Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Burning Day	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 10061 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

Chapter List
- 1
- 2
- 3
Thank you for all the reviews!
Chapter Two—Tossed Bread
            Harry strode into the Great Hall, nodding to the professors and students he passed along the way, as well as the people he had interviewed and welcomed into his court. There were fewer of them than there had been before he burned Persephone and Gorenson, he noticed.
            Still, he wasn’t going to count absolute numbers. He had interviewed a few people today, and he might welcome one or two of them. He wouldn’t despair until he had some sign that everyone except maybe Draco and his best friends feared him.
            He glanced up and caught Briseis’s eye where she sat at the high table. She gave him a stern look. No mistaking the meaning behind that one. Harry had spent the time in the interviews that he had promised he would spend with her, signing documents and listening to more advice. He gave her an apologetic shrug and started to climb the steps.
            He saw a piece of bread arching towards him out of the corner of his eye. It had come from the Ravenclaw table.
            Harry reached out and snatched it easily from the air, as easily as he would have caught a Golden Snitch speeding past him. It was still warm and had butter on it. He brought it to his mouth and took a long, satisfying bite. He had got so caught up in the interviews that he had forgotten to arrange a break for lunch.
            “Yum,” he said, licking the butter off his lips and smiling at the student who had thrown it at him. “Thank you. But do you still have enough for yourself?”
            The student, a tall, dark boy with spectacles who stared at him in stunned surprise for a few seconds, sat back in his seat and said, “Y-yes, sir. I mean—” He hesitated. Harry had refused to claim the title of Headmaster, and they all knew that he didn’t like being addressed as “My Lord,” although some people like Briseis could get away with it.
            Harry waved his hand. “You can call me sir, the way you would a professor, and I think that’s enough for now,” he said. “I’ve taught a few classes, after all.” He took another bite of the bread and climbed the final steps up to his seat.
            “Well done, my Lord,” Briseis said under her breath as she slid a document for him to sign across the table. Harry studied it, saw that it was a message to the centaurs offering them additional help in securing the Forbidden Forest against unwanted wizards wandering in, and groped for a quill.
            “They had to try some form of rebellion,” Harry murmured back to her. “And one that the castle wouldn’t immediately stop. Although I’m surprised it was the Ravenclaws instead of the Gryffindors.” Then he paused and glanced at the Gryffindor table, and saw the way they were huddled together, furiously whispering. “Oh, right. It’ll be pranks with them. Probably be a tripwire near the entrance to my rooms.”
            “I think the Gryffindors respect you too much for that.”
            Harry glanced sideways at Hermione, who was sitting next to him. Her back was straight and her gaze fixed ahead on the tables. Harry rolled his eyes a bit. He had told her and Ron about losing Persephone and killing Gorenson, and she had been fine with that. Honestly, Harry thought she had found Gorenson so irritating that she was only a few steps away from figuring out how to kill him herself.
            But since she had discovered how Harry was spreading his reputation of being a Dark and insane Lord abroad, and why, she had treated him with coolness. Harry didn’t think she was about to run out on him again; that had been unusual even for Hermione, and she wouldn’t have any reason for it. But she didn’t think it was the right thing.
            Harry twitched his hand, and the stones in front of the High Table shimmered. There were now wards on them that would prevent anyone more than a seat away from him from hearing. Since Ron was on his right and Hermione on his left, that was all he needed. He saw Briseis frown as she was excluded, but she had been calmer since her conversation with Draco the other day.
            “What would you suggest for hiding my relationship with Draco?” Harry asked Hermione directly, leaning over to her. “Since even you expressed concerns that I might be influencing him unduly before you came back to my side?”
            Hermione sucked in a breath and arranged her cutlery in a little dance in front of her, then shook her head. “I just don’t think that encouraging people to fear you is the right solution,” she said.
            Harry took another bite of the bread in his hand, and showed it to her. “Fearing me doesn’t keep some people from trying to see how I’ll react. I don’t think I’ve cowed them into the kind of crushed oppression that you’re worrying about.”
            “Of course you haven’t,” Ron interrupted with a snort. “There’s no reason to think they’d just shut up and go along with anything you’re doing. When have people here or elsewhere in the wizarding world ever done that? Everyone has to have an opinion. People were afraid of you when they thought you were the Heir of Slytherin and an evil Parselmouth, but they still insulted you and flinched away from you and gossiped about you. They didn’t shut up and scurry along with their eyes on the floor.”
            Harry smiled at him. That comparison wouldn’t have occurred to him—well, not without some more time—but it was a good one now. “Thanks, Ron. That’s exactly it.”
            Hermione shook her head at Ron. “But how can you rule with care and compassion if you’re encouraging people to be afraid of you, Harry? That’s what I thought you were going to do, and I just don’t understand how making sure they’re afraid of you contributes to that.”
            “Because the people who live here, or who decide that they want to try moving here, or who come to me for help because they’re magical creatures and the Ministry isn’t treating them fairly, aren’t going to care about that,” Harry said, and let his eyes touch on the Veela sitting at some of the House tables, and two centaurs who had come in that morning to speak to him about something later. Ombershade and Greenbush, two of the werewolves who had taken up semi-permanent residency at Hogwarts, were having a low-voiced argument off to the side. “They’re going to take the risk and come anyway. Staying where they are would be worse. And there are people I’ll never convince. I really did think that Rita Skeeter was on my side for a while, with the stories we were feeding her about Gorenson, but she turned on me as soon as she saw a more exciting story. It doesn’t matter what I tell some of them, Hermione, they’ll always think I’m horrible and evil. I might as well stop caring about them and frighten them just enough that they’ll leave me alone.”
            Hermione was somber-faced but silent for a few minutes after that, eating her meal. Harry lowered the silence ward and spoke to Briseis about some more documents. They passed them back and forth over Ron’s head. Ron just rolled his eyes and went on eating.
            “Harry.”
            That was Hermione’s hand on his arm. Harry nodded to Briseis and turned to Hermione. “Yes?”
            “I believe you,” said Hermione, and sighed and stared at her plate. “I just didn’t want to because it’s so depressing. You can save the world and not attack anyone who wasn’t attack you already, and people will still distrust you.”
            Harry squeezed her hand gently. “I know, but like I said, I’m learning not to care about them. I care about Hogwarts, and my court, and my friends, like you and Ron, and Draco. I’ll live with what I can’t change, and change what I can inside my own four walls.” He grinned as he thought of his first sight of Hogwarts from the outside, all those years ago. “Or more than four.”
            “That’s something the centaurs have come to talk to you about, my Lord,” Briseis intervened smoothly, and gestured to the centaurs, who had edged along the wall up to the high table. “They say that they would like sanctuary for some of their kind inside Hogwarts, the vulnerable foals.”
            Harry sat up at once. He had made an alliance with the centaurs, but he had thought it was for him to guarantee that their territories in the Forbidden Forest wouldn’t be interfered with. “Is someone hunting them?”
            Briseis nodded, no more than that, but Harry saw the thick tension in the cords in her neck. “Apparently someone has spread the word that young centaur hooves, mixed into some aphrodisiac potions, provide a cure for impotence.”
            Harry narrowed his eyes, and his magic snapped briefly into view around him, a coruscating image of white fire. He saw people gaping at him, but the centaurs nodded quietly at each other, as if reassured.
            “Tell them I’ll speak to them at once,” he said, and stood up from the table. Briseis nodded and walked away to speak to the centaurs.
            “At least take some food with you, mate,” Ron muttered, sounding vaguely horrified as he started shoveling bread and cheese onto a plate. “You can’t just walk away from meals and eat nothing. I don’t care if they’re chopping up centaur foals right on the spot.”
            “Ron,” Hermione hissed, but Harry doubted that the centaurs had heard. He accepted the plate of food with a grateful smile and started down the steps towards the centaurs, already revolving his response in his head.
            Find out who’s responsible for these rumors, set up wards around the Forest if they want them, confront whoever is responsible for those rumors if it’s an identifiable person…
            The possibilities were enormous, along with the duties. Harry ripped into the hunk of bread with his teeth as he accompanied the centaurs between the House tables, and maybe because of that, no one tried to throw bread at him this time.
*
            “You must realize that you are our only viable candidate now.”
            Draco took a long sip of his tea, prepared to his satisfaction by his most loyal house-elves, and watched Lucy Lenneal across the top of the cup. She had come as a representative of the Ministry officials Draco had been dealing with up until now, the ones who had been disenchanted with Tillipop’s possibilities as a puppet early on, and now with the council that had set themselves up in the Minister’s place until the election. But Draco had never dealt with her directly, and was a little unsure what to think of her.
            Lenneal was a long, calm woman with a braid of thick black hair that coiled down the back of her neck and around her throat. Draco didn’t know whether her hair flowed like that naturally or if she had to do a lot of work to get it to do so. He supposed the answer would tell him something more about her if he could know, but he could hardly ask, and he was content to listen to her low voice instead, and watch the motion of her fingers, just as long and with a flash of a gemstone in a grey ring on her left hand.
            “I don’t know about that,” Draco said, when enough time had passed that Lenneal had leaned forwards, and he knew that she required some sort of answer from him. “I think you could easily choose one of the other candidates who haven’t announced their retirement from the race yet, if a puppet is what you want.” He met her straightforward gaze and smiled a little. He was forcing her to the speaking of things usually kept silent, but after the chaos of the race so far and the attacks by Gorenson, Draco was done going with the implicit goodwill of the people who wanted to make some political use of him.
            “Not easily,” said Lenneal, and her mouth worked for a moment, before she set down the cup of tea and nodded to him. “And let’s face it, ease is almost as much of a requirement as intelligence at this point.”
            “Is it?” Draco held out his cup, and his elf appeared to fill it again. He didn’t let his gaze stray from Lenneal’s face, but neither did he allow himself to sound interested.
            Lenneal nodded again. “The forces that depended on Tillipop are gone now. Or they’ve switched allegiance. He was becoming more difficult to work with, and someone would have probably arranged to force him out even if he won the election. They want someone they can depend on.”
            Draco shrugged a little. “They can’t depend on me if they’re thinking of double-crossing me or only using me as a stepping-stone to power. I hope you’ll tell them that.”
            “I plan to.” Lenneal had managed to close her mouth on whatever she might have added to that, and only paused for a small amount of time before adding, “Does this mean that you’ll consider our petition seriously?”
            “I’m always serious about taking power in the Ministry,” Draco said, and smiled at her. “It’s my choice of allies that might cause anxiety.”
            Lenneal sat up. “If you’re talking about Dark Lord Potter, I’m not one of those fools who thinks we can’t work with him. I know we can. I know his reputation as an Auror in the Ministry, and now, but it’s my observation that he never attacked unless he was attacked first. Unless you count his original takeover of Hogwarts.”
            Draco raised his eyebrows. His estimation of Lenneal’s intelligence had gone up a few notches. “Very well. But the fear that he engenders might make him hard to work with, and you just said…”
            “We would work with him through an intermediary.” Lenneal’s gaze rested heavily on him. “I think that might most profitably be you.”
            Draco turned his head to the side, a little coquettishly. “Despite the threat he gave me that was reported in the Daily Prophet?”
            “I always assume that a third of what’s reported there is exaggeration.” Lenneal’s hands had folded themselves quietly in her lap. “And although he did threaten you, he didn’t destroy you, as he did Gorenson. Attacking him directly won’t work. And we need to deal with him somehow.” She made a distressed little moue. “Or the international community is likely to think we’re even weaker than they already perceive us, for being convulsed by internal wars twice in a generation.”
            “As long as I’m not required to attack him, or smuggle poison into him, or something,” Draco said, “I’m your Minister.”
            Lenneal considered him for a second. “Is there any support we can give him that might make him more likely to consider leaving the Ministry alone?”
            “You just pointed out that he’s mostly a defender,” Draco said. “If you leave him alone most of the time, that should be all that’s required.”
            “But there are factions in the Ministry that won’t do that,” Lenneal said quietly. “I want to make sure that he can see different factions in the Ministry, ones who might act sensibly. Is a favor to you required, to have you speak favorably of us? Or to him?”
            Draco took a long, dizzying breath. It felt as though his lungs had grown bigger, to fill his chest, permitting in all that extra air. He felt as if he had grown wings and could use them soar above the earth, instead of a broom.
            This was power. This was what he had been dreaming of when he first began to run for Minister, and what he would have.
            But along with power came choices, and Draco wanted to benefit Harry as well as himself. “Someone poisoned a batch of the Wolfsbane that is brewed in the Dark Lord’s court,” he said now, “and made it impossible to use. The assumption was that Gorenson was behind that, but there was no definitive proof. If you could investigate it and whether anyone in the Ministry is willing to brag about it or claim credit for it, then I could show him that certain people in the Ministry want to help him. The ingredients came from outside the court.”
            Lenneal cocked her head. “I don’t suppose you have more information than that? I would be willing to help. I have some contacts in Knockturn Alley who both supply Wolfsbane ingredients and would know where to obtain information about poisons. But what you’ve given me is little to go on.”
            Draco met her eyes, and smiled. Lenneal had given him some power over her in acknowledging that she had those contacts, but from the prim way she sat in her chair, she thought the exchange worth it.
            Draco tossed her a bone. “Lord Potter’s potions brewer in this case was Hermione Granger. I think she might be willing to set up a private correspondence with you, with her Lord’s permission of course.”
            Lenneal’s relief at not having to deal with Harry directly was so great that Draco held back a snicker. Laughing at people for their reasonable fears—or fears he had to pretend were reasonable—was not the way to build a rapport with them.
            In the meantime…
            He nodded and said, “Yes, I think we might come, easily, to a reasonably satisfying accord. More tea?”
*
Ciara_D: Thank you!
SP777: Well, as you can see, Harry does, too. But he’s got new challenges to concentrate on now, so he can’t spend as much time grieving as he would like to.
BAFan: She’s upset that Harry is not paying as much attention to the political scene as she thinks he should. She would be just as upset if Draco hadn’t shaken him out of his mourning for Persephone and he was still brooding about that.
- 1
- 2
- 3
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Burning Day