A/N: Visionary is beyond excuses, so I offer none. There's been enough of an edit to merit re-reading, in my own humble opinion (added some stuff I originally wanted to have in, but forgot about during the writing process). Hope you'll enjoy this chapter. Reviews are always welcome.
Brynn
x
Chapter Twelve: Persuasionx
The marble pillars stretched up on both Harry's sides, and he couldn't help but wonder why on Earth goblins decided to keep the entrance to the bank so outlandishly… asymmetrical. For a race as anal as he had come to believe they were, it seemed most unlikely to tolerate such an architectonical failure.
"Lord Riddle?"
Harry glanced away from the stretching Ionic pillars to the entrance of the Bank, where a goblin dressed in a garment suspiciously similar to a muggle business suit was standing. The creature seemed at ease, but judging by the scars marring his face, there was very little in the world that could have discomfited him. A wannabe-Lord wizardling would have barely registered.
"Mr Grabaxe?" Harry asked, tucking a disobedient lock of his hair behind his ear and smiling a nervous little smile. He wasn't meant to be a diplomat, and talks with the Goblin pseudo-nation had never been a very safe endeavour.
"If you would follow me…"
Without waiting for a response, the goblin spun and entered the Bank through the tall glass doors. Harry hurried, half-worried he would embarrass himself (and the New Order) by losing his escort in the sea of morning customers. Fortunately, all high-ranking Gringotts officials seemed to suffer an approximation of the Red Sea syndrome: the crowds parted for Grabaxe, and Harry found that the aisle only stretched further once the mass realised exactly who it was that followed on the goblin's heels.
Out of the corner of his eye he could see guards on the move, strategically positioning themselves so that no one unsanctioned would be able to approach Harry. It was, objectively speaking, a wonderfully executed paramilitary action. Harry should know. He had never seen the Death Eaters manage anything approaching this.
"Do not be alarmed, Lord Riddle," the goblin warned him, and a moment later the floor swallowed them.
Harry was alarmed. His magic reacted instinctually, but it was immediately placated by something greater and encompassing, something he was tempted to fancifully call Earth. It certainly wasn't any creature.
He landed softly; the sound of his shoes hitting the floor was muffled by rich red carpet.
Grabaxe was standing next to him, with a hint of smugness on his face.
"Be welcome," a deep voice spoke from Harry's right side.
Harry didn't immediately turn that way. He catalogued his surroundings first. He seemed to be underground, inside a chamber that was about as big as the entire Dursley house, and which didn't seem to have any visible exits. He sensed around for wards – there were none, but that Earth-like pseudo entity that had neutralised him earlier would be able to block his portkeys and Apparition.
If the goblins were trying to intimidate him, they were going about it the right way. Harry was fairly sure that if he was attacked, he would be able to kill the beings surrounding him and blast out, but Tom would probably not survive trying to deal with the fallout of another goblin rebellion, so that was a last resort plan.
And now was really the worst time to think about Tom, Harry mused, looking around at the wizened goblins that were watching him with thinly veiled curiosity and expectation. There were about a dozen of them – no, aside from Grabaxe, there were exactly dozen. Six elders and six guards, going by their attire and weaponry. Very little was known about the structure of the modern goblin society and the administration of Gringotts, but Harry's private guess was that these six representatives were an approximation of an Areopagus.
"Thank you for inviting me," Harry replied eventually.
"We were rather surprised to see you arrive without a retinue, your Lordship," one of the elders remarked, lacing his long, clawed fingers, with his elbows resting on the luxurious curved mahogany table that came up to the middle of Harry's thigh.
Harry was not afraid of the Goblin nation, and he wanted them to know it, but it also would have been very impolite to say it like that, so he settled for replying: "My followers are protective to a fault. I doubt they would have been as accepting of uncomfortable surprises as I am." It was only polite to inform the goblins that he didn't like their little show of power, and that they had to try much harder to impress him.
"In that case," spoke the goblin elder sitting last to the left, distinguishable by a purple decoration on his cape-like overcoat, "please be lenient with our unseemly conduct." He grinned, showing off dangerously sharp, but pearly white teeth.
Harry had the feeling that they were making fun of him. It was disconcerting, but also somewhat refreshing. It had been some time since anyone had had the courage to tease him.
What did bother him about the situation was the fact that this was supposed to be a diplomatic talk. Failing that, it would probably turn into a hostage situation and a start of a war.
He wished Tom were there with him to help him make sense of the proceedings. And, once again, Harry failed to prevent himself from thinking about Tom when he should have been concentrating on the here and now. He wasn't exactly angry at Tom. He was more like… spitting mad. And he did his best to keep himself in that mood, because it was helping him think of plans he could implement to make Tom eat and sleep, at least until he resembled a human being again.
Unfortunately, being a hair's breadth away from casting Cruciatus at the first person to look at him wrong wasn't particularly conductive to diplomacy, so Harry was storing his emotional state behind a rough Occlumentic barrier. Thus he faced the goblins feeling decidedly colourless and two-dimensional. Still, at least he wasn't physically colourless and two-dimensional, unlike some other Dark Lords he could name.
"Are you well, Lord Riddle?" Grabaxe inquired, concerned. "We have never had any intention of harming you-"
"Fine," Harry cut in a little rudely. "Disoriented," he lied, "but then, I imagine, that was the intention?"
"Not at all," the purple-decorated elder assured him. "Please, forgive an old goblin his little pleasures."
Harry nodded. He recalled Dumbledore's game with inviting people into his office by name. He assumed that this was a similar whim. He was not offended. His pride was not nearly as fragile as to sustain any damage from a harmless joke.
"If you can accept a young man's lack of grace," he returned.
Most of the audience seemed to be amused. The purple elder, who had apparently been chosen as the speaker, gestured toward a human-sized armchair situated opposite the long mahogany desk, in a focus of the desk's arc.
With a bow-like nod, Harry accepted the seat. The chair was comfortable, although it lacked any of the charms Harry was used to from living in purebloods' houses.
"My name," the goblin on the left end continued, "translates as Glintrock. You are welcome to call me that."
"Thank you, Glintrock," Harry replied. He didn't bother reintroducing himself for the umpteenth time. Glintrock had shown, with his joke, with the teasing, and now with the introduction, that he was not interested in formality for the sake of formality. That reassured Harry, who was less comfortable with formality than Tom.
It also made Harry a little more hopeful that they were here to actually settle some issues, and not just posture at one another.
"I am an archont – a high administrator, if you will," Glintrock explained. "I have been given the authority to negotiate a treaty with your political movement, the so-called New Order."
x
Harry had not been present at many diplomatic talks in the past, but he had the strongest feeling that this conversation with the goblins was far from orthodox. They had hashed out most of the technical stuff quickly – how they imagined the New Order would gain foothold in the Ministry and the exact changes they wanted, plus also the request that Harry personally would be advocating their cause in the future, which he thought was really nearsighted of them, because Harry wasn't very good at advocating.
He was, admittedly, genuinely interested in procuring their rights for them. That might have been the reason why they got on so well.
Nevertheless, when they explained the earth-magic enveloping the chamber and the Hogwarts-like pseudo-sentience of Gringotts, and suggested that they move the rest of the talks into a less stifling atmosphere, Harry was slightly surprised. When they – a group of six amused goblin seniors – led him to what seemed to be a high-end casino, the day became downright surreal.
At least he was not the only one feeling like he had stepped into a twilight zone. Grabaxe was sitting in the corner of a booth (made of burnished dark wood), cradling his first drink and staring around him at the caterers and the gambling crème of the goblin society with bulging eyes.
Featherwing (Harry had been stunned when he had introduced himself) periodically checked on the poor clerk and in gruff tones bade him to drink before the substance in his bowl would get cold. Glintrock and his companions spread around the table, which was rapidly becoming covered in drinks and finger-food, and pointed out what Harry might like.
"Do not worry, Commander," Treadpath assured him with a grin. He and a couple of others had taken to addressing Harry as 'Commander,' which was apparently an inside joke, because they always grinned when they did it. "We have a number of human foodstuffs on the menu."
"Yes, yes," Breeze confirmed. "They are 'novelties'." Breeze's actual name, according to Treadpath, translated as Windcaress, but he had long since refused to be called that. In Harry's opinion, Breeze wasn't much better, but the goblins treasured their traditions even as they welcomed progress.
Harry had known that not all of the goblin society was buried in the bank, but even he had had no idea just how much they had adopted from muggles, and how far they had spread in their 'Age of Enlightment,' as Silvertoe had jokingly called their gradual migration from the underground to the surface. Silvertoe, by his own admission, was not an administrator, but an actual anthropologist with an actual degree, and politics was only his hobby. The 'goblins equals bankers' myth, which Harry had subscribed to as an eleven-year-old, was forever crushed for him.
"This is good," Harry praised, licking his fingers, which, Treadpath had assured him, was not only acceptable, but expected.
"We pride ourselves on being the best at what we do," Mossprint said with the air of someone who knew he deserved praise.
"Mossprint is the owner," Treadpath explained.
"My compliments," Harry said to Mossprint, nodding. The admission sparked curiosity about who exactly were these elders he was – perhaps – befriending.
He knew about Silvertoe's occupation; the others, when asked, took turns to explain their everyday jobs and their positions on the Council.
"The truth is," Glintrock admitted at last, taking a hearty gulp from his drinking bowl, "that I am retired, as you humans call it. Today I supple for current archont Flamebite the Glowering of the Northern Coast Clan."
Harry couldn't quite hide his surprise. He wasn't sure what the position of an archont meant, but his guess was something akin to a minister, or maybe a district administrator. Still, he had been under the impression that he was dining with the beings who would be in charge of setting the terms of the agreement with the New Order.
"You said you had the authority to sign the treaty."
Glintrock raised his hand, palm-out, in an effort to placate Harry. "Flamebite and I are in complete agreement on its terms. He trusts me." That went a long way in assuring Harry that they weren't conning him into anything here. Also, Glintrock's disarming grin seemed too sincere. "And I wished to meet you personally, Lord Riddle. You have not disappointed me."
"Thank you," Harry replied, bemused, resigning himself to the fact that he never would be a competent diplomat.
"I wrote down everything we want," Glintrock assured him. "I have it here somewhere…" He wriggled in his seat, searching for the inner pocket of his cape. He retrieved a piece of parchment – Harry had half-expected lined paper, but apparently the goblins hadn't yet gone completely muggle – and put it on the table for the whole company to peruse.
To Harry's surprise, the terms were written in English, by a hand that was obviously used to the script.
"An ambassador?" he read.
Glintrock nodded as sagely as a goblin who wore more metal in jewelry than in weapons could. "Ambassador to your Order, Lord Riddle, not the Ministry. Not yet, in any case. I have someone in mind for that position – you will get along very well, I promise you."
Harry hummed noncommittally. He was ready to believe that Glimrock would select a person able to deal with Harry, but there was no guarantee that they would be able to handle Tom as well, and Tom was still in charge of the Order, even if these days he was too busy to stop for five minutes and the Headquarter was practically self-governing. In fact, Antonin, the Lestranges, Apollonia, Dexia and the Theodores were doing so well that Harry hadn't even heard of a problem. Apparently, they did all in their power to keep Harry focused on returning Tom to normal. If there was such a thing as 'normal' for Tom.
Either way, Harry felt like he was failing in his only assigned task.
He read through the rest of the demands. It seemed too little to him, like they were just putting together a token protest, to make sure the wizards were busy haggling with them over trivialities and not watching as the other shoe would drop. Harry didn't like it.
"Why don't you declare yourself a sovereign nation?" he asked. Quite often in the past, the goblins were treated as such, anyway. It would take them out from under the Wizengamot's authority. They were already self-governing, so Harry didn't see a downside.
"Shara nar marr," Breeze muttered, and the goblins all laughed.
Glintrock shook his head in exasperation. "We are lucky that not all wizards are as bright as you, Lord Riddle."
Harry picked a canapé-like thing from the plate in front of him and nibbled on it to give himself the time to contemplate. The goblins wanted independence. They sought an alliance with the New Order, ostensibly pretending to involve themselves in the politics of the post-civil-war magical Britain, while aiming for complete split in the end. What Harry couldn't see was why they weren't forcing the split right now. Their economy was stronger that the Ministry's, their society completely separate, and they needed nothing from the wizards. The way Harry saw it, the wizards' dependence on Gringotts only went one way.
Also, while he agreed that independence would be good for the goblins, and was perfectly willing to nurture positive relations between them and the Order, and could even imagine the advantages for the Order, he still didn't see why the goblins bothered.
Maybe there was a third shoe waiting to drop?
Harry could understand a general unwillingness to go to war. The company around this table – by their own admission some of the most powerful individuals of the nation – were all elder gentlemen used to a certain level of creature comforts. If the Ministry simply told them no, what would they do?
Why not just pick up their businesses and relocate? Unless… unless they couldn't. They were quite connected to the earth, weren't they? Nearly the whole bank was underground, and despite this 'Enlightenment Age' most of their history and valuables were underground. That was not to mention the self-aware earth-magic.
"This is all very reasonable," Harry concluded. "And all you are asking in return is the inviolability of your enclaves?"
"Ank gijak-ishi!" Mossprint exclaimed.
Apparently, Harry wasn't supposed to have figured out that much. Although, to be fair, he probably would not have put it together, had they not explained about the earth-magic.
"You are entirely unlike your fellow men, Commander," Treadpath muttered. "How is it that you do not think that we are out to slaughter your kin, eat the flesh off their bones, wear their scalps and burn their dwellings to the ground?"
Harry looked around the high-end casino where they were lounging. "How indeed?" he counter-questioned with enough sarcasm to make even Grabaxe grin.
"You might be surprised," Glintrock said, leaning forwards over the table, "but most Ministry wizards whose job it is to mediate the relations between the Goblin nation and the wizarding one expect us to be gold-hoarding, axe-wielding brutes out to steal their wands from them."
Harry chuckled. "Frankly, I have major trouble even imagining a goblin warrior with a wand. None of the historical accounts ever mentioned wanded goblins." Seeing as he had suffered through five years of Hogwarts' History of Magic, he knew more than anyone ever wanted to know about goblins and their rebellions. "I rather assumed – and I mean absolutely no offence – that the regulation forbidding the ownership and use of wands to higher magical beings was put there to make the wizards feel better about themselves."
The whole table roared with free, barking belly-laughter.
"You are not incorrect, Lord Riddle," replied Silvertoe, who managed to calm down first. "Our magic does not respond so well to wands – or, rather, wands do not respond so well to our magic. We are much better off using other conduits."
"Which, of course, the Ministry does not regulate," Harry concluded. "Why would they? It might dent their arrogance if they were forced to admit they were inferior in any way."
"Commander," Glintrock spoke, still leaning close – close enough for Harry to notice certain hardness in his eyes, "as you have recently become aware, the Goblin nation has been in a close contact with the muggle population over the past decades. Our military power may be procured from non-magicals, but should it be unleashed, it would be staggering."
Harry had to give appreciation where appreciation was due. "And thus you want to completely renegotiate the treaties with wizards, in the meantime maintaining a status quo reminiscent of the Cold War. Ingenious."
"You find it amusing?" Grabaxe seemed completely taken aback by this turn of events.
"Decidedly." Harry smirked, remembering Dumbledore's expression when he recognised Grindelwald in the cell opposite his. "I will gain much satisfaction from watching some people's faces as they learn of this. Schadenfreude is one of my vices, I'm afraid."
"It is rare for a warlock to be willing to submit – much less submit so effortlessly," Glintrock pointed out skeptically.
Harry didn't think that he was submissive at all. He was stubborn and had quite the temper if provoked. However, the one thing Tom had never managed to instill into him was arrogance. "I grew up a servant, Glintrock," he explained. "My status was not a birthright. What my husband and I achieved is a result of will, determination, effort and a great amount of luck."
"At least you are not falsely modest," Breeze opined.
"My Lord husband and I are hardly the only extremely powerful wizards around." It was not bragging, Harry mentally assured himself. He was just stating the truth. He wouldn't try to intimidate these goblins, anyway – they were liable to laugh at him, and he wasn't sure if his ego could take it. "Power in itself, or even power combined with intelligence, is far from enough."
Glintrock sagely nodded.
"I'll drink to that!" Treadpath raised his bowl.
The other goblins raised theirs, so Harry followed the example. They drank – the goblins whatever it was they were drinking (Harry couldn't hope to repeat its name) and he a soda.
"Now we just have to write it all on a piece of parchment and sign," Glintrock said once the bowls were back on the table.
Harry almost choked on another canapé. "Are we actually in agreement on everything?" He didn't have that much experience, but he knew that this just didn't happen.
"Amazingly," Glintrock confirmed.
Silvertoe clapped his hands. "It might be the first occasion in history."
x
Having Apparated into the receiving room of the Nott manor, Harry felt much more disoriented than he had been after his unexpected drop into the Council Chamber at Gringotts. He found Theodore the Third waiting for him.
"Report?" Harry suggested, trying to focus. His left hand was almost spastically clutching the signed and sealed treaty, rolled up and tied with a ribbon made of gold fibre.
"Everything is as expected, my Lord," Theodore replied with a perfunctory bow. He fell into step with Harry, and together they set out for Tom's office. "There was a surplus of mail, and Rabastan enlisted my aid with sorting through it – I hope you do not mind."
"Thank you, Theodore," Harry replied. Truthfully, it was difficult to imagine a better follower than Theodore. Harry reminded himself that he should study through the manual Tom had put together for him and find the time to Mark this young man.
"It is my pleasure to serve, my Lord," Theo said quietly before he, more confidently, continued his report: "No discipline problems whatsoever. Mad-Eye Moody stopped by and expressed interest in making use of the training fields on our grounds – I made a note and left it on your desk. And, my Lord…"
Theodore halted on top of a staircase, and Harry stopped to listen.
He looked around to confirm that nobody was within earshot, and even so lowered his voice. "My Lord has yet to be witnessed eating today. Dexia saw him drink a dose of Nutrient Potion shortly before noon, and Dock reported two empty vials returned with the untouched lunch tray."
Harry closed his eyes and sighed. This information finally helped him find his focus. Frowning, he glanced at his companion. "Antonin was right. Speaking with him won't suffice this time."
Damn Tom's hard head!
Theodore braced himself, intimidated by Harry's anger, but he didn't flinch away when Harry reached out to him and put his hand on the boy's shoulder. "You do a good job, Theodore. This is my responsibility. I shall have to resort to more serious measures."
Harry left Theodore behind in the hallway and entered the Private Study turned office alone.
Tom was ensconced in Harry's chair, leaning back, with his eyes closed. When Harry entered, he looked over.
"Hey," Harry said, feeling inexplicably timid. For once he didn't know how to approach Tom, what to say that would make him listen but would not immediately put him of the defensive.
Tom pursed his lips. "Just tell me – are they or are they not rebelling?"
"Well, in a way," Harry admitted. It was revolution they sought, but there was only one example of a peaceful splitting of a country in recent history, so their chances were not exactly good. "It's a cold rebellion."
Still bonelessly sprawled, as if he was waiting for Harry to come to him, Tom quirked an eyebrow. "They want to exterminate us, but are all too aware that we'd take them with us?" He sounded like he had drunk a Calming Potion, too, or alternatively so tired that he felt apathetic to anything and everything. Knowing Tom, it was probably the second option.
"Not quite that bad," Harry reassured him. He came over to Tom's desk and surveyed the piles of parchment covering it. "They have the power to wage a war more effective than ever before. They want a new treaty with the Ministry."
Tom shrugged. "Seeing as you are the resident goblin charmer, you take care of them."
On one hand, Harry was ecstatic to hear that – it meant that Tom had finally realised that he could and should delegate the responsibilities. On the other, seeing Tom so far gone that even an alliance with goblins, which had previously excited him enough that he kissed Harry in public, couldn't move him, made Harry want to hurt someone very badly. Also, his eyes stung, but he wasn't going to fall apart and cry just yet.
"Sure," he said mockingly. "If I fuck up, you'll know by the axe embedded in my skull."
Tom blinked at him. "I'll know by dropping dead."
The – rather unfunny, in Harry's angry opinion – allusion to the bond made Harry wonder if he would start fainting, or otherwise experiencing some effects of Tom's deterioration. Also, was it possible that Tom actually functioned on life energy he had leeched from Harry?
Harry wasn't complaining about the stealing if that was the case, but he had a different idea about his future life than becoming a walking battery for a man who wanted to accomplish too much too fast.
Tom, apparently, was also thinking about their bond, if from a completely different perspective, because he said next: "Now I almost regret being so shortsighted with our marriage ceremony."
"A problem?" Harry inquired, with much less bite than he wanted to add. He swallowed the bile and waited to hear whether Tom regretted them yet.
"We have kept my muggle father's surname, instead of taking one of the respectable pureblooded names we could have chosen," Tom explained. Finally, he pushed himself upright in the chair and raised his hand to touch Harry's thigh.
Harry covered Tom's hand with his own, unsurprised but all the more worried when he found it to be ice-cold. "We went for anonymity. It's served its purpose."
"Nonetheless, presently it would be much more advantageous for us if we could use the political clout of even a tainted pureblooded heritage."
"You would want to be a 'Potter'?" Harry asked doubtfully. Neither of them had any positive experience with Potters, and the name had a taste of bitterness to it – at least it did for Harry. Maybe it was a legacy of the way the wizarding world had treated him and of the never-ending pressure to conform to a role set for him, but he didn't miss being a Potter.
Tom appeared to have no such qualms. "It is certainly preferable to 'Riddle.' However, Potters were a minor family at best. They did have their allies, often influential ones, but nothing comparable to the power held within the Black line. You are the heir. We could legally use the Black name and all Blacks' connexions-"
"Yes, because Bellatrix killed Sirius," Harry said mock-flippantly.
Tom gave him a look that was probably supposed to mock Harry in return, but which fell flat. Tom might have worn glamours as his work-clothes these days, abut Harry saw straight through his to the skull-like face beneath. There were deep bruises around his eyes, and Harry couldn't feel anything but hurt, anger and fear when he was looking in that face.
"It was a perfectly logical course of action for her," Tom said, folding his hands in his lap. "She believed she would inherit the collective Black assets – which, I may assure you, are valuable enough to warrant such drastic measures."
Harry's next reply would have drawn attention away from their past conflicts and back to the matter of the presently neglected Black estate with the repeated suggestion to put Andromeda on the Wizengamot, but then the door to the office opened.
"My Lord…" A young witch stood in the doorway, holding an armful of parchments and staring at Harry. "Oh, excuse me."
"Come in," Tom commanded.
She didn't hesitate again. Tybalt Lestrange waltzed in after her, wordlessly nodding to both Harry and Tom in greeting.
Tom gestured him toward a wooden box standing on top of a chest of drawers, which Tybalt retrieved, scowling all the while.
"These are the files you requested," the witch spoke, glancing sideways at Harry before she focused fully on her work. She arranged the parchments on Harry's desk – Tom's work had spilt over there finally – and dusted off her hands. "There was a minor altercation, but the deployed team has solved it with minimal fuss. Mr Lestrange suggested a commendation for them. I took the liberty of including a list of names for you, my Lord." She handed the indicated sheet of parchment to Tom for immediate perusal.
Tom gave it a cursory look, and while he was able to skim very quickly and catch the pertinent information, Harry knew that this time he was only pretending. He paused briefly to read the bottom line. "They did an unexpectedly good job."
"Which team was it?" Harry inquired.
"The experimental mixed group," Tybalt replied instead of the woman. "A Light wizard, Light witch, Dark wizard, Dark witch configuration."
Tom offered Harry the report.
Harry took a glance at the names: Meadows, Deerhart, Wilkins, Japes. He expected that the latter was Dexia, and Meadows might have been Phillip, Nomiki's nephew, and it surprised him to realise that he had known nothing about any teams going out on any missions. It angered him twice over – once for being kept in the dark by Tom, who should have known better than to repeat Dumbledore's mistake, the second time for witnessing yet another endeavour that was sapping Tom's energy.
He glared at Tom, who must have felt the surge of ire over the bond, but pretended that nothing was amiss.
Harry couldn't deal with this right now. He had to get away and calm down, and then he had to get really proactive in this little personal war he had going on with his husband before it leaked out and infected the Order. They were a hair's breadth from destroying everything they had accomplished.
"I want to talk to Lestrange," he said to the witch, whoever the Hell she might have been, because no one had cared to introduce her. "Tomorrow, ten o'clock, the Open Study." He strode to the door, where he paused for a moment. He felt Tom's eyes on him, and the bond tingled with a silent plea, as if Tom was mutely asking for Harry to be more understanding, more supportive.
Well, Harry understood just fine. And he was being as supportive as anyone could.
Tom had once requested that Harry stop him, should he do something stupid. In the spirit of fulfilling his promise, Harry stalked out of the office without a backwards glance. He had to plot. And then he had to wait for Lestrange – whichever Lestrange it was the woman had referenced – and learn everything about this newest of Tom's secrets.
x
Harry spent an hour on the part of Nott grounds warded off for training. He watched, instructed, and then trounced several opponents, including Geoff Wilkins from Tom's unexpectedly successful team.
He then insisted on the man accompanying him to dinner, and interrogated him about his position and duties under the guise of gathering feedback. He was fairly sure that Wilkins left for home in the early evening under the impression that Harry had been deeply involved with the creation of the Taboo-response teams from the very beginning.
From what Harry could piece together it had happened somewhat like this: Moody had during one of his rather frequent visits mentioned an old proposal of his, which the Ministry had denied so many times that he had eventually stopped trying. Tybalt Lestrange had immediately become interested, and passed it on to Antonin, who had brought it to Tom. Tom had approved it straightaway and designated Tybalt and Moody to handle the logistics and come to him with a detailed plan for implementation.
The idea was outrageously obvious. Moody proposed to put Taboo on the incantations of all major illegal enchantments, starting with the moderately harmful spells in every Dark wizard's primer and ending with the Unforgivables. When a Taboo was broken, the team on duty would be sent to investigate the area and 'deal' with the situation.
From what Harry had gathered, the implementation went swiftly and without any major issues, and so far the project was stupidly successful.
Harry could just imagine how much power the casting of the Taboos had required, and how much of it had been supplied by Tom.
He was trying to decide how angry he was at Tom for doing all this behind his back, and with trying to understand why in Merlin's name he had been kept out of it, when the door to the Green Suite opened and Tom walked in. He seemed momentarily surprised at Harry's presence, but shook it off quickly and headed straight for the bathroom.
Harry remembered times when silence between them had been comfortable.
Tom came back a while later, dressed in a long nightshirt that was vainly trying to hide how thin he was underneath it. He sat on the side of the bed and gave Harry a quizzical look.
Harry rose from the chair, walked over to stand in front of Tom, and handed him the scroll he had spent his day getting. "Here."
"What is it?" Tom asked, taking it and staring at the seal for a moment.
"Our treaty with goblins," Harry replied, watching Tom's expression closely, hoping to at least see him smile. It had been a while since Tom had smiled.
Tom frowned. He suspiciously regarded the scroll once again, and then turned the suspicion at Harry. "You negotiated a treaty in a single day…?"
"Is that a bad thing?" Harry counter-questioned.
"Bad?" Tom repeated. He shook his head in denial. "It's impossible."
Harry shrugged helplessly. Obviously, Tom wasn't going to be happy. "Sorry?"
"No. Don't even." Tom raised his hands in exasperation. He passed the treaty back to Harry, who took it for fear that Tom would leak enough resentment to freeze it and then break it into tiny shards. "I swear you are not a human. A force of nature, more like. One of these days, you will give me a heart attack."
"Don't say that," Harry pleaded. He had to turn away. The scroll suddenly seemed to weigh impossibly much, and he had to set it down. He found a place for it on a shelf between some obscure books about blood magic.
"I can't…" Tom paused to formulate his thoughts and then started again: "I can't schedule with you around. You are impossible to calculate. You break through all laws of logic just by being yourself, and I can only watch all my plans falling apart."
"I'm sorry?" Harry repeated. He wasn't bloody sorry that he got along well with goblins, or that he had practically eradicated dementors. He regretted that he had failed Tom in allowing him to get sick, and that he couldn't seem to find a way to help him, that he aggravated him with his unpredictability and that he, apparently, just wasn't good enough.
"It's not your fault," Tom informed him benignly. "Or, rather, it is nothing you are doing consciously. I expect that the first time you did something impossible was long before you tripped fifty years into your past. You made me love you. I should have known there was something wrong with you then."
Harry could have sworn his heart skipped a few beats.
Tom seemed to consider the matter concluded; he climbed into the bed, lay down on his side facing the opposite wall, with his back to Harry, and pulled the covers up to his chin.
Harry fled. He walked aimlessly through the darkening halls of the Nott Manor, hoping that he would not meet anyone. The word Tom had used echoed through his head. 'Wrong?' Was there really something wrong with Harry? Why? Because he was more powerful that the average wizard? Because people liked him despite his position and power?
"That hurt," Harry admitted to himself. His voice broke half-way through.
"My Lord-"
"No!" Harry barked, not caring who it was that had addressed him. "No. Just… leave me alone. For a while."
He hurried away. He couldn't talk to anyone. Not now. Maybe… Maybe if Antonin had been here… But Antonin was off somewhere on the continent, and Harry wasn't so much of an angsting teenager that he would bother going all that way just so he could pour his heart out to someone he trusted.
He would get through this. He just had to breathe despite the pain for a while, and after the worst would pass, he was going to make plans. He had told Antonin that he could be cruel, and now was the highest time to start.
x
The grounds were too quiet after sundown. Harry wished for some melancholy music to listen to, but he had never learnt to play anything – no way the Dursleys would have paid for lessons – and he didn't have a walkman, never mind finding one that would work around magic. He and Tom used to have a gramophone at their house – a huge, bulky thing. Harry missed the house, but right at this moment he missed the gramophone much more, and that was just absurd.
They were less than five years from the third millennium. Gramophones belonged into museums.
Merlin, he wanted that thing back.
He had wandered all over the place, across the gardens overgrown with weed, around the training zone, through an orchard, and returned back to the Manor itself. He noted the darkened window of the Green Suite, and a few seconds later practically stumbled over the fountain he had noticed before from the Manor's terrace.
Much to his surprise, it was not a ruin anymore. The entire place had been cleaned up. Light grey tiling had appeared from underneath the aggressive growth and lanterns were raised on posts in the apices of a heptagon. Their light was weak, too weak to read in, but it sufficed for orientation. The fountain's basin was filled with clear water, fed by a steady flow from the tip of the pipe in the faun statue's hands.
Impressed, Harry sat down on the side of the basin.
Now that he wasn't moving, he noticed how cold it was getting. Yule was approaching. It seemed impossible how fast things were happening – no wonder they were paying the price in blood and bone marrow. The New Order had become so deeply entrenched in most of the spheres of the wizarding society, and they would continue growing through it like a mistletoe plant through the branches of a tree. In the end, their original hostile takeover would not seem so hostile. The public had an extremely short memory.
Harry had been so busy managing media, the daily life at Headquarters and re-forming the Light side of the Order, that he had completely missed the formation of their semi-vigilante – but, apparently, Ministry-sanctioned – violence-response crew-
"My Lord?" a quiet voice inquired.
Harry looked over his shoulders and found Theodore the Third standing in the shadow of a lantern-post.
"May I approach?" he inquired. He must have been warned about Harry's mood.
"Yes," Harry answered. He beckoned the boy to take a seat next to him cool stone. "Were you sent over as a virgin sacrifice?"
Theodore offered a slight, polite smile. "I was," he admitted. "But I would have volunteered either way."
For a while they sat there quietly.
Eventually Theodore decided that he had given enough deference to Harry's stated wish for solitude and spoke again: "Mr Dolohov mentioned that you have shown an interest in this stage. I had the house elves clean and repair it. Is it to your liking?"
Harry let his head fall back and stared at the stars, easily visible despite the light from the lanterns. "It's beautiful. Tranquil." For an instance, he loved being a Dark Lord. Even that instance was enough to fill him with determination and put a stop to the useless woolgathering.
"The guests of the Manor have been informed that it is to be available to you at any time."
"Thank you, Theodore," Harry said, and meant it from the bottom of his heart. This place was his for the time being. It was something gorgeous, given to him by people who respected him and cared for him, in the hopes of making him happy. He smiled.
The boy stood, bowed, and straightened again. "I hate taking you away from here, my Lord, but there are several members of the Inner Circle gathered in the Victorian Salon. We were hoping for your presence for some tea and dessert – a guilty pleasure a little too late in the evening?"
Harry didn't want to have to solve any problems at this time. Theodore was a good Slytherin, and his promise of relaxing time was no guarantee that the ex-Death Eaters didn't need Harry for some executive work, but Harry knew that he had to go. After all, he had to deserve the benefits he received for being a Dark Lord.
He walked alongside Theodore, contemplating anything and everything except Tom. He had thought more than enough about Tom today.
"Do you play an instrument?" he asked to avoid more thinking.
Theodore seemed briefly startled, but he quickly composed himself and answered: "No, my Lord. However, I know that Miss Japes used to play harpsichord quite skillfully, and I have heard that Miss Avery plays piano."
Harry was fairly certain that he didn't know 'Miss Avery.' He spent the rest of the trek mentally going over Aurelius' family, and came up with a blank.
The Victorian Salon was quite full. The scents of various teas were mixing in the air, and men and women sat around in armchairs and on chaises. True to Theodore's word, the atmosphere was relaxed, up until Harry's entrance.
The younger wizards and witches jumped to their feet and bowed (Wilkins hadn't left for home, after all); the elder remained sitting, inclining their heads and uttering quiet salutations. Harry noted Antonin's conspicuous absence, and summarily gestured them all to dispense with the drama. He took a seat on one of the empty chaises, saving enough space for Theodore, should he like sitting next to Harry.
Theodore accepted the unspoken invitation and made himself comfortable just as a house elf appeared.
"Earl Grey for me, Inky," the boy said.
The creature turned its big brown eyes to Harry.
"Chamomile. And some biscuits, please."
"Yes, Masters. Right away, Masters," Inky promised, and vanished.
Harry took a look around himself, and noticed the presence of the witch he had met earlier that day in Tom's office. He found it interesting that there was a member of the Inner Circle with whom he wasn't acquainted, but he had used up all his anger and resentment for the day and simply accepted her presence without drawing attention to the fact that he didn't even know her name.
Guessing from Theodore's earlier remark, she might have been the mysterious 'Miss Avery.'
Two tea trays appeared on the table in front of Harry and Theodore respectively.
"We do have a piano, my Lord," Theodore mentioned faux-casually. "And I'm sure Manon wouldn't mind-"
"Another day, perhaps," Harry replied. The unknown young witch had reacted to the name 'Manon' as if she was being addressed. Harry mentally catalogued her as Aurelius Avery's so-far unmentioned relative.
"Backgammon, my Lord?" Rodolphus Lestrange inquired, lifting an inlaid wooden box.
"Not tonight. Maybe some other time. Don't mind my presence."
Rodolphus nodded, although he seemed disappointed. He did, however, look much better than he had after Bellatrix' death. Most likely he was keeping busy; Tom had recently given him a position with a lot of power and a lot of responsibility.
"You do know Phillip Meadows, Geoff Wilkins and Priscilla Deerhart?" Rodolphus indicated a trio seated around Dexia Japes.
They were the young people who had stood when Harry had entered, and they bowed now, too, when they noticed Harry was watching them.
"The experimental team?" Harry inquired.
"Yes," Rodolphus confirmed.
"Very nice," Harry said with an edge of danger that Rodolphus as a seasoned Death Eater recognised. "I was pleased to hear of the project. Its success compounded the pleasure."
Rodolphus shivered, but he remained standing tall, just like he had remained defiant after he had euthanised his wife. "Thank you, my Lord. Your satisfaction is our best reward."
Harry pursed his lips, discontent with the sycophantic rhetoric. He was being ungracious in taking his anger out on someone who wasn't at fault, and Rodolphus had, whether intentionally or not, reminded him of that.
"What else do you want to inform me of?" Harry directed the question to the whole room.
The wizards and witches exchanged glances and various gestures every which way. Harry hoped to Merlin that they would all prove to be trustworthy, because the last thing he needed was rumours about a schism in the Order.
"Manon Avery, sir," the woman from Tom's office spoke, tentatively raising her hand. "His Lordship required a personal assistant to help lessen the load of Ministry-issued paperwork. I was recommended by my Great Uncle-"
"Aurelius?" Harry more stated than asked, and nodded in acceptance. "Thank you, Miss Avery. Next?"
Several of them admitted to some issues, but everything else was minor in comparison. Theodore the Second mentioned, rather unhappily, that the Manor was temporarily doubling as the base for Moody's and Tybalt Lestrange's project, and the 'experimental team' – which truly had to get a better name fast – was in fact on duty.
Eventually, Harry gathered his resolve. He stood and turned so that he could address everyone at the same time. "So far the New Order is doing well – extremely well, even. However, this success comes at the price of our leader's health. I will require the assistance of every one of you in helping the Dark Lord recover. That may mean more duties and more responsibility for many of you. I will attempt to deputise for my husband, but in this I will often rely on your experience. Can I count on you?"
He was the recipient of several wide-eyed looks, which showed him just how well Tom had disguised his condition from his followers. Those in the know, so to speak, muttered their agreement.
"Were we too optimistic?" Vulcan Mulciber inquired. "We thought that everything would be solved now that you have returned, my Lord!"
"What foolishness!" Harry muttered, crossing his arms. As if he was some sort of fairy godfather who would wave his wand and 'magically' make everything better.
"I apologise, my Lord," Mulciber hastened to speak, bowing his head in deference. "I realise that your mere presence has bettered our situation so that there is no comparison to what it was like before, and I apologise for feeling as if the New Order were failing simply because our victory is not instantaneous and complete."
Harry suppressed a snort. He was acting in his role as the second Dark Lord, and that left no room for juvenility. "I am glad you understand that my Lord husband and I are still only two wizards."
"What is the problem, my Lord?" Thorfinn Rowle asked from Mulciber's side. "Why does it not feel like we are succeeding at all?" The man had known Tom for decades, and was able to see through his airs better than almost anyone, probably except Antonin and Harry himself.
"Too much to do, no time to do it," Harry explained. It was, he strongly suspected, merely an illusion perpetuated by the Ministry, which was, out of self-defence, trying to make the Order burn out chasing its own tail. "You have seen how Tom pushes himself past all rational limits, and it still is not enough."
"Could he not delegate more duties to us?" Rabastan suggested.
"We do have our own duties, but certainly most of us have enough free time to dedicate some to the cause," Dexia agreed.
Harry nodded in acknowledgement, but he had to disappoint them. "I have been trying to convince him, but he does not want to share the load."
"My Lord, have you considered acquiring a time-turner?" Nomiki Meadows had up until this moment remained unnoticed. She did not usually spend time at the Nott Manor; Harry guessed that she had been invited specifically for this brainstorming session.
The Inner Circle had really born up and supported Harry – and Tom – this time.
"No, actually…" Harry admitted. However, he remembered Hermione in their third year. Specifically, he remembered how exhausted she had been all the time. He shook his head. "But that would not help. It would just exacerbate the problem."
"How, my Lord? Using a time-turner to sleep-"
"But he would not use it to sleep, Mr Lestrange. He would use it to work more, to drive himself into utter exhaustion, and to pretend to me that he was getting better."
In fact, now that Harry had been given the idea, he had to wonder if Tom didn't already have a time-turner. He was a genius – surely he would have thought of them himself. Also, the New Order had agents in the Department of Mysteries, so having one delivered from there would hardly be a problem. A lot of them might have been destroyed during the battle in the end of Harry's fifth year at Hogwarts, but he didn't believe for a second that there were none left.
He must have been thinking for too long, because when he returned to the present, whispered conversations had begun in various corners of the room. Meadows was trying to convince Rowle under her breath that 'the Dark Lord required professional help.'
"You can't send the Dark Lord to a shrink!" Deerhart protested too loudly from behind Meadows. "Aside from the fact that he would simply not go and the fact that there are no shrinks in the wizarding Britain, he's got secrets that cannot be disclosed to a third party, regardless of any confidentiality vows or curses."
Harry let them talk it over among themselves. He crossed the room to the doorway and, noticed by few, spent a couple of minutes installing a ward that would ensure that they would all keep the discussed subject matter confidential.
Afterwards he clapped to regain everyone's attention.
"We will speak again in the morning," he informed his audience. "Rodolphus, ten o'clock in the Open Study."
"Yes, my Lord," the man agreed, unsurprised, so he had already been informed.
"Gather all the project leaders you know of. Miss Avery, does the Dark Lord have any meetings tomorrow?"
The woman shook her head. "He tries to avoid that, lately, and prefers to correspond."
"Good. Inform me if anything comes up. All of you, try to get some rest. I will see you tomorrow."
He left to the chorus of empty wishes of a good night.
His first order of business was to gain the cooperation of the elves. Harry dropped by the kitchen and requested Chatter's attendance. He was, technically, ordering the elf to betray one of her secondary Masters, and Chatter was one of the few who had the abstract thinking capable of understanding Harry's purpose.
She agreed to drug Tom's coffee for him. In fact, she shed a few tears in sympathy for Tom and Harry. If there was anything Harry envied anyone, it was Chatter.
Harry then visited Knockturn Alley. Its night incarnation was very different from its much milder day version, and Harry had to curse a few beings to get them out of his way. In the end, however, he got to talk to Ædelric, the vampiric potioneer and chemist, who was largely uninterested in Harry or Tom or the New Order, but perfectly willing to do business.
From there Harry went back to the Nott Manor, had a shower, spent a few hours going through his and Tom's correspondence, and created the outline of a position of a public relations person that would work in tandem with Manon Avery. It was a fruitful night.
Shortly before dawn he went to the Green Suite to pretend to check on Tom. He thought that maybe he should have felt guilty about what he was doing, about drugging and kidnapping his husband and about sabotaging his work, but he was beyond guilt, beyond remorse and regret and concern. He was deep into the pit of outright terror that Tom would waste away to nothing right in front of him, and Harry had never dealt well with overwhelming fear.
In the past, the best he could do was ignoring it.
Now the option of ignoring it was taken from him, and sheer desperation drove him to do something drastic. Tom had asked for it.
"The thing is, love…" Harry tried to convince himself as he stepped into their sitting room, "you won't prevent me from protecting you. And I will protect you at all costs. At any cost. So, sorry, but you're shit out of luck with this suicidal gig you've got going on here."
He stepped into the bedroom just in time to see Tom drink the last of his morning coffee and reach for his first dose of Nutrient Potion today.
Tom's hand was shaking. He scowled at it, as if attempting to will it to remain steady, but then he seemed to lose balance completely. Harry managed to get to him and catch him before his knees gave out.
Tom's eyes were wide and glazed. Harry picked him up. It was nauseating just how light he was, and Harry took special care laying him down onto the bed and tucking him in. The man was so malnourished, and addicted to so many potions already, that it was horribly likely that his heart would just give out. Harry knew Chatter would be monitoring Tom every second of the day, but he resolved to call Apollonia Greengrass, bind her with a couple of oaths and get her professional opinion on what Tom needed.
Harry had a great respect for a Dark Lord's pride and privacy, but for him his husband's health would always take precedence.
He briefly touched his forehead to Tom's and whispered: "I'm sorry, darling. I am not just the body you fuck… or the idea you love." He took a deep breath, straightened, and looked down at the sleeping face of the Dark Lord. "I am your wand… and your sword… and your shield."