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Returning to Sanity	By : AchillesTheGeek Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 31212 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter books or films, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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99. Returning Good for Evil
BELINDA: Ay, but you know we must return good for evil
LADY BRUTE: That may be a mistake in the translation.
Sir John Vanbrugh, The Provok'd Wife
Last time:
What on Earth was Messalina Nott playing at?
All at once, it became clear to Harry, as though a mist parted and a beam of sunlight shone down on the events, placing them in an entirely new light.
He saw it all, in an instant: Messalina Nott did not want to win. She wanted to go to Azkaban as a martyr for the cause. The whole thing was a last-ditch effort from a terrified, marginalized group of pure-blood magicals who would make her a rallying point for their cause. And she was using Lucius and Harry to do so.
"Does anyone else have anything to add?" Elphias Doge said, in a dry voice that clearly expected no reply.
Lucius looked around smugly, as though daring anyone to speak, and then was rather shocked when Harry stood up.
"Er, yeah, actually," he said.
Doge looked at him, rather surprised. At first, there was a murmur of astonishment from his fellow Wizengamot members. Doge, who in the course of his long life had become quite sensitive to such things, knew that there was an underlying current of thought that, if articulated, would sound like 'just who does he think he is, young whippersnapper!'.
But Harry, as the newly instated Lord Potter-Black, was perfectly entitled to speak. And so Elphias smiled at him encouragingly and by gesture invited him to take the floor.
Harry stood, a little nervous in front of this august body, but reassured by Doge and by Lucius' assurances when they had arrived that he had as much right to be there as anyone else.
"I believe," he said slowly, as though choosing every word with great care, "that, while the way Mrs Nott has acted is … unfortunate," – here several members snorted, but Harry ignored this as best he could – "she does raise an important point, one that we need to hear, and hear fully, not sweep away and ignore.
"Mrs Nott," – and, as she had the first time, Messalina flinched at the coldness that Harry managed to put into the title – "is a pure-blood witch, and a member of a group of pure-blood magicals, who have a concern for the Magical world. We have heard, under the Expositor Falsitas potion, so we can be sure she is telling the truth, that she believes that pure-bloods should rule.
"We may disagree with her..." and here Harry had to wait for his fellow wizards, who erupted into calls of agreement, or, in a very few cases, dissent. When Doge had called for quiet, he continued.
"... and we may deplore her methods. But she has a point. And let us consider that, as I understand it, invoking 'matters of blood' demands a response?"
Harry looked around, and people nodded their agreement with this. He continued.
"And, in the end, Mr, excuse me, Lord Malfoy emerged unharmed. We could, of course, call this a kidnapping and brush it aside, throwing the perpetrators into Azkaban. Well, that might be how pure-bloods would do things..." – here the whole defense team blanched at the venom Harry infused into the word 'pure-bloods', while Harry himself turned to Lucius – "... but I don't believe it is the right way forward. Lord Malfoy, would you be happy with an apology and a promise of discussion?"
Lucius smirked. At this point, he could see that Harry had the Wizengamot eating out of his hand. They could all see that this approach meant they could distance themselves from all the acrimony of the past, and get a real shot at doing things properly. He too had begun to see, as Harry was talking, that throwing Messalina into Azkaban might well throw a lot of their agenda into question.
Lucius stood to his feet. "I concur with my fellow member's suggestion," he replied. "I do think that perhaps I was a little hasty before, in thinking that we should incarcerate Mrs Nott. That, I can see, might not serve any constructive purpose."
Lucius sat down, while the most of the Wizengamot seemed a little stunned. Libatious Borage turned to the Chief Warlock and gave him a knowing smirk; Doge, readily gathering his meaning, nodded in reply. For it was obvious to both of them that Lucius had probably skated as close to the edge of falsehood as he could. For double reason: firstly, that the Debt he owed Harry would not allow for lying, and secondly, that Lucius, along with everyone else in the room, had taken the Expositor Falsitas potion that would stop him from an outright lie.
But it was no surprise to Borage or Doge that Lord Malfoy, a master of dissimulation, could work his way around such inconveniences. But it was becoming clear to Doge what Harry was up to: Messalina was obviously counting on getting public opinion on her side. By freeing her, she would be robbed of that.
"Indeed," he said in his deceptively mild voice, instantly drawing all eyes to him. "Well, for the moment, I think we can simply release Mrs Nott on her own recognisance, and continue the discussion in the New Year, do we think?"
There were murmurs of agreement.
But Harry was not quite finished. As he had been talking, he had also been aware of that magical signature he recognised as that of the Mordant. And with him was someone else.
Someone else he had seen in his visit to the Interspherical Nexus.
"Just one more thing," he said, as Robin Banks entered the room, followed by a familiar figure. "I ask that the Wizengamot recognised Auror Robin Banks and guest?"
Oh, this was going to be fun.
ooOOoo
Messalina Nott descended into tears.
It had all been going so well.
They had calculated, rightly in her view, that they were in a win-win situation. Had she gone to Azkaban for her pure-blood beliefs, it would have been painted as a huge injustice. Had she been free, they would have continued the 'naturally there was no sentence, after all, we are superior and should rule' line.
But neither of these outcomes had happened.
She screwed her eyes up and thought back to the moment when he walked in.
"There is another matter we must consider," Potter had said. "This is Andreas Nott, the squib son of Godfrey and Messalina Nott. I'd like you to hear what he has to say."
And then that no-account squib had explained all about the murder of his wife. Yes, they had had the temerity to call it that! Messalina regarded it as putting a dumb animal out of its misery. And, in the heat of the moment, she had said so. Which, with a cooler head, she could see was probably the beginning of the end.
And then he turned out to have Seer gifts! Godfrey had, to give him his due, tried to use that to argue that they had done the right thing in the end; that by killing her, they had rescued him from the ignominy of being a squib. But the Wizengamot would have none of it.
Which is how she now found herself in Azkaban. And, heartless bastards that they were, they had put her in the cell next to her sister and allowed Dolores to spend time with her daily, to "re-establish familiar ties". Umbridge just used it to berate her endlessly.
And if the present was awful, the future looked even worse. Her political faction was in ruins. As she surveyed Daily Prophet, lauding the decisions as "fair and just and exactly what is required to get the Wizarding World back on its feet and away from the mistakes of the past", she knew she had to face facts. The pure-blood cause was doomed, at least for a generation.
But perhaps Godfrey could …. no.
Or perhaps Zebulon …. no.
They had been completely stitched up. Even having that Banks character bring her dratted son into the courtroom had sent a message – here was a perfectly acceptable pure-blood, son of a Ministry Department head, respected Auror, and Durmstrang graduate, siding with Potter-Black and his ilk. She knew well that those sort of messages had to be countered with some skill. And, of their side, no-one but her really had the skill to do it.
If she were free, it would be a battle. With her here, it was not going to happen.
A whole new world was opening up in front of her. And the scary thing was that she could see that, just perhaps, it might be a better world than the one she knew, and she was not going to get to be a part of it.
ooOOoo
"All right, Potter, you've got some explaining to do," Draco said.
Harry looked at his husband, grateful that the blond had waited to have this show-down until they were alone together in their private rooms. His heart melted at the sight of the man in front of him.
"I'm sorry," he said softly. "I know I haven't explained anything recently, but it all happened so fast ..."
"Really." Draco replied with a snort. "So my father's kidnapping wasn't planned or anything?"
Harry looked at him blankly.
"Well, not by me," he replied. "Um, I knew he was going to go and see what was happening with Dudley and Petunia." And then, dropping his eyes, he continued in a small voice, "I wanted to, but he said he wouldn't let me. Said the bond wouldn't have it..."
Draco's face softened just a tiny bit. He found himself feeling very conflicted; he wanted to tear strips off Harry for keeping him out of the loop, but at the same time, he knew his husband, he had a fairly good idea what was going on.
"And you didn't tell me because I would say the same thing," he said.
Harry looked up at him, a hope in his eyes as he realised that Draco had got it.
"Yeah, I mean, you're you, and you're pregnant, and …"
"I don't want you giving your life away just to look after me!" Draco shouted. "That's not real life!"
Harry, not knowing what to say, sat silently for a minute, gazing around the room, trying to distract himself. Draco, half-furious and half-amused at this, followed his gaze, looking at the furniture, the carpet, Harry's trunk in the corner, the drapes ...
"Potter," Draco said after a longish silence, "that trunk looks ridiculously old and ill-used. How long have you had it?"
"Since I started at Hogwarts," Harry replied.
"Really?" Draco said, looking at him oddly. "You've used the same trunk the whole time?"
"Yeah," Harry said. "It fits all I need it in; and I never really got to go out shopping much when I lived at the Dursleys', and it wasn't like they'd ever buy me one. I guess your parents bought you a new one every year, did they?"
"Hardly," Draco replied haughtily. "After all, I take good care of my possessions." And then he cracked, and gave Harry a small grin. "Only every second year."
Harry blew him a raspberry; but he too was grinning, happy that they seemed to have overcome their little spat.
"Now, I'm sure there's some calming draughtin here …" Harry said, pulling odd things out of his trunk and setting them aside on the floor.
Draco watched him, astonished. "Merlin, Harry, do you never throw anything away? It looks like you've got everything you've ever owned in there!"
"Pretty much," Harry replied,
"Even a piece of rock?" Draco asked, spying a stone hidden in a corner.
Harry picked up the familiar piece of rock. He had not held the Resurrection Stone since he had hidden it in the bottom of his trunk at The Burrow all those weeks ago. He pulled it out and held it up. It seemed to be giving off a faint red glow as he clasped it in his hand. There was a sense of presence in the room, and Draco must have felt it too, going by the sharp intake of breath.
A figure started to form. A figure that, before now, Harry had known as the Mordant, for the other man had refused to give any other name, and, so far, Harry hadn't quite recognised him.
But before the form had fully coalesced, Harry recognised the wizard standing before him. It wasn't someone he was likely to forget anytime soon, after all.
It was a wizard he'd seen before, in the Chamber of Secrets.
He was gazing into the face of Tom Riddle.
ooOOoo
As he gazed at the figure in front of him, something stirred in Draco's memory. There was something familiar about him … something from the war … And then the red glow brightened, and his mind turned back on all that Harry had shared about his nightmares, and the silver and red lights, and what he had dreamt about the Chamber of Secrets, how the boy from the diary had changed into ribbons of red light …
When the sickle dropped, he was beside himself. "Is that Vol-"
"I beg you, do not say that name!" the boy in front of them said urgently. "If you must give me a name, call me Tom Riddle, for that is the only name I have now. He, the madman, he is dead, really dead; no longer here, not gone on anywhere else. But before he died, he became like the skin of a snake, and I sloughed him off. And it was thanks to Harry that I could do this."
Harry was flummoxed. Yet again, someone was thanking him for saving them. Was it ever going to stop? Draco smiled at the look of dismay on his lover's face. Evidently, Tom did not miss it either, for a smirk came over his face too.
"Harry, when you held both wands against him, even then you did not succumb to malice. Even then, you had only sought to disarm; it was his own killing spell that killed him. But it was your forbearance that gave me life - such as I have.
"You see, Death gave me the same choice you had - I could have gone on; but I owed you too much. I could not come back physically – the madness of Lord Voldemort killed the real Tom Riddle so long ago – but as that husk of a being was lost to the Sphere of Intangible Absence, I was allowed to stay as a spectre; and I chose to willingly. You returned me back to sanity and gave me the only thing I ever really wanted - now I can leave here, and live on, in another place, a better place, and there is no need to fear. So when I had to choose, how could I not give you the only thing you've ever really wanted - a loving family. You now have Draco and your children and the Malfoys and the Weasleys - I'm so sorry, but even with the Resurrection Stone I couldn't bring back Sirius, Snape, Remus or your parents ..."
Here Tom broke off, and Harry finally found his voice.
"You did this? But how?"
"Think about the Haussmann Shield. Green was your magic, silver was Draco's ..."
"... And red was yours!" Draco completed. "You were our mordant!"
"So ... The bond is fixed then? But what about the hallows?" Harry asked.
"You already know that the Elder wand has lost its power when our magics joined; when I leave now, the power of the Resurrection Stone will fail too. The cloak will not fail; it remains as an heirloom of your house. And the bond is set permanently. You're stuck with each other for life."
Draco and Harry clasped hands.
"I guess we can live with that," Harry said.
"We'll force ourselves," Draco agreed. They looked at each other, and the glance said more than words ever could told them that neither of them found this any kind of hardship.
"And now I shall bid you farewell."
With that, Tom Riddle faded away.
And with him faded away all their uncertainties, all their hesitations. They belonged to each other now, truly, wholly, completely. The love between them was a tangible connection, a bond that joined them together as a whole that was so much more wonderful even than each of them.
Now they were truly alive.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
And so the story comes to a close. Just the Epilogue to go now.
Many many thanks to all of you for reading and commenting, and especially for Bicky Monster who has been a wonderful help as a beta.
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Returning to Sanity