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Easy as Falling	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 31246 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 4
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

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Chapter Three—Anything For a Normal Life, Except That

            “Only three minutes until we have to be out there.”

            Christie Rosenthal’s voice was calm, but Draco could see her hand reflected in the mirror that stood before him, clenched down hard enough that he feared she would break her thumb. He reached back and tapped on her fist until it relaxed, then studied his face in the mirror again.

            Signs of weariness. He could have concealed them with glamours, but he saw no need. The public would expect a candidate who looked battle-worn. Minister Tillipop wasn’t popular, but most Ministers weren’t. Someone who took the contest less than seriously could still lose. Sometimes people would vote against them simply because they thought they didn’t look serious enough.

            Draco’s hair was perfect, though. He was known for that. It wouldn’t do to abandon a gesture that might come to seem significant as a signature now. And he wore dove-grey robes that swished around him with the perfect silence of expensive fur.

            He turned back to Rosenthal and nodded. “Now we’re ready.”

            “With only one minute left to be ready,” Rosenthal muttered, but she shook her head and gestured him towards the door that led out onto the front steps of Malfoy Manor. Draco smiled as he followed her. He’d never had any reason to regret hiring her to coordinate his public appearances and leak “secret” information to the press, but she did have her nervous moments.

            Cameras started flashing the minute they stepped out the door. Draco swept a bow and stood where he was for a moment, turning his head slowly from side to side as though he simply wanted to count how many people were waiting in his gardens. The fact that it would allow those snapping pictures to see all the many angles of his face and how handsome he remained was purely incidental.

            When Rosenthal, who had taken up a position at his side, gestured again, Draco walked the rest of the way forwards, to the edge of the steps. He bowed to the watchers and tapped his wand against his throat. There was an immediate hissing for silence, mostly from the people he’d planted in the crowd.

            “Thank you for coming,” Draco said, as grave and solemn as he could make himself be when giddy delight spiraled up his throat. “It’s an honor to know that so many people believe me, who was tried on Dark magic charges not so long ago, capable of being Minister.”

            He saw a few glances flicker through the crowd, and didn’t smile, although he wanted to. There would be some of Tillipop’s people here, too—not many, since he didn’t take Draco seriously as an opponent yet—and they had planned to bring up his past.

            Draco had come to believe in taking the most dangerous weapons out of his enemies’ hands before they could use them. Potter’s strategy of the Disarming Spell made sense to him now.

            “I still wear the grotesque brand of my slavery to a madman,” Draco continued, and turned his left arm towards the cameras. Although it wasn’t obvious because of the outer robe he wore to cover it, his inner sleeve was short, short enough to display the Dark Mark and the blazing ugliness of it to the crowd.

            From the corner of his eye, he saw Rosenthal close her own eyes and move her lips as if practicing a speech. She hadn’t been sure about this tactic, and had finally shouted at Draco when he told her he was going to use it and she could quit his campaign if she wanted. There had been swearing, something he wasn’t used to with Rosenthal.

            On the other hand, he had heard plenty of it from his parents and peers when he first made his decision to go after the Minister’s office known. So he bore with it now, and let everyone look at the Mark as long as he liked.

            “Aren’t you afraid that some people will always distrust you?” a voice called out from the crowd.

            Pansy, Draco knew, and he bowed his head and assumed a mournful expression. “Some people will,” he murmured. “But I hope there are others who will look deeply into matters and admit that they were wrong, that I have tried to redeem myself. I have hopes of forgiveness, too.” He looked up and produced his best smile. Beside him, he could hear Rosenthal’s breathing calming down.

            “But why should we trust someone who practiced Dark magic?” demanded a second voice from a different corner.

            And Blaise, Draco thought, with a flicker of joy that he didn’t allow to make its way onto his face. His friends had proved more loyal than he had dared to hope. “That’s not something I can tell you you should do,” Draco responded. “Everyone must make the decision for themselves. What I can ask for is a fair chance, for intelligent people to read and hear everything and make up their minds for themselves, instead of blindly believing the first side of the story that comes along.”

            He saw Rosenthal relax a little more, and would have nodded to her if he hadn’t known the cameras would catch it and it might look suspicious. They had to present a totally united and confident front for right now.

            But this was the right tactic to take, Draco was certain. Readers liked to be told they were intelligent, and there was no reason to hold back when he was a new challenger and placing his secrets out in front of everyone. The one big advantage of the way he’d been held and tried was that everyone knew about his horrible past. People could use it against him, but not in a way that made it seem more horrible than it was. It wasn’t new news.

            But what had gone on in Leonard Tillipop’s office, behind closed doors…

            A smile would also be the wrong gesture just now, so Draco held still, and looked grave instead, and waited for the next question, which would probably be a real one. His friends had managed to set the tone of the first part of the discussion, but Draco doubted they would be lucky enough to continue dominating it.

            Sure enough, Rita Skeeter was the one who leaned forwards and smiled at him and launched a question she must have thought would strike him hard. “What do you think of the Board of Governors’ intention to close Hogwarts? Isn’t your father on the Board?”

            “He used to be,” Draco said, with a slow nod of his head, as though admiring the judicious way she had put the question. “But after his arrest, he was dismissed from the Board, of course. I don’t blame them,” he added, because he could see a way to turn the question to his own advantage. “No one could know then whether he would redeem himself or not, or who else in his family might do so.”

            Skeeter blinked, and her quill ceased to move for a second. Draco smiled sweetly back at her. You should have done some basic research.

            Skeeter shook her head and hopped back into position a moment later. “But what about their intention? We know that Minister Tillipop supports them. Would you, were you to earn the position?”

            What Draco wanted to say was, They did it because they knew Hogwarts was independent of them and producing wizards who didn’t always grow up believing Ministry doctrine. No wonder they decided to close it. And no, I wouldn’t support it, but I wouldn’t change it, either, until I knew that I had enough people behind me to do so.

            True answers weren’t welcome in a political campaign, though, and Draco had known that from the time he was young. So he didn’t need Rosenthal holding her breath as if he was about to ruin his chances. It must be, Draco thought tolerantly, that she knew, from their strategy meetings, that he did have those thoughts, and feared they would simply overpower his tongue and rush out someday.

            Now, Draco smiled temperately. “I find it a bad idea to criticize the ideas of a political opponent this close to the election day,” he said. “Moreover, ungenerous.”

            Quills scribbled all over. Draco caught Rosenthal’s eye and smiled for the cameras. Yes, of course that made good copy, and of course he would forget it and criticize Tillipop again once the rumors started. No one who had a voice to speak of it would care.

            A few other reporters asked questions, some about his Hogwarts days, some about his activities since the war. Blaise managed to sneak in one about donations. Draco answered them all easily, with one eye on a tall woman who stood in the back and frowned down at her quill as though she wanted it to move still faster. She was meditating something, and Draco didn’t want the question to take him by utter surprise when she asked it.

            But when she looked up at him and asked, “And what is your relationship with Auror Harry Potter like?” he couldn’t help a blink.

            “Mr. Malfoy?” the woman asked a moment later, straightening and throwing her hair back over her shoulder. “Do you need me to repeat the question?” Her eyes gleamed, and she had her hand poised above her parchment as though she wanted to write the next words herself, rather than have the quill repeat them.

            “I respect Auror Potter, of course,” Draco said, wondering where in the world this had come from, and why it mattered. Had someone spread rumors about him getting upset with Potter? But he could see Rosenthal frowning a little from the corner of his eye, and he knew that particular frown; it meant she was puzzled, too. If such rumors had appeared, she would have told him. “I remain grateful for what he did for me and my family at the trials. And he returned my wand. I’m also proud to own the wand that defeated Voldemort.”

            Half of them still swayed back like grass at the sound of that name. Draco had to lick his lips after saying it himself. But he was glad he had conquered his own fear, even if it taken a trip to Hogwarts and replaying of the battle in Pensieve memories to do it. Voldemort was dead. No use bringing him up, except when Draco could use his name for a political maneuver.

            “I wondered,” the woman said, her eyes all alight, “because of this letter I received.” She took a parchment out of her pocket and cast a spell that fluttered it towards Draco.

            Rosenthal was in the way to catch it, as if accidentally, but she passed it on quickly enough that Draco knew it didn’t bear any curses. He fumbled a moment until it was in position and he could read it.

            I’ve taken over Hogwarts, and no one can stop me. If you try to close the school down, then you’ll have to deal with my magic.

            There was a little space, as though Potter hadn’t been sure how he should sign this—what? declaration of intent to take over the wizarding world?—and then it was followed by the words, Dark Lord Harry Potter.

            Draco blinked. He thought lots of people were blinking. He wondered for a moment how he could not have known about this, since it would have been in all the papers and the reporter who had asked him questions couldn’t have been the only one who received a letter, but then he remembered how closely-tucked up he and Rosenthal had been, planning. Rosenthal had probably seen it and saved it to tell him later, or thought it was a joke.

            Draco looked up and smiled sadly into the flashing cameras.

            “I’m sorry to see that Auror Potter may have become a Dark Lord,” he said, and then added, because it was true and this situation was so strange that truth wouldn’t hurt, “But immensely curious to see what he does next.”

*

            “Why the fuck did you call yourself that?”

            Harry blinked at Hermione. It was only the second time or so in all the years he’d known her that he’d heard her swear. Then again, he reckoned no one could live with Ron for long without picking it up.

            “Because that’s what they’re going to consider me,” he said, watching her as she paced the Headmistress’s office. Harry hadn’t intended to take it over, but McGonagall had moved herself out into a different set of rooms, saying she no longer felt welcome as the school bonded more and more intensely to Harry. Harry didn’t know what he was going to do about that, either. “A Dark Lord is a powerful wizard who tries to take over the world. That’s the only name they have for it, so I might as well claim the title before anyone else can give it to me.”

            Hermione turned and stared wearily at him, pushing her hair back behind her ears. “You have no idea what I wouldn’t give for some time alone with them,” she muttered.

            “With who?” Harry cast a Stabilizing Charm on the huge, tottering pile of parchment on his desk. It looked as though it would tilt and empty itself all over his floor at any moment, and he wanted to avoid that if possible. He hadn’t anticipated how many owls would come back to him after his initial announcement to the reporters. He had thought most people would be too scared to write. But no, instead he got Howlers, and people begging him “not to turn his back on the Light,” and more than a dozen with interview questions, and—probably the most disturbing—marriage proposals, more frequent than the requests with interviews.

            People, Harry had come to realize as with a crack of mystical revelation, were bloody weird.

            “With the people who convinced you that you had to sacrifice yourself.” Hermione gave an irritable wave of her hand at the office. “With the Dursleys, and Dumbledore, and—oh, everyone else who did it, too.”

            Harry blinked at her again, and then smiled a little. “I appreciate you wanting to defend my honor,” he said, and listened to the soft singing of the stones. So far, the school hadn’t really done anything strange. Oh, it hummed when he spoke, but he could get used to that with more time. And some of the stones molded themselves to his feet, and the chairs to his arse, and the tassels on the curtains unwound and waved at him when he walked past. But it hadn’t tried to hurt anyone. “But right now, I don’t think I have any honor left.”

            Hermione whirled on him. “If you hadn’t sent that ridiculous letter, you would!”

            Harry leaned back in the chair that had been McGonagall’s and studied her curiously. Hermione was breathing hard, her hands clenched in front of her as though she wanted to punch him.

            She probably does. Harry hadn’t made his friends’ lives any easier with this little stunt of his.

            “I see where you’ve gone wrong,” Harry said quietly. “You assume I care about that, that I care about my reputation and the nonsense that the press is going to heap on me now that I’ve proclaimed myself a Dark Lord. But I don’t care, Hermione. Really. I used to. What they said about me in the newspapers infuriated me. I wanted them to either believe me or hate me, and stop bouncing around between the two. Now I don’t care.”

            Hermione looked at him with wide, tearless eyes. “But no one would have called you a Dark Lord if you didn’t call yourself that.”

            Harry raised his eyebrows. “Really? Think about it. You think that they wouldn’t do it when they called me the Heir of Slytherin in my second year, based on no proof? And I think some people called me a Dark Lord then, too.”

            Hermione bit her lip and ruffled her hair. “I wish you had thought about this in more detail before you did it,” she whispered.

            Harry got up to give her a hug. Hogwarts molded stones to her feet, too, when he stepped away. It seemed the school could pick up on who he liked. Harry hoped that it wouldn’t keep anyone else from coming in, though. There were some people he disliked personally who might still do good work at Hogwarts. “I know,” he whispered back. “Sorry. But I made my decision that I was going to save Hogwarts, and I’ve got to move ahead with that, not let fear hold me back.”

            Hermione wiped her eyes. “What is your life going to be like now? I thought you just wanted a normal life and a family.”

            Harry hesitated. “I still want a family.”

            “And the normal life?” Hermione glared at him.

            “Um,” Harry said. “Well. I sort of realized after the war that I was never going to have a normal life.”

            “Realized? Or did someone tell you?” Hermione was leaning forwards as though she was going to lose her balance and topple over on him. “Did someone pressure you to do this? Was it the people who were saying that you should have saved everyone who died in the war?”

            “No.” Harry shook his head, and felt Hogwarts surging around him, as though an electric current was running through the stones. He paused, took a deep breath, and tried to settle down. He didn’t want to bring the ceiling down on Hermione’s head, either. “Not them. I just saw—I was bored before, but I didn’t know what I could do. I had all this magic, but what good was it going to do? I really couldn’t use it when I was an Auror because of all the rules you had to obey. Then I saw the story about the closing of Hogwarts, and I realized that was what I needed, something to tip me over the edge.”

            Hermione’s eyes closed quickly, then opened again, and there was a teary sheen in the back of them. “Of sanity?”

            Harry looked at her for a little, and then sighed. “No. I made this decision of my own free will, Hermione. I did some stupid things, like bonding with Hogwarts when I didn’t realize what I was doing. I probably should have waited and considered some more. But it’s done, and this is the life I want. I want to protect the school, and keep it open so that people can continue to find a home here.” He leaned back in his chair and looked around at the walls, at the portraits of Headmasters and the paintings that McGonagall had added, which mostly seemed to be of lions and leopards. “I have awful memories of this room, but it’s still home to me, in a way that no place else will ever be. Do you understand?”

            Hermione closed her eyes and swallowed. “Yes,” she whispered. “I do. I’m just afraid, Harry. Afraid of what it’s going to cost you to keep this life.”

            Harry smiled at her. “I’m prepared to fight.”

            “And kill?” Hermione was shivering, her arms folded.

            Harry held up a hand, and golden sparks of magic trailed his fingers, at the same time as something like a gong gave a deep, muffled boom from inside the wall. Hermione started, and blinked, and kept her eyes on him.

            “I don’t have to kill people,” Harry said softly. “I can do other things instead. That’s what this magic is good for.”

*

            delia cerrano: That’s going to depend more on Draco’s political goals than anything. At the moment, Harry only wants to protect Hogwarts.

            Rina: Don’t worry, Draco will find out. And there will be a description of the expression on his face when he does.

            SP777: Harry has bonded with Hogwarts on a level that isn’t like the Headmaster’s. He’s not legally in charge of the school, just…practically in charge of it, I suppose? In charge in reality?

            addiena saffir: Thanks!

            Devourer: Thank you!
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Easy as Falling