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The Only True Lords	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 54578 -:- 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 Sixty-Two—Opening Moves
            “I hate having to leave you here.”
            Harry grinned and hugged Hermione. “I’ve been talking to Auror Stone. She said that I could probably have an expedition outside soon, since I haven’t objected to the house arrest so far and some of the accusations about me are dying down. It won’t be forever. And you can visit any time you want.”
            “Yes, us.” Hermione put her hands on Harry’s shoulders and looked into his eyes, so steadily that Harry knew he couldn’t have hidden away or flinched back even if he wanted to. “Harry, do you realize that you’re going to be here for a year?”
            “No, really!” Harry staggered back and leaned against the wall. “The Wizengamot never told me that when they condemned me to house arrest for a year!”
            “What she means,” said Ron, glaring back and forth as though Harry and Hermione and the wallpaper in the entrance had all offended him together, “is that you haven’t really absorbed it yet. You’ve only been thinking about your vassals and changing the bond and whatever they need you to do next. You haven’t been thinking about how you’ll survive when it sinks home.”
            “I’m not alone,” said Harry softly. “I know that you think none of them care, Ron, but they care in their different ways. I know Greg would never hurt me or let me be hurt. And Severus wouldn’t have asked to stay in the bond if he wanted to be away from me completely. Pansy has given me good advice, you know. And Draco…”
            It was still hard to see what kind of complications the bond was setting up in his relationship with Draco, and Harry thought it was probably best if it stayed that way. It might go nowhere. It might mean that Draco would come to see Harry as a kind of big brother or guardian even after the terms of his legal childhood were done. Harry had certain wishes about where it would go, but no certainties.
            “You’re not going to have your freedom no matter what happens, though,” Ron pointed out. “Not from the house arrest—”
            “Until a year is up, right,” Harry said, nodding. He wondered when and how Ron would come to understand that Harry had accepted his punishment. He wouldn’t have got away without some kind of punishment under this Wizengamot, and at least it was relatively mild.
            “And not from the bond,” Ron finished, in the voice of one determined to be heard. “How are you going to lead a normal life even once the year is up?”
            “Do you think all the Lords and Ladies who had vassals didn’t lead normal lives?” Harry asked in interest. He had meant to do more research on that, on what the social expectations were for them and if they always lived with their vassals or sometimes lived apart in their own homes, but it had understandably fallen to the bottom of his list with everything else that he was supposed to do.
            “Not ones who have them as closely bonded as you do,” said Ron flatly. “Sorry, mate, but you can’t deny that it’s unhealthy to have Goyle and Malfoy following you around that closely.”
            “Because they’re Goyle and Malfoy, or just because most Lords and Ladies don’t have that close a bond with their vassals?” Harry looked evenly into Ron’s eyes, and waited for a response when he started spluttering.
            “Leave him alone, Ron,” Hermione said, which was unexpected enough that Harry turned to study her. Hermione shook her head at him and reached out to lay a hand on Ron’s arm. “Yes, this didn’t turn out the way we thought it would when Harry was confronting Voldemort and protecting the Slytherins. But he’s happy.”
            “He’s only happy because the bond made him be,” Ron muttered.
            “I told them, and I’ll tell you,” Harry said, and held up his hands. “I don’t know what kind of person I would be without the bond. If that’s the thing that changed me, then, well, I can’t change back. It’s like saying that I would be a happier person if my parents had lived. I probably would have, but I can’t know that for sure. And nothing I can do is going to bring my parents back, period. I would rather go on living as the happy person I am than start changing things around because I might be happier if I did.”
            “You could sever the bond, though.”
            “I don’t want to.”
            Ron looked him in the eyes for what felt like the first time in a long time, though in reality Harry knew it was only in the last few days that Ron had started pushing for him to sever the bond and let all his vassals go, not just Severus. “You mean that,” he finally whispered, in wonder. “You really like what the bond is making you into.”
            “Or helping me be.”
            Ron went on staring, and then abruptly lunged forwards and hugged him hard enough to nearly topple Harry from his feet. He ended up staggering back against the wall with a grunt, and heard a door open from a short distance away. Greg had agreed to leave Harry alone so that he and his friends could say goodbye properly, but he hadn’t been happy about it.
            “It’s all right, Greg,” Harry called. He both heard and felt the simmering pause before the door shut again.
            “If anyone deserves to be happy, it’s you, mate,” Ron muttered into his ear before he let Harry go and stood back, shaking his head. “I’m not going to pretend that I understand this. I think it’s pretty bloody weird. But if that’s what makes you happy, then I’ll leave you alone and stop poking you.”
            “Good,” said Harry. “I really do want to be your friend.” He reached out one hand to Ron and one to Hermione, who came forwards and took it with a slightly misty smile. Harry suspected it was as hard for her to leave him here as it was for Ron, even if she had been the one to see sooner that he really was happy. “And a Lord at the same time. I want both. Why can’t I have both?”
            “No reason from our end,” Hermione said firmly, and then nudged Ron under the ribs with her elbow until he started and nodded.
            “Oh, yeah! And probably not from their end, either.”
            “You deserve to have exactly what you want,” Hermione murmured, turning back to Harry. “I don’t understand it, but…I don’t know if you would understand all the choices that I have to make to be happy, either.”
            Harry looked at her, grinning, remembering S.P.E.W. and the way he and Ron had reacted when Hermione first came up with it. “And let’s be fair, your ways of being happy are a lot more unprecedented than a Lordship bond.”
            “That’s what makes it wonderful,” said Hermione with a sniff, and prodded him with one hand until he looked at her and she could hug him. “We’ll write. We’re only going to Australia, not leaving the planet.”
            “I know,” Harry said, and tightened the hug. “And I hope you find them. I really do.”
            Knowing Hermione, they wouldn’t only find her Obliviated parents, they would reverse the Memory Charm and talk their way through the difficult scene that would follow. Harry had to admit he wanted to be there with them for that, but he didn’t know if he would be able to. It might happen in Australia. It might happen in Britain, but the Aurors wouldn’t give him permission to leave the house during that time.
            Choosing his vassals and the Lordship bond right now wasn’t the end of the world, or the end of his friendships. They would separate for a while, but always come back together, talking and laughing about the things they had done since they had seen each other last, understanding each other right away.
            Harry had to admit that he really, really liked the vision of that.
*
            “This is one that you should take seriously.” Draco gingerly separated the letter on the top of the pile from the rest and put it down on the near side of the table. He could see Harry eyeing him as if he didn’t understand Draco’s extreme caution, but maybe he would, once Draco had explained.
            “Why?” Harry leaned over to read the letter instead of touching it, which showed an instinctive respect for Draco’s caution, which was—pleasing, or more than that. “I thought it was one of the sillier ones, actually. Bragging that the writer knows some vampires and they’re going to let them loose on me and my vassals if I don’t end the Lordship bond?” Harry shook his head. “They sounded like a Freedom Fighter, but they never used vampires against me.”
            “It’s the handwriting,” Draco said. “See the way that the letters curve up at the ends like that?” He was a little puzzled that Granger hadn’t noted it and told Harry about it, but then, perhaps Granger would just have thought it was a peculiarity of the writer’s. Draco wouldn’t be surprised.
            “Yes. What about it?”
            Faced with Harry’s bright, challenging gaze, Draco experienced the first tremor of doubt since Harry had started asking him to help. This was a conclusion that was pretty far away from the ones his friends had been able to offer him. Was he going to believe Draco even if Draco told him the truth?
            Draco decided he could worry about that later, and plunged into the explanation. “Only certain families are trained to write like that anymore. Well, and maybe people adopted by those families—” He cut himself off. He wasn’t going to get into the rare circumstances when adoption by pure-blood families happened, and the way that those children would often be listed as blood children on family tapestries. “It’s a style of handwriting that went out of fashion years ago, because some people found it hard to read. The ones who still use it are people who have a lot of support and a lot of money.”
            Harry eyed the letter thoughtfully. “Does that translate to support among the vampires? I didn’t think you could just hire them, no matter how much money you had.”
            Draco felt his own flash of surprise, and then had to smile at himself. He knew Harry wasn’t stupid. “No, but you might be able to use your money to buy them blood or willing victims. So yes, you still have to take it seriously.”
            “And what if I don’t want to do what they demand?” There was a slight edge in Harry’s voice, a tension to his shoulders that Draco could read easily. “Even if I respect that they have the power to threaten me, I’m not going to end the bond and give up my vassals just to please them, sorry.”
            “No, no, no one’s asking you to do that,” said Draco, with a wave of his hands that he hoped would smother the sharp flame growing in Harry’s eyes.
“Except them,” said Harry, and cut his head at the letter with a sharpness that made Draco wince before he caught himself.
“Right, but they’re not saying that you have to do it right now or suffer the consequences,” said Draco. “This is a kind of—of game that the pure-blood families engage in. A kind of play-fight. You get to choose how you respond, the same way you would if someone threatened you. If you just attack them, they would defend themselves, but they’re giving you the chance to respond differently because it was a threat instead of a physical attack.”
Harry paused, and Draco wasn’t sure for a second if he was going to absorb what Draco was saying, or care about it. Then he grunted and leaned back in his seat. “Maybe they’re different from the rest of the Freedom Fighters after all.”
“Yes, that’s right, they are,” said Draco encouragingly, and moved on before Harry could change his mind. “So. I think you need to take them seriously as far as granting them the power to command vampires, which they could do. But that doesn’t mean that you need to believe they’re going to launch themselves at you right now if you don’t end the Lordship bond.”
“What do you think they’re expecting me to respond with?” Harry turned a gaze on Draco that made him feel flushed and small, full of power and reeling from the weight of his responsibilities, both at once.
“Probably a flattering, empty request to meet,” said Draco, thinking back to some of the encounters his father had told him about having with these families, who often called themselves the Purest of the Pure. “They’ll refuse it, and threaten you unless you fulfill their initial demand instead. Or they’ll tell you that they’re going to research you some more, and figure out whether you would be all right to meet from that.”
“All right to meet?”
Draco had to smile. “Consider that they’re secure enough to send you threats even though you’re both a Lord and the Boy-Who-Lived. They have a pretty high opinion of themselves and who they’re going to dirty their drawing rooms with.”
Harry decided to take it the way Draco had meant it, and laugh it off. He leaned forwards and tapped his finger against the letter. “And you can tell me what I should say to make it seem like I respect them but I’m not going to dissolve the Lordship bond, right?”
“Of course.” Draco reached for parchment, quill, ink, then shook his head and called, “Kreacher, can we get some ink made from high-quality dragon’s tail, please?”
“Young Master Malfoy is having good taste,” said Kreacher, appearing beside them suddenly enough that Harry jumped and Draco had to hide his snicker. He handed Draco an inkwell that Draco suspected had probably been in the house for years with a low bow. “Mistress Walburga is be keeping this ink for special occasions. She was saying—”
“I’m sure it’s fascinating, and I’ll listen to it right after I finish writing this letter,” Draco interrupted, smiling at him.
Kreacher gave another, overwhelmed little bow, as though he liked the way that Draco had handled this. Well, maybe he did, Draco conceded, turning back to choose the right words that would convince the Purest of the Pure Harry had received their letter and thought carefully about it. It must be a long time since Kreacher had had a master who understood things like why preserving ink was important.
Harry was oddly silent beside him. When he had written a paragraph, Draco finally glanced over at him, wondering if Harry had wanted to write this letter himself, and was annoyed that Draco had taken it over for him.
No. Instead, Harry was asleep, his head drooping and his arm braced along the arm of his chair so that his head was mostly supported on his shoulder. A small line of drool made its way down his face from the corner of his lips.
Draco stared, then shook his head and went back to writing with a lighter heart. He couldn’t have asked for a clearer sign that Harry trusted him to do whatever he wanted.
*
Pansy swallowed back the nervousness that would otherwise come out of his mouth in a croak, and knocked on Harry’s door.
It took him a few minutes to answer, but that wasn’t a bad thing. It gave Pansy a chance to compose herself, and think about how she would frame her request. By the time Harry finally looked out, she was calm enough to smile at him.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m sorry if you were resting, but I really needed to talk to you about my parents.” The bond had probably already told him her emotions, anyway, if not what she wanted, so it wouldn’t be such a surprise.
“Oh,” said Harry, and he blinked enough to make Pansy sure it was surprise, after all. “Fine. Come in.” He moved back from the door and waved his hand at the chair in front of the desk, where it looked like he’d been sitting to read a massive book. “You can take that.” He sat down on his bed.
Pansy picked up the book, and nearly dropped it. “Pure-blood culture? I never thought you’d be interested in that.”
            Harry shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck. “Draco is helping me respond to the letters and Howlers and threats I’ve got, and it turns out that he picks up on all these subtle little nuances that I never knew existed. I don’t like feeling helpless. And I’m going to be around pure-bloods or have people assume I know all about them for a really long time since I’m going to keep the Lordship bond, so…”
            “I don’t think it’s a bad thing,” Pansy said, and put the book down carefully. It might be a good thing, since it would help her cause. She leaned forwards, hands clasped around her knees, and studied Harry carefully. “My parents are in hiding, you know. They don’t want me to risk contacting them very often.”
            “Right, I knew that,” said Harry, giving her a sharp look.
            Pansy relaxed. She liked the little flutters of irritation between them better than she did a completely smooth understanding. “Well, that means that my last name is likely to be a liability for a while. I want to know if you would extend your protection to them, if they did show up.”
            Harry watched her with unseeing eyes for a second. Then he said, “It would depend on what they’d done.”
            “Against you? I know that neither one of them was a Death Eater—”
            “To help me,” Harry cut in. “The only reason that I was able to get Mrs. Malfoy a reduced sentence was that she helped me.”
            Pansy paused again. “And neither of Draco’s parents was your vassal, I know,” she said at last. “I’m not asking you to take my parents on as your vassals. I just want to know if you would intervene on their behalf.”
            “It would depend on what they would do for me.”
            Pansy leaned back from him and considered his face. Not cold, she thought, but a little reserved, as if he had spent a lot of energy on the trials and didn’t really know how to make it come back to him. “You’ve changed,” she said. “I think the boy you used to be would have volunteered to protect them immediately, whether or not they’d done anything to help him.”
            “The boy I used to be would have despised them because they were Slytherins.”
            Pansy smiled. She didn’t know she was going to until she felt it creeping across her face, but by then it was easy enough to give into. “That’s true. All right. You don’t think they should come out of hiding?”
            “Not until they have a plan about where to go and what to do that doesn’t depend on me. I think I have to stay quiet right now, and only risk making noise about things that matter to you and me and the other vassals and our day-to-day survival. Maybe my friends, but they’re busy right now, and I think I would need their help more than they’d need mine.” Harry studied her face. “You see?”
            Pansy nodded. “It’s straightforward and honest. I can’t say that I didn’t hope for a different answer, but you’re right that under house arrest and with everyone suspecting you anyway, you don’t make a good ally for people who want to gain their good name back.” She started to stand up.
            Harry caught her wrist. “I’m really sorry.”
            The boy who wants to help everyone is still down there. Pansy nodded. “I know.”
            “You said that having the last name Parkinson is a liability,” Harry pursued, as if he was going to recount every detail of the conversation and make Pansy think about all of them. “What about you, though? Can’t you do something that would make it less of a liability? I know you were thinking about a political career anyway.”
            Pansy was tempted in a surprising way. “I can hardly start my political career as long as we’re under house arrest.”
            “There are people who would want to interview you. Rita Skeeter, for example. You can start getting your side of the story out there, and teaching people what you believe and that they should watch out for you.”
            Pansy pictured the woman who had caused so much trouble for Harry at Draco’s urging, and snorted. “You really think that she would take down my words the way I want them taken down? I’d spend all my time reading the interviews I gave to make sure that they were an accurate representation.”
            Harry grinned. “She can be surprisingly honest when the story’s good enough. What about sharing the story that you told in the trial? That even the Slytherins who wanted to be safe and away from the Carrows during the war didn’t really get a chance?”
            Pansy’s fingers curled into her palms. “That’s personal.”
            “So personal that you can’t use it to manipulate people?”
            “You really have changed,” said Pansy, before she could consider whether or not she ought to say it. “Is it the bond?”
            “Yeah, I think so.” Harry gave her the deep smile that she would have only seen directed at his friends before, if that. “But I don’t think it’s a bad thing. Not if I can encourage my vassals to do things for themselves and stand on their own. And think what a good story it would make. The Slytherin who’s outraged over the abuses heaped on her House. Maybe it took her a long time to wake up, but when she saw the same things happening to people she knew personally that had happened to other people, then she did. She can talk about her determination to keep them from ever happening again. And she and Rita Skeeter might understand each other better than some people would.”
            Pansy sniffed, but she could see the story playing out in her mind. The fake tears she would cry, and the real ones she could cry at the right time. And the way that Skeeter’s eyes would widen and her hands would twitch as she wrote down all the brilliant, twisting words in all the right places.
            “If you make your name respected enough,” Harry continued softly, “then that’s making it a better world to be named Parkinson in. And a better world for your parents to come back into, whenever they decide that they want to do it.”
Pansy cocked her head to the side, her smile growing. She had thought that she would use the bond for her political gain by making it clear that she was on the same side as a great hero, and under his protection. But this was better. This was something that would allow her to stand on her own.
“Thanks,” she said. “You’ve given me a lot to think about.”
Harry grinned and leaned back on his pillows. “The bond does that for me, every day. Glad I could return the favor.”
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The Only True Lords