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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 Fourteen—In Holding Cells

            Draco leaned his head back against the wall of his cell, and closed his eyes.

            The world around him was small and blank and silent. He hadn’t seen his parents since they were ushered into this part of the Ministry, Narcissa’s hand pulled from his by the Aurors. She had been steered into one door, Lucius into another, and Draco had a different one shut in his face before he could even strain his neck after his parents.

            He sat there, and he breathed.

            He hadn’t had much chance to do that over the last few days, he admitted. Everything had been so changed. The Dark Lord was dead. He could never harm Draco and his family again.

            Maybe Draco was deficient, but he couldn’t feel all that grateful for that fact. Not when he had been hurled into yet another change of life, when he was a vassal and his family might have to be vassals, too.

            Is it going to be like the Dark Lord never died? When we’re all busy serving someone else, even if it’s someone who would never torture us?

            But Draco banished that thought. He knew too much of Potter, if he was honest with himself, to think that he’d ever lord it over them. Maybe misuse his power in some ways because he was so unused to it, but that would be ignorance. And Draco already had evidence that Potter had some good sense, and the sense that would let him take advice, too. Even if that advice was his bossy friend’s.

            Draco grimaced and let his head drop back with a thunk. I’m going to have to make peace with Granger, aren’t I?

            Well, he probably would, if he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life resenting her. And he would really rather not.

            He looked up as the door creaked open. An Auror he hadn’t seen so far stood there. From the tight look on his face and his even tighter hold on his wand, Draco thought he knew what he had come for.

            He stood up slowly, his hands on the wall behind him and his eyes on the Auror. Taller than Draco, broader than Draco, stronger than Draco. On the other hand, Potter wasn’t, and he still had power over Draco. So maybe Draco could have power over this man, if he had the courage to talk.

            He waited too long, though, or else he could never have found the right words. The man stepped in and began to speak in a long, low, whispering voice.

            “During the first war, I was an Auror, and the only thing I was prouder of than my job was the fact that my daughter chose to follow me into it. She trained so hard that I worried for her sanity, but she was a good Auror. She respected the rules, but she knew when to break them. She could perform all the common curses and countercurses. She knew when to trust witnesses and when to ignore them.”

            He paused, and the cell filled with the sound of his breathing. Or maybe that was the sound of Draco’s breathing. Draco tried to calm it a little, without much success.

            “But your father changed that,” the man said, and his voice had picked up. “He took her away. He changed her, and she came back convinced that You-Know-Who was righteous, because Lucius Malfoy argued her into that.”

            There was a long, choking sound. Draco didn’t think it came from him, but he didn’t bother to try and find out, or to ask what had happened, though by that point he really did want to know. He stood there with his eyes fastened on the man, and especially the man’s ash wand, which had wavered down by his side but now was rising again.

            “And,” the man whispered, on a long, rising breath that made Draco’s bones ache as he listened, “in the end, I had to kill her in battle. My daughter the Death Eater, who used to be the pride of my family.”

            His wand pointed straight at Draco’s heart now, and Draco could feel his mouth watering with purest terror. He would have liked to close his eyes, but he couldn’t. The man seemed to have paralyzed him in everything.

            “I swore that I would pay Lucius back for that,” said the whispery voice. “But not simply by casting curses on him, or taking away his money, or even investigating to ensure that he was arrested for possessing Dark artifacts. None of that was good enough, not when he took so much away from me. Only the same price would serve for me.”

            Taking away a child. Draco didn’t really have to translate that, it was silly to try and translate that, but the thought floated like a bubble across the surface of his mind anyway.

            “I didn’t think the chance would come to me,” the man said, as if talking to himself. “Not so late in life. But not so soon, in another way. Before I retired. Before the fire that burns in me because of him burned down to ashes.”

            His wand jabbed Draco’s chest. Draco hadn’t even realized that he’d stepped so close, but he looked down and there it was, his death, his future, not far below his face. The man jabbed, and then his wand came up and scraped against Draco’s cheek, guiding his chin to the side. The man was smiling at him.

            Draco thought he would have either begged for his life or pissed his pants, but once again, he was held motionless and couldn’t make any decisions for himself.

            There was something else, though, something that caught his attention and wouldn’t let it go any more than the man in front of him would. Something that flamed and blazed against his arm, something that made him itch and tingle and burn, and he reached down to the shield mark on his arm and found that he could—

            And that meant he could move, and that meant he could fling himself to the side, and that meant he could scream, in so loud a voice that he felt as if it must surely pass beyond the walls of the cell and to the ears of the one it was meant to reach, “Potter!”

*

            The flaring heat of the bond woke Harry from a half-daze as he trotted down the corridor. He was actually looking forward to going back to his cell and eating whatever plain food they served him. His brain felt exercised and stretched from all the arguments he’d had with the Wizengamot. He was very sure that he wasn’t meant to debate that much. Hermione, though, would have been right at home.

            And then the shield mark was blazing, and Harry looked at it and saw the green dot furthest away from the others, trembling and moving in place on his arm as though it was going to fly off.

            Malfoy.

            Harry broke away from the loose grip of the Aurors holding him, who were mostly Shacklebolt and a few others who had turned up as they walked back towards the cells. Harry thought more of them wanted the prestige of saying they had escorted the Boy-Who-Lived than were serious about arresting him.

            Good. That worked in his favor. Harry darted past the door he knew they’d been leading him to and down another corridor instead, past bolts and chains and panels. He aimed straight at one particular closed door that didn’t stand out among the others and kicked it in, which was easier because it had been left unlocked.

            Inside was Malfoy, and a man Harry didn’t recognize, but who wore the robes of an Auror. Of course he did, Harry thought, as he darted to the side, and spun on one foot, and got his body between the man and Malfoy. Malfoy helped by scrambling along on all fours and hiding desperately behind Harry, whimpering a little.

            “I don’t know who you are,” Harry told him, aware that Shacklebolt and the others were hurtling along just behind. “But you can’t harm my vassal without going through me first. He doesn’t even have a wand. How can he hurt you?”

            The man stared at him. Harry thought he could make out deep green eyes like his own in the hood, and iron-grey hair that reached his shoulders. But the man wore a hood, and he wouldn’t pull it down.

            “Who are you?” Harry said. He could feel Malfoy cringing behind him, but he didn’t have the time to turn around and reassure him. He thought the man would probably attack the minute his back was turned. “Who told you that you could threaten my vassal?”

            “An ancient debt.” The man laughed, and the voice shivered up and down Harry’s spine. It wasn’t the same as Voldemort’s voice, but it seemed to come from the same place. Harry narrowed his eyes a little. Maybe it was just because none of the Aurors around him were speaking up to say they recognized this man, maybe it was the voice, but Harry was starting to think that this one might not be human.

            “Not the one that I told the boy it was,” the man continued, sliding forwards a step. Malfoy whimpered. Harry shifted his stance so that he was still in between them. “His father does not owe it to me. But it is owed nonetheless, and it will be paid.” The man’s voice slid down, and he hissed dangerously. “It doesn’t matter whose blood I have to take to get it.”

            “Then it can’t be a very important debt,” Harry said, in his best bored voice, while he watched the man’s feet. He wondered if the man was about to curse him, or curse Malfoy, or break to the side and run away. It was hard to tell. “You don’t think anyone important owes it to you, if you’re willing to take anyone’s blood.”

            “If you knew,” the man whispered, with what sounded like delirium at the back of his voice. “If you knew what I know, you would not be so quick to defend a Malfoy.”

            “Then tell me what you know,” Harry said, “and maybe I’ll change my mind.” Honestly, was no one else ever raised with that lesson? Not that I ever changed the Dursleys’ minds, but they still wanted to know what happened when I did something freakish. They didn’t just rush into something and attack and yell.

            The man stood watching him so long that Harry began to think he would simply walk away and disappear, or maybe attack. Then he reached back and flipped his hood down after all, shaking his head a little to get the hair out of his eyes.

            Harry gasped. The man’s face wasn’t familiar, but his eyes were the exact same shade of deep green that Harry’s were, and his mother’s were.

            “Did you never wonder who your mother’s ancestor might have been, what kind of Squib, who was forced out of the wizarding world and married a Muggle?” the man whispered. “Did you never wonder whether sometimes a wizarding family’s line ended but for that Squib, so that they alone carried the blood of their house? And whether the blood could flower into magic and someday allow me to return?”

            “I didn’t even know my mother was descended from a Squib,” Harry snapped, feeling irritated. Was this another thing that everyone knew but no one had bothered to tell him, like the way his father had bullied Snape? “How can I possibly know who you are or what you want, or what family you come from?”

            The man puffed out a sound that seemed to take a long time to come to Harry’s ears. It was a laugh—Harry thought.

            “I come from the Helton family,” said the man. “You would not have heard of them. They died out except for Patricia Helton, the Squib your mother was descended from.” His eyes were on Harry, so deep and piercing that Harry would have squirmed. Luckily, having Snape as a teacher had prepared him for that, a little. “And now, except for you.”

            “Well, I don’t want you to attack the Malfoys,” Harry said. His voice was raspy, but he forced himself to speak in a clearer one a few seconds later. No one was going to say that he had been slow or hard to understand. They would take his vassals away from him with any excuse in the world, he thought. “It doesn’t matter what one of their ancestors did to my ancestors.”

            “They caused the extinction of the Helton family.” The ghost, or whatever it was, slid a step closer to Harry. “Does that not matter to you?”

            Harry took a deep breath and reached behind him. Malfoy clutched his arm at the shield mark, still panting desperately. Harry forced himself to shake his head. “No, it doesn’t,” he said. “I never knew them. I never knew my mother was descended from them. She was always a Muggleborn, and she saved me because she loved me, not because she had old family magic. I have the Lord bond to a Malfoy now. If I have to forget about what they did to me personally, then I have to forget about what they did to my ancestors.”

            “But I do not.”

            That was the only warning Harry had before the man’s figure blurred, and he headed straight at Harry, and thus at Malfoy. Harry didn’t have a wand, and he didn’t know anything else he could do, so he just spread his arms as wide as he possibly could and jumped into the air, clutching at the ghost.

            He felt an extreme chill, wending its way into his chest. His heart stuttered. He heard the same puffing laugh in his ears.

            Not you, said the voice, either mental or so close that Harry couldn’t tell the difference. I would not harm you.

            Then Harry was dropped on the floor, and there was a cloud of grey and green fluttering around Malfoy, choking off the screams he was trying to make. His hands flew up and down, and his head was battered against the floor.

            Harry leaped at the ghost again.

            This time, it was more solid, and he felt as though he had collided with a chest and then a back. Maybe the ghost had turned around very quickly. Harry didn’t know. He didn’t have time to think about it. He had to fight back.

            He reached out and grabbed what he thought was part of the ghost’s cloak. It slipped through his fingers like blood, but then got more solid. Maybe the ghost was trying to choke the life out of Malfoy, and for that, he had to be substantial.

            The shield mark flaring furiously on Harry’s arm certainly seemed to indicate that the ghost was trying to choke the life out of Malfoy, anyway.

            Harry tugged hard at the cloak, choking a little as some of the mist slipped into his mouth. Then he found the collar, and he yanked it tight as he threw himself backwards. He heard Aurors scattering as he moved, and a second later, he slammed into the door of the cell. His head rang. Blood filled his mouth from where he’d bitten his tongue.

            But he had his goal in front of him, and he wasn’t about to yield now. He tightened his hold until, if the ghost was trying to choke Malfoy, Harry was also choking him. The ghost didn’t seem to breathe, but that was all right. Harry just squirmed his way up the old grey cloak until he was kneeling on the ghost’s back, and started to feel for his eyes.

            The ghost whirled around. Harry went flying again, but some of the mist flowed behind him and made a cushion to cradle him before he could hit. Harry reckoned it was true what the ghost had said: it really didn’t want to hurt someone who was the last descendant of the Helton family.

            “What are you doing?” The ghost hovered in front of Harry, his feet no longer touching the floor. Harry decided he probably didn’t have to pretend to be human anymore, either, now that he had announced who he was. Malfoy whimpered a little from the side, and Harry was glad that he was still alive.

            “What are you doing?” the ghost repeated. “He is a descendent of the family who killed your family.”

            “I never knew that,” Harry said quietly. “I never knew them. I have to defend him because I’m his Lord, and he’s alive, and everyone else from my family is dead. Even my mum. There just—it’s not like I want to be here,” he snapped, because the ghost kept looking at Harry the way Sirius had when he’d said Harry wasn’t like James. “But no one ever asks me what they want. They just do what they think I should approve of. Well, I don’t approve of you trying to kill Malfoy. He’s my vassal, and I have to protect him. What kind of position did you think you were placing me in, attacking him? Or do you not know about Lordship bonds?”

            The ghost wavered back and forth in midair. “I know about Lordship bonds,” he said at last. His voice was slow and reluctant. “But you should not be bound in one.”

            Harry snorted. “So, tell me. If you’re meant to prevent danger to members of the Helton family, why didn’t you ever show up before when I was in danger? Why didn’t you even stop the Malfoys when they attacked me? Lucius Malfoy has gone after me with a wand before. Draco’s tried to scare me. But you show up now. Why?”

            In answer, the ghost vanished.

            Harry watched the air where he’d been, and then waved a hand up and down in it, but there was really nothing there anymore, and the freezing clutch had vanished from his heart. He stood up, wincing as he brushed his hand up and down his chest, and walked over to Malfoy, kneeling down in front of him. He was sitting with his knees drawn up in front of his face, and didn’t seem to realize that the ghost had gone and he was all right now.

            “Are you okay?” Harry asked, and put a hand on Malfoy’s knee when he wouldn’t move, just shivered and huddled into himself.

*

            Draco couldn’t make his tongue move from the top of his mouth for a long second, even though he wanted to answer Potter’s question.

            A blood-ghost. You saw a blood-ghost.

            They were supposedly spirits bound to a family, part of the family, who would come to life when their bloodline was in danger from a specific threat. Draco had never heard of anyone who’d seen one, though. Lots of them had gone dormant when pure-blood family lines died out, the way that this ghost had described the Helton line doing, and Lucius had been prone to brag that the Malfoys were too capable of taking care of their vengeance to need one. If the Blacks had one, Draco had never heard his mother mention it.

            Trust Potter to have one, Draco thought, and had to hold back a hysterical giggle.

            “Malfoy! Are you all right?”

            Draco sniffed and gulped and finally managed to lift his head. Potter was crouching in front of him, staring at him in concern. He smiled a little when he caught Draco’s eye, but his face remained still and wary.

            “Now I am,” Draco said. “I thought my heart was going to stop when it touched me, though.” He reached out a tentative hand and put it on Potter’s arm, and he didn’t even think he needed to touch the shield mark. “You could have saved my life. Thank you.”

            Potter smiled at him, a little reserved. “That’s what I’m supposed to do, as a Lord,” he said, and patted Draco’s shoulder before he started to pull his hand back.

            Draco shivered. His heart was pounding crazily; stupid thing, it only seemed to have realized now that it could have stopped.

            Partially, Draco had his father’s words in the back of his head urging him to take advantage of the bond that connected him to Potter, and make himself important. But he also wanted to—well, make it clear that this was more, to him, than just any old connection that they might have.

            “I mean it,” he whispered. “Thank you.” He took Potter’s hand and held it near, staring at him, just so Potter would know how serious this was. “I owe you a life-debt now—another one, along with everything else.”

            Potter cleared his throat for so long that Draco thought he might have breathed in some of the blood-ghost, and by then the useless Aurors had begun to intervene. “Mr. Malfoy, you will have to let go of Mr. Potter’s hand,” said a tall one that Draco thought was Auror Shacklebolt from other times he’d seen him, and he stepped forwards and bent down as though he meant to pry them apart.

            Draco shook his head and then ducked it. “Don’t let them take me away,” he whispered to Potter, as softly and appealingly as he knew how. “I don’t know if I can stand on my own.”

            Shacklebolt narrowed his eyes at Draco as though he didn’t buy that for a second, but as always, Potter rose magnificently to his rescue, practically coiled and hissing at the Aurors. “He was just attacked by a ghost,” he said. “Something where even I didn’t know what it was. Will you let him sit for a minute?”

            “We have to get you back to your cell,” Shacklebolt said. “And get you some food,” he added, looking down his nose as though Draco was incapable of understanding the necessity for his Lord to eat.

            “Yes, I know that,” Potter said, but although he stood up, he kept himself between Draco and the Aurors. As though they were the blood-ghost, Draco thought, and smiled. Whether or not the bond was changing his mind so that he became more comfortable with the thought of serving Potter, it was nice to be taken care of. “But did anyone think to feed Malfoy?”

            “I will.”

            Potter turned towards the door and smiled a little. Draco bristled. He didn’t know the squat woman who had appeared there, or he might have felt better about Potter’s attention turning to her.

            Potter squeezed his hand without turning back to him, which was half-comfort, at least. “Thank you, Auror Stone. You’ll make sure that my vassal gets something to eat? And Snape, and the others who were brought in with me and with them?” He looked at Draco now, and at least his eyes were soft and gentle.

            “I will.” The squat woman—Stone—moved into place between the people who had accompanied Shacklebolt, looking from face to face like she was looking for someone to arrest. “I would have come earlier, but there was paperwork I had to complete. It seems I cannot leave you alone for a second.”

            “It wasn’t Aurors who threatened the people I protect this time,” Potter said. “It was a blood-ghost.”

            Stone stood there, and then nodded. “Then you should find out more about it, and what it will take to placate it,” she said. She glanced at the Aurors around Potter, and they backed off. “In the meantime, I will remain here to ensure that Mr. Malfoy is well-treated. You will take him back to his cell.”

            The cowed Aurors, including Shacklebolt, backed out, and Potter turned around and smiled at Draco. “I’ll be able to know if it threatens you again,” he said quietly, touching the shield mark on his arm. “But you can trust Stone. She was the one who made sure that a boy who cursed Pansy was arrested.”

            “He cursed you,” Stone said from behind Potter. Draco sensed she was the kind of woman who appreciated honesty.

            “Let’s say he cursed everyone, and that might be more accurate,” Potter shot back, and nodded to Draco. “Stay as safe as you can. I’ll come if you need me.”

            Draco murmured his thanks, and sat down on the bench in his cell again as Potter walked out. Stone leaned out to tell someone to bring him food, while Draco hugged himself in silent excitement.

            Potter hadn’t acted as though he resented defending Draco from his own family’s blood-ghost. He had smiled at Draco and spoken kindly to him and handed him over to someone he seemed to believe would protect him. He had even let Draco hold his hand when it might be embarrassing in front of other people.

            Draco felt his cheeks burn as he remembered that he had also been one of the people doing the hand-holding, but it was no more humiliating than anything else that had happened to him since he became Potter’s vassal.

            And in the meantime, he knew that he had done something else important. His parents wanted him to make himself special to Potter somehow.

            Well, Draco had given him someone to protect.

            His father might scoff at that, but Draco had seen the way Potter flung himself into battle, and the way he got between Professor Snape and the Dark Lord when the Lordship bond happened. He needed someone, someone he could keep close and defend and who couldn’t always defend himself.

            And…

            It’s nice to be taken care of, too.

*

            moodysavage: Not at all! Just don’t be disappointed when it doesn’t turn romantic. ;)

            delia cerrano: That’s gonna take a while. For one thing, both he and Draco are still prisoners.

            pittwitch: Thank you!

            unneeded: Harry is going to be a pain in the arse if that’s what he needs to be to be sure justice is served.

            SP777: Glad that you liked the argument!

            Well, it has a quote as the title already. We’ll see about a quote for the ending.

            Genuka: Thank you!
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The Only True Lords