lomonaaeren

“Do you really have a winged snake for a pet?”

Harry shrugged uncomfortably. Susan Bones was the one who was asking him, and her eyes were wide and her arms were hugging herself. She looked like she didn’t know if she should be happy or scared.

Lots of people were coming up to him today and looking like that.

“Um. Sort of.”

“Why only sort of?” asked the blonde girl behind Susan, who Harry remembered as being named Hannah Abbott at the Sorting ceremony.

Harry glanced around worriedly. He wondered if he should be talking to Hufflepuffs at all, if it wasn’t something Slytherins did, or something that might embarrass the Malfoys. But Draco had walked away first from Charms to shout at Goyle about not studying, and Harry and the Hufflepuffs were the only ones in the Charms corridor.

Wait, no, Not the only ones. Blaise Zabini was leaning on the wall a little way away from them.

Harry appealed for help with his eyes. Blaise only silently laughed at him and flipped one hand in a way that Harry thought was supposed to mean he should talk to the girls.

Not helpful.

“Um. Well. Mr. Malfoy bought me an owl as a tuned familiar, and I didn’t know it was going to turn into a snake. But it did.”

“Wow, a tuned familiar! That’s awfully expensive!”

Hannah snorted. “If anyone can afford it, Susan, it’s a Malfoy.”

“Well, yeah,” Susan said, in a voice that Harry thought was kind of nasty. “He bribed his way out of being held responsible for what he did during the war, didn’t he? He has plenty of money.”

The girls laughed together. Harry hesitated. Was he supposed to defend Mr. Malfoy? Or would Draco and the others tell him to ignore them because they were just “repeating common gossip?” That was a phrase Mrs. Malfoy had used more than once during the summer, but Harry wasn’t sure what it meant, or exactly what common gossip was.

Blaise came to the rescue, stepping in with a little sigh and a shake of his head. “Are all Hufflepuffs this rude?”

“Hey!” Hannah’s pigtails seemed to bristle as she turned on Blaise. “We’re polite!”

“You’re making gossipy comments about the Malfoys, who Potter here is staying with.” Blaise tilted his head at Harry. “Notice how agonized he looks? How is he supposed to respond? The gossip is so nasty that it’s a wonder he hasn’t just walked away.”

Susan and Hannah both shot Harry guilty looks. Harry blinked. He hadn’t thought it would be that easy to make them upset. Or he would have tried it himself.

Or would you?

Well, he would at least have tried. But he probably couldn’t have done it as well as Blaise had.

“We’re sorry, Potter,” Susan mumbled. “It’s just—common knowledge that Mr. Malfoy…” Then she trailed off, maybe because she’d realized that she was just doing what Blaise had commented on over again.

“It’s okay,” Harry said, taking a deep breath. Blaise was shooting him a look that made it clear he wouldn’t interfere again. “I don’t know exactly what happened during the war, you knew? I grew up with Muggles.”

“What?” That was Hannah.

Harry nodded, keeping his expression as calm and clear as possible. “Yeah. I didn’t even know about magic or that I was famous before I turned eleven. So I’ve only had a month to get used to this, and being the Malfoys’ ward, and all the rest of it. I just don’t want to discuss it before I have a chance to learn more about it, you know? I don’t want to be ignorant.”

“Congratulations, Abbott, Bones,” Blaise said, and clapped a little. “You were harassing someone who’s barely learned about the existence of magic for direct political commentary.”

Harry glanced at Blaise, silently asking why he had jumped in again. Blaise shrugged. Maybe he had meant that he wouldn’t unless it seemed fun.

“I’m sorry, Potter.” Susan was as crimson as her hair now. “I just wanted to ask you about the snake, and now I embarrassed you.”

Or yourself, Harry thought, but he definitely wouldn’t say something like that. He gave her a little smile. “It’s okay. I really don’t know why my familiar changed into a snake. And Professor Snape did some tests and couldn’t figure out what kind of snake it was. Maybe it’s unique.”

“Could we see her?”

“If you won’t be afraid of her. It seems like most people in the school are afraid of snakes.”

“Well, some are venomous,” Hannah said, coming up to walk beside him as they headed back towards the dungeons. “And snakes are the symbol of your House, and Salazar Slytherin was one of the most brilliant wizards to ever exist, but also someone who had prejudices against Muggleborns. And snakes were—one of You-Know-Who’s symbols as well.”

“Yeah,” Harry said quietly. He’d found a sketch of the Dark Mark in one of the books in the Malfoy library, and he’d also seen it on Mr. Malfoy’s arm once when Mr. Malfoy hadn’t known he was there. He supposed that it would frighten people if he could talk to snakes and might make people think he was like You-Know-Who.

Of course, Harry couldn’t imagine anyone he wanted to be like less. But he didn’t know if that would convince them.

“Well, come on, tell us what your familiar’s name is. And what she eats. I have a bet with Justin that she eats mice.”

“Flies!” Susan chimed in.

It was odd, but as they walked towards the Great Hall and chatted about the snake and Susan and Hannah suggested names, Harry found himself calming down. He’d been sure that he would make a huge mess because he hadn’t known what to say, and maybe he would have if Blaise hadn’t been there. But it was okay, and no one thought he was rude, and probably Draco would be okay with it, too.

He caught Blaise’s eye and mouthed, Thanks.

Blaise winked at him, and then jeered at Susan’s suggestion that maybe the snake ate frogs. Harry laughed a little and kept walking.

Maybe he could just be an ordinary kid most of the time, even with the staring and the Malfoys and the Boy-Who-Lived thing.

*

“Please come in, Bernice.”

Lucius got a narrow-eyed glare for his invitation, as though Bernice thought he shouldn’t use her first name without permission. But asking for that permission would have marked Lucius as her social inferior. He wasn’t about to pretend that he was that for anyone or anything.

He stood in place, smiling with gentle persistence, until Bernice Greengrass sniffed and stepped through the door. “I was surprised to receive an invitation from you instead of Narcissa.”

“Narcissa is out today, although of course she’ll be sorry to have missed you. The invitation did come from me.”

Bernice turned her head and stared at him. She was a tall woman with astonishing violet eyes that seemed to shine a long way back into her skull, and raven-black hair that didn’t have any enchantments on it to hide the grey Lucius knew must be there. Perhaps she had simply decided aging was beneath her. “What do we have to talk about, Lucius?”

“Harry Potter, and how he became my ward.”

“You hinted as much in the letter you sent to me. I’m still not certain whether to believe you.”

Lucius calmly nodded at a photograph he had positioned on a small shelf opposite the front door. It showed Potter and Draco standing next to each other in the white sitting room, the day after they’d both performed their first spell with their new wands. Draco’s face was bright and happy, while Potter’s looked strained. But the important thing was the picture’s existence. “Does that look as if I’m lying?”

Bernice examined the photograph for long moments before shrugging delicately and turning to look at him. “It seems that what you have to say may be interesting, after all.”

Lucius permitted himself a small smile and led her away from the front door in the direction of the white sitting room where the photograph had been taken. Other than a swift dart of her eyes around at the furniture and the walls, Bernice showed no sign that she was looking for anything in particular. She sat down near the fireplace and regarded him calmly.

Lucius nodded and sat down across from her. “I don’t know how much you know about the events that took the Dark Lord from the world.”

“Assume that I know nothing more than the bandied-about story of the Boy-Who-Lived.”

“Very well. I think most of us assumed that said Boy-Who-Lived would be raised in either luxury or vigilance, depending on whether his guardians thought that the Dark Lord was gone forever or not.”

“I can’t say it’s a thought that occupied my mind.”

Lucius calmed his own rising tension with a slight smile. “You can see the sense of it, I hope?”

“Assume I can.”

Lucius was beginning to regret confronting Bernice without Narcissa here, but needs must. She never would have approved of the purpose of this meeting. “Instead, Harry Potter was raised by his Muggle relatives, his mother’s sister and her husband.”

“I suppose I can see the purpose of that. Someone must have feared that he would grow up too isolated if he were raised in the magical world. Or perhaps be a target.”

“It was Albus Dumbledore.”

Bernice shifted, nothing more than a slight movement, but Lucius saw it. She had an old grudge against Dumbledore that meant she never would have considered joining the man, or applying for a teaching position at Hogwarts, for all that she would have made an excellent History professor. Lucius didn’t know the content of the grudge, but all he needed to know was its existence. He went on smoothly.

“He intended the boy to be so isolated that he would come into our world as nothing more than a common Mudblood. He certainly never thought a magical family would be willing to cross his path and adopt him on the very day he was introduced back into our world, which happened to be his birthday.”

“Why would Dumbledore want to do something like that?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Lucius asked, startled into speaking before he was truly ready. “To maintain control of the boy.”

“How could he do that? It’s not as though he could predict Potter’s every move or spend classes with him in the way that a professor might.”

“He sent one of his own to fetch Potter. The gamekeeper, Hagrid, who was expelled years ago but offered employment on the Hogwarts grounds as charity.” Lucius sneered, an expression he didn’t have to effect. Charity was all well and good, but should be confined to its place and not bring one into contact with one’s inferiors. “Not a professor who could knowledgeably show the boy around to various places in the Alley, but someone who could only sing Dumbledore’s praises and make Potter feel grateful for being rescued.”

“Until you intervened.”

“Potter literally bumped into me and sat down on the street. He was wearing clothes that someone would be ashamed to give an elf. I had no choice once I realized who he was.”

Bernice nodded, but her eyes were still as hard as jewels. “And what do you want from me, Lucius? It seems that this is part of a private game you’re playing with Dumbledore, and while I wish you all the luck in the world there, I have no idea how I could affect it.”

“Narcissa told me what she’d written to you.”

“And what we discussed?”

“No. But I have the feeling that she might have stumbled into some kind of affection for the child.”

“Why would that be a horrid thing?”

Lucius sighed. “Of course I think we should feel a little affection for Mr. Potter when we’re housing him. But Draco, and even my wife, could be prone to thinking that it makes Mr. Potter the same as a pureblood. That’s the error I’d like to avoid.”

“You think I should help them avoid it?”

“In—indirect ways. I know you’ve done a lot of research with magical theory and the ways that magical inheritance is passed. It would help if you would speak to Draco and Narcissa about how much magic is strongly inherited by purebloods.”

“Hm.”

Bernice sipped from her tea as the cups and saucers appeared on the table between them. Her eyes were still piercing. Lucius wondered if he should have spoken of what he’d be willing to offer her for this favor immediately. It might have prevented her from looking as if she were about to refuse.

“I would, of course, be grateful for your assistance. Enough to offer you a minor favor of any kind, as long it’s fulfilled within the next year.”

“Why the next year?”

Lucius’s thoughts wandered for a moment to the diary in the secret room beneath the house and the way that it resonated with his magic before he shut his mind carefully. He had no evidence that Bernice was a Legilimens, but one couldn’t be too careful. “I perform rituals that strengthen my magic regularly. My promise won’t be exactly the same a year from now as it is today.”

Bernice blinked, then laughed lightly. “And it a good way to make sure that oaths on your power are never too binding.”

“Do we have a bargain?”

Bernice studied him in silence. Lucius would have liked to nibble one of the small cakes that had appeared with the tea, but such indulgence would have to wait until he was alone.

“Let me state this so that I’m sure I understand it,” Bernice said at last. “I share the results of my theory studies into inheritance of magic down pureblood lines with your wife and son, and you owe me a minor favor to be claimed within the next year.”

“Yes.”

Bernice nodded slowly. “That sounded almost too simple, but as long as we both have the same understanding, let’s swear the oath.”

Lucius drew his wand, wondering to himself if he could get away with Memory Charming her to forget that he altered his magic on a regular basis. But one look into her hard eyes convinced him he couldn’t.

So they simply made the oath, and then Bernice nodded and stood. “I’ll owl the records of my latest studies to Narcissa and Draco in a few weeks, once I’ve copied them out in a simple enough manner for a schoolboy to understand.”

“Thank you, Bernice.”

“Thank you, Lucius.”

She was smiling as she left the sitting room, which slightly worried Lucius. But he knew what the results of her studies would be without seeing them, he reminded himself as he did pick up a small cake. What else could they show, but that magic was most strongly inherited by purebloods, and that those with Muggleborn parents or Muggle ancestors were inferior?

This was merely a gentle means of correcting the course and turning Narcissa and Draco back to the purposes of family.

As he ate, Lucius felt steadier and more convinced of the rightness of what he had done. Telling his wife and son not to care for Potter? Not advisable. Showing them they shouldn’t? What a wise man would do.

He had won this silent struggle.