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.

Chapter List
- 3
- 4
- 5
Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Four—The Price of Silence

            “Do you think he’ll be your rival, sir?”

            For a moment, Draco kept his eyes on the map in front of him that showed the areas of England less likely to vote for him, because Rosenthal would think it odd to see hope in his face. Then he turned around and shook his head. “Whatever Potter’s goals in proclaiming himself a Dark Lord, they’re not going to be mine. He doesn’t just want political power, or he would have proclaimed himself Minister instead.”

            If he has goals. If he himself knows what they are. The dead silence that had come out of Hogwarts, where Potter was apparently based, in the last few days made Draco think that Potter had made this leap and then found himself on the edge of an abyss.

            “But we don’t know what might happen next.” Rosenthal was rubbing her wrists against each other and pacing back and forth. “It would be easy to discount him and then suddenly find ourselves dealing with him as a threat.”

            “We never know what might happen next,” Draco said. “We didn’t know until other people started talking to us whether I would gather enough momentum to run, or whether I would have to wait a few more years to try for the Minister’s position.” He leaned back in his chair, studying her. “What really has you worried?”

            Rosenthal closed her eyes, then opened them again. Her curly brown hair dangled into her eyes as she turned around and studied him. “If I’m really that transparent, I could cause you trouble when the campaign begins in earnest,” she whispered.

            “You’re causing me trouble now,” Draco told her impatiently. “Tell me what you have to say, and stop being so bloody evasive.”

            Rosenthal blinked at him, then seemed finally to realize that she could do him the most good by voicing her honest suspicions. She nodded and sat down in the chair across from him, pulling her hair back over her shoulders. Draco waited patiently until she had settled her hands in her lap and looked as if she would keep them there for a while, instead of flinging them around.

            “I worry that someone might think you set this up,” she began, staring at the floor. It was a pretty parquet floor, Draco thought, one of the best remaining in the Manor, but he would get impatient if she insisted on doing this for much longer. “Because you were a servant to the last Dark Lord, and this might seem like a great distraction from the rumors that Tilipop’s agents are spreading about you in the press.”

            Draco snorted. “I know some people will think like that, because someone at the Prophet will, and there are too many fools out there who let the Prophet dictate their every thought,” he said. “But I don’t think it’s a thought the majority of them will have. They might believe I’ll serve Potter, or that I’m in league with him. I don’t think most of them will decide that I’m the power behind him.”

            Rosenthal hesitated before she looked at him. “Why not?”

            “That rivalry that I’ve told you about at Hogwarts, between Potter and me?” Draco asked. He had made a point of revealing the worst parts of his past to Rosenthal before he took her on to manage his publicity. She couldn’t clip rumors short if she didn’t know the shit they grew on. “It was worse than you might have thought. I told you about the arguing and the cursing, but before the end, Potter cursed me badly enough that I might have died. And I would have used an Unforgivable on him if he hadn’t.”

            Rosenthal stared at him. Then she nodded. She wouldn’t question him about why he hadn’t told her all the details, Draco thought, because the answer was obvious. He smiled at her. He had made a good choice.

            “Then you don’t think he would respond to a request for an interview from me?” Rosenthal murmured. “That was the next thing I had thought of. He doesn’t—he doesn’t seem like a good candidate for a Dark Lord to me. Which means that I don’t think he is, that he’s only decided on the title for some strategic reason. But he won’t talk to me when I’m so strongly associated with someone he hates.”

            “The last thing Potter ever was was strategic,” Draco said, shaking his head. “He won, but he did it as much by luck as anything else.”

            “Then maybe…” Rosenthal said, and let her voice trail off.

            Draco waited, his own hands folded in his lap. Whatever was going on behind Rosenthal’s face, which looked like an honest struggle, she would have to make the decision for herself. Draco wasn’t about to intervene and make it easy for her, or prejudice her.

            Rosenthal finally sat up and said, “Maybe he would accept a visit from you.”

            Draco blinked. “If you think he would object to you calling on him, what makes you think that he would accept me?”

            “I think he doesn’t have any real sense of strategy,” Rosenthal said, feeling her way through the intricacies of the situation in a way that reminded Draco of someone walking blindfolded through a crowded room and trying not to bump into anyone. But that was the way it worked for Rosenthal, he reminded himself. She had talents that he didn’t. If he’d had them, he wouldn’t have had to hire her. “I think he’s chosen a title that he reckons might make people leave him alone for a time. If you could visit him, ask him what he’s doing, get answers from him—maybe he would be foolish enough to give them to you. That’s the impression I’m getting.” She looked expectantly at Draco.

            Draco had to nod, but also to add, “I won’t do my campaign any good by going to visit him, not when people are going to think I encouraged him to this, or that I’m his servant, or whatever new conspiracy theory they’ve invented. I can’t prevent them from inventing theories, but I can prevent my movements from giving them fodder.”

            Rosenthal gave him a tempered smile. “Of course. You would make the visit in secret, and ask him what he means to do. He might tell you. He might give you a sense, if he wants to conceal it, of his real plan, and the extent to which he would interfere in your run for Minister. We need some sense of this, and—I’m sorry, Mr. Malfoy. I can’t see another way forwards that would work,” she added plaintively, as if that was her fault instead of Potter acting like an idiot. “Not with the limited amount of knowledge I have about him and the way he works. Not with this—no one could have predicted this, could they?”

            Draco gave her the reassurance she was looking for, although honestly, he didn’t know what was true. “No, I don’t think anyone could have. The last I knew, Potter was an ordinary Auror, and content to remain so.”

            Rosenthal nodded, her eyes still shadowed. “Then perhaps you can make a visit. In secret first, and again in public if it goes well and you can show yourself to be a strong man who can deal with even the threat of a new Dark Lord calmly. I’ll have to study the situation further before I can advise you on anything else.”

            Draco stood and held out his hand to her. Rosenthal blinked, as if she thought she hadn’t merited the handshake, but then clasped and shook.

            “Don’t worry about it,” Draco told her quietly. “You’ve done the best you could in really shocking circumstances.”

            Rosenthal bowed over his hand, and retreated from the meeting room to her private office, where Draco knew she thought best. Perhaps she would have a new piece of advice for him by tomorrow morning.

            For right now, though, Draco rather liked this one. Visiting Potter in secret was daring, and mad, and fulfilled some of the impulses he had had during the conference with the reporters, the same impulses that had made him want to blurt out the sarcastic retorts he’d thought of.

            He couldn’t do that. Not right now. But he could do something that felt daring but not dangerous.

            Later, he would wonder how he knew that, that Potter wasn’t dangerous as a Dark Lord, not in the way the real Dark Lord had been. But he couldn’t answer it, and he knew, then, only the thrumming in his blood and the smile on his face as he went to get ready.

*

            “Someone is here to be seeing Master Lord Harry Potter Sir!”

            Harry sighed and glanced up from the mess of paperwork on McGonagall’s desk, mostly letters he was trying to answer. He had given up on correcting the house-elves the seventh time they called him by that title. Correcting them made them upset, and Harry had better things to do than listen to Hermione’s lectures about that. “Who is it?”

            The house-elf ducked his head and pulled a little at his ears. Harry bit his lip to avoid saying something that would upset the elf more. They seemed simultaneously happy that he was here to reopen Hogwarts, eager to serve him, and afraid of his magic.

            “Master Draco Malfoy,” the elf said at last, and wrung its hands as it watched him.

            Harry gaped for a second. The last thing he’d heard, Malfoy was running for Minister. Which Harry thought was stupid, since there were so few people in the wizarding world who would actually elect him, but then, maybe that was what the wizarding world deserved for being so stupid.

            He’d thought Malfoy wouldn’t want to get involved, which was one reason Harry hadn’t sent him an owl announcing that he was a Dark Lord now, the way he had to all the reporters he could think of and to Minister Tillipop and some of the other candidates. Malfoy was a coward. He wouldn’t want to confront Harry.

            But it seemed he was here, and maybe Harry had misjudged him the same way that so many people in the wizarding world had misjudged Harry.

            “Show him in,” he told the elf, and then spent a minute looking around the Headmistress’s office after the elf disappeared. Should he change anything? Or move into a different room to meet Malfoy?

            A second later, he straightened his back. What the fuck was he doing, thinking like that? Malfoy could take what he got, as far as Harry was concerned. He was the one who had made his bed, and now he’d have to lie in it. If he was afraid of Harry, he’d have to put up with the fear.

            Harry sat down behind the desk, cast a spell that stabilized the stacks of paper again, and waited.

            Malfoy opened the door a few minutes later. Harry wondered for a second if house-elves had guided him through the school or if he’d just assumed that of course Harry would be in McGonagall’s office, and then dismissed the thought. It was unimportant.

            “Hullo, Malfoy,” Harry said, watching him.

            Malfoy watched him right back. If he was uncomfortable with the way Harry stared, he didn’t show it. Maybe he didn’t have to, Harry conceded. Malfoy was tall and straight, and wore long green robes at the moment. He nodded back and moved over to take the chair opposite Harry’s desk without saying anything.

            “You don’t seem much like a Dark Lord,” Malfoy did open his mouth to utter, after pausing to smooth down his robes and rearrange his hands in his lap and in general act like a prissy arse. Harry narrowed his eyes. If Malfoy didn’t like the way Harry did things, he was welcome to step right back out again.

            “I’m new,” Harry said coldly, and Malfoy blinked at him. “Anyway, why are you here? All the other candidates wrote, they didn’t visit.”

            Malfoy studied him some more. Harry had no idea what he saw, really. Harry was still wearing his Auror robes, although he reckoned he wasn’t entitled to them now. It was one thing to have Death Eaters serving among the Aurors, or so the Ministry had made clear in the last war, but Dark Lords? Not On.

            Finally, Malfoy said, “You did this to protect Hogwarts.”

            Harry eyed him some more, but Malfoy liked silences, and Harry didn’t, so it was up to him to break them. It felt like letting Malfoy win, but Harry at least spoke sternly enough to make spit leap from his mouth, and Malfoy draw his robes back. That was enough of a victory to be going on with. “That’s what I said in my letter. I don’t know why everyone who sends me letters in return seems to doubt it.”

            “Perhaps they simply want to be absolutely sure you mean it.” Malfoy linked his hands together over his knees and gave Harry the kind of empty smile that he seemed to be wearing in all the photographs Harry saw of him in the papers nowadays. “After all, Dark Lords usually want to take over the world, not protect a single place.”

            Harry snorted. “I wouldn’t know what to do with the world if I had it. For right now, it’s Hogwarts. Children should have the right to learn.”

            “How?”

            Harry frowned at Malfoy. “Sorry?”

            “How shall they learn? What shall they learn?” Malfoy edged forwards on the seat of his chair, although Harry didn’t know why. It wasn’t like Harry had suddenly retreated and Malfoy needed the extra closeness to hear him better. “You want the classes to be the same that they were when we were here?”

            “And what was wrong with that?” Harry snapped. “I learned a lot, and I was happier than I was anywhere else. This was my home.”

            Malfoy gave him a look that Harry thought was simply unimpressed at first, but then he realized there was something deeper behind it. Before he could read too much into it, however, it vanished, and Malfoy was shaking his head. “You know as well as I do that there were problems. Are you going to let the gamekeeper teach the Magical Creatures class again? You did hear about that little girl who was injured by his Blast-Ended Skrewts last year?”

            Harry shifted uncomfortably. Hagrid hadn’t been found culpable in that case because he was rescuing another child from a tree he’d climbed and then couldn’t get down from, and the little girl had been part of a group of kids that decided to start poking the Skrewts. But her burns had still been horrible. “Well, I don’t know.”

            “And the Divination class?” Malfoy went on sweetly. “Of no practical use whatsoever. Not to mention the mess that Defense Against the Dark Arts always was.”

            “The curse on the position has been broken,” Harry snapped. “Professor Highroad, the one McGonagall hired a few years after the war, has been doing a perfectly adequate job.”

            Malfoy smiled, and let the silence linger again.

            This time, Harry made sure that a big glob of spit came out and landed on the corner of Malfoy’s robes when he spoke. “Fine, then, explain what the fuck you mean.”

            “That would be the Professor Highroad who thinks she should repeat the same spells every year?” Malfoy asked. “The one who thinks that the students saying they don’t remember something isn’t simply their brains rotting over the holidays, as always happens, but a sign that she didn’t teach them well last time? The last thing I knew, seventh-year students preparing for their NEWTS were drilling on charms that first-years are supposed to know, because a moment of hesitation in casting them was proof that they had ‘forgotten’ them.”

            “She’s doing the best she can,” Harry said, but he felt as if he was floundering. Yes, there had been stories the last few years about extremely poor NEWT and OWL scores in Defense Against the Dark Arts, but Harry had had the impression that was usual, and partially a result of the school still having students who had trained under the unimpressive professors in that post. Maybe it wasn’t.

            “You’ll have to make some changes,” Malfoy said. Now he craned his neck until Harry thought he really would fall off the end of his chair. “There’s no way around it. You want to protect and preserve Hogwarts exactly as she was, but everything changes.”

            The stones under Malfoy’s chair were shifting, and even the chair itself looked ready to dump him. Harry shook his head, reminding himself that Hogwarts was responsive to his moods, and he couldn’t simply lose his temper. That might result in Hogwarts murdering Malfoy. Harry wouldn’t be responsible for that. “Maybe I can’t make up my mind to the best results, but I can ensure that people like the Headmistress, who actually know what students should learn, get to make up their minds in peace.”

            “She’s moved out of this office,” Malfoy said, and clasped his hands in front of him again. “Who really rules here?”

            “No one asked you for your observations,” Harry snapped. “No one asked you to come here.”

            “No, that’s quite true,” Malfoy agreed placidly. “I showed up on my own and walked in. But you let me in, and you need help, Potter. That letter you sent claimed a lot more ambition than you meant it to, or that’s the way most people will interpret it. They’ll think you have a plan of some sort. That you actually know what you’re doing.” He paused and stared critically at Harry. “And you don’t, do you?”

            Harry gripped the desk. “I want to protect Hogwarts. I’m going to do that.”

            Malfoy half-ducked his head. “But you need people who can advise you, people who aren’t afraid of you, the way the Headmistress is.” Harry would have demanded to know how he knew that, but the way Malfoy’s eyes flicked around the office at some of the empty shelves announced it. “I propose an alliance. I advise you and keep you from screwing this up, and you help get a friendly Minister into office.”

            And Harry, gaping at him a little, realized that he had been wrong to think that Malfoy was a coward.

*

            delia cerrano: This Draco is rather addicted to being respected in his own right. He can achieve it by secret methods, like he’s doing with this secret visit to Harry, but he wants people to admire him, not the person he put in power.

            qwerty: Thanks! Glad you like it.

            SP777: This story has chapters of about 3000 words. It makes it easier for me.

            I got the challenge from someone to write a story about a Harry who became the Dark Lord he threatened to in Leopardspaw. Maybe there was a challenge too somewhere else, I don’t know, but I’m not part of it.

            And this is easier for me because the one-shot gives me a goal to aim for.

            heartstar: Yes, he does.
- 3
- 4
- 5
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Easy as Falling