Chapter Six of 'The Daring Win'- The Drawing Room of Their Meeting
Chapter Five.
Title: The Daring Win (6/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Warnings: Angst, violence, torture, Umbridge POV
Pairings: None in foreground; background canon pairings. This is a gen story as far as the main characters are concerned.
Rating R (for violence)
Summary: The year: 1987. The place: Muggle London. The situation: The Boy-Who-Lived is being treated horribly by his Muggle relatives. A young witch must take him in for the Ministry’s good and his. The witch’s name: Dolores Umbridge.
Author’s Notes: This will be an Umbridge-raises-Harry story. It will be pretty fucked-up because of that. The whole thing is in Dolores’s POV (she would hardly tolerate any others), and will update every Saturday.
Chapter One.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Six-The Drawing Room of Their Meeting
Dolores was glad that she was seated when the Malfoys arrived. She had spent a long time last night fretting about how to greet Lucius Malfoy. On the one hand, some of the etiquette books she had read as a girl recommended bowing; on the other hand, fashions changed, and Dolores hadn’t been powerful or wealthy for long enough to be sure of what the new ones were now.
But as it happened, the Malfoys arrived by Floo, and she was sitting and watching Potter as he tugged at the lacy collar of his dress robes and squirmed on his seat. By the time she turned her head, Lucius Malfoy had already stepped into the room, leading his son by the hand.
Dolores inclined her head. “Welcome, Mr. Malfoy.” She twiddled two fingers without moving the rest of her hand, and Potter immediately trotted up to her. She smiled at the small, pristine boy beside Lucius. “Draco?”
Seeing the boy gave her an odd twinge in her chest. Draco not only had clean cheeks and fine clothes, but he was tall for his age and had shining pale gold hair. Potter would never look like that, no matter how she fussed over him.
“I am.” And Draco swept a little bow that had grace in it which seemed adult. Dolores sighed. Maybe Potter would have had that if she had got to him younger. He never would now.
“And this is Harry.” Dolores gestured Potter forwards. He had to make the first impression by himself, even though she itched to turn his head in the right direction and whisper instructions in his ear.
Potter was pale, but he managed a creditable bow. Dolores didn’t think that was what made Draco stare in awe, though, to the point where his father coughed a little and frowned at him with the corner of his mouth.
Of course. He’s looking at Potter’s scar.
Dolores’s confidence returned in a rush, though she was resolved it wasn’t going to make her do anything stupid. Yes, Potter still had a level of power here, one that even Malfoy children had to respect, if not Malfoy adults. And now that she thought about it, if he felt himself so above her, Lucius Malfoy would never have accepted her invitation in the first place.
She rose and inclined her head in a subtle gesture that could be seen as a bow or a nod. “Would you like to see the playroom, Draco?”
*
“You understand that I am only here because of your ward.”
There was a subtle hesitation before Malfoy’s final word. Dolores delicately sipped at the tea in front of her, the most expensive kind she owned, and then folded her hands on her lap. She wondered if he had been about to say “adopted son” or something that would sound equally strange in his mouth.
“I know that, sir. I don’t have the bloodline or the political clout to make you look at me otherwise.”
Malfoy visibly settled into his seat on the other side of the table. “You understand, then,” he said, and ran a quick, expert eye over her. Dolores was wearing one of her nicer cardigans, a soft grey with a little green ribbon near the collar instead of any pink. It was a subtle reminder of the House origins they shared. “I thought that perhaps you contacted me simply because I’m politically powerful and you wanted to be close to that.”
“In truth, sir, I contacted you because you have a child Harry’s age. I want him to have the right kind of friends.”
Malfoy folded his hand into a fist and set it under his chin. He was doing that to try and relax her, and Dolores knew it, and he knew she knew it.
She sipped the tea again to hide her smile. She loved this game.
“If I hadn’t had a child, you wouldn’t have been interested in my support?”
“It would have been harder to come up with a convenient excuse for you to visit. And since I’m going to be under even stronger scrutiny than before, now that Dumbledore’s lost his chance at custody of the Boy-Who-Lived…”
“Interesting. A blunter way than I usually play, but I can appreciate its finer points. What do you propose as a trade?”
“Beyond giving the first friendship Harry has ever had to your son?” Dolores was watching for it, and saw the shifting of the slight wrinkles on his face that marked the widening of his eyes. She smiled a little. “I would like you to speak to the press when Dumbledore comes back to try to win Harry again, the way he inevitably will.”
“Mutualism. True mutualism.”
“I have no money to bribe you with. Even though it’s increasing now, of course, I have to use Harry’s vault for Harry’s expenses.”
Malfoy nodded absently, turning the teacup around in his long, fine fingers. Dolores studied his nails as carefully as she could without giving herself away. She would have to have hers done soon, and she thought that his style would suit her better than some witches’.
“I find myself more interested in young Mr. Potter’s previous life than I thought,” Malfoy said abruptly. “The truth, now, and not what you told the Wizengamot with such skill.” This time, when Dolores inclined her head, it was to acknowledge the compliment. “Has he really never had any friends before this?”
“That is what he told me.”
“Young children sometimes exaggerate.”
And I’m sure you punish your son for it when he does. He looked the type, the type that truly understood the need to break children to harness. “I think that he is telling the truth. He’s told me about the Muggles. He had a Muggle cousin who would ensure that none of the children at their shared school wanted to play with Harry. I believe the word they used was ‘freak.’”
Malfoy’s face acquired a sheen that puzzled Dolores until he spoke again. “Then he is pure. Truly pure.”
A weakness. Can he be that obsessed with purity? Dolores thought pure-bloods were best too, of course, and their way of life the only one that mattered, but she also knew to keep an eye on Muggleborns and half-bloods because they could be dangerous upstarts. Those who thought only purity of blood mattered were too inclined to dismiss their opponents’ skills with wands, under the notion that they would be poor wizards anyway.
Any weakness in an enemy was an advantage, or at least a possible one. Dolores had learned that lesson well, and now she was trying to teach Harry the same thing. It would be remiss of her to ignore it when she was arranging matters with Malfoy.
“He is,” was all that she said for now, lowering her cup to the table and casting her eyes down. The more harmless she appeared, the more it might help, especially if Malfoy was inclined to underestimate her because of her blood status. “He longs to know about our world, the world that should have been his since birth. And he hates Albus Dumbledore.”
“A hatred that I am sure you have been doing all you can to encourage.”
“Of course. But it needs so little encouragement to flourish. Once he found out that different arrangements should have been made for him, that the Ministry should have been in charge of placing him once his godfather was found guilty if anyone should have, then Dumbledore had earned his hatred.”
Malfoy chuckled, low and pleased. “And you think that no challenges to your custody will succeed?”
“Not on Dumbledore’s behalf, certainly. If he decides he can trust a Death Eater and frees Black, then we might face a more severe one. But at least for the moment, Harry has no desire to leave me.”
Malfoy leaned slowly back, one finger tapping the edge of his saucer. “I find you more and more interesting, Madam Umbridge.”
Dolores simply nodded, and never looked away from Malfoy once. She knew the pricklings of Legilimency; Ministry employees at her level were trained to recognize it, although not to wield it. She felt none now, and meeting someone’s eyes like this was a good way to convince them you were honest and on their side. She had used it with Harry more than once.
“Of course, you could be in charge of shaping the Boy-Who-Lived any way you want. You could make him into someone who worships Albus Dumbledore. You could teach him the rules of the Ministry and prepare him for a political career. You could make him into-a pure-blood wizard.”
The slight shake in Malfoy’s last words was that of reverence. Dolores made her decision. He does value purity above everything else, and that is dangerous.
“I could be in charge of that,” she said, and humbly enough that Malfoy had to pay attention to her. “But I would hesitate to do it by myself. I haven’t had enough experience with those ideals and knowing the various forms they can take.” She bowed her head until she felt as if she had something on her neck, and then looked appealingly up at Malfoy, who was staring at her with his mouth slightly open. “Would you help me?”
It was a test, of sorts. If he would underestimate her, then she would have to look beyond him. If he raised his eyebrows in a certain way, then she would straighten up and acknowledge that she was laying it on a bit thick.
But he did neither. He only gave a thin smile and said, “I have done a good enough job with my son on extraordinary occasions, but it’s my wife who handles his day-to-day education. You should speak to her.”
Dolores nodded obediently, resigned to the fact that she would have to wait to judge if Malfoy was dangerously obsessed with purity, and stood up. “Then should we go and see how the boys are doing, sir?”
*
“You can use magic whenever you want, here. That’s the great thing about it.”
Dolores paused in the shadow of the playroom’s door. She had thought only to show Lucius Malfoy that Harry could be trusted around his son, but they had come in time to witness something much more interesting.
Potter was sitting with his knees drawn up in the middle of the floor, staring at the stack of round balls that were magically primed to stick together. Draco added another ball to the top and shook his head at Potter.
“Why won’t you use magic? I know you have to have some. No one who wasn’t a powerful wizard could defeat the Dark Lord.”
Potter’s head sank further down. Dolores ignored the way she was sure Malfoy was sneering beside her now, focusing more on the boy. There was something she wanted to see. It might happen, it might not, and yet she found herself holding her breath in the way she only usually did before a promotion at the Ministry.
Potter lifted his head, exhaled a little, and said it.
“Underage wizards aren’t allowed to use magic. I know that. And I don’t have a wand yet, and I’m trying to get my accidental magic under control. It was accidental magic that made my relatives the angriest. Miss Dolores knows I have magic. She wants me to know how to wield it.”
Beside Dolores, Malfoy had gone still, in a way that might indicate any number of things. Dolores didn’t allow herself to dwell on them. The important part was that Harry had said it. And proven his loyalty to her in the same moment.
She would talk to Narcissa Malfoy, yes. And Mr. Malfoy. And she would allow Draco to continue visiting Harry, since he was exactly the right kind of friend for Harry to have. But the most important thing she must do was maintain her ascendancy over Harry’s mind.
“Harry is right,” she said, just as she saw Draco opening his mouth to say something else. The boy jerked guiltily, and the ball in his hand fell into the rest of them without being placed there, disrupting the neat tower he’d been building and sending the others rolling all over the floor.
Dolores advanced into the room and nodded with a smile to Potter, whose eyes were fastened on her. “You learned the lesson correctly, Harry,” she said. “The Ministry restricts the abilities of underage wizards for a reason. Wands are only for adults, and children can’t judge the proper time to use a curse.”
She turned to Draco, whose mouth had puckered up as if that was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. Time to say something to pacify him. “But on the other hand, young Mr. Malfoy is also right. You can practice magic in a house with adult wizards in it. They can supervise you, reverse unwanted side-effects, and register their own magic with the Ministry to cover the traces of yours.”
Draco smiled, unattractively smug. Dolores preferred the way Harry blinked and swallowed, and then asked, “But what happens to children who have to live with Muggles?”
“Accidental magic does not register with the Ministry,” Dolores had to admit, somewhat stiffly. That was something she wanted changed, and she had looked into the numerous attempts to develop a charm that would detect that kind of magic, but so far without success. It was simply too similar to a number of other effects, including the mere presence of creatures like giants and goblins-and the goblins who worked in Gringotts, their best chance to study the effect, refused to permit any wizards that closely into their sanctums. It was annoying. “But wand use does. Muggleborn children cannot use their wands at home during the summers or holidays.”
“So they couldn’t protect themselves if their Muggle relatives decided to do something to them.”
Aware of the two Malfoys, but more concerned with the problem in front of her, Dolores placed a hand on Harry’s shoulder. He flinched a little. Inwardly, she frowned. She would have to find some other punishment than pinching him there if he had started to anticipate it all the time. “They cannot. But you don’t have to worry about that ever again, Harry. You won’t be leaving the wizarding world now.”
Harry gave another little flinch. Dolores looked down, and studied the way his hair stuck up. “You have an objection to present?”
“I just-what happens if I want to go back and punish the Dursleys?”
Dolores raised her eyebrows. It was the first time Potter had shown much interest in revenge, and she had thought she would have to train the instinct into him if political matters required it. But this was more interesting. She reached out and gripped his chin, tilting his head up. Potter let her do it, and at this moment, the Malfoys watched silently, making no motion to interfere.
Potter looked at her, and there was a shrinking in his eyes and his shoulders. He expected punishment for the question.
But he had asked it anyway.
Dolores gave a small nod. Good. That showed some leadership qualities, an excellent thing if he did not get above himself. And while a boy who looked fearful of his own shadow was politically useful now, questions would bubble to the surface in more than one mind if he was always that way.
She knelt down and hugged him, and Harry stiffened in surprise. Dolores let herself smell his hair-a different scent than young Malfoy’s polished, clean one-and nestle it against her cheek as she whispered, “An excellent question, Harry. But you’re still speaking as if you’d have to act alone. You do not. Adult wizards will take care of them for you, and punish them in an appropriate, legal manner.”
From the way Harry huffed out, he truly had never considered that. Dolores narrowed her eyes. She had emphasized his importance as the Boy-Who-Lived more than once, she was certain of that. Was he too diffident because she had also been forced to show him who was in charge? That was not the effect she had intended to produce.
“Okay,” he whispered.
Despite the way that he had stopped calling her Miss Dolores in this recent conversation, Dolores nodded and let him go with a little pat on the head. She straightened to find Malfoy watching her with a kind of covert respect.
“Perhaps you will not need so much help from my wife after all,” he said. “But she would still like to offer it.” He bent down then. “Say good-bye to your friend, Draco. We need to leave now.”
Watching Harry’s shy smile as he responded to Draco’s farewell and the way Draco practically basked in it, Dolores made new plans. Malfoy could still be dangerous, silly obsessions or not. And Harry could be enchanting when he acted shy. It was Dolores’s responsibility to balance that with his needed leadership qualities, and she would have to start doling out some more rewards, perhaps.
But Harry was going to be more than a dagger in her hand, the way she had sometimes imagined him.
He was going to be a shining sword.
Chapter Seven.
This entry was originally posted at http://lomonaaeren.dreamwidth.org/868911.html. Comment wherever you like.