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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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Chapter Fourteen—Planning and Strategy

            “What did he mean by it?”

            Harry turned around with an irritated little hiss when he realized Ladon hadn’t answered him. Instead, she was sitting by the corner of the table where she had put her tea, staring into the distance and blinking. They were in a classroom that she was turning into her office, not the Headmistress’s. Harry was getting a little tired of being there. Besides, he wanted to encourage McGonagall to move back in if he could.

            “Briseis?” Harry added, because her motionlessness was starting to worry him.

            She snapped back to reality and smiled at him. “I think he may have meant any number of things by kissing you,” she said, leaning forwards. “But what matters is that he’s created a wonderful opportunity for us.”

            Harry snorted. “Why? I told him that it might ruin his campaign and my war, and it might. If everyone gossips about how we’re sleeping together, then no one’s going to take us seriously.”

            Briseis shrugged. “You don’t need to release it in public if you didn’t want to. But it creates a bond of loyalty between you, especially since you said he was the one who moved first, and he’s the one who’s attracted by your magic.” She turned back to the parchment lying beside her, where Harry had already seen some notes, and began to scribble away more energetically. “Yes, I think this will be great.”

            “Why?” Harry repeated warily. He had learned a lot about his allies already that made him wary. Move cautiously around Malfoy when he stared at Harry’s lips; move cautiously around Briseis when she was enthusiastic.

            “Because it will bond him more closely to you.” Briseis tossed her hair back and smiled at him. “You have your friends, but not a lot of other relationships. Declaring yourself Dark Lord destroyed them. Not even the Headmistress trusts you much. Be careful around the Headmistress, my Lord,” she added, turning back to the parchment. “She might want to regain control of the school, particularly if she thinks there’s a chance that you’ll destroy it otherwise.”

            “What?” Harry spluttered. “McGonagall wouldn’t want to destroy me—and did you call me my Lord? Never do that again!”

            “As my Lord commands.” Briseis flattened one hand against her chest.

            “Stop it!”

            Briseis leaned forwards, and her face had gone serious as quickly as the dart of a hawk’s wing across the sky. “No, you stop it,” she said intensely. “This is a good thing for you. It’ll keep Malfoy bound to you rather than working apart. I wondered how we were going to achieve that, but this is how, of course. And you’ll have to get used to being addressed as ‘my Lord.’ You can’t have a personal relationship with everyone who comes into your Court. There will be people who won’t want it. You should get used to it now so you don’t explode embarrassingly at some point in the future. My Lord.”

            Harry clenched his jaw. “No one called Voldemort that except his Death Eaters,” he said over his shoulder as he came to a halt on the other side of the classroom, staring at an empty patch on the wall. It looked as though a tapestry had once hung here, long enough to leave a bare spot on the stone, but it was gone now. Even as he watched, the stones started to shift and wriggle, reaching out to comfort him. Harry held up a hand and absently caressed the base of the block nearest him. “I didn’t think that anyone would do it to me.”

            “Arguably, I’m your Death Eater.”

            Harry turned around, his lip curling before he could stop himself.

            Briseis laughed, probably at the look on his face—Harry didn’t know what else would be funny—and shook her head. “Yes, you don’t like that. But other people will say it. And other people will say there’s nothing human about you, and someone will attack your friends, and more will declare you mental, the way the Minister tried to do. You have to stand up to them. This is a good thing. It’ll keep Malfoy bound.”

            “I don’t think there was that much chance of him deserting, not when he was the one who came to me with hopes of an alliance.” Harry folded his arms and paced up and down. The stones beneath him promptly bumped each other, trying to touch the soles of his feet. Harry sighed and told them to calm down with a little twitch of his magic. He was all right. He didn’t need constant comfort.

            “It would depend,” Briseis said, shrugging. “Insult him often enough and get in the way of his campaign, and he might break with you.”

            Harry bit his lip. “But he might do the same thing if something goes wrong in our relationship.” And thinking he had any kind of relationship with Malfoy was laughable.

            I thought you were allies?

            Harry turned his back and crossed to the other side of the room, away from the desks that wanted to rest against him and vibrate like they were purring.

            “That’s true,” Briseis said. “But I don’t think it’s as likely. He wants this. Insulting him by rejecting it—”

            “How would rejecting it insult him?” Harry turned around and stared at her. “If anything, he ought to thank me. I’m saying that I know I’m not good enough for him. I’m making sure that me being an evil Dark Lord doesn’t taint his campaign for Minister.”

            Briseis rested her hands on the desk behind her and cocked her head. “I don’t know everything about you or Mr. Malfoy, but I know enough,” she said. “It’s one reason Rosenthal chose me for this position, since I’d have to work with both of you. And I know you rejected him once, and he hated it. You think that rejecting this relationship won’t come across as an insult? How can you manage to forget about your own past?”

            Harry felt as though someone had snapped him like a rubber band. “You know about that? But Malfoy wouldn’t want you to. How do you know about that? It wasn’t very important.”

            Briseis rolled her eyes. “Most of the time I’m actually glad that you’re not more Slytherin, since it makes you more interesting and easier to work with,” she said, standing upright and folding her arms. “But this is one of the times I wish you were. Rosenthal hopes to spend a good portion of her life as Mr. Malfoy’s adviser. Of course she would find out everything she could. And in relation to you, nothing can be truly called unimportant.”

            Harry winced and turned his back, running a hand through his hair. “I didn’t mean to do this,” he whispered, his words more directed at someone who couldn’t hear him than they were at Briseis. “I didn’t mean to drag someone else into it.”

            “Oh, shut up.”

            And now Briseis was marching around in front of him, and Harry stared at her, wondering if she had forgotten that he could drop a ceiling on her head if he wanted to, or use the floor and the walls to push her out the door. But from the snap of her chin, she knew that. She just knew better than to think he would hurt her for no reason.

            Sometimes being a good Dark Lord isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, Harry thought.

            “You becoming a Dark Lord affects other people,” Briseis said, snapping her hands together as though she was breaking a piece of wood between them. “And you just said that Mr. Malfoy initiated the alliance by coming to you and talking to you about what he wanted. So it’s on him if it doesn’t work out. He could have stayed away. Stop brooding and wake up and become more political.”

            Harry swallowed. “That’s—loud,” he said.

            “It’s also fair,” Briseis said, leaning towards him. “Admit it, or I don’t have to be your adviser anymore.”

            Harry grimaced. “Okay. I didn’t want to hurt anyone, but I should have declared myself something else if I didn’t want to, right?”

            Briseis nodded. “I still think that we can run the war with less casualties than usual, because of your power,” she said. “But you can’t wish to change the world and then whine that you don’t want to influence anyone.” She studied him from the corner of her eye for a second, and then sniffed. “Look, if you really hate the thought of sleeping with Malfoy, you don’t have to. You probably won’t have all that much time to do it anyway when the campaign heats up and the Ministry starts moving against you seriously. But it’s not a disaster.”

            Harry hauled his mind back on track. He shouldn’t start worrying about things that hadn’t happened yet, that was what Briseis was telling him, and that was fair. “Good. I was worried I’d ruined his campaign by kissing him back.”

            Briseis shook her head briskly again. “No. If that was true, he wouldn’t have done it. He’s more Slytherin—smarter—than that.”

            “Thank you for implying I’m not,” Harry said, rolling his eyes, and then they went back to planning other things, while in the back of his mind, Harry wondered.

            Would he have backed off if it was clear that it would harm him? Or not? How much was he hurt by that first rejection? Can he get over it?

            Great. Of all the people I could be worrying about as we move into this combined campaign and war, it’s Malfoy.

*

            Blaise toasted Draco with a faint smile, shaking his head. “I have to admit, Draco, this is impressive. I knew you were going to fool Skeeter, but I didn’t think you would get this out of it.”

            Draco smiled a little and picked up the newspaper. The photograph at the top was the one of Potter holding his chin while Draco stared into his eyes, of course. Draco had known it would be. Even if he hadn’t predicted the way his eyes looked, so starry, and the glares Pansy had been giving him over it all evening. At least she had to admit that this was an undoubted triumph.

            Skeeter had a headline that said simply, THE DARK LORD, and beneath that, the article began.

            Dark Lord Harry Potter appeared at Malfoy Manor this afternoon clad in storm and night. He seemed to believe that the Ministry as a whole is against him, including all the candidates for Minister. But that changed when he looked into the soul of the candidate he came to visit, the one who’s made a promise to trust him, Draco Malfoy.

            And it went on from there, leaving no moment out, although Draco was sure that she’d exaggerated some of them, like how tightly Potter held his chin. It had been made all too clear in their conversation afterwards that Potter held no romantic intentions.

            Come to that, Draco wasn’t sure himself. He knew what he wanted at the moment with Potter, but in the long term, only the political alliance had yet occurred to him. He wasn’t sure whether he would settle for sleeping together, a romance, or some kind of intense friendship with occasional nights together. It made his skin pop with sharp excitement, that he had someone whose every move he couldn’t predict.

            “You know,” Pansy began, and then Rosenthal stepped into the sitting room where they’d come, the same where Draco had had his conversation with Potter earlier. Pansy shut her mouth hard and turned her back on the doorway.

            “I’m sorry to bother you, Mr. Malfoy,” Rosenthal said. “But I thought you should know that this came a moment ago.” She held out a slate-blue envelope.

            Draco promptly cast spells that would detect curses and hexes, ignoring the way Rosenthal glared at him. Yes, she would have used them herself, but the ones she knew weren’t as thorough. And there were some trap charms that would only activate when the desired hand touched the letter, making it perfectly safe for anyone but the target to handle.

            “What kind of owl delivered it?” he asked, his eyes never leaving the envelope. He was sure it contained a threat; the only thing that remained to discover was what kind it was.

            “A black owl that immediately flew away again,” Rosenthal said, and her lips clamped shut harder and harder.

            Draco raised an eyebrow at her. “Yes, but other people than Potter could use black owls,” he told her. “In fact, I would be surprised if it came from him. He would just send a message with his Patronus if he’d decided to turn on me.”

            Rosenthal turned her head to the side so hard that her braid banged against her neck. “I’ll never get used to the way you read minds.”

            “I read behavior,” Draco said absently, taking the envelope from her via a wand-flick, because she wouldn’t move nearer. As far as his spells revealed, there was nothing trapped about it. He touched the envelope, and nodded. There was none of the telltale slimy feeling of Dark magic, either. That didn’t mean it was innocent—it was probably very far from innocent—but the threat probably came from the writing. “The owl flew away at once? Or did it seem to fade as it flew?”

            “If it faded, it did it behind a cloud. I watched it that long.”

            Draco nodded again, and slid his finger beneath the envelope’s flap. He could feel something thicker than a single piece of parchment inside it, which meant that he either had an enemy who didn’t know how to be brief, or someone who had sent photographs instead.

            Draco tilted the envelope, and glossy moving pictures spilled into his hands. Before he turned them around, he could feel the same sharp tingle of excitement making its way up his spine. Would they be photos of him having sex? Photos of his friends in compromising positions? Perhaps even Rosenthal would be included, or other people who worked for him. This seemed like the sort of thing Tillipop might do if he worked out that Draco’s people had planted most of the evidence for rumors about him.

            If he figured that out. And Draco had to admit he didn’t think it very likely.

            But instead, the top photograph showed nothing he recognized. Draco stared. A house, where the only movement around it was the trees in the front garden shifting in the wind. The house was small and plain, and not one that Draco knew from Hogsmeade or his rare journeys to wizarding London. He turned it around and studied it, but no, the only thing that remained in it was the trees moving.

            Then the front door opened, and someone came out. Draco squinted, but he could be sure he didn’t know her. He had never seen a more unmagical person. A tall woman, whose height seemed to be mostly in her neck, and whose long pale face and pinched nostrils did nothing for her. Behind her came a heavy blond man, puffing and blowing, and another, younger man. Draco frowned. They were probably Muggles, but he had no idea why his mysterious enemy would think that Muggles meant anything to him.

            Draco shook his head, handed the photograph to Blaise because he sometimes went to Muggle places for fun and might recognize this one, and turned to the next four.

            One was of a cupboard door that, again, had nothing special about it as far as Draco could tell. The next was a school—Draco assumed so, anyway, because of the children playing outside it, although he knew nothing about Muggle primary schools and maybe it was an orphanage—that triggered no memories. The third showed a window with bars on it, photographed from what was probably the side of the house; nothing moved in this one. And the last showed a door with six locks and a cat-flap at the bottom.

            Draco stared in silence, then looked up to see Blaise shaking his head. Pansy pounced on the pictures as Draco handed them over, but sat back less than a minute later, biting her lip.

            “Well,” Draco said. “I know these photographs don’t belong to me, and they tell no part of my past. It was probably meant to hint at Potter’s past instead.”

            Pansy blinked and snapped her fingers. “That’s right. Wasn’t he raised by Muggles? So this might be her Muggle family.” She looked at the photograph of the house again. Draco leaned over her shoulder and saw that the family had gone back inside. “But—none of these are exactly incriminating. What does the person who sent them want you to do? Get upset about some secret hidden on the premises?”

            Draco shook his head. He had to admit that had been his first thought, with the way the focus seemed to be on buildings, instead of people, but that made the school’s inclusion pointless. Why would a secret about Potter’s childhood be divided between, presumably, the house he had lived in and the school he had gone to?

            “A curse misfired,” he told Rosenthal, who watched him with bleak eyes. “But I promise, I don’t intend to remain in the dark for long.” He cast a handful of Floo powder into the flames, then hesitated as he realized he didn’t know what address would reach Potter.

            He shrugged and called out, “Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry!” That should fetch someone, at least. Potter had probably left house-elves on duty so he could communicate with the press if one of them tried that route, and he was bonded to the school. Draco couldn’t imagine that he wouldn’t feel a fireplace opening.

            Draco gathered up the photographs as he waited for an answer. He was sure one would be forthcoming. No one would send these pictures for no reason.

            But Draco had to admit, he had no earthly idea what these could be for. He only hoped Potter knew.

            It took a surprisingly short amount of time for Potter to appear, fetched by the single squeaking house-elf who had answered the Floo call. Draco held up the first photograph and opened his mouth to ask the question.

            As Potter’s face drained of any blood fast enough that he swayed on his feet, Draco now had to admit their unknown enemy might have chosen a decent weapon after all.

*

            delia cerrano: You’ll get some in the next chapter, though not necessarily sexy interaction.

            SP777: Harry is pretty accurate about what Draco wants, but he doesn’t think it’s a good thing to add to the volatile mix.

            alexkdp: Harry’s reaction to the kiss is worry, as you saw. And he is more magically powerful than Draco, by quite a bit. It’s not that he’s not affected, but he does think that they shouldn’t let hormones rule them, and that may be what Malfoy’s doing.
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Easy as Falling