lomonaaeren (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lomonaaeren) wrote2008-05-12 07:29 pm
lomonaaeren) wrote2008-05-12 07:29 pm
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Chapter Twenty-Seven of 'Changing of the Guard'- Romancing the Ministry
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Twenty-Seven—Romancing the Ministry
Harry smiled at himself in the mirror. It was a timid, shy smile, and his eyes darted away from his reflection the moment he gave it. He nodded. Yes, this was the Harry whom Ron and Hermione would expect to see: interested in their lives, reluctant to talk about himself, guarded in his conversation and his expressions lest something he did led to a mention of the war.
As long as Draco isn’t here, I have no trouble assuming one of my personas.
You need this one right now, the merciless voice promptly answered. That doesn’t mean you’ll need it always.
Harry ground his teeth together hard for a moment, then stopped. Would the Harry Ron and Hermione knew get angry? No, he would not. He was afraid of his own temper. He had said and done things when angry that he would regret forever, particularly when he had been nineteen, the year between his real seventh year at Hogwarts and the beginning of Metamorphosis.
He felt his hand begin to shake, and stopped it by sheer force of will. He had once told himself he would not spend time dwelling on that, and he never had. His anxieties, insecurities, and doubts dissipated in the constant running of Metamorphosis, in the assumption of minds and personalities that had no reason to feel them. And he would not let his new relationship with Draco, or the rebellion it seemed Harry was half in charge of running, damage his ability to assume those personalities.
Draco said he wanted to know all of me. These personas are part of me, too.
Harry stood up, shook his head twice, and clattered down the stairs. He normally would have asked Kreacher to make him some breakfast before he left, but this would leave his stomach free to growl whilst he spoke with his friends, and then Hermione would have the chance to fuss and accuse him of not taking care of himself. Harry would blush and look at his hands and mumble something that didn’t actually answer the accusations.
They deserve the chance to see what they want to see.
*
Draco kept his head up as the Aurors marched him through the corridors of the Ministry of Magic. He knew they were deliberately choosing the most public route, to humiliate him in the most effective manner possible. They ignored a lift that started up from the Atrium with only two wizards in it, in order to crowd into one laden with Ministry employees, visitors, and children. One of the older witches lifted an eyeglass to her face to look at them and inquired in a low voice what Draco’s crime was.
“Public homosexuality, madam,” the blue-eyed Auror announced. Draco let his eyes fall half-shut so he could study the reactions to those words without it being obvious that he was doing so.
Half of them flinched. Others looked at the floor. The witch with the eyeglass adjusted it as though she thought public homosexuality ought to leave a disgusting film on Draco’s skin. A burly wizard tugged his daughter behind him and frowned at Draco. One young woman bit her lip hard enough to make a drop of blood run from it.
“My, my,” said the witch with the eyeglass. She had shining black hair, so obviously dyed Draco subdued the impulse to tell her where she could buy dye that would last longer. She leaned closer. “And more than one violation, from the way that you’re holding him.” She nodded to the other Auror, a bald, brown-eyed man, who hadn’t stopped twisting Draco’s arm behind his back since they left the flat.
“Two incidents that we have record of, madam, from the testimony of numerous eyewitnesses,” said the blue-eyed man, and swung around to glare at Draco. “He simply couldn’t control his libido.”
Draco raised an eyebrow. He knew the stereotype of homosexual men that many wizards entertained concerned their insatiable sexuality; they spread disease and were inconstant to their lovers because one partner could never satisfy them, said the common “wisdom.” Marrying one was unsafe because he would bring diseases home to his wife. They would rape children and any straight man even the slightest bit unwilling to accept their attentions.
The stereotype was so far from true in Draco’s case that he had some hope of being able to cause doubts in the Aurors’ minds simply by his behavior. On the other hand, eyes determined to remain shut could not be opened, and he would not waste his time with them. His task was to identify the members of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement who might possibly be sympathetic and work on them.
“And you’re not going to speak up in your defense, young man?” the witch continued, peering so closely at him now that Draco was certain she could count the pores in his face.
“I’m in a relationship more permanent and deeper than half the people in this lift could ever entertain, madam,” Draco drawled. “What is there about that to defend?”
The witch chuckled. Most of the adults simply looked angry. The grip on Draco’s arm tightened until he would have gasped with pain had he not been a Malfoy. But Lucius had done worse to him and expected him to bear it without sound. Draco focused his eyes on the ceiling of the lift and didn’t show a thing. He thought he heard the blue-eyed man suppress a frustrated snarl.
“I have an interest in such sexual perversions,” the witch said. “My card, if you will.” She bowed with a flourish and slipped a gold-embossed brown card up Draco’s sleeve. The Aurors looked as if they might have liked to protest, but given that it had happened in front of everyone, they didn’t quite dare. Or maybe it was the coat-of-arms briefly visible on the card that had stopped them, Draco thought. The Garrett family was neither poor nor without influence. “I look forwards to following the progress of the case.” The lift jerked to a stop, and she moved out with half the people on it, not once looking back at the Aurors.
One ally, Draco thought. And a good one. He had briefly scanned the genealogical tables that Lucius had drummed into his head, looking for a witch of the appropriate age, and determined that she was Caroline Garrett, an expert in Abstract Magic—and Blaise Zabini’s second cousin. Draco might not be able to rely on her for anything, but he had no doubt he would see her again.
“You needn’t look so pleased with yourself,” the blue-eyed Auror murmured to Draco, his lips close enough to Draco’s ear that none of the other passengers could hear him. “You ought to know you won’t find allies like that everywhere.”
Draco fluttered his eyelashes briefly. “If you wanted to whisper sweet nothings to me, you could have done it openly. I wouldn’t have minded.” He darted his eyes towards the man holding his arm. “He looks like the jealous type, though.”
In half an instant, the blue-eyed Auror was on the other side of the lift. He stared at Draco with his mouth open in disgust. His fingers had tightened on his wand until Draco fancied he might snap it. But alas, the wood was hard enough to withstand the increased pressure.
So was his arm, though Draco grunted a little as the other Auror yanked on it. “Do you explain bruises often?” he asked, with what voice he had left.
“Go easy with him, Young,” the blue-eyed Auror said, and faced Draco again. “You ought to know it won’t be so easy for you when we actually reach the Department.”
“Your phrasing is repetitive,” said Draco. “It bores me.”
Young clenched his arm again. Draco smiled inwardly. Yes, it hurt, but on the other hand, he knew how strict the standards for Aurors had become since Minister Shacklebolt took over and cleaned what corruption he could out of Magical Law Enforcement. Aurors were supposed to handle even suspected murderers gently, proving themselves to be above the sort of rough justice that had tarnished their reputation during the first war with the Dark Lord. Draco only had to make sure the right person saw the bruises, and Young would suffer for this arrest right along with Draco.
At last the lift clattered to a halt, and Young and the other Auror led Draco off. Draco let his gaze rake the mass of desks he was led past, looking for a face he recognized. Though a few men and women stared at them curiously, he saw no one who looked like a good ally—
“Malfoy? Oh, this is rich.”
Draco had to fight harder than normal to keep his face blank as he realized that the wizard who had risen from the desk ahead of him was Ron Weasley.
*
“You forgot to eat again, didn’t you, Harry?”
Harry kept his eyes on his hands and shrugged a little as he listened to Hermione bustling about the kitchen. She had stood up the moment his stomach rumbled, although she had been deep in the middle of a story about how she’d managed to make it a crime for wizards to burn house-elves. It was the first of a long, long series of abuses that needed legislation passed against them, she’d said seriously, but if she had to devote the rest of her life to it, she would pass those laws.
Harry felt slightly in awe of Hermione when he listened to her say such things. She had a simple, direct will that he had only ever matched when he contemplated defeating Voldemort or playing a Quidditch game against Slytherin. She knew what needed to be done and did it, directly approaching the goal, without turning aside, lying, or manipulating anyone.
A pity she doesn’t turn that same will to the protection of wizards or witches who want to love one of their own sex, the merciless voice said in his head.
Because he was alone, Harry dared to roll his eyes. The merciless voice understood the Harry who related to Draco well; it did not grasp the Harry who related to his friends. They had their own lives, lives Harry could understand and support. It would be wrong of him to try and make them change.
He could, of course, fish for information. When Hermione came back with a large sandwich packed with nourishing vegetables and probably slices of fruit and meat, too, Harry smiled at her and turned the conversation as if idly. “I’ve heard rumors about other pieces of legislation being trumped up,” he said, and then had to pause and lick his fingers as a piece of lettuce crumpled out the far side of the sandwich onto his knuckles. “Something about homosexuality and rebellion and art. Are they going to make it illegal to portray gay characters?”
“Oh, no, nothing like that,” Hermione said, smiling reassuringly at him. “At least, not more illegal than it already is.” She waved her wand, and the traces of stickiness left on Harry’s fingers vanished. He murmured his thanks. “There was a group who tried to stage a play portraying homosexuality a few days ago, though. At the Theater-in-the-Round? Perhaps you’ve heard of it?” Her words had taken on a slight edge of exasperation now. She considered Harry hopelessly uncultured, especially since he didn’t even get the scraps of knowledge Ron did by accompanying Hermione to the plays and concerts she wanted to see.
“I’ve heard of it,” Harry said quietly, and licked his fingers one more time, causing Hermione to roll her eyes in turn. Harry hid a smile behind his hand. “Posh pure-blood place, isn’t it?”
“Oh, it’s more than that.” Hermione rapped her wand against her palm, her eyes shining. “It’s where they staged the first production of The Moon Shining Down, which was the first alternate history of the Slytherin-Gryffindor feud, and there was a play based on a recovered manuscript of Macbeth created by a wizarding scribe. Very different from the play that goes by that name in Muggle circles…”
Harry sat patiently, letting Hermione speed through the history of the plays she’d seen, or heard about, or wanted to see, performed in the Theater-in-the-Round. As it happened, he was familiar with most of the productions, which made the listening more tedious than usual, but it would hardly do to seem too eager. Finally, when Hermione had finished exhausting her speculations about possible places for other Shakespeare manuscripts to be hidden, Harry returned the conversation innocently to the beginning. “But a group tried to stage a play portraying homosexuality?” He leavened his voice carefully with both incredulity and envy. So far as Hermione and Ron knew, he wished that he could express his sexuality publicly, but had accepted that it was impossible.
“Oh, yes.” Hermione shook her head. “And there was a riot in consequence. Really, I don’t see why they expected anything else to happen. Everyone knows how touchy pure-bloods are about homosexuality, and that’s a theater that’s expected to represent pure-blood ideals even when their audiences and playwrights don’t come from the culture.”
“And the Ministry is going after the people who started the riot?” Harry asked, his sandwich apparently hanging forgotten between his fingers.
“Well, they have to.” Hermione sighed. “It’s not that I’m not sympathetic to them,” she added, when Harry gazed at her inquiringly. “I think the way most of the wizarding world reacts to gays and lesbians and bisexuals is disgusting. But you can’t fight an organization like the Ministry or the force of pure-blood conservatism with violence. You can’t change everything that quickly.” A sad smile touched her lips for a moment. “That was the lesson I had to learn. I came into the Ministry with bold visions of freeing all the house-elves in England in a year. Then I had to change that to two years, and finally I admitted that the task might not be done in my lifetime. Muggleborns won’t be fully integrated into the wizarding world in my lifetime, either, and it takes a lot of hard, repetitive work to make as much progress on either front as I’ve made. Now you have a group of young, impulsive people doing their cause more harm than good by imagining they can just take the wizarding world by storm.” She snorted softly into her teacup. “As if no one has ever tried that before.”
In neither of your causes does that gap between old and young exist, the merciless voice murmured. In neither of your causes is the opposition to change mostly irrational. Losing house-elves can cost money, and many pure-bloods have the idea that they’ll lose their homes and jobs to Muggleborns. But the origins of the hatred against homosexuals are based on the idea that wizards will dwindle out of existence if they permit same-sex affairs to flourish freely, which is ridiculous. As if there aren’t enough orphans and Muggleborn children mistreated by their own parents to maintain the wizarding population!
“No, I suppose violence won’t make the Ministry listen to them,” was what Harry himself said, leaning back in the chair and returning to the sandwich. Hermione would scold him in a minute if she realized he hadn’t finished it, and they would get even further away from the subject Harry had come to discover information on. He could hardly believe that he’d forgotten Ron would be at work today. “But they don’t deserve to be persecuted even more than they already are.”
Hermione sighed and twisted a curl of hair around her finger, gazing at the polished wooden table between them as if it held an open book. “If they hadn’t started a riot!” she murmured. “Ron came home saying something about it yesterday, how the lot of them were desperate criminals and had used dangerous magic against the Aurors sent to arrest them.”
“Did he?” Harry concentrated intently on the sandwich and gave no appearance of being interested.
“Yes.” Hermione took a long, drawn-out breath and shook her head. “The spell wiped the memories of the Aurors completely clean, so they couldn’t remember who had been in the house they raided, who they might have arrested, or what kind of magic was used against them. Ron was enraged. Memory magic is always dangerous, you know that—“ she gave Harry a quick smile that made him think she was remembering Lockhart “—and he had some friends in the raid. They could have sustained brain damage.”
Harry sighed. “That’s unfortunate. I suppose the Ministry will have to try again, though, if the first raid failed.”
“Yes. And Ron wants to be part of the next one. They should be able to put it together in a few days, he said.”
Harry looked up and blinked in feigned surprise. “Why would it take so long? If they could raid this group’s first meeting, couldn’t they raid a second one?”
“Apparently their source of information isn’t being very forthcoming. Maybe he thought better of betraying his comrades, whoever he was.” Hermione gave a crooked smile. “And I have to say that I rejoice for their sakes, even if I don’t approve of their tactics. Betrayal by a friend is no light matter.”
No, said the merciless voice. No, it is not.
Harry finished eating his sandwich and stood. He’d got all he could reasonably pull from Hermione without making her suspicious. “Thanks for the sandwich,” he said. “I should head home now. I’ll need time to sleep this off before I eat lunch. And if I don’t eat lunch, Kreacher will never forgive me.”
Hermione rose to her feet, eyes bright with concern and smile strained. “You should see the Theater-in-the-Round for yourself,” she said. “Promise you’ll come with me and Ron this Saturday. They’re holding a production of that Macbeth I told you about.”
Harry just looked off to the side and shook his head a little. “I doubt the playwright and the actors would like having their work disrupted by a public feeding frenzy,” he said.
And though she had hated the means he used to try and rid himself of the attention, Hermione gave way before the validity of that excuse, as she always did. Harry pressed her hand, smiled wanly at her, and went.
The moment the door of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place closed behind him, he summoned the cold Harry persona and went to work. So the Ministry’s source had suddenly become tight-lipped, had he? That could mean several things, and Harry would need to conduct tests to confirm which of his suspicions was closest to the truth.
*
Draco had been quiet and cold for the past hour, but it was difficult with Weasley at his elbow, staring straight at him and snickering whenever he thought he could get away with it. Young and the blue-eyed Auror were completing the paperwork necessary to confirm Draco as a “dangerous” criminal. Though other Aurors stared at them, Weasley was the only one who had ventured near. Thus Draco had no one to cordially complain to, and no one to show the bruises to. He still sat with his hands crossed in his lap, looking more beaten than he would have liked.
“I always wanted to know,” Weasley said, beginning another of his childish taunts. “Do you really not miss women when you’re sliding balls-deep into some poor bloke’s arse? Or does part of you remain conscious of how unnatural this is and assign female bits to your partner?” He lowered his voice. “Come on, Malfoy, admit it. That’s the real reason so many of you wear women’s clothes, isn’t it? Because sometimes even you get fed up and have to pretend you’re fucking a woman to get it up at all.”
Draco’s tongue burned. He wanted so badly to ask Weasley how he’d managed to retain attitudes like that, given his enlightened Mudblood wife and his gay best friend. But then there would be questions as to how to he knew Harry’s orientation, if there wasn’t a punch for the insult to Granger. Draco was not stupid enough to give the game away like that.
Besides, he thought he knew exactly how Weasley’s attitudes had endured. Harry had confessed he loved Weasley. And Harry didn’t challenge people he loved half as often as they deserved. Consider how he’d responded to Draco; casting spells on him seemed a last resort, even when a Memory Charm would have solved his problems. He tried to fade away instead, to lie, to subtly manipulate. The magic he had used to break Draco’s ribs hadn’t been planned.
He has become almost too Slytherin. I wonder if another of my tasks might be coaxing the Gryffindor side of him back to life. Of course, he’ll get some practice in that if he intends to support the rebellion—
A sudden slap made his ears ring and jerked his head sideways.
“Malfoy, I’m talking to you!” Weasley snarled directly into his face. “I want to know whether you’ve ever dressed up in women’s clothes and begged someone else to fuck you, so that you can feel like you’re part of something normal for once.”
Draco didn’t speak, though “I assure you I have no complaints when Harry fucks me” would have been the perfect retort. He slipped his tongue around the corners of his mouth, making sure nothing was bleeding and no teeth had come loose. A pity they hadn’t, in a way, but Draco preferred to show off evidence that he had suffered Auror brutality without damaging his good looks.
“Weasley!”
And here was Shacklebolt himself—not the ally Draco would have chosen, given that he was the one authorizing the raids in the first place, but the only one present who might be able to restrain Weasley. He lowered his eyes so there was no chance anyone would see the smile lurking in them.
“Sir, I didn’t mean to do that! I just lost my temper—“ Weasley began, scrambling up and away from Draco as if his arse were on fire.
But I’d wager he won’t offer to heal me and give me anything I wanted, like Harry did, Draco thought. He shuddered at the thought of what a long and weary struggle it would take to come to terms with Harry’s friends. Weasley would refuse any concession so simple as an apology, Draco was certain.
“We’ll discuss what you did later, Weasley,” Shacklebolt said coldly, and then turned and faced Draco. “Mr. Malfoy, please come with me. Young and Smithson should have brought you to my office at once.” He speared the blue-eyed Auror—Smithson—with a sharp glance and turned away. Draco stood and followed with alacrity, making sure that his sleeves fell away from his arms and exposed the bruises where Young had gripped him too tightly.
In the privacy of the Minister’s office, which appeared to be home to files and nothing else, Shacklebolt saw the bruises. He took a deep breath and massaged his forehead gently for a moment. “I daresay you have much to complain of due to the treatment you received from us,” he murmured.
“At least a little, yes,” Draco said in his driest tone.
Shacklebolt leaned forwards. “This offense will be made up for, I promise you, Malfoy,” he said. “But in the meantime, may I suggest a way you could make this easier on yourself and everyone else involved?”
Draco eyed him thoughtfully, but said nothing. It had worked so far. And sure enough, Shacklebolt clarified a moment later.
“We need information on this man whose play you sponsored, Raymond Nusante. And on the group of artists he’s rumored to have met with in a certain manor house a few days ago.” Shacklebolt’s fingers clenched together on top of his desk. “Specifically, we would be grateful if you could tell us whether there’s any truth to the rumor that Harry Potter was among them.”
Chapter 28.
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