Diplomacy

Diplomacy

Part 2

by Leni Jess

Diplomatic Manoeuvres

Tyl woke to the ever-present candlelight with Malfoy looking down at him, that faint uninformative smile on the pale face. Malfoy grasped his shoulder; he mastered the impulse to flinch away, meeting the grey eyes calmly.

"Very good."

The hand tightened. Tyl swore silently, knowing he was being tested, but did not react.

"You're recovering. You need a few days yet."

They had inflicted much on him, not all of it bodily abuse. Malfoy still played with him, though never so cruelly, for private reasons obscure to Tyl.

He saw the boy come to Malfoy's other side and lean into his embrace, his presence limiting Malfoy to provocative speech.

"Then you may go where you wish." The hand worked Tyl's shoulder ungently. "An official visit to the Minister of Magic, perhaps."

Tyl ignored both intimacy and cynicism. "Not my remit. I'm to report home; even a few days stretches the time Kalimantan allowed."

"You have a Portkey?"

Deliberately Tyl looked towards his belongings, recently restored. "I trust I have it still."

"Stay in bed. I'll send a house-elf. Drink this."

As expected the potion shoved him quickly back into sleep, leaving Malfoy free to rifle his possessions again, if he chose, believing now they included a Portkey for the centre of the wizarding Island Confederation.

When Tyl roused a house-elf sat cross-legged on the bench. It bustled over, arms full, then Disapparated.

There were the oddments from his pockets, the wallet with his instructions and notes - no wand.

Onto his left forefinger Tyl slid the heavy gold ring set with a chunk of amethyst, a gift made by his Muggle-born grandfather, who found the stone when he was young. Its only evident value was sentimental, but Tyl had worn it, and used it, for a long time. He would not stay for Malfoy's permission if he could get himself out.

Nor would he risk a Portkey to the heart of the Confederation here. He rubbed his thumb hard across the crystalline surface, muttering, "Ambon," his destination an island with a long history of wizardry, remote, but secure.

Nothing.

Tyl did not even swear. Flexing the fingers of his wand hand, he concentrated on his open palm. No handful of light appeared. So. Malfoy's dungeon was heavily warded against his performing magic, though the house-elf could use its own; a prodigal use of power, but perhaps Malfoy frequently had reluctant guests.

Another experiment. He closed his eyes. "Come, Rieki, come, Tana."

Perhaps an hour later the green-eyed boy returned.

"I thought you might like to know that your owls are doing well."

Behind him floated Tyl's own T-staff, an owl on each side. The nictitating membranes sheltered their eyes from the strong light, but they saw him and sprang into the air, sweeping towards him, the larger Tana in the lead. As she alighted on his knee Rieki stooped to the cot-head.

Tyl murmured, "My dear ones."

He smiled through tear-dazzle. "Thank you, Harry; that's kind."

He was not entirely helpless.

Diplomatic Niceties

Malfoy rose, adjusting his clothing, and Tyl crept under the bedcovers.

Then Malfoy attacked, exploiting his unguarded relief. "Didn't your Island Confederation realise my Lord would find its request for moderation offensive? No matter how delicate your language?"

Tyl set physical discomfort aside. "Kalimantan does not despatch envoys on hopeless missions. Your master was distempered before I presented it."

"Anyone suggesting moderation is seen as bumptious - one of us quite as much as you."

"How can he hope to rule this country - and his ambitions clearly go further! - if he disregards practical advice?"

Malfoy shrugged. "He expects his Inner Circle to manage this campaign; we don't trouble him with every detail, or advise unasked either."

"Why stay, if you don't accept his goals?"

"I'm committed to his goals," Malfoy responded coolly. "Some methods, however, may be self-defeating. And to leave is death."

Tyl remembered a recent conversation between Malfoy and Harry and an allusion to establishing 'protections'. It would be crude to ask if Malfoy planned a palace revolution, but perhaps he was invited to make Kalimantan's case, even to offer support to dissidents.

He pursued this, until Harry entered.

At Malfoy's gesture the boy sat, pressing against him like a cat inviting stroking. Harry's expression suggested reluctance, but he did not evade the man's hands, even when Malfoy began embarrassingly intimate fondling.

Tyl wondered how far Malfoy's malice would take this, but when Harry was lying alongside him whispering agitatedly, "Please, don't!" and Malfoy leaned smiling over both of them, concentrating entirely on the boy, the door opened again.

Harry hissed, "Lucius!" but Malfoy needed no urging. He released Harry and strode rapidly towards the door, his hands combing back his long hair.

Harry rose as if on springs and muttered without looking at Tyl, "Sorry."

"You've annoyed him?"

"I did that the first time I came looking for him here." Harry was still flushed, and doubtless trying to ignore the erection Malfoy had been cultivating. "He used a charm - not for the first time! - but this one makes me act like a dog in heat if he's here when I come. I'd never have walked in if I'd known."

"You don't dislike the sex."

Harry snarled, then admitted, "No, it's being compelled to put on a show for someone, just to appease him, that I hate; he knows that."

"Stay away; suppress that impulse to check on me. He intends to release me." Tyl would not discuss Malfoy's complex of motives in detaining him.

"There's a war on, though we haven't come to open battle. What I can do, I will."

"It's not your responsibility to hinder Voldemort!"

Harry said sardonically, "I can't imagine why he keeps trying to kill me, then," deliberately brushing back his hair.

For the first time Tyl saw the lightning scar, and asked himself what was going to happen to wizarding Britain if Voldemort's chief follower controlled its acknowledged champion, however Harry resisted his hold.

Tyl might indeed have to collaborate with Malfoy.

Open Diplomacy

Harry sat on the end of Tyl's cot enquiring disingenuously how Kalimantan's wizards organised their empire, when the heavy dungeon door opened. He stiffened rather than relaxed when the arrival was not Malfoy, but someone who must be his son: a boy taller than Harry, as ice-blond as his father, but not as hard to read. His current expression flickered between resentment and concern.

"Father's bringing visitors here because it's so well warded, he sent me to warn you."

"Death Eaters then. Thanks."

The other shrugged. "I would have come any way; it could only make trouble if they found Harry Potter here, especially if they tried to take you."

All three heard multiple footsteps echoing in the stone corridor.

Tyl said, "Under the bed, quickly."

Malfoy's son did not resent the instruction; he dived as Harry rolled under the cot's far side, muttering, "Want to hear."

Harry fiercely warned, "Keep me here, Draco! I mustn't go to Lucius!"

Hiding was their only option; Malfoy had not detained his visitors long enough, or his son had difficulty locating Tyl's prison. Harry earlier said he was learning to resist Malfoy's lust spell; Tyl certainly hoped so.

The guests were cloaked, but few wore their white masks. Tyl recognised most. Some looked at him then to Malfoy, who said calmly, "Riemann will neither hear nor remember; disregard him."

They settled at the broad table and chairs Malfoy summoned. Immediately a Cone of Silence hushed the murmur of voices. The boys would be frustrated.

Tyl lay on his side, eyes half closed, patiently watching faces for the next hour, until Malfoy glanced at him then lifted his wand to conceal the dissidents, as Tyl now knew they were, behind a Veil of Privacy.

Tyl condemned his carelessness and Malfoy's suspicion in all three of his native languages, until Draco scrambled up, evidently thinking himself safe. Tyl cautioned him even as Harry tugged at him, asking whether his father would erect a barrier he couldn't see through. Both subsided, recognising they must wait until the men left.

At a thunderous knocking Malfoy brought the Veil and Cone down, gesturing the alarmed conspirators to stillness. They assumed their masks hastily.

"Our meeting's over!"

Malfoy led everyone out, greeting Walden Macnair easily, though he must be concerned.

Harry and Draco quizzed Tyl, realising he had learned something; he could not evict them before Malfoy returned, far sooner than expected. With undignified speed the boys vanished.

Malfoy's eyes were burning ice, his hands claws. Tyl was urgent to divert him, with the man's son and his lover there to witness or, in some ways worse, be discovered afterwards.

"Can you sublimate your wrath without killing me? Ensure Voldemort's faithful dog has done you no harm."

Reluctantly Malfoy accepted safeguarding his revolution came before reprisals.

Tyl stood no more nonsense from the boys, but noticed Harry's speculative look as they left.

He had time to decide that knowing what was to come was probably worse than being surprised.

Diplomatic Reception

Tyl was working through Malfoy's papers when the door opened. It would be the man himself, to discuss them further. Or Harry, venturing into danger again.

When he saw the snowy owl on Malfoy's shoulder he realised that his hair was not white; beside the dazzling purity of the male owl's feathers, hair and skin had definite colour. In the dungeon's strong candlelight Malfoy's hair showed strands of silver, gold, citrine, and even a darker zircon. Tyl's hands curled involuntarily with the desire to touch.

Together wizard and owl were striking; he might have suspected Malfoy of designing the look, but there was no hint of posing for admiration in his stance. At the moment, indeed, his attention was all on Harry, who also had an owl on his shoulder, larger, and barred with dark brown, therefore female.

They kept close, possibly because the owls, one on the right, one on the left, wished it.

Harry said, "We thought you'd like to meet my Hedwig, and Lucius's Harrower."

He sounded confident that this would please Tyl. Certainly he could contemplate their beauty more easily than Malfoy's equivocal attraction.

"They're courting," Malfoy said with a malicious glance, and slid one hand down Harry's back.

The boy moved closer, and the hand settled on his arse, curving firmly, so that Harry was pressed into Malfoy's embrace.

Hedwig made an irritated sound and lofted, while Harry turned his face into his lover, sliding his hands up and around his neck.

It was Harrower's turn to fly. Malfoy took full advantage of his freedom, disregarding Tyl. He thought about burying his head under the pillow, save that it would be undignified. Harry seemed to be making no effort to resist Malfoy's charmed compulsion; Tyl supposed it was sensible of him not to expose whatever freedom he had won.

After that demonstration of his ability to control them both, however, Malfoy relented.

"I am giving a small dinner party tonight, Mr Riemann; I hope you will feel able to attend, to meet my associates in a less - stressful - environment. Harry has agreed to come."

This was code for 'You will attend, and Harry will do as he's bidden also.' The prosaic tone gave no indication of how momentous the proposal was. Tyl understood the significance of the meeting, and did not overrate the apparent grant of freedom of speech.

Nonetheless, Tyl Riemann was an envoy once more. Now he would negotiate not only for his own Island Confederation but more than he should for wizarding Britain, and particularly for Harry, who had shown him kindness and courtesy.

He gave formal assent. Malfoy called their owls and swept Harry out. Tyl resumed his study, urgent now.

Later he woke from a nightmare in which Malfoy had both of them. His own wrists were tied to the cot-frame; Harry was free, sobbing with anger rather than distress, resisting and being overcome, just as he himself always did. He hoped Harry never had occasion for such a nightmare.

~~~TBC~~~