Title: The Glass of Heart's Desire

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

Pairing: Snape/Harry/Draco

Warnings: Angst, violence, hurt/comfort

Rating: R

Summary: Draco discovers a mirror in the Malfoy vaults at Gringotts that can show the viewer not only their heart's desire, the way that the Mirror of Erised can, but the way to achieve it. In the wake of leaked information on the mirror, thieves attack the Manor, trying to steal it. Harry is in the way to prevent them—and, even if neither Severus nor Draco wanted to offer thanks, this time there are other rewards that Harry might win.

Author's Notes: This is a fic written for darke_wulf, who bid on this fic at fandom_aid. She asked for this threesome, hurt/comfort and submissive Harry. I'm sorry this is so incredibly late; I had real trouble settling on an idea. It should be about 9 chapters. Enjoy!

The Glass of Heart's Desire

Chapter One—Make Some Noise

Harry crouched down in the shade of a bush that was sprawling past the incredibly thick fence around Malfoy Manor and looked sharply back and forth. No, he couldn't see anyone yet. And there was no sound of footsteps on gravel, or sensation of magic appearing nearby, or crack of Apparition.

Harry frowned and rubbed the scar above his left eye. He was starting to wonder if his information had been wrong.

Then came a crack from off to the left, and another, and another, and another, before Harry could move in the direction of the first. Then several more cracks came from the right. Harry cursed softly. He'd lost count, and that was never a good thing.

Well, yes. So my information was right. But maybe I shouldn't have thought I could take on this many Dragons alone.

Harry gave a sharp yank to his own hair. His mind was wandering off down useless paths, and he wanted to prevent that from happening. Whether he should have done it or not, he was here now, and alone.

He remained hidden as he watched the Dragon's Hoarders advance on the wrought-iron gates. All of them had their wands drawn, and their red-and-gold flame masks across their faces. Harry grimaced when he saw them. Unlike the white masks the Death Eaters had used, these would cling and obscure the face, and they had a Sticking Charm on them that could only be removed by the caster. Harry had never yet managed to identify any member of the thieves' ring that he hadn't captured—and they were all under vows to never reveal anything about any of the other members.

"Remember the plan," said the leader, in a muffled voice that Harry couldn't identify from this distance. And the others nodded. Harry held back his curses. Unlike some other villains he'd chased, they never revealed their plans aloud. They always made them first and then went and implemented them.

So he wouldn't know what they were about to do. Well. Advancing on the gates with wands drawn implied a limited number of things. Yes, they might be about to execute something subtle and brilliant, but he really doubted it. He thought it more likely they would apply brute force to hammer the wards down. It was one reason they had brought—he counted, quickly—nine wizards.

Harry half-closed his eyes. He didn't know a lot of magic that would bring down that many people, and some of what he did know, he had promised Hermione and Kingsley never to use again.

But he was the only Auror here, or who would be coming. The major downside of being good at solving cases was that there were people who would only contact him when they decided to betray allies or people they knew, and so he was the only one who had got the anonymous owl that declared an attack would happen on Malfoy Manor this afternoon to steal the Glass of Heart's Desire.

Harry had got the message less than ten minutes before the attack was supposed to begin. He had sent his Patronus to Ron with the news, and then he'd had to leave immediately, in a long series of jumps to get him as close to the Manor as possible. He didn't remember what it looked like well enough to Apparate to the gates.

So other Aurors might show up, but not until the excitement was over, likely.

And he had to do something now.

The leader had halted in the middle of a crescent of four other wizards. The remaining four aligned behind him, in a crescent bent the opposite way, leaving a blank place where the counterpart of the leader would have stood.

Shit. If Harry was right, they were using the Labrys Formation, and that would not only bring down the wards and the gates but quite possibly destroy the walls of the Manor, and everything in the building that wasn't a magical artifact. Including the people inside, of course.

Harry pointed his wand at the stretch of grass and gravel in between the two halves of the Formation. Ignoring the way they were chanting, he concentrated as hard as he could on the spell he wanted, whispering the words beneath his breath to avoid alerting his enemies. "Motus terrae minor."

The ground between the two halves of the Formation began to shake just as they started to soar towards the climax of their combined spell. Harry felt himself shaken out of hiding, but he had anticipated that and had already started to roll, in case one of the Dragons had reflexes keen enough to cast at any motion out of place. But it didn't seem they did. They were tumbling to the ground and losing their wands, but not their masks, as the tiny earthquake shed them like leaves.

Harry immediately Summoned the wands of the four Dragons who had dropped them and Stunned them in response.

Then the leader focused on him and cast a curse that would have moved Harry's brain outside his skull if it had landed, and he was too busy defending himself to worry about catching any more of them.

"Shit."

Severus leaned over Draco's shoulder. Draco had shown a newfound interest in mirrors long before he had uncovered the Glass of Heart's Desire in his family's vaults; he had, in Severus's private opinion, been trying to create a variety of enchanted mirror that would give him tips on how to improve his appearance. But the obsession had produced a few good side-effects, like the mirror that hung on the wall of Draco's dining room and allowed him to observe the front gates.

Before those gates, a group of wizards tangled. Severus tried to observe their distinguishing marks, but they were moving too fast and the image was too small.

Then he saw what had more than likely inspired Draco's ire: the clump of wild black hair on the head of the Manor's defender.

"You were not the one who told Harry Potter that we expected an attack, are you, Draco?" Severus asked in interest, making sure to sound mild and distant even as his gut clenched. To have Harry Potter die on the grounds of Malfoy Manor would draw a great deal of attention, even more than having the Glass in the place already did. And it would disrupt the delicate preparations that Severus and Draco were in the middle of making.

"No, I wasn't," Draco said, short. "I counted on the wards to protect us long enough for us to get through this first ritual, at least." He spun around in his chair and stared up at Severus. "What should we do?"

The tone in his voice, whiny though it was, calmed Severus somewhat. This was the Draco who needed him, the Draco he remembered from his days as a professor. Severus had rarely enjoyed having someone depending on him, but at least he remembered what it was like to have it happen.

"We should make sure that Potter does not cause a scandal when he meant to save us," he said. "We should take some part in the battle."

Draco made a noise of distress and reached one hand out to him. "But…the care that you've taken to disguise your presence…"

Severus shrugged. "If we do not dispatch the attackers, then they would find out. I would rather have only one person know, one who would probably feel that he owes us enough debts to remain quiet about it."

Draco nodded and stood up. Severus eyed him. He had become proud of him in the last few years, at least of the intense young man that Draco had become since the war. He picked up his cloak now, the one impregnated with several Dark protection charms that Severus had taught him, and swung it around his shoulders before nodding again to Severus.

"Shall we?"

Harry stumbled backwards. That last curse hadn't hit him full on, or he would be blind, but it had made dozens of flashing lights invade his vision, and he needed a moment to recover.

He knew it was a moment that the leader of the Dragons wouldn't give him. She was pressing fiercely forwards, and Harry thought it might be Mirabella Honeylender herself behind the mask, or at least someone equivalent in talent and power to the Auror who had disappeared while investigating the Dragon's Hoarders a year ago.

So Harry bowed his head, his eyes still shut, and cast another of those spells he had promised Hermione and Kingsley he wouldn't use again. This one unfolded in front of him as a series of whip-like marks on the air, bright red and spreading rapidly. They resembled netting, and they were bright enough that it wasn't Harry's fault if one of the Dragons chose to cross them.

Sure enough, he heard one person shriek and the shouted warning of the Dragon leader. If she wasn't Honeylender, Harry thought grimly, holding his wand to his eyes, she had the auditory glamour that would make her sound like Honeylender down pat.

He swiftly whispered the countercurse for the spell that was making him blind, and stood up in a second with his hand ready for another round.

The red fence in front of him was holding, for the moment. The Dragon who had crossed it, or tried, was being supported by two of his comrades, his head dangling. Harry watched for a moment, and nodded as he realized the fool was still breathing. No thanks to the bright red mark that zigzagged down his face, barely sparing his eyes and nearly carving his nose in half. If he had persisted, then the mark would have cut him all the way in half.

The Dragon leader studied Harry with eyes too deepset in the mask for Harry to see their color. "You play with Dark magic," she remarked when she seemed confident that she had Harry's attention. Her thick red-brown hair, clustered behind the mask, swayed as she stalked a step towards him.

Harry would waste breath if he answered, especially as he saw no particular reason why he should. He watched her in turn, and she turned and whispered something he couldn't hear to the one Dragon behind her who wasn't helping support the hurt one or lying Stunned on the ground.

That one nodded and backed away, keeping such a direct gaze and wand on Harry that he didn't dare attack. In a few complicated moves of his wand, the Stunned Dragons were arrayed around him, and he bent down, clutching the arm of the nearest. They vanished. Side-Along Apparition, Harry was sure. That Dragon would probably come back and retrieve the others.

Harry faced the leader head-on. He still said nothing, but she murmured, "You know that we will retreat from this and return stronger."

"I don't know about that," said a thoughtful voice from behind her.

Harry whipped his gaze around. Silent Apparition. He hadn't known Malfoy was a master of that. Yet there he stood, beyond the Dragons, his arms folded and his eyebrows raised. A grey cloak with the shimmer of powerful magic on it swirled around him. One of the Dragons reflexively hurled a curse at him, and the cloak reflected it nearly as well as a Shield Charm would have. The fool had to dodge.

"I don't know that you'll retreat at all," Malfoy continued, and pulled his hawthorn wand out. Harry felt inexplicably cheered by the sight of it. It was a reminder that, after all, he had allies, and magic that was on his side. Malfoy aimed it between the leader's eyes, smiling sweetly all the while. "Not if we encircle you."

The Dragon darted towards Harry, suddenly, as though she was really going to cross his protective red spell. Harry recoiled instinctively, and she flicked a Dissipater at the fence. Harry had seen the spell before, but not performed on Dark magic so powerful, and he didn't think it would work—

It did. The fence parted, and she was right there in front of him, so close that her foot was lashing up to kick the wand out of his hand. Harry was reacting, dodging to the side, but he knew already that he would be too slow, and the other Dragons were flowing towards Malfoy. He would be too occupied to help.

"Expelliarmus," said a voice Harry had only heard in dreams for the past seven years.

The Dragon lost her wand in a splinter of sparks. She cried out and tried to make contact with Harry's hand anyway, although being Disarmed had thrown her off-balance. Harry sprang on her and bore her to the ground.

There was a moment of breathless kicking and punching, and Harry tried to reach for his wand, only to have the Dragon catch his wrist and squeeze. He would drop it, he thought. He could already feel his wrist going numb.

He lowered his head and butted it straight forwards, catching the Dragon's nose on the top of his skull.

She screamed, much louder than Harry thought a broken nose was really worth, and rolled her head to the side. Harry scrambled up so he was astride her body and Stunned her. If it was Honeylender, then they had been hunting her for months. He wasn't about to chance her getting away.

He turned to the left first, to Malfoy. He wanted to speak to Snape, because it was him, it had to be him, but the only Dragons left near them were all lying senseless on the ground. Malfoy was in more danger than Snape.

And it seemed that both of the Dragons who had been supporting the one hit by Harry's curse were attacking Malfoy now. He was retreating, using Shield Charms wisely, but he wasn't a match for two experienced duelers hitting him at once. As Harry watched, one of his Shield Charms blew apart and left him wide open.

Harry attacked without hesitation, spinning out a Lashing Charm that conjured a rope near the two Dragons, with a loop for each of their right feet. Then all he had to do was pull hard, and the both of them crashed to the ground.

Malfoy stood breathing for a second, staring at him. Harry raised a weary hand, and would have Stunned the two Dragons now sprawled on the earth, but Snape got there before him, sticking a very familiar wand over Harry's shoulder and calmly doing it for him. He bound them, as well, and a second later, he was doing the same thing to the Dragons that were still there.

Harry closed his eyes and swallowed. Two of the group had got away, but he had seven, a much better haul than he had expected.

And the leader…

He reached out and cast the spells to haul the mask off her face, and then swore softly. Yes, it was Honeylender. That was going to mean a lot of questions from the Ministry about exactly what this meant, whether Honeylender had been working with the Dragon's Hoarders all along and had gone back to them when she feared her cover might be compromised, or whether they had somehow managed to persuade her to join them.

And if they could do it to her, who knew what other Aurors they could convert?

"You're hurt."

It took Harry a second to realize Snape was addressing him. It seemed so much more likely that he would have been talking to Malfoy, who had presumably sheltered him during the last seven years that he'd been playing dead. But Snape pressed the tip of his wand against Harry's arm, and Harry looked down.

"Oh, they got lucky," he said. "Or she did." Honeylender was the only one he'd thought would stand much of a chance against his dueling skill, since she was also a trained Auror. "I don't think it'll scar."

"It's bleeding faster than a shallow cut should," Malfoy said, stepping forwards. The expression on his face had a strange quality, as though he was struggling against laughter and exasperation at the same time. "You came to defend the Glass of Heart's Desire, Potter?"

"Well, to defend you, more," Harry said. "The note I got said that the Dragon's Hoarders wanted the Glass and were determined to do anything to get it. And I think the Labrys Formation they were practicing could have destroyed your wards, and the whole building. It wouldn't have harmed the artifacts inside, though."

Malfoy's face washed of color. "Then it could have killed us."

Harry nodded. "I think so."

"We owe you a life-debt, it seems," said Malfoy, and looked across at Snape. Harry ignored the glance they exchanged. It had some deep and mystical significance, that was clear, but that only made sense. They'd been conspiring together for a while, maybe living together. He was more interested in getting his captives back to the Ministry.

"Sure. We can settle it later, if you want. In the meantime, if you'll move out of the way so I can get these Dragons back into custody?" He was talking to Snape, who still had his wand positioned on the wound in Harry's arm.

"You are bleeding," said Snape, his voice every bit as irritated as it used to be when Harry wasn't paying attention in Potions class. "As the result of a curse that works against the blood's clotting and means that you could bleed out while in transit. You should not be Apparating with such a wound."

Harry rolled his eyes at Snape. Just because he was miraculously back to life didn't mean Harry had to listen to him. "I've had worse."

"Not on my grounds, you haven't," said Malfoy, and ignored the glare Harry shot him. Harry had his mouth all open and set on reminding Malfoy of the war, but Malfoy went blithely on. "And in the meantime, you're going to come with us so that we can actually treat you and pay back part of the life-debt."

Snape had cast some sort of spell that slowed the bleeding, but he shook his head when Harry turned to him. "That's the only magic I can do without potions. You'll have to take one to close it."

"Fine," Harry said, drawing out the word and making sure that they saw he was humoring them. Honestly. He had been the one who showed up and saved everyone's life, but he was the one who had to be treated like a child, for some reason. "But what about my prisoners?"

"They'll be fine in the cellars until you're ready to leave," Malfoy said, stepping forwards to collect the captive Dragons with lazy waves of his wand. "I'm sure you remember what fine dungeons those cellars make."

Snape was hissing something at Malfoy that Harry frankly didn't follow. His head was drooping, his eyes blurring. He fought his way to his feet, so that he was at least walking with Snape rather than being dragged on his arm. Stupid bloodletting curse. Maybe Snape was right after all that it wouldn't be a good idea to Apparate like this.

They limped, or floated, or strode, slowly into the house. Harry didn't pay much attention to the rooms they took him through. He did know that Malfoy had vanished into the dungeons, and that Snape was saying something to him about potions. Harry nodded agreeably. He reckoned that agreeing with Snape about potions was the fastest way to get the one he needed, and then get out of here. He was a little uncomfortable with their thanks, frankly. He didn't get a lot of thanks as an Auror, since most of the people he met were either criminals or victims who had better things on their minds than gratitude.

And the thought of Snape and Malfoy indebted to him…well, it was weird. Harry wanted to get away from here. He could think about Snape being alive later, when he had some kind of distance from the attack.

"Drink this."

Snape almost broke the bottle shoving it into his hand, which Harry decided meant it was worth a swallow. He grasped the rough sides of it and managed to gulp it. For a moment, the liquid lay burning in his throat; then it rushed all the way down, and Harry gasped and swayed, clutching at the sides of the bottle.

The wound did seem to have closed, and he felt more alert. Harry raised his head. They'd come quite far into Malfoy Manor, he realized, into a room that had white walls and a floor that felt like marble. He opened his mouth to ask how long Snape expected him to stay.

Then he caught sight of something on the far side of the room, and stared.

Behind him, as distant as he had sounded when Harry was losing blood by the second, Snape said, "I thought you should at least see what you fought so hard to protect."

Harry only blinked in acknowledgment. The Glass of Heart's Desire was exactly the way the papers had reported it to be: a tall mirror, roughly oval, in a frame of blue iron, set with a single sapphire at the top, like an eye. Around the frame wreathed carved and flowing leopards and lions, their tails entwining.

The glass itself was silvery with a blue undertone, and Harry thought for a second it was blank, the way all the papers had also reported it to be. You could see the path to your heart's desire in it, but you either had to be of the blood of the current owner—a Malfoy, in this case—or undergo a special ritual so that you could see it.

A lazy swirl moved in the glass, and Harry was staring at his own face.

Or, he remembered abruptly, something the papers had reported almost as a footnote, you have to have done a great service for the current owners.

He saw the vision of his face the way a Muggle movie camera would have showed it, moving slowly backwards. He was naked, he saw with a start, and lying on a bed so high and covered with slick green sheets that he wondered he didn't fall off it. He lay with his chin on his folded arms, his head pointed towards the bottom of the bed, his feet lazily kicking on a pillow. At least he lay on his stomach, a comfort to his burning face.

On the other hand, Snape probably couldn't see his vision. Harry's heart's desire would be private by default, unless someone else happened to share the exact same wish.

Harry wanted to turn his eyes away, but he couldn't. The room was no place he knew, with high windows and a wide floor that he could have used for dueling practice. The carpet looked like it was some dim color between blue and lavender, and snow flicked past outside the windows. The fireplace in front of him loomed large enough to block out the winter all on its own, and the flames were as red-gold as the Dragons' masks.

A door opened, and the Harry in the glass turned his head and smiled at someone coming into the room. Harry couldn't make them out, because this time the vision didn't move, until they came much closer to the bed. One person was Snape, dressed in black robes, and the other Malfoy, wearing the grey cloak that he'd worn in the battle. Both of them stepped up to Harry, and Malfoy put his hand on Harry's shoulder while Snape leaned his arm in the middle of Harry's back. His naked back, Harry's mind pointed out helpfully.

All the stupid Harry in the vision did was lower his face into the coverlet and close his eyes, melting into trust, relaxation, acceptance.

Then the vision blurred back into nothingness, and Harry turned his head away, aware that Snape had moved in front of him and was saying something in a concerned tone. Harry shut his eyes and shook his head. "I'm fine," he said.

That's…that's not real. It was supposed to show me the path to my heart's desire, anyway, and there's no way that that's a path of any kind. Or a thing of any kind.

Goddamn mirrors.