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Chapter Nine—Emergence

"When were you planning to tell us?"

"I did tell Ron," said Harry, and hid behind his ice cream from the glare that Hermione was giving him. He popped out his head and added, "About Severus being alive, I mean. And I did send you a letter before that gala where Severus wanted to come out. It's not my fault that you bundled it into a bunch of other papers and didn't read it in time."

Hermione folded her arms, but then glanced around and sighed, seeming to realize that she couldn't yell at him in front of all the other customers at Fortescue's. "Fine, that part isn't your fault, but you should have told us by firecall, at least, or face-to-face like this. Not in a letter."

Harry glanced at her, then over at Ron. Ron shook his head slightly at him. He hadn't discussed, at least not in any depth, the incident with the Dark wizard that had resulted in Harry getting that scar over his left eye and Harry not trusting his best friend as much as he used to.

"I wanted to," said Harry. "But I wasn't sure how you would react, honestly."

"If you think that I still have grudges left against Malfoy and Professor Snape," Hermione began. Ron raised his eyebrows at Harry behind her back. Harry held in a snort with difficulty. He didn't think Ron had much left against Severus, but Hermione wasn't speaking for him when it came to Draco.

That was all right. Harry didn't expect all his loved ones to get along right away. The only thing he wanted was for them to try, and so far, most of them seemed committed to doing that.

"Not grudges," Harry said, and hid behind his ice cream again. It was all very well for Draco to talk about how he could see Harry getting more confident, but. This wasn't a Ministry gala or them being together in their bed. This was something else, something that made Harry's stomach dance anxiously as he confronted it. "More that I'm with two other people. Two other men. And it happened so suddenly."

There was a long enough silence that Harry knew he had been right to worry. Maybe he really had nothing to be upset about, precisely, but Hermione was still concerned, or she would have responded with reassurances right away.

"It does worry me that it happened so suddenly," Hermione said at last, softly. Harry peeked out from behind his ice cream and saw her toying with her own spoon, spinning it around and around until small drops threatened to fly out of the bowl. "You rushed to Malfoy Manor to prevent these thieves from stealing the Glass of Heart's Desire, and you just happened to find your own destiny there?" She took a deep breath and looked into Harry's eyes. "I don't think that that can happen."

Harry shook his head. "But I don't know any reason why Draco and Severus would want to influence me to join them in a romantic relationship, either." He noticed that Ron still flinched when he said "Draco" and "Severus," but as long as he didn't jump the way he used to when Harry said the name "Voldemort," it was all right. "And why would someone else muck with the Glass to make it show me a vision of being happy with them? No, I think I was lucky, and it was—" Here he hesitated again.

"Go on, mate," said Ron, after he and Hermione had traded glances for a moment and there was a palpable air of "You do it" surrounding both of them.

"I never had the chance to think much about what I wanted, before," said Harry, shaking his head a little. "What did I know? I might have wanted to be with two people, but I never thought about it. I was so busy chasing after the next Auror case, and Dark wizards, and avoiding the press, and standing in the corner of Ministry galas scowling at everyone." He smiled, remembering Draco's words. "Or I might have wanted someone to take care of me, but I never considered it deeply enough. I haven't thought much about being happy the last few years, you know. Only solving whatever case is currently in front of me."

"I just think that you should think about it more," Hermione said, and reached across the table to clasp his hand. "Whether something that happened this quickly is really what you want."

"But Draco and Severus are the ones slowing me down and stabilizing me so that I have the time to think about it," said Harry. "Unless you think that there's some evil plan at work, and neither of us have any evidence of that." He stared at Hermione challengingly until she looked away.

"It does seem as though one day you were at Malfoy Manor chasing the thieves, and then the next day you were looking for information about Snape's possible trial, and then you were—with them," said Ron, picking his way through the words as though they were a rickety bridge that would collapse beneath him. "That's all. That's the only thing we worry about."

"I don't think they were the only ones who could make me happy," said Harry. He had thought about it and thought about it, and he was sure of it now, even without Draco's reassuring words on the subject. He might never have come into contact with the Glass of Heart's Desire. Did that mean that he never could have figured it out for himself? He didn't think so. It meant it would have taken more time and he would have stumbled through it more, that was all. But eventually, something would have happened, maybe the kind of injury that had laid him up in St. Mungo's a time or two, and he would have been left with nothing to do but lie there and think. He had already figured out some things about himself that way, like that he wanted to stay friends with Ron despite the revelations about their friendships.

"Then why be with them at all?" Hermione leaned forwards. "Why be with people who aren't perfect for you?"

Harry stared at her for a second, before he started grinning. It wasn't often that he got to be the one to teach Hermione something.

"What? What did I say?" Hermione raised a hand to pat nervously at her hair, a gesture left over from the days when it would frizz at the drop of a wand, and got ice cream in it. Ron drew his wand and cleaned it off for her, but he was snickering, a bit helplessly. Harry had to just smile and shake his head.

"You said that I shouldn't be with them if they aren't perfect for me," Harry said. "Do you know how silly that sounds? Not everyone has the perfect one out there waiting for them, Hermione. Or is lucky enough to meet them at the age of eleven."

Hermione flushed and sent a sideways glance at Ron. Ron gave her a perfectly besotted expression in return.

Harry waited patiently for them to concentrate on him again, and then continued, "And in this case, I would have had to work through a lot of not-right relationships before I found my perfect one. Or my perfect two, in my case. I was lucky enough to find people I am happy with. If I wasn't happy with them, or if I ever stopped trusting them, then I wouldn't be with them anymore. But I suspect that won't happen for a long time." He smiled into the distance, aware that it was Hermione and Ron's turn to wait for him to return to reality, and not unhappy that it should be that way.

"Well, as long as they don't cause you trouble that you can't fight," Hermione said, as slowly as though she thought Harry needed rescuing from trouble like that on a regular basis. "Then it's fine."

Harry grinned at her again and bowed. "So glad that I have your permission, Your Highness. Will Your Highness be needing to approve any other aspects of my life before I leave your presence today, or is that sufficient?"

Hermione threw a balled-up napkin at him. Harry dodged, still smiling. He knew that his friends had accepted the news a lot more calmly than most other people would, but then, his friends and his lovers were the people who mattered most to him. To have their calmness and blessing was the greatest gift he could think of.

"Is it true?"

Draco looked up. His visits to this particular apothecary, the closest one in Diagon Alley to the opening of Knockturn, were silent most of the time. He would point to ingredients, most often illegal, and the proprietor would nod and fetch them out, and Draco would pay, and then he would leave, both of them mutually satisfied.

But now the proprietor, a tall woman that Draco could barely remember was called Althea Morningstar, was leaning over the counter and gaping at him. Draco raised his eyebrows. "That I'm expanding my Potions business? Yes. That's why I'm in here earlier than usual this month. I'll be back here more often as the business picks up popularity and orders." He thought Morningstar would like that.

She shook her head and brushed away an important announcement the way she might have brushed away a fly hanging around her barrel of newt eyes. "No. I want to know if it's true that you're dating Harry Potter and Severus Snape."

So, that story's hit the papers? Draco gave her a very small bow. "That part is true. Whatever else the papers are reporting, I would have to have a look at it before agreeing with it. It might not be true, and agreeing to too much could hurt me, you know."

She fell for it, and dragged out the paper from under the counter. Draco considered the front page, and smiled a little. The story was probably Skeeter's, but she had done a creditable job in making it seem calm and sober. There was only the faintest hint of girlish excitement in some of the phrases, and the photograph on the front page was one of those taken at the gala showing Harry, Draco, and Severus laughing together.

"Yes, it's true," said Draco, and gave the paper back to Morningstar. "Remarkably true, for the Daily Prophet."

Morningstar took on a sly expression he wouldn't have thought her capable of. Then again, he had never spent much time around her before. "Good. Then I can win that little bet I have going with Laura next door."

Draco half-laughed. If someone had that reason for reacting calmly to the announcement, then good. He could hardly fault them. "I hope you do win it," he said, and turned around to leave the shop. "But hurry, because they could come out with another story tomorrow that's not half as accurate."

"I'll keep that in mind, Mr. Malfoy." Something in Morningstar's voice made him glance over his shoulder, in time to catch the jar of pickled beetles she tossed him. "A little consideration, and early wedding gift, if you like."

Draco snorted, but didn't bother to correct her. Beetles were beetles, and useful in all sorts of potions and bases. He cast a few charms on the jar to make the glass unbreakable, then tucked it away and stepped out into Diagon Alley.

"There he is!"

Several wizards were marching rapidly towards him, all of them with the Prophet in their hands and determined expressions on their faces. One or two had wands out, too. Draco calmly and expertly raised Shield Charms around himself. He had grown to be good at them since the war, and Severus had improved his when they started living together. Add the tutoring he had got from a Defense expert in the last few days, and Draco thought they would stand up to any hexes his detractors wanted to hurl.

The wizards didn't throw hexes, though. They came to a halt outside his shields and stared at him with enough contempt that Draco felt justified in smiling at them and nodding. "Did you have something to say to me?" he asked.

"Have you really corrupted good and moral people into a relationship with you?" demanded one of the wizards, taking a step forwards. "I didn't know that you were that kind of pervert! I'm regretting buying any potions from you."

Draco took a long, slow breath. Well, he had known that one of the consequences from his relationship with Severus and Harry might be a loss in his business. He had enough money saved that he could take the hit, and in the meantime, he suspected some people would step in to fill the place of his departing customers, if only because they wanted to see what someone so scandalous could brew. "All right," he said.

In the end, Harry and Severus were worth it.

The lead wizard opened his mouth, and either realized there was no more to say or that he would look ridiculous saying it. He turned and walked away, every line of his back conveying his disgust. Draco looked at the rest of the small crowd.

They milled back and forth for a moment, as though they knew they ought to do something, but didn't know what it was. Then one woman stepped out in front of them, raising a hand that calmed them. "I don't know why you did this," she told Draco. "Why you announced it. You could have got away with a lot more if you had just kept it quiet."

Draco grimaced. He recognized her, vaguely. Someone else who made the round of the shops in Knockturn and Diagon Alleys, living on the edge between legal and illegal. "I know that I could have," he said. "But that's not what Harry wanted. And not what Severus wanted, either," he added, remembering both the gala and the details of his vision in the glass that Severus had shared with him.

"And you always do what your lovers want?" The woman's eyes were sharp, her voice accusing.

"In this case, yes," Draco said. "They're the people who matter most in the world to me."

The woman sighed and looked around as though she wanted to collect any eyes in the area and focus them on her, instead of him. "You know that you're looking at some loss of business, for this, and perhaps you'll also make fewer people trust Auror Potter and Potions master Snape."

"That's a loss all of us are prepared to risk," said Draco. He saw that the wizards behind her had put their wands away, but he kept the Shield Charm up anyway. There was no reason to be foolishly trusting. He wanted people he could trust, but he had never wanted a large number of them to spread it around to.

"It's still the wrong decision, for a lot of reasons," said the witch, and turned her back.

The others followed her, giving him disgusted or disappointed looks on the way. Draco ended up shrugging and waiting until the last of them were ought of sight before he Apparated. His heart was fluttering erratically.

He was still sure that he had made the right decision, but he could use some reassurance from other people.

"Draco? What's wrong?"

Severus had known something was from the moment Draco passed his lab without stopping to deposit the new ingredients from Morningstar's Methodicals in their proper places, but he had been in the midst of a delicate brewing process and hadn't been able to leave it. He had finished what he was doing as hastily as was compliant with proper procedure, though, and then followed Draco.

He'd found Draco in the same sitting room where they had greeted Harry on his last visit to the Manor, a glass of wine held so loosely in his hand that he was in danger of dropping it. Draco was never normally so careless of the carpets. Severus sat down beside him and took the glass away from him.

That earned him a strange look from Draco, which fluttered into a more gracious one when he traced Severus's line of sight from his hand to the carpet. He nodded and sighed, leaning back in his chair. "Thank you. I would have let it simply flop on the floor, and then I would have been upset later."

"Someone confronted you about our relationship?" Severus made it a guess, but Draco sighed again and collapsed onto his shoulder, which seemed to confirm it. Severus rubbed Draco's shoulder gently, murmuring, "You knew there would be some."

Draco nodded. "But this crowd included a fellow Potions brewer, and someone who said they would never buy from me again."

Severus paused. "Ah." Not many people would believe it, especially now that they knew some of Draco's potions had Severus's handiwork involved, but Draco took immense pride in his craft, and even in the system of discreet owls he had set up that let people order without implicating themselves. He had known that his business would suffer, had accepted it as one of the prices of public announcement—along with the Howlers that crashed uselessly against the wards and the lurid articles in the papers—but it was one thing to think that, and another to confront it.

Draco turned and suddenly looked up at him. Severus caught his breath at both the shine in Draco's eyes and the tremble in the hand Draco placed in his own.

"It is worth it," Draco whispered. "I know that, but make me believe it."

Severus promptly kissed him, bending him back over the couch. Draco went without a murmur of protest, although he opened his mouth and ran his tongue along Severus's in a deliberately provocative manner. Severus, remembering what they had done on this couch, nudged his legs up beside Draco's.

Draco seemed to gain strength, along with heat, as they kissed. His hands had been cold, even sweaty, but they warmed, and he lifted his head when their lips parted with a self-satisfied, dopey expression that Severus had never seen before.

Severus would have spoken, or maybe Draco would have, but it was Harry who spoke, from the doorway. "Wow."

Harry had come to the Manor not sure what to expect, other than a good meal and a lot of time with Draco and Severus. He hadn't known if they would want to talk about the public's reaction to Skeeter's article, or whether they would want to talk about potions or something else entirely. Harry couldn't contribute much to a conversation about Potions, but he would do his best to put aside his reservations and talk anyway.

But instead, he had stepped into the sitting room where the house-elves had told him Draco and Severus were, and found them kissing, Draco bent back beneath Severus in a way that made Harry flush as he imagined what he must have looked like, writhing under Severus on the bed they'd shared. And then both Draco and Severus glanced up with bright, incredible eyes, one of Severus's hands splayed possessively on Draco's chest, as though he wanted to gather up his heart.

"Are you well, Harry?" Severus didn't withdraw from Draco, but glanced uncertainly back and forth between them, as though he didn't know which of them needed him more. Harry half-smiled and slid his cloak from his shoulders. An elf was there to take it at once, squeaking and bowing and vanishing with it.

He moved forwards, aware that his half-smile had grown into a full one, and aware that it was his turn to reassure them. He dropped into a crouch on the floor beside them and kissed Draco on the mouth as Draco turned in his direction.

It started out slow at first, but then Draco's eyes shut and his lips parted. Harry attended to him with long, careful passion, and then leaned up and kissed Severus in turn. By the end of it, both of them looked completely satisfied.

"I was only reacting to how incredible you look together." Harry settled back and gestured at them. He couldn't stop grinning. He didn't know if he could even put it into words, the sight he'd had of them. "Please, continue."

Draco opened his mouth as if to contest that, but Severus, his eyes on Harry and his expression thoughtful, shook his head and pinned Draco to the couch with his hands again. Then he leaned in to kiss him once more.

Harry reveled in it, the way that Draco's face got more and more flushed, and his head tilted back as if he wanted to have miles of neck to expose to Severus. Neither of them were looking at him anymore, but that was okay with him. To know that they trusted him this much, that they would just snog and hold each other in front of him, was great. There was no end to the connection that circled back and forth between them, the growing strength of it and the heat that hammered at Harry's heart from beneath his ribs.

At last, Draco made a mild sound of discomfort, and Severus drew back from him and settled himself once more into the cradle formed by Draco's thighs. His expression was smug and placid, and he didn't show any sign of stirring. He leaned his chin on his own shoulder and watched Harry out of half-lidded eyes.

"How was your day?" Harry asked, and he was grinning crazily and half-hard. It didn't matter. He just wanted to stay here and look at them forever.

"There was something upsetting, but I can't remember it now," Draco said, and extended a languid hand to him. Harry leaned forwards and kissed the webs of skin between Draco's fingers, one by one. Draco was flushed and panting by the end of it, and he reached further, touching the back of Harry's neck. "I think you should come here so you can greet us properly."

Severus nodded his approval of the plan, and Harry stood up, kissed him, and leaned across to kiss Draco again. He was just getting into the spirit of the thing when he heard a frantic hooting, and an owl fluttered into the room.

Harry turned and stared, then sighed when the owl landed on his arm. He had been afraid that something would like this would happen, because he was still an Auror, and one who would investigate anonymous letters, unlike some others. And since he intended to stay with Draco and Severus and the Aurors for a long time, of course it would happen sooner or later.

"Sorry," he said sheepishly, and opened the letter. It was one of the usual, in a handwriting that slanted so strongly it was probably generated with a charm, and which implored him to go as soon as possible to a village in the southwest of England where the Dragon's Hoarders were attacking a buried vault that might contain Dark artifacts. Harry dropped the letter the moment he had memorized the Apparition coordinates, and called to the house-elves to bring his cloak back.

"Should you be the one to go?"

Harry started and glanced over his shoulder. Severus had picked up the letter, but he was already passing it on to Draco, which was enough to tell Harry that Severus had absorbed everything important about it. His eyes glittered at Harry, who found himself flushing.

"Well, I'm the one they sent it to," Harry explained, as gracefully as he could. "And a lot of other Aurors don't believe the tips, or don't get there in time, because they have to wait for other people to catch up with them…"

"You mean, they take precautions, and they don't run off alone," Severus said, and stood up. He crossed the floor between them and Harry, catching him close. Harry leaned against his chest and sighed, some of his sense of urgency dissipating. "I find myself thinking that you should be more like them, now that we have you. I will not lose you like this."

"Well, but I mean, it's like when the Dragon's Hoarders were attacking the Manor, and I came in time to stop them from doing any damage," Harry said, looking back and forth between Draco and Severus. Draco stood up with his hand on his wand. "You don't want other people to suffer because I'm not there, do you?"

"I could contemplate with calmness the suffering of people I've never met, except that it matters to you," Draco said. "So why don't we go with you? That way, we can fight them all together."

"But I don't want you hurt," Harry said, and bristled at the thought of it.

Severus gently put a hand beneath his chin and tilted it up. "Then why can you not understand how we feel?" he whispered. "That we care for you and do not wish to see you hurt, either?"

Harry stared at him with his mouth slightly open, and didn't close it even when he felt Draco move in behind him and loop his arms gently around Harry's chest. Then he groaned and let his head collapse back against Draco's neck. "I really am an idiot."

"No," Draco whispered into his ear. "Only inexperienced in the ways of being with other people. Let us come with you."

Harry nodded once, and then waited for Draco and Severus to gather their wands. His heart was hammering the way it usually did before he went into one of these battles, but he knew it was as much joy as adrenaline this time.

We really are together. That's what this really means.

The house-elves brought his cloak then, and he hurried towards the nearest door that would let him Apparate from the Manor, Severus and Draco discussing battle tactics beside him.

I think that always having them beside me sounds like a bloody good idea, right now.

The End