Chapter Thirty-Two of 'The Rising of the Stones'- Struggling Owls
Chapter Thirty-One.
Title: The Rising of the Stones (32/35)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Draco, mentions of Draco/others and some canonical pairings
Rating: R
Warnings: Angst, some violence, soulmate markings AU
Summary: Draco Malfoy has become the Ministry’s best Auror. He executes all kinds of unusual assignments, including one to go after the unexpectedly fugitive Harry Potter. But as he chases Potter down, Draco learns a lot more about what the Ministry has been hiding from the wizarding world than he ever wanted to know-secrets that may impact more than just his ability to arrest Potter. Updated every Monday.
Author’s Notes: This will probably be between twenty and twenty-five chapters. It does involve soul-marks, the idea that soulmates can identify each other by corresponding marks on their skin. However, this doesn’t necessarily promise perfect happiness between the soulmates in question.
Chapter One.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Thirty-Two-Struggling Owls
“Aren’t you glad Luna taught us the incantation of that owl ward, now?”
Draco blinked and nodded. He was staring at the mass of struggling wings and clawing feet and beaks less than a meter from his window. There was a huge, fine net of magic stretched there, and it would only let through owls from a few people-Granger, Weasley, Lovegood, and Doge, most prominently. It was catching the huge amount of other birds that tried to reach them.
“I sure am,” Harry continued, as though he needed the confirmation of his own voice, even though Draco hadn’t contradicted him.
Draco put an arm around Harry’s shoulder, never removing his gaze from the owls. They screeched now and then, but Draco’s house-elves were taking out food and water on a regular basis. The ones who had given up and dropped their letters to the earth were let go from the net, and had already flown away. The stubborn birds who insisted on delivering the letters themselves or waiting for a response were the only ones still there.
“Oh, look,” Harry muttered, as Draco Summoned the newest letter and handed it to him. “I’m a destroyer of relationships.”
“We knew not everyone would believe our counterstrike. Especially since some of them believe that people without soul-marks can find love anywhere, but people with the mark should want their soulmate only.”
Harry only nodded absently, and brightened as he saw another letter. “This woman says she sent a Howler to the Minister, because he used soul-marks as a political weapon.”
Draco laughed under his breath and went back to the table to eat some of his omelet. “That’s more the spirit, right?”
The Daily Prophet was spread in a place of honor across the table for once, instead of crumpled up the way it had been when they ran the story on Draco and Sheldon being soulmates. Doge’s story was on the front page, illustrated with a photograph of Draco and Harry both leaning against a table and each other, and the headline said it all.
LOVE: DESTINY OR CHOICE?
Draco was fond of the photograph almost more than the story, which accused de Berenzan of solely using Sheldon against Draco-which, indeed, had happened. Truth was almost unexciting when it was told deliberately.
Keen-eyed people would see the truth in the photograph, too. They would see the way that Draco leaned towards Harry, his head cocked as Harry murmured into his ear. They would see the hand that the pictured Draco sometimes took off the table and traced casually around the outline of Harry’s hip. They would see, maybe, the minute flutter of Harry’s eyelids as they almost closed at that gesture. (Draco was looking for that, and it had still taken him endless minutes to spot it).
They would see that love was much more than a matter of soul-marks, and they would, some of them, calm down from yelling for his or Harry’s blood. Draco had no hopes it would be the majority, but their story had severely confused people, or there would be more Howlers than ordinary owls caught in the net outside.
“I really do love that picture.”
“Me, too,” Draco said, and reached out to trace his hand down Harry’s hip in the same gesture as Harry came back to the table. He was rewarded with a shiver and a heavy-eyed look of invitation that Draco wished he could take up right now.
As it was, he had to gesture at the formal invitation that lay beneath the Prophet. “How soon do you think we should meet with the Wizengamot?”
“I thought we were going to wait for an invitation from de Berenzan first, so that we could be armed with what he says?”
“I don’t think he’s going to invite us-”
Then Draco broke off as the letter he had casually Summoned from the earth outside turned out to have the official Minister’s seal on the back. “Well, well.” He cracked it open, being careful not to tear the envelope in his haste.
“He wasn’t going to invite us?”
Draco waved Harry quiet as he read the letter. He loved Harry, but there were times he just had to be quiet and let the grown-ups talk.
Auror Malfoy,
I think some misunderstandings have brought matters to this pass between us. I would appreciate it if you brought your partner with you to my office so we can discuss the question of soothing the public before the inferno burns both of us.
Sincerely,
Minister Marshall de Berenzan.
Harry leaned to read the letter over his shoulder, and made a small surprised noise. “Is it worth going?”
“Of course not. The moment you entered the Ministry, de Berenzan would have you arrested for possession of Dark Arts books, and there goes our most powerful asset.”
“He couldn’t put me in any cell that would hold me. At least, not if it was made of metal or stone.”
Draco leaned back so he was looking up into Harry’s eyes. “Come to that, there are some wooden cells he might use. And it might not matter if he immediately deported you to Azkaban and set Dementors to watch you.”
“…Oh.”
Draco nodded. “For that matter, even though I doubt the Aurors armed with sympathetic magic were officially hunting me, he would probably come up with some excuse to arrest me the minute I walked into his office, too. No, we won’t let him have the pleasure. We’ll meet with the Wizengamot at their afternoon session today, and let them have the task of confronting de Berenzan and putting out this supposed inferno he’s so worried about.”
“If they’re going to arrest me the minute I set foot in the Ministry, though…”
“Didn’t I tell you?” Draco flung de Berenzan’s invitation carelessly on the table and held up the one from the Wizengamot, smirking. “They’re not meeting in the Ministry today. In the old Council building, as it’s called. It’s much more impressive and they’re probably hoping to intimidate the piss out of us. But the Aurors and the Minister hold no jurisdiction there.”
*
From the way the stone of the floor rippled softly at Harry’s feet before it calmed, Draco imagined that he was considering opening an escape route. Had this been his first time visiting the Council building, and had his earth magic been much more advanced, Draco could have seen doing the same thing.
But he had first seen this building as a terrified eighteen-year-old, and, well. No matter what some people thought of the way he had emerged from the war, Draco had done it braver all around.
He and Harry paced towards a set of wooden doors as wide and tall as a Hungarian Horntail, made of pale birch and carved with figures of wizards and witches doing battle with Muggles, sitting in judgment over magical creatures, and facing kneeling centaurs in forests. (Given that no one Draco knew had ever seen a kneeling centaur, he thought that was the most fanciful picture). The hallway they walked down was all done in marble, with smaller carvings in the corners, except for the roof. Vast wooden rafters crossed above their heads there-oak, if Draco was any judge-sober and dark and somewhat counteracting the flaring of the dozens and dozens of torches along the way.
It was all so obviously meant to impress that Draco was absurdly fond of it. It reminded him of the older corners of Malfoy Manor in lots of ways.
He laid his hand on Harry’s arm and firmly caught his eye as those doors of birch wood began to open, in silence-of course-long before they reached them. Harry looked wildly in several different directions as if he had forgotten Draco was there before he focused on the hand.
“They want to see you shaking,” Draco told him quietly. “But you walked into the Forbidden Forest and stood up to the Dark Lord many times, and you’ve lived without a soulmate and the knowledge that any people who knew about your lack of a mark would want to kill you. You can do this.”
Harry breathed for a moment as if exhaling a cloud of cold into the air, but nodded. His step was firmer and more confident as he followed Draco into the huge Council room.
It arched overhead so high that the light of the torches and the grand fireplace on the far wall failed to reach the ceiling. Draco, who had been here when “Light” wizards were complaining about the Wizengamot’s lack of toughness on Dark wizards right after the war, knew that was only an effect. The ceiling was there, not even an imitation of the night sky the way it was in the Hogwarts Great Hall. Most of the time, the Wizengamot simply didn’t want to spend the money on the wood to reach it.
Here, rather than a gallery of seats as in the Ministry courtrooms, the Wizengamot sat on floating chairs, raised on balls of glittering blue and yellow light high above the floor. Each one wore the highly formal silver robes that were almost never dragged out anymore, and the wizards had their beards draped across their chests, while the witches had long hair flowing down their shoulders. Draco could hear Harry swallow.
He took the lead as they moved towards the chairs, and half-bowed to the center of all the floating seats. “Greetings, members of the Wizengamot,” he said. “We came promptly.”
“Tell us why you have made all this trouble.” That was the oldest wizard, Thomas Zelubar, whose voice sounded like wind coming down a tunnel. That was another effect of the charms on the room, though; it made all the members’ voices sound like that, while “intruders” would sound normal. Draco ignored it as he replied.
“We haven’t made trouble. We have brought to light a very old truth, and an unpalatable one, which someone will always call trouble when they’re inconvenienced by it.”
“We did not know about the children without soul-marks being killed.”
Draco would have answered, but that particular witch was staring hard at Harry, and he knew she meant the question for him. Draco turned to see what Harry would say.
Harry’s face was pale, but that could easily be mistaken for a reflection of light off white marble. Draco knew he was the only one who would really notice; he was the only one here who saw Harry on a regular basis. “Members of the Wizengamot, I didn’t think you did.”
“Yet you accused most of the Ministry-”
“There were some people at the Ministry who knew, because someone wrote a book to persuade Minister Bagnold when she wanted to stop it. But I don’t know their names. I’m better off assuming that the man who wanted me to keep quiet is the one who knew.”
Harry’s voice sounded firmer now. Draco relaxed a little as Zelubar spoke again. “The man who wanted to keep you quiet?”
“Minister de Berenzan.”
“This undignified war in the papers must stop.” Yvonne Selwyn, Draco knew, because she was the only witch in the room who wore the huge rings with onyx stones that clicked against the chair as she leaned forwards. “Swear to us that you will no longer write articles about each other.”
“I would be glad to promise that if the Minister made the same promise, and also that he won’t persecute me, or any of my friends for helping me.”
Selwyn subsided into sullen mutters. She knew as well as Draco did that the Wizengamot didn’t have a leash on de Berenzan unless they made an actual legal decision, and they were dreaming if they thought they could intimidate Draco and Harry.
Draco stood lightly, with a hand on Harry’s shoulder, watching as the Wizengamot members snapped and snarled among themselves. They knew perfectly well they had the power to stop this, Draco thought. It would be just be an inconvenience to them to exercise it.
Zelubar finally sat up and said, “You think the Minister would kill Harry Potter now? After all the publicity and when everyone would know the reasons why?”
Harry gave Draco a look, as if he didn’t know which of them was supposed to answer that. Draco did, though, and he replied calmly. “If he could make it look like an accident, or like Harry had disappeared and wouldn’t come back, why not? That was almost what Harry did once before, the disappearance. If de Berenzan had just left it at that, we wouldn’t be standing here right now. But he got paranoid that Harry would come back and tell everyone the truth, so he put me on the case.”
“His great mistake,” Harry muttered behind him.
Draco smiled.
“I don’t trust you!” That was Selwyn, whom Draco knew was speaking more out of ancient grudges against his family than any sense. “I don’t trust either of you.”
“But you’re not going to arrest us and throw us in Azkaban or get rid of us, either.” Draco spread his arms. “We await your decision.”
Mutters and glances and rings tapping chairs and so many scowls that Draco would have found the atmosphere uncomfortable if he wasn’t convinced of his own righteousness. Harry shifted as if he found it uncomfortable. Draco patted his shoulder and kept watching their audience.
Zelubar finally said, “The Ministry has made killing of those born without soul-marks practically legal.”
It was the opening gambit of concession, and Draco immediately countered it. “Not legal, or they wouldn’t have had to hide it. They locked up Harry’s birth records the instant they knew what was in them, and they chose to deny the birth of children without soul-marks rather than admit they were killing them.”
“And killing helpless babies can hardly be classified as legal,” said Gloria Marjoriebanks, with a nod of her head. “Whether they would grow into Dark Lords or not.”
“Mr. Potter did have the potential to cause immense harm to the wizarding world.” Zelubar again.
“Then was the way de Berenzan handled this this the right way to go about preventing that harm?” Draco raised his eyebrows with delicate disdain. “Terrifying Harry, making him think he had to run, and hounding him even after that? Instead of approaching him and enlisting him to talk about markless children? He would have, gladly.”
“It seems to me that you’re doing a lot of answering for Mr. Potter, and Mr. Potter not a lot of speaking for himself,” said Zelubar, and turned his floating chair on light to face Harry. “What do you think, Mr. Potter?”
Harry proved that he had paid attention to politics after all, and answered promptly, “That Minister de Berenzan is incompetent.”
“He’s handled other political crises well!” Selwyn.
“But he allowed fear to rule him in this one. And fear that makes no sense, really, when you think about it.” Harry shook his head. “He thought my fame and popularity were a threat to the Ministry. Then why antagonize me? I would have melted away and he wouldn’t have had to worry about me again. Instead, he went after me with everything he had. That doesn’t argue that he’s very intelligent about how to handle threats.”
Draco saw glances exchanged, and hid his smile. That particular way of phrasing things would put the matter in a different light for the Wizengamot. After all, de Berenzan had to deal with powerful people-like the Wizengamot, or foreign leaders-every day. If he struck back out of fear and perhaps envy every time he met someone with a strength he didn’t have…
“He wasn’t the only Minister that participated in killing markless children,” said Selwyn.
“I never intended to blame him solely.” And Harry’s voice had gone back to sounding like a trumpet, and honestly, Draco didn’t know why he hadn’t tried to make a career in politics. Unless he needs someone to inspire him to fight for himself. He probably would have acted even sooner if he hadn’t been markless and he found out about other children being murdered.
“I only want him to stop. I want to understand why markless children are born and what can be done to help them. I want to increase goodwill between all members of our society. Our numbers are small enough, after two wars. Why kill more of us because of a superstition that can’t be proven? Let’s work together so we can know how to bring up markless children and not leave so many families grieving, and not let survivals like mine become a matter of chance and luck.”
After that, he had them on his side. Draco was the one who faded into the background while the Wizengamot discussed things among themselves, and agreed to summon de Berenzan before them, and questioned Harry some more on exactly what kind of elemental magic he’d learned and what it was like living without a soul-mark. Draco wouldn’t be content to do that all the time, but for right now, he wanted to stand back and watch.
And plan.
He’ll be like that in defense of his own life, eventually, and when fighting for me. I’ll see to it.
Chapter Thirty-Three.
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