Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

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 Thirty-Seven—Up Against the Wall
            “But why are you here? Where’s Professor Granger?”
            Harry gave the staring students a faint smile and laid down the books he’d entered the classroom carrying on the nearest table. “I’ve taken over teaching the class for right now,” he said easily. “Professor Granger had something she needed to research.”
            That made some of the students, a mixed class of fifth-year Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws, relax; they knew even after short experience of her how much those words applied to Hermione, Harry thought. But one of the larger Hufflepuffs, who reminded Harry painfully of Cedric with darker hair, frowned and said, “How can you pick up in the middle of the lesson?”
            “I’ve looked over Professor Granger’s notes,” Harry said, nodding at the books. “And I think I can help with practical demonstrations.”
            “What practical demonstrations?” That was a Ravenclaw near the back, who looked upset at the very thought of having to do anything but read. “This is History of Magic. We read books and take notes and write essays.”
            “I hope you’ll still do all that,” Harry said, with a stare that made some students scramble as if to show him that they had their parchment right in front of them. “But I can do some different things, too. What was Professor Granger in the middle of?”
            Some students shifted as though they didn’t want to tell him, but the Hufflepuff who must be related to Cedric cleared his throat and said, “Um. She was teaching us about how—how You-Know-Who got so powerful.”
            Harry laughed through his nose and said, “Well, then I can really show you something. I lived through that.” He faced the table and gestured, twisting his hand through the gestures that felt right. So much of what he did with the magic that bound him to Hogwarts ran on instinct and assurance.
            The stones of the floor took a minute to think about his request. Then they started popping up in the forms of masked and hooded figures, while dust formed the figure in the center. Harry made him as much like Voldemort as he could, with the noseless face and the bright red eyes that he formed of minute specks of iron in the bones of Hogwarts. Someone in the back of the classroom shrieked.
            A braver Ravenclaw swallowed and raised her hand. Harry nodded to her.
            “Did you really see a meeting like this?” The Ravenclaw was staring at the figures as though she expected them to collapse back into stone and dust at any moment, and also as though she was frightened out of her mind. But the Ravenclaw desire for knowledge had overcome her fear, Harry thought approvingly. Ron had said once that only Gryffindors would really want to break rules or know more outside the official classes, but anyone could. Any House’s traits could let them survive. It just depended on how they applied them.
            “Not exactly like this,” Harry said, and waved his hand at the figures. They began to dissolve and spin around, and as he concentrated, the scene in the graveyard formed, the small ring of Death Eater figures standing back and concentrating on Harry bound to the stone and Voldemort rising from the cauldron. “That was more what you might call a symbolic representation. But this is something that really happened.” He glanced at the students in the class. “Probably not while you were at Hogwarts, most of you. But I faced Voldemort after the Triwizard Tournament.”
            “How did that happen?” It was the same Ravenclaw. “I mean—my mother’s cousin is Amos Diggory, but no one wanted to tell me at the time. They said I was too young.”
            Harry glanced at the list of names that Hermione had left in her room. “You’re Annette Tolbalt?”
            Tolbalt nodded cautiously, as though she suspected she would be punished because she hadn’t identified herself at first. Harry nodded encouragingly back at her. “Well, I can tell you now. But be sure that you want to listen.” He glanced around the class. “That applies to the rest of you, as well. I don’t want to disgust or frighten you, but some of these things probably will. The truth almost always does.”
            One girl near the back of the room stood up and edged out. But everyone else still stayed still, including all the Hufflepuffs.
            “Very well.” Harry gestured, and the shadowy figures moved back and settled into the configurations that he remembered from the duel. “What happened was that I was being sickeningly fair and nice, and so was Cedric Diggory. He was a hero,” he added quietly. “He died, but he was still a hero. And we both kept insisting that the other one should take the Triwizard Cup, when we both got through the maze that was the third task and arrived at the Cup at the same time…”
*
            “You look badly-off, sir.”
            Draco waved his hand at Rosenthal without looking up from the parchment in front of him. “I don’t feel very good. But we’ve already put off the party by one day. I don’t want to put it off any more than that. You know as well as I do that the impression of weakness is usually more fatal than the weakness itself.”
            “Yes. Well. Sir.”
            Draco leaned back and tried not to wince as his head came to rest against the padded back of the chair. It was padded for a reason, after all. He ought to be able to bear that, and so should his aching head, no matter what had happened to cause it to hurt that way. “There’s something specific wrong,” he said. “Tell me. Has that bastard Rosier been blackmailing you again?”
            Rosenthal gave him a faint smile. “No, sir. That threat has been taken care of, thanks to you and—Lord Potter.” She sounded bothered by not knowing the exact etiquette of how to address a rising Dark Lord, Draco thought, amused. “It’s—this.” She took a piece of parchment from the sheaf she carried and extended it.
            Draco barely had to look at it. He held up the parchment on the desk in front of him and shook it. “It’s a twin to this one.”
            “The owl that you received this afternoon, sir?” Rosenthal shifted her hands as if she needed to have one free for her wand.
            Draco nodded and laid the parchments side-by-side, studying them. He didn’t recognize the hand, but that was trivial, given all the ways that writing could be disguised. What was important was the content.
            And that was the same in both letters, bar a different name used to address the letter.
            Dear Candidate Malfoy, said the letter that had come to him,
            I write this as a friend. I understand the benefits of allying with power, and I have done it in the past, myself. That does not mean that I wish to see you go down with the one you have bound yourself to, in this case, the one calling himself Dark Lord Potter.
            The Ministry can tolerate him no longer. His ignorance of the realities of power, his belief that only magic is necessary to make one formidable and important in the wizarding world, will destroy and damage more than him. It already has, if one considers the ramifications of his attacks on others and does not think of them as a type of personal vengeance.
            His ignorance of pure-blood laws, in particular, will destroy him.
            I believe the wizarding world needs strong and competent leaders, and that of all the candidates available to our populace in this election, you will do the best. But I also believe that you will not be able to succeed if you stay allied to Lord Potter. Consider this a warning. I will take no part in the Ministry’s vengeance, but it will be launched no later than tomorrow.
            There was no signature, which Draco thought wise, in a frustrating way. People who wrote these kinds of letters often couldn’t resist the temptation to use some clever reference in their signature, and they ended up figured out far more easily than if they had used a bland closing. Or none, as this one did.
            “You think it genuine?”
            Draco leaned back and regarded Rosenthal curiously. “I thought you would tell me there was no doubt that it was.”
            Rosenthal’s fingers toyed with a chain around her neck for a moment, and then came to rest on the edge of the desk. “After what Lord Potter did, after what I have seen him do, I am less inclined to believe it,” she whispered. “The idea that someone would challenge him…”
            “They do say that it’s the Ministry, not them,” Draco noted, turning back to the letter. “The Ministry is stupid enough to do anything.”
            “Why do you want to be in charge of them again?”
            Draco glanced up, acknowledged the brief gleam of humor in her eyes with the tilt of his head, and answered it seriously. “Because I believe that they don’t have to be stupid. And I think they can be smarter, and since they’re in charge of the wizarding world and probably will be for the rest of my lifetime, well into the next one, I want them to act intelligently.”
            Rosenthal sighed. “I don’t think we can cancel or change the party again without someone, more than the people who already suspect—” her hand brushed the parchment “—getting suspicious.”
            Draco shook his head. “No. I’ll send a warning to Harry and hope that does something. He has his hands full, anyway, what with Granger leaving.”
            “That’s not going to look good to people, either,” Rosenthal murmured.
            Draco flipped a brow at her. “I notice that you aren’t suggesting retreat from the proximity of Potter’s company anymore, though.”
            A frown flowed across Rosenthal’s face and then vanished. “We’ve made our choices. I made the choice, when I decided that it was more important to stay and serve you, and tell Potter about the blackmail, then leave or try to accept that Rosier might force me to do something to you. I still think Potter’s politics are sometimes foolish, but he took a risk to save me, and a bigger one for you, and I can’t downplay that.”
            Draco nodded, pleased to hear so much good sense out of her, and sat up. “Make copies of these letters and owl them to Potter.” He still had to call him that, and not Harry, in front of people, he thought, even if Rosenthal was closer to knowing the truth than anyone else in his camp. Draco wasn’t about to let down his guard or get used to doing so. “That’s all we can do right now. Now, what did Pansy say when you firecalled her?”
*
            Harry turned around. He had just finished the last afternoon History of Magic class—fourth-year Slytherins and Gryffindors—and he had been trying to remember if he had ever been that young. Sure, he had done plenty of stupid things when he was a fourth-year. The circumstances and the Tournament demanded it. But surely he had never been that wide-eyed and that disbelieving that forces of evil existed in the world? Surely he had never spoken back to his professors in quite that distrustful and disrespectful tone of voice?
            A ripple in the ground and through the stones of Hogwarts had alerted him that something was wrong, though. Harry moved slowly towards the window in this corridor, which looked out towards the Forest, wondering what kind of threat could warn him it was coming but still be hard to define.
            Then he felt the leading edge of it, and he knew. He recoiled. It was Dark magic, foul and smoky, so thick and rank that he decided he couldn’t call himself a Dark Lord yet. That was the kind of power he never wanted to use or touch.
            He Apparated without conscious thought from the corridor to the top of the Astronomy Tower. He thought he might be able to see better from out there.
            The only sight was a single wizard standing near the gates of Hogwarts. He hadn’t tried to come through them. He wore a tattered cloak, but lots of people could have that, especially if they were coming through the Forbidden Forest. He did seem to notice the way Harry had appeared on the top of the Tower, because he tilted his head back to regard Harry.
            Harry winced as those eyes found him. There was no way that he could make out features well from this distance—
            Then the magic concentrated around his eyes, and Harry coughed. Oh. Sometimes he still forgot what he could do.
            Fine, no way that he could make out features from this distance without help, but now he could see that the man was gaunt and old, with dark eyes that sparked as they met Harry’s. He’d probably cast a Clear-Sight Charm that let him see Harry at least as well as Harry could see him right now. He waved his wand at the gates and then at his own throat, and his voice seemed to speak from the metal.
            “A Dark Lord shouldn’t fear to face a challenge from a former Dark Lord’s servant.”
            Harry narrowed his eyes. This was one of the old Death Eaters? Well, that made sense. Harry didn’t recognize him, but there were lots of people he had never known behind the anonymity of those white masks and dark cloaks.
            The real question was why he had come here now. If he was one of the captured ones, he should have been in Azkaban. If he was a rogue, then he ought to have feared to alert the Ministry to his presence.
            Then Harry gave a faint grin. Of course, I’m hardly the first one likely to ask for help from the Ministry if a Death Eater shows up at my gates.
            Harry laid his hand on the parapet and sent energy coursing through the stones, through the ground, and into the earth where the Death Eater stood. The man choked, gasped, and changed color, swaying, although all Harry had really sent was a feeling of his power, less like an electric shock than like the feeling that lightning was near.
            “You stand on my ground,” Harry said. “I don’t even know your name. And I think you should be the one to fear facing a current Dark Lord.”
            The man stared at him, then snapped, “The name is Ignatius Yaxley. I have my reasons for coming here, and requesting a duel.” As Harry opened his mouth and cast his mind back, trying to remember if Yaxley had been one of the Death Eaters captured by the Ministry, Yaxley lashed out with a hiss, and what looked like a thorny briar of black light unfolded from his wand.
            It attacked Harry’s wards, the magic that he had wrapped around his school and the stones and the students there. It sucked at them. Harry had never felt magic like that, and he hadn’t built precautions into his wards against it. He flinched as he felt the steady pulling, the swallowing that resembled the way a large snake would feast on mice.
            The trees that stood inside the gates of Hogwarts began to droop. A few small stones crumbled. Harry heard a shriek from the school, but even when he reached out through his bond with Hogwarts, he couldn’t tell if it had come from a student who was hurt by something Yaxley had done or merely someone who was frightened.
            Harry turned back to face Yaxley. He was glad to see that Yaxley started back as if he would Apparate away, but then he stood his ground. Good. He deserved to suffer for what he’d tried to do to Harry’s domain, and Harry was going to make him suffer.
            It did make him wonder if this was the test that the letters Draco had owled to him talked about, but Harry knew full well what the Ministry would do even if Yaxley won: claim that they had no knowledge of Yaxley’s escape and they were glad that he had taken down a dangerous Dark Lord. But it was more likely he would lose, and it didn’t benefit the Ministry to have Yaxley duel Harry and be wounded. Harry had no idea who it did benefit.
            He moved, through the earth or the air he couldn’t remember afterwards, and stood behind the gates in front of Yaxley a few seconds later. Yaxley just continued to watch him closely, as though he expected Harry to be weaker.
            Then he said, “As the challenged, it falls to you to choose the ground.”
            Harry grinned. “The path that leads down to Hogsmeade.” That was close enough to Hogwarts that he could draw strength from its stones, but not actually on the grounds. Harry didn’t want Yaxley on his grounds right now. He would rip him apart from the inside out if Yaxley hurt one of his people, or even another of his trees.
            Yaxley had a faint, wintry smile. Harry couldn’t see why. No matter what happened, he wasn’t going to win. Didn’t he know that? Harry didn’t know the particular spells he’d used, but he had more than enough sheer power to make up for his lack of knowledge. He tightened the web of magic around himself as he waited for Yaxley’s response.
            “And as the challenger, it falls to me to choose the rules, since I assume that we agree our magic is our weapon?” He looked at Harry, who nodded, wondering again if Yaxley was stupid. He could have restricted Harry to a wand as his weapon, and that might have allowed him some (small) chance of winning. “Very well. I choose the Baron’s Blood Rules.”
            Harry narrowed his eyes. That meant to the death. “You won’t back out?” he asked.
            “I do not want to,” Yaxley said, and fell back, and swept a bow. “Do you, Harry Potter, who calls yourself Dark Lord and Lord of Hogwarts, agree to abide by the Baron’s Blood Rules?”
            “I do,” Harry said, and felt the magic settle into place around him and Yaxley, a great and glittering, visible ring that would surround them and hold them safe from any outside challenges. No one could cross that ring, either to help or hinder them, and it would only dissolve when one of them was dead.
            Yaxley laughed at him with his mouth open and throat gaping, and turned to lead the way down to the Hogsmeade path. Harry marshaled his magic, still not quite understanding, but ready to give Yaxley wanted he wanted.
            And what he will find, for challenging me.
*
            delia cerrano: Hermione is afraid of the depth of Harry’s feelings for Draco. Maybe it would be okay with someone else, but maybe not.
            SP777: Oh, gosh, no, nowhere near that far! I’m mostly focused on the plot arc with Yaxley right now. I don’t know if they’re going to have named positions in the Court at all; Harry would probably distrust titles. He doesn’t even like calling himself Dark Lord, or people calling him Lord Potter. He claimed that title mostly because of the way that it meant people would treat him.
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Easy as Falling