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Burning Day	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 10061 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
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Chapter Eleven--The Banned Ritual
            Rosenthal pulled at the golden chain that dangled down the front of Draco's chest, under his robes. "You realize that they'll be wild to know what this means? That a lot of the questions you receive will focus on that?"
              "You mean that the questions you want to ask focus on that." Draco stepped back from the mirror and studied himself critically. He had to admit that the royal blue robes weren't ones he would have chosen, but they were dramatic, contrasting with the golden chain and making his hair stand out like a pale flame. He had asked Rosenthal for dramatic, after all.
            "I can admit the possibility of both being true, which you're unlikely to." Rosenthal circled him slowly. "I would feel better if you told me what you were planning."
            Draco raised an eyebrow at her reflection. "I can see that you would. You're not usually this unsubtle."
            "You say this is the stroke that could guarantee your election, and you expect me not to be curious?"
            Softening, Draco glanced at her. "I think my election is guaranteed already. What I can do is guarantee a certain relationship between the Ministry and Harry."
            "And you won't tell me what it is."

            "I want you to be as surprised as everyone else." Draco touched the chain one more time, and more specifically the clasp that fastened it to the top of the hidden vial, then turned towards the door. "Let's go."
*
            Hermione sighed and handed over a pile of books taller than her head. "I'm sorry, Harry. I can't find anything in there about a way to prevent a ritual from being performed on Hogwarts grounds."
            Harry glanced at Lucy Lenneal, who hesitated. "I know a way to protect powerful places like Hogwarts from outside interference, but it takes months. I don't think you have that."
            "I know a way."
            Harry turned to Hortenisa Nott, who had joined them in his office when he invited the various people living in Hogwarts to come to him if they had any idea for banning a ritual from being performed on the entire grounds. Hortensia hadn’t said anything so far, and frankly Harry hadn’t expected her to. Her expertise in poisons would lead to some good physical defenses, but there was no way for her to extend that to rituals, unless she offered to poison anyone leading a ritual at Hogwarts. And Harry or his Veela or werewolf or merfolk or centaur guests might want to do that sometimes.
            “What is it?” Harry asked, when he realized that Hortensia was watching him unblinkingly and apparently awaiting permission to speak. She did make his flesh creep sometimes.
            “Anything can be poisoned,” said Hortensia. “That was one thing I was taught, and I hold it as an article of faith. That should include ideas, concepts, ghosts, the air itself. It should include rituals.”
            “You can’t poison an abstract concept,” Hermione started. Harry recognized one of those debating tones that meant Hermione could sit there and happily argue it for years, and hastily intervened.
            “I think she’s right, Hortensia,” he said. “I mean, I certainly never heard of anyone trying to poison any of those things. Or maybe the air, but they just meant poisoning it so that other people would breathe it in.”
            “I mean poisoning it,” said Hortensia peacefully, “so that it would cease to exist. And I spent many years thinking of, and sometimes creating, potions that would do harm to targets other people find strange.” Her politely bland face said that she thought they were the strange ones, for not pursuing all available lines of research. “I know how to poison a ritual.”
            “Even one that takes place inside a golden crystal?” Harry demanded. “Wouldn’t you have to smear the potion directly on each crystal in that case? And we can’t do that because we don’t know when they’re coming through the wards.”
            Hortensia folded her hands in her lap. “It presents an unusual challenge, and will demand a modification of my original design. But yes, I have thought of a way to handle even that.”
            “Then tell us,” said Hermione. Her leg was bouncing off the corner of her seat.
            Hortensia still waited until Harry made an encouraging little go-ahead motion with one hand, and then looked off into the distance as if she was contemplating eternity. “A ritual is made of will, ultimately. It may use a circle of blood or salt, the bark of an ash tree or a scattering of cinnabar, but it is human will that raises the power around the circle or invests the ash bark with symbolic effect or says that because cinnabar is a form of quicksilver, it may be used with immediately deadly effect. To poison a ritual, poison the will.
            “To poison the will might not sound much less difficult than to poison the ritual itself. But the will is only a portion of the human being, like the magical core or the mind. They are not physical, either. They are the sum of the power or the thoughts or the motions that make them up.”
            Hortensia sounded as if she was reciting from a book, but in a creepier way than Hermione, her eyes focused far away. Harry raised an eyebrow at Hermione, but she only shook her head and frowned. If this was in a book, it wasn’t one she was familiar with, and that alone was enough to make Harry listen to Hortensia with more interest.
            “Will can be destroyed, by drugs or the Imperius Curse or subtle poison or simply another will. So I created a poison that is its opposite—another will itself, one that wishes to neutralize the buildup of willpower when it encounters it.” Hortensia was speaking more normally now, her eyes fastened on Harry. “It will be a tricky matter to modify it so that it seeks the buildup of willpower inside a crystal rather than the open air or inside a chamber, but I know the theory. I will do it.”
            “And how soon do you think you can have it ready?” Although Harry didn’t know what Lenneal’s method was and thought he might have been able to do something that would take other people months in a shorter amount of time, she was right about one thing. They couldn’t wait for long.
            “In a few days,” said Hortensia, and looked seriously at him. “If you need to do something else, then I will develop the poison anyway. It is something that I want to exist.”
            Harry concealed a shudder. Perhaps it was the intense focus that made being around Hortensia so disturbing. “Well. Thank you. Go ahead and make it. I don’t think we’ll find a better defense.”
            Hortensia nodded and stood up, wandering out of his office. That left Hermione and Lenneal to exchange glances before Lenneal turned back to him.
            “Do you think it wise to trust her, Lord Potter? She could turn her poisons expertise against you at any time.”
            “I think that it’s wise I made her take an oath of loyalty not to harm me or my people unless she’s attacked first,” said Harry, and grinned a little at the shock on Lenneal’s face. “I understand what you’re saying, but it’s fine, really. I trust Hortensia to want to defend the Court where she’s taken up residence.”
            Lenneal gave him a long, slow look, and then stood. “I should probably be present at the speech that Candidate Malfoy is going to make today. He said that he would be revealing something that would change the Ministry’s relationship with you.”
            Harry grinned more widely. “I know he is,” he said. “Do send me a Pensieve memory of your reaction later. It should be priceless.” There was a reason that Draco hadn’t told anyone other than Harry what he intended.
            Lenneal gave him another slow look before leaving. That left Hermione to hold Harry’s eyes and ask, “But you don’t need to go to the speech, do you?”
            Harry shook his head. “I’m going to be busy with more interviews, anyway. And making sure that the Veela know that when they expand Hogwarts, they have to do it carefully, or they’re going to end up making more mistakes and causing more trouble than it’s worth.”
            “Expand Hogwarts?”
            “They persuaded me their tree-souls would need more room to grow, and I agree that that’s probably true,” said Harry, with a slight shrug. “The tree-souls can grow Hogwarts with roots that reinforce the stone walls. I don’t think it’s a permanent solution to all our space problems, but it’s a good one for now.”
            Hermione nodded and stood. Her gaze didn’t leave him, though. Harry cocked his head. “What?”
            “You’re working with so many different people now,” said Hermione. “And you’re taking such aggressive measures in defense. I wonder if the Ministry really needs to be persuaded to leave you alone anymore. Maybe they would leave you alone of their own free will now.”
            Harry snorted a little. “I have some hope that what Draco’s going to speak about today will strengthen that attitude, but it’ll still take a little while to settle in completely.”
            Hermione nodded. Harry was pleased to see that she didn’t immediately argue the way she would have before, but stood up with a faintly resigned expression and reached for the books on the desk. “You won’t need these now that you have Hortensia’s promise to come up with the poison, will you?”
            “Well, I might fancy a bit of light reading, so you can leave them,” said Harry, solely to see the expression on her face.
*
            Draco took his place in front of the crowd, his expression nervous and resigned. He knew it was, because he had made it so, and cast a few glamours that would hide twitches of his eyes and mouth and help to strengthen the impression. He touched the gold chain around his neck and glanced back and forth, across the crowd.
            They had assembled in the Ministry, this time, in one of the courtrooms that the Wizengamot used for highly public trials. That was a challenging, daring gesture, one that Draco had discussed with Amos Diggory and Lucy Lenneal for some time before he decided to use it. The council that technically had replaced the Minister would find it easy to get at him right now and strike him down.
            But he couldn’t worry as much about that. He had other things to worry about. Real things.
            The crowd that filled the courtroom, sitting beneath the balcony where he stood and staring up at him, consisted mostly of Ministry people, as he should have expected. A small contingent of reporters was shunted off to one side, and there were Unspeakables with their hoods down and a few people Draco almost recognized by now, they followed him so stubbornly from speech to speech. He didn’t know for sure if they were spies for someone or just people who looked on politics as a spectator sport.
            But mostly the Ministry. As he had planned and decided on. He fingered the golden chain, and saw more than one person look at it with an expression of high curiosity. But he didn’t let it go.
            Heads bent towards each other all over the courtroom, and although a lot of people whispered so that no one else could overhear what they were saying, the buzzing noise itself increased the waves of sound. Draco waited until some of them were speaking in loud voices, caution overwhelmed by their excitement. Then he cleared his throat, the Sonorus he had already cast bouncing the sound in several different directions.
            They stopped talking at once, and turned to stare up at him. Draco nodded as if embarrassed and waved his hand so that Rosenthal, waiting in the wings, would come forwards with a sheaf of parchment that his audience would take to be the text of his speech.
            Draco waited until Rosenthal was halfway across the floor to him, as they had already decided on. Then he flung up a hand. Rosenthal stopped and took a step backwards, the “speech” dangling in her hand. She looked surprised and disconcerted in a way that Draco wanted to applaud her for. It was exactly as they had practiced it.
            He turned his head back and forth, collecting eyes, making people stare at him. Then he drew out the golden chain and the vial that hung on the end of it, made of green glass. He saw people craning their necks to look, and obligingly held the vial up higher so that they could all see it and focus on it.
            “This is the memory of the last encounter I had with Harry Potter,” he whispered. “I didn’t want to show it to you. I brought it with me today to give me strength, to remind myself of what we would face if I didn’t negotiate with him and keep his attention. But I find that I can’t keep it private. I have to share it, to watch the same understanding reflected in your eyes.”
            The Unspeakables’ hoods rustled. Other people were reacting, too, calling and shouting, but Draco watched the Unspeakables. They wondered where he was going with this, he was almost certain. They had been trying to present the image of Harry as dangerous, but it must seem strange that Draco would do their work for them.
            Draco gently uncorked the vial and tapped the glass of the lip with his wand. “There is a spell that can make memories visible without the aid of a Pensieve,” he whispered. “It costs a lot to cast, but not as much as I’ve already suffered.”
            And that was all true, except the last part. This was a memory made visible, and anyone else who wanted to could go and look up the spell, locate it and verify for themselves that Draco was telling the truth.
            What they were seeing was, of course, the doctored memory that Draco and Harry had created between them as Harry’s magic slowly grew back to its full strength. But since it was spun of Harry’s power, it wouldn’t have the telltales of a fake or changed memory that most people could recognize.
            The green gas that rose from the vial slowly turned darker and diversified, and then became the shore of the lake at Hogwarts, the trees of the Forbidden Forest leaning near. Draco knelt on the shore, shivering, his hands extended outwards. Harry stood in front of him, leaning down with his face locked in a scowl.
            His magic extended enormous black wings from his back, curving out and down until Draco was in their shadow.
            Some people, maybe near the back and unable to see as well, started shrieking that Lord Potter’s black phoenix had never died. Draco didn’t care about that. It was the interaction between him and Harry that was most important.
            “I don’t understand why you let me live,” the fake Draco whispered, “if you despise me that much.”
            The fake Harry bent down and touched Draco’s chin, not with a finger but with the tip of a wing. Draco shivered a little, watching. He did wish sometimes that Harry had done that to him in reality, but not for the reasons that anyone would assume—at least, anyone who wasn’t Rosenthal.
            “I’m letting you live because you amuse me,” the fake Harry said, and shook his head, the emotions sharp and vivid on his face. “I think that no one else would amuse me as much. You’re someone I had a rivalry with in Hogwarts! Someone who thought that he could just swagger right up to me and offer me all sorts of advice on the political scene.” He stretched his wings and stepped back a little, as though he wanted Draco to cower at different parts of his shadow. “My magic substitutes for knowledge. I really don’t need you to offer me anything that you could. If you were a different kind of person, maybe…”
            Then he reached down and gripped Draco’s shoulder. “But if you were a different kind of person, one who had a more realistic evaluation of his own goals, you wouldn’t be as amusing.”
            The fake Draco’s face drained of blood as Harry squeezed down. They had carefully made up the memory to make it look like Harry was leaving a bruise on him at the precise spot where the real Harry had left a love bite. Draco touched his shoulder in reality and winced, because the spot was a little tender, and saw his audience’s eyes follow the gesture.
            “I’m going to let you go now,” the fake Harry whispered, tender as a sadist. “And you’d better win the election, because I don’t want to deal with someone else, someone who doesn’t amuse me as much, as the head of the Ministry.”
            The fake Draco nodded frantically, scrambled to his feet, and ran. The memory dissolved then, with the fake Harry spreading his wings as if to fly.
            In the silence that followed, Draco lowered the vial and stared at the faces that stared back at him.
            “We have to propitiate him,” Draco whispered. “It’s the only way that we can survive. And for some reason, I’m the one he wants to do that.” He tried to smile. He knew it came out as sickly, because that was the way he willed it to come out. “I hope that I can fight for some independence for the Ministry in the meantime, but it’s not an immediate goal. My immediate goal is survival—and the survival of the wizarding world that will come along with me, at least if Lord Potter keeps his word.”
            There was uproar then, questions, and even Rosenthal played along with realistic shock and overprotectiveness when some of the questions turned too personal. But the Unspeakables were the ones that Draco kept an eye on.
            They were whispering to each other, but they didn’t leave the room. They listened intently to every word Draco and Rosenthal said, and more than once, Draco felt the tingle of a charm launched at the vial around his neck, as if to figure out what it was made of or Summon it discreetly.
            They might not be convinced yet, but they were intrigued, perhaps frightened, and they had better reason than most to know how powerful Harry was. Draco held his frightened-but-brave expression with some difficulty, given the laughter in his heart.
*
SP777: I think they are both a little insecure, but no one can exactly know what the future holds. At least they’re both pretending to contain it as best they can.
BAFan: Thank you!
Jester: No. It meant Harry had to rest and it could have hurt him badly if it had gone on, but he did manage to break free.
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Burning Day