Part Twenty-Five of 'Their Phoenix'

[lomonaaeren]

Title: Their Phoenix (25/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Threesome, Snape/Harry/Draco. (Harry and Draco do develop their own sexual relationship within the threesome). Some Harry/Ginny and Snape/Draco near the beginning of the story.
Rating: NC-17.
Warnings: Magical bonding, slash sex, violence, profanity, massive denial. Springing-from-DH AU; it starts deviating from the moment Voldemort confronts Snape in the Shrieking Shack.
Summary: AU. Voldemort has learned who the true master of the Elder Wand is, and he plans to kill Draco along with Snape. Harry is desperate to save them, because Dumbledore would have wanted him to. But with wild magic, Horcruxes, and Dark Marks all involved, Harry may have condemned all three of them to something worse than death.
Author’s Notes: This is One of Those Bonding Fics. It’s also One of Those Threesome Fics, and also One of Those Fics With Harry-in-Denial. If that sounds like what you’re looking for, then come right in. I’m sorry to say that I have absolutely no idea how long this will be, and it will also be irregularly updated, whenever I finish a major “part.”

Part One.

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Harry waited quietly outside the Ministry, his arms folded and his head bowed so that he could keep his slightly glamoured face out of the sight of anyone watching him. Severus had cast the glamour, which he knew more about than Harry did, but he had warned Harry that Aurors often watched for the telltale ripple around the cheeks and chin that would signal an illusion.

Ready? he asked Severus.

I would have told you if I was. Severus had used one of the toilet entrances that Harry, Ron, and Hermione had used to get into the Ministry during the war, and the bond steamed with his disgust at the frivolity of it. Right now, by concentrating, Harry could get flashes of sensations as he brushed off his robes and strode forwards under his own impeccable Polyjuice Potion, brewed from the hair of a Ministry employee they’d caught and subdued. You will know when the moment comes.

Harry flickered his attention to the left. And you’re almost ready, Draco?

Malfoys are always perfectly prepared. Harry wrinkled his nose at the stench of sour self-importance he was getting, but he could excuse it by telling himself that Draco was simply trying to get into his role. Draco wore his own face, and a pair of grey robes that were so perfectly pressed Harry thought the creases could probably cut. His hair was slicked back with some foul-smelling mixture that he had used before they left the house. Draco had explained that it was important to try and look the part of an accomplished politician before pretending to be one. Harry thought Draco took the part up with rather too much relish, considering that he would speak multiple lies to the Aurors today.

I heard that.

Harry flickered out a whip of apology, and then felt Severus’s murmured acknowledgment that he was in position. He knew Draco felt it as well, so he didn’t comment on that, simply saying to Draco, Good luck.

Draco stepped forwards to the fireplace in their home, which they had opened the Floo connection on for once. Their strengthening and reinforcing spells had done a better job of repairing the house than Severus had thought was possible, or Harry never would have consented to leave Draco alone there. With a murmur, he cast Floo powder into the flames and named the private hearth of a Malfoy ally in the Ministry that his father had told him about. Since Lucius had never told that ally he knew about the Floo connection, Draco had every reason to think that private address would still function.

Good luck, Harry told him again.

There was a fleeting sensation like a kiss on his cheek before Draco cast himself fully into his role. Harry shifted his position slightly and kept his eyes fastened on the phonebox that led into the Ministry’s front entrance, waiting.

*

Draco stepped out into an office paneled with expensive wood and possessing an expensive enchanted window directly across from the fireplace. It had to be expensive, because the sky was pure gold and filled with cavorting dragons that looked nothing like real ones. Most of the time, enchanted windows were based on real places; it took extra effort to pay an artist and an illusionist to collaborate on an imaginary vision.

His father’s ally, Hector Pethslew, scrambled to his feet at the sight of Draco, his mouth open. “M-Malfoy!” he stammered.

“I’m glad that you still recognize someone to whom you owe obligations.” Draco glanced around the office, ignoring the jumping impatience from Harry’s side of the bond, and curled his lip. It was something he would have done anyway, as part of the act, but in this case it took no effort. There was gold everywhere, which not only didn’t go well with the pale wood of the office but disfigured some truly beautiful antique cabinets and chairs. “Your doing, I suppose, Hector,” he drawled, turning back to Pethslew and doing his best to imitate his father’s aloof look. “You always did have the worst way of gilding the lily.”

Pethslew stared at the floor, his cheeks turning so red that Draco had to restrain a vicious chuckle. He could feel Harry in his mind immediately, extending sticky fingers to probe into Draco’s business. Are you sure that angering him is the best way to go about this?

Draco shook his head slightly to get the sticky feeling to recede, and then began to pace in a circle around his hapless ally. You don’t understand. Pethslew won’t get angry. He’s always been in thrall to my father as far as advice on power and fashion goes. He thinks that we know best because we have more money than he does. And most of the time, that’s correct, Draco finished, with another glance around and shudder at the over-embellished room.

It’s strange to hear you use “we” when you’re talking about Malfoys instead of about you and Severus and me.

Before Draco could respond, Pethslew looked up and whispered, “Thank you, sir. I won’t forget again. What do you need me to do for you?”

“Well,” Draco said, letting his eyelids droop as though he were thinking deeply, “I came to you in secret. I need a meeting with the Minister in private.” He leaned back against the wall and watched in satisfaction as Pethslew’s eyes widened.

“But-but there’s no way to do that!” Pethslew whispered.

“Oh, really?” Draco rubbed his nails against his robes and sighed, turning towards the fireplace. “Then I reckon that I’ll simply have to call on another of our numerous allies within the Ministry, and offer that person invitations to the next party that my mother hosts-”

“Wait, wait!” Pethslew churned after him, flapping his hands. “I didn’t-I mean, there might be a way, after all!” He got between Draco and the fireplace and gave him a sickly smile. “There is a way into the Minister’s office that not everyone knows about and which will keep us out of the sight of the Aurors.”

Draco raised his eyebrows. “Sometimes, Hector, you are smarter than you look,” he murmured.

The man beamed as if at a compliment. Severus snorted and sent an image of Neville Longbottom being praised for a potion down the bond to Draco. Harry was silent in disgust. Severus chuckled about that, too, and Harry lashed back at him. Draco ignored them both as best he could to concentrate on Pethslew as he stepped across to the wall of his office and examined a calendar there. Draco knew it would be a calendar of the last time he had asked for favors from certain people. There were those in the Ministry who were happy to help out people like Pethslew in return for money or other considerations, but they must not be asked too often, lest they get irritated or risk losing their comfortable positions.

“Yes, I can ask Kate,” Pethslew declared after a moment of staring at the wall. He turned back around and gave Draco a hopeful look. “It will take about five minutes to contact her and ask her if we can go through her office, sir. Is that all right?”

“Five minutes is…acceptable.” Draco drew out a watch he had deliberately carried along and looked at it, making Pethslew scurry.

I had no idea you were so good at this, Harry muttered in the back of his head. You never displayed any talents like this in school.

I was dealing with people there who had the inclination to treat me like just another student, Draco said, stung to honesty. Here, I’m dealing with people who respect my family. I do better when I have someone offering me a bit of what I want, so that I can build on it.

Harry fell unnervingly silent at that point, and floated slightly apart from the bond so that he could think about things. They had already discovered that the bonds were flexible even when fully opened; they didn’t have to share every thought with each other any more than they had when they were shut from Harry’s side, and they could come “closer” or go “farther” away so that their emotions would show up in the others’ minds with more or less clarity.

Draco shook his head. Let Harry think what he liked of Draco. Draco knew that this was the sort of acting he had been born to do, and he could do it better than anyone else. Severus could intimidate more people, but he did not have the inner grace and elegance that was necessary to carry off a deception like this.

Let me remind you that we are here so that you may establish a foothold in the Minister’s office, not enhance the Malfoy reputation, Severus snapped, the bond alive with thrashing crocodiles.

Let me remind you that I’m no longer your student to scold, Draco said, and offered Pethslew a thin smile as he glanced over his shoulder from the memo he was writing. Pethslew gave him a nervous one back and began to scribble again. I am your equal, your lover, and your co-conspirator.

Severus grunted. Draco ignored the temptation to worry about what that meant. Severus was never at his best when he was caught off-guard, the way that Draco and Harry had continually been doing to him since they discovered what their bond was fully capable of.

The memo fluttered off, and Pethslew came back to him, rubbing his hands together and bowing. “Could you give me a few tips on improving my office, sir?” he whispered. “I know that I’ve overdone the gold, but I’m never sure how much I should use.”

Draco condescended to look around at the furniture one more time. “Strip off all but the gold from the handles on that chest,” he decided at last, pointing at a trunk that had a few scratches in the wood of the lid and needed the gold to distract the viewer’s eye from them. “Anything else can stand on its own.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Draco stared over Pethslew’s head, because even he found this kind of fawning excessive, and said, “And your Kate will soon be here?”

“No,” Pethslew said, glancing over his shoulder nervously as he started to remove his wand and strip the gold from his furniture, “but she’ll send us permission to come through to her office if she can. She has a private Floo put in. That’ll move us much closer to the Minister’s office, and from there it’s just a matter of watching the Aurors on guard duty and their schedules.”

Draco hid a vicious chuckle. Pethslew, and people like him, never seemed to realize that the secrets they held could have been used to much more dangerous, and lucrative, effect. Presumably, it was for the best that the things they wanted were small and petty: praise, beauty, money.

Praise isn’t petty, Harry said, drifting back towards Draco and muffling his mental voice so that Severus couldn’t hear him. I told you about offering compliments to Severus and how much he wanted them. Have you done that?

Draco stiffened and shut the conversation in the part of his mind that was most distant from Severus. No, he hadn’t done that, but he didn’t appreciate Harry reminding him of his inadequacies at the very moment when he needed to feel most strong and confident.

I don’t mean to make you feel inadequate, Harry snapped, his words edged with thorns. Believe it or not, my purpose in bringing that up is to do some good to Severus, instead of trying to hurt you.

Draco didn’t have the chance to respond. A memo swooped back into Pethslew’s office, and he caught and read it anxiously. A moment later, he looked up at Draco with a relieved smile. “Kate says we can use her Floo,” he announced.

“Good.” Draco fastened the perfect expression of bored indifference on his face and moved forwards, tossing a bag of Galleons onto Pethslew’s desk as he went. “A small something for your assistance,” he added, when Pethslew gave him a questioning glance.

Then he had to put up with more bowing and babbling, of course. But it was worth it so that he could avoid thinking about what Harry had just said.

The bonds were open, but that didn’t mean that they were ready for absolute honesty. And, Draco thought, he could see many reasons for not exercising it.

*

“Good morning, Mrs. Goodwin!”

Severus had chosen the guise of a woman who hobbled in alone to work every morning and seemed to spend most of her time working on paperwork in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office. He had assumed that meant she was unpopular.

Of course, relying on common sense meant that she was apparently everyone’s favorite aunty, and numerous people stopped to say hello to him as he hobbled along the way to Goodwin’s office, leaning on a cane.

Luckily, Severus had thought up a simple, plausible excuse to ensure that he didn’t have to speak to all these people and possibly get the tone wrong; he would certainly get names wrong. He shook his head at each greeting, adopted a doleful expression, and touched Goodwin’s throat, mouthing the words, I’ve lost my voice.

The offers of sympathy, pats on the back, and lozenges, and promises to run around that evening and bring him any number of good dinners and healing spells were still extreme, but not nearly as annoying as dealing with extraneous conversations would have been. Soon enough Severus was ensconced in Goodwin’s office, and he had firmly shut the door on the last offer of help, mouthing in an exaggerated fashion that he thought sitting alone in a small, dark room would be the best for him.

Accordingly, he left the lights off and lit his wand alone. Then he closed his eyes and whispered the spell that he had studied in extensive detail over the last few days, as Harry, Draco, and he planned the best way to reach the Minister and convince him to leave them alone, as well as find out what he knew.

Severus had chosen Goodwin because, as he had been able to learn with some gentle Legilimency on Weasley combined with his own knowledge of the Ministry, her office was directly beneath Shacklebolt’s. Now it was time to take the step that would help bring all three of them, spectacularly, into private conference with the Minister.

“Fero nos.”

Bright tendrils of light snaked away from his wand, blue and purple, but changing to yellow and green as they sprang upwards. Severus could have done this from a distance, as well, but the power needed to create the spell was already making drops of sweat spring out on his cheeks and nose, even given the magic he could share with Harry and Draco. It was easier to shorten the distance and make the route as direct as possible, hence the office beneath the Minister’s.

Are you all right? Harry’s voice was soft and anxious in his ears, thrumming through the bones of his skull.

Severus grunted acknowledgment and went on drawing magic. He didn’t have the strength to answer right now. He hoped Harry would understand and respect that, rather than growing offended.

The sense of Harry’s presence didn’t draw further away, so Severus decided that he was waiting, ready to offer help if it was needed. That increased both Severus’s comfort and his determination to succeed on his own. He had brewed potions while dying Muggles lay not far away. If he could not cast a spell that was simple in comparison and in an environment that gave him no distractions, then he was not worthy of the name of wizard.

The light above his wand was spitting and struggling now; Severus felt, though he could not see it, that the ends of the tendrils were encountering magical barriers around the Minister’s office. He bared his teeth and drew on yet more magic from the bonds.

Take it, Harry urged him softly, doing something to the bond so that even more power rolled smoothly away from him and down the links that bound him to Severus. Severus could sense Harry’s patient delight in helping like this; the image that came to him was of a horse bowing its head and shoulders to drag an enormous load up a cliff, never mind the strain on its muscles. Take all you need. I’m asking you to do the hardest thing.

Only because the Minister likely has wards tuned to your magical signature, Severus retorted.

If Draco and I shouldn’t put ourselves down and diminish our own capacities, then neither should you, Harry said, his anger closing a pair of iron jaws on Severus’s hand.

Attend to what you are doing, Severus snapped back.

Because standing around outside the Ministry under a glamour requires a tenth of the concentration and effort that you’re using?

One more magical barrier, and this time the spell lashed and quivered, sending a sympathetic tension down Severus’s arms. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to stop speaking to Harry so that he could reach through the defensive wards. The whole point of this spell was that it would allow them to move around safely inside the Ministry, even once their enemies were aware of them, despite the anti-Apparition defenses. Compared to the ancient integrity of those defenses, which Severus had not even wished to attempt breaching, a few personal wards were nothing.

He could do this. He was strong.

Harry was silent, but he handed Severus a memory suddenly: Severus coping with Neville Longbottom in his Potions class after yet another melted cauldron. He had used harsh words, but he had not lashed out with magic or hands the way he so sorely wanted to. He could control himself. He was coiled strength. Harry had always known it, and he reinforced Severus’s efforts to convince himself with his own conviction, as steady as any boulder.

The spell pierced the Minister’s last barrier. They were through.

Severus gasped and sagged back against Goodwin’s desk. Harry immediately surrounded him with wordless sympathy and thanks, which felt rather like a cat rubbing its warm head against Severus’s hands. For a long moment, Severus allowed himself to enjoy that, as well as Draco’s belated congratulations. Late though he had come to the bond, Harry seemed more skilled at balancing the outer and inner occurrences he was experiencing, while Draco often needed to concentrate most fully on what was happening outside his head.

Severus recovered himself quickly enough and listened through the bonds. Draco was in position, in an office close to Shacklebolt’s. At the moment, he was timing the rounds of the Aurors who were assigned to keep guard in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement itself. When he was ready, he would move to Shacklebolt and request a private interview. If necessary, Harry and Severus would lend him the strength to crush anyone who objected.

Severus then turned his head and listened with his physical ears, but he could detect no one coming nearer to Goodwin’s office. He nodded sharply. With any luck, his pretense of sickness and the earliness of the hour would keep everyone away from their favorite aunty for a minute or two yet.

Your turn, he told Harry.

*

Harry spent only a single moment shivering. He was not sure that he had the strength to cast this spell. Part of him thought that Draco or Severus should have been chosen to do it.

But Draco was needed to infiltrate the Ministry using his Malfoy contacts, and Severus had been the one who most easily mastered the sheer effort involved in the Bearing Spell. That left only one role open to Harry.

There was a young man not long ago, Severus’s thoughtful voice murmured into Harry’s mind, who had something to say about deprecating one’s own abilities.

Harry smiled shakily. The dry tone Severus had used was the right one to distract him from his stupid thoughts and make him concentrate on what was important. He stood up straighter. He knew the spell’s incantation, and he knew he would have the reserves of magical strength from the bond to draw upon if he needed it. Draco had barely used his magic yet.

Harry drew out a square of parchment from his robe pockets and unfolded it slowly. Luckily, there should be no one who thought it unusual for someone near the Ministry to be frowning intensely at a piece of paper. Harry held it there for some time, letting his fingers learn the feel of every crease and his eyes the sharp shape of every letter, even though he knew perfectly well what was written there.

Frederic Dominus.

That was another reason he was here, he reminded himself. Of the three of them in the bond, he was the only one who knew who Dominus was and had seen him, and therefore the one best-suited to creating the spell that should, hopefully, compel their enemy to confess.

This was not Dark magic, he thought as he raised a hand. Severus, at least, would not permit it to be called so. It was old magic, magic that relied more on the idea of sympathy between a person and a representation of that person than on the idea of imposing one’s will through an incantation. It was the same sort of magic that drove the Polyjuice Potion, in fact, where one hair could stand for the whole of someone else’s body.

“Veritas, Frederic Dominus,” Harry breathed, pouring all his concentration in three directions-into the paper he held, into the letters he saw, into the words he spoke. Uniting at least three of the five senses was imperative for magic like this. “Malo veritatem.”

The magic, when it stirred in him, thrilled and disturbed him at once. It was like a rush of knives along his veins. Then it curled out of him, and the paper burst into clear, soundless flames. Harry tensed instinctively, but the fire didn’t burn him, the way Severus had said it wouldn’t.

He watched as the fire died. When it faded, he was holding a soft white powder that sparkled when he poured it from one hand to the other.

And it had been less hard than he had thought it would be.

Harry opened his eyes, concentrating on the weight of the powder in his hand, and waved his wand carefully above it, to create a small silvery dome that would contain it and keep it from blowing away. Then he turned towards the Ministry and let his shoulders fall in relief as he sent an acknowledgment of his position through the bond to Draco and Severus.

I am ready.

*

And so am I, Draco thought, as he lifted his hand and knocked on Minister Shacklebolt’s door.

It hadn’t been hard after all to time the Auror guards’ schedules. If and when Colben was elected Minister, Draco thought he would have a word with her about not relying on her predecessor’s security procedures.

A weighty pause came from behind the door, as if to say that anyone should know better than to interrupt Shacklebolt the Confused. Draco settled his shoulders and waited.

Finally, a heavy voice that Draco didn’t recognize-though Harry had heard it a time or two-said, “Come in.”

Draco opened the door, flinching a little in expectation of tingling wards meeting his skin. Nothing happened. Severus’s spell had taken care of that.

Of course it did, Harry and Severus said at the same time, as Draco stepped into the office.

I apologize. Well done, Severus, Draco said, and, as he had hoped, the shock of the compliment shut them both up so that he could concentrate on what he was doing.

Shacklebolt sat behind a large, dark desk that Draco appreciated at once; it was made of purest ebony. Something like that would look fine in their house, once they had made the final repairs and secured the ground against any further use of an Earthquake Tunnel. The Minister turned his head towards the door, his eyes so wide and weary that Draco felt a small twinge of sympathy. He pictured the way that Shacklebolt had kidnapped Harry, and his sympathy disappeared.

Of course, a swirl of it remained in the back of his mind from Harry. Draco mentally rolled his eyes, and Harry responded with a wordless snarl.

The man sitting across from Shacklebolt in a large chair was blond, that sort of dirty, sandy color on the edge of brown that made Draco feel insulted on behalf of all the real blond wizards out there. His jaw was lined with stubble, his brown eyes hard and wary. He started to stand when he saw Draco’s face.

That’s Dominus! Harry hissed.

No need to whisper, he can’t hear you, Draco said back smartly, and stepped up the timing of their plan. They had thought that he would need to coax and con Shacklebolt into summoning Dominus, dropping hints of what had happened but never the full truth until they had the man in front of them. Now that he was here, Draco saw no reason not to move immediately.

“Minister,” he said, “I have words for you concerning the treatment that your Aurors subjected our home to, on Dominus’s command.” He bobbed his head at the standing man, who looked stunned by Draco’s recognition of him, and turned back to face Shacklebolt. He saw a sharp gleam in those weary eyes that hadn’t been there a moment before. “And the first two words are: Fero nos.”

*

Lightning crackled down through the ceiling, grabbed Severus’s wrists, and tugged him up and through.

He barely caught a glimpse of more bolts racing away in search of Harry before the lightning turned his body into a transparent structure that it filled like a glass statue and he slid through walls and floors-and wards-as if he didn’t exist. Severus found himself catching his breath with a savage joy. He had known how the spell would work, of course, or he would not have cast it, but it was one thing to know that and another to find himself whirling through others’ defenses.

He had barely begun to dream of all the destructive things that he might use this strength for when he landed in the Minister’s office.

The next moment, Harry landed beside him. He might have fallen over, his arms windmilling the way they did when he tried to step through a Floo and keep his balance, but Severus placed a hand on the small of his back and steadied him. Harry promptly turned the bond between them molten with thanks as he stepped forwards and fixed a keen eye on Shacklebolt and Dominus.

“Who are these people, Malfoy?” Shacklebolt asked, his voice taut.

Of course. Severus produced a small vial from his pocket and drank his specially-made antidote to the Polyjuice; he preferred not to wait for it to wear off. Harry passed his wand across his face and banished the glamour.

While they were occupied with that, Dominus tried to launch a curse at them. Draco was the one who had thought of that and layered a thin barrier through the air around them, transparent but strong and flexible enough to bounce any spells back at the one who tried to use them. Dominus flinched and ducked as his curse sang past his ear and buried itself in the wall behind his left shoulder.

Harry bathed Draco in tickling warmth, and Severus sent a wordless pulse of approval. Draco’s cheeks turned pink, but he fought for-and largely maintained-a haughty mask.

Shacklebolt sat up and examined them more attentively. “You said you brought word of an attack,” he said to Draco. “But why should I believe you rather than Dominus? He has served me faithfully for years, and even now he tried only to protect me.”

“I continue my faithful service.” Dominus straightened up, as ruffled as a chicken that someone had tried to step on. “Sir, these…people are dangerous to you, and to your policies and your chance of guiding a united wizarding Britain. It is for the best if we simply dismiss them. But as they are too powerful to do that, permit me to arrest them.” His wand twitched in his hand as his mouth widened into a shark’s smile. “There is nothing I would like more.”

“I’m certain you would, Dominus,” Harry drawled. His voice was so much like Severus’s that Severus suffered the sudden shock of recognition and knowledge that Harry had been watching him much more closely than he had imagined. “However, there is a small matter of an Earthquake Tunnel spell and the attack that you engineered on our home first. The attack that was supposed to kill us, I think, so that you could leave Shacklebolt free to act without my ‘restraining’ influence?”

“I have no idea what you mean.” Dominus was a good liar, smooth and natural, his eyes widening in outrage that did not look false.

Harry raised his left hand, which he had kept down near his side, and blew on the dome that covered his palm. It vanished at once, and the ash rose from his hand in a swirl and blew towards Dominus. He swatted at it, then tried to conjure a small wind that would dissipate it, but it simply twisted around his precautions in a spiral and ended up fastened all over his robes and skin in a glinting coat.

For a moment, Severus thought that he heard Harry’s voice sighing, “Veritas.” Then it was over, and Harry turned and bowed solemnly to Shacklebolt.

“I used sympathetic magic to create a spell that would force him to tell the truth,” Harry said. “It doesn’t use anything Dark, simply his name written on a piece of paper. You can ask him about the attack now.”

Shacklebolt stretched his hands in front of him, cracking the knuckles. He looked slow and thoughtful, as if he didn’t want to move too fast. Severus could understand the feeling. Things had changed so rapidly around the man in the last several months that it was a wonder he could act at all.

I don’t think that’s the case, Draco objected. I think he simply got paralyzed with indecision.

That’s still understandable, Harry thought, and then he and Draco began to bicker quietly in the back of their heads. Severus, who was more interested in what Shacklebolt would decide than the childish arguments of his bondmates, focused on the man in front of him.

Shacklebolt cocked his head meditatively. “And if you are lying,” he said, “either about the spell or about the attack, then Frederic should simply be able to tell me that he had nothing to do with it.” He turned to Dominus, whose face had begun to turn dangerously red. Severus watched his bouncing wand hand and drew his own wand to counter any curse that he might cast. “Well, Frederic? Is what they say true? Were you involved at all in the attack on their house?”

Dominus flushed more, and Severus heard a faint grinding sound that was probably him trying to keep his teeth shut so that the truth wouldn’t burst past them. But in the end, it was no use, and Dominus bowed his head, his face bright with humiliation. “I chose to send Aurors to attack their house,” he said. “With an Earthquake Tunnel and Blinding Glamours, in the hopes that the collapse of the house would kill them and no one would find out the truth until too late.”

Shacklebolt uttered a sigh that seemed to take most of the air in his body. Dominus tensed. Severus continued watching his wand hand. Harry and Draco were now arguing about whether Shacklebolt’s jealousy of Severus excused his actions or not.

“I had wondered,” Shacklebolt murmured. “When certain servants of mine reported that there were late-night meetings that some of the Aurors attended, and most of them the youngest and newest Aurors, the most easily influenced…I wondered.” He passed a hand over his face and then fixed his eyes on Dominus again. “Why did you do this? You must know that I had acted against Potter and his bondmates numerous times and failed. What made you assume that you would be any more successful?”

An invisible fishhook seemed to drag the answers out of Dominus’s throat while he struggled to retain them. At one point he actually put his hands on his neck and bore down as if he could stop the words, but of course that did nothing. Severus felt a moment’s smugness. Most people were astonished at the strength of spells that they hadn’t encountered before. “We saw that you were constrained by your fear of him, hesitating and wondering if you dared do this, or that, or this other thing, while you knew that he supported a different candidate for Minister. And we thought that you hadn’t been direct enough. We want you as Minister, sir. Not Potter. Not someone Potter chose. He did his deed. That’s it. He’s done. Other people should guide the wizarding world now, people who understand it better.”

By the end of that speech, Dominus was no longer struggling against his own words. In fact, he had leaned forwards, one beseeching hand extended, as though he believed he could convert Shacklebolt by sheer force of will.

“Certain deeds don’t simply end.” Shacklebolt folded his hands on the desk in front of him. He looked, strangely, as if he were enjoying himself. Severus’s own astonishment bounced back into the bonds and focused Draco and Harry’s attention, so that they looked at Shacklebolt again. “Their influence continues rebounding down the years. Headmaster Dumbledore didn’t lose his influence a year after he defeated Grindelwald.”

“Headmaster Dumbledore was an adult at the time,” Dominus said insistently, “with considerable political expertise and magical power. And he would never have compromised with Death Eaters.”

Severus had to stifle the temptation to point out that there were no Death Eaters at that time. He doubted that that particular point of pedantry would be appreciated. He felt Draco reacting much the same way, while Harry stirred with some enormous secret that it seemed he wanted to tell, and then subsided. Listening to the edges of the secret, Severus thought it concerned Grindelwald and Dumbledore, but he was not sure that Harry could possibly know what it seemed he knew.

“We deal the hand we are dealt,” Shacklebolt said simply. “And I am not pleased with the one that you tried to deal me, Frederic, making me indirectly responsible for murder.” He shook his head. “I already tried defiance and manipulation and simple kidnapping, and nothing that I did ever worked. So compromise is the only thing that will. Not murder.” He looked Dominus in the eye. “Even I drew the line there.”

Dominus whirled, his wand coming into his hand. Severus found himself tensing with threefold the amount of his own nervousness, but he could not tell where the attack was aimed and so he could not tell what he must do to counteract it.

*

That was all right. Harry knew.

Instincts, together with Ledbetter’s training, rushed into his head. Ledbetter had been in the Ministry longer than Dominus. He’d had the training of him, and the way Dominus whirled and flung out his right arm in a dramatic motion was a feint, meant to draw attention to his body and away from the spell he was about to fire.

Harry watched the wand instead, and saw the way that Dominus pointed it straight at him and the way his lips moved in the Burning Joints Curse. The spell was nonverbal, but Ledbetter had also taught Harry that many wizards were unable to give up their habit of mouthing the words. Look at their mouths closely enough, and you could make out the incantation-at least enough to defend yourself intelligently.

Harry dropped to his knees and cast a shimmering Shield Charm that spread out and covered himself, Draco, and Severus, in case he was wrong about the aim. A bit of the shield also spread towards Kingsley. Just for fun, and because he knew it would impress Kingsley, Harry drew on their shared reservoir of magic to change the color of the charm. It manifested as a turquoise glow in the air instead of a silver one, and the Burning Joints Curse bounced off it and vanished in a splash of black air.

Harry rose back to his feet and nodded at Kingsley. “Your principles do you credit, Minister,” he said, the words bleeding into his head from Severus’s; they were the ones Severus would have liked to speak but was too shocked to say at the moment. “Your advisers, however, do not.”

Kingsley had gone pale, too, but he stood up steadily enough, with a hand on the desk, and cast a Body-Bind on Dominus. He fell over with a crash. Kingsley cast another spell that Harry recognized as one that would muffle Dominus’s hearing, and then turned around. His voice was sharp and urgent.

“Isn’t there any way we can reconcile?”

Harry looked at him steadily for long moments, and as more of them passed, he could feel Severus and Draco stirring like snakes in the back of his head. They were worried that he would offer a compromise to Kingsley, and they didn’t know how they would deal with it if he did. They were thinking about Colben, and what Ron and Hermione had discovered about her, and about the long process of getting the electoral campaign launched, and about Kingsley’s general lack of trustworthiness and how they could never believe him even if he gave his word.

But Harry had known Kingsley better than either of them, and he looked into the man’s eyes and judged the sincerity he found there.

“I may be able to trust that you won’t attack me again,” he said. “But that’s different from coming back to the Ministry or supporting you in your office.” He paused thoughtfully. There was the possibility that Kingsley could answer his questions about Colben, since surely his advisers would have done research on her when they announced her candidacy. At the very least, it would be interesting to see what he said. “Of course, we have a concern about Colben that you might be able to answer…”

Harry! Draco squawked in his head.

We do not want him to know! Severus screeched.

You sound like parrots, both of you, Harry said, and left them to deal with that as Kingsley nodded eagerly.

“What information I can give you on her, I will,” Kingsley promised.

Harry almost smiled. He was sure that Kingsley would mention an embarrassing truth if he knew it. It was the most likely way-as he saw it-to convince Harry to adopt his side again.

“We had heard that she was the daughter of a Muggleborn mother and a pure-blood father,” he said. “But we can’t find any records of their marriage. Also, it seems that least one Colben ancestor declared he would disinherit his children if any of them married Muggleborns. We wondered if Colben was telling the truth about her mother.”

Kingsley’s mouth tightened for long moments, and his eyes narrowed. Harry watched him, and resisted the nudging in his mind from both Severus and Draco, who wanted him to do something unforgivable to Kingsley while he was distracted.

Do you want his help or not? Harry finally demanded in exasperation, when the nudging had grown intolerable and several seconds of Kingsley’s internal debate had passed.

He’s going to decide against us, Draco said. And we owe him punishment for all the things that he’s done in the past. At least you ought to ask him what hold Huxley has over him, so that he can really make us amends.

Sometimes you have no sense of politics at end, which I don’t understand when you’re normally so brilliant, Harry told him with a swirl of disgust. We can’t push too far or too fast. He’s the one making the gestures of reconciliation now, and I want to keep it that way. Threaten him with Huxley and he’ll think that we’re the ones who have something to apologize for.

Severus’s nudging stopped, and he held himself aloof from the argument. Draco subsided with a grumble as Kingsley gave a small nod.

“We discovered the same thing,” he said, “and thought we could hold it over her. Then we discovered that Colben’s parents were simply not married in this country. The record of their wedding is on file with the French Ministry.”

Harry relaxed with a sigh, while Draco set off doubts like fireworks in the back of his mind and Severus’s cool, watching presence retreated a bit further. “Thank you, sir. We were worried about that.”

Kingsley shook his head, a faint smile ringing his mouth. “It’s an obvious weakness. We would have found it and started crying it up during the first week if there was any chance that she wasn’t who she had said she was.” Then he shifted his feet and opened his mouth in a way that Harry knew wouldn’t produce anything he wanted to hear; the reporters looked the same way when they were about to make a request for an exclusive interview.

Harry braced himself to endure it anyway. Kingsley had been far more reasonable than Harry had expected when confronted with treachery in his own ranks.

“I must ask you,” Kingsley said, “if this is necessary. I have apologized, and I am willing to make an Unbreakable Vow that I will neither attack you nor allow anyone in the Ministry to attack you again.”

The qualifier! Draco said, and Harry had the mental image of a cat pouncing with its legs extended, claws gleaming on the ends of its paws.

Yes, Draco, I heard that, thank you, Harry said dryly, and then he told Kingsley, “But you can’t guarantee that it won’t happen thanks to people outside of the Ministry. Or that the Ministry will respond when it does, considering the corruption among the Aurors and Huxley.”

Kingsley stared at him. Then he bowed his head, eyes full of pain. “We might be political allies despite that,” he said. “I do not think that you can rely on Brynhildr Swanfair or Estella Colben to provide protection for you.”

“Neither of them is powerful in the Ministry yet,” Harry answered. “They’re only one faction, not the power setting itself up as neutral in pursuit of laws and justice. If it turned out they couldn’t protect me after Colben became Minister, then I would turn on them as well. I don’t expect you to make sure I’m perfectly safe. I do expect you to punish those who show themselves willing to murder me and my bondmates when they expose those intentions.” He paused, then added, “Are you even going to fully punish the Aurors that Dominus tricked into following him?”

“It would be unfair when they were tricked,” Kingsley whispered.

Harry nodded. “And that is why I think it best to throw my lot in with those who might have more of a commitment to protecting me, if only because they owe their political strength to me. They might not be able to get rid of all the corrupt people, but at least they can shuffle them around into less dangerous positions.”

“Do not trust Swanfair,” Kingsley said, his hand tightening on the edge of the desk. “She will turn on you if she can.”

“I know, but thank you for the warning.” Harry gave him a small salute. “I wish you well, Kingsley. Just not well enough to give you more power over my life.” He nodded to him and then turned and walked out of the office with a feeling of profound relief. Draco invoked the Fero nos spell when they were in the corridor, and they swooped back through the building to Harry’s original position outside the Ministry.

“I’m glad that’s over,” Harry muttered, and ran a hand through his hair.

“You were…impressive,” Draco whispered.

Surprised, Harry turned and looked at him. Draco looked back at him with some nervousness, some defiance, and some true appreciation.

And Harry wondered how difficult it must be for Draco, who had fewer acknowledged talents than Severus and had spent the last two years before this one in a state of intense fear, to say something like that to him.

I think I should do something nice for him.

I am in agreement, Severus drawled in the back of his head, carefully firming up the walls of the “tunnel” that contained his voice so that Draco couldn’t hear them, and willing to help. His birthday is in a few days.

Harry shivered. I think that’s enough time.

“What are you talking about?” Draco looked suspiciously back and forth between the two of them.

Severus put a hand on his shoulder and pressed down. “You will find out in due time,” he said, quietly, repressively, and Draco accepted it.

Harry felt a burst of joy and wonder travel through him. He could never have done something like that. He was bonded to, and literally surrounded by, two people who could do things that he couldn’t and who continually surprised him.

Life was marvelous.

And because of that realization, he knew what he wanted to do for Draco.

If he could simply be ready by the fifth of June.

Part Twenty-Six.