Diplomacy

Diplomacy

Part 1

by Leni Jess

Diplomatic Incident

Lord Voldemort seemed better satisfied with the envoy's manners.

He no longer stood proudly, asserting his allegiance to his obscure wizarding confederation half a world away. He bent his head without being cuffed, bowed without being punched in the kidneys, knelt and prostrated himself without kicks. He even stopped asking about his wretched gift of owls. Cruciatus, used long enough, was effective, as were other disciplines.

"Send him back where he came from, Lucius, so they'll learn to refrain from approaching me with demands."

The envoy watched Malfoy obey; felt himself manoeuvred with Mobilicorpus from the hall he never wished to see again, except in flames. Malfoy put a hand on his shoulder to steer him and Tyl flinched at its familiarity. But there had been so many hands in the dark, he could not be sure, and the dark came down again.

This bed was better than the cell's stone floor, though the room was not much warmer. Tyl found his wounds were only aches now; even the cold fire in his lungs and belly was more memory than presence. Someone approached, lifted his head and poured a disgusting potion into his opened mouth; then hard fingers efficiently pinched his nostrils shut. He choked and swallowed and retched.

"Will he recover? You're mad, Lucius, neither sending him back as our Lord said, nor killing him to keep this quiet, which would be safer."

"They'd come looking. Despite what Wormtail told Voldemort, Tyl Riemann represents a wizarding empire, not a lost colony. We can hope he reports on the care as well as the disregard of his diplomatic status."

'Disregard, that's good,' Tyl thought.

"Go home, Teo, I don't need help now."

Hasty footsteps and a boy's voice broke increasingly comfortable silent drifting.

"Lucius! At last!"

"Why are you here, Harry? And with Harrower? He and Hedwig are courting, you should not disturb them." Malfoy's voice was severe.

"The only way I could find you. Why bring me here for Christmas then be elsewhere? If you'd left me at school Draco and I would not have fought every day."

"You know why I brought you; you must both learn diplomacy. I can come to you later, Harry. Go, now."

"I want you now, not later! I've waited enough! Who's that? Is he - not a prisoner, Lucius?" The concern was real, not casual; the light steps rushed towards Tyl, then abruptly halted.

"Not of mine. Hold still, brat."

Malfoy evidently decided to distract the boy. Tyl could hear the quick breathing suddenly silenced, could imagine the kiss, closed his eyes tight and wondered how a schoolboy could want that man and his hard hands.

Harry's breathing resumed, unsteady now. Soon he was whimpering, while Malfoy whispered soothingly, teasingly. Tyl tried not to hear, but the sounds were explicit, and arousing, despite his confused memories of brutal acculturation. When the boy screamed his satisfaction, and Tyl's body responded helplessly, he wondered why there was no word for listening to others exchanging pleasure.

Diplomat's Gift

Tyl remembered what Teo Zabini had said, before everything fell apart and the idiot wizard-on-the-white-horse had him tortured into his idea of courtesy.

"Don't bring him owls as a diplomatic gift next time. These will be put to use, not treasured as rarities. A snake would be better - pretty, certainly, but dangerous, as well as rare, that would catch his attention."

Snakes the Island Confederation certainly had. Many of them could be called pretty by an observer with a magically protective barrier in between. Imagine wanting something irritable and deadly in place of his charming silver owls.

'Rieki and Tana, I hope someone looks after you!'

The boy with the striking eyes came in. He spoke to Tyl tentatively. "Sir? Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Malfoy?"

"Busy. But if you need anything -"

"My two owls. Where are they?"

The boy came closer, the green eyes shining with patent enthusiasm, concern for Tyl forgotten. "Here. Trust Lucius's horrible master to discard them. They're beautiful! I love my snowy owl, but what are they?"

Tyl levered himself up on one elbow, the boy shoving pillows behind his shoulders, and lectured on lesser sooty owls and their rainforest habitat.

"Will they have the silvery underparts when they're mature? The enormous dark blue eyes? How delicate are they? The climate here can't suit them."

Tyl's voice grew hoarse, but he persisted. Malfoy valued this boy, and if the boy cared about the owls...

When Malfoy returned, prepared to force another healing potion down his throat, Tyl discovered he was as entranced as Harry, though much more restrained.

Malfoy laughed softly. "My Lord may think them white elephants, Riemann, but I know their value is inestimable. They will be cared for, and loved too. My son wants to know what we can do to encourage them to mate, to breed - Harry here is a one-owl wizard, but we Malfoys know how to care for unusual specimens. Drink this and sleep."

Tyl woke slowly, uneasily aware of familiar noises, though no one was handling him. Whispers and the sounds of flesh on flesh enlightened him; couldn't Malfoy find anywhere but this dungeon to have the boy? Malfoy would drive him crazy like this, wanting and fearing, and having to listen, knowing Malfoy treated his Harry with a tenderness he had not so far afforded Tyl.

At least his owls were safe. He was more concerned for them than, as a diplomat, he should be; in the end they were expendable, however much a cause for rage and grief that would be. Just as he was expendable, though it would not go unrequited.

But from what Malfoy had said to Zabini (had it been last night?), he meant to obey his snake lord and send Tyl home. Tyl didn't intended to pursue this career as special envoy to an unstable terrorist; his superiors in Kalimantan could send someone else if they required further observation of the Dark tide threatening to drown wizarding Britain.

Diplomatic Relations

Tyl could hear them arguing, though not what was said, but the boy sounded angry. Reckless, or very confident - perhaps over-confident. They came closer, and his heart sank. He would be dragged in; he always paid for their conflicts.

"You promised! Your curst Lord told you to send him home, that's what you said."

"When he can travel safely. It's a long way to Indonesia, or whatever it's called now." Malfoy at least was cool.

Harry was distracted into responding, "Kalimantan is what their wizards say, I looked it up." He returned to the attack. "Let him go. Or I shall wonder exactly why you are holding him prisoner."

"Guest," Malfoy corrected.

The boy's snort matched Tyl's silent comment. "What do you want with him, Lucius? It's not for Voldemort, he doesn't care; he's made that plain."

"Not your affair."

Tyl thought, 'At least don't tell the child you're fucking me. He'd never understand.'

Malfoy continued very coldly, "You too are a guest here, Harry - only a guest. The only promise of mine that concerns you is the one I made you."

"If you brought me here to learn diplomacy - yes, I understand Draco and I must learn not to fight! At least in public, it looks bad; and that will be easier to keep to if we don't quarrel in private either. But I don't especially want to learn from you, Lucius, if this is what you call diplomacy."

Malfoy retorted, "I despair of teaching you courtesy, never mind diplomacy. You're learning patience in bed, Harry, and you seem to be learning it with Draco too, but you have yet to learn it with my necessities."

The boy snarled, "Your necessities are despicable! Like your master!"

A hard-breathing silence was broken when Malfoy responded, "You have no idea how tenuous my relations with him are, thanks to you. At this moment Tyl Riemann is probably safer than Draco and I - or you either, if you stress that gossamer alliance I still have with the Dark Lord. Since you forced yourself into my life -"

"Your taking control of me was my idea?"

"The control is yours, you repellent brat. I would slap you silly, if I could, for your Gryffindor impertinence, or curse you for your Slytherin cunning. Since we must deal together, develop some restraint, refrain from interfering in the protections I am trying to build, which will benefit you too - unless you want to face him alone?"

After a long pause Harry's response was reflective, free of passion. "So you're planning the unthinkable, Lucius? Very well, I'll try not to mess it up for you. Remember, though, if I get really upset about Mr Riemann you'll have to release him, whether it suits your plans or not."

"Go away, Harry, before I hex Riemann into tomorrow in your place!"

The boy left. Tyl was not surprised to hear the soft footsteps approaching, and steeled himself for those hard hands again, and his wildly confused response to them.

Limits on Diplomacy

Tyl looked at the armchairs the house-elf had summoned, velvet upholstered, winged against drafts. They were everything foreign to him. In this dungeon he longed for the light and warm air and spareness of his tropical environment. He needed hard wood smoothed to silk, sliding walls, terraced stone, and everywhere the greens of life.

Perhaps to Malfoy that might seem impecunious, rather than pared of everything unnecessary to bodily and mental ease. Just now, though, he would lie on rotting leaves, to be home, and free.

He was struggling to leave his cot when Malfoy and Harry entered. Naturally it was the boy who rushed to help. The man never touched him except to dose him or have sex.

Malfoy wanted to discuss Kalimantan's attitude to Voldemort. Tyl thought he would need the armchair's support.

He said carefully, "We know your Lord desires to dominate, and to be seen to dominate, the Muggles of this island. Our problems in the last few centuries make us extremely wary of wizards who want to control or destabilise the Muggle world. Ours are quite contentious enough, and adequately powerful in their way, as your Lord may find these are."

Tyl noticed Harry seemed to agree; Malfoy's thoughts were unreadable.

"And you came because...?" Malfoy prompted.

"Certainly not for two former colonies to submit to his rule! The wizards of the Three Islands from which I come - Australia and New Zealand - have long gone their own way and made alliance with their neighbours. My personal links to Europe are quite close, one reason I was chosen. English is one of my native tongues. The Confederation sent me to evaluate his actions and his intentions up close, not from half a world away. And to request moderation, if he might listen."

Tyl looked into Malfoy's eyes, trying to disregard the dominance the other wizard had inevitably established. "He will not only impoverish you by killing off your source of new wizards, and those wizards themselves. He will ruin you. As they did with Grindelwald before him, no matter what it costs, those around him will pull him down."

"Yes!" Harry said fiercely.

"Quiet."

Dismissively Malfoy pulled the boy from the arm of his chair to his lap; Harry suffered it, and indeed made himself comfortable, though he removed the hand that slipped between his thighs. Tyl wondered if that was done to distract him, or to punish him because Malfoy resented his assertions. He knew by now Tyl did not like to be reminded of their relationship.

If Malfoy rejected the Confederation's view Tyl had no licence to negotiate, or to beg, no matter what the fair wizard might force from him personally.

Tyl yearned again to be on his verandah high in the hills, in one of his grandmother's rattan chairs, designed for his adult form, holding his slender lover. He wanted that black silk hair over his face, not Malfoy's ice-blond strands that trapped his fingers, blinded his eyes, and stopped his mouth.

~~~TBC~~~