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The Only True Lords	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 54578 -:- Recommendations : 4 -:- Currently Reading : 11
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

Chapter List
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Chapter Twenty-Two—Like a Dark Volcano
            Draco faced the mirror that had unexpectedly been on the wall of the room he was in, and spent a moment readjusting his robes. He hadn’t brought new ones with him, hadn’t been allowed to bring new ones, so the best he could do was smooth out the creases and hope that would be enough.
            Today, he intended to confront Potter.
            He’d got that note under the door last night, and while he didn’t really believe Professor Snape had written it, it meant that somebody had heard his conversation with Blaise last night. The likeliest candidate was Pansy, but that didn’t matter much. What mattered was that someone knew, and all the plans he and Blaise might have come up with had fallen into the dust.
            Draco appraised himself once more in the mirror, and was satisfied that not even his father could have found fault with what he saw there. Draco nodded once, rigorously, to himself, and spun to face the door.
            He’d had enough of sneaking about and plans that didn’t work and yielding and going along because he was too weak to do otherwise. The time had come to confront. The time had come to face. He had seen his father use the same tactics, although not often, when subtlety didn’t work and political strategies were countered by other enemies who could use the same strategies as well as a Malfoy could.
            So Draco was about to put a stop to things. They had gone far enough.
            He opened the door, and walked out, following the slight but definite tug from the shield mark on his arm. It seemed that Potter wanted to see him as badly as Draco wanted to see Potter.
            Draco smiled, glad that it felt as if his teeth were made of steel, and his stride was smooth and firm, quick, his steps striking the floor, but not as if he was in a hurry. His confrontation with Potter would go well.
            Because he willed it.
*
            Harry sighed and took another sip of the tea he’d found in one of the cabinets to make for breakfast this morning. There wasn’t much else, except a mostly hollowed-out loaf of bread on the table. Harry nibbled a corner of it in one hand and studied the shield mark on his arm. He’d had worse breakfasts.
            The green dots on his mark had moved in the night. Two of them now clustered tightly at one corner of the shield, the nearest one to Harry’s elbow. Zabini and Draco, he knew. The two dots that represented Snape and Parkinson stood near each other on the other side, a perfect representation of conspiracy.
            And the lone dot in the middle, but closer to Snape and Parkinson, could only represent Goyle. He’d woken up at last.
            Which didn’t explain what Harry was going to do about him, or whether the faint burn in the mark came from him or not.
            But as he waited, the burn centered more and more on the green dot nearest his elbow, and he turned towards the kitchen door with the knowledge that Draco was coming closer and closer. Harry winced and set down his teacup. He wished this confrontation could have come at a later time. But if it had to happen, at least it had waited until he was awake and had eaten something.
            Not much. But Harry had been equal to the Dursleys on less food. He ought to be the equal of someone smarter than they were with a little inside him.
            Draco swept into the kitchen and paused, posed, really, with his arms stretching out to his sides as though he was inviting Harry to look at his clothes. Harry did. The robes were neatly pressed, probably by hand, and he looked as clean as could be expected when no one but Snape had magic at the moment. Harry folded his hands in front of him and waited.
            Draco curled his lip a little, probably because the expected tirade hadn’t come, and took a single sliding step towards him. “I want to hurt you for hurting my family,” he said.
            “I asked your father to make a sacrifice,” Harry said, as quietly as he could when he wanted to shout. He was still tired and hungry and wanted to be somewhere else, but the shield mark on his arm reminded him where his duty lay.
            Is it always going to lie somewhere else? Am I going to spend the rest of my life soothing people’s tempers and reminding myself not to snap because I can’t get angry with my vassals?
            Harry wanted to close his eyes at that thought. He wanted to go back to bed and not get up for a long, long time.
            But none of those things would change Draco standing in front of him, angry and hurt. So he continued, “The blood-ghost can’t actually kill anyone except its chosen victim, which is you. It even warned me about that, but I didn’t understand the warning at the time. Snape was the one who had to make it clear to me. Your father may have wounded himself to get the blood I used to track you. But the blood-ghost didn’t kill him.”
            “Someone from the Ministry could do it.” Draco was leaning forwards, tense and trembling, his hands clenching into fists at his side.
            “Just like they could have broken into their cells and taken them,” Harry said. “But they didn’t. They only wanted the people actually bonded to me. I think your parents are safer at the moment than you are. People are only thinking of them as Death Eaters, not hostages they could use to control me.”
            “Not everything’s about you,” Draco said, and his trembling got more pronounced. “They might want to hurt them just because they were Death Eaters.”
            “I can’t do anything about that, unless I contact Stone and request permission to leave the house and go back to the Ministry and try to do something about it,” Harry said tiredly. “And the security on them will be tight, now. Stone is ashamed that someone managed to snatch you lot from under her nose. She’ll be really firm about it not happening to your parents.”
            “That’s not good enough.” Draco was edging nearer. “They swore loyalty to you, and you’re just going to abandon them?”
            “It wasn’t a formal oath,” Harry said. He had to trust that mattered, after the ceremony Parkinson had told him to go through with Auror Stone. He braced his legs against the seat of the chair, and watched Draco. He knew that Draco was preparing to fight, and since they didn’t have their wands, that meant the Muggle method.
Harry didn’t want to. Not because he was afraid, but because he didn’t think it would be a good thing for a lord to fight his vassal. What had happened to Zabini still haunted him.
“You should have kept your promise.” Draco’s voice was low and so dark that Harry had trouble distinguishing the words. They seemed to blend together, like the sounds in a tiger’s growl. “And checked your words. What you said is the wrong answer.”
He flung himself forwards.
Harry twisted the opposite way, and stood up as Draco slammed into the chair where Harry had been sitting. Harry swallowed and found his hand groping at his side, looking for his wand or at least the wand he’d taken from the wizards who had captured his vassals. He wanted some way to settle this.
            And then it occurred to him, as his right arm flared like a branding iron, that he did have a way to settle it. Maybe a way that he’d better choose, before the Lordship bond did it for him.
            He looked at Draco and put as much steel into his voice as he could, low and precise. “I rescued you. I made an oath for you. I accepted your word that you would cooperate with going to the Ministry in exchange for my protection. Stop fighting me.”
            Draco stared at him with his mouth hanging loose, his jaw slack. Harry felt as though he was about to fly. That was how fast his blood was going, his heart was going, and the burning on his arm had transmuted a little bit, not as painful. Maybe the bond was at least trying to reward him for doing the right thing.
            Then Draco said, “Are you mad?” and leaped straight at him, his hand connecting with Harry’s jaw.
            Even as Harry’s head snapped backwards, he felt the bond react, and braced himself to hear Draco’s screams of pain. But nothing happened. Harry picked himself up, holding his cheek and wincing. He wondered if the bond considered just attacking him with a fist less bad than attacking him with a spell, the way Zabini had done.
            Then he looked up and saw that Draco had frozen. His arm was still out, as though he was swinging back or trying to catch his balance, but his feet were rooted to the floor. His face was locked in an unnatural expression, between one true emotion and another. And the silver mark on his arm shone, dazzling.
            Harry swallowed and stood up, shaking his head. He didn’t know if the bond was holding Draco still so that Harry could punish him, or if it was just making sure that Draco wouldn’t break the oath Harry had sworn by trying to leave.
            He didn’t care, in fact. He was tired. He had done all he could, found a way to get out of the holding cells and to the place where his vassals were being held captive against enormous odds, and all that mattered was that it got thrown back in his face, again and again. Nothing mattered to Draco, it seemed, except the ways that he could blame Harry for hurting his father.
            Harry stalked up to Draco. Draco’s eyes twitched once, in their sockets, to try and focus on him, but the bond’s hold on him prevented even that. It was one of the more disgusting things Harry had seen.
            “I’m going to find a way to break the Lordship bond,” Harry said. “Today, or soon. I don’t want this any more than you do. Did you think I did? That I enjoyed having a bunch of people tied to me who hated me? No. I’m going to let you go, since that’s what you want so much. And I’ll let you take your chances with the Ministry that you claim wants to punish your parents and wants to hurt you, too. See how well you do without my protection.
            “I hate this. No matter what I do, it’s wrong. Fine.” Harry snapped his fingers, and the bond relented, nearly sending Draco staggering into the table. “Leave if you want to. I don’t care. Shut the fuck up and get out of my face.”
            There was a weird shimmer in the air between him and Draco, something like a localized whirlwind. Then the magic shoved Draco away from Harry, and out of his path. Draco caught himself on the wall before he fell over, and proved that he could move in other ways by closing his mouth, but he didn’t stop staring at Harry.
            “Kreacher!” Harry called. He didn’t care that it hadn’t worked last night. Right now, he didn’t care about anything except getting more food in him than he had already. Maybe he’d had to endure starvation when he was with the Dursleys, but he didn’t now, and he wanted something to eat.
            Kreacher promptly popped up, although with a surprised look on his face. He took a long, hard look at Harry, and then bowed and murmured, “Lord Potter is needing somethings from humble Kreacher?”
            “Make me some breakfast,” Harry said. “I don’t care what it is, as long as it’s hot and sweet. And bring it to me in the library.” He turned back towards Draco and made for the door, watching Draco coldly.
            He had enough sense to stay out of the way, at least. Harry gave him one more cold look and lifted his hand to touch his jaw.
            “That one was free,” he said. “None of the rest will be.”
            And he went up to the library, where he hoped idiots would leave him in peace for a while.
*
            That could have been more disastrous.
            Draco stood there and stared down at his own hands. They moved now when he flexed them; they opened and turned back and forth.
            And that meant he was all right. He’d thought for a second, when he felt the force gripping him and pressing down on his muscles, that he was going to simply break apart. The Lordship bond could do that if it judged that he was in need of punishment. He hadn’t known that, before now, but it was hard to deny the power of something you’d literally felt in your bones.
            Draco swallowed and sagged against the table.
            It could have been more disastrous, but it hadn’t gone well. He’d pictured coming in and saying something that would make Potter realize how stupid he had been, denying sanctuary and protection to Draco’s parents. It would be witty, Draco knew that. It would be almost intolerably right and gracious and true, and Potter would redden and cast his eyes towards the floor and know himself humbled by Draco’s display of eloquence.
            It was the kind of thing his father would have done.
            Draco had never pictured himself punching Potter, and Potter performing feats of wandless magic, wielding the bond like a whip. Draco had thought they were equal—in some senses of the word—because none of them had wands except Professor Snape. And while he was on Potter’s side for the moment, Draco didn’t entertain the illusions that Potter probably did. Snape wouldn’t stay there, not if Draco and Blaise could show him that there was a chance of breaking free.
            All of that should have happened. Draco should have made Potter stammer and apologize and promise to go and rescue his parents right away, or at least free Draco himself from the Lordship bond.
            He had the last, at least. At the cost of knowing that he wasn’t in control here, that Potter was a lot more powerful than he was even if they were both unarmed, and that Potter could have done a lot worse to Draco if he hadn’t controlled the bond.
            Draco scowled down at his hands again. That wasn’t at all the way his father would have done it.
            He turned around to leave the kitchen, but there was a noise like water boiling over, and Draco whipped around again. He realized a second later that it was just the house-elf clearing his throat. Apparently he’d been away from them long enough to forget what it sounded like.
            “What?” he demanded.
            “Master Draco Malfoy is liking some breakfast, too.” The house-elf didn’t make it a question. He was piling pieces of toast that looked as if they had soaked in butter on a plate in the middle of the table, and surrounding it were thick slabs of treacle tart that made Draco wrinkle his nose. Who would eat those at this time of the morning?
            Potter, apparently.
            Draco bit his tongue. He wondered how long it would take him to stop running into invisible walls, to remember that Potter was the one with the power in this particular situation, and Draco had no say.
            “Master Draco is sitting down and eating something,” said the elf. Draco squinted, trying to remember—he’d had other things to concentrate on at the time—and decided Potter had called him Kreacher. “Kreacher is busy offering the rest to Lord Potter.” He picked up another plate that also looked as if it had a cup of steaming tea on it and a smaller plate of kippers. Draco shuddered. He would have to come to some compromise with Potter on the matter of breakfast.
            “Why?” Draco asked. “I’m not hungry.” He was, actually, but while he might have to let Potter dictate some of the terms on which he lived, he wasn’t about to let a house-elf do it.
            Kreacher looked at him as though he couldn’t believe that Draco would be that stupid. “Because you is being hungry, and that is being displeasing to Lord Potter,” he said, and vanished with the plates.
            Draco scowled at nothing. But in the end, it was silly to resist food, and he was hungry whether or not he was going to eat in front of Potter. He sat down and reached for the kettle that Kreacher had left, picking up a piece of toast with the other hand. It wouldn’t be the worst breakfast he had ever had, not when it wasn’t under the supervision of the Dark Lord.
            Now and then, he rubbed his arm. The shield mark wasn’t cold or burning now. It was vibrating gently instead, like a hive of bees touched from the outside. Draco assumed that meant Potter was busy.
            With breakfast? With finding a way to break the bond?
            Draco finished his tea and his first piece of toast, and sighed. His chance to be taken into Potter’s confidence was probably gone for now.
*
            Greg turned into the library the minute he passed it. He knew there might be food in the kitchen, but the point was, there were the smells of tea and toast coming out of the library, and it was one less flight of stairs to walk down.
            Potter sat in a chair with a big book in his lap. Greg glanced at him, and then at the food on the table in front of him, and frowned. If it was here, it was probably Potter’s food. Greg knew that there was something specific you were supposed to do to ask permission from your Lord to eat, but he couldn’t remember what it was.
            “Hullo.” Potter was staring at him in surprise. Greg looked up at him again. “When did you wake up?”
            Greg looked back at him, more than a little grateful. That was a simple question. That meant he could answer it. “Yesterday night,” he said. “My Lord. I ate a little bread and went to my room.” He thought a second, and then decided that if he could tell Professor Snape about this, he could tell his Lord. Maybe Potter even needed to know about it, because he might not know that Zabini hated him that much. “Zabini tried to get me to rebel with him, but I told him no.”
            Potter’s mouth fell open a little. Then he sat up and nodded, as though Greg had told him something he’d already known. Greg winced. He knew the Dark Lord had punished his father when that happened. He hoped Potter wouldn’t punish him.
            But Potter just said, “If you only ate bread last night, you must be hungry. Help yourself.” He waved at the plate.
            Greg had to smile at him as he walked towards the table, even though he’d never done that before. Potter was nice. It wasn’t every Lord that would give you treacle tart. His mum had said that once, when she caught him eating it for breakfast.
            Here, he got to have it for breakfast with no one bothering him. That was already better than a lot of things he’d thought about.
            “Why did Zabini think you could help him?” Potter asked. He was watching Greg eat, but without flinching and looking away the way even Draco sometimes did. Maybe he’d already eaten that way himself. The table said so. “You just woke up.”
            Greg nodded, realized his mouth was full, and swallowed it down before he spoke. “Because he wants people to rebel against you, and I didn’t know much about you since I just woke up. So he picked me because I was convenient.” He knew that being convenient meant a lot. It was why he had ended up helping most of Draco’s plans last year.
            Potter tapped a finger against his jaw, then winced. Greg leaned in and narrowed his eyes. He didn’t know a lot, but he knew what you looked like when someone beat you up, and there was the mark of a fist on Potter’s jaw.
            “Who beat you up?” he asked. It couldn’t have been Professor Snape. He would have used his wand. And Pansy only thought she punched that hard.
            Potter looked up, eyes narrowed as though he had decided to be disgusted again. “Draco,” he said.
            Greg stared at the food in his hands. He wondered if he should be eating it. Draco had always been his leader, and if Draco was fighting with Potter, then Greg should walk away and join Draco, and that meant leaving the food here.
            But…it was good food. And he was so hungry.
            “Why did Draco punch you?” Greg asked. He didn’t know if he could understand the answer—sometimes he never did when Mr. Malfoy explained things, and Draco was like that, too—but he could see if he did.
            Potter continued to watch him. Greg drew himself up and glared back. Sure, he was pretty stupid, but Potter wasn’t even trying to explain. And Greg knew a little about how Gryffindors thought, too. They were supposed to try and see if things would work even when they probably wouldn’t.
            “Because he believes that I hurt his family,” Potter said, his voice blank, like Mr. Malfoy’s. “I did what I could to rescue you, but he still takes it that way.”
            Greg thought as hard as he could. It was all mixed up with the memories of the bottom of his mind, and Vince dying, but he told himself not to think about that, and so he didn’t. “You did it to rescue us?” he asked. That was the important thing, he decided, the most important thing.
            “Yes,” Potter said. “I had—I had Mr. Malfoy send me some blood, and I smeared that on the bond mark, and I used that to track Draco.”
            Greg blinked. He didn’t know everything that had happened while he was asleep, but he knew one thing. “Then you did it to rescue all of us,” he said. “Because I was with Draco, and they took all of us, didn’t they?” He didn’t know whether that was a guess or intelligence or something he remembered, but he was sure it was right.
            Potter nodded, looking puzzled about where Greg was going.
            “Then you did what a Lord was supposed to do,” Greg said. He could eat again. Potter might be doing complicated things, but he did uncomplicated ones, too. He had given Greg food, and he had rescued him. “Maybe Draco doesn’t like it. I think Draco wants to be a Lord himself. But you’re the Lord. So he should just shut up and listen to you.”
            Potter blinked several times, then smiled at him. “Maybe you’re right,” he said. “But I learned today that I can make the bond do things when I really want them to. So now I’m just looking up ways to make the bond dissolve itself.”
            Greg was so afraid he dropped his toast on his hand. Then he picked it up and ate it again. But he did say, after he finished it, “Then you won’t be our Lord anymore.”
            Potter nodded at him. “That’s the way Draco wants it.”
            “But that’s because he wants to be a Lord himself,” Greg said. He leaned forwards. He had to make Potter see. “I don’t want to be. I want to stay with you. I want someone to protect me. Please?”
            Potter closed his eyes and sat there as if Greg was asking him a hard question. Greg didn’t see what was so hard about it. He would have known the answer if someone had asked him.
            But Potter wasn’t saying no right now. So Greg held his breath, and waited, and hoped.
*
            helga1967: Thank you!
            moodysavage: I hope so!
            polka dot: Of all of them, he’s the one whose reaction to the bond is most like Harry’s—weariness.
            BAFan: Thank you!
            SP777: And now he’s put a dent in Harry’s plan to simply end the bond.
            dragonLuv3: Thank you!
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The Only True Lords