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The Only True Lords	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 54573 -:- Recommendations : 4 -:- Currently Reading : 11
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--A Professional Meeting
            "Thank you all for coming."
            Pansy concealed her snort. As though the members of their bond had had much choice about assembling in the kitchen when their Lord had told them that he would like to see them! The shield mark would have gone on twinging if she hadn't obeyed the summons, and she assumed that was true for the rest, too. At least, it wasn't that different from the Dark Mark in that respect.
            She sneaked a glance at Draco, who was pale, but sat up with bright eyes fixed on Potter. Did he know how ridiculous he looked? If this was some pose to convince Potter that he was innocent and entirely on his side right now, then he should snap out of it, because there was no reason that Potter wouldn't be suspicious of it.
            Blaise sat on the other side of the table, still rubbing his arm. He looked like he would rather be anywhere else, but that wasn't unusual, given what had happened to him. Pansy would have been more surprised if he had managed to hold onto an implacable mask.
            Professor Snape sat across from Pansy, his hands clasped in front of him and his eyes focused straight ahead. Pansy eyed him sideways. She thought there was something going on with everyone here, except her, the sensible and observing one. While she knew what it was with Blaise and what was probably going on with Draco, though--some other plan to make Potter do what he wanted and take his parents into his service as vassals--she had no idea what it could be with the professor.
            And I have to find out. He's the most dangerous of all of them.
            Greg sat beside Potter himself, with a smile that made Pansy want to roll her eyes. Did Potter realize that he could be his own Dark Lord if he wanted, with his very first loyal follower right there? It might be convenient for him that Greg wanted to serve him so much, but he should be more perceptive about it.
            "I know how to control the bond now." Potter rested his hands on the table and turned his gaze from one to the other of them. "And I can free anyone who asks for it. Or modify the bond another way, if that's what you want."
            Pansy narrowed her eyes. "Your meditation succeeded, then?" She hadn't actually been aware that it had.
            "It did." Potter smiled at her, and glanced towards the doorway of the kitchen. His friends were waiting there, Pansy knew, to be convinced that no one was going to turn the tables on and hurt poor little Potter. Pansy found it obnoxious, but at least they weren't intruding right now. "So I can free you, or lighten the bond in another way."
            "Free me," Blaise said, at the same moment as Greg said, "Don't free me."
            They turned to glare at each other, but Potter seemed to have no trouble in separating their voices. He looked amused, in fact, and simply nodded. "I'll give you both what you want," he said, and turned to look at Blaise. "But you might consider remaining under the bond until the trials are done."
            He seemed to be saying something else with that intense eye contact and the way he leaned forwards, Pansy thought, probably about Blaise's mother. But although Blaise tightened his hands on the table, he didn't flinch or lean away. "I know that," he said. "I know it might make it easier for me, I mean. But I refuse. I want it gone now."
            "I never want it gone," Greg said, staring sideways at Blaise as if he thought that Potter really needed him as a counterweight.
            Potter's mouth had tightened as he watched Blaise, and Pansy thought he might refuse for a moment. But either he would never have made the offer if he hadn't meant to carry it through, or else he was committed to going through with it in public. He nodded. "Fine. Give me your arm."
            Blaise stared at him. "What, you're going to do it right here?"
            "It's not the sort of thing that requires privacy," Potter said dryly. "But if you want that, I can oblige you." He stood up.
            "I believe I'll come with you," said Pansy, before any of the others could offer. She wasn't sure what Draco or Professor Snape would do, and Greg's presence, as obsessively loyal, would irritate Blaise right now. She stood up and smiled at Potter. "Just to make sure that the sudden absence of a bond doesn't make Blaise think he can make do with a sudden absence of you."
            "I wouldn't attack him for freeing me," Blaise said, voice low, looking at Pansy the way he had when he'd thought she'd been responsible for his detention from Slughorn in sixth year.
            "I don't know that we can be certain of that," Pansy said, and gave him a nice smile. When she looked at Potter again, he was smiling back at her. He gestured ahead, down the corridor and away from the kitchen, and Pansy followed him. After a second's hesitation, Blaise followed as well.
            It did mean that Potter's friends had to jump out of the way as they swept past, but Pansy counted that as a bonus.
*
            Blaise clenched his arm against his chest and told himself not to hope.
            There was every chance that this would fail because Potter didn't have as good a control of his bond as he thought he did. He might even end up with Blaise more tightly bound. Or he might pretend to free him and keep some kind of "light guiding rein" on him so that he could still control Blaise's actions and thoughts.
            Or, maybe, he might free him, and Blaise's mother might still refuse to come back and accept him because he would have been tainted in her eyes.
            Blaise swallowed. He couldn't anticipate exactly what his mother would do, he reminded himself. There was no one in the world who was as bad at understanding her as he was, except perhaps her own father. He had thought that she would want him to fight free, and then to come with her, and he had been wrong on both counts. Even freeing himself from her, as Potter and Professor Snape both insisted he had done, might not be the best strategy, because that meant he had thought of her as a master and himself as a slave.
            Hadn't she raised him not to think that way? Only the weakness that infected his mind and his morals and made him rightful and easy prey for someone like Potter had made him susceptible to it in the first place.
            He became aware that someone had dropped back to walk beside him, and looked up into Pansy's eyes. She gave him a faint smile and said, "You can do anything you want. Even walk out of this house and into the arms of the Aurors, since you won't be part of this bond anymore and the Lord's Word won't apply to you. Except one thing."
            "I told you, I'm not going to attack Potter," Blaise hissed. He saw Potter's head tilt ahead of them, and knew he was listening. Another reason to hate Pansy for bringing up this conversation right now.
            "Right," said Pansy, with a nod. "I just thought it might be easier for you to refrain if you knew that both of us are against it."
            Blaise gave her a glare, and walked faster.
            They reached the room Potter must have had in mind, one of those sitting rooms with a large fireplace and uncomfortable furniture. Potter turned around near the hearth and looked directly into Blaise's face. "You're sure that you want to go through with this?"
            Blaise squared his shoulders. "I never would have asked if I wasn't sure."
            Potter looked him in the eye long enough that Blaise thought he might have to insist, and then nodded and closed both his own eyes. For a second, he swayed on his feet, as though he was going to need someone to catch hold of. Blaise took a prudent step back so Potter wouldn't decide he was the perfect support.
            Potter lifted his hands and held them a few inches apart. Blaise stared. Between them, something was growing, something that glowed and shone like sea-foam. It had the look of a chain for a second, with separate links, and then the links spun out into a glassy rope. Potter gripped it, the muscles in his arms bunching.
            He struggled with it. Blaise cradled his arm and told himself that he had been right not to hope.
            "I am master here," Potter said, his voice quiet, intense, and the kind of thing that would have made Blaise bristle instinctively, except that he could tell Potter wasn't addressing him. "I do not care what you want. I am Lord." And he brought his hands down, the spinning, transparent cord between them, and broke it against his knee.
            Blaise gasped as fire leaped to life along his arm, white flames that did not burn his skin, but concentrated on the shield mark. They lined it, dancing up and down, rising and falling in precise spikes. Then they moved inwards, skittering along the polished silver surface as though it provided a road for them.
            They obliterated it. Blaise lifted his arm and tilted it back and forth, staring at the new skin where the shield had been.
            "There." Potter opened his eyes, and this time he did sway on his feet. Pansy moved forwards to interpose herself between Potter and Blaise, her face watchful. Potter only smiled at Blaise dopily, as though he didn't know why in the world Blaise would want to hurt him. "I did what I promised."
            "Just because you burned the shield mark off doesn't mean the bond is gone," Blaise whispered. "For all I know, you could do that to any of us if you wanted, to disguise what kind of bond we're joined in with you."
            But he knew the difference for himself. He tilted his arm back and forth, and it wasn't as heavy as it had been with the shield mark on it. He shook his head. He had grown so used, so soon, to that faint weight. If it had endured longer, would he have grown used to the essential corruption that it imposed?
            "I'll firecall the Aurors," Pansy said, abruptly stealing Blaise's attention from his arm. "They need to put you somewhere else, since you can't stay here with us anymore." She moved off.
            Blaise opened his mouth to ask why she needed to do it like a house-elf, if Potter wasn't capable of the minor exertion of tossing Floo powder into a fire and calling out, but he understood when he looked up. Potter sat braced on a chair, his head in his hands, his body trembling all over. Asserting his will over the bond hadn't been an easy thing.
            Blaise started to say something in thanks, then halted. Potter was the one who had enslaved him in the first place. Had his mother thanked her Lord father for being more interested in his vassals than in her? He didn't think so.
            Potter looked up after a few minutes and nodded to Blaise. "Pansy was exaggerating the toll of it," he murmured, and stood. "I'll let the Aurors know why you need to be moved. I can't promise that the holding cell will be much more comfortable, but at least you don't have a blood-ghost hunting you, and the Freedom Fighters have no reason to go after you." He gave Blaise a faint smile. "Good luck."
            And he walked out of the room.
            Blaise stared after him. Where was the attempt to make him feel guilty? He knew that Gryffindors, and Lords, did that sort of thing, and even if Potter hadn't been the kind of person to do it before the bond, surely he would have been transformed into the sort he did it since.
            Of course, he had never interacted much with Potter when they were both at school, or with Gryffindors in general for that matter. And the person he had absorbed the most information about Lords from was...
            His mother.
            Blaise shut his eyes and sat down very abruptly on the couch behind him. It wasn't comfortable, but at the moment, he couldn't care about that. It bore him, and that was all he wanted for right now.
            He buried his head in his hands. He had to decide whether he was going back to her or not, if she would accept someone who had once been tainted by the brand of enslavement, even though he didn't carry that brand right now.
            But the snapping of the bond hadn't been difficult only for Potter. He needed these moments to tremble, and sit, and breathe.
*
            The bond felt so empty.
            Harry shook his head again and again. He had had a floating circle of five people around his head, just minutes ago. Or was it hours? He had to admit that his head was ringing and it felt as though he had released Blaise days in the past, instead of only minutes.
            But now one of them was gone. Now he only had four.
            You should be pleased about that. Pleased that someone, at least, is going to get to go free.
            And he was, Harry told himself sternly. As pleased as he could be when it was still ringing through him, that huge, obliterating shock that made him want to give thanks and empty his belly at the same time.
            "Potter?"
            It took Harry a long time to realize that someone outside his head, outside the ringing of the bond, was trying to attract his attention, and then an even longer time to look up. He finally bit his lip, savagely, and managed to still some of the ringing. His vision wavered, telling him that two Draco Malfoys stood in front of him, but then they steadied and resolved into one.
            "What do you want?" Draco flinched a little, and Harry wished he had made his voice more gracious, but this was one of the worst times that Draco could have come up to him to beg Harry about his parents being made vassals. The mood Harry was in, with the wrongness of someone being gone, he might give in and do it.
            "I wanted to ask you," Draco said. "One last time. If you would make my parents your vassals and then do your best to protect my father."
            "I'll do my best to make sure that he isn't executed," Harry said. "I think that he'll be put in prison along with everyone else, now that the Ministry doesn't have control of the Dementors."
            Draco exhaled and shoved his hands in his pockets, as if that would keep Harry from noticing how much they trembled. "Not good enough," he whispered.
            "Frankly, I don't know what would be good enough for you," Harry snapped back, his hand clasping nothingness. He had reached out towards the empty place in the bond, forgetting for a moment that he wouldn't be able to touch anything even if Blaise was still there. "There's nothing I can do. I'm not going to make your father my vassal because the bond would compel me to defend him, probably to drag him out of prison, and that would involve putting all of my other vassals in danger. Besides. He deserves to go to prison."
            Draco's eyes came back to him. "Why? He hasn't done a thing that you didn't do. I know you used the Unforgivables--"
            "Tried to feed a teenage girl's soul to an evil diary," Harry snapped. "Broke out of Azkaban. Took the Dark Mark. Tortured Muggles--"
            "So it makes a difference that the people you tortured are wizards?" Draco snapped back, but his cheeks were pale.
            "I'm not saying that," Harry said. "I'm saying that he committed plenty of crimes, and someone might want to try and keep him out of Azkaban, but it's not going to be me."
            Draco stared at him, eyes dilated and cheeks pale. Harry waited for some reprimanding burn from the bond, but there was nothing. Maybe it thought Draco was going too far in trying to command Harry to take on a few more vassals.
            Or maybe the bond was showing his own magical exhaustion after freeing Blaise. Maybe he wouldn't be feeling anything much from his remaining vassals for a while, because the bond needed time to recover. Harry shook his head. He didn't know the "real" answer, but he did know that he needed to rest.
            "You'll regret this," Draco said, so much promise in his voice that Harry reached for his wand, before remembering he didn't have it. But then Draco turned and walked away, almost running as he passed up the corridor and into the distance. A second later, Harry heard the wild clattering of his feet on the stairs.
            Harry spent a second standing there with his head in his hands, just because he felt so sorry for himself. Then he went in search of Ron and Hermione. They were the only people now who might make him feel better about himself rather than worse.
*
            "Draco, what happened?"
            Draco only shook his head in response to the concern in Narcissa's voice. "I can't talk about it right now, Mother," he said, his throat tight. "What are you reading?" he added, in what he knew was a transparent attempt to change the subject.
            His mother watched him steadily for a second, then held the book up and showed him the cover. Of Lords and Their Vassals. "I thought it might provide us with a little more perspective on the bond," she murmured. "Specifically, whether it would actually protect your father that much to become part of one."
            "Of course it would," Draco said, turning away with a shake of his head that probably didn't look as condemning as he'd meant it to be. "Of course Potter would be forced to do at least as much as he has for the rest of us if Father was one of his vassals." He tightened his fists, and controlled the impulse to lash out with a foot at the wall. "He even took care of Blaise and gave him whatever he wanted, and Blaise tried to kill him."
            "So did your father."
            Draco turned around and stared at her. His mother met his eyes and sighed. "I do not wish to see Lucius waste away in Azkaban any more than you do, Draco. But I have tried to search for other alternatives, and I do not believe they exist. Lucius getting a fair trial would at least improve his chances in not being sentenced to death immediately. If your father agrees to go along quietly, then I have no doubt that Potter will deliver that testimony." She frowned and added thoughtfully, "Perhaps he will not provide it happily, but he was the one who made the bargain. I believe he will honor it."
            Draco bit his lip savagely. "I told you I had a different plan," he whispered. "Has Kreacher come back with the potion yet?"
            His mother looked him in the eye for so long that Draco opened his mouth to question her, wondering if Kreacher had perhaps been caught, although with the chaos in Hogwarts at the moment, he should have been able to sneak in. But then his mother stood up, walked over to the table beside the bed, and withdrew a key from a small drawer. She unlocked the drawer beneath it and took out the bottle of golden liquid, extending it to Draco.
            Draco took it and unstoppered it. Yes, Amortentia still smelled the way it always had to him, like sweat and freedom. He looked up at his mother. "And I know that you have a photograph of Potter, so I can look at it and make sure that I fall in love with him that way."
            His mother produced one of the latest editions of the Daily Prophet, still watching him steadily.
            Draco took the paper from her and turned so that he could look into Potter's eyes. There was a good photograph of him there, staring defiantly up at the Wizengamot. Draco bit the corner of his lip. Most of the time, you fell in love with someone who gave you Amortenia. He'd read of cases where it happened after swallowing it and looking at the person in question, but this was a bit further from the beaten path than he was comfortable with.
            But he could wait until he was comfortable with Potter sending his father to prison, which was never, or he could go ahead and do something about it now.
            After another glance at the photograph to make sure he was holding it at exactly the right height, he tilted back the vial and swallowed as much of the potion as he could get into his mouth at one time.
            He promptly choked. It tasted like salted honey, instead of the sweetness he had read in some books was the potion's natural taste, or the blandness it had after being mixed with an unsuspecting target's water. There was no reason for it to burn like that going down. Draco knew it hadn't been mixed with anything, so it should have been pure honey.
            He clawed at his throat with one hand for a second, and then opened his eyes and fixed them as steadily as he could on Potter's photograph.
            He felt as if he was falling, tumbling forwards, and then something caught him and tugged him back. There was a harsh burning in his throat and stomach, like bile. Draco licked his lips and panted in bewilderment. What the hell was going on?
            He turned to his mother, who watched him without moving. Then she closed her eyes, and Draco wondered for one instant if she had decided that he was too much trouble, if she and his father had somehow conspired to poison him--
            But the burning in his throat and head vanished, and Draco stood there panting. He looked at Narcissa. "It didn't work," he whispered, even as he fastened his eyes on Potter's photograph to be sure. No, he had no impulse to fall at his feet and worship him.
            "I thought it might not," his mother said calmly. "The bond--"
            Someone flung the door open before Draco could understand what she was saying, and Potter stormed in, his hair flying out on his head like trails of lightning and his eyes wild. He was clutching his right arm as though it pained him.
            "The bond just shrieked at me like you were dying," he snapped at Draco. "What the hell were you doing to yourself?"
*
            Kain: Draco never intended to disguise what he had done. He just intended to present Harry with a fait accompli and use the bond to force him to do whatever Draco wanted.
            But Narcissa went along with it only because she strongly suspected this plan would not work.
            And thanks for the compliments on "Wedding Dance"! However, I think it is too late to do the same thing with this story.
            SP777: Yes. Although not quite in the way that it might have.
            moodysavage: Thanks! Although Draco now has to deal with a different kind of consequence.
            delia cerrano: Harry would rather see Lucius in prison, too, but he's irritated to see that Draco wants him to just walk free.
            eaglexeyes: Well, still not the way Draco suspects...
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The Only True Lords