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Intoxicate the Sun	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 18051 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
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Chapter Twenty-Seven--Listening to Advice

            "If anyone has a good idea for what kind of raid or battle move we should conduct next, I'm open."

            Harry leaned back in his seat and watched the people assembled around the table. They stared back at him in turn, or stared at their laps, or whispered to their friends, or watched the antics of the others with amusement. Catchers and his followers weren't among them, having left a few days before, when it had turned out that Harry wasn't going to return people who declared themselves innocent under Veritaserum to the Ministry.

            Harry wondered why, sometimes. Why was that the definitive breaking moment, rather than the raid on Azkaban that freed the prisoners in the first place? Did they doubt that Veritaserum worked on everyone, or were they stubbornly committed to the idea that the Ministry had tried them for a "good reason"?

            But he suspected that those questions were only distractions for himself. He knew the real reason. He'd tried Narcissa Malfoy with the Veritaserum, and she had turned out innocent of all but a few spells cast in defense of her family, as Harry had known she would. Lucius had come next.

            And he had said that he was guilty of Muggle-baiting, two murders, and a desire to escape as soon as possible. Yet Harry hadn't given him up.

            Draco had sworn an oath to guarantee Lucius's good behavior, and that was why. Of all the others, the Death Eaters and non-Death Eaters Harry had given back to the Ministry, he could find no one else willing to do that, even for the ones who had some relatives among members of the revolution.

            When he accepted Draco's oath and reached out to help him off his knees, Catchers had risen from his seat in the amphitheater, glared at Harry with a heavy weight of meaning behind his eyes, and then turned away. Almost everyone who had been behind him in the corridor when he questioned Harry followed. They hadn't come back, and their rooms had been cleared out.

            Harry had heard the mutters that followed that, the significant looks exchanged when no one thought he would notice, and the distrustful and wary expressions people had when he called them to this meeting, here in the eating hall. Well, he had made mistakes. He could admit that and throw open the meeting to suggestions, as he had promised.

            But having promised that he would accept Draco's oath for his father, he couldn't take back his sworn word, and he couldn't let Catchers get away with the threat that he'd made to betray Harry to the Ministry. He waited now instead, hands folded behind his head, watching everything from the way Ron bit the inside of his mouth to the bland expression on Draco's face as he sat at the other end of the table. A few people had objected to him being here, but since Harry had pointed out that Draco had simply sworn to pay with his life if Lucius escaped or harmed anyone, not sworn to stay locked up with him, the mutters had died. They were trying to compensate with evil glares instead.

            The glares would make no difference to Draco, Harry thought with admiration. He had endured things far worse, including most of a decade without his parents. He sat there now and let the words of others fall off him like water. He looked at Harry most of the time, but sometimes paid attention to Ron.

            Single-hearted. Harry wished that he could be. He had numerous small concerns pulling at him like puppies of a large litter: keeping his promise to Draco, finding some way to make up for his mistakes, conducting the revolution well, handling the prisoners who could be redeemed, guarding his back against enemies, and managing his wild magic. Draco only had to worry about his parents, and any threats that came against him because of them.

            Harry banished the distracting thoughts of Draco when a cautious hand crept up somewhere down the table. He nodded and smiled. "Veronica Dover, isn't it?"

            "Yes." Dover had been a clerk in the Ministry, and had brought a lot of information along with her as her gift when she joined the revolution. She'd been slower to learn curses, but Ron had said she was excellent with binding and disarming spells. "I was wondering, sir, if it isn't time that we began peace talks with the Ministry?"

            Harry kept his reaction to that thought off his face. Ron snorted aloud for him, anyway, and then looked like he was going to faint as he sat there. Harry saw no reason to go that far. He only nodded and said in a voice that he hoped would come across as unthreatening, "That's an interesting idea. Why do you think they would respond differently now than all the other times that we might have approached them in the past?"

            "Sir." Dover bit her lip, and Harry wanted to tell her not to call him "sir," but that would distract her more than it was worth right now. "We've burned down their prison. We've shown that we're more powerful than anything they can muster." Then she took a deep breath and looked him in the eye. "Than--anything they can do to threaten us in return. They might accept our overtures. Minister Clearwater isn't stupid."

            "Do you think they would accept our long-term goals?" Harry asked. He didn't think they would, but Dover had worked more directly in the bureaucracy than he had and might know the mindsets of people like Clearwater better. "That they'll have to change the justice system and do things like actually investigate claims of bribes offered to the Wizengamot?"

            "I don't know, sir." Dover's hands were locked around one another, white-knuckled. "We can only try."

            "That's a good suggestion," Harry said. "I'll take it under advisement. Would you consent to be one of the emissaries, if we do send someone?"

            Before Dover could answer, a violent start came from further down the table, and a scowling face leaned forwards so that Harry could see her. Harry raised his eyebrows and settled back further into his seat.

            "Auror Pedlar," he said. "Do give us your thoughts."

            Carina Pedlar had been one of Ron's best trainees during the short period when they'd worked with new Aurors, and one of the first people to join the rebellion, and one of the best students Ron had put into the new quatrains, to hear him tell it. But she had a temper, and once she took a dislike to someone...well, she was the sort of Auror who had to be restrained from putting a boot into someone's ribs on the sly, under the theory that "they're bastards anyway." From the fierce way her eyes fixed on him, Harry reckoned that he must have managed to earn her enmity.

            "You don't have any idea what you're doing," she said. "That's bloody obvious."

            "That's why I'm asking for suggestions," Harry said. "I made decisions under influences that I shouldn't have considered. I tried to take all the danger on my own shoulders, and then I did things just because I thought they would intimidate the Ministry, and it's lost me support. What would you suggest?"

            "You won't listen to them," Pedlar said. "When you say that you'll take something under advisement, that's just code for ignoring it. I heard Minister Duplais say it all the time. Why in the world did you think that I wouldn't recognize it when you used it? Are you trying to be like him in all the wrong ways?"

            "I didn't know there was a right way to be like him," Harry said, deciding on that response as the safest one of all those currently boiling behind his tongue. Ron was frantically trying to catch his eye, but Harry knew what message Ron would be trying to send to him: don't engage Pedlar. But he had to, because otherwise he would seem timid, and Harry never wanted anyone else to think like Catchers and believe that they could walk all over him. "Surely you didn't admire his attitude towards Muggleborns?" Pedlar was Muggleborn herself, from what he could remember.

            Pedlar shook her head hard enough to make her black hair fly around her. Her eyes were brown and sharp, so bright in their ferocity that they reminded Harry of Ginny's. "No. But he got things done, and he listened to his subordinates, and didn't fob them off with polite words."

            "He didn't listen to me," Harry said. "Or to Ron, or to anyone else who opposed what he wanted to do. He thought he was above all that." He felt a spark at his wrist, and looked down to see a small flame burning there. He frowned and clenched his fingers to dismiss it.

            "So you'll burn anyone who opposes you to death?" Pedlar asked, voice indignant as a crow's. "Is that it?"

            "No," Harry said. "That was my wild magic, and I am trying to keep control of it better than I used to." Though control, in this case, meant not reading the books that had taught him the most about how to keep the world around him from exploding into flames every time he got angry. Funny how that goes. But Draco and Ron were both right that the books were taking me away from the world and the reality of the rebellion. "I can only promise to listen, though. I can't take every suggestion into consideration, because not all of them will work. And I can't put all of them into practice, because we don't have enough time, or money, or people. Would you rather that I do lie about how much I'm going to listen to someone?"

            "You could do both," Pedlar whispered, her voice dark with something that might have been resentment, might have been fury, might have been hatred. "You could give little white lies, diplomatic ones, and do put into practice as much as you can."

            Harry rolled his eyes. It actually felt good to respond the way he wanted to, to stop holding himself back because he was worried about alienating someone or he was telling himself that he couldn't know what they'd risked, coming to join the rebellion. "You just told me off for using any kind of diplomatic words. Now you want lies. Make up your bloody mind."

            "A real Minister wouldn't swear at his people," Pedlar said, voice softer than ever with Harry-didn't-know-what.

            "Good thing I don't aspire to be Minister," Harry said. "Now. Do you have a suggestion, other than lie, about what I should do?"

            Pedlar spread her hands. "You've already shown that you won't listen to me; what more do you want?"

            Harry again rolled his eyes. They didn't believe in his attempt to hold back and be friendly and be mild? They thought he was detached or lacking a personality if he did that? Fine, then he wouldn't. "You've contradicted yourself and encouraged Dover to believe that I'm lying, if not other people," he said, and turned his shoulder to Pedlar, facing Dover again. "Will you draw up a list of suggestions for the way that we can implement your plan of negotiations, please? And make a list of names for people you think would make good negotiators."

            Dover gaped openly at him for a second before her shoulders straightened, and she nodded to him. Harry smiled back. "Other suggestions?" he asked.

*

            Draco knew that the opposition had changed Potter. He hadn't anticipated in what direction it would alter him.

            The man who sat at the head of the table was more human than he had been. He was snapping when something annoyed him, he was pointing out other people's mistakes, and he was asking for ideas instead of assuming that he had genius ones all on his own, genius ones that he was the only person needed to implement.

            But he was still doing things wrong. He hadn't felt out the factions that Draco knew existed in the rebellion. He had expressed no disappointment over the loss of Catchers and those who had followed him, as the politic thing to do would have been.

            He had accepted Draco's oath, and let Lucius stay.

            Of course, that last was a mistake that benefited Draco personally, and he would have had to leave the rebellion if Potter hadn't made it. There was no choice. He no longer thought about his parents exactly as he had for the past seven years, getting them free of Azkaban was no longer the overriding goal that it had been, but he still owed them loyalty for protecting him.

            He wasn't blind to the stares that followed him, though, or the mutters that seemed to swell louder every time he and Potter crossed paths. Draco dealt with it by casting a few freezing glares at the most volatile people--this Pedlar seemed like someone he would have to put down hard to keep her from rising up and attacking his back--and ignoring the rest.

            He knew the real state of affairs between him and Potter, the way Potter's eyes had shone when he reached out to help Draco back up after his oath, the questions that Potter had asked Lucius and the stone expression on his face as he listened to the answers that were half-spittle. He saw no need to tell everyone.

            A woman he didn't know, grey-haired with sensible dark robes, suggested that Potter step aside as leader of the rebellion and let Weasley take over. Draco looked up the table and found Weasley staring back at him with an identical expression of doubt and horror.

            Draco bit the corner of his lip, hard, so that he wouldn't laugh out loud and betray Potter's earnest good intentions. Of course Potter would think that his best friend could lead the rebellion in his stead, or pretend to think so in front of these people who trusted said best friend. But both Draco and Weasley knew it would be a terrible idea.

            Though likely we think that for completely different reasons, Draco had to concede when Weasley gave him a bewildered look. He hadn't been expecting the support, and Draco didn't know why.

            He must not think of us as natural friends or allies, the way I do. And I'll concede that Potter's attraction to me must worry him.

            "Why not, though?"

            Draco frowned as he turned back to the main conversation. He'd lost track of it, so overwhelmed by his own private thoughts about Weasley. That was a bad precedent to fall into. Pedlar was leaning forwards again, as aggressive as Draco would have wished for when he was Potter's enemy, all but pounding a fist into the table.

            "You'll talk and talk about these suggestions, and never do anything about them," she said. "You'll do the same thing with this suggestion that you step down. Amelie thinks that you should, I think you should, and in the meantime you're still the one who sits up at the top of the table and collects the suggestions."

            Potter shrugged, a weird little smile appearing on his face that Draco distrusted immediately. He had last seen that smile when Potter was summoning dragons, and before that, when he destroyed the Inferi with fire. "If you want me to step down, then make the suggestion," he said. "Add your voice to the chorus. But if I resigned immediately, then you could blast me for not taking enough time to consider important decisions. I've told you before, I'm not interested in the contradictions that you want to offer up in lieu of advice. I'm interested in real advice."

            "There's one thing you could do that would make everything better immediately," Pedlar said.

            "Yes?" Potter looked at her with interest.

            "Force Malfoy to give his parents up to the Ministry." Pedlar hooked her finger at Draco. "I don't trust his oath. Why should we trust an oath given by someone with a Dark Mark on his arm? It's probably worthless. If you hand the confessed Death Eaters over for justice, then it'll seem that you have more consistent aims and we can trust you more."

            "Seem," Potter echoed softly.

            Draco, his heart pounding with the possible necessity to defend his father, slowed down enough to notice that Potter's smile had faded. Good. He caught that. Pedlar was trying to act reasonable and neutral some of the time, but she couldn't help betraying herself. She just wanted Potter gone. Nothing that he did short of that would content her, and Draco thought she might actually be less happy than she imagined with him out of the leadership of the rebellion. She probably wouldn't be able to criticize the new leader so openly, and her favorite target would be gone.

            "What matters is actually having those aims," Potter said. "Not seeming, not when you'll only find another way to criticize."

            Pedlar laughed nastily. Draco was starting to think that her voice was one of the most unpleasant ones he'd ever heard. "What's the matter? Afraid of a little criticism?" Her hand strayed down to her side to what Draco assumed was her wand hidden under a fold of cloth, and her voice grew thick. "Afraid to fight me? I would forgive everything if you would duel me."

            "I don't want to," Potter said.

            "I knew it." Pedlar sounded like someone savoring a steak dinner. "Fear."

            "It deprives the rebellion of a good fighter if I beat you, and it increases your contempt for me if I let you win," Potter continued. "There's no way that it makes good political sense. Now. Are you going to sit down and let us get on with this meeting, or are you going to insist on seeing why I don't consider you even a challenge?"

            Pedlar started to rise to her feet. People on either side of her scrambled away. Draco tensed. If he had to choose a side, then he would, but he would prefer not to. Others would think he was fighting for Potter only because Potter had agreed to protect his parents.

            And that matters to you? Everyone who wants to give up your parents to the Ministry, including your mother, who did nothing, is your enemy.

            Draco was still hesitating when Potter lifted a hand and gestured with it. His fingers were curled, splayed outwards, and he moved them as if he had tangled a net around them and was pulling it up and in. Draco was watching closely, and was sure that he never had a wand in his hand and never said anything.

            Pedlar gasped and choked, bending at the waist. Small wisps of fire escaped her mouth. She wavered back and forth, one arm trying to lift her wand, before she gave up and just wrapped both hands around her stomach. Squeals of pain escaped her whenever she could draw the breath.

            Potter's face wasn't angry, just exasperated and weary. He snapped his fingers, and Pedlar straightened up again, shaking. Potter slapped his hand on the table and turned to the others staring at him in a mixture of fascination, fear, and horror.

            And anger, of course, Draco thought, struggling hard to concentrate on rational thought, to ignore the burn in his own gut that was most definitely not anger. That's there, too.

            "I'm willing to listen to suggestions," Potter said. "I'm trying to show that. But I'm not going to tolerate two things. One of them is a threat to betray us--any of us--to the Ministry. The other is the suggestion that because someone thinks he or she can beat me in a duel, I should step down as leader. Stepping down as leader may still turn out to be the best thing I could do for the revolution. So we'll discuss it. But no, you can't beat me in a duel. Don't try."

            Pedlar sat back down. Her face was pale, but she kept her hands on the table and didn't look at Potter. Good. Pedlar was the kind of person who couldn't be an asset unless she believed absolutely in what someone else was doing, and wasn't worth the trouble to court.

            Draco coughed gently and leaned forwards until he was sure that other people as well as Potter would pay attention to him.

            No need to ask about Potter paying attention to him. Potter's eyes turned to him the minute he began to move. "Yes, Draco?" he asked, and his voice was warm and welcoming enough to make Weasley shift in his seat and cast an uneasy glance at Draco.

            "We should be seeking allies," Draco said. "We're small enough as it is right now, and likely to become smaller if people insist on leaving." He ignored some of the glares he got effortlessly. They were thinking about leaving, or would depart if they couldn't get their way. He didn't see what was so important about hiding their delusions. They didn't intend to hide their dislike of him, after all. "Other people who have the same goals we do."

            Potter's face acquired a thoughtful cast. "The immediate ones I think of are the werewolves and the vampires who resist Ministry registration. They're powerful enough to matter, and they might help us given that they don't like the way the Ministry treats them. But they'd want certain things that I couldn't give them."

            "They're evil," the grey-haired woman who had asked Potter to step down earlier said in a shocked voice.

            "Are they, or is that the perception the Ministry encourages you to have of them?" Potter countered at once. His eyes were on Draco again. "Did you have someone else in mind?"

            Draco nodded. "There are people who haven't joined us but did leave the Ministry. The most recent one to resign was Auror Kenneth Malvorn, the one they had give that interview in the Daily Prophet. They might be willing to help us with less inherently destructive plans than the one that destroyed Azkaban."

            Potter nodded. "A good suggestion. We'll take it under advisement." He wrote down the words on the parchment in front of him, then looked around for others.

            A few more people voiced suggestions, most of them heavily carrying the idea that Potter should step down. Potter nodded with no trace of worry or anger and also wrote them down. One ridiculous person said that Potter should go back to concentrating on his wild magic and leave the strategizing up to Weasley--that is, continue the tactics that had got them into this mess in the first place. But Potter only wrote that one down with a serious nod, just like all the others.

            By the time that everyone filed out of the room, Draco was feeling a bit better. Potter wasn't a political genius, no, and there were people who would have said that he should try his best to apologize to Pedlar and speak more seriously about the idea to make overtures to the Ministry.

            But this at least gave them a reason to start looking in new directions. Potter wasn't paying attention to only books any longer.

            A prickling on the back of his neck caused Draco to turn around. Potter was watching him with bright eyes, and ignoring those who watched and muttered. Why not? If he did step down as leader, then they would have no reason to care so much about his private life.

            No, not only paying attention to books any longer.

            Draco swallowed, gave Potter a little half-nod, and took his leave.

*

            SP777: Good for you! I hope Hermione's letter to Ron was comprehensible, then, if you remembered what had been done to her.

            The person writing to the Minister thinks they can predict the moment Harry goes off the rails. That's going to be important.
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Intoxicate the Sun