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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 Thirty-Four--Branding the Future

            "This seems sudden," Harry said, when he'd taken a few moments to let the news pass through him like a cold wind and he didn't think that waiting longer would accomplish anything. "Can I ask why this is happening now, as opposed to a few weeks ago when you might have found more people to stand with you?" His voice was calmer than he had known it would be, dryer. He might have been standing in the middle of a desert.

            If Pedlar put others up to this, then I will exile her. Stun her with my magic again. Do whatever is necessary to ensure that the others can make their decisions of their own free wills.

            "Catchers was deluded," Pedlar said. Her voice was a little less thick now, as if listening to him speak to her had calmed her hatred. She folded her arms and leaned a hip on the table, smiling at him, and her eyes were bright as dying stars. "He gave up on you because of unrequited love, and he assumed the revolution would dissolve with him. It didn't. We're not giving up on the revolution, the way he did. We're giving up on you."

            "The rest of you agree with this?" Harry looked around the room, although he found it hard to catch eyes. Most of the people there had their heads turned away from him. "You agree that Pedlar and her like should run the revolution, and that you won't be killed or captured by the Ministry inside a week?"

            "You're trying to confuse and frighten them." Pedlar's voice had gone even quieter. "I told them this would happen, and as a result, they're not vulnerable to that tactic anymore. Why would the Ministry capture us? We plan to open negotiations with them, and not tell them where we are. We won't have you to hinder and slow us down. We'll turn over the rest of the Azkaban prisoners to them, the way they want. There's no reason that they should refuse us a pardon."

            "Excuse me," Harry said, and showed her all his teeth at once. "I thought you said that you weren't giving up on the revolution. Clearly I misheard you."

            "The best way to fight a revolution is from the inside," Pedlar explained, sounding as though she had done this ten times already and he hadn't listened. Those explanations had probably been given to other people, Harry thought critically, listening to the half-falls and undertones and semitones in her voice. His magic brought him the news that sweat had started along her hairline, and that the hearts of most people in the room were beating fast. "Through reform. The Ministry knows that it can lose most of its Aurors at any time, now, that we'll go if we're told to arrest the wrong people. It won't try that again."

            "Yes, it will," Harry said quietly. "The minute Minister Clearwater thinks that she only has to snap her fingers and bring you scurrying back--not even that, since the Ministry's tactics since the raid have been focused on bringing me down--she'll start punishing you for having the gall to betray her in the first place."

            "We betrayed nothing." Pedlar snapped the end of the word off. "She wasn't Minister when we turned against the corrupted ideals of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and Duplais is dead."

            "Then convince her of that," Harry said. "I hope you can." He looked around the room, and this time no one met his eyes, not even with the conviction of anger. They probably believed what Pedlar was saying, they probably did agree with her, but not enough to look at him. "I hope you all can. Not all of you were Aurors."

            "Things are going to be different now." Pedlar was speaking from the middle of a winter's night, not the desert that had consumed Harry. "And you can't frighten us by mentioning things that don't matter."

            Harry only shook his head, and kept his mouth closed for a few minutes as he thought about it. Then he said, "I reckon that you'll want to leave the manor now, since you won't need a secure base if you plan to throw yourselves on the Ministry's mercy and open negotiations straight away."

            Pedlar laughed at him, hard and hoarse, and some of the hatred came back, drifting down her face and neck like a shadow, like a spill of oil. "Nice try, Potter. But we'll need the space to house the prisoners, at least until we can give them back to the Ministry. How many people will go with you? Two? Three? You don't need a manor. You could leave the country, even, if you don't want to follow our example and become part of the real revolution from inside." She paused, eyes losing all their light. Now they resembled nothing so much as burned-out cinders. "I know you'll leave. You'll run, because you're the kind of coward who can't embrace reality."

            Harry smiled at her, and looked at the people in the room. Dover was missing, and so were several of the other people who had made more reasonable suggestions, like approaching potential allies. "Everyone agrees with you?" he asked mildly. "Everyone? The whole of the revolution?"

            "Those who don't will be given their choice," Pedlar said, her neck arching up proudly. "Unlike you, who pretended to offer us choices only to snatch them away when we didn't perfectly follow your lead."

            Harry sighed. That made it more complicated. It meant he couldn't just walk away with Ron and George and Draco and Draco's parents, and give the prisoners who were innocent of crimes what he planned to. It meant there might be still be people trusting and depending on him. "Let's ask them what they want, too," he said, and then held out his hands in front of him like a trumpet and blew down them.

            He saw Pedlar flinch from the corner of his eye. She still hated and feared his magic. That might be good to know, but he really didn't think it would come down to a duel between them. She would shove innocents in his way to keep from facing him again, if she really had to.

            The flame that flowed from his hands made trumpets, glowing red-gold instruments of solidified fire. And they sounded in every corner of the manor, proud and brassy, calling those who weren't here to the meeting room. Harry dropped his hands when he was done and looked at the council. A lot of them had no trouble staring at him, though they still flinched and looked away when they met his eyes.

            "Now," Harry said. "Everyone knows what's happening, and they can make a real choice between the two alternatives, instead of having exile or surrender imposed on them."

            Pedlar was shivering, although Harry was certain his trumpets wouldn't have blown cold air on her. She dropped her arms from their tight hug around herself and tried to look as though she knew what she was doing when he raised an eyebrow, but she still shook her head. "You would never choose to let them stay here instead of go with you," she said.

            "Watch me," Harry mouthed, and then turned around and nodded as Ron arrived. Behind him came Wheelwright, and other Aurors who had fought with Harry, and those who had come to join the revolution of their own free will, and Dover, panting with the exertion.

            Draco's bright hair was among them, although he slipped in at the back and took an unobtrusive position along the far wall. Harry smiled at him, not caring who saw. They would have a decision to make in a moment, and if they let the fact that he was in love with Draco put them off staying with him, then Harry would prefer to know now.

            "Would you like to speak first?" Harry asked, bowing his head to Pedlar. It was a gesture that would cost him nothing, since the people who were already on her side wouldn't be swayed by anything he could say. And it made him look more gracious and accommodating than she did to those who might still waver in their decision about who to follow.

            Pedlar gave him another glance of heavy-eyed hatred, and then moved a step forwards and cleared her throat. She didn't sound as confident as she had only moments before, Harry thought in some amusement. One sight of his magic weakened her that way, and he had no idea why. Was it really so frightening to her?

            Perhaps it was. She liked predictable things, things she could understand and control, and the wild magic was none of those.

            "Listen to me," Pedlar said, and lifted her head as though letting the light glance off her chin would change some minds for her. Perhaps it would, at that. Harry had given up on thinking that he knew the right thing to do for everyone in the revolution; some were sensible, some were willing to listen to their own disappointed hopes instead of good sense, and some were influenced by tiny things. "We have the chance to make peace with the Ministry if we act now and kick Potter out. He's the major disruptive element, the one that the Ministry would never forgive us for associating ourselves with. But if we go to the Ministry without him, then they might let us have our jobs back, and a place within the protection of the law."

            Ron snorted. "And you think that's what most people here want?"

            "I think most people here are tired of revolution that accomplishes nothing," Pedlar snapped, whirling around to face him. "So, yes, peace with the Ministry is preferable to that."

            "I see," Ron said, nodding seriously. "And what makes you think that Minister Clearwater is going to forgive your betrayal just like that? You would have to have a prize that you could deliver to her. Something so big that she would forgive you because you'd done a greater service for her than your defection could have cost her."

            Pedlar wasn't subtle. Everyone who mattered or had some sense saw the way her eyes flickered over to Harry, the way her head subtly turned.

            Harry smiled, and he knew that it didn't make him look like the kind of tame, gentle leader that they'd been expecting. Half the people in the room swayed back from him. Harry ducked his head and slid his hands into his robe pockets. Around him, flames slid up from his shoulders, stuck up from his hair, and formed a glowing cloak of red and gold.

            "You can make the decision to abandon me, and if it's a real decision, as opposed to something forced on you by a few loudmouths, then I can't do anything about it," he told them. "But if you try to betray me and force me into surrendering to the Ministry, then you'll see how strong my magic is."

*

            Draco felt his mouth dry out. He would have backed away, but his back was already against the wall nearest the door, and he would have had to retreat out of the room to get further off.

            He wasn't entirely sure that he wanted to leave, anyway. Yes, that power was ferocious, hot as a plague fever against his skin, but it was also the power that was protecting him. And his parents.

            Why did it take you a moment longer to think of your parents instead of yourself?

            Draco broke that particular brittle thought and threw it away. He didn't need the distraction at the moment. What mattered was that there were people here who wanted to destroy the source of that protection, some out of personal hatred, some out of fear, some out of disappointment, and Draco had to be aware of the consequences that would ensue if they managed to succeed.

            Not that he thought they would. They couldn't feel it, the power, not in the same way that Draco could, or they refused to notice it, or they told themselves that no one could be that strong. Maybe Draco had extra reason for noticing it since he'd already been so close to Potter. But...

            Didn't they know that they were in the room with magic that could destroy them with scarcely a thought? It seemed so impossible that they didn't that Draco was waiting, nervously, for the moment when they did and he was crushed to death in the stampede.

            "No one wants to destroy you," Pedlar said. "If we gave you to Minister Clearwater, you would to go to Azkaban."

            Potter smiled at her. "I think you mean 'whatever prison they build to take Azkaban's place,' since the old one is gone."

            Draco had no idea why those words were the ones that set Pedlar off. He reckoned that she might have thought Potter was mocking her, or maybe she was tired of her powerlessness in the face of someone so strong and needed to show her own strength. She moved forwards, in a deadly, silent rush that Draco was forced to respect, although he knew it wasn't nearly deadly enough when faced with someone like Potter.

            Her wand was up, a curse on her lips. Draco realized, to his endless surprise, that he had his hand on his own wand, prepared to leap in and defend Potter if he had to.

            He was still reeling from the surprise when Potter responded to Pedlar's charge.

            He breathed, and on the breath rode light as pure and radiant as dragonfire. It encircled Pedlar's head, and she froze, one hand opening and closing down near her side. It didn't burn her, but Draco could see how close the flames in the circle came to her eyes, and he could smell a subtle taint, which seemed to be the forerunner of burning hair. No, it wasn't happening yet, but it could, it would, and the flames slid down and lapped over Pedlar's neck, forming a collar.

            "If she moves," Potter said, his voice light and unconcerned, "then she'll receive burns she can't survive to her face. She'll go blind first. Then the fire will go down into her larynx, and destroy it so she can't scream. Her hair all over her body will burn, and the fire will dance from hair to hair. You've seen a forest fire, the way the flames can leap from tree to tree? Like that."

            Draco could see the fear in their white faces now, see the people who backed away from Potter. They knew it wasn't so much the threats that were the problem. No one had such delicate and precise control of fire that they should be able to encircle Pedlar like that and yet not burn her, especially not without a wand or an incantation. No one.

            "You can't do this to me," Pedlar said, and that, more than anything, impressed Draco with her courage. He couldn't have spoken like that, with fire a second away from removing his eyes and his voice.

            "I can," Potter said, and then he spread his hands out and blew on his fingers. The fire bowed towards Pedlar, then expanded away from her, blowing and rippling around her like a circle of banners. It was beautiful, Draco thought, and he knew Potter was doing that on purpose. "The thing is, I don't want to. But if you continue to threaten me, then I will. I'm not going back to the Ministry. Not going to make peace overtures unless we get some real promises from Minister Clearwater and establish that we're making peace to end the war, not to propitiate her fear of me. Or anyone else's, for the matter. I can change things about the way I lead. But I will not give in and let anyone attack me, threaten me, or tell me to my face that they're going to betray me. I will not."

            Those last words literally shook the floor. Draco watched the ripples run under his feet and heard people cry out and then cut the sound off, as though they assumed that that would make Potter more likely to attack them. Draco knew that he probably would have felt the same, a few days ago, or at least felt bitterness that Potter was going mad and wouldn't be able to protect Draco and his parents if it came down to that.

            But now, he looked up at Potter and watched the way his hands crooked and a star of pride flamed inside him instead. All these people, except perhaps Weasley, were afraid. They didn't trust Potter not to lash out and crush their heads in, although they should have, given what they had risked by coming to find him and follow him in the first place.

            Draco had come for a different purpose: to free his parents and spy on Potter for the Ministry. But he was the one who had felt that strength gentled for him, who knew that Potter's flames could curl around him and protect him for hours at a time, who trusted the fire not to burn him.

            That was a source of courage that no one else here had. Draco lifted his head and brushed his hair back from his face, although he didn't think he'd had a chance to clean up sufficiently since his early morning wake-up with Potter. He didn't look like a typical pure-blood to someone who might come on him suddenly.

            But for once, he was different from other people in a way that made his difference a source of strength, not contempt.

            He couldn't remember the last time he had felt like that.

*

            Harry saw Draco's preening from a corner of his eye, and wanted to smile. But he didn't. There was always the chance Pedlar might misunderstand and think this meant that he was excusing her or giving in to her because he was incapable of threatening someone for long.

            He was perfectly capable of threatening someone. In a way, Harry thought, that was the problem. He would have got on with others better if he didn't have stronger magic, if he hadn't done some of the things they knew he had done during the war. If they expected someone ordinary and determined out of him, instead of the great hero who should fit every one of their preconceptions.

            What he wanted most of all right now, though, was to burn this moment into Pedlar's mind. She didn't listen to reason; she didn't listen to other people, like Ron, who tried to talk to her; she didn't listen to physical pain that showed how easy it would be for Harry to duel and then crush her. Perhaps she would listen to something that stayed with her.

            Harry shaped his hands in front of him again, this time into a circle made of joined fingers. He didn't know the name for what he was doing, the way that he knew the names of so many spells. Power poured through him, shimmering, and flames formed above and under his skin. He knew what he wanted done, and the wild magic went and did it.

            "If you think about betraying me or the revolution again," he told Pedlar, "then you'll hear the fire. The hiss of it, coming closer and closer." The hissing flames foamed over his fingers like water, like wine, heading straight for Pedlar. "Persist in words that form the betrayal, and you'll feel the heat. Do something, and you'll burn." He made a flinging motion at her with one hand, because that was the thing that his magic told him he should do at the moment.

            Pedlar cried out and staggered backwards, one hand rising to cup her cheek. Harry nodded when her hand dropped and everyone else could see, too. There was a bright, ugly brand on her face, one that looked like a flame if you squinted, running from her left cheek in an arch over her left eye.

            "That's for you," Harry told her, and turned and looked at the others. They flinched back from his flames, except Ron, who was looking at him calmly, sadly, and Draco, who stood taller and widened his eyes as if to take in the glare. Harry smiled back at him, and again didn't care who saw. Things were changing now. He didn't know how many of them would believe what he said next, but he would say it anyway. "And I'll do the same thing to anyone who cares mostly about punishing me for not being what they wish me to be, or who talks about reestablishing Azkaban or betraying me and my friends to the Ministry. If you want to talk reasonably about a compromise, then that's fine. I was on my way to speak to Veronica Dover, who first proposed it, this morning when Pedlar interfered with the meeting instead." He looked at Dover and waited until her eyes came reluctantly back to him, rather than staring at the floor. "Do you still think peace negotiations with the Ministry are a good idea? Or have we gone too far and done too much to think that Minister Clearwater will go for it?"

            Dover blinked, swallowed, and then displayed more courage than Harry had known she could by moving forwards. "How do we know that this is permanent, this arrangement of yours?" she asked. "How do we know that you won't burn someone who disagrees with you, not just turns against you?"

            "A fair point," Harry said. "Would you like me to make an Unbreakable Vow that that won't happen?"

            Dover paused, her eyes bright with uncertainty. Harry didn't think she was used to making decisions like this, and he sympathized. He hadn't been used to making decisions like this even two months ago, and some of the ones he had made since then had been bad. He waited.

            "Is your magic strong enough to get around the Vow?" Dover asked finally. "That would be what frightens me most. I don't know what you are, sir. There's never been anything like it."

            "Put me under Veritaserum, and I can tell you whether I'd use magic to get around the Vow," Harry said briskly. "My having this level of control over the wild magic means that it does what I tell it to, not the other way around. And then we can make the Vow. Think carefully about the terms, so that you can be more reassured." He swept his gaze around the room. "Is there anyone else who would volunteer to be a representative of peace to the Ministry? For obvious reasons, I can't go."

            Some others came forwards--mostly people Harry would have expected, those who had offered suggestions at the last full meeting and not the ones who had stood with Pedlar. Those watched him with levels of fear and hatred in their eyes that were almost insane.

            Harry sneered at them, and his flame snapped and billowed above his head like flags. It was entirely possible that the revolution would end soon, and also entirely possible that he would give up leadership to someone else, because he would have to. But so far, none of the people who had come forwards as candidates for leadership impressed him--not Catchers, not Pedlar, not the people who supported them. They had let personal hatred overcome any goal the revolution might have had. Harry could have respected someone who made plans to use him as a weapon or a sacrifice, the way Dumbledore had, more than he did them.

            He was too powerful to be trusted? He was too wild, too scary, to be a good revolutionary leader?

            Fine. Then he would use that power, that wildness, that fear, to make sure the person who followed him was a good leader, and to guide the revolution to a safe ending and landing.

            And fuck whatever the lightning says about me.

*

            kit: Harry would have left if that was really what everyone in the revolution wanted, but it isn't. Pedlar has managed to convince some people of her point-of-view, but not everyone.

            SP777: I think that a better theme song for Pedlar might have something to do with burning...

            Harry is planning negotiations at the moment, but there are a lot of unpredictable factors.
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Intoxicate the Sun