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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
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Chapter Nineteen—Bad Mistakes
            “Potter!”
            Harry would have to become used to people shrieking that at him, he supposed. This time, it was at least someone from the Ministry, not one of his vassals. Harry reckoned that anyone—he didn’t know from his robes if the man was an Auror or a Hit Wizard or someone to do with the Wizengamot or another department altogether—would shriek when they noticed a prisoner marching up to the lifts with another bunch of prisoners and tied people floating behind them.
            The man started to raise his wand, but Harry got in his way with the one he had stolen from the captor he’d dueled, and the man stopped. Harry smiled. He didn’t know if it was a nice smile, but it made the Ministry man give him a look of fearful respect, and at the moment, that was more important.
            “Listen,” Harry said. “These people took my vassals.” He nodded to the tied Wizengamot flunkies. “They planned to hold them hostage and force me to cooperate with them, politically. I went to them instead, freed my vassals, and took them hostage instead. I’m prepared to cooperate with the Ministry, but I want Auror Stone and Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley to conduct the negotiations. I don’t trust anyone else right now.”
            The Ministry man backed up a step, and then bowed. He had large black eyebrows that overshadowed his face, but his voice was much more respectful as he said, “Of course, Lord Potter.” Harry didn’t let himself grimace at the title, partially because he knew it would be a bad idea, but more because he could feel Snape watching him. “My name is Hans Checkerworth. I work for the Wizengamot as a clerk. I hope that’s acceptable.”
            “It is,” Harry said shortly, “as long as you go get the people I talked about.”
            Another bow, and then Checkerworth scurried away to the lifts. Harry turned and stared at the crowd that had gathered around them. There were a few Aurors in it, but a lot more ordinary Ministry people, like the ones that he and Ron had impersonated when they broke into the Ministry.
            “What are you looking at?” Harry asked them, and they broke away, murmuring, and made for the lifts or the fireplaces or wherever they’d been going. Harry sighed and raked a hand down his face.
            Snape had done his best with Legilimency, but it was obvious that none of the wizards who had taken Harry’s Slytherins knew who owned the cellar where they’d been. Only that it would block the Lordship bond to be there, and it was someone’s good idea. And now they would have to deal with the Ministry, which would probably be more upset about Harry escaping than a potential hostage situation. And to make it worse, the wizard Harry had dueled, and most of the rest, were related to the Wizengamot somehow.
            It was a mess.
            “You’ve made a mistake.”
            That was Draco. Of course it was. Harry stared at the far wall and asked, “And what is that?”
            Draco seized his arm and turned him around. Harry went, noting with annoyance that Draco was a little taller than he was, at least standing on this level. And Harry’s shield mark burned and throbbed with Draco’s emotions. The effect had begun to come back even when they were still in that cellar, since Harry was close to his vassals again, but it hadn’t been as strong there as it was here.
            “Deciding that you could give up my father in exchange for me,” Draco hissed. “I’m not going to forget that you were willing to kill him.”
            Harry looked at him and said the first thing that came into his mind. He was so tired. “And you don’t think that he would have sacrificed himself for you? Would you be upset if he came to rescue you and died fighting?”
            Draco recoiled. “Of course. Maybe you don’t understand it since you don’t have parents, Potter, but some of us actually value our families!”
            Harry hissed again and turned away. He had asked the question in the wrong way. Of course he had. As Draco would say, it was inevitable. He had no connection to his vassals outside the bond and maybe the fact that Snape was willing to work with Harry and soothe things along a little bit. But he was responsible for them legally and morally, and maybe financially as well.
            He stood there in what seemed like freezing silence for a long time. At least Draco didn’t try to touch him again, but he hovered nearby, and Harry could feel his gaze digging into the side of Harry’s face, like probing needles of ice. Harry did his best to ignore it. It didn’t really work.
            “Lord Potter.”
            That was Auror Stone, striding towards them like an animated boulder, but at the moment, Harry couldn’t think of one that was more welcome. His friends weren’t here yet, but Stone would at least listen to his story. He held up his arm, and saw Stone’s eyes focus on the traces of blood that clung to the shield mark, before moving to the bound and floating wizards behind him.
            “They were people who kidnapped my vassals and took them to a cellar,” Harry said simply. “One that blocked the Lordship bond. Most of them are related to the Wizengamot members. I don’t know if I can get them in trouble, but I formally request that they at least be detained for a while.” He glanced over his shoulder, and the scowls on the faces he could see clearly made him speak again. “I don’t want political power, you bastards. I just want a normal life. You’re part of the reason I probably won’t be able to have one.”
            “Lord Potter.” Stone’s voice didn’t sound more formal than usual, but it did sound more commanding. Harry turned his head back. She extended her hand. “I need the wand that you took, please.”
            “My wand!” the wizard Harry had dueled called out.
            Stone turned her chill gaze on him, and the man abruptly flinched and tried to hide behind several others, which was kind of impossible when they were floating all in a line like that. Stone only nodded. “I’ll remember that you said that, sir,” she said, and again turned back and faced Harry in expectant silence.
            Harry held the wand over her hand. “I want your word that you’ll see these wizards tried for what they did,” he said.
            Snape rustled forwards and bent down near Harry, ignoring the way Stone tensed at him. “And moved to a different place,” Snape said, voice soft but harsh. “The holding cells are not safe for us, not if these wizards, who were not even particularly well-organized, could break in and just take us out of them.” His eyes flickered to Draco.
            Harry, not missing the message about the blood-ghost, turned to Stone. “Yes. Can you do that? Is there any other place that can hold us?”
            Stone hesitated. Then she said, “The only other official place that Ministry prisoners can be held is Azkaban, and you led me to believe that was detrimental, for several reasons.”
            “Of course it is,” Harry said, forcefully. “What I mean is, will you take my formal word not to rebel or escape again, unless my vassals are in danger, and let us go somewhere else?’
            “I would take it,” Stone said, lifting her head to look him in the eyes. “It does not mean that the rest of the Ministry would.”
            Harry grimaced. He only had one choice that he could see. Maybe someone else could come up with something else. Someone who wasn’t tired and battered and hated by half the wizarding world and two of his own vassals.
            “What about an Unbreakable Vow?” he asked.
            “Or a Lord’s Oath.”
            Harry blinked and turned his head. Parkinson had spoken. She returned his look primly, her hands folded in front of her. She looked enough like Hermione when she got into a certain mood that Harry relaxed in spite of himself and asked her, “What’s a Lord’s Oath?”
            “Something I was trying to remember earlier and couldn’t,” Parkinson said. She looked between Harry and Stone as though waiting for one of them to stop her, but when neither did, she shrugged and continued speaking. “But I had a lot of time to think in the cell, before they came and took us. A Lord can swear an oath that’s on their mark, basically, or whatever other thing they’ve done to claim their vassals. If they break it, the mark starts burning them, and their Lordship weakens. They wouldn’t be able to sense their vassals as well, and the vassals would have more freedom from them.”
            “I’ll do it,” Harry said instantly.
            “The quickness of your response and your feelings about the bond do not let lead me to the feeling that you would keep your word, Lord Potter,” said Stone quietly.
            Harry winced. Right. “Listen,” he said, and faced her again. “I don’t want to break it. I mean—I want my vassals free from this, but with no negative consequences to anyone. And this sounds like it would have negative consequences to me, at least.”
            “So could breaking out of your cell and going after them the way you did,” Stone said.
            Harry nodded. “I know. But I would still rather give you this Lord’s Oath and wait for my friends to find some way to get me free of the bond than break it. I told you, with the exception that someone takes my vassals again. Then I have to able to leave the place where I’d be staying and go after them.”
            Stone stood there and looked into his eyes so intently that Harry winced a little. But her face lived up to her name, and Harry couldn’t tell whether she would agree until she inclined her head and said, “I presume that you have a property in mind that could function as a place for you to stay?”
            Harry nodded. “Sirius Black made me his heir. I have a house that used to belong to the Blacks. Would that do?”
            “How secure is it?”
            “In the middle of Muggle London,” Harry said, and saw the way Stone looked at his vassals. Yes, that probably made sense to her, he thought. With the exception of Snape and maybe Zabini, he doubted that most of the others would know how to walk around in Muggle London or run away very well. “It has protections on it because it used to be the headquarters for Dumbledore’s Order of the Phoenix. Most people wouldn’t be able to break in.”
            “I would have said the same thing about the Ministry holding cells,” Stone said, switching her stare back to him.
            “Yes, but we neglected to think about how much the Wizengamot would hate me for disrupting their lives,” Harry said. “So I think it’s best if we stay in some place that’s out of their direct control.” He held his hand up, because Stone’s forehead had started to furrow. “I know that you’re probably worried about them breaking out, too, but that’s what my word is for. I’m going to take care of them and make sure that they don’t run away, either.”
            Oh, really? Harry didn’t hear the words in his head, but he might as well have, because they, or words very like them, were burning up his mind from Zabini’s direction.
            Did Zabini not realize that Harry could feel what he was feeling now, and had for a while even in the cellar? Well, it didn’t matter. Harry had dealt with his rebellion once before, and now he would deal with it again. And he would deal with Draco hating him, and Snape resenting him, and Goyle when he woke up, and Parkinson…
            Parkinson was coming forwards, looking back and forth between him and Stone. “I know the ceremony of the Lord’s Oath,” she offered quietly. “I can help you perform it.”
            “There’s a ceremony?” Harry asked. But of course there was. There was always a fucking ceremony, sometimes something that he did without meaning to, like coming up with the bond and the shield mark in the first place.
            Parkinson smiled at him as if hearing his thoughts. “Yes. Exactly. That means that you’re bound to the mark by a vow to someone else. Otherwise, the mark only constitutes a vow between you and your vassals.”
            “It would have been useful if you could have remembered this earlier,” Harry muttered. “Hermione was searching through all these books for material on the Lordship bond, and she couldn’t come up with anything like this.”
            “Shock and fear and the ending of a war gave me other things to think about, so sorry,” Parkinson snapped back, winding a curl of hair around her finger. “But I remember now. And I don’t know how useful it would be in the long term, but it can be useful now.”
            Harry turned back to Stone. “Would you accept the Lord’s Oath from me?”
            “I am only one Auror,” Stone said. “Not even the one with the most seniority in the Department.”
            Harry smiled. “But you told me a bunch of other Aurors had been compromised by serving Voldemort and you were still straightening things out and even relying on trainees. So I think you’re higher up now than you are most of the time.”
            “And one person can accept the Lord’s Oath,” Parkinson added, her voice strong and confident when Harry looked at her. “As long as it’s done in the right way, then the consequences for breaking the vow will be the same for the Lord. And it doesn’t matter who he swore to, or why.”
            Stone considered this for only a few seconds before she turned to Parkinson. “I have heard of this ceremony, but not been through it. What do you think we need to do?” She was already drawing her wand.
            Parkinson hesitated, as though she was surprised to have so many people relying on her all at once. Harry held her eyes and smiled as encouragingly as he could. He didn’t know if he could send support to her through the bond and the mark, but there was always this old-fashioned way.
*
            You’ve read all about it. You would have mentioned it before now if you’d been with Potter, or had more time to concentrate.
            Pansy knew that backing down would probably make Potter distrust her more than ever, and she didn’t want that to happen. Ultimately, he would be her shadow and her support in her political decisions. She had to have a basic level of trust from him.
            And that meant showing more confidence where she was faltering. She knew the truth better than Blaise and Draco, who planned and plotted and raged and thought someone had to attend to them. She knew she was weak right now, but she would grow.
            One way of growing was being able to provide services to people that they needed. To Potter, she said, “Kneel.”
            He did it immediately, never taking his eyes off her. Pansy folded her arms so that her right one wouldn’t tremble. It was tingling, and she didn’t know whether that was a positive thing or not, but she didn’t want it to throw her off.
            “Now you,” she said to Stone. “Kneel opposite him.”
            Stone reminded Pansy of her mother, the way she stared, but she did it. Pansy walked behind her. “Now close your eyes, my lord,” she told Potter. The title felt less uncomfortable on her lips when she reminded herself that it was part of a political objective. “Blindness shows trust. Voluntary blindness, at least. Now, Auror Stone, rest your wand on his hands , and then put your hands on either side of his head. Clasp your hands in front of you, my lord. No, as if you were holding the shaft of a broom. One atop the other.”
            The ritual was coming back the more she thought about it. It was a simple ceremony, really. Not one she’d sought to memorize, but one that was close enough to others she’d had to memorize that it was easy to keep in mind and realize what must come next.
            “What do we do now?”
            Pansy started. Stone was impatient even if Potter wasn’t and the mark on her arm had settled down to a steady humming, it seemed. Pansy concealed a sigh. “You keep your hands in place and he keeps his in place, and you swear the vow, my lord. Make sure that you say what you’re going to do and where we’re going to stay and the one exception you mentioned before. And you have to end it by saying that you swear on your magic and your Lordship.”
            “That seems simple enough,” Potter muttered.
            “Do I get no say in this vow?” Stone’s voice was patient, but heavy.
            Pansy shook her head, then realized that Stone was being absolutely obedient and wouldn’t look away from Potter, so she hadn’t seen what Pansy had done. Pansy sighed and said, “No. You’re the one who receives the Lord’s Oath. If there’s something unacceptable in what he proposed, you have to say it, now, before he makes the vow.”
            Stone just kept kneeling there, silent. Pansy nodded and turned to Potter, who kept his eyes closed. “All right. Go ahead and make it now, my lord.”
            “I promise that my vassals and I will stay in Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, and we won’t leave it unless the Ministry brings us to legal trial or someone kidnaps my vassals, or the house is in danger of being destroyed,” Potter said. “I swear it on my magic and my Lordship.”
            The flare of the vow around him and Stone took place much faster than the flames of an Unbreakable Vow did, which Pansy had only seen once. This was a brilliant white infinity symbol, flaring like magnesium dropped in water, and it wove around both Potter and Stone, with one of them in each of its loops. It faded while Pansy was still trying to determine if it was connected to their hands, or to the mark on Potter’s arm or not.
            “Excellent,” Stone said, a little breathily, opening her eyes. “I trust that you will do your best to keep this vow, Lord Potter.”
            “I would have kept the last one,” Potter said breathlessly, in turn, opening his eyes, “if a bunch of idiots hadn’t come and kidnapped my vassals.”
            Stone eyed him as though she doubted the truth of that, but finally nodded and stood up. “Good. Then you and your vassals can leave for Grimmauld Place as soon as your friends come to escort you, correct? Checkerworth told me that he had to find them as well as me.”
            “Harry!”
            Granger and Weasley were coming. Pansy faded back to stand behind Potter. She didn’t get along well with either one of them, and given the expressions on their faces, they were worried about Potter and Pansy didn’t want to get in their way.
            Then Draco stepped forwards. Pansy tried to catch his arm. Going to the Black house, no matter how run-down, had to be better than staying in the holding cells, and if Professor Snape was right about a ghost trying to kill Draco here, they would be safer there, too.
            “What about my parents, Potter?” Draco asked loudly, avoiding Pansy’s hand. “They were supposed to be protected. Aren’t you going to petition for them to be taken out, too, and follow us? You have to.”
            Potter stood up and turned to him with eyes that had gone soft with sorrow. Pansy would have liked to smack him on the forehead, right over the lightning bolt scar. You couldn’t be soft with Draco. He mistook it for stupidity. The only professor he had really respected, other than Snape, had been McGonagall, because she had never showed him that kind of soppiness that the others tended to.
            “I made the vow already,” Potter said. “They’re not my vassals. They can’t come with us.”
            Draco nodded, and then went on nodding when he should have stopped, as though his head had become loose. Again Pansy tried to get to him, and again he avoided her without looking. “Then your word means nothing. When you said they would have protection, and they would receive a fair trial?”
            Potter sighed and turned to Stone. “Would you check on Lucius Malfoy and Narcissa Malfoy, Auror Stone? I used some of Mr. Malfoy’s blood to get to my vassals this time, because I didn’t know any other way. He may be wounded. And please step up the guard on them. Someone might try for them next.”
            Stone’s eyebrows went up in a way that made Pansy certain she would have liked to hear the story of how Potter had got Mr. Malfoy’s blood, but she bobbed her head. “Yes, Lord Potter. I had too much trust in the faithfulness of Aurors before this. I am going to find out who let the people who kidnapped you pass. And we’ll interrogate those who did, be certain.” Her eyes wandered to the people floating bound behind Potter.
            “I am related to the Greengrasses!” yelled a tall witch who Pansy had seen when they came to her holding cell to take her. “You can’t do this!”
            “Really?” Auror Stone asked mildly. “Well, you can’t kidnap people without consequences, either. Let’s give you the chance to tell your stories, and we’ll see if you have a good excuse for that.”
            “And my parents?” Draco demanded, looking at both Potter and Auror Stone as if he wasn’t sure which one would provide the better target for him.
            “I’ll check on them,” Auror Stone said calmly. “I can heal some wounds. I’ll take care of Mr. Malfoy’s wounds myself, if he has them, and any that Mrs. Malfoy has. And you have my word as an Auror to step up the guard on them. No one’s ready to go to trial yet. It’ll take longer.”
            “And that’s all?” Draco spun to Potter. “That’s all I get?”
            “That’s all.” Potter’s eyes were a million years old. “I’m doing the most I can by protecting you, and the vow wouldn’t apply to people who aren’t vassals.”
            “God, Harry, let’s get you to Grimmauld Place,” Weasley muttered. Granger threw her arms around Potter briefly, then started making a little speech that Pansy didn’t pay attention to. It wasn’t like she would be allowed to Apparate on her own anyway.
            She watched Draco and Blaise, instead. Draco was fuming, and the harder he did it, the longer Blaise smiled.
            Pansy didn’t really like the Lordship and what it made her do, either. She would get rid of it if there was a chance. But she distrusted the way that Draco and Blaise would go about getting rid of it. Draco’s loyalty to his family was blind; he would make any promises, and sod anyone who got in the way.
            And Blaise probably thought all he had to do was run away, and that would weaken the Lordship bond.
            Well, I’ll do what I can to foil you.
            As Pansy turned back to Potter and Granger, she saw Professor Snape watching her. She didn’t think it was his imagination, although the move was subtle to escape Draco’s and Blaise’s eyes, when he inclined his head to her.
            At least I’ll have help.
*
            delia cerrano: I think Harry has that from his friends, and he might freak out over unconditional understanding from anyone else.
            WorldePARALLEL: Draco thinks that Harry is so far below his standard for a Lord that he just doesn’t want him as a Lord at all. And Blaise doesn’t want a Lord, either. So they won’t stop trying to break the bond because it would benefit them more (they think) if it was dissolved.
            As you can see from this chapter, Snape and Pansy are waiting for the moment and doing what they need to do to survive.
            moodysavage: Harry would feel extremely bad about Blaise dying, if only because Blaise did depend on him for a little while.
            BAFan: Harry does think that it’s a good thing he and not someone else can bear the brunt, although it’s hard.
            SP777: You could say the same thing about Goyle, honestly, although maybe he produces more of a neutral impression. Harry didn’t exactly get a chance about his bondmates.
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The Only True Lords