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The Only True Lords	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 54573 -:- Recommendations : 4 -:- Currently Reading : 11
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

Chapter List
- 16
- 17
- 18
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Chapter Seventeen—Resistance
            Severus let his head droop, his eyes working at the edges of the Obscuring Ward that they had magicked back into place after the Calming Charm, no more darkly than before. That increased his certainty that this was no sophisticated band of kidnappers, but one assembled in haste, and the person who had cast the Obscuring Ward was the best in the group without necessarily being skillful at it.
            Not skillful, either, not to notice that he had started to resist and recover from the Calming Charm within a very short time. On the other hand, perhaps they did not know that Severus was a skilled Legilimens. And Severus had always found it easy to excuse mistakes his enemies made that benefited him.
            He tested the ropes that bound his wrists, flexing his hands casually back and forth. The bright light he had seen on them before followed the movement, but didn’t give an alarm. Severus half-sneered. Someone had cast a spell that gave an alarm at every movement, but only until they got sick of being troubled by the Slytherin students rolling over or sighing in their sleep or breathing more deeply than normal. Then they had replaced it with a less powerful spell that would give warning only in case of an attack. Nothing in between seemed to have occurred to them.
            Severus closed his eyes and retreated into himself. The Aurors had taken his wand when he was escorted into the Ministry, of course, but they had not conducted a thorough enough search of his pockets, and there was no taking the weapons that were inside the mind. Except with the Calming Charm or similar spells, which Severus had to admit was a clever tactic.
            But spells wore off, while the ability to use Occlumency in the way that Severus did now did not.
            Severus sank deep into his own mind. The training he had received in Occlumency, first from books and then from Albus, almost all concentrated on knowing himself, his own desires and thoughts and interests, both so that he could form effective shields and so that he could recognize when a force from outside was trying to influence him.
            He could have done this before now, if he had bothered to think and find the silence he needed for it. But even if he had been left alone for long enough, Severus had to acknowledge, he might not have managed it. His head was swarming and swimming and spinning with thoughts, and he needed to banish them to finish this.
            He sank, and when he was at the bottom of himself, behind the Occlumency shields that he kept in place at all times as well as the shields that locked away certain memories, he opened his eyes.
            Yes. There was a light in him that had not been there before, as startling and unexpected as the glow of some deep-sea fish at the bottom of the underwater abyss. Severus reached towards it.
            It was the Lordship bond.
            He saw it as silver and black, but a radiant black that illuminated the still depths around him where once there had been nothing but quiet, the kind of focus he could bring to bear on a difficult potion. Severus walked around it, noting its form, a chain, and the way it reached away into his thoughts, slowly reshaping them, the way a chain could cause marks on a wrist the longer it rested there.
            For the moment, Severus could not worry about how it might choose to deform his thoughts. The more aware he became of it, the more he could resist it.
            And he had other concerns now.
            He reached out and stroked the bond with a long finger of thought. It tingled at him, and then simply lay there and shone. So much for the notion that he could send a message to his Lord simply by touching it.
            There might be another way to break free, though. If he worked at it.
            And right now, silence and focus would only benefit his plan.
*
            Harry held up the vial of blood. It shimmered a little, but otherwise looked like normal blood, and he didn’t think the blood-ghost would have much reason to trick him. Lucius was the only Malfoy here at the moment.
            Well, other than Narcissa. But the blood-ghost seemed excessively concerned with members born to a family, not just those who had the name, or else Harry thought it would probably have gone away forever when the last person with the name Helton died out.
            He took a deep breath and uncapped the vial. He flinched a little when the blood dripped onto the skin of his palm, but so what? He could flinch all he liked, and it still wouldn’t change what he had to do.
            He turned around and slapped the blood on his shield mark.
            There was a hissing noise, as though the skin was a hot stovetop he’d spilled water on, and the shield darkened. The clump of green dots turned red, even though Harry had deliberately applied the blood to a different part of the shield than the one that held them. Harry found himself holding his breath without meaning to, and drove it out of his lungs with a grunt. Now wasn’t the time to be concentrating on anything but how he would use the blood to track Draco down.
            He closed his eyes. He could feel the shield heating and cooling in random patterns, probably in reaction to the blood. At least that was stirring the magic of the bond up, and he hoped it would be in a way that his enemies hadn’t thought to block. Where was Harry going to get the blood of anyone related to his vassals, locked up in a cell?
            I want to show them that they deserve to suffer, for underestimating me.
            And maybe that was the bond, but maybe it wasn’t. Harry had felt the same irritation racing through him when the Ministry had turned against him in fifth year. He just wanted people to listen for once, and stop acting like he was a stupid kid. Did they have to be afraid of stupid kids?
            Take me to the nearest vassal who has the same kind of blood as this, he told the shield. He could feel the bond beginning to tighten around him like a constrictor. He ignored that, and what he thought were the watching eyes of the blood-ghost. Take me!
            There was a long release of tension, and then Harry bounced through the darkness as though he was on one end of a string and his vassals were on the other. Long after he expected to crash into a wall if he was still in the cell, he kept going.
            Harry smiled and opened his eyes as light flickered into being around him. He had no wand, but that wasn’t much of a problem, when everyone around him turned and stared at him in astonishment.
            “Hi,” he said, and tackled the nearest wizard, snatching his wand and whirling around to face the nearest group.
*
            Severus released his hold on the bond with a gasp. He had felt it reel and snap tight, and knew he had pulled Potter to them—well, if he was lucky, that was what had happened. Perhaps he had damaged his mind and the bond instead.
            But he could hear yells, and Potter’s voice saying, “Hi,” and he reckoned it had worked.
            He opened his eyes and exerted his will to smash through the Obscuring Ward, something he could have done at any time with his mind free but hadn’t wanted to until there was a purpose.
            Potter had blocked several Stunners from the wizards around him and Stunned several of them in turn. He was backing around the fire towards Severus and the other prisoners, his color so high that he looked as if he had a fever. And the whole time, he was smiling.
            Of course he would be, Severus thought, and shook his head. He did not think the boy understood the seriousness of battle, most of the time. He had survived so far, so he thought he would always survive. It was the same lack of thought that had led him to stepping in the way of the Dark Lord’s obedience curse.
            But since Severus’s life was now tied to his, merely sitting still and thinking sarcastically about Potter’s lack of caution would not help. Severus waited a moment, and then surged to his feet, rolling down again as several of the combatants turned and aimed their wands at him. Spells cracked the stone above his head, and he grimaced. So much for the belief that they would not need to hurt us.
            His Slytherins were still confined by the Obscuring Wards and the Calming Charms, it seemed, and if they were not, gave no signs of moving. Severus considered very fast. The mind arts were rarely of use as offensive weapons, because they could cause as much pain to the person wielding them as to the wizard they were directed against.
            But Severus knew one way, the same way he had “trained” Potter in Occlumency towards the end of the lessons. He had only to catch someone’s eye…
            A wizard with a trailing beard hurried towards him. Severus caught his gaze, and dived inside.
            There were a few pitiful Occlumency barriers that Severus smashed through easily. They didn’t hurt. What did was digging into the core of the man’s mind, seizing control of his memories and overwhelming him with them until he crumbled to the floor of the cave-cellar, screaming.
            But then it did not matter, because Severus had the man’s wand, and he could make his enemies hurt in another way.
*
            Snape was up and striking back, Harry saw from the corner of his eye. Good. That meant at least one of his vassals could defend themselves.
            But the others were still sitting there with their heads dangling and their hands bound, and whether they were too afraid or whether they were injured, Harry didn’t know. He was having enough trouble with the emotions that surged through his mind without tracing everyone’s individual feelings.
            He could feel the bond whispering to him, pulling at him, urging him to avenge the insults to his vassals and his honor. He wanted to kill the wizards he was fighting, not just Stun them. And there was the chance that he would miss and get Stunned himself if he didn’t kill them.
            But he also wanted to leave them alive to question them, and he didn’t want to be a murderer, and he didn’t know what good killing them would do. It would just make him into a murderer as well as someone who had used the Unforgiveables during the war.
            He whirled and cast the Stunner again and again, and spent a lot of time dodging, and gritted his teeth against the way that his arm had heated up. He knew the shield mark would calm down again if he did what it wanted.
            Why should I? It didn’t do what I wanted until I smeared it with blood!
            Maybe that was a stupid way to think of it, but it kept him sane in the face of the longing to kill. And now Snape was taking down wizards by, apparently, stringing their hair around their ankles and tripping them up that way, and Harry felt a little reassured. One of his vassals was safe. He didn’t have to kill because Snape wasn’t.
            Of course, that only went well until someone got desperate.
            “Potter! Drop your wand or I’ll do it!”
            Harry whirled around, blocking another Stunner with a Shield Charm. A wizard with grey hair that fell almost to his waist and red robes that blazed in the dim cellar was crouching beside Pansy. His wand rested on her throat. Pansy herself stayed so still Harry didn’t know whether it was good sense or fear or unconsciousness that held her quiet.
            “You won’t do it,” Harry said, while the whirling anger in his head coalesced and started to build, and he saw Snape turning around out of the corner of his eye. Harry’s head was light with his fury, and his hand trembled on the stolen wand. It hadn’t really resisted him so far, just worked with him, and that was good. That was fine.
            If this idiot threatened to cut Pansy’s throat, Harry wasn’t sure how long he could hold on to the more violent impulses he’d been fighting.
            “Won’t I?” The wizard held Pansy’s head closer to his neck and firmed his hold on his own wand. “Well, maybe I won’t if you put down your wand and swear that you won’t participate in politics. That’s the only thing we wanted, the only reason we snatched your vassals. We—”
            At this point, Pansy bit him in the throat.
            The wizard shrieked, and Harry Disarmed him. Snape cast a Summoning Charm on the wand at the same time. Harry didn’t know why, and he didn’t care. As long as the wand was out of the way and the idiot couldn’t use it, then Harry would be happy.
            He cast Incarcerous on the wizard instead, and then hurried over to Pansy. Most of the other wizards had started Disapparating or backed off, staring, hovering. Harry wondered what they were waiting for. Did they think there was still a chance they could win? Or maybe they wanted to see what he would do now that someone had challenged him directly and he had seen one of his vassals in danger.
            Well, maybe that had something to do with it, Harry finally realized as he crouched next to Pansy, but more of it had to do with the enormous black snake that Snape had conjured in front of his own feet. It reared up and flicked its tongue at the wizards, ready to lunge. It probably could do it before any of them could Disapparate, Harry thought. Good.
            He wanted some prisoners to question.
            He cast a quick Finite on the black spell around Pansy’s face and the ropes on her wrists. But the ropes didn’t disappear, as they weren’t magical, so he had to slice through them with a Cutting Curse instead. By then, Pansy was shaking her hair back and running a hand through it, as though the blinding spell had also disordered it.
            “Are you all right?” Harry asked, considering her as closely as he could. This close, he could sort out her emotions from the thick group of them in the back of the bond. She pulsed, she burned, but Harry didn’t think it was with the particular kind of burning that would come when she was hurt.
            “Shaken,” Pansy said. “Bruised. But all right.” She glanced off to the side. “You might want to make sure of Goyle, though. I don’t think he’s moved since they brought him here.”
            Harry nodded and stood up, looking at Snape. “Can you hold them for a little while?”
            “Yes,” Snape said simply. “I have raised anti-Apparition wards. No one else will be getting in or out.” He looked at Harry, a brief glance, and then looked back—not at the wizards he was holding captive, but the snake.
            Either Harry was getting better at communicating with his vassals or the bond added some extra backing to Snape’s statement, because Harry knew what Snape meant without having to ask. He nodded at the snake. “Hold them,” he said in Parseltongue, making sure that he focused on the serpent and didn’t say it aloud in English. “If one of them moves, then you have my permission to bite them.”
            The snake turned the upper part of its body towards him and inclined it in a little bow, while some of the newly captive wizards began to shriek at the sound of Harry’s hissing. Harry smirked, cast Finite on the spells on Draco and Zabini, and then dropped to his knees in front of Goyle.
            Once again, it was easier to feel what was going on with a particular vassal when he was near them. He wasn’t sure that he had been close to Goyle, so far, not by himself. But he saw what Pansy meant. There was a disturbing blankness coming down the bond, as though Goyle had found a way to block it.
            Harry took off the blinding charm, and Goyle stared past him, his eyes fixed and unblinking.
            Harry waved his hand up and down in front of Goyle’s eyes, his heart sinking. Then he cast an Rennervate. It didn’t work. Goyle was breathing, but he seemed to have gone into some kind of deep shock.
            Harry listened to the bond, and rubbed the shield mark, and that didn’t help, either. He grimaced and stood up. He only knew one other person in the room who was skilled with Legilimency, which meant he would have to call Snape to figure out what was wrong with Goyle and take over control of the snake himself.
            “Let me.”
            Harry started and almost drew his wand as he watched Draco kneel down beside Goyle. Then he relaxed, a little. Draco was Goyle’s friend. He might not know what to do as effectively as Snape, but Harry could be sure he wouldn’t hurt him.
            And hadn’t Draco received some Occlumency training from Bellatrix or something? Harry turned around to keep an eye on the wizards who had kidnapped his vassals, his body between them and Draco. He would let Draco do what he could, and only insist on taking them back to the Ministry if Draco had to give up.
*
            Come on, Greg.
            Draco took a deep breath and picked up Greg’s hands. They were as cold and as pale as his face. He had seen some Death Eater prisoners get like this sometimes, after long sessions of torture.
            But he didn’t think Greg had been tortured, at least not in the conventional way and by these people. And the symptoms also fit another condition he had learned about as part of his Occlumency training.
            Draco didn’t want to go into Greg’s mind. He didn’t want to search for the horrible memories that his aunt had told him might cause the condition like this, so prominent in someone’s thoughts that they shut their thoughts down to avoid them, and he didn’t want to smash through them and allow other memories to circulate instead.
            But he didn’t think he had much choice. Professor Snape was occupied right now, and no one else knew Greg well enough to do this, even if they had the right skills.
            Draco met Greg’s eyes and murmured, “Legilimens.”
            The surface of Greg’s eyes seemed to tremble and break around him, like the surface of a pond that he was diving beneath. Then Draco had the alien sensation of passing in. He shuddered. He usually experienced this from the other way around, as Bellatrix or the Dark Lord pawed through his thoughts.
            But both of them were gone now. He hadn’t forgotten that. He forged ahead, and stepped into Fiendfyre.
            Of course that was the horrible memory that filled Greg’s thoughts. It wasn’t a surprise. But it made Draco flinch and want to hide, because he had been there, too, and he saw, again and again, Vincent disappearing into the flames as the two of them were lifted to safety.
            It wasn’t easy, it was horrible, but Draco gathered up his memories of the Slytherin common room since the end of the battle, and even Potter. Potter who had been there in the fire, too, who was only a distant disappearing figure in Greg’s memories, and whose bond could be a promise of peace.
            He threw the images at Greg, the image of them sitting in the Slytherin common room and laughing at Gryffindors, and the image of Potter looming between them and the curse the Dark Lord had cast, his eyes so wide that it hurt to look into them. Draco pushed and shoved them into the Fiendfyre, soaking the imaginary flames, building over them, forcing Greg’s obsessive memories further and further back.
            It hurt. The Fiendfyre didn’t burn, but there was pain in Greg’s mind, and it was like swimming in heavy water to move through it. Draco breathed and threw the images, breathed and spun them, breathed and built them. He didn’t know what metaphor was best; he just knew that some of the pain was fading. Greg wasn’t normal, but Draco felt the distant little pulses that meant his eyes were fluttering open and he could breathe and blink, and he gratefully jumped back and out of his mind.
            He opened his eyes to find Greg staring at him. Draco reached out and patted him clumsily on the shoulder. “You’re going to be all right,” he said.
            Greg didn’t respond, but shut his eyes, and began to sigh through something that looked like normal sleep.
            “Thank you.”
            Draco shivered a little at the intense joy that flooded him when he heard Potter speak like that. He turned around and gazed up, and Potter gazed back, with a smile that made Draco want to kneel. Since he was kneeling already, that made his head reel.
            By the time he could listen again, Potter and Professor Snape were already speaking about what they should do, take their prisoners back to the Ministry or question them right here. Draco was in favor of questioning them here, since the Ministry had been incompetent enough in the first place to let them kidnap Draco and the others, but no one was asking him. He leaned back on the wall of the cellar and relaxed.
            “You’re enjoying it, aren’t you?”
            Draco glanced up. Pansy stood over him, and there was a complicated expression on her face that lingered on the outside of a scowl.
            “Enjoying what?” Draco asked, turning back to Potter and Snape. Snape seemed to have won the argument and was stepping towards the wizards who cowered in fear of his snake. Potter moved forwards to put his hand on the snake’s head, and any attempt it might have made to follow Professor Snape subsided into a shiver.
            “Enjoying being part of this bond.” Pansy sat down beside him and looked sideways, as if she needed to figure out what Blaise was doing. Since for now that seemed to be “examining his wrists to see if the rope had left chafing,” Pansy looked at Draco again. “Enjoying having someone protect you.”
            “Yes,” Draco said. He saw no reason to deny it. “What, aren’t you?”
            Pansy sniffed. “We’ll see how well he does as a platform to get me into politics.”
            Draco smiled and said nothing. He thought Pansy would probably either change her mind because of the bond or manage to persuade Potter that her politics were harmless. One of them or the other would yield, or they would compromise. The bond no longer felt like slavery to Draco.
            He glanced back at Potter just as Potter glanced back at him. Potter’s eyes widened and softened—at what, Draco didn’t know. Maybe just the spectacle Draco and the others presented, sitting like that.
            Draco gave him a little wave. Potter still went on looking for a second before he nodded and faced towards the front again.
            Draco settled down to half-listening to Pansy’s monologue and half-watching Potter. He wasn’t naïve enough to think everything would be all right after this, but it was all right for the moment, and that might be the best they could get.
*
            kain: Lucius had a choice, though. He could have refused, and then Harry would have had to find some other way to rescue his vassals. Wanting to make sure that everyone gets a fair trial is not the same as not asking anything of them.
            Besides, the blood-ghost has not killed Lucius yet.
            delia cerrano: This work?
            SP777: He is going to, yes. On the other hand, Harry will have a reason to feel that way, too.
            BAFan: It’s in Chapter 18 that they learn more about what it’s going to cost.
            moodysavage: Well, you will get to see him at least one more time.
            WorldePARALLEL: Thank you! I hope that Harry comes across as at least partially IC, although since the bond is twisting things around, I imagine that there’s going to be some OOCness regardless.
            Snape does want to survive more than he did, now. Hence his attempts to get himself and the Slytherin students out of this pickle.
            Harry was thinking only of getting his vassals back, but that decision is going to cause problems later.
- 16
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- 18
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The Only True Lords