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Black Phoenix	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 21568 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 5
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Chapter Twenty-Nine—Inside the Court
            “You don’t look well-prepared for this, sir.”
            Rosenthal’s voice was so neutral that she might have been commenting on the color of his robes. Then Draco, looking into the mirror and seeing the calm, flat way she even stood behind him, winced a little. No, she would show more passion if she was talking about the color of his robes. After all, they might signal something wrong to the wrong person if they didn’t take care.
            “I know that. I’m worried about Harry,” Draco said simply. And also about the information that Rosenthal had brought back from the Ministry, which showed that more people were on Gorenson’s side than Draco would have thought possible, but mostly about Harry.
            Rosenthal grimaced a little, but not so fleetingly that Draco’s eye didn’t catch it in the mirror. He raised his eyebrows at her, and stepped back from the glass, turning to face the entrance that would take him out onto the Manor grounds. The wards had been reinforced so that no one was getting through them without Draco’s express permission.
            Except Harry, if he wants to come. And maybe Gorenson, if he really is an Unspeakable using all sorts of artifacts that we don’t know about. But he wasn’t going to say that aloud, either.
            “I don’t see a reason to be worried about Lord Potter.” Rosenthal would never go so far as to fold her arms, but she had her head turned away, listening to the noise of the crowd gathering on his grounds, and her shoulders were a bit hunched. “This isn’t the first time that he hasn’t returned your Floo calls.”
            “Yes, I know,” Draco said, and then drew in a long breath and held it. He wasn’t going to explode on Rosenthal. With some effort, he smoothed his breathing out and nodded to her, mouth worked into the cheerful smile that most of his visitors would expect, since he had sensitive information on an enemy. “This is just the way we’ll have to be. Focused on what’s in front of us. Right?”
            Rosenthal’s frown flitted across her face again, but she nodded. “Yes, sir.” She drew out a piece of parchment. “Do you want the list of names?”
            Draco nodded and held out his hand. He hadn’t bothered to memorize the list. He was going to throw out names in random order, and watch the crowd’s reaction. Gorenson might not have bothered sending a spy, knowing that everything Draco said at a conference like this would be all over the newspapers within an hour, but he wanted to see if anyone jumped at the names.
            If nothing else, it might be amusing.
            He took one more minute to check the hang of both his robes and his smile in the mirror, and then turned to face the door.
            We both have to focus on what’s in front of us, Harry. I just hope to hell that you know what you’re doing.
*
            “You can’t mean to do this, Harry.” Hermione’s voice was low, her eyes wet and frightened. “This is crazy. You know it is.”
            “As crazy as cutting off bits of myself?” Harry turned his head and arched his eyebrows, and had the satisfaction of seeing Hermione bow her head in front of him.
            And it was satisfaction, yes. Harry could feel that dark emotion moving within him, perhaps not appropriate towards one of his best friends, but real. He had come up with this solution. He had taken advantage of what he knew that no one else did, the feeling of the magic that had created Persephone from the inside. He knew that it would work in the same way that he knew that he was bonded with Hogwarts, in the same way that he felt the breath in his lungs moving in and out, in the same way that he knew where his feet were when he was walking.
            He might go down struggling madly against some of his own fears, but he would at least struggle.
            “Are you sure that you want to do this?” Hermione was pacing back and forth in front of his desk now, wringing her hands together. Ron watched from the far corner, his arms behind his back, his face so calm that Harry found it difficult to tell what he was thinking of. Honestly, he had almost forgotten Ron was there in the chaos of Hermione’s reaction. “You know that it’ll mean speeding up her burning day. And you were counting on having some extra time to build up your plans—”
            “When I was still planning on cutting off bits of myself,” Harry interrupted. He wouldn’t let Hermione forget what the alternative to his new plan was. “And even then, I didn’t know when she was going to burn, so I still had to suffer the torments of uncertainty.” He smiled a little when he saw Hermione give him an annoyed glance for the elevated language, in the middle of everything. “This way, I can choose my own time, and have it happen on a day that isn’t a full moon, and isn’t a day when I have to meet with a delegation, and isn’t a day that I need to interview someone to enter my court. Hell, I can even schedule it for a weekend so that classes aren’t in session.”
            Hermione came to a stop as though he had slapped her, but Ron was the one who asked the obvious question. “You’re going to do it this weekend, mate?”
            Harry nodded. “I think so. Now that I understand what I need to do, there’s no good reason to put it off.” He turned and stared at Persephone, tucked into herself, head and neck and wings all folded, body hunched over her gripping talons. “She’s suffering. I don’t want her to hurt more than she needs to.” He saw Hermione nod from the corner of his eye, but Ron frowned a little, as though remembering that Persephone had caused plenty of people to suffer, or would have, if she could.
            But that was the point. She would have caused them to suffer if she could. But she hadn’t. And if Harry was right about the cycle and the magic that he needed to pour into it, then he would be able to prevent her from eating anyone again.
            “Where are you going to do it?” Ron had evidently decided against trying to talk Harry out of it.
            “In the Great Hall.”
            This time, Hermione was the one who snapped, “Impossible,” while Ron was the one who frowned. “How are you going to keep people out?”
            Harry relaxed enough to grin at her. “Who was telling me the other day about the level of control I have over my subjects in my court, to the point that a lot of them leap to obey me? And I’m bound to the walls of Hogwarts. They might grumble about my safety, but they’ll obey me. I can seal off all the entrances to the Great Hall if I need to.”
            “Why?” Ron asked quietly, before Hermione could say what she thought of that. Something scathing, Harry knew, from the way she opened her mouth.
            “Why there?” Ron nodded. Harry stood up and crossed to the window, pausing beside Persephone’s perch as he did. She was too sick even to shiver. Harry sent a tendril of warmth up through the floor of Hogwarts and into the perch that Persephone’s feet gripped, but she didn’t respond.
            “Because I can’t do it off the grounds of Hogwarts,” Harry said softly. “I wouldn’t have the strength built up to maintain and change the cycle between her and me the way I need to. And if I do it out in the open, I risk more people wandering into it, not to mention someone attacking me once they figure out what I’m doing.” The more he thought about it, the more he had become certain that Gorenson was waiting for Persephone’s burning day. Even if he wasn’t controlling her and had nothing to do with her illness, he would try to strike when she was weak and Harry, bound to her soul, was weak likewise.
            “There’s another reason, right?” Hermione planted her hands on her hips and lifted her chin challengingly. “Because neither of those sound like very good reasons to risk the heart of the school to me.”
            Harry smiled at her. “The heart of a school is its students. Not a building, however beautiful.”
            Hermione grumbled, but said, “Still. Isn’t the Chamber of Secrets safer, if you need a big place that no one’s going to wander into?”
            “The ceiling of the Great Hall,” said Ron suddenly, sitting up. “You need its magic somehow, don’t you? Because it’s the most complicated in Hogwarts?”
            Harry gave him an approving smile. “Partially that, but really because the ceiling cycles in and out of night and day and through the weather patterns and the seasons. It’ll provide a…” He hesitated. He knew what the books would call it, but that wasn’t the same thing as what he would call it.
            Luckily, Hermione came up with the word that satisfied her before he had to choose between the inaccurate but real word or the accurate but imaginary one. “You’re going to use that cycling of the ceiling’s magic as the field for your magic,” she whispered. She clasped her hands to her mouth again, but this time, her eyes shone with something like admiration. “You’re going to build off it. That’s genius, Harry.”
            Harry swept her a little bow. “I try.” Then he turned and moved towards the Floo.
            “What are you going to do?” Hermione followed behind him like a hungry hound.
            “I’m going to alert Draco that I have a different solution than cutting off bits of myself,” Harry said. A wicked little part of him enjoyed Hermione’s wince. Harry grinned to himself and reached for the Floo powder.
            Then he settled his hand and sighed. Draco had a conference of some sort today. He wouldn’t be in his house, or able to take Harry’s Floo call if he was.
            Harry felt a small smile pull at his lips in the next moment, and raised his hands, murmuring to the school. The stones lifted from the floor and flowed towards him, in a wave that made Hermione step back and Ron lean forwards in interest. Harry thought that Ron trusted in his bond with the school more than Hermione did, but then, that only made sense, because he had lived here longer than Hermione in the first place.
            The stones flowed and foamed around Harry, jumping up and down, weaving around him, surrounding him for a moment with strips of earth and rock that he could barely breathe beneath. Harry remained calm. He knew what he was asking of the school, and it would never harm him. Holding his breath for a few seconds was well worth the disguise it could provide him, besides.
            Then the stones dropped back into the floor. Hermione peered down at them as if expecting fissures between them. Harry knew better. The stones had been a little weakened with some of their matter gone to Harry, but they would redistribute the gaps all along the castle, so that only a grain of dust or flake of rock would be missing here and there.
            “What are you wearing, mate?” Ron was staring at him.
            Harry spread his arms and grinned. “Like it?” He was decorated with dirt in regular patterns, along with grey stone-dust, changing the colors of his clothes and even his skin. He now looked part-goblin, if a little tall for it. Part-goblins were often avoided in polite society, unless they’d held a trusted position for as long as Professor Flitwick. People would give him nervous glances and leave him alone. “I’ll be on the fringes of the crowd when Draco makes his speech.”
            “I don’t think it’s as safe as you think it is,” Hermione said, but shook her head when Harry glanced at her. “But I think you’re right that you need to talk to someone about this, and it might as well be Malfoy.”
            Harry snorted a little while he recognized the gleam in her eyes. She hoped that Draco could talk him out of this plan where she had failed. He wondered whether she would accept that his plan was successful when he had actually completed it, or if it would take a little longer than that.
            He turned to Ron. “Do you think I’ll pass muster?” he asked, and struck a pose, hunching his shoulders and letting his eyes go blank and glazed, as though he was dim-witted.
            Ron grinned, almost reluctantly. Well, he was most used to pranks and disguises than Hermione, because of all the times that the twins had used them. He nodded now and said, “Yeah. I wish I could say that you should take Persephone or Blackthorne with you, but they would recognize you instantly if you did that.”
            Harry winked at them both and turned towards the wall. A tunnel was already opening up for him, stairs forming in it. It would take him where he needed to go.
            He cast a glance at his friends and saluted them, pausing when his eyes passed over Persephone. He didn’t like leaving her alone like this. If he was right and Gorenson was waiting for her burning day to do something, to strike in a moment of weakness, then he half-felt he should stay right with her.
            But if his bond with Hogwarts and the wards couldn’t protect her while he was gone, then he wasn’t nearly as secure as he liked to think he was, anyway. He finished saluting, and stepped into the tunnel, making for the edge of the wards.
*
            “Justice Elmont.”
            Draco paused to let that last frankly ridiculous pseudonym drop into the crowd, and smiled at the enraptured looks he received. Skeeter had showed up late, probably because she was spying in the Ministry, but she hadn’t stopped writing for the last ten minutes. Now and then she looked up and flashed him a wink.
            Not everyone among the reporters, Ministry flunkies, voters, and generally curious looked as enchanted with him, but on the other hand, they couldn’t turn away, either. For Draco to announce that he had a list of names that were all the same person, and then actually read all the names aloud, instead of trying to back himself up with vague promises and threats, was novel. Draco knew that Tillipop would never have done it even if he had access to such a list. He preferred to hint, and hope that people would forget they never actually saw any substance.
            Well, he was right about that, Draco had to admit. Lots of people did forget. The average wizarding voter was as undiscerning and credulous as any Muggle. They forgot about everything but the latest scandal, challenged the candidates on issues that it turned out they didn’t care about, and wanted the least of their privileges left untouched. They were annoying as a group, and Draco wouldn’t have wanted to represent them if he hadn’t been able to think of a use for them.
            Once he was in power, though, he wouldn’t have to put up with inane questions on a daily basis. Not from the voters, at any rate. He had discovered competent people in the Ministry he could work with, and that was enough for him.
            Rosenthal sent him a subtle hand signal. Draco relaxed further. She had been monitoring the special net of wards stretched around the crowd, ones that would have let him know if anyone had tried to smuggle in a Dark artifact. They might not be proof against an Unspeakable artifact that could disguise itself, of course, but at this point, Draco really doubted that would be a problem.
            Then he saw the dusty-grey figure hovering at the edge of the crowd.
            Draco stared for a second, and saw Rosenthal pivot to follow his gaze. She tensed, perhaps thinking it was another of Gorenson’s disguises. Well, Draco had thought the same, at first. Gorenson probably wouldn’t try to assassinate him in front of everyone again, but he might show up openly to try and taunt Draco, the way he had by sending the ring with the ghost owl.
            But if the figure was dressed and colored like a half-goblin, Draco knew that twist of the head, that bob of the messy hair. This was Harry, disguised who knew how, and come to support Draco in his moment of triumph. Even as Draco watched, he raised one hand and waved. And that wouldn’t give him away, either, because who would think that the all-powerful Dark Lord Potter would come to a speech looking like that?
            Stifling laughter, Draco turned back to his list.
            And that was the moment when fire reached out to him from the Manor, from the grounds, from every direction save the crowd itself, and white-hot pain flashed along his nerves, followed by dazzling darkness.
*
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Black Phoenix