lomonaaeren

Chapter Six.

Title: Ancient and Noble Houses (7/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Harry/Draco, Ron/Hermione, past Harry/Ginny
Warnings: Angst, violence
Rating: R
Summary: Harry finds out that being the heir to the Black fortune—at least once he’s of age and residing in Grimmauld Place full-time—is a lot different than just inheriting some vaults and property. He’s changing in ways he doesn’t understand, both body and mind. Even with Draco Malfoy to help him, the chance that Harry can resist becoming the perfect Black heir, with all that implies, seems slim.
Author’s Notes: This story came from wondering exactly what the house part of “The Ancient and Noble House of Black” might mean. This fic will have short chapters, and update every Friday and Saturday.

Chapter One.

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Chapter Seven—Look at Me

“And you’re sure that he was looking at you?”

Harry leaned back in his chair and concentrated on the way Ron’s mouth moved to hear him better. They were in the Great Hall, and the shouting of the Sorting Feast was even louder than usual. It seemed that sixty percent of the students had had exciting adventures during the summer, and the other forty percent wanted to listen to them.

Or maybe the noise was to make up for the people who weren’t there, Harry had to admit. About a quarter of the students, mostly in the upper years, hadn’t come back. Harry wondered idly if that was because the upper years had been more involved in resisting the Death Eaters last year or because they’d been more frequent targets for them.

“Yes,” Harry said, coming back to the conversation with a start when Ron rapped his closed fist on the table in front of Harry. “I didn’t see anyone in that compartment at first, and then I turned around a little and saw him leaning out. I didn’t really think he’d come back. His pride was too hurt.”

“Why was he staring at you?” was Ron’s next question.

“Hell if I should know,” Harry said, taking a long sip of pumpkin juice so that he wouldn’t have to answer questions for a few minutes. He didn’t want Hermione to start giving him significant glances about why Draco Malfoy should be looking at him. It was weeks and weeks since he’d lied to his friends about writing a letter to Malfoy, but he was sure Hermione hadn’t forgotten.

Luckily, Hermione was involved in a long conversation with Parvati Patil, who seemed to have become unexpectedly bookish during the year she’d spent away from Hogwarts. Harry sighed in relief and turned back to his food.

About halfway through the meal, though, he started feeling the sharp, prickling sensation that meant someone was staring at him again. It seemed to come from the other side of the room, the Slytherin table. Harry took a long breath, both because he wanted to reassure himself it wasn’t such a big deal and because the roaring rage that had risen in him was like the emotions that had plagued him in the house.

Who cares if he stares? What does it matter?

Harry counted to seven under his breath and then snapped his head up, hoping to catch Malfoy by surprise. As it turned out, there was no way to do that. Malfoy was openly staring at Harry, and didn’t even try and turn away to disguise it.

He did make a little, looping motion with his finger at Harry, though, which Harry couldn’t ignore. Come over and talk to me.

Harry turned back to his meal, but unfortunately, and of course, Hermione chose that moment to finish her talk with Parvati and turn around.

“Harry! Aren’t you going to talk to Malfoy?” Hermione whispered to him. Her eyes were locked on the Slytherin table now, too, and other people were turning around to see what everyone was looking at. “He could have information about the house!”

“He didn’t bother to write back to me all summer,” Harry hissed at her, having no trouble making his voice properly venomous, because of the anger that ached all through him. “Why would he want to talk to me now?”

“Maybe because it’s the kind of thing that can only be said face-to-face.” Hermione shoved at him. “Go over and talk to him!”

“After the feast,” Harry said, and turned back to his plate.

“Harry—”

“No!”

Hermione recoiled, Ron stared at him, and half the conversations at the Gryffindor table stopped. Harry didn’t think about what he did next before he did it. The stares were searing, worse than the sly looks from Kreacher when he was trying to force Harry into becoming the Black heir.

Harry bolted to his feet and out of the Great Hall. He didn’t know exactly where he was going, but he would find some place where he could hide.

*

That was certainly interesting.

Draco waited several minutes, for the Great Hall to turn into a concentration of blots of people talking in hushed voices about the latest outburst from Potter. Draco could personally overhear someone wondering if the Dark Lord lived on in Potter’s scar, someone else pronouncing authoritatively that Potter had never stopped being crazy, and a few people cooing about all the stresses he’d been under this summer, with the funerals and the trials.

Draco didn’t think it was any of those, but he wasn’t about to volunteer it. Instead, he stood up when he thought he’d go unremarked and strolled out of the Great Hall after Potter.

Undoubtedly some people did watch him go, but this was where having a former rivalry with Potter came in useful. They would think, with any luck, that he was just on his way to taunt him.

Draco was wondering how he would follow Potter if he’d fled, because most of the good tracking spells were fifth year and above and he couldn’t do them with his restricted wand, but fortune favored him. Potter hadn’t gone far after all. He was standing in one of the alcoves in the entrance hall where the first-years tended to wait for the Sorting, his hands balled in front of him and his breath coming in and out as though he intended to power the Hogwarts Express all by himself.

Draco stopped in front of him. Potter didn’t look up, but Draco made out the sharp twitch of his shoulders. He was certain Potter knew he was there.

Draco didn’t mind. He took the chance to study the sharp angles of Potter’s face, the way his hair curled at the nape of his neck, and the way his skin seemed to have dramatically paled, so that he looked like the ghost of one of Narcissa’s portraits. Draco nodded. Well. Whatever the cause, Potter’s resemblance to a member of the House of Black was undeniable. Draco idly wondered if someone had told him over the summer that he was ugly, or if Potter had got tired of seeing his famous face staring back at him from the front page of every paper, as well as from the mirror, and decided to do something about it.

“What do you want?”

At least he decided to stop pretending that he wasn’t interested in my presence. Draco unfolded his arms. “I want to know why you left the feast,” he said.

“But before that.” Potter lifted his head, and although his eyes were still as piercing a green as ever, Draco had been right about the color and proportions of other parts of his face. He was a Black in jawline, in forehead length, in the way his hair looked, to the point that Draco was surprised no one had remarked on the resemblance. Maybe no one else had as much reason to remember the way Blacks looked as his mother and he did. “You motioned to me to come over. And you were staring at me on the train. Why?”

Why not try honesty? Draco had already violated his mother’s dictum to keep his head down. He might as well break a few other rules. “You look like a Black. I wanted to know why.”

Potter tensed so hard that Draco winced for him before he thought about it. That particular position had to be hurting his shoulders.

“Are you behind it, then?” Potter whispered, taking a step away from the wall. Draco’s eyes darted to the sides. He didn’t think it was his imagination that the shadows were growing darker as they stretched along the floor, and that one of them, close by Potter’s feet, had the shape of a snake. “Did you send the shadows and try to make the house drive me out of it? Were you the one affecting Kreacher?”

Draco blinked. The name Kreacher was vaguely familiar, but all the rest of what Potter said sounded like nonsense. “What are you talking about? I want to know why you look like one of my ancestors. I didn’t do anything to you!”

“Oh, no?” Potter’s voice had deepened. Draco wondered if he would hear a similarity to his mother’s if he listened, but right now, he had other things to think about. Like the cobra-shaped shadows that were a few inches from his feet. “You don’t know what I’m talking about when I say that you sent the shadows after me? You don’t know what I’m talking about when I say that Grimmauld Place was affecting me?”

Draco’s mouth fell open. He might know what Potter was talking about, after all, although he had never heard of shadows as part of it. “You inherited the main Black house, didn’t you?” he whispered. “That might explain—I mean, maybe not all of it, but some of it.”

He was unprepared for the sharp rage that blazed in Potter’s eyes, or the way that Potter darted forwards and pinned Draco against the wall. Draco opened his mouth to protest, and then screamed as something shot through the center of his palm, sticking it to the stone.

Potter drew his wand. Draco tried to look and see what was pinning his hand, but he couldn’t take his eyes from Potter’s, or the way that Potter’s wand rose and caressed his cheek.

“Let’s see,” Potter whispered. “Let’s see just what you know, what you’re responsible for. Legilimens!”