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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.

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Thank you for all the reviews!

Chapter Two—Bruised

            “What am I going to do?”

            Harry asked the question simply, leaning back against his pillows and staring at the wall. Ron and Hermione had finally come up to the Gryffindor Tower bedroom to get him after he had slept the rest of the day, that night, and until noon the next day. At least they’d brought a tray of food from the kitchens. Harry cracked open one of the scones and used a Warming Charm to melt the butter until he could dip the scone half in.

            “You have your wand back,” Ron said, in the tone of voice that said he was anxious to delay talking about everything else for as long as possible.

            Harry glanced down and shrugged a little. “Yeah. I thought—well, the Elder Wand is so powerful. It can probably repair anything. And it repaired my wand.” He gave the holly wood a little pat.

            Unfortunately, that moved his right arm so that he could see the stupid shield mark again. Harry sneered and turned back to his lunch-breakfast. He didn’t want to think about the Lordship bond again except in the context of a solution.

            Hermione coughed and tugged a huge book from behind her. Harry wasn’t surprised to see that it was covered in shiny, burnished leather, as though someone had spent a long time handling it. He nodded and swallowed the hot bread and butter in his mouth. “What does it say about Lordship bonds?”

            “It says they’re bloody permanent,” Ron muttered. “Which they are.”

            “I didn’t really think I could break it,” Harry reminded him. “I just want to know how I can live with it, what I have to do.” This time, he took a huge gulp of pumpkin juice, both because Ron was opening his mouth to continue the argument and because Hermione was opening hers like she was dying to talk.

            “Most Lords are really committed to caring for their people, Harry,” Hermione said, rubbing her fingers over the book and then flipping to what looked like the first of several floating bubbles that marked her place in it. “Voldemort perverted that when he used the Dark Marks. That’s where he got the idea, but he did everything that a Lord isn’t supposed to do. Tortured his people, made them commit crimes, and made sure they were the ones who took responsibility for anything they did.”

            Harry bristled. He’d been relaxing as Hermione talked, because he had wondered if the stupid bond would require him to torture someone, and he refused, but this didn’t sound much better. “I’m not taking the responsibility for any crimes Malfoy commits.”

            “Not in that sense,” Hermione said, and rolled her eyes at him. “They could still commit crimes on their own, and their Lord would appear in court to answer for them, and pay fines if they were poor, but he wouldn’t have to serve Azkaban time or anything. I told you, a proper Lord bond doesn’t have anywhere near that level of control. What it means is that if they do something on your orders, you have to stand up for them.”

            “What if I don’t intend to ever issue any bloody orders?” Harry muttered.

            “You know what some of the Slytherins might do,” Hermione said, staring at him. “Maybe they won’t. This was the war, and we were all kids, and some of the things they did…I know they didn’t have any choice.” From the stupefied look on Ron’s face, Harry thought, she hadn’t discussed that thought process with him. “But what if they do something wrong after the war? Curse someone? Threaten to curse someone, that’s a better example. You could just appear in court if they cursed someone. But if they told you they were going to do it, are you saying you wouldn’t order them to stop?”

            Harry glared at the tray on his lap. Unfortunately, the cheese and toast that were left failed to combust in crackling green flames the way he had pictured them doing. “Fuck.”

            Hermione said, “Language,” in a way that reminded Harry so much of Professor McGonagall he almost looked around the room for her. Instead, Hermione picked up the book and cleared her throat loudly. “A Lordship bond has to flow both ways, though, or it’s not a proper bond. The vassals—”

            “Must you?” Harry demanded in a low voice he hadn’t thought he was capable of using until he heard it.

            “Yes, I must,” Hermione said, and gave him one of those looks she had given him several times during fifth year, sympathetic and hard at once. “Because this is what you’re going to have to live with from now on, and I don’t want someone taking advantage of their superior knowledge and trying to hurt you.”

            “I don’t think any of the Slytherins can hurt him, now,” Ron piped up, swinging his legs back and forth. “That’s the way Mum said Lordship bonds worked yesterday, anyway.”

            “I was thinking more of the Ministry,” Hermione said. “But this is the way that it works. The vassals—” She paused, but Harry only nodded. He wouldn’t get anywhere by denying reality. Hermione beamed and continued reading. “The vassals need to serve the Lord. They traditionally fight at his side in battle, act as his seconds during duels, make sure that he doesn’t get exposed to danger from enemies who the vassals are able to deal with, and also sometimes donate money to him. Most of the time, though, the Lord is the stronger and richer wizard, so that only happens if the Lord needs a lot of funds at once. And he always pays it back.”

            Harry nodded. Of course he would. The thought of profiting from someone else’s money was horrible in the first place, and he wouldn’t want a fortune that was probably tainted with Muggle-hunting. “Make sure he doesn’t get exposed to danger from enemies he can’t deal with,” he said. “Does that mean, I don’t know, that Malfoy would have to protect me against his parents if they decided they hated me?”

            Hermione rolled her eyes at him. “You already said Mrs. Malfoy helped you in the Forest. And you heard what Lucius said yesterday. He can’t move against you, now.”

            “Not directly,” Harry pointed out, thinking of his fifth year, and his second. “But he has a lot of political contacts in the Ministry. What happens if he ‘encourages’ them to throw me in prison or something?”

            Hermione shook her head. “He can’t. His son is your vassal now, and just as you have the right to punish your vassals if they disobey you, you could do the same thing to him through them. Keep him from ever seeing Draco again, for example.”

            Harry recoiled. He was thinking of Draco shut up in a cupboard, his eyes closed and his head bent, and the image was so repulsive that he shoved the tray of food away. “I’m not doing that,” he said, loud enough to make the corners of the Tower ring.

            “Okay, Harry,” Hermione said, and reached out to take his hand.

            “It’s wrong,” Harry snarled, and more images of the Dursleys were in his head. Did he have the legal right to starve the Slytherins now, and make them do chores, and tell them they were freaks and keep them from contact with the wizarding world? He found that he was panting, and both Ron and Hermione were staring at him as though he had gone mental. Harry sort of wished he had. It would be easier. “It’s sick.”

            “If they curse someone, you would have to punish them,” Hermione said quietly. “That’s the repayment for you serving as their protection during the trial, and paying fines. The Ministry would waive doing anything—with most crimes, but not murder—because they would know you would.”

            Harry bowed his head. “Well, anyway,” he said. “I could take their wands away for a while or something. Not imprison them.”

            “I think most Lords used whipping,” Ron said.

            “Not helping,” Hermione said out of the corner of her mouth, but Harry lifted his head and shook it back and forth hard enough that he felt as though his neck would have snapped.

            “Out of the question,” he said. “Not acceptable.”

            “I know, I know, I know,” Ron said. “But it’s historical precedent, mate.” He hesitated, then added, “And I have to say, whipping Malfoy would go a lot towards making up for the things he’s done to us.”

            Harry glared at Ron. “Really not helping,” he said, before Hermione could say it. “And I don’t—look, I’m feeling protective towards the little git, all right?” That was the only way he could name the urge to strangle Ron with both hands. It ran through the back of his mind in a quicksilver current, part and not part of him. He slumped back into his pillows again with a sigh. “I don’t enjoy that. Stop threatening him, so I don’t have to feel that.”

            Ron nodded and patted him on the top of the head. “But you’ll have better targets than me, mate. We’ve already got Howlers denouncing Snape.”

            “Oh, shit,” Harry said, and tried to get out of bed. Hermione pushed the tray back at him and shook her head.

            “It’s better for you to eat as much as you can before you have to deal with this,” she said briskly. “I promise, none of them are going anywhere. There was more than enough room here for everyone, so people just stayed. And I think you’ll need your wits about you when you go and talk to Snape.”

            “Snape first?” Harry asked, taking back the pumpkin juice. “It has to be Snape first?”

            “He knows more than any of the others about Lordship bonds,” Hermione said quietly. “He lived under Voldemort, and he lived under Dumbledore. I don’t think either of them was the same thing, but he can help explain to the others. I think it has to be him first, yes.”

            Harry nodded wearily and drank. He reckoned he could get through this, the same way he had got through Voldemort stalking him for seven years.

            But he did wish that he could have felt what one normal day was like. A day of peace, without this connection.

*

            “What are we going to do?”

            The voice soared into the upper registers, as of course it would, being a whinge. Severus kept his back turned as his hands flickered and danced among the ingredients in front of him. A Calming Draught, for himself in this case, was the first potion he had learned to prepare fully on his own. Draco could not distract him. No one had quite dared to keep Severus from his rooms and supply cupboards, and so he would complete this. He would.

            It did not escape his notice, it never did, that a few additions of the ground leaves in a vial off to the side could turn the Calming Draught to a deadly poison. But the fact was perhaps more—insistent—than it had been. Severus did not touch the leaves. They were there. They would wait.

            They were always an option, if it turned out that he hated life more than death.

            “But, Professor Snape.” Severus heard Draco kick the rungs of the chair he sat in as he leaned forwards. “I can’t live under this. And neither can the others,” he added, after a slightly shorter pause than usual. At least the war had come closer to making Draco consider other people as important, Severus thought. “It’s unacceptable.”

            “So was the Dark Mark,” Severus said, and finished the Calming Draught, and cast a Cooling Charm that would render it a bit less effective than usual but finish it far more quickly, and picked up the vial, and drank it off. He kept his eyes closed when it had gone down his throat, and felt some clarity of mind returning. “And so was the war, and the risk of dying, and what you did to survive, and what I did under orders. We lived through it all. We will this.”

            He ignored what felt like the silent laughter of the vial. Draco was a young man with all his life before him. That escape was for Severus, not for him.

            “But it’s unacceptable,” Draco whispered, and his voice dipped low enough that Severus was reminded, uncontrollably, of how he had felt when he first began to doubt his wisdom in taking the Dark Mark. Draco didn’t see himself as a young man with all his life before him. He saw himself as a roped-off slave, compelled to do whatever the halter around his neck suggested. “There must be something we can do, some way of breaking the bond.”

            “You will have heard the tales of Lordship bonds,” Severus said, turning around. The Calming Draught had done its work. He could face Draco now and not snap, or reach out with his wand, which would be by far the more disastrous thing to do. “Did you ever hear of one that was broken?”

            “But most of them are deliberate.” Draco traced his fingers up and down his right arm, then seemed to realize what he was doing and snatched his hand away. “This one isn’t. Don’t you think that means we can break it?”

            “We would have to understand the exact mechanics of its formation,” Severus said, thinking of that moment of the blinding flash, when the Shield Charm had met the Harness Curse, and the immediate metallic pressing on his arm. It seemed to have happened even before the light reached him. “We are unlikely to when it was accidental.”

            Draco opened his mouth again, and then turned his head sharply as someone knocked at the door into Severus’s quarters. Severus moved to answer it, giving a little shudder with his shoulders beneath his robe that he knew Draco would not be subtle enough to catch. If the boy had said “But” one more time, Severus might have lost control of his temper, Calming Draught or no.

            The door opened to reveal Potter.

            Severus wanted to strike, but the mere thought made the metallic shield on his right arm heat a little. Of course it did. Lordship bonds were founded on loyalty—most of the time—and vassals rebelling against a Lord, even in their thoughts, were disloyal.

            Severus had once wondered why the Dark Lord had included no particular spell in the Dark Mark to tell him when one of his slaves plotted treason, but he knew the answer before he took the next breath. The Dark Lord thought it would be more amusing for his Death Eaters to struggle against him, within the limits of the curse that held them, futilely. They might hate, so long as they served.

            “What do you want?” Severus asked Potter. The shield heated on his arm again. He did not sound respectful enough for it. Severus did not care. He would bear much pain before he would bear the breaking of his will.

            Potter took a deep breath, and Severus took a critical look at him. His sojourn in the wild during the last year had damaged him less than Severus had expected. He was lean, but no more than that, and he bore few visible, new scars. Of course, he would also never be tall. Severus concealed a snort. To have a Lord he could loom over physically was a small comfort, but he would take what he could.

            He would do what he could to stay alive and free, until he reached the point where keeping those conditions in balance was hopeless. Then he would choose the second.

            He had not always been so determined, but he had served two masters and expected fully to die with the second. He would not serve now.

            “…wondered if you knew what we could do.”

            Severus blinked and came back. At least the bond was not of the kind that compelled the vassal to pay attention to his Lord’s every gesture, then. He had missed several of Potter’s words.

            “About the bond?” he asked, and then wanted to sneer at himself. What else would Potter be asking about?

            Potter nodded. “If there’s any way to weaken it or break it, then I thought you might know about that. If not, then, well…” Potter braced himself as if against a blow, and then very fast, “You know more than the others do about living with this kind of thing. I was hoping you might help me explain.”

            Severus’s arm felt as if it would burn off this time. He had raised his wand without thinking about it.

            Potter turned pale, but didn’t draw his own. He did cradle his right arm close to himself, though. Severus narrowed his eyes.

            So the bond also has restrictions from his side? Interesting.

            But perhaps not surprising, given that this ridiculous bond had come about in the first place because Potter had jumped in front of them, and raised a Shield Charm, and the resulting mixture of magic had read his intent as protective. Which it was. Utterly bloody inconvenient for the whole lot of them, of course, but real.

            Severus rubbed his face. Potter caused more trouble with his good intentions than the Dark Lord had with all his devotion to the Dark Arts.

            He lowered his wand and said, “There is no way to break such a purely accidental bond, or I would have told you the way to do it when we were discussing this the first time.” He hissed the words. Potter was forcing him into another embarrassing confession about his lack of knowledge. The first one had been his choice. This one was not.

            Then Draco stepped up from behind him and peered at Potter, and his eyes went so wide that Severus stared at him. He would have known, from the words exchanged, that Potter was at the door.

            “You think that you can discard this bond as if it was a Chocolate Frog wrapper?” Draco sneered at Potter. “You’d think that, of course. Slytherin lives mean so little to you.”

            “If that was true, then I would never have bothered pulling you out of that fire,” Potter snapped at Draco, and faced Severus again. “There’s no way you can think of weakening it, either?”

            “I would have already have suggested it if there was,” Severus said. “Unless you think that I enjoy being your slave, your pet?”

            “I never wanted slaves, either,” Potter said, and of course his voice got lower the way it did—the way James’s had done—when he was angry. He would think himself in the worse situation, Severus decided. Gryffindors always did. “You think I wanted to be a master? I just wanted—I just wanted to make sure that no more of them died.” He shut his eyes and rubbed up and down his arm for a second.

            “You’re an idiot,” Draco said. He winced as though his arm had begun to hurt him, but continued. Severus was glad to see that. If Draco could concentrate through the pain, he who had once been such a coward about it, then there was the chance that he would continue to fight for his freedom once Severus was gone. “This is what happened to us. At least on your side of the bond it doesn’t actually restrict your freedom.”

            “I don’t fancy being hauled off to court every time one of your tries to curse someone,” Potter snapped at him. “Or paying my Galleons over for your actions, either.”

            Draco went quiet. But his eyes glowed, and Severus knew the plan he had formed as surely as if he was in the boy’s head. He might be able to make Potter waste Galleons, if nothing else.

            But Draco did not know about the other side of the bond, so Severus spoke to make sure he did. If he wanted to take the risk, then he would, but Severus would not allow him to act in ignorance. “Then you would have to punish us, as required by the bond.”

            Potter turned eyes gleaming like green glass on him, and Severus blinked. The only thing that had convinced him Potter might feel something more than self-pity right now was the emotion in those eyes.

            “I don’t want to punish anyone,” Potter whispered. “Never. I never want—something like what happened to me to happen to them. To you.”

            Severus blinked a little again. Did the boy think it was a matter of detentions? Of writing lines or making someone scrub out cauldrons?

            Draco spoke again before Severus could find out. “If you try to curse me, I’m going to curse back.”

            There was a little movement behind Potter, and Granger tried to push forwards. “You mustn’t!” she said, loudly enough that Severus thought the echoes would probably travel down the corridors and rouse the people who had stayed in the school, including Order of the Phoenix members and Aurors, in an attempt to figure out what should be arrested next. “It could get you hurt, terribly hurt. All the books say that a vassal can’t hurt his Lord—”

            It was a matter of who would open their mouths the most quickly in order to shout at Granger, Severus thought, but he had not thought it would be Potter who would win the race, much less Potter who would whirl violently on Granger.

            “He only said that he would if I cursed him first, which I shouldn’t do either, because I’m supposed to be his Lord, who protects him,” Potter snapped. “So lay off him.”

            Granger looked so astonished that there was no room in her face for hurt. Potter was the one who flushed and stared at the floor, rubbing his right arm.

            “Stupid bond,” Severus thought he heard him whisper, but he could not be sure.

            The next minute, he looked up at Severus with an expression a mule could have taken lessons from. “Look, are you going to try and convince the others that it’s better to live in this bond than commit suicide, at least?”

            Severus convinced himself that Potter’s eyes did not peer inside Severus’s soul when he spoke those words. He seemed to think the children were more of a suicide risk, anyway.

            “I will talk to them,” Severus said. “But I do not think you should be present. Not for the first conversation.”

            Potter just chopped his head down in a nod and turned away. Severus watched him walk to the end of the corridor and then abruptly glance around and clap a hand to his arm.

            “What is it?” Draco asked. He had pressed forwards to watch Potter, too, ignoring the way Severus tried to shoo him back. He would.

            “I knew you were in the dungeons because I could feel it through the shield,” Potter said slowly, turning his head to the right and staring at two doors. “And I can feel two other people down here, too. But—I can’t feel Zabini anywhere in the castle. Where is he? What happened to him?”

            Strange, Severus thought, in the middle of his own stirring emotions, to hear concern in the voice of someone with power over you.

*

            Anna: Thank you! I wish you luck working on your own fics.

            pittwitch: Well, as you can see, Blaise is not taking it at all well.

            BAFan: It’s going to be hard for him, given all the reasons you see here, and also others.

            kim: Thank you!

            SP777: Not deliberately, anyway. He has his holly wand back, and he’d much rather use that.

            alexkdp: And Harry is sickened by the mere thought of treating them like Dobby was treated.

            Jien: That’s okay! Thank you for reviewing, no matter under what name.

            delia cerrano: Yes, I think most people will figure it out along with Harry.

            Diana: Here you go.

            moodysavage: Thanks! Snape is already in the middle of despair, although he wants to give the Slytherin students a chance if he can.

            HazelWolf: In this case, most of the dominating things Harry does are going to be extremely reluctant. He really doesn’t want to treat anyone the way he was treated.

            HEARTSTAR: Thank you!

            siriuslynluv: Thank you!
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The Only True Lords