Harry threw herself past the stranger, trying to get out of the now unlocked door. However, he drew a stick from his cane - Harry thought it might be a wand - and said "Petrificus totalus". She immediately fell to the ground, feeling as if her body was bound. The stranger then said "Wingardium leviosa", and she floated over to the bed.
"Greetings, Harriet Potter. I am Lord Lucius Malfoy, servant to the Dark Lord." He said, and then tilted his head as if requiring a response.
Harry felt her the invisible bindings on her body loosen, and sat up, glaring at the Lord.
"Why have you kidnapped me? And who is the dark lord?" She responded, but Lucius only laughed.
"You shall address me as 'milord', and I would prefer not to consider it kidnapping - maybe borrowing? Perhaps you know the dark lord better as he-who-must-not-be-named. I have borrowed you on his behalf; he asked me to, through the form
of his ... vessel."
"But why would he want you to kidnap me - Hagrid said he tried to kill me, not capture." Harry replied, confused.
"I do not know of the dark lord's reasoning; I am sure it is sound. But I am to hold you until milord returns, restored to his former body." Malfoy responded truthfully; what he didn't say was that he feared his lord had very dark plans for the little girl; far darker than Lucius had ever signed up for. But such a display of disobedience would only get him in trouble with Voldemort, and he could never remove the dark mark and run; it was impossible to remove.
"But until then, I must play honourable host. You may read all the books, and when my darling son, Draco, returns for Yule, he will spend some time with you; I am sure I would be good for you to spend some time with him and try to learn the magic you should be learning at Hogwarts - we could always try to retrieve your wand if you so wish." Lucius finished.
"Okay. I don't like this, but I don't think you have a choice either; I don't think I would have been very well liked at Hogwarts anyway" - at this Lucius scoffed - " because my aunt and uncle never let me near anyone my own age apart from my cousin; I'm homeschooled and cousin hated me. His friends agreed. If I'm learning magic, still, then I'll still have fun; but books are a bit boring. Am I allowed outside?" Harry asked, worry in her voice. She loved to run around whenever she could; when she was a bit younger, and still allowed outside at the weekends, she had run around at the local park, but when she reached 7 she wasn't allowed out again much after a neighbour asked about the 'strange little girl' living at the Dursley's.
So when Lord Malfoy responded with a "yes, but only within the borders", Harry had never felt so happy about being kidnapped.
o - o - o - o - o
Lucius Malfoy had acted on his orders to kidnap the girl with reluctance; however, the one thing he did know was that he wouldn't be caught harbouring the girl. Strong wards around Malfoy Manor allowed no tracking spell past them; and it was likely they would, for their precious girl-who-lived. Despite tell Harriet that they would retrieve her wand, he highly doubted that it would still be there. Even though the blood wards were now down, a wand was something that was inherently a single wizard's; it was perfect for tracking someone, and so Dumbledore had likely taken it in the hopes of finding the Potter girl.
A letter from his darling Draco had arrived the day before, telling him firstly of Harriet's absence, noticeable in the week she'd been asleep, and then some of the more minor details; his sorting, and how he was finding his lessons; how annoying the Weasley brood was. Lucius was upset to hear that Draco was struggling a little with all his spell classes - perhaps Narcissa and himself could hire a tutor? Draco also mentioned that he was very much looking forward to coming home for Christmas; Lucius only hoped he would appreciate the little girl who would serve as his first proper friend.
o - o - o - o - o
Draco had enjoyed his first week at Hogwarts. He'd been sorted into Slytherin - as expected -, in Potions, Professor Snape had told the rest of the class about how good his potion was. With the absence of the girl-who-lived, he couldn't have had a better week - Draco had planned to make an alliance with her, but she would probably be a stupid Gryffindor at heart.
Draco found it hilarious how the teachers were all scrambling to find the missing girl - Dunderbore had them searching whenever they could. Even Professor Snape had been looking for her, despite clearly not wanting to.
The Malfoy heir had been struggling with some of the classes, though. His magic never wanted to comply when he cast any of the transfiguration or charms spells; he could feel it resisting him - this was odd because he'd been able to perform darker spells at home 'remarkably well', as his father said.
He'd ask his father about it when he went home for Christmas - one of the first lessons a pure blood learns is to never show weakness to those who are not of you're blood; no one else had had this problem, to his knowledge, and he wouldn't gain any favour by standing out as weak.
But he was annoyed by all the mud bloods at Hogwarts. They came to the school and tried to impose their muggle customs on the pure bloods - the other day, he'd heard one Gryffindor mentioning 'football', and many of them had complained about not having a more diverse selection of food. It had happened so much over the last century, that there was very little wizard custom left at Hogwarts or the ministry. Even the old greetings and etiquette were never used! All in all, Draco could see what his father meant about Dunderbore letting the school become a place for mudbloods to learn about magic, rather than the wizarding world they knew nothing about; he had even heard some talking about Halloween instead of Samhuin, and, when he had asked about it, discovered that all they had was a Halloween feast, rather than any of the ancient rituals that Draco had grown up with.
All in all, Draco was rather unimpressed with Hogwarts.
o - o - o - o - o
Harry had grown used to her new life at Malfoy Manor. She was still suspicious of her host, Lord Malfoy, and everything associated with him, but this didn't bother her much as she rarely interacted with him. She hadn't yet met his wife, who she had seen in an ancient genealogy book, or his son, who Malfoy had claimed would teach her magic.
Every day, she would wake up to find a full plate of English breakfast; she would wash and dress before going and running around outside for a bit. After that, she would head back to her room, to find a plate of lunch - again, something traditionally British. After lunch she would read a book from the library, eat supper, read some more and then go to bed.
Harry had discovered a love of books, which she had never had the opportunity to cultivate before. The Dursley's hadn't allowed her to get better grades than Dudley - meaning she stayed at rock bottom for her entire school career; Dudley could barely count to a hundred, let alone more complex algebra and the like. They also wouldn't have let her read instead of work, so she had barely read any books until she had arrived at the Malfoy Manor.
She was racing through the books, for the most part, reading one a day. She had learnt about: wizarding history, wizarding customs, wizarding genealogy, and Hogwarts history. She had multiple books for each topic, and had found them very interesting; as she was raised by muggles, she had known nothing of this - even if pure blood children were taught it from when they were young. She had also discovered the muggleborn/ pureblood divide. She thought that purebloods had a right to be annoyed that their ancient customs were being replaced of forgotten altogether, but didn't think they had the right to solely blame the muggleborns; they weren't taught anything about said ancient wizard customs, meaning they had no way of knowing that they were destroying traditions that had lasted thousands of years. Harry also didn't think that the purebloods should be resorting to insults such as 'mudblood', as it had caused other members of the wizarding world to forget the root of the problem and label the purebloods as hating muggleborns for their blood.
Next, she would start on the potions books. She wasn't able to perform any magic due to her lack of wand - Lord Malfoy had apparently 'tried but failed' to get it back -, but that didn't mean she couldn't still study all the subjects she was missing out on at Hogwarts. She was looking forward to the Yule break - as she had read that Yule was the traditional wizard version of Christmas, except it was much older -, when Malfoy had said his son would show and teach her some magic.
It was only a week until Hogwarts broke up for the holidays, and Harry was really excited to, hopefully, make a friends, for the first time in her life; everyone had been too afraid of Dudley to be nice to her at school.
o - o - o - o - o
A week later, Harry was quietly reading about potions, when a loud knock came from her closed door. She cautiously put the book down and then said "come in".
A blonde boy, about the same height as her, opened the door and walked in.