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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 Forty-One—Healer Kislik
            “Do you know something about the Healer that we do not?” The white-haired wizard’s voice was still booming from everywhere. Harry was glad that he hadn’t been too involved in his study of Kislik, or he might have started when it boomed right at him and made the white-haired wizard decide that that trick was working. “She is a magical theory expert on Lordship bonds, and she is our trusted witness.”
            Harry glanced at the Wizengamot. He saw some people who were leaning away from the speaker as if trying to distance themselves, so he reckoned there might be somebody who would listen to him. “She was part of the group calling themselves the Freedom Fighters who tried to attack Grimmauld Place when I was there.”
            Kislik didn’t falter, but stood with her hands clasped in front of her, looking the picture of helpful and content. She only shook her head a little, as though grieved that Harry thought that was true. “I have witnesses who will swear that I was elsewhere at the time,” she said.
            “And I have memories that will say you were there,” Harry snarled.
            Kislik only looked at him. Harry had no idea whether her witnesses would be more trusted than he was, or whether the Wizengamot would make her take Veritaserum, the way they really should.
            “It seems that you do not trust our witness,” said the white-haired wizard, apparently from the door. “But we do.”
            “What kinds of studies has she done on Lordship bonds?” Harry asked, playing for time. He thought the white-haired wizard would probably enjoy reciting all the accomplishments that supposedly made Kislik a good witness, so it might actually buy them a lot of time.
            “She has worked with Healers who sought to free Lords and Ladies from unwanted bonds with vassals numerous times,” began the white-haired wizard. “She has…”
            And off he went, listing them, while Harry locked eyes with Kislik and tried to determine what he should do. He wondered if it was dangerous to look at her, but he didn’t think so. She wouldn’t want to try Legilimency right here, in the middle of the Ministry, right after Pansy’s comment had made the speaker of the Wizengamot deny so forcefully that the Ministry supported its use.
            But she didn’t look as though she was afraid of anything he might say. Maybe she had the whole Wizengamot on a leash. Maybe some of them were secret Freedom Fighters. Maybe she thought that their hatred of Harry would be enough to make them go along with everything she might say, even though they didn’t know her.
            “I want to request to take Veritaserum,” Harry said.
            The white-haired wizard’s voice took a moment to fade, as though he couldn’t believe someone had interrupted him. And then he leaned forwards and stared very hard at Harry, shaking his head so that his hair flowed back over his shoulders. “What?” he whispered. “You want to what?”
            “Someone can request Veritaserum and get it, right?” Harry looked from face to face, seeing so many frozen stares that he wondered if he had tripped into one of their traps on accident. “The only thing that’s illegal is trying to force someone to take it when they don’t want to, right?”
            Someone had hold of his arm. Harry didn’t look over to see who it was. It could be anyone from one of his horrified vassals to one of his horrified friends to Auror Stone, who might fear that the Wizengamot might not look kindly on some of her own exploits. But Harry felt no twinge from the bond, which meant that he wasn’t causing his vassals unacceptable distress.
            “I am astonished that you think you would want to take Veritaserum,” said a tall wizard who sat on the opposite side of the woman Harry thought looked like a vulture. “Someone like you, a Dark wizard with so many secrets to hide. Would you really want to?”
            “The Veritaserum should prove if I’m a Dark wizard,” Harry answered, gaze locked on Healer Kislik’s. “And if I’m lying about the attack that Healer Kislik was there for.”
            Kislik looked at him with a still face. “It will prove that you were lying, yes,” she said, as if Harry was someone mentally deficient, who couldn’t understand why she would deny this. “Because I wasn’t there.”
            Harry turned back to the Wizengamot. There was really no point in talking to her, he had decided. She was a fanatic. Someone who would never understand that there was more to the world than simple little views about slavery and Lordship bonds.
            He knew that because he had changed his mind about those complicated things, and he knew how painful it had been. He didn’t think Kislik had it in her to face up to the same process.
            “Well?” he asked the crowd staring at him. Sometimes he felt as though the most important moments of his life had always happened with crowds staring at him. “Can I do it?”
*
            You idiot.
            Cold fear shimmered in Severus, the kind that he had felt before this only when he knelt at the Dark Lord’s feet and knew that his Occlumency shields might not be enough. He wanted to snarl, to rave, to tear into the boy, to curse him. To say that he had thought better of him than this, that he had trusted the boy with some of his protection the way he had once trusted Albus, and look where it had got him.
            But he could not speak aloud like that, or he would make the situation look worse than it did already. Instead, Severus had to stand there and hold his tongue, hold the curses in, hold in the chance to rescue the moment.
            There was so much that Potter might give away if he took the Veritaserum. Did he consider that, the secrets he might spill?
            But of course not. Gryffindors always chose the dramatic gesture over the right one. Albus had done that with so many of his decisions, and even Lily had, when she chose the way she reacted to James Potter’s prank and Severus’s own unfortunate outburst.
            Severus did not allow himself to bite his lip, because that would give the game away to someone who knew enough to watch him as the guiltiest of Lord Potter’s vassals. He remained still instead, and watched the white-haired wizard look around as if for support. For some reason, not much was forthcoming.
            “Let the boy take it, if he wants,” the white-haired wizard said finally, and not in the booming voice he had used so far. “Why not? If he says that he has nothing to hide, then he should be able to tell us everything about the bond. He would make a most reliable witness.”
            He drew the adjective out, but the support still did not appear. Severus glanced from face to face as much as he could while moving his eyes only. Deepening frowns were starting to life on the lips of most there. They stirred restlessly and whispered to each other. The witch who had leaned out and spoken a few times stood up now.
            Severus looked at her vivid, almost bronze hair and searched his memory for the name. Yes, there it was. Una Ollondors.
            “You haven’t considered what a farce it would become, Jenkyns,” Ollondors said, and she could sound sensible when she wanted to. Severus remembered Albus talking about her, and commenting that it was a pity that her fits of sense were so few. “They would begin to talk about how we forced him, how there were so many other things that we could have done instead, and we chose this, the most invasive and legally questionable. The press would have a wonderful time with it. We already know that they’re reporting anything they can get their hands on about how we mistreated the boy.”
            And if you had handled a sensitive situation with grace instead of only thinking that you must destroy someone with the power to be a political enemy, Severus thought, they would have nothing to report. Or nothing that Potter did not immediately contradict.
            “But he’s volunteering to take the Veritaserum,” Jenkyns said, and twisted around to stare up at Ollondors. “How could anyone say it was illegal?”
            Ollondors sneered at him. “You trust the press to make such a distinction? When it comes to Harry Potter?” She shook her head. “No. They never have, and they swing from his side to others’ like a pendulum blown by the wind.”
            Of course, Severus thought, and his heartbeat slowed as a measure of control over the situation came back to him—although, from the puzzled stares of Jenkyns and Potter, he was the only one of the important players other than Ollondors who had grasped the reason she was doing this. She doesn’t want Potter to take Veritaserum because she’s worried about what else would come out if he did. Probably including the truth about how the Ministry treated him during the war, or during their first conversation with him when he was brought into custody.
            “No one in the press could report what he said under Veritaserum unless one of us broke confidence.”
            “And he already found out about the vote.” Ollondors folded her arms. “Do you really want him to start earning sympathy for something else?”
            “We settled that he was listening at the door, Ollondors!” Jenkyns looked as if he would have liked to aim his staff at this new and irritating target.
            “We didn’t. Not to my satisfaction.”
            Jenkyns continued staring, as if he couldn’t understand this rebellion. Severus relaxed even more, certain he could. None of the Wizengamot wanted to be ousted from comfortable positions in what they viewed as the heart of the wizarding world. They would go along with efforts to prosecute Potter—as long as they seemed likely to succeed. But when they no longer did, they would turn on the one who had led that effort in order to save themselves.
            For the first time since Potter had foolishly mentioned that he knew about the vote the Wizengamot had taken, Severus felt that perhaps it was not a disastrous move.
            The shield mark on his arm burned, but he ignored it. So what if Potter had known what he was doing? It didn’t remove the danger of what could have happened if the Wizengamot wasn’t inevitably venal.
            “Can we discuss something else?”
            It took Severus a moment to realize who had spoken. He turned back to the Healer who wanted to kill them in the name of saving them, who had her hands held out as though she was imploring peace in the middle of a war.
            “We were going to discuss the nature of the bond and the way that it was formed,” Kislik said. “We were going to discuss the unfortunate fate of these people who should never have been slaves in the first place.”
            And she turned her head and sought out his gaze, as if she knew by instinct how much he had hated and resented the bond. Severus gazed back, and shuddered a little. She looked and seemed sincere, and it was indeed possible that he might have given in and believed her before this, convinced that he had an ally against Potter.
            But gaining distance from the bond had convinced him which were his own thoughts and which were not. The bond might seek to influence him, and his hatred was his own, but he knew that there were some good things that had come out of this, like the political protection Potter could afford him. What Kislik wanted to do was unknown, the measure of desperation, and Severus could see it as such from the crystalline position he had attained.
            “Yes, why not ignore procedure and interrupt the Wizengamot while they’re talking?” Potter asked. “Nothing else about this trial is going to rule, after all.”
            “They invited me here to speak,” said Kislik. “That means that I may speak.” She turned to consider Jenkyns and Ollondors. “May I finish?”
            “Please, Healer Kislik,” said Jenkyns ceremoniously, and waved one hand as though he was granting her personal permission. Severus sneered. He probably wasn’t.
            “Such a powerful bond could never have formed accidentally,” said Kislik. “It must require some control from the caster.” She nodded at the ridiculous silver flames that Potter had called to blaze around his arms. “That shows that he’s in control of the bond, far more than he showed at the time. He was clever enough to wait to reveal that control, but not clever enough to think what would happen when he demonstrated it in the courtroom.”
            Potter blinked down at the flames as though he had never considered that the twinkle of them might betray him. Severus bit back a groan. Did the wretched boy never think before he leaped?
            “Yes,” Potter said, looking up. “That’s right.”
            Kislik stared at him. Jenkyns stared at him. Ollondors stared at him. Severus could feel the rest of the vassals doing so as well, and the Malfoys, and Potter’s friends, and only hoped that he was not doing the same witless gaping.
            “I was so clever and powerful that I managed to block a spell from Voldemort when I was also trying to kill him,” Potter said, his voice rising a little. “If I’m that powerful, can you tell me why I didn’t just kill Voldemort years ago?”
            “You didn’t want to kill him as much as you wanted to possess free and living human souls,” Kislik said, in a way that made Severus curl his lip. It was clear that she believed what she was saying, and he had had enough of fanatics when he was dealing with Death Eaters.
            “No,” said Potter. “It’s my bloody luck, is what it is. Again and again. I stumble into these situations. I have Parseltongue, and I’m the target of Voldemort’s anger, and I almost get killed by Dementors and then get hauled into the Ministry for breaking the ban on underage magic, and I’m chosen as the Tri-wizard Champion even though I didn’t want to be, and now this. Just my bloody, rotten, bloody luck.”
            “That could also be a sign that you are extraordinarily powerful,” said Kislik, waving her hand. “All of that. Including surviving the Killing Curse when you were a child, and again when You-Know-Who threw it at you.”
            Potter rolled his eyes. “But that’s not the way that people have been acting. You wouldn’t have come and faced me with just a little group of people if you thought I was so powerful, would you? You wouldn’t have thought that you could bring down my house around my ears?”
            Severus shook his head. This was the wrong tactic. Fanatics would never admit that anything had gone wrong with their plans, or that they were less than absolutely right.
            Kislik had a faint smile on her face, as if she wanted to convey that to Potter but didn’t know how. When she spoke, her words had a tinge of sadness to them even fainter than the smile. “I did that because of what I believe in.”
            Severus’s first thought was that perhaps Kislik was not an ordinary fanatic after all, if she could spend some time thinking beyond her immediate impulses like that.
            Then he realized what else she had said.
            And Potter’s face had changed, and he was grinning at the Wizengamot as if they had all become vassals under the bond at once. “Did you hear that?” he asked, jerking a thumb at Kislik. “What she just admitted?”
            “I did not—” began Kislik, and her face was very pale and her eyes were very wide.
            Ollondors was on her feet again. “This is the exact thing that I was worried about,” she snarled at Jenkyns, as if she had foreseen this and it was all his fault. Severus was sure that she had not, or she would have refused to participate in this farce from the beginning, but it probably made her look good to anyone weak enough to believe her in the first place. “That we’re going to look foolish in front of the wizarding world for the way we try Harry Potter. And now it’s happening. Couldn’t you even bring yourself to ensure that your magical theory expert wasn’t a liar who would reveal herself?”
            For the first time since the beginning of this supposed trial, Severus saw Jenkyns look uncomfortable. He put one hand on his staff, and then seemed to remember that threatening a fellow member of the Wizengamot was inappropriate. He leaned it back against his chair again, and then paused and gave a helpless look around.
            “Yes,” Potter prompted. “He could have brought himself to realize it, if he was focused on justice and not getting rid of me for whatever political crimes he thinks I’ve committed.”
            Ollondors faced Potter, and there was a rapid transformation in her face that melting butter couldn’t have bettered. She clenched her hands in her robes and bowed a little, as though she was honoring Potter’s power or something.
            Severus wanted to put his hand over his eyes. He knew that Potter hadn’t planned this, either. He was actually as lucky and without clever plans as he had told the Wizengamot he was. Ollondors hadn’t plotted with Potter, she had seen the chance to take power in this particular situation and seized it.
            And Kislik had condemned herself out of her own mouth by not being careful enough.
            Severus was not sure whether he could resent that luck when it was going to protect his own interests, but he was prepared to try.
*
            Harry swallowed as he saw the vulture-faced woman—her name was Ollondorf or something—bowing to him. Or maybe it was a curtsey. He couldn’t remember. Were witches supposed to give curtsies?
            He couldn’t remember, really. The only witch he had ever spent a lot of time with was Hermione, and she wasn’t in the habit of curtseying to anyone.
            “I’m sorry for agreeing to the plan to bring the Healer here, now,” Ollondorf said, and inclined her head in Kislik’s direction as though she was a stranger she’d just met in the street. “I didn’t know that she wasn’t what she claimed to be. But someone who would fight against all Lords in all bonds—I really ought to have known better.”
            “You agreed,” said the white-haired wizard. His name was Jenkyns, Harry remembered.
            “At the time,” said Ollondorf, or maybe the name was Ollondors. She faced Harry and clasped her hands across her chest in what Harry thought was a parody of honesty. “Can you forgive me, Lord Potter?”
            Harry studied her for a second. He was sure that she wasn’t doing this for him. Maybe she had always wanted to get back at Jenkyns for something, or she just thought it was a good chance to seize power in the Wizengamot.
            Maybe he shouldn’t question more of the luck that he had already suggested to them was always saving his arse.
            “Of course,” he said, and tried to sound sufficiently Lordly. Or maybe it was better to sound like a meek and scared little boy, which was what he was really trying to convince them he was. Fuck, he didn’t know. He wanted to be done with these trials, and this one had barely even started.
            But he was the one who had chosen to come in here and fight on behalf of his vassals. He could have released every single one of them from the bond, which made every single step he took after the point where he had meditated to regain control of the bond a choice.
            Maybe he should go ahead and face the challenges as they came up, and stop trying to second-guess either himself or the people watching him.
            “Of course,” he repeated, more strongly, when he saw that Ollondors and the rest of them were waiting for more than just his bare words. “I think—I think that it would be best if we could begin this with a completely clean slate, right? I forget about how you took that vote on my guilt or innocence, and we begin the trial over with proper procedures, this time. Including someone who can advise me on the exact legal limits of the bond and what I’ll be responsible for if my vassals go to prison.”
            Ollondors smiled, and crocodiles had nothing on her. “How kind of you, Lord Potter. And how prescient. I was about to suggest the same thing myself.”
            “You have no right,” said Jenkyns, and stood up with the staff in his hand. “You agreed to this. The trial has begun. Lord Potter is already being tried. He listened at the door. This is what should be done.”
            “Including you pointing a staff that’s obviously dangerous and could hurt someone at one of my vassals?” Harry asked flatly.
            Jenkyns turned and stared at him. Harry looked back. It hadn’t really occurred to him at the time, since he was flying through this blind, and frankly he’d had more important things to worry about, but yeah, now that he thought about it, he was pretty bloody furious.
            “This is part of how the trials work,” said Jenkyns. “People who are dangerous need to be contained.” He sneered at Auror Stone. “Someone has not done their jobs properly, but it is not the Wizengamot.”
            Harry could feel Auror Stone’s silence beside him, as heavy as her name. He wondered if she was sorry that she had ever signed up to serve the Ministry. It must have been hard to see them get ready to turn on her.
            Then Auror Stone looked off into the distance, and seemed to smile at something. “This is not how trials are supposed to go,” she said. “The trial should have begun with the exact charges being stated, and experts being sought for both sides. Magical theory experts, in the case of a complicated bond such as this. Lawyers.”
            Jenkyns’s face twisted. Ollondors clasped her hands to her chest again and raised her eyes to the ceiling. Harry stared at her. She looked like she was praying.
            Maybe she was just happy that she was finally going to get control of the Wizengamot, Harry thought. He hoped so, because otherwise this was pretty bloody terrifying.
            “You know the reasons why this is being done,” Jenkyns whispered.
            “Not really,” said Auror Stone. “I don’t know the reason why I was accused of not doing my job when I brought Lord Potter and his vassals into the courtroom, under exactly as many restraints as I was told to use. I don’t know the reason that you apparently took a secret and biased vote on Lord Potter before he entered the courtroom.” She looked across the room at Kislik, still standing silent. “I don’t know why you invited a sworn foe of Lord Potter, and someone with ties to the deaths of several Lords and Ladies, to stand across from him and offer testimony.”
            Kislik turned and left the room. Harry didn’t really care about stopping her. Something more important was happening here.
            “Yes, I think it imperative to begin the trial over,” said Ollondors, and gave Jenkyns a hard look. It didn’t seem as if he disagreed. Ollondors swirled her robes around her and faced Auror Stone. “Can we do that?”
            Auror Stone bowed. “I would certainly be happy to take the prisoners back outside the courtroom and bring them in again—that is, for the first time, ma’am.”
            And then it seemed that she and almost everyone else in the room looked at Harry.
            Harry snorted softly. “Do I look as if have an objection?”
            A proper trial. They’re going to get a proper trial.
            Maybe it had to happen because of greed and stupidity and trivial infighting, but at least they’re getting one.
*
polka dot: The Wizengamot are venal, like Snape called them, not evil. It’s really all about their own advantage.
delia cerrano: Snape should be worried.
Sealpotter: Thanks! I think that Harry is definitely helped by Kislik’s stupidity, but then, she ought to have known that Harry would offer to take Veritaserum.
Deathskiss: I have a Yahoo group for e-mails called lomonaaerensstories. If you subscribe to that, you’ll get notified of updates.
SP777: Well, the problem is that Harry’s already impudent and so on. He can’t just say anything that pops into his head (although Snape thinks he already does that).
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The Only True Lords