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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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Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Twenty-Two—Announcements

            Briseis gave a little sigh as she leaned backwards out of the Pensieve memories that Harry had gathered for her and let her watch. “That’s not all she deserves, but it’s more than I thought you would give her,” she said to Harry, and smiled.

            Harry smiled back. He had had just about enough of Gioia Fifernum, and wanted to move on. “What do you think we should do now?”

            Briseis sat still for a few seconds, her eyes closed as though she was bathing in the warmth of the sun, and then sighed and began gathering up the parchments in front of her. “Lots of people want confirmation about whether you were really abused in the past,” she said, keeping one eye on the papers and one on Harry. “There are dozens of reporters waiting for you to speak with them.”

            Harry made a sharp motion with one hand. If he was done with Fifernum, he was also done with talking about his past to people who wouldn’t understand. “What else?”

            “There was the strange message that Bill Weasley received,” Briseis said, and blinked at the way he sat up. “What?”

            “Why didn’t you tell me about that at once?” Harry snapped, stretching out his hand for the parchment that Briseis obediently put into it.

            “Because you were preoccupied,” Briseis said, lowering her voice for emphasis, “and you would have either overreacted or stressed yourself out trying not to. Besides, he isn’t in your inner circle of friends and allies. I judged the threat to him to be rather less than it would have been if a letter arrived for Ron Weasley or Hermione Granger.”

            Harry growled in acknowledgment of that, because it was the way she would think and the kind of thinking he had hired her for, and read the parchment through. It was a copy of the letter Bill had received, and other than the very precise address, showing the writer knew exactly where Shell Cottage was, it only had a single line, placed directly in the center of the parchment.

            You’re next.

            “I trust that you’ve used some of the money you asked me for to hire guards for Bill?” Harry asked, not looking up from the parchment, even though he’d memorized it by now.

            “What do you take me for?” Briseis demanded. “Of course I did.”

            Harry glanced up at her. “I take you for a Slytherin who recognized that Bill isn’t as close to me as my other friends and might have decided to protect them first.”

            Briseis blushed and looked down. “Yes,” she said after a moment. “But being threatened gives him some more priority than he would have. There are guards on his house, and I have this.” She held up her arm, and Harry squinted at the thick silver bracelet on her wrist a moment before he recognized it. It would link Briseis to a chosen guard’s emotions, letting her know in an instant if anger or fear or pain flared there.

            “How did you get that?” Harry asked, interested despite himself. “They were only available to the Aurors, last I heard.”

            Briseis shot him a superior glance. “Yes, unless you know the person who makes them.”

            Harry nodded, accepting that he really didn’t have any right to ask further, and said, “Good. Then I think it’s time we act.” He tossed the parchment to Briseis, using his magic to make it arrow towards her as if he had folded it rather than fall. Briseis made a nearly belated snatch for it and slipped it back into the file folder she’d carried it in.

            “What is that?” she asked.

            “Begin interviews for professors,” Harry said crisply. “We’re going to open the school a week from today.”

            Briseis stared at him with her mouth open. “But you said that you would need more time than that to interview potential professors and contact the parents and students!” she protested.

            Harry gave her a smile that made her eyes widen a little, although Harry didn’t think she was truly afraid of him. “I discovered last night that I can alter the air in Hogwarts to make it impossible for someone to lie to me,” he told her. “And interviewing them here will let me place binding conditions on them if I need to.”

            “What about informing the students?” Briseis was standing straight now, gaze fastened on him.

            Harry held out his hand, and paper and stone and wood trembled towards him, letters already etching themselves on all the surfaces. Briseis put a protective hand on her files.

            “I can do that,” Harry said simply.

*

            “I’m amazed that you can be ready this fast.”

            Rosenthal’s voice was dry. Draco cast the final charm that would hold his hair in place—he wasn’t about to trust to the wind on a day like this, when he would face Minister Tillipop in a supposedly unstructured “conversation”—and glanced at her over his shoulder. “What do you mean?” he asked, turning. His robes flowed with him, the way that Blaise would probably admire.

            Blaise, who might or might not forgive me once he finds out what Harry did to his mother. It might not matter to Blaise that Draco had become involved only because Fifernum had sent those pictures to him. He could think that Draco should have chosen their old friendship instead of his new alliance with Harry.

            “You told me how Potter punished a woman who had hurt him.” Rosenthal stepped forwards, lowering her voice meaningfully. “I’m amazed that you can put those fascinating consequences from your mind and focus on mere politics.”

            Draco considered her for a moment, then swept her a bow. “I apologize if I seem to be attracted to Potter’s power for its own sake,” he said, while she flushed. “I didn’t mean to be. I’ll focus my mind on the campaign when I’m in the meetings and dinners and other things directly related to it. I did a good job with the last dinner party that we had, didn’t I?”

            Rosenthal’s mouth relaxed again. “You did.” She glanced out the window at the Manor’s grass tossing in the wind. “We should Apparate soon, or we’ll let Tillipop get there first, and I don’t think you want that.”

            “No, indeed.” Draco held out his arm, and Rosenthal laid her hand on it. They weren’t the traditional kind of couple who would Apparate together to this gathering, but very little about this campaign was traditional, down to Draco’s last name.

            They walked smoothly out of the Manor, Apparated smoothly, and landed without undue staggering in the large meadow where Tillipop had wanted to meet. Draco looked around and saw most of the reporters he had expected, with Tillipop’s hangers-on on one side and chairs set up for people who supported him on the other. He nodded and walked towards those chairs. Rosenthal followed.

            Then it began to go unsmoothly.

            “Behold!” Tillipop said, standing and pointing one finger at Draco. “The traitor who would see our world go under the dominion of a Dark Lord!”

            Draco widened his eyes and glanced around, placing one hand against his chest. He had expected an accusation of this kind, of course, sometime. Not everyone would be fooled by the article Skeeter had written about Harry being there only to intimidate Draco; there would be rumors of a secret alliance. Their best tactic was not to try and suppress those rumors, but to give people more interesting things to read about, something Draco had tried with his own manufactured accusations against Tillipop.

            “What proof do you have of that, then?” Rosenthal asked, in the light tone she reserved for verbal duels in public. “And strange that we are greeted with it the moment we arrive, outside the formal structure of debate.”

            Draco only bowed his head as if in sorrowful recognition, watching from under his eyelashes and fringe as Tillipop stared around.

            “There,” Tillipop said, and Draco turned to look. A young woman was pushing her way forwards, her chin trembling, but her stare poisonous and firm as she stopped and looked at Draco. Draco had no idea who she was, although from the quality of her robes, she wasn’t a pure-blood, and from her lack of quills and parchment, she wasn’t a reporter. That left mostly people who worked in the Ministry.

            “I saw the Dark Lord Potter come and take one of our best workers from the Ministry yesterday,” she said. “And before he did, he mentioned the name of Malfoy.”

            She’s talking about Fifernum’s kidnapping, Draco decided, but her attempts to drive a wedge between him and Harry were pathetic. He knew Harry would never have mentioned the name of Malfoy. If he did someday decide that Draco was an unacceptable political risk, he would abandon him as directly as he had allied with him. No telling random people at the Ministry first.

            “Who did he mention it to?” Draco asked, distant and uninterested.

            The woman hadn’t expected him to confront her like that. She stood up and brushed a hand down the front of her robe. Draco wondered if she was checking for dust, or a weapon. “Me,” she said. “Among other people.”

            “Indeed.” Draco nodded. “What is your name, miss?”

            The woman shot an agonized look at Tillipop, who glared back at her and made a little circling motion with his finger. Draco wasn’t surprised when the woman faced him, sighed and gulped in the same breath, and said, “Amicitia Sallow.”

            Draco nodded. “Well, of course, if you said it, one cannot question the validity of your word.” Sallow flinched, and Draco smiled gently at her. “Nonetheless, I heard no one say that before now, and I had nothing to do with the kidnapping of anyone from the Ministry. And surely my word cannot be questioned, either?”

            “Yes, it can,” Tillipop announced, and waved one hand. Draco saw the shadows stir, and had to blink as Aurors stepped out of them. They had been hiding with a spell so sophisticated that he honestly hadn’t noticed them before now. “There are several other people besides Miss Sallow who are prepared to testify to what Dark Lord Potter said. Enough for an arrest and to hold you in a cell for a few days.”

            And give you time to spread other rumors? Draco held back an angry laugh. I don’t think so.

            “I will willingly take Veritaserum to prove that I had nothing to do with the kidnapping,” he said. He ignored the way Rosenthal’s fingers pressed into his arm. He was in so much trouble at the moment that he didn’t think the offer to take Veritsaerum would put him into any more. “Right here, right now, in front of everyone, provided the legal conditions are met.” He smiled at Tillipop, who stared at him as if Draco had broken the rules of a game. “Provided the Minister will adhere to these legal conditions.”

            “How dare you accuse me?” Tillipop squeaked, and puffed himself up. “I never—”

            “There seems to be a great deal of accusation going on today,” Draco said, and looked at the Aurors. “Do any of you have Veritaserum with you? We might as well handle this now and get it over with.”

            For a few seconds, the balance of power hung there, wavering. The Aurors hesitated. Minister Tillipop looked around and seemed to find that he didn’t have as much support as he’d thought he did. Rosenthal was nearly hauling Draco’s arm off, and her face had turned back in the direction of the Apparition point. Draco refused to move, however. Tillipop had carried this game in new directions, and he was damned if he was going to run. He would play it through to the end.

            But then Tillipop smirked and said, “To match the legal conditions, Veritaserum must be administered by someone with the license and the training to administer it, and I am afraid they don’t grow on trees, Ministerial Candidate Malfoy.” There could be no mistaking the hate in that voice, and Draco hoped there were people in the audience who would remember it and make it cost Tillipop later. “That means you must come to the Ministry and have a Potions expert administer it.” He nodded to the Aurors. “Bring him along.”

            Draco stood straight and upright, pushing Rosenthal away from his side with an elbow when she tapped him hard on the shoulder. He had played the game, and lost to one clumsy move. That didn’t mean he had lost the war. He would find some way to spin this utter abandonment of control on Tillipop’s part to his advantage.

            Then he realized that Rosenthal’s tapping on his shoulder hadn’t stopped, the way it would have if she had given up on the notion to make him flee. Draco turned to her in irritation. Did she or did she not understand that he had done what he could, and it wasn’t enough?

            Then he saw what she was watching.

            A black cloud of smoke, studded with golden stars, had begun to form over the Apparition point. And a familiar heaviness of magic loaded the air.

            Draco bit his lip savagely, so he wouldn’t laugh.

*

            Harry was arranging papers on his desk, quietly pleased at the way the first three interviews—two for Defense Against the Dark Arts, one for Potions—had gone. All the potential professors seemed to know their subjects, and no one was overly afraid of him. He wasn’t sure which of the Defense teachers he would choose yet, but he was leaning towards the one with more experience in multiple forms of defense rather than dueling. Few wizards would be involved in formal duels once they left Hogwarts, but nasty situations where they had to do more than just shield would happen all the time.

            Abruptly, he lifted his head. He realized a second later that he had done it before he actually knew what was wrong. A tremor, a quiver, had run through the stones of Hogwarts, and invaded his body. He discovered that he was balancing himself with one hand braced against the wall, a support he shouldn’t need when he was inside Hogwarts.

            But whatever had gone wrong, it wasn’t in Hogwarts. Not exactly.

            Harry closed his eyes. “Show me,” he whispered, or thought he did. It might not have been aloud. It might not have been in English.

            That didn’t matter. Hogwarts understood him.

            The stones gave forth the sense of the person they had noticed, the person Harry had most noticed since he had bonded with the school. They knew who he was. They had connected briefly to his home when he Flooed out, and they knew the temper of his actions, and the resonance of his emotions was familiar to them, every emotion that had been expressed in their confines.

            Now, Harry was discovering, they knew when he felt some of the same emotions even so far away.

            Excitement, spiced with outrage. The same emotions he had felt when he and Harry were talking about the photographs, and who had sent them, and what could be done about them.

            Except he wouldn’t be talking about the photographs now.

            “Show me,” Harry said again. A sharp feeling was working its way up through his chest. He thrust his magic out the way he had when he was feeling for Fifernum’s soul, trying to see if he could get some kind of connection to Draco, knowing what he wanted, but not how to do it.

            When he opened his eyes, a spiral of power was rising from the floor, black and gold in color. Harry vaguely remembered Hermione telling him once that that was the most stunning and eye-catching combination of colors there was. Harry didn’t know if that was true or not, but he knew that it was the color it needed to be.

            Somewhere out there, Draco was feeling some of the same things he had in Hogwarts. Somewhere, he might be in trouble.

            It was possible that he wasn’t, and Harry would arrive in the middle of a secret meeting and embarrass them all. But he was capable of adapting to the situation, or Draco was, and pretending that he was there for some different reason.

            And it might not be that. And Harry needed to know.

            He reached, and he grasped, and the air around him quivered and rang, as though someone was beating the space between Hogwarts and wherever Draco stood with a hammer. It rang like a gong, then like a bell, and Harry stepped into the middle of the bell and folded his arms close to his body. It was going to be a rough journey to the point where Draco stood, nothing like Apparating, he knew that immediately.

            The stones of Hogwarts shifted and flowed around Harry. They knew Draco, they knew where he stood not because of knowledge but because of his emotions, and when they understood what their master wanted, they made it real.

            They made it so that it should be so.

            Harry flowed and wavered through sunlight and the paths of grass and the tides of the mind, washing up and down, rising to the stars and the moon and then falling as rain on the earth again, in the constant exchange of magic that the outside of Hogwarts had with the elemental forces of the world around it. And because the wind had blown across other places, and the light had fallen on them, and the water had touched them, Hogwarts was connected to them.

            Harry stepped out of the paths of magic and opened his eyes.

            He was in the middle of a large meadow, somewhere far away from Hogwarts, he knew that. The source of his power lay stretched out behind him. On one side of the meadow stood Draco and his adviser, Rosenthal, and on the other was Minister Tillipop. Connecting them, like an obscene umbilical cord, was a string of Aurors, who looked as if they were about to arrest Draco.

            Well. They had looked that way, at least. Now they were all looking at him.

            Harry smiled. “Hi,” he said. “Were you threatening a candidate who ought to have his fair chance to run for Minister? I don’t think I’ll allow that.”

*

            Demonadine: Thanks. I think it was the most appropriate thing Harry could have done at that point.

            SP777: They don’t know yet. And no one specifically will unless Draco, Harry, or Fifernum tell them.

            delia cerrano: That question is answered in the next chapter.

            Seiren: Their relationship will have some twists and turns, but it will eventually get there.

            Secoon: Thank you! Here is more.
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