Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Ancient and Noble Houses	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 29877 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 5
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

Chapter List
- 16
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Chapter Seventeen—Spreading the Inheritance
            One minute Harry was leaning forwards and spitting his spell right in Malfoy’s face, this traitor who would dispute that Harry was the head of the House of Black, who would try to take his inheritance away—
            And then he was flying away, hitting the wall so hard that his back spasmed and his hands flew wide. His wand clattered away from him and rolled into a fair corner. Harry flexed his hands and stared at them. For a moment, his wrists glowed with a white light he hadn’t seen before, soft but savage, before it faded and they looked just as they’d always been.
            “The vow you swore did that.”
            Harry looked up, startled. Malfoy was standing in front of him, his hands on his hips and his gaze, fastened on Harry, more confident than Harry had seen it since they started school. He shook his head and rolled his eyes when Harry looked at him, and then sat down on the floor in front of him and started ticking off points on his fingers.
            “First, you swore that you wouldn’t touch me without my permission. Putting your wand against my throat violates that.
            “Second, you swore you wouldn’t use magic against me. I don’t know what spell it would have been, but anything that had harmful intent behind it and wasn’t something like cleaning me up or healing me would have invoked the vow.”
            Harry scowled at his hands. It no longer seemed as good an idea as it had to swear that vow.
            “Third,” Malfoy said, leaning towards him and nearly violating the vow himself by almost letting his nose graze Harry’s, “you just swore that vow yesterday. It’s always stronger when it’s more recent.”
            For a moment, Harry’s hands clenched again. He wondered if that meant he just had to wait until the vow grew old, and then it would go away and he would be able to hurt Malfoy again.
            But I didn’t think you wanted to? I thought you desired him?
            The voice sounded like Hermione, which made Harry flinch for all kinds of reasons right now, but it also broke through the mist that seemed to have clouded his mind since the moment Malfoy had suggested splitting up the Black money. Harry gave a soft moan and lowered his head into his hands. He could feel Malfoy watching him, but he knew that he wasn’t in the best shape to look up and match wits with him at the moment.
            “Listen,” Malfoy told him softly. “I know it’s hard. But I also don’t think this is you. Most of what you’ve done recently can be explained by reference to the house. Black heirs were sole heirs, no matter how many siblings they had. Those siblings might get an allowance while their parents were alive, but after they died, it depended on the heir’s generosity. You reacted violently when I suggested splitting up the inheritance because any Black heir would have.”
            Harry looked up. “I don’t want to because I haven’t had much money all my life, and I want to keep this.”
            Malfoy snorted and dropped down in front of him, looking at Harry with a tolerant sort of expression that Harry hated. “All right. Pretend that I was your Potter cousin who had appeared out of nowhere and wanted you to split up the Potter fortune to help support me. Would you agree?”
            Harry waited for the instinctive flinch of rejection, and flushed when he didn’t feel it. “That’s different,” he muttered. “I would be so happy to finally have family that I wouldn’t care what you wanted, I would give it to you to keep you around.”
            That made Malfoy peer at him. “You had family. You were raised by family.”
            Harry bared his teeth, because if there was one thing he hated more than the thought of giving up the Black fortune to Malfoy, it was the thought of discussing the Dursleys with Malfoy. “They don’t count.”
            Malfoy eyed him as if wondering whether to pursue things, and then held out his hands and shrugged, showing he had chosen the smarter thing to do, which was to drop it. “Fine. They don’t count. But I still think this is the house, and not you. Is it so bad, giving up the money, when you have things to gain out of it?”
            Harry folded his arms. His head ached, and his throat ached, and his neck ached, in the place where the bloody Kneazle had given him the bloody scars. “Convince me that I would gain something more if I gave the money up.”
*
            Draco closed his eyes. He hadn’t lived through the war because he wanted to become a counselor to Harry bloody Potter. He hadn’t. And he didn’t want to give the answer he knew Potter wanted to hear.
            “You could gain the respect of your friends,” he said, staring at the Black family tapestry instead. “You could be the way you should have been after the end of the war. You would have—”
            “That doesn’t sound like enough.”
            Draco snapped. That was the only word he could find for it later, the sense that chains in his head had simply parted and flown off. He turned around, and whatever Potter saw in his face, it was enough to make him shrink away with his eyes fixed on Draco. Maybe Draco shouldn’t have felt proud of that, but he did. He smiled and crowded closer.
            “You’ll never have me, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he hissed. “If you continue the way you are. Do you want to be like this, Potter? Jealous and snappish and prone to using Dark magic and torturing house-elves at the flick of an eyebrow? I tell you what, I don’t want to be with someone like that. And it doesn’t matter how rich he is or how he’s the head of the Black family, I won’t.”
            “I could still command you to be.” Potter’s eyes had begun to glow with that dangerous fire.
            Draco folded his arms and struck a pose he was far from feeling. “Fine. Show me how you’re going to command me, then.”
            Potter opened his mouth, frowned, then said, as if talking to someone else, “But if I did that, then you would have every reason to resent me later.”
            “Exactly.” Draco took a step closer and stared into his eyes. Potter glared at him, and Draco had to brace his body not to turn and run when that happened. But he was still going to remain there, and Potter would just have to get used to the fact. And he was still right, which Potter would also have to get used to. “You can’t get what you want by acting like the Black heir. But you might if you let it pass, and give some of your money to my mother and me.”
            He wouldn’t reveal how much they needed that money, if Potter would give it. It was a legal transaction that the Ministry couldn’t interfere with, because it would involve blood relatives. Otherwise, Draco knew, there was a good chance that they would try to prevent Narcissa and Draco from receiving any money.
            Potter gnawed his lip. Then he said, “But if I change back to normal, then I don’t think I’ll want you anymore.”
            Draco swallowed. They were talking about it more openly, sooner, than he had thought would happen. But he pushed his face closer to Potter’s than ever, and said, “Think about why you want me now. Why?”
*
            Harry hesitated. He could say lots of things to Malfoy, and Malfoy would never know if they were the truth or not.
            Maybe.
            But it was also true that Malfoy was watching him with hard eyes, and he had been wiser and more observant about Harry than Harry had ever known he could be. So maybe it was best to tell the truth.
            “I want you because you’re pretty,” Harry whispered. “And you’re paying attention to me, and you know something about this and you’re still helping me, which is more than anyone else is doing.”
            “Your friend Granger looked pretty busy with research the last time I saw her,” Malfoy retorted. “And you forced me into agreeing to help you, remember?”
            Harry looked away. The world seemed to slip and balance sideways. On the one hand, he knew what Malfoy said was true; he could remember it. And he could remember the conversation with Hermione when he could have been harder and forced her to back off if he really didn’t want her help investigating the house.
            But he hadn’t. And whose fault was that, if he wasn’t loud or serious enough to convince his friends to stay away?
            Why did he want them to stay away?
            Harry rubbed his forehead wearily. He was starting to think that he didn’t know what he was thinking, and that only made it all the more terrifying.
            “I want you because you’re alluring right now,” he said quietly. “And let’s go to Gringotts and start transferring the money, before I change my mind.”
            Malfoy hesitated. Then he said, “We can’t walk in there right now.”
            “Why not?” Harry pushed himself back to his feet. “This is the best I’ve felt in a long time, the most clear-headed I’ve felt in a long time. And we’re both of age. They won’t refuse to serve us.”
            Malfoy nodded so slowly that it seemed likely he’d still refuse, then peered again at Harry’s neck. “Strange,” he whispered.
            “What?’
            “I thought the scar on your neck had changed to a three,” Malfoy said. “But it’s only a two.”
            Harry swallowed. If that was true and not just a trick of the light or Malfoy’s eyes, then he hoped this was a step in the right direction.
            He could hope so, even if he couldn’t be sure.
            “Let’s go to Gringotts,” he said. “I’m sick of being here.”
            And with the sideways vision that had come to him lately, he watched Malfoy’s arse on the way down, and wondered if he should.
*
            SP777: Eventually.
            ChaosLady: Well, the vow prevented him from doing any harm, luckily.
            moodysavage: Draco is committed to this now, but at least the vow restrains Harry.
            CareLessLover: The vow is designed to hurt Harry, but not kill him. Draco wouldn’t choose a spell that would leave that on his record.
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- 18
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Ancient and Noble Houses