Chapter 35

In which Harriet and Lucius had a talk

Lucius Malfoy had never considered himself a righteous man. He was a Slytherin, after all, not a bloody Gryffindor. But it doesn't really help the way he scrutinized Harriet's Uncle when he picked them up. The jovial muggle (and wasn't that a marvel that he didn't outright curse the muggle for his audacity mistreating his Lady?) didn't seem to sense a difference in his sudden coolness. Whereas they had shared holidays, trips and breakfast before, Lucius was silent and contemplative when he saw Vernon Dursley bent down a bit to listen to Harriet.

Suddenly, the muggle nodded, patted Harriet's head, waved to Lucius who nodded curtly, and left.

"I could have restrained myself and still endure the journey with him." He heard his son whined to his lady. "Anything other than that death trap."

"Come Lucius, let's be in our way. Uncle Vernon is heading home, but I think we can go for lunch before going home ourselves." Harriet told him with a determined glare.

Lucius' jaws clenched with irritation, but he wordlessly led them to his car.

"My Lady" he started when he was about to start the car.

"Drive slowly, so that Draco didn't die of a heart attack before he saw the dragon eggs hatched." Harriet cut him off, still looking out the windows.

"But Lucius," she continued when he drove off the hospital. "Whatever happened between my family and I have been resolved. We have made peace with the past. If you think about it carefully, you must have realized that my differences with Thomas and your colleagues run way deeper than my family. If I can forgive Thomas and all of you, why can't I do the same with my family? They merely made my childhood uncomfortable, but I will never know my parents even after I forgive Thomas."

"So why are you forgiving us?" the Steward questioned impassively. "You gave us new purpose, even new life, for some of my brethren. If it wasn't for the remunerations that you enforced, a lot of them would be living in poverty, even forced to become a criminal. Scabior for example, and myself."

"You? A criminal?" Harriet snorted. "Not bloody likely. You're the type of people who work from the shadows, advisor and all. Besides, you're a Lord on your own right. Why did you agree to work for me? or for Thomas for that matter? We're half-bloods, you do know that, right?"

Lucius tilted his head in contemplation. "I was bound by a fealty oath to my Lord. I will admit that I have cursed your name on the beginning of my Stewardship, but then I saw that the remunerations, the work that you set us to do, actually helped us. So…I still didn't understand though. As for poverty" he coughed uncomfortably.

"My father, and then I, used a lot of our gold to fund our Lord's first rise of power, and then to keep me out of Azkaban. The Ministry took a lot back then, and we're living off Narcissa's allowance from The Ancient and Noble House of Black. My business eventually recovered, but there are a lot of people who are wary of doing business with us because of my past. It's more or less the same with my other brethren. We made enough to live well, but we've seen declines that will see us impoverished in a few decades."

"We're on the verge of poverty?!" Draco, who sat in the back exclaimed.

"Not quite right now. May be when you're in your fifties. Well, there's your mother's dowry, but I'm reluctant to take that from her. It's hers and is for her maintenance after I'm gone. She offered, of course, but as long as I can take care of our family, I will." Lucius answered.

"That is also why all of my brethren didn't question about serving you as well. You saved our life."

Harriet smiled at that.

"That is good then. I should hope that by offering retribution to the victim of the war's families, it helped with your private businesses and reputations." She said offhandedly.

"It has." Lucius agreed. "Some people are still suspicious, of course, but it has helped tremendously for people to open their doors, however begrudgingly."

"Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia have come a long way from their irrational fears and hatred of anything abnormal. I hope you didn't treat him differently, Lucius. He genuinely liked you." Harriet said with a smile as they stopped at a café near a bookstore for lunch.

"I like him too. But abusing a child…a magical child at that…" he grumbled.

"Oh, he didn't really abuse me. I imagine that had I been born a boy, he might, but he didn't. It was just words, chores, punishments. So, neglect maybe, but abuse? Not so much. Anyways, we're getting on fine, and it's been so long since I last had a chore."

"But you still worked, and you were still a child." Draco pointed out.

"It's not something I didn't enjoy, and it's no different than other teenagers in the muggle world. Granted that I started younger, but the money I earned is mine to do as I please. If I contributed to the household, it wasn't because they asked it of me, but because I wanted to." Harriet shrugged.

"that's true, I suppose."

They all ended the conversation and drove home after lunch deep in thought. Harriet was pleased to note that Lucius greeted Uncle Vernon normally and chatted with him before heading home himself.

The rest of the holiday passed in blur and all of a sudden, they were already back in the Hogwarts Express, heading back to the castle.

"So, Professor Higgs let out that we will meet three times a week, instead of the usual two for the rest of the time until the tournament. Are you excited?" Padma asked.

"Eh, I wasn't really interested to begin with. I'm alright, I supposed, though I might be more serious now." Harriet shrugged. "I wouldn't want to lose in my first or second fight. It would be so embarrassing."

"You mean you weren't serious before?! Harriet, you wiped the floor with half the junior teams, and that includes our upperclassmen!" Su Li exclaimed in disbelief.

"That is a bit of an overstatement. So far, I have used four, maybe five spells in the whole fight, which was why Professor Higgs was quite upset I missed the boot camp."

"What's a boot camp?" Daphne frowned in confusion. "Camp for the shoes?"

Harriet snorted. Trust Daphne to think that.

"It's a muggle expression for military kind of training camp." She turned to Padma and Su Li. "he said that I can't rely on my quick draw forever. Most of my win had been because I throw out Expelliarmus quickly and the opponent was disarmed quickly, which might work well for the Hogwarts population which never had any dueling training, but might make me look inept in the international circuit where the participants had most likely trained since first year. Well, I wouldn't want to be called inept, of course."

"Oh."

Now that they thought about it, they realized that Expelliarmus was the spell of choice whenever Harriet was on the floor, and the one that survived the Expelliarmus usually fell victim of the same spell after a tripping jinx or a full-on blasting hex if you annoyed her enough. And since it was done so quickly, she gained a rather fearsome reputation only by employing Expelliarmus, Tripping Jinx, Blasting Hex, occasionally Petrificus Totalus and one memorable occasion of transfiguration of a third-year team member's shoes into mice that she was deathly afraid of, causing chaos to the Dueling Class. (The third year had to be taken to the hospital wing for a calming draught and promptly resigned from the Duelling Club, no matter how much Professor Flitwick begged.)

"I really don't think that you'd have any problem, but yeah. On the other hand, imagine your opponent's face if they were taken out in the first round by an Expelliarmus!" Su Li giggled. "You wouldn't be the inept one then."

Harriet hummed.

"That's true enough, of course, but I'll be predictable and boring, and that's something I strive to not be. I was thinking Runes." She said offhandedly.

"Runes? But that's too advance!" Padma interjected.

"That's the point. It's flashy, but simple enough to do that if I defeat my opponent by Expelliarmus, no one will think too much about it." Harriet turned her eyes back to her books as her friends shook their heads at each other.

"Only you would find something too complicated for the rest of us simpletons simple and used it to justify your fondness of using the disarming charms instead of learning something else." Su Li shook her head.

Harriet shrugged at that. If push came to shove, she had a couple of spells she can use, of course, but it wouldn't do to reveal her hands in front of her friends. They still have to spar with each other, after all, and she'd love to see the expression in her friends face when they found out about it. She smiled secretly as her friends turned to let her read in peace.