Chapter Sixteen of 'Black Phoenix'- A Sense of Drama

[lomonaaeren]

Chapter Fifteen.

Title: Black Phoenix (16/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Harry/Draco, Ron/Hermione, Lucius/Narcissa
Warnings: Violent, some angst, somewhat crackish humor
Rating: R
Summary: Humans weren’t the only ones watching the day the world changed, and now Harry is receiving delegations from those magical creatures interested in joining his court. Meanwhile, he’s got to deal with the Ministry, the upcoming election, keeping his relationship with Draco secret, and keeping his phoenix from eating people. And that’s in his spare time.
Author’s Notes: This is the sequel to Easy as Falling, and thus the second prequel to my one-shot “Charming When He Needs To Be.” I suggest reading both of those if you haven’t yet.

Chapter One.

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Sixteen—A Sense of Drama

Draco spread the paper out in front of him, and snickered at the headline. Rita Skeeter had wasted no time in publicizing exactly the kind of reporter-assassinating conspiracy she believed was out there.

MINISTRY TO SLAUGHTER REPORTERS!

The story itself was a little tamer than the headline suggested, but not by much. Draco read with pleasure the dark speculation about all the assassins out there with lightning curses and portable storms, perhaps with artifacts on loan from the Unspeakables. He had to admit, he wouldn’t be surprised if something like this was actually the truth, although he would disagree with Skeeter about the targets.

“Candidate Malfoy.”

Draco lowered the paper slowly, in case they had guests, although he could only think of two or three people that Rosenthal would have brought this far into the Manor without warning him first. For that matter, he could only think of one person who would have walked through the Floo without warning him or the wards.

But it wasn’t Harry who Rosenthal escorted into the room. It was Persephone, balancing on her extended arm. Persephone wasn’t preening and clucking and crooning in delight at her own evil, either. She was staring straight at Draco, and she took off a second later and flew over to him. Draco took the chance to cast a few Cushioning Charms on his shoulder and the cloth on his arm, the way he would have if he were playing host to a particularly heavy owl with a fondness for sitting on humans.

Persephone landed without lots of funny, fussy gestures, either, and spent some time staring into Draco’s eyes. Draco stared back, lightly breathing. If she reached out to pluck his eyes, he wasn’t actually sure that he could stop her, only sure that he would try.

Persephone finally fluttered her wings, a controlled, delicate motion that reminded Draco of someone rapidly blinking. Purple and black flames lazily uncoiled from her wings, weaving together until Draco was looking at something like a knot of light in front of him. Persephone stuck her beak into it and breathed on it, or perhaps simply commanded it.

It formed into an image of Harry lying in a blue bubble that made Draco hiss. He recognized it from depictions in some of his nastier ancestors’ books. There had been a few Malfoy ancestors who had planned for the necessity of controlling a Dark Lord’s magic and ruling from behind the throne.

This room appeared to be an office in the Ministry, though, and Draco didn’t recognize the man standing in front of Harry. When he began to speak, Draco also didn’t recognize the name he introduced himself by, Edgar Gorenson.

But that didn’t matter, given the plans he was talking about, and the sad look he fixed on Harry. He might be actually sad. Draco didn’t care. It still made what he was planning to do to Harry intolerable.

Draco watched Persephone’s escape from a similar bubble in silence, and clenched his fists. He leaned back in his chair and looked at her. “Of course I’ll do everything in my power to rescue him,” he said calmly. “But can you actually lead me back to the exact room in the Ministry where I can find him, and without the whole Ministry lining up to stop us?”

Persephone shook her neck and smoothed her feathers down as the picture in the flames flared and vanished. Then she gave him a condescending look and launched herself into the air. Draco reached up, wincing, and traced the line that her claws had scored on his shoulder despite all his precautions.

“Where do you think she’s going?” he asked Rosenthal as he watched her fly through one of the fireplaces. When he closed his eyes and concentrated, the wards told him that Persephone was on the edge of the Malfoy grounds, soaring so high that he wondered she hadn’t already passed beyond the perception of the wards, and how in the world she had got to that level in the sky from the fireplace she’d chosen.

Rosenthal started to answer, and then gasped sharply instead. Draco turned around to look, since she was staring out the window and there must be something visible there. She wasn’t keyed enough into the wards to feel someone or something through them.

There was an explosion of purple light in the western sky, which for a moment made Draco absurdly sure that sunset had come early. But it resolved itself into the same bow shape that Persephone had shown him, and then turned over and began to blaze with black at the edges. Draco rose to his feet, closing one hand down on the edge of the desk. Did Persephone intend to destroy him and the Manor because he hadn’t immediately accompanied her to rescue Harry?

I was willing to. All I did was ask her a question!

The purple and the black merged into each other, and then became a shadow-sketch of the same pictures that she had given Draco. Draco watched as Harry lay in that bubble and Gorenson started walking around him and speaking again. His words sounded like thunderclaps, distorted by distance, but Draco had no doubt that Persephone was repeating the same conversation she had already showed him.

Draco frowned slowly, baffled. Did she think displaying Harry’s captivity from a distance was more likely to encourage him?

“I don’t know what Lord Potter was thinking when he created that bird.”

Draco looked at Rosenthal over his shoulder. “I don’t think he was thinking anything much,” he said dryly, “except how to survive the spell that the Ministry had launched at him.”

Rosenthal shook her head. “That’s not what I meant.” Her eyes were still focused on the western sky and the pictures there. Well, Draco didn’t think she’d been close enough to see the first procession of images. “Don’t you see what she’s doing?” Rosenthal added, with one sideways glance at him. “She’s making sure that everyone in bloody Britain sees the way the Ministry has captured Potter.”

Draco felt his mouth fall open. “She can’t do that,” he said, awed, watching as the purple and black light died. He thought he saw a winged shape flickering its way along through the sky, towards the far end of the grounds, and then away from them altogether. Draco thought she was heading in the direction of Hogwarts. But in the meantime, he was sure she would spread out her displays and tell every wizard she could find, if Rosenthal was right.

Well, I hope that she has sense enough to keep it away from the eyes of the Muggles, at least. Draco did have to grimace, though. He hadn’t thought that Harry had created a bird that would do anything like this, so maybe she had no sense at all.

“I think she can.” Rosenthal bit her lip and glanced sideways at him. “A good thing, too, as long as we don’t have to call out the Obliviators for this. You know what I’m going to suggest.”

Draco rolled his eyes. “That I not go along on any rescue attempt, because it would just confirm what everyone suspected about our connection.”

Rosenthal nodded.

Draco sighed mournfully. “I suppose that Louis will just have to go.”

“Louis?” Rosenthal looked around as though expecting someone she didn’t know to step out of the wall. “I was unaware that you’d hired someone new.”

By the time she turned back, Draco had finished the complicated wand movements that had become more natural the longer he worked on this glamour. He had mostly worked on it while Rosenthal wasn’t here, true, while waiting for Ministry officials who liked to be fashionably late to show up, or at night when he couldn’t sleep. But he had checked his work in a mirror the last ten times, and he knew what he looked like now: a wizard with curly brown hair and blue eyes.

Rosenthal folded her arms. “Absolutely not.”

“Why not?” Draco paused and added the glamour to his voice. He had practiced that one, too, but not as often, given that he’d been alone most of the time. “You know that a Ministerial candidate can do nothing but talk about how sad this is, and hope that the Ministry obeys law and order. But a wizard like Louis Downe, who doesn’t owe loyalty to anyone but his own undistinguished Muggle family, can join the effort without causing comments.”

“You can’t,” Rosenthal said slowly, “because the chances that someone would notice you were wearing a glamour would be higher in a crowded environment like the Ministry. And you might be captured or killed.”

“I would never let that happen,” Draco said, and turned back to the window. “I’m going to Hogwarts. Once there, I’ll introduce myself to Granger and Weasley and whoever else wants to join me.”

Rosenthal sighed behind him, but at least she didn’t actually try to stop him as Draco threw Floo powder into the fire.

*

Harry lay with his face pressed down against what felt like yet another bubble, trying to breathe slowly and carefully and not show that he was awake. He could hear noises of bustle and voices in the distance, but as of yet, he didn’t know what was going on.

He didn’t even know where he was, in Gorenson’s office or elsewhere in the Ministry. And he didn’t know where Persephone was.

He tried to discover what he could without opening his eyes. Beyond the noises of bustle was the sound of running water, and a steady noise, too, not like the sporadic sounds that would come from a Muggle faucet or the casting of an Aguamenti charm. He could smell something that might be stone or dust. Either way, he thought he was most likely in the Department of Mysteries. They had the resources to have him in an indoor place that still had water flowing through it. Ron had made a casual comment once, when he had had a chance to work with Unspeakables, that no one knew how many caves and other hidden places in Britain had been taken over by the Department of Mysteries.

“He’s awake. We have to make a decision now.”

Harry turned over and opened his eyes. Standing in front of him was Gorenson, frowning at him and shaking his head as though Harry had done what he had to make a lot of trouble for him personally.

“You couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?” he snapped, when his eyes fell on Harry’s inquiring ones. “You just had to be involved. You had to keep pushing, even when we told you clearly that we didn’t want you.”

“I don’t have the least idea what you mean,” Harry said, politely enough, and sat up in the bubble. Several wands at once swung out to cover him. He reminded himself to move slowly. Not that it mattered much how he moved when he didn’t have access to his magic. “Before, you were telling me that you wanted to have me on your side and that my familiar shared pared of my soul. None of that has anything to do with me leaving things alone.” He stretched his arms with an easy show of confidence. He still found it hard to believe that he was captive and might die here.

I’m not going to, if I have anything to say about it.

“Why did you tell him that much?” asked someone in Unspeakable robes beside Gorenson. “He would have been easier to control without access to that knowledge.” They leaned towards Gorenson and stage-whispered, in a way that Harry thought he and several other people were meant to hear. “Sometimes I wonder whether we made the best choice when we brought you on board, Edgar.”

That caused some anticipatory snickering. Gorenson lifted his head, streaks of color running away from his flaring nostrils.

“I told him what I thought was necessary for him to know,” he retorted. “We want him to make an informed choice, do we not?”

The person in Unspeakable robes—Harry still wasn’t sure whether it was a man or a woman—shook their head dismissively and turned back to Harry. “I do wish that things could have been different,” they told him, gently. “We could have used your power for so much good. But you’ve gone too far now. Gorenson is right about one thing. You couldn’t leave the Ministry’s authority well enough alone.” The Unspeakable tapped their wand sharply against their arm, and the bubble containing Harry rose into the air and floated towards what looked like a pool of deep and glowing light set in the middle of the floor. “You’ll have to pay the price the way so many others did.”

“You should be more worried about what’s going to happen when you dissolve this bubble,” Harry said. “Or when my familiar returns.”

The Unspeakable paused and tilted back towards him. “You can’t be sure that she’ll ever return, that she didn’t just flee. That was what we thought you would direct what is essentially your own Horcrux to do.”

Harry sat up and leaned forwards with an intense expression. He thought his life, or his magic, or his sanity, one of those, might depend on how well he talked at the moment, how much he could make them believe he was hiding. “I never directed her to do anything like this. I didn’t know that she was my familiar in the way that Gorenson told me she was.” He shook his head and let wonder creep into his expression. The best thing about this tactic of trying to delay his immersion in the pool of light was that it was nothing but the truth. He hadn’t known that Persephone was anything more than a Transfigured spell. “I don’t know what she’ll do any more than you do.”

The Unspeakable started to answer, but someone said something across the pool of light, and then turned around and listened. Harry scowled. The transparent sides of the bubble had shimmered and suddenly become tight and soundproof just when it would have benefited him the most to hear.

There was a slowness to the Unspeakable’s movements when they turned around again that made Harry catch his breath. Some bad news, then, and at the moment, he didn’t know whether bad news for the Unspeakable was also bad news for him or not.

The bubble thinned, and suddenly Harry could hear voices from the outside again. “What did you command your phoenix to do?” whispered the Unspeakable. “To spread the word of your imprisonment, or something else?”

Harry shook his head. “I told you. I was as arrogant as you thought I was, more arrogant than I should have been. I didn’t ever expect that I would be captured like this.” He glanced over his shoulder at Gorenson, but he appeared to be as much taken aback as Harry was.

A jolt spread through Harry, shocking him more than he wanted to admit. He turned hastily back to the Unspeakable, who still had their wand raised and aiming straight at him. Apparently they wanted Harry to have no doubt that they were the source of that shock.

“You made the phoenix,” said the Unspeakable. “You command her. You will tell us what is in her head.”

Harry began to laugh, and carried it past the point where he would have stopped. It was satisfying, to have the Unspeakables standing around staring at him with wide eyes and no idea what to do.

Another shock shut him up. Harry wiped at his mouth and leaned back in the bubble, aware that he was the center of attention and that they hadn’t dipped him in their magic pool of light yet. That had to be a good thing.

“I don’t have control over her,” he told the hooded Unspeakable who had shocked him quietly. “She does what I don’t want her to do, half the time. Sometimes I’ve tried to trick her by pretending that I want a certain thing and getting her to do the opposite, which is what I really want, but she’s on to me. She can’t be fooled by fake indifference or laughter.” Unlike you lot. “She does what she wants to. Besides, you have me here, in a bubble that shuts off my magic. How am I supposed to control her from this distance, even if I could?”

The Unspeakable turned around to the others, as though thinking they might have more advice. Harry waited, his arms locked together behind his head. His eyes were narrowed, his face full of contempt, but he was waiting for something specific.

If he saw it, then he would exert himself.

“We cannot be sure that you are telling the truth,” his friend said, and turned back towards him. “We should proceed with the plan, and raise the wards as if we really have a mob coming after us.”

The other Unspeakables nodded and murmured, and a few of them stepped up beside the bubble to help move it towards the pool. Harry calculated their numbers and the glow of that pool and how much he didn’t want to find out what it was, and decided that he would never have a better chance.

And the sides of the bubble had dimmed a bit, changed a bit, as they moved it.

He lashed one arm out, going straight through the bubble as if it wasn’t there. Maybe it was because they were moving it that they had changed their defenses, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was that they had changed their defenses, and so his hand was through it and on the wand of the woman walking beside him, and he yanked hard on it and felt the surge of magic up his arm that he had got that time he stole Draco’s hawthorn wand.

She shrieked and resisted him, and a ringing clang up his bones made Harry grit his teeth. Conquering her wand wouldn’t be nearly as easy as conquering Draco’s, that was for certain.

But he still had his wand hand outside the bubble, and they hadn’t changed the sides again, maybe because they didn’t want to cut his arm off. Harry pulled on the wand again, and it came free.

And he unleashed his magic as hard as he could, through the wand this time, weakening the bubble and caroming it over towards a wall that he hoped might break it open. He curled up the way he would if he was falling off a broom, and waited.

This is crazy.

Well, so is most of what’s happened to me in the last day.

And then there was the literally shattering impact of the bubble against the wall, and Harry bounced to his feet, wand in hand. There was a moment of breathless silence.

Then the Unspeakables descended on him.