at once and in what ways this was different from your usual behavior, and be awed. But Potter does not have the same experience of you. He sees you only as a tormentor.

            Potter gave him his answer even as Severus arrived at it differently. “You can make certain promises, but you’ll always find some way around them that will let you hurt me. That’s all.”

            Severus sat back down and thought. He wondered how worth it making sacrifices for Potter’s better regard was. After all, he could concentrate on repairing his relationship with Draco and even with the centaurs, and take a base of power in that way that was not available to Potter. Draco might vacillate at the moment, might think that he would rather have Potter’s increased regard than the same from Severus, but he would come back if Severus showed him a bit of the indulgence that, he had to admit, was missing from the way he had treated Draco in the past few months.

            He would not make another Unbreakable Vow. He had already bound himself by that method as much as he cared to. No one, not even Draco, would ever know of the sweating he had done before he agreed to the ones he gave Potter, the silent memories he had to battle of the Vows that both Narcissa and Albus had extracted from him.

            But a bargain, of the successful kind that he and Potter had made to allow awakening for the automaton along with a visit from the brat’s—the man’s—friends…

            “You want better treatment, I would assume?” he said abruptly.

            Potter’s eyes narrowed, and the look he gave Severus was of a wild creature that had been mistreated too many times. “I can live without it,” he said. “That was part of the point I was making.”

            “You do not want to rely on me for it, was how what you spoke came across to me,” Severus said coolly, feeling better now. Potter did not have that control that kept him above his own swarming emotions. “I can understand that, but if we bargain for better treatment, something you want in return for something I want that is ongoing, we would be close to equals.”

            Again Potter laughed, though at least this time the sound was shorter and sharper than before. “You think that I need that? That I can’t survive without it? That I want to be dependent on you?”

            “It is not dependence if it is a bargain of equals,” Severus said, though he thought he could see why Potter would understand it that way. “If you do something for me, then you may be able to trust me more than you have up to this point.”

            “You’re ridiculous,” Potter said. “I already helped you with the snake automaton. What else can I possibly do that you would value enough to give me anything like freedom from starvation?”

            Severus blinked and shook his head. “You undervalue your skills.”

            “I’m a Parselmouth,” Potter said. “I have no other skills that you would value.”

            “Your understanding of the wars that we might someday find ourselves fighting—”

            Again the black aura shone around his head, and this time Severus saw the fury spark to life in his eyes and blacken them as well. “If you think that I would ever betray my friends,” Potter said, his voice descending into a register that made Severus think of werewolves, “then you should try to kill me now, so that I can break the Vow and send your soul on to a more productive afterlife.”

            Severus lifted his hand. He had no illusions that it would hold the boy back if he was determined to strike, but that was part of the point. They were going to try and arrange things so that he wouldn’t be determined to strike. “There are skills that I can use you for that don’t involve being a spy.”

            “I won’t negotiate with Malfoy and try to shove him back under your twisted dominion, either.”

            “What a strange opinion you do have of me,” Severus murmured. That thought would not have occurred to him, because he did not believe Potter the sort of man who could persuade Draco to do as he asked. “I would not ask that of you, either. What I want, Potter, is someone who can teach me Parseltongue. It is an inborn gift, yes, but also a magical language. And as such, it can be learned.”

            He had not known he would ask for such a thing until he spoke, but the more he thought of it, the more sense it made. Of course he would not ask for Potter to join in the defense of the Ashborn, not when he despised them. But he did not think that Potter would object to teaching him something. He would get to enjoy the position of superior knowledge for once.

            It would give Severus time as well as a useful skill. Time to figure out what to do with Potter, to learn if he could be collared and subdued after all—and how he would rid himself of Potter without breaking the Vows should that prove not to be the case.

            Potter hovered in place, frowning at him as if he couldn’t believe that Severus would really want something so pedestrian. Severus spread his arms, inviting a closer inspection. “If you do not want to teach me,” he said, “then suggest something, and we will adopt it.”

            It was good to see the way Potter tensed and then relaxed as if he would lunge for the library door. Good to see the spark of uncertainty in his eyes. He is not the only one who can teach others that emotion, after all.

*

            What is he playing at?

            Harry couldn’t imagine a situation under which Snape would willingly seek him out and ask for his knowledge. And he couldn’t imagine that Snape would have that much use for Parseltongue. How many snake automatons was he going to build and activate on a daily basis?

            Then Harry paused.

            He might not have much use for the Parseltongue, but this reminds me of Galen.

            Galen—the only name he ever gave—had been a desperate wizard they met in the course of the Horcrux Hunt. Hermione had thought he was a relative of a Death Eater who saw no other way to free his family from Voldemort’s hold. Harry hadn’t ever really trusted him, but in the end he had died finding the Cup, and that was a testimony of his loyalty in its own way.

            Galen had acted strangely around them, snapping out pure-blood prejudices and then deliberately spending time with Hermione. Harry understood it after he thought about it a bit more. Galen knew that he needed them and was trying to fight his own disgust, the thing that could destroy them, by pretending that he was gaining something substantial from discussions with Hermione. It was a way of keeping himself in check far more than it was a way to ally with Harry and his friends or learn to trust them. But that would happen at the same time.

            Harry thought Snape was doing the same thing.

            Harry half-grimaced. He wasn’t at all sure that he wanted to end up with the same kind of half-built and tottering loyalty to Snape that he had had where Galen was concerned. That had been a short-term situation, not a lifelong one, the way the hostage-holding would be. And Snape had a history of personal antagonism to him that Harry hadn’t had with Galen.

            But…

            If this was a way past the nonsense of starvation and potions in his food, or whatever Harry’s sickness the other day resulted from, then he thought it was a good one.

            And perhaps he could continue to stand between Snape and Malfoy, or Snape and the centaurs, this way. He could distract Snape’s attention with ease, at least. Snape had never seemed interested in tormenting someone else when he had Harry as a target.

            “Fine,” he said, and stretched out his hand. “I teach you Parseltongue, and you treat me better and let me visit with my friends sometimes.”

            Snape opened his mouth as if to disagree, but then nodded and clasped his hand in return. He let it go quickly, and stood up to stride out of the library.

            Harry watched him go. Get on his good side far enough and quickly enough, and maybe I could convince him to free the Ashborn.

            Then Harry snorted. That, at least, was an impossible dream, one he would not fall in love with. The war had taught him a romance with reality.

            Focus on that first.

*

            unneeded: Snape has pretty much acknowledged now that trying to control Harry via potions won’t work. Of course, it’s going to depend on whether he can keep in mind that Harry is a real person with reasons for reacting as he does, not just a tool to introduce Snape to himself.

            Draco might have managed to work past some of the anger since he got a blunt evaluation from Harry.

            Snape still won’t allow regular post to be exchanged between Harry and his friends, or at least Harry won’t ask him for it.

            Missy: Since Harry assumed that Snape would want to keep him alive, and doesn’t even see the starvation as an attempt to control him so much as disrespect for Draco, he didn’t need such a condition.
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Ashborn