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The Only True Lords	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 54578 -:- Recommendations : 4 -:- Currently Reading : 11
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Chapter Ten—Harry, Lord of Chaos

            “Zabini.”

            Blaise jerked up and turned around to stare at Potter. He stood in the door of the hospital wing, his gaze so even and his arms folded so gently that Blaise was sure he had come to kill him. He reached for his wand, then dropped it as his right arm flared with an echo of the same pain that he had felt when he tried to kill Potter.

            It seems the bond won’t even allow me to defend myself, he thought, grimacing and sitting up. So he would meet his death with the dignity allowed him, whether or not he had a wand in his hand.

            “The others have been arrested and taken to the Ministry,” Potter said, his eyes deep with green shadows. Blaise wondered what his mother would say about them. He hadn’t had the chance to talk to her yet, as much as he had wanted to. He wasn’t quite a prisoner, but the hospital wing was full of the less gravely wounded, and someone would have noticed if he’d approached the Floo. “I couldn’t prevent that, since they had Dark Marks and they’ll have to stand trial, but I could prevent them from being taken to Azkaban. They’re in Ministry cells now.”

            “Why are you telling me this?” Blaise had to ask. “Why would it matter to me? I don’t have a Dark Mark, which means I won’t be going to prison.”

            “And you never cast a curse during the war when a Death Eater told you to, or looked the other way from torture?” Potter asked, his eyebrows rising. “They’ll come and get you sooner or later for trial.”

            Blaise rubbed his hands on his trousers. That was true, and he had wanted to leave before that happened. With the chaos after the battle, he had thought it would be easy.

            And it would have been, he thought, tucking his right arm along his leg. If Potter hadn’t interfered, and the stupid bond hadn’t manifested.

            “I think we should preempt them,” Potter said, ignoring Blaise’s stare. He wouldn’t need to know that it was because Blaise had had no idea Potter knew words like “preempt.” He could just think it was for the strangeness of his suggestion. “I think we should go down to the Great Hall and give ourselves to the Aurors, in front of an audience, so they can’t sneak us away the way they tried to do to Snape and Malfoy.”

            Blaise knew his mouth fell open. “The we seems out of place,” he said, because he could, and no fire punished him immediately after. “What did you ever do that needs forgiving by anyone but a Slytherin?”

            Potter gave him a grim smile. “Used Unforgivables on people,” he said. “Without an order, even. Because I was trying to survive, sure, but I wasn’t casting them because I was in fear for my life.” He shrugged. “One, I just used because Carrow spat at McGonagall and I just wanted to curse someone when I saw that.”

            Blaise rubbed his eyes. He saw Pansy slipping in behind Potter, but it was difficult to look away from the great idiot in front of him, who had just given information worth an empire into Blaise’s hands.

            If Blaise could ever prove it. If Potter wasn’t going to march down and surrender himself to the Aurors anyway, the way he said he was.

            “You have no idea,” Blaise whispered.

            “No idea what?” Potter was the one who cocked his head at him, but Pansy was the one who spoke.

            “No idea what you are.” Blaise’s hands were shaking. He knew they had both noticed that. Too late to hide it, and too late to pretend that he was so weak they could order him around as they liked. “You have—you could get away with this. Or I would have thought that you would never use Unforgivables in the first place. What are you? What strange mixture of—I don’t know what to call it?” He had been about to say “good and evil,” but his mother’s voice whispered in his head, reminding him that would sound childish, that sophisticated people believed in far denser and deeper concepts than good and evil.

            “Gryffindor and Slytherin?” Pansy smiled a little. The smile had its own shadow, Blaise thought, lying on her face like a filmy grey scarf. “Well. That’s one way to describe it. But our Lord wants to stay with us, and he can’t do that if we’re arrested and taken to the Ministry, or if half his vassals are there and half are in Hogwarts. So we’re all going together.”

            Blaise turned around to face Pansy completely, because looking at Potter was too complicated right now. “Then he convinced you?”

            “He did.” Pansy leaned forwards, placing one hand on the clean white sheet of the bed and looking at Blaise so steadily that he flinched a little. It was the way his mother had looked at him when he did something stupid in the past—and he could admit, now, that challenging the bond had been stupid. He should have tried to cripple Potter, not kill him. “Look, Blaise. The bond is going to be part of our lives for the foreseeable future. If we’re going to break it, it’ll take a long time. We might as well work with the advantages it can give us.”

            “How is prison an advantage?” Blaise brushed a strand of dark hair out of his eyes, and Pansy echoed him. Her eyes were more brilliant than Blaise had ever seen them, though, the light glowing through the mask of weariness and unconcern she usually kept over them.

            “I think it can be, if we’re together,” Pansy said. “You know that we were stronger when we stood together with our House than when we tried to act outside it.”

            Blaise sneered at her. “That may have applied to you, but not to me.” His mother had a good position, in the center of a web of allies without being tied too deeply to them by blood or marriage, and she had raised him to be the same way, neutral, ready to turn around and place his hand in the hand of anyone else at a moment’s notice. Therefore, it had been more people inside Slytherin than outside it who had troubled him and demanded on his choosing a side.

            “Really?” Pansy leaned so near that Blaise could no longer focus on the color of her eyes. “And how many friends did you have outside Slytherin, Blaise? Would any of them shelter you now, if the accusations started flying and someone decided they would rather see you in prison than outside it?”

            Blaise scowled at her, unable to speak, hating the feeling. But it was true that he had no Gryffindor friends, and they were likely to rule the day now. He had a few Ravenclaws he would associate with, but none of them would put themselves at risk for him. Besides, if everyone was tried who had cast illegal curses during the war, then they would probably have to deal with trials of their own.

            He glanced at Potter, who was leaning against the doorway of the hospital wing and listening. Potter smiled at him. Blaise turned his head quickly away and back to Pansy.

            “You think that doing something this mad is going to win you friends?” he asked. “Taking a risk that could imperil your life?”

            “It’ll get me closer to my Lord and my fellow vassals,” Pansy said, twitching her head a little. “I told you, that’s the group we have to worry about right now. That’s the group that will sustain us as we struggle through this. The desires of people outside it aren’t very important right now.”

            Blaise thought of his mother, and ran his fingers along his shield mark again. How would she react when she found out he was Lord-bound? Would she be irritated? Angry that he hadn’t managed to avoid such a ridiculous fate?

            No, Blaise realized, with a little sinking of his stomach. If I had managed to kill Potter and survive the bond’s punishment, then she would be proud of me, but I got caught. I have to deal with the consequences myself. She won’t care. She’ll expect me to find advantages where I can, and associate with who I have to. It was one reason that his mother had never committed herself to open hatred of Muggleborns. She knew that Dumbledore’s side might win the war, and she would have strange bedfellows.

            Shit.

            Blaise sat up and turned to Potter. “Why did you come up with this plan?” he demanded. “I thought you didn’t want to be a Lord any more than we wanted to be vassals.”

            “At the moment, the only Lords I’ve found who managed to weaken their bonds died of heart attacks a few days later,” Potter said. “Maybe it’s coincidence, but twice is one time too many for me. And I want to live. If it means living this way, well, it won’t be the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” He fell silent, his eyes on Blaise.

            Blaise bowed his head. He couldn’t believe that he was seriously considering this, when less than a day ago, he had been cursing Potter and expecting to get away with it. And there was the possibility that no one would bring charges against him, that the people he had cursed during the war would never care or wouldn’t remember.

            Then he cursed softly as he remembered how prominent he was now, how no one would be able to overlook him as a vassal of Lord Potter. It wasn’t the notoriety he had wanted, not something he had desired, but that was the way it was.

            Pansy was right. If something loomed across your path, you dealt with it the best you could, the way Blaise had dealt with his alternating rivalry and friendship with Draco. You didn’t try to run away from it. He knew exactly what his mother would say to that. Or not say, given the turned back and lowered eyes he would get from her instead.

            “Fine,” he said, rising to his feet. “But I want you two to speak. No sense in embarrassing myself more than I already am.”

            Pansy’s cheeks flushed a delicate rose as she smiled at him, but it was Potter’s shining glance that made the gentle warmth start up in his shield mark. Of course it was. Blaise rubbed his arm and tried not to scowl.

*

            Harry stopped outside the Great Hall and squared his shoulders. For a moment, he worried that Ginny might be in there and might have told someone what they talked about—

            Then he shook his head. No. Ginny would do lots of things, but not that. And she had probably gone someplace to be by herself, or at least back to her family’s table, which was near the far end of the Great Hall.

            Harry stepped into the Great Hall and looked around for the scarlet robes of Aurors. It didn’t take him long to find them. Two stood talking to the Weasleys, in fact, and several others circulated around the room, looking keenly into the faces of the students sitting there.

            “I surrender,” he said, loud enough to echo. Of course, a lot of that came from the silence that had fallen when people looked up and realized who was at the door.

            Harry could feel Zabini behind him, the git’s tension swirling and flowing up his shield mark, turning like a top. Harry had no idea what Parkinson was feeling; she seemed to be calmer, and that meant his shield mark was less likely to pick up on it. Already he was learning a few of the nuances of the Lordship bond, he thought. It was formed mainly for protection, at least on his side, and let him know most often about the feelings that meant his vassals might need some protection.

            The Aurors by the Weasleys turned around and stared at him. Harry could see Ron and Hermione rising to their feet at the same time, identical expressions on their faces. Harry shook his head at them. He knew they would attack the Aurors for him if they thought it necessary, and he loved them for it, but he couldn’t allow that to happen, not now. He faced the Great Hall again, and saw two Aurors he hadn’t noticed before clearing a path to him.

            “Surrender for what?” one of them called, a short, squat woman with dark hair and a piercing voice that reminded Harry unpleasantly of Umbridge’s for a moment. But, when he peered closer, the voice was the only real resemblance. She looked as though she would smash a room full of meowing cat plates.

            “I surrender because I used Unforgivables during the war, and that means you need to arrest me,” Harry said, holding his hands out in front of him. He realized that he had no idea what an Auror would do other than Stun and bind someone. Hadn’t they escorted Snape and the Malfoys and Goyle out by holding their arms? Maybe they had cords or cuffs like the Muggle police used, though. “Along with my vassals here, who had to torture people during the war because the Carrows would have killed them otherwise.” He paused, and then added something he really wanted to know, but which was also a good idea to ask right now. “I suppose you did catch the Carrows, so that you can try them for what they did to students at the school during the war?”

            The woman halted in front of him. Behind here were a few young-looking Aurors who whispered and blushed. Harry raised his brows at them, resisting the urge to flutter his eyelashes, and kept his wrists extended.

            “Not all the Death Eaters have been caught yet,” the squat woman told him, keeping her gaze directly on Harry. “And that includes the Carrows.”

            “What a shame,” Harry said, clucking his tongue. “But I suppose it is easier to arrest people who come straight up to you and don’t resist.” He shook his head a little. “Aren’t you going to use Incarcerous on my arms?”

            “That would depend on what you’ve done,” said the woman. The other Aurors behind her had joined their ranks now, as the ones who had been talking to various students and their parents shoved up together. Harry gave them an insincere smile and focused once more on the woman who had taken it upon herself to be their spokesperson. “We should have to determine your crimes.”

            Harry widened his eyes and touched his chest with one hand, leaving the other one stuck out so that they could wind chains around it if they wanted. “But that’s not what we heard,” he said. “We heard that certain people had to be arrested and taken to the Ministry at once, where they would be tried and have the accusations made later.”

            The woman swelled as though she was going to blow up. Harry half-wanted to see her do it. He thought it would be a glorious sight. “Who told you that?” she demanded in a low voice.

            “An Auror named Umson,” Harry said. “He thought it was his duty to arrest everyone with a Dark Mark, and he only came and asked me for permission when he remembered a few of them were my vassals and he needed my permission.”

            “If bearing the Dark Mark was enough,” the woman said, “then half the people in the Ministry should have been arrested first. Especially those people who work in our Department.”

            Harry drew in a deep, satisfied breath. This was what he had hoped to find, some evidence of wrongdoing or at least hypocrisy on the Ministry’s part. Umson wasn’t concerned with justice, or even with getting people with the Dark Mark rounded up so they couldn’t flee. He was interested in “them,” the people who weren’t part of the Ministry and who he didn’t know personally.

            Having just fought a war for the sake of “them,” having been vilified and hated and adored and encouraged to fight by “them,” Harry wasn’t in the mood to let someone else get away with using “them” as an excuse.

            “What’s your name, madam?” he asked the squat woman.

            “Jane Stone,” she said. “You really intended to let us arrest you? Surely you knew no Auror would touch you?”

            Harry shrugged and smiled. “I’ve already met Umson,” he said. “I thought he might have a cousin here. Or a sibling.”

            Stone turned and studied the rest of the Aurors behind her. At once the ones who had been blushing and murmuring tried to turn pale and widen their eyes and pretend they had never done any such thing.

            She turned back to him and said, “It is not ridiculous to want to keep track of those with Dark Marks, or to arrest those who used Unforgivables during the war.”

            Harry shook his head and extended his wrists. “Of course not. And I want to see justice during the war. But I think that everything has to be taken into account. So if everyone who used Unforgivables during the war is going to be arrested, then I should be, too. Or if you’re going to admit that certain circumstances will excuse criminal behavior, then you have to admit evidence like Narcissa Malfoy saving my life in the Forbidden Forest. It can’t matter for me and not matter for them.”

            Stone shifted a little. Harry was sure he knew what she would have liked to say: that he was the Boy-Who-Lived, and the rest of them were just Death Eaters.

            Or Slytherins. Harry wondered how much the distinction would matter to some people, and if a Slytherin House identification was about to become the new Muggleborn heritage, the badge that indicated people you didn’t want to stand with.

            “You wanted someone to arrest you.” Stone sounded as though she was reasoning it out.

            “I thought you would soon come and arrest my vassals, and some of them have already been taken to the Ministry,” Harry said. “This seemed to be the simplest course to make sure everyone was together.”

            Stone stared into his eyes, and moved her jaw like a squirrel crunching nuts. “What if I were to take you to the Ministry, along with your other two vassals?” Her eyes moved over Zabini and Parkinson. “And you could speak to the ones who’ve been arrested?”

            Harry smiled pleasantly. “I would ask you what the price was.”

            “That you tell the truth each and every time,” Stone said. “About everything. Those incidents of using the Unforgivables you mentioned, and how the Lordship bond really happened, and any services or heroic actions your vassals may have committed during the war.” She made the heroic actions not sound much more innocent than the crimes.

            Harry smiled again and bowed. “I would be delighted.” He stuck out his hands again. “You don’t want to clap me in ropes for the look of the thing?”

            “I see no need,” said Stone, and turned with a nod to the Aurors behind her. “Remain here, half of you, and continue to interview the witnesses to the battle. We need to know exactly who did what, and we need as many Pensieve memories as possible.” She shot a quick look at Harry. “And we don’t need any more perspectives on the moment when Lord Potter bonded his vassals. We have more than enough of those.”

            Harry had to smile at her. “Getting weary of them?”

            “We have more than enough of them, and now we have a chance to interview the person who did it,” Stone said, turning towards him. “No, we shan’t clap you in ropes. Do you want to Apparate or Floo?”

            Harry glanced over his shoulder at Parkinson and Zabini, who hadn’t said a single word so far. Zabini’s eyes were so wide, and Harry could feel the wavering and dancing of the green dot that represented him in his shield mark; he could bolt any second. Likewise, Parkinson stood there with a pale face and tight-clasped hands that told Harry she hadn’t bargained for this, although her dot was still on his shield mark.

            “I think we should Floo,” he said, turning to Stone. “With your Aurors scattered through our line as necessary, of course, to make sure that we all arrive at roughly the same time.”

            Stone nodded. “You’ll get in to see the Minister as soon as possible.”

            “I was unaware that anyone was Minister right now,” Harry said, staring at her.

            “Temporary Minister,” Stone said, sounding as though correcting herself wasn’t something she enjoyed doing. “For now, we have few people in the Ministry who we can prove didn’t serve him. Kingsley Shacklebolt had proof, though, and he’s been chosen temporary Minister until we can work out what to do.”

            Harry relaxed a little. Kingsley was a member of the Order of the Phoenix, at least, although that might make him even more hostile to Slytherins than anyone else. “What about you?” he asked. “You proved it, too, didn’t you?”

            Stone nodded. “When I was sixteen, I swore an Unbreakable Vow that I would never use Dark Arts, and had it witnessed by Aurors in the Atrium of the Ministry. That at least eliminates me from having used the Unforgivables and the other spells they encouraged during the war just past.”

            “But if you had used Dark Arts,” Parkinson said, so suddenly that Harry started, “what would have happened to you?”

            “I would have died,” Stone said, looking at her, unblinking. “That is what the Vow does.” She nodded to the Aurors who had remained behind her after they divided themselves. “Guide them gently up the stairs and to the fireplaces.” Her voice was loud enough that everyone in the Great Hall could hear, but Harry hadn’t noticed her casting the Sonorus Charm. He wondered if it was a spell that she had mastered nonverbally, or if she was just taking advantage of the Hall’s acoustics.

            “In the meantime,” Hermione said, loud enough that Harry could also hear her, “we’ll continue to research Lordship bonds and the legal obligations of them.”

            Harry nodded to her. Plenty of people would think that meant he was leaping into this blind and that he didn’t know the first thing about what he had to do to protect his vassals, but Hermione had volunteered to send him information about advantages as well as disadvantages he could have.

            Stone began to herd them in the direction of the hospital wing. Harry caught a glimpse of Zabini’s dissatisfied expression, that he had just left the place and now he was having to go back. Harry would have caught his eye and offered him a smile if he thought it would work.

            Instead, he found himself twisting his head to the side, his body braced and quivering. His shield mark was burning, but not the way it had done before, when he punished Zabini or felt him running out to the Forbidden Forest or sensed Snape’s dark and self-destructive thoughts.

            This was something else, he thought. A threat from outside and not inside the bond.

            There was a wand uplifted above the heads of other people. Harry doubted he would have seen it if, in some way, he wasn’t looking for it, the bond sharpening his senses to notice things that were out of place.

            And the wand was aimed at a rafter. Harry’s eyes traced out the path of the spell, how it would leap and deflect from the rafter, how it would come back down and slam into the head of the person directly below it…

            Who happened to be Parkinson.

            And Harry leaped before he thought, his wand tucked tight to his belly, his body tumbling through the air in the midst of a cocoon of defensive power, which he unleashed as he landed and turned to meet the assault.

*

            Bickymonster: Thank you! Hope you continue to enjoy.

            kain: Harry is mainly concerned that “circumstances” would be used as an excuse for him but not for anyone else. If the Ministry was willing to take anyone with a Dark Mark on their arms, they should also a) have been looking in their own ranks, as this chapter suggests, and b) announced it instead of trying to sneak off with them. Harry is forcing them to act differently instead, up to those standards of justice they proclaim. And he does think Pansy would be in danger, as proven here.

            The bond is definitely affecting him. The problem is that he can either spend all his time fighting it or he can defend other people, and for him, the choice is entirely practical.

            SP777: I hope I don’t make Ginny annoying. I’m trying to present the reasons for her fear of Harry, and maybe not doing a very good job.

            Demonadine: Thank you!

            delia cerrano: Sorry, not for a bit.

            unneeded: Yes, but at least she made a good showing!

            blj.14: What made the bond happen was the combination of the curse that Voldemort cast and Harry’s Shield Charm. It comes from a combination of spells, not just will, which is why it can’t be resigned by the will of everyone involved.

            It’s going to be a long wait, yes.
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The Only True Lords