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Black Phoenix	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 21641 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 6
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

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Chapter Ten—Exposure
            “So he’s moved at last.”
            Briseis spread the paper out on Harry’s desk in front of him with a smile so grim that Harry expected to see much worse news than he did when he picked it up. But the only thing that could have made her look like that was the picture of Minister Tillipop in front of Gringotts, holding up a sign that contained a list of numbers. Harry snorted. You couldn’t read the numbers even from this short distance, which meant that most of the public would have no idea what they said and would have to take it on faith that they meant what Tillipop claimed they did.
            Apparently, what he claimed they said, Harry saw from skimming the story, was that Harry had been funding Draco’s campaign. Or bribing Ministry officials. Both accusations showed up and tangled around each other like baby snakes. Harry shook his head and put the paper down again.
            “What are we going to do about it?” Briseis demanded, her hands on her hips.
            Harry glanced at her in surprise. “Wait for Tillipop to embarrass himself again, which he surely will before too much longer. What’s wrong?” Briseis was rocking on her feet the way she did when she couldn’t wait to take an opponent on.
            “He’s saying things about you that aren’t true,” Briseis muttered. “Spreading rumors again. Last time, we countered with the truth. Why aren’t we doing that right now?” She planted her hand on the photograph, making the pictured Tillipop glare at her and stop rattling his paper, and leveled Harry with a much more impressive glare.
            “Because his accusations are ridiculous.” Harry reached out and gently lifted her hand off the picture. The strength of his magic sometimes made objects do unanticipated things around him, and he didn’t want to find out that Tillipop had suddenly gained the strength to bite her palm or do something similar. “And because we have much more damaging proof than he could ever come up with.”
            “When are we going to release it?” Briseis paced back and forth in front of him like a tiger with a cage that was too small.
            Harry glanced out the window. Persephone had gone to set fire to a pile of grass in the grounds that he had built her because it was less damaging than thwarting her. Good. If she wasn’t here, he wouldn’t have to contend with the uneasiness that she sometimes inspired in Briseis, and could focus on this unusual thing in front of him.
            He held out his hand and conjured a spinning globe of white and blue light. Briseis stopped and turned, face softening when she saw his magic, the way it usually did when she encountered any of his tricks. Harry smiled and lofted the globe to the top of his door, where it would stick and prevent anyone from coming in unexpectedly, even someone like Ron or Hermione who had passage through his wards most of the time.
            “Why are you so unsettled about this?” Harry asked. “You know that Tillipop admitted to Mr. Malfoy that he had blackmail material. All we have to do is release that Pensieve memory, and he’s gone as far as the Ministerial campaign is concerned. What is there in that to inspire uneasiness?”
            Briseis closed her eyes and twisted a piece of hair around her finger, a nervous gesture that Harry never remembered seeing before. “You’ll laugh if I tell you.”
            “I’m a Dark Lord ruling Hogwarts and bound in a relationship with a black phoenix that I still don’t understand.” Harry waved his hand. “I’m the one who has to wake up each morning and ask myself if I’m living a dream or a joke. Please, tell me what troubles you.”
            Briseis nodded and opened her eyes. “I’m not a Seer myself, but a few members of my family have been. And some of the others of us have had—a sense of trouble coming. One of my grandfathers felt trouble so strongly one day when they’d returned from a holiday that he wouldn’t let my grandmother and my father go into their house. And it turned out that a blood feud enemy had used their holiday to burrow through their wards, and was hiding inside the house, waiting for them to come inside unprepared so he could kill them. He was taken by the Aurors instead.” She issued a deep breath, the hiss of a teakettle. “I had one feeling like that when I was a child, and didn’t fly up into a storm that blew up suddenly and probably would have killed me.”
            “You have it now,” Harry summarized. “Can you tell whether it’s focused on you or me or something else?”
            “No.” Briseis opened one helpless hand. “I would feel a lot better if I could. Then at least I would know for sure what direction this is coming from. But I started feeling it this morning when I saw Minister Tillipop’s photograph, and I haven’t been able to get rid of it since.”
            “Hmmm,” murmured Harry thoughtfully.
            There was a quick bang against the window, the kind that said the next blow would splinter the glass. Harry waved his hand and dissolved the glass just as Persephone dived at it again. She sailed inside on broad wings as if she had meant to do that all along, and settled on his shoulder. Harry stroked her talons and ignored the way they pinched. Now that he had got out of Briseis what was bothering her, he thought it was all right for Persephone to be in the room.
            “Can you focus it at all?” Harry asked finally. “If I asked you about it, about specific things or events or people, could you narrow it down by the way you reacted to each mention of them?”
            Briseis blinked. “I don’t know if anyone’s ever tried to test it that way.” She leaned back against the wall, arms folded, and ignored Persephone as thoroughly as Persephone was currently ignoring her. “It has to be worth a try.” She nodded at Harry to go ahead, and Harry reached out and laid his hand next to the photograph of Tillipop.
            “When you think of Minister Tillipop,” he asked, “does the feeling become clearer? Sharper? Stronger? Is there something that makes you think that he’ll manage to get in a good strike after all, even though he hasn’t managed so far?”
            He paused, because Briseis was shaking her head hard enough to make Persephone hiss. But Persephone hissed at everything and anything, so Harry ignored that. “All right. What about me? Is it something I’m going to do? Have done?”
            Briseis hesitated and held out one hand, which swung back and forth like the pointing minute hand Harry had sometimes seen on Muggle watches. “It’s connected to you, but not something you’re going to do,” she murmured. Then she opened her eyes and concentrated on Harry. “Which is useless, since everyone alive in the wizarding world at the moment is influenced by you in some way or another.”
            Harry had to smile. “I hardly think the babies are. And I hope my students have better things to think of than what I’m going to do next.”
            Briseis sniffed and shut her eyes again, not looking convinced, and Persephone shifted as if she wanted to bite his ear but also didn’t want to agree with Briseis. Harry ignored her again. “All right. So let’s think of the people connected to me one by one. Ron? Hermione?”
            “I would have felt it before now, if it was one of them.” Briseis opened her eyes a second time, and there was a dull glitter in the back of them now. “They’re conceited and they don’t know politics as well as they think they do.”
            Harry made little patting motions on the air. He’d suspected that it was only a matter of time before Briseis had a dispute with his friends. They were Gryffindors still in a lot of the ways they did things and thought about things, and she was a Slytherin. Besides, she and Hermione were too alike for comfort. “Agreed about the politics part,” he said mildly. “But what about Draco?”
            Briseis waited for a long time, her head cocked, and Harry swallowed against the lump forming in his throat. Well, Briseis had said herself that her feelings were rarely that strong or specific. If it was about Draco, then Harry had to at least consider the possibility.
            And it could be something that would befall Draco, rather than him betraying Harry—which Harry could admit, at least to himself, would be his worst nightmare.
            “No,” Briseis said at last. “I’d have to be close to him to completely eliminate him. Or that adviser of his.” There was grudging admiration in her voice. She didn’t dislike Rosenthal, Harry thought, but once again, they were very similar, and Briseis didn’t entirely approve of the way Rosenthal did her job as Draco’s adviser. “But I think that it’s more likely to come from someone else. Maybe from his direction, though. That Blaise Zabini he keeps close to him. I didn’t like the look of him.” She eyed Harry. “And there was some talk about him blaming you for his mother’s actions. Wasn’t there?”
            Harry kept his face bland. Draco was the only one who knew in detail how Harry had punished Blaise’s mother for publishing photographs of his abusive childhood. “Something like that.” He waited, but Briseis finally shrugged and shook her head. Harry nodded back, unsurprised. “Well, keep thinking about that, and when you think that you have a more definite fix on what’s troubling you, then please let me know. I would rather have to think about a dozen different threats in detail than be blindsided by one.”
            “Speaking of being blindsided…”
            Harry groaned a little. “You have a sheaf of parchment in your hand,” he said, tragically. Persephone brushed a feather against his ear. She didn’t seem good at distinguishing between when he was pretending to be upset and when he actually was, which meant that she didn’t know when she should rejoice in his discomfort and when she should depress his humor. “That means another meeting, doesn’t it? Or another delegation?”
            “Right the second time.” Briseis tossed the parchment onto his desk and made washing motions with her hands for a moment. “But I believe that you’ll want to think more about this one than you did about offering friendship to the goblins or the centaurs or the merfolk.”
            Harry studied her. She kept her face bland, but she also turned away. Persephone gave a soft chirrup and dropped to the desk, considering the edge of the parchment as though she knew how to read.
            “You’ll have to take lessons if you want to know what the words mean,” Harry told her, and neatly dodged the latest attempt to take his finger off. Then he picked up the parchment and began to read.
            A second later, he raised his eyes to Briseis’s face. She’d been peeking to see how he would take it, but she hastily turned away and pretended to be busy with the applications for people to live under the rule of his court. Harry was revising them carefully, since he didn’t want Ministry informants or criminals who would hurt his people sneaking in under the general welcome.
            “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of this group before,” Harry said, keeping his voice mild, and rustled the paper. “The Independent and Most Noble and Ancient Order of Werewolves?”
            “I think the ‘Ancient’ part may be a misnomer.” Briseis kept her face calm and unconcerned. “I understand why they put it in there. It adds dignity. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a misnomer.”
            “Right,” Harry said, and put the parchment down, and stared at it some more.
            “If you’re concerned that the werewolves might not be qualified to contact you, I do recognize the names,” Briseis said, tapping the names on the first sheet of parchment. “They’re pure-bloods of high social standing. I didn’t—I don’t think anyone knew they were werewolves or connected to them, but they are real people. And not the kind where someone would run around using their names for fun, either.”
            Harry looked back at the names. Hubert Ombershade and Faustine Greenbush. He couldn’t say that he’d heard of either of them before, although from her name Faustine was probably related to the Greengrass family. He rapped his fingers against the sheet, and then considered Briseis again.
            “Shall I tell you all the trouble this is going to cause?” Harry asked, while Briseis stared innocently at the ceiling.
            “You can,” said Briseis, and grinned at him suddenly. “It would be a good proof that you listen to my lessons on culture and politics from time to time, instead of keeping me around to recite them for you.”
            Harry snorted, but didn’t comment. “The werewolves are technically still people most of the time, and subject to Ministry law for wizards,” he said, numbering the points on his fingers. Persephone arched her neck and looked at them with interest. Harry removed his hand from the table. “Except that they’re also treated as mindless magical creatures during the full moon. The Ministry makes them register, and treats them as capable of murder, but also speaks about them as poor victims and promises Wolfsbane to them on a regular basis. If they’re approaching me as magical beings, then they’re removing the human definition most of them still insist on, but they’re also claiming the kind of protection and the rights that the centaurs have.”
            “That the centaurs have in your court,” said Briseis, with an impressive nod of her head. “I don’t think the centaurs ever got much respect from the Ministry.”
            “Point.” Harry leaned back and sighed. There were times he could see the value of an addiction like Dumbledore’s, with the lemon sherbets; he could use something to do with his mouth or fingers right about now. On the other hand, then he might miss the second when Persephone decided she wanted to bite one of them. “But it’ll still bring me into open conflict with the Ministry. They’ll say that I’m supporting werewolves if I accept them, and interfering with the Ministry laws forcing them to register. And I’ll have to get Wolfsbane somehow. I don’t think I have a Potions master in my court capable of brewing it. And if I reject them, then I cause myself bad publicity with the magical creatures and the people who are supporting me mostly because I offered amnesty to everyone who wanted it.”
            Briseis waited, nodding a little. When Harry made it obvious that he had finished, she leaned forwards and asked, “Are you going to refuse to see Ombershade and Greenbush?”
            “Hell no,” Harry said, and looked around for his quill. Feathers scattered around Persephone’s break indicated that she’d probably eaten it. He contemplated plucking one of her feathers in return, for the barest moment, and decided that he wasn’t suicidal enough for that. In the meantime, he Transfigured one of the blank sheets of parchment Briseis had carried in into a quill and began to write his acceptance letter. “Just send this off by owl this morning, won’t you?”
*
            “What is he doing?”
            Draco looked up. He had come to associate that soft, anguished tone in Rosenthal’s voice with something Harry had done, rather than Tillipop. Tillipop’s stupidity scalded Rosenthal, who held a touching amount of faith in the Ministry’s ideals, but also rather pleased her, since it meant she had chosen the right side to back in the campaign.
            “What did he do now?” Draco asked, and held out his hand.
            Rosenthal gave him the paper without moving her head. She was looking fixedly in front of her, lips moving as though she was trying to figure out what she should write to the Prophet to excuse her candidate from any involvement in the latest Dark Lord Potter madness.
            Draco raised his eyebrows at the first sight of the picture, finding nothing wrong with it. Harry stood there, Persephone impressively on his shoulder, in dress robes, shaking hands with a tall man with hair and face like iron and a woman who barely came up to his shoulder. They both appeared pure-blood, from what they wore and the way they stood.
            Draco looked down further, and nearly choked on air. It was good that he’d already eaten.
            Harry was meeting with two werewolves. People Draco would never have suspected of being werewolves, once he read the names, but who had obviously chosen to expose themselves to the public in the hopes of gaining something more than they would lose.
            “Candidate Malfoy?” Rosenthal was being formal this morning. “There are already owls here wanting to know where you stand on the meeting. What will you announce?”
            Draco rubbed his face. Werewolves hadn’t been an issue in the campaign until now, except for people like Granger who were always fighting for their rights, but he had a feeling they were about to become one.
            And he knew what he had to do.
            He looked up. “Write back to the people who wrote to you with complete neutrality,” he said. “When the first reporters come, we’ll inform them of that little announcement Tillipop was kind enough to make to me about him trying to blackmail me.”
            Rosenthal was still, looking at him like a hawk.
            “No,” Draco said, quietly. “I’m not going to support werewolves simply because Harry does. I have to know more about them, to see if they’re worth supporting. And he can handle fires that I can’t because of his sheer power. For now, I’ll steer away from this.”
            Rosenthal nodded, first once, then several times. “I thought you would always follow him,” she whispered. “Sacrifice this campaign to his interests.”
            “No,” said Draco, and stood. “Send out those owls, if you please. And prepare that article. We need something to distract them from werewolves.”
            Rosenthal bowed her head, and Draco strode away from her, moving quickly down the corridors of the Manor—but not as quickly as his heart was beating.
            He knew that Harry hadn’t thought about inconveniencing Draco before he received the werewolves. He hadn’t done it on purpose.
            But he also hadn’t thought about Draco’s campaign, or informed him, or given Draco a good reason to support his new position.
            And that meant Draco couldn’t follow him. Not now. Not yet.

*
SP777: Well, you’ll notice that Harry didn’t ask her input for this decision, though that’s probably because he knew she would approve of it.
Meechypoo: Hermione thinks of most of her politics as an extension of the house-elf fight, since that was where they started for her. The problem is that the situation is more complex than just “slavery,” but she’s never been willing to see it that way, and that extends into other situations.
Genuka: Hermione wouldn’t have gone to him, but she might have started an independent resistance group.
Reba: After this chapter, I think you can guess what Harry is going to put her in charge of.
Kain: I think one reason some people see this as unforgivable is because intelligence as such does not necessarily make you politically savvy, and it was political matters she was mucking with. (Not that she’s alone. I’ve seen many, many smart people I respect and love get tangled up in political debates in the U.S—the only context I’m very familiar with—about everything from health care to race, and demand some immediate solution from politicians/people in charge, and not understand why it’s not possible). But now Harry is doing some things she’ll approve of, and that will make her more willing to listen to other things and offer strategies instead of demands.
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Black Phoenix