Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

The Descent of Magic	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 18803 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 5
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

Chapter List
- 28
- 29
- 30
Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Twenty-Nine—Meeting at the Ministry

            “Harry, I need you to write these letters today.”

            Harry nodded with a little grimace as Hermione slapped the papers full of names down in front of him. He knew that he should have attended to this first, that it was important if they were going to encourage Muggleborns as well as pure-bloods to attend their meeting in the Ministry and hear about what they could do to help house-elves and other magical creatures.

            He had spent too much time in the last few days thinking about Draco and Hugo. But the situation with Hugo was on the way to mending, and Draco…

            Harry smiled. Draco was a ready and constant delight, even when he was calling Harry “Potter” and turning his head away as though it embarrassed him to flush.

            “You’re doing it again.”

            Harry started and returned to himself. Hermione stood scowling at him with her hands on her hips, and he nodded and picked up the quill in front of him. “I know. I was thinking about this, too, though. Is there someone I should write to first?” He peered at the list Hermione had given him, wondering if it was really in order by importance, which was his first impulse but might not be right.

            Hermione did a little more glaring, then seemed to sense she wouldn’t get a straight answer out of Harry for a while, and sighed. “Yes. The names at the top of the list are Muggleborns who’ve been giving ambiguous interviews to the papers, and trying to paint everything we’re doing as only important to pure-bloods, because they’re the only ones who have their fertility affected.”

            Harry snorted. “Did you tell them about the de Mains?” He had discovered the family in his research, a family made of Muggleborns marrying Muggleborns who had begun to lose their fertility after only two generations in the wizarding world, or more specifically after enslaving some house-elves and hunting centaurs for sport.

            Hermione gave him a dreadful smile. “Not all of them have heard that story yet, but it would be a good thing to mention and emphasize in your letters, don’t you think?”

            Harry shared the smile, and bent cheerfully over his work.

*

            Draco sighed as yet another owl swooped into his lab. He had already answered letters this morning from Scorpius—tentative and snapping but still welcome—and Highfeather and a few other pure-bloods who were trying to nose in on ground they thought Highfeather possessed as exclusive territory. He wondered, as he plucked this letter from the pure white owl, how this new person would phrase their combination of politeness and offense.

            But the letter had handwriting he knew well. Draco narrowed his eyes and ripped the envelope open. Now he had to wonder how Astoria was going to mess things up.

            Dear Draco…

            Draco blinked. That was so polite that he had to think Scorpius had talked to her and convinced her Draco wasn’t so horrible. And that made a small spark of warmth burst into brightness inside him, because Scorpius had thought well enough of him to give that good impression to someone else.

            Not just someone else. His interfering mother, and my interfering ex-wife.

            He shook his head and began to read the letter again.

            Dear Draco,

            Scorpius has informed me of the way that you approached him and insisted on a reconciliation. I was not impressed at first, because to me it seemed only another demand that you were making on your son, who does not have the power to refuse you. But Scorpius has assured me that I was mistaken, and that you were very pleasant with him, and answered a question about his Sorting that he had never known the answer to before.

            I still question whether you should spend much time around him. I still think that he needs his own life, with his own friends, subject neither to your approval nor to mine.

            But I would like to speak with you further about our son, in a neutral location of your choosing. Perhaps we can counteract the poison and tension between us, as we once controlled it in the divorce, for his sake.

            Your sincerely,

            Astoria.

            Draco spent a few more moments looking at the letter carefully, and finding no letters written in invisible ink, and nothing that made him suspect Astoria had written it under coercion, as was his immediate impulse to think. Perhaps, after all, he could reconcile with his ex-wife as well as with his son.

            Then Draco paused, his mind full again of the revelation that had occurred when Astoria had gone to the papers with her threats and he realized what he had revealed to her wasn’t that damaging after all.

            She threatened me and still expresses doubt about how good I am for Scorpius, and I’m the one who should apologize and meet with her?

            Draco shook his head. There was a difference between being civil with Astoria for Scorpius’s sake, and meeting with her and listening to her berate him. The letter didn’t contain an apology for what she had done.

            He reached for a sheet of parchment and wrote on it swiftly, watching in pleasure as the words spilled out of him, the way he had sometimes seen it happen when his father was the one writing the letter to a person who had begged for money from him. Of course, the content of his letter was rather different from any of his father’s, but that was all right.

            Dear Astoria,

            I appreciate the spirit in which your letter was sent, and I hope that you and I will always manage to celebrate the child we created and have peace and the amity between us for his sake. But I’m afraid that I’m simply far too busy right now to meet with you. We start a new meeting in a few days, at the Ministry, and I need all my attention on the cause and what I can do to prepare for it. I’m part of a team, and can’t simply depart at my own pleasure.

            Yours sincerely,

            Draco.

*

            Harry hesitated for a long moment before he stepped away from the Apparition point he’d chosen. It was a good distance outside the Ministry. That was the important part, he thought, leaning down and rubbing his leg.

            It wasn’t that he didn’t want to attend the meeting. Of course he did. And since he had spent enough time writing letters in the last few days for his hand to feel like it should be amputated, he certainly wasn’t going to hold back now and whine that he should be allowed to stay at home.

            But this was important for him in a way that appearing at Hogwarts hadn’t been. For all that Hogwarts was home to him, it hadn’t been the place where he worked for almost twenty years. It hadn’t been the last place he’d felt employed and important before the warlocks kidnapped him and hurt him.

            It hadn’t been a place he had visited once, only to see it full of pitying eyes that made him run away.

            Harry shook his head. Hermione had come early to make contact and make sure no one would interrupt the meeting; Draco had wanted to work and would come later. There was no one to escort him, no one to chivy him along and scold him about the pain in his leg or talk to him earnestly about his duty towards the wizarding world. He was the one who had to make this decision.

            He was the one who had to take the first step.

            I can’t ever go back to the past. Most of his life during the last two years had been an attempt to come to terms with that particular fact.

            But maybe I can make them see that I’m no less to be respected now, that losing some sensation in one knee doesn’t cripple me for life.

            With Draco’s face in his thoughts, and Hermione’s, and Hugo’s, and Al’s, and Teddy’s, and Lily’s, Harry stepped off the Apparition point and walked, limping when he needed to, down the alley towards the Ministry.

*

            “There you are.” Granger seized Draco’s arm the moment he stepped into the Atrium and bustled him away towards three prim chairs placed at the far end. “There are several people who wanted to meet you, and Highfeather’s been asking for you, and Renee Greengrass is claiming special privileges to sit near the front because you were her cousin-in-law…”

            Draco stared. He had known that Granger envisioned this as their largest meeting yet, but he could hardly take in the size and composition of the crowd—and that only had a little to do with the speed with which Granger took him through it. Ministry officials, Muggleborn parents, Hogwarts professors, apothecaries, Potions masters, Aurors, the inevitable reporters—

            And enemies, too. Hostile faces still turned towards him. Draco saw people who had never responded to the letters that he and his allies sent them, or responded grudgingly and too late. They focused on the way that Granger clutched his arm, and their faces congealed with satisfaction.

            Draco tossed back his head and reached up, taking Granger’s hand off his arm with a snapping motion that made her blink at him. “I can walk from here,” he told her. “You hardly need to drag me.”

            “No, I’ll save that for Harry,” Granger said, and shook her head. “Not that I think I’ll need to drag him somewhere where you are.”

            Draco gaped at her, then remembered their audience and slammed his mouth shut. He walked a few steps in dignified silence, at least until they were at the front of the crowd and prying ears would hear too much chatter to make out the conversation between him and this woman who knew too much.

            “So you know, then,” he said at last, his eyes steady and his voice more than that. His father would have been proud, he thought, of the way that he managed to infuse his tones with granite.

            “Not for sure until just now,” Granger said, and met Draco’s silent outrage that a Gryffindor would be able to manipulate him like that with a miniature shrug. “Sorry, but you made it pretty easy.”

            Draco thought of the smiles he and Potter had exchanged at the breakfast table, and decided that it was so. Well. He would just have to live with it. At least Granger finding out was better than one of her children doing so. Draco thought he could trust Granger not to gossip about them before he and Potter were ready to tell.

            “I’m here,” he said. “Potter will be. We’ll do what’s needful.”

            “Draco.”

            Draco had to control his immediate outraged breath when he turned around. Highfeather had no right to call him that when she had tried to take Potter from him.

            Not that she knew that he had watched her proposal, of course. That gave him the advantage, and that poured cool water on the flames of his fury. Draco bowed his head and said, “Yes, Madam Highfeather?”

            “Oh, you can call me Alicia,” Highfeather said, and smiled at him. “I was thinking, don’t you believe that I should sit up front with you, as your most prominent ally and the one who’s contributed the most money to the cause so far? I suspect that many of those who are hesitant at the moment to contribute their funds might do so if they see what honor it brings them.” She touched the medal hanging from her shirt.

            “Well, my ally Hermione Granger here is in charge of the seating arrangements,” Draco said, annoyed with the way that Highfeather kept her head turned away from Granger and her attention fixed on Draco all the time. Granger’s first name didn’t taste as strange as he had expected in his mouth, even though it was perhaps only the second time he had said it in his life. “You should ask her.”

            And he turned away before Highfeather and Granger could do more than gape at him.

            He finally saw Potter as he walked to the front to stand beside the chairs Granger had placed there, and paused. Potter was walking with a pale face and a hand poised beside him that made Draco think of his knee, and the last dose of potion he had given him, and how long it had been meant to endure.

            Longer than a single day, of course. He had given him the new, perfected dose just yesterday. Sometimes Draco thought living in Potter’s actual house was warping his sense of time.

            “Potter,” he said quietly, and Potter turned his head and saw him.

            Immediately, the tightness went out of his mouth and jaw, and he nodded to Draco. Draco wanted to reach out and touch him when he saw that. It wouldn’t have had to be an important touch, only a skimming of his hand down Potter’s hand or shoulder. Anyone except Granger could have misinterpreted it as him not wanting his ally to fall over in front of another group of people, and Draco would have been happy.

            But Potter was still too far from him for Draco to indulge the impulse, and by the time that Draco had joined him, he had conquered that particular idea. He nodded to Potter and said, “You’re doing well?”

            “Yes,” Potter said. “Just had to remind myself that the Ministry isn’t any more full of enemies than anywhere else, now.”

            Draco stared at him. “Did you receive threatening letters from someone here?”

            Potter choked, but Draco found that he couldn’t resent the laughter. It sounded more like Potter’s weary attempt to come to terms with himself than anything else. “No,” Potter said at last. “But I received a lot of pitying glances, and words about how I could still make an important contribution to Auror work even though I couldn’t go out in the field anymore.” His hand clenched at the level of his knee, without touching it.

            Draco snorted. “If they had cared that much, they would have investigated and discovered the spells on your knee before now.”

            Potter shrugged.

            “And they would have investigated to determine the identities of the warlocks who captured you,” Draco said. Now that he thought about it, it seemed strange that the Ministry hadn’t made that a top priority. They’d had a wounded Savior on their hands, and it had taken them at least a week to discover his whereabouts. Launching a major search seemed the best way to avoid a public relations disaster.

            Potter shook his head. “They did, but secretly, so as to avoid alerting anyone who may have worked with them. Nothing. They did their best, Draco, really they did, just like the Healers who investigated my knee did. I’d rather not talk about it anymore.”

            Draco nodded, but he did say, “Someone should do something about that.”

            Potter smiled at him. “Well, you solved half the problem. That’s more than anyone else was able to do.”

            Draco swallowed, told himself that he had to stop being caught off-guard like that when Potter said something sweet, and swept his hand towards the chairs. “If your knee is hurting, the best cure is to sit down,” he said.

            “I would never have figured that out,” Potter said, with a fatuous widening of his eyes. It made Draco flush to remember how recently he would have believed that expression. He stepped back and bowed Potter to his chair with a cold little movement.

            But Potter let his hand trail behind him, and his fingers squeezed Draco’s wrist. Draco turned his head and shut his eyes. Otherwise, he would just watch the contact long after Potter had let it go and gone to his seat.

            Another chair appeared on the far side of Granger’s as Draco sat down, and Highfeather joined them, nodding to them both. There was no more focus on Potter than on Draco, Draco was pleased to see.

“What a remarkable woman your Granger is,” Highfeather said as she took her seat and flared the skirts of her robes around her. “Strangely—perceptive. And very persuasive.” Her eyes lingered on Granger’s back as Granger turned to start the meeting, and Draco saw them dart about a moment later. Looking for the pure-blood who directed Granger’s actions, no doubt.

Draco shook his head. There was a time he had done similar things, but never one as stupid. Granger had fought for the rights of house-elves and Muggleborns for twenty years. No pure-blood who would want to control her in the first place would have chosen such a cause, or been content to remain in the shadows so long without acknowledgment.

“Ready?” Potter whispered, leaning near him.

            Draco noticed the slant of his head, and followed his gaze. Potter was looking at the front row of chairs—no, the one just beyond them. The front row was mostly occupied by people who had made some sort of contribution or the ones in the Ministry that Granger had persuaded to give permission for this, Draco thought.

            In the second row sat Scorpius, his arms folded and his jaw thrust out and his eyes focused on Draco as if he wanted to devour him.

            Draco swallowed. But there remained the fact that he hadn’t felt the gaze until Potter alerted him, which meant he had been acting naturally in front of Scorpius.

            Which meant, in turn, that there was a chance—a small chance—that Scorpius would acknowledge that Draco felt something sincere for Potter, and about this cause, and remember that not everything related back to him and Draco’s desire to impress him.

            He waved to his son and turned back to Potter, drinking in the sight of that dark hair and the green eyes so close to him. “I am now,” he said.

            And a moment later, he had a warm smile to watch, too.

*

            ChaosLady: Yes, a little. They still have a pretty long way to go.

            moodysavage: Awww! I think I would have understood. ;)

            unneeded: I’m sorry to hear about your poor health. I hope you feel better now.

            Harry is related to the Blacks, but only distantly. Phineas is trying to create trouble because that’s what he does.

            SP777: There will be some strides, but it’s too big a subject to “solve” in one story. I don’t think there will be a sequel.
- 28
- 29
- 30
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 Descent of Magic