Title: Ashborn

Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters; I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

Warnings: AU starting from the end of HBP (DH never happened). Violence, gore, sex, heavy angst, mind control, people being bastards.

Pairings: Snape/Draco, Draco/OFC, and Harry/Ginny; eventual Snape/Harry/Draco.

Rating: R

Summary: AU. Harry Potter becomes a hostage to the force called the Ashborn, risen from the ashes of Voldemort's Death Eaters, led by Severus Snape. In return for an Unbreakable Vow that Harry won't try to escape, Snape swears a Vow not to start a new war. Unwillingly, uneasily, Harry is caught up in the new life that Snape, Draco, and the Ashborn are creating.

Author's Notes: This will most likely be a very long story, unfolding at a leisurely pace and irregularly updated, though I'm going to try to keep to a schedule of once every week (Monday). Chapters will also vary in length. And this is a pretty dark fic as well as threesome fic, so please don't read it if that bothers you.

Ashborn

Chapter One-An Exchange of Hostages

This is the way the world ends, Harry thought.

They were sitting in a tiny, cramped room, on one side of a long wooden table, waiting for the Ashborn representatives to appear. Above, outside, the spring sun shone and the clouds skittered this way and that, tossed by a restless wind.

Not here.

The single candle was the only light that they had. Some of the people gathered behind him had lit their wands, of course, but Harry faced the tunnel that the Ashborn would come marching out of, so he couldn't see them. He preferred to stare at the candle, anyway. It reflected less desperation.

Ron and Hermione stood at his shoulders. Sometimes Hermione touched him; sometimes she wrung her hands. She had cried, earlier, but all the tears were gone now. Ron leaned solidly, strongly, warmly against Harry's back. At the moment, it felt as if he always would.

Not true, of course.

Finally, Harry heard the sound of footfalls. He nodded to Ron and Hermione, and they tensed sympathetically behind him. Harry leaned back further, so that he could get more of their support.

It was unreal to think that, in a short time, he might never be permitted to see them again.

Then don't think that way, Harry scolded himself, and kept his gaze as neutral as possible, doing no more than nodding when the Ashborn began to file into the room.

The first of them were large, burly wizards who obviously served as bodyguards. They wore thick grey robes of toughened centaur hide, swirling around them as they took up places on either side of the door and began casting spells. Ron shifted against him in a way that Harry knew meant he was reaching for his wand, but he shook his head and clasped Ron's wrist, hard. The Ashborn had made a promise, or rather their leaders had. Harry didn't think they would change their minds now, when they'd come so far into hostile territory.

Although knowing some of them...

But that was the point. Harry didn't know them, anymore, not even the ones who had once been Death Eaters. They had changed. They followed systematic, cold plans that were simply demonstrations of power, destroying property but harming no one. They had done that three times-destroying every building in Hogsmeade; burning the Ministry records without alerting anyone a fire was going; Vanishing an entire wing of Hogwarts-before they had revealed themselves as the organized group they were. It had been meant to impress with power, not pursue some lunatic agenda like the one Voldemort had had.

And Harry didn't know their leader, either, however familiar the name was.

After the initial guards came another rank, tall men and women in robes of a slightly paler grey with black collars that glowed like necklaces of onyx. They didn't carry their wands openly. Given what Harry knew about their abilities in Occlumency and Legilimency, they had no need.

"Shite," Ron hissed.

"What?" Harry followed the motion of his pointing finger to one of them, a woman on the end with heavy dark hair coiled neatly at the nape of her neck. Her eyes watched them with no more feeling than a lizard's. Harry frowned, seeing something almost familiar in the shape of her face.

And he got it, a moment later. This was Bellatrix Lestrange. Bellatrix Lestrange sane.

"Shite," he said back, and swallowed. Ron was practically draped over him, now, but none of the Ashborn already in the room made any comment on it. The man who came through the door in the next instant did.

"Unable to stand on your own without your pet Weasel, Potter?"

Harry nodded grimly. This was one of the men he had expected, who had revealed their names and their faces shortly after the Ashborn's three attacks. One of the two who had fled on the night the war proper started and whom Harry had thought dead or out of England long since.

"Malfoy," he said. "As you can see, I'm sitting. Try to be more observant next time."

It had been a long, long time-almost three years-since Draco had felt a spark of the incandescent fury that Potter had once been able to light in him. For a moment, he held still and savored it, fanning the flames with a few light thoughts as they traveled through his chest.

Then he dismissed them with a chuckle and sat down in one of the two chairs across from Potter. "You're right," he said. "I will try."

Potter glared at him. He was always glaring, Draco thought, or grinning. His face seemed made for nothing else. He was taller than he had been, though he would never be as tall as Draco, and his hair curled so savagely around a pale face that Draco wouldn't have been surprised if he ran through woods to get here. The green eyes were a hawk's. Draco told himself to remember that. Potter had ceased being prey during the long hunt after Voldemort's Horcruxes.

That was all right. Draco had been a hunter for longer than he had. And he had a fellow hunter who protected him and stood behind him in a way that none of Potter's friends could, simply because they were lesser than he was. Severus would never be lesser than Draco.

"Where's Snape?" Potter asked, and his voice was guttural. He shifted uneasily in his seat. "I thought he was supposed to be here."

"Oh, he will be here," Draco said, mentally sneering at Potter for being unable to sit through one minute of waiting. But because he didn't want to start a fight yet-if everything went right, then Potter would be with them for a very long time-he kept the sneer mental only. "He had to stop and speak to several of the Ashborn who don't like him entering a concealed and contained space like this."

Potter frowned and looked at the guards, but said nothing. Perhaps he had learned to keep some of the drivel inside his mouth. Draco approved.

The shadows moved at the mouth of the tunnel, but Draco didn't need that to sense Severus's approach. He had already turned to face him thanks to the soft chime around his throat.

Severus swept into the room the way he had once swept into the Potions classroom. Alone of the wizards in the room, he wore unrelieved black, without an ash-grey band on the collar. He carried his wand openly in his hand, but laid it on the table between him and Potter before sitting.

Weasley stared at the wand as if he wanted to seize it. Potter clasped his hands and stared at Severus with a deep, bleak attention that he hadn't given Draco. Draco considered whether he should be insulted, and then shook his head. Severus was the leader, after all.

"Potter." Severus spoke with a slower, deeper tone than any he had used when Potter and his Weasels knew him, and Draco saw Potter sit up, his eyes alight. "You have come prepared to do as I asked?"

Before Potter could answer, Weasley leaned down to him and hissed in his ear, "Don't do it, Harry!"

"We can find some other way," Granger said. She stood so still that Draco could have overlooked her, but the hair put paid to any chance he would do that. She had the gleam of tears on one cheek. "We can fight them."

Severus smiled. Draco leaned nearer to him, and waited.

"No, we can't," Potter snapped, reaching out as if he wanted to press both Weasley and Granger flat to the table and make them shut up. But he only rested his hands on his friends' heads and gazed soulfully into their eyes. "You know as well as I do that we have no choice about this. I'm not going to plunge the wizarding world into another war just because I want my freedom. You can't choose me over everyone else," he added, staring hard at Granger as she opened her mouth. "I won't let you. This is a small price compared to what they could be asking."

This time, Severus shared the smile with Draco. Draco nodded back. That's five Galleons I owe him. Potter has matured a bit, it seems.

"Harry, I wish," Granger said, and then bowed her head and said nothing.

"What if they torture you, mate?" Weasley asked with a shrill note in his voice. "You can't tell me that you would prefer years of being tortured and healed again to a war that you already know how to fight!" He swing to face Draco, his hand openly on his wand. The Ashborn guards swayed forwards one pace, all at once.

Severus held up his hand. The guards swayed back to the wall again.

"I see no need for this," Severus said, his voice dropping lower still. "Potter will live. I no longer bear the grudges of the past."

I have no intention of making him a martyr that his friends and the useless Ministry can then drum up fire and war to avenge, he had told Draco in the silence of their private chamber before they came here. Draco had nodded so that Severus could feel his chin cutting into his shoulder, and then bent down and given Severus other things to think about.

Potter, now, just chopped his head and his hand down both at once. Weasley jumped and put his wand away as if from a scolding. He whispered one more word to Potter, but whatever it was just made Potter turn in his seat to embrace him, instead of rebelling against fate. Draco closed his eyes so that he wouldn't have to watch.

Severus had the paper-thin sort of smile again. He tapped his wand when Potter and Weasley were done with their hug and said, "I assume that you have chosen a Bonder, Potter?"

"Hermione." Potter pulled out his own wand and held it towards Severus. His gaze remained direct, and although he still touched his best friends, he no longer looked at them. "And you'll take the Vow first."

"As I agreed," Severus said, only a faint blink of his eyes showing how bored he was. "Very well. Consider the wording of these vows carefully."

"I already did," said Potter, nudging Draco's estimation of his intelligence up to two out of ten. "First, you'll promise to launch no physical, magical, spiritual, or potions-driven attack on the wizarding world as long as they leave the Ashborn alone, and that goes for all the Ashborn."

"I agree," Severus said at once.

Potter drew back, wrongfooted.

Draco smirked into his hand. Potter did not understand that the Ashborn moved like a single body, of which Severus was the mind.

"Er, right," Potter said. He glanced once at Granger, then leaned forwards. "Second, you swear not to instigate any of those kind of attacks on anyone else."

"Agreed," Severus responded. His lip curled briefly; then he smoothed out his face again. Draco pushed his hand into Severus's arm beneath the table, and felt Severus's hand turn up to clasp his.

"Third, if you come up with another method of attack not covered by these terms, you also swear not to use it against anyone as long as they leave the Ashborn alone."

Draco raised an eyebrow. Very well, three out of ten.

"Agreed," Severus said. He looked at Potter, who stared searchingly back at him, as if looking for the reason that Severus would want to be leader of the Ashborn in the first place, before reaching out and taking his hand. Granger picked up her wand, prepared to serve as Bonder.

Potter's hand was clammy, and callused. They were calluses that came from the grip of a wand, Severus thought. He did not remember Potter having them in Hogwarts. He also would not have thought that Potter would have wielded his wand often enough to acquire them in the past few years.

Do not judge by appearances, he told himself, an old lesson that he absorbed a bit more of each time it was reiterated, and locked his eyes on Potter's face. Potter immediately looked a little aside and began to recite the vows again in a mechanical voice, while fire twined from Granger's wand about their hands.

Severus let his fingers flex, testing the boy's grip. Potter didn't react. Severus added the information to his slender store of facts about the new Potter.

When the vows had finished, Potter looked at him without releasing his hand and said, "So. What did you want from me?"

For these fools to obey you, Severus thought, but he knew that he couldn't count on that. It was the reason for the clause in his own vows that said he was free to attack if some of these idiots attacked him. "First, you will agree that you will make no attempt to harm any of the Ashborn," he said, "by potions, magic, or any other method."

"Am I allowed self-defense?" Potter had acquired the ability to look at Severus without blinking, which Severus found disconcerting. But it was a third fact, and he placed it with the others.

"Unless they attack you, of course," Severus said.

A brief tremor ran through Potter's hand at that, but his nod and his words were both clipped. "Fine."

Severus waited a moment. The room grew smoky with tension. Weasley strained against the tether of Potter's will, one hand trembling on his wand. Granger didn't move. Potter waited.

Severus said, "Second, you will agree not to attempt escape by any physical or magical method."

A faint smile on Potter's face. "Yes," he said.

"Third," Severus continued, "you will not instigate a rebellion by any means, magical, physical, or otherwise, among the Ashborn or among your own people." The clause relating to the Ashborn was unnecessary in reality, but needed in theory, and it simply caused Potter to nod again.

Severus paused one more time, revising the vows in his head. He had thought them over carefully when he made them, and discussed them with his inner circle of advisers and with Draco, but there was no reason to assume that they were perfect. In Severus's view, imperfections in important things came from confidence rather than doubt.

But he could think of nothing else that he would care if Potter did. He might take up chess, or spend the rest of his life flying about on his broom. He was important not for the flesh-and-blood body that his spirit traveled in, but for what he meant to others. Caged away, the suffering, noble martyr for his people, he would inspire a brief passel of romantic dreams, and nothing more dangerous.

"Very well," he said, and once more Granger acted as their Bonder, this time with her audible sobbing as background. Potter shifted so that his right side was nearer to her, Severus noticed. He did not touch her or speak, but repeated his own vows in a voice like hammer blows. He winced as they finished, though. Severus knew why. Unless one had undertaken an Unbreakable Vow before, the sudden weight of an iron collar on the shoulders and neck was always shocking.

"Ready?" Draco was on his feet already, hovering and glancing back and forth between them. Severus raised a single brow, and Draco flushed and plopped back into his chair.

"Yes," Potter said. He rose to his feet and turned back to his friends, vanishing behind a skillfully cast wall of silence. Severus rose to his feet and carefully tested the bonds of the new Vow. He thought they would become tolerable, in time.

After all, this was the only time he had ever made the Vow of his own free will.

"Harry, please, Harry, you can't," Hermione said, over and over again, her words like rainwater on stone. Harry bowed his head until his hair touched her throat, and said nothing. He had said it all already.

"He left a gap," Ron whispered. "The one he said you would. You can still communicate with us, Harry."

"He doesn't care about that as long as I don't use it to struggle against him," Harry said. "And I'm not going to. The Vow would kill me. And I do still want to live."

Is that wrong? he wondered. Should I want to fall nobly and die while I still can, fighting for the wizarding world's freedom?

But he had come too far for that. The arguments with his friends had all been fought; the desperate ideas and wild plans for alternatives had been come up with, then crushed by knowledge of what the Ashborn really were. Harry knew, if they didn't, that he had won the war against Voldemort by luck and by love. Neither method would work here. Snape had no Horcruxes.

I can be a sacrifice, but not sacrificed, he thought, and squeezed Ron's arm. "You'll hear from me again," he promised, since Ron looked almost ready to cry. "And maybe he'll permit visits in a while."

"They," Hermione said unexpectedly.

Harry turned to her, blinking. "What?"

"They." Hermione had been watching the Ashborn, Harry realized, while he and Ron were talking, and she turned back to them now with a cool light in her eyes. "Snape's the leader, but I think Malfoy is important, too. You can see it in the way that he leans close to Snape and touches him."

Harry felt a blast of purely strategic frustration. How was he going to survive and make decisions about what should come next in the war without Hermione beside him? He wasn't as good as she was at reading people.

And then he caught himself, and shook his head with a wry smile. He ought to have remembered. His days of war and leadership were both over. He might have some need for her skills in prison, but he would just have to hone them on his own, and he would use them for different purposes.

"I'll remember, and try not to offend him," he said, gripping Hermione's arm hard. "Keep yourself safe."

Hermione nodded, eyes enormous and sad, and then sank down on the chair that had been his before. Harry leaned in and kissed her cheek, then turned and gripped Ron's hand. His face was the color of Ashborn robes.

"Take-take care of yourself, mate," he choked out. Harry pounded him twice on the back and then stepped towards Snape and Malfoy. If they stayed here much longer, he knew that Ron would try to fight, and that wasn't something he could risk.

"All right," he told Snape and Malfoy. "I'm ready." He reached down and tapped his pocket, making sure that he still had his wand and his shrunken trunk of possessions: his Invisibility Cloak, his picture album, his broomstick, and Hedwig's cage, along with some unimportant clothes. Hedwig herself circled over this underground shelter that had belonged to the Order of the Phoenix, awaiting the moment when he went to the prison.

"You have nothing else to take with you?" Malfoy scanned him from head to foot, tilting to one side.

"No," Harry answered, and walked towards them, assuming they would leave by the tunnel they had come in by.

The Ashborn guards stirred, and Bellatrix raised her wand. Harry halted and looked at them. "Didn't they hear me swear a Vow not to harm them?" he asked Snape. "I would have thought their ears weren't decorations."

Snape's nostrils flared. "They serve me," he said in a voice pounded flat of all emotion. "They grow-nervous-when someone comes near enough to me. You will do best to wait until we are both in the tunnel and a detachment of guards has gone before and after us."

"All right," Harry said, and stood there, waiting.

Malfoy gave him a look of quick wonder before he ducked after Snape. Harry didn't waste a shrug on him, but he wanted to. What, had Malfoy thought he would fight this, kicking and screaming about how unfair it was? Harry never would have agreed to this in the first place if he would only do that. He knew Snape and Malfoy could probably maneuver his friends into attacking the Ashborn and then retaliate against them.

As Snape had said, most of the guards passed into the tunnel after him, and then the one on the end beckoned Harry forwards. Harry stepped into the tunnel, smelling damp, mold, earth. Behind him, a wand planted itself in the middle of his back and never wavered all the time they marched. He knew it would be Bellatrix.

Ron and Hermione were both crying now, from the sound. Harry didn't look back, because he didn't fancy staring into Bellatrix's eyes.

I'm giving you the chance, he thought to his friends. That someone else can think up a way to free our world from the Ashborn, that someone else can do what I failed to do. I've had one war where I was the hero. Now it's time for me to play a different role.

Draco could hardly believe that Potter was real.

He answered like one of the automatons that Severus had created to serve him in his lab. He walked down the tunnel without looking behind him. He had a farewell with his friends that was only tearful on one side. He didn't drag half the world in possessions behind him, not even a Gryffindor scarf looped around his neck.

Draco conjured a mirror in his palm and used it to watch Potter as they walked. Potter never altered his stride or a muscle in his face. He looked as if he were captive already, in a section of his mind.

Draco Vanished the mirror with a flick of his wand when he saw Severus looking at him. Severus twitched his head towards Potter, and Draco nodded. Severus simply looked away.

Draco understood. Potter was a necessary condition of this treaty; free, he could cause too much trouble. Severus didn't care about him other than that.

But Severus wanted to establish a world where he would never have to do anything but brew again, where the Ashborn would run themselves. Draco knew that, and admired it as a worthy goal. It didn't mean that he wanted to wake up one day and find themselves among the smoldering ruins of that world, as was all too likely to happen where Potter was involved.

Draco would keep an eye on Potter.

Severus felt the walls drop away from him as he stepped back into his lab. His house was a large one, attached to Ash House-it would be stupid for it not to be-but solely with a narrow tunnel of wizardspace. Only a few guards remained with him, and none inside the doors.

Severus had shown them the tested wards. They accepted that he would be safe here.

He turned. Bellatrix still hovered behind, mind trembling through her Mark like a dog on a leash. Severus brushed his hand over his own quiescent Dark Mark and felt her settle into a more languid mental posture.

"You will not hurt Potter," he told her. "You will see that he has food, clothing, and all the other things he needs to live here. And you will leave me alone for five hours until dinner. Knock three times, pause, and knock twice again."

"My lord," Bellatrix said, and went away. The channel between him and her swirled with cold grey clouds, but no more than that. Severus nodded to her retreating back and shut the door. Other than brewing a few potions that he had sent into the wider world, where they had made his reputation and his Galleons, breaking her to heel was the achievement he was proudest of in the last few years.

He laid his hands on the cauldron he had started that morning, before they left for the meeting with Potter, and shut his eyes. The cold metal warmed under his touch, gradually, for a count of two hundred heartbeats. Severus finished the count, removed the spell he had cast on the cauldron that had frozen the arc of the potion inside in mid-leap, and moved aside as it nearly splashed his face.

A pinch of salt was the next ingredient. Severus cast it in and watched as it sifted down into the surface of the potion. The next leap was cut short, and a dark splotch like a sunburst formed beneath the last drifting grain. Severus cast in three leaves of rosemary next, and time seemed to shiver and stop as the dark splotch swallowed them whole.

If this worked...

Silver spread across the black patch, rendering it gleaming and pearly. Severus half-bowed his head in homage to his own talent and resumed with bayleaf, unicorn fur, phoenix feather, and fairy dust.

The potion sang around him, the ingredients coming readily to hand, his fingers moving like dancers, his mind clicking from step to step. This was the only thing that was real.

And it was the only time that he was.

Harry looked around the rooms he had been told were his, and nodded. They were low enough, the ceilings only a foot above his head, the walls made of plain and bare black stone. A fireplace along the left wall would keep it warm. The large bed in the center meant he would have to edge around the foot, but at least it was covered with thick green sheets that were likely to be warm, too. Next to the bed was a table, a chair, and a trunk where he could keep his possessions. The door at the side, made of paneled oak set with silver, led to a bathroom, or so Malfoy said.

"What are you laughing at?" Malfoy's voice stung.

Harry shook his head. Malfoy probably thought silver on a bathroom door was appropriate. Harry had to wonder if he'd find a golden loo inside. "Nothing," he said, and set his shrunken trunk down on the bed, along with his wand. Malfoy watched him as if he had a poison sac attached to the holly wand. If only. But that probably fell under either magical or physical attacks. "I presume that I'll be fed a meal in my room for the first night?"

Malfoy stared at him some more, and Harry considered him. Taller, yes, with a more pointed face, yes, and skin that practically shone in the faint light around them, yes. Harry didn't know how the light was produced, and suspected that no one would tell him. Malfoy had hair that shone, too. Harry wondered if he applied glamour charms to himself, started to shrug off the thought as useless, and then kept it. He suspected he'd think about trivialities like that a lot here, where there was so little else to do.

"Yes," Malfoy said at last, sounding as if his mouth was stuffed with cloth. "Bella has the assignment to provide you with food."

Harry nodded. "All right."

Malfoy leaned one shoulder against the doorway. "It doesn't bother you anymore that she killed your godfather?"

"I have to get along with people here for the rest of my life," Harry said. "Complaining about something as small as that isn't the way to do it."

If anything, Malfoy looked more offended by honesty than he had been by Harry refusing to tell him what he had been thinking, or by questions. He leaned nearer and hissed, "If you think that you can break free and lead the great revolt that will free your friends from the Ashborn, Potter, you should definitely think again."

Harry snorted. "I know. All of them are loyal to Snape, they would never be loyal to me, and I would need loyalists around me if I was going to do something as insane as challenging people who hold an Unbreakable Vow over my head."

Malfoy loomed closer. Harry felt his body tighten and then loosen, and he saw the several ways that he could spring at Malfoy and knock him off-balance in an instant, bearing him to the floor and choking him. Harry exhaled hard in irritation and then held still, weathering the battle-senses that beat inside him like hawks in a cage. The only good thing about being a hostage with a Vow that made it impossible for him to lift a hand against anyone except in self-defense, he thought, was that he wouldn't be able to indulge these reactions. Perhaps they would go away on their own after a time. Perhaps he would cease to start awake at every little sound, and to have nightmares because of a single intense stare, and to notice all the ways that he could escape a room when he walked into it.

Perhaps. Harry wasn't holding out much faith in that transformation.

"You could be a bit more humble," Malfoy said. "That wouldn't go at all amiss."

"I'll keep that in mind." Harry yawned. The weight of the day pressed down on him, and the sheets on the bed looked comfortable enough, if not made of silk. He kicked off his boots and turned to burrow under them.

"I'm standing right in the room with you, Potter!" Malfoy's voice had risen a note towards what Harry thought of as its natural falsetto.

"Don't worry," Harry muttered, already plumping his head on the pillow and closing his eyes. "I won't take off my clothes in front of you and violate your chastity."

Malfoy shut the door hard enough that Harry heard something break. He snorted into the pillow that cushioned his nose and shook his head.

He had endured a childhood of shutting up with the Dursleys, he had reasoned with himself before he agreed to become a hostage. He had hoped that he'd escaped it forever when he went to Hogwarts, but obviously that wasn't true, and he shouldn't have hoped it was in the first place. Hope made you weak, gave you vulnerable places that someone else could try to assault, and led to impossible visions like fighting the Ashborn. Maybe someone would come up with a way, but he was committed, now, and couldn't.

He could endure this. At least he had the promise of regular meals.

And then snorting became snoring, and he ceased to think at all of Ashborn and Vows for a while.

Draco paced back and forth in his meditation rooms, tempted to kick at the expensive mahogany and ebony furniture. But Severus regularly came into these rooms, and he would stare at such damage. Draco was still trying to prove, at least to himself and the flat stares of the Ashborn, that he was above such emotions, and so he sat down in the nearest chair and tried to concentrate on touching the silk that covered the arms instead.

Potter irritated him effortlessly.

It was that which stirred Draco so. If Potter had shown that he was sweating to think of his insults, if he had fretted and fumed at being caged the way Draco had expected a proud Gryffindor to do, if he had acted like a wild beast or just a Weasley, then Draco would have felt secure in his victory over him.

Instead, Potter nodded a bit and went to sleep in his rooms as though he had expected no better than this.

If Draco had been a leader and a power in the wizarding world and then someone had told him that he had to serve out the rest of his life as a hostage because his "supporters" were too cowardly to figure out an alternative method of coping with the threat, he would have damned them all, said something suitably cutting to be repeated down the generations, and fled with as much money as he could carry. He had accepted, assumed, without thinking, that Potter would be the same.

Severus does say that assumptions will be the death of you.

Now, with the fact that he had failed to anticipate Potter staring him in the face, Draco let his breath out slowly and shook his head. He didn't understand what had happened, but he wouldn't let that fact deter him from trying to understand Potter. He would pick up the shattered pieces and try again from a new angle, and in time he would understand and pin Potter's squirming essence down like a butterfly on a pin.

He was the power among the Ashborn. He understood life here. He wielded several of the guards, whom Severus had assigned to him, like dogs on chains, and he aspired no higher, since the only one who stood above him was Severus, and he knew no one else would treat him half so indulgently.

When he was sure that the fit of temper had passed and resolve taken its place, Draco stood and walked across the room to his major bookshelf, pulling out a scroll in Ancient Runes that he had begun to translate. Its title was Our Customs, Our Culture, Our Future, and it was by an ancestor of his from the maternal line, Argellus Black.

Draco sighed as he opened the book. At some point, someone had dropped it in what might well be a river, and no one had bothered to clean up the runny mess that that turned the runes into. That made his task harder than it already was, given the shaky lines of some of the runes and their abstruse subject matter.

But he wanted to, and in the Ashborn, no one asked him about wasting time unless his orders conflicted with Severus's. Draco sat down on his bed, reached for the writing lap-desk and pieces of parchment that he was already using, and began to work, now and then reaching for a book on interpreting Ancient Runes that he kept always ready to hand.

Severus sat down to dinner with a nod in the direction of the guards who had escorted him and the servers who brought the food out. That was important, he had learned, to keep a small but continuous network of praise moving through his people. It increased their conviction that he valued them and in turn made them more likely to do good work and to get along with the people around them.

It was, of course, possible that Severus was getting less good work than he thought out of them, or missing undercurrents that he would have to smooth out if he wanted to lead a completely undisturbed life. But that was what his absolutely loyal Ashborn, the ones who had once borne the Dark Mark, were for. They would notice discontent before he did and bring it to him.

Dinner that night was a roast in thick gravy, which Severus tasted before the rest of the table got to. The others dining with him were his inner circle of Marked pure-bloods, who thought themselves rulers because they did not lift their wands in menial tasks, and a Ministry representative who looked as if he would faint every time someone coughed. Draco came in late, the scrubbed remains of ink on his fingers and an abstracted expression on his face.

"You have had a productive evening?" Severus asked as Draco settled into the chair beside his. For a moment, Draco started, and then he resumed the calm demeanor and focused look that Severus expected of him. He nodded, spreading his napkin over his lap with a graceful economy of motion.

"I did. I translated six more pages of Black's book." Draco paused to taste the dry white wine that the servers offered him and then continued, in a lower voice, although nothing he said at the moment was not common knowledge among the Ashborn. "Severus, the more I learn, the more work I can see it's going to take. We know almost nothing about our heritage anymore. We've let it all lapse, the Mudbloods have-well, muddied everything. If we want to raise children in a real, true pure-blood culture, then we've got to teach people what they're missing, and we have to show them the glories of the past in a way that will interest them."

Severus nodded and listened, the way that Draco would listen to him speak of potions. In truth, he cared little for the pure-blood world and culture that Draco mourned, dreamed of, and breathed. He had turned to manipulating the Death Eaters after the Dark Lord's death because they were the group that had accepted him, and the one that he did not live in the shadows among. If they had been Muggleborns, then Severus would have manipulated them just as easily.

But most of the Muggleborns in the wizarding world were solidly behind Dumbledore and then behind Potter. Severus saw no reason to try his hand with people mostly won over and held by charismatic leadership, rather than sheer power. The pure-bloods understood more of the reality of things, especially once Severus altered their Marks.

"I don't understand Potter."

Severus realized that Draco, with typical Draco impatience, had moved on from the subject he could spill endless floods on and had reached the one where he had a dam and wanted contributions to the stream. Severus ate a bite and found one. "Did you expect to?"

"I didn't expect him to have changed," Draco said briefly. "You told me once that Gryffindors never do that."

Severus looked at his younger lover, and admired the shine in Draco's eyes before he said, "I can think of little that is more Gryffindor than offering oneself up as a sacrifice, against the protests of one's followers and among the tears of friends."

Draco shook his head. "But he's-tame. He lay down on his bed and went to sleep as if it were no trouble at all! He acted as though he didn't care that he would have to spend the rest of his days a prisoner!"

Draco was causing several of the inner circle to give them glances, and the Ministry ambassador to lean back in his chair. Severus touched his jaw in warning. Draco followed his gaze and then swallowed, leaning back as though his muscles had gone languid. Bitter embers still burned in his eyes.

"I don't understand him," he repeated. "And I want to."

He might as well not have added that last bit; Severus recognized the desire in him. Since the end of the war, or rather their part in it, Draco had always wanted to understand everything, as though knowledge could prevent what had happened to his parents. It would, at least, make him feel less helpless, and Severus could recognize the value in that.

But he had never used Draco's tactic in cases where he wanted to know more: asking constant questions, offering random guesses and seeing what his target did in response to them, or making himself annoying until keeping secrets lost its pleasure. Severus would watch for himself, see the knowledge, and secure it. Draco's way simply resulted in more unpleasantness than it was worth.

"You need not understand Potter," Severus said. "He has nothing to do with the goals of the Ashborn."

"He might," Draco said. "What if you decide to use him?"

Severus laughed. He could see all his guards orient on the sound in an instant, but ignored them. The Ministry ambassador's reaction was more interesting, and noted for later reference. "Potter's one use would be in spearheading a revolution," he said. "And I am not interested in using him for such a purpose. We have our revolution, and it is better to brew it in the privacy of our domain than spread outside it."

"Except when we meet someone we think is susceptible to conversion," Draco murmured.

Severus knew the witch he was thinking of, and nodded. "If you think her a viable candidate, speak to her."

Draco's astonished gaze was gratifying. Severus stood and held out a hand to him. Draco accepted it, and under the wide eyes of the Ministry ambassador, they took their way to Severus's rooms.

He pinned Draco against the door once he had him inside and pressed his lips down on his, pressing more and more firmly until Draco gave in with a mingled choke and sigh of surrender, spreading his arms wide.

Brewing was not Severus's only interest. Draco's questions had had at least that lasting effect.

"Food, Potter."

Harry would never have thought he'd notice, but Bellatrix Lestrange's voice seemed oddly flat and deadened without her madness. She simply held out the tray to him, eyes like a snake's, and watched as Harry ate his way steadily through the roast and the small selection of vegetables offered. When Harry looked about for something to drink, she handed him a wooden goblet filled with water, which she left behind on the table next to his bed when she took the tray away.

Harry sat up when she had left and looked about thoughtfully. The food wasn't drugged, he thought, looking at the walls, or they would have blurred and wavered in his vision. The sheets didn't scratch beneath him, or feel as if they would suddenly extend hundreds of little needles and pierce him to death, as he'd once had a nightmare about during the war. The walls didn't sound hollow when he knocked on them, promising no exciting secret passages.

Well, he might as well try as soon as he could-and while he was awake and untortured-to communicate with Ron and Hermione. They would be worried, although by Harry's estimation he hadn't been away from them more than a few hours, and it would be a good test of the loophole that Harry thought Snape had left on purpose.

He opened his door and checked just to be sure no guard was there, then went close to a wall, thought of a snake, and asked in Parseltongue, "Is anyone here?"

Silence for so long that Harry thought his gamble had failed. Then a scratchy voice answered, "I smell food."

Harry smiled and stepped across to the table and the small scraps of meat he had concealed there. As closely as Bellatrix had watched him, he had been cleverer; he'd had years of eating from the Dursleys' table only what he could slip into his hand. He picked them up, spelled off the gravy, and carried them back over to the wall. "Yours, if you will do a small service for me." The word "service" came out something like "food-bargain," which Harry actually preferred to some other things it could have been. As long as he could feed a snake, he thought he could persuade it to carry messages for him.

The slender nose of a bright green serpent extended from the crack in the wall. Harry didn't know the species, but he didn't think it was native to Britain. Probably something brought over in a shipment of exotic Potions ingredients, or come to eat those exotic ingredients. When it crawled out onto his arm and extended a tongue to touch the scraps, Harry saw it was a viper.

He still wasn't worried, although he became a bit more alert. He thought he could hit the snake with a spell before it bit him.

"What is the service?" The snake edged closer to the food, but Harry closed his fingers warningly around it and waited until the bright, flat eyes swung reluctantly back to him. He had been wrong, Harry thought. They had more life than Bellatrix's.

"Carry a small thing I will give you to a place I will give you."

The snake considered that, tongue darting again and again at Harry's closed hand. "I do not know the wide-place," it said finally. "I have seen the stone-place. I do not know the directions for food or hiding."

"I will use power to bring you to a particular place in the wide-place," Harry promised.

"What power?"

"The same power that lets me speak to you."

"Then I agree."

Harry opened his hand and let the snake feed on the scraps, then went over and took out the letter he had written already, before he even got here, from his trunk. It said such vague things as he had thought they would want to hear: that he was being treated well, that Snape was keeping his word, and that the place they had given him was bearable. Harry had been sure that would be true no matter what happened. Anything was bearable, next to the Dursleys.

Hatred he had weathered, he thought, as he shrank the paper and then folded it, hopefully to a size that wouldn't make it simply slip down the viper's throat. Indifference was almost a gift next to it.

When the viper had taken the paper in its mouth and Harry had Apparated it away, he lay back down on the bed. He would need a diversion other than sleeping soon, he thought, because he would get bored, but for now, he just wanted to try and catch up on the rest he had missed during the war. He closed his eyes and let darkness sweep over him.

Something that's probably going to become very familiar, with the Ashborn.