[From Samhain to the Solstice]: The Phoenix of the Malfoys, gen, PG-13, 2/3
Part One.
Title: The Phoenix of the Malfoys (2/3)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Lucius/Narcissa, otherwise gen
Content Notes: AU after fifth year, angst, violence
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: This part 5600
Summary: AU. In the Department of Mysteries, Lucius Malfoy sees a prophecy with his name on it. He picks it up-and hears that Harry Potter will be the salvation of his family. Now if the stubborn boy will just let Lucius mentor him...
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “From Samhain to the Solstice” fics for this year. It will have three parts. The title refers to an old definition of “phoenix” as a remarkable person or thing.
Part Two
“Faaaather, what is Potter doing here?”
Well, I thought things were going well last night, Lucius thought, his eyebrows arching a little as he surveyed the scene in front of him from the top of the Manor’s grand staircase. Draco was standing with his arms folded, glaring at Potter in baffled offense. Potter, meanwhile, was standing with one hand on the door of the dining room, staring back.
“I want to know what he’s doing here!” Draco turned towards Lucius, and, to Lucius’s private dismay, stamped his foot. Lucius sighed. He had thought he was raising a son who would be more composed in public than that.
“He is here to help us with the interpretation of the prophecy,” said Lucius, taking a step towards his son. Most of the time, that was enough to convince Draco to pay attention to his father. This time, it didn’t work. Draco only gaped.
“That’s real? I thought it wasn’t real.”
“Do I often lie to you, Draco?”
If the step he took hadn’t been enough to convince his son to pay attention to him, the warning tone in Lucius’s voice should have been. But Draco completely ignored him. He turned and pointed an accusing finger in Potter’s direction. “There’s nothing he can help us with! He’s just the son of a blood traitor and a filthy Mudblood!”
Potter’s back straightened, and he stared at Draco for a moment with gleaming eyes. Then he nodded to Lucius, said, “Mr. Malfoy," and walked into the dining room.
Draco stared after him. Lucius, meanwhile, journeyed the rest of the way down the stairs and gripped the back of Draco’s neck with a firm hand, steering him towards his study.
“Why are we going this way, Father?” Draco stumbled, and seemed outraged when Lucius just hauled him back onto his feet and kept him moving, not bothering to stop and ask if he was all right. “You’re hurting me!”
They reached the study, and Lucius released Draco towards a chair while shutting and Locking the door firmly behind him. “I wonder if I could explain to you certain facts of life, Draco, that have to do with the very real prophecy that binds us to Potter now and the inadvisability of insulting one’s allies.”
“Potter can’t be our ally.” Draco wiped dust off his sleeve and glared at Lucius. “He’s not a pure-blood.”
“People can be powerful and relevant in a way not based on blood status, Draco.” Lucius was speaking through gritted teeth, but in truth, he blamed himself more than he did his son. He never should have encouraged that slavish devotion to blood status. He had thought he was encouraging Draco to speak those words around people who would expect to hear them, like Crabbe and Goyle’s sons, while believing otherwise in private, but it seemed that subtlety, too, had escaped Draco.
"But that's not what you said."
Draco was staring at him in bewilderment. Lucius sighed and sat down in the chair opposite Draco. Perhaps he had been too subtle for his son. He had long since accepted that Draco had been Sorted into Slytherin based on his ambition rather than his cunning.
"It's the sort of mask that other Death Eaters would expect from me," he told Draco. "But in practice, you know the Ministry is full of Mu--Muggleborns and half-bloods. How do you think I could work with them if I took all the blood purist nonsense absolutely seriously?"
Draco blinked several times. His eyes seemed larger than normal. "So it's a mask?"
"Yes." Lucius leaned forwards. "You have seen me speak respectfully of select half-bloods, even, like your Head of House. I am interested to know what you were telling yourself at the time."
"Professor Snape is a half-blood?"
"So your thinking was affected by ignorance." Lucius leaned back in his chair this time, and sighed a little, wishing it wasn't too early in the morning for Firewhisky to be acceptable. "Listen to me, son. Are you going to be able to respect Potter, especially since he represents the only practical chance for our family to succeed?"
Draco stared at his hands. Then he mattered, "Was that just a mask, too?"
"What, that I care about my family? Certainly not." Lucius refused to allow Draco to think that, no matter how much he needed to reeducate him. "I would do anything for you, Draco. I--love you." It was hard to force the words out for all that they were true, because his father had taught him so firmly otherwise. Do whatever was needed for family, but do not reveal that weakness aloud.
"No. I meant--I thought Potter was arrogant and just saying he hated his fame to fit in better with Weasley as a blood traitor who had nothing. But maybe that was the truth and the arrogance was a mask that I fit on him." Draco stared at Lucius. "How can I find out?"
Lucius caught his breath and refused to smile the way he wanted to. That would only put Draco on the defensive. "Well, one thing you might think of is talking to the boy," he said. "It may take some time. He has no reason to trust you right now."
"But you don't blame me for that, right, Father?" Draco's voice was low. "I mean, whenever I talked to you about what I did to Potter in the past few years, you just--"
"I ignored it, while pretending to praise you, because I thought that you had chosen the path to set your feet on, and there was no point in encouraging you to turn back or regretting it," Lucius corrected him. He softened his voice when he saw how devastated Draco looked. "You have the chance to turn back now. Speak to him, Draco. Learn what really motivates him. And apologize."
The look of distaste Draco gave him hadn't changed at all from the time he was three and Lucius had ordered him to apologize for stealing Pansy Parkinson's ice. "Do I have to, Father?"
"Yes. And you sound as if you're whinging when you talk like that, Draco."
Draco took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. "You wouldn't be ordering me to apologize if Potter wasn't vital to the future of our family," he said, as if he wanted to check on that.
"No," Lucius had to admit. "But one thing to keep in mind is that in general, you can earn more with flattery and apologies and soft words than you can with hard ones."
"I've heard you use hard ones plenty of times, Father!"
"I did not say that it was easy to remember the lesson," Lucius corrected him gently.
Draco took a breath and blinked. "I didn't know anything was hard for you," he whispered. "It never seemed like that."
Lucius placed a hand on his shoulder. He had learned the lesson for himself, and by watching the things his father did instead of what he said. Then again, he did not want to be the kind of father to Draco that Abraxas Malfoy had been to him. "I assure you that I have suffered through challenges in my life," he said. "Part of that suffering was learning the lessons that I can put to good use now, and that is one reason I am respected more than I used to be. But I would have you earn as much respect as I have with less suffering."
Draco gave him the worshipful look that Lucius was more used to seeing from him. "Whatever you say, Father."
Lucius straightened his son's hair, the gesture that conveyed affection between them in the same way that Narcissa's forehead kisses for Draco did. "Now, let's go see Potter and whether he's willing to listen to apologies."
*
"I know you don't like me."
That had been Potter's only response when Draco went into the dining room and apologized. Lucius lingered in the doorway, and watched Potter eat, his eyes on the bowl of porridge as if it was the only real thing in the world.
"But I apologized!" Draco's face was turning pink. "I know that you listened to my parents apologize, or why would you still be here instead of running away to one of your blood traitor friends?"
Lucius closed his eyes and exhaled hard. He had thought Draco had learned better than that.
"That's what I mean," Potter said, and took in a spoonful of porridge with what seemed to Lucius to be a particularly vicious slurp. On purpose, of course. When Lucius peered into the dining room again, Potter was looking at Draco. "I don't think your parents like me either, but at least they're polite. They didn't insult my friends the minute I refused to listen to them, which was a lot. And they gave me a nice room here and good food and a place to bathe. I think you would probably throw me out if you could."
"But I apologized. Do you know how rare that is, Potter?"
"No."
Lucius decided to intervene at that point, as he could see the lines around Draco's mouth tightening in a distinctly unpleasant way. "You've made your point, Draco, and you've made yours, Mr. Potter. Will you come with me into the library, Mr. Potter? Narcissa has something she'd like to speak with you about."
"I suppose I just don't count, then," Draco said, sitting down at the other edge of the table with a huff.
"Not for much," Potter agreed, and then Lucius hastily escorted him out of the dining room.
"I would appreciate it if you would not be rude to my son," Lucius murmured as they headed for the library.
"At the moment, I would just look weak if I was polite." Potter shrugged, opening the door in front of them and not waiting for the house-elf to do it. Ippy squeaked and looked upset. Lucius opened his mouth to reassure the elf, but Potter was continuing. "He would think I'd forgiven him and he could insult Ron and Hermione and my mother and anyone else he liked around me, and then I'd have to punch him in the face and it would ruin everything."
"I will not tolerate physical violence against my son, Potter."
"No, just mental violence from him."
Lucius pinched his lips shut and followed Potter the rest of the way into the library, determined to sit quietly. Since Narcissa was the one who had found the book on living Horcruxes and the ritual to get a human to stop being one, she was the person who had to handle the conversation with Potter, anyway.
Lucius glanced at his wife to let her know what they were dealing with, although she might have sensed it already, looking at the expression on Potter's face. She only nodded and patted the couch beside her.
"Please come sit with me, Mr. Potter. I have something to explain to you."
Once again, Lucius thought as he took the seat across from the couch, he was glad that it was his wife, and not him.
*
Potter was staring straight ahead at the wall now with blank eyes. They had got through the stage where he hotly denied what Narcissa was saying, and the stage where he cursed and might have broken objects if they were within reach. Narcissa had grasped Potter's arms and held him firmly on the couch through that stage, saying that she understood the impulse, but she didn't want Potter tearing up the books that might help him overcome this.
Potter had been blank-eyed for long enough that Lucius was starting to get a bit concerned, but Narcissa caught his glance and shook her head firmly.
Potter abruptly drew in a huge breath that made it sound as if he was coming back to life, and turned to include both Lucius and Narcissa both in his gaze. His eyes shone as they had once Lucius had got him back to the Manor and away from his Muggle relatives. "Teach me."
"To do what?" Lucius asked. He was wary enough now to not assume he knew the answer to that question, despite how much one particular one would benefit him and his family.
The green eyes in front of him began to glow with fire. Lucius blinked. He didn't think he had ever seen Potter like this, even when he was in the battle at the Department of Mysteries.
"To use Dark Arts. To understand this ritual. How to get on with people I despise." Potter looked at Lucius when he said that, his lip curled a little, as if he thought Lucius would be particularly good at that for some reason. "How to do anything to defeat him."
Lucius smiled. He had been waiting for this, and although he wouldn't have thought the revelation of carrying a piece of disgusting, corrupted soul in his head would make Potter commit to their mutual goal, he'd take it.
"Then come into my study, Mr. Potter. We should talk."
*
"Whose owl is that, Mr. Potter?"
Potter drew a difficult breath as he stared at the tiny owl hooting insistently in front of him on the table, clutching a letter almost bigger than it was. From down the table, Draco puffed up as if he wanted to say something, but kept his mouth closed. Lucius smiled at him in approval, and Narcissa reached out to touch Draco's shoulder.
"Ron's," Potter said softly. He reached out a hand, and then drew it back. "Do you think he would have sent me a Portkey or a letter with one of those curses that you talked about last week?"
"I don't think he would have," Lucius said. He was making an effort to be fair to Potter's friends after seeing how sensitive he was about them. "But someone might have done it for him. If you will permit me?" He raised his wand.
After nearly ten days in Malfoy Manor without harm from one of them, Potter no longer flinched at the sight of their wands, but he did frown. "Not if you're going to hurt Pigwidgeon."
Lucius valiantly ignored the owl's name and his own temptation to say something about it. "No. It only reveals the contents of the letter."
Potter nodded at last, and the silver light of the spell encircled the letter. Lucius watched carefully as the message was projected in dusty grey letters on the air, along with a summary of any spells or curses on it. He sighed as he saw his own name and Draco's in the message, but politely averted his eyes from it after that, studying the list of spells instead.
The letter was a Portkey and was also soaked in a potion that was supposed to reveal mental compulsions. Well, if they knew that Potter was here, it was natural they should think that, but Lucius did feel a bit of offense that they had thought the worst of him, but also believed that whatever measures he had taken could be defeated with something so simple.
"Ron," Potter muttered darkly.
"I take it he is insulting?" Lucius glanced back as the list of spells and the projection of the message both vanished.
"He says that they found some sign of your magic near the Dursleys' house, and I've probably been taken, but since it's been so long with no one hearing from me, that must mean I'm under the influence of an 'evil spell.' Or a potion. There's 'no way that Malfoy has anything worth saying.'" Potter folded his arms, scowling. "I know he has reason to think that way, but I wish he could have been more polite."
Lucius concealed his smile behind a teacup. Potter was learning to value politeness and subtlety under Lucius's tutoring. That wouldn't have been something he picked up on a fortnight ago.
"Why does he have a reason?" interrupted Draco, who had usually been quiet around Potter since Lucius's talk with him. Lucius sent him a warning glance, but Draco was too focused on Potter to notice. "He's rude and he doesn't respect you and we haven't done him any harm!"
Potter gave Lucius a hard stare. Lucius just shook his head a little. Draco didn't know about the diary that Lucius had pawned off on the Weasley girl, and Lucius would rather it stayed that way.
"He's been encouraged all his life to distrust people with your last name," Potter said, with a shrug. "The way you have been to hate people with his last name. If you ever have a hope of me forgiving you, I have to forgive him, right?"
Draco shut his mouth where he'd had it open, and turned violently pink. Lucius would have appreciated it if he hadn't shown his embarrassment so openly, but at least he was listening now.
"It's just different, that's all," Draco muttered, bowing his head and picking for a moment at the crust of his toast. "I'm not insulting you personally. Anymore," he added, when one of Potter's eyebrows almost launched itself off his face.
"Whatever you say, Draco," Potter said sweetly, and put less marmalade on his toast than he would have a week ago. Narcissa's lessons were having their impact, too.
"I didn't say you could call me by my first name!"
Lucius subjected the ceiling to an eye-roll, and Narcissa subjected Draco to a swift whisper in his ear. Draco coughed, and turned bright red. Lucius turned back to Potter to see him fending off the little owl.
"What kind of response should I send?" he asked Lucius.
Lucius spared a moment to luxuriate in the fact that Potter was asking him, before he said, "That depends on what you want to say. I would caution against confirming that you are here, unless you want your Order to storm the wards. But you can tell him that you know what you are doing and you'll talk to him in more detail when you see him again."
"I think I'll do that." Potter's eyes were glinting. "See how they feel about me having secrets from them for once."
Lucius made an inquiring sound. Potter looked at him, and his eyes stopped glinting.
"Never mind," was all he said.
Lucius only nodded. There were some personal things that Potter had not trusted him with, and might never do so. But as long as he was working with Potter to train him and was trusted on that, he could leave the rest behind.
As much as Draco and Narcissa, at the moment, looked as if they would rather not.
*
"But you have not been taught even the simplest of countercurses!" Lucius waved his wand over his head.
Potter ducked and rolled out of the way, even though Lucius had not intended to cast a spell. Lucius nodded in reluctant praise of his dodging skills. That was one particular thing Potter did not need to learn from him.
"You forget that I've had five years of mostly terrible Defense education," Potter panted, standing up.
"So has Draco, and he knows his countercurses!"
Potter stared at him. "And he grew up with parents who taught him that kind of thing. I didn't even know I was a wizard until I was eleven, because some bastard murdered my parents."
Lucius paused and then nodded. "My apologies." Those words came more easily to him than they ever had to his son. He waited until Potter relaxed to add, "And why did you never know that you were a wizard until you were eleven?"
"You forget that I grew up with Muggles--"
"But Dumbledore would have sent someone to inform you before then."
Potter sneered at him. "Of course he didn't. I don't know why, but he wanted me ignorant of everything, not just the prophecy and this--Horcrux that links us." He took a deep breath. "Sometimes people would bow to me on the street when I was a kid, and sometimes strange things would happen to me, like turning my teacher's hair blue or winding up on the roof of the school when my cousin and his friends were chasing me. That's not the same thing as knowing I was a wizard, or there was a wizarding world out there filled with people who wanted to kill me."
"I suppose," Lucius said with a hollow feeling in his chest, "you're also going to tell me that Ron Weasley was your first friend?"
Potter nodded sharply. "My cousin kept me from having any before that. He and his family called me a 'freak,' and no one wanted to be friends with a freak."
Lucius swallowed. He understood, now, why Potter had reacted so violently to Draco's disparagement of Ron Weasley.
And it was not something he could reveal to his son. He would not betray Potter's confidence like that.
"Well," he said at last, "perhaps we are providing the kind of training for you that Dumbledore should have provided."
Potter nodded. "You are. And you're doing it to save your own skins, but that's something I can understand. Dumbledore said that he loved me too much to tell me about the prophecy, but he also said that he knew he was condemning me to a 'dark and difficult' time with the Dursleys. I don't understand that."
"What did they do besides chase you and call you a freak?" Lucius whispered, suddenly afraid of what he might learn.
"Nothing in particular." The confidences had evidently ended for the afternoon, as Potter glanced around at the pitted stone walls of the dueling chamber and spun his wand lightly in his hand. "Can you show me the Shrieking Curse again? I think I almost defeated it this time."
Lucius considered trying to push, and then decided not to. Potter was right that he needed more practice, and nothing he had revealed today was of the sort that required immediate action.
But now that he knew he was dealing with a child abused by horrible Muggles, some of the things Lucius was teaching him would change.
*
"The letter's from Hermione this time."
Lucius had been about to curse the little owl when it showed up, or at least cast a spell that would bar it from Malfoy Manor for the foreseeable future, but he reluctantly held back when he recognized the tone in Potter's voice. For whatever reason, reading this letter was important to him.
Potter cast the message-reading spell himself this time. Narcissa was watching narrowly, and nodded a little when Lucius glanced at her. Good, Potter had performed the spell correctly, even though it was wordless. Lucius's teaching had begun to pay off.
There was no list of spells or curses detailed, only the words of the message. That at least implied that Harry's friends were learning how to read the situation, Lucius thought. Then he frowned a little as he wondered whether he should be referring to the young man by his first name, even in his head.
Draco, down the table, was biting his lips as if that would stop the words from escaping. Lucius didn't care if that was how he did it, as long as he did it.
Potter read silently and then sighed to himself. "She says that I must have a good reason for going with you, but she still wants to see me. By herself. She wants to 'discuss' things and hear what the good reason is."
"I am sorry to say that I do not think it advisable," Narcissa murmured in a mild voice. "This young woman is devoted to authority, you said. She might invite an adult to come with her, or be overawed into it, and truly think it for the best."
"I'm not stupid," Potter said, and then seemed to think about the tone of his voice. He sighed and shook his head. "Sorry, Mrs. Malfoy. But I'm not going to meet with her by herself. I'm going to write a letter and explain some things."
"I would--appreciate it if you would not mention the prophecy I found." Lucius could only imagine how Dumbledore, who he was sure would read the letter, would try to twist that to his advantage, considering what he had done with the first one that mentioned Harry.
"Of course not." Harry gave him a grim little smile. "And I'm going to use the curse on that letter that you taught me a few days ago."
"Which one?" Truly, their lessons had proceeded at an astonishing pace once Harry was over his odd prejudice against the Dark Arts. Lucius had taught him several curses "a few days ago."
"The one that destroys a message if someone other than the intended recipient tries to read it."
Lucius blinked. "I taught you that for messages that someone might leave written on a wall or one delivered by Patronus. Do you truly think you can adapt it to a letter?" There was a version that would work the way Potter was talking about, but it was complex, and Lucius had judged it was better to wait to teach him it.
"Yes," Potter said, with enough confidence that Lucius eyed him. Potter shrugged without backing down. "I've been reading those books in the library that you suggested I read."
"You've never been--a reader," Draco said, in the strained tones of someone trying to be polite despite what he thought was massive incitement to be otherwise.
Potter turned to Draco, but took his time about answering. "That's true. But lots of things changed when Sirius died."
"I know that my cousin was your godfather, but I did not understand what he was doing in the Department of Mysteries," Narcissa said quietly. "Why did he come there? Why did he protect you when he betrayed your parents?"
"He was innocent," Potter said, and his eyes darkened and a shiver of what some people might call "accidental" magic made the dishes on the table bounce. Lucius meant to see that magic harnessed by the end of summer. "Peter Pettigrew, the man he supposedly killed, betrayed my parents instead." He gestured with his chin at Lucius. "Ask him. He was there in the graveyard after Voldemort's resurrection, when Peter was there, helping."
Lucius held up his hands defensively as Narcissa turned a cold gaze on him. "It is true. I simply did not consider it." Perhaps he should have. He knew how Narcissa felt about her family. He just hadn't known that would include someone who had turned his back on everything the Blacks stood for.
"I would have liked to know," said Narcissa, in the sort of tone that said they would be Talking later, and turned back to Harry. "So you have recommitted to fighting this war in a different fashion?"
"Yes. And now I know why I had that vision of Sirius in danger in the first place..." Potter took a slow, deep breath. "I know that I can prevent what happened to him from happening to anyone else I care for."
Once again, his eyes blazed with that fire that Lucius winced at the sight of and was drawn to. If they could get Harry to consider the Malfoys some of the people he would fight for that hard, then Lucius thought he could stop worrying about his own safety, never mind Narcissa's and Draco's.
"Why did you have that vision?" Draco blurted.
They hadn't told Draco about the Horcrux, of course. Lucius had been forced to accept that his son wasn't clear-eyed about his own abilities or his own discretion. He would have to prove that he could be trusted with the knowledge.
"It's a link between me and Voldemort," Harry said, ignoring the way Draco flinched at the name. He turned back to Lucius. "I'd like to send that message to Hermione and explain a few things, with the destruction spell in place. I don't want to turn my back on my friends completely, no matter how angry at them I am."
"Why are you angry?" Lucius asked.
"They haven't written to me since the beginning of summer, except since I've been here. They didn't write to me last summer, either."
Lucius blinked. That seemed out of character for the Weasley and Granger he knew, although admittedly he knew them more from Draco's stories and Harry's incidental mentions than direct observation. "Why?"
"Why they didn't write to me this summer, I have no idea. Last year, apparently Dumbledore told them not to." Harry sighed, his eyes still fixed on the tiny owl, which had begun to help itself to bacon from Lucius's plate. "That's the--link I have to him. Apparently Dumbledore was afraid that I would see too much and somehow feed it to him."
Draco stood up, pale. "What are you saying? That the Dark Lord could know everything that's happening here?"
"I'll explain later, darling," Narcissa murmured, leaning over to him. She short Lucius a meaningful look as she stood. Lucius nodded. She would want help with that explanation, help he was willing to give. Right now, he thought he had to be more concerned with Harry.
"They left you alone with your grief over the death of your godfather and the grief over the death of the Diggory boy, as well as the residue from being part of a necromantic ritual to resurrect the Dark Lord," Lucius said, when Narcissa and Draco had left the room. "Is that what you're saying?"
"You were there in the graveyard that night. You played your part."
Lucius inclined his head. "I was not saying that to excuse my part--what there was of it," he felt he had to add. He had not killed Diggory or threatened Potter that night, and he wanted to keep the boy focused on what had happened. "But they left you alone?"
"Yeah." Potter sighed and leaned back. "I mean, my temper was pretty awful this past year, but they didn't know that when they just stopped writing to me last summer. I hadn't yelled at them then or anything. They just--got told not to, and so they didn't."
"I begin to agree with my wife on Granger's over-valuation of authority."
Harry's face was weary. "Don't say anything about them, okay? They haven't been as close to me these past few summers, but they still went to the Department of Mysteries with me and fought your lot. They're still the closest of my friends. I owe them an explanation about what's going on."
Lucius paused a moment, then ventured, "I noticed that you are going to address it to Granger alone, and not Weasley."
"Yeah." Harry traced a finger over the table, and Lucius tried to be as quiet as he could, so as not to interrupt this moment. There were clearly Abraxans flying through Potter's head, carrying new thoughts. "I still--Ron still sent that letter with the Portkey spell on it, and the compulsion-canceling potion. Hermione trusts me enough to ask me about what's going on. Ron just assumed I couldn't have made the decision of my own free will. And he forgot that I'm immune to the Imperius Curse, which means I'd have a pretty good chance of beating other mind-control things, too."
Lucius remembered the moment he had watched this child throw off the Dark Lord's Imperius Curse, and nodded. That was probably the first sign that he should have switched sides. "I understand. I ask only that you allow me to examine the letter for the spell before you send it off, to make sure it has been performed correctly to destroy the message if anyone other than Granger should read it."
Potter waited, then asked suspiciously, "You're not going to tell me not to say anything secret about your family?"
"I trusted that I would not have to."
Lucius had only spoken the truth, but it made Potter blush more darkly than Draco for some reason. "Oh," he said, and then cleared his throat hastily and continued, "Well, I won't. I think your son might still be a prat, but I'm grateful for what you and Mrs. Malfoy did for me."
Lucius kept his expression calm as he nodded. He might seem manipulative if he rejoiced too much in front of Potter. "You are welcome. Are you going to be ready to proceed with the ritual in a month?"
"Yeah. I want to get it done before I go back to Hogwarts."
When he listened for it, Lucius heard not a Gryffindor's typical rashness, but a steel-like determination. He stood up and crossed over to put a hand briefly on Potter's shoulder. Potter glanced up at him, then turned back to breakfast.
"I'm going to write the letter to Hermione and enchant it after breakfast."
"All right, Harry," Lucius said, and winced a little at the quickness with which Potter's head snapped towards him. Yes, he'd known he couldn't call the boy by his first name in his head for long without tripping up, but he'd hoped he would have more of a chance to practice before he slipped. He waited in dread for this to obliterate some of the progress they'd made.
But Harry just cleared his throat and muttered, "Yes, all right. Thanks, Mr. Malfoy."
Lucius thought it best to nod and leave. Anything else might indeed smack of manipulation.
Even though he would only have tried to be genuinely helpful to Harry, at this point.
Prophecy or no prophecy, it was a strange realization to have about Harry Potter.
Part Three.
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