Family First Chapter 13: December 28
Disclaimer: I do not own anything.
A/N: Thanks for all of the fantastic reviews and birthday wished, as promised, chapter 13. Next update is on Monday
Beta'ed by Jasper's Mom
Both Harry and Draco were awoken by Lucius a bit early that morning. The sun was making a steady effort to ascend into the sky, yet it was clearly before the usual time for breakfast. When Harry finally managed to drag himself to breakfast he found all three adults in the house sitting around the table. Instead of being laid with food as it usually was, the table was instead occupied with pieces of parchment and quills at each place setting.
"Good morning." Narcissa smiled, something that Harry felt she did appallingly often in the morning. Harry managed to grumble something that may have vaguely sounded like 'good morning'.
"How did you sleep?" Lucius looked up from whatever he was writing as he asked the question.
"It ended a bit too soon." Harry responded honestly to the question.
"If you had it your way you and Draco both would sleep to half past noon. I just don't understand how people can sleep away the best part of the day. It's so peaceful and quiet, perfect for doing just about anything." Narcissa practically sung as she spoke, hands gesturing about.
"Especially sleeping." Lucius got a particularly dirty look from his wife for that response, accompanied with an admiring glance from Harry. Draco walked into the room a few moments later, clearly half asleep, a plopped down into the nearest unoccupied chair, laying his head onto his hands.
"Alright, now that we are all present, we are going to have a discussion about the recent conflict between Draco and Harry. It has become glaringly obvious that this issue is not going to disappear, so we are left with one course of action: to fix the problem. Unfortunately all of my efforts to do so have not been successful. So, Cissa and myself have decided that we will all problem solve as a family, and perhaps through joint effort and intelligence, will come up with a more effective solution to the problem.
The first step in solving any problem is identifying the question or problem. So on the piece of parchment in front of you write down what you think the problem is, not what you think I want to hear. Be specific and detailed, general answers are not going to help."
When Lucius finished talking Harry, along with everyone else at the table, took up their quills. After everyone had finished writing Lucius pulled out his wand, making a sharp movement towards the parchment, before flicking the wand sharply upwards. The words from all of the pieces of parchment flew upwards, arranging themselves in the front of the room so that everyone could easily see. Many (including Harry's) were quite long, perhaps two paragraphs or so. Before Harry had a chance to analyze them further Lucius began to speak again. Alright, as a group we need to agree upon the correct problem. Everyone should take a moment to look over all of the different options, and then we will discuss them." After it was clear that everyone had finished reading through all of the choices, and a few moments in which everyone could contemplate the choices Lucius spoke once more.
" Does anyone want to begin the discussion?"
"I'm not leaving." Harry spoke first, glaring at Draco, who's stylized writing clearly identified 'Potter' as the sole source of all the problems not only at the manor, but all over the world.
"First of all regardless of the problem, no one is going to be asked to leave the manor. But since you brought it up, why don't you explain why you think it is inaccurate and should be taken down?"
"Because I'm not the problem…. Well I'm not the only problem. For there to be a fight there has to be two people doing the fighting."
"Exactly" Lucius praised.
"The problem is not a person." Narcissa added.
"Alright, if we are in agreement, I will take it down." They all agreed (except Draco) that it should be taken down.
Systematically they went through the proposed problems, agreeing and disagreeing on points, until eventually they were left with two options. The first written in Narcissa's flowing ornate script, essentially defined the problem as jealousy, while the second, written in Lucius more straight forward, neat hand named ignorance, and lack of understanding as the problem. Eventually after a bit of debating, it was decided that the problem was probably a combination of both.
"Alright, now that everyone agrees on the problem," Lucius paused there as if he was waiting on someone to protest. Not likely after the twenty odd minutes spent trying to solve it. "We need to come up with a solution we can all agree on. Now," here he turned a bit to address the area of the table where Harry and Draco were sitting. "Narcissa and I have decided to include you in this decision, and I expect you to act responsible about it. You may not like some of the ideas that we come up with, but you may not dismiss one of the ideas because you don't like it. If you have a valid concern then please share, but valid concerns do not fall along the lines of: I don't think that will be fun." Lucius once again turned back to address the whole table. " While you are coming up with solutions, I would also like for you to share what you would like out of a solution. It can be rather difficult to come up with a good solution if we cannot agree on what exactly we want out of a solution. Again, take your time, and write what you truly want to get out of this, be it Harry and Draco getting along, or a bit of calmness and quiet."
Once again Lucius took his seat, and a quiet fell only broken by the scratch of quills and the ruffle s of parchment. When those noises finally faded, Lucius once again flung the written answers into the air, where everyone could see. Everything was quiet for a moment as they took in the thoughts of each other. Both Lucius, Severus, and Narcissa essentially wrote that they wanted Harry and Draco to get along, although they each worded it a bit differently. Draco and Harry had unsurprisingly written something very different to everyone else, and Harry felt himself flush as Draco sent him a very particular look, not quite a glare, and not a smirk either. Narcissa stroked Harry's hair though and Lucius sent him a smile.
"So." Lucius paused to gather his thoughts. "Narcissa, Severus, and myself all want to see Harry and Draco get along. Do either of you see that as an unreasonable goal?" Lucius asked
"No Sir." Answered Harry.
Draco took a bit longer to reply, but his answer mirrored Harry's.
" Alright then. Draco, you want to get more time with just your mother and I. I think it's safe to say your mother and I have been trying our best to give you both equal amounts of attention. That being said, you're right, we haven't spent any time with just the three of us. Now we can, and will start making sure that we will spend time together, but to be fair, that means spending time alone with Harry too." Lucius turned to read Harry's simple six word response once again, and couldn't help but smile. "Harry, you want to have a family, and you will."
Then we moved on to solutions. This was clearly the difficult part of the process. Draco and Harry's solutions were thrown out first, although neither of them seemed surprised at by that, as neither had thought their solutions were that good. After a good amount of debate among everyone at the table, they finally all agreed on one solution (Harry and Draco grudgingly). Severus had been the one to come up with the idea, and Lucius had marveled over it a bit. "That's a plan that comes from an experienced parent Severus, are you sure that you don't have any children of your own hidden somewhere?"
"Of course I have children Lucius. To be exact I have 70 children for 9 months out of the year."
"Of course how could I ever forgotten. Merlin knows how you handle all of them."
"Indeed."
"Alright. Harry, Draco, come over here." The boys did as they were told, and Lucius made quick work of magically binding them to one another. If you are in dire need of being unbound, for example if you fall into danger, or if you need the loo, then the bindings will accommodate for that. Other than that, you are stuck together for at least the rest of today, and most likely the next few days."
"This is stupid." Draco complained Harry felt a headache coming on, today was going to be a long day if Draco was already starting to complain.
"Being apart obviously did not help the situation, not to mention the fact that you were much better behaved when you were stuck together during the ball and Christmas. That being said, whether the problem be jealousy or lack of understanding, this will solve it with any luck at all."
"It's still stupid."
"And you still agreed to it." Lucius shot back a quick reply. Draco huffed, and Narcissa shot him a look, but neither adult said anything.
"If all of you are ready, breakfast would be much appreciated." Severus intervened.
"Of course, let's eat."
Breakfast wasn't too much of a problem. The normal seating arrangements had to be moved around a bit, but under the watchful eye of three adults neither of the boys said anything. The real problems started after they left. Both of them instinctively headed upstairs towards the bedrooms. Once they reached them though, the problems started. Harry went one way and Draco the other, and neither of them got anywhere, no matter how hard they yanked. The magical bindings didn't tug on the wrist in the way a muggle one would. Instead it sensed the two boys headed in different directions, and gently tightened, dragging the boys together, and not allowing the boys to move forward in different directions. Draco glared at Harry, and Harry glared right back.
"I am not spending the day in your room." Draco sounded quite confident in his words.
"Well it's not like I want to spend the day in yours either." Harry responded. And with that both boys remained sitting, locked in a stubborn battle of wills. Lucius walked by once, and raised one of his eyebrows at the boys both sitting on the floor in the middle of the hallway, but he didn't say anything, and proceeded on his way. Unusually enough, Severus also was striding back down the hallway to his room. Severus didn't seem surprised at all at their unusual position, instead just striding around them.
After sitting in the middle of the hallway for a good few minutes Harry decided that this was utterly ridiculous. There was no reason once so ever for them to be sitting in the middle of the hallway. Whether they stayed in Draco's room, Harry's room, went outside, or into the Potions Lab they were stuck together. He might as well hang out in Draco's room, after all when he had been in it before it wasn't like it has been horribly unlivable or anything.
"Fine, we can stay in your room, but I want to get some stuff from my room first." Draco gave him a suspicious look.
"Fine, but only five minutes, and if you refuse to come to my room and make us stay in yours I'll call for Father.
"I wouldn't do that, it's more your M.O."
"Yeah, it is isn't it?" Draco asked without really asking.
As Draco had demanded, Harry kept the detour to his room limited to five minutes. Draco stood looking around the room with a strange sort of disinterested curiosity. Harry grabbed a book, parchment, ink, a quill, as well as his photo album he got for Christmas.
Draco huffed a bit when he saw Harry, ready to go with his arms laden with stuff.
"No need to take your whole room with you... Father did say that he would release the bonds tonight so we can sleep in our own rooms."
Harry chose not to respond, instead just walking into the hall, and following Draco into the blond boy's room. It looked much the same as it had last time Harry had been in it. Draco immediately took the chair sitting at the desk, and Harry took the only other seat in the room: the bed.
"I didn't say that you could sit there." Draco jumped to correct Harry the minute that it came to his notice.
"The only other place to sit is the floor."
"So?"
"I'm not sitting on the floor." Harry glared at the blond boy, but Draco had seemed to have already dropped the matter.
Harry flipped through the journal, occasionally stopping to look at a page that caught his eye for whatever reason. It didn't take long for Harry to get bored, and he switched to a book. A novel Narcissa had recommended written by Harry's great great grandfather. Again, it didn't take long for him to get bored. He had just been grounded, stuck in his room just a few days ago. He wanted to get out and explore, not to be stuck in a room reading for the next few hours. He looked around the room at the posters, drawings, and at all of the little trinkets. Eventually his eyes fell onto Draco who was bent over a peace of parchment. His first thought was that Draco's chair was obviously not the same type that his was, forcing the boy to sit up into a popper writing position. But that was quickly replaced by a since of curiosity. Draco was quite obviously working on some sort of drawing. Harry tried to see the whole of the picture, but the angle he was sitting at, made it almost impossible to see the whole thing. Despite this Harry sat up a bit straighter, trying to see the whole thing. Suddenly Draco spun around, throwing Harry a look (although not quite a glare).
"Stop staring." He ordered, covering as much of the drawing with his arms as he could.
"I just want to see."
"No."
"Fine."
The room fell silent once again. Draco went back to work on his drawing, although he was carefully placing himself between Harry and the drawing. Harry opened his photo album that he got on Christmas. As he looked at it a new thought occurred to him.
"Who do you think you think drew these.?"
"How am I supposed to know." Draco turned as he spoke, but as soon as he looked at the sketches of Lily that Harry was holding up, he gasped, standing and snatching the album from Harry. He looked at it closely, not holding it up to his face, but studying it intensely.
"This is your mother?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Why would Uncle Sev draw your mother?"
"How do you know Severus did it?"
"It's definitely uncle Sev's work. I could recognize any of his work...he's the one who taught me to draw. But..."
"What?"
"It's not like he usually draws." Draco flipped through a few of the sketches, looking both forward and back throughout the book."
"He must have been really young when he did some of these. The earliest ones are done with muggle stuff, and is almost cartoonish, and as they go on they look more and more realistic. He also starts to use all magical supplies."
"How young do you think he was with the first one."
"I don't know...but, Uncle Sev lived with Muggles until he was 14. So, if he was using all Muggle supplies he was definitely still living with Muggles, and probably not even at Hogwarts yet. Plus, Uncle Sev, and your Mum were the same age, and she looks pretty young in this sketch."
"Yeah. That's true." It fell silent after that. Draco flipped through the artwork once more, taking time to study each image. Eventually he closed the book and went back to his drawing. Harry contemplated what he had learned, going back to look at the images after Draco had finished.
"Potter"
"Yeah?"
"Check and see if they're dated."
"Dated!?"
"Not like that... The pictures, check and see if they have a date on the back."
Harry, questioning why he didn't think of that before, carefully pulled one of the earlier sketches out of the protective sleeve. Gently he flipped the piece over, only to find a very blank back.
"There's no date."
Draco huffed a bit, and then fell silent, concentrating on his drawing once again. However, his concentration didn't last long.
"Potter."
"Yeah?"
"Why would Uncle Sev be drawing pictures of your Mum,you never said?"
"I don't know."
"Don't you think you should know?"
"Of course I do, but why don't you try getting someone to tell you stuff like that about your parents."
"I would know."
"Of course you would Malfoy."
"I would...Slytherins don't take no for an answer... I'm surprised that a Gryffindor such as yourself would."
"Oh yeah... I bet that conversation goes over well. 'well you see sir, you have to tell me, because Slytherins don't take no for an answer.' I can see that going off without a hitch."
"You're thinking like a Hufflepuff, Potter. Of course that's not how the conversation would go. If someone doesn't give you the information you want, you just have to find the information yourself."
"So..."
"So... Do you want to know about the pictures or not."
"Of course, I want to know about the pictures... Along with everything else about my parents and their friends."
"Good, then tomorrow we'll find everything out, no one will even be suspicious of us spending time together."
"So, how are we going to do this?"
"Does it look like I know yet? Good plans take time to develop. Now be quite and let me think."
R&R :P