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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 Nine—Fears and Apologies

            The Great Hall was still filled with pallets and people sitting at benches with their heads bowed, but there were fewer people than there had been. Harry relaxed a little. Healers had taken the most badly-wounded to St. Mungo’s, and the house-elves were feeding the ones who remained and needed food. That was one thing he didn’t have to worry about.

            Why should I have to worry about it at all?

            Harry shook his head a little. The Lordship was affecting his brain, he decided. He saw a problem and he started wondering about how to fix it. He had to do that with some people, but only some. He would have to stop exaggerating and just concentrate on his Slytherins.

            “Harry!”

            That was Mr. Weasley, calling from a table near the center of the Hall. Harry hurried over, glad that they could sit with people they knew.

            The crowds on the floor made way for them, of course, murmuring and staring. Harry squared his shoulders. If Hermione was right, he would get stared at more than ever, because he would have to go stand in public and talk about what his Slytherins had and hadn’t done during their trials. If he started acting like a kid now, then people would just think he was being cowardly.

            And then they might think they could get away with controlling him, or hurting people he was responsible for. Harry was determined that wasn’t going to happen, with a determination strong and cold enough that he hoped it would freeze the Aurors if he unleashed it on them.

            Mr. and Mrs. Weasley and Ginny were the only ones sitting at the table. Harry knew without asking that George would have gone home, because being at Hogwarts was too stressful for him. Harry winced a little as he sat down. He wanted to do something for George, too, but he didn’t know what he could do.

            “Have some food, you must be starving,” Mrs. Weasley said firmly, and pushed a heaping plate at him. Harry picked up a few grapes and looked up to say thank you.

            He caught Ginny’s eye, and Ginny shuddered and looked away. Harry swallowed the grape and ended up not saying anything. He wondered what the hell was going on with Ginny. She hadn’t acted like that after he got the Lordship bond, only after he brought Zabini back from the Forbidden Forest.

            Speaking of Zabini, Harry would have to find him and Parkinson and talk about the rest of them being taken to the Ministry. He suppressed a sigh and picked out another grape. When was he supposed to have the time and privacy to talk to all these people?

            “Ginny.”

            Harry looked up. It was Ron who had said that, and he was frowning at Ginny.

            When Harry looked, Ginny stood with one hand on the back of her chair, frozen and guilty. Harry winced. She had turned from him and tried to creep away, he thought, but Ron had noticed and kept her there.

            “I just—I really have to use the loo,” Ginny said, ducking her head until her red hair fell down around her face. Harry watched her and remembered the way she had kissed him on his birthday, the way she had tried to sneak into Snape’s office and steal the Sword of Gryffindor. All the courage and the light and the life seemed to have drained out of her.

            Did I do that? But Harry still didn’t know why or how.

            “Then go, for heaven’s sake,” said Mrs. Weasley briskly, and turned around to say something to Hermione. Harry craned his neck to watch over her shoulder as Ginny slipped out of the Great Hall.

            Maybe you have to take the time to talk to people where you find it.

            “I kind of have to go to the bathroom, too,” Harry said, pushing his plate away and standing up. “Will you—will you excuse me?”

            Mrs. Weasley smiled at him at once and waved her hand when Mr. Weasley opened his mouth. “Of course, Harry,” she said. “Some people have important things to do.” She sat down and started talking to Mr. Weasley about something to do with the Burrow, maybe the funeral they were going to have there. Harry didn’t stay to listen. He made his way along the wall of the Great Hall, where there were fewer people to stare at him, and into the quiet outside.

            There, he had to hesitate, because he didn’t really know where Ginny would have gone, but in the end, he made for the nearest bathroom. He would just check all of them until he found her. He thought it was important that he knew what had happened with her.

*

            Pansy climbed the stairs from the dungeons cautiously. She had woken up and found the Slytherin common room deserted an hour earlier, and after knocking and calling on all the bedroom doors, she had to admit that it seemed everyone really was gone. That was silly, of course. Why wouldn’t Greg have stayed there? And Professor Snape wasn’t in his office.

            There was a slight pulse of warmth in her shield mark that reminded her of where she could go, but she refused to take her questions to Potter unless she had to. In the end, after sitting by the fire in the common room and considering for twenty minutes, she had resigned herself to going to the Great Hall. People would stare at her and whisper, but she could get food there and perhaps learn what was going on.

            When she was just about to take the final step off the dungeon stairs, she felt the warmth pulse along her arm to the elbow. She immediately hid in the shadows, and Potter hurried by a second later. His face was grim, and he looked back and forth as though someone was chasing him. While Pansy craned her neck to figure out what it was, Potter went up the staircase to the first floor, stomping all the while.

            Maybe I can find out where Draco and the others are by following him.

            It was worth a try, and less humiliating than going to Potter to beg the truth. Pansy set her mouth and climbed after him.

            It became easier when Potter left the stairs and it became obvious he was aiming for a bathroom. He no longer looked around, and the only thing that made Pansy’s eyebrows rise was that he opened the door of a girl’s bathroom. In seconds, he was inside, and he made a noise of relief.

            Pansy hesitated one more time. But she wanted to survive, didn’t she? And this could be prime information. She cast a spell that held the door open a little, as though it naturally hadn’t shut all the way. It was an effective means of disrupting anti-eavesdropping spells and wards, since they only worked on a sealed surface. She stood so that the torches wouldn’t cast her shadow across the floor outside, and listened.

            “There you are, Ginny.” Potter’s voice had dropped down to a velvet thing, soft as a butterfly’s alighting. Pansy rolled her eyes. She remembered Ginny Weasley as tough and resilient enough to defy Professor Snape. Did Potter think he would get anywhere with softness?

            But Weasley didn’t reply with harsh words or the ringing sound of a slap Pansy had almost expected to hear. Instead, she sniffled. Pansy blinked and wished she dared take a step closer to see inside. As it was, she settled for casting a Sense-Enhancing Charm on her ears and hoping.

            “What is it?” A soft thump that was probably Potter sitting down on the floor or maybe a bench; Pansy couldn’t remember offhand if this bathroom had one.

            Still no response. Pansy folded her arms. Come on, Weasley, the git loves you. It shouldn’t be that hard. Talk to him about your dead brother or whatever it is.

            “I don’t know how to say it and sound nice,” Weasley whispered.

            Pansy blinked. The girl who went around casting Bat-Bogey Hexes on people was worried about being nice? But then again, it was probably different when she was with a fellow Gryffindor.

            “Then say it and don’t worry about that.” Potter’s voice was low. Pansy rubbed her shield mark, which was cold for the first time. She had no idea what it meant, and more interest in listening to the conversation anyway. “Just tell me. I’m worried about you, Ginny. I think I’m making you afraid, and I think—”

            “You are making me afraid.”

            Pansy winced a little. There’s not being nice and there’s being blunt enough to scrape someone’s heart out, Weasley.

            Potter seemed to agree with Pansy, if the little catch of breath she heard him give was any indication. Then he said, so gently that Pansy wouldn’t have been able to hear his words without the charm she’d cast on her ears, “Why? You know that you aren’t part of the bond, so I can’t ever do to you what I did to Zabini.”

            And what Zabini did was stupid, and should have been punished with death anyway, Pansy thought. She wasn’t looking forward to having to share a bond with someone so stupid. Blaise seemed to have lost his head over the war, and now he wanted to dash around like a Gryffindor looking for all avenues of escape, instead of waiting and searching for the advantage.

            “But you had power over him, and no one could stop you,” Weasley whispered. “The same way that Tom had power over me.”

            Pansy had no idea who Tom was, but from the way Potter grunted, that blow had gone even lower than the other one. Pansy half-closed her eyes as the cold in her shield mark increased. She hoped that meant she wouldn’t have to go in and comfort Potter or anything like that. She could accept that she would have to deal with Potter in her political future from now on; it was a bit much to accept dealing with him in her personal one as well.

            “I would never do that,” Potter was whispering in a soft, fervent voice by the time that Pansy paid attention to him again. “I would never, I would never…”

            “It has less to do with whether or not you would, and more to do with me,” Weasley interrupted. She sounded calm again. At least the chit has intelligence enough to realize that, Pansy thought. “It’s just that someone having absolute power over someone else reminds me of Tom and what he made me do with the diary.”

            Right, there was a rumor about Weasley and a diary in second year. But Pansy had never thought she’d got the whole story, and she’d never been interested enough to try and find out. It seemed she would have to, now, if only so the cold in her mark would fade away and she could sleep at night without feeling like her arm was floating in ice water.

            “I’m so sorry,” Potter said. Pansy still didn’t dare lean close enough to see, but she imagined him taking up Weasley’s hand and kissing it, and Weasley taking it back. A few seconds later, she was indeed walking towards the bathroom door. Pansy hastily cast a Disillusionment Charm on herself and backed up.

            “So am I,” Weasley whispered. “It was so unexpected, and it’s not something I want to think about, and—it’s not something you can help. I know you didn’t ask for this. But I don’t think I ever really recovered from what Tom did to me. We talked about that once before, you remember?”

            “I remember,” Potter said, in a voice so filled with misery that Pansy rolled her eyes.

            “And so I think it’s best if we part,” Weasley said. This time, she was the one who made Pansy roll her eyes. She sounds like a bad romance novel. “Maybe if you get rid of the Lordship bond, we can date again. But not now. I’m so sorry, Harry.”

            “If I—if I tried to get rid of the Lordship bond, and it worked, would you come back and date me again?”

            Potter’s voice rang with a wistfulness that made Pansy press one hand against the wall and frown at nothing. Why was he so heartbroken? Did he think that he would never find anyone again who wanted to date him, even with his power and his fame and his ability to command others? There were plenty of people who would find him attractive.

            But maybe he thinks that he only ever gets one true love or something. Pansy knew there were people that ridiculous, although she had been lucky enough to grow up without many of them around.

            There was a soft sob, and Weasley said, “Maybe. But I can’t wait forever, Harry.”

            “I understand,” Potter said, in a hollow voice. “And someone who can cause pain from a distance isn’t what you need.”

            Then Weasley really did start through the door, and Pansy flattened herself back against the wall. Weasley didn’t have eyes for anything but the floor, though. She walked her way with her head bowed and her red hair bouncing around her, shoulders slouched to make a picture of misery.

            Pansy wanted, very badly, to sneer at her. You’ll find someone soon enough. I remember. You were the sort of person who never thought that you were worth anything unless someone looked at you like you were the center of their universe.

            “Parkinson?”

            Pansy started and looked up. Potter stood in front of her, his eyes piercing through the Disillusionment Charm and his hand resting on his right arm. Even as Pansy took a deep breath and prepared to announce herself, Potter flicked his wand and snarled, “Finite.”

            The Disillusionment Charm ended. Pansy stood up straight. She remembered her father saying there was no shame in eavesdropping.

            Unfortunately, the next sentence he tended to say came along in her memory and made her flinch. No, only shame in someone catching you eavesdropping.

            “Potter,” she began soothingly.

            Potter shook his head furiously and pressed up against her. “Don’t you have any sense?” he snarled into her face. “Aurors already came and took the Malfoys and Snape and Goyle away, and now you’re sneaking around and doing things that someone else could try to arrest you for, too? And the mood the Aurors are in, they’d listen.”

            Pansy blinked. “I didn’t know that happened to them. Why didn’t you prevent it?”

            Potter nearly pushed his glasses off his nose, he rubbed his face so hard. “Because they did commit crimes, and there has to be a trial. The Ministry was all for arresting anyone with a Dark Mark and hauling them off to Azkaban. I at least got them to commute that to staying in a holding cell in the Ministry. But now I have to go and testify for them, and Zabini might try to kill me again, and you…Just stay out of trouble, all right?” He turned around to walk further into the castle, the opposite direction from the Great Hall where Weasley had gone.

            Pansy rubbed her arm, her chin, and then called out, “What if I can help keep you out of trouble?”

            Potter turned around, his eyes as bright and cool as water at midnight. “I promise you, I’m not about to suggest throwing someone to the Ministry.”

            Pansy flushed hot and blurted out the next words that came into her head without thinking. “No, but you just found out that your girlfriend thinks you’re some kind of monster. You’re going to go off and brood about it, aren’t you?”

            Potter drew up his head like a donkey about to kick, and Pansy braced herself for pain in her bond mark. But Potter let the breath go in a sigh instead of a shout, and locked his hands together behind his back. “So what if I am?”

            “Because what she said isn’t true,” Pansy said. “Or not all true,” she added hastily, because she could see the flash of Potter’s eyes, and she could just imagine the way he would break out if he thought she was calling his precious girlfriend a liar. “She was right when she said it was personal. It doesn’t make you someone who would torture her to death. It just means you remind her of someone who would.” And Pansy did want to know more about the mysterious Tom, but no matter what Potter thought, she did have a well-developed sense of self-preservation, which meant she wasn’t about to ask that question.

            “And that’s supposed to comfort me?” Potter stared at her.

            Pansy hesitated. But why had she started speaking this way if she didn’t care about comforting him at least a little?

            “Don’t let it go to your head,” she said. “Maybe I’m doing it because I’m the only one around who’s acting sanely and hasn’t been hauled off to Azkaban.”

            “The Ministry, remember,” Potter said, but he had relaxed enough to smile. “What do you want, anyway?”

            “What?” Pansy blinked. “Well, more details about the Aurors and whether you think I’ll be arrested would be nice.”

            “Stay out of sight for now,” Potter said, touching the shield mark. Pansy thought he did it absent-mindedly, rather than to remind her it was there or threaten her. “There might be Aurors who would be willing to threaten you because of your supposed crimes during the war, or because you wanted to threaten me. And they might not check closely enough for a Dark Mark on your arm first.”

            Pansy stirred uncomfortably. “I did commit crimes during the war,” she whispered. “I cast Unforgivables on people. I mean, it was when the Carrows told me to, but…” She let her voice trail off. Now that she wasn’t living from moment to moment in a daze of terror, she was beginning to wonder what some of her victims would think of those words.

            To her amazement, Potter smiled back at her. “I cast Unforgivables, too, and I didn’t have anyone telling me to,” he said. “We both deserve trials, or no one does. They aren’t going to want to try me, but I’ll insist on it, if they insist on trying everyone who did something wrong and stupid during the war because they were afraid. I don’t even have that excuse.”

            “But…there were people who didn’t do anything wrong and just fled and hid somewhere,” Pansy found himself mumbling. She knew that she should accept Potter’s words for what they were, the more than implied offer of protection, and back off and go elsewhere. She knew that she was being stupidly Gryffindor by being honest.

            For some reason, though, it was hard to feel stupid when Potter was smiling at her that way. “Did anyone from Slytherin do that?” he asked.

            Pansy frowned, trying to remember. “No,” she admitted at last. “Not that I can remember, anyway. The Carrows watched us all the time, and most of us had parents who were urging us not to do anything that would get us noticed.” She remembered the one firecall she had managed with her mother, the lines of tension in her face that Pansy had always envied because it was so pretty. Well, neither one of them probably looked pretty now.

            “And I don’t know if the people who hid and fought back would have trusted any Slytherins if you did try to flee to them,” Potter said softly. “Yes, we both did something wrong, but I’m going to make sure that what we get are trials and justice, not just people running around shrieking that someone needs to be seized and condemned because that would make the public feel better.” His face pulled so harshly tight that Pansy almost drew her wand. “I know one person who was just thrown into Azkaban because that made people feel better. It’s not going to happen again.”

            And that, Pansy thought, was a vow strong enough to rock Hogwarts on its foundations. She took a deep breath and said, “Then I’m with you. Not just because of the bond and the constraints it places on me. I’m with you all the way.”

            Potter smiled at her, so bright and wide that Pansy almost couldn’t believe it was directed at her. But she also couldn’t believe that someone could have come up behind her and Potter wouldn’t have reacted, so she did her best to smile back.

            Potter held out his hand. Pansy blinked at it for a few seconds before she accepted it. Potter shook it firmly.

            “I’m glad that we can be allies on this,” he said. “Listen. I need to see about Zabini, and make sure that he isn’t just left behind here.”

            “Behind?” Pansy repeated blankly.

            “I’m going to go into the Great Hall and tell the Aurors that they should arrest me for use of Unforgivables during the war,” Potter said calmly. “I hope you’ll come with me.”

            Pansy clasped her arms around herself, shivering, and never mind the warmth in her shield mark that felt as if she was holding her arm in the middle of a bonfire that, for some reason, didn’t burn her. Most of her felt as though a wave had just picked her up and spat her forwards, to land on some cold beach. And now someone wanted her to wade back into the ocean and do it again.

            “That’s not a good political move,” she tried, but her voice was weak. And Potter was grinning at her with his eyes like jewels. Pansy had the feeling that not even his friends could reason with him well when he was in this mood. Well, probably. Sometimes Pansy thought that his friend Granger could do anything she wanted to do.

            “At least we would all be together,” Potter said cheerfully. “And they can’t go ahead and do something to my vassals when I’m looking the other way. And Aurors like the ones who came to arrest the Malfoys and Snape and Goyle deserve all the humiliation they can get.”

            “But if you’re locked up, then you can’t do anything to influence the public,” said Pansy.

            Potter laughed aloud. “Ron and Hermione will do that for me.”

            Pansy knew Draco had envied Potter his friends before, but this was the first time she had felt anything like it. She wanted to put her hand over her belly and calm some of the pangs in it, but she had to make a decision, and Potter looked as though he would march right off to the hospital wing and speak to Blaise whether Pansy wanted him to or not.

            Pansy at last took a deep breath and said, “I’ll come with you. On one condition.”

            “What’s that?” Potter studied her as though she had suddenly become interesting.

            “You have to take advantage of everything that you can under the Lordship bond,” Pansy said. “All the legal protection it gives you. All the ways that you can challenge someone and have it mean something. All the rights that it gives you over your vassals.”

            Potter frowned at her. “But that might mean that you have less freedom.”

            “I’ll take a long-term loss of freedom with you over the long-term loss of being locked up forever, my Lord,” Pansy snapped back.

            When Potter’s smile returned, Pansy thought he had tamed a little of the fire, and she partially relaxed. At least it didn’t seem as though Potter was crazy enough to ignore her.

            “Thanks,” Potter said, although Pansy didn’t know what she had done that was praiseworthy, and turned. “Come on, we have to convince Zabini to come with us.”

            “I’d like to see you try,” Pansy said dryly as she followed him.

            Potter grinned at her. “Didn’t I mention? You can be bloody persuasive when you want to. I thought I’d let you try with him. And you should see your face.”

*

            Nathoca Malfoy: Thank you!

            bre95: Thank you! Next chapter does have some action.

            delia cerrano: For a certain value of “good” where the Malfoys are involved, yes.

            Timeangel93: Trying to break bonds is extremely complicated. However, Kislik is trying to do it without enough knowledge about how Harry’s bond formed, which could endanger him.

            Zabini is going to have to reconsider his options in the next chapter. As Pansy thinks here, the bond isn’t just going to go away.

            Harry will consider options other than suicide in the future. That was just the first, bleak thought.

            moodysavage: Harry and Draco have a ton to get past before they can realistically romance each other. Not to mention the power imbalance thing.
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The Only True Lords