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
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Chapter Twenty—Contact
            Harry could feel the emotions burning and twitching in him as he waited for Draco to say yes. And he had to say it, didn’t he? He was staring at Harry with an expression on his face that made it inevitable. Of course it would happen.
            He couldn’t be scared, not when he had heard Harry offer to share the vaults and everything else with him. Harry was the one who had come up with that idea, not Draco. Just spreading around some Galleons seemed petty now. Harry could afford to give Draco and his mother more of what he had, especially when he hadn’t wanted it in the first place and would have given up everything just to have Sirius back alive.
            He felt another twitch at the back of his mind at that. The house wouldn’t want him to think that way, he knew.
            But for once, he was free of the house and what it wanted. And that made his emotions stronger, his reactions more genuine. He took another step towards Draco, although he was smart enough to keep his hands to himself until he had permission. Being thrown across the room once wasn’t a pleasant experience.
            Draco’s mouth opened. Harry could see his lips trembling, his tongue quivering between his teeth. He wanted to reach in and touch it. It was getting harder to keep his hands down at his sides.
            Then there came the soft scrape of Cushfoot’s steps returning. Draco turned his head away and closed his eyes. Harry moved back with a huff that he didn’t bother to keep quiet. He thought goblins wouldn’t care about humans and their silly touching unless it directly affected the money they handled for them.
            But he did resent Cushfoot for interrupting the moment, and glared at him as he came into the office. Cushfoot paused once, then laid the papers he carried on the desk and took his seat again.
            “These papers will declare one person your heir,” he said, indicating the thickest set of parchments. “You will have to fill out the second set for the other person. And you need to answer questions about what you will give them access to while you are alive, and why you want them as your heirs. You can take those away to fill them out, but they need to be signed in the bank.”
            Harry nodded and picked up the parchments. He suspected Cushfoot was hoping that Harry would take the papers away and just never bring them back, but Harry was just as glad that he would get a chance to consider them at length. This was the kind of thing he could tell Hermione about, and she would help him, and even think it was a good idea.
            When did I start wanting her involved again?
            Harry shrugged. It didn’t matter, he thought, as long as they were moving closer to a solution, and a day when Draco might let Harry do everything he wanted to do.
            “We should get back to Hogwarts,” Harry said, turning around and smiling at Draco so that the next words would come as less of a shock. “Don’t you think so, Draco?”
            Draco stared at him as though hearing his first name come out of Harry’s mouth was simply something he couldn’t accept. But then he nodded jerkily, and cleared his throat, and stepped away as though putting more distance between them would kill Harry’s desire. “Let’s go,” he said, and walked out of the office.
            Harry smiled fondly at his back. He could wait a while for Draco to get used to him, to sharing the Black fortune and the houses and property and being touched. Because that was what he wanted, Draco willing. It was the only way he might stay with Harry when he got used to being the Black co-heir and the hold of the house on Harry started fading.
            “Mr. Potter.”
            Harry turned reluctantly to face Cushfoot. The goblin had been helpful, but only from a certain perspective, and Harry really wanted to get back to Hogwarts.
            Cushfoot squinted at him, and tapped his claws once on the side of the desk. If he was aware of the grooves they had already cut in the wood, he ignored them magnificently. “Making more people heirs will not free you from the hold of the house.”
            Harry tilted his head. “Then why did you object to it?”
            “Because it will do nothing.” Cushfoot tapped his fingers one more time, and then leaned back and assumed a bland expression between one of Harry’s blinks and another one. “Nothing matters until you face the ordeal that will make you the real heir.”
            “Are you on the house’s side, or what?” Harry demanded. “Do you want the house to change me into a horrible person?”
            Cushfoot shook his head. “I do not take sides in human debates as you understand them,” he said. “I wish for continuity. If you become a true Black owner and heir, then you will understand what I mean, and you will dispose of the vaults as they should be disposed of.”
            Harry took a step closer, eyes on Cushfoot’s face. The goblin had gone back to his mask-like expression, though, and didn’t seem inclined to change it.
            “I think that there’s something else behind this,” Harry whispered. “Something that you’re trying to disguise with all your talk of owners and heirs and the differences between them.” He took a deep breath, eyes on Cushfoot, who didn’t falter and didn’t look away from him. “If I find out what it was, then I won’t hesitate to do the opposite. The way I’m going to make Draco Malfoy and Narcissa Black my heirs, and you can’t stop me.”
            “If you had submitted to the ordeal already, then you would understand what I was talking about better than you can now,” Cushfoot intoned.
            Harry sneered at him. “I’ve never simply submitted to anything in my life. You can ask Voldemort that.”
            Cushfoot didn’t flinch at Voldemort’s name, but he did lean forwards, suddenly enough that Harry was almost tricked into taking a step back. He clenched his hands at his sides and fought the impulse away a few seconds later, though. He wasn’t going to be intimidated by someone who wanted things Harry couldn’t even understand from him.
            “The house will eat defiance as it will eat submission,” Cushfoot said softly. “Submission would be a bit less painful for you personally, that is all.”
            “If you would speak up more plainly, then maybe I could content both of us.” Harry didn’t really want to fight the goblins. He wanted to be free of the house and convince Draco that they might have something together, not struggle against anyone else.
            “The house is older than you know,” Cushfoot whispered. “It has requirements that you cannot understand, requirements that you will not pay attention to.” He leaned in until his eyes seemed to have a golden spark, like candle-flames. “You will not listen to it the same way you will not listen to us, Mr. Potter, you and the rest of the wizards. You thought you were entitled to break into our bank and do whatever you liked. And you think you can break free of the house as if it is merely another tool to do your will.”
            For a long moment, Harry’s legs refused to move, or his eyes. He stood there and stared, and it wasn’t of his own free will.
            Then Cushfoot gave a hoarse chuckle, and said, “You will learn better. I wish I could be there at the moment when you do, but alas, the ordeal of the heirs of the House of Black has always been private to the heirs.” He waved his claws at the parchments Harry held. “You can try and make the Malfoys your heirs, or entities that are part of the negotiations, to use your terms. I do not think you will succeed.”
            Harry turned and stalked away without a word. He wasn’t even sure what he would have said.
            The house was intelligent, he knew that much, from the way it had talked today. But a lot of the rest of it, he’d thought came from the house’s influence on him. It wasn’t making decisions for him; it was just him making decisions that the house would approve of, because it was leaning on his mind.
            But Cushfoot had talked like the house had its own will and might do something to prevent him from making the Malfoys his heirs. On the other hand, how much of that was just Cushfoot trying to frighten him because he liked it when Blacks depended on him alone and left him to manage their property?
            Harry took a deep breath and tightened his hold on the parchments. There was no reason not to try what he had in mind. If it was impossible, he would find something else.
            Because he’d meant what he said to Cushfoot. He surrendered to no one, not the house and not the goblins and not his own desires. If something wanted to fight him, it would have to conquer him, because he would not yield.

*
            delia cerrano: I think that might partially be because of his cleverness.
            ChaosLady: They wanted everything to stay exactly the same, and they wanted the house to stand up against change. So they made it sentient, but not capable of change.
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Ancient and Noble Houses