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The Wages of Going On	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Threesomes/Moresomes Views: 43959 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 7
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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Chapter Nine—Dulling the Mountain of Steel
            Draco was dozing when he felt as though someone had reached down and pulled on his entire ribcage, trying to lift it out of his body. He gasped and sat up. If that was anything of what Potter had felt when he was in the thrall of the bond, Draco couldn’t understand how he’d borne it.
            This wasn’t exactly painful, but the sensation repeated, and Draco grimaced and stumbled away from the couch that he’d chosen in front of the fire. Something was wrong with Potter, or the bond more generally. It could have been Severus, but Draco reached out, and found the bitterness in his head like three cups of tea, still unchanged.
            And when he looked at the mountain of steel, it was smaller and duller than he’d ever seen.
            Draco grimaced and shook his head. “Severus!” he called. Below, he heard the pop that signified a Malfoy house-elf had heard his call and was taking the message to the person it was intended for.
            He still had to wait several minutes, in which the giant hand snatched at him twice more, before Severus walked up the stairs. “Yes, what is it, Draco?” he asked, only the deepening darkness in the back of Draco’s mind showing that he resented the interruption. “Do you have reason to scold me for my behavior as regards the bond again?”
            “Yes, actually,” Draco said. He’d cast a Summoning Charm while he waited, and now several potions settled into his hand, including draughts that would reduce pain and replenish blood. He ignored the narrowing of Severus’s eyes as he shrank them and put them in his pockets. If Severus found this annoying, then he was welcome to start brewing and providing potions for Potter at any time. “I think Potter is in trouble.”
            “I have noticed nothing,” Severus said, and then went green and pressed a hand to his heart.
            When he had his breath back from the latest bout of discomfort tearing through him, Draco raised his eyebrows. “Of course not,” he said. “Forgive me for presuming.”
            Severus scowled at him, but reluctantly said, “Very well. How do you propose that we find Potter? He is probably behind wards, and we could not Apparate directly there.”
            Draco watched him for just a second, wanting to ask if he was joking, but the sensation surged through him again, and he decided the moment was too urgent to waste playing silly game. He held out his hand for Severus’s. “We find him using the bond, of course. It certainly seems to want to tug us to him, doesn’t it?”
            Severus drew back with a revolted expression on his face. Draco privately thought it more suited to the dissection of Flobberworms than discussion of their bond. “If we do that, then it will strengthen and bind us closer still.”
            “And that would be so much worse than having it kill us,” Draco said, rolling his eyes. Severus opened his mouth, probably to protest that, but this time Draco didn’t wait for permission, and simply grabbed his hand. “I think if we think as hard as we can of Potter, and concentrate on the steel mountain in our minds, then we’ll go there.”
            “What a plan to trust our safety to,” Severus sneered, but when Draco looked at him sternly, he closed his eyes. Draco fell into his own mind in response and reached out, towards the mountain peak he had spent so much time contemplating and cursing in the last fortnight.
            There was a shudder that didn’t rival the ones that had consumed Draco’s ribcage in strength or intensity, but was quite strange enough on its own. Then their feet lifted from the ground, and for a second Draco thought they were traveling towards a whole range made of the steel peaks. He wondered if it was too late to draw back and admit to Severus that this had been a stupid idea. He had no desire to go there.
            But the spin stopped, and the vision of peaks faded. Draco opened his eyes and saw that they stood in a library, with a low fire on the hearth and so many books open on the tables that he was surprised said tables could support them all.
            And on the floor lay Potter, drenched in so much blood that Draco’s throat closed up.
            Severus broke away from him and raced over to kneel beside Potter. Draco shook the horrible visions of being accused of Potter’s murder out of his head and followed, dropping to his knees behind Severus and unshrinking the potions he’d brought. Severus was already holding out his hand commandingly for them.
            “What happened to him?” Draco whispered. He supposed that the bond could have tried to remove Potter’s ribs, too, but he saw no gleam of bone, only that blood.
            Severus started to answer, but his words were overcome by a sound like cloth ripping. Heavy cloth. Draco stared as a wound opened down the middle of Potter’s back, as if an impossibly strong hand had simply reached out and torn one piece of skin from the other.
            Draco closed his eyes. Little bursts of light were starting to flash in front of his eyes. He had seen some awful things during the war, but they were the results of spells that he could anticipate and deal with. This was—he had never seen anything like this.
            “Draco.” Severus’s voice was harsh enough to echo through all the places in his mind, the normal ones and the ones touched by the bond, and bring him back to himself. “We have no time for you to faint. Give me the Blood-Replenishing Potion and Pain Draughts.”
            “I already did,” Draco muttered, but he knew what Severus meant. He sorted through the potions and found the strongest ones of both kinds that he possessed. He handed them over, and Severus tilted Potter back and waved his wand. The vials emptied, the levels of color in them shrinking steadily. Draco knew that he had spelled them into Potter’s stomach or bloodstream, as appropriate.
            Draco swallowed and forced himself to look at the wounds. It wouldn’t do much good to replace Potter’s blood if he just kept losing it again. He knew by the drawn expression on Severus’s face that he was thinking the same thing.
            “Why is the bond punishing him when he was the one who made the sacrifice to it in the first place?” Draco whispered.
            “We all made the sacrifice,” Severus corrected him, but not with the sharp tone he’d been using in the last few days. Draco was almost relieved to make out the slow way his eyes blinked, the cold look in them as they rested on Potter. Severus being academically intrigued meant they might save Potter’s life, and their own through him; Severus pursued all his academic passions with fanatical intent. “But we were the instruments of taking it, while Potter offered it. And I think—you might have noticed that the bond is trying to force us together.”
            Draco held back the incredulous laughter he wanted to give, and simply nodded. He didn’t understand where Severus was going, but for the moment, no more wounds had ripped open on Potter, and he was breathing a little easier, although he showed no signs of returning to consciousness.
            “Because he could be passive,” Severus continued, picking his words carefully, “he did not—participate in the moment the way we did. It took enormous strength and courage to hold on the way he did.” Draco gaped at hearing Severus praise Potter, but Severus did not look at him. “But he was not as active as—we were.”
            “In raping him,” Draco said. He didn’t know exactly why he said the words. Severus hadn’t fled from the knowledge of his own guilt the way Draco had. But he said them anyway.
            Severus glared at him fiercely, but nodded. “He also has that determination to get past the bond and go on with his life, symbolized by the steel mountain in our minds. It is greater than ours. I believe the bond is demanding more of a sign of commitment from him, more participation of some kind.”
            “So how do we help him do that?” Draco stared down at Potter and shook his head. “He’s not even conscious right now. I don’t see how the bond can expect him to do anything.”
            Severus grimaced and drew his wand. “If I use Legilimency on him, perhaps I can reach him and convince him to—become closer to the bond in some way. To stop resenting it?” Draco could not remember the last time he had heard Severus frame something like this as a question. “I am not sure, but it may be the best chance.”
            Draco leaned over and put his hand on Severus’s wrist, ignoring the way Severus looked at him. “If you rape his mind the way we raped his body,” he said, “then the chance that he’ll ever trust us again goes down.”
            “Will you stop using that word?”
            And Draco couldn’t remember the last time he had heard Severus’s voice rise like that, either. He chose to take it for a positive sign, that he had at last pulled Severus out of his self-imposed isolation and made him consider the consequences of their actions. Potter wasn’t the only one who could get injured ignoring the bond. “Let’s try something else. We may be able to wake him without resorting to Legilimency or spells.”
            “How?” Severus lowered his wand, but still studied Potter’s body through narrow eyes, as though he had caused every single problem by not dying when he was supposed to.
            “Through the bond.” Draco had to admit to a bit of perverse enjoyment as he gestured with his hand, the way he had when he wanted both of them to be transported to Potter’s side at the same time. “Join with me, Severus.”
            There was heat in the glare Severus fixed on him as he clasped Draco’s hand, but it was the heat of wrath, not desire. Draco supposed, as he bowed his head and fixed his attention once again on the mountain in his mind, that he would have to live with that.
*
            Harry stared around. He was drifting in the middle of a mass of rose and orange and gold that resembled a sunset sky, if a particularly fine one. He shook his head. He had no idea what he was doing, or where he was.
            He remembered bleeding onto the library floor from sudden wounds. Then he had been here.
            Then he grimaced. Of course; he should have thought of it before. The bond. It had probably brought him here, and meant to use this as some kind of mental prison until he yielded and did what it wanted. Probably lay down like a whore for Malfoy and Snape again, he decided. He folded his arms and turned his back on the sunset sky, as much as he could, when it seemed to stretch everywhere around him.
            Then he floated in the opposite direction, and blinked. Here was something new: a triangular mountain that seemed to be made of pure steel, rising to such a point that Harry was surprised anything could live on it. Or maybe nothing did. When he pushed with his will, he drifted towards it, and he had to remind himself that this place was just part of his imagination, his mind, a convenient place for the bond to store him while it tried to manipulate him.
            Only when he got closer did he feel the sense of familiarity the mountain was giving off. If he put his hand out, he would feel a thrumming magic through it, he thought, and that magic would be his own. This was the way that his part of the bond appeared in Snape’s and Malfoy’s minds, he was sure of it.

            Harry smiled. He was pleased to think that his determination was like this. Perhaps they would give up on their silly attempts to make him submit soon and leave him in peace.
            Potter!
            And then again, perhaps not, Harry thought crossly, turning in the direction of the call. It had filled his mind, but it also seemed to echo around the sky. Well, that would make sense, if the sky was his mind. Harry shook his head in silent refusal and leaned back against the mountain. It was cold and comforting. If he slouched, it would teach his spine how to straighten.
            Potter, stop being stupid. While the first call hadn’t seemed to have emotion or gender or inflection, this one had Malfoy’s whine to it. If you don’t come out of this coma that the bond’s put you in, you’ll die. You’ve already lost lots of blood, and we can’t be sure that more wounds won’t rip open.
            Harry sneered a little. “You lot don’t care about anything I’m suffering,” he said aloud. Perhaps he could communicate with them silently, the way they were speaking to him, but he didn’t want to. It felt too intimate, and he had already been more intimate with them than he ever wanted to be again. “You’re concerned because the bond might kill you, too, and you don’t want to die.”
            Is that any different from what you feel? Malfoy’s voice a second time, although more mature than Harry had heard it so far. You wanted to bargain with the bond so much because you wanted to live and be a good Auror. You told me that yourself. But if you die in this coma, haven’t you abandoned everything you fought for?
            Harry snarled and drew his spine back along the mountain, reminding himself. The absolute cold, the utter chill, was what he needed, seeping into his skin through the simple touch. “I would rather die than submit to you!”
            We are not asking for submission, said a voice that sounded like Snape’s, although Harry had no idea why. He had never heard the man so exquisitely neutral. He supposed it was natural to think that it was him, though, when only two people would be here speaking to him, and he had already heard Malfoy. We are asking for agreement. Your survival instinct. Acceptance.
            Harry flung back his head and spoke as loudly as he could, so that they could hear him, even behind the clouds as they apparently were. “I will never accept anything that you could offer me.”
            Even the chance of survival? Malfoy again, and Harry thought the bastard was working as hard as he could to sound neutral, too. With us, you stand a chance of researching the bond and finding out what it is and dissolving it. Without us, you don’t.
            Harry wanted to pace, but he thought that would weaken his stance and his chances. He took a breath deep enough to qualify as a shout by itself, and spoke between gritted teeth. “I was going to use effigies in the ritual, I told you. And I don’t fucking care about the danger to you. You didn’t care about what I felt when you raped me.”
            There. Now he could admit what had happened to him to the people who had done it to him. Hermione would be proud, he decided, still staring straight up into the sky, where he had decided that the voices came from with the lack of any evidence to the contrary.
            I’m sorry for that, said Malfoy’s voice, solemnly. I know it doesn’t make much difference, but I am. And for you to conduct that ritual, effigies or not, you’ll have to come out of the coma. You can’t until you accept this.
            Harry snorted bitterly. “How do you suggest I do that? I’ve already made as much progress towards it as I’m capable of.”
            No, said Snape’s voice, dust-soft and dry. I don’t think you have.
            “Yes, of course you would think that.” Harry spread his hands. “I’m waiting for suggestions.”
            The voices were silent. Harry smiled and turned back towards the steel mountain. He should have known it. In a crisis, they were useless. He was the one who had to take the active part, while they trailed uselessly along after him like seaweed clinging to a fish’s tail.
            He studied the steel mountain for a moment. The shine of it did seem to be dimming, dulling. Harry frowned. If it represented his determination, why was that happening? He didn’t feel any less stubborn about surviving and going on the way he had been. The opposite, if anything.
            Then he nodded, understanding. If he lay in a coma, the way that Snape and Malfoy claimed and which made sense, then the shine of the mountain would be fading because his life was. If he wanted to survive, Malfoy was right about that much. He would have to find a way to end the wounds and the unconsciousness.
            He laid his hands on the steel and closed his eyes. Maybe it made no difference, since this mindscape was as unreal as the mountain itself, but it let him isolate himself more in the darkness and bind himself more to the mountain. So he would continue doing it for right now.
            The soft thrum of the magic through the mountain grew more persistent, and Harry listened to it. This was the same power, the same will, that had let him survive a bond intent on binding him to two other people and making his brain drip out his ears. No one else in history had ever done that, as far as he knew. Surviving the kind of telepathic bond between two people that the Aurors had tried to use was hard enough, never mind the ruined one created when the Lestranges had rolled him across the ritual circle.
            If he had lived through that, then he deserved to live through the consequences of the bond, without succumbing to them.
            Harry smiled a little. He did think that he knew a way to live, and Snape and Malfoy would have to accept it if they didn’t want to face the consequences—whatever those might be—of the bond after he died. But neither would like it.
            He had to admit, he thought as he reached out for their minds, that added to his amusement.
*
            Severus studied Potter’s body through half-lidded eyes, content to know that he was not revealing his emotions to Draco, but content with nothing else.
            Why did the bond inflict such damage on Potter? Severus still thought his theory was the right one, and the bond wanted to punish Potter for holding back from them and being a passive partner. But the wounds were counterproductive. Potter could not interact with them from a sickbed, or if he was dead. Perhaps the bond simply preferred his death to the level of holding himself back from them that he was doing right now.
            There were times when Severus could have admitted that he had the same preferences. But not now.
            Potter was irritating. But Severus could admire the effort he had put forth to spare them from the full effects of the bond. That was nothing less than heroic, if driven by guilt and sheer love of survival rather than any esteem for them as people.
            The problem was, Severus did not want any heroes. Not now, and not ever again.
            You have one.
            Severus thought he was imagining the voice at first. There had been no contact with Potter since he had cut off Draco’s attempt to reach down the bond. Draco was still brooding about that, his eyes distant, but he jerked his head up now and turned it in several directions like a startled deer. Severus caught his gaze, and he winced and nodded. Severus had taught him how important dignity was in any situation.
            Not that I want to be your hero either, Potter’s voice continued, light and bright as the radiance flashing off the steel mountain in Severus’s mind. But it seems that I’m in that position. You can share some of the burden, though, and repay some of the debt.
            “How?” Draco croaked back, aloud. Severus was about to scold him for not speaking mentally when Potter’s next response made it perfectly obvious that he could hear them.
            Submit to me.
            Severus felt the full force of his negation flow away from him and down the bond. Potter didn’t fight it or try to convince him. He simply turned away from Severus, a sensation like the mountain itself turning its back, and faced Draco.
            Draco licked his lips. His face was like parchment, but his voice was both soft and steady. “You want us to let you rape us?”
            Such disgust from Potter that Severus choked on it. He could see why the bitterness that represented him in Draco’s mind made Draco complain about the taste of his food, if it was anything like what he felt now.
            No, Potter snapped. I’m not talking about rape. I’m talking about the way that I gave myself to you, gave my body to you and my virginity, to use as you liked. I need to climb out of this coma, but I need mental strength. I want you to give it to me and let me use it, instead of me pulling it away from you. That’s doing something active that the bond should approve of.
            Severus spat, and didn’t care that it landed on the floor of Potter’s precious library. This was the same theory that Severus had come up with, about active and passive partners in the bond, but turned, horribly, the wrong way round and inside out. Severus did not want to think about what this would do to him, and sent his refusal flowing back again.
            But then he realized that, although he could hear Potter’s words, the pronoun “you” could be both singular and plural, and Potter had only been talking to Draco. That was obvious from the way that the beam of light pouring from the mountain pointed.
            Draco, who closed his eyes and nodded, bowing his head, reaching out with one hand as though he could stir Potter’s to life by clasping it.
            No, said Potter, with gentleness that made Severus clench his hands in his lap. Just let me take it. Even raising your hand might be a little too active for the bond.
            Draco nodded again, and relaxed back against the floor. A second later, his back arched, and his breath caught. Severus wondered what in the world could be pleasant about what must be like bleeding himself—
            And then he caught the edge, the barest edge, of what it meant for Potter to sweep through Draco like sunlight and claim power willingly given, and the glow off the mountain of steel grew impossibly bright, and Severus ground his nails into his palms and his palms into his legs.
            Potter opened his eyes, blinked at the ceiling like someone caught dreaming, and turned his head. The wounds in his back and chest were already knitting, skin writhing back together in a process that Severus tried to make himself study, so that he would understand it better later, and could not make himself.
            “Thank you,” Potter told Draco, reaching out to claim his hand. Draco blinked his eyes open and stared at Potter. “I don’t know if that will be the end of the bond punishing me, but I think it’ll make it a lot easier to both appease the bond and do what we need to do to get rid of it.”
            Neither of them appeared to notice when Severus got up and stormed out of the room.
*
BAFan: Sorry the next update was so long in coming!
Genuka: The bond actually would not do that, because it wants more active participation from all of them.
Jan: Sorry for the delay.
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The Wages of Going On