Disclaimer: I do not own the works of J.K. Rowling or any other affiliated companies with rights to the Harry Potter franchise.
WARNINGS: This fic will eventually contain a slash relationship between Harry Potter and Lucius Malfoy.
A/N: Welcome to yet another chapter fic of mine to be added to the endless to-do list on my profile..
Enjoy!
"Zar, go on and let the mail in, would you?" Harry Potter asked at barely a whisper as he munched lazily on some scrambled eggs at his desk, noting that they were unsalted and rather bland, but not having any more motivation to season them than he had shown in actually making breakfast – a feat which these days took several hours to do. Well, actually the bit that took so long was getting out of bed and to the kitchen, the cooking was quick and boring, as was the eating, as was the washing of the dishes, as was the rest of Harry's life every day.
"Am I allowed to eat the flying mouse, yet?" Came a lazy sarcastic response from somewhere to Harry's left. The Boy Who Lived laughed, knowing that in parseltongue the word 'mouse' could loosely be translated to anything that meant food. He turned around and beckoned to his familiar, smiling as the tiny snake obediently slithered over to him.
Balthazar was a Blue Krait Snake, but very small for their average size. Harry had taken to him immediately after coming across him on a backpacking trip through Sri Lanka. He had expressed interest in helping Charlie out with an area that the muggles there claimed was cursed with demons. Charlie was certain that by their description, these demons were actually small dragons, and he'd been right – but that wasn't the oddest part. The reason the dragons had been so aggressive was that one of them happened to be guarding snake eggs. It was quite the strange behavior for a dragon, especially when the eggs hatched and revealed that they really werejust snakes, and not some sort of multi-reptile hybrid.
Balthazar had been the runt, an odd occurrence in animals who laid eggs as opposed to mammals. Still, as soon as Harry laid eyes on the creature, he wanted him. It was the color that did it. Blue Krait's were actually not always blue, and Zar was striped with deep onyx black and a contrastingly bright forest green, with shimmering silver specks on his tail and head. Even in his attitude and mannerisms the snake was the epitome of all things Slytherin. Harry adored him.
"Zar, I've already told you, you can't eat owls. You're the one who wants me to be more social, right? How can I contact my friends if you eat every bird that comes in?"
The snake looked thoroughly put off, but didn't complain. Instead, he chose to stare expectantly at Harry, as the owl's ever present tapping reached another level of annoying. Clearly, his familiar would be of no assistance in retrieving the mail today. With an annoyed sigh, Harry rose to do it himself.
The owl held out his leg before allowing Harry access to the parcel in its beak. Harry sighed, and dug into the pocket of his pajama shirt – finding it empty, he turned back to his pet, "Zar, where's my wallet?"
The bird screeched unpleasantly, clearly disturbed by the aggressive hissing of parseltongue, as if she was aware of Balthazar's desire to consume her without having to hear the snake express such an interest. "Under the bed, Master." Zar answered, tilting his head towards Harry's messy bed and making it very clear that snake or not, he outright refused to face the horror of what lied under that mattress.
Harry didn't want to put his hands down there either. He instead wandlessly summoned his wallet to his hand, and paid the bird, placing the jingly money into the small brown pouch that was attached to the owl's leg. It hooted appreciatively, then dropped the post down on Harry's desk and flew back out of the window.
As Harry approached the desk himself, a familiar face was smiling up at him from The Daily Prophet and he frowned, leaning over with the intention of reading the headline, only to have his wards go off. With a slightly annoyed sigh, he turned away from the paper and went to go get the door, barely noticing as Balthazar slithered up his leg and torso, coming to a rest across the back of his shoulders. It was a movement that was common between them, now.
Harry opened the door, and allowed a Weasley parade to march through his living room. They were bickering as they entered, and didn't even bother saying hello to Harry as they plopped themselves down on the furniture, Ron and Hermione on the couch and Ginny still standing. She walked up to Harry and insistently shoved her copy of the Prophet in his face.
"Harry, did you see the front page of the prophet?" Hermione asked with a light smile, clearly mocking his position of blindness since now all he could see was the front page of the prophet. It was too close to read, though, and he was still clueless.
Harry sighed, loving the family home feeling at The Burrow but wishing that it didn't have to invade his solitude at that particular moment. "Just my face," He answered honestly. "Why? What have I done now?"
Ginny lowered the paper slightly and let Harry take it. He looked down, and read.
The Boy Who Lived : A Pureblood!
Yes, that's right! Harry James Potter, savior of the wizarding world was up until this very morning considered to be a half-blood, due to his mother's unfortunate muggle-born status;
Harry glared down at the paper, upset that his mother's blood would be considered something 'unfortunate.' Nonetheless, he kept reading.
However, due to recent research held in the brand new Wizarding Lineage and History department, (directed and overseen by former Hogwarts Professor Binns) it has been discovered that the Evans family was, contrary to common belief, a pure-blood wizarding family. Lily Evans' parents, were, in fact – not only third cousins, but both unfortunate squibs, who had participated in an arranged marriage in hopes that at least one of their children would be a blessed member of our magical community. Wilhelmina Evans, Lily's grandmother, explains that squib children in their family were never allowed to have knowledge of the magical community, and were raised as muggles. In fact, Lily's own parents were unaware of the fact that their perfect marriage was caused by a love potion.
When asked how Wilhelmina feels about her great-grand-son's wonderful achievements, she was, sadly, quite expressive of her distaste for the boy. It seems that there will be no love for our dear Mr. Potter from his mother's side, but as you well know from his biography The Man Who Kept on Living by Rita Skeeter, Mr. Potter is not entirely unused to receiving Ill-feelings from his maternal relatives.
How does our young Harry feel about his new blood-status? Friends refused to comment for this article, and there is still no word of where our young boy-hero has been these past two years. Has the pureblood savior disappeared for good?
It was a terrible article, in Harry's opinion. He took a deep breath and passed it back to Ginny, then sat down on his couch with his head in his hands. His blood certainly didn't feel any more impressive.
"Well, I think the whole thing's been done in rather poor taste." Hermione said factually. "I, of course, looked into this myself as soon as I'd read it-" Harry and Ron shared a brief glance of wonder at how Hermione had already dissected an article that had been published just this morning. "-and although they're right about your blood status, the implication that it makes you somehow better than you were is clearly a direct offense to the Muggle-Born Protection and Equality act."
Ron shrugged at Harry, showing that he was only half-aware of what his wife's issue was. This was rather typical for him anyway, but Harry expected that when one was born as a pureblood, went through school as a blood-traitor, and them married a muggle-born, blood status wasn't something that really mattered much anymore.
"No offense, mate, but honestly I'm just glad to be reading about your drama again." Ron said with a roll of the eye, "I swear this whole year the press hasn't had anything better to do than make us read about the damn Malfoys." The way Ron said it would suggest that the paper had been showing photos of infants with their eyes gouged out, rather than obsessing over the scandalous infidelity of Narcissa Malfoy, and the resulting divorce(s).
Ginny grinned. "I've been reading it like a soap-opera, myself! Caught in a lesbian relationship with her son's wife! Couldn't be juicier. Can't say I'm surprised much by it, though. Draco's the second biggest poof I ever met, it's no wonder he couldn't satisfy the woman sexually... but for her to turn to his mother!"
Hermione turned up her nose at Ginny's words. "Well, Astoria never did have any class. Did you see how drunk she andDraco were at the wedding? I thought Lucius would just fall over and die. He looked so horrified."
Ron shrugged. "Honestly the whole time I was busy sulking about you making us go to the wedding. It's not like me and Malfoy run around proud of the fact that we're related. You know I hate the git."
Harry chuckled at Ron's blatant distaste for his distant cousin. He himself hadn't gone to the Malfoy Greengrass union, being that he didn't like Malfoy either, and since he wasn't one-fourth Black or whatever Ron's obligation was, he didn't have to go. Still, he could imagine that a gay man marrying an apparently lesbian woman would cause a bit of discomfort on both counts. In many societies, gays and lesbians were grouped together and smacked under the homosexual title as if they were the same thing. However, they had less in common than most demographics of people. A gay man could bond easily with a straight man because they were both men. A gay man could bond easily with a woman because they both liked men. However, on a primal sense of things (what are you, and what do you like?) gay men and lesbians had nothing in common. No common gender, and no common preference in gender. Sounded miserable for a marriage.
"So, Harry, what are you gonna do about this?" Ginny inquired, and Hermione and Ron both looked at him expectantly.
"About what? Nothing's really changed, has it?" He asked, not liking the way they all smiled carefully at him like he was an ignorant child.
"No, Harry. Pureblood wizards have a lot more responsibilities than half-bloods and muggle-borns. You'll have to stop hiding out in this flat for one thing, as a start." Hermione said gently, understanding that if there was one thing Harry had grown to hate it was the need to face responsibilities that he didn't sign himself up for. The poor soul wasn't even hiding. He'd just been moping around his home for so long that the wizarding world thought he'd disappeared, and he'd encouraged them to let the press go right on thinking that.
"Okay, leave home. Seems fine, I'd wanted to go to the muggle cinema to see that new Johnny Depp film anyway."
Hermione rolled her eyes, and Ron pointedly pretended that he had no interest in knowing what they were talking about, and did not at all feel out of the loop. Hermione continued talking. "Harry, you'll have to go to the ministry and name an heir, you'll have to establish an account at Gringotts in your family name rather than your own personal one and transfer some money to it. Those are the mandatory things. If you've got any tact you'll also affiliate yourself with some sort of charity, and turn one of your estates into a home for war orphans or something like that. I'd also suggest you try and make nice with the big names in pureblood society, unless you want to start being considered a blood-traitor... no offense, love." She added on the last bit for Ron's sake, sending him a sympathetic glance.
Harry looked thoroughly put off. "Why do I need an heir? Ron doesn't have an heir..." He grumbled, unable to find an arguing point with the other necessary actions, since the Weasleys did have an account in their name, several affiliated charities (even if they couldn't afford to make any decent donations) and enough surrogate parent-less children (like Harry himself) to consider The Burrow an orphanage of sorts.
"Don't need one, mate. I've got a shit-load of younger family for it to go to."
Ah, so that was the issue. Harry was a pureblood, and also the last in the Potter line. "Okay, so I'll make Teddy my heir, then. No problem. Move some galleons to a Gringotts account as the Potter holdings. Easy. Hermione, what charities would you recommend?"
"I haven't really looked into any for you, yet."
Harry and Ron were both staring at her with blatant disbelief. Ginny rolled her eyes. "The girl's not just some walking tome of information on all things in this world, you know." She said with a sigh as if Harry and Ron were both so completely helpless that she was wondering if they'd even be alive without Hermione.
Well, she had already come up with a lot of information considering she'd only been at it for an hour or two...
"Master should not leave his mice on his desk for so long..."
Ron visibly winced at Balthazar's hissing. The only Weasley that was really comfortable with the snake was Charlie, and Harry expected it'd be that way for quite some time.
"I'm hoping they'll leave soon, but you're right. Breakfast is cold by now."
It didn't take long for them to go after that. Parseltongue always made Ron and Ginny squeamish, and Hermione was too considerate of them to force everyone to stay for her sake.
As they left, Harry let out a tired sigh and turned to his slithering companion. "We've got to go out today. To Gringotts, then to the Ministry." Harry said, patting the snake's scaly head gently.
"I hate goblins..." Zar protested, but three hours later the snake was wrapped firmly around Harry's left arm as they apparated to Diagon Alley with a loud crack.
Gringotts Bank stood out like a sore thumb, with its unimaginable height, and it's crooked barely-held-up architecture. Harry smiled at the familiar building, and tried to ignore the way everyone stopped and stared at him, breaking into fits of whispers as he walked on. He could hear what they said as he passed, sometimes.
"Is that – it couldn't be – That's Harry Potter!"
"The Boy Who Lived! He's returned, at last!"
"Where's he been? Who's he think he is just walking down the alley all of a sudden?"
Harry ignored them as he entered the bank, suddenly glad for the foreboding silence that always greeted you in the Gringotts entrance hall. He approached the head Goblin and offered a kind smile. It was returned with an annoyed scowl, but he didn't expect any better.
"I need to set up an account for my family name," Harry said, trying to ignore the way Balthazar twisted up his arm and peeked out of the back collar of his robes, clearly taking interest in someone behind him.
"Name?" Asked the Goblin in a scratchy monotone.
"Harry James Potter." Harry said, feeling oddly grateful that there was still some individual in the world who didn't either jump to do his bidding at once or shun him on general principle.
"Your key or your wand, Mr. Potter?"
Harry's key was somewhere in his lower pockets, but he didn't want to disturb Balthazar's new strange position, so he instead handed over his wand, though it pained him to do so. Any wizard would feel disturbed without it – but for him as someone who really was constantly attacked for the better half of his life, it felt horrible just having it out of reach or in someone else's hands.
The Goblin held it for only a second before passing it back, clearly aware of how possessive wizards were of them. "You will be shown to an office to deal with your holdings in a moment, Mr. Potter. Please step back from the desk."
Harry did as he was told, and turned around to walk back some, but froze; immediately understanding what Balthazar had been so interested in.
Lucius Malfoy was physically returned to his former glory. His hair had grown some, and now hung nearly to his elbows. His robes flowed flawlessly as he stepped past Harry's gawking eyes and spoke in a quiet voice to the head Goblin himself. They were a deep green, so dark that at first glance it would have looked black. He had his usual snake-head walking stick in his right hand, and Balthazar had, again, readjusted to stare at the thing.
Yes, to the untrained eye, Lucius was unimpaired, but Harry knew better. There was something not quite cold about his eyes, but frightening nonetheless. The Malfoy patriarch looked beaten, and tired – but not in the way he had during the war. No, this was no post-Azkaban terror. This wasn't the unsettling feeling of spending long days with evil incarnate, nor was it the shame of realizing that you no longer had the option of being the man you were raised to be. No, no. Lucius Malfoy did not look afraid. He looked... sad. Very, very, sad. As if he was truly despairing over something that was too unfortunate for him to wrap his mind around.
Harry suddenly decided that maybe Narcissa was the worse of the two. With the Malfoys Harry could never think of one as the better because that would imply that it was a challenge of good rather than a measure of how much bad. So no, this grief didn't mean that Lucius was better than his ex-wife. It simply meant she was worse than him... if that made sense. Harry frowned, realizing that maybe it didn't make sense at all, and barely heard his name called by the Goblin that was interrupting his thoughts.
"Hm?" He asked, shaking out of his mental observations.
"I asked if Mr. Potter would mind Mr. Malfoy coming along for his meeting, sir. Your business can be handled at the same time if it isn't too much trouble."
Harry nodded. "Sure, doesn't bother me. Mr. Malfoy?" He asked, the name feeling strange on his lips as he tried to recall if he'd ever had to address this man by name, or if he'd simply always talked at him without getting his proper attention.
The blond seemed to need a moment to consider it, but ultimately he nodded and they followed another Goblin into an elevator that would apparently lead them upstairs to the office areas of the bank, as opposed to the vaults, that were almost always underground. The elevator was tightly packed, a fact that clearly annoyed Lucius (who was now pointedly trying not to be touched) but Harry didn't mind so much. His childhood living arrangements had rid him of whatever possibility for claustrophobia that may have arisen in his adult life. In fact, someone in this elevator smelled really, really nice...
Harry sniffed, and cocked his head slightly to the side, wondering what the pleasant smell was. His leg-less friend clearly understood his curiosity and didn't hesitate to poke out of his collar again and answer him.
"Bergamot and freesia." Balthazar hissed, and Harry could see Lucius's head incline slightly in their direction, seemingly having not noticed before that there was a snake on Harry's person.
"Really? I guess Snape would have told me that I should have known that. Where's it coming from?"
Both Lucius and the Goblin had now visibly tensed, and the other wizard stared plainly at Harry, unashamed of his gawking.
"Oh, sorry. Does parseltongue bother you, Mr. Malfoy?" Harry asked, having forgotten how inconsiderate it was to speak the language of snakes in front of other wizards who might have considered it unsettling or dark. Although Lucius himself was both unsettling and dark the way Harry remembered him – he could imagine that being around Voldemort and Nagini could make any normal bloke hate the language, no matter how little they'd minded it before.
"No, I just hadn't noticed your … pet." He seemed like he didn't know exactly what to say about Zar, so Harry didn't plan on pushing it farther, but then Zar (suddenly quite the chatty little beast, it seemed) decided their conversation wasn't over.
"It's coming from the other magical-man, of course. Did you see any plants in this lift? How else could that smell have gotten here? Could you ask him about it for me?"
Harry frowned, but turned to Lucius. "Are you wearing something?" The blond looked slightly taken aback by the question. "Cologne, I mean. You smell nice."
Oh lord, how long was this damn thing gonna go up? Didn't seem like so many floors when he'd ridden that dragon through it... This was starting to get awkward. Asking Lucius Malfoy about his cologne...
"No, nothing. You're probably smelling my blood, Mr. Potter. I can smell yours quite distinctly."
Harry frowned at that. He didn't know that blood had a smell. Well, of course it must have if you were a vampire or something, but neither he or Lucius actually consumed blood.
"Sir, how is it that we can smell it, again?" He asked, trying to be nonchalant.
Lucius merely glared at him in response, and Harry dropped the subject. "Zar, remind me to ask Hermione about blood scents later."
"Yes, Master."
Harry could see Lucius shifting uncomfortably again, and decided the man must have been edgy about parseltongue and just too much of a stuck-up Slytherin to admit that it bothered him. He ignored Balthazar's chatter from that point on, for Lucius's sake, and alas they reached their destined floor.
They were escorted to an unexpectedly cozy office, where yet another Goblin was waiting to service them. He was sitting behind an intimidatingly large desk, that looked very strange in comparison to his tiny body. He had two folders already out, and wore an expression on his face that said he wanted this done quickly and without issue.
"Mr. Potter wishes to establish a bloodline account, and Mr. Malfoy wishes to terminate his?"
Harry nodded, then turned towards Lucius, not understanding how after so many years of Malfoy pride, he'd want to do away with something that was apparently pretty standard as far as pureblood obligations went. But Lucius had nodded as well, so that was clearly what he was about to do.
"Reason for termination, Mr. Malfoy?"
"It is personal. I will be setting up a new holding under the Malfoy name over the course of the next week, but first I have been told it is necessary to close the current account in order to break any ties it may hold to families Black and Greengrass."
Harry snorted in amusement and tried to hide his smirk. Right, right, it was personal, huh? Certainly not as if Lucius' marriage problems had been painted all over the prophet already and they all knew exactly what was going on. The Goblins seemed un-amused.
"As you wish, Mr. Malfoy. Will your senior account for young Mr. Malfoy also be terminated, then?"
Lucius nodded, apparently not deeming these creatures worthy of words if they weren't needed. It made Harry think of how shocked Griphook had been that he was a decent human being and didn't look down on magical creatures like Goblins and House Elves and the like. Then again, Harry had thus far been mostly lucky in his experiences with them, aside from Griphook himself – who had proven annoyingly cunning at the end of their not-quite-friendship.
As Harry peered harmlessly over Lucius' shoulder for a moment, he couldn't help but notice his own name. He blinked, confused, then quirked an eyebrow at the elder man. Lucius let out a deeply agitated sigh, and turned to him.
"What is it now, Potter?"
"Just wondered what I have to do with your bank accounts."
"As little as possible, I assure you. This is merely a statement that if I do not re-claim the funds that are currently in the account being made void within the next year – they are to go to you."
Harry wrinkled his nose in confusion. "Er – I'm glad for the kind thought, but I thought you didn't really like me very much."
For that intelligent statement, he was rewarded the worlds iciest glare. Harry knew at once that he must have said something offensively stupid, but in all honesty he could not ever see himself offering an apology to someone in the Malfoy family. They'd already put him through enough to warrant any shit he gave them back for it, hadn't they?
"I do not like you, boy. You are, by some sort of unfortunate miracle, the head of The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. Therefore, when it comes to separating money between myself and my former wife, the battle of finances is between myself and you rather than myself and her. She gave up her rights to the Black money when she started leeching mine. So now it's yours. I would prefer that you only have minimal involvement, and see no reason that you need to be present at any discussion of economics henceforth. If you absolutely insist on peeking at my personal documents, then..."
As Lucius ranted on and on, Harry was again overpowered by the smell of the man. He could feel it invading his senses, right down to his magical core. It was inside of him, while at the same time surrounding him. He felt slightly light-headed, and had to blink very quickly to remain awake. Lucius clearly knew that he wasn't listening anymore, because he'd stopped talking and was just glaring down at Harry now.
Before their moment of awkwardness could get any worse, a Goblin, thankfully, cleared his throat. "If Mr. Potter would please express the amount of gold he wishes to transfer to his new account?"
Harry shrugged. "I dunno, a thousand galleons, maybe?" Lucius' head snapped over to him and his stare was incredulous. Harry gulped, feeling as if he'd done something wrong. "Um... a hundred thousand galleons?" He asked, hoping to get it right this time. The steel gray eyes that were staring at him only widened farther. Harry felt distinctly nervous now. "A million galleons. Put a million galleons in it."
The Goblin just nodded and scribbled down on something, and Lucius stormed out of the room angrily. Harry seriously didn't know what the problem was... Hadn't he put enough? He thought Lucius had been offended by his frugality, what with him being new to his pureblood status and not knowing what to do with his money anyway. He had control over the Black funds, the Potter funds, now the Evans funds, and also an account he didn't even touch that held his profits from the Joke Shop. He frowned slightly to himself. Weasley Wizard Wheezes hadn't released a single new product since Fred's death, but business was still booming. Kids would buy the same old things every year anyway, even if George wasn't able to think up anything new without his twin.
Harry promised himself to go by the shop next and try and put a smile on the face of his old friend.
A/N: I'm sorry to say that I'm not sure how often this will be updated since I have SO many in-progress fics. It will probably depend on the demand, so if you're expecting updates soon make sure to let me know.
Thank You in advance to anyone who is going to review.
Love you guys for reading!
-Beloved