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Easy as Falling	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 31246 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 4
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

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Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Twelve—A Sense of the Dramatic

            “Duels are still technically legal, you know. If fought in public on ground that’s been carefully cleared of innocent victims.”

            Harry fought the urge to bury his head in his hands. “Yes, I know, Miss Ladon,” he said, because if he could continue using the formal title instead of the first name she’d urged him to call her, then he might conquer the impulse to cuff her around the ear. “But I don’t want to duel the Minister.”

            “Why not? He’s already done something far worse than using a few curses to hurt you.” Briseis leaned forwards across the table. “You could suffer from him releasing your mental history, and not only because it’s always humiliating to have that happen. An enemy could use those secrets against you, now.”

            Harry shook his head. “So far, we’ve kept this to the realm of newspaper articles,” he said. “Interviews.”

            Briseis looked around the Headmaster’s office, and then back to him. “I know that you used the school to force people to leave you alone, and you branded an attempted murderer’s face,” she said, sounding obscurely disappointed. “Why are you so eager to avoid letting Tillipop face the natural consequences of his actions?”

            Harry grimaced. “If I’m the one that actually escalates the situation into a war, then I’ll be branded, to use your word, as the villain in the eyes of the public.”

            Briseis shook her head. She had long pale hair that made Harry think she was related to the Malfoys somehow, but she kept hers flying around her as if she saw no reason to tie it back. “Some of them already think of you that way. And what matters in a situation like this is practicality, making sure that you can defend yourself and defend others, not looking good to posterity. Posterity makes its own mind up, anyway, and sometimes what they choose makes no sense to those of us alive at the time.” She leaned forwards persuasively. “Come on, Mr. Potter. Mr. Malfoy told me that you were going to defend the people who belonged to you, that you would try to be a true Lord. Do you really think that it’s not going to come down to war in the end?”

            Harry got up from behind his desk and paced. He could feel the subtle vibrations that ran through the floor under his feet as Hogwarts reached out to calm him, to touch him, to soothe him. Briseis tilted her head back to watch him, eyes calm and bright.

            “No,” Harry admitted at last, when he’d made a circuit of the room so many times that he’d expected Briseis to explode before now. Not related to Malfoy, then, if she can keep quiet that long. He dropped into his chair with a heavy sigh. “I know it will. But—we should keep it peaceful for as long as we can.”

            “Why?” Briseis sounded as baffled as if he’d said that he was going to give up his wand and go to live among Muggles.

            “Because of those innocent bystanders you were talking about,” Harry said, meeting her eyes. “A legal duel has to have the area cleared. But you can’t do that in a war. Someone will get hurt. The longer we can put it off, the fewer people that is.”

            “You don’t believe that, either.” Briseis folded a hand on her knee. She wore dark purple robes with golden braid that Harry had seen Malfoy wrinkle his nose at when she’d come into the drawing room of Malfoy Manor to meet with Harry. Malfoy probably thought them vulgar. Harry didn’t know what he thought about them, and he had to admit that Briseis probably didn’t give a shit. “And anyway, that’s the kind of war Voldemort fought. No reason that you shouldn’t start this next one on a different footing, when you have access to all the magic you bragged to Mr. Malfoy about.”

            Harry stared at her, mouth slightly open. Briseis brought her hand down on the desk. “Oh, come on. You were there when he told me about it. Of course I know you’re powerful.”

            “No,” Harry said. “You said Voldemort’s name without flinching.”

            Briseis gave him a very small smile. “A wise man once told me that you give a name power by fearing it,” she said, her eyes flicking to the newest of the portraits behind Harry on the wall. “And I refuse to let a name, a sound that you produce with your lips and your tongue and that dies as soon as you say it, have power over me.”

            Harry blinked. “That’s such a Slytherin justification.”

            “Of course it is,” Briseis said. “And I was also there when you said that you had a fair proportion of Slytherin in you. Was that real? Or just something else to brag about?” She leaned forwards and fluttered her eyelashes at Harry.

            Harry snorted. “I’m not sure that’s something I would brag about.”

            Briseis sat back, grinning. “Good. You can have some spirit when you want to.” Then the smile vanished off her face in the next instant. Harry was sure that was another political trick, maybe picked up from Dumbledore as well, but it was an effective one. “That’s what you need to win this war, Mr. Potter. Spirit. You can’t just go along and hope the Ministry is the one to start violence first. Why would you even want that? It might mean that someone you’ve promised to protect gets hurt or killed. Strike first, and you’re the one who controls the extent of the violence.”

            Harry snorted a little. “Voldemort thought that too, and it got him killed.”

            Briseis shrugged. “His goals were different than yours. He was fighting an offensive war, not a defensive one.” She looked around the office. “But you have your portion of ground to defend, and you would go to the death to defend it, if you had to. I know you already went to your death once to keep the people you loved safe.”

            Harry shook his head a little, not to deny the suggestion but to dismiss the event. He didn’t like to think about it much, especially now that he had to live to defend things. It made what he had done seem a little strange. “Right. But to think I can control the war if I strike first is ridiculous. That battle, maybe. Not the war.”

            “Why not?” Briseis leaned back, and her eyes shone at him. “There’s another difference between you and the other Dark Lords. Voldemort fought with secrecy and terror. He wanted to kill Muggles, but he wanted some wizards alive, too, to bend the knee to him. And Grindelwald wanted land to rule. He didn’t even care if he came to the attention of Muggles, or helped them. He wanted power. You don’t want either.”

            Harry narrowed his eyes. It was true enough. He had no intention of pulling Muggles into this, and he would do everything openly. Neither of those things pointed the way to a strategy. “Explain what you mean.”

            “I think,” Briseis said, “that you have a better chance of controlling the war than either of them did, because you can fight with pure power. And you have no one of comparable power alive to oppose you, the way Dumbledore was for Grindelwald, and you have no one fated to defeat you.” She paused abruptly and began to rifle through the stack of parchment she had carried into the office and then laid down next to her so that she could spend more time talking with her hands. “At least, I think so. I’ll have to check on that. The Ministry doesn’t allow people to hear the prophecies, not now that they’ve had to change the whole design of that part of the Department of Mysteries, but it’s a matter of public record who they’re about.”

            Harry shook his head a little. “I thought—”

            “You made threats about your level of power,” Briseis said, snapping her head up to look at him. “Threats and statements. That means that you should be prepared to back them up. Or was that a bluff only? If it was, then the whole of our strategy is going to have to change.” She pushed her hair out of her eyes, frowning at him.

            “No, it’s real,” Harry said, and stretched his hands out to feel the foundations of Hogwarts stretching with him. “But I don’t want to kill people, and showy illusions can only impress them for so long.”

            Briseis smiled. “Is that all you can think of to do with your magic? I can think of more.”

*

            “Mr. Malfoy!” Rita Skeeter shouted, trotting across the Manor gardens towards him. She was an hour in advance of the crowd, but Draco had expected that. “Is it true that you think peace and not war is the answer for the Ministry’s negotiations with Dark Lord Potter?”

            Draco smiled at Skeeter and folded his arms neatly on the table that Rosenthal had set up so he could sit in comfort while he discussed the questions Skeeter and the others would ask him with a “discreet group of friends.” “Don’t your words contradict each other?” he said. Potter had never known the proper way to handle Skeeter. She appreciated someone who could fence with her, and Draco’s wit hadn’t dulled since his Hogwarts days, when he had first worked with her. “You can’t have negotiations without a war.”

            “Of course you can,” Skeeter said, and leaned across the table towards him. Draco raised his eyebrows a little. She really wanted this story, then. “You can have negotiations that are aimed at staving off the threat of war. But do you really want peace? Do you think you can hold a Dark Lord at bay for long?”

            Draco leaned forwards and assumed a confidential tone. Of course, he knew anything he said would end up in the Prophet, and probably distorted, too. The key was to convince Skeeter that his words were too important and fascinating to twist, that printing the truth would get a greater reaction. “Well, you have to remember Dark Lord Potter isn’t like other Dark Lords.” The title combined with Potter’s name still made him want to laugh, but from the way Skeeter’s face paled a little, she was impressed, the way she should be. “He was part of the ordinary wizarding community until relatively recently. He had all the power and the fame he could want, so he didn’t declare himself a Dark Lord to attain more of that.”

            “Well, I don’t know.” Skeeter played with her quill. “He hasn’t been in the news as much in the last year.”

            Draco looked at her directly. “And do you think the lack of privacy being in the news brought him is something he mourns?”

            Skeeter sighed. She would do that when no one else was there to notice and overhear her, then. Good. Draco had wondered. “No. Of course not. But I do think that perhaps he hasn’t considered the full ramifications of his actions.”

            Draco sniffed. “Does he ever?”

            “Malfoy!”

            Draco was expecting it, and still he almost rose from behind the table. Skeeter spun around and exchanged her quill for her wand so fast that Draco wondered if those rumors about her being a duelist in private were true.

            Potter stood at the end of Draco’s gardens, his arms folded and a thunderous frown brooding on his face. Of course, they had planned this, but Ladon must have talked him into more illusions than Draco originally had. All around him whirled his own miniature thunderstorm, the lightning bolts dancing from tiny dark clouds and striking the ground hard enough to make divots of grass spin into the air.

            Then Draco smelled the electric charge, and blinked. That thunderstorm was real.

            He rose to his feet, feeling as though one of the bolts had come to touch him, and bowed in Potter’s direction. This was already straying away from the careful script they’d discussed last night. He hoped Potter retained enough of the words, if not the actions, to let Draco carry this through as he needed to. “Dark Lord Potter. May I inquire why I have the honor of your presence at my home?”

            Skeeter’s eyes were darting back and forth between them, and Draco could hear her breath growing raspy. She knew as well as Draco did that the storm around Potter was no illusion. She must want her quill more than she wanted her wand, if the way her fingers twitched was any indication.

            Potter gave Skeeter a look of magnificent derision, and then focused on Draco. Draco knew he was smarter than Pansy gave him credit for, or his tongue would have fallen out of his mouth as he panted for Potter, for the effect that Potter’s attention had on him. He was glad he stood behind the table, for several reasons.

            “You claim that you can negotiate with me?” Potter drawled. Draco swallowed. If this had been serious, he would have been convinced by that drawl. From her silent, intent look, Skeeter certainly was. “Why? What makes you so sure that you, little coward that you were during the war, have the bravery to stand up to me?” He spread his arms.

            The storm whirled away from him, the lightning striking wildly at the grass, killing several flowers and blackening a long, jagged trail that led towards the Manor. Draco winced privately and hoped Potter wouldn’t mind a contribution of Galleons to repair the damage later.

            If he did mind, it wasn’t like Draco could really make him pay for it.

            “It’s because I know you,” Draco said, and took a step forwards, around the table this time. He had to seem as if he’d forgotten Skeeter, and right now, she was too much in his line of sight. He stood there with his hands spread, but low at his sides, so there was no chance of him seeming threatening. “I know things about you that all of them have forgotten.”

            Potter rolled his eyes and sneered. “Like what? That I can fly well? That I beat you at each and every Quidditch game we shared?” His eyes locked on Draco’s, and yes, he could manage a glare hard enough to knock Draco down—if he had been anyone but Potter’s ally. Draco enjoyed the image in his head of what effect that glare would have on Minister Tillipop. “You can’t tell them anything if I choose to shut your mouth.”

            He extended his hand and wriggled his fingers, and Draco almost choked when he felt the skin of his lips start creeping upwards over his mouth. That hadn’t been anything they agreed on.

            But they had an audience, no matter how intensely Draco was pretending he had forgotten her, and so he couldn’t yell at Potter. He extended his hands in front of him this time and said, trying to ignore the blur in his words, “I mean that I know you’re fundamentally a good person. And not mental, the way the Minister claims. And you admire courage, and you won’t injure anyone who comes to you in good faith.”

            Potter gave him a look of disbelief so patent that Draco wondered if he was a better actor than Draco had thought he was, or if Ladon had coached him into it. Or maybe he was surprised Draco could speak those words of praise with a straight face.

            At least Draco’s mouth stopped attempting to sew itself shut, and Potter stepped up to Draco. “Let me look into your eyes,” he snapped. “I can read someone’s soul through their eyes.”

            “You mean Legilimency?” Draco asked, trying not to squeak as Potter’s fingers settled on his jaw. This was something they had discussed and acted out before, thank Merlin, but he hadn’t known how rough Potter’s hand would be. He seemed to think he had to be strong in front of Skeeter, and had no idea how strong he actually was.

            “Of course not,” Potter said, and gave Draco a dark grin. “I’m pants at that, always was. I’m talking about magic that can let me see your soul.”

            That line’s going in the Prophet tomorrow, Draco judged, as Potter leaned in and stared into his eyes from less than a centimeter away. Draco could feel his lashes fluttering and jerking. He hoped his eyes didn’t water. The last thing he wanted was for Skeeter to suggest he was afraid.

            The last thing he felt was afraid.

            Abruptly, Potter dropped Draco’s chin, moving away. “You’re sincere,” he whispered, and the heavy wonder in his voice made Draco wonder if magic really existed that could read someone’s soul, and Potter could use it. Then he pushed the thought away. There had to be limits to even Potter’s power.

            Maybe.

            “You’re an ally.” Potter looked at him unblinking, and then broke into a smile so jubilant Draco responded before he could stop himself, or remember whether they’d rehearsed this. “Thank you. Thank you, for not shutting me out of the wizarding world because I did what I thought was right.”

            He extended his hands and bowed his head, and the stormclouds bore up, spinning around him, raining furiously. Where the rain fell, the jagged scar Potter had left in the grass vanished, and the flowers revived. They were different flowers now, though, brilliant scarlet blossoms with a silver center—House colors mingled, Draco realized, grasping it with a little shock a breath after Skeeter did, to judge from her sigh.

            Then Potter vanished himself, and Skeeter stood there staring at Draco for a second before blurting, “I have to go.”

            Draco didn’t blame her for breaking into a run as she headed frantically for the front gates of the Manor. He had the same impulse leaping up and down, banging in his heart.

            Or maybe only the impulse to reach out and touch something no longer there.

*

            alexkdp: Thank you!

            delia cerrano: They are, although how much of that is beyond just the act on Harry’s part is debatable.

            SP777: Well, we’ll see how much I can convince you with my Snape/Harry/Draco story I’m writing right now.

            And, well, they’ve taken the first step.
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Easy as Falling