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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
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

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Chapter Thirteen—Nick of Time

            Harry didn’t know all the people staring down at him, but he doubted that mattered. These were the Wizengamot members who had thought they could judge him and one of his vassals without even informing Harry. And the ones who probably thought that he was obnoxious because maybe he would use his power for things they didn’t approve of.

            He wanted to choke.

            But choking would do no good when they wanted words, and so Harry smiled and nodded at all of them and said, “I’m here to answer your questions about the Unforgivables I used and the Lordship bond and the other crimes that you wanted to try me for.” He folded his arms and moved a little in front of Snape. There was an expression on Snape’s face that Harry thought was really open, or maybe that was just the bond talking. Either way, Harry wanted to give him time to conceal it.

            “Don’t forget the crime of liking Slytherins,” Eric whispered from behind him. Harry had no idea whether he was joking or not, and didn’t have time to figure it out. He just nodded without looking around. That seemed to content Eric, who shut up.

            “Mr. Conant,” said the little wizard who stood in front, and he was looking at Eric, not Harry. “Why did you bring Mr. Potter here?”

            “That should probably be Lord Potter,” Eric said. There was no dent in his confidence at all, apparently, and Harry had to smother an incredulous laugh. He had never thought it would be a blessing to have someone arrogant as his ally. “I know it’s ridiculous, but he has a Lordship bond to a bunch of people.”

            “You did not answer my question,” said the little wizard. Harry quickly assessed him and decided he didn’t like what he saw. This man had nothing in his face of Professor Flitwick’s kindness, even though he was about that size. He had a mop of silvery hair and a face that seemed carved into stone by his frown lines, instead.

            “I don’t need to answer your questions,” Eric said. “Because he will.” He patted Harry heavily on the shoulder and stepped back.

            The little wizard turned to Harry. “Why have you come?”

            “I already said that,” Harry said. He thought for a second, and decided that the best course was just to be as sarcastic as he liked, sarcastic the way he’d been in his head when he was a child. These people already hated him. They wouldn’t listen to anything like rational discussion of a bond, not if they could start trying him for it and yelling at Snape when they hadn’t even set up a trial. And Harry might convince a couple of the more sensible ones that he was going to stand up for his vassals no matter what. “How much earwax do you have in your ears that you can’t hear me?”

            Eric said something about recommending an ear Healer from behind him. The Wizengamot just stared at him. At last a blonde witch cleared her throat and stood up.

            “Who did you use the Unforgivables on?” she asked, and sat down again.

            “A Death Eater named Travers and a goblin who worked for Gringotts,” Harry said. He kept his voice down with an effort. The disgusted faces peering at him over the gallery railings, and the frightened ones, made it hard to stay calm, no matter how sarcastic he’d promised himself he could be. Besides, this witch hadn’t asked a question that deserved a sarcastic answer. “I cast the Imperius Curse on them. And I used the Cruciatus Curse on Amycus Carrow.”

            “Dear, dear,” said the little wizard, fluttering his hands as he started to write something down on a pierce of parchment. “You know that using the Unforgivables carries a lifetime sentence in Azkaban?”

            “Oh, yes,” Harry said. “That’s why I thought I should join most of my vassals there—” he had no idea if Zabini or Goyle had cast the Unforgivables, but he knew all the others had “—as well as all the Aurors that Auror Jane Stone told me about, who used it during the past few months. I hope you can continue to protect the wizarding world when they’re all gone.”

            Silence. The blonde witch looked around at the others as though she expected one of them to answer, and when they didn’t, she cleared her throat and said, “Well, um. The use of the Unforgivable Curses was declared legal for Aurors a few months ago. So they don’t have to go to prison.”

            “Declared legal by Voldemort,” Harry said, hating that none of them seemed to understand. “The same way I was hunted by Voldemort. If I’m going to be punished for what I did then, which was against the laws that he set up, then we should just go back to the old laws and punish everyone equally, not follow his laws.”

            Still none of the others would speak up, and although the poor woman’s face was absolutely red by now, she continued stumbling her way through an explanation. “But—none of us precisely knew who was behind the changes at the time, and the same change had been made during the first wizarding war with You-Know-Who. It was revoked afterwards, of course. But we’re not going to arrest the Aurors.”

            “But you’ll arrest me,” Harry said. “And one of my vassals who was a double agent and under the compulsion of an Unbreakable Vow to do whatever he was ordered to do, including casting the Killing Curse on Albus Dumbledore. And a bunch of students who cast them because they were told their families would be killed and tortured if they didn’t…” He fell silent and chuckled when suddenly a whole bunch of them avoided his eyes instead of trying to haughtily stare him down. “Oh, that’s the difference, isn’t it? You’ll arrest the students who are Slytherins or who did what the teachers told them to try and survive. You won’t arrest the ones who did it for a while and were Ravenclaws or Hufflepuffs or Gryffindors. Because what really matters is your House, in the end. And this scar on my forehead.” He pushed his fringe away from his face. “Your Aurors were fighting for the wrong side most of the war, but it’s okay, isn’t it? Because you want them to be excused, and you aren’t frightened of what they’ll do with their political power, but you’re afraid of me. That means I have to be stopped, somehow.”

            Silence for another few long moments. The blonde witch sat with her face in her hands and refused to speak up again no matter how much the other Wizengamot members glared at her. Finally, a tall woman with a prune face to rival Aunt Petunia’s and iron rings on her fingers stood up and cleared her throat.

            “It has less to do with which side they were on, and more to do with their motives in casting the curses,” she said.

            “So escaping torture and battling Voldemort’s people aren’t enough to excuse someone?” Harry asked, staring at her. “What is?”

            “Being innocent,” the woman said, and the rings clicked and sparked as she gripped the railing in front of her. “Not willfully torturing someone else because you hated them. Trying to help others escape torture.”

            Harry coughed helpfully. “So. Why does hurting someone else because you were trying to help your family members escape torture not count?”

            “Because they are not innocent,” the woman said.

            “Define that.” Harry rapped out the words with enough force, he saw, to shake the woman. She looked over her shoulder as though wanting someone else’s help, and then seemed to accept that the rest of the others were cowards. She faced him and straightened her shoulders.

            “They did not help You-Know-Who during the first war. They have purity in their hearts. Their families suffered during the war. They made some attempt to escape the teachers and demands that they might have made on them in Hogwarts.”

            “Well,” Harry said, and began to count off the points on his fingers, “most of my vassals didn’t help You-Know-Who during the first war, because they were babies during it. Their families suffered during the war, either going into hiding or having to give their properties and vaults up to Voldemort.” The way that half the room flinched when he said that was most satisfactory. “And any time they tried to escape the teachers at Hogwarts, either they got watched more closely or they got tortured themselves.”

            “But they are not pure in their hearts,” said the ringed woman.

            Harry smiled at her. “What’s your name?”

            “Madam Tricia Selwyn.” The way she said her name, it was clear that the first part was the most important, and she jerked her head up so that she could stare down her nose at him more effectively than Draco had ever managed. Harry decided he would hate to be told that, and treasured up the observation to tell him.

            “I assure you, Madam Selwyn, that you won’t find a greater number of people who are fanatics about being pure outside my vassals,” Harry said. “I had to suffer from them telling me that I wasn’t pure enough a number of times over the years.”

            Selwyn all but banged her hands on the railings. “I was not referring to purity of blood, Mr. Potter.”

            “Then define it.” Harry stood there with his arms folded and grinned. He liked the way the balance of power in the room had shifted to him. Well, part of him hated it, hated that it was necessary, and wanted to go and have the trouble-free life that he’d sometimes dreamed of during the last year on the run. But if the choice was having power over other people and letting someone have power over him, then he knew which one he preferred.

            “Being pure in heart means a sense of loyalty and trust,” Selwyn said, as if she was reading from an invisible parchment in front of her, but slowly. “A commitment to the ideals of the Ministry and the wizarding community.”

            “How are you going to test anyone for that?” Harry had to ask. “Especially the people who did what they had to do to survive during the war? Which is almost everyone who works in the Ministry and who was at Hogwarts and not actively resisting and hiding?” He shook his head. “The number of people who are left alive and free is going to be awfully small if you insist on arresting and trying all the others. Maybe even getting some of them Kissed.”

            “You do not understand,” Selwyn said. “It will not be that hard to make the determination, especially under Veritaserum.”

            “Are you going to ask everyone if they tortured other people or hurt them or betrayed them to escape consequences?” Harry asked. “Or only people that you’ve already decided are guilty?”

            Selwyn smiled sweetly at him. “Well, at least with you, Mr. Potter, it will not take us much time to make a determination. You have already admitted your guilt for anyone to hear who’d like it.”

            Harry smiled back. “What about you? Did you come to work at the Ministry during the war? Did you pass any legislation they told you to pass? Did they intimidate you into keeping quiet and standing aside when someone else was tortured? Did you condemn people you wouldn’t have condemned if it wasn’t happening during a war?”

            Selwyn lost her smile and leaned over the railing, hissing, “You stupid child, do you not understand how impossible it would be to run the wizarding world on the standards that you are demanding?”

            “No,” Harry said starkly. “I know what you want. You want to tidy everything away with a minimum of fuss and hope that no one will object. You want to clean up the ‘mistakes’ of the first war. For example, I imagine that you’d condemn Lucius Malfoy this time instead of allowing him to slither out of the consequences with a lie about the Imperius Curse. Good for you. But you’ll also condemn students for being in the wrong House, and some people for running, and some people for hiding, and some people for fighting. It’s all going to be in the service of who you’re afraid of, and it won’t care about real justice. I know that real justice wasn’t served after the first war, on either side. Does the name Sirius Black mean anything to you?”

            Selwyn narrowed her eyes further as though looking down a distant tunnel. “The name does not mean something to me as a badge of injustice I served,” she said.

            “Then you voted for a trial?” Harry asked. He had to admit that he had no idea who on the Wizengamot might have been against Sirius and who wasn’t. He only knew that not enough people had clamored for a trial to make sure he got one.

            “I do not remember,” said Selwyn. “But I was not the one who decided that all Death Eaters at that time should be put in Azkaban as soon as possible, and I was not the one who decided that the evidence was too overwhelming even to put him under Veritaserum.”

            “Who was?” Harry had to admit that it would be good to have a name at last, to know who was responsible for that, for Harry growing up with the Dursleys, for Wormtail spending twelve years free and Sirius going steadily more mad in Azkaban.

            “No one,” said Selwyn.

            “It was the circumstances of the time, you mean?” Harry smiled up at her.

            Selwyn nodded, glancing around as though she wanted everyone to see how successfully she had tamed Harry Potter. “Exactly. One cannot wonder at that, with the chaos that surrounded every decision at the time.”

            “No one could wonder about it at the time, maybe,” Harry said. “But I’m here now, and I won’t let you arrest people and not arrest people and give some people trials and not give others one because you want to.”

            Selwyn closed her eyes, this time as though she was tired to death. “You will not succeed,” she whispered. “You can intervene legally only for those vassals you are legally bound to. You cannot intervene for anyone else.”

            “If they take me as a Lord or ask to be put under my protection, I can,” Harry said. “And you misunderstood me. I didn’t mean that I think every Death Eater should be let go. There are tons of them I’ll be happy to provide evidence against, and I think Bellatrix Lestrange deserved everything she got. But I’m personally famous, and I’m sure the papers will be happy to do interviews with me about all the terrible, unfair things I’m seeing and experiencing and hearing about.” He smiled up at Selwyn, and then turned the smile on the rest of the Wizengamot, so they would get it. “This time, there isn’t going to be chaos that lets you do whatever you want to people. Because I’m here.”

            He could hear a choke behind him, and looked over his shoulder at Snape. The shield mark was steady and warm on Harry’s right forearm, and he didn’t think anything was wrong with Snape at the moment that some pounding on the back and pouring of water down his throat wouldn’t cure.

            Snape’s eyes had already gone blank again, any emotion that showed in them vanishing. Harry nodded cheerfully to him, and more cheerfully still to Shacklebolt, who was staring at him, and turned around to face the challenge of a different wizard, a fat one dressed in purple robes. Harry wanted to shake his head sadly. What Dumbledore made look fascinating just looked terrifying here.

            “You don’t have the legal right to do this,” the man whispered, as though raising his voice would give him that long-delayed heart attack. “You can’t do this. No one can. We of the Wizengamot are the last legal authority for the wizarding world.”

            “But you don’t have the legal right to try me for the Lordship bond without my presence, either,” Harry said. “Or to ask me whatever questions you want without making sure I understand the situation. Or to condemn someone without a trial. Yet you’ve done all that, anyway.” He continued smiling, but he pulled back some of the mask from his face, and saw the large wizard jump. “And I’m kind of fucking furious that you would still think, even after I’ve killed Voldemort, that I’m someone Dark that you need to duck around and circumvent and arrest and call mad. So yeah, I’m going to fight. For all I know, I’ll go to prison next, if I don’t. You’re afraid of me.”

            Behind him, he could hear a low mutter from Eric. “So, does that mean that he dislikes Slytherins or not?”

            Harry didn’t move, partially because it was silly to respond to the doubt in Eric’s voice and partially because none of the Wizengamot members had made an attempt to answer him so far. He stood there with his arms folded and waited, turning his head from side to side. If someone tried to cast a spell—though he thought they were less likely to try it in a room where Shacklebolt acted as a witness—then he would be ready.

*

            This boy…

            The shield mark on his arm did not burn, he felt no resentment from the bond for choosing that word, but Severus corrected himself on his word choice immediately. This was not a boy, someone who could come in and argue like this. There were still things about Harry Potter that were decidedly adolescent, but he was not that young any longer.

            He had argued better than Severus had thought he would. Perhaps most of the argument came from his own perception that he was being discriminated against, rather than fondness for his Slytherin vassals, but self-interest was a motive Severus had learned to trust.

            Severus saw someone he could support. And if the shield of Harry Potter’s reputation as the Chosen One was spread over them, it might protect them more effectively than the shield of the bond ever could.

            “You are right that there should be legal trials,” said Abbot at last, standing up and moving to the railing to take the speaker’s attention away from Albert Brindis. Severus watched Brindis scuttle gratefully to a chair, his purple robes flapping around him. “But will you answer me one question, at least?”

            Potter nodded. Severus could feel the tension in him melting like hot chocolate through the bond. He supposed that was all right. Potter would still be on guard when it came to anyone else, but Abbot was as harmless a politician as there was on the Wizengamot.

            “The bond really happened the way you said it did?” Abbot asked. “No one initiated it?”

            Potter shook his head. “Voldemort cast a curse that would have made Professor Snape a slave if it landed on him, and he did it because Professor Snape was trying to protect some of the Slytherin students. I got in the way, and I wanted to protect them, too, so I cast a Shield Charm. The bond, as far as we can tell, formed from the combination of the Shield Charm and the obedience curse. I didn’t choose the people I bonded to. It was everyone who was behind my Shield Charm. And Voldemort certainly never intended for all of us to survive, let alone to make me a Lord.”

            Abbot nodded slowly. “Why did you want to protect them, when, if some of the reports we have received in the past are true, they did horrible things to you?”

            Severus could not forebear a snort. They knew about what had happened to Harry Potter in school all those years, and yet no one had sent Howlers to Dumbledore to protest the Slytherins’ egregious treatment of the Boy-Who-Lived?

            Of course, Abbot not being a Wizengamot member who lied much, perhaps they really had received other reports since the battle, from Aurors or non-Slytherin students who had been in the school.

            “I didn’t think about it that much,” Potter said, shaking his head as slowly as Abbot had spoken. “I just thought that no one deserved to die, and it was especially wrong that Voldemort wanted them to die.” He turned and looked at Severus over his shoulder, and it was not only the steadiest but the friendliest regard that Potter had ever given him, by a long shot. “I thought Professor Snape was dead already. And then he gave me some…memories I needed.” His voice stumbled. Severus wondered what exactly had happened after Potter left the Shrieking Shack, but knew it was not his place to ask. “Seeing him like that made me want him to live, made me want them all to live. I never knew it was going to be a bond, though. I think I would have hesitated if I knew what would happen.”

            The shield mark on Severus’s arm twanged like a harpstring, and he managed to hold back his sigh only with the self-control that had often served him in Order of the Phoenix meetings. He’s lying. He would have leaped ahead even if someone explained all the consequences to him, because that is what he does.

            Severus wondered idly if part of his work as Shield was also going to be protecting Potter from himself, but he doubted it. The Shield served for the most part to ward off anger within the bond. Someone else would have to take up the work of explaining outside consequences to Potter.

            “Would you truly stand up for anyone who put themselves under your protection?” Abbot bowed her head to keep her eyes hidden. Severus was not sure where she stood on the matter. Members of her family were among the ones tortured during the war, and she might have lost some, but on the other hand, she had sat on the Wizengamot throughout the war, enacting the legislation that the Dark Lord wanted, just as Potter had accused them.

            “I’d have to,” Potter said, his voice low and empty. “That’s the way the bond works. But like I said, that doesn’t mean I think everyone is innocent. I just want fair trials. For everybody. It won’t help anyone if we condemn all the Slytherins and breed more resentment towards them in the future. Then they’ll get angry and take their revenge someday, and it’ll be a cycle of war that never bloody ends.” He looked up at Abbot, his face gone pale. “I fought the hardest to save the world of anybody. Don’t I deserve some peace? Not to have to fight again for a long time? That’s what I want. That’s what I’m trying to do—some of it because I’m selfish and don’t want to fight, and some of it because the bond is making me, and some of it because I really do believe in a fair trial for everyone. But I don’t know which part comes from which.”

            Severus saw Selwyn and Fawley lift their heads as at the call of a hunting horn. They would think they could use that against Potter, he thought. But Potter, even standing as he was now with his head bowed and his eyes on the floor at his feet, would make no easy opponent.

            Severus was glad to know that. Glad that he might have a comrade here, a Lord he could work with instead of fear or spy on or serve.

            Which does not mean it will be easy, he thought, darting his gaze over the Wizengamot again. But we will make it easier together.

            “And if you don’t have anything else that you think we should be tried for,” Potter continued, “I’d like to ask that you release my vassal Professor Severus Snape and I back to our cells.”

            They did it only because they wanted to plan a new strategy, Severus was certain, and this “trial” had not gone well for them. But Potter had been stronger than Severus had thought he could be, and that mattered.

            That will matter to all of us, he thought, watching Potter’s back as they paced out of the room, sensing the way that the Auror trainees who had followed Potter strutted after him, feeling the grip that Shacklebolt had on his wrist. It must matter.

*

            moodysavage: Television can still be edited. I think only a much bigger press, with lots of reporters, some of whom would be committed to showing the truth and freer than others, would actually help.

            Genuka: Harry doesn’t actually want to hurt them, and he’s not all that sophisticated as an arguer yet, but I think he at least is going to make them hesitate.

            Easyreader: Thanks! Hope you like this one.

            BAFan: Harry doesn’t suffer so much in the future because of the bond as because he does some impulsive and stupid things.

            SP777: The Wizengamot is terrified of Harry, much more so than Harry or even Snape realizes. He’s going to encounter some rigid opposition from here on out.

            unneeded: The Wizengamot doesn’t want to view a Pensieve memory that contradicts their prejudices.

            And Lewis was overcome by rage that (as he sees it) the woman who tortured his little brother is going to walk. I don’t really blame him. The problem isn’t his emotion, it’s what he did with it; trying to kill Pansy is not something that Harry is going to forgive.

            nonie: This help? And thank you for saying so!
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The Only True Lords