"Okay," Harry asked haltingly, "but why do you and every Pureblood I talk to have a manor?"
Malfoy sniffed, taking a sip before delicately lowering the teacup back onto its' saucer, before pushing his chair back slightly. "Well obviously, Potter, it's due to us stealing the houses of Muggles a few centuries ago, and we've kept them since."
"What."
"Well, most of us have. The Malfoys of the past originally built their own manor in the 13th century, but it was too much of a hassle to upkeep, so they nicked one from Muggles a few decades later."
"But-"
"You're probably wondering, 'But Malfoy, you hate Muggles, why would the Purebloods steal their houses instead of building your own?', and you'd be pretty justified, we do hate Muggles." Draco leaned back, his perfect posture crumpling as he lazily waved at the "water feature" that was twirling in the grounds.
It was a hideous thing, looking like some type of demented octopus having a seizure while also pouring water from ten different cups into a vase. How an octopus poured ten cups while having only 8 arms was a mystery, and one Draco had recommended Harry to not think about.
"Look at that thing and tell me Magical builders have any ounce of sense. Hell, look at those houses your Loony and Weasel friends live in, they're unsafe! One is a tower that extends infinitely into the heavens but explodes once every decade; and the other is boxes randomly stacked on one another that only stay upright thanks to being tied together with magic!"
Harry tried to get in a word edgewise, but Draco had at this point grabbed the sides of the table and nearly lifted himself out of his seat in his angry tirade, and even Harry's indignation at the insults at his friends could not let him speak over the now shouting Malfoy.
"And what did the ancient Malfoys do? They built a manor out of GOLD! SOLID MERLIN-DAMNED GOLD! The most inert substance known to mankind! And how did they do it, you ask? They enslaved dwarves in order to redirect a golden river into a valley, then sculpted it by enslaving giants in order to carve the gold! And then what?! How to maintain it? NO ONE COULD! IT WOULD'VE TAKEN AN ARMY OF FLAMELS TO ADD TO IT," and at this point, Draco flopped back down into his seat, sprawling against the backrest, winded from his rant, "and so my smartest ancestor sold the shrine to stupidity as soon as he hit 17 years old, and stole a perfectly normal and not made out of gold manor right after."
"Naturally, Magicals being what they are, they shamelessly copied my smartest ancestor's actions and stole a number of Muggle manors in the following years."
Harry sat, lost for words, staring at Draco across from him, and thanked his lucky stars that he grew up in the Muggle world.
As his gob-smacked look receded, he grinned at his rival. "Well, well, well, ol' Draco's been living in a Muggle pigsty all along?"
Draco groaned as he rested his head in his hands, determinedly not looking back at his smug rivals' face. "Oh don't start with that!"
