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Easy as Falling	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 31246 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 4
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

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Chapter Twenty--Blow the Trumpets

            The words hit Harry harder than he had expected. Not that he knew Gioia Fifernum, or her alias, either. But he had seen the way Malfoy paused before he said the name, even though he didn't think Malfoy had noticed him watching, and it was obvious how hard it was for him.

            Harry hesitated, then put a hand on Malfoy's shoulder. At the same time, the back of the conjured chair Malfoy sat in curled around his other shoulder like an arm. Malfoy started and looked up at Harry, blinking.

            "I hope you realize that I had no knowledge of this, and I don't think Blaise did, either," he said, almost formally. "Gioia could have no idea that the pictures would arrive when her son was with me. For that matter, I'm not sure she knows he's supporting me, although it might make more sense if she did. Blaise likes to keep secrets like that."

            Harry shook his head, smiling in spite of himself. Malfoy always twisted things back so that everything was about Harry, his past or his feelings or what he felt about kissing. For once, Harry was going to make it so that Malfoy could think about himself.

            "I was wondering what you felt," he told him. "Not blaming you. Won't she be upset that you told me?"

            Malfoy closed his eyes in a long, slow blink. Then he said, "Well. Yes. If she figures it out."

            "She already knows more than most people do, either that you're supporting me or that we're considering doing things together," Harry pointed out. "She wouldn't have sent the pictures to you otherwise. And I'm not accusing Zabini of betraying you," he added, because Malfoy's mouth had opened. "The point is that she's pretty smart, but not many people know what lies behind her alias, do they? So if we go after her openly, then she'll be able to reckon that you told."

            Malfoy blinked. "Yes," he said at last, as if testing the temperature of water before jumping in. "But if you intend to take revenge, as you told me you did--" he glared at Harry, apparently ready to take it as a personal offense if Harry retracted that promise "--then we can't avoid the knowledge coming out."

            Harry smiled pleasantly. "Not if the revenge was personal and private." He held up his hand before Malfoy could protest. "In the meantime, I find myself quite as angry at her for putting you into this position where you had to choose who to betray, her or me, as I am at the fact that she sent the pictures to the paper."

            Malfoy watched him as if he was mental. Well, maybe he was, to someone who had to expect that there was no way Harry would value him like that, Harry thought, and smiled at Malfoy again. "That's why I want the revenge to be private, if you think it would prevent her from finding out that you told me who she was."

            Malfoy opened his mouth, then closed it again, and looked thoughtfully at the far wall. Harry didn't turn to see what he was looking at. He knew there would be nothing there, or at least nothing visible to other eyes. His hand and the "arm" on the back of the conjured chair both remained comfortingly holding Malfoy, though.

            Malfoy finally looked up. Harry found himself bending close, awaiting his answer with a carefully held breath. It was good that Briseis seemed to approve of Harry allying himself more closely with Malfoy, because Harry wasn't sure at this point that he could pull back, no matter what his adviser told him.

*

            He wants to spare me.

            It was not perhaps unexpected, given the way Draco was coming to know Harry, but the actual confirmation of it made exhilaration spin through his veins. He remained sitting because he thought his legs would be weak if he stood up now.

            And he thought about the question Harry had poised to him, because if there was a way they could punish Gioia but also keep her convinced that Harry had figured out the truth for himself, they could maintain Draco as a spy inside her defenses. Not to mention keeping Blaise out of the same awkward place Draco had been put in.

            "If you tell her that your own power discovered it for you, that you performed another ritual that revealed the truth..." Draco breathed.

            "Is there such a thing?" Harry blinked and leaned back further to look into his eyes. Draco could feel the power throbbing through the floor and the back of the chair, and he was sure that Harry's magic would tell him in an instant if Draco lied.

            "Oh, legends, from back in the days of Merlin," Draco said, flipping a hand. "No wizard has had the power to perform the rituals in centuries, and frankly, I'm not sure the rituals actually existed in the forms they're recorded. Details were probably lost, the forms broken. But if any wizard is strong enough to perform them, I think it's you." He grinned up at Harry, and laughed a little as Harry pretended to preen. "And that means that Gioia is likely to believe that you could. That you figured it out by yourself."

            "True," Harry said. "That might work. Although it would deprive you of the delight of watching the punishment."

            Draco had to close his eyes for a moment. "Perhaps you could bring me along under your Invisibility Cloak?" he asked, trying to behave as though he had never doubted for a moment that Harry would take Draco with him. "Or a Disillusionment Charm?"

            "That's a possibility," Harry said, and his smile was far darker than it had been so far. "In fact, I was considering punishing her in the Ministry, but that might not be the best idea. There are too many spells there that could detect the use of Dark magic. But if I bring her here, then she would have a completely secure environment to fret in, and I would have the freedom to do whatever I want, and you could have your choice of places to watch it from."

            Draco suspected the expression on his face spoke for him, but just in case it didn’t, he nodded and murmured, “Yes, yes, please.”

            Harry paused, and then stood up and walked across the room towards him again. Draco watched him in silence, feeling as though anything might happen, and it would be exhilarating.

            Harry leaned over him and looked into his eyes. Draco reminded himself that Harry didn’t have magic that could really read his soul, that that had just been a pretense for Skeeter, and looked back.

            Then the anything happened, and Harry bent down and kissed him.

            Draco sighed into the kiss, hooking his fingers up and around through Harry’s hair. He even scratched the nape of Harry’s neck with his fingernails, not feeling bad, because it made Harry shudder and press closer. Draco would have scratched without that, of course, but when it could bring him and Harry pleasure both at once, that was all the more reason to pursue it.

            “You taste wonderful,” Harry said, pulling away and gently detaching Draco’s hand from the back of his neck. “Although how much of that is your natural taste, and how much comes from the knowledge that you really want to watch…”

            “There’s only one way to be sure of how much of it is from each,” Draco said, and managed to hold the smile off his face, although his heart was going so mad.

            Harry looked at him and waited. A smile was pulling at the corners of his own lips, although Draco saw more of it in the light in his eyes.

            “To experiment a lot,” Draco said, “and keep track of what comes from which place.”

            Harry moved with unexpected speed, and kissed him again. Draco grabbed his shoulders, more than happy to surrender and go along with it. He wouldn’t have surrendered so readily to most people, would have spent more time calculating the angles and the power dynamics, but Harry wasn’t most people.

*

            Harry lost track of how long they spent in the kiss. Long enough for Hogwarts to adjust the floor so that he could lean over and snog Malfoy without causing any pain to his neck, anyway. And his fingers tangled pleasantly in Malfoy’s hair by the time he pulled back, and Malfoy’s lips were the most interesting shade of red…

            And I really ought to stop calling him Malfoy and pretending that this isn’t personal.

            Harry licked his lips and said, “Well, Draco, I suppose I should go to the Ministry and collect Fifernum before she starts deciding that my lack of action so far means something dangerous.”



            Draco took long seconds to answer him, breathing deeply instead and holding one hand up in front of his lips as though he wanted to check the warmth of his own breath. Harry stared at him, and a strange sensation moved in him, through the pit of his stomach and towards his throat. He didn’t recognize it at first. Why should he? He had never felt anything like it in the few relationships he’d had with other people so far.

            Power. That he could take someone as self-confident and strong as Draco and reduce him to this state…

            Harry licked his lips and bit back the temptation to “experiment” some more with that power. What he had said was true. Fifernum might decide at any second, either out of paranoia or because of the dinner party Draco had held, that he and Harry were still allies, and her ploy had failed. Harry did need to get over there and capture her.

            Draco opened his eyes at last, his hands clasping the arms of the chair. “And you’re going to let me watch?” he asked. “Alone?”

            Harry would have said that he had more or less promised Briseis that she could watch, too, but faced with the wall of devouring light in Draco’s eyes, he knew he was going to break that promise. Briseis would just have to be content with a Pensieve memory.

            Maybe a lot of people would have to be, Harry thought, pausing and thinking as an idea struck him. It was possible. He would have to check into how legal it was. Or he could just be the Dark Lord he was intending to be today, when he kidnapped a woman without due legal process, and took his revenge according to the way the ancient statutes said he could.

            The nice thing about being a Dark Lord is that you have no one to report to.

            “Yes,” he said. “Alone. And take this.” He reached out his arm and passed it through the air, and a hole opened in the stone of the walls, a square tunnel down to his personal quarters just big enough for the object he had summoned. The Invisibility Cloak was resting over his shoulder by the time he lowered his arm. Harry offered it to Draco, smugly pleased with the way Draco stared and barely touched the starlit cloth of the Cloak. “No one can see through this. It’s one of the Deathly Hallows.”

            Draco blinked at him. “You really want to be that open with the information?”

            Harry laughed, nearly as giddy at the realization that pounded in his head as he had been at the ritual last night. “Yes, actually. Because who has the power to take it away from me? Or keep it safe and hidden if they did take it?”

            Slowly, Draco accepted it, wound it around his shoulders, and half-vanished where he sat. He didn’t seem to notice the way the chair shifted, still outlining his form, trying to make him visible to Harry, Hogwarts’s master, no matter what happened.

            He bowed. “You can trust me to take good care of it.”

            Unlike other people? Harry thought, but he had a smile for Draco, and since the only other person who had really been taking care of his Cloak was himself, he didn’t need to snap the way he wanted to. He waved to Draco instead and turned in place, reaching out to the Ministry. He didn’t know exactly where Fifernum was, but he didn’t need to. When he arrived in the Ministry, past the snapped anti-Apparition wards, then he would find her easily enough.

            The wards fought him harder than he’d expected, shuddering with the hum and thrum of ancient magic. Harry collapsed them forcibly, and laughed a little when he realized the reason for some of their resistance: they’d been reinforced within the last few weeks by new ones.

            The Ministry wanted to keep the new Dark Lord out, did they?

            Too bad for them that it isn’t an option.

            Harry arrived in the middle of a corridor, transparent shards of magic still tumbling around him. He heard gasps, and shook his head to make sure that his hair fell off to the sides and bared his scar. He didn’t want there to be any doubt about who was here and about to change their lives.

            “I hope that you can guide me to Gioia Fifernum,” he called out. “Because I might have to dangle you upside down until you spill your secrets if you don’t.”

            Spells sped towards him.

            It seemed like a long time since Harry had used his wand, but it was easy, now, to hold it up and murmur, “Protego.” Easier than ever, really, since he was no longer fighting to keep his proclivities secret. He’d constantly had to suppress his magic when he worked as an Auror for the Ministry, because it wouldn’t do to be too powerful. They would start asking things of him that they had no right to ask.

            The Shield Charm rained into being in front of him, small silver sparkles and speckles of magic collecting and coalescing. Harry raised an eyebrow. It had never been that way before, and he hadn’t specifically ordered it to be that way this time.

            But it didn’t seem to matter. It still stopped the curses that were racing towards him; they earthed themselves in sparks of their own, red and green and blue, against the barrier. Harry watched them calmly from inside the shield, and then raised his wand and put all his power behind the spell as he whispered, “Point Me Gioia Fifernum.”

            The wand spun, and Harry worried for a second that he might have put too much power behind it or something, and would shatter the holly wood and the phoenix feather core. But it eventually dived out of his hands and sped through the walls, digging a hole through the stone and dirt, aiming straight where it was going. Harry strolled after it, finding the exit wounds on the far side of the walls, and heading for an office in a discreet corridor off the Minister’s. Harry remembered passing it when he was still inside the bounds of the Light, but never entering it.

            The door that he came to had a hole through the center of the wood panel, where the wand had smashed its passage. Harry tapped the door with his fist, let pure power take care of the nasty hexes waiting to spring on whoever came in here uninvited, and stepped in as the door swung hollowly inwards.

            The wizard with brown eyes and yellow hair that Harry had seen at the top of the pyramid when he used the ritual stood leaning against the far wall, his hands spread out over the stone. Harry’s wand hummed in front of his throat, holding him there. Every time he tried to step away or even breathe too deeply, the wand jabbed again.

            Harry hesitated for just a second. The disguise was perfect. He wondered for a second if Draco was wrong. Maybe Zabini’s mum had told him that she was this wizard, but it was really just an ordinary person after all.

            But when Harry looked closely enough, he could make out the halo of a glamour around her face. He clenched one hand into a fist, and the magic began to pulse and lift, pulling away from the face like a leather mask. Harry didn’t try to dissipate it, just formed it into a ball that he pushed into the air over Fifernum’s desk. It hung there, glowing.

            Beneath stood a woman with dark skin and hair and eyes. Only the eyes resembled her disguise at all, and they were a darker brown. Her hair hung down below her waist, and she had perfectly fitted robes that Harry thought even Hermione would have admired.

            She straightened up and gave him a single look of searing contempt. “So you figured it out,” she murmured, voice low. “Did you think to find a welcome here?”

            “I thought you probably knew the truth about those pictures,” Harry said. His voice sounded odd in his own ears, as hollow as that hole in the center of Fifernum’s door. “Because there would be no reason for you to think that sending them would hurt me, otherwise. How long did you know about them?” Fifernum stood looking at him, nothing on her face, and Harry added a different question. “Did you know that I was being abused?”

            Fifernum’s eyes flickered like a candleflame. Once, but it was enough.

            “I see,” Harry said, and clapped his hands down on either side of him, and snatched her away with him as he Apparated back to Hogwarts.

*

            alexkdp: Rosenthal is worried about the influence Harry has on Draco, but she would never send the pictures.

            qwerty: Thank you!

            delia cerrano: What makes you think Draco is self-centered?

            SP777: I see what you mean. Briseis is definitely going to be part of it.
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Easy as Falling