lomonaaeren | Chapter Forty-Two of 'Changing of the Guard'- The Language of Force

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Chapter Forty-Two—The Language of Force

“Draco. It is a pleasure to see you again.”

Lucius’s voice was soft and pleasant as he stepped into the room at the back of Pansy’s house, bowing to Pansy as he passed her. He never took his eyes from Draco, though. Draco had taken a seat near the window so that the dazzle of sunlight around his face and hair would somewhat blind his father; Lucius never once blinked as he gazed at him, however. Instead, a suspicious look of contentment took over his features.

He thinks he has me trapped. Draco stared back stoically, as though he were at a meeting with an investor who had shown interest in Malfoy’s Machineries but no innovative ideas and no money as yet. That may be an advantage, if I can play the man who suspects the trap is closing in but cannot see the jaws.

It wasn’t a pleasure for him to remember that he might very well be that man, since he still had no idea what the spell Lucius had cast on him really was. But he would not show that, either. He had his own set and system of masks and the proper emotions to show at the correct times, though it was not as extensive as Harry’s.

“Father,” he said, after a moment of silence to make it seem as if he were having an internal debate about the necessity of addressing Lucius by that title.

“I have hopes that you will call me that without prompting by the time we are done here,” said Lucius, and took the chair across from Draco’s, which was just as comfortable and padded as his own. Draco hid his snarl. Pansy had changed the enchantments on her chairs, then. It was only a fitting vengeance for Draco’s having volunteered her home for this meeting without telling her, but it still irritated him, a distraction at a moment when he could afford none of them. “After all, a father wants what’s best for his son. And I have gone to some lengths to get what is best for you.”

Draco waited, his hands folded in his lap. Lucius’s expression cooled only a little when he realized Draco was waiting for him to speak. Behind Lucius, Pansy shut the door softly. Draco thought her wise not to stay for this conversation.

Lucius wore fine dark green robes that Draco had seen him in when he was meeting with someone he respected, a powerful political rival or a pure-blood wizard who had stayed true to the traditions of their social circles. Lucius knew he knew the significance of those robes, which rendered the gesture both genuine and a manipulation. How many more layers of games there might be under that surface one, Draco did not yet know.

But that did not mean he had to succumb to worry. He had already won the first gambit. Lucius spoke.

“The terms of my offer are the same as that which I gave you yesterday,” he said. “A year of public approval of your liaison with Potter, a year to do as you please. Then you will be married to Alice Moonstone.”

“A year in freedom in exchange for the rest of my life in slavery,” Draco said. “Yes, I could see why you would think that a fair bargain.”

He watched his father intently. Depending on his response to Draco’s statement, Draco could judge more accurately how dangerous a foe he was right now, how high his confidence level was. Would he accept that Draco was speaking melodramatically? Or would he decide Draco was being a bit sarcastic but was ultimately persuadable?

“A year in freedom,” said Lucius, “without obligation, without responsibility. I will support you and your liaison, as I said. That includes in money matters. Buy Potter as many expensive gifts as you like, and know that I am paying for it—though since you stand to inherit the Malfoy vaults, I hope you will consider that money as your own, and have more regard for it than my offer implies.”

“I stand to inherit the Malfoy vaults?” Draco let his voice rise high with surprise, whilst he worked furiously to bury his disappointment. If his father had decided to reinstate him as the Malfoy heir, then several of the things he and Harry had achieved had come to nothing.

“When you agree to this bargain,” Lucius said, just a touch too quickly. “But of course you should. There is no reason for you not to. Where else will you find someone willing to indulge you, Draco? A father who loves his son alone can do so, and Potter has no parents to do something like this for him.”

“And what about public attacks?” Draco demanded. “I can’t see that our lives would change much even if I accepted your offer. I have enough money to support Harry in luxury if I like.” He noticed that his father had winced. Ah. He doesn’t like to think I might do that. That would make Harry my kept lover. If he pays for it, and knows that he’s paying for Harry to have sex with me for a limited period of time, then he can think of him as a whore.

“I will use all my considerable assets to shield you from such attacks,” Lucius said, and his face was solemn. “Do you imagine it has been easy for me to read newspaper articles that call my son disgusting names? Of course reporters must stay away from you when you are the Malfoy heir again. If they are incapable of understanding and respecting the terms of our bargain, then I will make sure simpler terms are spelled out to them.”

Draco suffered a moment’s regret. He wished there was a way he could accept this offer and then defraud Lucius at the end. It would be pleasant to have a year to work with Harry, to coax him past the instinctive use of masks and into a more healthy course of wielding them as weapons, and to know that no one in the Daily Prophet would write a nasty word about them whilst he was doing so.

But it was impossible, what with the rebellion and Harry’s morals, and Draco told himself he knew that. It was only the most Slytherin part of him that regretted the loss.

“And what comes after the bargain?” he asked. “You’ve offered me a very pretty honey-dipped pearl, but what happens when the oyster shell closes on me?”

Lucius blinked. Draco had chosen the metaphor on purpose to confuse him; it was one that Blaise had used more than once, and it had thrown Draco the first time he heard it. But Lucius sat up after a moment, with a slight shake of his head, and smiled at Draco as if they were only friends who had had a quarrel.

His confidence is high. This spell must be strong. But so far Draco had felt nothing unusual, no headaches, changes in his vision, or sudden and unexplained desires, the most common symptoms of the lust spells he and Harry had studied.

“After that, you marry Alice and live in happy, healthy marriage with her,” Lucius said. “I will make sure that the Daily Prophet also provides favorable coverage of the wedding and is polite to Potter when they speculate why you let him go. I will expect at least one child from the marriage, of course, to continue the Malfoy line, and that you keep your wife free of disease. However, you may take male lovers in secret, if that is necessary to content you.”

“And what about Harry?” Draco asked.

Lucius shook his head. “Neither I nor anyone connected to me will make a move against him, insofar as that is possible to promise. Of course, if Mr. Potter does insist on thrusting himself into politics concerning pure-blood laws and sexual morality, I cannot answer for what an offended parent might do.”

“You misunderstand me,” Draco said. He watched his father until he felt as if his entire world hung on Lucius’s breathing, the widening of his eyes, the way his fingernails gleamed on the hand that lay in his lap. “Would I be free to take Harry as a lover during my marriage?”

“I think that question a wrongheaded one, Draco,” Lucius said softly. “You are still thinking of what you would be required to give up with this arrangement, not what you would gain. So, no, I would not allow Mr. Potter back into your bed. Only a god like Janus can look backwards and forwards without pain. It would be best if you were to look to the future. Tell me, do you know what you would like to name your son?”

“Did you think I would agree to this?” Draco asked.

“Frankly, yes, I did,” said Lucius. “I chose carefully for that reason. Otherwise, I might have chosen Marigold Moonstone, who is more beautiful and magically powerful than her sister. That would be my choice if I cared only about breeding bloodlines and not about your opinion. But I know that it will take a unique woman to compete with Mr. Potter in your esteem, and Alice has recently shown me she is most remarkable. Will you meet her? She is waiting nearby, and will come at my call.”

Draco scrutinized Lucius more carefully than ever. He still showed that intense confidence, but no more than he had before, truly. And he had become a bit more subdued since Draco had mentioned taking Harry as a lover whilst married. No effects of the spell were showing up, either.

To make the understanding with his father plain which he had come here intending to establish, he would have to force Lucius’s hand.

“By all means,” he said. “Let her be escorted in.”

Lucius raised his wand, smiling. Draco tensed. But Lucius, with simple, exaggerated movements, cast a bright flare of red sparks that streaked out the window of the back room, and then settled back to put his wand on the floor and bare his hands, open-palmed.

Draco braced himself to wait as well, muscles poised to move in any direction in an instant.

*

“You can’t be certain Mr. Malfoy was casting a spell on—on Draco, though,” Alice said. She stumbled frequently on Draco’s name, as if she wanted to address him as “Mr. Malfoy” as well. Right now she faced Harry with her eyes as hard as dragon scales and a faint, contemptuous smile curving the corners of her mouth. “You’ve said that you can’t find a spell matching its description. And the only testimony for the existence of those gestures at the party is your own. Why should I believe you? Why shouldn’t I believe that you’re doing—Draco’s work instead, trying to discourage me from the marriage?”

Harry smiled at her. He admired her stubbornness despite the trouble it was costing him at the moment. If she had given in credulously when he first explained the gestures of the spell, he would have thought her either playing a game of her own or less than the pure-blood witch with an eye on future comfort she pretended to be.

“I know Harry Potter,” he said. “You have heard that he went about in disguise as Brian Montgomery at first?”

Alice nodded. “I still don’t know why—Draco would let him do that,” she said. “If he was taking the risk of being cast out of society, then Potter should have run the same risk.”

She’s half on our side already, although she doesn’t know it. She values fairness, and equality between partners. Certainly she would want someone who stood a chance of desiring her for herself, rather than through magic. “He should have,” Harry said, with a small nod. He tamed the wider smile he wanted to give her then. Gerald’s features were not made for such sentimental gestures. “But Mr. Malfoy not only forgave him for that deception, he came to love him the more for it.”

Alice frowned. “Why?”

“He values a cunning partner,” said Harry. “Someone who can create a plan and then spin it so that it works out for him. True, Potter gave that up when he appeared in public at his side, but his plan before that was working perfectly. No one had connected Montgomery with Potter— ” his voice as he told the lie was steady, of course “—and yet everyone knew that Mr. Malfoy had a boyfriend, as he had desired. That was what allowed Mr. Malfoy to be content. He loves the methods Potter uses; he loves that he can act like a Slytherin, to use the most banal metaphor, or a Gryffindor at will. He admires a cleverness on par with his own and a mind that forces him to leap like a horse on a chase. Could you offer him that? Without such qualities, he will never respect you. And even if he does marry you because of the spell, he will know in time that it was his father and not you who chose that method of bringing him to the wedding bed. I think he would despise you for letting someone else do your hunting and catching.”

Alice blinked repeatedly. Harry didn’t blame her. The argument he had just used was a load of bollocks for the most part, but it sounded good. And if it allowed Alice a graceful out—she didn’t want to marry a man she knew would despise her—well, that was all to the good. Harry wasn’t in favor of embarrassing his allies or threatening them unless he had no other choice.

“Why would he tell you so much?” she asked at last, studying him with one eye whilst she turned her head away, as if that would somehow shield her doubting face from him. “You’re only a bodyguard.”

“I’m close friends with Potter, not Malfoy,” said Harry, delighting in the mixture of lies and truth, and in the wavering of Alice’s expression into reluctant belief. “He told me so much because he knew I wouldn’t understand why he was dating Malfoy openly without it.” Harry shrugged, in Gerald’s heavy manner that was more like a resettling of his shoulders into a good attack position. “One reason Mr. Malfoy could trust me is my tie to Potter. He knows I won’t let anything happen to someone a friend values.”

Alice bowed her head for long moments. Then she looked back up. “I’m still not entirely sure I trust you,” she said.

Harry casually shifted his balance so he could reach his wand if she should pull out hers.

“But on the other hand, there’s not much reason to tell a story like this if it’s a lie,” she added, shaking her head. “Draco could simply refuse to marry me, and that would settle things. If he’s not certain, however, and still wanted me to know—well, that was gentlemanly behavior.”

“He doesn’t actually know you’re here,” said Harry. “I’m the one who thinks you deserve better than to be tricked into marriage.”

“Would he care, if he knew I could be a victim?” A flush touched Alice’s cheeks that made Harry think she might not be so indifferent to Draco’s looks, wealth, and reputation as she had tried to be.

He swallowed a gulp of jealousy as tart as pickles. There was no way someone like Alice could threaten his hold over Draco’s heart, particularly when she was a part of Lucius’s plot to control his son.

“I don’t know for certain,” Harry said, and once again smiled slowly and tried to avoid letting it grow out of control for Gerald’s face. “The point is, I care. And I was hired to protect Mr. Malfoy from his father’s magic as well as any attempt made to physically harm him.”

“And you’re out here instead of in the house with him?” Alice looked up at the window above them.

“He’ll let me know if he needs me. If a real chance for reconciliation comes, he’d want to take it.”

Alice opened her mouth to say something else, but just then a fountain of red sparks struck out through the window. Harry looked up alertly, but relaxed after a moment, certain that the sparks were not the brilliant blue he and Draco had agreed on for a distress signal. Alice whistled under her breath and shifted her feet anxiously.

Harry understood. “That’s the signal Lucius Malfoy was going to use to summon you, isn’t it.”

Alice nodded in some distraction. “But now I don’t know if I want to go to him,” she said. “There are at least some questions I’d like to ask. For example, he was very insistent on my accompanying him today. He said it was simply so—Draco could meet his future bride, but we could meet later, and it wouldn’t violate any formal requirement of the marriage ceremony. He looked as if he’d have an apoplectic fit if I refused.”

Harry let his stare orient on her until she shifted uneasily. She would expect that behavior from a bodyguard like Gerald, and Harry would have had to fight harder than it was worth to prevent himself from doing it now.

He would have wagered the secret of Metamorphosis that the spell Lucius had used would be triggered when Draco saw Alice. And that meant she had to stay here in the gardens, even if he had to bind her.

“He might be up there musing to himself on his cleverness,” said Harry. “He won’t be alarmed yet that you haven’t appeared. What can he think of you as but a pawn? You’re not a person to him, not the future Mrs. Malfoy or his daughter-in-law. You’re another rein for his son’s neck. Is that really all you want to be?”

Alice’s face darkened. Then she said. “If there’s the slightest chance you are speaking the truth, then I will not go to him.”

“Perhaps there is not,” Harry said, allowing doubt to leak into his voice. “Perhaps you should—“

“No.” Alice stood tall and folded her arms, taking several steps away from the window. “You may go up, if you will, and inform Mr. Malfoy that I no longer plan to comply with his every wish. If he wishes to make me an honest marriage offer for his son, he may send me a vial of his memories of the night of the party, including the moments when they confronted each other. Only then will I be disposed to accept Draco.” She said the name without hesitation now, Harry noted with approval. “In the meantime, I do wish your friend Mr. Potter the best. I would not want to be treated as second-best in his place, and I will not be treated as second-best by a Malfoy man who is really in love with him.”

She spun on her heel and walked away, robes rustling around her, until she reached the place where Pansy’s anti-Apparition wards ran out. Then she vanished without a glance at the house. Harry grinned and began to walk back in, flicking his wand several times as he went. The next part of the plan was unfolding in his mind, so smoothly that he barely had to think about it to know what he should do.

*

As the moments went by and no Alice Moonstone appeared, Draco watched his father’s confidence disintegrate.

It started with a glance at the window, so swift Draco could have believed his father was looking in that direction by coincidence, if he were stupid. Then Lucius fisted his fingers briefly in the material of his robe. Then he let his nostrils flare, and his cheeks lost all color for one moment, before he summoned it back again. Something unexpected had gone wrong, and his father was trying to decide how to deal with it in front of a son he knew would notice the smallest slip.

“Where is she?” Draco asked at last, and salted his voice with impatience. “When you said that she was the perfect bride for me, I did think punctuality would be among her virtues.”

Lucius opened his mouth to answer. Draco leaned forwards to convey his sincere interest.

Footsteps sounded in the corridor outside. Draco looked up expectantly. They were too heavy for a woman as young and slender as he remembered Alice Moonstone being. Perhaps Pansy had decided to interfere after all.

Instead, Harry, wearing his own face, stepped into the room and fixed Lucius with a stern glare.

Draco promptly bit his lip so he wouldn’t chuckle aloud and sank back into his chair. His father and Harry were engaged in a silent staring contest, so neither of them noticed his lack of contributions to the conversation for the moment. Then he cleared his throat and said, “Why are you here, Harry? Where’s Gerald?”

“He contacted me,” Harry said, “when he discovered someone unexpected lurking in the garden.” He kicked the door shut with one foot, never taking his eyes off Lucius. Draco didn’t miss the way Lucius’s hand twitched towards his wand.

“That would be Alice, I think,” Draco said. “But what did she do to convince him she was so threatening?”

“Her presence was enough,” Harry said, “for a cautious man like Gerald.” He sauntered a step closer to Lucius, and now a smile Draco had never seen before was narrowing his mouth and his eyes. He looked like a vampire about to bare its fangs. “He summoned me, and together we questioned Alice as to what she knew and suspected about your father’s sudden offer to meet with you. I commend you, Mr. Malfoy.” His voice dipped and became so soft that Draco had trouble hearing it. The room was turning hazy, as though heat shimmers had somehow manifested without the necessary heat. “You did indeed choose an intelligent woman for your son’s bride. But you shouldn’t have given her occasion to turn her intelligence against you. She was able, on hearing the description of the curse you cast on Draco, to tell us what it was, and that it would become active on Draco’s seeing her.”

Lucius actually swayed in his seat. Draco blinked. Of course, perhaps it was Harry’s building magic, whirling closer and closer to Lucius like the shadows of invisible dancers, rather than his words.

“You have not listened,” Harry said. “We’ve given you multiple chances to understand, to forgive, to change your mind and realize what sort of world you’re living in—a world where your prejudices no longer hold any power. I should have remembered. Wizards like you only understand one language: that of force.” He took a step closer, and his eyes were more brilliant than Draco had known was possible; Draco couldn’t look away from them. The shadows closed in as Harry said, in a voice that shook the walls, “Lucius Malfoy, I command you to cease to exist.”

The shadows bent inwards, joining at the corners like reflections of light stirred from a pool of water, and Lucius’s body wavered as if it would collapse inwards to join them. He screamed as Draco had never heard him scream before, a sound of pain and panic, and then the shadows were gone and Harry was standing above Lucius, his hand fisted in the cloth at his throat, dragging him out of the chair. Draco hastily stared at his father, but at least from one quick scan, he couldn’t tell that Lucius was missing any of his body parts.

“We know you’re behind Counterstrike,” Harry said. “We know you’re responsible for nearly killing your son through funding their madness. We know you oppose us. I’ve spared you for the moment because it’s possible that Draco might retain one crumb of affection for you. Though I doubt it.

“But you felt what I can do. If you do not withdraw your support from Counterstrike and cease troubling Draco and me, then I will make that happen. Permanently. You’ll be nothing more than memories. Your grieving widow won’t have an ash to bury.”

He threw Lucius back into the chair; Draco wouldn’t be surprised if he’d used magic to strengthen his arm muscles. Lucius bowed his head with a motion of dejection and submission that was painful to watch.

Harry caught his eye. Draco stood and strode across the room to him, pausing only to say, “I’ll write,” before he followed Harry.

As they came down the stairs, Harry put a casual hand on the banister—to support himself through the wash of magical exhaustion, Draco knew. He rested a hand on his shoulder and leaned nearer to whisper, “Did that really—“

“No.” Harry grinned a little and turned his head so Draco could see one eye peeking out from beneath his fringe. “When have you known me to use reality when I could use illusion? It was a complicated glamour to make him think he was breaking apart, separating his thoughts from one another and making various parts of his body invisible.”

Draco nodded. “I knew that, of course,” he said.

Harry let the obvious lie pass. “But the spell he cast did seem to be tied to Alice’s appearance,” he said. “With that, we should be able to figure out which one it was and reverse it. We looked under lust spells. I think that was the wrong course. We should research enslavement spells.”

Draco shuddered in revulsion and walked faster. “You did your job as a bodyguard very well,” he said.

Harry chuckled. “Of course,” he said. “Within certain well-defined limits, I would challenge anyone to stand up to me.”

Draco eyed him sideways, a complicated combination of admiration, pity, lust, longing, and pride rising in him. I do not think I could love you if you were not what you are. All of it.

Chapter 43.

Chapter Forty-Two of 'Changing of the Guard'- The Language of Force

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