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Fire Built on Sand	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 1953 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Fire Built on Sand
- 1
Title: Fire Built on Sand
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: None, gen
Content Notes: Politics, mild angst
Wordcount: 2100
Rating: PG
Summary: Draco is enjoying the hell out of himself in politics. And it's even on the right side.
Author's Notes: Another of my July Celebration fics, for an anonymous request that was originally an Advent prompt, asking for Hermione campaigning for Minister of Magic, Draco as her PR manager, and Harry keeping his distance because he wants the campaign to be about Hermione's achievements, not his. This fic focuses on a few scenes rather than detailing the whole AU.

Fire Built on Sand

I don't want to overshadow Hermione's campaign.

Draco fetched a sigh from the bottom of his chest. Since he had great lung capacity--which came from taking care of himself properly, unlike some potential Ministers he could mention who wanted to spend all day courting the electorate and all night conducting research--that took a while. Then Draco shook his head and turned around to fetch more of the specially prepared parchment he used to write official letters.

Potter needed the official letters. He was being too stubborn for anything else.

Draco sorted through tied scrolls, promises of support from prominent young pure-bloods who were rebellious and wanted to anger their parents, charts of how much money Hermione had spent and had still to spend, drafts of proposed laws on house-elves, maps of dragon sanctuaries, and numerous spare quills until he found the parchment he wanted. He shook his head again as he sank back into his chair. He did love his office, a former bedroom in this house donated to them by Millicent Bulstrode, but he wore so many cloaks of responsibility that they all overlapped here.

In the meantime, how best to convince a reluctant Potter that he needed to endorse Hermione?

Draco's wandering gaze trekked through cupboards and boxes and ledgers and shelves until it fell on a picture Hermione had stored here for lack of other places to put it. It was her, Weasley, and Potter gathered together after the final battle.

They all looked exhausted and tired and free. Hermione was in the middle, the "boys" each had an arm slung around her shoulder, and all three were grinning like mad.

Draco nodded in satisfaction and began to work on the letter, pausing to turn words over and over in his mind at intervals for the fit.

Dear Potter,

I know Hermione would never put it to you this way, but the goals that you fought for together and she's fighting now to defend mean that...

*

"Did you get any dinner, Draco? I'm starving."

Draco raised his eyebrows at Hermione as he watched her take off her cloak and whip a hand through her hair. It was drenched, as per usual. Every day she went to speak had been, to the point that Draco thought some of Fudge's or Goyle's supporters must be conjuring storms.

Hermione always said no, that it was only her good luck that made it happen. Draco made a mental note to do some research into the possibility anyway.

Draco lounged back in his chair and waved a hand at the desk. It was still covered with drafts of the letters he'd written today, mostly in response to proposals that Hermione "step down" and support Fudge's campaign. The man was an idiot, but because he'd been Minister once, there were some people who thought he would do just fine reelected. Draco had to find the right sweet tone to his replies that would turn them down while not implying that he thought they had less brains than a jellyfish. "Do I look like I got a chance to eat today?"

"Oh, you didn't?" Hermione gave him the same frown that she gave house-elves who overworked. "I'll Floo the Leaky Cauldron at once, Hannah always makes that lamb stew that Neville swears by on Wednesday..."

While she did that, Draco watched her with a faint, fond smile. Hermione was an incredible woman, not only in terms of energy and the causes she supported so passionately, but in the way she was willing to forgive someone who had tormented her throughout most of school and allow him a place in her campaign.

Of course, when Draco first applied to work with her, he'd only done it for the same reason that Millicent had given them this house and Pansy had turned over all the information she had about her parents' connections in the Wizengamot. His family had disappointed him; he wanted to do something that would show his disappointment, and make it stronger than it could be while it was just an emotion.

But Hermione had accepted him. Had challenged him to read letters and respond to them, especially when they came from people like him, with the same disillusionment.

That was really the origin of Draco becoming her campaign director.

"Do you want something else with the lamb stew? Bread? Noodles?"

"Bread," Draco said, with an enormous stretch of his arms, and glanced at the empty place where the letter to Potter had once sat in satisfaction. At least he'd got that one sent off.

*

I still feel that I shouldn't endorse Hermione, Malfoy. There are too many people who would decide to vote for her just because I'm the one writing a letter to the Prophet about it. She should stand on her own two feet.

"Idiot, she's the one who told me to write to you," Draco muttered to the letter, as if Potter was present to hear him, and then he flung his cloak over his head and dashed out into the rain with a noise of disgust.

Potter would have to wait. Draco was going to attend one of Goyle's rallies and see what kind of tactics his people planned to use.

Goyle's people supposedly kept the Apparition coordinates of the rallies secret, but Draco had been able to find out easily enough. Goyle, Gregory's father, wasn't a smart man, but that satisfied his pure-blood handlers. He was a patsy, a figurehead who represented tradition and whom even the Wizengamot hadn't been able to bring themselves to convict despite the Dark Mark on his arm, because he was so clearly a pathetic follower.

Of course, his campaign had had to turn that around and convince the pure-bloods uneasy with Hermione's ideals and Fudge's record that he was indeed a spirited leader. But Draco knew they would do it if left alone.

After all, his father was leading that particular effort.

Draco reappeared in a large meadow with ancient stone walls around it, the site of a pre-Statute of Secrecy building that had once been used for dueling and settling other "affairs of honor" the laws would have frowned upon. Now all that remained were the walls, and the strong Anti-Muggle Charms that wouldn't just discourage people but would actively send Muggles flying.

No one seemed especially surprised to see Draco. Of course, that might have been because no one was paying that much attention to new arrivals. All their attention was focused on the floating platform draped with blue flags covered with the Goyle family's coat-of-arms.

One of the handlers Draco had been thinking of herded Goyle onto the stage as Draco watched. Trumpets, products of a charm, played, a second too late. Goyle covered his eyes with one hand, then waved feebly to the people standing in front of him when the handler prodded him in the side.

Draco leaned against the wall he'd Apparated in front of and listened. The speech went as expected, all about "ancient rights" and "traditional heritage" and "preserving our ability to live freely and quietly as we please." Goyle stumbled on some of the phrases, no surprise, but handpicked people in the crowd would always raise a cheer when that happened, and give Goyle time to recover.

Draco sneered a little. Exactly as he'd thought. He really shouldn't have bothered coming.

But it was necessary to keep an eye on the enemy, and stay alert. Draco really didn't want to neglect the principles he had tried so hard to drum into Hermione.

And I might need to drum into Potter.

Leaning his head on his hand, Draco watched the theater move forwards, and mused on techniques to get Potter to change his mind.

*

What you say about Hermione's stance and her need for me makes sense, Malfoy.

And that was it. The whole of the letter. Draco sighed and sat before the parchment for a little bit, tapping his fingers on the desk. He had already used most tactics he thought would work on Potter. What should come next?

"Mr. Malfoy?"

Draco turned around. The door of his office was already open, and Rita Skeeter stood there with her fist poised to knock, a devastatingly insincere smile on her face. "Did you forget about our nine-o'clock appointment, Mr. Malfoy? I thought you were going to discuss Miss Granger's policies on compensating house-elf owners with me."

"Ms. Skeeter," Draco said. "Yes. I hadn't forgotten. I see you're fashionably early." He knew without even looking at a Tempus Charm that she was early. Another thing working on Hermione's campaign entailed was a great sense of time.

"I am, indeed. So good of you to recognize that such a thing exists when it comes to me." Skeeter scurried further into the room and smiled some more. "And good of you to call on me when younger reporters exist."

Her smile glittered with suspicion. Draco only smiled back. The idea to call on Skeeter, who hadn't made as big a splash with her book-writing career as she'd hoped, had been Hermione's, not his. More than a few people knew about the conflict between Hermione and Skeeter at school, and more trusted Skeeter and would believe anything she chose to print. "Recruit" her into doing a good story on Hermione's campaign, and she would bring a lot of positive attention to their policies.

"Come in, and we'll begin, shall we?" Draco asked, mind spinning among all the delicate ways he would need to make this article exciting and sympathetic so Skeeter would print what they asked.

And then he had it when he thought. The perfect way to convince Potter to send his endorsement.

Skeeter paused as if wary of his sudden smile. Draco only nodded to her and set to work with the article, holding the idea in abeyance for right now. He had to concentrate or risk losing them both.

*

"What's the grand surprise you have planned for me, Draco?"

Draco smiled at Hermione and took her arm, guiding her through the feather-light tunnel that would lead directly to the platform. Theirs, like Goyle's, floated, but common prudence and intelligence dictated against having Hermione simply Apparate there. She would be too tempting a target for most curses.

Hermione wore bright blue dress robes for the occasion, with soft lace around her throat and cuffs. At least Draco had talked her out of appearing in the plain, workaday robes she used to draft law. Their audience needed to be impressed, and Hermione dressed up a little made more of an impression than an ordinarily dressed-up woman doing so.

"Draco."

"Hermione," he said in exactly the same tone, and whirled her around so she was standing with her back to the platform at the end of the tunnel, to preserve his surprise a little while longer. "You've trusted me so far."

"Yes," she said, and eyed him in the way that meant she was wondering why she had.

"Trust me now," he said, and turned her around so that she could see the floating platform and Potter waiting on it.

Hermione's eyes opened so wide that she looked utterly lovely and young, and then she laughed and ran out to hug Potter. Potter embraced her back, as far gone as she--or almost so, since he still had the consciousness to look into Draco's eyes.

Draco smiled serenely back. He'd been right. Tell Potter that they'd sunk to relying on Rita Skeeter, and they got his letter in the paper plus his surprise appearance at a rally for Hermione.

And since everyone had seen her laughing and the look on her face, no one thought she'd arranged it.

Draco stood comfortably inside the tunnel and listened to Potter introduce Hermione, giving a good speech about his admiration for her and how much he thought she could do for the wizarding world, before he stepped out of the way and Hermione came in, blushing, to do justice to what he'd said.

And to what Draco had labored for.

Yes, Potter, look at me sidelong all you like. The point is, with me doing this for her, she's going to bloody win.

The End.
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Fire Built on Sand