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Black Phoenix	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 21568 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 5
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

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Chapter Eleven—Separate Ways
            “I’m so pleased to meet you.”
            Harry hid a smile, and concentrated on making sure that Persephone would stay on his shoulder instead of launch herself at someone. Hermione’s voice was as bright as her eyes, which kept darting over Greenbush’s and Ombershade’s faces. They’d posed for the official pictures in the paper; now they were having a more private conversation, although still in front of Hogwarts. And Harry had decided that it was time for Hermione to meet the werewolves he was allying with.
            After all, they were going to be very important to her soon.
            “And we you, Miss Granger.” Ombershade was a gruff man, or one whose heavy jaws and silver hair made him look that way, but he could unbend towards Hermione, and even kiss her hand. Harry, who had been watching—with one hand on Persephone’s talons—relaxed a little. Ombershade and Greenbush were desperate, or cunning, to take this risk, but they were still pure-bloods. He had wanted to make sure there would be no blood politics nonsense. “We’ve heard much about your activities in the war and the way that Lord Potter wouldn’t have succeeded without you.”
            Harry hid another smile. Ombershade might have heard that, but he was unlikely to have brought it up, or paid attention to it, unless he already suspected what Harry intended to do. Or maybe he was just remembering that Hermione was usually a champion of magical creatures, and reckoned it couldn’t hurt to make someone who was inclined to be sympathetic to him even more so.
            Greenbush arched her eyebrows a little. She was the more cynical one, Harry thought, and the real power behind the Most Ancient and Noble Order of Werewolves. She had golden-amber eyes, but the light kept redefining them as hazel when she turned her head. Her hair was naturally tawny brown, as far as Harry could tell. No wonder it had been so easy for her to hide.
            Well, money and an isolated house probably helped, too.
            Greenbush saw him looking, and leaned towards him. “That is our liaison?” she murmured, with a nod at Hermione.
            Harry nodded back, and then stepped forwards to claim Hermione’s attention. She was trying to reply to Ombershade’s compliment, but she kept blushing and fumbling her words, and so this was as much for her as for everyone else. “Yes, actually,” he said, raising his voice so that both Hermione and Ombershade turned to look at him. “I thought I told you, Hermione, but maybe not. I’m putting you in charge of everything to do with the Most Ancient and Noble Order of Werewolves’s liaison with my court from this point forwards. No one knows the laws as well as you do, or has as much passion for them.”
            Hermione turned around and stared at him with her mouth gaping. Then she swallowed a little and asked, “The laws that you have no intention of following?”
            You try to do someone a favor, Harry thought. He saw a similar expression on Greenbush’s face, although she had wiped it off a second later. Harry smiled. He suspected that Greenbush would be someone he could work with.
            “I mean that you know the Ministry’s laws, and you can study them and come up with something better for my court,” Harry explained patiently. “It would be nice if we could make my court an attractive place not just because the Ministry has been fucking up relationships with the magical creatures for decades, but in its own right.” He kept an eye on Greenbush and Ombershade as he spoke, but neither of them seemed upset at being spoken of as magical creatures. Then again, they probably knew that they had sacrificed most of their human status when they decided to reveal themselves as werewolves.
            Hermione’s face twitched a little. She might have disliked his swearing, but she nodded. “Good,” she said. “I’m glad to see that you’ve started to take the issue of magical creatures and their treatment seriously at last, Harry.”
            Harry didn’t let his own face twitch, although he saw Greenbush look back and forth between him and Hermione as if some interesting speculations had just occurred to her. But Harry made a point of dipping his head to Hermione and murmuring, “Thank you for taking over this for me.”
            Hermione nodded in distraction, already turning to face the two werewolves again and ask questions. Harry moved back towards the castle. Briseis had fallen into step behind him, and Blackthorne. Harry hadn’t asked for Blackthorne to be there, but apparently he believed he should, as a Knight of the Lightning Bolt.
            And that’s still a stupid name, and it’s still one that I should change.
            “‘Arry!”
            That was Hagrid’s strong voice. Harry smiled and turned around. Hagrid was hurrying over from his hut, and following him was Anne, the rescued Muggleborn girl who had been staying with him. Her kitten was curled up on her shoulder, asleep, but it opened its eyes and lashed its tail a little when it saw Persephone. Persephone looked back down her beak, so haughty that she forgot about biting Harry on the ear or shitting down his back. Well, good.
            “How are you?” Harry asked Anne. It was possible that she would be too shy to talk to him, but he wanted to show that he considered she had every right to speak, if she wanted to.
            Anne turned and buried her face in Hagrid’s side, but Hagrid laid a hand on her shoulder that covered up most of her and the kitten and spoke fondly. “She’s adapting, just like yeh said she would. It’s goin’ slow.” For a moment, his eyes met Harry’s meaningfully. “But I don’t mind that.”
            “I wouldn’t mind it, either,” Harry murmured truthfully. He wished he had more time to spend with Anne. He might not be able to help her recover any better than Hagrid did, and she might be scared of his magic, so it probably wouldn’t work. But if she was able to ask questions, he could answer them, and tell her that she would able to use magic, too, and give her what she wanted with his power, and watch as she grew and flourished into a new type of person.
            But it was also important to run the court where she would have the best chance of growing into that happier person, so Harry nodded and stepped back. He smiled at Hagrid, and at Anne on the off chance that she happened to look up. The kitten was still watching him, or maybe Persephone. “Are you all right?” he asked Hagrid.
            Hagrid nodded, but gave one narrow-eyed glance at the werewolves. “We was just wonderin’ if yeh could set up some wards around the cottage,” he said. “Anne was a bit frightened the other night.”
            Harry opened his mouth to ask if it was werewolves, then shut it again. Of course it wouldn’t have been, because the moon hadn’t been full. But Anne might have been scared by something else, and with werewolves on the Hogwarts grounds, Hagrid wanted to take no chances.
            “Of course,” he said. “I’ll come by at sunset tonight.”
            Hagrid beamed at him. “Great!” He turned back to Anne, and gently shepherded her in the direction of the hut. “We should see whether Fang finished off that bone,” he told her, in the rumble that made it sound like they shared an important secret, mysterious and special.
            Anne grinned up at him. Harry smiled. He would have to hope that he could find guardians as good for any other abused children that his people might alert him to.
            “I couldn’t hope noticing the discussion about wards,” Greenbush murmured, strolling over to him. When he looked, Harry could see Ombershade still involved in a discussion with Hermione, though from his slightly turned head, he knew exactly where Greenbush had gone. “Not our presence causing it, I trust?”
            Harry looked into her amber-hazel eyes, and smiled a little. Here was a woman who would know in an instant if Harry tried to feed her a load of bollocks, and he respected her for it.
            “Partially you,” he responded calmly. “Hagrid cares for all the animals of the Forest, and sometimes werewolves get in and hunt them. Now that you’re going to be around Hogwarts more often, I think he’d prefer it if he had strong wards on his house, so that no one can get in and try to eat the injured animals he keeps there.”
            Greenbush paused. “It does get tiring to be told that one is the monster, and one is the problem,” she said softly. “I wonder if you know how much.” She didn’t have any hackles standing on end or her teeth bared, but the way she looked at him, she couldn’t have sent a clearer message if she did.
            “Do I know about what it’s like to be feared for things I can’t help?” Harry echoed, and couldn’t help snorting. He tilted his head so that his ear pointed towards Persephone, and then tilted it back again, the other way, so that she wouldn’t get any ideas. “Do I know what it’s like to be called a monster for the power of my magic?”
            Greenbush’s eyes narrowed a little further, and if Harry had thought she was going to attack him—if she was stupid enough to do that, right in the middle of his court, inside his wards, in the center of his power—that would have been the moment. And then a reluctant smile crept across her face, and she nodded.
            “Very well,” she said. “I understand.” She turned back towards Hermione and Ombershade, and then paused. “And you will grant us an audience if this liaison does not work out?”
            “I’ll always grant you an audience,” Harry said. “Even if what you want is just to complain.”
            He got a single harsh smile for that, and Greenbush loped off. Harry sighed and turned back towards the school.
            He had consequences to face now, he thought. Among other things, he hadn’t informed Draco of this move before he did it. That was partially because he had wanted to make it happen before the Ministry caught wind of it and threw some kind of mud into the works, and partially because he had wanted to dazzle Hermione and give her a project that would occupy her mind and spare him some time and trouble, and partially because—
            Would Draco have thought that we should get involved with werewolves, even ones who are pure-bloods willing to risk their reputations for the sake of fair treatment?
            Harry sighed and rubbed his forehead. He had been afraid that Draco would say no, and so he had taken the choice from him, in a way. Draco could still say no, and distance himself and his campaign from it. Harry expected that was the route he would take, since commenting on werewolves extensively when he hadn’t before would endanger his run for Minister.
            Harry sighed again, and ignored the way that Persephone perked up and looked around for the source of his trouble. He and Draco had a personal relationship that was separate from but intertwined with their politics. He wondered if it wasn’t the right time for the politics to break off altogether. Let Draco come to Harry in private, sleep with Harry in private, and Harry could still offer him shelter if something went badly wrong. He would also offer the same to Rosenthal, Draco's adviser who had been used by the Ministry as a political weapon against Harry, although Harry hoped she would be too canny to be caught by the same tactic again.
            But perhaps their politics should not align so openly in the future. There were already people who suspected the connection between them—the real one, not the funding scandal Tillipop had woven out of whole cloth. Harry thought perhaps this should be the moment when they broke apart and floated separately from each other.
            They might not have a better one.
*
            Draco tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair and stared at his fireplace. He had returned to his private room immediately after the rounds of speaking to Ministry people that had dominated his day. Some of them had to be reassured that they wouldn't lose their jobs after Draco became Minister; others had to be bribed to support him; others had to be persuaded that it was in their best interests to have a Minister who was actually interested in the affairs of the various Departments, instead of distant from them, as Tillipop had mostly been.
            But he had returned expecting to find a quiver in the ward that would tell him someone had tried to firecall him, and he had missed it by being away. He had come back, and found the ward still.
            Then he had taken his seat in the chair, and waited, certain that the Floo would pop open any second, with Harry trying breathlessly to explain why he had been so busy with his werewolves as not to contact Draco before.
            But the Floo remained stubbornly closed, the hearth cold and silent.
            Draco scowled, at last, and stood up, reaching for the Floo powder in his own bowl. This was ridiculous. It wasn't as though he feared Harry, the way so many people did, and crouched and cringed back from speaking to him. He ought to be man enough to at least start the process and firecall him. If not speaking to him about the werewolves indicated some deeper political breach between them and not just carelessness on Harry's part, then Draco wanted to know as soon as possible.
            At first, his call received only a muffled response, the way it would if the Floo was locked. Draco frowned, debating calling back later. He didn't want to sound like the needy and fragile one, but he wanted to know what the fuck was going on.
            Then the Floo opened, and Harry's face appeared in the flames. The way his expression brightened when he saw Draco settled his suspicions on at least one point. Harry hadn't kept this to himself because he was getting tired of Draco, or something.
            "Draco," he whispered. "Am I glad to see you."
            Draco kept himself from melting, mostly by folding his arms and looking as stern as he could. "But not so glad that you could call me before this, and invite me to join you in your triumph over the werewolves?" he asked sweetly. "I did expect to be informed by you, instead of by the Daily Prophet and all the owls asking if I had any comment on it."
            Harry opened his mouth, then closed it. "I should have known that trying to spare you wouldn't work," he muttered. "People would ask your campaign for comments even if they thought that you didn't have anything to do with my decisions."
            "So what does that mean?" Draco asked, preserving his countenance even though his heart ached and sped up a little, making his eyes water. He was giving me time to back away? "You don't want me in any contact with you while you work through your werewolf problem?"
            Harry sighed loudly enough to be irritating, his eyes fixed on Draco. "No. That's not what it means, at all! I was giving you a chance not to comment if you didn't want to. Our private and our public relationships are different, Draco. I couldn't alert you that the werewolves were courting me without also alerting lots of other people."
            "Really," Draco said, narrowing his eyes and letting them rest skeptically on Harry's face, not moving anywhere else. "But you couldn't possibly have communicated with me privately to let me know what was going on?"
            Harry's face went through several expressions. Draco preserved a stoic, still irate silence, letting the moment fall as it would.
            "I didn't think of it until later," Harry said. "Everything moved so fast, and I was thinking about getting Hermione to take up the werewolf problem for me, and worrying about how it would affect things if I waited to contact them, and thinking only last about what you would say. Maybe--maybe I should have thought of it earlier. I'm sorry."
            "Yes, you should have," Draco said, rising to his feet with one hand clenched down at his side. "So, you've allied with the werewolves, then? And Granger is in charge of them?"
            "Yes," said Harry, a little cautiously, still watching them.
            Draco nodded once. He made sure that it was distant, the way Rosenthal would have approved of, although maybe not the way she would have wanted. "This is going to cause me a great deal of difficulty," he said casually. "There's a reason that most of the Ministers have avoided the issue of the werewolves in the past, you know. There are people dissatisfied with the laws, but none of them want the same solutions. Some want open hunting license on the werewolves, some want all of them to register, some of them want them exiled, some of them want the kind of more liberal laws that your friend Granger would favor, and--"
            "Don't be like this, Draco," Harry said, one hand reaching out towards him. "I'm sorry that I didn't contact you and give you time to prepare. I am. But I wouldn't have decided not to ally with the werewolves anyway. The most I could have done was give you a few hours, or maybe a day, of extra knowing."
            "That could have made the difference," Draco said, and bowed, and shut the Floo connection.
            He turned away, as Harry's face and open mouth puffed into green nothingness. He probably ought to find Rosenthal quickly, and tell her that he would be prepared with a statement on werewolves in the morning.
*
            Genuka: More than anything, I think Harry was afraid that Draco would tell him not to do it, and so he did this kind of silly thing instead.
            SP777: He does indeed try to take a bite out of me every now and then! And I have never found any kind of meat that he doesn't like. Ham, sausage, chicken (little cannibal), salmon...he eats it all.
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Black Phoenix