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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.

Chapter List
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Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Thirty-Five—To the Heart
            “What’s wrong with Malfoy?”
            Harry sighed and glanced up at the door of his office. He hadn’t wanted Hermione or Ron to see Draco like this, partly because they would start asking questions about how close Draco and Harry were, and partly because Draco’s pride wouldn’t forgive it. But Harry was still reading a book about the Mind Arts to make sure that he wouldn’t hurt Draco when he took the curse off him, and Hermione stood there with her mouth open.
            Harry turned, just to make sure that he was seeing the same thing she was. Draco lay in the center of the couch that Harry had Transfigured a few empty chairs into, his legs sprawled so that they were almost draped over the end of it. His mouth was open, too, but in a deep snore. Harry couldn’t help smiling when he looked at him.
            “What’s he doing here?” At least Hermione had lowered her voice.
            Harry turned around. “We went and talked to the Wizengamot,” he said, his words even softer, so that Hermione stepped into the office and shut the door. “They were awaiting me. One of their officials, Hammon Rosier, was behind blackmailing someone who works with Draco to try and expose even more information about my past.”
            “What would someone who works with Malfoy know—”
            “She helped collect the information on my abuse,” Harry said, and shook his head when he saw the look Hermione was giving him. “She did it for despicable reasons, including being paid, but I think Rosier is more despicable.”
            “Well, of course,” Hermione said, giving her robes a little shake. “But I can’t believe you would trust the word of someone like that enough to go to the Ministry.”
            Harry shrugged. “You know that I can make it so no one can tell lies around me.” That magic had been in effect when he spoke to most of the people he was considering hiring as professors. He didn’t want someone who came in on fraudulent accomplishments the way Lockhart had, and God forbid that they got someone like Crouch or Quirrell again. “I did it with her. I’m pretty sure that she told the truth. And when we went to the Ministry, Rosier was waiting for me. I didn’t manage to convince him to back down, and he tried to use that spell that controls your mind like the Imperius Curse but isn’t illegal. It hit Draco instead.”
            “He pushed you to the floor or something?” Hermione darted another glance at the couch, as if waiting for the real hero to crawl out from underneath it.
            “Yes. That’s exactly what happened.”
            Hermione spun around again and stared at him. Then she started shaking her head. “Oh, Harry. No.”
            “What?” Harry rubbed his forehead and turned back to his book. He hadn’t found a lot of information about the curse so far that would enable him to remove it safely, but he didn’t think that made it a good idea to give up. “He risked himself for me. The least I can do is restore his mental freedom to him. I probably could just reach out and grip the edges of the spell and pull, but I don’t want to do that, in case it hurts him. So I’m trying to research a way to get it off him safely. Want to help me?”
            “Listen,” Hermione said, her voice charged. “That’s not what I meant. I know that you think you have a—close bond with Malfoy, but if you think that, you’re fooling yourself.”
            Harry gaped at her for a second. Then he held out his hand, which shimmered with magic gathering in his palm. “I can make someone tell the truth, remember?”
            “Have you done it with him?”
            At the moment, it was hard for Harry to remember. He probably had, when he had forced Fifernum to tell the truth and Draco had been hiding in the room and watching her punishment, but that wasn’t the sort of thing he could admit to Hermione. He shook his head. “Does that matter? I know that he trusts me and he risked his life for me when he pushed me to the floor. Neither of us knew what the spell would do.”
            Hermione cast another look at Draco, then turned to Harry and lowered her voice. “Listen. I’m not saying that he doesn’t deserve to have his freedom back. I just think that you need to think very carefully about sleeping with him.”
            “I haven’t slept with him!” Harry let his voice rise until he saw the way it was making Draco stir. Yet.
            “But you want to.” Hermione’s face was a little grim. “I mean—I can’t tell you what to do with your life, Harry. But Malfoy is still running for Minister, and even if he’s convincing, even if he wants to sleep with you for personal reasons, can you say that you aren’t helping his campaign in any way?”
            Harry shook his head. “Not in any way. I did show up at that debate where Blackthorne swore to be my Knight and stopped the Minister from arresting him.”
            Hermione sighed. “That’s confirmation enough. You should be neutral, Harry. You shouldn’t act outside Hogwarts, since you sent everyone letters saying that you were the Dark Lord of the school and you just wanted it to be open. You can’t do anything else.”
            Harry gave her a flat stare. “So, if the Wizengamot passes a law saying that anyone can hunt down Hogwarts students, or it’s fine for parents to go ahead and abuse their children if they try to sneak out and go to Hogwarts, then I shouldn’t do anything?”
            Hermione blinked. “That would be—they won’t do anything like that. They wouldn’t condone child abuse.”
            Harry began to laugh, and at the moment, he didn’t care if it woke Draco up. That was just so absurd. And Hermione knew all about the photographs, too, even if she didn’t know the specifics about how Rosier had paid Rosenthal and the rest of them to find out the information.
            “They cared about you being abused at all because of your fame,” Hermione said, raising her voice. Yes, Draco was definitely awake, Harry realized, from the intake of breath behind him. “But I don’t think they would say that parents could abuse their children.”
            “They wouldn’t use that word, no,” Harry said. “They would talk about ‘appropriate disciplinary measures,’ the way Fudge did when he was referring to what Umbridge should do to students.” He lifted his right hand and held it out to Hermione. “No one investigated her and made sure that she wasn’t using a Blood Quill. She was the one in power. That’s the kind of thing the Ministry thinks is perfectly fine when it comes to Hogwarts. No, Hermione. I might act in support of Hogwarts primarily, but I’m not going to ignore anything that happens outside the school. Not when it might have an effect on the school.”
            “Will the election?” Hermione folded her arms, which was a little awkward with all the books in the way.
            Harry gave her a look.
            “Well, I mean, of course, in a way.” Hermione waved her hand. “But does that give you a right to interfere?”
            “It depends on what you mean,” Harry said. “I won’t try to control the voting. I might not even vote.” He saw the significant, heavy look that Hermione was giving him, and his heart began to pound so hard that he had trouble swallowing. “But yes, I probably will watch it closely, and try to work with the Minister. If it’s Draco.”
            “If it’s Malfoy,” Hermione whispered. “Harry.”
            “What would be wrong with working with someone who wouldn’t try to screw the school over, the way Fudge always wanted to and Tillipop tried to?” Harry got up to walk back and forth. Since they’d probably already woken Draco up, he didn’t have to stay still. “That doesn’t mean I would march down to the Ministry and try to depose Tillipop if he’s reelected. But Draco has done enough that he probably won’t be, even if Draco doesn’t win.”
            “You’re talking about underhanded tactics.” Hermione’s voice was wavering, and her eyes were filling with tears. “The kinds of things the Wizengamot was afraid of you doing from the beginning. The kind of thing we went into the Ministry to prevent. Oh, Harry.”
            Harry turned around to face her. Hermione was maybe five feet away from him, but Harry could feel the vaster gulf opening between them, the gulf of reason and argument and perspective. He wondered what Hermione would say if she knew how many of his strategy discussions had been with Draco.
            But Harry had handled the Ministry’s last attack on the school by himself, and he’d handled punishing Fifernum and Rosier by himself, and he’d driven the Board of Governors out by himself. He wondered what else Hermione would have wanted him to do. Rolled over and given up the minute he realized that he was attracted to Draco? Send Draco away?
            Yes, probably.
            “Yes, I am,” Harry said, deciding that Hermione wouldn’t say anything else and that this was his only chance to convince her, if he even had one left. “As underhanded as you can say they are, when I announced to the Ministry that I was taking over Hogwarts and to consider me a Dark Lord. They should know what they’re getting into when they continue to oppose me. But Draco acts differently. I don’t plan to influence the voting, I told you. The adviser of his who was being blackmailed by Rosier doesn’t even like me. I only found out that she’d been involved with gathering information about the abuse at all, and that Rosier was, because Rosier got nervous and blackmailed her. And he was nervous about me, not Draco.”
            “But he had to know about the association between you and Malfoy to get nervous,” Hermione whispered.
            Harry snorted. “He doesn’t know anything. He made an assumption, and now he’s paying for it.”
            Hermione put her hands to her cheeks, which were flaming with something that Harry didn’t think was embarrassment, and closed her eyes. “I have to think about this,” she murmured. “I have to think. I don’t want to walk away in the middle of the year and leave the students without a History of Magic professor, but this…”
            “Why is this so different from anything else I did?” Harry demanded, feeling as though someone had broken a splinter off his heart. “You can put up with me calling myself a Dark Lord and using Dark magic against the Ministry, but not sleeping with a candidate for Minister? Or associating with him?” There was still a sharp reminder in the middle of his chest that he hadn’t slept with Draco, yet.
            “I didn’t think it had gone this far.” Hermione closed her eyes tighter, clenching them. “That you favored him and it would probably be more comfortable for Hogwarts and you if he was Minister…I knew about that. I just didn’t think it had gone this far.”
            “What is different about this?”
            Hermione turned and looked him in the eye. “If you can say that, then you really aren’t the man we used to know anymore.”
            Harry clenched his hands in front of him. He wanted to rip something, tear something up. That thing wasn’t going to be Hermione, because he still knew better, felt better. But Hogwarts flipped the door of the office open and zipped a rag from Merlin knew where into his hands. Harry sank his fingers deep into the dangling threads along one side, and ripped at them.
            “Well, maybe it’s best you left,” he whispered. “I thought you did understand.”
            “That you would influence the Ministerial election?” Hermione looked at him coldly. “No, I didn’t.”
            Harry shook his head impatiently. “That I was outside the rules. That I’m going to do anything to keep Hogwarts safe, and if that means sleeping with Draco, I would do it. But, Hermione, I went to the Wizengamot and I made Hammon Rosier and Nigella Landen both blurt out that they wanted to fuck each other and then make out on the floor. Rosier’s under a curse now that means he’ll suffer what I did during my childhood if he ignores child abuse or hurts one of my people. Why is that acceptable but having Malfoy as my friend and lover isn’t?”
            Hermione put a hand to her mouth. Then she said, “I didn’t… I didn’t know about that.”
            “Believe it,” Harry said. The rag was disintegrating to pieces in his hand. “That’s what a Dark Lord does. I could have done a lot worse,” he added softly, feeling the rage swirl and turn black in the back of his mind even now. “I still want to.”
            Hermione backed up a step from him. Harry watched her. He didn’t think she was afraid of him, not really. This was something else.
            “You said you would keep Hogwarts safe,” Hermione whispered. “That was supposed to be the limits of your power.”
            Harry snorted. “Well, technically, I’ve already broken that promise. The fifty Aurors I disarmed a few nights ago might have left the school alone if I’d come with them. They really only wanted me, not Hogwarts. But the Ministry would just have closed it down again after that, so I felt justified in keeping it safe.”
            “Even that’s different from this,” Hermione whispered. “What does Malfoy’s adviser being blackmailed have to do with you, anyway? Why couldn’t you just leave it alone?”
            “Because the reason she was being blackmailed had to do with me,” Harry said. “She wasn’t being threatened to stop Draco’s campaign, or because she’d done illegal things in the name of Draco’s campaign, but because she’d done things that were illegal against me. Rosier thought that exposing that would mean I would turn against her. She chose to trust that I wouldn’t, and give me the truth instead. And after that, I had to act against him, didn’t I? She’d placed her trust in me. I couldn’t let him go on hurting her.”
            Hermione winced. “You can’t protect the whole world the way you used to protect me and Ron in school, Harry,” she whispered.
            “Not the whole world, I know that,” Harry said, startled into speaking the simple truth. “But the part of it that has to do with Hogwarts, and the part that applies to me for protection, I can.”
            Hermione opened her eyes. “So you aren’t thinking like a politician, or a Dark Lord,” she said. “Not really. You’re thinking like Harry.”
            Harry smiled at her, wondering if that was a good thing. He couldn’t tell whether or not she thought it was, from the expression on her face and the tone in her voice. “Yes. The only difference is that now I have the power to do what I want, instead of having to listen to Dumbledore when he tells me something isn’t good for the war or the Ministry when they tell me I have to obey the rules.”
            Hermione shook her head mechanically. “You can’t run a school like that. You can’t be a Dark Lord like that.”
            “It’s worked so far,” Harry said. He didn’t understand why she was edging towards the door. “I don’t—Hermione, you know what kind of person I am. I’ve always wanted to protect the people who were nice to me. You can attribute that to growing up with the Dursleys if you want, but I’ve always been this way. What’s changed?”
            “Before, you never had that much power.” Hermione took a long, slow breath, her hand feeling behind her for the doorknob. She didn’t take her eyes off him. “Now, you do. You should have thought it through. You can’t be as personal. You can’t be as impulsive. You have to be a leader. You have to be a Lord.”
            “Maybe if I’d decided to take over the school as the Chosen One, I would have,” Harry said. He calmed the stones that were rippling beneath Hermione. They wanted to tip her over and throw her out, and he didn’t want to do that. They were reacting to his distress right now, not his real wishes. “But I didn’t. I just took it over as myself. Who should I be, if not myself? Who should I rule like, but Harry?”
            Hermione was trembling. “I thought you really did have a plan,” she said. Tears shone on her cheeks. “I thought you were thinking about things. All that effort you went through to find good professors…I thought you cared.”
            “I do.” Harry stood up and moved away from the couch that Draco was on, although he’d said something in a confused voice. Right now, Harry had to deal with this. “I care about the students. That’s why I made sure to find good professors! I care about you. I’d defend you if the Ministry attacked you.”
            “I was being foolish.” Hermione went on talking to herself. “I should have known better. I just wanted to think that you were too good a person to do everything on impulse, so I talked myself into going along with it. But I should have known better. It’s my fault, not yours.” She raised her eyes to Harry’s face. “I can’t go on being here. I have to go away and think. Can I support someone who just uses his power for personal things? I have to think.”
            Harry watched her with his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. He didn’t know what he could say to convince her. He wasn’t sure that he could say something to convince her. He had to let her make her own decisions.
            Hermione nodded at him and put down the books she was carrying on a table near the door. “I resign,” she said. “And Ron’s probably going to resign with me.” And she turned and walked out the door.
            Harry sat down and put his face in his hands. The chair tried to touch his shoulders with its back, the table snaked beneath his elbows, the books flew around him and caressed his face with their riffling pages, and still nothing happened.
            Still he couldn’t get rid of this stifling feeling of failure.
            But in the end, Harry stood up, sent a silent instruction through Hogwarts to make sure that nothing would block Ron and Hermione’s passage out, and went over to the couch. Draco was frowning at him, as if sure that he knew Harry but unable to place him.
            Harry kissed him on the forehead. “Hello, sweetheart,” he whispered. “Why don’t you go back to sleep? I don’t have a cure for you yet, but I’ll find one.”
            Draco nodded and closed his eyes, probably more obedient than he would be naturally thanks to the curse. Harry turned to the book he’d been reading and waited for his hands to stop shaking.
            He could do nothing for people who rejected his protection. He didn’t want to do anything for people who rejected his protection. Why should he? It would be misusing his power to force them to do things they didn’t want to do.
            At last, he could begin reading again.
*
            BAFan: I don’t think the Wizengamot will back off on bringing Harry down if they can, but at least they’ll be a little more cautious, and they’ll have to pick some new leaders.
            SP777: I think Harry would have killed them if they had done damage to Draco that couldn’t be reversed.
            delia cerrano: Well, if there’s anything I can explain to you, then let me know.
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Easy as Falling