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Changing of the Guard	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 58627 -:- Recommendations : 4 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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Thanks again for all the reviews!

Chapter Forty-One�Lent
Strength

�� Harry
grinned as he watched from an obscure corner of Diagon Alley. The post owls he
and Draco had hired would be leaving their perches at any moment now; currently
they were roosting along the roofs and corners of the shops, indistinguishable
from the other birds taking a mid-afternoon nap. It had taken some time to
convince the owls that Harry and Draco only wanted them to fly over the alley
and drop the letters instead of delivering them to a specific person, but the
result would be worth the work.

�� Harry
himself wore one of his most ordinary disguises, as Jessica Porter, a painfully
thin half-blood woman who made her living running messages between points that
post-owls couldn�t approach because of their paranoid owners� wards. She
wrapped her arms around herself at all times and huddled as close to any source
of heat as she could get, so no one would look twice at the girl sitting on a
bench in the sunlight. Harry kept his head bowed and watched from between the
strands of Jessica�s long dark hair.

�� Madam
Malkin had become prosperous enough in the past few years to afford a little
ostentation. She now had a large gold clock sitting on the roof of her Robes
for All Occasions, modeled after the Muggles� Big Ben and keeping time with
sonorous clicks. Most of the clicks went unheard, given the bustle in the
Alley, but when it struck four, it did so in tremendous fashion; four was often
the hour Madam Malkin closed her shop nowadays.

�� Harry
counted seconds under his breath as he watched the clock�s hand turn,
majestically, nearer and nearer to the required number. He exhaled hard when it
reached it at last, and looked up at the roofs.

�� Cling, sang the clock in a high, sweet
voice. The owls spread their wings and took flight, swooping across the alley.
There were more than thirty of them, and they got the desired attention. People
halted in the middle of their errands and tilted back their heads to watch,
wrinkling their foreheads and pointing the birds out to the slow.

�� Clang, said the same voice, low this
time, and calm. The owls opened their beaks and let the parchments go. They
spiraled down like heavy leaves into the middle of the alley, stray breezes
carrying them straight into the hands and faces of some unlucky wizards. Harry
grinned again as he watched them pluck the parchments loose and frown, their
eyes running automatically over the words.

�� Tick, said the clock, as the first
startled sounds began rising from the mouths of the �letters�� recipients.

�� Tock.

�� Harry rose
to his feet and made his way in a leisurely fashion past an older woman and a
thin man, perhaps her son or perhaps a chance bystander, huddled together and
sharing a single sheet between them. Long years of training had made it easy
for him to pick up slight noises; he needed no special concentration to hear
what they were saying.

�� It�s a
joke, isn�t it?� the man asked.

�� I don�t
know,� the woman said stiffly. �It�s not surprising that people who spend so much
of their time concentrating on perverts would turn out to be perverts
themselves, if you ask me.� She sniffed.

�� Harry
walked a little faster. He could hear arguments breaking out now, and snickers,
and laughter. A few people had drawn their wands and cast Incendio on the parchments, or placed their hands protectively over
their children�s eyes, but there were still plenty of letters and readers to go
around.

�� The
parchments contained the sexual fantasies that the illusions of Caroline
Garrett had pulled from the minds of the attackers at the party and the
Quick-Quotes Quills had recorded. At the top, in a hand that Harry had taken
care to remove all distinguishing features from, was the legend, The Fantasies of Those Who Wish to Persecute
Homosexuals.

�� Harry took
one more step and then Apparated out with a crack. Everyone was much too busy
to pay any attention to him.

*

�� Harry
tensed when the knock on the door came. Draco hadn�t expected him to do
anything else if such a thing happened. The most probable candidates for
visitors at the moment were his friends, whom he still wasn�t ready to
reconcile with, and the Healers, in case some had believed Granger�s wild
story. Draco rose to his feet from the couch where they�d conducted their
strategy session and glanced over his shoulder at Harry.

�� I�ll just
answer that, shall I?� he murmured.

�� Harry
glanced up at him and nodded gratefully, then returned to staring at the map in
his hands. It marked all the properties, both houses and lands, that Harry
owned in Britain. Draco had been stunned by how many there were, and under how
many different aliases�including, in some cases, people Draco had heard of.

�� He shook
his head as he crossed the entrance hall. He was glad the secret of Metamorphosis
didn�t look likely to travel any further. It would have changed the face of
British society in ways unfavorable to the rebellion and made that many more
people have unrealistic expectations of Harry.

�� Speaking of unfavorable expectations of Harry,
he thought, when he opened the door and found Raymond Nusante standing on
the front step. Of course, the man had been Apparated directly here, so it only
made sense that he should know how to reach the house again, but Draco was
regretful, both for the necessity of the Apparition in the first place and
because he couldn�t let the wards snap to and destroy the idiot.

�� Draco
hadn�t forgotten what the man had said when Harry had come out in front of his
little group of friends. And from the strained courage in his face, he was
about to say something else stupid. Draco let one hand rest on his wand and
mustered all the cool contempt he had to shine straight at Nusante.

�� You had
something to say?� he asked, when the silence had continued for some minutes
and he�d seen Nusante take a single small, fidgeting step.

�� Nusante
audibly breathed in, which amused Draco so much he had trouble keeping his
mouth under control, and then scowled at him. �I had something to say to Potter
alone,� he said. �Just fetch him, if you will.�

�� Draco�s
left hand, safely out of sight behind the doorframe, closed into a fist. He�d
never been fond of someone else treating him like a house-elf. He managed to
maintain his temper by imagining how Nusante would crumple if he learned about
Metamorphosis, but it was hard when he remembered that this man had neither
bloodlines nor wealth nor Harry�s skill to be proud of. Perhaps he was an
artist and a leader, yes, but that meant little outside of certain small
arenas.

�� I will
not,� Draco said. �Whatever you meant to say to Harry about the rebellion or
the party the night before last, you can say to me, and I will escort you to
him if it�s important enough. And if you have something else to say, I think it best you speak those words to my face, not
his.�

�� Nusante�s
expression changed, but Draco knew how fragile the fury filling it was. He had
shown the same kind of emotion when he demanded a toy from his father that he
knew Lucius wasn�t about to give him. Nusante knew he couldn�t win, but he
would try to make other people miserable in the process of acknowledging it.

�� I don�t
know what he thinks he�s playing at,� Nusante hissed, taking a step forwards.
�But the confrontation with the attackers at the party was not of the kind I had imagined would prove him to us. He didn�t
face them wand-to-wand; he did not battle, as some of us have done, openly and
proudly for the right to meet and associate as we liked. Instead, he used
tricks and jokes and any means of avoiding combat that he could.� His face was almost
purple with suppressed rage by now, giving Draco a new appreciation for the
cold pallor Lucius would employ in a situation like this. �It makes him the
wrong leader for this type of rebellion. We are locked in a war. We need a leader who is a warrior�not one who acts like a
schoolboy on a lark.�

�� Draco had
intended to let the man speak until he fell into silence of his own accord. On
the other hand, he had never realized Nusante would say something so senseless.
He raised an eyebrow and sharpened his stare, and the man dropped his eyes in
spite of himself.

�� Multiple
explanations,� Draco said, his voice hardly louder than the sound a nundu�s
footstep would make as it stalked its prey through a jungle, �have been given
to you of why Harry did what he has done. He remained in hiding until the
moment came when he could face his past and the scrutiny of the wizarding
world. He used �tricks and jokes� as you name them to avoid heavy casualties,
on either our side or among those who oppose us. He was a warrior when you were still a child. He�s lived more lives
than you can imagine.� He drew himself up slowly, never once releasing Nusante
from the pinning effect of his gaze. �What, exactly, does he owe you now?�

�� Nusante was
panting with rage. I am glad that we
displaced him as leaders of the rebellion, Draco thought, cocking his head
to one side so he would give the effect of looking down his nose. A leader needs to be able to hold the reins
not only when things are going well but when people are arguing with him or
when a potentially powerful rival arises. And the rebellion would have
self-destructed around us if we had relied on Nusante.

�� He�s
received more from the wizarding world than he gave,� Nusante said in a low,
savage voice. �The constant adulation, the attention to his slightest move, the
offers he received when he killed You-Know-Who�no one could possibly be worthy
of all that. But others would at least have tried to disclaim it and explain
the true scope of their accomplishments, so they could be honored as they deserve. Instead, he cowered inside his
house for a decade, and then he hid beneath yet another identity when he
ventured into public again. And what did he assume that identity for? Not to
help others, but because he wanted to date his boyfriend and not let anyone
know he was gay. All the sacrifices he made are twelve years old now. He hasn�t
known a day�s hardship in his life since then, at least not without more than
enough coddling to take away the sting, and now��

�� Nusante
couldn�t speak further. Draco had moved his wand and cast a temporary silencing
charm. As Nusante touched his throat and opened his mouth in what was probably
a murderous shriek of rage, Draco cast another spell, though he murmured the
incantation so softly Nusante had no chance of making it out.

�� For now,
let him be without guilt, not only angrily denying it. Let him froth and spew
his useless rubbish if he wished when he departed from the house. The only
people who would listen to him would be the imbeciles whom Harry�s and Draco�s
strategies stood no chance of convincing in any case.

�� But when
the moment came that he really understood how much Harry had sacrificed, then
the guilt would crush him like a tumbling wall. He would barely be able to
stand up under the weight of it, and he couldn�t dismiss the emotion until he
had worked through it. Draco hoped the experience might wring a true apology
out of the git at last, though the spell did not guarantee one.

�� The curse
had once been used to �encourage� confessions from prisoners by freeing them from
guilt about their crimes, so that they might brag about them more easily. When
the guilt returned, it punished them more effectively than many older wizarding
laws had been able to, at least in the case of crimes that didn�t merit a stint
in Azkaban.

�� Listen to
me,� Draco said. �The wizarding world has not honored Harry enough, as far as I
am concerned. And he did what he could to refuse those attentions, but if you
had paid attention to the implications of your own complaints, you would have
known that no single man could stop the tide of praise they insisted on pouring
on him. He did not enslave himself with guilt about not being worthy of the
praise. Instead, he dared to live his own life for a decade, and to only emerge
when his principles and his love moved him to do so. You are a poor
representative of an artist, Raymond Nusante, if you cannot understand the
heroism and the sacrifice inherent in his actions.�

�� Nusante
turned his back and walked away from the doorstep. Draco laughed at him, making
sure he heard, and then closed the door.

�� When he got
back to the couch, Harry lifted his head and gave him such a dazzling smile
that Draco hesitated for a moment. �What?� he asked.

�� You did
that for me,� Harry murmured, and rose to kiss Draco on the cheek. �Yet you
don�t look at me as if you think me weak for not being able to deal with visitors
on my own right now.� This time, he kissed Draco on the lips.

�� Draco
kissed him back, then pulled away with a small shake of his head. �You�re too
much absorbed in your own weakness,� he said. �That could become tiresome. Think more often of your strength and
the other reasons I am with you.�

�� Temper
shone in Harry�s eyes for a moment. Draco grinned. He enjoyed seeing that more
than the humility. Yes, Harry had made sacrifices, and as far as Draco was
concerned, it was time that he started enjoying the rewards instead of refusing
them with flushed cheeks or downcast eyes.

�� Now,� said
Harry, deflecting the argument by picking up the second map they were
consulting that morning, �tell me again about the plan of Pansy�s house
upstairs.�

*

�� And of
course you didn�t think to ask me before you volunteered my home for this
ridiculous purpose.� Pansy didn�t look back at him as she led the way up the
spiral staircase, but Draco could read the set of her back. It was stiff with
exasperation that could become true anger if she wasn�t soothed.

�� Your home
was the safest place I knew of, after Malfoy Manor,� Draco said, pausing with a
hand on the banister. �And I didn�t want my father gaining access to one of
Harry�s safehouses. God knows what he would do with the information.�

�� Pansy
turned to face him and gave him a perfect sneer�the one, in fact, he had
modeled his own after during the stage in his early twenties when he was
obsessed with separating himself from his father. �His gaining access to my
house, meanwhile, is not something you need worry about.�

�� I know you
can defend yourself,� Draco said softly, refusing to back away. Backing away on
stairs was a tricky business, as he had learned when he confronted Harry on the
steps at Grimmauld Place. �Besides, you�re part of a social world that my
father respects. He�s less likely to do stupid things to you for the sheer
pleasure of doing them.�

�� Pansy
smiled at him, if one could call a twist to that sneer a smile. �Someday you
won�t have the perfect response, Draco, and on that day I think my words will
gut you.�

�� Oh,� Draco
said, waiting until she turned and began climbing again so he could follow,
�but I try not to worry about the future until it arrives.� I try to plan for it instead, so that when
it arrives, I have no need to worry.

�� He and
Harry had come an hour early, Harry in his disguise as Gerald, a persona he
said he had done bodyguard work in the past. If Lucius had spies watching�and
Draco thought the chances better than even�he would be reassured that his son
feared him enough to need expert protection. Harry had stayed below, carefully
examining the corners of Pansy�s house where danger might be hiding, whilst
Draco went upstairs for the meeting.

�� When Harry
was done familiarizing himself with the lower rooms and casting such small
spells as would warn him of danger and keep Pansy from ever knowing how
thorough his investigations had been, he would retire to the gardens. There was
a large expanse of flowerbeds immediately beneath the enormous window in the
back of the house, the room of which Draco had chosen for the meeting. Harry
would be within the range of a loud shout if needed, and Draco could not yet
pretend that he would get out of this afternoon unscathed.

�� Harry had
touched his arm before he went up the stairs, and looked steadily at Draco for
long moments with his own eyes before he turned away and became Gerald. The
memory of that look was a warm gift for Draco to carry with him. No matter what
happened, Harry would protect him in the single-minded way that he would only
ever protect someone he loved.

*

�� Harry had
to admire whoever had built Pansy�s house. It had an aura of privacy, with
numerous small rooms and alcoves, but it was possible to survey any room from
the doorway, and most of the alcoves from the start of a corridor. Some of the
credit also had to go to Pansy herself, of course, because she hadn�t chosen
furniture that would block the line of sight or provide a good hiding place for
anyone who wanted to ambush someone moving through the house. Harry was smiling
by the time he stepped out into the gardens. His alarm spells were planted, and
would detect a drawn wand as well as hostile curses and several kinds of
blades�but he wasn�t sure they would be necessary.

�� The gardens
were more plebeian than he had expected, or else Pansy only liked white
flowers. Daisies, white roses, and narcissus surrounded a tall stand of lilies,
by which Harry lingered for some moments. Perhaps it was silly to feel such a
connection to the flowers that his mother had been named after, but he had few
other connections to her. He had searched out and questioned everyone who had
known her and might have memories to share shortly after the Battle of
Hogwarts. Those memories were thin variations on a theme; Lily Potter was
brilliant at Potions, hot-tempered when she needed to be, and not afraid to
stand up to other people in her House when someone from another House required
defending. No other heirlooms beyond the photos Hagrid had given him had ever
turned up. Harry had to take his solace where he could find it.

�� He wondered
if Draco would understand that. They hadn�t yet spoken of Harry�s parents, and
he wasn�t entirely sure that he was ready to share what he had discovered in
Snape�s memories even with Draco.

�� He looked
up at the window of the room where Draco had told him the meeting would take
place, and smiled absently. Draco was used to houses with enormous glass panes
and plenty of sunlight�neither a quality which Number Twelve Grimmauld Place
could boast. Harry wondered if that would be a change he would need to make,
should they live together.

�� Or would he
move out of that house and into another with Draco? Except for Kreacher, Harry
couldn�t think of a single thing in the place he had much attachment to. He had
always spent more time in his offices at Metamorphosis, both when handling
paperwork and when constructing his personas. His business had been his life in
more ways than he had found the time to name to Draco.

�� He heard a
sudden slight movement behind him, but didn�t permit himself to turn just yet. That
would make it seem as if he were startled. He did pivot when the motion sounded
closer, and his wand came smoothly up in his hand.

�� A young
woman stopped with a hand across her mouth, probably to prevent herself from
yelping. She stared at him for long moments, shaking, and Harry had the time to
recognize her: Alice Moonstone, the sister of that bint Marigold who had tried
to convince Draco at his birthday party that it was impossible for one man to
love another. Harry remembered Alice as being more intelligent than her sister,
and that meant she would probably wonder how a strange man�Harry wore Gerald�s
scarred features and heavy beard�knew her name.

�� Harry pointed
his wand and said, in an absolutely level and uninflected voice, �I�m Gerald
Handler, Draco Malfoy�s hired bodyguard. Who are you? What are you doing here?
These gardens should have been free of anyone else�s presence.�

�� Alice
smoothed one hand down her robes, gaining time; when she looked at him again,
her eyes had become clear and piercing, and she lifted her head with ease and
pride. Though she was roughly the same age as Nusante, Harry could only marvel
at her greater maturity. Perhaps she was one of the young pure-bloods who had
paid attention to the spirit and not just the style of their instruction.

�� I could
ask the same of you,� she said. �Mr. Malfoy did not tell me there would be a
bodyguard present. I was to come into these gardens whilst he met with his son,
and remain until he brought his son down to meet me in turn.�

�� Quite
often, those who feel threatened do not find it advisable to tell those threatening
them that they are hiring bodyguards,� Harry said, and gave her Gerald�s humorless
smile. If he knew how to smile with anything other than bitter irony, he�d
never revealed it to the man who came up with him. �And I still need your name,
and I still need to know why you think you�ve been brought here. If you are
part of the threat my client faces, I will have no hesitation in destroying
you.� He twisted his wand to the side.

�� Alice fell
back a step. Not stupid in any way, Harry thought approvingly. If Draco had
been content to remain within the embrace of straight pure-blood society, he
could have done much worse for a bride.

�� My name is
Alice Moonstone,� she said at last. Smart
enough not to lie before a drawn wand, either, Harry noted. �I�don�t know why
I was brought here, exactly. It�s common knowledge that Mr. Malfoy�s son has
rebelled against him, but he seemed to think he had a solution to that. He did
tell me that by the time he came into the gardens with his son, I would be the
next acknowledged Mrs. Malfoy.�

�� And are
you looking forwards to that with all your might, when you must know your marriage
would rest on treachery?� Harry asked.

�� Alice
fisted her hands in her robes. �I highly doubt that someone like you can understand
the obligations my society requests me to put up with in exchange for its graces
and sanctions,� she snapped, �and men almost never understand the responsibilities
of women. No, I would not want to enter a mansion built on ground that shaky. But
why should it be? Mr. Malfoy managed to persuade his son to obey him for thirty
years. This is only a temporary rebellion.�

�� If it had
been anyone other than this woman he faced, Harry would not have taken the
chance. But she was still young enough not to be practiced in the kind of
deception that made Narcissa Malfoy�s face hard to read, and Harry thought she
was telling the truth. Best if he could turn her against Lucius in the same way
Draco already was.

�� My client
brought me here precisely because he thinks his father will use magic to try
and force him into marriage,� Harry said gravely. �I can�t understand the
graces and sanctions you speak of, but surely it would be an insult to the
Moonstone family if your husband was compelled
to marry you because of a spell?�

�� Alice�s
lips settled into a thin smile. �At least you know better than to mention love
to me,� she murmured. �Love comes after the ring is slipped onto the finger,
not before. The metal teaches the heart.� Harry recognized the proverb from one
of his earliest lessons in pure-blood socialization, though right now he was
doing his best to look blank. She looked gazed at him. �Yes, if you can offer
me proof that Mr. Malfoy was lying through his teeth, I would refuse to wed
Draco.�

�� Harry just restrained
himself from a laugh of triumph. An attack was coming at Lucius from two
fronts, and he would never see the second in time.

*

�� SoftObsidian74:
Thank you! I wondered if people would take Harry threatening Kingsley as some
sort of really, really evil action, but it wasn�t meant to be; it was just, as
you say, a show to convince him.

�� Maybe Harry�s
actions this chapter and in the next one will convince Lucius to back off, if
Draco can�t do it by himself.

�� Draco and
Harry will have an Argument about the future.

�� Mangacat:
Thanks! Lucius and Draco don�t have their own scene until Chapter 42, though.

�� Anon:
Thanks for reviewing!

�� Thalia:
Thank you! I am also going to be sad when this is over; this is the most fun I�ve
had writing a story in a long time.

�� Lunatic
with a hero complex: Well, Harry is meant to come across as more adult and more
relaxed now, so I�m glad you think so. And I�m very glad that Harry is someone
I can also be proud to write.

�� SP777: Ah,
but this Harry needed some time to build up. His appearing at the beginning of
the story, when Harry despised himself, wouldn�t have made sense.
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Changing of the Guard