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.

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Chapter Thirty-Nine—Narcissa
            Harry closed his eyes as they stepped through the front doors of the house, and did his best not to shiver. He could feel the shadows reaching out for him, and hear the whispers of the things that crowded those shadows.
            Not that he could have named them, not even to satisfy Draco, the person he most wanted to please right now. He just knew they were there, hissing and chuckling to themselves, watching him so greedily that it was hard to stand inside the door instead of turning and fleeing out of the house immediately.
            “Harry?”
            That was Draco, voice low and hand on his shoulder. Harry shook his head and stepped out of the way so Draco could shut the door. It was raining, and Draco didn’t want to keep his mother—who had arrived just outside the wards, as they’d agreed on two days ago—waiting in it.
            Harry swallowed back the protest he wanted to make at the slimy feeling of the floor beneath his feet—which was probably all just in his head, anyway—and turned around to greet Narcissa Malfoy. She had a long, thick cloak on, but Draco took it away from her to hang it up. Then there was a little green flash next to her, and Kreacher was there, practically panting as he bowed.
            “Beautiful Mistress Narcissa is giving the cloak to Kreacher,” he muttered. “He is having it dry very soon, yeses.”
            Narcissa gave a smile at the house-elf that Harry would never have believed she had in her, a polite smile that would have fooled his Aunt Petunia. “Thank you, Kreacher,” she said, and held out the cloak so that it dangled and dripped off to the side. “If you give your new master as good a service as this, he has a valuable house-elf.”
            Kreacher turned and let his ears droop at Harry. “Kreacher would be doings it, if Master Harry would be accepting it,” he whispered. “But he is resisting Kreacher. He is saying that he is not wanting the house.”
            “That’s one of the things we’re here to discuss today,” Narcissa murmured, and if she didn’t actually reach out and pet the greasy hair on Kreacher’s head, she looked as if she would like to. “Maybe he’ll change his mind when we’re done discussing it.”
            Kreacher nodded eagerly, and Draco caught Harry’s eye before he could say anything. Harry bit his lip hard. Right, this was a deception to fool Kreacher. Narcissa couldn’t want Harry to really take over the house, especially because that would make her and Draco his heirs and subject to the thing’s corrupting influence next.
            “Kreacher is hoping for that day,” Kreacher muttered, and aimed a bow halfway between Narcissa and Harry before he vanished again.
            “Please come into the drawing room, Mrs. Malfoy,” Harry muttered, aware that he had to act as host and that he had to do it with the house’s influence settling on him like a rough blanket. “Would you like something to drink? Eat?”
            “Thank you, no. I ate before I came.” Narcissa walked into the drawing room before Harry could indicate the doorway. Well, of course she did, thought Harry, following her. She was experienced with this house as he couldn’t be, no matter how much time he spent here. It had belonged to her blood, and her childhood. Narcissa took a seat on an ancient couch and turned to Harry. “What can I tell you?”
            Harry took a deep breath. He had hoped for such openness; he didn’t want to press and coax Draco’s mother to tell him things with Draco right there. He might use the house’s power over the Black blood again if he went in that direction.
            But faced with this unexpected offer to help, without conditions, he had to grope for a moment before he could find the proper question. “What do you know about the ordeal that the house offers its heirs?”
            Narcissa settled slowly against the back of the couch, looking at him. The slow, warm, sustained awareness of Draco that Harry had found himself having ever since they both walked through the door hesitated, then worked his way around the back of Harry’s chair until he stood about halfway between them.
            “I don’t know much,” Narcissa said carefully. “I was not the one who went through the process of being almost chosen as the house’s heir. That was my sister. I had hoped her diary would be helpful to you.”
            “It told me some things,” Harry admitted. “But it cut off from saying anything about the ordeal. I had the impression that she never underwent it. The house chose Regulus instead, because it wanted someone in the direct line, and kicked her out.”
            Narcissa smiled thinly. “That would explain some of the things that Bellatrix said later in life about Regulus.”
            Harry just nodded, and waited. Narcissa still wore a fringed white shawl despite having shed the cloak, and she stroked the shawl for a second, obviously contemplating her response. Harry just waited, his hands linked on his knees, and Narcissa finally nodded back and started speaking, as though his patience had won the answer from her.
            “I know the ordeal left a mark. Perhaps not a scar. Not the scars that are on your throat, either,” she added to Harry, who barely kept himself from raising a hand to touch those. “And I know that the ordeal nearly killed some of the heirs. It probably did kill some of them, but this was not a family that liked admitting its failures. I have always wondered if some of the people blasted off the very early tapestries were heirs who had failed the ordeal, rather than ones who actually favored Muggles or whatever their other crimes were supposed to be.”
            “The Blacks are sure unforgiving,” Harry muttered, thinking of all those blank and burned places on the tapestry.
            Narcissa just dipped her chin a little. “All of that means that I know you are facing something grand and dangerous.” She paused, eyes closed, and then said, “I remember one other thing. There was one particular room that we liked to play in when we were children visiting my Cousin Walburga. Then one day Walburga came to us and said that we were no longer allowed to play there. That was shortly after Bellatrix had been rejected as heir for the house, although I didn’t know that at the time. Only when I found her diary and reasoned backwards did I recognize the coincidence.”
            Harry was on his feet. If he actually knew where the ordeal took place, then he might be able to eliminate some of the candidates for it. “Can you show me the room?”
            “Of course.” Narcissa floated to her feet and led her way towards the far side of the drawing room, down a corridor that Harry knew existed but hadn’t spent much time exploring. It seemed to have doors to cupboards and one narrow space draped with cobwebs that looked to have been a guest room, and nothing else.
            But Narcissa halted in front of a small door Harry had thought was a cupboard, and laid her hand on the knob, looking soberly at Harry. “You have to realize that we were told to keep out years ago,” she said. “Decades ago. I do not know what is in there now.”
            “Was it a full-sized room?” Harry asked, aware now that his throat was dry as if from dust and that Draco had drifted to a stop behind them. “Or as small as the door implies?”
            “One of those rooms that are bigger on the inside than they look from the outside,” Narcissa murmured. “I remember it as being large as a cavern, but I was a child. I do think it had been extended with wizardspace, if not the natural magic of the house.”
            Harry nodded. “Okay. I have to look in there.”
            To his surprise, Narcissa didn’t move out of the way, just stood there looking at him with troubled eyes. “Are you sure that you should, Mr. Potter?” she asked quietly. “If this is indeed the room of the ordeal, you should not enter until you are ready to undergo it. And I do not think you are.”
            “He’s not,” Draco said from behind Harry, unexpectedly, harshly.
            Harry flinched a little, but kept his face calm and stubborn and pointed towards Narcissa. “I’m not as well-prepared as I could be,” he corrected them. “But I think I at least have to look. I have you here to pull me out of there if I need it.”
            Narcissa hesitated, Draco tensed, but in the end Narcissa did nod and step back, and Harry reached for the knob.
            There was a shrill squeaking noise, and Kreacher appeared between Harry and the door, wringing his hands.
            “Master is to stop!” he wailed.
*
            SP777: Intense a bit in the future, I think? And glad that you liked that little thought of Draco's.
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Ancient and Noble Houses