Chapter 25: Inheritances

Draco was doing his best not to sick up. It wasn't easy either he thought as his stomach did another slow roll when he scrapped the bits of oats off the side of the pan that Harry had used to make pudding in. Ugh this was so nasty. Draco kept his eyes closed so he wouldn't have to see the mess in the pan he had been scraping the gunk into. How could house elves stand to do this day after day? When he had finally understood exactly what clean up detail consisted of he had begged Lancer to just spell the dishes clean or at least let him have a wand so he could but no, the adults had some stupid idea that doing it without magic would be good for his character. As far as Draco could tell the only thing this muggle style cleaning was good for was to make him hate muggle style cleaning. Draco cringed as his hand came in contact with the squishy, nasty, disgusting mix of food in the bottom of the pan and he swallowed the bile that once again started to rise.

The muggle waiting to be handed the next dish decided to try talking to him again. The first two times Draco had ignored him but now he was desperate for a distraction from the nausea so he gave the boy a measure of his attention.

"I'm not use to washing dishes either you know? Back home either my mum or Harry did them only my mum used the dishwasher, Harry had to do them by hand though cause my mum was afraid he might break the dishwasher. Back home I didn't do any chores, well, except my summer homework and I guess that doesn't really count does it?"

Draco was horrified at that confession. "Your family treated a wizard like a house elf? I would have hexed you if it had been me."

Dudley was surprised to have received an answer. Then he processed what that answer had been and his face paled. "That's not allowed though is it? My mum told my dad that her sister wasn't allowed to use magic over the summer and my dad always locked up Harry's stick over the summer anyhow so even if he wanted to he couldn't. Well, except for last summer that is. Last summer he snuck it upstairs to my second room with him. I was glad that he did though cause some things came after me and Mrs. Figg said they would have killed me except Harry sent a white light after em with his stick and they left. This summer dad let him keep all his stuff cause Harry promised not to use m-magic on us and he promised to just get out when he turned seventeen. Dad hardly punished him even and he gave Harry his own food too so he wouldn't be hungry."

Dudley gave a small shrug before he started scrubbing the pan Draco finally handed him. "I think part of the reason dad was so nice to Harry this summer was cause mum found two gold coins in his laundry and dad was hoping to find out if Harry either had more or knew where to get more. Well, that and those creepy friends of Harry's scared dad."

Draco looked horrified at the words pouring out of Dudley's mouth. "I thought your family spoiled him rotten. I thought he always got everything he ever wanted."

Dudley laughed at that. "No way was he spoiled but I use to think he was. It seemed like he had everything. All of our primary teachers loved him and none of the other kids teased him unless I made them. He got good marksin school and didn't even try and he wasn't fat either like me."

Draco looked thoughtful for a moment before he asked, "Why didn't Harry just buy whatever he wanted? I did."

Dudley actually looked surprised at the question. "You think my parents would give him money to buy things? Hell, they hardly even gave him food and his clothes were my cast offs."

Draco scowled at the boy before he answered. "No I don't think you people would have given him money. Not from what you said but Harry has his own money. The Potters were one of the richest families in Britain. He has three titles that I know of, and each of those titles has money attached to them, and that was even before he got the Black fortune from his Godfather when he died, which should have come to me, I might add. I'm guessing Harry is one of the richest people in the world now." Draco's face had taken on a slightly bitter look with his last two statements.

Dudley looked gobsmacked at that revelation. "Harry's peerage and rich?" he squeaked out. In a more normal tone he asked "Why should you have gotten the Black fortune anyhow?"

"I was the closest living male relative. I should have been his heir, not Potter. He wasn't even blood family, but I am. My mother was one of three daughters of the brother of Lord Black. After he died his son got the title and when my cousin Sirius Black died, I was the only male heir left alive, so it should have come to me."

"Okay, I think I understand that but if you should have got the title, why did Harry get it instead?"

Draco forgot about his dirty hands as he raked them through his hair in agitation. "It's complicated, but basically what happened was that when Lord Black died his son got the title. His son was sent to prison for murder, but he was never convicted, so they couldn't by law take the title from him, and give it to the next heir. Because he was a Lord and head of his house his mother couldn't disinherit him, so when Black escaped from prison he named his Godson as his heir and just to make sure Potter got it, he disinherited my mother and her sister which legally made me not a Black. My father tried to get the ruling overturned before Black died, but couldn't. By the time he died, my father was tied up in some legal matters himself, so again he couldn't do anything, so Potter inherited everything. I needed that money, he didn't." Draco added spitefully.

Dudley's mouth was slack giving him a rather half witted appearance as he listened to Draco. "So money's nice and all, but why did you 'Need It' and how much does he have and what are his titles?"

"I needed it because my father spent a lot of our family fortune supporting the Dark Lord and keeping himself out of trouble. He also has been using a lot of money to gain support from powerful people in our government. As for the titles Potter has… Black holds an Earldom but only in the magical community. From Harry's father he has a Barony in the muggle community as well as being a Baronet. It's from his mother that the real power comes from. From her he gets a Dukedom and the royal title of Protector to the Crown. When he turns twenty one he'll become His Grace, the Duke of Gryphon."

"Bullpiss. If that were true, it would have come to me because my mum was the oldest sister and I'm older than Harry is by several months. Besides, I studied British Peerage in school and that title is in abeyance. It hasn't had an active Duke for almost four hundred years now."

Draco eyed the other boy contemptuously before he answered him. "Yes it's in abeyance, but it's not extinct. If you had really studied it you would know that the Letters of Patent state that the heir must be magical and must be a light wizard. You're a muggle, or to be more precise a squib of several generations. When Lily Potter came up magical the title became active again and when she had a son he became the heir. If he stays light then when he turns twenty one he gets the title and everything that goes with it."

If Dudley had looked like a half wit before he now looked positively moronic with his mouth hanging open in shock. Swallowing twice, he searched for and finally found his voice. "How do you know these things and does Harry know?"

Looking thoughtful, Draco shook his head no as he passed another dish to Dudley to be washed. "I don't think Harry does know." He shrugged before he continued. "But you can bet everything you'll ever own that the Queen knows he's around someplace and I know that our ministry knows, too."

"Queen Elizabeth? If she knows about Harry then why did she leave him with my family?" Dudley's face fell. "You're lying to me aren't you? It's because I'm not magic and this is your way to make fun of me, isn't it?"

Draco dropped the plate he had been about to scrape and snarled at the other boy. "Malfoy's don't lie!" A little voice inside of his head contradicted that statement. 'But they do. Your father did/does and so do you.' Giving a mental shake he answered back, 'Not about this though'. He didn't realize his facial expression had undergone several changes when he called himself out about lying but Dudley noticed. So did Lancer. Both were amused to see first anger replaced with chagrin which morphed into embarrassment to finally settle on acceptance. "This Malfoy tries not to lie and I'm not, not about this…The royal family has a magical device that lets them know when an heir is born, but not who he is or even where he is. My father told me that it's a crystal globe that glows white so long as the heir stays light. When he turns twenty one the whit light changes to golden and that's when he gets control of the title."

Draco sighed, "They know an heir exists and they would know how old he is because of when the globe started to glow, but that would be all they knew. The magical ministry knows more. When an heir is born, two members of the counsel are dispatched to find him. Part of their job is to insure the heir receives the political training he needs to do his job. They are also supposed to act as mentors and protectors to the child untill he grows up. I guess sort of like older brothers or something. My father paid a lot of gold to the former minister to be named as one of the guides. It got a lot cheaper and easier to do that sort of stuff when Fudge took office." Draco seemed to loose himself in thought for a bit before he collected himself with a quick shake and continued.

"None of the old pure blood families support the heir because he takes away a lot of their power base. My father had plans to befriend the heir and that way when he was grown up he would be willing to side with the pureblood cause but the Dark Lord told father he was a fool for paying gold for something that couldn't work and then the heir vanished along with his parents and everyone thought he had died but he didn't. His parents had hidden him for his own protection but it didn't work out right."

Dudley had been listening to the story wide eyed, still rhythmically washing the same dish over and over in an almost trance like state. With a quick shake he came back to himself and asked, "Why don't the purebloods support him?"

"Part of the duty of the Protector is to act as a liaison between the crown and the magical community with him having the final say in all laws passed in the magical community. He will also be the final arbitrator in all disputes magical and pass judgment on crimes committed. If any conflict arises between muggle and magical he can recommend that the offending muggle be remanded over for trial. See? These powers have been in the hands of the purebloods for hundreds of years now, but when he turns twenty one he gets it all and no one will be allowed to gainsay him either."

"You said his parents hid him? That's not right, you know. My mum told me that his parents were killed in a car accident. His father was driving drunk. That's how he ended up with my mum and dad."

"Your parents told you a lie. His family was betrayed by their best friend and the Dark Lord killed them, then he tried to kill Harry, but instead of Harry dying he sent the curse back to the Dark Lord and it destroyed his body, but not his soul. It took years but the Dark Lord finally came back. That's why Dumbledore sent Harry to live with your family. Not because his father died drunk. They were murdered."

For some reason Dudley believed him. It contradicted everything his parents had told him about his cousin but still he believed. "Does Harry know all this stuff?"

"About his parents? He knows that. About the rest?" Draco shook his head no. "I already told you that I didn't think so."

Finally Dudley dipped the plate into the rinse water and then dried it off still thinking deeply about all of the things he had been told. He wasn't the only one although the two boys didn't notice the four adults sitting off to the side listening in on the conversation.

Dudley asked one of the questions that had been bothering him. "You said your father was named one of two guides? Who was the other one and why didn't we ever see them around the house before?"

"Well, when the Potters died and Harry was moved, Dumbledore put him under some very strong wards so no one magical could find him. The other guide was Franklin Longbottom. He and his wife were tortured into insanity by some death eaters who were trying to find the Potter baby. Everyone else thinks it was because they were trying to find out what happened to the Dark Lord, but that's not true. Almost all of the death eaters thought the Dark Lord was dead and they wanted to kill the one that killed him, and figured that if my father didn't know where the baby was, then the other guide would. My aunt Bella was one of the death eaters who helped attack the Longbottoms."

Dudley's eyes couldn't have gotten any wider if he had tried. This was way more information than he was ready to take in at one time, but one thing he had no trouble understanding was the hurt, shock and sorrow on the face of the young green eyed boy who had come up behind Draco in time to hear the last part about the Longbottoms. He couldn't say he knew his cousin that well, but he knew him well enough to say with conviction. "Harry, it wasn't you fault. You didn't cause that."

Lark could feel the pain rolling off the young elf in waves, so he wrapped his arms around the boy and pulled him close, trying to give him the comfort and support he felt he needed. He glared daggers at the blond troublemaker. He had just gotten Harry settled down (with the help of Lancer) after he had made the mistake of confronting Harry's fears about the bond being homosexual and how wrong it was for anyone to even think about the boy in a sexual manner yet. Harry had at first thought that Lark was telling him that no one would want him that way ever, but in reality Lark was concerned that the child had been approached in that way, and ,as far as he was concerned, to do something like that to a child was criminal.

In the end that conversation had taken a very humorous twist as Harry described his first real kiss with a girl named Cho and then told the two how Ginny made his stomach twist up in knots whenever he thought about her. Almost like he was going to throw up or maybe kiss her and then throw up, which wasn't anything like he felt before he was changed except …perhaps…the throwing up part. And now all that hard work was spoiled by something the blond had said AGAIN!

Draco froze at Dudley's words then turned his head to see the black haired boy behind him. He caught Lark's glare before the elf turned his attention back to Harry. 'Oh fuck, Draco, why don't you just get a fork and eat that damned foot you keep sticking in your mouth,' he thought before he tried to rectify this latest mistake. "You know Potter, your ego must be as big as Uncle Severus always claimed if you think the Longbottoms were your fault, too. I mean really, how much control do you think a baby has over anything? I guess that next you'll be claiming that you were responsible for the Black Death when everyone knows it was a nundu that caused that, or did you have something that affected time before you were even a warm spot in your grandfathers' trousers?"

Harry started to shake in Larks arms and Lark started to seriously contemplate how to best take the blond boy apart. 'Hmm, tongue first,' his hand started to reach for his dagger when Harry started to make gasping noises followed by chuckles. If Lark had not grabbed him quickly Harry, would have fallen as his mirth spiraled out of control. Lark turned bewildered eyes to Kestral and arched an eyebrow at the large smile on the Titan's face.

Dudley reached a beefy, sopping wet hand out and slapped Draco on the back knocking the smaller boy forward a step or two, his grin almost splitting his face in half. "Good save, Drake. I thought for a second there that Lark was gonna rip your throat out."

Draco's chest puffed out in pride. It had been a good save hadn't it? And despite the fact that the praise came from a muggle it still felt good. Knowing he had done something rig…Wait, what did he say? Drake? He must have heard wrong. "Drake?"

Dudley grinned and threw his arm across Draco's shoulder. "Yah, Drake, you know, a nickname. Like Duds for me and Lark for Larkspar? Drack. Now we gotta think up a name for Harry or is Harry short for Harold?"

Despite the annoyance of having his name butchered Draco had to admit he was intrigued. "You don't know your own cousin's name?"

Dudley shrugged, "Till we started school I always thought it was freak."