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Acts of Life	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 21189 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

Chapter List
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Chapter Twenty—Demonstrating
            “Mr. Potter. Thank you for—”
Harry knew the exact moment when Professor McGonagall spotted Draco, and not only because she broke off. Her entire face had changed, to one that Harry thought she must wear more often in her cat form. She looked as if she was going to spit at him and then skitter up a tree.
            But Draco was looking around her office in interest and curiosity, and didn’t show any sign of noticing her regard, other than his tight-knuckled grip on Harry’s hand. Harry doubted anyone else would really notice that. He managed to smile easily at McGonagall, his pride in Draco as well as his happiness fueling it. “Of course,” he said, and sat down in the chair in front of the desk. He drew his wand and conjured a second one for Draco.
            Draco sat down in it and looked around with a beaming smile at the wizards who waited for them. Harry took the chance to study them, too. He was glad Draco had thrown their audience a little off-balance. It might give him more of a chance to see who they really were.
            Both were tall men but with squat legs, as if they had goblin or dwarf blood in them somewhere. They had long black beards that Harry at once thought they must grow to look intimidating. But one had yellow eyes—goblin blood’s stronger in him, then—and the other a cold brown.
            “My name is Tarsellis Mournegath,” announced the man with yellow eyes. “I object to violating the ancient grounds of Hogwarts.”
            “That’s great,” said Harry, smiling at him. He could feel most people in the room gaping at him, and even some of the portraits. Draco wouldn’t be, of course, but Harry couldn’t turn and look at him right now. He had to keep his attention on this man who would probably pounce on a moment’s weakness. “That means our business here is done, right?” He started to stand, glancing over at Professor McGonagall.
            She looked as though she was fighting laughter for his performance. “I’m afraid the issue isn’t that simple, Mr. Potter,” she said, and turned to Mournegath.
            “No, indeed it is not,” said the other man, the one with brown eyes. His voice was deeper, and he sounded as though he tried to intimidate people for a living. When he added, “I am Harvey Jerris, Mr. Mournegath’s solicitor,” Harry wasn’t the least surprised.
            “Well, but he says that he doesn’t want to violate Hogwarts’s ancient grounds,” Harry said. “That means he won’t be draining the lake.”
            “It also means no memorial.” Mournegath seemed to have decided the rest of the room didn’t exist, as much effort as that took. He kept his eyes pinned on Harry.
            “But I fail to see how adding a memorial would violate the grounds,” Harry said, and smiled peacefully at Mournegath. “That’s the part you’ll have to explain to me.”
            “I will, if I can be told what part you have to play in this.” Mournegath leaned back and gestured with one languid hand at Professor McGonagall. “The Headmistress has an obvious stake in the situation, and an obvious authority to speak for Hogwarts. What is your authority, Mr. Potter?”
            “I’m the one who’s paying the compensation for the victims hurt by the Carrows,” Harry said. “I worked with the committee that designed the memorial.” He looked at Mournegath with a winsome little smile, and let the rest hang unsaid between them. And I’m the one you have to deal with if you want your little project to get any publicity, because I’m so important to the wizarding world’s press right now. They’d print what I had for breakfast if they could find out.
            From the inclination of his head, Mournegath had accepted and acknowledged the silent challenge. “That may gain you some respect, Mr. Potter. It’s not the same as saying that you, yourself, have anything to say about the draining of the Hogwarts lake.”
            “I might know that better if you explained why you want to drain it.”
            Mournegath leaned forwards until Harry thought his hands would actually touch the floor like an ape’s. “Can it be that you have come to oppose me and you don’t know?” he whispered.
            “Yes. It can.”
            Harry felt Draco give a stifled wriggle next to him, one that he hoped was of delight and not fear. Harry gave a faint smile and kept his eyes locked on Mournegath. He seemed utterly surprised at resistance. That made Harry hope this was more a political ploy than a serious one.
            On the other hand, maybe Mournegath was so self-important that he assumed debate and reasonable expectations were for other people.
            “Very well,” said Mournegath at last, and sat back and looked at Jerris. Jerris started explaining at once, his voice resonant. Harry wondered if he imagined he was in front of a courtroom audience.
            “We wish the lake drained so as to remove a potential source of danger for the children of Hogwarts. Merfolk are capable of strangling and drowning children who venture into their domain, and the current classes of Hogwarts don’t include enough water-based magic to prepare the students for the dangers of encountering these…creatures. As well, once the lake is gone, a building can be raised there.”
            “What kind of building?”
            Jerris paused, as though he, too, hadn’t expected resistance, or as if maybe he had thought it would be a certain kind of resistance. Then he plunged ahead. “A building to hold classes that haven’t been taught inside Hogwarts for a long time. The magic involved in them was thought to be dangerous to the structure of the school. But a smaller building specially designed to stand up to those spells won’t have that problem.”
            Harry felt his eyebrows creep a little higher. Under Draco’s tutelage, he had learned of a class of spells that had that designation. “Are you talking about Dark Arts spells?”
            Jerris fussed with some papers that he’d taken from a satchel at the side of his chair. “Names are so restrictive,” he said.
            “You are.” Harry shook his head a little, in wonder. He hadn’t thought that anyone would be so blatant as to bring up Dark Arts in front of either him or the Headmistress of Hogwarts.
            “Names are as outdated as the magic taught in Hogwarts,” said Mournegath, booming a little as if to make up for the way that Jerris had suddenly retreated. “We will create a safe, secure environment where children can learn to study magic without being afraid of it.”
            “Hogwarts is already that environment.” McGonagall sounded as though she was a few moments away from snarling.
            “It is,” said Harry, interrupting what Mournegath would have said. From the ugly look the man gave Harry, he wasn’t going to forget that. But Harry wasn’t very interested in whether he remembered it or not. “Now, Mr. Mournegath, would you tell me the real reason under this? Why not build your own private school anywhere, rather than trying to change something that’s been part of Hogwarts for centuries?”
            He was guessing on the “centuries” part, but neither Mournegath nor Jerris seemed inclined to correct him. “That is the real reason,” said Jerris stoutly, since he’d apparently had a minute to recover. “We want the dangerous creatures gone, and we want—”
            “Legal protection to practice the Dark Arts,” Harry cut in again. He was still partially amused, partially horrified, by how blatant the man was being. But, well, there were some people in the world like that. “You’d have to change a bunch of laws in the Ministry before you could do that.”
            “But Hogwarts is traditionally free of Ministry influence,” said Mournegath, in what was almost a purr, and grinned at them.
            Harry saw in a flash what the man intended. If McGonagall tried to protect Hogwarts’s independence, then she would be standing up for what Mournegath wanted. If she tried to involve the Ministry, they would probably take the chance to seize as much control as they could over Hogwarts, and Mournegath most likely had allies inside.
            It was marginally clever. Marginally. Harry couldn’t believe Mournegath had thought it would ever really work.
            But, luckily, thanks to the tutoring of the man at his side, Harry had more than one idea of how he could counter it. He squeezed Draco’s hand to reassure him, just in case he was worrying over Harry not seeing the trap, before he launched into his speech.
*
            Mournegath made Draco feel slimy.
            He hadn’t thought that was the case, even though he didn’t recognize the man’s name. After all, his politics didn’t sound much different from the ones that Draco had followed most of his life. Magical creatures were inferior, and to be kept in their place. Individual pure-blood families should determine more of Hogwarts policy than they did now. Dark Arts, and other old spells that the Ministry had classified as dangerous, should be brought back and taught, the way they were at Durmstrang.
            But now, after several months of teaching and working with Harry, it was as if Draco had taken off a mask blocking half his vision. Of course it would have bad consequences for Hogwarts in the long run if individual families could decide what the school should do. And magical creatures were fine as long as they weren’t actively hurting wizards.
            And Dark Arts…
            Draco shuddered a little. On the one hand, he had thought that learning them would be exciting, because then he would have been able to get back at Weasley and other people who teased him.
            But Weasley and the others would have been learning them, too. And Draco had seen enough of deadly duels as it was. He didn’t really want to see more.
            “I don’t see that you have any grounds to stand on,” said Harry, his eyes unblinking and large and fixed on Mournegath in a stare that Draco thought of as predatory. Not the same predatory way that Harry tended to look at Draco himself, which was good, if only for the sake of Draco’s sanity. “You have no right to influence Hogwarts. The memorial is an addition that we came together with other people to discuss. And you haven’t spoken with anyone else about what you want to do.”
            Mournegath gave the smile that also made Draco feel slimy. It wouldn’t have looked out of place on a lizard, or a toad—or the Dark Lord. “I’m speaking with you and the Headmistress and your, er, companion, now.” He flicked Draco a glance that he meant to burn like a lash.
            It didn’t. Draco had moved beyond needing the approval of people like this to function, he realized abruptly, even as he’d moved beyond their politics. He didn’t need Mournegath.
            “But not with committees,” Harry said. He sounded so self-assured and calm that Draco had to make an effort to remember they’d been half-naked together on Harry’s couch not an hour ago. “Not with Ministry representatives. Not with the Headmistress herself.”
            “Are you suggesting that Ministry representatives would be more eager to acknowledge us?” Mournegath now sounded as if he was about to descend into Parseltongue.
            “I don’t know. What I’m suggesting is that you need to ask them.”
            “And that you will need proof the merfolk are dangerous and Dark Arts are beneficial to the children studying them,” McGonagall added, charging in to give Harry flanking support. “There are some reports coming out of Durmstrang that state otherwise, I understand.”
            Mournegath gave them the kind of stare Draco was starting to understand. Apparently, no one in the whole world but Mournegath was supposed to notice anything, or expect anything, or do anything, except perhaps to gape in awe that he had been intelligent enough to think of a concept that complex.
            It was an expression Draco thought sometimes he might have seen on his father’s face, had he ever been around someone bold enough to challenge Lucius Malfoy during his childhood.
            That thought hurt for a few reasons, and Draco managed to put them aside until Mournegath said, “I will be bringing my ideas to the public.”
            “I think that’s an excellent idea,” said Harry, and managed a beam that Draco wanted to take credit for inspiring in him, just because it was so good under the circumstances, except he couldn’t remember the exact moment when he would have taught Harry something like that. “After all, no one can properly support your ideas if they don’t know you have them.”
            Mournegath did some more staring. This time, Draco thought it would read, translated into words, No one but me is supposed to be that cheerful.
            Draco leaned back and bit his lips to hide his grin. There would have been a time when he wanted to add his voice, but honestly, he trusted Harry and McGonagall to have it in hand now. Mournegath might be fun to tease in the future if Draco got his way, though.
            “I will show myself out,” said Mournegath, standing and stalking across the floor. Draco, who had seen some expert stalkers, including his father and Professor Snape, felt rather sorry for him.
            “You should consider changing your minds,” said Jerris earnestly, standing more slowly and glancing back and forth between Harry and McGonagall as though he didn’t know which one he should actually address. “After all, this is the man who has the most progressive ideas in the wizarding world right now.”
            “How interesting,” said Harry blandly.
            It is, for what it says about Jerris’s limited perspective, Draco agreed silently. He would have expected a solicitor to have more vision.
            Still frowning as though he knew something had gone wrong but he didn’t know what it was, Jerris left. McGonagall turned around and gave Harry a soft smile, then Draco an uncertain one.
            “Thank you for coming, Harry.” A pause. “You, too, Mr. Malfoy.”
            “You’re welcome.” Harry stood up and inclined his head. “Let us know if Mournegath tries anything again.”
            They’d almost made it to the door of her office when McGonagall cleared her throat. Draco turned around. He saw her standing as if to get a better look at them. No, not exactly at them, between them.
            Draco flushed as he realized that he was still holding on to Harry’s hand.
            “Are you,” said McGonagall, and she paused. She might think the pause was delicate. To Draco, it felt as if he was standing directly underneath a wave of breaking glass.
            “Yes,” said Harry. “We are. All the things you can imagine, and more besides.” And he drew Draco closer to him with a protective gesture that made Draco have to bow his head and breathe a little.
            “Oh.” The Headmistress sank down in her chair again and spent some more time staring. After a few moments, it became obvious that she wouldn’t say any more just then, and Draco was the one to open the door and lead them out.
            As they rode down the moving staircase, Harry looped his arm over Draco’s shoulders. He said nothing. He just squeezed.
            Draco leaned against him and closed his eyes, and squeezed back with his arm around Harry’s waist.
*
moon: Thank you!
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Acts of Life