Work Text:
I know who I am when I'm alone
I'm something else when I see you
You don't understand, you should never know
How easy you are to need
Don't let me in with no intention to keep me
Jesus Christ, don't be kind to me
Honey, don't feed me, I will come back
(It Will Come Back - Hozier)
For the first few months immediately after the War had ended, it was just Harry, roaming mindlessly in the enormous house, sleeping in new bedrooms every night and listening to Kreacher scuttle around in the walls. Portraits and firewhiskey kept him entertained, but he slept fitfully and ate very little. It occurred to him, perhaps a month into this solitude, that he should have died in the Forbidden Forest. That had been the intention. Dumbledore’s brilliant, flawless, perfectly executed plan.
Well. It would have been flawless, if they had all died. Which had been what the old man intended, Harry was sure—he wouldn’t have wanted them to exist like this, broken little soldiers that continued tottering forward, long after their wind-up mechanisms had broken. He would have wanted them dead, wanted to spare them the unimaginable grief of surviving after a War, of trying to find purpose at nineteen years old, scarred inside and out. He was merciful like that. Empathetic in his own way.
Harry had long given up trying to understand Dumbledore. His love for the man burned hotly in his chest, equal in balance to his hatred. That feeling of betrayal, of knowing that all of his twinkling smiles and life saving maneuvers had meant nothing; nothing except to propel him forward to the time when he would die.
Except he hadn’t. More’s the pity.
He took a swig of firewhiskey.
Harry Potter, the Boy Who Couldn’t Seem To Die Despite His Best Efforts, sitting in front of a cold and ashen fireplace, wrapped in a dusty curtain, wishing he had died. That had been his only skill, wasn’t it? Surviving in spite of all odds. A talent so intrinsic he was able to do so before he could even remember. Surviving and surviving and surviving, his heart ticking like a clock left on a shelf.
How long he stayed there, wrapped up in curtain and his own maudlin inner musings, he couldn’t be certain. But at some point he had dozed off lightly, his chin dropping to his chest, glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose. Not a real sleep. That didn’t come anymore. But deep enough that he was startled awake when he heard the deep, thunderous booming of the wards.
A visitor?
It was either Ron or Hermione, and he wasn’t sure which was worse. Ron, with his false bravery and loud peals of laughter, that big, freckled smile that hid such dark circles under his eyes—or Hermione, with her worried lip-chewing and wide, hazel eyes, anxiously faltering through conversation. Ron, throwing himself outwards and forwards, and Hermione, curling inwards and downwards. Both of them growing in opposite directions, healing from the outer points in.
But to his surprise, when he padded to the door (still holding the stiff curtain around his shoulders) and peeped out of the eyehole, it was neither Ron nor Hermione who stood on his doorstep.
It was Draco Malfoy.
Without even thinking, he threw open the door.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded.
The blonde Slytherin shrank back fearfully, as though he hadn’t expected Harry to even be here, or hadn’t expected him to open the door. Like he thought Harry would take one look at him and hex him into next Tuesday. But Harry stood there, his hair long and wild, green eyes blazing, wearing dirty clothes and wrapped in an old stained curtain, as though he had begun morphing into Grimmauld Place itself.
Draco opened his mouth, and then closed it again. “I didn’t know where else to go,” he said, finally.
And wasn’t that what brought them all there?
Draco followed Harry into Grimmauld Place and down the long, miserable hallway. The decapitated House Elf heads had been covered in dishrags or towels, but even hidden behind terrycloth they were vaguely terrifying. They crept past the parlor, where a portrait of Walburga Black slumbered, ready to awaken and scream at the slightest provocation. Harry seemed to be holding his breath until they reached the kitchen, which was— thank Merlin— enormous and brightly lit. Compared to the silent, desolate solitude of the mansion, it felt like an oasis.
“Do you, er, want some tea?” Harry asked. He had never made tea here before, but there was a kettle on the stove.
Draco nodded, clutching his black valise tightly. “Tea would be…appreciated.”
Harry jabbed his wand at the kettle and filled it with water, before placing it on the stove. Mugs. Where would mugs be? He opened a cabinet and was showered in a nest of dead doxies.
“How long have you been here?” Draco asked. His voice sounded very small in the high-ceilinged kitchen.
“A while,” Harry responded offhandedly, sweeping up the dead doxies and retrieving two cracked mugs for tea. Only one of them had a handle, and the other had part of one. A muttered “Reparo!” had them both right as rain. “I don’t cook much,” he added, obviously and idiotically gesturing around to the dusty kitchen. “Kreacher is the one who does most of it. If I ask.”
After the first few nights of Harry waking up screaming himself bloody and hoarse, Kreacher stayed far away.
But there was little of that grief visible on Harry’s face, just a certain blithe emptiness as he poured steaming mugs of tea. The silence between them stretched, and Draco fidgeted uncomfortably. Harry smelled lightly of firewhiskey and mildew and mothballs, although how much of that was his carpet cloak and how much was him was debatable.
“So,” Harry said, far too loudly, “long way from home?”
The slightly pointed tips of Draco’s ears turned pink. He buried his face in his mug of tea. “Yes,” he muttered, before spluttering out a hot mouthful of the worst tea he had ever tasted in his life.
“Oh, yeah, sorry,” Harry said, half-apologetic, “forgot to mention—the tea is rubbish.”
Draco coughed and automatically Vanished the tea from his clothing before it could stain. His high-collared white shirt was the last one he owned. He couldn’t afford to have it stained, in case he was called before the Ministry again. He shivered at the thought of sitting in that chair again, the manacles clamped tightly around his arms and legs and chest, Veritaserum sizzling through his veins like ice.
“You can stay here, if you want,” Harry said, without a trace of a lie. “I don’t mind.”
He almost wished Harry had turned him away. This easy forgiveness rankled him. He had come crawling, on hands and knees practically, groveling to Potter as his last option, and he had simply invited him in and made him tea. Maybe Potter had gone mad, Draco thought, watching Harry blow on his disgusting tea and drink it without pulling a face. Maybe the War had actually cracked his brain, starting at the lightning bolt and cleaving it in two.
“The Ministry has frozen our assets,” Draco said out loud, instead of shut up potter, fuck you potter, “I don’t want to impose. But I don’t have many options.”
I don’t have anyone left, hung in the air, unsaid and unnecessary. His parents were in Azkaban. His relatives were dead. His home had been seized by the Ministry and all he owned could be packed into a little black valise. His friends from school—if they could even be called that—were in hiding, either from the Ministry or from Draco himself, and the damage he would undoubtedly do to their reputations.
“I don’t mind,” Harry said earnestly, “You’re not imposing.”
I don’t have anyone either, sank through the silence like a hot knife.
Having another person in the house inspired Harry to live like a real, actual person, instead of a ghost floating through rooms and memories. Malfoy’s fastidious appearance and behavior spurred Harry, mostly out of shame, to launch into a cleaning frenzy. Part of him was disgruntled at the idea of Malfoy curling his lip at the dusty old house, but it had been somewhat clean during the War, when he and Hermione and Ron had been staying here. It wouldn’t take much to restore it to proper glory, and at least make it a habitable place for two boys.
Two men, Harry corrected himself. They were both of age now, Hogwarts graduates. Honorary, at least, according to the Ministry. Not like he needed to go back and sit for NEWTs after killing the Dark Lord.
“Kreacher!” He called out the next morning. (Was it morning? The windows were shuttered. It could be noon—all the clocks in the house were broken. Malfoy was still asleep, at any rate.)
With a crack! the House Elf appeared. “Master Potter,” Kreacher wheezed, bowing low, “how may Kreacher serve the young master?”
“Breakfast, I think,” Harry said, “Do we have any food?”
Kreacher beamed, toothless and delighted. “Oh yes, young master, we have food. Kreacher can get food. What would the young master and his companion like for breakfast?”
His companion. Harry snorted. “I’d like some proper tea, maybe. And toast. And some sausage, maybe. Eggs too, I think.” He tried to think of what Malfoy would eat for breakfast in the sprawling, austere Malfoy manor. Maybe just a single boiled egg, in an egg cup, the way rich families ate in films. “Just something nice, I don’t know,” he gestured mindlessly, and then left the kitchen.
Kreacher, delighted, began preparing an enormous breakfast.
Armed with scourgify and a newfound urge to not live in his own filth, Harry began cleaning. He at least wanted the dining room clean, with its gigantic oaken table and long line of mismatched chairs. So many Order meetings had been held around this very table, throughout the generations. So many plans had been jubilantly and fearfully concocted here. Names were carved underneath and in secret little spots, and the massive oaken slab was made from what appeared to be a single piece of wood. The years had worn it to silk.
He was kneeling on the table, dusting the massive iron chandelier, when Malfoy emerged from upstairs. As usual, he was neat as a pin, his blond hair coiffed to perfection, his narrow features schooled into an unreadable expression. If the War had taught him any lesson more brutally, it had been to keep his emotions tucked away, folded between his ribs.
“Hi,” Harry said, reaching upwards to steady the wrought-iron chandelier, “Kreacher’s making breakfast.”
Draco felt his eyes rest on the exposed strip of midriff that was revealed when Harry’s shirt rode up. Just as quickly, his eyes darted away. “Please don’t trouble yourself on my account,” he insisted, the words sounding strained.
“Nah, I need to stop moping,” Harry said briskly, as though he hadn’t catnapped his way through several vicious nightmares that night, “How do you take your eggs?”
Draco blinked, as though no one had ever asked him that question. “...poached,” he said, after an awkward silence. “If it isn’t too much trouble.”
“Kreacher!” Harry bellowed, “is it too much trouble?”
“Not at all, young master!” Kreacher wheezed from the kitchen.
It was almost as though he had met a different Potter last night, Draco thought to himself, although physically not much had changed. There were still bluish purple smudges beneath his eyes, and he was much too skinny. Underfed was a better word, like a scavenging dog. His black hair was long and unkempt, and looking decidedly unwashed .
This spurred a memory in Draco’s head, and he sat down at the long table hesitantly. (Unwittingly, in Mad-Eye Mooney’s usual seat.) “Have you heard from Severus?”
“Snape?” Harry said, getting off the table in a graceless way that made Draco want to grind his teeth together. (He indulged—just for a split second.) “No, not since, y’know,” he ran his hand through his long hair, almost exactly like his father used to. “The end of it all.”
The end of everything.
“He was at St. Mungos, last I heard,” Draco supplied. “I was rather hoping you had heard some news.”
“We weren’t exactly mates,” Harry said slowly, “I don’t know why he’d reach out.”
Severus Snape owed him exactly nothing. Severus Snape wanted nothing to do with him. He had died on the floor of the Shrieking Shack, much as Dumbledore intended, and then, just like Harry, had surprisingly and against all odds survived. This in part was due to Hermione’s diligent efforts and her feverish efforts to keep him in stasis while the venom sluggishly worked through his veins; and yet, beyond the knowledge of his survival, Harry didn’t know what had happened to him at all. He hadn’t bothered to check up on anyone, after it was all over.
It’s not like they needed him anymore, anyway. His purpose was fulfilled.
“He wanted you to survive,” Draco said, as though it was obvious. “He told me.”
Something on Harry’s face flickered. “Only until I got the chance to die,” he retorted, but there was very little bite. “Not forever.”
They sat at the table in silence for a long moment, broken only by the sounds of Kreacher puttering around in the kitchen one room over. Draco was fidgeting again, picking at the skin around his nails.
“Do you have an owl?” Draco asked. Harry flushed. The color looked good on him.
“No,” Harry answered. “After Hedwig, I just…didn’t bother. Whoever needs to reach me usually sends their own owl.”
“You don’t get the Prophet?” Draco asked incredulously. Living without an owl…how did he stand it? He might as well live in a cave and bang rocks together.
Harry snorted. “I don’t have much use for birdcage liner, seeing as I don’t have an owl.”
Still, not having an owl was a somewhat embarrassing oversight. Seeing Draco, with his crisp black shirt and slicked hair, made Harry feel like a filthy, unshaven lump. Which he was. But he hadn’t quite realized how poorly he had been living until there was another person there, picking his way delicately through the wreckage and trying to be polite about what a state everything was in.
Draco didn’t dare say anything though, not risking ruining Harry’s charitable mood which allowed him to stay. Even if it was just for a single night more, he would be grateful. He had had enough of sleeping on park benches.
It was that night, or perhaps the next, when Harry heard Draco crying.
It brought back vivid memories of listening to him sobbing in bathrooms, in stairwells, crushed beneath the weight of the Dark Lord’s expectations, faced with the impossible task of killing Dumbledore. A momentous, ridiculous task given to a sixteen-year-old boy, a task that could not be accomplished by the most talented wizards of the age. A task designed for him to fail. A bitter taste rose in Harry’s mouth—it was staggering in its acidity and pain. He wanted to vomit, thinking back on his time at Hogwarts.
He crept forward in the hallway, breathing open the door. It creaked loudly. He winced.
“Who’s there?” Draco cried out, his voice ragged and high. “Kreacher?”
Harry didn’t say anything. He scarcely breathed.
Draco sniffled. Harry could picture him so clearly, his pale face red and blotchy, his blonde hair lank and sticking to his temples and neck, tears running down his cheeks. He could hear him taking several deep breaths, as though trying to steady himself, and failing.
Part of him envied the Slytherin. Crying came so easily to him. Rage had always come first to Harry, anger boiling quickly beneath his pulse point. Sorrow and grief came later, slowly, if at all. It was hard for him to identify; partly due to the trickling grief he had experienced all his life. What sorrow could compare to the suffocating, crushing loneliness of an unwanted orphan? There was always a baseline level of despair in Harry, something anger could always rout out.
But there was nothing to spark anger in him now. He sat on the creaky floors, willing them to be silent, and listened to Draco falling apart, and studiously putting himself back together. Practiced. Even. Careful.
“Want to play chess?” Harry asked. Draco froze in the doorway.
Midafternoon sun was streaming into the dining room. Harry had thrown open the windows in the dining room and the kitchen, expanding the little bubble of light and friendliness. The parlor and hallways remained shuttered, locked tight, like tombs in a mausoleum.
Backlit with the sunlight, Draco felt something hitch in his throat. That familiar shut up potter, fuck off potter rose up, so instinctive, and he opened his mouth for a snarky comment.
“That would be nice,” his voice said instead. Shy. Hesitant. Betrayal! he screamed at himself.
Harry dumped the pieces onto the dining room table, scattering them everywhere. “Great,” he said brightly, “I call white.”
The second star of the Golden Trio constellation arrived on their doorstep a few days later, drenched in a miserable autumn rain. Her wild, curly hair was lank around her dripping face, and around her wrist was her small, beaded purse. Her face was red and puffy, huge brown eyes swimming with tears, as she pounded on the door.
“Hermione!” Harry said, and to his great relief he felt a flicker of happiness travel through his atrophied heart. Maybe it was Malfoy, thawing him. “Get in, it’s miserable out, what happened? Are you all right?”
A million things seemed to well up inside her at once. Her lower lip quivered. Her eyes, already glossy and red-rimmed, spilled over once more.
“R-Ron is s-so s-stupid!” she sobbed, and flung her arms around Harry’s neck.
“Oh,” Harry said, holding her and feeling rather stupid himself, “yeah, well, he is, a bit. I suppose.”
He patted her back and let her sob into his chest. This, too, was familiar. Holding Hermione while she cried over Ron was something he was rather accustomed to by now; although this time felt different. Perhaps it was because Hermione had left this time, instead of Ron. And Hermione never left anything—anyone—alone.
Eventually he maneuvered her into the kitchen, through the darkest areas of the house, and into the lovely warm kitchen, with the copper bottom pans buffed to a high shine. She threw herself onto a kitchen chair and buried her face in her arms, shoulders shaking as she expended her tears and energy.
Draco, noticing she was dripping on the linoleum, silently cast a Drying spell.
She must have noticed the effects because she picked her head up and stared at him, sticking him to the wall like a butterfly on a pin. “Malfoy?” she said, half-dazed.
“We’re roomies now,” Harry said by way of explanation, “He’s staying here while the Ministry untangles his estate.”
“Pillages my estate,” Draco corrected quietly. His silvery gray eyes were narrow with annoyance or indignation.
“Pillages his estate,” Harry agreed. “Do you want a cuppa?”
She nodded, and used the heels of her hands to rub her eyes, willing away the tears and the grittiness by sheer force. The two boys moved around each other stiffly, cautiously, like a pair of tomcats that had declared an uneasy truce. Draco put the kettle on and Harry unearthed a tin of biscuits.
“Have some chocolate,” he said, thrusting the box at her.
All three of them smiled instinctively, privately, thinking of Lupin. All at once, their smiles faded.
“Thanks,” Hermione whispered, her voice froggy, and bit into a biscuit. “I’m sorry to intrude, I just needed to get out of the flat for a night.”
“You’re not intruding,” Harry said, wondering why his unexpected guests kept saying that. “I don’t mind.” And he didn’t. Hermione was his friend.
And so, he decided, was Draco.
The story came out of her in bits and pieces. Rows with Ron had escalated slowly, growing from playful misunderstandings to screaming fights, ending with slammed doors and punched walls. She made him feel like he wasn’t enough, Hermione knew, like his overwhelming love for her that had been building since their fourth year was somehow not enough for her. And it wasn’t that, she tried to explain to Draco and Harry, (who had now switched from tea to firewhiskey), it was simply that he didn’t love her in the right way. Not that he wasn’t enough. Just not in the right way.
He was like a Labrador, big and friendly and eager to please, instantly by her side and ready for affection and attention or to perform a trick. But she didn’t want a big slobbering dog all over her. She’d rather have a cat. Someone spare and solicitous who occasionally sought out her company.
“What are you going to do?” Harry asked, his voice thick and a bit slurry from the firewhiskey. All the clocks were broken in this house—was it midnight? Was it nearly dawn? Or was it six in the evening? He couldn’t know.
She sighed and rested her forehead against the cool, mostly empty, bottle. “I don’t know,” Hermione admitted. “All my stuff’s at his place.”
“Leave it,” Draco advised. There were two high spots of color on his cheeks, and Harry noticed that his small mouth was pink and flushed. Why was he noticing Draco’s lips? “Weasley is an idiot.”
“I can’t,” Hermione said, pouring the last of the alcohol evenly into their three mugs, “Crookshanks is there, and all of my books. It took me ages to move in.” Something broke in her face, her brows knitting together. “And he does love me. So much.”
“Ron loves everyone,” Harry pointed out. “It’s who he is.”
Her face crumpled. “Why can’t I just be happy?”
Draco finished his firewhiskey and began glancing evasively towards the door, and Harry met his gaze. They shared a brief, confused look of panic over Hermione’s head. Managing a witch’s emotions was not something either had much experience with, or were prepared to do.
“I don’t know if any of us are meant to be happy,” Harry said, and it somehow sounded like the bleakest thing he could imagine. “At least, not like that,” he added hastily. “I mean, not right now. Maybe you and Ron will come back to each other, y’know? In a few years. When he’s done a bit of…growing up.”
“We’ve done so much growing up,” Hermione said, sniffling, “I think we’ve just…grown apart.”
There was a long, somber silence. Draco raised his empty glass.
“To Granger and Weasley’s failed relationship,” he toasted sarcastically.
She hiccuped a laugh and downed her drink.
Hermione stayed the night, and then returned back to Ron, leaving Draco and Harry alone in Grimmauld Place once again. The two had settled into a small routine, although neither spoke of it. They didn’t sleep well, so whoever gave up on trying to sleep first went downstairs and began making tea, and put in a breakfast order with Kreacher. The other would stumble downstairs later, and together they’d silently drink their tea and muse, perhaps reading one of the ancient, dusty books left on the shelves.
Then at some point, one of them would bring out the chess set, and they’d play a game or two of chess. Draco always won. Harry was a terrible chess player.
It occurred to Draco exactly once, that perhaps he should let Harry win, but wondered if it would be obvious. He just wanted to do something nice.
Silver eyes met green ones for a fraction of a second, and then darted away in opposite directions.
shut up potter, fuck you potter.
Hermione’s owl, a fluffy brown barn owl named Athena, appeared at the kitchen windowsill a few days later. It pecked at the window, a letter held in its beak. The windows, of course, were stuck fast—were they locked? Painted shut? Or was it a permanent sticking charm? Harry drew his wand and stabbed it at the window, releasing the frame with a loud BANG! Athena hooted indignantly and flew off, startled, before returning with ruffled feathers and narrow golden eyes.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Harry muttered, taking the letter. “Ow! I said sorry! ” He rubbed the peck mark on the back of his hand. Absently, he grabbed a bit of toast and held it out as a peace offering while he opened the letter.
Dear Harry and Draco,
Thank you for letting me stay with you two. I think Ron and I have worked things out—sort of. We’ll see if it lasts. I hope you’re both getting some rest.
I have a favor to ask. Professor Snape has gone missing—he was released from St. Mungos a few days ago. We’ve kept in touch since the end of the War, and now he’s not responding to my letters. Do you know where he might have gone? I just want to be sure he’s all right.
All my love,
Hermione
Harry sighed. Why did people keep thinking he was best mates with Snape? As though he knew his whereabouts? He hadn’t had a single conversation with the man when they weren’t under threat of death. Just because he had loved his mother didn’t automatically make the two of them pals, or something. If anything, Harry felt even more awkward about approaching the tall, hook-nosed Potions professor. What was he supposed to say? Sorry my dad and his pals were gits to you? Sorry my mum didn’t want to fuck a Death Eater? Harry tossed the letter onto the table and resumed making tea.
“Hold on a moment, you,” Harry muttered to Athena. “Get inside, I’ll see if Kreacher can find you a mouse.”
At the promise of mice, Athena hooted and stood on the sink, ruffling her feathers.
Draco sat at the kitchen table. He glanced at the letter, noticing the rapt, minute script was Hermione’s, but looked away before he could read any of it. It was Harry’s letter. Don’t pry.
“You can read it,” Harry said, his head buried in a cabinet as he searched for a frying pan, “it’s addressed to both of us.”
Dear Harry and Draco.
Harry and Draco.
Instead of Potter and Malfoy. Harry and Draco. That was almost…nice.
He ignored that feeling and instead skimmed the letter. “Has she tried his house?” he asked, as though he were trying not to be sarcastic and failing badly.
“Snape has a house?” Harry asked. His hair was sticking up in all directions. Draco wanted desperately to smooth it down.
“Where do you think he lives?” Draco asked, frowning. “Yes, he has a house. It’s at Spinner’s End.”
“I thought he lived at Hogwarts, honestly,” Harry shrugged. “I didn’t think he had much of a life outside of that.”
Severus Snape, Potions master, soldier, Death Eater, spy, sat on the ground outside of his house at Spinner’s End and watched the flames consume it. It took almost no effort at all. Smoke was leaking from every window, and downstairs, he could see flames leaping higher and higher, finding their way up the walls and the stairs and the edges of every deplorable thing. He had deliberately not used magic. He clenched the box of remaining matches in his hand; it had taken only one.
Dumbledore was not here to stop him now. He had tried this once before, when the Dark Lord had been resurrected, but Albus had stopped him. Now, there was no stopgap to keep him from acting on his worst impulses. Or, Snape mused, his best.
He had not intended to survive. Surviving would be…messy. Someone like him, a shadow who slipped between both sides of the War with ease, should not survive past the final battle. The consequences of his actions would be far worse, far greater than death—a Dementor’s Kiss, a lifetime in Azkaban, or worse yet, simply existing with the memories of his horrific actions, buried quietly under his skin. Soaking in his own agony and mangled by guilt. That was worse than dying.
The flames were very high now. A gout of fire exploded from one of the upper story windows.
It all needed to burn. Every room, every item, every hateful memory scrawled on the wallpaper inside, it all needed to crumble to ash. There should be nothing left of him before he took the next step.
How should he do it, he wondered. Throw himself off a building? Apparate to the middle of the ocean? That seemed suitably dramatic. He didn’t want anyone to find his body—he simply wanted to disappear. Snape closed his eyes and took another drink from the bottle in front of him. It burned a stripe down his throat, and it felt as though he were eating Spinner’s End, entombing it inside of him for the rest of his life.
The rest of his life would be about twenty minutes, he estimated, cracking open an eye to look at the fire as it spread. That should be plenty of time to watch his childhood home collapse in on itself.
Behind him, there was a pop! and a small gasp.
“Professor?”
He didn’t even turn around. Of course it was Granger, the only person alive who was stupid enough to care about him. Let her hex him. He didn’t mind. His long fingers curled around his wand—if she attempted to give him a lecture, however, he would send her flying.
She didn’t lecture him. She simply sat on the curb next to him, hugging her knees, so close that he could feel her bushy hair tickling his shoulder.
A wand, a bottle, and matches, all scattered around him. Three options. Three choices. None of them good.
“You should leave,” he rasped.
“No,” she said simply. He snorted. Stubborn, idiot child.
She curled her little finger through his sleeve and held it there, not touching his skin. The smallest lifeline. If he had been her age, or a friend, she might have thrown her arms around him, or grabbed his hand, but instead she was left with a tiny, wary twitch of her finger, around the cuff of his sleeve. They sat together and watched it all burn down.
And for right now, that was enough.
Autumn was slipping into winter, the wind turning arctic and whipping around the high towers of Grimmauld Place. The shutters banged against the windows, and shingles rippled in an eerie, dry melody. The smell of snow—crinkly and cold—filled the air.
In front of the roaring kitchen fire, Draco and Harry drank hot toddies and played chess. Neither of them acknowledged the shocking intimacy in this moment, partially because they were both lulled into blissful relaxation by the warmth and the alcohol.
“Bishop to D4,” Harry said confidently.
“You’re awful at chess,” Draco said, and took his bishop. Harry’s mouth fell open.
“I was a little busy saving the world to learn chess,” the Gryffindor pouted, pulling his blanket more firmly around his shoulders.
Draco snorted. “That’s a crutch.”
“You’re a crutch,” Harry shot back, and giggled—giggled!—into his hot toddy. Draco pressed his lips together tightly, suppressing a smile. Shut up potter, kiss me potter, fuck off potter.
The boys were half-asleep next to the fire, soaked in warmth and giddiness, when the wards boomed. Harry shot up, half-realizing that his knee was pressing against Draco’s, before hurrying to the door. Why did he keep getting visitors? There hadn’t been any movement for ages and now, all of a sudden, he was getting people turning up every other day.
Squinting, he peered outside the peephole, and gawped.
Severus Snape had an arm slung around Hermione, leaning heavily on her, his chin dropped to his chest. Hermione was panting and struggling to keep him upright, and she banged on the door again with the flat of her palm. “Harry!” she called out desperately.
Was Snape injured? Was he dying? Harry threw open the door.
“He’s drunk,” Hermione hissed, and shoved Severus inside.
Severus was indeed incredibly drunk, and once over the threshold he toppled onto the rug. His sallow skin was flushed to the neck, and he positively reeked of smoke and firewhiskey.
“No, no, stand up,” Hermione ordered, and to Harry’s great shock, Severus begrudgingly tried to obey. She looped his arm around her neck again and stumbled through the house, swerving from the bright happy lights of the kitchen and kicking open the basement door. Harry felt his skin prickle at the icy draft that emerged from there. He’d never been down in the basement, although he assumed that’s where Snape’s lab had to have been when he was brewing potions for the Order.
Hermione’s voice was soft and barely audible, pressed against Snape’s ear. “Easy, easy, easy,” she breathed.
Snape jerked. “Don’t.” His voice was hoarse.
Draco stared from the doorway of the kitchen, holding his moth-eaten blanket around his shoulders, eyes round. Severus Snape, the overgrown bat of the dungeons, was half-undressed, smashed out of his mind, and being handled like a sloppy teenager by Hermione Granger no less. There was a firm set to her face as though this was not entirely unexpected, or maybe she had done this before, or maybe her ridiculous life had led her in such a confusing tangle that sobering up her Potions professor wasn’t even unexpected, at this point. Maybe it was a little of all three.
Neither Harry nor Draco followed the two of them into the basement. Hermione had it under control, Harry reasoned. She was always the most put-together one of the three. She always had a plan.
Draco didn’t follow because he was terrified of both of them, and he desperately wanted to go back to dozing in front of the fireplace with his knee against Harry’s.
Was it midnight? Ten o’clock? Two in the morning? Who knew, all the clocks were broken in Grimmauld Place, and nobody ever bothered to fix them. Severus realized he was lying on a narrow cot, freezing cold, with only a thin blanket drawn over him. His shoes were off. And the top three buttons of his shirt had come undone. Where was he?
In the low, shadowed half-light, he saw a tangle of hair. “Don’t move,” she whispered. Part of him roared with savage anger. Had she stopped him from his plans? Or was he actually dead?
Her small, soft hand touched his arm. In the freezing cold, she was so warm. The touch was so gentle, affectionate, loving.
Dead, then. He was dead. Nobody had ever touched him like that.
“I have some water,” she continued, her voice hushed, “and I can have one of the boys make some tea. How are you feeling, Professor?”
If he was dead, then he was in Hell, because he was dreadfully hungover. His head was splitting open. But her hand was still on his forearm, just below the Dark Mark, and she showed no signs of flinching. Purgatory, maybe.
He grunted. Eloquent. Cutting.
Hermione shifted beside him in the dark, and he felt her arm gently move beneath his pillow. She was helping him sit up. The world spun, but only for a moment, as she tipped a glass of water into his mouth. His instincts screamed at him. Never drink something unknown from a stranger, never drink anything in front of anyone.
But as his eyes adjusted in the dark, her face was so open, so sweet. She had his head cradled in her lap like he was a child, or someone very, very ill, instead of just wretchedly hungover.
“Drink this,” she told him, and he obeyed.
How many times had Dark wizards forced him to drink something? How often had his head been held, boot against his skull, while they forced his jaws open to pour something down his throat? How many times had the Dark Lord wrenched his head back by his hair, forcing him to open his mouth to accept whatever vile offering was required? And how often had he spat it out through clenched teeth, raging like an animal?
Apparently all it took was a young witch to hold him gently and tell him nicely, and he would do whatever she asked.
Pathetic, he thought, even as the cool water soothed his throat. That’s all that’s left of you. A pathetic, wretched man.
“Don’t,” he rasped again. Don’t do this.
“Don’t what?” she asked. Her warm hand brushed a lock of hair away from his pallid face.
Don’t be kind to me, Severus thought to himself, or perhaps said aloud. That was an exquisite torture, and it was the only kind he truly could not bear.
Harry couldn’t remember the last time he had a bath. No, that was a lie, it had been when Cedric told him about the egg in the Triwizard Tournament. Thinking of Cedric sent a little crack through his calcified heart. Cedric, with his blonde curls and beautiful, eager face, so excited to do the right thing, so helpful. So savable. If Harry hadn’t told him to take the Cup, he would have survived. Kill the spare.
He sank into the water. It was so hot it felt cold at first, and then, settling into his skin, burned to the point of discomfort. The pain was stinging, gradually increasing in intensity, and Harry gritted his teeth.
Good. Perfect.
He turned the tap and added more hot water.
The master bathroom in Grimmauld Place boasted an enormous in-ground tub, creaky from disuse, but magnificent in its design. The pipes shuddered as he called up more water, and he noticed that there seemed to be some kind of enchantment on the tile—no matter how much water sloshed out of the tub, it simply vanished. Useful, Harry thought, if he was ever flailing about in a tub.
Or if there was another person.
As the scalding water burned into his flesh and gave him a little more clarity of mind, Harry tried to think who he would want in the tub. Cho? Definitely not. Ginny? Maybe. He could visualize her, naked and soaped, straddling him, with her rosy, freckled skin under his hands.
Unbidden, the image of Draco Malfoy, sleek and muscled, flashed in his mind.
The image went straight to his cock. Draco, his angular face dripping with water, soap gliding over his pectorals and those sharp angular collarbones that melted into his shoulders. All edges and angles and beautiful, sinuous grace. Draco, hovering over him with that look in his gray eyes, hard and ruthless and somehow needy and yearning, full of rage or passion, or just a blend of the two. Draco, his soft pink mouth pressing open-mouthed kisses down Harry’s chest and stomach.
He was hard. It was somehow surprising to him, and his hands found his length underneath the burning water. This was not the first time he masturbated over Draco Malfoy—of course not. He’d been having confused, sexually charged feelings towards Draco since his third year. But it was the first time after the War, after the whole world realized exactly how far the Malfoys were willing to go in order to maintain their power. It was the first time since he had seen him again, small and sad and pathetic, with nowhere else to go.
As Harry stroked himself, half of him disgusted, the other half insatiably aroused, he felt his breath coming in tight, irregular gasps.
Outside the bathroom, Draco listened to Harry, his cheeks flushed. If he had been a Gryffindor, he might have thrown the door wide open, or knocked, or called out, or…something.
But he wasn’t a Gryffindor. So he did what Slytherins did best—he slunk away, and waited for a better opportunity.
When Snape awoke the next morning (was it morning? Or nearly noon?) the waxy feeling of unreality had faded away. He knew at once that he was in Grimmauld Place, although how exactly he had gotten here, into his old bed, he wasn’t sure. The cot was too small for his long frame, and his feet hung over the edge of it. His neck was stiff from falling asleep at this angle. The basement itself was cold as an icebox—perfect for brewing, but not conducive for restful sleep.
And yet, he had spent so many nights down here, sleeping hard and brewing incessantly, not noticing the conditions or his stiff neck. He sat up slowly, rubbing his temples, wishing for a hangover cure or a Pepper-Up potion or a swift slap in the face, anything to clear his head.
His eye caught a small slip of parchment. Before he even opened it, he knew who it would be from.
Dear Severus,
He stopped reading at once. Since when did she call him Severus? He would have to go back and read her previous letters, although he could have sworn she had previously addressed him as Professor Snape, or Hello Professor , not Dear Severus .
Something squeezed his heart painfully as he continued reading.
Dear Severus,
I hope you’re feeling better. You’re in Grimmauld Place with Harry and Draco. They’ve been living here for a few weeks now—well, Harry’s been here since the War ended, but I think Draco is a recent addition. Kreacher can make you some breakfast or some tea if you like. You don’t have to go upstairs if you don’t want, but you will need to sneak outside if you want to Apparate anywhere.
Please let me know if you find your way home. I was worried.
If you end up staying here, let me know. I can come back and bring you a fresh change of clothes.
Yours,
Hermione
He reread the last line again.
Yours, Hermione.
That meant nothing, Severus decided, even as he folded the note carefully to slip into his breast pocket. It didn’t mean anything at all.
“We could just burn it off,” Draco mused, dipping a crust of his toast into his runny eggs.
“We’d scorch the whole room,” Harry said, frowning, and took another bite of his porridge. “And I don’t think anything short of Fiendfyre would get her off the wall.”
At the mention of that terrible curse, both boys shuddered. Dutifully, Draco ignored it. “We could cut away that portion of the wall and chuck her out onto the street,” he suggested.
Harry pointed at him with his spoon. “That,” he said, “is actually not a bad plan.”
They had been trying to brainstorm ways to remove the shrieking portrait of Walburga Black from the parlor. Last night, when Hermione emerged from the basement, the portrait had gone into absolute hysterics, and Hermione actually cowed under the choruses of FILTHY MUDBLOOD, MUDBLOOD TRAITOR, until she fled the house in tears. Since then, Harry was determined to remove it, and Draco was more than happy to help with whatever tangent Harry wanted to follow.
Snape emerged into the kitchen, squinting in the cheery light. Both boys swiveled to look at him, obviously gaping at the sight of their unshaven, unkempt former Professor who was rubbing his eye and glaring at them as though he could kill them with a look.
“Morning,” Harry said cheerfully, “You look bloody awful.”
The Potions master said nothing, merely moved carefully into the kitchen light and peered around the table. There was toast and porridge and tea, but little else. He turned.
“Is there coffee,” he asked, his baritone voice burred with sleep.
“Kreacher can make some,” Harry offered. “Kreacher!”
The House Elf appeared with a crack! that made Snape wince. “Coffee is being made, young masters,” Kreacher said, bowing low. Snape nodded and, with the air of a condemned prisoner approaching the gallows, sat gingerly down at the kitchen table.
Draco was very pink, and he seemed to be struggling to find the right words. When he opened his mouth, Snape held up a hand.
“Do not,” the older man began tersely, “bore me with apologies or anecdotes or well-wishes. Assume I am aware of your feelings towards me and we can have breakfast in silence.”
There was a long pause. Then: “Do you know any ways to undo a Permanent Sticking charm?” Harry asked. Snape arched a thick eyebrow.
“They are, as the name implies, permanent,” he said icily.
“Well, yeah, but can we cut away the wall that it’s stuck to? Or burn it off? Can we just burn the portrait, will that make it stop shouting?”
Snape rubbed the bridge of his large nose. “I imagine so. If this is about the portrait of Walburga Black, you might find it easier to undo the Animus charm on the portrait.”
Draco blinked. “We could just turn her into a regular painting that way.”
“Precisely,” Snape grumbled, and began inhaling the cup of black coffee that Kreacher put down in front of him. It was bitter, hot, and delicious .
The two boys lapsed into an animated conversation about the charms and potions used to create animated portraits, leaving Snape alone to think and wallow, which was what he did best. The raw misery of watching Spinner’s End burn down seemed to be gone, relegated to a throbbing pain on his sternum. He wondered if the Muggle fire department had come and put out the blaze. That seemed doubtful. He hoped it had simply crumbled to ash, and would soon be covered in snow.
The letter in his breast pocket felt tight when he breathed.
“Do you have an owl?” Snape asked, interrupting the boys without even bothering to wait for a gap in conversation.
“Nah, just Hermione’s,” Harry said, jerking his chin towards the window. Indeed, there was a familiar tawny owl, sitting perched on the sill as though she had been waiting for him.
Snape got up, bringing his coffee with him, and stroked the owl affectionately. She chirruped, low in her feathery breast, and nibbled his finger.
He rummaged until he found a scrap of spare parchment and a very bent, wobbly quill.
Dear Hermione,
He stopped. How had he addressed his previous letters? Miss Granger, he was almost certain. But he had precious little parchment to use and he didn’t want to cross it out.
Dear Hermione,
I will be at 12 Grimmauld Place until this evening, at least.
Please do not worry about me.
Severus
He didn’t dare use a valediction at the end of the letter, too afraid his traitorous pen would betray him.
Hermione came back to Grimmauld Place with a suspicious amount of suitcases, Harry thought to himself, as he heard her stamping snow off her boots in the foyer. Winter was descending upon them, and it was snowing thickly outside. It gave the house a tight, cozy, insulated feeling, and he rather imagined that if it was clean and open and repainted, Grimmauld Place would be rather cheery in the winter.
“Snape’s downstairs,” Harry said, sticking his hands in the pocket of his dressing gown. He was still in the pyjamas he had slept in that night, even though it was late afternoon. (or was it evening? He should fix one of these clocks.)
She seemed…fragile. Her eyes were dry but there was a wobble to her lower lip, and her narrow shoulders were hunched, curled in on herself. “Do you mind if I stay here?” she asked after a moment. “I won’t be a bother. I’ll just stay upstairs. I just…I can’t be at home. Not right now.” Her voice dropped to a whisper.
Harry felt a little flicker of panic. “Is it Ron? Is he all right?”
She shook her curls over her face, burying herself in them.
“He moved back to the Burrow,” she said, tightening her fingers around her suitcase. “I just…didn’t want to be alone, in that empty flat.”
Harry imagined her, small and jackknifed into a corner, surrounded in an isolated prison of books.
“Stay here,” Harry urged, and he was almost surprised to hear how genuine he sounded. “It’s just me and Draco. We don’t mind. We just play a lot of chess and do some reading. It’s quiet here.”
Her lip wobbled again as she smiled. “That sounds very nice.”
As she left, Harry found it strange that the two of them had sought out solitude away from Ron. It felt like a secret, almost, something furtive and cruel. Ron was his best friend, Harry reminded himself. But he had a family—neither Harry nor Hermione did, anymore. Her parents' memory charm had been too powerful, too irreparable, and so they were left in Australia, leaving Hermione with nothing. Just a little flat that she had shared with her boyfriend and her cat.
He hoped that Ron found his solace at the Burrow. And more than anything, he hoped Ron found his way back to them.
Severus heard her come down the creaky stairs, and pretended he wasn’t watching her feet, then her legs, then her hips, come into view. When she could see him, he averted his gaze quickly back to his cauldron, which was bubbling glumly over a low heat. He had been surprised to find his potions cabinet undisturbed and the ingredients mostly intact; the preserve jars he kept most of them in seemed to be working well. With the basement flooded with dim green light, everything seemed vaguely ghoulish.
Hermione was holding a knapsack, and she put it down at the foot of his cot. “Hello,” she said, almost shy. “I, um, brought you a few things.”
He quirked a brow at her, scarcely looking up from his brew. “Thank you.”
There was no acid in his tone. This seemed encouraging to her, and she came over to examine the contents of his cauldron. “A Sleeping Draught?” she asked, looking down at the plum-colored potion.
“Five points for Gryffindor,” Severus said, almost amused.
“I’m sure Harry and Draco could use it,” she said, “They seem like they’re…not sleeping.”
But what was their reason for not sleeping, she wanted to know, if only to sate her own formidable curiosity. She knew Harry had been mooning over his rival for at least five or six years now, and Draco must have had other options besides Grimmauld Place. They must have sought each other out after the War.
Severus snorted, but said nothing, and Hermione assumed he knew what she was thinking. She always assumed that, actually. Her Gryffindor lion reared up in her mind as she thought, boldly and loudly, I want to kiss you, Severus Snape.
His eyes suddenly flicked up to meet hers over the cauldron. Their intensity made her shrink back, if only a little.
“I brought you a change of clothes,” she said, fumbling with the hem of her oversized jumper, “and some toiletries. I didn’t—I’m not sure what kind of climate you’re going to be in after today, so I packed a little of everything. Cloaks and jumpers and all that.”
He hadn’t stopped looking at her face. “I,” Severus began, “am not quite sure.”
“Well, I hope you write,” Hermione said, and bit her lower lip. “I really—I mean, I looked forward to your letters. I’ll be here, at Grimmauld Place, for at least a little while.”
“Oh?” Severus said, almost mocking, feigning disinterest. “Trouble in paradise?”
She seemed to retreat into herself, her hands shrinking into the sleeves of her jumper. When had she begun wearing such oversized clothes? She was drowning in them. “Ron moved back to the Burrow. I suppose it’s…over, between us. I guess it has been for awhile.” Hermione looked away. “I guess it never even started, really.”
Severus was intimately familiar with such an experience. He said nothing. He wanted to call Weasley an idiot but he didn’t want her to leave—now that was an odd, uncomfortable feeling. Severus couldn’t recall the last time he hungered for anyone’s presence, let alone a swotty Gryffindor who talked too much.
But then, he wondered idly, was there anyone who truly wanted her presence, either?
“Do you need help?” she asked.
Yes , he thought bitterly. He needed a mediwizard to castrate him, or remove his brain, or possibly both.
“I can cut up some Sopophorous beans, if you like,” Hermione offered, her eyes shining in the low green light. “I know that’s a finicky part.”
He didn’t say anything, but extended the knife to her, handle-first. She glowed and began rolling up her sleeves. It hurt to look at her. As she crossed the long brewing station to be at his elbow, he wondered why there wasn’t any awkwardness from their previous encounter, when he had been hungover and suicidal and desperate for any shred of human affection. But having her next to him, working quietly, expertly peeling the Sopophorous beans with her neat little fingers, it felt like nothing untoward had happened at all. As though she would do that for anyone.
Hermione reached for another bean and he noticed the ugly red cuts on her arm. Without thinking, he caught her wrist as it crossed in front of him, halting her.
MUDBLOOD
The word had been carved viciously into her forearm in cruelly large letters. It looked barely healed, just scabbed over, like twisting the wrong way would open it again. She tried to pull away.
“That’s—it’s just—don’t look at that,” she tried, tugging her arm. His fingers tightened around her wrist.
“Who did this?” he asked. There was a low thrum of anger in his voice. He could feel his pulse ramming against his temples.
She stopped struggling, and instead went very still upon hearing the tone in his voice. “Bellatrix,” Hermione said quietly, not looking at him. “When we were captured in Malfoy Manor.”
Bellatrix carving her arm into a mangled, indecipherable mess hadn’t even been the worst torture Hermione had experienced. It had been an hour waiting for them to decide whether or not to summon Voldemort—an hour under the Cruciatus curse, an hour of feeling like she was going to die, of begging to die, an hour of the worst pain she had ever experienced.
The pain had been so all-consuming that she didn’t even remember it anymore. She remembered exactly three things from their captivity at Malfoy Manor: one, Narcissa Malfoy sneering at them, looking frail and vulgar; two, the gleam of Fenrir Greyback’s teeth in the darkness; and three, when she first laid eyes on her mangled, destroyed, bloody mess of an arm. The rest of it was gone, frozen in staccato fragments of memory buried in the back of her mind. (gone? or forgotten? or didn’t happen?)
“I tried using Essence of Dittany on it,” she continued nervously, as he was still silent, still gripping her wrist, “It doesn’t seem to want to heal. I think the knife she used is cursed.”
“It was,” Snape said lowly. His grip loosened. His fingers burned against her skin. “It was her favourite. A gift.”
My gift, floated between them, unsaid.
She looked up at him, pulling bravery over her face like a mask. “It’s fine,” she said, forcing cheer, “it’ll heal. I’m not worried.”
“Don’t lie,” he snarled.
“I’m not lying,” she lied. “It’ll just take time. Some things heal slower than others.”
Voldemort stroked one long, white finger down Harry’s cheek, streaking a tear through the blood and the grime. I can touch you now, he hissed, seizing Harry’s jaw in a vice grip. Around him were corpses, their sightless eyes reflecting thousands of stars. Dobby. Hedwig. Lupin. Tonks. Fred. Colin. Parvati. Cedric. Dumbledore.
Their heads lolled towards him in unison. You killed us, they cried, strangled and agonized and in chilling, perfect unison. Please. Please save us. Please don’t kill us.
Harry woke up screaming.
He screamed until his voice broke, until his vocal chords were frayed. He screamed until the faces of his dead friends melted into the spidery ceiling of Grimmauld Place. He screamed until he realized the ropes around him were just sweaty, tangled bedsheets, and the tight grip on his face wasn’t Voldemort at all, but Draco, leaning over him, holding his face in both hands.
“Harry! Harry! Please, wake up, wake up, it’s all right!”
He bucked, trying to dislodge himself, but Draco wouldn’t move. The Slytherin had half-dragged Harry out of bed, shaking his shoulders, trying to get him to come back to himself. Harry seized his arms, squeezing so tightly Draco thought his bones would crack, as Harry frantically searched Draco’s face.
“You’re fine, you’re fine,” Draco said, still holding Harry’s face. He relaxed his grip. Harry was shivering violently, still roving sightlessly around the room. Every muscle in his body was whipcord tight, ready to fight, to attack, to survive. “I’m here. You’re all right.”
He stroked Harry’s face, tucking his hair behind his ears. Draco tried to remember how his mother had soothed him when he was hysterical.
Without thinking, he pressed a kiss to Harry’s forehead. Harry snatched a handful of Draco’s pyjamas, fisting the material tightly, and buried his face in Draco’s chest. The blonde Slytherin mindlessly pressed another kiss into the crown of his head, hidden in his damp curls.
“You’re all right,” Draco breathed, “I’m here.”
Harry relaxed by degrees, replacing the iron bands of muscle with weak, fawnlike trembling. It was so different at night. During the day it was so easy to pretend, to banter, to play chess and read books and pretend like the whole world wasn’t suffocating him by degrees. But at night, everything came rushing back, full of claws and teeth and razor-sharp memories, ready to tear him apart.
“Don’t go,” Harry sobbed, shivering violently, “please, please. Please.”
“I won’t,” Draco whispered, and unwound Harry from around his waist. “Easy now, Potter,”
He tucked himself against the shivering wreckage of the Boy Who Lived, curling an arm around his ribs and holding tightly, as though he could physically hold the pieces of them both together.
Grimmauld Place was very still the next morning-afternoon-whatever time it was. Draco was gone, and Harry felt the loss like a rotted gap in his teeth. He rolled over in the expanse of bed, hoping that he had just gone downstairs to get some tea, that he would return with two steaming mugs and that small, shy smile. Harry punched his pillow. Since when did he have fantasies of Draco bringing him breakfast in bed? That was somehow far worse than imagining Draco sucking his cock.
To his great surprise, when he eventually padded downstairs to grumpily retrieve breakfast, Draco was gone but Snape was still there. In the doorway of the kitchen, Harry stopped short, staring at the scene before him.
Hermione was sitting close to Snape at the kitchen table, very close to him in fact; Harry couldn’t recall a single other instance of someone that close to the prickly Potions master. She had her sleeve rolled up and the ugly red scab on her forearm was clearly visible, her forearm extended on the table. Snape was holding her carefully with one hand, his thumb in the center of her palm, and with the other, spreading some kind of orange, mucus-y gel on the wound.
“Can I assist you, Mister Potter?” Snape asked without looking up, his voice every inch as icy and commanding as it had been in the classroom. Harry jumped in spite of himself.
The look on Snape’s face had been so…studious. He was holding onto Hermione’s arm with such care. Like she was a delicate thing.
“I’m just here for breakfast,” Harry muttered, decidedly not thinking about how much he would like to hold Draco like that. “Carry on with…whatever disgusting thing that is.”
“It’s a healing paste Se—Professor Snape came up with,” Hermione supplied eagerly, her voice high. Harry noticed that she was a bit too pink in the cheeks. “He said it’ll expedite the healing process.”
That hadn’t been what Harry was referring to, but he didn’t dare say. He had never seen Hermione look at Ron like that, and he felt a prickle of outrage on his friend’s behalf. He rummaged angrily through the cabinet, looking for his favourite mug.
“How does it feel?” Snape asked, his voice very low. Harry bristled.
“Um…fine. A little cold. And it stings a bit.”
“We’ll change the bandages tonight,” he said, in a tone that brooked no argument.
Harry banged his mug down on the counter and threw a tea bag into it, and stalked to the stove. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Snape fastidiously winding gauze around Hermione’s arm, taking great care not to disturb the jelly or the wound underneath. Hermione was looking at him like he had hung the moon.
Moodily, Harry retreated into the dining room, leaving the two of them to their mending.
Draco stared at his reflection in the cracked, dusty mirror that hung over the mantle. Walburga Black was silent, preening, at the sight of a Pureblood standing in the parlor for once. It occurred to him that he was the only Pureblood in the house. Not that it mattered. Granger and Potter weren’t Purebloods and they had saved the entire Wizarding world, no thanks to him.
He watched dispassionately as a flicker of pain flashed across his face, causing his silvery-blue eyes to narrow. Nothing mattered anymore. His whole life, his parents—his father—had raised him with the expectation that what mattered most, truly, was the state of his birth. His good breeding and appearance should reflect the purity of his own blood, Lucius would say. There were a thousand things he had to think about, had to fuss over: Purebloods held themselves like royalty. Purebloods spoke softly and decisively and never, ever apologized. Purebloods tilted their noses and sent bouquets of passive-aggressive flowers to rival Pureblood houses.
Above all, Purebloods didn’t mix with non-Purebloods.
He had known since he was twelve years old that he would marry one of the Greengrass girls—either Astoria or Daphne, whichever their parents preferred. The Malfoy’s having an only child who was a son was a little coup in the world of blood purity; although the Greengrasses were one of the oldest, purest families in Britain, they only had daughters. It had been a scandal.
It never once occurred to Draco that he didn’t have to marry one of the Greengrasses, nor did he ever stop to consider if he even liked girls . Had he stopped to consider the magnitude of his duty, he would have balked.
But now, there was no one left who cared about him, whether he lived or died or who he married. Nobody cared who he married, how he held himself, what kind of flowers he sent to what people.
Harry’s face appeared in the mirror behind him.
“All right?” he asked, studying him. Draco nodded. They looked at each other for a long moment in the mirror.
“FILTH!” Walburga shrieked, ear-splitting, shattering the fragile moment between the two of them. “HALF-BREED, IMPURE, BLOOD TRAITOR!”
“Oi, shut up!” Harry yelled, and lashed his wand furiously towards the hysterical, frothing Walburga. The heavy curtains twitched shut muffling her greatly, but she still raged behind the thick material.
“We should look in the library about breaking an Animus charm,” Draco said, struggling to be heard over Walburga’s screaming. “There ought to be some curse-breaking books in there.”
Harry simply dragged Draco out of the room and across the hall into the library, and Draco pretended his breath didn’t catch at the sight of Harry’s hand in his.
There was a faintly surreal, liminal quality to Grimmauld Place, Hermione realized. The windows were shuttered and the clocks were broken, so time seemed slippery and elastic and frankly unnecessary. It was as though they had stepped out of the flow of time and into some other stream of reality, where Harry and Draco were friends and Severus Snape was gentle.
The pain in her arm was growing to a fervid itch. She wanted to dig her fingernails into the skin, rip off the bandages and maul herself bloody. She settled for burying her fingers into her pillow.
The gentleness of Severus Snape had been the most surprising thing. She kept thinking back to it, turning it over and over in her mind like a jeweler, admiring the facets. He had been so careful. The feeling of his fingers wrapped around her wrist, turning her forearm lightly, so skilled and so delicate. Like she was a rare, wonderful thing.
Ron had never touched her like that.
No one had ever touched her like that.
Her arm throbbed. She rolled over and buried her face into the ratty blankets, inhaling the cloying smell of mothballs. Focus on something else, on anything else—focus on Severus’s letters, that spiky scrawl of begrudging gratefulness and blunt annoyance bleeding into one another. Wanting to be left alone and yet unable to not respond to her letters. A kicked dog in the glow of a street light, growling at an offered scrap, advancing slowly.
The pain in her arm rose to a fever pitch and she threw herself upright, stumbling to the bathroom. It was a buzzing, scratching, writhing, oozing, leaky pain, as though bugs were crawling beneath her skin. Severus had told her not to scratch.
“Lumos,” she hissed between clenched teeth and stared at her arm. It was open and bleeding again—the smell was foul.
A muscle in her jaw worked, her brow furrowed deeply. She had to find Severus.
Books surrounded them in little plinths, heaped in piles, tossed onto their fronts, dog-eared and dogpiled in haphazard collections. Harry moved like a tornado, cracking open spines and skimming through contents, while Draco followed studiously behind him, occasionally reshelving, but mostly lumping the books into piles together. The chaos had kicked up dust everywhere, and both boys kept sneezing.
“It’s made with a combination of charms and potions in the paint,” Harry said, reading. His glasses had slipped down his nose. “Is it gonna take potions to remove it, d’you reckon?”
“It might,” Draco said, thumbing through a particularly gruesome text that had moving ink and watercolor drawings. “It’s very old.”
It felt rather like throwing a rope around the tail of a dragon and hanging on for dear life, Draco mused. That’s what it was like, following Harry Potter around. No wonder Granger and Weasley had always been so tired and in trouble all the time—he was a whirlwind.
The stairs creaked, and as Hermione passed by the parlor, Walburga went off again.
“MUDBLOOD!” she shrieked, and Hermione shrank back, clutching her arm to her chest. She hurried past and opened the door to the basement, fleeing with a bang.
“This fucking—that’s it,” Harry growled, and yanked his wand from his pocket.
Draco followed in awe as Harry advanced upon the portrait, wand extended.
“HALF-BREED, TRAITOR, SPAWN OF SCUM—” Walburga wailed, and Harry slashed his wand through the air.
“Confringo!” he growled, and the wall exploded.
Chunks of wallpaper flew everywhere, rubble collapsed in front of the fireplace, and for a split second it felt like the whole wall was collapsing. The noise was incredible, shaking the bones of the foundation, and when Harry felt like he had done enough, he set himself against the portrait.
Bracing himself against the fireplace with one foot, he yanked the frame of the portrait, cracking the wood with a splintering sound. Draco stood frozen, mouth open, as Harry tore the portrait off what remained of the wall with his own sheer force of will.
Walburga was cowed in the corner, hiding behind the drapes, shrieking hysterically as Harry threw the portrait onto the ground, breathing hard.
“Fuck right off,” Harry huffed out between pants.
Draco crossed the room, seized Harry by his ratty housecoat, and kissed him.
“Depravity!” Walburga cried weakly as Draco tangled a fist through Harry’s impossible, ridiculous, beautiful hair, and dragged him into another bruising kiss.
Severus peeled the bandage off of her arm gingerly. She was decidedly not looking at him, teeth sunk into the inside of her cheek, as he unwrapped the soaked, fetid wraps. It was taking every shred of willpower not to yank her arm away from him, and she tried to focus instead on the feeling of his calloused hand holding her palm steady, the feeling of his fingers so close to hers.
“Breathe, Miss Granger,” Severus reminded her dryly. Then, flat— “This will sting.”
A thin scream escaped her gritted teeth as he poured an entire cauldron’s worth of some cool, runny, stinging potion over her forearm. The wound hissed and steamed, boiling through the flesh, sloughing off a layer of skin and scabs and reopening the wound.
He vanished the potion and the bandages, and examined her arm. A cold sweat had broken out over her back, and she thought for sure she was going to faint, but the pain was already receding rapidly, drawing out like the tide. The ringing in her ears began to fade.
The wound was now a clean, reddish pink. It was still deep, much too deep, but the curse had been drawn out from the dried blood and the surrounding skin. Severus silently rebandaged her arm, evaluating as her eyes fluttered. She was trying very hard to stay upright.
Stupid Gryffindors.
“Thank you,” she breathed, “that’s—that’s better. Much better.”
He seemed to bristle at her gratitude. “Don’t seem so surprised.”
She caught his sleeve, her little finger curling through the buttonhole. “I’m not surprised.”
Why was she so very close to him? People were never this close to him unless they wanted something. He looked at her, those long eyelashes fringing her sweet, mournful eyes. Her lips parted, just slightly, and her gaze dropped to his mouth.
She did want something.
Why from him? Why from the old, exhausted, pathetic man who had survived the War because of a mere accident of fate, survived despite his best efforts? Surely she didn’t actually want him—not him, not like this. Nobody ever wanted him like this. A good man would push her away, turn away from her in this charged, frozen moment and tell her to check herself into St. Mungos and get her head examined.
Hermione angled her head to one side. She was very close to him, her eyes half-closed. “Severus,” she murmured, very softly.
His heart squeezed painfully. Except…he was not a good man, was he?
His indecision must have been written all over his usually inscrutable features, because the bold little lion, with her mane of curls, made the decision for him. She touched his face lightly, and kissed him sweetly, chastely, lightly, on the mouth.
She blushed very pink. “Sorry,” she whispered, drawing back, “I’ve just—I’ve just wanted to do that for such a long time.”
He threw his pride to the dogs and let his self-loathing crash over him in a wave, before cupping her face with both hands and kissing her back. She was beautiful, he was lost, this was hateful, and he was kissing her, kissing her, kissing her.
How did he get here? Harry wondered, as Draco looked up at him, eyes heavy-lidded, lips bitten into a delicious red. It had taken no time at all for Draco to work his aching cock out of his trousers, and Harry couldn’t help but wonder if Draco had done this before. With who? Crabbe? Goyle? The thought made him laugh and he tipped his head back, a dry chuckle turning into a deep groan as Draco laved the length of his prick with the flat of his tongue.
“Merlin,” Harry breathed, and carded his fingers through Draco’s hair, “you’re—it’s— please.”
“Articulate,” Draco snorted, and sealed those beautiful lips around the head of his cock. He looked up at Harry from beneath his lashes. Shut up potter, kiss me potter, fuck me potter.
That tongue that had spewed so many insults and curses at him was swirling around his tip and Harry couldn’t think. His hips jerked upwards, rutting, searching, and Draco pinned him almost effortlessly to the settee. That sleek blonde head bobbed, taking another inch on each downstroke, and the tight suction was going to make Harry explode.
“Fuck, Christ, Merlin,” Harry whimpered, his hands curling into a fist, “you’re so beautiful.”
And he was. Draco was an image carved in ivory and silver, resplendent on his knees with a cock in his mouth and pure desire radiating off of him. A small, strangled noise came from him as Harry bottomed out, feeling the hot, glorious slide against Draco’s cheek.
“I can’t—I’m going to—” Harry’s breath hitched, and Draco redoubled his efforts. Harry’s hips snapped upwards once, twice, and Draco swallowed and swallowed and swallowed, his throat squeezing, tight and fierce.
It was as though he had been wrung out. His knees were water. Draco released Harry’s cock with a lewd sounding pop! and gave him another thorough, softer, suckling. Harry cried out, overstimulated.
“We could have been doing that all this time,” Harry sighed, collapsing back against the couch. Draco’s hand hadn’t left his cock.
“Did you want to? All this time?” Draco asked.
“Sorry, did I want excellent blowjobs from my fit roommate? Yeah, actually, I did,” Harry said, half-sarcastic. “That would have been nice to wake up to when you fell asleep in my bed.”
Draco seemed torn between embarrassed and annoyed and aroused. He couldn’t help but preen a little at the excellent blowjobs bit. “Do you mean that time I had to spoon you to sleep because of your nightmares?” He asked politely.
Harry swatted his cheek, letting his hand linger at Draco’s jaw. “Yeah, that time I woke up in the middle of the night with your prick against my back.”
They kissed again, and Harry tasted himself, musky and strong, on Draco’s tongue. “That’s why I left,” Draco murmured against Harry’s lips, “Had to go pull myself off in the bathroom.”
“Shut up,” Harry said, and sucked a bite-mark into Draco’s neck.
Walburga covered her eyes and cried as the Pureblood moaned in reckless, wanton delight.
Severus set his teeth against the curve of her shoulder, right at the junction of her neck, and listened to her whimper. She made such beautiful noises, each one indelibly burned into his memory. That would be his punishment, his repentance—remembering the aching little gasps and moans he had drawn from her, when she came to her senses and hated him.
He didn’t dare move further than her neck, although one of his hands spanned her ribs, touching the intimate space beneath her oversized jumper. His cock was iron in his trousers, tight and excruciating, but he wasn’t going to let this turn into something it wasn’t. She wanted a quick snog, that was all, he could—
Her teeth found his earlobe and he shuddered, pleasure rolling through him. “I want to touch you,” she whispered, “Can I?”
He was almost undone.
Her hand left the safe territory of his chest and traveled down, lightly brushing his hip, and he stilled her. His fingers tangled in hers and he pinned it against the potions bench, next to her head.
“Don’t,” he said, ragged. Don’t regret this. Witches didn’t want him. His previous partners had been perfunctory, a bit interested, but unenthused.
She linked one of her legs around him, pulling him flush against her. “You’re always telling me that,” Hermione said, a hint of schoolgirl pout creeping back into her tone, “What if I want to?”
“Minx,” he said lowly, his voice a rasp, not letting go of her. Temptress, minx, siren. His doom smelled like tea and books and strawberries.
This seemed to please her. As if in response, she wiggled free of his grasp, using her good arm to pull her oversized jumper up and off, tossing it aside. The cold air of the basement rushed in, causing her pink nipples to contract into stiff peaks; she sat up, pressing close, breasts so near his mouth watered.
“Touch me, then,” Hermione said boldly, “if I can’t touch you.”
His eyes widened and she kissed him again, fiercer this time. I want this, she thought clearly, trying to press it into his mind. She wanted him, all of him, right now. One of his hands cradled her breast, tugging lightly at a nipple, and she moaned encouragingly against his mouth.
Severus broke the kiss and dropped his head between her breasts, drawing the tip of one between his teeth, eliciting a little cry from Hermione. She squirmed, her hips grinding against his pelvis, and he slowly worked a hand under the waistband of her jeans, sliding agonizingly slowly between her thighs.
Plenty of time to stop me, Severus thought, half-hoping she would. He looked up at her, biting gently on the graceful curve of one small breast, and saw her pupils were blown, her eyes black with desire. He couldn’t remember a single other time in his life where a witch had looked at him like that, yearning and wanting.
He slid one finger between her folds and heard her cry out, throwing her head back, exposing the long, vulnerable line of her throat. Something inside him snapped.
The restricting jeans were yanked off, bunched around one leg, her panties going with them, and Severus half-picked her up by the waist. Hermione was confused for a split second, and then he buried his face between her thighs, groaning audibly in pleasure.
She panicked slightly. “You don’t have to—” and then he did, tongue gliding rhythmically against her clit, and Hermione went blind.
“Want to give her a show?” Harry said, two fingers buried knuckle-deep inside of Draco. The boys were both naked by now, wands forgotten after a handful of lubrication charms, and the portrait of Walburga was still on the floor. She had thrown herself over the chair she had been painted on, hiding her face in the cushions.
Harry’s breath was hot against Draco’s ear. “Wanna fuck you while she watches.”
Draco whimpered as Harry clumsily thrust against his hip, crooking his fingers inside him. “Please,” he rasped, his cock hard and leaking.
They fell together, wanting and panting and grabbing, as Walburga sobbed. The good, beautiful, Pureblood boy who carried the weight of the Malfoy bloodline on his shoulders, was about to get fucked by another man, and there was nothing she could do about it.
Harry kissed Draco again, tongues swirling together, and teasingly slid his cock against Draco’s entrance. The blonde cried out, broken, as Harry roughly palmed his cock. Somewhere below them, buried by the house, someone screamed from the basement. Neither of them bothered with investigating, too wrapped up with each other, chasing the pleasure that was just out of reach.
If Hermione had been coherent, she might have noticed the suspicious silence of Walburga’s portrait, or heard the heavy pounding and scraping above them, but Severus Snape was seemingly determined to rip a fourth orgasm out of her, so she noticed nothing. They had somehow tumbled to the floor, Severus beneath her, as she clung to the potions bench for dear life; he was savagely unrelenting, his fingers bruising her outer thighs, pinning her against his face.
He tore a fractured scream from her at her fourth consecutive peak, and she was no longer able to keep herself upright, the muscles in her legs quivering with strain. Severus slowed, and then stopped, letting her catch her breath. Tears had streaked down her face, and she couldn’t seem to breathe.
She collapsed next to him, the sticky mess between her legs cooling against her throbbing cunt. Those hazel-brown eyes were fogged. Summoning her last fragment of strength, she dragged him towards her for a deep, lazy kiss, tasting herself on him.
Hermione carded her fingers through his thick black hair, and then uttered the desperate words he had never heard before in his life:
“Please, please fuck me, Severus.”
She wanted him so badly, and he was destroyed.
The next morning (was it morning? Almost noon, perhaps), Harry stumbled downstairs to the kitchen, following the smell of bacon. Hermione was sitting at the dining room table, reading the Prophet , studiously not looking up.
Harry realized Draco had left two very black hickeys against his collarbones, and hitched his robe a little higher. “Morning, ‘Mione,” he said gruffly, clearing his throat.
She did not meet his gaze. “Hi, Harry,” she squeaked. The paper trembled. She was holding it very high.
Silence stretched out between them.
“Long night?” Harry asked.
Did you…?
“Mmm,” Hermione replied, a studiously noncommittal noise. She finally looked at him, eyes narrowing over the paper. “Get any sleep last night?”
Did you… ?
Harry sucked on the inside of his cheek. “A bit, yeah.”
She blushed all the way to the roots of her hair.
Very inconveniently, Draco entered, gripping a mug of tea like it was a lifeline to a drowning man, sporting a purple chain of kiss-marks around his throat. He hadn’t bothered to hide them. Perhaps he was proud. Perhaps he was exhausted. Perhaps he hadn’t noticed.
Hermione’s eyes widened in shock. “A bit?”
“What?” Draco said.
Harry snorted with laughter and Hermione finally dropped the paper, revealing a bright reddish bruise beneath her jaw. Harry shouted in surprise and then they laughed until they cried, holding onto themselves, ribs aching. It hurt to laugh so hard. The house had not heard such joy in a long, long time. Harry struggled to catch his breath.
“With SNAPE?” he bellowed, tearing off his glasses so he could wipe his eyes.
“With MALFOY?” she shouted at him, still giggling, smiling so hard her cheeks hurt.
“Hey,” Draco interjected.
“He’s old!” Harry said, chuckling.
“He’s racist!” Hermione said, laughing helplessly.
“Not anymore!” Draco tried again, wounded.
They fell over again, Hermione throwing the Prophet over her face as she dissolved into peals of laughter. It was such a patently absurd situation, so enormous in its ridiculousness, that there was no saving it—there was no solution except to laugh.
“Right in front of the portrait of Walburga,” Harry gasped out, “Couldn’t help myself.”
“Harry!” Hermione shrieked, and rubbed her watering eyes.
“Where’s your man?” Harry said, “did you fuck his cock off last night?”
“HARRY!” Hermione disappeared under the table, flaming red, giggling so hard she was snorting, “No, he’s—shh, quiet, he’s still asleep—”
“‘Cause he’s old,” Harry jabbed at her with his foot, “he’s an old, old man, Hermione!”
“He’s got experience!” Hermione protested. “And he’s really not that old, late thirties is not old—”
“Wait, sorry, Snape?” Draco asked, so late and bewildered that it sent both of them off again, Hermione rolling on the floor. Harry banged his fist on the table, unable to form a single word. “Did you sleep with Snape, Granger?”
“You slept with Harry!” Hermione squealed.
“We didn’t—there wasn’t—we didn’t sleep,” Harry wheezed, his voice a croak. “We fucked.”
The two were frankly inconsolable for a very long time, laughing so hard they were hardly making sound, just huge whooping gasps of air. After a moment, Draco joined in, trying very hard not to look as amused as he felt. The shroud of grief and misery that had encircled the three of them for so long seemed small and salvageable now, something relegated to dark corners and shadows. Bathed in sunlight, smelling of breakfast, the three war heroes laughed until it hurt.
Severus Snape was dead. He had died at Spinner’s End, he was certain. Either that, or the Shrieking Shack. Or any of the dozens of times before when he had nearly died. Because being alive right now, with a young, naked, needy witch in his bed, did not seem likely. In fact, it seemed like the kind of thing his brain would invent in order to make a torturous death less inhumane. Some kind of crazed synapse firing in order to make his painful death more tolerable.
But then Hermione slid a thigh over his waist, gradually shifting until she was on top of him, and he could stare at her in all of her glory. Everything about her was gold, shimmering notes of blonde in her hair, flecks of bronze in her eyes, a skim of honey across her skin. Unthinking, he rested his hands on her hips, brushing his thumb across the jut of her hipbone.
She ground against him, smiling. “You look so afraid,” Hermione teased, and bent down, kissing him lovingly on the top of his nose.
His hands tightened on her hips. He was afraid. “Ah yes, the terrifying Miss Granger,” he growled, “a frightening sight to behold.”
The speed and ease with which he flipped them onto the bed made Hermione let out a little squeak. He was so tall, his lean frame hovering over her, and he swallowed her surprise with a searing kiss. She felt drunk every time he kissed her, giddy and weightless.
When he moved lower, settling himself between her thighs, she tried to clamp them shut. “Oh, you don’t have to,” she said hastily, propping herself up on her elbows. Her eyes were shiny, her face earnest and worried. “That was so, so lovely, but really, it’s not necessary.”
His brow furrowed. “Do you not enjoy it?” There was a small note of worry in his voice, so small she might have imagined it.
“I very much do,” Hermione said, squirming at his breath on her thigh, “but I don’t want you to feel obligated, or like you have to—oh! ”
His tongue slipped between her folds, slow and unhurried. Those black eyes burned through her, leaving nothing behind, and Hermione felt a clench of arousal in the pit of her stomach.
“I enjoy it,” Severus said, his voice a rumble. Hermione stuffed her fist into her mouth to keep from crying out, because the boys would certainly hear her.
Time passed. Snow fell. Draco and Harry cleaned the parlor while making a mess of each other, repairing the wall and throwing open the shutters, tearing down the heavy velvet curtains and shagging on them (at Harry’s insistence). Harry hung his Firebolt above the mantle, where Walburga’s portrait had been, and Draco put his POTTER STINKS badge directly beneath it. They transfigured the furniture into new and interesting shapes, getting rid of the dark, dour wood and replacing it with lighter, cheerier colors.
Severus and Hermione repaired and reorganized the library, bickering mindlessly with each other over the best methods of organizing by genre, and getting rid of the nests of doxies they kept finding in the walls. When it was all relatively organized, they turned to book repair, mending seams and restitching bindings, drying out waterlogged pages and chasing away moths.
Christmas must have come and gone, for none of them took any notice of it, too wrapped up in each other. Their broken pieces had formed a nice little mosaic, still just as broken, but nonetheless fitting together once more.
Lavender Brown turned up sometime in January at Hermione’s insistence, fidgeting and sniffling and jumpy at loud noises. Fenrir had left her mutilated and scarred, her once beautiful face mangled nearly beyond recognition, missing her right leg. She wore a clumsy prosthesis, which Snape hated and said he could turn into something better, and proceeded to do so.
She took one of the smallest bedrooms, shying away from the four of them at first, but gradually warming up to their usual routine. Watching Draco and Harry sneak kisses in the pantry wasn’t nearly as alarming as watching Severus and Hermione hold hands as they read in the library, but stranger things had happened since the War ended.
George Weasley stopped by for dinner at Harry’s urging, and watched their strange dynamic with a very odd expression on his face. Seeing Snape wipe dishes and watching Hermione smile sunnily at him was bizarre. Draco and Harry’s romantic squabbling was fairly normal, he reasoned—he and Fred had called that back in Harry’s fourth year.
“You should write to him,” George told Hermione as he wound his scarf around his neck. “He misses you both.”
She bit her lip and looked back towards the kitchen, where Lavender and Draco were chasing Harry around the table, yelling about something being stolen. Behind them, Severus was sipping his tea stoically, a slight cant of amusement on his face.
“Would he like to come visit?” Hermione asked impulsively.
George thought of the way Hermione beamed at Severus. “Not yet,” he said slowly, “but, y’know. Maybe a letter.”
Ron arrived a week later, red-faced and holding crumpled parchment in his hand. “I didn’t know what to write—” he said, but was cut off as Harry tackled him in a hug.
Harry’s slender frame had begun filling out, thanks to Draco and his newfound obsession with perfecting the perfect potato galette, and Ron was nearly bowled over. He was bowled over when Hermione tore down the stairs to see him and threw her arms around him, the Golden Trio collapsing onto the front carpet, half-in, half-out of the foyer.
“I missed you,” Hermione said tightly, her eyes sparkling with tears.
Ron was sniffly, eyes watery. “I missed you too.”
The three stars of the Golden Trio’s constellation were reunited, bright and happy, once more.
ONE YEAR LATER
It was 9:02 a.m., according to the grandfather clock in the foyer, and Grimmauld Place was full to bursting. The Christmas tree, twinkly and massive and beautiful, dominated the parlor, and the space beneath it was crammed with presents. Kreacher was going spare, brewing pots of coffee and tea, making mountains of toast and biscuits; soaring morning light, brilliantly reflecting on the snow outside, flooded the entire house, through every opened window and door.
“GINNY!” Ron bellowed, tossing a package through the air. “It’s from Mum!”
Ginny didn’t even stop snogging Luna, just reached a hand up and plucked the package from the air with the greatest of ease. The Ravenclaw giggled beneath her.
“Cut that out,” Ron said, faintly ill. “Get your tongue out of her mouth, at least.”
“Don’t be green, Won-Won,” Ginny smirked. Ron flushed as Lavender gave him a knowing look from behind the Prophet she was reading.
“When are Snape and Granger coming?” Blaise Zabini asked, picking his head off the table. His eyes were faintly crossed and he was wretchedly hungover from their Christmas Eve festivities the night before.
“Around ten,” Draco answered, spooning jam onto a scone. He swatted Harry’s hand away. “I’m sure Hermione is trying to wrangle him into a Weasley sweater.”
Harry grinned. “If Snape is wearing a Weasley sweater, I’ll give you a Galleon.”
“Done,” Draco said, amused and loving as Harry stole the rest of his scone.
Harry looked around the clean, airy dining room, crammed with survivors of the War. It was Christmas, the tea was hot, Draco had a sticky bit of red jam on his lower lip that he wanted to kiss off, and he hadn’t had a nightmare in several weeks. With a warm tingle, he realized that, for the first time in a very long time, he was truly happy.
Hermione and Severus arrived an hour later, bearing presents; Ron pretended not to see Snape’s rare, fond smile when Hermione handed him a cup of coffee, fixed the way he liked it. Harry also owed Draco a Galleon; Snape was wearing an aubergine sweater with a large S on the front.
All, for now, was well.