Thanks for the reviews on the last chapter!
Here comes chaos again.
Chapter Fourteen: Vox Populi
Bang!
Draco watched as the feathers flurried down around him, and tried to convince himself that exploding a pillow was better than making Connor Potter's head explode. And then he remembered that perhaps it was, but he didn't want to feel morally good right now, he wanted to feel satisfied, and this wasn't helping.
Someone knocked tentatively on his door. Draco ignored it. He knew who it was, and he didn't want to talk to that person right now. He didn't even want an apology from that person right now. When that person had had a good amount of time to brood on his mistake, then he might have something to say that Draco would listen to.
Draco pointed his wand and intoned another curse. This time, his headboard exploded. Draco exhaled harshly. That's something very good about being here, he thought. In Malfoy Manor, he would have had house elves Apparating in right now, squeaking in distress about Master Draco's property being destroyed. But here, he could destroy anything he liked and only worry about a handy little Reparo afterwards. Maybe Harry was right, and life was easier without house elves.
Well, he'll have the opportunity to see if he's right about something else, too, and whether it really is easier to sleep without me in his bed for the next few nights, Draco thought. This time, he cast at the wall. The walls of Cobley-by-the-Sea were stone, though, and so thick with wards that Draco's spell bounced back at him. He had to raise a quick Protego, and that calmed him a bit.
Draco sat down on the bed, running a hand through his hair and closing his eyes. Harry had come in alone, his face so distressed that Draco had believed him immediately when he started talking about the charms on the Firebolt and Connor drowning. Draco realized now that Harry had been distressed over agreeing to play the prank on him, but that didn't matter. He'd still gone along with his brother.
"Draco?" Harry asked.
"Go away," Draco said, and then flopped back on his bed and folded his arms behind his head, scowling up at the canopy.
"Draco, I wanted to apologize and say—"
"I don't want to hear it!" Draco yelled, and that silenced Harry's knocking and talking both. Harry sighed a moment later, and Draco heard the sound of him walking away from the door.
He told himself that was what he wanted, but moments later his mood had changed and he wanted Harry to have continued talking at him, maybe even yelling back, and knocking down the door if he had to. That would have showed real dedication, and that he was so sorry he would rather spend the evening coaxing Draco to talk than with that stupid bloody brother of his.
Draco knew he was being childish, he recognized it, and he didn't care.
He took a deep breath. His thoughts slowly ceased racing in fury around the center point of his indignation and calmed down. He clenched his hands in the sheets, but didn't reach for his wand to curse something else, and that was a bit of an improvement.
Why can't Harry behave like a normal person? he asked the unfair universe that had made him fall in love with a boyfriend who still treated a snog as a special occasion. Why couldn't he see that playing that prank on me would have hurt me, and so why couldn't he refuse to go along with it?
The thing was, Harry had realized it, and had been sorry immediately afterwards. Draco could acknowledge that. But that didn't change the fact that he had gone along with it in the first place.
He punched a hand into the pillow. He had believed that that prat Connor was dead, damn it!
Draco closed his eyes and breathed out harshly. He was getting upset again, and if he let that happen, then Potter would have won. So Father had always said, and Draco had no reason to distrust his father on this score. He concentrated on breathing while he picked through all his reasoning in his mind.
Harry had told him he wanted to spend more time with Connor. That was one thing. But even that was iron-clad; Draco could almost believe Harry had created a schedule for spending time with his brother and other people the way he had for studying various subjects until Hogwarts started. Why couldn't he see that he didn't have to regiment his hours? He could handle crises as they arose, and he could spend lazy afternoons as well as lazy mornings in bed with Draco.
Harry was living too much of his life too consciously, and Draco didn't like it. He knew that Connor was Harry's brother, just like the werewolves were Harry's pack now and Snape was Harry's guardian. But Harry seemed convinced that he had to balance them, instead of just—just living with them.
His thoughts might have gone on spinning down that path if he hadn't remembered something that Blaise Zabini, the traitor, of all people, had said to him once. Draco had wanted Harry to wake up and notice that he was in love with him, and Blaise had told him that if he were waiting for Harry to act like a normal person, he'd have a long wait.
And that's true, isn't it? Draco sighed and opened his eyes again, waving his wand and casting Reparo at the headboard. His training, his new political life, all the rest of it, probably make him think that he does need to grant a certain amount of time to each person, and he probably felt like he needed to go along with the prank to keep his brother happy. Then he hated it when he saw how unhappy he'd made me, but still, his focus was on what we felt. Not on what he felt. He's not normal in that he couldn't judge what effect on him that prank would have.
Damn it. I hate his mother. It's still all tangled and writhing around him, even though he's so much better in so many ways.
Draco entertained a pleasant fantasy of torturing Lily Potter for a little while, then pushed it away. That wouldn't do anything productive. Besides, trying to figure out how to break into Tullianum gave him a headache.
He would be the bigger person, he decided. He would be the one who understood what the prank had done to Harry, since the Potter prat was probably still laughing his head off and Harry would be brooding on anything but that. He would be the one who looked at the person in the middle.
Is it fair that I have to be? No, it's not. But it's not fair that Harry has to divide his days up either.
Besides, this way I get to push more. Draco smiled. Potter just wants jokes out of Harry. I want much more important things, and I get to have them. There's no reason that I can't be both caring and self-interested.
He would wait until the morning to approach Harry about it, though, Draco decided. Then he would start on the clean slate of a new day, and Harry would be more likely to think he wasn't angry any more.
Satisfied, Draco repaired the pillow and curled up for a nap. Meditating on the Animagus form he should have been able to see already was exhausting.
"Good morning, Malfoy."
"Good morning," Draco said neutrally as he entered the kitchen. The werewolves still called him by his last name most of the time. Draco had to call them by their first names, because most of them had no surnames, or had rejected them. He most often compromised by calling them nothing at all.
Camellia glanced up at him from where she was turning sausages over, her eyes darkening as they focused on the doorway. "Harry's not with you?"
"Not right now." Draco stepped around her to pour himself orange juice, rather enjoying the piercing way her gaze focused on him.
"Why not?"
"We had a row yesterday," Draco said, and leaned against the counter so he could sip his orange juice. "He played a stupid prank on me." He shrugged. "I forgave him, and I'm going to talk to him this morning, but we didn't sleep in the same bed last night."
Camellia continued cooking the sausages for a moment, while her frown deepened. Then she put down the pan and leaned forward, looking at him. Draco snorted inwardly and waited. He had thought one member of the pack would approach him with an "If you hurt our alpha" speech sooner or later, and it made sense that it would be Camellia who did that, since she was the one who spent the most time around Harry.
"He's our alpha," Camellia breathed. "He's not a werewolf, so he has no chance of forming a mating bond with any of us. I'm not saying this out of jealousy or a sense of competition, Malfoy. I'm saying this because it's true. Hurt him, and what's left of you won't be recognizable as human."
Draco sipped his orange juice.
"He's ours in a way you can't imagine," said Camellia, and this time her teeth snapped together. "He's ours to defend and protect. It's perfectly obvious that he takes next to no time for himself. We're going to insist that he does very soon, and without any twitchy little lapdogs ruining it for him either—"
"And you think that insisting on that is the best way to get him to relax?" Draco laughed lightly and examined the back of his wrist. "You should understand. Harry doesn't know how to relax, unless he's flying. He tries, but everything becomes another battle for him, or of use to war and politics. And you can't tell him that you want him to relax, because then he does it as a favor for other people." He raised his eyes mockingly to her face. "I stand a far better chance of actually breaking down his barriers, because he expects me to be a brat. I can use that. And I can irritate him so much that he won't realize he's let his guard down until the moment passes."
Camellia regarded him without moving or blinking. Draco had heard werewolves understood such staring contests as tests of dominance, but he didn't look away.
"You had better be right," Camellia said a moment later, and turned back to make sure the sausages didn't burn.
"I am," Draco said softly, but she didn't look at him again. He sat down on the other side of the table, and smiled at her back. It was stiff with disapproval. Snape would probably have looked the same way if Draco told him of his plans.
Draco didn't care. It had finally come to him last night, as he was falling asleep, that Harry's problem with the prank and his problem with intimacy were connected. He was too conscious, too afraid of hurting someone else. He was never going to let his control truly go if he could help it.
Draco had to provoke him into letting go, and then he would get what he wanted and Harry would get what he needed. It was a win-win situation.
A few minutes after Camellia brought over breakfast, a strange owl flew in through the window, a lovely gray creature mottled with black spots. Draco eyed her in curiosity as she landed on the table. The Daily Prophet owls were usually instantly recognizable, but though this one carried a thick roll of newspaper around her leg, she didn't look like one of them. She was too alert, and nearly vibrating with importance as she sat there.
Draco picked up a whole sausage link, on instinct, and extended it to her. The owl watched him for a moment, then deemed that acceptable and ate it. Only then did she hold out her leg, haughtiness in every line of her body. Draco removed the cord binding the newspaper. Perhaps it's a special edition.
It wasn't. It was a different paper altogether, with the title flanked by dancing women with long hair. Draco raised his eyebrows. It didn't take much looking to see that the women didn't wear robes, nor much imagination to think of what their long hair cloaked.
The paper's name was also overgrown with vines bearing grapes, and each of the letters on the end melted into fancy type, dripping down into bottles of wine. Thus, it took Draco much longer to read it than it took him to imagine what the women had on, or didn't, under their hair.
Vox Populi, said the title itself. The smaller letters underneath that were ornamented as well, with more grapes and what looked like horns, but easier to read. The Voice of the People.
Draco frowned. I haven't heard anything about this. He looked at the headline, hoping that would provide him with a clue. A moment later, he choked.
Minister Conspiring With Unspeakables
"What's the matter, Draco?" Harry asked just then. Draco felt his hand descend to squeeze his shoulder, and then pause.
Draco read the article beneath the headline. He could feel Harry reading it with him.
According to unimpeachable sources, the Unspeakables of the Department of Mysteries have been hunting our own Chosen One, the former Harry Potter. They cleared the Atrium of witnesses, and attacked him when he went to visit the Ministry on a completely legal and rather important mission. The only companion Harry had was the checkpoint witch, but he still managed to fight the Unspeakables off. According to our sources, the gray-cloaks attempted to collar Harry and use a powerful artifact, stinking of time magic, on him. When he and his companion escaped, the Unspeakables chose to Obliviate them. Little did they know that Harry is a Lord-level wizard, and undoubtedly used to fighting off such tricks.
Our question is: where was the Minister in all this? Why has he said nothing about an attack on the Chosen One in his own Ministry, by his own employees? Why did he not notice that no one except the checkpoint witch was suddenly in the Atrium, that powerful magic was used—both in the attack and in the escape—and that the checkpoint witch then vanished?
We contend that Minister Scrimgeour knows full well what happened, but is ignoring it in favor of letting the Department of Mysteries do as they liked. What do we know about the Department of Mysteries, anyway? Very little. They are supposedly chosen by an artifact that will not choose anyone disloyal as a servant, but we now ask: loyal to what purpose? Is the artifact really working for the good of wizarding society, as the Unspeakables have always contended, or for the good of the Department of Mysteries, and no one else?
The Minister's trust in this Department is sorely misplaced. Attempting to stalk and capture the hero of the wizarding world, the only one who can defend us from Voldemort, is beyond the pale. We call on Minister Scrimgeour to explain himself, preferably now.
There was no author's name. Of course there wouldn't be, Draco thought, a bit numb. Someone writing an article this inflammatory wouldn't want to be known, even by pseudonym.
There were others things that stunned him more. He had never seen a newspaper print Voldemort's name. He had barely even seen it written, unless Harry was writing the letter. The strident tone made no pretense to the objectivity the Prophet always supposedly sheltered behind, either. Draco shook his head, wondering who in the world was behind this, and why they expected to get away with it.
"Look," said Harry quietly, and turned the page.
Draco blinked. On the second page was a too-familiar photograph of Harry flying at the dragons in the Triwizard Tournament. Draco had long since wondered why they couldn't use another picture of him, perhaps one that was more recent and had Draco in it as well, and showed off the ring proclaiming the joining ritual on Harry's hand.
The headline above it was something new, though.
Did He or Didn't He: Compelling New Evidence that "Chosen One" is the Chosen of Dragons Only
Draco skimmed the article, shaking his head. It argued that Harry hadn't really defended the students at Hogwarts from the dragons when Mulciber cast the Imperio that caused them to break free from their wards; instead, he had communicated with the dragons because he was their hero, their child of prophecy. It mixed truth with lies so merrily that Draco could see how many would be convinced, and there was no author's name on this one, either.
"I don't understand," he said, as he looked through other articles and found ones that talked about Harry as a hero, ones that derided him, ones that argued for the mixing of wizards and Muggles, and ones that said the magical and mundane worlds should remain separate. "What is their stance?"
"I don't think they have one." Harry flipped the paper over to the very back, and touched something Draco hadn't noticed yet, the name of the publisher and press.
Dionysus Hornblower, The Maenad Press.
Draco grimaced. He had actually heard of the Hornblower family, though not of Dionysus in particular. They were mad eccentrics who usually didn't Declare, but had plenty of Galleons thanks to a few common, useful transportation spells they'd invented centuries ago. They interbred with Muggles and halfbloods and Veela and whoever else caught their eyes, usually without the benefit of marriage. Lucius had warned Draco never to have dealings with a Hornblower, unless he was using a binding oath with wording he'd chosen himself. If there was a way to cause chaos, a Hornblower would find it.
And Dionysus had been the Greek god of wine, revelry, and madness, and the Maenads had been his followers, women who went wild and danced their way through the hills. Draco flipped the paper back over and looked again at the dancing women around the title.
The Maenads had also torn apart wild beasts and men they caught, from what Draco remembered. They were utterly indiscriminate in their choice of victims; mothers had slaughtered their sons if the god had commanded them to. Hornblower naming his press after them and choosing them as the emblem of his paper was as close to a declaration of war on all sides as Draco could imagine.
"They're going to publish anything they want," Harry murmured. "And most of it won't be believed, doubtless, but they have some accurate information." He touched the leading article again. "They had to have talked to someone who was at my festival, or perhaps the writer was there himself."
"Why, though?" Draco asked. "There are so many other ways that this Dionysus could cause trouble, with much less expense to himself. Why this one in particular?"
"I'm glad you asked that question."
Draco jerked his head up. The gray-and-black owl had stayed on the table, though he hadn't noticed; most post owls left after they'd been rewarded for their delivery. She had her wings spread, fanned out, and her beak open. A cloud of glittering light floated out of her beak, and formed the image of a wizard, probably in his thirties, smiling at them.
Draco immediately didn't like him. He had a look that Draco had seen only once before: on the face of the werewolf called Loki. It was a look that said he wasn't in control of everything, but he would fling the Severing Curses anyway and let the blood fly and settle where it would. That quite twisted what Draco thought would have been an ordinary face otherwise, with gray eyes and brown hair and a tiny birthmark on one cheek.
"I sent this message with most owls, but most people aren't going to ask." Dionysus sat behind a desk of some kind. Now he leaned forward confidingly over it and winked with his left eye. "Now, you, you're curious. You want to know what's been going on. That's good. That's proper. That's the first step on the road to true freedom.
"Simply put, the Vox Populi exists to publish those articles that most people won't ever get to read, thanks to the Prophet and its vicious politics of strangling dissent at the mouth." Dionysus sneered. "I'll publish anything anyone sends to me, and the only editing I do is for grammar. That's the only thing that could shame my paper. The truth never can."
"You don't know what the truth is, you old git," Draco muttered, but of course the sending couldn't hear him, and prattled on.
"I pay for everything, and pay the writers, too, so you don't need to worry about the expense of printing. I want everyone to know the truth. The Ministry's had everything its own way for far too long. And now we're moving into a war, into a revolution, and they want to pretend that nothing's changed." Dionysus's eyes glittered in a way that Draco thought was unhealthy. "That's not true. I'm taking my example and my inspiration from Harry vates, who is our prophet and seer as much as he's for the magical creatures. He values freedom, and well he should! Freedom is the most important thing in the world."
Draco couldn't help turning his head to see what impact that had on Harry. He found Harry watching the sending with an expression born of resignation. Harry caught his eye and turned his hand palm-up, mouthing something Draco could barely hear under Dionysus's rattle. Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.
"—And now we have a force that can challenge the Ministry." Dionysus nodded several times, as if to prove that he really, really believed in it. He's a Hornblower, of course he does, Draco thought. "We have one paper that can centralize and vocalize all the dissent, and let our people know that they're not alone. They can realize that centaurs think the same way they do, and that the people they always respected just because they were pureblood don't deserve that respect, and that they can say so.
"Our motto, besides being the voice of the people, is the same as the Alliance of Sun and Shadow. We aren't afraid, and our enemies can't make us be."
The sending stopped talking, and a moment later the light dissolved and poured back into the owl's mouth. She gave a little shake of her feathers, then leaped into the air and sped out the window as though afraid they would kill the messenger.
Draco twisted to look up at Harry again. "You didn't need that," he said.
Harry huffed out a breath, and sat down on the opposite side of the table, taking the paper with him as he went. "No, I didn't," he said, staring at some of the articles, "but I can hardly control what people do, either, or think that my example is going to inspire only restraint."
Draco folded his arms. "Must you be so—so reasonable all the time?" he hissed.
Harry looked up at him. "What do you mean?"
"You can get angry," Draco told him. Camellia dodged between them to set a plate full of sausages down in front of Harry, but Harry, his eyes on Draco, didn't appear to notice. "You've been doing well with it since the Sanctuary. And now it's—drying up again." He couldn't find a word that fit what he wanted to say better. "You're acting as though anything anyone does in your name, you can't be angry about, and you can't denounce."
"Well, I plan to say that I didn't help to establish or fund the Vox Populi, if anyone asks," said Harry, sounding a bit bewildered. "But I can't be angry that Hornblower took my example and ran with it in a direction I wish he hadn't. Of course that was going to happen sooner or later. I've set myself up as a political figure, Draco, the leader of an alliance. People are going to misunderstand me and misinterpret me and worship me in ways I wish they wouldn't. That's practically a given. It still makes me uncomfortable, but that's not the same thing as angry. I chose this position, I chose the game, I chose the consequences. I have to live with them."
Draco shook his head and waved one hand in his fury. "And you're going to divide yourself up again to deal with this problem—"
"Actually," said Harry, a small smile creeping over his lips, "I'm not."
Draco blinked. "What?"
"I have too much happening already." Harry laid down the paper and leaned forward. "I've reached the limit of what I can deal with by myself. That's why I asked Hermione to research the legal loopholes in the anti-werewolf laws, and Zacharias Smith to research that flying horse symbol. And now I'm looking for a good solicitor to help us represent the werewolves, through Miriam Smith. I thought about going through the Gloryflowers, but everyone and her second cousin knows that Laura Gloryflower's niece is a werewolf now, so that won't work. The Smiths are still terribly respectable. I can't do that all myself, I'm pressed for time to just do the essential things—"
"Like eating your breakfast," Camellia muttered, drifting up behind him.
Harry obediently picked up his fork, but didn't let the interruption faze him. "—And this situation is the same way. I'm going to ask someone else to handle it for me." He took a few more bites, not removing his eyes from Draco.
Draco shook his head. "Who?" He couldn't think of many other allies who could move with impunity in the circles Dionysus Hornblower traveled. The werewolves were in danger of arrest if they set foot outside the Black houses, Dionysus Hornblower had no respect for blood status and no reason to listen to pureblood money, Harry's allies in the Ministry were right out, Pettigrew had few if any political connections, and Harry would probably not trust Snape to control his temper.
"You."
Draco blinked again. "Pardon?" he said at last, in what he knew was a rather faint voice.
Harry cocked his head, and his eyes glittered, bright and sharp. "Draco," he said quietly. "I know you made a few connections in the Ministry last year, after we defeated Dumbledore. I didn't know it at the time, but I figured it out later. You've kept them up, haven't you? You've not just let them go."
Draco nodded reluctantly. He really didn't think Harry had noticed, to tell the truth. Those connections would have been a nice way to surprise him.
"I think you'll be able to communicate with them more easily than I'm able to talk to anyone in the Ministry, Scrimgeour included." Harry leaned back and clasped his hand behind his head, ignoring Camellia's mutters about food. "And I know that some of them have respect for the Malfoy name and the Malfoy money—but you're not your father. You don't have as intimidating a reputation preceding you. You can make them underestimate you and take them by surprise.
"You can possess people as well. And I know you can read minds, not just control actions. That ought to be bloody useful in figuring out secrets."
"You don't think it's unethical?" Draco blurted. He'd thought of using his possession gift in just that way, but he had assumed Harry would hate the idea.
Harry looked down at his plate without seeing it. "If you're going to control their actions, then I would say yes," he murmured. "It was hard to condone that even for the Midsummer battle, when I knew it was kill or be killed. But this situation, while less desperate, is certainly consumed with spying." He took a deep breath. "I won't let my enemies drive me around in circles, Draco. I'll ask someone else to liaise with the Maenad Press. Honoria, I think. Her illusions are good for so much in that line, and she'd be thrilled to be asked.
"I need information, Draco. Now that the Unspeakables are in the battle, it's more crucial than it was before. Even your father couldn't tell me that much about them. And most of the ways of getting information are unethical in one sense or another. I'm never going to torture people for it, but this?" Harry looked up and nodded. "Yes, I think this will work. If you promise that you won't use the information just to fulfill personal grudges, or your possession to control their actions unless it's a matter of life and death."
Draco threw his head back. He felt warmth spreading over him like sunshine. Harry's trust honored him, and violating it would not be worth the momentary satisfaction he might gain from revenge.
"So you want me to help with managing your reputation altogether, don't you?" he asked softly. "Keep an eye on how it changes, what new rumors are rising, how the Vox Populi and the other papers are affecting things?"
Harry nodded again. "Yes. Scrimgeour was going to do that for me while I was in the Sanctuary, but…well."
Draco cocked his head. His mind felt full of possibilities, burgeoning like the grapes growing around the title of the Vox Populi. He wondered for a moment if Harry felt like this all the time, then tried to dismiss the thought, because that just made him shudder.
"It would be more than just having a few contacts in the Ministry, Harry, you know that," he said. "I'd want to fight for you on several different levels. I'd try to recruit people for the Alliance, find out what the Unspeakables were doing, discredit your opponents."
"I know that."
"Have you abandoned your morals, then?" Camellia did not sound at all pleased. "I would not see you become different than you are now, Wild, simply to satisfy the political requirements of wizards."
Harry leaned back in his chair and shook his head at her. "I've accepted that I can't win this battle if I do nothing," he said quietly. "And doing nothing would be the only way to insure that I made no questionable decisions. I am vates. I have to push forward. I have to speak news that people won't want to hear. And if someone imposes on the free will of another, I have to fight back against that. The trouble will be restraining myself so that I only fight back until that other person's free will is restored, and then stop." He let out a breath and looked at Draco. "So, Draco, I'm trusting you to bring me the information unless the situation is so urgent that you have to act immediately and you don't have time to reach me. Don't just use it indiscriminately."
"That's why you can trust me and no one else in this position," said Draco, while more ideas grew. He had acquaintances among the seventh-year Slytherins Harry had never bothered to make; he had never been as close to his own Housemates as many other Slytherins were, coming from a Light-devoted family who'd hidden away from the wizarding world. "I want to defend you, Harry, you know that, not just advance my own interests."
Harry grinned at him. "Your interests are intertwined with mine. I understand that much, Draco." He hesitated for a moment, then said, "By the way, I'm sorry for the row we had yesterday."
Draco was glad that he'd already decided to accept and forgive. It made him able to nod and say, "You played that prank because you wanted to please your brother, didn't you?"
A tension he hadn't realized Harry was carrying melted out of his shoulders. "Yes," he said, leaning towards Draco. Over Harry's shoulder, Draco caught a glimpse of Camellia scowling ferociously. He smirked at her and clasped Harry's hand. Harry didn't seem to notice the byplay. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done it. It made you feel so terrible, and I felt guilty for hours afterward." He hesitated, as if pondering whether he should speak the next words at all, then offered, "I didn't sleep well last night."
Draco felt a flash of triumph, but he adopted the most innocent expression he could. "Because you felt guilty?"
"Because you weren't there," Harry mumbled, his cheeks flushing even more brightly.
Camellia scowled again. Draco raised Harry's hand to his lips, eyes challenging. Camellia whipped around and stalked away.
Draco did believe that she wasn't jealous of Harry as a werewolf would be of a potential mate. But her jealousy was actually more dangerous in the long run. Relatively few people might want to share Harry's bed (though Draco didn't believe that, because how could anyone not want to?). Dozens of them would struggle to be close to him, some for the wrong motives. And the ones with the right motives could still exhaust him, as he would want to give them all appropriate time and attention.
Draco would make sure that that didn't happen. He would evaluate the people who wanted to come close, and send off the ones who would drain Harry more than they would help him. If he was going to be recruiting members for the Alliance of Sun and Shadow, he would be the guard and first line of defense there.
That would help Harry, and it would help Draco. He wanted Harry to be relaxed and happy. And by this time, the selfish reasons and the unselfish ones for that were so tightly interwoven that he wondered if one could actually separate them anymore.
"I've already forgotten that prank," said Draco, being absolutely honest, because it had led him to this point and because it made Harry's eyes brighten. "I'd like to sleep with you again tonight, if you'll let me."
"I want you to," Harry said at once.
His gaze moved away from Draco then, falling on the Vox Populi, and the lines around his mouth tightened. "I was going to talk to Snape about that book," he said, and, after one more squeeze to Draco's hand, stood and wandered out of the kitchen, leaving his breakfast mostly uneaten.
Draco snorted. He needs a distraction. We both do. I am going to provide one.
He leaned back and smirked at the ceiling. And if it's a distraction that will provoke him to the point of lowering his barriers, so be it. That's the only way he'll truly relax, and the only way he'll be refreshed when he has to face what's coming after this.
Draco picked up the Vox Populi and made his way towards the door. He had letters to write and research to do. Time to see if some of the tidbits of information that his father had mentioned on the Hornblower family over the years were grounded in rumor or fact.
