herumtreiber

Title: The Lord Appellant 3/37
Chapter: Ultimatum
Author:

herumtreiber
Genre: Slash, romance, adventure, dark!fic
Pairing: Draco/Blaise, one sided Harry/Draco
Rating: R
Warnings for the fic: It's a dark fic, rape is mentioned several times. Dementors appear and not for show. Character death (not Harry, Draco or Blaise). Evil!Ron, powerful Hermione, Pansy and Bellatrix. Sympathetic to Slytherins.
Epilogue compliant? No
Chapter length: ~2,156 words
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or related characters. Nor do I make any money from writing these stories.
Summary: After the events of HBP, the Minister of Magic wants to finish the Malfoys but Draco uses a Wizengamot procedure to fight back. Veelas and Siddhe appear in the story as Draco uses political means to contest the pureblood's allegiance to Voldemort.
Notes: I wrote this before DH was published, so please no picayune comments about canon.

Table of contents

2. It's all in his kiss

Draco looked at Blaise, wondering why he was gloating so. Since he was his best friend since earliest childhood, he knew that expression and it meant that a long-hatched plan was coming to fruition. Blaise liked to put people together, put ideas in a different form and obtain a wholly new different outcome.

Draco also looked at Pansy, who was staring concernedly at Blaise. He hoped these two would one day look deep and realize the thread that joined them. Draco felt a fluttering in his chest as he beheld his two friends. Here they were: his true family. The ones he would do anything to protect.

He remembered one rainy day during that awful sixth year, when they had all been skittishly sitting around, Draco with his usual bad humor and Blaise down because his mother was marrying again. Pansy had tried to cheer them up, but her efforts didn't pan out, and so her mood darkened.

Finally, after a silent hour, Draco's considerable thin temper exploded and he shouted, "What is it Blaise? What's eating you up?"

Thankfully, Blaise didn't pretend to be shocked, he just replied morosely, "Why are you with me, Draco?"

Draco replied tersely, "Because you are my best friend, Blaise."

Blaise moodily said, "How can you stand to be my friend, when I'm the scion of the traitorous Zabinis and my mother marries for sport and money?"

Draco understood then. He'd been there when Blaise was taunted unmercifully by everyone about his mother's propensity to marry. Though Blaise held his temper in check so much better than Draco, the taunting still hurt a lot, and there was likely to be more in the near future.

Draco gravely answered, "Then let me ask you how you can bear to be my friend, when my father has committed many atrocities, and I must obey a will not my own, though it displease me greatly?"

Draco continued, "The answer is that we are not our parents, we are different individuals. My father's foul deeds can not be held against me, unless by brutes and prejudiced people, of whom there is a large majority in the world. But we must bear with them, as you have told me time and time again, when I just wanted to hex them into next week."

Draco smiled, with a hint of sadness around the eyes. It amazed Blaise and Pansy that they were among the only ones who saw the full range of Draco's emotions, something that he disconnected from the world in his daily activities.

Draco continued wistfully, "You asked why I am with you, Blaise. One way to answer is that 'I am' I endure, I continue living. We all know that the lives of Slytherin children are not the beds of roses of common imagination. The trials we endure are many and varied, mine was worse, what with Daddy's crazy ideas and the compulsion."

"I know that if it hadn't been for you and Pansy, I would have been out of this mortal coil long ago, so don't you dare ask me why you are my friend!" Then Draco surprised Blaise by sitting down next to him and embracing him in a fierce hug. Blaise treasured the moment, wishing he had a Pensieve to play the memory in; hugs from Draco were indeed rare events. Soon Pansy joined them, and their spirits lifted a little.

Draco added, as if settling the matter, "As long as I live, you'll be my friend, Blaise.

As long as I live, I will trust you."

Draco felt weary. There were tons of detail to finesse; it felt like it would never end. Pansy grabbed his arm and whispered in his ear, "We have to deal with the succession today, while they are nervous." Draco nodded imperceptibly and caught Potter's smug looks. He followed them to Blaise and he was bewildered, did Potter want Blaise? He'd try to be happy for Blaise, and as for Potter, there was nothing he could do. He knew bitterly how futile that would be.

To distract himself, he addressed the Wizengamot, "As the former Minister of Magic is dead, the Ministry needs a guide, a strong hand that will provide a true path to greatness. To expedite matters I suggest Mrs. Amelia Bones as Acting Minister of Magic until general elections can be held."

There were hushed explanations and people began to congregate in groups. Against death and Dementors, they had been helpless and felt resentful, but this was a political emergency and their bread and butter.

Besides from Amelia, Arthur Weasley was nominated and Terence Hannover, presumably the candidates from the Order of the Phoenix and Voldemort. At the end, Amelia won by 10.

After she had been sworn in, Amelia came up to the front and said, "After the former Minister shows up Kissed, I'm pretty sure the truth will come out. Are there any newspeople here that could help us prepare statements to give to the press covering what occurred in this Lord Appellant's summary trial?"

Three men (among them Luna's father Mr. Lovegood) and a woman came up and they went to the task of preparing statements which would tell the story but hide the new prophecy of the Child of Dark.

Draco got near Blaise and commented, "I'm worried, Blaise, you look wistful."

Blaise answered, "I do not feel sad, my Liege, everything's as it should be."

Draco said, "Advice me, Blaise, I feel there's something obvious that is glaringly wrong."

Blaise commented, "The loophole in the laws may cause a new warrant for execution to be issued."

Draco replied, "By Merlin, right as always, Blaise, what would I do without you?"

Draco left, and didn't hear Blaise's soft spoken reply, "No Draco, what would I do without you?

After they distributed the statements to be signed, Draco steeled himself for this latest battle. He knew his godfather's life was on the line, spying for the Dark Lord. The Dark Lord could find out who was feeding info to the enemy, and Snape would be tortured.

But what if Snape was killed in some futile, internecine Gryffindor vendetta of any government? The thought galled Draco, such a thing he could not stand. He also knew that these people had detested the name of Malfoy, but positively hated Severus Snape. This was going to be a true test of his ability to sway people.

First, about Potter… no, he tried to avoid thinking about him, and he let the mental wind take him where it may.

Draco said, "Now that the Malfoy Estate has been returned to its rightful owner, there is one more matter to deal with and we can close this Lord Appellant's trial."

He looked at Harry and Hermione and said, "Remember the politeness spell? There's also a truth spell that makes everything uttered here in these proceedings the virtual truth. The former Minister could not speak because his words were lies. Remember this in the next minutes!"

Draco said, "The warrant for my death was too easy to make, too easy to sign, easy to believe in. If the laws remain as they are, we are leaving a loaded weapon with which the Ministers of the future will settle political disputes. I propose to change a single law: SD124, so that a death warrant has to be signed by a majority of the Wizengamot for it to be valid."

Arthur Weasley's voice rose, "I object, we need to study how such a change would impact the other laws, we need to have a Committee, maybe a Subcommittee, issue subpoenas and study the whole."

Draco sighed, so much for the easy way out. Quickly he turned to Harry and asked, "How do I look?"

Harry answered, "Stunning as usual." "….Argh"

Draco asked, "what do you think of Granger's personality?"

"She's loyal but has the temper of a shrew." "Errm….."

Draco spoke solemnly, "That was so that you know truth is spoken here. Did you know about the Lord Appellant's trial?"

"No."

Draco commented, "You didn't know that it is a custom widely studied in the Wizarding World, and at Hogwarts it used to be taught in Second Year History of Magic, until you arrived, whereupon the class was precipitously cancelled like hot potatoes?"

Harry answered with a strangled, "No!"

Draco continued relentlessly, "I bet your friends, like Granger and Weasley, know of the custom, but were told to keep quiet."

Draco went on, "Potter, if you had known about the custom, you could have asked for a Lord Appellant's trial on behalf of your godfather and my cousin, Sirius Black. Doubtless you would have had to have a strategy and research, but you would have had enough time, for there is no age limit to use the Appellant trial."

Draco proceeded, "You would have lived with your godfather, however you liked. Yet, the Wizarding World kept you from him, for whatever reasons. They have taken your godfather away from you. I won't let them take mine from me!"

Harry sobbed, "Why didn't you tell me, then?"

Draco answered hoarsely, "Because until today, I thought you knew about the custom!"

Draco could see that Harry was near the breaking point, for his purposes it was enough, and he didn't want those strangers to gawk at a crying Harry Potter, he raised his hand and the Chamber's magic, finely attuned to his own, took Harry and deposited him where he was currently residing.

The vote to amend law SD124 was about to be underway, Draco turned to the Wizengamot members, and could see that his party was in the minority. There was a smug look about the majority, as if happy that they would win one over the Malfoy boy.

He let his inner rage boil subtly to the surface.

He shouted, "You cursed me! According to that paper, which was law and which many of you want to continue to uphold, I should be dead!"

"You should have researched, you should have found out the truth, prevented this comedy of justice from being repeated, but you did not. You laze around and speak mightily of ghostly and ghastly subcommittees and subpoenas, but when it comes to the hard truth, you scamper away like you were in yonder foxes' burrows."

"I wash my hands off of you, Cursers." "Furthermore, before you I put my ultimatum. Remember that prophecy of Dumbledore about the Child of Dark holding the balance of worlds in his hands?"

"Remember and tremble, for many times today I've felt sick and tired of your petty minds, sick enough to leave this Realm and never return!" Draco contemptuously turned his back on them, as he remembered their incredible political obstinacy. The people were discouraged by this news, by their new-found liberator leaving them again, but they felt the complete truths of the statements; the Wizengamot Chamber itself, finely attuned by now to Draco's emotions, grieved the loss of what it considered its child, adding to the overwhelming feeling of malaise. Two men and one woman fainted.

"It would be easy for me to leave this Realm and take myself elsewhere, and dwell where pettiness does not reign supreme."

Several people started wailing then, and even Hermione found the atmosphere had become increasingly foreboding and cold. Malfoy leave? That'd be great except, the war would be lost; also Harry without Malfoy to distract him would become a handful.

Minister Bones also felt the foreboding chaos, and she knew that she needed to take action, fortunately she knew exactly what to do, even if she had to appear a lot submissive; but then she knew in her heart who submitted to whom.

She approached Draco, knelt and kissed his robes and said, "Sire, please do not be overly angry with us! I am sure the law will be amended accordingly. We wish to serve together with thee, Sire!"

Draco, when he turned and saw Amelia, was quite startled. He hastened to offer her his arm and guide her so she could vote. When the results came exactly as Draco wanted, she offered congratulations.

Draco told her to stop the acting, she countered smartly that as of now, the Wizengamot would not go against the known wishes of Draco Malfoy. She also said, shrewdly, "I know it might be overwhelming to be called Sire, and have the balance of the worlds in your hands, but I trust completely the young man I saw today who held the trust of his friends Blaise and Pansy, dealt harshly but fairly with his enemies; and even helped a reluctant Harry Potter, the man that cares for his godfather enough to bend rules and even break them, that man I'd follow to the end of the Earth, prophecy be damned!"

"I did not help Potter!"

Amelia countered, "You did too! You showed him that many important things are kept from him, hopefully he'll learn to be careful about his trust."

tbc