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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.

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Chapter Thirty-Seven—Not Willing To Take It Anymore
            “Harry, mate? Are you all right? You look like you’re ready to storm the Ministry.”
            Harry smiled at Ron. It was surprisingly easy to do, with all the anger swirling around in the middle of his chest and making him feel as though he’d swallowed a volcano. Then again, Ron wasn’t in the bond and couldn’t be responsible for any of the things he was feeling right now.
            “Yeah,” he said, and opened the door to a room off to their right, not caring which one it was. He would have backed out again if it was one of the Slytherins’ bedrooms, but it was a room that might once have been a study, given the bookshelves set into the walls. They were all empty, though. Harry stepped inside, folded his arms, and turned around, leaning against the wall. “Would you mind closing the door behind you?”
            Ron still eyed him as he shut the door. “Someone put you in this mood?”
            Harry snorted. “Malfoy, yes.”
            Either Ron knew exactly which one, or he had simply never stopped thinking that there was more than one important person with that name. He winced. “I wish that git would realize his bloody father just has to go to prison,” he muttered.
            “I think he did realize it, right before I left.” Harry ran his hand through his hair, and tugged some of it straight up on purpose. He saw Ron watching him, and shrugged. “It can’t look any worse than it always does.”
            “I wasn’t staring at you because of that,” Ron said. He sat down on one of the ancient chairs in the study, and wrinkled his nose when dust flew up. A quick charm banished it. “You managed to make him see sense?”
            “After I yelled at him about how selfish he was and how I might be able to save his father but I wasn’t going to, sure.”
            “Thank Merlin.” Harry blinked at Ron, who shook his head. “Hermione and I were both watching the bond wear you down more and more, but we both knew that you had so much to deal with…more criticism was the last thing you needed.”
            “You’re different,” Harry said quietly. “She was the one who had the idea to meditate to control the bond, and it was a good one.” He took a seat across from Ron. “It’s just a pity that I can’t meditate to think of ways to handle all of them.”
            Ron frowned. “But you do have a way to handle them now. Just let them go.”
            “I can’t do that to Greg.”
            Ron sighed hard enough to make Harry’s hair blow back, or at least it felt like that to Harry. “I understand that he wants to stay with you. But what about the rest of them? It would solve a lot if you could just release them.”
            “I could,” Harry acknowledged. For a moment, he thought about it, the peace he could have if he was only responsible for Greg and not for people who fought back and argued with him and told him he was stupid and plotted up ways to kill him.
            But the memory of the sudden emptiness he had felt when he released Blaise made him shake his head. “I promised to protect them, and none of them have asked me yet,” he said. “I would be surprised if Draco does, actually. He’s too terrified of what would happen if he went through the trials without any protection.”
            “He should,” Ron muttered.
            Harry arched his eyebrows. “Then so should I. If it’s just a notion of justice, then Snape should too. And Pansy and Greg.”
            “You know that’s different,” Ron said, leaning forwards. “You did what you had to do to end the war, and so did Snape. Parkinson and Goyle…” He hesitated.
            “I don’t know enough about what they did during the war to be certain,” Harry said quietly. “I don’t think the Wizengamot will pry that much, because if they condemned them for going along with the Death Eaters in Hogwarts, they’d have to condemn a lot of people in the Ministry for going along with the Death Eaters that were in control there. And most of those people were a lot older than Pansy and Greg.” He sighed. “I suppose I should ask them in more detail about what they did just so I’ll know what we’re facing in the trials.”
            “But not now,” Ron said, his eyes intent. “Now you want to rest and get some sleep?”
            Harry nodded. “Yeah. I’d like to go flying, too, but I promised the bloody Ministry I wouldn’t leave the house. So will you and Hermione come talk to me? That’s the next best thing.”
            Ron pretended to scowl. “Only the next best thing, right? Not the best.”
            “Hey,” Harry said around a yawn, “as many things as I have to think about and do right now, you ought to be honored to have a place that high on the list.”
            “Maybe I’ll feel even more honored when you’ve rested and you can talk to us properly,” said Ron. He hauled Harry out of his chair, and Harry stumbled. Ron nodded. “Yeah, that was what I thought. Go rest, Great Lord. You know that you’re unable to keep up with Hermione sometimes even when you’re awake, you don’t want to try and do it when you’re asleep.”
            Harry gave him a glare, but sighed and stumbled off to bed. It felt like all he was doing lately was resting…
            But he only thought that until he remembered freeing Blaise, and meditating on the bond, and confronting Blaise’s mother, and the confrontation with Draco. All of those had occurred in less than forty-eight hours.
            Yeah, I’ve earned some sleep.
*
            “I must speak with you, Draco.”
            It occurred to Severus that something had changed; Draco stood up from the kitchen table where he had been quietly talking with his parents, and came with Severus without any expression of regret or dragging of his heels. Severus narrowed his eyes. He could hope, of course, that this meant Draco was gaining in sense, but as many things as had happened so far without Draco gaining in sense, he was reluctant to grant hope that much of a concession.
            “What did you want to talk about?” Draco asked, when he had closed the kitchen door behind them and he and Severus were walking down a corridor that would lead to storage rooms if they kept moving this way.
            Severus turned around in the middle of the corridor and clasped his hands behind his back. They had come far enough for privacy’s sake, he thought, and that meant he could unleash the blast of his temper without going into another room to do so. “Stop troubling Potter about your father becoming a vassal. It lessens Potter’s ability to protect the rest of us, and though I do not like to admit it, we need him.”
            Draco raised his eyebrows and stared at him for a second. Severus frowned. He would have thought that Draco would react with indignation, not this. But before he could speak, Draco said, “He didn’t tell you, then.”
            “I have not seen Potter for some hours, if that is who you are referring to,” Severus said coolly.
            Draco was staring at one of the walls, where an empty portrait frame hung. “I thought he would tell you,” he muttered. “That he would immediately go and share the triumph with you, because you’re the one who understands me the most…” Then he sighed, and turned back to Severus. “Maybe that was wishful thinking, but I wish he had.”
            “It seems to me that you possess the same information and desire of unburdening yourself to me,” Severus observed. “Why not tell me now, and that will both ease your mind and absolve Potter of the sin of not doing so?” His voice was growing waspish. He could not stand being shut out of information by the endless prevarications of someone who had all the facts already in their grasp.
            “Potter made it clear that he didn’t have to do anything he didn’t want to, as far as saving my father went.” Draco’s voice was low, his eyes staring into the distance as though he saw Potter standing there. “And then he said that even if taking Lucius as a vassal would save him, he wouldn’t do it.”
            Severus blinked. That was more decision than he would have expected from Potter, and he wondered if it was a move in the wrong direction, considering the dangerous unpredictability of Narcissa Malfoy. “Why did he decide to tell you that?”
            A blush prickled across Draco’s cheeks. “I—I wanted to force him into doing something, into making it so that my father didn’t go to prison. I thought I could use the bond against him, because if I was unhappy, then he would have to make sure that I could be happy again. And he felt it through the bond, which prevented me from harming myself, and he was really angry and yelled at me.”
            “What did you do?” Severus asked, and Draco looked down at the floor and traced his foot in a circle.
            “I was going to take Amortentia, and then he would know that I was in love with him and helpless with it and he would have to do what I wanted.”
            Severus turned his head away and paced to the far end of the corridor. He was himself risking Narcissa’s anger if he stayed near Draco, and perhaps Potter’s as well, considering that he wanted to wring Draco’s neck.
            “You thought that would work,” he said, and perhaps because he had so many emotions fighting in him for dominance, he heard his voice come out flat, not disapproving, the way that he wanted to make it.
            “I knew it would,” said Draco. “It wouldn’t matter if he knew it was false. What mattered was that he would have to do what I wanted.”
            “You cannot use a Lordship bond against the Lord,” Severus said, and began counting the small spots on the wall in front of him, which looked like chips and burn marks, to calm himself down. “You would think that someone raised as pure-blood as you would know that.”
            “I’ve already seen that he forgave Blaise and reversed the bond’s punishment of him,” Draco mumbled. “I know that he doesn’t think like a Lord most of the time. I thought I could do it.”
            Severus turned back to him. “He has forgiven you again this time?” It was the most urgent thing to know at the moment. If he didn’t know it, then he might make a wrong move where either Draco or Potter was concerned.
            “He did,” Draco said. “After I admitted that I knew he couldn’t save my father, and he wasn’t going to, and that means—” He choked a little. “That means that Father will be going to Azkaban.” He whispered the last words, as if that were a charm that might still make it not come true.
            “It does,” Severus said. “And as long as Potter has forgiven you and you have made it clear that you won’t oppose him anymore, then this is perhaps the best thing that could happen.”
            Draco glared at him. “I know that you don’t have much pity for Father—have no reason to pity him—but I did think that you might remember that I don’t have any reason to want my father in prison.”
            Severus looked at him, and remembered that he had always wondered how Draco would grow out of the shadow of his father. As long as Lucius was alive and free, he would always be there for Draco to compare himself to. Lucius was the Malfoy of Malfoy Manor, the one in charge of the vaults and the responsibility, and Draco might learn to manage them, but he would not carry off the same reputation and grandeur if he had to wait years and years to cast his own light.
            But that was not the kind of thing that Severus could say to one of his Slytherins who looked the way Draco did. “If you are not about to cause some kind of crisis,” he said, “then I am going to go up and talk to Potter.”
            Draco abruptly grinned. “You can try, but Granger is going to turn you away the same way she turned me away, this morning.”
            “Granger doesn’t have anything to say about it,” Severus snapped, and then moderated his voice a little. He didn’t like Draco’s grin, but that was no reason to make him cower. “She’s not part of the bond.”
            “No, but she’s Potter’s most vocal friend.” Draco turned away, then added over his shoulder, “I won’t make more trouble. I just want to enjoy my father’s company for however long it is before the trials begin.”
            Severus watched the kitchen door shut behind Draco again with narrowed eyes. Perhaps he was adapting better to the situation than Severus had thought. For him to speak like that, smile like that, and say that Potter had forgiven him…

            But there were still things Severus needed to speak with Potter about, things that did not concern Draco at all, and he turned towards the stairs.
*
            Harry stretched luxuriously. He had a pillow behind his neck, another under his back, another beneath his arse, and he didn’t even know how many behind his head, propping him up and making him comfortable. A thick, red blanket that Kreacher had dragged out from somewhere and severely dusted draped him from neck to toes. And he had a steaming breakfast in front of him, which included scones drizzled with butter and honey.
            He reached for the tray, and then paused. His arm had throbbed, a little, and there were footsteps in the corridor beyond the bedroom door.
            Then Hermione’s voice, friendly and bright, said, “Sorry, but you can’t go in there.”
            “I will go where I please.” That was Snape, his voice so deep that he made it sound as if he was about to give Hermione detention.
            But they weren’t in Hogwarts, and Harry had seen during the last year that Hermione had changed a lot from the girl who would have automatically cowered from that voice. He slapped two scones together like a sandwich and started to eat them, grinning.
            “Not into this bedroom,” said Hermione. “Harry’s had enough trouble from the whole pack of you. You’ll see him when he wants to speak with you, and not before.”
            “But you don’t understand.” Snape’s voice had become soft and insinuating, and Harry frowned. He had to admit, he didn’t really know how Hermione would handle this one. “If one of us was injured, or otherwise needed him…”
            “Then he would come out,” Hermione said promptly. “But if you’re thinking of injuring yourself so that he’d have to come out and you could talk to him, well, I suggest you talk to Malfoy about that. He had that bright idea, too.”
            Harry saluted Hermione with his scone-sandwich and deliberately bit into it as hard as he could, drizzling everything all over the tray, because he wanted to.
            “This is not over,” Snape said at last, when Harry had actually thought he’d gone away, except that he hadn’t heard the retreating footsteps.
            “I’m sure that it isn’t,” Hermione said. “After all, you still have the bond with him. But one thing you really have to remember is that Harry can’t be saving you all the time, especially saving you from yourselves. Sometimes you’ll just have to come up with solutions on your own.”
            “He was the one who,” Snape began, and then there was a pause, and then this time, Harry did hear the retreating footsteps.
            Harry snickered into his hand. He thought Snape had probably been about to say that Harry was the one who’d killed Voldemort and initiated the bond, and then he’d realized that that sounded like he was acknowledging Harry was a hero. And he’d always tried not to do that. So he’d retreated.
            “Harry, are you decent?” Hermione called, rapping on the door.
            Harry resisted the impulse to smear honey on his face or something, and called, “Yeah, Hermione,” rolling his eyes.
            Hermione came in and nodded at him. “Snape wanted—”
            “I heard,” Harry said. “And thank you for sending him away. I’m not in the mood to deal with anyone from the bond right now.”
            “Good thing that I’m not in the bond, then,” Hermione said, with the sort of bossiness that made Harry love her, and set her hands on her hips. “Do you know what you want to do next?”
            “Sit in bed, and read, and sleep some more,” Harry said, and sucked honey off his finger to see her wince. Then he felt a little bad about that, but it sounded like she was trying to make him get up and move around, and he didn’t want to do that again. “I need more recovery time, Hermione. Really. I didn’t realize how close to the edge they’d got me until I almost hurt Draco yesterday.”
            She frowned at him. “I don’t think that you would actually have hurt him. The bond would have prevented you from doing that, wouldn’t it?”
            “I don’t know.” Harry held his hands out to her pleadingly. “I meditated, sure, but that wasn’t very relaxing. I need a day off. Can you do that for me?” He heard the whine in his voice and cut himself off, wincing. It would do less than no good if he worked himself up about this when he was in the middle of trying to calm down.
            Hermione softened and shook her head at him. “I would never try to make you do something you didn’t want to,” she murmured. “I just thought the bond would probably pull you out of seclusion before then.” She sighed. “Why don’t you stay up here for today? Ron and I will be on guard for now.”
            “Make sure that you get some time to yourselves, too,” Harry said.
            “As you put it, we’re not part of the bond, so you don’t need to worry about us as much.”
            “If you don’t take care of yourselves, then you’ll get sick or something, and I’ll worry about that on top of everything else,” Harry said, shuddering a little. “No, thanks.”
            Hermione laughed reluctantly and turned towards the door. “I suppose Kreacher can bring you everything you need?”
            “Yeah.” Harry touched the shield mark on his arm. “And I think this would let me know if something urgent really was going on and the people in the bond needed me.” The people still in the bond. The place where Blaise had been didn’t feel as empty as it had been yesterday, but it still ached a little, like a long-ago tumble from his broom.
            “Good,” Hermione said, and smiled at him over her shoulder. “You totally deserve to have some time alone, by the way. I just hope that you can actually use it to rest and not just read.”
            “You’re saying that?” Harry asked, and pretended to reach for his wand as if he was going to cast a detection charm, before he remembered that he didn’t have it.
            Hermione laughed again and shut the door, and Harry went back to enjoying his breakfast.
*
            It had taken Pansy longer than she’d thought it would to track down Professor Snape. Then again, he seemed to barely eat regular meals or sleep, and he had no interest in the library, maybe because Potter and Greg, and now Blaise, were spending a lot of their time there. She finally came across him in one of the ground floor sitting rooms, his fingers clasped beneath his chin as he stared into the fire.
            She blinked a little before she shut the door behind her. I suppose that some of the theories we made up about what he got up to in his rooms at night were actually accurate.
            “We need to decide what we’re going to do about Draco and the bond,” she said briskly, when he turned a startled face towards her.
            “If you mean that Draco is going to turn against Potter, you need not worry about that,” Professor Snape said, without turning a hair. “They have talked, and Potter forgave him and managed to make him see the truth.”
            “What truth?” Pansy folded her arms. She had to admit, Professor Snape sounded less lively than she liked. He was going to brood about this and make this into something more complex than it needed to be, perhaps. “Draco will never give up on his stupid notion that his father needs to go free.”
            Professor Snape turned so she could see one of his eyes. “Potter made him give up on it.” Then he added softly, “But not alone.”
            “Did one of his friends help persuade Draco?” Pansy finally gave in to the fact that she would be here for a while, and took one of the chairs next to Professor Snape. “I find it hard to imagine that that would go well.”
            Professor Snape’s lip curled. “No, it would not. What happened was that I believe the bond pushed Draco into this acquiescence.”
            “Why?” Pansy looked down at the shield mark on her own arm, which hadn’t bothered her for a while. “It doesn’t seem to do that kind of thing very often.”
            “Because he changed his mind, and he changed it when Potter was angry at him, and frustrated with him.” Professor Snape again looked at the fire. “Now, it may be for the best, because there is no way that Potter could defend his parents, and it was time Draco recognized that. But I wonder what will happen if Draco realizes that.”
            Pansy spent a minute thinking about that. But she wasn’t that interested in Draco if the problems he was causing had stopped. She was more interested in herself. “Do you think the bond can push us like that, too?” she asked.
            “I am certain of it.”
            Professor Snape stood up and turned to face her. Pansy clenched her hands on the arms of the chair, but didn’t stand. She didn’t want to show she was intimidated, which standing up would probably do.
            “I believe that the bond has already made me less suicidal and more accepting of having a master,” Professor Snape went on. “Take care that it does not deprive you of the political ambitions I understand are important to you.”
            Pansy set her jaw. “I would fight it if that happened.”
            “You may not have a chance to,” whispered Professor Snape, his voice so low that it frightened Pansy. “The bond is in your mind and spirit, and you may not be able to tell the difference between it and the promptings of your own instinct and conscience. If you wanted to do something, would you know if you always had that desire or not? How many of us closely monitor our own memories?”
            Pansy laughed. She didn’t mean to, but the sound jerked out before she could clasp a hand to her mouth. Professor Snape stared at her.
            “I’m sorry, sir,” Pansy said quickly. “But if you can’t tell the difference between the bond and your own thoughts, and you can’t remember whether you used to have that desire or not, then how do you know you’re not acting against your own thoughts? It seems to me that if you can’t tell the difference, you might as well just assume that you’re following your own instincts, and accept them.”
            Professor Snape stood there for a second. Then he said, “You are a child,” and swept out.
            Pansy was left alone to look into the fire.
            A child, maybe. But someone who’s going to be happier than he ever will, because I accept what I need to do to survive.
*
polka dot: Harry does want to respect what Draco wants, since he has so little power over the bond otherwise.
delia cerrano: Thank you!
SP777: Draco really does believe that Harry won’t help his parents, but other than that, yes, I think he gets it. The biggest problem is that Harry may have to face up to keeping his promise to himself and not saving Lucius if push comes to shove.
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The Only True Lords