lomonaaeren

Chapter Thirty-Six.

Title: Ancient and Noble Houses (37/?)
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.

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Thirty-Seven—The Ordeal Nameless

“That’s a good idea,” Hermione said. “To face it together. If we can find some record of the ordeal.”

Harry grimaced. He knew what she wasn’t saying. They had been through most of the books in the library now that had anything to do with rituals, ordeals, pure-blood families, and fairy stories, and it didn’t seem as though they had anything useful to go on. Draco had made it worse yesterday, although not on purpose, by suggesting that maybe the Blacks who passed through the ordeal never told anyone about it, and therefore the most they would have were distorted shadows from the minds of those who fled. Hermione had snapped that he wasn’t trying hard enough to save Harry, and Draco had sulked, and Ron had nearly drawn his wand when Draco wrote down an insult on a bit of paper and passed it across the table to Harry. Even reading it upside-down was bad enough, apparently.

“I’m starting to think that doesn’t matter,” Harry said, ignoring the way Hermione started. Draco was standing beside his chair, arms folded and foot tapping as if he were late for an important meeting in the Slytherin common room. At Harry’s words, though, he turned and looked at him. “I mean, it is a good idea to face it together. But we won’t know exactly what it’s like until we get there.”

“What do you mean, there?” Ron rubbed his arms briskly. “Where is there?”

Harry saw Draco blink. He evidently had thought Ron and Hermione would already know. Harry gave him a faint smile and turned back around to face his best friends.

“I mean the house,” he said. “We have to go to the house and face the ordeal. At least, you have to come with me as close as you can before the house shuts you out.” He was thinking about the hidden room Kreacher had shown him, full of the Black heirs’ kills. If there were places like that all over the house, then Harry doubted he would be able to bring his friends with him, no matter how careful he was to try.

Hermione and Ron spoke at the same time. It sounded like it was the same objection, though. Harry waited patiently until their voices died down, and then shook his head.

“We’ve tried as hard as we can to find some reference to the ordeal in books,” he said. “It was a good idea to look in the fairy tales, Ron, and if it had been there, I think we must have found it. But we don’t know, now. The best thing we can do is prepare a different way instead. Combine our memories of the house from the time we spent in it, and our knowledge of curses and hexes, and hope for the best.” He turned around and looked up at Draco. “I was hoping that your mother would be willing to lend us whatever memories she has of spending some time in Grimmauld Place.”

“She would,” Draco said. In front of Ron and Hermione, he seemed to be more subdued, except when one of them directly questioned him. He spent a lot of time watching Harry, and Harry felt the squirming delight in one corner of his mind and the worry in the other. Was Draco falling under the influence of the house? “She would probably want to come herself, instead of sending memories by an owl or in a letter. The Ministry may still be intercepting packages leaving our house.”

Harry blinked, opened his mouth to say that Narcissa had managed to send him Bellatrix’s diary, and then closed it again. The sharp glint in Draco’s eyes let him know that there was some other reason Narcissa wanted to come, maybe the sort that Draco didn’t think should be mentioned aloud before Ron and Hermione.

“All right,” he said instead. “She could meet us at the house. Maybe twice? Do we need one meeting to trade memories and one to actually assault the house?”

“Do we have to make it an attack?” Hermione asked. “Maybe Kreacher could help? He was already able to tell you a bit about the history of the house.”

Harry shook his head. “I don’t trust him. He was the one who knew exactly what would happen when I went into the garden, and he suggested I do it anyway.”

Hermione stared him down. “He’s still a source of information about the house, and one that we’ve been neglecting.”

Harry bit his lip savagely so that he wouldn’t make a comment that disparaged Kreacher, and nodded instead. “Then we can try and talk to him. But I don’t think we can trust anything he says.”

Hermione just looked happier that they were including a house-elf. Draco put his hand on Harry’s shoulder for a second as Hermione turned to tell Ron about the many, many pieces of ancient and obscure knowledge that house-elves had about the families they served.

Harry leaned back in his chair and raised an eyebrow. It had to be something important to make Draco risk touching him like that. Ron and Hermione would focus on the hand in an instant if they saw it, and ask questions that Harry didn’t think either he or Draco knew the answer to.

“Two meetings is best,” Draco said. “And my mother would like to meet with us once alone.”

Harry hesitated, and Draco’s eyes flickered back to Ron and Hermione. Ron had engaged Hermione in a mild argument about house-elves. Since the war, Harry had come to recognize it as their form of flirting, and he had no fears that it would erupt into something serious, but it did make a nice distraction.

“The second meeting, they can come to,” Draco breathed, light and quick. “Not the first.”

After a second, Harry nodded, and Hermione broke off her lecture on house-elves and turned back just in time to see the nod.

“What is it?” she asked. “Two meetings or one?”

“One meeting,” Harry said, and felt Draco tighten for a moment behind him, as though he hadn’t thought Harry would agree despite the nod. Harry wanted to snort at himself when he thought more about it. What proof had he given Draco that Draco could trust him? Nothing so far except refraining from hurting him some of the time and agreeing with a few of his suggestions. He’d hurt him and bullied him and dragged him into this.

Guilt might have made him freeze, but Harry shook his head and breathed through it. At the moment, until they faced the house and learned more about the ordeal, he didn’t know what the right thing to do was, keep Draco close or send him away. The least he could do was let Draco have his choice.

“Good,” Hermione said, and moved on into the planning. Harry didn’t pay that much attention. He knew she would repeat it later, when they were all up in Gryffindor Tower and away from Draco, whom she still distrusted, but in the meantime, he had Draco to concentrate on.

And Draco wasn’t paying attention, either.

What are you thinking? Harry thought, not so much with distrust as with longing. What can’t you tell me yet?

*

All Draco really had to do was look at Potter when they stood up from the table, and he made an excuse to stay behind his friends. Both Granger and Weasley sighed at that, but they knew they couldn’t control Potter, Draco thought. Probably no one could, not when he had the political power of his name and the magical power of the Black heir on his side.

Not that he would use either one the way it was meant to be used.

Draco waited until Granger and Weasley were out of sight, and then turned towards the dungeons. “Where is your Invisibility Cloak?” he asked, without looking at Potter.

“Up in the Tower,” Potter said. “If your sinister plan was to sneak me into the Slytherin common room, I’m afraid that it’ll have to wait.”

Draco whirled around and snarled in spite of himself. “I’m trying to help you, your arse! And there’s no way that your friends would agree to this. And I don’t want to listen to moral objections right now. I just want to make sure they’re not sneaking along behind us this moment.”

Potter went still, staring at him. “What did you have in mind?” he finally asked.

Draco swallowed and nodded. “I think we should get some sense of how the house’s influence affects people now who aren’t Blacks by blood and have already been affected by it. Not your friends,” he added, when Potter opened his mouth. “I wouldn’t have let them leave if I wanted to test it on them.”

Potter slowly nodded. “Who did you have in mind?”

“Snape’s portrait,” Draco said. “And it can double as asking for advice.”

Potter’s jaw clenched, but he nodded. Draco hesitated. “You’re not going to make a moral objection?” he finally asked, as Potter had started marching towards the dungeons.

“He did try to kill me,” Potter said. “Even if he wasn’t himself at the time. And you said that you didn’t want to listen to any.”

Draco followed Potter with a warm ember that was probably too big for the circumstances to justify it burning in his chest.