Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

The Only True Lords	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 54573 -:- Recommendations : 4 -:- Currently Reading : 11
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

Chapter List
- 22
- 23
- 24
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Twenty-Three—Speak of the Willing
            Harry sighed and took another bite of treacle tart, because he felt he needed it. Goyle didn’t even glance at the plate Harry had picked it up from, though. He just sat watching Harry, more than ever like a dog.
            Harry was starting to wonder how Draco had coped with the responsibility of leading two people this dependent. At the moment, he could almost find it in him to be grateful for the rebellion that Zabini seemed intent on having. That seemed more natural to him than what Goyle wanted from him.
            “You realize that you could do other things?” Harry asked, willing himself to keep his face and his body calm, so as not to reject Goyle right away.
            Goyle’s brow wrinkled. “You mean, lead myself?” He sounded more than faintly horrified at the idea.
            “Well, you could still have friends to help you,” Harry said. “But you could live on your own and have a career of your own as long as you’re free of the bond. If it keeps existing, then you might never have freedom to do as you like.”
            He thought that last statement would probably be the most persuasive to a Slytherin, but Goyle’s brow cleared even as he watched, and he shook his head at Harry with an indulgent little smile. “Oh, no,” he said. “I know that I’m not good on my own. And I don’t have any friends except Draco. If he’s under the bond, I should be, too.”
            Harry kept from bowing his head into his hands and tugging at his hair, but it was a heroic effort. He stood up and shoved one of the books he held across the table to Goyle. Goyle looked at it, but without interest.
            “This says that Lord bonds can get corrupt,” Harry said, and he tried to sound serious enough that Goyle would pay attention no matter what. “The Lord likes more and more control. He likes making people do things. I don’t feel that way right now, but lots of Lords do. I might get that way later. The bond—it changes things.”
            Goyle frowned at him again, but said, “It hasn’t changed me. I know that I want a leader, and that’s true.” He ate another piece of treacle tart. Harry thought he was waiting to say something, and then realized the conversation, as far as Goyle was concerned, was over with, when he added innocently, “What’s for dinner?”
            “Lunch,” Harry said automatically, then sighed. “Being in a bond really doesn’t matter to you.”
            Goyle puffed up. “Of course it matters! It means I have someone to protect me and tell me what to do.” He looked at the book again. “And read for me. Draco never made me read, you know.” He glanced up at Harry with liquid eyes like a puppy’s. Harry thought he might just have found the reason that Goyle had been Sorted into Slytherin.
            Harry collapsed back into his chair. “But I promised the others…” Then he trailed off. If he could make the bond more flexible, take control of it and tell it what to do, then maybe he could tell it to free some of his vassals but leave others under the bond. Being responsible for one person still wasn’t ideal, but it would be better than five.
            He turned back to the books in front of him. He hadn’t found anything like that so far, but then, he hadn’t exactly been looking for it. If he could find something like that, then he would have to learn how to practice it as soon as possible.
*
            Greg licked a few crumbs from his fingers and watched Potter. He supposed he should think of him as Lord Potter. It would take him a little while to get used to that, though. It had taken a while to get used to thinking of Mr. Malfoy as Mr. Malfoy, too. He had wanted to call him Lord Malfoy.
            Potter kept bending over the books as if they would tell him something. Maybe they would. Books never seemed to tell Greg much of anything, but he knew other people could hear their voices.
            Potter looked up. Greg froze in reaching for the next plate on the table. Maybe Potter was going to tell him that he couldn’t have any more.
            But Potter just shook his head as though he wanted to reassure Greg, and then said, “Have you ever heard of someone with a lot of vassals only having a few vassals later?”
            Greg thought about that as hard as he could. His favorite stories had been the ones about Lords, and his mum had told them over and over again, because they were her favorite stories, too. Finally, he nodded.
            “There was Lady Bersalla,” he said. “She had ten vassals at the beginning, but two of them died, and she released three. So she had five at the end.” He was proud of himself for keeping the numbers in order. It had been a long time since he heard that story.
            Potter tapped his fingers on his knees and looked intent. “How did she release them?”
            Greg said, “Shhh. I have to think of the story, and then I’ll know.” He knew he couldn’t do this if Potter was asking him questions all the time, and interrupting his memory.
            Potter stayed quiet. Maybe he really wanted to know the story, too. Greg leaned further and further back into the couch, and shut his eyes so hard that he saw little stars dancing on the backs of the lids. He knew that meant he was close to seeing the memory.
            And then he heard his mum’s voice speaking into his ears, slow and gentle, telling him the tale of Lady Bersalla.
            “She became Lady because several other pure-blood families came to her and asked her to,” Greg whispered, still concentrating as hard as he could. He could do this. He could tell Potter the truth and content him, and if he was good to him, then Potter would keep being his Lord. That was the bargain, Greg knew. You did things for Lords, and they protected you. “They were all dying. They didn’t have any children, and they had lots of enemies. They knew that Lady Bersalla was a powerful witch. So they sheltered under her, and she cast the spell that meant they were her vassals.”
            Potter stirred—Greg could hear it—but he didn’t interrupt, so Greg went on telling the story. “She promised that she would protect them, and she would bear three children. One of the children would be her heir. The other two children would become the heirs of two of the pure-blood families. The other families were so old and dying that they didn’t want heirs, because they wouldn’t live to raise them.”
            “I have to have children?” Potter sounded horrified, which Greg thought was weird. Didn’t he always want children? That was what Greg’s mum said, anyway. She said Potter must be so lonely because he didn’t have any members of his family left. So he would want children once he came to the wizarding world and found a proper witch to have them with.
            “I’m telling the story,” said Greg sternly, which was the same thing his mum always said right now. He didn’t know if he should talk to his Lord that way, but he did know that he would forget the story if Potter kept on going like this.
            Potter subsided into grumbling. That meant Greg could keep going. He took a deep breath, and did it.
            “The families were content with the bargain. But one of them decided that Lady Bersalla wouldn’t keep her word, because she didn’t get pregnant for two years. So they told her to release them. And Lady Bersalla did it.”
            “What was the way she did it?”
            Greg paused, then sighed and opened his eyes. “The story doesn’t say. I need to write to my mum, my Lord. She would know.”
            Potter sounded tired. “Please write to her. Tell her that you’re all right and anything else she needs to know.” He paused, and then added, “Do you think your parents might be home right now? Or would they be somewhere else?”
            “I don’t know.” Greg clasped his hands in front of him, wincing. His Lord had asked him one question, one question, and already he couldn’t answer it. “I don’t know where they are right now.” He thought his dad might have been fighting with the Dark Lord, but Greg hadn’t seen him, and he had no idea where his mum was.
            “Hey, it’s okay.” Potter’s hand was suddenly on his shoulder, Potter’s face in his. Greg started a little, and was glad that he didn’t bring his hands up in a defensive maneuver after all, the way he almost had. “I didn’t mean to make you upset. We’ll handle this somehow.” Potter leaned back and bit his lip, and then stood up fully and nodded decisively. “I’ll write to your mum, but I’ll also ask the others. If one person knows something about releasing Lordship bonds, then the others should, too.”
            Greg caught his hand. “But you won’t make me leave?”
            Potter looked down at him, and there were all sorts of complex expressions on his face. Greg didn’t understand them. He hoped that Potter wouldn’t make him try. Things in general were too complicated for Greg. This would just make them harder. It was easiest if he could let someone else take them over.
            What’s going to happen when Draco wants to take them over?
            But Greg rejected the thought. So far, Draco hadn’t come to him and asked to take them over. So Greg was free to do as he wanted, and what he wanted right now was to stay with the Lord that fate had given him.
            His mum said that fate wasn’t often kind, but it was, right now.
            Potter reached down and squeezed his shoulder. “I won’t make you leave,” he said, and even though he was a Gryffindor and his voice shook a little and Greg didn’t have any reason to trust him, he did now.
*
            “I need to know what you know about releasing Lordship bonds.”
            Severus leaned back in his chair at the kitchen table and regarded the ceiling. There was an interesting crack running from one side of it to the other that he had never noticed in the meetings of the Order of the Phoenix. He resisted the temptation to reach up and run his hand along it.
            “Snape? Are you listening to me?”
            Severus snapped his head down. “It is Severus,” he said. “If you are going to refuse to address me by a term of respect.”
            Potter paused, looking as foolish as he could no longer afford to look, his hand on the door. Then he sighed and rubbed his jaw, wincing as he did it. Severus wondered if he had hit his absurd neck against a pillow and weakened it. “Sorry. Between Draco wanting to be free of the bond and Greg wanting to stay in it and thinking that someone knows a way to weaken the bond but not actually finding it, it’s been a busy morning.”
            “I am glad that Gregory is awake,” Severus said, warming his hands on the teacup. “But you just now spoke of them both by their first names. I would appreciate the same courtesy.”
            “I didn’t think you would think it was courtesy,” Potter said slowly, and sat down across from him. “But anyway, Greg said that his mum used to tell him stories about bonds and how some Lords or Ladies could release them and let vassals go free. I wondered if you’d heard of some of the same stories.”
            Severus could answer that, or he could pursue what was the most important matter of the darkening bruise on Potter’s jaw, and he chose to do what was practical. “Who hit you?”
            Potter flushed and promptly covered his jaw with one hand. “It was Draco,” he said, at least meeting Severus’s eyes without any silly attempt to hide. “But I don’t think that’s what matters here—”
            “Why would you think that?” Severus leaned forwards. “Not only are you injured, which may reduce your effectiveness to do research and fight for us, but the bond could have punished Draco.”
            Potter met his eyes steadily. “All it did was make him stand still, and then it moved him when I told him to get out of the way. It was actually a good thing, because after that, I started thinking the bond might be more flexible than I knew and it was possible to command it to do things. The bond will protect me, and if I can release it, then I can let Draco and Zabini go.” He tapped a finger on the table. “That’s why I want to know if you know any stories about someone releasing the bond. It might be days or weeks before Mrs. Goyle can get back to us. Greg admitted that he didn’t know where she was.”
            Severus touched his forehead, and then his right arm and his left arm, marking the source of all his various problems. “If you begin to think and believe that it was a good thing for one of your vassals to hit you, then that might influence the bond’s response to later situations, ones that are more violent,” he said harshly. “Did you not think of that, Potter? That you might change the balance of power between you and your vassals? The bond can only react to protect you if you want to be protected!”
            “That’s not something you said before,” Potter protested, lifting his chin. “How was I supposed to know that? There are all these things that suddenly people are telling me, but I didn’t know them before!”
            Severus regained his breath and control of his temper with some difficulty. “I want you to demand an apology from Draco,” he said. “And I am thinking less of the effect on Draco and more of the one on Mr. Zabini,” he added, when Potter opened his mouth. “If Zabini thinks Draco can get away without punishment, then he may try something else again.”
            “And then the bond would punish him,” Potter echoed again, looking miserable. “All right. I’ll talk to him.” He turned around, probably hearing, as Severus had begun to a few moments ago, the footsteps on the stairs. He seemed to brace himself, probably wondering if it would be an ordeal to make Draco apologize.
            But Pansy stepped into the kitchen instead, nodded to both of them, and came over to fetch a cup of tea herself, asking, “Then I suppose you know that Zabini and Draco are plotting against both of you? They were having a conversation about how Zabini should come up with a way to fight you, sir, and then Draco would join him in executing the plan and fighting Potter.”
            Potter leaned forwards and placed his head on the table.
            Severus was terribly afraid that he might feel like doing the same thing himself. He prepared his tea with cold fingers, then leaned back and looked Pansy in the eye. “You are sure of this?” Pansy, her mouth full of bread and butter, nodded, and Severus sighed. “How?”
            “I overheard them last night, of course.” Pansy swallowed and leaned back in her chair, regarding them with interest. “Are you going to challenge them to a duel?”
            Potter opened his mouth. God knew what he would have said to that, but Severus could guess that it would be some more dunderheaded maundering about how he couldn’t fight people, he was their Lord, and the bond would give him an unfair advantage. He spoke before he and Pansy, the only sensible members of the bonded group right now, could be asked to listen to it. “A duel would be unwise. It would give them too much acknowledgment, put them on a footing with you that you do not want them on.”
            Pansy, of course, understood him at once, since she was a Slytherin, and cocked her head. “True. I didn’t think of that.”
            “What kind of footing would it put them on?” Potter asked, and his voice was high and haughty, his eyes fixed on Severus as though he wondered what could possibly come out of his mouth good enough to justify arguing against a duel.
            “It would treat them as equals,” Severus said. “They are not.”
            “I won’t listen to you talking about how Lords are worth more or something,” Potter snapped. “That’s not the kinds of tales of Lords I came here to listen to.”
            “You fool.” Severus poured contained power into the word, and noticed that the mark on his right arm was not burning. That was an excellent indication that he was performing his function as Shield at the moment, he thought, protecting Potter against the consequences that might happen if he went ahead and listened too much to his instincts. “You are not our equal. You have greater power than we do. I have a wand, but you could force me to hand that over to you. By all the laws and customs of pure-blood tradition, you have the right to demand it. You have not, but I know it is because you choose to grant me the grace of retaining it. And you have the power of the bond that protected you from Draco this morning. Nothing can match that. You could break my arm before I could cast against you, were I so stupid as to attempt it. You think we are all the same?”
            “I just meant—we’re all worth the same.”
            Potter sounded terribly, terribly bewildered. Severus shook his head. “There may be a way to release the bond. But unless and until it happens, no, we are not equals. We are vassals and Lord.”
            Potter took a deep breath and seemed to sink into himself. Severus hoped it was communion with himself, that he could see the sense of what Severus and Pansy were saying, and come out of this more ready to fight.
            Pansy caught his eye. Severus shook his head. He did not think they ought to interrupt. Potter would agree with them, or he would not. In the end, although they might have advantages in attempting to persuade Potter that the others did not, what Severus had said held true for them as well. They were the vassals, and he the Lord.
            Pansy scowled mildly and watched Potter with concealed eagerness, opening her mouth to speak before Severus thought she ought to do so. But then it turned out that she was doing it as Potter looked up, and at the sight of his eyes, she interrupted herself.
            There was a flame in Potter’s eyes, and his hands clenched in front of him as he forced himself out of the chair. Severus stood up with him, keeping a wary gaze on him. He distrusted the mood change. Potter might have gone from determined to treat everyone like a happy Gryffindor to treating them like an angry Gryffindor.
            “Ask Zabini and Malfoy to come here, please,” Potter told Pansy, the sound of his voice windy and distant.
            Pansy bowed a little and scurried off. Severus watched Potter. Potter was not watching him back. Instead, he looked at the far wall, and his breathing was soft and rapid.
            “What will you do?” Severus asked at last.
            “Tell them that I’m aware of their plans, that I’m working on a way to release the bond—if anyone can tell me how—” for a moment, Severus heard the snarl of balked desire in the back of his voice “—and that fighting against me would be stupid. They shouldn’t want to be free until after the trials, anyway. What would Draco’s protection be, with his parents cooped up? And I don’t have any idea what Zabini’s mother’s status is.”
            Severus raised his eyebrows and nodded. “If you can present it that calmly and reasonably, you stand a chance of convincing them.”
            “I hope so.” Potter turned back towards the stairs, folding his arms and seeming to shield himself in an invisible cloak of dignity and power. Severus cocked his head. He could not believe that he was using such terms of James’s son.
            What about Lily’s?
            Severus had to shake his head a minute later, though. No, he had never dreamed even of a child of Lily’s, or Lily herself for that matter, doing this. Lily had been Muggleborn, reared in a world that had long ago decided Lordships were defunct, at least in the manner the wizarding world constructed them. She would have wanted to free her vassals, and she might not have been able to reconcile herself to the necessity of an ultimatum.
            But this young man, who had stood before the Wizengamot, could.
            Severus was eager to see what he did next.
*
            Draco followed Pansy into the kitchen with a determinedly calm face. He had expected punishment sooner than this, really, for the punch he had given Potter earlier. Blaise, beside him, was walking with a stiffer neck and an apparent ambition to say to Potter exactly what he thought of him. It was the only reason Draco could imagine that he would look eager.
            The more he refuses to look, the harder he will fall.
            But Draco couldn’t worry about Blaise right now. He had to worry about what Potter would do to him instead, and he hoped that he could do something to soften matters if he took a step into the kitchen and bowed.
            Potter stood there like a—well, like a young Lord, really, Draco thought, with his arms folded and the bond drawn up around him. Currently, it wasn’t making the mark on Draco’s arm flare, and it must not be doing it with Blaise, either, if he could still stand there and appraise Potter the way he was doing.
“I will say this once,” Potter said, quietly, but with more force than if he had shouted. “I am working on a way to release the bond. It will take some time, since at least one of my other vassals wants to remain with me.”
Greg, Draco thought. It has to be Greg. He wanted to swallow, to ask why Greg hadn’t come to him and asked for protection, but he was afraid that he knew the answers already. So he stayed silent.
“In the meantime,” Potter said, “fighting against me would be the stupidest thing you could do. You’ll need protection from the Ministry, and they have no reason to give you fair trials if you’re not my vassals. The promises that Auror Stone made me for their protection were to me, not anyone else.” He was looking at Draco. “The best chance for your parents, for your families, is if you have someone else’s protection until the trials are done.”
Draco nodded jerkily. He couldn’t deny what Potter said when it came to him, though whether Potter had really done anything to protect his parents was more debatable. And he would debate it.
            Later.
            “I need information on how to release a bond,” Potter said, his eyes narrowing. “Greg told me a story about a Lady named Bersalla, but he didn’t know how she released the bond. I need to know if you have any information on that.”
            “I do,” Blaise said.
            Draco eyed him cautiously sideways. He’d thought Blaise would have volunteered that earlier if he had it. On the other hand, Blaise’s mother knew all sorts of esoteric things, and had passed them down to her son. Maybe he just hadn’t made the connection until now.
            “You have my permission to tell me,” Potter said.
            Blaise’s eyes shone. He took a step forwards.
            Draco’s eyes widened. He knew that look on Blaise’s face. He had seen it when Blaise was getting ready to confront Death Eaters, and when he’d had particularly severe detention, and exams he wasn’t sure he could pass. It was the look he wore when he intended to fling himself at a problem and wear it down that way.
            And he saw something else: the gleam of a knife in Blaise’s hand.
            He opened his mouth, but the bond reacted before he could, and the kitchen filled with dazzling light.
            Followed, a second later, by the smell of cooking flesh.
*
            Genuka: That is what Harry’s hoping he can do.
            moodysavage: He wants to say yes to Greg, but he’s worried about what that will mean for the others.
            polka dot: Pretty much!
            DragonStar01: Thank you!
            A: This may finally qualify as one.
            karisma: Even stronger than Severus, in some ways, because Harry knows that Severus would never have stayed with him if not for the bond.
           SP777: Draco is already regretting some of the things he did. And more, what Blaise persuaded him to do.
            dragonLuv3: I think he has a very good sense of what he wants, which is not true of the others. Blaise says he wants freedom to act like a Slytherin, but he thrashes around. Severus wants death and life at the same time. Draco’s wants keep changing: to be protected, to have his family safe, to have revenge on Harry. And Pansy thinks she can work out doing politics even with the Lord bond on her, but she also thinks she may have to find different things to want.
            Jenn: The problem Draco has is that he’s forgetting he’s not the only person Harry’s made promises to. Harry also made promises to Auror Stone and implicitly to the Ministry, and to his other vassals. If he insisted that Draco be allowed to see Lucius and that resulted in, say, Lucius breaking free and Stone and Harry having to face bad publicity, then that’s sacrificing everything for the sake of allowing Draco to see his parents. Given time, maybe Harry could have worked out some kind of different bargain with Auror Stone, but she was very wary about them breaking out of the holding cells and Harry was pretty much at the end of his rope. Now that he’s rested, maybe he can come up with something—if Blaise will stop doing stupid shit for one second.
- 22
- 23
- 24
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

The Only True Lords