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Black Phoenix	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 21568 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 5
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

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Chapter Nine—A Good, Long Talk
            “I had no idea that you had gone that far with him.”
            Despite his nervousness that Hermione had come back and about what she might say, and the tension that thrummed through his body from his still-erect cock, Harry found himself laughing aloud. “You sound like—I don’t know, my mum or something,” he said, lounging back in his chair and dragging another over with a motion of his hand so Hermione could sit down. “No sex on the first date, right?”
            “I hope that wasn’t your first date.” Hermione roasted him with a glare as she grabbed the chair and twisted it into the right position. Harry’s magic would have done that for her if she had waited, but he appreciated her being impatient; it meant that he was doing something right.
            “No,” Harry said. “Long past it.” He looked straight into her eyes. “I hope that you aren’t going to tell me that I shouldn’t be sleeping with him.”
            Hermione gasped a little, and then clapped a hand back across her face and shook it. “No,” she whispered. “I actually went to him because I thought that he was probably getting some kind of influence on his actions from you.”
            Harry laughed again, in spite of the painful pressure in his belly and abdomen. “I fell fast in your eyes, didn’t I?” he asked. “I declare myself a Dark Lord, and a month later, I’m influencing the Ministerial election and manipulating one of the candidates into bed.”
            Hermione looked as though her face was on fire. “Not—not exactly that. But I did think that you might be persuading him to put some policies into place that would favor you and Hogwarts when he became Minister.”
            Harry sighed and kicked up his heels, resting his feet on the desk. He had already used a cold jolt to his groin so that he wouldn’t embarrass himself when he did that. “I don’t think there’s any way Draco can afford to favor me openly. Of course he’ll try to come to an armed peace between my court and the Ministry. He thinks Tillipop handed this stupidly, and he would have thought that if he’d never become my lover. And he’ll say that Hogwarts can reopen with some Ministry oversight. Trying to close it was also stupid.”
            “But doesn’t he have to worry more about the way he’ll handle you?” Hermione seemed to have picked through all the many, many things she could respond to in that speech and chosen the one that was least dangerous to them both.
            Harry folded his arms and gave her an amused look. “Why should he? We can’t bring our relationship into the open, and we know that. It would scare too many people. He can’t kneel at my feet, and I can’t cower at his. But he knows that the Ministry can’t exactly handle a Dark Lord like me. He’ll treat me the way Fudge and the other Ministers treated Dumbledore: as a power unto myself. When he has to consult with me, then he’ll do that. But it’s not going to be the attempts to crush me that Tillipop pulled.”
            “He can’t allow a little independent nation to just flourish inside Britain’s borders.” Hermione looked around as though Draco was still in the room and she could give him a political lecture. “It can’t happen. He would lose all respect.”
            Harry rolled his eyes. “After years of Tillipop, it would take different kinds of things to make people lose respect for the Minister. They’re just going to be glad that they can actually trust someone to do what he says he will.’
            “So he’s already planning on how not to be a real Minister,” Hermione whispered.
            “What does that even mean?” Harry asked. It seemed to him that Hermione was thinking some really strange things, if she thought that he would sink so low as to use some kind of magical compulsion on Draco, and also that Draco should follow political standards she hadn’t articulated—even though she was also unsurprised that he didn’t. “What would a real Minister do, to you?”
            “All things that we’ve ever discussed Ministers should do,” Hermione said, with a flash of passion in her voice that she glanced away a minute later as though trying to hide. “All—all the good things. Give house-elves rights. Fight for the rights of other magical creatures. Treat wizards equally.”
            “All right,” Harry said quietly, “but this doesn’t have anything to do with house-elves or magical beings.” He would tell her about his truces with the goblins and the centaurs and merfolk in a bit, but he wanted her to concentrate on this first. “So what kind of Minister should he be?”
            “Fight injustice,” Hermione said, and clenched her fist, scowling at him. “Stand above party politics. Not surrender to special interests. Give the people what they need and want.”
            “Then he would never get elected,” Harry pointed out quietly.
            “Of course he would!” Hermione leaned nearer, so far that Harry thought she would fall over. “If he made the promises and people thought he meant them—”
            “With his last name?” Harry shook his head. “How long would he have to work to ensure they did? And if the Ministry hierarchy believed that he would really do all that, they would block him.” Hermione looked as if she was going to object, but Harry said gently, “How many changes in the laws about house-elves have you managed to enact, even after you worked full-time for three years?”
            “Three years isn’t long,” Hermione muttered, and flushed.
            Harry nodded a little. He knew the expression on her face. She knew he was right, and just didn’t want to admit it. “He would either never get elected, or he wouldn’t get anything done, or he wouldn’t make many strides. He prefers to get elected and then see what changes he can make, by sliding them under the surface of business as usual.”
            “Will he really make changes that could help house-elves?” Hermione’s eyes were big and hopeful.
            Harry chuckled. “Do you want me to use my influence on him or not? Make up your mind.”
            Hermione flushed dully. “That’s not—what I meant,” she said with difficulty, and stood up. Harry watched as she paced back and forth, surprised only that she hadn’t started doing it before now. “I think it would be a great idea if he worked more for house-elves. And if he knew that it would make you happy, he might. That’s not the kind of influence I feared you would use. You wouldn’t be taking away his free will, you would just be asking him for a gift the way that any lover might ask another.”
            “This has been bothering me,” Harry remarked, and turned to face her. “What made you think that I would take away his free will?”
            Hermione halted, looking blindly out the enchanted window that Hogwarts had put in the wall for him. Harry rubbed his fingers together idly, waiting. The image out the window at the moment was the Forbidden Forest, and he didn’t think it was that enthralling, but he was willing to wait to give her time to speak.
            “Because you don’t have any limits to your power.” Hermione’s words were breathy, but Harry was in the center of his power in that office. The stones and airs of Hogwarts would make sure that he heard all the words she spoke, as long as they were here. “No effective ones. None that anyone else could enforce.”
            Harry sighed. “Neither does a volcano.”
            Hermione turned around and glared at him. “But a volcano doesn’t decide to erupt. It either happens or it doesn’t.”
            “I have the limits of my own free will and my judgment,” Harry said quietly. “I suppose that I could lose control of them someday. I could also definitely make a decision that I thought was right and have it turn out wrong. But you ought to find me trustworthy than a volcano, because I won’t randomly lash out at my enemies. I’ll attack people who attack me, or who attack Hogwarts. And if someone chooses to come and live in my court, or asks for my protection, or takes a risk for me and has the Ministry or someone else try to threaten or blackmail them in return, then I’ll protect them.”
            “There’s that word again,” Hermione said, and Harry shook his head. It was hard to tell whether she’d changed tactics or was talking about the same thing when he didn’t know what she was talking about.
            “What do you mean? Which one?”
            “Court.” Hermione spat the word as though it hurt her, and then folded her arms and twisted away. “Doesn’t it hurt you, that you’re setting up something that sounds like an emperor or a Lord rules from?”
            “I am a Dark Lord,” Harry said mildly. “And I thought it could also sound like something justice is dispensed from.”
            Hermione shuddered without looking at him. “You’re taking this whole notion of an independent little nation too far.”
            “That was the way Dumbledore ran Hogwarts, too. And he had to, since no one believed him about Voldemort or would take on the responsibility of protecting the school.” Harry stood up and put one hand on Hermione’s shoulder. “Hermione. Think about it. How different am I from Dumbledore, aside from the name? People respected him because he was a powerful wizard and he’d defeated Grindelwald. That was the only reason he was allowed to get away with as much as he did—not because he was a great Transfiguration professor or because he’d proven he was a great politician.”
            “He was a politician.” Hermione’s shoulder twitched beneath his hand, but she didn’t turn around.
            “But not one that most people could understand, not with that daft act he liked to put on.” Harry walked around Hermione so that she could see him. “Dumbledore lived by his own law. I’m trying to do the same thing. His ways are different than mine, though. There are people who think that I’m mad, I’m sure, but I’m not going to pretend that I am, the way Dumbledore had to. I’ll do what I have to. I’ll keep doing it. I already told you about the limits. What makes it so hard for you to trust me?”
            “The damn title. The bloody trappings.” Hermione turned and gave him a withering look that, Harry had to admit, he didn’t expect. He blinked at her. “The knights and the advisers and all the rest of it? Really? If you were just the Headmaster of Hogwarts, you wouldn’t have all those trappings.”
            “I declared myself Dark Lord before I’d thought the whole plan through—”
            “Really?”
            When she was in the right mood, Harry thought, Hermione could do sarcasm better than Draco. “But now that I have, I have to live with the decisions. That’s what this has been all about. I thought you knew, Hermione. I thought you agreed with me before you decided that you didn’t and fled.”
            “I didn’t flee.” Hermione raised her head, and her mouth was like a slash cut into her face. “I went away to think about things for a little while.”
            “What conclusion have you come to now?” Harry asked her. “Why come back to Hogwarts if you still distrust and dislike me?”
            Hermione broke away from him to pace slowly back and forth. Harry followed her with his eyes, biting his lip when he would have broken and asked her to talk to him. If Hermione was still coming to a decision, the last thing Harry wanted to do was press her.
            He wondered if she knew how hard his heart was beating, and if she would spare some sympathy for him if she did.
            She finally turned around and said, “I know that you haven’t taken away anyone’s free will yet. And now that I think about it, it seems a little silly to imagine that you’re influencing Malfoy more than he could influence you. He’s the one who decided to run for Minister before you declared yourself Dark Lord of Hogwarts and he’s the one who has the political instincts. But like you said, there’s nothing that can stop you except yourself. So I thought he was a victim.”
            “What about Ron?” Harry asked quietly. “The other people who swore to me?”
            “Some of them just might have been impressed by your power. Or they might have personal ambitions.” Hermione made a face, and Harry knew that she was thinking about Briseis. “Ron…I don’t know. We disagreed about it. He kept writing letters to me. Some of them were funny and counted down all the days since you declared yourself Dark Lord and hadn’t done anything that reminded him of Voldemort. Some of them were serious. We argued a lot.” She closed her eyes. “If I could have some guarantee that you hadn’t changed…”
            “I don’t know what guarantee I can give you, except the one you already have,” Harry said quietly. “I let you come back, and I let you argue with me, and I’ll never punish you for it. But I also have to tell you that if you stay here and work against me, I’ll ask you to leave. And I won’t automatically stop doing something you disapprove of. I’ll listen to you explain, but your approval isn’t the only standard I have now.”
            Hermione flinched a little. “What is the standard?” she demanded, more harshly than Harry thought she knew. “Malfoy’s approval?”
            Harry’s lip quirked. “No. I think he would approve of just taking over the wizarding world and getting rid of Tillipop, personally. He honors power, and he doesn’t see why I can’t just take over.”
            Hermione nodded, tensely, her eyes never leaving him. Harry decided this wasn’t the time to try a sense of humor, and sighed. He didn’t look away, though. He didn’t want to risk any chance that she would decide he wasn’t being honest.
            “My instinct,” he said. “Persephone’s approval—if she hates something, I do it. Ron’s advice. Briseis’s. What I think will be good for the court. I made a truce with the goblins and gave them the Sword of Gryffindor because I thought protecting funds for my court was more important than the Sword. I gave the centaurs my protection because they’re right next to Hogwarts and I thought they could be important allies.”
            Hermione’s whole face changed. “You made alliances with magical creatures and you didn’t tell me?”
            Harry sighed. “I thought that talking about it first would be an attempt to manipulate you. Or at least that you might see it that way.”
            Hermione turned away and walked to the far side of his office, standing with arms braced against the wall. Harry thought he knew why. If she still distrusted him, she had to choose to stay with someone who was making the alliances with magical creatures she had always wanted the Ministry to make, or admit that she might have made a mistake by coming back and walk away again, turning her back on those alliances.
            Harry didn’t speak. He thought he understood her position now, but if she could approve of his power when he was doing things she liked, then he did think it was a bit hypocritical. He would listen to her advice, but he wouldn’t turn Hogwarts back over to the Ministry, and he wouldn’t abandon the people he had promised could live under his protection, and he couldn’t give Draco up. He folded his arms and waited for her to decide.
            Something pecked at the window. Harry used Hogwarts’s magic to twitch the shutters open, and Persephone soared inside and settled on his shoulder. Harry waited for her to claw him up, but she remained still. When he glanced at her, he saw that she was focused on Hermione, her neck stretched forwards as if that would make Hermione look or taste better.
            Harry raised his eyebrows in response, but Persephone didn’t pull her neck back in or start acting like her normal self. She kept weighing, watching.
            Deciding if Hermione causes me more misery by staying or going, Harry finally decided, shaking his head. Persephone was probably going to irritate him with things like that for the rest of their lives together.
            Hermione finally took a deep breath and turned around. “I want you to promise me something,” she said.
            Harry nodded. He could do that. “As long as you tell me what it is,” he said, an answer both to Hermione and to his own conscience.
            “Yes,” Hermione said, and then nodded as though that reassurance wasn’t enough for either him or her; Harry didn’t know which. “I want you to promise me that you’ll tell me if you feel yourself going Dark. Consult me about every major decision you make.”
            “I’ll do that,” Harry said, “unless I’m in the middle of a situation where I have to decide now, like battle. Or if it’s about Draco.”
            Hermione sighed, but her eyes were happy and her hand trembling a little as she reached out to him. Harry clasped it and pulled her back towards him, searching her face with his own eyes. Could they relax now? Were they back to normal?
            “I know now that Malfoy isn’t a helpless victim,” Hermione whispered to him. “And I’ve seen Ron, and he isn’t either. Sitting around and debating with myself has never been my style, either, but it’s all I’ve been doing for the last few weeks.” She glanced warily at Persephone, but continued. “I’ll stay here and do what I can to make things right.”
            Not necessarily between them, Harry knew. She would try to do the right thing regardless of it maybe getting him angry. But that she would do that implied she wasn’t afraid of him anymore. He grinned and hugged her.
            On his shoulder, Persephone dug her claws in, and blood welled to stain his robes, which meant she had decided Hermione was more of a blessing than a curse. Harry just grinned the wider.
*
Genuka: He really did, didn’t he?
Kain: That’s one of the main reasons Draco chose to run against Tillipop instead of waiting to try and become Minister later. He knew he would never have as good a chance against an opponent as incompetent.
Tillipop may never have known about the split between Hermione and Harry, or at least not in time to take advantage of it.
Meechypoo64: Don’t worry, Draco will remember that he owes Harry. ;)
SP777: Foreboding about what?
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