lomonaaeren

Chapter Twenty-Three.

Title: Made of Common Clay (24/48)
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 Twenty-Four—With Ambrosial Mouth

“Harry? Mate, can you hear me?”

Harry manages to drag his eyes slowly open. God, everything hurts. He grunts. He hasn’t felt like this since the last time he fell off a building chasing a suspect and the Lightening and Cushioning Charms he cast didn’t make it in time. He tries to sit up.

“No.” Ron pushes him back into the bed, hissing at him as if he’s the one who’s a Parselmouth. “You barely Apparated out of whatever that place was in time. You’ve got a concussion, broken ribs, a fractured ankle, and an arm that refuses to stay in its socket. Hermione says that’s the magical exhaustion. Your wounds will start healing faster once you can get some rest.”

“Which might be a while, with the concussion.” Harry winces when he hears his own voice. The fire he called must have penetrated down his throat. “Damn. How long has it been since I Apparated in?”

“About an hour and a half. Hermione is over at the Burrow pretending that both of us didn’t hear the alarm and nothing’s wrong here, and I’m here pretending that I ate some bad chicken the other day and applying her cures. Like this.” Ron holds out a flask of some chalky white potion that seems to roll back and forth in Harry’s doubled vision.

After a second, he manages to focus on it, and chuckles. “I’ll have to say thank you.” There aren’t that many people who brew the potion that lets someone rest well with a concussion; most Healers just get rid of the concussion outright. But his magic is too weak right now to work with a Healer’s spells, and Ron and Hermione probably can’t take him to one anyway. Harry swallows the potion, and gasps as it feels like a bowling ball just rolled through his head and unscrambled his brain. “Why did she have it on hand?”

“With you, mate? You can really ask that question? Now tell me what the hell happened.”

“I went to my usual Kingmaker meeting with Shafiq tonight. She’d either already made the decision to get rid of me or she intended to hide me away and produce me at some later time. The wine was drugged and the house was trapped with a bunch of runes meant to imprison me and keep her safe from my magic. I pretended to go along with the drugging, and an Unspeakable showed up. I couldn’t let him take me to the Department of Mysteries, so I attacked.”

“And then?”

“I destroyed the rune circle holding me. That weakened the structural integrity of the rest of them, which means—”

“It weakened the structural integrity of the house, too,” Ron says weakly, staring at him. “Shit, mate. Shit.”

“She killed the Unspeakable. She intended the house to fall down on top of me and bury me alive, and if there was enough of our bodies left, she probably intended me to take the guilt for the Unspeakable’s murder, too.” Harry shakes his head. “Now I need to decide what to do. Part of that is going to rely on the stories she spreads.”

“I don’t think she’s saying anything yet. I mean, it’s only been an hour and a half. And do you think she is going to say anything? She would have to reveal her part in catching you in that trap.”

Harry snorts and closes his eyes; his ribs are beginning to protest. Luckily, Ron is there with some draughts for pain, which Hermione also tends to stock up on. “I think she can say whatever she wants without revealing her part in it. She could pretend I betrayed her. She could pretend that I made her have to knock down the house. She could say that I lured her there and tried to kill her. The problem is, there are too many directions she could go in, and too many of them depend on whether she thinks I’m dead. I can’t predict that. So…”

“So?”

Harry laughs. He knows that it probably looks odd, not least because of the stretching bruise on his face that makes the corners of his mouth hurt. Ron actually steps back from the bed and eyes him.

“Mate?”

“Until now, I had to be subtle because I was trying to stay within the bounds of the law.” Harry grins at him. “I had to pretend to agree with people I despise, and go to my job, and mute some of my protests. This has ended it. Shafiq knows the truth, she’ll tell other people, and no one who’s really part of the Sun Chamber will ever trust me again. I’m free.”

“And the rest of us?” Every one of Ron’s freckles seems to be standing out against his pale face.

“The rest of you are going to have to distance yourself from me on the surface.”

“I don’t want to, mate.”

“I know, but it’s only on the surface, Ron. Most people have no idea anyway that you’ve been negotiating with the Dementors or participating in those protests. Some of that is just because they don’t pay attention to you—and they should—”

“No, they shouldn’t. I’m sorry that I was ever jealous of you for your fame, mate. It’s awful.”

Harry reaches over and grips Ron’s hand. That’s an apology he’s made more than once as the years pass, and it’s one that he’s never really needed to. “Don’t worry about it. Anyway, it’s going to work to our advantage now. You and Hermione and Luna and Neville can keep doing exactly what you’re doing, and no one is going to notice anything different. You may have to denounce me at a few points, but that’s not going to be hard.”

“No one would believe us.”

“Then keep your denunciation half-hearted, and act like they’re only persuading you after a long struggle.” Harry shrugs. “That will probably convince them better, anyway. And you’ll have the chance to listen to them and get information from them without them realizing that’s what you’re doing.”

Ron nods, but his eyes are on Harry’s leg and ribs. There’s a deep rage hiding in the back of his gaze that Harry is going to have to persuade him to abandon if they’re going to get any work done.

“Hey.” Ron snaps his head up when Harry reaches out and squeezes his hand pointedly. “I’m still alive.”

“You could have died. She wanted to murder you.”

“Or maybe spirit me away into the depths of the Department of Mysteries, never to be seen again,” Harry says in his best ethereal voice. Ron still stares back with that cold fury. Harry sighs. “Listen to me, Ron. We’ll ruin the plan if it looks like you’re still too close to me after this.”

“Fuck the plan. I care about you.”

“I know, but I also care about the plan.”

Ron drums his fingers on his leg and glares around as if he hopes that Shafiq will pop up so that he can take out his rage on her. Finally, he gives Harry a grudging nod.

“Good.” Harry relaxes. “Then the first thing I want you to do is act like everything is fine until Shafiq makes some kind of announcement. Then, depending on whether people believe I’m dead or a fugitive, we’ll take it from there.”

“Fine,” Ron says through gritted teeth. Then he unexpectedly flings his arms around Harry in a way that makes him gasp, although he’s careful of the broken ribs. “Fuck, mate, I thought you were dead when I saw you at first. You landed in this twisted position, and your hair is burned, and there are burns on your face. Shit. Shit.” His body shakes for a second, and then his grip on Harry redoubles. “The one good thing about working behind the scenes is that you shouldn’t have to face open confrontation as often. Right?”

He says it in a way that lets Harry know he’d better put any plans for open confrontation off for a while. He nods solemnly and pats Ron’s back. “Right. If Shafiq and the others think I’m dead, then I need to work subtly. If they think that I’m alive but out there beyond the reach of the law somewhere, then confronting them would send them running to the Ministry.”

“Right,” Ron repeats. He hugs Harry one more time before letting go and sitting back like nothing happened. “What are you going to do about your houses and Kreacher if they think you’re dead and try to force them open?”

Harry snorts. “That got settled after I almost died from that blast of dragonfire five years ago. The will says that only you and Hermione have access, and that Kreacher is to go to one of you.”

“Right,” Ron says again, and this time, there’s nothing threatening about it. “We’ll see what the Ministry says in the morning.”

Harry smiles at him, understanding the implied command for what it is, and closes his eyes.

*

“Oh, this is a good one.”

Hermione’s voice is light, which doesn’t disguise the worry in it. Harry, limping back from the shower on an ankle that is mostly healed from its fracture, holds out his hand for the paper without dropping the towel that he’s using on his hair. Drying Charms leave it looking as though it’s made of dead worms.

When he’s done with his hair, Harry lowers the towel, and chuckles a little at the sight of the headline. HARRY POTTER: DEMONIC DARK WIZARD.

“Skeeter is probably sorry that I don’t have any D’s in my name,” Harry told Hermione, and floats his towel back into the bathroom with a flick of his hand. “And this changes nothing.”

“The article says the Aurors are going to be searching for you, Harry.”

Harry shrugs. “That part is different, okay. But before, I was hiding my true intentions from them. The same thing is going to happen now.”

Hermione follows him into the kitchen with a puckered forehead. Harry is going to get his own breakfast, but checks when he sees bananas, yogurt, apples, and toast on the table. “Hermione?”

“Your ribs are still recovering. Don’t tell me that that tiny amount of Ossification Potion has worked all the way.”

Harry nods and sits down at the table, smiles at her, and starts to read the paper. Hermione sits down next to him, frowning heavily at him.

“It’s not like I chose to have someone kidnap me, try to drug me, and then trap me and blame me for that house falling down,” Harry murmurs without looking up at her. The article says that the house belonged to the de Violet family, who are related to the Shafiqs through marriage and some distant blood connection. They don’t have a seat in the Sun Chamber, but there are a few Wizengamot members with a connection to them, too. Harry smiles tightly. So, the links between the Kingmakers and the Wizengamot were there all the time.

“Harry…”

“Yes?” Shafiq claims that she found out about Harry’s “mad” efforts to establish himself as King of the wizarding world and overthrow the Sun Chamber. She invited him to the de Violet home, supposedly, to beg him to end the madness, and to trap him and hand him over to the Ministry if he refused to stop. But when he broke the runic circle and killed “my dear friend, Unspeakable Edward Selwyn,” then she fled, knowing she had no chance against him.

“He is incredibly powerful, Lady Shafiq says,” Harry murmurs, and looks up from the article. “Yes, Hermione?”

“They know exactly what you’re after now, and what you can do to them,” Hermione says. Her face is tight and still. “We’ve lost.”

Harry snorts. “They still don’t know what I’m after, Hermione. Shafiq likely thinks I was trying to destroy the Sun Chamber. People who believe her will think that I’m trying to be King. What I want is completely out of their comprehension, because they’d never try to do it themselves.”

“But—they’re not stupid.”

“No. What they are is prejudiced. Say that what I’m trying to do did occur to someone from the Sun Chamber. They would never believe that I had the power to pull it off, since I’m the son of a Muggleborn woman. And other people would never believe it because they judge my ambitions by their own. Why would I destroy the Ministry, instead of trying to rise to the top of it? That’s what they would do.”

“I suppose. I just don’t understand how their prejudice can overcome their logic like that.”

“You said it yourself, Hermione, lots of wizards don’t have an ounce of logic.” Harry puts the paper aside so he can eat his breakfast. “And if prejudices were logical in the first place, you could just argue them out of existence.”

Hermione nods, her lips pressed together in a fierce frown. Harry welcomes that, honestly. It means that she’s less likely to start scolding him or wondering how she can do dangerous things to support him when she’ll have to denounce him in public.

“Have you thought about how the Weasleys are going to take this?” Hermione asks, when she’s come back from wherever her thoughts took her.

“Well, we know that George is on our side already. I think Molly and Arthur will probably be upset. Percy…” Harry has to shrug. He doesn’t hate Percy, but he’s not close to him, either, especially since Percy appears to think that the Ministry is redeemable. “Ginny might reach out to me. I’m not planning to answer her.”

“And Bill?”

Harry grins a little. “He’s on our side in spirit, Hermione. If you’d heard how much he’s talked to me and Ron about how people turn away from him with a shudder when they see his scars, or how some people gape at Fleur and Victoire and Dominique and others think they’re casting the Imperius Curse on them by being part-Veela, then you’d know.”

“Why has he never talked about that when I was around?”

“Fleur doesn’t like swearing. I think Bill thinks you don’t, either.”

“Tell him that I have no objections to reasonable swearing.” Hermione folds her arms and nods as if she could possibly lift her nose higher into the air than it is right now.

“You’ll have to tell him yourself. We can’t risk him seeing me until we know for sure where he stands.”

“Right.” Hermione hesitates. “Charlie?”

“He’s made himself so at home in Romania that he only cares about things in Britain insofar as it affects his family,” Harry replies. Now and then he and Charlie send letters to each other, but it’s always about dragons and other creatures. “I think he might come back if Molly is grieving enough, but he won’t get involved in the fight.”

Hermione nods. “I always wondered why he felt like he had to leave. I mean, he was a blood traitor in some people’s eyes, but he could have made a place for himself here. Percy has.”

Harry shrugs noncommittally. He has his guesses about Charlie, but they’re private and might not be right, and it feels wrong to share them even with Hermione. “Maybe it’s just that there are so many restrictions on what someone can do when they’re studying creatures. A lot more in Britain than in Romania.”

Hermione half-smiles. “When you’re done, they’ll be gone.”

Harry nods and swallows the rest of his pumpkin juice. “Ready to play the part of a shocked and grieving best friend who’s still trying to decide where her support should fall?”

“As much as I can ever be,” Hermione says softly.

She reaches across the table after a second to squeeze his hand. Harry squeezes back, firmly.

*

“I just can’t believe Harry would do something like this.”

Harry sighs as he listens from behind the closed door of Ron and Hermione’s bedroom. He hates the thick sound of tears in Molly’s voice, but she was always going to cry when she found out the truth. Shafiq just made it happen earlier than it would have otherwise.

“I know,” Hermione says. “It really doesn’t make much sense. Something else must have happened, but we’ll never get that Lady Shafiq to admit to it.”

“Harry has been acting strange lately,” Ginny’s voice adds. “Like all that business with Simon. Do you think there’s a chance that he could be under the Imperius Curse? Or something like it? I mean, I know he can resist the actual Imperius, but a potion?”

“Or possessed.” Arthur’s voice is deep and sad. “I always wondered whether there was another artifact like the diary our poor Gin ran into out there.”

“Not exactly like the diary, Dad! It couldn’t be.”

“I didn’t mean exactly like. I only meant like.”

“I don’t know. Harry’s behavior hasn’t changed that much in the past few weeks and months. I don’t think he was possessed.”

That’s Ron, the calmest of everyone in the room. It’s strange, Harry thinks. Ron isn’t really as good at keeping the truth concealed as Hermione, and it’s his family, but he’s going along with what they have to do better. Maybe because Hermione keeps trying to think of a way for Harry to get his name cleared, and Ron’s accepted that they can’t do that and they should simply work with what’s in front of them.

“I don’t know what we can do for him…”

Harry backs away quietly from the door. It sounds as though Molly’s fretting will take up most of the rest of the conversation, and that means he has “permission” to leave.

And it’s time to go talk to someone he didn’t have much hope of being able to persuade before now. It’ll take a honeyed tongue to do it at all, but with his new outlaw status, Harry is a lot more hopeful.

Good thing it’s not full moon.