Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

The Guile and Devotion of a Black Heir	By : StarLightMassacre Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male Views: 104307 -:- Recommendations : 9 -:- Currently Reading : 26
Disclaimer: I do not own anything from Harry Potter; all rights go to J. K. Rowling. I make no money for this piece of fictional writing and never will.

Chapter List
- 4
- 5
- 6
A/N: This chapter is dedicated to Of Stories Told because seriously, that review took me half an hour to read and respond to. Thank you very much.
Last Time
On the other hand though, even though he knew that Rabastan’s body would mostly heal from the damage that had been done to it over the decade and a half he had spent in Azkaban, he was also sure that as he spent more time with Rabastan, talked to him more and got to know him a little more, then he would find some very dark secrets, after all, he himself had nightmares from what he’d gone through in his life…he would be incredibly surprised if Rabastan didn’t have some nightmares of his own.
Chapter Five – Revenge
Life for Harry was going well, as October came to a slow end with him taking the Thursday evening, Halloween night, to remember both of his parents and their sacrifice for him. He really hoped that they would have approved of his choices in life as he really was trying his best. But he’d had no direction at all as he was growing up and all he had to go on was the Dursleys and how they had acted and behaved and yet, despite them being the only role models that he’d had, he knew that they were the worst sort of intolerable people imaginable and that he didn’t want to act or turn out like them.
He had needed someone like Lucius to take over and steer him onto the right path, otherwise he had no idea where he was going to end up or how he was going to look after himself when he was eighteen and Uncle Vernon kicked him from the house. He had the money, but he’d had no idea how to use it or what he’d need to do to get his own house set up and running smoothly until Lucius had actually spent the time showing him and teaching him.
Perhaps if Sirius had been alive things could have gone differently, but he wasn’t and he hadn’t told him about his Lordship either. Though now that he’d seen and spoken to Rabastan and Rodolphus, he had to wonder if Sirius had even remembered the Lordships. The two brothers were scatter brained at times too, perhaps Sirius just hadn’t remembered and thus couldn’t have told him. It comforted him a little to think that Azkaban had just destroyed Sirius’ memory rather than the thought of his Godfather keeping something like that from him purposefully. He really hated Azkaban and he wanted it closed down, though he would settle for banishing the vile Dementors from being near humans as they really, really should not have ever been allowed around people, regardless of what they’d done. He would change the way that the prison system was run, he was already researching everything that he could get his hands on and the little that he’d already found out was very disturbing and greatly concerned him. Things really needed to change…quickly.
November had arrived cold and bitter, dragging with it Gryffindor’s first game of the season. He’d had a little over a month to get his new team up to scratch and the other teams were openly laughing at him because he had such a young team and an even younger reserve team. He refused to rise to any provocation and he just ignored Draco, who was the Slytherin team Seeker, and Blaise, who was one of the Slytherin Chasers, when they pressed him and teased him about it.
He had a good, solid team, despite their young age and if his worst fears came to be realised and his young, inexperienced team fell apart under the pressure of an actual official game, then he was still the best damn Seeker in this school and he would catch the snitch before they were completely pulverised. Not that he expected them to be of course, that was just in case the worst case scenario came to pass, but he had every faith in his team. They would win this game, and this entire season and the Quidditch cup too, and show up all of those people laughing at them. That really would show them all up rotten.
But it was currently breakfast time and Harry had been told to go to the Headmaster’s office once he was finished with his meal by Professor McGonagall. Harry had a very good idea of what this meeting was going to be about too.
It had taken another few weeks, a little over a full month later, but eventually his idiot dorm mates had gone after his trunk yet again, as if they thought that he wouldn’t protect his things after the first time that they’d targeted him. The second time they’d managed to destroy his things had been a bit of bad luck on his part and some poor timing due to extenuating circumstances, but a third time? No…they hadn’t been able to get into his locked trunk, nor could they lift it from where it was placed by the end of his bed and all of his dorm mates had taken it in turns to try and lift his trunk like the idiots that they were. They’d gone back to sleep frustrated and planning to talk about something else that they could do to him the following day…only to wake up in agony late the next morning with their hands blistered and leaking pus, clear, sticky plasma and in some places, even blood. Half of the school had seen Ron, Dean and Seamus rushing through the corridors, still in their pyjamas, and running with their leaking, grotesque hands out in front of them towards the hospital wing, as the other students made their way to the Great Hall for their breakfasts.
Harry had caught up to Draco and Blaise, who had only just heard about the incident from a Ravenclaw seventh year, who had had the good fortune of waking up early to send off a letter, and he had insisted that he’d passed three Gryffindor boys screaming and running towards the hospital wing on his way down to the Great Hall. He had followed them curiously and he had found four boys in the hospital wing all in agonising pain due to a spell that had affected all of their hands.
“What did you do?” Draco had immediately demanded when he’d first seen him that morning.
Harry had laughed happily. “I did say that the curse on the trunk would make them think twice about coming near my things again.”
“Did it really make their hands fall off?”
Harry’s eyes had widened comically at that. “No! Where on Earth did you hear that? It just blistered their hands to teach them a lesson for stealing, they’ll be bound up with healing paste for a few days, but they’ll be just fine.”
Harry had been so satisfied when he’d seen his dorm mates again, it had been no less than the lot of them had deserved; though he was very surprised to see Neville with bound up, blistered hands too. He hadn’t been in the dorm room when the others had woken up, so Harry had assumed that he had had nothing to do with the attacks on him. He had been wrong and Neville had just woken up earlier than anyone else and had made his own way to the hospital wing before the other three had woken up and started screaming bloody murder. That had saddened him, he had thought that even if Neville hadn’t wanted to be his friend anymore that he wouldn’t sink so low as to damage his stuff. It seemed that he was wrong about that and he hardened his heart, blocking out the pain he felt at that particular perceived betrayal.

At least he no longer felt torn in half about being in a betrothal contract with one of the men who had tortured his ‘friend’s’ parents. If Neville had stayed out of all of this and had remained amicable, if a little distant, towards him then Harry might have had a harder time getting over what Rabastan had done fifteen years ago in his youth to Frank and Alice Longbottom, but now that Neville had been revealed as one of the people who had stolen from him, and as one of the people involved in damaging all of his possessions, he brushed aside such consideration for their previous friendship. As far as he was now concerned war was war and there were always two sides and casualties and tragedies on each.
Neville had targeted him first, had attacked him first, so he hardened his heart and he shoved aside all thoughts of what Rabastan had done to the Longbottom family, as far as he was now concerned, he and Neville were nothing. Rabastan was his future and Neville had made his choice very clear by attacking him and as a result of that, Harry had been able to make his own choice more easily and with less guilt too. Rabastan would have always been his choice regardless of Neville’s behaviour, but because Neville had attacked him, it took away the guilt that Harry had felt in taking Rabastan for a Husband and the eventual Father to his children and that made him feel better.
But now, today, less than a week after the charm on his trunk had been activated, he had been called to the Headmaster’s office and he was sure it was to answer for why he had such a charm on his trunk in the first place. He’d already sent a letter to Rabastan telling him all about what he’d done, including subtle pictures of what his dorm mates had looked like before their hands had been treated, taken with his wand when they’d been screaming and shouting to each other, and at him, in the dorm room, and then a second photo of them all with heavily bandaged hands and arms afterwards. He’d shown these pictures to Draco and Blaise as well, to give the Slytherins a laugh at his ex-friends’ expense, and he had then sent them on to Lucius.
He wasn’t rushing to the Headmaster’s little meeting though; he was leisurely taking his time with his breakfast, he’d eaten his bacon, eggs and toast and now he was enjoying a bowl of fresh fruit salad as well, all washed down with three chilled glasses of pumpkin juice.
Breakfast was almost over when he finally drained the rest of his glass and got smoothly to his feet. It was a weekend thankfully, otherwise he would have refused to attend the meeting due to the disruption it would cause to his schooling. The look on Dumbledore’s face would have been a real picture, but instead the man had wisely waited for the weekend to pull him up on his charmed trunk. He hated to admit it, but Dumbledore had probably guessed that that was what he would have done, which was why he’d waited a full six days, and the start of the weekend, to summon him to his office.
Harry sighed and made his way up to the Headmaster’s office for the second time this year…it was only just the second of November! He gave the same password as he had the first time he’d been here and climbed the revolving stairs before knocking on the door and waiting to be told to enter.
Remus wasn’t in the room this time, but Snape and McGonagall were.
“Nice of you to keep us waiting for you for half of the morning, Potter.” Snape sneered at him.
“I was finishing my breakfast, Professor. Surely you wouldn’t deny me the chance to finish eating?” Harry questioned softly. “If you wanted me here just after I’d been told about the meeting, then why not schedule it closer to the end of breakfast and not before I’d even started eating? Or even for ten or eleven in the morning, which likely would have been best for all involved, it seems.”
“Do you know what this meeting is for, Harry?” Dumbledore asked.
Harry pulled up a chair between Snape and McGonagall without being asked, despite Narcissa’s lessons on etiquette swirling around in his mind and his shoulders hunched instinctively, expecting the familiar hex to the back of his head for his social faux pas.
“Not really, sir. I was hoping that my Firebolt had been found, but as I can’t see it anywhere, I doubt that that is the reason that I’m here.” He answered, being purposefully obtuse. He knew that he was here because of the charm on his trunk. He doubted that the Headmaster was even looking for his Firebolt. Lucius was going to sort it out for him, he’d already promised him in his last letter to get it back.
“You are here under the allegation of using dark magic against your fellow housemates in the form of a curse on your school trunk.”
Harry didn’t even need to fake his surprise. “Dark magic? Are you teachers at this school or not? It was an anti-thievery charm. I brought my complaints personally to you twice about my things being stolen, and then stolen and completely destroyed, all of which had to be replaced at my Father’s expense. I was not going to allow that to happen again for a third time, so I charmed my belongings. But at least now you have that proof that you wanted about who was stealing my property, sir and I’m sure if they were questioned, then my missing broomstick would be found too.”
“Potter has a point, Albus. Those boys were purposefully stealing and they damaged nearly all of Mister Potter’s things to the point where they actually had to be replaced and a very valuable broomstick is still missing. I will not stand for this behaviour to happen within my house.” McGonagall said sternly.
“What charm did you use, Potter? I didn’t recognise it, but I could tell that it wasn’t a curse and certainly nothing to do with the dark arts. Where did you find the book?” Snape asked.
“It was in the Restricted Section, Sir. Professor Flitwick gave me permission to go into the Restricted Section to find a spell that would help me to protect my newly replaced belongings and he even recommended the book to me after I told him that people kept taking my stuff, he said that there was a very strong locking charm in there. I found that charm and while I had it, I read the whole book from cover to cover, the other charm was also in the book and I added it to my trunk as well. The way I see it, they shouldn’t have been trying to steal my stuff for a third time and potentially trying to destroy it again for a second time. They were a bit discomfited for a few days, but no lasting or permanent damage has been done to them. Madam Pomfrey could tell you that herself.”
“Even so, don’t you think such a thing is a little…uncalled for?”
Harry blinked incredulously, but he held his temper back by the skin of his teeth.
“They not only stole off of me, but they damaged all of my belongings, tore up all of my robes, clothes and my homework, smashed all of my bottles of ink, ruined all of my books and even my trunk and they were going to do so again and you think that me protecting the brand new books, clothing and trunk that my Father sent to me is uncalled for? No, I don’t think so and as my very valuable broom is still missing over a month after it was stolen then I think it is fair to say that you aren’t even looking for it. I think I’ll take my Father up on his offer of bringing the attention of the school governors to this matter.” Harry threatened him. “I want my Firebolt back and I want those pestilent boys to leave me alone. I will petition to have my own sleeping quarters if this matter…persists.”
“I don’t believe that this is a matter for the governors to discuss.”
“Under usual circumstances, neither would I.” Harry insisted. “But twice I’ve been attacked in this way and almost a third time and my Firebolt is still missing. I think that if this continues for much longer then I’ll have to inform the governors and let them decide on the best course of action to take. I want my Firebolt back by the end of today, or I’ll send an owl to the governors. I think that’s all we have to discuss, headmaster. I have homework I need to do.”
Harry stood without being dismissed and he turned smartly on his heel and he left the office. He took a moment to breathe at the bottom of the stairs as a flare of ice cold anger had him pausing. It had taken him a lot to hold on to his anger in the office and he needed a moment to regain his composure.
He kicked off from the wall and made his way to the Owlery, he had a letter to send to Lucius Malfoy, who could get the other governors involved with this matter, especially after the Umbridge debacle. Her trial would be coming up soon and he really, really couldn’t wait.
He would get his Firebolt back and he refused to entertain the thoughts of apologising to his dorm mates when they had been trying to steal from him. He was not in the wrong on this issue, he was the victim of thoughtless, blind attacks of petty jealousy and hate and he would not put up with it. He had no reason to put up with it and he wouldn’t and if he had to call on his adoptive parents for their help, then he’d been assured that that was perfectly alright. He would not be used or made into a victim by anyone, he would make this stop by any means necessary, even if he did have to charm all of his belongings and petition to have his own rooms. He would not let them win.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ X
Harry was grinning behind his glass of pumpkin juice when twelve people walked into the Great Hall, including Lucius Malfoy, who had been reinstated as a governor, and incidentally as chairman of the board of governors, when he’d shopped Umbridge to them and to the Ministry. He had waxed-poetic about his two poor sons, one of whom had been seriously injured and permanently scarred and had almost had an Unforgivable curse used on him by the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister. He’d been welcomed back onto the board as the previous chairman had been, very quickly, fired for not checking on the welfare of the students of Hogwarts and allowing Umbridge to hurt over two hundred students with the serious and severe misuse of a contract quill.
“This is a surprise, Lucius.” Albus said genially from the top table, standing up from his golden chair and smiling welcomingly at the entire board of governors who had entered the Great Hall.
“It is?” Lucius asked in false surprise. “I believe that my son told you that I would be arriving with the other governors. May we proceed to your office? I’m sure the children have better things to be doing than listening into our conversation.”
“Of course. Of course.” Dumbledore said with a twinkling smile.
“Harry, come with us, if you would.” Lucius called out to him, not having to raise his voice in the silent hall.
Harry stood and slung his bag over his shoulder, moving to walk to his Father.
“Is it really necessary to bring Harry into this discussion?” Dumbledore asked.
“As the student to bring these allegations forward, you know that it is necessary for him to be present.” Lucius replied smoothly. “I have been reinstated as the chairman for the board after Mister Wibblum’s ah…unfortunate dismissal. I have no doubts that you cowed him into letting you do as you please, but as you know, I am not so easily persuaded. I have spent the week implementing all of my old rules and regulations; you will find things changing for the better around this school once more. Now, if you would like to lead the way to your office so that we might settle this matter quickly. I have a lot to be getting on with.”
Harry allowed Lucius to prod him in front, so that Lucius could watch him walk and they went up to the Headmaster’s office, where Lucius waved his wand to conjure thirteen, very impressive, sumptuously upholstered armchairs and Harry sunk into the one next to his Father happily.
“Now, as Harry’s Father and the chairman for the board, I would like to ask you first and foremost why you allowed my son’s personal belongings to not only be stolen more than once, but also allow them to be completely destroyed by the other boys in his dormitory. Harry tells me that he came to you with this issue the moment that he’d realised that it had happened, yet not only did it happen a second and almost a third time, but my son’s broomstick is still missing over a month later. Yet that is not even the end of it, no, I have checked and double checked, but the perpetrators have not even had a single hour of detention nor any loss of house points. They haven’t been punished at all for attacking my son or stealing his property. This is unacceptable.”
“Harry did put a charm on his trunk which severely blistered his dorm mates’ hands. They couldn’t use their hands at all for four days, which severely affected their school work. I believe this to be punishment enough.”
“Punishment enough? A mere theft charm on a trunk?” One of the other governors scoffed. “I believe the charm was only used on their third theft attempt as well, why were they not punished right from the offset? They should have been punished from the very first instance that they stole another student’s property and not doing so has only enabled and even encouraged their unacceptable behaviour to continue. Their parents never even had a letter to explain that their children had stolen another student’s belongings twice and had tried to do so for a third time. Why should Lord Malfoy have to foot the bill to replace all of his son’s damaged belongings? It should be the parents of the children involved who bought all of young Harry’s new items.”
“I spent rather a lot on my son’s belongings just this August, having to replace them all again in October, just two months later, is preposterous. This should have been stopped at the very first instance of theft.” Lucius said silkily, his voice soft with anger. “Harry has given me the names of those involved and as governors we have written to the parents of all involved and informed them of what their children have done and as of today, they will spend an hour every evening for the next month serving detention with their head of house.”
“A month seems a little harsh.” Dumbledore tried.
“I believe that it is too lenient, but I was outvoted by my fellow governors.” Lucius Malfoy inclined his head to the other eleven governors. “I admit that as my son is involved, I might be allowing my personal emotions to influence my decisions, but I refuse to allow them to get away with a slap on the wrist for what they have done.”
“I hardly calling blistering their hands a slap on the wrist, Lucius.” Dumbledore cajoled.
“Harry had every right to protect his belongings after they had been stolen twice. This is not up for discussion, we have laid out the punishment that all twelve of us have agreed on and it will be implemented. Now, onto Harry’s missing broomstick, where is it?”
“I do not know, I have been searching and following leads, but so far it hasn’t turned up. I’m sure that Harry has just misplaced it.”
“Don’t you dare blame my son for ‘losing’ his broomstick when everyone in this room knows that it was stolen and is being kept from him. Do you know where the missing Firebolt is, yes or no?”
“No, I do not.”
“I tried summoning it.” Harry said softly, waiting just the right amount of time so that he didn’t cut Dumbledore off, yet didn’t speak over his Father either. “I am the only one in this school with a Firebolt, so I tried summoning it, like I did in my fourth year for the first task of the Tri-wizard Tournament. It came to me then, so I thought it would work this time, only it never responded. I think, that where ever it is, it might be under an anti-summoning charm.”
Lucius chuckled. “It is in one of the girls’ dormitories then. They have anti-summoning charms built into them, as they also have charms to prevent young gentlemen from entering the ladies dorm rooms. The wards were set up to prevent said young gentlemen from summoning the ladies’ underwear.”
Harry pulled a face. “People actually think to do that? That’s just distasteful.” He said with a grimace.
“Yes, but I will have the girls’ dormitories searched. Madam Portist, perhaps you could do the honours, with Professor McGonagall as a school representative, of course.” Lucius said. “If we could do that now, the sooner that this is all done with, the better.”
Harry had to subtly suck in his bottom lip and bite on it to keep away his grin. He was almost bouncing as he walked alongside his Father and the other Governors. They picked up Professor McGonagall from her office and they went into the Gryffindor common room, where only a few students were lingering, watching them curiously, including a group of people, two of whom had bandaged hands.
The two women went up to the girls’ dormitories and the two boys looked at each other nervously. Harry smiled. Lucius was right, his beloved Firebolt was inside the girls dormitories and from the look on the face of a certain bushy haired girl’s face, he knew whose trunk it would be found in too.
He wished he’d known about the anti-summoning charms on the girls dormitories before, he might have linked it together a little sooner and had his Firebolt back earlier, but as long as he got his broom back, he didn’t care.
“Have you been well?” Lucius asked him quietly, moving them both a little away from the main group of governors.
“Yes, I have been fine, a little stressed because of everything that has been going on here, but my school work is going well, Draco and Blaise are helping me a lot.”
“I hope they aren’t doing your work for you.” Lucius said with a raised eyebrow.
Harry laughed softly. “No. Draco wouldn’t allow me to slack off even if I did ask, he’s just helping me a lot and he reads through everything I write for me. He actually crossed out half of my Ancient Runes essay two days ago and told me that I had to write it again because I’m a shame to the family.”
Lucius’ mouth twitched into a smile and Harry smiled back.
“I also have a gift for my special someone. I was given the most beautiful dragonhide and solid silver bracelet.” Harry said, showing his wrist, with said bracelet wrapped around it, to Lucius. “So I ordered something special to be commissioned for him, it came this morning.”
“I hope that it is both tasteful and appropriate.”
“It’s cuff links.” Harry said with a frown. “Do you think that he won’t like them? I didn’t want to get him a bracelet or a necklace because of his severe weight loss, they wouldn’t fit him anymore once he puts that weight back on and I didn’t want him to have anything that physically reminds him of how much damage that place did to him once he’s better.”
“That is very thoughtful and considerate of you, I’m proud of you for thinking of such things. You’ve also been paying attention; you overheard that he likes good quality, custom cuff links, didn’t you?”
“Maybe.” Harry said with a grin. “I miss him.”
“Soon, you’ll be coming back home for Christmas. Your Mother and I have planned to invite the four of them over as our seasonal guests.”
Harry groaned. “Can’t you knock the one of them off? I know I’ll end up saying or doing something.”
“You will not if you plan to be sitting comfortably over the holidays.” Lucius warned him seriously.
“But him!” Harry whined. He felt the tell-tale smack of the familiar hex on the back of his head.
He pouted but he remained silent. “I am looking forward to coming home.” He said quietly.
“I admit, the house has been quiet since you left. Draco is a quiet boy anyway; you brought so much noise to the manor.”
Harry laughed. “Draco’s only silent when he doesn’t have someone to clash with.”
“As long as you both don’t come home and start biting at one another like rabid dogs again.”
“We’ve been getting along better at school, but the Quidditch season is only just about to start, Gryffindor versus Slytherin is the first game of the season and it’s scheduled for only a little over a month before Christmas. Naturally Gryffindor is going to win, so Draco will be in a bit of a mood I expect when I catch the snitch from under his nose.”
Lucius’ mouth twitched with the beginnings of a smile. “Don’t be too hard on him.”
“There is no mercy in Quidditch.” Harry said passionately.
“Indeed.”
Harry snapped his head to the side and stood on his tiptoes when he heard the two women coming back down the dormitory stairs and he was practically bouncing on his toes to see if they had his beloved Firebolt with them. He grinned when he caught sight of it, but was ultimately dismayed when he realised the hideous state that the tail was in.
He let out a horrified cry and rushed to seize it from Professor McGonagall and check the handle for any damage. Someone had even attempted to scratch out the golden licence numbers that proved that the broom was his.
He turned his teary gaze to Lucius who made a slight movement with his eyebrow and Harry sucked in a huge, deep breath and composed himself, his hands tightening on the broomstick that had been given to him by his now dead Godfather. The very broom that his ex-friends had tried to destroy. There was no going back from this now, they knew how very much this broom meant to him and they had still tried to damage it beyond repair. He swallowed all of the upset and the raging anger that was burning him up on the inside; he glared at the table that held Ron, Dean, Hermione and Ginny, who were all trying to avoid the gaze of so many authority figures.
“Miss Granger, would you care to explain why this missing broomstick was found in your trunk, in the state that it is in?” Professor McGonagall, her lips white and pressed into a thin line, her nostrils flaring in anger, demanded of the red faced girl.
“It was already like that.” Ginny jumped in quickly.
“So you were involved in this too, Miss Weasley?”
“I can assure you that my son’s broom was not in this state when he came to school just a month before it was stolen. I have pictures of him playing on it with Draco in the Quidditch pitch at the manor and it is in perfect condition with not a single tail twig out of place. Harry takes incredibly good care of his broomstick as it was a gift to him by someone very special and he treasures it deeply.”
“I…I have the kit up in my trunk, I service this broom at least once a week, sometimes twice. It means so much to me, which is why I desperately wanted it back, but this…this is severe damage. The tail is ruined, the licence numbers have been severely scratched, likely to hide that it is my broomstick, though as the only one in this school with this broom, I can’t see how that would have worked, and the handle could be compromised. This is deliberate damage and defacement and I won’t stand for it.”
“How much will it take to fix the broom?” One governor asked.
Harry swallowed down the tears and the anger that were both battling for dominancy.
“It’ll have to be sent off so that it can be professionally evaluated by the company that made it and that won’t be cheap, the entire tail could need replacing and the licencing needs to be smoothened out and re-engraved. I’m looking at a hefty bill of a couple hundred Galleons and that’s only if the tail can be salvaged. If it can’t, or if the handle is at all compromised, then it might not even be worth it to fix all of the damage. It would have to be fully replaced with a new broom and then it would lose all of the sentimental value that it holds for me.”
Harry was so torn between utter devastation at what had happened to the Firebolt that Sirius had given to him and such furious anger at his former friends that his vision had tunnelled until all he could see were the faces of his house mates, four people that just last year he had called his friends, including two people who had been his very best friends in the world.
A hand landed on his shoulder and he flinched away from it, startled. He looked over his shoulder to see Dumbledore stood behind him. His bitter, hostile anger flared colder and his head started searing in pain. He gasped and raised a hand to the scar on his forehead and he pressed against it hard.
Lucius was there then, with a handkerchief and a furious anger in his eyes as he glared at Dumbledore.
“What did you do to my son?” He demanded coldly as Harry was pulled away from Dumbledore, his hand was peeled from his forehead and Lucius looked at his bleeding scar, pressing his handkerchief over it again.
“This is Voldemort’s doing.” Dumbledore insisted to the worried governors. “Harry’s scar often hurts him when Voldemort is being active and it has bled before.”
“Stop lying!” Harry shouted out. “Stop feeding me these lies, you’re always lying to me! This happened when you touched me! I didn’t even have a headache or anything before you touched me!”
Lucius squeezed him tightly, warning him to calm himself down and keep his composure, even as he kept pressure on his forehead.
“Keep your temper; you are revealing more than you know in your anger.” Lucius whispered into his ear.
“You know that this is Voldemort’s fault.” Dumbledore told him.
“You were always telling us that it was his fault when your scar was hurting you, Harry.” Hermione spoke up quietly.
Harry gritted his teeth. “You have no right to speak to me or to use my given name. I told you what I was told by the headmaster, I only knew what he was telling me, but he’s lying about it, this happened when he touched me, he did something to me.”
“This is unacceptable, Dumbledore.” One of the governors said angrily. “This child is bleeding after you touched him, just what is going on in this school?!”
“I assure you, governor Lettna, I did no such thing. This type of event is common for Harry.”
“Nothing like this has happened in the seven weeks that he has been with me over this summer and he has been fine for the first two months of the school term.” Lucius hissed. “It is very strange, I think, that he has had this type of reaction just as you touch him.”
Harry just stood there and allowed the governors and Dumbledore to fight it out in the middle of the Gryffindor common room. He went back to his ruined Firebolt and looked at it sadly, even as Lucius’ hand cupped a handkerchief to his forehead. It seemed to him that his friends had repeated bashed and forced the tail into the floor at a vertical angle, snapping the perfectly sleek, honed birch tail twigs, making an utter mess of them when he’d done nothing but groom and clip them since he’d received the broomstick. It was sickening what they’d done to something that had meant so, so much to him. He would never forgive them for this. Never.
“Come Harry, we shall send this broomstick off immediately and whatever the bill, those involved will share the cost of that as well. My my, I wonder if your parents can even afford that, young Weasleys. The cost of destroying all of Harry’s school things and I having to replace them was going to be hefty enough, but a Firebolt in this condition to repair as well, that is going to cost excessively.”
“You can afford to buy it yourself!” Ron exploded.
“Why should my Father have to?” Harry demanded furiously. “Whether rich or poor, it was still you who destroyed all of my things and they all had to be replaced. You need to take responsibility for what you did and if you couldn’t afford to replace it, then you shouldn’t have destroyed it all in the first place!”
“There is no need to lose your temper, Harry. Not over such a matter as this.” Lucius told him with a sniff. “At least now we know what happened to your broom and we can have it repaired, no matter the cost.”
Harry nodded and allowed himself to be led away, going to the Owlery where he could send off his broom to be repaired. It was only once they were actually in the semi-privacy of the Owlery that he let two hot tears slide down his cheeks.
Lucius sighed. “Why are you crying? It will be fixed within a month. I’ll make sure of it.”
Harry shook his head. “I know that. It’s just…Sirius gave me this, I’ve loved it as I loved him and now he’s gone, so I…”
“You cling to the broom in his place.” Lucius surmised as Harry fell silent.
Harry nodded. “Now it looks like this and it’s all going to be replaced and it won’t be the broom that he gave to me anymore, the parts of it that he actually touched with his own hands will be removed and replaced.”
“The handle is still intact, it doesn’t look to be compromised and ebony wood is very hard and dense, thus it takes considerable force to damage. It is only really the licencing that needs to be re-engraved and the tail twigs need to be replaced, he would have still held this broom in his hands, he still paid for it with his own money and the intent behind the gesture will not diminish merely because it needs to be serviced. He still loved you enough to buy this broom for you, he still wanted you to have it and you will have it back once it has been repaired. The memories attached to it will not leave you.”
Harry sniffled and he nodded his head. “I understand, I just hate seeing something so precious to me like this.”
“Then let us send it off and be gone with this upsetting sight.”
Harry nodded again and handed the Firebolt to Lucius, who used one of the numerous school owls to send the broomstick off to the manufactures company, Ellerby and Spudmore.
He watched the large owl carry off the ruined broomstick with a note written by Lucius about what had happened to it and what he wished to be done about it. Harry swallowed hard when it was finally out of sight and he turned back to Lucius, his face now dry of the few tears that had fallen.
“I have so few things to remember the people I love by.” He said softly. “When anyone damages those things, I get so angry and I lose control of my emotions. I’m sorry for that.”
Lucius nodded. “I understand quite well, Harry, there is no need to apologise. I have only ever struck Draco in malice once in my life and he was just a boy, no more than six. He idolised me, as I believe he might still, but he often played with my jewellery and my dress robes. I would come home to find him in one of my most expensive robes, trailing it behind him and walking all over the internal fabric, wearing my chains and rings that were much too big for him. I never minded and it used to amuse me, so I never thought to stop him. He found a lock box of mine in a cupboard out of his reach and he’d gotten our house elf, Dobby, to open it for him and as I had never told him not to open it, the elf did as he was told. Inside was a rather ancient family heirloom, dating back hundreds of years to Armand Malfoy. The gold was pure, meaning it was very soft and malleable and in the hands of a six year old, it did not last for very long until it broke. I was so furious that something so precious to my family, that had become so precious to me, had been broken by anyone, that I actually struck Draco across the face. Of course such an action had severe consequences, none more so than my Wife threatening to take our son and leave me. I regret what I did to my own son, but when I saw the ruined heirloom, I didn’t even think before I acted. It is one of only a handful of times where I have acted without thought and it has served to remind me exactly how important it is to think before I act. I am unsure whether Draco remembers the incident or not, but he never played with my jewellery again and he never dressed up in my robes again and just a few months later, he hit another person for the first time, Astoria Greengrass. I have a feeling that that was a direct consequence of what I’d done months earlier to him, but I could never be sure if it was a coincidence or not.”
Harry had no idea what to say about that, so he stayed silent and held his tongue. Lucius ran a large hand over his shoulder and squeezed.
“Come, I think I’ll spend an hour or so with you and Draco and check over all of your school assignments to make sure that you’re exercising your full abilities.”
“I am! I swear I am. I even considered dropping myself from the Quidditch team, though now I won’t…I’m going to make that team the best I can and I’ll do it on a school broom if I have to!”
Lucius smiled at him. “Strength of character…good. Keep that up and you might find yourself making something of yourself, now come along, I don’t have endless amounts of time to spend here and I do want to spend some time with you and Draco before I have to leave.”
Harry nodded and he turned on his heel and he followed Lucius out of the Owlery. He took the man to the library, where he found Draco and Blaise waiting for them with their homework spread out already. Harry settled himself down and he very much enjoyed the time that he spent with the three, even if it was just doing homework in the dusty school library.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ X
Lucius sighed as he received the breakdown invoice from Ellerby and Spudmore. The Firebolt was in a bad way, but he had been correct, the ebony handle was not compromised and there were no fractures or splinters which could possibly cause a fatal accident for Harry if he flew it, it didn’t need to be replaced. The birch tail twigs, however, were another matter entirely. They were unable to be salvaged and had needed to be completely stripped from the broom and fully replaced. The golden engraving of Harry’s personal licencing numbers had been professionally retouched without damaging the broom handle and Lucius was very pleased. Very much so, especially after he’d seen exactly how much these services were going to cost.
He had made sure to inform the Minister of the incident in the form of small talk, which wasn’t actually small talk at all but a perfectly placed, well thought out plantation of subtle information meant to discredit the Weasleys and Dumbledore under the guise of meaningless small talk about his adopted son, who just so happened to be Harry Potter, a boy that everyone was very interested in.
“Darling, I was making up Draco’s monthly treat package and had the thought to make one for our Harry too, do you think he would prefer a gift card from Quality Quidditch Supplies or a subscription to Which Broomstick?”
Lucius smiled and turned to look at his Wife, who was taking to Harry like a Grindylow to water.
“I believe that he would much prefer a subscription to The Quibbler, Dear. I have seen him reading it on occasion and I believe that it amuses him greatly. Lovegood is a friend of his.”
“Are you sure that that girl is still talking to him? Draco says that since the start of the school year, our Harry has been very isolated from his house as they reacted very badly to his adoption.”
“I’m sure that given the chance they would still interact. They are in different houses, I believe that Xenophilius’ daughter was sorted into Ravenclaw and she has never reacted normally or with the general masses. I don’t believe that such a thing as a mere adoption would phase her and it might help to remind our Harry that he does still have friends, if he cares to look for them a little harder.”
Narcissa nodded and filled out the owl subscription form.
“Did Harry seem settled when you last saw him? I hate what Draco is telling us is happening to him in that school.”
“He seemed settled and well adjusted, Dear. Just angry. I have no ideas on where such crippling anger comes from within him. It doesn’t seem natural how he flares up so quickly and easily and certainly not within his character.”
“His Mother was always fiery tempered.”
“She was and I’m not saying that Harry might not have inherited that fiery temper, but this anger he carries seems to swallow him, it blinds him with fury until he can’t even think straight. Such a thing is terrifying to consider, but all the same, I do not believe that it is normal.”
“Perhaps we should have him tested by a Healer then, especially after this revelation about his…previous guardians.”
Lucius’ lips pulled into a sneer, as they always did these days when Harry’s mistreatment by mere muggles was brought up. He hadn’t had the chance to talk to Harry about it while he was at the school, he’d only been there for a short time and Harry had been upset and angry already, but winter was rapidly approaching and he’d have both boys home for the holidays, he would speak to Harry about it then. He would not allow any mistreatment of his sons to stand. It was why he had taken out the vile Madam Umbridge at the very first opportunity that arose. Her trial would be happening in the New Year and he couldn’t wait until he could destroy her indefinitely.
Of course it helped that he had regained his position as a Hogwarts governor and chairman of the board as well. He’d seen to it that Dumbledore was kicked out of the Ministry, which could only be credited to Harry himself for claiming his rightful Lordships, he himself had the Minister’s ear and now he had considerable control over Hogwarts too. He would ruin Dumbledore and he was sure that once he was ruined and not trusted by the wizarding public anymore, his Lord would destroy him once and for all, leaving their path completely clear with only the odd bump due to the remaining Order of the Phoenix members.
The Ministry was now being cleaned out. Madam Umbridge was currently in a Ministry holding cell, waiting for a trial that would see the unpalatable woman stripped of all dignity and prestige and sent to Azkaban to rot where she belonged. Lucius knew that others would soon follow.
Harry had set in motion a series of events that would see a new reform blossom, much sooner than they ever would have been able to implement without him.
He was personally very pleased with the way things were progressing and he knew that his Lord was too. There had been a few, very subtle, assassinations over the last month, a disappearance here, an ‘accidental’ death there and everything was falling into place. They were swiftly and smoothly moving into the place that they needed to be and it was all because he had had the forethought to put aside his own thoughts and feelings and adopt a neglected, and according to recent information abused, boy who was clueless, lost and alone.
He had snatched up the Boy-Who-Lived and he had worked and worked on the boy to bring his, rather sharp and analytical, mind around to his way of thinking and it had worked. Only now, after getting to know Harry personally and not through books, rumours, scathing reports or through the jealous gossip of his own son, he found that Harry was completely different to how he had once believed him to be. Surprisingly sharp and adept, he was more intelligent than he had thought, and definitely more open minded too.
He had expected a fuss, the boy had had his world turned upside down and he had lost his beloved Godfather on top of everything that he had learnt at Gringotts, but the things that Harry had chosen to kick up a fuss over hadn’t been the things that he had expected him to have reacted to.
He had had a harder time managing Harry’s day to day behaviour than he had over the betrothal contract. He had had more of a challenge getting Harry to respond to receiving gifts, mere trivial things like books and clothes than he had over being a Death Eater loyal to the Dark Lord. It was very strange and he had to wonder if it all stemmed from the revelation of abuse by those muggles that Harry had been forced to live with just because Dumbledore didn’t want to raise the boy himself, yet couldn’t risk anyone else becoming Harry’s magical guardian because then he would lose all of his power and prestige with the Ministry. Most notably he would have lost the Wizengamot seats for the Lord Potter and the Lord Black, and he had needed those seats, especially after he had been stripped of his title of Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards the previous year. The Wizengamot seats had been all that he’d had left by the way of power in the Ministry and thanks to Harry, he had lost those too.
He was worried about Harry being in Hogwarts. He’d talked it over with the Lestranges and his Lord, but with all the other upheavals that Harry had faced lately, removing him from Hogwarts was probably not the best way to go. Yet with Dumbledore’s loss of influence in the Ministry, and now that he was once again a governor of Hogwarts and the chairman of the board, Dumbledore was going to start losing influence at the school as well and once the public turned against him, then he would be nothing and he worried that Harry would be in danger because of that, especially if Severus was right and Dumbledore was insistent on forcing Harry to fight by any means necessary.
He had been, they had all been, charged with protecting Harry. He had gone from a priority target, to being their primary mission, and it wasn’t to capture him, but to protect him and because of Harry’s cooperation and his open mindedness on dealing with everything that had happened, everything was moving along that much more smoothly. It made a wonderful contrast to a few months ago where they were hitting snags in most of their plans and the boy himself had blockaded their way in the Ministry itself. He had to admit, even with Dumbledore still in the picture and the Order of the Phoenix still active, with Harry out of the way everything was falling into place and he felt more relaxed and confident that his life views would soon become law and as a plus, he finally had a second child to care for.
He loved Draco, his son was the embodiment of his love and care and he had always done and would always do his all for him, despite the few hiccups they had experienced over the years. But he and Narcissa had tried for a second child four or five years after Draco’s birth, but after all the necessary tests, he had found that he had a very low sperm count that was getting lower with his increasing age and thus, at just thirty-one he would be unable to conceive another child and it would be unlikely that Draco would have more than one or two children himself.
This opportunity had been a blessing to his family really, not only because of Harry’s social standing, his rare bearing abilities and his two Lordships, but because he and Narcissa had always wanted a second child and now they had that opportunity.
It was difficult because Harry was already a teenager, it had now emerged that he had been neglected and abused, to what extent he didn’t know yet, but such a thing disgusted him and he would sort this out for his adoptive son. Things would have been much easier if this had been done a decade before, when Harry was still a small boy, but he had been shaped by abuse and manipulation and as a result of that, he was damaged and angry and he naturally lashed out.
Lucius sighed as he filed away the invoice from Ellerby and Spudmore in a file that he had created just for Harry. It was getting quite full already and it had only been four months since he had adopted the boy. But of course between the actual adoption papers, the betrothal contract, the Healer’s papers on his fertility and bearing abilities, the documentation of the neglect by his previous magical guardian, all of the relevant paperwork, like Harry’s birth certificate and his Healers notes on his vaccinations (that he had been appalled to see hadn’t been completed, which he would rectify as soon as possible.) as well as the case that he had built against Umbridge and the case he would now build against his former relatives, the file was getting very full.
He would help Harry with his anger issues, he would help him with anything that he needed and now that they were all on the same side, there didn’t need to be any animosity between them, they could make this work. He and Narcissa could have the second child that they had always wanted, as well as a sibling for Draco, and Harry could have the family and structure that he so obviously needed. They could be good together, they could be a family until such a time that he handed Harry over to Rabastan as a Husband. That day would be sooner rather than later as well if all the signs and indications had been read correctly, he just hoped that Rabastan was ready to handle Harry when the time came.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ X
Harry grinned as he thought about his new, private, rooms which was more like a small apartment. He had four rooms all to himself. A living room cum kitchenette, a bedroom, a bathroom and a study room that was the smallest room, but had three bookshelves, and a study desk where he could do his homework.
Dumbledore hadn’t wanted to let him have it, not at all, but the governors had bullied him into it and had insisted that it was necessary for his own protection due to the hostility shown to him by his own dorm mates. They had insisted that they couldn’t allow him to remain in a dorm room where he was in constant danger of being attacked, so they had forced Dumbledore to remove him from the Gryffindor dorm rooms and he now had his own rooms on the fourth floor.
Draco and Blaise were both very jealous and they spent a lot of time over the next few days around at his rooms and they often spent their free time doing their homework at his coffee table with drinks and snacks from his stocked kitchenette that the house elves stocked every day for him with fresh food, fruit, tea and juice. It was enough for snacks, but he didn’t really have anything in the way of making a full meal for himself, so he couldn’t avoid going to the Great Hall for meal times, but outside of that and lessons, then he spent most of his time in his rooms.
His Firebolt had been returned to him better than brand new in record time thanks to Lucius influence and the knowledge that it was Harry Potter’s broomstick and he’d been assured that the handle hadn’t been touched, except for the high quality varnish and polish that it had been given after the re-engraving of his personal license number. It was so polished that it gleamed and Harry was so happy, knowing that this handle was the same one that Sirius had touched with his own hands.
The first Quidditch game of the season was rapidly approaching and Harry was so excited as he tested out his broom on his own to make sure that it worked as well as he remembered. He sped up and down the Quidditch pitch, pushing the broom as hard as he could, urging it to go faster and faster, turning at the last moment on a hairpin. It reacted to him just as he remembered, as if the broom was reading his thoughts instead of his body movements it was that sensitive and he flew around the Quidditch pitch for hours, just reconnecting with the broom that he hadn’t been able to fly for the last month and a half. He practised his diving and all of his manoeuvres and he felt so much better.
The icy anger that had plagued him for the last several weeks had left him up here in the air and in the clouds and he felt relaxed and happy and able to think again.
He touched back down gently and shouldered his broom and he headed back to the castle when he started feeling a little chilled. It was November after all and it was getting late, dark and cold.
He made it to his rooms and he collapsed onto his settee with a groan, broomstick in hand. He couldn’t bring himself to let it go just yet. The quiet of his rooms relaxed him and he closed his eyes to savour it, at least until Hedwig joined him and nibbled on his ear.
“Hey girl, how are you?” He asked her as he stroked her head and beautiful plumage. “It’s been a while since we had a moment to ourselves.”
Hedwig clicked her beak at him and Harry smiled, relieving her of her burden and grinning widely as she walked along the chair to perch on his leg. She clicked insistently at him and he chucked as he resumed his grooming of her soft feathers.
He put his broomstick beside him and opened the letter one handed. There were three other envelopes in the first and he looked at them excitedly, knowing that one of them had to be from Rabastan. He was right, he recognised the shaky letters on the second envelope caused by Rabastan’s weakened muscles and his cramps and he dived on it immediately.
He opened this letter quickly, taking his hand away from Hedwig before shaking the parchment out and letting his hand fall back to her feathers as he quickly read the letter that had been sent to him. He could see that Rabastan had really tried when writing this letter, but it was immediately apparent where Rabastan’s arm had jerked out of his control and he had scored the parchment with his quill, leaving long lines of black ink.
Harry still read the letter and he couldn’t help grinning like a loon, a warm feeling filling up his insides as he read it through several times. He liked hearing that Rabastan was missing him and that he had loved the cuff links that Harry had gifted to him and how he couldn’t wait until they could spend more time together during the winter holidays.
He hated that Rabastan had apologised for his shaky, often illegible, cursive and the jerked lines through the writing. He’d definitely have to sort that out once he went home for the holidays, he wouldn’t have Rabastan apologising for the damage done to him by Azkaban, it wasn’t his fault and he couldn’t control it. He was already doing everything that he could to rectify the damage done, he was on a very strict dietary plan, he was taking all sorts of potions and doing all sorts of strengthening exercises to help himself. He was doing everything that he possibly could and Harry would not have him apologising for anything because he knew it was going to take years for the damage to heal, it wouldn’t happen over days, weeks or even months, but years and it was all thanks to Azkaban.
He hated that fucking prison with a furious passion, it was unnatural and inhumane and there was no going back if an innocent person was put in that hell hole like Sirius had been, they came out just as fucking damaged and no amount of Galleons thrown at them in the form of ‘compensation’ helped the years’ worth of recovery and therapy that was needed to try and rectify the damage that had been done. That prison really needed to be sorted out and those damn Dementors needed to be cleaned out. Azkaban had ruined two people that he cared about greatly, three if Rodolphus was counted as well, as he got on well with his future brother-in-law, not to mention how badly the Dementors affected him as well. He could only imagine Azkaban as hell on Earth and it needed to be addressed and sorted out.
“I’ll make him better, Hedwig.” He said into the silent room. “I didn’t really understand with Sirius. I was only thirteen and though I knew the effects of the Dementors, I passed out before they had much of a chance to torture me. I didn’t understand the effects and certainly not the long term effects of what being in Azkaban meant. I have a better idea now that I’m older. Sirius was innocent and he could cling to that, he had Padfoot to use as an escape and I know now that he hid a lot from me because I was so young and he didn’t want me to worry. Looking back on it now, I can see the pain as he moved, I saw the haunted eyes and the gaunt face and the emaciated body, even though he’d been staying in Grimmauld Place. Though thinking on it that probably wouldn’t have helped him either. He suffered through that for twelve years, Rabastan and Rodolphus suffered for fifteen years, that’s as long as I was stuck at the Dursleys. They were in prison though, with the Dementors and I couldn’t imagine going through that day after day, year after year. They have to be some of the strongest men I know, just to even survive that place. I know most people get sick and die or they stop eating or they just straight out commit suicide, but they never gave up, they didn’t commit suicide or stop eating. They clung to something, for Sirius it was hope and the knowledge that he was innocent, but what did Rabastan and Rodolphus have? They were guilty, they did torture the Longbottoms into insanity, so what made them cling to life?”
Hedwig hooted and Harry sighed as he dug his fingers into her feathers and scratched down the full length of her body and his lovely owl clicked happily in pleasure of the action.
“I suppose I’ll never know now, I’m not as tactless as to ask. Though maybe in a few years, when their imprisonment isn’t quite so raw, I’ll see if I’ll get an answer then, but I won’t hold my breath for it.”
Harry sighed again heavily and he sent Hedwig off. It was getting dark and she’d want to hunt soon. He put Rabastan’s letter back in its envelope and left it on the table as he turned to the other two that had arrived. One was from Lucius, just generally asking after him and if he was alright, which Harry found difficult to admit, but it made his chest tighten with unfamiliar emotions.
He swallowed as the letter choked him up a little and he viciously shoved it aside. What the hell was wrong with him lately? First the sudden, icy anger, now he was getting choked up and weepy because Lucius had sent him a letter. He was sure that someone was messing with his food, but the house elves of Hogwarts were under a contracted oath to never, ever put anything in the students food. The serious binding oath had been administered to all Hogwarts elves in eighteen-forty-three after some nut case in Ravenclaw had invented a new poison and had tested it out on all the students who had bullied her by asking the elves to put the poison in their food, claiming it was a harmless prank. It had killed fourteen people and had made twenty-seven others seriously sick. The Governors at the time had forced the oath on the poor house elves and it still remained to this day. So no, Harry wasn’t worried about anyone playing with his food or drink, but with how he was feeling lately, he could well believe that someone had been slipping him potions.
The third letter was written in unfamiliar cursive, but it had been forwarded to him by Lucius, so he trusted it, to an extent.
The neat, elegant words were even spaced on the parchment and there was no signature to speak of at the bottom of the letter, even Rabastan, who obviously couldn’t put his signature on anything, especially nothing that he sent to him, left an elaborate letter ‘R’ at the end of the parchment. It was always perfect, as if Rabastan forced himself to do at least that right when the actual letter was a mass of shaky scrawls, jerked lines and unintentional ink blots.
Harry read the letter through and he gritted his teeth as he realised exactly why this letter didn’t need a signature…he knew exactly who this was and his hands physically ached to tear it into tiny fucking shreds that he would throw into his living room fire. He didn’t though. He controlled himself and breathed deeply and as calmly as he could through the urges to tear up the letter. He was surprised somewhere in the back of his mind that the anger he was feeling was warm and passionate, not the sudden, icy cold explosive anger that he had been feeling recently.
The letter itself would have been quite innocent, had it not been for the person who had wrote it. Voldemort himself was asking after his health and wellbeing, though he was sure that that was just ‘social niceties’ as he had phrased it two years ago in that Graveyard when he had forced him to bow before their duel. His real reason for writing was very clear further down, when he started ask…no, demanding, he couldn’t see the Dark Lord asking anything of anyone, after his thoughts, feelings and his motivations.
Voldemort insisted that he just wanted to be sure of his stance, that he wanted to be sure that he wouldn’t interfere or get in the way of his plans. Harry ground his teeth together and clenched his hands, crumpling the letter in his one fist.
He had been doing his best to ignore the pink elephant as the expression went, but Voldemort had stripped that away by directly contacting him and Harry knew the red eyed bastard would expect a reply as soon as possible as well. He couldn’t help but wonder if this was another goddamned test as well or maybe it was just another level of the same test. He hadn’t reacted to Lucius talking of the Dark Lord at Malfoy Manor, he hadn’t reacted to being betrothed to a loyal Death Eater, hell he hadn’t even really kicked up much of a fuss about living with and being adopted by a Death Eater, so were they now testing him further?
He couldn’t stand the situation he was in, he hated that he had been forced here, into this position and it was all down to Dumbledore. He may have hated Voldemort, but at the moment he hated Dumbledore even more. This situation was all kinds of wrong and he didn’t like it, but he had no one left! What was he supposed to do as the adults all fought over him like a mere possession just because he had been indicated in a prophecy and had survived when he damn well shouldn’t have? His options had been limited before, but now, thanks to what he’d found out in Gringotts, he had even less options now than he’d had before.
He could have chosen to ignore all that he had learnt, though the anger he carried within him, which was slowly fermenting into resentment, would have made that incredibly difficult. How did one forgive and forget something of that magnitude? The abuse, the neglect, the lies and the manipulations. The complete disregard for him as an actual person, the theft of his birth right, the little games that could have easily killed him over the years…all to prepare him for his future purpose of course. He couldn’t do it, he couldn’t face off against someone so powerful, so much older than himself. He was sixteen and he was sure that he didn’t know a fraction of what Voldemort had stored up in his arsenal over the decades. He would not be anyone’s lamb to the slaughter, he didn’t care what the reason was. There was always another way. No, he could never have forgiven and forgotten what Dumbledore had done to him. He just couldn’t.
Of course he could have struck off on his own. He certainly had enough money for it, but again, he was only sixteen. What would he do? Where would he go? He had had no idea how to buy a house, he didn’t know how to run one or how to pay bills. He couldn’t ward his new house as he didn’t know how to, he hadn’t even known if he was even allowed to buy a house while he was still a minor! All he would be able to do was cook and clean, because that’s all the Dursleys had taught him in his fifteen year stay with them. He had needed someone to take him in and teach him how to do everything on his own.
He certainly would not have chosen Lucius Malfoy of all people to be the one to take him in, but he had been the only one actually willing to take him in and the man had started to teach him everything that he’d wanted to know about everything. All he had to do was ask and suddenly a new stack of books would be delivered to him by a house elf and if he had any questions after reading them, all he had to do was ask them. It was a foreign concept after the Dursleys, it had taken him a while to get into the rhythm of it, so to speak, where he would read the books given to him and then question Lucius on the things that he was unsure about. He even had his knowledge retention tested when Lucius asked him questions in turn to make sure that the information he had read had gotten through and stuck in his mind. He was learning at the Malfoy home and it was everything that wasn’t taught in Hogwarts that he actually needed to know in order to live a normal, independent life!
It was as if Dumbledore didn’t expect him to live, so teaching him anything on how to be an independent adult would have been just a massive waste of time and it was that more than anything that panicked Harry and made him cling to the Malfoy family, and even to Rabastan, tighter. He wanted to live, he wanted his own family and his own life. He didn’t want to die!
He couldn’t just forgive and forget what Dumbledore had done and he’d needed someone to teach him what he needed to know to live a normal life, being adopted, or even just taken in by someone, really was the only option he’d had where he sort of got what he wanted and got exactly what he needed.
No, he would never have chosen Lucius Malfoy of all people, but after seven weeks spent in his home and four months now of being ‘a Malfoy’ he had to admit that it really wasn’t that bad. He was happy, he was looked after, everything he needed or wanted was given to him, he was a lot more protected now and he had a family to call his own. Things could have been better, he knew that, but looking back at where he had come from, he also knew that things could also be a hell of a lot worse. He was happy with the Malfoy family and he was very happy with Rabastan. Things would work out for him, because he’d force them to if he had to and it was with that thought that he got out his parchment and ink and he calmly and cleverly replied to his three letters. If they were testing him, he wouldn’t let them win, and if they were just genuinely curious and concerned for his wellbeing and his stance on things, as difficult as that thought was to believe, well, so much the better.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ X

A/N: This chapter was giving me some trouble, even after I’d written it and moved onto chapter six, I still didn’t like it. So the other week I actually deleted the entire thing and started again from the very beginning. It was only 9,000 words and now it’s almost 13,000, so obviously it needed to be scrapped and re-written and I am much happier with the result, so I do hope that all of you lovelies enjoyed it too.
I’ll see you lovelies again soon, but until then I hope you read, enjoy and review and join me on Facebook as well,

StarLight Massacre. X
- 4
- 5
- 6
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

The Guile and Devotion of a Black Heir