A/N:
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8. The First Day of Forever
Harry woke up screaming, again. For one moment he looked around himself in confusion and then he remembered where he was. Malfoy Manor, the marriage to Voldemort, the ceremony, the reception, the dinner and both the confrontation with Madam Bones and the attack by, or on, Lucius Malfoy. And then the long, long night with little sleep and a lot of nightmares.
Slowly Harry sank back into the bed. Not long after the attack by Malfoy, Harry had retreated and asked Dobby to show him his room. He had been very much done with the day. Before Dobby could even start to show him the way, Voldemort had shown up and wanted to show Harry to his rooms, himself. Voldemort had led him up two floors and down a long hallway before opening a door.
"My room is two doors down and while there will be other people in this wing, they won't live here. Wherever you are in the Manor or on the grounds, you will be safe. If you for any reason should not feel safe, by all means do what is necessary for you to be so. And do please tell me about it when you get the opportunity."
Harry swallowed. "Even if that means smashing Malfoy's nose for him again?"
"If he needs that lesson again, yes, even if it includes that. Good night, Harry."
"Good night, Voldemort."
And then Voldemort had walked away, and Harry had gone straight to bed, exhausted and wishing desperately for sleep. He had awoken just an hour later, screaming his head off, his magic sparking, flashing and rolling around the room like a storm. Both his screams and his magic were contained to the room by the spells he instinctively had put up while he got out of his robes. He did the spells every evening, in addition to the perimeter ward that woke him if someone tried to enter his room. Harry had been able to fall asleep again, but he had woken screaming five more times during the night.
Now, he could see light around the dark curtains and got up, grabbed the beaded handbag and stumbled into the bathroom, where he froze. He had moved around in the dark the night before, and thus not seen much of his surroundings. The walls and floor of the bathroom was done in warm grey stone with black marble sinks, bathtub and shelves. The floor was warm beneath his feet and the candelabra on the walls threw exactly the right amount of light. For one moment he looked at the big bathtub in the corner and tried to remember the last time he bathed, but he knew he couldn't get himself to relax enough to actually enjoy it, so he grabbed a warm and quite long shower instead, shaved, brushed his teeth and got dressed in clothes he had bought after accepting to get married. He didn't have a lot of clothes, but they were all new, so as not to hold any bad memories of battles, wounds, fear, or loss. Hermione's idea, of course. Black jeans and a black T-shirt with a grey and white prowling cartoon kitten on it. It was Muggle clothing, but Harry was far more comfortable in them, so he would wear them until told otherwise. And of course, after Hermione finished with his new shirt's, they couldn't be called entirely Muggle anymore. All of them had drawings or pictures that moved.
Harry went out to his bedroom again and looked around. It was big, very big, and airy with three big windows and a door … Harry held his breath while slowly easing the door open. He grinned in pleasure and relief when the door opened without any trouble or alarms, and he could step out onto the big balcony. There was furniture here too, a table and two chairs, in addition to two divans with lots of colourful pillows on them. The view showed the garden, with its grandiose flowerbeds and peacocks and tinkling fountains, and farther away a lake and enough trees to whisper 'forest'.
He left the balcony door open behind him and went to explore more of his new room. The night before he had been too tired to notice that he actually went right through a room on his way to his bedroom. He had a sitting room, right of the hallway. From the sitting room there were four doors, one set of double doors on every wall. One went to the hallway, one to his bedroom, one to another sitting room that he suspected he shared with Voldemort, based on the double doors on the other side of that sitting room, doors that should lead to Voldemort's suite. The last door led to a big study and Harry felt himself stiffen and his face grew hard.
There was one very good reason to give someone this much space; it was all the space he would get to use. The marriage contract had specified that he had to be allowed outside when he wanted to, but he had the balcony for that. Yes, he had a big bedroom, bathroom, a sitting room, and study and a balcony, all beautifully furnished in dark jewel tones and soft, rich fabrics, but the thought that he would not be able to leave these rooms …
No, no, no. That couldn't be it. It couldn't!
Harry pulled open the doors to the hallway so hard he almost stumbled backwards. The doors opened without protest, there were no guards outside and no wards that would stop him leaving his rooms, or even tell anyone that he left. Harry frowned, stepped out of the room and looked around in the empty hallway. There was no one there, no one to stop him, no one to jeer at him, no one to follow him when he left the rooms, and there were no kind of spells or wards around the door to hold him inside either. He went inside his room again and slowly closed the doors behind him.
"Dobby!"
The little elf popped up right in front of him with a grin. "Yes, Mister Harry Potter sir! Dobby is hearing you! What can Dobby be doing for Mister Harry Potter sir?"
"Could we maybe settle for a shorter name for me, for a start? Just Harry, maybe?"
"Master Harry, right, sir!" Dobby squeaked and the gleam in his eyes told Harry that would be as good as he would get it.
Harry went into the bedroom and Dobby followed. Suddenly the bed was freshly made and the heavy sapphire blue curtains in front of the windows were drawn back. Harry gave Dobby the beaded bag and told him that he would like his clothes in the closet and all the books in English on the shelves in the study, and his writing implements and notebooks in the drawers in the desk in the study.
The little elf did the tasks so fast that Harry, who had hoped to find the right words while the elf did the work, just stared at him when Dobby slowly got closer to him again and told him he was done, and the beaded bag was in a drawer in his closet.
"Right, thank you, Dobby. Right." He swallowed. "I wish to ask you something, but if anyone has told you not to tell me, please just tell me that. It will not be necessary for you to punish yourself or anything like that, right?"
"Dobby is Free Elf, Master Harry, he does not punishing himself. Not hitting his head in the wall. Not ironing his fingers. Not burning his ears in the oven."
"Oh, yes, right, that's good, that's very good, I just … If someone has told you not to tell me … I don't want you to get in any kind of trouble."
"Dobby being Free Elf, Master Harry, and he being Master Harry's personal elf. It being honour sir!"
"Has anyone told you not to let me do things? Like going outside? Or to another wing of the Manor?"
"No, Master Harry, no one saying that."
"Has anyone told you to tell them where I'm going or what I'm doing?"
"Dobby is Free Elf!" Dobby squeaked angrily now. "Dobby not tell on Master Harry Potter!"
"You do not know of any restrictions that have been laid upon me?"
"No, Master Harry, Dobby does not know!"
Harry nodded. He wanted to be pleased, but it was too good to be true. He would have to proceed with as much caution as he could.
"Thank you, Dobby. Could you show me the way to the library?" If his freedom was an oversight by Voldemort, then he wanted to get as much out of the next few hours as he could.
Dobby showed him the way to the Manors biggest library and went happily to get him some coffee and toast while Harry looked around. Hermione and he had taken hundreds of books from these shelves the time they broke in, but that was years ago and even in times of war the Malfoy's had managed to fill the shelves again. Of course, even the loss of several hundred books hadn't really made a noticeable dent in the collection. Harry started rifling through the catalogue book. He wanted books on healing. If he should find anything to help Hermione's eye or voice, then he would risk sending an owl or even ask Dobby for help with delivering a message.
Dobby was of immense help when he came back with Harry's simple breakfast. Harry pointed at the books he wanted to look at in the catalogue, and Dobby procured them with a snap of his fingers. After Harry went through them, Dobby sent them back to the shelves if Harry didn't think them of interest, or he sent them to Harry's own study if he wanted more time with them.
After that, they went on to everything the library had on magical cores with extra interest in anything that could make a magical core expand after the witch or wizard came of age. Most people assumed that magical cores stopped expanding after the child became an adult, and in most cases that was true. But not in all cases. And no book Harry and Hermione had found so far, told anything about the type of expansion that the two of them had experienced the first few years of the war. Experienced and endured. It had been a harrowing experience for both of them. While the expansion had stopped years ago, their cores wasn't entirely … stable … anymore. Most days, that worked just fine, other days … not so much, especially in a war when they were constantly hunted; constantly in danger.
Harry was on his fifth cup of black coffee, which he had only gotten after he had drunk one glass of water and one of orange juice, Dobby had been relentless, and on his second meal of the day, a simple but very good bacon quiche with a salad, when the door to the library went up. Harry looked up from his book on unstable magical cores as a result of sickness, and felt his blood run cold. The oldest Malfoy male stood in the door.
"What are you doing here, Potter?" His voice was as cold and haughty as if Harry hadn't broken his nose just the night before.
"Reading."
"Draco is looking for you."
Harry raised an eyebrow. After the altercation the evening before Harry couldn't help but think that Voldemort wouldn't mind too much if Malfoy hadn't learned his lesson and needed another one. Personally, Harry would very much like to avoid that, so he picked up the book he was reading and two more and went towards the door.
"You are not leaving with those books, Potter." Malfoy sneered.
Harry turned around and put the books back on the table while keeping eye contact with Malfoy. "Dobby, clear the table, please. I'm done for now."
Dobby replaced the books so as to give Malfoy no hint of what Harry had researched, bowed to Harry and left without looking at Malfoy. And Malfoy didn't move away from the door, even when Harry approached again.
"This is not your home, Potter, you cannot go wherever you want. You are a prisoner in a gilded cage at best, and a prisoner of war at worst. I do not want to see you here again; you do not have my leave to be here."
Harry stared at him with clenched jaws.
Here it was then.
"Do you understand, Potter?" Malfoy snapped.
"It is noted." Harry's voice was colder than he had expected it to be, but a small part of him was both relieved and disappointed to hear someone spell it out for him. Finally. This was his prison; his cage. No one had said so or done anything to make it feel like it, before now. Trust Lucius Malfoy to spell out the ugly truth, if nothing else. He had hoped when he saw the missing security … for a few hours when no one had come to herd him back to his rooms he had actually hoped …
But hope was for children and fools. He wasn't the former and tried hard not to be the latter.
Malfoy still didn't move away from the door, just stood there like a statue, silent, glaring in disapproval. Harry began to walk past him, there was just enough space for that, even if it was uncomfortable to be close to a man he hated and despised so much.
"Well, hurry up, boy!" Malfoy barked and Harry assumed that the arm he caught before it touched him was supposed to push him out the door. But Harry caught the arm, wrenched it away and sent Malfoy spinning to the floor.
Harry didn't know how he got on top of Malfoy, how Malfoy's wand ended up on the floor under the table or how many times he had hit him in the face before the clouds of red and black, fire and screams, let him see the reality of the situation again.
Malfoy's aristocratic face was a bloody mess and only the man's groaning told Harry that he was still alive. Harry got up, turned around and walked very fast out of the door, down the corridor, around the corner and right into Draco. Draco must either have seen more action than his father or the age difference made a significant difference in their reaction times. By the time they had untangled their limbs, Draco's back was to the wall, he was perfectly balanced, and he had his wand at the ready.
"Where?!" he snapped, eyes roaming the corridor, just skirting over Harry once, noting the blood and the bruised knuckles, but apparently not thinking Harry himself an enemy. Which was very strange considering Malfoy senior's words just minutes before.
What is going on in this place? Harry wondered while watching Draco looking for the enemy.
"Potter, where is the enemy? Where is the breach?"
"There is none."
Draco frowned but holstered his wand. Taking Harry at his word. Which was crazy.
"Then what …?"
"You father surprised me again, in the library this time. He told me you were looking for me and ordered me to find you. That in itself was not a problem, really, but when he tried to shove me out the door, it … became … problematic …" He looked down on the blood on his hands. He probably hadn't delivered a death blow, probably.
"Oh, for Merlin's sake! That fool!" Draco looked angry enough to spit, and he had just called the man he always had revered in his childhood, for a fool. Thing's had definitely changed.
Draco looked him in the eye. "I was looking for you to ask if you wanted to have tea with us. If that is agreeable to you then a house elf, Prim, will help you find the right parlour. It's just Astoria, me and the Dark Lord, and you, if you want to join us. Father went into a hissy fit when he was asked not to attend."
A female house elf in a white toga made of a sheet with a black and silver M embroidered on the shoulder, suddenly stood waiting.
Harry blinked. "Tea? I was just eating … lunch, I think, or early dinner."
"Well, if you would like some tea Prim will show you the way, and I will go speak to my father." A scowl marred his face, and the last two words were almost a growl, not nearly the respectful tones he had used about the man as a boy.
Harry nodded and Draco turned away and stalked towards the library.
"Astoria will skin him one of these days, if he keeps this up," Draco mumbled to himself before going around a corner.
Harry tucked that piece of information away and asked the elf for a washroom before being shown to the parlour where apparently tea would soon be served. He felt a little like a leaf in a creek, being buffeted here, tugged there and mostly completely out of control. Right now, he just went with it, a bit too confused to really make any kind of stand, or even decide what the hell was going on.
Both Astoria and Voldemort looked up when he entered the room. Astoria smiled and Voldemort nodded. None of them acted like he was someplace he shouldn't be or had done wrong in not being where they expected him to be when they wanted him; in his rooms. He had taken two steps into the room before he registered that something was off, and he froze.
The day before he had been pleasantly surprised that Voldemort had changed from the more snake like appearance he had had in the graveyard all those years ago. It was the form that had haunted his nightmares for years and who had glared at him with hateful red eyes again and again on the battlefield. It was the same man and the same red eyes, vertical pupils and all, but the fact that his face was whole, markedly different and absolutely human made it easier. He had only lacked hair to make the change complete.
Today, he didn't even lack that.
The man in the chair next to the sofa Astoria occupied could have been the spirit from Tom Riddle's diary, aged about fifteen years or so. Absolutely human, and absolutely beautiful in his humanity. At first, Harry thought the change must be greater than he gathered at first glance, but the more he looked, the more he saw that it really was the same face as yesterday. He had the same bone structure, the same lips, nose and eye shape, the only thing that was different was that Voldemort was a touch less pale, and now he had eyebrows and thick, dark eyelashes and a head full of black waves to his shoulders.
"Sorry, sorry about staring …" And he really was staring quite rudely. "I just … never realised how much hair … defines a face, I guess."
"That's quite alright, Harry, I stared a bit myself the first few times it happened." Voldemort made a gesture towards the sofa on his other side and slowly Harry sat down.
"Wait … the first few times it happened … What exactly happened?"
Astoria poured the tea and gave Voldemort a cup, then Harry and then she raised her own to try to hide the smile she was fighting.
"I told you last night that Wormtail made mistakes when he resurrected me and that it took me some time to rectify the … mishap."
Harry nodded, stirred some milk and sugar into his tea and took a small sip. Spices exploded on his tongue, and he closed his eyes for a moment. He had been drinking so much coffee the last few years, that he had forgotten how a good cup of tea could taste. After a night where he couldn't sleep, which were most nights, he needed several cups of coffee to function at all. It didn't matter what kind of coffee as long as it was strong and hot. Tea hadn't cut it for years and he had simply stopped drinking it at some point. When was the last time he had had tea, good tea, anyway? He must have had a cup now and again, he knew that, but he couldn't remember.
He opened his eyes and noticed one pair of ice blue eyes watching him with something akin to sympathy and a pair of red eyes watching him with fascination or curiosity or a blend of the two.
"I'm sorry, you were saying?" Harry turned towards Voldemort more wholly.
"I did finally rectify the mishap." Voldemort put his tea down and gestured at his body and face. "But … I managed to make a blunder of my own … And I swear, Astoria Malfoy, if you let this slip, you will be snake fodder, mark my words!"
Astoria was fighting her own mirth with all her might now, and she was losing.
"I already know what happened, my Lord, and I haven't said a word to anyone!" She giggled, actually giggled, in the face of the Dark Lord's wrath.
Harry concluded that Astoria Malfoy must be mad.
Voldemort glared at her for moment before looking at Harry again, and Harry expected a similar threat, or something much worse, but Voldemort continued:
"I managed to change, but the change is not constant. The change comes and goes, but it does so with a certain amount of … predictability. Not always, of course, because that would be too easy," the Dark Lord grumbled.
Harry was now almost certain that he had fallen asleep in the library and was dreaming of this incident. That was the only explanation that made any kind of sense.
"If I am calm and collected, or happy about my circumstances or generally satisfied, I will be as you see me now. Most likely. Rage and all the other intensely negative feelings will give me the appearance I first had after my resurrection. Most likely. And for anything between the two states of mind; the appearance I had yesterday."
"Most likely," Harry said, because he couldn't help himself. He hurriedly took another sip of his tea and realised he had drunk the entire cup without noticing. He put it down and Astoria waved her wand to have the teapot fill up the cup again, and Harry doctored it to his satisfaction.
"Yes, most likely." Voldemort smirked. He didn't seem bothered by Harry's pert words. He seemed strangely unbothered by a lot of things.
"Is this solution better or worse than what you had?" Harry asked, again before he stopped to think, but Voldemort had begun to answer before Harry could retract his words.
"Better. While I would have preferred to always look as I do now, it is better to have that sometimes, than never. Maybe I will give the process a try again in a few years and see if I can rectify the problem completely."
"I assume it wasn't an easy process?"
"That would be a gross understatement, which is why I am not eager to try it again right away. When in public I often use a glamour to look like I did yesterday, so as not to confuse people. At least for right now. Call it a middle ground. Later I might change that glamour to look like this."
Harry nodded. He could understand that. If nothing else, letting people have a peek into how Voldemort was feeling based on his looks, could be too revealing for someone who prided themselves on power and control.
"Because of the glamour, not many know that my appearance changes. Those who live in the Manor, and a few of my other lieutenants."
Harry nodded again, wondering if he should say something about not divulging this to anyone, before Voldemort made a threat to shut him up.
"Harry, your cat, the cat on your shirt … is that blood on its face?" Astoria asked before he could say anything.
Harry looked down and the white and grey cat on his shirt was now white, grey and blood red.
"Shit!" He wiped at the shirt with a napkin, to no avail. The cat tried to swipe at him with its claws and hissed.
"Circe! Your knuckles, Harry … What happened?!" Astoria's voice had grown cold and the ice blue eyes were filled with a silent rage and not mirth. "Draco is not stupid enough to give you reason to beat him, and we still have the war wards up so as to give warning of attacks and treachery from the inside; I would have been notified if you as much as tapped a wall …" Then she went rigid as if something clicked into place. "Lucius." She bit out the words.
Out of the corner of his eye Harry became aware of the very still form of Voldemort. He also noticed that he had changed to the form from the graveyard. Yes, knowing his feelings from his appearance might give someone ammunition for those willing to use it.
This passive but still marked reaction made Harry even more confused than before. After the altercation with Malfoy the night before, he was quite certain that Voldemort would accept Harry defending himself. The man had even said as much when showing Harry his rooms. So why was he angry because Harry had defended himself now?
Then again, the man wasn't known to be exactly stable. But … on the other hand, there hadn't been any sign of Voldemort's usual brand of insanity yet. Not at any time the day before, nor so far today.
So, what the hell was going on?
Was Malfoy telling the truth about Harry being a glorified prisoner? Was he in the right by laying down the law regarding what Harry could and could not do at the Manor? Was Voldemort now angry because Harry had attacked Malfoy, one of his trusted lieutenants? Or was there something else going on? And what were Astoria's role in all this? She seemed furious, apparently because Harry had gotten hurt while defending himself. Or because he had attacked her father-in-law and gotten blood on the carpet?
"Harry, please tell us exactly what happened?" Astoria's voice softened some and she drew her wand while pointing at his hands. When he nodded she healed the scrapes and removed the few drops of blood both on his hands and on his T-shirt.
Alright, Harry, proceed with all possible caution. Do not give them any ideas about giving you rules or restrictions by mentioning what Malfoy said about being a prisoner. They might give you more freedom if they believe that you don't know of your own prisoner status. Easier to hold the prisoner that doesn't know what they are, and it's not like you didn't know this would be the case anyway. And don't lie. Voldemort is still a better Legilimens than you. This is hard but not impossible. The war was impossible, this is just … confusing.
"I was reading in the library when Malfoy showed up and told me that Draco was looking for me. I got up and was going to bring some books, but he informed me that I didn't have his leave to remove books from the library and that I was not to do so. When I tried to pass him by the door, he went to shove me. Things … are a little hazy after that. His face was a mess when I left him and ran into Draco. I told Draco what happened, and he went to talk with his father. I'm fairly sure we would have heard something by now if I ended up killing him," he finished slowly.
"His library? His house rules!" Astoria hissed so vehemently that Harry almost thought he heard words in Parseltongue. "Malfoy Manor was my morning gift, it's my house, my house rules that matters and you are my guest! How dare he!" Her ice blue eyes were burning now, and she turned to Voldemort.
Harry turned too and swallowed hard at seeing the shape from his nightmares where a quite handsome man had been moments before. At the very least, he sat there quietly, not flitting about in a homicidal rage and casting Crucio's and Killing Curses all willy-nilly.
"My Lord, I know you have asked me to accept him under my roof because of the safety concern regarding the chateau Narcissa and Lucius are supposed to move to, but now that the treaty is signed, the hostilities must cease, and it will be safe for them to move to their new home. Besides, he persistently attacks one of my other guests! It's very hard to let this stand, my Lord."
"I appreciate that, Astoria, neither you nor Harry should have to take such treatment." Voldemort's voice was still calm, maybe colder than earlier but still slightly silken too. Harry cursed himself for shivering, and not because of disgust. "When Draco is done talking to Lucius, I will talk with both Lucius and Narcissa and make my expectations for the rest of their visit clear. Should either of them misstep after that; they will leave and take their chances with subpar wards. Will that do?"
"Yes, thank you, my Lord." Astoria gave a sitting bow.
"Harry?" Voldemort turned towards him, and it was strange looking into those red eyes and remember several occasions the last twenty-four hours where they hadn't been filled with hate, loathing or rage, any more than they were right now, despite the decidedly unpleasant chills that went down his back when looking into that despised face.
The world had turned very weird all of a sudden.
Even weirder than he had anticipated being married to the Dark Lord Voldemort, and Harry had anticipated weirdness, he really had.
"Well … I mean … if I'm still allowed to defend myself, if he should try to attack me again … I mean, he probably wasn't going to actually attack me, either time, I know that … but suddenly grabbing me is considered an attack by my subconscious, so …" He ran a hand through his hair and noted distantly that Voldemort followed that hand with his gaze. Harry knew he was rambling, but he didn't much want to say the wrong thing right now, and thus probably said a lot of wrong things.
"Of course you should defend yourself if you feel under attack. We all do, even though …" Astoria hesitated, "… your responses are almost certainly sharper and harder than any of us, bar the Dark Lord."
"I hope there will be a time when that's no longer true, no longer … necessary." The words were out of his mouth before he considered them fully, but they were the absolute truth.
He really did hope he could live long enough that his reflexes dulled without it being dangerous for him. He did hope that he would get to see a world where that kind of reflexes weren't necessary for his survival.
But hope was for children and fools.
So, I'm a fool sometimes! Fine, that's just fucking fine!
"I believe that is something all of us want, Harry." Astoria gave him a soft smile. "More tea? Yours have grown cold, I'm afraid. And take a biscuit, they are delicious, fresh from the oven."
Harry accepted the fresh tea and the biscuit in a bit of a daze and heard himself ask:
"What did you mean by Malfoy Manor being your morning gift?"
"Some pure-blood families hold to an old tradition with both a dowry and a morning gift. The bride's family gives a dowry that follows the bride into the marriage and the groom gives a morning gift, preferably of equal or higher value, to the bride after their wedding night. The tradition comes from a time where weddings were mostly, or only, for economic reasons and was made exclusively with that and breeding in mind. The reasons for these gifts were to give the woman something to live off, if she should become a widow. Both the dowry and the morning gift were ultimately hers to do with as she wished, often her dowry became part of her daughter's dowries and so on.
"Draco couldn't see himself raising a family any other place than at Malfoy Manor, despite the fact that Manor Greengrass still is whole, unburnt, unlooted and almost as grand and with more land. I, for my part, am not going to raise my family under the same roof as Lucius. He can be affable when he chooses, but I know what a number he made of Draco in his childhood, and I will not give him half a chance of doing anything similar to my children. Especially because I plan to adopt children too, without blood status being a deciding factor. So, I demanded Malfoy Manor as my morning gift. After all, I bring all of the Greengrass fortune and estates into the marriage. I made it clear that the Manor would be my home and that Narcissa and Lucius would be guests, if they were welcome at all.
"This did not go over well, naturally."
"No shit!" Harry was gaping at her. Astoria might not be Bellatrix Lestrange level mad, but she was hardly sane either, with ideas like that.
Astoria laughed her tinkling, beautiful laugh.
"Hence, the very long engagement. They tried to wait me out. Tried to wheedle and threaten. Tried to change Draco's mind for him. Unfortunately for them, Draco is stubborn and I'm more than his match. He wanted to marry me, and only me, I only wanted to marry him, and we wanted to live here together.
"In the end, they gave in, and we married two weeks later. I saw the signs and began preparing for their capitulation and my wedding." She grinned evilly. "So, you see, the Manor is my home entirely, Harry, and you are my honoured guest. Please do not let Lucius or anyone else tell you what you can and cannot do here, without conferring with me first. As to leave no doubt at one point at least; you are very welcome to use any library here and you may take the books to your rooms if you so wish. Just make sure to get them back on the library shelves when you are done with them."
"Thank you," Harry said.
Draco entered and Voldemort left for his chat with Lucius and Narcissa without saying a word. Astoria served Draco tea and the three of them talked a bit about near harmless topics, like Draco and Astoria's wedding and plans for the estate, incidents at school, a couple of books on transfiguration they had all read and from there they talked about animagi. Draco and Astoria both wanted to try to become animagi at some point, but Harry chose not to comment.
Voldemort came back, still with the same appearance. Even though Harry had so many bad memories about the man in that hated form, and even though he did get chills down his back and felt how his stomach churned, he had to admit that the absence of hate and insanity in those red eyes, did a lot to change Voldemort's presence, and the impact it had on Harry. He wasn't happy seeing that form next to him, but he didn't feel like running, screaming or throwing curses either.
It almost seemed like Voldemort had become stable, or at least more stable, with his new changing appearance. Maybe the insanity had migrated from his mind to his body when Voldemort underwent the process to change his body? Harry was sure stranger things had happened when magic was involved.
"Harry, I would like to ask you to have dinner with us tonight, and breakfast tomorrow," Voldemort said when Astoria called for an elf to clear the table. "And to make a habit of it. Dinner is at eight in the evening, breakfast at eight in the morning. It would be … good … to see each other at those times each day. Ask an elf to show you the way until you get to know the place."
Harry hesitated. It was framed as a request, right now, but Harry didn't doubt that could change in a hurry. Having tea with the three of them had been doable, he suspected he could stomach having dinners with them too. Hell, even tea and dinner every day could work, if everyone was on their best behaviour as they had been right now. But breakfast …
"I don't believe anyone would like my company in the mornings …" he hedged.
"Don't worry," Draco said. "Astoria isn't a morning person either. We survive her grumbles; we will survive yours too, I'm sure, and supply you with coffee and tea until you wake up."
"I can't guarantee that you will; survive me in the mornings, that is."
Even Hermione knew to leave him completely alone that first hour he was awake, before he had had at least three cups of coffee, and to let him get up when he was ready when that was a possibility. That was when he lived and slept with her and thus got better sleep than he did when sleeping alone. Now, as anxious as he was with as little sleep that he got … Harry really didn't know how breakfast with anyone would even work out.
"Do try," Voldemort said, and Harry knew a last word when he heard it.
A/N:
Hope you liked Harry's first day in his new life. Please tell me if you did, or if you didn't.
Thank you to Ladylillalove who once again beta read this chapter!