Chapter Thirty-Two of 'Made of Common Clay'- Would Have Read the Story

[lomonaaeren]

Chapter Thirty-One.

Title: Made of Common Clay (32/48)
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 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.

Chapter One.

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Thirty-Two—Would Have Read the Story

Harry chuckles as he glances out of the mouth of the Apparition point into Diagon Alley. There were wards up that were supposed to resonate with Dark magic and alert the Aurors if someone using it Apparated into this little alley. Harry tore them down, although they wouldn’t have worked anyway. He hasn’t used Dark magic here.

Yet.

Harry strokes the bat. It turns its head and raises its wings at him. Harry nods and points at the alley with two fingers.

“I’m going to walk through the alley with a few glamours on. Go and confuse their minds so that they’ll be even more terrified of me after they see me.”

The bat takes off with nothing more than a few quiet flaps. Harry begins casting the glamours that will cover his face with soot and make his robes smoke as he watches. No one shrieks yet. The bat can control its shadow, then. He thought so, after watching its first flight around the vault in the Black safehouse, but it’s always nice to have confirmation.

When he’s covered with the reek and smoke of what will look like other battles, he steps out into the Alley and calls quietly, “Now.”

The bat spreads its wings and swerves back into view, although Harry only sees it because he’s looking for it. It’s high enough to look like an unremarkable bird from below. And its shadow swoops across the alley and falls on the wizards and witches who are walking by with bags full of food and clothes.

There’s a set of horrified shrieks immediately. They fall on the ground, staring at their hands and looking around with terrified, confused expressions the way Harry did in the vault. Harry plods past them, crouching down so that he can look into about every other face.

“I am the Dark Lord Potter,” he says, keeping his voice low so that he’s less likely to burst into laughter. “And I am going to burn the world.”

The words sink into their minds and throb there. Harry made a few more tests with Bill and Fleur, and that’s what happens when someone speaks while the bat is circling. He chuckles nastily—they’ll probably remember that as a maniacal laugh—and turns and ducks into another alley that he Apparates from.

He goes only a short distance, and the bat circles down and lands on his shoulder. Harry watches as it snaps its wings closed, and nods. He didn’t test what happens when the bat flies away instead of circling again to remove the fear it cast with its shadow, but it’s entirely possible that his enemies will also decide that he’s cast some horrible curse.

Harry can live with that.

*

“The articles are getting worse.”

Harry peers over the top of his teacup at Luna. He didn’t expect her to be his first visitor of the morning, when he’s sharing the safehouse with Bill’s family, but it’s fine. “Which ones? Are they ones that we didn’t expect?”

Luna mournfully lays Witch Weekly down in front of him. Harry leans over, expecting to see his photograph and an article printed vilifying him. Then again, that’s what they want, so it wouldn’t make sense for Luna to be so upset over it.

Instead, he sees a dark curtain of trees with nothing showing in it, while the headline proclaims, CENTAURS OF THE FORBIDDEN FOREST: HOW MUCH CAN WE REALLY TRUST THEM NEAR OUR CHILDREN?

Harry sighs and massages his forehead. His scar isn’t hurting, but in a way, he wishes it was. Voldemort was a simpler problem to solve than the tangled prejudices of the wizarding world. “All right. Do you want to take all the globes now and fence off those areas that the centaurs live in so they’re kept safe from the war?”

Luna nods. Her eyes are burning, but as Harry watches, they also fill with tears. “I don’t understand,” she whispers. “You didn’t say anything about the centaurs in your speeches or your attacks. Why are they turning against them?”

“Sensationalism. Because they’re wondering if I’ll go after Hogwarts next, and that turns their minds to wondering whether there’s a threat close to their children.” Harry reaches out and presses Luna’s arm, and is a little unnerved when she presses in to his side in response. “Did they say something about unicorns, too?”

“Near the end of the article. It’s not the main focus, but they’re wondering if they’re dangerous.”

Harry sits up. “Then you need to take the globes and get them fenced off, now. I assume the centaurs and unicorns have agreed to be protected?”

“They’ve agreed. But I thought we would have more time.”

“I know. But we don’t. So I want you to start moving, Luna. I’m going to give them something else to focus on.”

“But what? If acting like a Dark Lord hasn’t, and even using Dark artifacts hasn’t made them—”

“Trust me,” Harry says, and glares at the article, noticing that the byline of the reporter isn’t one that he’s ever heard of, “they’re going to pay attention.”

*

Harry moves slowly into the Ministry under his modified Disillusionment Charm. He also has the spells that will prevent anyone from hearing or smelling him, although he honestly isn’t sure that he needs the last. There aren’t any werewolves or other people with sensitive noses working in the Ministry. We couldn’t have creatures holding jobs around normal people, could we?

Flames try to spring up around Harry’s hands. Harry grits his teeth and wills them down. His temper has to be kept in check.

Then he remembers what he’s come here to do, and he manages to smile as he finds a place in a lift that isn’t crowded.

The corridor to Kingsley’s office is mostly empty, not unusual for ten-o’clock on a Friday morning. Harry strolls down it and pauses with his hand a few centimeters from the door. Have they added any new traps?

It is, in fact, possible they have, so Harry wraps his fist with a soft cocoon of magic-dispelling charms before he knocks. It means that he’ll get rid of the traps without setting off the alarms that usually sound when they’re disarmed.

“Come in!”

Harry listens carefully as he opens the door. He can’t hear any other voices in the office, but he’s not going to take chances. It’s always possible that there is someone there and they were being quiet.

Kingsley looks puzzled when the door swings open without revealing anyone, and he actually gets up from behind his desk and goes to look out into the corridor. Harry almost sighs as he steps behind him. Did no one get any training? He realizes that not everyone’s been through a war, and that means they won’t have the instincts he does, but he’d hope they wouldn’t fall for a trick this simple.

He lays the wand against Kingsley’s throat and drops the Disillusionment Charm. “Surprise!”

At least Kingsley tries to jab him in the ribs with an elbow, and when that doesn’t work, tosses his head and tries to break Harry’s nose with the back of his skull. It doesn’t work, either, but it shows that he has some elementary grasp of tactics. Harry dodges it, too, and then lays the wand harder against Kingsley’s skin. “No,” he says softly when Kingsley goes for his own wand. “I’m going to have to insist that you don’t do that, sir.”

“I’m not going to beg for my life if you intend to use me as some insane blood sacrifice,” Kingsley says, staring at the far wall of his office.

Harry blinks. “It’s usually the Dark Lord who makes the sacrifice that’s insane, not the actual person he’s killing.”

Kingsley actually turns his head a fraction before Harry tightens the grip on the wand and he faces forwards again. But Harry saw the stunned look on his face, and he knows that he’s slipping. He has to act the part of the insane Dark Lord, no matter if he’s surprised by intelligence or odd diction on the part of his enemies.

He cackles into Kingsley’s ear, and feels the man relax. Now the world is back to normal, and Kingsley doesn’t have to deal with words that sound as if Harry might have a mind or a heart left that isn’t consumed by Dark magic.

“I’m going to walk towards the door,” Harry says, in as evil a voice as he possibly can. He can’t make it as cold and high as Voldemort’s, but damn if he isn’t going to try. “And you’re going to come with me, and you’re going to tell people beyond the door to react very calmly. Is that understood?”

“Understood.” Kingsley pauses a moment. “Dark Lord Potter.”

Harry takes a step, and Kingsley moves with him. He’s perfectly balanced all the while, his head lowered a little as he looks for holes in Harry’s defenses. Harry is once again impressed, although maybe Kingsley has an advantage over the rest of the fools in that he was a combat Auror and part of the Order of the Phoenix.

They reach the corridor. The first person who comes around the corner is a trainee Auror that Harry used to teach basic incantations to; he was too stubborn to learn much. His mouth is opening now, and he’s on the verge of dropping his teacup on the floor.

“Mouth shut!” Harry barks, and jabs his wand into Kingsley’s throat again, making him catch his breath painfully. He remembers to cackle a second later.

The trainee Auror does shut his mouth, but he doesn’t maintain his grip on the teacup. It shatters, and a few doors fly open and people come running out, the ones who aren’t on cases. They stare at him in horror, and brandish more teacups and quills at him.

“Hold still,” Kingsley tells them. They all freeze in place. Harry carefully walks Kingsley down the corridor and to the lifts that will take them to the Atrium.

“What do you really hope to accomplish with this, Harry?” Kingsley asks, in the same kind of calm voice that everyone was taught to use in those classes on negotiating with hostage-takers. “Do you think that the Ministry will give you everything you want because you threaten one life?”

“No, they’ll give me everything I want because I’m Dark Lord Potter and I’ll collapse the building if they don’t!” Harry gives another cackle, and feels Kingsley stiffen and then shudder in front of him. Harry is content. If he slipped up with the comment on Kingsley’s wording before, at least this time it’s clear that Kingsley believes him.

“You wouldn’t do that, Harry. All that loss of innocent life…”

“That doesn’t give a shit about Muggleborns. That doesn’t give a shit about magical creatures. That dumped the burden of saving the wizarding world from the last Dark Lord on the shoulders of a ¬one-year-old.”

Kingsley swallows, hearing the truth in Harry’s words—truth because Harry is bitter about those things and thinks the Ministry is full of bloody adults who should have bloody well known better. “Can we—is there something we can offer you that would make up for that? Signed confessions? New trials for the Muggleborn criminals in Azkaban?”

“Not unless you can change the past.”

The lift opens, and Harry steps out into the Atrium. There are circles of people waiting for them, some Aurors, others Ministry officials, and Harry sees a few people in Sun Chamber robes. He snorts. He supposes they’ve given up on any vestige of keeping their little pure-blood club secret.

Kingsley tries to jab his leg backwards into Harry’s groin. Harry blocks it and tells him, “If you want to lose that leg, by all means keep doing that. I didn’t know you aspired to imitate Mad-Eye Moody.”

Kingsley tenses, but is still otherwise. Harry looks at the Sun Chamber people. “Yes?”

“Lord Potter, Lord Black, please wait.”

Honeywell pushes forwards. She looks like she’s been crying. Harry grimaces a little. Of course they would find the one traditionalist he doesn’t completely despise to talk to him. “Yes?”

“You have to see that what you’re doing is wrong,” Honeywell whispers. “I know that you’ve been given much to be aggrieved about, but please. Consider the loss of innocent life, and how you might make a difference if you let them live.”

“How could I make a difference?” Harry will let her talk for a bit. It’ll take him some time to gather strength for the next spell he needs to cast, the one that he sneaked into the Ministry to cast in the first place.

Honeywell stands straight and proud, as if she’s glad that he asked. “You could convince others that Lords and Ladies are good people to follow, after all. If you make restitution to the families of those you killed, and paid fines that the laws would require, and issued apologies for your dramatics in Diagon Alley, then I think there are many who would follow you.”

Harry only shakes his head. She’s not the smartest woman he’s ever met, but she’s trying to do good and be kind in her limited way. It’s telling, though, that even now, her priorities are those of a Lady of the Sun Chamber. “I’m to apologize for that? Instead of not being able to get justice for Muggleborns?”

Honeywell blinks and stares at him. “What do Muggleborns have to do with the families of those you killed? I don’t think the Shafiq line has any Muggleborn members. Or the Parkinson family. Maybe some half-bloods.”

Harry sighs. His body is starting to ache with the gathered magic. Kingsley stands a little further away from him, as if sensing that. “Please move out of the way, Honeywell.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want you to get sluiced with the fluids.”

Some people stare at him with their mouths open, and Kingsley seizes the chance, again, to try and make a dash for it. Harry shakes his head and casts the illusion that his gathered magic is fuel for. He has to cast it wandlessly and nonverbally, or it wouldn’t be such a big deal.

The illusion closes in around Kingsley like a net, and makes him vanish from sight. At the same time, Harry casts a Stunner under its cover. However, the illusion on the surface makes it look like Kingsley has exploded, rent limb from limb by Harry’s magic. Other Ministry workers flinch back with a shriek from the blood and guts and brains that threaten to “land” on them.

They’re staring at him, eyes finally as wide with fear as he always deserved. Harry bows to them and then shoots out a hand. He’s Levitating the illusion-disguised Kingsley with his wand, but the empty hand is what draws their attention. They stare at it as if waiting for him to grow talons.

“I leave you now,” Harry says calmly. “Perhaps you’ll think more about paying attention to me instead of the hero that you’ve constructed in your heads. The Dark Lord Potter who exists, not the man you thought I was.”

In the intense silence, one of the Aurors shoots a Stunner at him. Harry moves aside from it with a sigh that he lets sound bored and patient. Inwardly, he approves. That’s better than he thought the Aurors were.

“My lords, my ladies,” he says, bowing mockingly to Honeywell, who has one hand at her throat and the other out as though she’s going to faint and wants to clutch something, “I leave you to the contemplation of your own foolishness.” He bows his head and vanishes into the ether that his illusion encompasses.

That sends them into another uproar, of course, trying to figure out how he could have Apparated from the Ministry. Harry moves calmly through the crowd, dodging when necessary, and floating Kingsley above his head so that they’ll be less likely to bump into him. Taking one of the lifts up is actually easy; people don’t think he’s there anymore. And then he gets outside, and can actually Apparate away.

*

“You didn’t kill him.”

“You think you know me so well?” Harry murmurs, lying back on the couch in the French safehouse and eating sweets from a tray the house-elves brought him.

“Yes.”

Harry grins and opens his eyes to look at Ron. “You’re right, I didn’t kill him. He’s under the Draught of Living Death in the cellar. Kreacher is going to look after him and feed him and make sure that his muscles don’t atrophy.”

“Until when?”

Harry shrugs. “Until after the Elder Wand’s spell. Luna is securing the unicorn and centaur areas with globes, and she’s going to talk to the merpeople. After that, we’ll be nearly ready.”

“I don’t like it,” Ron says, sitting down heavily on a stool as if he’s exhausted himself. “I don’t like that you have to make yourself into a villain for the sake of people who hate you.”

Harry shrugs again and closes his eyes. “I resigned myself to it. And it was kind of fun to see the looks of horror on their faces when they finally started realizing I’m not the hero they thought I was.”

“Yeah, I bet it was.”

Ron’s voice is a little bitter. “Three weeks, a fortnight,” Harry murmurs as he yawns and snuggles up into the couch. “Then it’ll all be over.”

Ron says something else, but Harry goes to sleep the sleep of the just, and doesn’t hear it.