Lucius was ranting and skulking around some muggle town he'd forgotten the name of as he tried to avoid being discovered.

At least here it looked like the muggles had some sense of appearance, if their gardens were proof of the matter at least.

Up ahead there seemed to be some sort of argument happening in one of the houses. Lucius couldn't help moving closer, thankful he was one of the few wizards who knew how to dress suitably for muggle areas.

"I don't care what you were doing, Harry. Moving your relatives back home should have happened sooner than this." A man's voice thundered.

"Oh you've learnt my name in the last year? That's a nice change, and sorry for having more important things to deal with than relatives who hate me and are terrified of anything to do with my world." That voice was almost certainly Harry Potter's. Lucius just moved nearer drawn by curiosity at the argument the saviour was in .

"Vernon, please. We're back home now. Can you stop this already? The people staying with us over the last year were really nice after all." A woman's voice pleaded, apparently to the thundering man.

"NICE! They Were Freaks! Corrupting our Dudley and you call them NICE?" Lucius was close enough to glance in the window slightly, seeing a fairly short fat man with a walrus moustache turning purple in rage as he rounded on a tall thin woman, now shaking in fear of the man who Lucius guessed was her husband.

"They were protecting us, in case that evil guy, erm..."

"Voldemort." Harry put in simply.

"Decided to go after us as Harry's family." The woman protested, still trying to defend herself against the man.

Lucius decided to make his presence known, as he moved through the open door, apparently left open by mistake during the argument. "Excuse me, can I ask what the shouting is about? I heard it from down the street and wondered if there was something I could help with." He asked smoothly, wanting to defend the woman from the brute before him but keeping the Malfoy coolness and manners in place impeccably.

Recognition flashed in Harry's eyes when the three people inside the house turned to look at him. The woman and Vernon stared for a moment, apparently hoping that they hadn't just been caught arguing by someone passing on the street. "Lord Malfoy, I didn't know you were in Little Whinging currently." Harry said after a moment, changing the title Lucius deserved in such a way it shocked the blonde, almost as much as it left the brute scrambling for his manners.

"Oh, I'm sorry for the disturbance sir, there has just been a slight disagreement between my wife's nephew and I. We must have raised our voices without realising it." The fat man said quickly after the identification of the stranger. "I'm Vernon Dursley, This is my wife, Petunia, and her nephew Harry Potter."

"Mr Potter, I was just wishing to avoid being made an example of by some righteous folk who still argue with the verdict shared by the court. I believe I have yet to thank you for enabling my family to remain as free as we are, although my son and wife assure me that they have done for all of us." Lucius refused to acknowledge the man who had been displaying a tendency to near violence in his bid for power over his family no less.

Harry nodded calmly. "It was not because of you I did it. You should thank your wife and son for having a bravery and loyalty to their family I have yet to see you display." He replied, knowing at least Aunt Petunia would understand they were talking about war crimes happening. "I had hoped that your necessary presence in the muggle world might provide a better view of them but this scene cannot have helped changed any views you had of them."

Lucius smiled at that remark, unable to help feel that other things he had seen during his time working in a muggle factory and the friendships made there gave a better view of the muggle world than a scene found in the more upper class area of a village.

"I assume your aunt is your mother's sister?" Lucius asked, only waiting for Harry's nod before turning to the woman. "Your sister was amazing during our time at school, I can see her gift for changing her views based on new experiences is found within you as well."

Petunia blushed a little. "You are mistaken sir. It takes a lot of time and a shock for me to be able to change my views."

"Now Excuse me Sir. I won't have such freakish talk in my house." Vernon half yelled at the trio now chatting in front of him, deciding clearly that introduced as a Lord or not nobody with magic should talk about it in his house. Lucius barely glanced at him before working out what was meant by freakish talk.

"So you won't have me talk about something which could take your life in a moment and would have done had you and your family not been put into hiding? In fact from what I've heard you were already paying the price of too much attention from dark magic before you were sent into hiding and protected by the order." Lucius said coolly, noticing Harry and Petunia weren't arguing for either side now, apparently realising he could handle Vernon easily enough. "I might even have been one of the group sent to murder you, and you have no house elves ready to defend you from the killing curse either, which is such a shame since that was the first lesson a disagreement with Harry taught me. Arguing with house elves and trying to kill their friends is a bad idea." Lucius heard Potter snicker a little at the allusion to Dobby's defence of him. "Would you have preferred that? A quick death, two words and a blinding flash of green light which leaves no trace for the muggles to account as a cause of death. I am sure we could arrange that for you now if you are so offended by the protection which stopped something like that happening."

Lucius' tone was still cool but Vernon has visibly paled and shrunk backwards from the blonde gentleman. Still he tried to protest. "Nobody would think to do that. We hate Harry so why would killing us do anything to weaken him?"

Harry moved to stand beside Lucius, disliking his uncle for the control but also for the fact he'd turned against his wife for choosing to befriend their defenders instead of strop at them. "But this was a mad man I was up against, who knows what he might have done. What might be undetectable until a cupboard is opened specifically by you. Who would know my relatives hate magic? Certainly nobody who hates me or hates muggles would know, not unless they stumbled across a scene like this one. Right Lucius?" Harry asked, helping to make the point to Vernon, to Lucius' surprise.

"Apparently so, do your friends even know how controlling your uncle can be if that scene is anything to go by or not?" Lucius agreed.

"I think he's gotten worse if anything in the last year. I've already been told off for moving them back using magic, not telling them the war was over as soon as Voldemort was dead and letting Dudley spend so long around magic that he now doesn't bat an eyelid when someone does a spell. You interrupted the one that would have been about corrupting his wife into being friends with 'those freaks'." Harry explained calmly, going so far as to turn mostly away from Vernon except with his eyes still on him just in case.

Petunia smiled a little shakily. "Thank you for interrupting that one. Being told off by Vernon tends to end up with broken bones unless he's scared of magic and turning from Harry to me over my befriending Hestia and Dedalus was likely to happen." She spoke up, apparently more comfortable to speak to Lucius and Harry now they were between her husband and herself.

Lucius' expression darkened. "He's broken your bones before?" He only just managed to growl out instead of turning to hex the man.

Harry frowned between the other three people there, but Lucius could tell he was not wanting to interrupt though.

"Only a couple of times when the arguments got too bad over the last year, like when Hestia asked for my help in the kitchen and I was happy to do something at least half way normally, or when Dudley was asking Dedalus what non-verbal spell turned someone into a pig, apparently curious about what that giant had tried to do when he picked Harry up to get Hogwarts supplies and deliver his letter and over his fear of magic." Petunia said quietly, noticing the glare she was getting from her currently ignored husband.

"YOU WILL NOT SPEAK AS IF I'M NOT HERE IN MY OWN HOME! ESPECIALLY QUESTIONNING MY WIFE!" Lucius turned a furious expression on the man at the yell, taking a moment to wonder how far away that yell would have been heard. At least 3 streets he thought.

However when Lucius spoke after glaring for a moment his voice was utterly calm, as though somebody had frozen it into ice. The people he didn't know always thought it meant he wasn't too mad at them and wouldn't cause them pain. "I won't for much longer, but there are still some questions that need answering." Lucius said quietly, turning away as though dismissing the brute again. "Petunia, you shouldn't have had to go through that, especially when you were already in hiding. Would you care to come and stay at the Malfoy Manor with your son for a while to clear your mind from the oppression which appears to be happening with your husband?" He offered the lady calmly, noticing Harry was still staring at his uncle.

Petunia visibly blushed, but seemed to be contemplating the idea when Harry spoke in barely more than a whisper now. "I thought that memory had been a nightmare, but I'm the reason you won't hit me or anyone else with magic, aren't I? I was five years old and you hit me because I was gardening wrong and Aunt Petunia was looking after Dudley inside. Then all the lights exploded, and somehow the plant in my hands fell on top of your head without me knowing how it got there."

Lucius had hated the man for shouting at his wife and acting like such a brute since he stumbled upon the scene in the house, and the hatred had grown with the prejudice he had against magic being pointed out but now it was pure unadultered loathing which Lucius Malfoy felt for the muggle mudblood, even worse than the loathing he'd felt upon hearing Voldemort had used his son for such a dangerous task as killing Dumbledore. He could accept a lot of truths since being made to work with muggles, like the fact they are real people but he would always believe that people with magic were better than muggles if only so slightly. He could also understand that people can change, but a muggle such as Vernon Dursley was set in stone almost. His prejudices weren't from fear, not entirely, because the fear added precautions; they were from hatred of something he couldn't deny which didn't fit to his realm of sense.

"Can I change my request to a demand that you at least get away from this man if only for a while, whether you and your son stay at my manor or elsewhere?" Lucius asked politely, using all his Malfoy cool to refrain from actually hexing the whale behind him at the news which he was hearing.

Petunia nodded slightly, smiling only a little at the blonde wizard before her. "I don't know where else we could currently go without him following us, so if I could get my son and come to stay with you for a while, we'd be immensely grateful." She replied, a little shakily, knowing that she was leaving the husband she'd married at least twenty years before.

"WHAT?" Vernon bellowed at his wives remark, but silenced himself quickly after a glare from Lucius and the twitching of the cane in his hand.

Harry nodded between his aunt and Lucius. "I guess it's time to make friends with Draco properly, if he's going to be around Dudley for any amount of time. I don't want those two deciding they hate me again while they're staying in the same place." He muttered dryly to himself, but easily heard by Lucius.

"I think Draco would be quite happy with that. You're free to visit the manor whenever you like while your aunt and cousin are staying there. Shall we go and find Dudley while Petunia sorts out the bags and things they want to take with them?" Lucius suggested, stupefying Vernon as he spoke, just to prevent any more shouting and trouble.

Harry grinned at him, nodding, apparently deciding that the situation was now more good than confusing. "If that's alright with Aunt Petunia then we can do that. Dudley's at his friends house and gave me the address in case we needed to fetch him." He agreed, pulling out a piece of paper from his pocket, thankful that it was a new friend Dudley had met during their year in hiding where he'd gone to a different school to keep his education up.

"Make sure his friend knows how to contact us still, even if we'll be in a wizarding home." Petunia added quietly, letting the two men go as she routed through the boxes, and pulled the two suitcases with her clothes and Dudley's clothes in to the hallway.