„Harry," Alduin asked at breakfast the next morning, „why did you hide at the landing yesterday?"

Harry blushed deep scarlet. "You saw me?" He asked in a small voice.

Alduin looked at him over his glass of pumpkin juice. "Of course I saw you," he said, putting it down, "and I wasn't the only one. It was a little embarrassing, even though all of the guests were too polite to comment on it directly, of course."

Harry was deeply ashamed now. He had realized as soon as he woke up today that his suspicions yesterday had probably been unwarranted, but to know that he had embarrassed Alduin – Alduin, to whom he had so many reasons to be grateful to! - in front of his friends was mortifying. "I'm sorry!" He blurted out.

"I am glad to hear it," Alduin replied seriously, "but mostly, I am curious to know why did you do it."

"Well..." Harry blushed again, poking idly at his food. "I was curious about these people – I mean, you have always introduced me to everyone and you didn't want me to meet them, so I wanted to see what was so special about them."

Alduin sighed and leaned forward a little. "There is no mystery to it, and had you said so, I could have introduced you before sending you upstairs. It is simply that on evenings like these, when I see the friends that share my hobbies, I wish to discuss said hobbies, and we couldn't do so with you there, since you wouldn't understand a thing. You will meet a good part of these people sooner or later, anyway."

"Not all?" Harry asked, immediately chastising himself mentally. He really shouldn't be so suspicous.

His cousin leaned back in his chair. "Probably not – not all of them move in the same circles I do, and so I hardly ever see them outside of these evenings."

Harry raised his eyes. "What does that mean, they don't move in the same circles?" Apart from the families he had met, harry had very little idea about what kind of circles his cousin moved in.

"Make a guess," was the man's reply.

Harry frowned. "They aren't purebloods?" He asked. That was one conclusion he had been able to make so far: everyone Alduin knew seemed to be a rich pureblooded wizard.

"It's narrower than that," Alduin explained. "They simply aren't from one of the Noble and Most Ancient Houses. In fact, only about five of them were."

"I recognized Mr. Muhammad Shafiq," Harry admitted.

"Yes. Apart from him, there was Mrs. Ollivander – you will meet her soon enough – and Valerius Prince." Alduin thought for a moment. "And I suppose Sarabeth Boot would count as well. She was born a Davies, anyway, even though she married a plebeian and doesn't really attend the social gatherings I go to anymore, so you are unlikely to meet her – except perhaps at the Davies' at some point."

"So who was the rest, then?" Who else did Alduin associate with?

The man laughed. "Did you think that the only Ravenclaws interested in transcendental sciences are the ones from the oldest families? In fact, there are even two Slytherin members of our little group. And both of them are from ordinary families. It's the common interests that makes us meet, not common ancestry."

Harry hesitated, wondering how to best get at what he wanted to ask about, and at the same time ashamed a little that he couldn't let it go. "Was your evening good, then?" He asked in the end.

"It was, thank you for asking," Alduin replied, piling some scrambled eggs on his fork.

"Did you have a good talk about your interests?" Harry continued his questions.

Alduin chewed for a moment before answering. "Yes. We always do. Mrs. Ollivander and Selena Quirke had a long and protracted argument about time-travel. I've probably revealed myself as hopelessly conservative by siding with the older lady."

"Was she the one who spoke Latin?" Harry asked curiously, and then his hid face in is hands.

"Harry," Alduin said slowly, putting down the fork that had been on the way to his mouth again, "were you listening at the door?"

Unable to speak, the boy only nodded.

Alduin straightened in his chair. "Once again, allow me to ask: why?"

"Well..." Harry had to force himself to speak. "I was curious, so I asked Sibby what you were talking about...and she said about prophecies...and so I..." Harry bit his lip. "Well, I wanted to know if you were talking about me, and so..."

His cousin frowned. "Harry, this is unacceptable. You should know by now that if there was something important concerning you discussed, I would tell you. And what would you have done if someone opened the door and found you there?"

Harry had no answer to that.

"You should know by now," Alduin said, "that etiquette matters to me, and listening at the door is certainly against it. I know you have never been led to uphold any kinds of standards in you behavior, but I must ask you to refrain from such thing in the future. It's unbecoming of you, and of me."

Harry wished he could just sink into the floor. "Please," he whispered, "I'm so sorry, just don't..." Don't send me back to the Dursleys, he finished mentally, unable to say it aloud.

Alduin's frown deepened. "Harry, we have talked about this. You will always have a home here, but I demand certain standard of behavior in turn, and am not above taking your broom, for example, should you fail to uphold it in the future. Now go get your school things, I think we will have two hours of maths today as a form of punishment."

Harry wanted to groan, but had to admit it was fair.

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Harry was reassured about Alduin not being ashamed of him that very evening, when the Ollivanders came for diner, and tried to be on his best behaviour for that visit as well as the following days. In what was fast becoming a tradition, Neville came to see him on Monday afternoon, and they escaped outside once again to talk, even though the slowly rising temperatures meant their fort was not as solid as it used to be.

"So...did you ask your cousin?" Neville asked, a little anxious.

"Yeah..." Harry said, kicking some wet snow. "It turns out it was kinda complicated."

Neville gave him a questioning look. Harry didn't particularly want to tell him about it, but decided it was only fair, since it was Neville who brought it to his attention in the first place. "He was a real Death Eater for a while, before he turned spy, apparently," he said. "But he turned after a couple of years. And well, the reason he joined in the first place...it had a lot to do with my dad."

Neville seemed shocked. "With your dad? What do you mean?"

Harry plopped down in the wet snow, uncaring for the damage he would do on the one cloak he had without water-repelling charms. He didn't look at Neville as he answered: "Well, he...the way I understand it, he just kept attacking Snape while at school, and Snape sort of needed some help against that, you know? And there were his Slytherin mates, who apparently were mostly Death Eaters in the making at that time, and Snape didn't really like that, but he needed someone, and so he sort of turned to them...and, well, that was that."

"That's really sad," Neville said, echoing Harry's thoughts, and squatted down to him. "Do you...I mean, do you know why your dad did it?"

"Well, Alduin said that because Snape hung out with the Slytherins, my dad assumed he was like everyone else from that House at that time. But...well, he didn't say so, but I'd bet Black had a hand in it." Harry squeezed a handful of snow in his fist without noticing.

"You think so?" His friend asked, looking at Harry with a troubled expression.

"Yeah. I mean, my dad wouldn't attack some guy just like that, would he? But if his best friend egged him on...well, that might be different. Black might have even made up stuff about Snape, I don't know. My cousin said he was a sociopath..." Harry had no clear idea what that meant, but he had heard it used on the telly and it seemed they were always the worst criminals.

"But didn't Sirius Black have family in Slytherin?" Neville asked, finally giving up and sitting on the ground as well. "Why would he be against them?"

Harry considered this problem. "What if he sympathized with Riddle already at that time? And knew Snape didn't, not really? So he might have encouraged dad to attack him..."

"So that he'd turn into a Death Eater?"

Harry frowned. "I guess, but I was thinking more simply because he'd be pissed Snape didn't go along with it, like the Slytherins were."

"But...Black wasn't going along with it either, was he?" Neville argued. "I mean, if he was friends with your dad, or pretending to, anyway, he couldn't have..."

"Well, like you said, he was pretending." Harry pointed out. "I wonder that he got put in Gryffindor though – it doesn't seem like a very Gryffindor approach."

Neville seemed to think about it. "There's something I have heard Gran's cousin say – the one that teaches at Hogwarts. That sometimes Sorting at eleven is too soon, because some people change a lot after that. Maybe that happened with Sirius Black?"

"I guess it could have." Harry considered this new information. "Do you think it happens often?"

"I don't know. I hope not, I mean, it would make the whole Sorting pretty pointless, wouldn't it?"

Harry nodded. It was certainly something else to ask Alduin – or maybe better yet, Miss Burke.

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At the same time that Harry was outside, talking to Neville, Alduin was sitting and speaking to Alexandra in one of the drawing rooms. He had discussed the matter of Harry's trust issues with her, and now they were talking about Draco. Alexandra had been asked about that matter by her mother when the august lady found out that no invitation had reached the Malfoys in the weeks following the dinner conversation about it.

"Surely your mother can see why I can't have the Malfoys be the fifth family I introduce Harry to?" Alduin was asking.

Alexandra sighed. "She does see that. However, we have seen the Ollivanders already and are to dine with the Crouches at the end of the week. I know you meant to ask Andromeda for tea, but we are both aware she will refuse. And then what? You have other second cousins, of course, even some you can actually ask – the Davies, the Hilliards and the Odgens at the very least could be invited – but you have never been very close to them, and so once you did that, your cut to the Malfoys would start to appear very obvious. Are you willing to do that?"

"As well as to the Selwyns and to the Yaxleys," Alduin pointed out. "But you are right that I would rather avoid making the line between those I ask and those I don't so obviously based on the Death Eater criteria. Especially given the hypocrisy of it, seeing where my uncle is at the moment. That's why I wasn't planning on asking anyone else after the Crouches, not for now at least."

"Well, fine, but in that case...where do you go from here? Do you simply ask the same families over and over? That is possible, of course, but..." Alexandra trailed off, gesticulating eloquently with her hand instead.

"There is only a little over four months left till our wedding," Alduin replied, reaching for her hand and pressing it. "Once that takes place, we will be able to throw garden parties, and ask many more people without so much trouble."

Alexandra did not return his gesture of affection. "Certainly," she said. "Is that all you intend to do about Harry and Draco, then? Let them come together at a garden party we throw?"

Alduin sighed. "Well, there will be other people's parties before that...the season starts in a month or so."

"At another's garden party, then?" She said, raising her eyebrows.

Alduin sighed again. "What do you want from me, Alexandra?"

She answered with a question. "Have you ever met Draco?"

Alduin thought about it. "I have seen him, certainly, but it is true that I have never truly interacted with him."

"I have – as you know, Narcissa comes to visit Mother quite regularly, and takes him with her from time to time." She looked away. "I do not...care about him to quite the same degree Mother does, but nevertheless, I do care a little. The boy has potential, and his parents' spoiling, terrible influence and lack of any sensible friends are slowly but surely destroying it."

Alduin brought her hand to his lips and kissed it, understanding that argument at last. "Yet you never said anything before now," he muttered against her skin.

This time, it was Alexandra who sighed. "Because I do see how politically impossible it is. But your talk with my mother gave me hope that perhaps you decided it could be done after all..."

Another kiss. "I did, in a manner of speaking. But I need to keep balance here. I cannot be seen to encourage the friendship too openly, you know that."

Alexandra turned her beseeching eyes to him, and Alduin realized she cared quite a lot, in fact. He shouldn't have been surprised. Narcissa was her first cousin, after all. "Will you at least say something to Harry? Single Draco out for him?"

"You know that if I tell Harry to be friendly to Draco, he is more likely to do the exact opposite. He is not exactly pliable. Especially seeing what he knows about Lucius...he'd be suspicious." Alduin paused. "But I think I might have a solution. Tell your mother to make sure to be the first to throw a garden party this season. The only boy his age Harry knows is Neville, and he will be thrilled to meet another. If the Malfoys are asked...well, there are unlikely to be others present to be a competition to him, are there not?"

Alexandra considered it. "There would be the youngest Crabbe there, and the Smith boy too, I think, but I agree that they are hardly likely to catch Harry's attention."

Alduin frowned. "Is Crabbe truly necessary? I mean, he wouldn't hold Harry's attention, but he might occupy Draco's..."

She rolled her eyes. "You know he is, his grandmother and my mother are too closely related. But I wouldn't worry about it, Draco will drop him as soon as he sees someone more interesting. Especially if that someone is Harry Potter."

Alduin blinked. He didn't think a Malfoy son, of all people, would react in this way.

As if reading his mind, Alexandra said: "Of course he will not say anything, but you didn't honestly believe he'd be ignorant of Harry's importance, did you? No one is. Isobel told me their children were so excited about seeing him for the first time they were impossible to manage several days before the visit."

Alduin was honestly surprised. "You wouldn't have known it to look at them."

"Well, of course not. They have manners. Still, it's a fact that Harry will never have to worry about people being willing to talk to him, and I have no faith in his ability to choose proper friends for himself. We have to help in that," she finished insistently.

"By recommending Draco Malfoy?" Alduin couldn't help asking.

Alexandra rolled her eyes at him once more. "Don't act all Gryffindor," she said. "It's not like you don't think he needs someone to balance out Neville Longbottom."

Alduin sighed. It was hard to argue with that.