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Other People's Choices	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 24374 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 5
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story

Chapter List
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Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Forty—More Christmas Visits
“Welcome, Severus.”
Mr. Malfoy’s voice feels as cold as winter to Harry. He nods to Mr. Malfoy and then ignores him as best he can to focus on Draco. He blinks when he sees that Tarquinius and Theo are there, too. Then again, he supposed they didn’t say they weren’t invited.
But he doesn’t have a gift for Tarquinius. Harry shrugs to himself and holds out his hand to Draco. “Thank you for inviting us, Draco.”
Draco nods and shakes his hand. His motions are slower than Harry’s used to, and his face is so cold and distant that he looks like some of the stars in Astronomy. Harry hopes everything’s okay with him.
“The famous Mr. Potter.” Mr. Malfoy’s voice is still low and wintry. He moves in front of Draco almost before Harry’s let go of his hand, and looks Harry over. Harry just stares back. He’s not going to forget that Mr. Malfoy is the one who slipped the diary in Ginny’s cauldron. “Do you not feel frightened, confronting a Slytherin in his own home?”
“I see Slytherins every day in the common room. Sir.”
Both Professor Snape and Tarquinius make little motions at that. Harry ignores them. If they’re going to tell him to be quiet, then they should think again. He’ll say exactly what he thinks, unless he thinks that it’s going to get Draco hurt.
Mr. Malfoy lifts his eyebrows and studies Harry again. Then he says, “Well-spoken. I assume his vocabulary has improved since you took him under your wing, Severus?”
“I have never found Mr. Potter’s vocabulary lacking.”
“Neither have I. And he stayed with me an entire summer. I think I should know if anyone does.” Tarquinius steps forwards and holds out his hand for Harry to shake. Harry does, and looks over at Theo. He sees Theo is wearing the silver bracelet, and relaxes with a smile. “It’s nice to see you again, Harry,” Tarquinius adds, which means Harry looks at him.
“You, too, Mr. Nott.” Harry glances at Mr. Malfoy. He doesn’t hold out his hand. Harry hopes he doesn’t show his relief at that.
“Shall we proceed to the parlor?” Mr. Malfoy asks. Harry blinks, but apparently no one else thinks it’s odd to have people say words like “parlor” here, so Harry just follows behind everyone else as they walk out of the first grand room, decorated in white and gold and enough jewels to make Harry feel blinded, and into the second grand room, with tons of bookshelves and mahogany and ebony and probably other things that end with -y. There are some chairs in front of the enormous fireplace, and they look big enough to hold Dudley. Harry waits to sit down, though, until Mr. Malfoy gestures at one of three in a half-circle. Harry takes the one on the far left, and Theo the one on the far right. Draco settles between them and looks around importantly.
“My wife will join us shortly. In the meantime, I will have elves bring refreshments. Dobby!”
Harry nearly leaps out of his skin. He has to admit, he’d forgotten all about Dobby and anything that had to do with him. He just knows that Dobby hasn’t bothered him, and Harry hasn’t seen any sign of him.
But it really is Dobby that appears in front of him now, whimpering and bowing and clutching at his ears as if they’re going to fly off his head. “Yes, Master Malfoy, Dobby is answering!” He sees Harry and goes a kind of muddy greenish-grey color that must be the house-elf version of going pale. But he looks at Mr. Malfoy right away, so Harry hopes the glance didn’t give him away.
“Bring plates of biscuits for our guests, four glasses of wine, and three mugs of butterbeer—”
“Please, Father, can I have pumpkin juice?”
“You may, Draco. Change that to two mugs of butterbeer and one glass of pumpkin juice, Dobby. And bring it swiftly and without spilling a drop. Do you understand?”
“Dobby understands, Master Malfoy,” Dobby whispers, and then disappears in the middle of a deep bow that almost makes him have to take his hands off his ears so they can touch the carpet.
Harry sits there, feeling awful. He did forget about Dobby. He remembers Tarquinius saying last summer that house-elves are meant to be forgotten, but that doesn’t mean Harry should do it. He has too much in common with Dobby. He knows exactly what it feels like to work for cruel people who don’t appreciate you.
I have to get him free.
But Harry knows, from some of the research he and his study group have been doing, that a house-elf’s owner has to give them clothes. It can’t be Harry. Harry has to come up with some way to trick Mr. Malfoy into it.
“Ah, my dear, here you are.”
Harry actually glances up expecting to see Dobby, but instead, it’s this absurdly posh and polished woman who Aunt Petunia probably was in her dreams. She has unmoving pale hair exactly like Draco’s, and bends to give him a kiss on the cheek that makes their resemblance even more open. Draco squirms like he wants to wipe it off, but doesn’t.
Mrs. Malfoy then nods at Theo and turns to study Harry. Harry finds himself sitting up straighter.
“My name is Narcissa Malfoy,” the woman says, after what feels like a full minute of staring. “And you are Harry Potter, Draco’s friend?”
“Yes,” Harry says, to both parts of it.
She gives him a thin, cutting smile, and holds out her hand. Harry doesn’t know if he’s supposed to kiss it or not. He just clasps it, and that seems to be enough. She pulls back her hand and takes her place in the semi-circle of adult chairs, opposite him.
“What a fascinating young man,” she says, to apparently no one in particular. “Can I attribute that to your influence, Severus?”
“You know as well as I do that Harry Potter has been exerting his fascination on the masses since he was fifteen months old, Narcissa.”
“But this kind of fascination is new.”
Both of Draco’s parents seem to be looking at him. Draco is shrinking down in his chair. Harry decides that he’s not going to let them get away with making Draco smaller. “Are we going to have dinner soon?’ he asks.
Dobby pops back in with a tray of biscuits and everything else Mr. Malfoy requested. Mr. Malfoy slowly tips his head at the tray. “You are able to eat this, yes? A full meal will not happen for some hours yet.”
Harry can feel himself flush as he takes one of the biscuits from the tray. He knows he looks stupid. But on the other hand, they aren’t kind-of-glaring at Draco anymore. So that makes it worth it.
“Gifts will come first, of course,” Mrs. Malfoy says, and clasps her hands. Another house-elf appears, with a small tree that it puts on the floor and taps with one long finger. The tree immediately grows to gigantic size, so quickly Harry jumps. But he’s the only one who does. Then gifts begin appearing under the tree. Mrs. Malfoy looks serenely at him. “Do you want to put the gifts that you brought under the tree, Mr. Potter?”
Harry reaches out and picks up the gift for Professor Snape and the one for Draco, and puts them under there. Mrs. Malfoy frowns a little, but luckily Professor Snape leans forwards with the bottle of wine that he said he would take care of giving to the Malfoys. “For your gracious invitation, Narcissa.”
She unwraps the bottle and exclaims over it. Meanwhile, Harry just holds still. He doesn’t think they got him gifts. That means not getting them gifts is perfectly justified.
He’s worried about Tarquinius, though. He can’t help it.
*
Tarquinius wonders idly if the Malfoys have always been as unpleasant as this.
Oh, Lucius can be condescending. And he’s been to more than one party hosted by Narcissa Malfoy that had its icy silences and its waters of gossip swirling around some poor unsuspecting victim to tug under. But he doesn’t remember their concentration on making the evening so tense for one guest.
Their remarks are to each other, which doesn’t give much space for Harry to say anything. But they’re about the undesirability of Muggleborn blood, and messy hair, and plain robes, and all sorts of other things that only one person in the room has.
Tarquinius sits still and smiles, of course. For one thing, etiquette would declare that’s what he should do since he’s not the guest being spoken about.
But for another, he can watch the way Harry’s jaw sets and the color in his eyes goes deeper and deeper. He’s already shedding the Malfoys’ insults. And this is not the way to curry favor with him. Perhaps Draco might break away from his parents and follow Harry. But the adult Malfoys are entrenching themselves further and further in the category of people he will never bother to consider at all. In fact, Harry seems to spend more time watching their house-elves than them.
What fools.

The Malfoys have got Tarquinius some nice wine and an antique cane, the same gifts they’ve exchanged the other times they’ve bothered. For Theo, there are a few older books that Tarquinius will examine before he allows his son to put them in the library. All as usual. He and Theo respond with polite thanks.
Draco opens so many books and broom accessories and sweets and fancy robes that Tarquinius tires of looking at them before long, and looks over to see Severus opening a lumpy gift in green paper. Harry’s, of course. He watches in interest as Severus draws out a scroll and opens it with a faint frown.
Severus reads the scroll, and his eyes widen. Then he slams it back into the wrapping and nods to Harry. The boy relaxes, getting rid a tension Tarquinius hadn’t noticed in his general alertness.
“Thank you, Mr. Potter,” Severus murmurs. There’s a tone in his voice that Tarquinius knows he hasn’t heard before.
“What did he get you, Severus?”
“Yes, tell us.”
“I prefer to keep some gifts private, Narcissa.”
Narcissa draws back with an offended expression on her face, but then, it’s not different enough from her general expression for anyone to really notice. Tarquinius holds back the temptation to chortle, and watches a house-elf hand his gift to Harry.
Harry immediately flushes and looks sideways at Tarquinius. “I didn’t get you anything, though.”
“This is a gift in recognition of the many new things that you’ve taught me over the summer and since.”
Those words are pure bait for Lucius and Narcissa, who both narrow their eyes. But Lucius is the one who speaks. “What could you learn from one young former Gryffindor, Tarquinius?”
“Many new things.”
Lucius looks prone to snarl at him. Tarquinius smiles back and watches as Harry slides away the paper and the ribbon as if expecting something to bite him, and then opens the lid of the box that’s revealed the same way.
He catches his breath. Tarquinius toasts the boy with his own glass of wine, and watches in contentment as the clockwork serpent he made climbs out and winds firmly around the boy’s arm. Harry touches the head as if he doesn’t know if he should pet it or not.
“You can, you know,” Tarquinius tells him. “The head is brass mesh. It’s not going to bite unless it opens its mouth. And then the fangs are modified dagger blades. You’ll be able to see where they go easily enough. No venom, alas. I couldn’t figure out a way to make it stay inside hollow fangs, and solid ones can’t spread it.”
Severus is glaring at him. Tarquinius ignores it. This is a gift for Harry, not him. And if he tries to take the snake away from Harry, he will find a few nasty surprises that Tarquinius did manage to build in.
“I—thank you.” Harry gingerly touches the snake’s mouth, and it obligingly opens. The soft ticking of clockwork is audible inside, and Draco gapes a little and looks at his parents as if about to demand that they buy him one. Tarquinius ignores that, too. It’s not as though Draco will manage to buy one like this. “Can I command it in Parseltongue?”
“I at least designed it so it should be possible. Since I’m not a Parselmouth myself, I couldn’t test it.”
Harry swallows, nods, and hisses something. The snake closes its mouth and coils up on his shoulder, overlapping bronze scales gleaming.
“What a princely gift, Tarquinius.”
And there is Lucius’s suspicion, again. But Tarquinius is more interested in the way Harry flushes and mutters, “I didn’t get you anything. Sorry.”
“Just say ‘thank you’ for your present, Harry.”
“Thank you.”
And then Harry gets distracted because Draco is opening a package that’s apparently from him, and sighs softly in what sounds like relief when Draco says, “I read about this! These are the fastest bristles money can buy! You put them on a Comet, even, and it’s as fast as a Firebolt!”
“That is also a princely gift,” says Narcissa, but her face is relaxed in a way that suggests she means it. “Say thank you to Mr. Potter, Draco.”
“Thank you.” Draco cocks his head, and the smartest expression that Tarquinius thinks he’s probably ever worn crosses it. “You don’t want them for yourself?”
“No. You’ll get more use out of them than I will, since you’re the one playing on the Quidditch team.”
“Right.” For some reason, Draco looks embarrassed and then determined. Tarquinius supposes that he’ll learn the reason sooner or later.
“This is for you, too, Harry.” Theo holds out a hinged box that Tarquinius never noticed him bringing. He frowns at his son. Theo doesn’t notice, his eyes on Harry as he opens the box and looks at the velvet-lined interior.
“The velvet dampens any magical vibrations,” Theo explains calmly, something that Tarquinius wonders at. But then he remembers Harry’s Muggle upbringing and that he wouldn’t know this very basic truth. “So if you want to keep the serpent that my father got you or something else in the box, the velvet will wear away any foreign magic on it that’s not part of the original enchantments. It’s a good way to get rid of curses that someone else tries to put on your possessions.”
“Um. Thank you, Theo.” Harry puts the box carefully aside. Tarquinius can almost hear him thinking that it’s a paranoid gift, but a useful one. “I know exactly what I’m going to put in there, too.”
“Good.”
“Now you have to open the one I got you,” Draco says self-importantly, and shifts what Tarquinius reckons is a stack of wrapped books into Harry’s hands. “I’m sure this is the best present that you’ll get all Christmas. I know that you need it.”
Harry mumbles thanks and opens the bundle. For an instant, he just sits there, staring at it. Tarquinius can’t help craning his neck, even though the bundle is mostly-wrapped and he can’t see the titles.
“Etiquette books. How thoughtful, Draco. Thank you.”
Tarquinius wonders that the Malfoys don’t hear the blankness, the flatness, in Harry’s voice, but they don’t seem to. Narcissa flutters and simpers, and Lucius makes one of those proud, cold, ambiguous remarks, and Draco beams before he drags Theo and Harry away to help him put his new broom bristles on his Nimbus.
In the ensuing silence, or what feels like silence, Tarquinius leans towards Severus. “What did Harry get you? A scroll with some ancient Potions recipe on it?”
“Nothing you need concern yourself with.”
Tarquinius raises his hands and leans back. Severus is sensitive about the boy, it seems. Well. Tarquinius will let it go for now, confident that the plans he has in motion mean that Severus won’t win in the end.
He also notices, although he wonders if Lucius and Narcissa do, that Severus hasn’t given the boy anything. Perhaps that sensitivity doesn’t extend as far as it seems to.
*
Severus looks at the scroll again when Tarquinius and Lucius start to argue about Death Eater tactics in the last war and Narcissa seems content to listen. He immediately cast a charm on the parchment that means no one but him and Harry can read it, but one can’t be too cautious.
Not with this gift.
Dear Professor Snape,
I promise that I won’t run into danger again. If I do, then you can just show me this scroll, and I’ll give myself detention.
I promise that I’ll try to talk honestly about what happened with the Dursleys. I still don’t think it’ll make much difference, but I promise that I’ll try and not hold back even when I really, really want to.
I promise I’ll try harder in Potions. It seems like one of those things I have to know if I’m going to defeat Voldemort.
I promise that I’ll listen when you talk about Sirius and Mr. Lupin. I might not agree with you, and maybe I’ll decide to do something on my own and spend more time with them, but I promise to listen to you.
If there’s something you want me to promise, then talk to me, and maybe I can promise it. I just wanted you to know that I do listen, sometimes.
Happy Christmas.
Harry Potter.
The tenor of the conversation changes, and Severus lays the scroll aside and gets ready to participate. He has to. If he seems too distracted, then he risks someone deciding that the scroll is worth more to him than it seems.
But already he’s counting down the moments until dinner, and then beyond that, when they can return to Hogwarts, and he can finally give Harry the gift he has for him.
*
Kain: Yes, Severus is jealous, and he'll rant to other people about it, maybe, but never to Harry.
I honestly don't think I can write Snape/Sirius, but I do see the dynamic you mean.
The Weasleys would try again to adopt Harry, but they would get blocked by Albus- and they still listen to Albus. Tarquinius succeeded in having Harry over the summer mainly by not giving a shit what Dumbledore thinks.
Theo would be so annoyed if he knows how effortlessly Daphne is getting close!
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