Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, setting, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. All other concepts and ideas from other books or stories belong to their respective authors. No copyright infringement is intended.
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When her Lord entered her mind she relaxed. That deep seated need that she had been born with and her father had exploited and cultivated to bend her to his will once again being partially sated. The Blacks had usually left their children to their own devices, but after Andromeda ran away harsh methods had been employed to keep them in line. Using a variant on the Horcrux ritual Narcissa and Bellatrix had been bound to the house, taking much of their freedom from them. Bellatrix mind had always been fragile so, when the piece of her soul was bound to the head of house title, instead of becoming aloof like Narcissa by losing parts of her emotional range, it created the need for an emotional anchor as a substitute for the missing piece of her soul. This could be partially alleviated when another Legilimens entered her mind. Voldemort´s probing of her mind in the process of teaching her occlumency, as part of her tutoring in the dark arts, had been the cementing of her obsession. This had in fact severely hampered her occlumency seeing as she never truly wanted her shields to work.
But when Harry placed the piece of his soul into hers he had filled the gap and the emptiness that pervaded her being vanished.
Sadly for Bellatrix mental health this did not remove her dependence, though it did finally give her something to depend on.
Still… For a woman who had grown up in one of, if not the darkest houses in England, where she had been routinely emotionally and physically abused, who had then gone on to serve a similarly unhealthy (for Bella would deny it being… unpleasant) time with England's resident Darklord, as well as spent the interim in Azkaban, going from " My life's goal is to be continually mind raped by Voldemort." to " Please leave that piece of your soul in me because it has let me find some small measure of peace!", well… One might consider that quite an upgrade.
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Harry, naturally unaware of the titanic impact of his actions, was more than a little perplexed when on leaving Bellatrix´ mind he was greeted with a quiet sigh of contentment while the wraith-like-humanoid lost cohesion and formed a black puddle upon the floor.
Having wanted to actually talk to his new minion… er charge, he heaved a great sigh and called out: " Kreacher!"
With a pop the elf appeared. After a quick look between a naked Harry sitting on the edge of the bed and the large puddle of darkness at his feet Kreacher looked at Harry in a way that he hadn't since the tale of Regulus death.
" I's not be cleaning that." And with some muttering about filthy masters popped away again.
Harry knew this could not be a good day if he was face palming this early.
Not one to be daunted he attempted to pinch the edge of the smoke-puddle, hoping his Master of Death appellation might have a useful hidden feature. For Harry was sure he hadn't been told everything about his new powers. This had never happened before and he doubted it would now. 'CONSTANT VIGILANCE!'
Surprisingly Harry was able to gain a grip on the formless entity. Harry had the bridge make a note to be on the lookout for a negative cropping up in his future, karma having always been scrupulously fair, at best.
Puddle-Bellatrix reacted by immediately surging up his arm and then wrapping around his chest where she stayed pulsing in what he hoped was content.
Having decided that reacting to every weird, vexing, exasperating, etc. thing that happened around him would waste too much time Harry simply went about his morning ablutions. Though his shower was complicated by Bella refusing to leave skin to smoke contact with him. After breakfast he ordered Kreacher to check if his friends were awake yet, they weren't, and to ask the Hogwarts' elves if they wanted to help him "move" the books, Grimoires, scrolls etc. of Voldemort's' followers to the storage at his house. Harry never had forgotten that Kreacher completely bypassed the wards around Voldemort's horcrux because he was asked to, so he decided to re-appropriate this treasure trove of knowledge while he could.
Willing the three deathly hallows to himself, an ability he had till that moment only been subconsciously aware of, he put on the ring, draped the cloak about himself, took the wand in hand and side along apparated himself and Bellatrix (who was still hiding under his shirt) to Hogwarts.
Hogwarts
It was still quite early so not many people walked about, this only increased the feelings a battle torn Hogwarts evoked.
But Harry had things to do and webs to spin thus he ignored the castle's dilapidated state and made his way to the headmaster's office. Bypassing the Gargoyle sentinel and the numerous wards with the help of his cloak Harry immediately set to stealing every medium capable of retaining any sort of information, while studiously ignoring the portraits shrieks of outrage. Having indulged his newfound horder instincts, making liberal use of expansion charms on his pockets as well as shrinking and feather light charms for the loot, he took the sword of Gryffindor off the desk (he wondered why Neville had given it up) and left without so much as a backward glance.
On his way out of the Hogwarts' wards he sent off a few reparos at the main walls, more out of courtesy than anything. Had Harry's morning been any less unexpected the sight of most of the outside damage to the castle repairing itself with an astonishingly loud grinding noise would have stunned Harry into inaction, as it was he merely hummed noncommittally. As Harry apparated away he wonder if this was why Dumbledore always seemed so loopy?
Diagon Alley
Using the moment it took to steady from apparition Harry surveyed the Goblin bank. Thankfully escaping on the dragon had not left marks that could be seen from below.
Removing his cloak's hood, and thereby canceling his invisibility which made it take on a shadowy grey color, he moved up to the first step and, affecting a mild mannered demeanor, spoke to the right goblin guard.
" Good morning sir. I am Harry Potter" he gave a slight bow and smile " and would be thankful if you would tell whom it may concern that I would be happy to strike an accord."
Predictably the goblin sent what he assumed was a derisive sneer "No, I don't think I will wizard. Gringotts has barred you from its halls."
" I'm sure we can meet outside your esteemed establishment, you see I managed to… remove the Darklord last night. Sadly many upstanding Purebloods followed him in his demise, coincidence I'm sure. But this will leave me with much public approval and I would not wish the goblins to suffer under the public's..." he hmmed thoughtfully as if searching for a word " mis-guided" leaving a short pause after 'mis' to make it clear that he would be doing the guiding " anger. I'm sure if you explain the situation to the relevant authority they will see the profit to be had." Here Harry flashed the sword of Gryffindor.
Musing on the efficacy of Dumbledore's methods, now experiencing their usefulness, he had the bridge go through his talks with Dumbledore to assimilate the useful, while he waited for the now noticeably paler goblin to return from wherever he had scurried off to.
When the guard returned in the presence of Klanchief Hooknife (as seen on his name tag) Harry returned his attention to present.
" Greetings Chief Hooknife. I'm glad it seems we may come to an agreement. To keep things short and to the point I will tell you what I consider an acceptable price on my part, if you find it unacceptable you will tell me and I will leave."
Hooknife was surprised at the forthrightness of this human, though it was pleasant.
" Very well Mr. Potter. Name your proposed restitution."
Harry allowed his eyes to sharpen, though he kept his genial smile " In return for killing Lord Voldemort as well as for my word not to turn the public against you I would have the Nation forget the necessary theft." Here he once again showed the sword of Gryffindor. " By returning twice stolen property I would ask the boon of being a valued customer once more, as well as forgiveness for the already mentioned theft."
Hooknife and Harry were both aware that the sword of Gryffindor was a gift used so the goblins could keep face. Seeing as Harry could force Gringotts using his public approval as well as the goblins inability to keep the sword in the first place. It's real value lay in the symbolic nature of returning stolen property to cancel his own theft.
Pleasantly surprised by not being heavy handedly coerced Hooknife gave Harry a pleased grin. " Your terms are acceptable." There was a light chime that signaled the acceptance and its binding nature. " I assume you are here for business. I will lead you to my office so that there will be no… misunderstanding with the guards."
On the way to what Harry now assumed was the Potter accounts, thus explaining why Hooknife had been chosen to speak with him, Harry had bridge prepare to analyze the information he was about to be given.
The office was filled with wood, from wooden desks and chairs to wooden paneling and shelves, something that surprised Harry greatly having assumed that a species which lived in the ground would use its most plentiful resource more generously. Obviously he had been wrong, or Hooknife was an atypical representation of his species. Harry made a mental note to research this, he planned his gifts (should he ever need to send a goblin one) to deliver the intended meaning, a compliment where he intended insult simply wouldn't do.
When both had taken their seat (Harry sitting straight, back not touching the chair, so he wouldn't squish Bellatrix) Hooknife began. " To begin I wish to make it clear that Gringotts does much more than function as a bank. The banks serve as our cities and through them we offer our various services. This accounting meeting is not in fact the only reason you would have been required to come here."
After a little pause Harry made a 'continue on' gesture to indulge the obvious dramatic.
" You see, having become lord of your house, to satisfy Magic," Harry could practically taste the capitals " there are a number of Rituals that need to be done. As it stands, you having killed Lord Voldemort as well as gained the houses bound to him, you must do even more rituals to see if the separate family magic's accept you as lord or merely temporary carrier(unless you die without children or spouses). Naturally all this will be rather expensive." Here the goblin gave a predatory grin " The first step to all of this is of course going over your finances. I will need a drop of your blood."
Harry proceeded to prick his finger with the needle Hooknife handed him. A few weeks later he would scold himself for being so trusting, CONSTANT VIGILANCE!
After Hooknife pulled a piece of parchment from his desk and taped it with the needle, which promptly burned itself to slag, Harry asked him to elaborate on what was happening.
" Well Mr. Potter, this parchment will fill itself with the information pertaining to your families'. It is not complete seeing as you have not completed the rituals but it will give us most of the financial information. Each family will have its own stack as the necessary parchments will come into existence when needed, the process should take no more than a couple of minutes."
Harry was not in the least surprised when 10 minutes later the folders showed no sign of stopping their growth. The goblin was naturally struck speechless.
Letting loose a quiet but clearly annoyed sigh he snapped his fingers to bring Hooknife back to attention. " Come on, we have to get to the door so we don't accidentally get boxed in. Get some help so we can get this mess organized." On the way out he took a folder with him, no reason he couldn't get a head start. Besides the more time bridge had the more useful it could be. When 35 minutes later the deluge finally stopped the room was nearly packed to the brim. It would take them nearly 6 hours to work their way through the mountains of paperwork.
3:00 PM Gringotts
Finally having worked through the portfolios they came to a startling conclusion: he wasn't half as rich as the mountains of paperwork made you believe, and he was still easily within the top 100 list when it came to MUGGLE money. When it came to the wizarding side of things, well, Binns had left out significant details when it came to wizarding geography. It seemed that the whole colonize-the-world craze England had gone through was far more long-term successful than anyone was led to believe. So Harry now owned large swaths of land from Canada through muggle America, the east, the African continent and so on. Funnily enough the main reason for its success had to do with the fact that slavery was extremely uncommon, not because it was deemed as morally reprehensible but because slavery required rituals to implement (and all rituals were classified as Dark magic). House elves created such a bond naturally and as such their enslavement was completely acceptable.
Anyway, in Harry's opinion this was all just about the opposite of good. This made him not only an extremely powerful person but also an extremely sought after one, something that turned his paranoia up to 11.
So Harry set about thinking up plans to obfuscate this from the public.
"Right, Hooknife, I need you to set up a charity to help relieve the populous. Make sure the public believes I'm using most of my fortune to set this up. Then we need to create covers and aliases for most of these houses. Wherever there are still sufficiently close relations we make them take secrecy oaths and other necessities so we can play as if the house passed on to them. Our main goal is to decrease or prevent this knowledge from getting out."
Hooknife: " I will also need several people to help me run the books and what not so we can make them seem like separate accounts."
" Exactly, good idea, let's see… I will need a private military branch so we will need to see who and or what is competent and fits within my morals. Personal security will be a must, to facilitate this I will need wards (here the goblin grinned), bodyguards and the like. I will need political power, national and international, proxies and the like will help in Britain. Though I'm not sure what to do on the international front. Besides throwing money around, something I'd rather avoid. Finally I need to increase my personal power. This will be mostly knowledge so books of all types as well as teachers, wizarding and muggle." 'Plus, I will need souls to increase or gain abilities that I otherwise couldn't. Bellatrix should be of help with that.'
"Anything else?"
" Yes, those rituals will need to be done. Though if you plan on learning about rituals I would advise you wait until you know what you're doing. Incidentally Gringotts has excellent teachers when it comes to such subjects. While the titles and the abilities that come with them are very useful be careful not to rush."
Harry nodded, while he tried to be as paranoid… thorough as possible things always slipped through the cracks, such as forgetting that magical creatures probably knew many useful magic's that wizards did not.
" Hooknife, I'm glad we could reach an understanding. Send me an owl when you have something to update me on. Should I need something I will do the same. May our partnership be prosperous for us both."
With a final nod to the goblin Harry made his way out of Gringotts.
Using the time to plan his next steps Harry called for Kreacher.
" Master?", croaked the aged elf upon arrival.
" Report on the status of the 'relocation' effort."
" Kreacher and the other elves be finished moving books. The house not be large enough to hold all books so only the library be filled and the rest be moved to the vaults for storage by nasty goblins, Master."
" Your work does you credit, Kreacher. Tell the other elves I am thankful for their help. The house of Black has grown much through this conflict. I want you to find two elves, one male one female, and teach them all they should know so that they may serve the most noble and ancient house of Black. When their training is finished, know that should you wish it your head will have a place of honor upon the wall."
Kreacher's teary eyed reaction once again reminded Harry that not every being worked the same.
" You are to find uniforms for each elf I employ and finally I want you to survey all of my properties as well as see to the health of all my subjects. You're to list everything of note such as: things in need of repair, health concerns, dereliction of duty and so on. You may delegate as necessary. I wish to have Grimmauld place cleaned up, though this is not a priority."
Were Kreacher not such a surly bastard Harry was sure he would have genuflecting in thanks for such an immense workload. Instead stars joined the tears in his eyes. " With pleasure, Master."
After creature popped away to do his thing Harry turned his mind back to his to do list.
First he needed an owl or some other means for communication.
Then he wanted as many order forms or catalogues as he could get his hands on.
Third he would need to start working through his finances so he could send Hooknife a letter detailing what he wanted to do, which debts to pay off when, how and so on. If he still had time he would see if he could contact his friends. Should luck smile upon him he would either still have time to research Etiquette and customs or, and he hoped it was this one, have another talk with Bellatrix. She might even stop sticking to him like a tick, though that seemed overly hopeful at the moment.
Having set his path Harry drew up his hood, without allowing his invisibility to activate, and set off into the alley.
The trip through the Alley was simultaneously uneventful and filled with frenetic activity. His search for an owl had, contrarily, netted a Raven. She seemed quite intelligent and had the necessary enhancements and training to fulfil her duty. Following what Harry feared was becoming a Theme she took the position on his left shoulder and stayed in contact with him through most of the trip. While bustling about collecting catalogues (he would search Knockturn at a later date) he noticed people whispering about Voldemort having been killed "supposedly". Naturally this scared the living daylights out of Harry, so using all possible haste he was out of the Alley by four.
Grimmauld Place 4:00 PM ,Harry
After apparating home Harry immediately made his way to the Study. Placing the catalogues to the side he put the now unshrunk and unlightened book of finance (charmed to have a never ending supply of pages as well as be auto updating) on the hardwood desk. Sinking into the supremely comfortable leather chair he heaved a sigh of content. Having basked in how much he'd already accomplished Harry rallied and set to work on the monstrosity that was his finances.
Four hours and many many reams of parchment later, and only really through severe abuse of his mental processor, Harry had worked his way through the convoluted mess that was pure blood finance. He had annulled no less than 27 different marriage contracts all between houses that were now his, 17 more had been as collateral to debts he would now pay off. There was exactly one contract he could not weasel his way out of, at least not with the limited legal knowledge he possessed. It existed between the house of Black and a house Greengrass. He remembered the name but his memories were nowhere near cataloged and so he only had a vague recollection of pale blond hair and ice blue eyes. Oh, he had almost forgotten, this contract had been Sirius main motivation to start on the path of a playboy. He had said that it was in fact one of his greater regrets, not because it hadn't been fun, but because it had been incredibly insulting to his Betrothed.
Then Harry had worked through the debts owed to houses internally. This had taken the most time because Harry had to understand why money was flowing somewhere, for instance a few debts were in fact indicative of money laundering using legal loopholes while others were simply the normal illegal type. Not only this but Harry tried to make it seem as if the houses had not been consolidated, thus maintaining the legal fiction for exploitative purposes and lowering the amount of problems Harry would have to deal with from the public and the Ministry.
After that Harry proceeded to external debts, going in both directions, where for the most part he lacked the necessary information to make informed decisions. This trend continued when it came to the individual businesses and other minutiae.
Having finished he shrank everything as small as he could and stuffed it into a lightweight plastic cylinder that he had summoned. He sent this to Hooknife with his Raven to get approval and set this scheme in motion.
After relaxing for a few minutes he thought about what he could do for the last bit of the day. He really wanted to get in touch with at least Ron and Hermione, he was a bit worried about his talk with Ginny. The fact that he had sent her to Hogwarts in an imbecilic attempt to protect her (really... sending your love interest into enemy territory without protection usually meant a quick death, at best) and now having a marriage contract with another woman a bittersweet reunion was probably the best he could hope for.
But Harry also needed to look into laws and etiquette pertaining to his marriage contract, head of house positions and so on.
Finally he needed to speak to the limpet that was Bellatrix. These weren't the only things he needed to do but he only had a few hours left before he would need to sleep.
He sent a patronus to Ron and Hermione stating his hopes that he could come by tomorrow without intruding on family matters. Thus for the first time knowingly invoking the unassuming persona that had allowed him to coast through interpersonal relationships till now.
Going to his room and sitting as he had that morning Harry took off his shirt and steeled himself for what he thought was coming. Pinching the smoke like substance he proceeded to pull it off so that he could talk to Bellatrix. Not quite surprisingly this was far more difficult than it had any right to be. Acting like she had during Harry's shower Bellatrix adamantly refused to separate from him. Eventually Harry's innate stubbornness won out though and he managed to fling her to the floor. While he took a moment to regain his breath Bellatrix reformed out of the puddle.
Taking in her form Harry was slightly off put by the pout he saw on her face, though quite fetching it was not something he had imagined his godfather's murderer ever doing.
Putting the thought aside for now Harry plastered the mask of affability back onto his face, modulated his voice to sound kind and caring he set on his way.
" Hello Bellatrix, I know we haven't always seen eye to eye in the past but I would prefer if we could keep things civil."
Inwardly Bellatrix was quite surprised it seemed her new master was unaware how complete his dominion was, the dark mark, headship of house Black, and his soul being the only thing to truly satisfy a craving left unfulfilled since her teenage years. She was slightly miffed that he seemed to discount her devotion, not that she was unaware of how he had gone about gaining it. To her this showed he was both level headed and intelligent enough to see her worth, cunning enough to play upon a perceived weakness and ruthless enough to do what he deemed necessary. All very attractive traits to the born Black. Of course been born a Black meant that she did not fawn over him like an idiot or give up any advantage she had without reason (this behavior being necessary with Voldemort to gain even the slightest hint of approval, though she told herself that he sometimes showed her affection, conveniently forgetting the needlessly harsh punishments, public insults etc.), so she did her best and give a REGAL nod.
For Harry's part he watched her face pass through a number of emotions that her general haziness made indecipherable till it settled and she gave a CURT nod. He thanked his goddess this seemed to be working out and tried his best to hide the effort it took to remember his hatred of Bella was misplaced.
" First I need to know whether you are… well healthy? Then if there's anything I can do to help you. When we've done that and our partnership is finalized by magical unbreakable vows.". Here she barely managed to suppress shaking her head at the apparent paranoia of her new master, conveniently forgetting that 24 hours ago she would've torn him limb from limb. " Actually we will start with the vow. Then I'll tell you my side and we put our heads together to plan for the future?" He tilts his head a little making it a question.
Bellatrix took a moment to think about his plan, something Voldemort had discouraged to his detriment, her shifted obsession allowed her to conclude. It seemed quite good but there might be a few problems. She made her opinion known to see how he would react.
" While your plan is generally solid, I would advise making the vow conditional so you can release me from it should this become necessary. Not only is this a basic precaution for all rituals, which an unbreakable vow is. But I'm bound to you through many ties and until we know how they all interact having it permanent may be premature."
Harry saw sense in this. " You make a good point. If the oaths might muck things up it could be better to make it an oath of truthfulness and relevant completion. Having it start and end through a phrase would be best."
Bellatrix nodded her ascent, happy that he seemed willing to listen to others.
Going through the oath was a bit more complicated without a third person to function as the binder, but they managed.
Harry started with the opening and closing statements as well as the most important question.
" Fumblemore fucks gay goats on Fridays."
A phrase Harry was quite sure wouldn't be coming up in casual conversation anytime soon.
" Do you plan to act in a manner that is not conducive to MY best interest?"
" Yes, I plan to act in a manner that is conducive to what I CONSIDER to be in YOUR and MY best interest. I cannot think of a situation in which I would work against that goal so long as my mind has not been perverted from the state that I now consider to be my default. I'm also not working against that goal now."
Harry was happy with that answer, had she not clarified to subjective best interest at the minimum he would've considered the vow a failure.
" Good" he said with a smile " now, are you healthy and what do you deem as prudent steps to increase your well being or ability?"
Here Bellatrix sent a shy smile. Questioning her health already showed more attention than Voldemort ever had. " I am as healthy as my form allows. It would be prudent to return me to a body. I have the necessary things set up in a safe house under stasis so we can precede with that whenever you are ready. I will be able to summon my wand to me as soon as I have the body, though I might need to go to a wand crafter to have it tuned now that I carry… a piece of you inside of me." Had Harry not known this was Bellatrix Black-Lestrange he might have assumed she was blushing. " Most things will depend on how my body and wand are on a magical level. In skill terms if you have someone I can practice occlumency with it would be most helpful. On a personal level…" if Harry hadn't known that the oaths would make her complete her sentence he might have pressed for more, as it was he allowed her to speak on her own time, something she was grateful for. " I will be incredibly grateful if I could check on my sister Narcissa." as if needing to make haste and explain she went on "Her husband and son have just died and if we allow the resentment to fester she could be a dangerous foe. But if we help her now she will be thankful and a very useful ally."
To Harry she seemed immensely vulnerable in that moment. she seemed to fear punishment, possibly for something as simple as care for someone other than her master. That she had still asked, though she feared retribution, humanized her more in Harry's eyes than she was likely to ever know.
This was why he had switched her loyalty instead of destroying her mind in such a way that she suffered unending agony until someone eventually found a way to kill a disembodied spirit. Because she was not inherently evil, cruel maybe, that she was a sadist was indisputable, that she would happily maim and torture in his name was also not in doubt. But she didn't do these things because she felt some burning need to hurt people. But because she was unable to prioritize his wishes as anything less than god's will. So long as he was careful with her there was no reason she could not be a "good" person in her own way.
The first step was making it clear that caring for other people was something he would not hold against her, for the most part. So he gave her his gentlest smile, far less difficult than it was before, and said: " I am glad that you care for your sister. You can help her even if she is of no use to us, I do not mind you being happy and would like it if you told me of things you would like to do. Though sometimes I will not be able to let you do something, asking once will cost you nothing."
What Harry left out was that having her come to him made it easier for him to keep an eye on her activities. Though it was not something he enjoyed thinking about having Bellatrix keep an eye on Narcissa gave him something of an early warning system there. If it became necessary he would know to think of ways to remove Misses Malfoy much earlier than otherwise possible. He would have to make it look like a Natural death, he did not want Bellatrix to believe she should view all others as expendable and thus never create true healthy relationships. Of course he had no plans to kill Narcissa now but CONSTANT VIGILANCE! was not for the faint of heart.
The smile he got back while not a blinding one was all the more honest for it.
" Besides that I cannot think of anything."
Going back over her full statement and the mention of occlumency Harry became quite excited.
" Thank you for being so thorough, we can't get your body today but I can help you with your occlumency. Through a number of rather unbelievable occurrences that I might tell you about in a moment I have a rather unique aptitude for occlumency and legilimency. The more I use them the better they will be, not only that but they will probably increase rather quickly. Would you be capable of continuing the conversation and defending against my attacks at the same time?"
Bellatrix was a bit surprised as she clearly remembered the Darklord saying Harry had no shields to speak of, but he had said he would explain later so she let it go. " Yes, I would. Splitting one's mind is considered an essential skill for high level duelists. One needs a minimum of two concurrent lines of thought for duelling. Most witches and wizards actually temporarily split at least one time on instinct. This is how we keep up, seeing as most spells average around 100 feet per second, one part anticipates the spell and comes up with a counter while the other controls aiming and movement. When you add occlumency and legilimency to the equation you've already reached four concurrent thought processes. I can keep five going for a good while."
After Harry finished smacking his past self for somehow missing this shit he did some quick math. When he was done his smile was practically blinding and the enthusiasm was apparent in his voice. " This is great. I can both attack and while we talk we can both practice."
Bellatrix was a bit surprised, this seemed a good bit more efficient than the typical, attack, analyze, rebuild, prepare method that she had been taught with. Then again most of the time people were not capable of both occlumency and legilimency as well as able to split their mind into at least four parts thus making this method viable. Still she felt a bit sad to burst his bubble by pointing out that variety was still necessary to train legilimency. Though that was easily and quickly done by probing passersby on crowded streets. Different magical species were a bit more difficult to get ahold of but it was still manageable with some effort. This was part of the reason the mind arts were so obscure.
Having come to a consensus Harry spent the next hour giving her a reasonably detailed overview of his life till this evening. He wasn't too happy about being so open but seeing as in the beginning she tore through his defenses like tissue paper there was very little point in being cagey. Besides a second point of view that he could trust to be honest was always appreciated. He wrapped up with the subject of the marriage contract and his need for etiquette lessons. Here he remembered that he still had to release her from her oath. Which he did so that she would not inadvertently give out something that she wished to keep private. The etiquette lessons ended up being an hour and 1/2 long and went from legal and organizational concerns to the logical: do not tell a woman she is fat, if she is change the diet surreptitiously. To helpful: if in doubt give chocolates, to weird: show physical signs of affection to people close to you… like co-conspirators. Here she paused and looked at Harry significantly.
He had no idea what she wanted so he quickly called upon one of her earlier lessons: if you don't know what to say deflect, deflect, deflect, denial never works and it makes you seem insensitive.
" I'm not very comfortable with physical contact, what should I do?"
The glint that entered her eye's was made all the more creepy by her being made of black and gray smoke, one of the less reflective substances in existence. Her reply of "Don't worry I'll help you with that." was also more ominous than he really thought it should be.
When their talk ended about 3 1/2 hours after it had started Harry was very sure she was not shifting cutely, he was very very sure. When she then straightened determinedly he was also very very sure that in whatever was coming up his opinion would be irrelevant.
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Bellatrix on her part was also very sure she hadn't been fidgeting, she had been looking for a perfect position so that when she worked up the nerve… er found the right moment, her magnanimous declaration would have that much more impact, very sure.
" Well, I said I would help you get over your discomfort so to uh… facilitate this I shall, till I have a body, be retaking my original position."
Using his momentary confusion she latched onto his arm, proceeded to ignore his flailing and sputtering, and made herself comfortable around his chest, inwardly making plans to permanently retain a place in contact with her master.
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After Bellatrix released what might have been a content shudder having bested his efforts to stop her. A far more flustered than usual Harry got ready for bed as well.