Thanks for the reviews on the last chapter!
Chapter Forty-Six: I Am No Lord
Connor hugged him on his way into breakfast a few days later, and Harry turned and looked at him in puzzlement. Connor blinked back at him for a moment, then laughed and hugged him again. "I can't be glad about my brother being back?" he muttered into Harry's neck.
"I—of course you can," said Harry, and gave him a one-armed hug. His hand was clutching his response to Loki, which he'd intended to send from the Owlery after he ate. "But you've hugged me every day now."
"I missed you," said Connor simply, shrugging, and hugged him again. Harry could feel Draco's stare on the back of his neck. He ignored it. It was one thing for Draco to dislike Connor for what he'd done in the past, and another for him to be jealous of his touching Harry.
"Where's Parvati?" Harry felt free to ask, when Connor pulled back. He had held back on the question as long as he could, but he was wondering if the amount of time he'd spent around Connor in the past few days was responsible for driving his brother's girlfriend away.
Connor glanced at the floor.
Harry made a soft concerned noise, and let the letter hover in the air beside him as he grasped Connor's chin and tilted it back up. "Well?" he asked, the moment they were eye to eye and he doubted that Connor could hide anything important from him.
"She—said that she needed to think about things, and I needed to think about things, too," said Connor, with a small shrug of his shoulders. "I still like her, but we disagreed too much. She was afraid that you would come back to the school so proud of what you'd achieved that you wouldn't hesitate to use your magic on other people." He peered at Harry from beneath his fringe. "And I told her that wasn't true, and then when she saw it wasn't, she turned away from me. I think she doesn't like being proved wrong."
"And that only became apparent to you now?" Draco sneered from behind Harry.
Harry gave him a swift reprimanding glance, and turned to his brother. "I'm sorry, Connor. If you think it would help, I'll talk to her myself, and try to explain that I have no interest in using my magic against others."
Connor shook his head. "She barely took it well from me, Harry. She'd scream at you, and then feel embarrassed about it later."
"All right." Harry was the one to hug Connor this time, and to watch with pitying eyes as he went to the Gryffindor table. Then he took up Loki's letter again and accompanied Draco to the Slytherin table.
Heads turned as they walked across the Great Hall. Of course they did, Harry thought, and strove his best to stay calm. They had only been back at Hogwarts for three days. That wasn't long enough for most of the students to start thinking of them as Housemates and not rebels. And if some of the students followed the articles in the Daily Prophet that declared Harry had done a great service for the wizarding world by ending the rebellion, and others followed the articles in the Vox Populi that claimed Harry had made a cynical political bargain with the Light wizards in return for increased power among his favored magical creatures—could Harry blame them for that? Yes, in some ways, both of those were true.
"I wish they would stop staring," Draco said viciously as they sat down and accepted the cornflakes and pumpkin juice from Millicent.
Harry looked at him in surprise. He couldn't remember the last time Draco had complained about attention, positive or negative. "Why? Don't you enjoy being looked at?" He added a teasing tone to his voice, and grew even more surprised when Draco shook his head at him.
"What do you have to do to make them see that you're not going to use your magic against people?" Draco muttered, and then sank into brooding.
Harry shrugged. "Some of them won't believe it no matter what I do or say," he said, and poured milk across his cornflakes. "I try not to let it bother me, Draco. At least my past isn't on display in the papers the way it was last year, and people aren't attacking me with curses the way they did then, either. And at least I have you now, in a capacity greater than I did last year." He squeezed Draco's wrist reassuringly.
The frown remained in place. Harry ate, darting glances sideways at his boyfriend from time to time.
I don't understand why this bothers him so much. If anything, our roles should be reversed. He's the one who understands how politics work, better than I do, and he knows that people won't always be reasonable, especially if it suits their purposes to remain unreasonable.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSDraco did understand how politics worked, and he had read the articles in the Vox Populi closely, as Harry had asked him to do. And it seemed to him that a large number of them all had the same style, though of course, as was typical, the paper listed no actual author for the writing.
This author was among the most cautious and clever of them. Rather than claiming outright that Harry was part of some vast conspiracy to take the wizarding world away from its rightful possessors and hand it to the magical creatures, as some of the wilder voices did, she—Draco thought of the writer as a woman, for some reason—suggested that that might, possibly, could happen, if certain concerned citizens of the wizarding world didn't observe the signs carefully. She approved of the monitoring board, and now and then listed increased powers for them as a good thing. She hinted now and then that Harry had won everything he wanted, including herding the Light wizards into his fold, with a minimum of fuss. And what might someone with that kind of power of persuasion do to the Ministry and the political situation of the British wizarding world? He even had contacts in other countries, if the record of foreign Ministries of Magic supporting him was true.
Draco had found an opponent, one he respected, but that didn't mean he wasn't incredibly frustrated.
The frustration only increased when he watched the Patil bitch and other students who should have known better shying from Harry. He hadn't flattened the Ministry with his magic, or come back to the school and demanded concessions from the Headmistress. Ironically, Draco thought, it might have been easier for them to understand if he had. Lords had a long history of acting that way, whether Light or Dark. The only thing that varied was what they demanded.
But Harry didn't ask for anything, and so now most of them were convinced he was playing some sort of long-running game, and that the werewolves were merely the first of the magical creatures to receive equal rights. From the murmuring Draco had heard, house elves were next.
He glanced at Harry, eating his cornflakes with a placid expression, and as placidly convinced that everything would work out. He shook his head. That wasn't to say that Harry was unconcerned by what happened around him, or unresponsive to threats. But he didn't tend to respond to the threats until they became threats. He was all about curing ills, and not preventing them.
He could have used the devotion he had garnered from the saner sections of the British wizarding public to ask for anything he wanted. He could have at least asked for small things from his Housemates, such as being made Seeker on the Slytherin Quidditch team again. Instead, he had told Draco that the new Seeker they'd chosen, a fourth-year named Sam, flew better than he would right now, having practiced as Harry hadn't had a chance to do in the last few months.
He accepted so much of what happened to him.
It drove Draco mad.
His attention was distracted when he saw an immense bird flying through the window of the Great Hall, heading straight for him. Even among the maze of owls dropping the Daily Prophet and the Vox Populi and letters on the House tables, it stood out; it was a great horned owl, and those weren't used for ordinary message delivery. Draco's heart beat all the harder when he recognized the owl as Julius, kept solely for Lucius Malfoy's most important post.
Julius landed in front of him, scattering Draco's plate and bowl as if neither existed, and fixed him with a condemning yellow eye that didn't make Draco hold out much hope for the contents of the letter. Draco took the envelope carefully, and still didn't quite manage to evade the large beak that nipped at him, gashing open one of his fingers to the bone. He was grateful for his father's training in schooling one's emotions in public then; his face remained cool even as blood poured down on the tablecloth, and even as Harry exclaimed and cast a healing spell at him.
"What does he want?" Harry asked, casting a flat look at Julius. Draco remembered the owl cutting open Harry's own wrist and arm, but he had accepted the pain. It seemed it was different when Draco was the one hurt, and he felt a ridiculous stir of warmth at that even as he tried to open the letter without getting blood on it.
"For me to read this and respond, I would wager," Draco murmured.
The letter was simple, and had been written in gold ink. Draco searched his mind for the significance of that for only a moment before he remembered. Malfoys used gold ink to address traitorous spouses and rebellious children.
November 4th, 1996
Dear Draco Black:
In no way do I accept the 'compromise' that you appear to be offering. What promises I make, I keep.
There will be no public apology unless it comes from your own mouth. You will meet me in private, and I will explain how matters stand to you. What lies between your mother and me is our own affair, and I will have a different meeting with her. But for now, you will come to the Manor on this Saturday, and explain your side of the story. I will listen without interrupting, and then I will tell you mine. I am confident that you will see sense.
You will not abandon all you have become, all I have trained you to be, simply because you wish to bed a halfblood.
Lucius Malfoy.
"I received a letter from him, too," said Harry.
Draco looked up. Harry was holding a piece of parchment flat in his own hand as if he didn't want to touch the writing, and he gave Draco a small, hard smile.
"This is his formal resignation from the Alliance of Sun and Shadow," said Harry.
My father has gone mad.
Draco didn't think that was literally true, but he was sure that Lucius's pride and stubbornness were preventing him from making some very simple gestures of submission and apology. And now he wanted what he had always had, including a place in Harry's good graces and admiration in his son's eyes, without bending one inch of that stiff neck.
"How far can he actually travel from you?" he asked Harry. "He's in a truce with you, after all, and you gave him the gift of Parseltongue as he gave you the gift of passing the Manor's wards."
"He can go as far as he wants," said Harry, his eyes almost unearthly, "as long as he doesn't hurt me, one of my allies, or someone else." He nodded to the letter in Draco's hand. "If that had contained an actual physical threat to you, I could call him on violating the truce-dance. As it is, he's approaching you in the context of disowning a family member, and I can't interfere with a pureblood family, unless they actually ask me to." His lips twisted. "I wonder if that was one reason he was very careful to truce-dance with me as an individual, and not commit himself to me more than access to the Manor implies. He wanted to be sure that I wouldn't be seen as part of the family, that I wouldn't have the authority to ask him what the fuck he thinks he's doing by disowning his only son and magical heir."
"I'm not exactly his magical heir," Draco murmured, his mind racing. "I'm the Malfoy family's magical heir. He can't take that away from me. But only certain legacies come down to the bloodline to the magical heir. Blood heirs and legal heirs receive different things, and he might choose someone else as legal heir, simply to make me angry."
"Draco."
He recognized the tone in Harry's voice from long experience, and he shook his head without even looking at him. "He isn't going to cause a change in the joining ritual, Harry, or what we have between us," he said, turning his hand so that it clasped Harry's wrist. "I made my choice when I followed you. He can't do anything to foul that up. He can accede to what my mother and I want, or he can live the rest of his life in loneliness and isolation."
And he would probably do it, too. Draco remembered an argument his mother and father had had when he was five that had endured nine months, and at last resulted in Narcissa giving in, because she had not cared as much about the initial insult as Lucius in the first place. The only matters on which she tended to defy Lucius periodically were matters related to him, Draco thought.
Well, that was his mother. But he did not intend to give in this time. It was time for Lucius to realize that his son was not Narcissa, and neither was he a mindless pawn, and he cared about this argument very, very much.
"No response," he told Julius.
The owl flapped his wings and hissed at him in agitation. This close, Draco could see every shining curve of that scything beak, and could well imagine what it would do to his face, if Julius bit his cheek the way he had bitten his finger. He didn't care. He forced himself to stare into those unblinking yellow eyes, not blinking himself, and at last the great horned owl was the one to turn and flap away, wheeling the length of the Great Hall before he launched himself through the window.
Draco sat where he was, breathing steadily for a few moments, warmed by the firm grip of Harry's hand on his. Then he shook his head, retrieved his breakfast dishes, and went back to eating.
He resolved to put Lucius Malfoy and all matters connected to him out of his mind for right now. His refusal and his demands were both simple. The political problems surrounding Harry were more complex and required more of his attention.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSLucius stood when he noticed Julius wheeling towards the Manor; wards attuned to the owl gave his master eyes to see where he flew, as soon as he came within a certain range. But Julius went to his owlery without once glancing at a window, and left Lucius to stand there in heart-thundering silence for a long moment.
At last what must have happened occurred to him, but he did not wish to accept it.
His son had betrayed him, for a halfblood lover, a last name tainted by madness, and a wife who had also refused to return, though Narcissa had at least done him the courtesy of sending a note. Draco could not have been blunter had he shown up for the meeting after all, offered Lucius a Fuck you, and then walked out again.
Lucius was tempted, for just a moment, to sit down and put his hands over his face, or to give in to some other childish and dangerous impulse like smashing one of the priceless treasures sitting on the shelves of the study. But he stifled the impulse at once. His father had told him the truth when he said that if one let one's private behavior become less than impeccable, sooner or later one would slip in public.
Instead, Lucius took several deep breaths and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he knew they were as clear and calm as a lake in winter. More to the point, his mind was detached and drifting, and he could consider the matters that pressed in on him carefully, clinically, instead of as problems that would eat him alive if he waited.
He had suffered several setbacks of late. It had become obvious to him that the Unspeakables had betrayed him early on, when he made his once-a-month check for impositions in his mind, and discovered a section of Obliviated memories he could not crack open. Add to that that he had not received his promised reward for the distraction he had given them—a werewolf served to them on a platter, and they could not keep Harry's attention away from politics?—and he was no longer inclined to trust them. So he had become part of the Ritual of Cincinnatus, and he still expected to reap the rewards from that.
And then he had disowned Draco to teach him a lesson, and the boy was too much of a boy to bow his head and make an apology like a man. Lucius would have arranged things carefully for the private meeting, if Draco had agreed to come to it, and that would have ended the matter and repaired the crack in the Malfoy family's façade that currently gaped open for all to see.
But there was another course he could take. Lucius grimaced. He did not like this course, not least because it would taste like ashes in his mouth.
And it was the only way that he could get close enough to Draco and Harry again to regain their trust, and arrange matters to his satisfaction. Narcissa was a different matter. That she had bothered to send a response meant Lucius could deal with her on another plane.
But the boys…
Lucius shook his head delicately, in sadness for the impetuosity of youth, and went to put matters in motion.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
"Potter."
Harry continued walking out of Defense Against the Dark Arts, even when the footsteps behind him, and the insistent call of the word, made it obvious that someone was talking to him. He turned in the moment before a hand would have grasped his shoulder. He decided that he wasn't very surprised to find that he faced Terry Boot, a Ravenclaw.
"That's not my name anymore," he said distantly, and Terry's face flushed. But he took a few deep breaths and managed to calm down. Harry could see Draco coming up behind, and practically feel Syrinx, Owen, and Michael starting to converge. Apparently their lightning bolt scars hurt if he was feeling irritated enough, which made Harry wish he had never allowed them to swear those oaths or cut their arms.
"I know it isn't," said Terry. "But I didn't want to address you with your first name, and any other sounds like a title."
Harry watched him with a little more interest. At least he was intelligent enough to realize how often people used vates as if it were a substitute for "Lord." And intelligent enough to despise it, too. "You have my attention that you wanted so desperately," he said. "What is it, Boot?"
"Everyone else is talking about what you meant with the monitoring board and your other political moves," said Terry. His eyes traveled over Harry's head, and Harry guessed that one or more of his sworn companions had arrived. "But no one seems to have asked you directly. So I will. What are you going to do?"
Harry felt a reluctant smile tug at the corners of his mouth. "What I said I would," he said. "Meet with the monitoring board on occasion. Work with the Light wizards to make sure they regain some of the political prominence they lost through the accusations against Dumbledore. Protect the rights of werewolves and other magical creatures, including guiding some of the members of the Centaur Committee into the Forbidden Forest." They had contacted him over the weekend and practically begged Harry to help them find the centaurs—and probably make sure that the centaurs didn't eat them, though the letter hadn't actually said that. "Ask more people to swear the Alliance oaths. Speaking of that, do you want to?"
Terry shook his head. "I like to understand someone I'm going to give my political allegiance to first," he said. "And I still don't understand you, Pott—Harry." He grimaced as if he found the name hard to speak. Harry was privately delighted. These were the people he had hoped to reassure by taking on the monitoring board, those not fully committed who would now feel free to speak instead of simply cowering away from him. That he could hear Draco growling about it was irrelevant. "What do you gain from this?"
"Rights for werewolves," said Harry. "And more people swearing to the Alliance of Sun and Shadow. And more trust from those Light wizards who seem to have forgotten about fighting Voldemort and decided to fight me, instead."
There was no flinch at Voldemort's name, and Harry's estimate of Terry rose another few notches, especially when the Ravenclaw boy just went on studying his face. "And you have no interest in Declaring?" he asked slowly, after a few minutes.
Harry shook his head fiercely. "None. I never will. Just as I have no plans to take a last name right now just to make it easier for people," he said, and Terry's smile seemed against his will. "I'm not a Lord. I'll say that as many times as I need to make people aware of it, to make people accept it. I'll help in return for help. And I do want to destroy Voldemort. I think it's the only way to make our world safe from his madness. But I don't want to rule over others."
Terry cocked his head. "Hmmm," he murmured. "Well. I'll need to think about it a bit more, and have conversations with a few more people. Politicians are good liars, after all. But one of my aunts is on the monitoring board. I can talk to her, too, and see what she thinks."
"Which one is she?" Harry asked. He didn't know most of the Light wizards and witches they'd inducted onto the monitoring board. They were candidates that Griselda and Aurora agreed on, and they had sworn the oaths, and that was enough for him.
"Elena Gilliam."
Harry thought he remembered her now, a sandy-haired halfblood witch with an air of quiet confidence. "Do talk to her, Boot," he encouraged him. "I want to leave enough room for everyone to make up their own minds."
"Just the fact that you're doing that raises you in my estimation," Terry said, and actually bowed to him a little before he turned away.
"How can you endure insults like that?" Draco asked, the moment Terry was out of earshot. Or perhaps he asked that before Terry was out of earshot. Harry didn't really know, and didn't really care. He was flooded with sunlight at the thought of people thinking about him, instead of simply leaping to conclusions based on what he'd done for werewolves or what they'd read in the Prophet or what they felt, as had happened under Dumbledore's spell last year. This was free will in flood, and of course some of it would be turned against him. He had to be willing to listen to his opponents.
He was looking forward to the first meeting with the monitoring board, Harry realized, with faint surprise.
"What insults?" he responded to Draco, still watching Terry go. And some of the people who had been listening to them had thoughtful expressions on their faces, not stupid or adoring ones. It made Harry want to laugh and dance and sing. "He was honest about everything. That doesn't mean he was insulting."
"He questioned your motivations." Draco was practically vibrating next to him. "How many times do you have to say, again and again, that you aren't going to be a Lord before people understand you?"
"I would rather say it a hundred thousand times than intimidate one person out of asking me questions," Harry said quietly, studying Draco with a faint frown. It was true that he'd asked Draco to watch out for political realities around him, and that Draco saw more than he did, but it almost seemed as if— "Draco, do you really think I want all the notice and attention that goes with being a Lord, let alone the unquestioning acceptance?" he asked. "I'm sorry if I gave you that impression. That's not the truth at all."
"I think you have the right to demand to be taken at your word." Draco's eyes were dark. "And not to have to answer questions that are obvious and rude."
Harry shook his head and started moving towards the Transfiguration classroom. Professor Bulstrode was unforgiving of late students. "It would save some time. But I want to be questioned, Draco. What I don't appreciate is refusal to recognize reality, whether that's on an opposite side or my own."
Draco took a few deep breaths through his nose. Harry could feel his sworn companions behind him, watching intently, and Michael's gaze in particular. He would be wondering if a fight between Draco and Harry increased his own chances of flirting with or dating Draco. Harry felt sorry for him, but on top of that, he was mystified. What in the world had given Michael the impression that he had a chance?
"It seems that this is something we'll agree to disagree on, Harry." Draco's voice was resigned. "I agree with Camellia. You should be able to have what you want, what you need, even at Hogwarts. Saving the wizarding world a time or two entitles you to that. If you decide that you want to do without the monitoring board, or to visit your pack, who is anyone alive to tell you no?'
"But I want the monitoring board." Harry turned to face him in the hall. He would take Henrietta's detention or scolding or, most likely, combination of both. It would even help to demonstrate that he followed and obeyed rules like the normal students. "It's part of the compromise, yes, but it's also a chance for people like Terry to make up their own minds, by its very existence. I did tell you this already, Draco. Shouldn't you take me at my word, as you were so upset about Terry not doing?"
Draco's face turned white, and he cast a privacy ward around them that shut even the sworn companions out. Glancing at them, Harry saw Owen putting a hand on Michael's arm and shaking his head, and Syrinx standing patiently against a wall. Since Harry hadn't indicated that he didn't want the privacy ward, Harry thought, she would not burst through it.
"I've found a decree that says the existence of the monitoring board as a whole is illegal," said Draco steadily, eyes fastened on him. "Lord-level wizards are supposed to have a certain freedom in dealing with the Ministry, and something like this should never have been allowed."
Harry winced. Well. I suppose this was an unavoidable consequence of asking him to watch out for my political interests.
"Don't interfere, Draco," he said. "I'm asking you not to."
"I wasn't planning on it unless they did something to restrict your freedom," said Draco. "But when you say that you want someone to question you—Harry, they don't want to do that. They're not as honest as you think they are. They're not going to create a space where people can exercise their free wills, in the end. They're going to make sure that you compromise yours."
Harry stirred restlessly. "Do you have any proof that they're not as honest as you think they are, Draco?"
"Not yet," said Draco. "Other than some articles in the Populi I think were written by someone on the monitoring board."
"Those have no names attached!"
"Nonetheless."
Harry sighed and raked his hand through his hair, then decided that absolute honesty and only absolute honesty would do. He stepped forward and gripped Draco's shoulder, staring directly into his eyes.
"I want the monitoring board here," he said quietly. "I know that you don't. I appreciate that you're willing to look out for my interests even when I can't, Draco. I love you. I don't know if I can convey how much I love you with words, and kissing in the middle of a corridor isn't ideal, either." By now, Draco's face was flushing, but when he opened his mouth to speak, Harry shook his head.
"But in this, I have to ask that you wait to strike at the monitoring board until you have proof of wrongdoing," said Harry. "I am no Lord, Draco. I never want to be. I never want to demand unreasonable prices from my political opponents, and asking for the end of the monitoring board I proposed would be unreasonable at this point. And that means that I can't use the exception that you found, either. It's relying on my magical power, or rather, the threat of my magical power and the precedent of how others with extreme magical powers have been treated, to get me out of trouble. I don't want to slip and slide out on loopholes."
"You're too Gryffindor for your own good," Draco muttered, sounding as if his throat were full of spiderwebs. "Too interested in curing problems instead of preventing them from arising in the first place."
Harry smiled sadly. "Maybe I am." He did kiss Draco, a quick, chaste peck to the side of his mouth that unfortunately made Harry think of other things. Already, he'd had to build several barriers to keep his mind off sex; it seemed that the Breaking of Boundaries had shattered the strongest ones of his training, which blocked his hormones. It was damn inconvenient, was what it was, Harry thought. "But I do ask that you wait. That's all. I can't force you to. But I can ask."
There was a long moment when Draco stared at him and said nothing. Then he bobbed his head quickly.
"If I must," he said.
"Thank you," Harry said, and then cast a Tempus charm and cursed. "We are late for Transfiguration, Draco."
He dispelled the privacy ward, and they ran. Halfway there, Owen and Michael had to turn to go their own classes, as seventh-year students. Harry was sure that he could feel Michael's gaze on the back of his neck until he peeled off, and that it was resentful.
He shook his head. Maybe I should speak to him about that, though I was under the impression that Owen already had. Then Harry thought of something even better. Perhaps I should offer to release him from his oath. That would lessen both my discomfort and his.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSDraco rapped his fingers against the desk, and immediately attracted Henrietta Bulstrode's gaze. "Mr. Malfoy," she said. "If you would come to the front of the classroom and attempt to show us the preferred way to Transfigure Mr. Potter back from a slug, you may be less bored."
Draco felt his face flush a dull red as he stood. Obviously, Bulstrode hadn't forgiven him for not paying attention in her class the last few days before he disappeared to join Harry. That he was making one of the most important decisions of his life would not be accepted as an excuse.
As he struggled to reverse the Transfiguration she'd performed on Harry's brother, his mind went back to the thoughts that were occupying him, and which distracted him thoroughly from appreciation of the fact that Potter was now a boneless creature leaving a trail of slime wherever he crawled.
Harry had asked him not to interfere with the monitoring board.
But Draco was convinced that it was better for him to do so, so that he could have his traps in place when they tried to catch Harry.
But going against what Harry wanted could involve not only arguments with Harry, but distracting himself from other political concerns and enemies of theirs. And it would certainly make any other threats he identified look less serious to Harry, if he made a mistake with this case.
What I'll have to do is show him why it's a good idea to prevent instead of cure, Draco decided, while he struggled through the incantation to try and Transfigure Potter back for the sixth time. Finding out who wrote those articles in the Vox Populi would be a good start, because it would show him that the monitoring board doesn't want what's best for him, after all.
"Mr. Malfoy."
He looked up. Henrietta's glare was no less intimidating through her younger disguise than it had ever been.
"This is a simple spell that you should have been able to perform by now," she said, her voice clipped. "For a wizard of your innate power, it is easy. You will write a foot-long essay on what you have been doing wrong, and present it to me on Wednesday morning."
Draco clamped his teeth together and bowed his head. "Yes, ma'am," he murmured, and returned to his seat, while Henrietta called Granger forward to Transfigure Potter back. That she managed it on the first try didn't make Draco feel any better.
Harry squeezed his wrist as he sat down again, and Draco looked straight into his sympathetic smile, though he didn't say anything. Bulstrode had proven herself annoyingly good at sensing the slightest stray efforts at conversation.
Draco felt his resolve twist away from annoyance into simple certainty as he watched Harry's smile. Harry could go on right on believing what he liked about his own status and his own problems. Draco would not openly oppose him, and he would not go behind Harry's back, as Lucius had tried to do with Narcissa. He would simply find the truth and show it to Harry.
There's no reason that we can't approach each other in equality, with the truth. What else have we both fought for?
It was meant in good faith, but that thought sent Draco off into daydreams of what else, personally, he had fought for in his relationship with Harry, and earned him a detention when Professor Bulstrode demanded an answer to a question from him and he nearly said something obscene. At least Harry stroked Draco's hand sympathetically again while stifling his laughter.
