Chapter Five of 'Made of Common Clay'- The Wildness of My Wasted Passion
Chapter Four.
Title: Made of Common Clay (5/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Minor mentions of Ron/Hermione, Molly/Arthur, Neville/Hannah, Luna/Rolf, and past Harry/Ginny; otherwise, this fic is gen and will remain so.
Content Notes: Angst, violence, torture, politics, present tense, cynical Harry
Rating: R (for violence)
Summary: Harry has reached a very bitter and jaded thirty. His efforts to reform the Ministry haven’t lessened the corruption or pure-blood bigotry one bit. That’s when he finds out that he’s apparently a part of a pure-blood nobility he’s never heard of before; he’s Lord Potter and Lord Black. Unfortunately, that revelation’s come too late for him to be a reformer. All Harry wants to do is tear the system down and salt the earth. And with a double Lordship, he just might have the power to do that.
Author’s Notes: This fic is largely a partially a parody of some of the tropes common in Lord Potter/Lord Black fics. The title and most of the chapter titles come from one of Oscar Wilde’s poems: “Sweet I blame you not for mine the fault was, had I not been made of common clay/I had climbed the higher heights unclimbed yet, seen the fuller air, the larger day.” I don’t yet know how long this fic will be, but it will get pretty dark.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Five-The Wildness of My Wasted Passion
“You know, you could have applied some healing salve to your wound, and it would still have looked appropriately horrible when we walked into the Sun Chamber,” are the words Neville uses to greet Harry when he steps into the lift that will take them down to the level of the door.
Harry snorts. “Don’t you start. Hermione was already after me because she thinks I left the wound too untreated to make a point.”
“Did you?”
“What, leave it untreated to make a point? Of course. Leave it too much so? Of course not.” Harry winces a little as the lift jolts down a level, but doesn’t make a sound of pain, because that would give his friends too much satisfaction. “Hermione means well.”
“I’m not the one you have to convince of that.” Neville eyes the way Harry’s left arm hangs limply, and winces himself.
“No, I’m saying it to convince myself. I read somewhere in a Muggle psychology book that the more you repeat something, the more you believe it.”
Neville laughs aloud as they step off the lift, and a few members of the Sun Chamber walking ahead of them turn around and stare unblinking. Harry watches their faces carefully. He sees the moment a man who must be Lord Macmillan, by his resemblance to Ernie, catches sight of his shoulder.
The way he blanches tells Harry that he was almost certainly one of those who gave Pettigrew Mark Two the money. Especially since he doesn’t come up to exclaim in concern, the way the Ladies do, but rushes ahead and disappears into the Chamber.
“Lord Potter! Have you hurt your shoulder?”
“I faced down a hazard,” Harry says, and smiles blandly at them while they flutter around him, not touching his wound but peering at it so closely that he can feel their breath. “A hazard of my profession.”
“Of course, you have been an Auror for a long time,” says the taller of the two Ladies. She has a smile that might be charmingly frank and open if it wasn’t eager after gossip right now, and eyes that might be pretty if not for generations of pure-blood inbreeding. “I don’t think we’ve met formally, Lord Potter, Lord Black, Lord Longbottom. My name is Anastasia, Lady Kerokuk.” She extends a languid hand.
Harry contains his laugh at the name that sounds like a chicken fighting to assert its place in the farmyard, and bends over her hand instead. He can’t bring himself to kiss the back, but Kerokuk looks as if she’s young enough not to expect that. “Thank you, Lady Kerokuk. I’m Harry, Lord Potter, Lord Black.”
The words curl like acid over his tongue. Well, it doesn’t matter. The Sun Chamber’s meeting isn’t the only one he’ll have today, and the second meeting is a step further along the path to destroying his titles forever.
“Veronica, Lady Fleecebound,” says the other woman, and tries to make him believe that she can see at the speed her eyelashes are batting. “How daring of you to survive an attack on your person, Lord Potter. You must tell us all about it.”
“I will,” Harry promises, and smiles at them as they continue ahead. It’s easy to keep aiming that smile at their backs. It’s not his fault that it twists a little and they would probably scream if they looked back.
“Keep steady, mate,” Neville mutters beside him.
“I am steady. It’s just that it’s a good thing Legilimency is forbidden in the Chamber, because they wouldn’t like the contents of my head.”
“How many of them do you think know Legilimency?” Neville lowers his voice as they await their turn to go into the Sun Chamber and be blinded. “And could they use it so we wouldn’t detect it?”
“They would probably dare lots of things if they thought they wouldn’t be detected,” Harry murmurs back. “But there are spells on the Sun Chamber that discourage it. And there’s no guarantee that they wouldn’t run into someone who’s an Occlumens. If an Occlumens Lord or Lady accuses someone else of Legilimency, they’re believed at once. Occlumency is a passive art, and you’d only have cause to pay much attention to that part of your mind if someone was trying to read your thoughts.”
“Another useless rule.”
“Another convenient one,” Harry corrects. He suspects a lot of these rules were probably created to suit the convenience of some ancient Lord or Lady, and everyone forgot about that later and treated them as sacred tradition.
They enter the Sun Chamber before Neville can answer, and Harry makes sure that his left shoulder is facing a few more people as they glance up automatically to see who else is coming in.
Malfoy, yes, his face is getting paler. And Applebough, the Lady who draped the stole across his shoulders last time. And Atlas Parkinson, what a surprise, after the embarrassment Harry caused his daughter after the war.
Honeywell immediately flings her way to her feet and hobbles at him, but Harry doesn’t think she was in on the plot to kill him. She is a true believer, and she was too cheered at the thought of having Lord Black and Lord Potter back in the Sun Chamber. She might not mourn him if he died in a duel, but assassination isn’t supposed to kill a Lord or Lady.
Officially, Harry thinks, and puts his hand out to rest it on Honeywell’s arm and calm her down.
“Oh, Lord Potter, your poor shoulder!” Honeywell is almost in tears as she clutches at his hand and stares at the wound. “That looks dreadful! Who knows what it looked like when the spell actually struck you?”
“Well,” Harry can’t help saying, “I know, and the assassin does.”
Honeywell doesn’t even seem to notice his humor as she lifts her stricken eyes to his face. “Oh, my, Lord Potter. What are you going to do now? Are you close to catching the people who did this?”
Harry locks his eyes on Malfoy, who’s nearest. Lucius looks like he wants to faint and vomit and crawl under the seat, all at once. “I have some ideas. Time will tell if they’ll be carried out.”
Honeywell still looks disturbed, but she pats the air above his shoulder and sighs. “All right, Lord Potter. Please let me know if I can help you with your investigation in any way.”
“I’ll let you know,” Harry says, and winks at her in a way that makes her smile faintly before she goes back to her seat.
Harry doesn’t sit down. He stands to one side of the sun, not blocking it but in a way that the books say the Lords and Ladies use for announcements. Gradually, voices drift off and people turn to look at him. Neville remains standing behind him. Ostensibly, that’s because he and Harry are supposed to sit next to each other and it would be useless for him to sit down and then have to stand up to let Harry by, but Harry’s content that the smart ones will read the signal for what it is.
And the ones who aren’t that smart will just have to put with the surprise when it’s sprung on them later.
“I’ve noticed the attention to the wound in my shoulder,” Harry says, and his voice is earnest. “I fought off an assassin yesterday evening who came to attack me in my office in the Ministry.”
Someone stands up and shouts, “Outrageous!” Harry slowly inclines his head in that direction. He sees the pale faces turn whiter and whiter, and he smiles. He’s glad that he took time to prepare his speech, which should send them into cardiac arrest.
“I did not extract a list of names from the assassin,” Harry says, his voice low and his eyes direct the way he used to have them when he reported to Kingsley. “The man was too much of a coward to give me useful information, and so must be the ones who hired him. What does matter is that I’m sure the assassination attempt was connected to my ascension as a Lord, and that makes it imperative that we find out who is behind it. What would happen if the danger turned and struck other Lords and Ladies? The exact same danger? We have to figure this out and stop it now, or we risk that.”
There. An insult in every sentence, or a warning, or a glimpse of knowledge. Harry inclines his head and walks to his seat with Neville just behind him.
“Brilliant, mate,” Neville murmurs.
Harry tilts his head. He doesn’t think that he’ll match what he did last Sun Chamber session in this one, but that’s at least partially because of the buzzing below them and how upset people are now.
No one said that I couldn’t play with my prey before I killed it.
*
Harry makes sure his generic green mask is in place and that he has his sign carefully shrunk in his pocket before he heads out to join the crowd protesting the Sun Chamber.
He’s not wearing his Auror robes, of course. Although it might be fun to see the expression on Kingsley’s face if Harry got hauled in for participating in a protest, he doesn’t think it’s funny enough to risk it.
He blends into the edge of the great crowd standing in the middle of Diagon Alley. People edge past them and hurry on to do their own shopping, their heads bowed, but even more stop and gape, and Harry waves his sign up and down harder. His says, EVEN THE SUN MUST SET.
The other protesters have the same green masks, and some have glamour or illusion charms draped over their hair. Harry winks when he sees a man whose height and walk he would know everywhere. His hair is a distinctive enough ginger that he does need the spells to hide.
They meet in the middle of the crowd, and take a moment from the chanting to lean near each other. “What happened today?” Ron whispers, still waving his sign around. His says, MAYBE THE WORLD OUGHT TO REVOLVE AROUND US FOR ONCE!
“Some of them were concerned, and I think I know who sent the assassin after me,” Harry murmurs. Then he shouts some more and waves his sign, and adds, “And I created a speech that insulted all of the people who sent the assassin after me, while sounding like I’m seriously concerned for the safety of others in the Sun Chamber."
Ron laughs breathlessly and spins away from a witch who’s yelling so hard that she’s started to fall over. “What do you think their next move is going to be?”
“Don’t know for sure, but I hope it’s another assassin.”
Ron starts to answer, but Harry loses his reply under the sudden noise of sharp pops. He turns his head, and sees Aurors Apparating in. They’ve carefully spaced themselves around the edges of the crowd, so they can Stun people without getting in each other’s way.
Harry grins. He’s been waiting for this, and he cocks his head as he hears the noise of still more sharp cracks behind the Aurors, and a chorus of squeaky voices starts singing the Song to House-Elf Freedom that Hermione composed a few years ago.
"We were SLAVES, but now no more!
Rise and open Freedom's door!
Come and be a good free elf!
Grow up and RESPECT yourself!"
The Aurors spin around and stare at the advancing little creatures, their mouths open as if they don't know what to do with this spectacle. Then some of them get their wits together enough to try and Stun the house-elves.
That does no good. Elves pop in and out of existence faster than any human can follow, and half the time when they reappear, they look at the Aurors and snap their fingers, and the Aurors fall asleep. By the time the few remaining Aurors are backed into a tight clump, all of them standing in a triangle with their wands pointed at the elves, not a single one of them has been harmed, but Aurors are sprawled all over the ground.
Harry grins and saunters forwards. The elves let him pass. Harry's not sure how much they think of him as a good ally and how much they think of him as "Grangy's pet human," but it doesn't matter right now.
"Why did you come to Stun protestors who were simply waving signs and telling the truth about the Sun Chamber?" he asks the Aurors. He's genuinely curious about some of the ways of responding the Ministry might choose.
The Aurors exchange glances. Harry would cheer if some of them looked abashed, but none of them do. They just look as if they want to curse him for standing awake in front of them and wearing a green mask.
Finally, one of them answers in such a supremely ungracious voice that Harry hopes they don't send him on public missions. Harry doesn't know him, so he can't be sure. "We came to make sure the rule of law and order is preserved. The Sun Chamber is important to the running of the Ministry, you know."
"It can't be that important, if no one but the Lords and Ladies and their families ever heard of it until last week. Where did you learn about it?"
"I learned about it from reading the article!"
Harry bites his lip and stares up at the sky, because breaking down in a howl of mirth right now would be counterproductive. Finally he looks down again and shakes his head. "The protest is so small that it wasn't even blocking people from passing down Diagon Alley to get into the shops. Please reconsider aiming your wands at people who are only expressing their political opinions as they see fit."
A different Auror, one Harry has worked with a few times named Daisy Pilates, sneaks her wand through a gap between the two others' bodies and tries to Stun him. Harry spins away from the spell and resists the temptation to Disarm her. There are still people who see that as his signature spell, so much that it has got other people accused of being him when they use it.
"I did ask you to reconsider aiming your wands at people," Harry says, a little sadly, as the house-elves surge past him and the Aurors fall asleep.
Ron comes up behind him and claps him on the back. The rest of the protesters have taken up the Song to House-Elf Freedom, which they might as well sing as anything else. Ron grins and asks Harry, "So are you going to leave them tied up and on the doorstep of the Ministry for Kingsley to find?"
"I think I am. Along with a sad note about how I tried to talk to them about aiming their wands at other people and they refused to comply."
"Let Hermione help you write it. It needs to be really sad."
Harry nods. He turns and looks at the protest that's trailing across the middle of Diagon Alley, still avoided by the vast majority of people doing their shopping, but now and then a witch or wizard stops to ask what they're protesting, and gets one of the pamphlets Harry dashed off last night shoved into their hands.
"This could get big," Ron says thoughtfully, leaning against Harry's unwounded shoulder to look around. "But I don't know if it's going to be big enough to convince the Ministry to do anything about the Sun Chamber."
"I had an idea about that."
Ron cranes his neck around to stare into Harry's face. Harry waves a hand at him when he can suddenly see the interior of Ron's nostrils more throughly than anyone but Hermione needs to. "What are you doing?"
"Seeing how seriously you mean this idea. Then I know whether to send warnings to everyone in the country or just the city."
Harry grins. Ron looks even warier. "It's like this. I showed you my Pensieve memory of that absurd sun they've got as the symbol of their arrogance in the Sun Chamber?"
"Right." Ron glances around as if he assumes Harry has his own personal goons ready to jump out of hiding and hold him there.
"Well." Harry cocks an arm so no one can see and traces a circle in the air. An image of the Chamber's sun forms there, drawn from his memories. Ron shakes his head.
"Mate, I told you, all you have to do is teach other people that charm, and you'd be rich."
Harry shrugs. Honestly, spell creation, especially a spell that forces an image from someone's memories to be real, is so simple. It's just that most people don't apply themselves. "Whatever. Look at the sun."
Ron shades his eyes and stares at the memory.
"Arse," Harry mutters, and waves his wand in another circle. This time, the sun changes into the skull and snake of the Dark Mark.
Ron jerks away and stares at him. "Mate, what the hell?"
"The curved top of the skull looks a little like the curve of the sun if you stare at it long enough," Harry explains helpfully. "And the snake was always buried under the brightness, see."
"It looks alike if you have heatstroke. What are you planning?"
"To spread rumors that the sun was hastily spelled over the Dark Mark, of course. That they'll find the snake behind it if they strip away the magic." Harry blinks innocently at Ron. "And the sun symbol was chosen because it's curved at the top, just like the skull of the Dark Mark."
"Um. Why?"
"The sun is made of the kind of magic that you can't remove without destroying it altogether," Harry says, and winks.
"So you're getting them to destroy their own symbol?" Ron snorts. "That's a lot of trouble for a little result, mate."
"Not when Skeeter will be delighted to spread the rumors for me. And not when I have the other plans in progress that I do."
"Haaaarrry," Ron whines, but Harry refuses to tell him more, and instead starts marching around, waving his sign again, and singing the Song to House-Elf Freedom. After a long sigh that seems to take up most of the alley, Ron joins him.
Chapter Six.
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