Diplomacy

Diplomacy

Part 4 (final)

by Leni Jess

Diplomatic Service

Diplomacy by Decree

A Failure of Diplomacy

Diplomacy by Stealth

Diplomatic Immunity

Diplomatic Service

Tyl, summoned, found Malfoy's conspiracy discussing whether there were options besides full disclosure when training families of the Muggle-born.

Zabini said, sensibly enough, "Useless relying on obliviating parents permanently; the wizarding world won't adopt their children. Who wouldn't trust wizards who'd snatch them from their families."

McDougall remarked, "Obliviation might work as a threat, though not forever. Keep it for emergencies. We need safeguards from carelessness or boastfulness more than from malice, with most Muggle parents."

Zabini nodded. "The Ministry records all wizarding children - ours at birth, others when they first perform wandless magic. The Confederation's system begins indoctrination immediately, even if some magical constraints are initially required."

"They must be taught to protect their children, and the world they'll inhabit," Tyl agreed. "Some parents don't love their children enough to be careful, however."

Zabini said vigorously, sounding like a parent rather than a Death Eater, "They don't deserve children, certainly not wizarding children! Young wizards and witches should be removed from such homes, permanently."

"And their care?" Tyl asked softly. "What do you do now with orphans?"

Malfoy said, "There's an orphanage outside Manchester, another near Edinburgh. Most orphans go to relatives, or family friends. It's rare for one who's wizard-born not to be welcome somewhere." He smiled at Harry, who, after scowling momentarily, smiled ruefully back.

"But these children are not wizard-born."

Zabini assented, "We'd need more orphanages; maybe a system of foster-parenting. There are people who'd welcome even Muggle-borns, to have wizard children to raise."

Tyl noted that 'even' wryly, but did not comment; he and Harry exchanged glances. Malfoy saw, and remarked, "Don't expect to convert us to loving the Muggle-born; consider it victory enough we're not planning to slaughter them once found."

Disregarding the amiability, Tyl retorted, "It is not victory enough; that requires you to accept them, wholly."

A knock on the door heralded Parkinson, apologising curtly for his lateness. He looked irritated.

"Problem, Rafe?" Malfoy asked.

Parkinson responded, "I've been listening to our Lord's latest address."

Malfoy's demand was wordless.

"Nothing new, just sloppier than ever. He wasn't talking for the Inner Circle, but orating for a group of lowlier followers Wormtail assembled. He said, 'Harry Potter will give me immortality; when he is destroyed I shall command wizarding Britain. Then we and our children can take our rightful heritage, with Muggles under our control and the Muggle-born our servants'. Grandiloquent, not rational."

Malfoy looked scornful, McDougall shook his head, Zabini rolled his eyes.

Harry snorted. "He hasn't done well so far."

McDougall said wearily, "Lucius, your preparations to leave him are timely; if he were in control - even if not immortal - where would we be, never mind our children?"

Malfoy murmured, "Riemann hasn't hesitated to ask that, Duncan. He's always thought him mad."

Recklessly Tyl said, "Mad as someone isolated ten years in his own skull."

There was a curious silence, then Malfoy corrected, "Twelve years, Riemann; it was nearly twelve. Yes. Irretrievable. So we go on without him."

Diplomacy by Decree

Tyl was woken from deep sleep by Malfoy's body nudging his across the cot. So he wanted sex, but not to rouse his schoolboy lover. Which left Tyl.

Afterwards Malfoy would ask some awkward question. Tyl thought that while Malfoy sought pleasure, he came hoping to surprise information from him.

Tyl twisted on the bed, saw the look of cool anticipation for once held no malice, and let him take what he would. Despite Tyl's weariness he cooperated; Malfoy had early made it plain he would not tolerate an indifferent partner, using violence to get his full attention.

The question duly came. "You laughed when Duncan said those Death Eaters unable to accept policy change might need re-education."

"Better than lamenting the prospect of death camps, or compulsory detention," Tyl retorted.

He edged cautiously away. "You suggested rules applying to everyone should be welcomed, so someone has learned something. It's uphill work debating with your colleagues, Malfoy, accepting extreme prejudices, ignoring vicious histories, trying to counsel them. When I consider that those I'm meeting are the most intelligent and the least conservative I wonder how real your reforms can be."

Then he wondered how stupid a desperate desire for sleep had made him.

Malfoy's answer ignored his carelessness.

"The changes we make will be real. We've learned from implementing the Dark Lord's strategies: brutal oppression terrifies many who might agree with him into resistance. Also from watching that craven Fudge, whose handling of opposition vacillates between inaction and over-reaction. He's as authoritarian and unpalatable, and his indecisiveness offends."

"From what everyone tells me - including Harry," Malfoy smiled faintly at that qualification, "the rule of law is an unfamiliar concept to your Minister."

"It hasn't been promoted for longer than Harry's lifetime," Malfoy admitted, "though partly because my master's opponents chose to imitate his - thoroughness. Certainly Fudge prefers making administrative decisions to inviting the Wizengamot's over-frequent participation in government by using the courts. We've found that convenient; his injustices bring us adherents."

"So you've decided you must visibly oppose the current Ministry's practice as well as your master's lust for total control."

Malfoy nodded, rose and reached for his clothing. He had what he wanted, whatever that was.

"Will your methods differ? Or only the way you present them?"

Malfoy shrugged. "Many won't notice. However, it will be simplest to create acceptable rules and enforce them - on our own followers as much as on the Muggle-born and wizards at large. If we offer consistency, law, and better justice, we gain support. If Harry helps us to some nominal reconciliation with Dumbledore, who earlier refused ruling Britain himself, we get increased stability."

"Will Harry?"

"He's unavoidably committed."

Tyl sighed, pulling the bedclothes up. "Go away, Malfoy, I need sleep. Talk tomorrow."

Malfoy sank his hands into Tyl's fleece of light-brown curls, tugged rather hard, and kissed his mouth, harder, before saying calmly, "Certainly, Riemann."

Tyl wiped the blood from his cut lips; being useful was insufficient protection if he spoke too freely.

A Failure of Diplomacy

Malfoy entered Tyl's cell looking cool enough, but he said curtly, "On the bed."

He was displeased about something, then. Tyl carefully did not sigh aloud as he put his quill down, rising to obey. It was tiresome paying for other people's errors or failures of tact even though he was now working for Malfoy's palace revolution quite as hard as the man himself.

Malfoy was rougher than he had been for some time. Tyl tried to content him quickly, but the fair wizard pulled free of his mouth, still grasping his hair. Malfoy pushed him face down, forced his thighs apart and knelt between, his saliva-slick cock immediately probing Tyl's flinching arse. Tyl stifled his gasps; Malfoy generally required silence as well as submission.

The door opened.

Tyl swallowed his bolting heart, turning his head, while Malfoy straightened to face the intruder. Harry. Just what everyone needed.

The boy stared, incredulous, then hurried to the cot, wild colour flushing his cheeks, his wonderful eyes brilliant, his parted lips sputtering inarticulate protest. It became articulate all too quickly, and was directed solely at Malfoy. After one glance the boy did not look at Tyl again, not even when Malfoy withdrew and permitted him to slump, disregarded, to the mattress.

"Malfoy profligate! Only thinking of your own pleasure, forgetting about those plans we've all sweated blood over! Why should I help you, after this? Why should Tyl, if all he gets for thanks is rape? How can anyone trust you to keep your mind on your goals, if all you care about is fucking someone? Aren't I good enough any more?"

Tyl shuddered and breathed a silent prayer to all the gods he had hitherto found useless. Harry was not happy, and Malfoy's having both of them was only part of it.

"Have you finished screaming, Harry?"

The boy was sullenly silent, breathing fast, hands still clenched.

"Do you think you own me?" Malfoy rose and dressed rapidly; his hands were shaking, Tyl saw. He must be quite spectacularly angry himself. "I never promised you fidelity; and whatever I promised you, I made no promises to him."

"He's helping you; are you trying to fuck things up?"

Malfoy slung his robes rapidly over his clothing. "That's enough. Upstairs."

He kissed Harry, punishingly hard; Tyl could see blood on the boy's lips when Malfoy raised his head. Then he pushed Harry out of the cell, gripping one shoulder painfully tight, by the boy's wince, but Harry did not try to free himself.

Tyl pulled the pillow over his head. He supposed he would end up trying to explain to Harry that what Malfoy did to himself was not important, except personally.

The significant thing was that Malfoy intended to change. Harry might think Malfoy's commitment no longer to be trusted, but Tyl knew Malfoy saw his cynically planned reforms as the most reliable route to what he wanted: power, yes, control, yes, but peace and stability, too, in which to enjoy them.

Diplomacy by Stealth

Tyl was not surprised when Harry returned. He had been back at his desk for some time by then, fully and neatly clothed, hair tied back, very willing to forget that interrupted bedding with Malfoy, finishing another position paper for his dissidents to consider.

The boy asked if he was unharmed. Tyl reassured him, and heard his assertion that he was not hurt by his discovery that Malfoy had a lover besides himself, however unwilling. Remembering his earlier distress, Tyl was unsure of that, but politely accepted it.

He took the opportunity to lecture briefly on 'nothing matters but the just society you desire'. Lucius Malfoy's character would be irrelevant if he achieved that, nor would it matter why he wanted to, so long as he created it, and maintained it.

"The end justifies the means?" Harry demanded.

"No, but the end may choose its means from what is available."

Tyl continued, "People forget the details of how what we most need is attained, Harry. I venerate Merlin, as you do. My father's people lived here long enough to value what Britain valued, though they too had their ancient champions of light, unconnected with great Rome and its readiness to claim everything good. However, even Merlin must have had his tools, unfortunate bystanders, and victims."

He added, "He may not have chosen any of it, Harry, just as your headmaster may have found himself doing damage he never dreamed of in his attempts to do right." Even more gently, "Haven't you made mistakes?"

Harry said quietly, "I've made terrible mistakes, and though I made some in ignorance, others I made by not thinking. You're right about Dumbledore, too; he's done dreadful things. Sometimes deliberately, or carelessly, not because he had no choice. But no one else will die because I was negligent."

The boy sighed sharply. "Lucius has made his mistakes, I'm sure. From now on I must be sure he makes none I can prevent."

"Is it wise to argue with him, Harry?" Tyl thought that Malfoy's tolerance for what he would see as the boy's whims might well be limited.

"I don't plan to argue. He can talk faster than I can, and it irritates him if I'm stubborn, as he sees it, and still won't listen to him. Well, I get irritated when he ignores good sense too, and I think he needs to know that."

Tyl said apprehensively, "Harry..."

"It's all right."

Harry smiled a little. "You had that talk about history and a just society ready so I wouldn't fight with Lucius about you any more, hadn't you? Lucius and I don't always need to argue. He's obliged to consider my welfare, and I have to consider his. So I can do something - entirely for his good - because I think it's right, and because I want him not to do himself, or his plans, any harm because he's stubborn."

Tyl blinked in puzzlement.

Harry stood. "You'll need your wand. I'll see what I can do."

Diplomatic Immunity

It was very late, or early, when Harry came.

"Must you finish that?"

Tyl drew a line across the parchment, pocketed his quill, and rose. Harry offered a wand, and he barely restrained himself from snatching its rosewood length.

"Thank you," Tyl said formally, feeling whole again.

"Anything else?"

He patted the pocket holding his papers. "Can we retrieve my staff?"

"You're taking the silver owls?" He could see Harry striving for acceptance.

"No." Tyl smiled. "They will be able to find me."

"Across that distance? They're not even fully mature yet!"

"We will always be linked," Tyl said matter-of-factly, adding, "There's no need to tell Malfoy, unless you judge it wise."

Harry's sigh was almost inaudible. "Your staff's in the owlery; getting it will be easy."

"How easy was it to get my wand?"

Not very, Tyl thought; it had been three days since Harry had indirectly announced his intention of freeing him.

"One of Lucius's spell-books, the Florilegium Cantorum - he thinks I can't read Latin, but I've been working this term - has the spell to open the cabinet I thought he had your wand in."

"Anthology of spells? Or of songs?"

"Some of its spells must be sung." A trifle discontentedly Harry added, "Latin's a very confusing language."

"Try Sanskrit, which our greatest wizard Hanuman used," Tyl said dryly.

"Isn't he the monkey god?" Harry had been endlessly inquisitive about Kalimantan and its different cultures and magical practices.

Tyl had to laugh. "No more than Merlin, much later, was a god."

It was very simple, in the end, leaving Malfoy Manor, with Harry taking down wards.

The boy led him through the woods, then hugged him quickly. "I must go, catch Lucius before he finds you gone."

"You're going to confess?"

Harry grinned mischievously, confidently. "If I find him before he's out of bed."

After he left Tyl thrust his staff into the snowy ground and summoned silently.

He had already written Malfoy a blandly courteous farewell. He felt reluctant to deal with the fair wizard ever again, but he had a duty, so he explained how to contact him. He also suggested Malfoy handle Harry carefully, since the boy's symbolic importance was so great his support must be public, and preferably whole-hearted, not enforced.

His owls settled on the staff's cross-bar, greeting him with piercing trills.

Malfoy's letter he tied to Tana's leg. The smaller Rieki nibbled at his fingers as he did so, then Tana crowded jealously onto his shoulder. He stood for a while scratching their breasts gently in silent farewell.

"Deliver the letter when I'm gone."

Tyl urged the owls up and wrenched his staff free. They glided in large silent circles around him in the pre-dawn stillness of the boundary ride.

He braced himself and rubbed his thumb over the amethyst ring, murmuring, as once before, "Ambon."

The owls hunted their way through the trees back to Malfoy Manor, waiting for his signal. When they felt his affectionate salute they flew their errand.

~~The End~~