Chasing Moonbeams. Ch12.
Jul. 31st, 2019 02:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pekelekeTitle: Chasing Moonbeams.
Author: pekeleke
Pairing(s): Severus Snape/Harry Potter
Rating: NC-17, eventually.
Length: 82K+
Warnings: Extremely Slow burn. Pre-slash to slash. Enemies to friends to lovers. Pinning!Harry. Oblivious!Severus. Implied Bottom!Severus. EWE.
Disclaimer: Don't own these characters. I make no profit from writing fanfiction.
Summary: “Really?” Harry beams, green eyes wide and full of wonder. “You’re going to let me snog you to my heart’s content?”
Chapter 12.
Severus is in a fantastic mood when he steps out of the Floo’s green-tinged flames and lands on the expensive hearthrug that graces Blaise Zabini’s exquisite business office. Spotting his former student, who seats behind his elegant desk, Severus strides forward, right hand already extended in friendly greeting. The contained roar of the Floo activating once again echoes around the room and a moment later Draco’s cheerful “Hey, Blaise!” manages to greet their host a mere second ahead of Severus’s more formal attempt.
“Mr. Zabini,” Severus says, voice soft with approval at the confidence displayed by his former student’s firm handshake. “You look well.”
“Thank you, Sir. You look well too. Better than I expected. I was devastated to hear you were hurt. I trust you've got a clean bill of health?”
“He’s fine Blaise. There’s no reason to fret.” Draco pipes up as he, too, comes forward. “Haven’t you heard? The great Emille Bollingfrog himself took over Severus’s case. Our grumpy old bat won’t suffer a single side effect related to the Fae Bone Crushers he endured.”
“Your grumpy old bat can hear you, Draco.” Severus points out dryly.
“Thank Merlin!” Blaise exhales with relief, not-so-subtly inserting himself into the conversation before Severus can manage to berate his brat of a godson further. Both youths proceed to grin stupidly at each other, disproportionately proud of so small a victory, and Severus doesn’t begrudge it. They’ve always been like brothers, these two. Severus has the feeling that they always will be.
“Are the two of you done eyeing each other like a pair of lovesick Hufflepuffs?”
“Ewww! There’s no need to be mean, professor. You know better than anyone that my flawed heterosexual heart could never satisfy Draco’s, just like his thoroughly homosexual one could never satisfy mine.”
“Trust me, Mr. Zabini, I thank Merlin daily for that small mercy. I shudder to imagine what sort of shenanigans the two of you would get into if you were, literally, joined at the hip.”
“See?” Draco laughs, stepping close enough to embrace his former dorm-mate warmly. “He’s right as rain. Spent most of last evening composing the foulest howler I’ve heard in a while in retaliation to the last letter father sent to mother.”
“Oh, no.” Blaise bursts out laughing. “Did the letter have anything to do with the professor's ‘outrageous lack of courtesy in putting himself in harm’s way?’”
“How do you kno—?
“Please do not embarrass either yourself or your former Hogwarts’ house by finishing that particular question, Draco. It’s evident that young Goyle must have visited Mr. Zabini recently, and repeated verbatim the description of your father’s latest rant as his own sire heard it.”
“Father isn’t the sort of man who keeps his displeasure to himself.” Draco agrees. “It makes perfect sense that he vented his frustrations to old Goyle. They’re cellmates after all.”
“Did you rip dear old Lucius a new one in that howler of yours, Sir?”
“Blaise!”
“Oh, shush, Dray. The way Greg’s dad put it, Lucius was frothing at the mouth when he realized the professor could have died before Lucius makes it out of Azkaban and delivers that punch he’s been dreaming about ever since Snape decked him at the end of the Malfoy trials. I can’t imagine any letter your father wrote in that sort of mood being particularly pleasant. He shouldn’t have sent such a thing to your mother, but she won’t scold him for it and neither will you. Thus the most unpleasant job in the Malfoy household falls, once again, to your godfather.”
“There was no unpleasant task to fulfill, Blaise. Nobody asked Severus to intervene. Father was behaving like a child, so Mother and I were planning to ignore him.”
“He’d have sent more abuse. This time directed at the two of you instead, and you know it. Your dad doesn’t take dismissal lightly.” Blaise says softly.
“Lucius’s tiresome need to be reassured that he’s neither being dismissed nor forgotten should have been soothed by the howler I sent him. I sincerely hope his delicate ears turned an unpleasant shade of purple before falling off altogether after listening to the liberating amount of foul language I employed to describe my thoughts on his lack of manners towards his wife and child.”
“Good for you, Sir.”
“Don’t encourage him, please,” Draco begs Blaise with a tired sigh. “Father won’t react well to that howler, and Severus here is too busy enjoying his self-satisfaction over it, to care that for every antagonistic exchange he shares with my sire, he’s adding one more line to the long list of grievances he’d be expected to atone for when Father finally walks out of Azkaban.”
“That’s precisely it, Draco: Lucius will walk out. Anything that idiot needs to rile him into surviving what’s left of his sentence, I’ll gladly provide. I draw the line at allowing either you or your mother to shoulder the brunt of your father’s frustrations, and he should have drawn that line too.” Severus explains, even though he’s sure Draco already knows this.
Draco smiles wanly. “Father won’t like the world he’ll be released into.”
“None of us do,” Severus says, wishing he were the kind of man who’d offer the boy an uplifting platitude to ease the hurt of the moment and knowing he isn’t. Lying to those he cares about has never been his style.
“Well. We’ve got plenty of time to change it.” Young Zabini has no trouble offering the corny, hopeful, white lie Severus cannot voice. “Four years should be long enough, especially now. A little bird told me last night that you, my dear professor, have decided to cultivate a certain savior’s friendship for the benefit of us all.”
“That’s making the rounds fast.” Severus sighs.
“Well, it should.” Blaise points out. “It’s the best news I’ve heard in months.”
“It’s also probably a doomed attempt. I’ve recently realized I may not be the best candidate for that particular task.”
“How recent is this realization, godfather? You sounded confident enough in the letter you sent me a few days ago.”
“I’ve encountered Potter twice since I left Hogwarts and— our interactions have been difficult.”
“Difficult, how?” Blaise asks, plainly worried. “I know for a fact that Potter is interested in calling a truce with you. If you can’t befriend the Boy Who Lived, none of us can.”
“I’m not as charming as you or Draco, Blaise. I can’t put up with bullshit the way Theo does. I don’t thrive in the face of awkward conversations like Pansy, or have Daphne’s sympathetic ear.”
“Does Potter want any of that? Because he’d be a pretty poor judge of character indeed if it turns out that’s the sort of thing he’s looking for and he’s fixated on you, Severus.” Draco says, and promptly turns an entertaining shade of pink when Blaise smacks him upside the head.
“Way to go, Dray. Why don’t you go ahead and destroy the non-existent confidence of our only chance of sweet-talking Potter into being fair to us some more, eh?”
“Hey! I wasn’t trying to dishearten him,” Draco protests loudly, “I was aiming for reassurance.”
“Well. You failed.” Blaise snaps back before taking a deep, grounding, breath. “Alcohol. We need alcohol. This conversation is going to suck balls otherwise.”
“I suspect this conversation will ‘suck balls,’ either way, Mr. Zabini. Unfortunately, it’s barely one thirty in the afternoon, which is a most inappropriate time for consuming hard liqueur, and I refuse to head over to Ollivander’s smelling like a distillery. I also have an unavoidable engagement around five, which means we can’t indulge afterward, either. There are certain adult patterns of behavior that five-year-old children shouldn’t be privy to.”
“Fair enough, Sir. Let’s agree to ignore Dray’s unhelpful contributions to the topic so far. He knows not what he’s talking about, the poor, deluded soul.”
“And you do?” Draco challenges, pouting like the brat he used to be. Like the brat he still is sometimes, if Severus is honest.
“I’m telling you, man. I own the most stylish fucking club in London’s Magical Quarter, don’t I? None of those Gryffindor goody-two-shoes can do better, so they’re forced to come over to the dark side in search of entertainment. They may come in reluctantly at first, but eventually they cave to their need to party like proper twenty-somethings instead of like geriatric gits who still believe Celestina Warbeck is all the rage.”
“And your point is?” Draco demands, thoroughly unimpressed with Blaise’s argument so far. Severus looks between the two of them, catches sight of their equally stubborn expressions and defensively crossed arms, and barely manages to resist rolling his eyes. This is going to take a while, so he might as well sit down. Blaise’s office happens to have excellent fireside chairs.
“My point is that the Gryffindors come in, all circumspect-like, and then drink like bloody fishes. Specially Finnegan. Weasley isn’t a shy lamb, either. And Potter— what a joke! Potter is a lightweight. The man can’t hold his liquor at all. They say things, you know? Loads of things. And I hear all of them.”
“What sort of things?” Severus asks, intrigued despite himself.
“Well, for starters, Potter asks a hell of a lot after you, Sir.”
“He asks after me?” Severus repeats, startled.
“Yes.”
“Not about me?”
“Nope. Potter definitely asks after you.”
“Why would Potter—?” Draco brings his spluttered question to a stop before he finishes asking it, and voices a more suspicious one instead. “Who the hell does he ask? It’s not like any of us spends much time at the club during opening hours. Being a friend of the proprietor has it’s advantages when it comes to arranging private parties.”
“I’m starting to believe it’d be best for us in the long run to mingle more than we do, Dray.”
Draco goggles. “Are you mad? The last time I showed up in Diagon Alley, a pimply-faced teenager spat on my Russian mink coat after trying to hex me with boils. Someone cast the Corn-Flaked Skin Jinx on poor Pansy just two days ago while she stood in broad daylight on the steps of Gringotts. The Aurors didn’t even bother to show up. The fucking goblins didn’t lift a finger. And there was not a single good samaritan among the crowd of people who stood there, gaping at my best friend, and laughing at her hysterics. I’m not ‘mingling’ anywhere until someone bloody shows some fucking care for my goddamned safety and that of my loved ones, Blaise.”
“I hear you, Dray. But I’m starting to think we’ve been going about this the wrong way. Isolating ourselves is not the answer. Potter is. And he likes to come here. All his friends do. So at least some of us should make the effort of being here openly too.”
“And who shall we throw to the lions? Me? Potter hates my fucking guts. Pansy? I don’t think so. Daphne? Merlin! They’ll eat her for breakfast.”
“We give them the professor. I’m telling you, man, Severus is our only way in. I become the center of Potter’s undivided attention as soon as I mention him in casual conversation. The savior can’t get enough of your godfather.”
“I find that hard to believe.” Severus decides to interject. “Potter has always despised me. I was the bane of his existence while he was at Hogwarts. I heard him say so just yesterday evening.”
“I assure you, Sir. He’s changed his mind. He’s always fishing for news about you.”
“And what, precisely, have you told him?” Draco demands, sinking down onto the fireside chair opposite Severus’s.
“Not much. I throw him a bone or two here and there. Bring up Severus’s plans to dine with you or his latest rant about low-quality ingredients every time it looks like the savior’s patronage of this fair establishment is wavering. He is interested, and I want to keep him coming back. I also have complete control of the small amount of information that makes its way to Potter. It’s a win-win situation for everyone involved.”
“I suppose that’s wise.” Severus agrees with the idea on principle. “Although I may change my mind if I ever discover that you’ve shared anything more personal than that. Neither my day to day plans nor the content of the correspondence I exchange with you are meant for public consumption, Mr. Zabini. A less rational man would consider your actions an unforgivable betrayal of trust.”
Blaise has the decency to look contrite. “I’m sorry. I should have mentioned this to you, professor. But I honestly think it’s all harmless curiosity on Potter’s part. He doesn’t see you much despite being on patrol in your neighborhood. It’s been driving him batty for a while.”
“Ah, yes. He thinks me a hermit. One of those blokes who, and I quote, ‘spends all his time at home pottering around with herbs and things.’”
As soon as he hears that, Draco, the fiend, explodes in loud peals of incredulous laughter. Blaise manages to hold onto his poise by the skin of his teeth, but his dark gaze widens so much, and he bites his bottom lip so hard, that Severus can plainly see the hysterical giggles he’s doing his best to swallow anyway so he may as well have joined Draco instead of bothering to whisper, “I can’t believe Potter said that to your face, Sir.”
“Oh, I can. I so can. Saint Potter is such a fucking idiot.” Draco manages to hiccup between two breathless gasps of gleeful mirth. Severus is glad that the gloomy turn their conversation was taking has shattered. He can’t make much sense of Potter’s seemingly random interest in him, but he is willing to trust Blaise’s opinion on the matter. The boy is the only one among them with first-hand information, after all.
“So neither of you think it a good idea to arrange for Theo to approach Potter instead of me? Mr. Nott is charming and young. He’s the only Slytherin of his generation who managed to gain employment within the Ministry. Moreover, Theo has no direct link to the death eaters, and the patience of a saint. He also happens to harbor a rather puzzling infatuation for one Ginevra Weasley when one considers that Mr. Nott is such a sensible, studious soul while Mrs. Weasley is nothing of the sort.”
“Well, at least she is single.” Blaise points out. “Her affair with Thomas ended about six months ago, and she’s sworn off males for the time being. Or so she promised the bottom of her cocktail-glass the last time she was here. She’s signed with the Harpies this season, and they’re on track to end the league in the top five.”
“Would she go for Theo, though?”
“Don’t know, Dray. Maybe. She likes them soulful. Thomas is an artist, after all.”
“Orchestrating an accidental meeting between them may be hard to arrange. They don’t run in the same circles.” Severus hedges.
“That’s were my club comes in, Sir. Everyone runs in that circle.”
“I see.”
“Ginny Weasley will be in town next weekend. I’m sure she’ll drop by at some point. We could—
“I’m not certain we should ask young Theodore to risk his heart thus. He cares for the girl. She could very easily break him, and there’s no guarantee the Weasley chit would become Mr. Nott’s entry-ticket into Potter’s inner circle even if she doesn’t.” Severus cautions, unwilling to risk one of his snakes for so small a chance of success, even though he’s the one who suggested passing the Gryffindor-befriending task onto Theo.
“Ah. No. Just— no. Theo should go ahead and chat the bird up for his own sake, Sir. He’ll never move on otherwise.” Blaise says confidently. “But he’s not our way in. You are. I’m telling you. Potter once mentioned to me that you are his mother’s ‘Ron,’ then he went on and on about how he’d love for his children to grow up around his best friend’s. He wants to build that same connection with you. I don’t care how hard your latest interactions with the savior have been, professor, you must persevere. I know this one thing for certain: you don’t need to charm him. Potter is already hooked. You can do no wrong right now because, as far as he is concerned, you’re his last connection to his mother.”
Next.
Back.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-08-05 07:44 pm (UTC)Another Slytherin 'couple' that's so interesting to see: Blaise and Draco. It's good that they're such friends, and that the Slytherins (at least the ones of that year) are such a tight-knit group. I guess that's only fair - they went through much together, both in the last year at Hogwarts and especially later. And it seems 'poor' Theo might show up, too, at a later time? The way they describe him, he doesn't seem like the typical Slytherin, though. Again, I look forward to seeing more of them. :D
"Come to the dark side - we have cookies." :P Does Blaise know about Star Wars, what do you think?
Nooooooooo! *wails* Ugh.
And where's this bloody wand already?!
(no subject)
Date: 2019-08-06 01:48 pm (UTC)I’m thrilled that you like the friendship between Draco and Blaise. It’s true that the Slytherins are a tight-knit group, and yes, they went through a lot together both before, during, and after the war. LOL. Of course Blaise knows about Star Wars. And Star Trek, Dr. Who, and even Marvel. He’s the owner of a club. I bet more than one muggle-born has gotten completely drunk at his place and started babbling muggle references left and right. :)
”You can do no wrong right now because, as far as he is concerned, you’re his last connection to his mother.” Nooooooooo! *wails* Ugh.” LOL. Oh, yes. I’m telling you, the Slytherins may have all the right gossip, but they haven’t put it in the right context yet. They’re oh-so-wrong about what’s really going on here, and they'll be so hilariously shocked when they finally find out! It’ll be hilarious. :D :D :D
Thanks, as always, for taking the time to both read and review another chapter of this fic. Your kind and lovely comment meant the world to me. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2019-08-06 06:38 pm (UTC)Okay, and why did Severus punch him? For being a bad Slytherin?
You're right about Blaise being informed about Muggle culture. I do keep underestimating the Slytherins... I wonder if there might be joint Slytherin outings to the Muggle cinema watching Avengers and gossipping about Muggles and their versuon of Magicians which they call 'superheroes'. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2019-08-07 02:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-08-08 07:29 pm (UTC)(And so much for reading one chapter a day - I'm behind again... I did arrive at my final holiday-destination yesterday but I had the opportunity to watch a live open-air opera, probably the most famous opera of my country. Of course, I couldn't miss that. So I went and it was a wonderful evening (sadly without Harry and Severus). But today my laptop is set up, the internet connection is working, and I can read another chapter! :D )
(no subject)
Date: 2019-08-09 01:14 pm (UTC)Oh! open-air opera... yes. I wouldn't have been able to resist that either. I'm glad you had a wonderful evening. And I sincerely hope that you enjoy your vacation to the fullest. :D :D :D