Title: Coping With Grace

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

Pairing: Harry/Severus/Draco

Content Notes: Light angst, BDSM relationship, bondage, established relationship, AU (in that Snape lives)

Rating: R

Wordcount: 2700

Summary: No matter how much Severus might sometimes feel that he doesn't deserve it, he does have to cope with the grace of having two restless and eager young lovers.

Author's Notes: A July Celebration fic for the following prompt by alafaye: Severus/Draco/Harry

Not too dark, BDSM relationship if possible. Prompt "Coming home could be either a challenge

or a gift. It depend on how much his lovers had been squabbling."

Coping With Grace

"What have you done now?"

Severus paused with his hand on the doorknob when he heard that, and cast a detection charm. However, as his senses sharpened, he smelled no fumes from a slow-paced exploding potion, heard no sharp click of legs that would indicate one of Hagrid's "pet" Acromantulas had come to visit, and tasted none of Draco's heady petulance that seemed to fill the air with its own unique bitterness.

"You think I meant to do this? I didn't."

"I know that, idiot. Hence why I asked you what you'd done."

Severus quirked his mouth into an expression that he thought even an enchanted mirror wouldn't have been able to help him define, and quietly shut the door. Then he made his way through the corridors until they opened up into the bedroom where Harry tended to sleep when he needed time alone.

It seemed an Acromantula had been by after all, or at least Harry had found some webbing strands from the time when it had. Harry was strung up and dangling above the bed in what looked like a hammock made of silk, his hands bound behind his back and his legs spread in an awkward position. Draco stood in front of him, half-naked and with his arms folded. Harry was entirely naked.

Severus did hope that he had some of that potion that painlessly dissolved Acromantula silk stuck to human skin. They might have a problem on their hands otherwise.

"Look what Harry did, Severus," Draco said, and stepped out of the way with his head shaking. "You'd think he would learn not to do shit like this, but he doesn't." Draco made a disgusted sound. "You do something with him. I can't do anything." He moved towards the doorway, turning sideways to brush by Severus.

"I don't think so, Draco."

Draco froze at once, although Severus knew it was more out of astonishment than obedience, turning his head so he was meeting Severus eye-to-eye. Severus raised his brows in response. Draco stared some more, and then shook his head all the more rapidly.

"But I didn't have anything to do with this!"

"You understand what I want you to do." Severus pitched his voice low, and saw, to his immense satisfaction, the way that Draco began to respond almost in spite of himself. "You understand that we are all bound to each other. And in particular, you understand the relationship that pertains between yourself and Harry."

"I understand what you want me to do." Draco's voice was low and intimate, and he reached out a hand, skimming his fingers up Severus's side. Severus held out against the touch, and Draco firmed his jaw. "But that doesn't mean I want to do it."

"Even if I ask you to?"

"Even if you ask me to."

Severus nodded and reached up with one hand just as Draco had begun to, clearly, relax. "Then do it because I order you to." He added a twist to the words, and a twist to Draco's hand at the same time, that he knew Draco found irresistible. There was a groan from the Acromantula hammock that he smiled at, although he didn't look away from Draco's face.

"Severus…"

"I order you."

Draco pulled against the hold Severus had on his wrist. Severus maintained it for an instant, then let it go. Draco wavered so as not to pitch against him or the bed. Severus watched the interplay of expressions on his face, loving how lively they were, fighting the temptation to pinch Draco's nipple. Give Draco too much pleasure too suddenly, and it would only encourage him into behavior that was less fun for Severus.

"Go and get the potion," Severus demanded, voice low.

Draco fled to do that. Severus turned back to Harry and walked a few steps closer, admiring the way the web held Harry's legs open.

"Are you going to get me down, or what?"

Severus needed to hold himself back with Draco, because that was productive of the most satisfaction to both of them. He needed no such masks with Harry. He raised his head, and Harry stared at him, breathing so erratic that it would have worried Severus in a patient.

Here, he only felt another delicious frisson as if someone was plucking his backbone like a harp.

"What did you say?"

Harry breathed some more, and then said, "How are you going to get me down, sir?"

"Better." Severus sat on the bed and stretched out, angling his head. Ah, the webs did not cover Harry's hole, although they held it open enough that Severus could see it. Excellent. "I will make do with the potion Draco brings back."

For an instant, blankness took possession of Harry's voice. "But you didn't tell him to get any specific potion."

Severus paused as if struck by his own forgetfulness, and then shrugged. He also shrugged off his robe with the same movements, completing the unbuttoning that he had begun when he entered the house. "True. I suppose you will have to make do with whichever one he brings back."

Harry gave a sudden buck in the strands of the web, the sort of movement Severus would have pinched him for during their play; pinching wasn't something Harry much enjoyed, unlike Draco. But the web turned it into a subtle, sensual squirm.

Severus smiled. He was beginning to appreciate the multiple advantages of the web.

Draco came back with two potions, and Severus glanced slightly at him. But when he saw how dark Draco's eyes were, and how his hands shook when he handed Severus the potions, then doubts began to dissolve for Severus as well.

He examined the potions, and smiled a little. One was indeed the solvent he'd hoped they had, the one that would eat through Acromantula silk without harming the human skin.

The other was—more interesting.

"Now," said Severus, and stood up and approached Harry. Draco came beside him, eyes still deep and footfalls a little more forceful than usual. Severus did not smile at him, because his attention had to be on Harry now, but he caressed the small of Draco's back, and Draco arched in pleasure.

He knows that he might have been punished for bringing back that potion. And he took the risk anyway, because he also knew that it might result in a reward.

Harry was more defiant than Draco, more inclined to play with the risky side of pleasure—witness this web—but Draco had his own subtle ways of asking for some of Severus's more delicate wrath.

Severus poured the solvent into his hand, where it sparkled for a moment, white with rainbows dancing on the surface like light from an oil slick, some long-gone potioneer's sense of humor. Then he mixed it with the other potion, the one that was bright and purple but turned a darker blue color when it touched the solvent.

"This will get you free and give you what you deserve at the same time," Severus breathed, mixed the two potions thoroughly on both his hands, and held them up so that Harry could see.

Harry could recognize the dark blue color of the pleasure potion, even diluted, and he gave a buck. Severus clucked his tongue at him.

"You should have thought of this before you conjured the web, if you truly did not want it," he said, and began to draw his hands along Harry's shoulders.

Harry threw back his head in response, the line of his throat straining as he closed his eyes. Of course, he probably had wanted something like it. But even after almost three years with Severus, it was difficult for Harry to ask what he wanted. He would do something and then dare Severus to correct him.

Severus liked the balance. Actions with Harry, and words with Draco; more hard-won obedience, and more willing.

It made his skin swell and tingle with its own pleasure. It made him hard, to feel the power surging through his fingers, nearly as solid as the silk bound about Harry now.

As the mingled potions sank into his skin, Harry began to hang from the Acromantula web instead of in it, and he began to moan. Severus watched with unabashed satisfaction as Harry's skin flushed red and he tried to rub against the web, even as he shied a little away from Severus's hands.

Stubborn to the end, Severus thought, and whispered, "What do you want?"

Harry said nothing, his eyes closed and his movements still sharp and yearning. Severus reached out and traced a single finger down the length of his leg. Harry yipped and raised his legs. Severus enjoyed the view from this angle, but part of him was still unsatisfied and would bite at him until he heard Harry say the words.

Draco hovered to the side. Severus nodded to him and pulled his hands back so that Harry would be able to see how utterly far he was from them when he opened his eyes. Draco stepped up to the web and outlined its shape with his hands, humming under his breath.

It didn't take Harry long to realize something was wrong. He stared with red eyes at Draco for a moment, and then he said, urgently, "Draco."

Severus closed his eyes. Those desperate words ached along his cock like someone touching him with loose fingers.

"Was there something you wanted?" Draco asked. He maintained the perfect tone, serious and distracted, as if he was outlining the shape of the web for incorporation into a potion later. Severus determined on rewarding him tomorrow night, when Harry had a meeting with his friends and would be out of the house for a while.

"You know what I want."

Draco looked up and shook his head so that his hair fell away from his face in a silvery curtain. "No, I don't. You never say it. I won't use Legilimency on you without your permission, Harry."

Draco's reward will be as long as he wants.

"Stop doing this," Harry said, in a voice on the edge of audibility, dangling and kicking and flashing glimpses of his arse and flushed face at Severus all the while. "Give me-give me-your fingers."

Draco turned at once to Severus, who considered it, then made a short flapping motion with one hand. He would give Harry what he wanted, yes, but only a glimpse, the way he had taunted Severus and Draco with glimpses.

Draco coated his fingers with lube and sank them into Harry's arse. Harry stiffened at once, but Draco kept an eye on Severus and moved his fingers back and forth in short jerks, not enough pressure or penetration to let Harry come. By the time he broke off, Harry was giving high little whines of agony.

"Enough."

Draco stepped back from Harry at once and fell into a crouch, his head bowed so that his hair slid in a glowing cascade again. Severus stood up and sauntered over to the web. Harry stared down at him, panting, his eyes slitted so much that he looked like a cat trying to stare into strong light.

"You may have what you want. But only at my hands."

Harry closed his eyes with a little whimper. Severus waited. He could hear Draco's harsh breathing behind him, the pleasure Draco found in having to kneel there while Harry hung on the edge of his resistance.

"Yes."

Severus didn't hesitate once he heard the word of surrender. He at once reached up with a hand that had only the solvent smeared on it, and dissolved the web that was still curled around Harry's legs and arse. Harry fell forwards with a choked snarl, but Severus caught him and stared at him in silence. Harry tilted his head to the side, which Severus knew was the only apology he would get for Harry's doubt.

And then he was turning, bringing the lube up, smearing his cock, casting another spell that eased the way, which he didn't often do, and Harry swallowed an exclamation of some kind as Severus slid into him. At the same moment, even with pleasure overwhelming him, Severus cocked his head at Draco, and Draco immediately came and knelt next to him on the bed.

Another man might have faltered, might have let the relentless pleasure of the thrusts into Harry's body overtake him, but Severus was not any other man, and he did not forget that he had two people who could please him. He touched Draco's cock with one hand and picked up his wand, casting a spell with precision that long use had trained into him. Draco fell back a second later, glassy-eyed, sharing the sensations coursing through Harry.

Harry, who had finally begun to grunt and then cry aloud as the thrusts seared him, broke down his resistance, brought out the side of him that could look at Severus with something other than stubbornness and the need to fight. Severus turned back to him and slid a soft hand down his cheek.

Harry met his eyes and mouthed words of love. Severus bent to kiss him, to stop him from having to say things that even now he found uncomfortable. He would not have thought it of Harry, who had as deep a capacity to love as any Severus had ever seen, but he simply could not say it under ordinary circumstances.

Not that this is ordinary, Severus thought, and his pace quickened in spite of himself, his breathing hoarse as his gaze darted back and forth between the two men that he was making surrender to pleasure.

The chase of it all, his body and Draco's body and Harry's thrashing on the bed, made him peak sooner than he would have liked. Severus held his breath, though, and got to watch the moment when something rare happened: his own shudders brought Harry and Draco to climax at the same instant, a second behind him.

Their eyes rolled back in their heads. Their breaths caught. Harry's arms flung out, and so did one of Draco's, and their hands brushed in affirmation of their own bond.

Yes, Severus thought, and he might have said it aloud.

In the moment of afterwards, when Harry was already curled into his side and Draco was lying loose-limbed across his legs and chest, Severus closed his eyes and silently reveled in what he had.

He'd actually been harder to convince than Harry, at first. Silently resisting, then openly, marked by a screaming match with Draco in front of the Ministry. Harry had leaned against the wall and watched as silently, shaking his head now and then, but he had been the one to follow Severus and explain to him what they wanted, or thought they wanted.

It has turned out rather differently than they envisioned it.

Then again, it had turned out differently than he had envisioned it, too: more open, less grudging, more pleasant, more fiery. Severus had been suspicious for a long time, always knowing where his own belongings were in their shared house in case he had to leave, always alert and alive for any implication that he was being left out.

But it had turned out-the way it had, and Severus had to accept it even as Harry and Draco had to accept it. They were partners in a dance that all three of them made, that no single one controlled. They were granted a kind of grace that they just had to cope with.

Including me, Severus thought, and closed his eyes.

The End.