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The Rising of the Stones	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 13237 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Thirty-Three—Meeting With the Minister
“You can do this.”
“I feel like I should be the one telling you that. You have a lot more personal reasons to fear de Berenzan than I ever had.”
Draco rolled his eyes, and made sure Harry, who was fussing obsessively with his robe collar in the mirror, could see the reflection of him doing it. “Says the one whom de Berenzan wanted arrested and murdered and silenced.”
“Maybe he didn’t go as far as murder with you, but he wouldn’t have been upset if one of those Aurors had killed you.”
“They didn’t,” Draco said, and then shook his head and abandoned the effort to show who cared more about who. He put his hand on Harry’s shoulder, and Harry paused and tilted his head. “What we should be doing is thinking about what we’ll say to de Berenzan.”
Harry blinked. “Oh, I know that. My main fear is that he’ll say something unforgivable or attack you before I can say it.”
Draco paused. “We didn’t discuss your speech to him the way we did your speech before the Wizengamot.”
“It’s hardly going to be a speech. More in the nature of a scolding. And I know that his office is mostly made of stone.” Harry sighed. “It’s going to be such a temptation to just wrap him up in a stone cocoon and kill him that way.”
Draco became aware his mouth was open. He closed his eyes, and blinked. Then he said, “You don’t have to do that for me, you know. And I think a few months ago, you wouldn’t have,” he felt compelled to add.
Harry smiled at him over his shoulder. “You can count it as your influence, if you want. I realize now how stupid I was to think that running away would ever keep de Berenzan from pursuing me, but also—”
He paused. Draco waited patiently, his hand smoothing down the fine silk of the robes over Harry’s arm. Really, Harry should have been dressing like this all along; he had the money. On the other hand, Draco couldn’t deny his pleasure that Harry had accepted gifts like this from him.
“How stupid I was to think that I had to run away so nothing would ever happen to anyone else,” said Harry, and his voice firmed. “When he got desperate enough, he would have started questioning Ron and Hermione, and he probably wouldn’t have believed that they didn’t know anything. And if he got really desperate, he could have figured it out the same way you did. All I was doing was acting stupid and putting off the inevitable. This confrontation has been coming since I found out what was written in my birth records.”
“I object to the insinuation that the Minister is as smart as I am.”
Harry laughed. “Well, he wouldn’t have found me so quickly, but he would have figured out I was using earth magic. And from there, since he already knew I was markless, how much time to track me back to the rain unicorns and Oatten and his people? He could have set up a trap there and waited for me.”
“I still object,” Draco murmured, taking a step forwards and burying his nose in the nape of Harry’s neck where he could inhale his scent. The mere thought that he might not have been chosen to go after Harry, that de Berenzan might have done it himself, made his hands shake. He hid that by gripping Harry’s hips.
“What do you object to?”
Harry rested his hand on one of Draco’s arms, and Draco started and responded. “I—have a fundamental objection to the idea of things being different than they are.”
Harry was quiet for long moments. Then he said, “I once swore I would never say I wished things were different. Because that would mean that I disliked having survived the war, and my parents died so I could live. But then I found out about not having a soulmate, and I started saying it all the time.”
Draco said nothing, only stroking up and down Harry’s flank. There would be a point to this, and it wouldn’t be to hurt him.
It was astonishing that he trusted Harry Potter not to hurt him, but things were very different than they had once been.
“Now I think that there was probably always a means of making my life better, but I never took it.” Harry leaned back into his arms, and Draco grunted, a little surprised, but supported Harry’s weight without having to be asked. “You’re the one who taught me that I could take it.”
“You fought the Dark Lord—”
“You were the one who kept going after me and kept on until I gave in,” said Harry, and turned his head back to smile up at Draco and show him how seriously he meant that. “And that gave me the courage to realize I could make other changes in my life.”
He straightened back up, smoothing down Draco’s hand himself and then meeting his eyes quietly and powerfully in the mirror. “And now look at us. Preparing to confront the political enemy who would be happy if we were both dead.”
Draco lowered his head and sniffed at the back of Harry’s neck again. Then he stepped back and whispered, “And we’re going to defeat him.”
Harry’s smile was as beautiful and dangerous as a wildfire.
*
“Thank you for making the time to see us, Minister.”
Draco was the one who spoke those words. Harry had been marching stiffly through the Ministry since they walked into it, even knowing they had the power of the Wizengamot’s authorization behind them. And now his burning gaze focused on de Berenzan as if he really was going to wrap his office around him in a stone cocoon.
“Of course, Auror Malfoy.” de Berenzan had never looked more formal. He had his hands folded on the desk in front of him and wore dress robes with so much silver and gilt Draco wasn’t certain how he could move. “And Mr. Potter.”
From the sound of it, de Berenzan would have liked it if Harry had had a title like Auror, so he could pretend to be more respectful. Draco bit his lip to stop himself from smiling and nodded.
“You know what we’re here about?”
“I would have to be deaf and blind not to know that.”
A calmer reaction than Draco had expected, but then again, it wouldn’t be de Berenzan if he didn’t have some plan. Draco nodded and dug out the scroll the Wizengamot had given him, after debating most of yesterday afternoon. “Then know that the Wizengamot, with many members of the oldest families among them, has decided that they’re calling for a vote of no confidence in you. They have the ability to remove you from office. It’s up to you whether you’ll be dragged, or leave gracefully.”
For a moment, Draco couldn’t read the reaction on de Berenzan’s face. Of course he was striving for amusement, but whether it was genuine or not… “You say that as if an elected Minister can be removed for appointing an Auror to hunt down a fugitive.”
“The elected Minister only stays in power with the support of the Wizengamot, as you know,” Draco said. “The power that’s appointed and not elected. And I think attempted murder and actual murder might have something more to do with it than assigning me to Harry’s case.” He and Harry had discussed referring to each other formally in de Berenzan’s presence, but had decided there would be no point.
“What murder? You seem to both be standing here alive.”
“Murder of three children less than one year old, born without a soul-mark. All last year.”
Harry’s voice crackled and snapped with a sound like rocks grinding. Draco didn’t think it was his imagination that de Berenzan’s desk had started to vibrate a little. He reached out and put his hand on Harry’s shoulder, and Harry subsided with a sharp motion of his hand.
“Legal—”
“The Wizengamot didn’t think so. And if it had been discussed with them and set forth at any point, everyone would know about children without soul-marks and what’s usually done to them. Instead it was hidden as if it was a…shameful thing.”
de Berenzan shifted as if he would stand up. Draco was more than impressed how, with just a single level gaze, Harry communicated that would be a bad idea. The Minister subsided again, and coughed.
“I was doing what—I was told to do.”
Harry laughed. The desk trembled again, but this time Draco barely needed to press down before it stopped. “That’s your excuse? ‘I was following orders’? That makes it all right? Not even that you thought it was the right thing to do?”
“I never thought it was the right thing to do!”
“Then why do it?”
“Because!” said de Berenzan, and leaned forwards and began speaking quietly before Draco could laugh at him in scorn. “Only imagine how much panic the public would experience, if we couldn’t keep this quiet. Imagine how they would react when they found out that people were born without soul-marks, and soulmates aren’t a universal thing, as we’ve so often been told. And when they found out their hero didn’t have a soul…”
“Don’t tell me that you’re stupid enough to believe Harry doesn’t have a soul.” Draco wrapped an arm around Harry’s shoulders and tugged him a little backwards. de Berenzan actually seemed as if he might attack, he was so quiet and intense and crazed. Draco didn’t want Harry right in front of the desk if that happened.
“He doesn’t have something,” de Berenzan snapped. “Maybe he doesn’t have a soul that could match someone else’s perfectly. I don’t know exactly what soulmates mean. But I knew what I had to keep quiet.”
“Why not come to me? Why not tell me that? You know I would have cooperated with the Ministry. I wouldn’t want to be an outcast, either.”
“When have you ever done what the Ministry asked of you?” de Berenzan folded his arms and gave Harry the most spiteful glance Draco had ever seen. “Of course you would think you needed to tell people the truth for their own good, or to prevent discrimination against the soulless, or something like that. And you would have done it, and we would have had even worse panic on our hands.”
“Worse than you have now, Minister?”
For a moment, de Berenzan honestly seemed to have stopped breathing. Then he slumped with his head in his hands. “What are we going to do? The papers are saying that the public is losing trust in the Ministry fast, and…”
“You can do one thing that you should have done in the first place. Step back, and resign. Trust Harry. Trust the Wizengamot, who are tired of you, to pick a competent replacement. That’s the way to keep the wizarding world from decaying even faster.”
Draco thought de Berenzan hadn’t heard him at first. Then he said, “I don’t want to do that.”
“Then it’s not about protecting the people,” said Harry, and Draco wanted to stroke him for the scorn in his voice. Well, he wanted to stroke him in a specific place for the scorn in his voice, but they were in public, which made it a little hard. “It’s about protecting yourself, and keeping yourself in power. Not very thrilling or sterling, Minister.”
“They’ll hate me.”
“They already do,” Draco said. “There are only a few who hate me because of that story about me and my soulmate you printed. There are more who are on Harry’s side and outraged at the slaughter of helpless babies.”
“If you only weren’t here…”
“But we are. Get out, Minister. You made an effort that you shouldn’t have made, and lost the war.”
Silence filled the office as thickly as the dust on some of the picture frames. de Berenzan sat with his gaze downcast, and Draco wondered if he was hearing the ticking of a clock marking off private hours, minutes, seconds. He set his hand on Harry’s shoulder. They might have done all they needed here, and—
Then de Berenzan unfolded himself and came up with his wand aimed straight at Harry’s heart.
Draco never even had the chance to do more than cry out in anger. The stone floor clapped open like a book, unfolding glittering pages of marble and obsidian, while another stone platform bore Draco and Harry up. de Berenzan, his desk, and his papers spilled into the gap towards the book’s “spine,” and then it slammed shut.
Draco blinked. The desk had been sheared in half, a huge wooden block of it sticking out over the top of the now still stone floor. The papers were either missing, inside the stone, or clipped as if by teeth, with no ragged edges.
de Berenzan was still alive, but he was trapped to the waist in the stone floor, and no matter how much he braced his hands on the newly arranged flat surface and tugged, he couldn’t get out. He stared in panic as Harry approached him. Draco followed. Even though there was no sign of de Berenzan’s wand, like hell was he letting Harry that close to the bastard alone.
“You have no idea how much self-control it took me,” Harry said softly, “to keep you from ending up like your desk.”
The Minister was staring at Harry with blank, glazed eyes. Draco was pretty sure he would be the same way if he was in the same predicament. He did let one hand rest on Harry’s back as Harry came up and knelt next to the crack in the floor.
“You’ve done enough,” Harry said. “You wanted to erase your mistakes instead of cope with them. I can understand the impulse. But instead of accepting that it wasn’t possible when you saw it wasn’t possible, you kept on trying to cover them up.” He smiled, and de Berenzan flinched back from the smile. Draco half-closed his own eyes to keep the stirring in his groin under control. “You couldn’t do what I did, which was to accept and start atoning.”
“Nothing…nothing can make up for what you’re going to do to the wizarding world by releasing this knowledge.”
Harry shrugged. “Most people will be able to cope with the existence of the markless. Almost nobody did what you did to keep the secret.”
Draco rubbed Harry’s shoulder blade with one hand, well-pleased. Harry was learning to think like a politician. He would have to be one more than ever after the takedown of de Berenzan. People would know he was involved in it and would want to talk to him.
And their days of hiding were done. They would make this transition in the open, honestly, in public.
“You will be horrible for the future of our world,” de Berenzan whispered, his head bowed in what looked like defeat. “If you only knew, if you knew what I have fought against and protected us from…”
“Have you?” Draco didn’t believe it, he thought it was some desperate ploy to save his power, but they didn’t know all the secrets of the Ministry, either. “Tell us what you’ve done, then.”
And as he had thought would probably happen, de Berenzan sealed his lips tight over those last secrets. Whether he thought to use them to bargain his way out of this position or they didn’t exist, Draco didn’t know.
“Do we have to do anything else here?” Harry stood and dusted his hands off with brisk motions. Draco thought he was probably the only one to fully understand the depth of the disgust that that conveyed. “If not, I’d really prefer to get on with the next piece of business.” He looked at Draco expectantly.
They had nothing else planned for today, but Draco understood his burning desire to get out of here. He pressed Harry’s shoulder lightly, then turned to de Berenzan. “Even if we let you go, you wouldn’t find any allies. Do you understand that? The Wizengamot has agreed to your removal, in special session. There’s nothing here for you to grasp onto, nothing you can do to make yourself welcome now.”
de Berenzan stared up sullenly, clearly not believing it. Draco shrugged. There was honestly no helping some people.
“We’ll tell some of the Aurors about the Wizengamot’s orders and make sure that de Berenzan doesn’t cause any mischief until they can be fulfilled,” he told Harry. “But otherwise, I think this is done.”
Harry nodded with his head bowed. He was shivering. Draco wondered for a second if it was magical exhaustion, even though Harry had done greater feats of earth magic than this without seeming tired.
But then Harry turned his head, and Draco saw the quiver of his eyelashes, and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, taking him out into the corridor so that he wouldn’t show such weakness in front of a defeated enemy.
“I don’t want to do this,” Harry whispered as they stood alone. “I never wanted to do this. I never wanted to be politically important. I only did what I had to do in the war, and since then…”
“I know, I know,” Draco murmured to him. “You only did what they forced you into. But, Harry, this is the way things are, and at least you stood up for children who couldn’t save themselves. You did something good with this political power, instead of what de Berenzan did. A politician doesn’t have to be corrupt and afraid in the way he was. He just happened to be.”
Harry listened with a few soft nods, but Draco didn’t think he was convinced yet. He led Harry further down the corridor and stood with his arms around him, holding him in warmth and protection and love until Harry stopped shivering.
Then he went to alert the Aurors, Harry falling back into a shadowed position behind him.
It wasn’t something Draco particularly liked, but it was what Harry had chosen. And he would honor Harry’s choice.
He had certainly done enough.
*
SP777: Thank you! Actually, Government had been eliminated as a separate subject when I came through, but I did read a lot of history.
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The Rising of the Stones