Draco shrugged. "I've only met him a handful of times since he got out of Azkaban and I was too young to remember him before he was imprisoned. He never leaves his brother's side and he doesn't speak either. He relied heavily on his brother while in Azkaban and now he can't do anything without him. It's only in the last few months that he's stopped clinging to his brother's arm all day every day. I'd heard that they even had to share the same bed."
"Enough." Lucius cut in sternly. "Our guests will be here momentarily, the Lestranges are not known for lateness. I will not risk having them hear such talk which could then compromise Harry's betrothal."
"Will…will he even speak to me?" Harry asked. He got a smack to the back of the head with the familiar hex for speaking when Lucius had closed the topic.
"He will." He was told tersely and he bit his tongue to stave off his other questions.
He sipped at his tea and tried not to spill it in the flimsy, vintage, china cup, nor slam it down on the matching saucer. Narcissa hit him with a hex every single time he did that and she got a sour look on her face too, for daring to risk her finest bone china with his rough handling.
"I'm going to be sick." He said softly.
"No, you're not, you'll be just fine." Lucius all but demanded of him.
Narcissa came over to him, however, standing behind the settee that he was sitting on and she stroked her hands across his slim, narrow shoulders and hummed lightly to him, calming and soothing him and Harry sunk into her hands, into her care for him. He'd never known anything else like it before and he found himself craving it desperately.
"Stop pandering to the boy, Cissa, he's sixteen, not four."
"He wasn't raised as we raised our Draco; he's a different boy entirely, Lucius. We taught Draco how to handle pressure and nervousness, Harry hasn't had that luxury." "You handle Quidditch matches alright." Draco told him.
"That's different. I can play Quidditch and I like it, it's just a game and the nerves make me perform better when I'm in the air. This is completely different; this is my future marriage I'm trying to sort out. It's not a game."
"Try and apply the same tactics." Narcissa told him kindly. "Use your nervousness to perform better today. Just remember what you've been taught. No nervous laughter, no embarrassing topics of conversation and don't create awkward silences, keep the conversation flowing."
"How do I do that when he won't speak?" Harry asked.
"He will speak, just be patient with him. He's still a man, Harry, and he will have his pride. He just needs his brother to fall back on after all of the hardships that he's been forced through. He's just a little lost, is all."
Harry nodded and sucked in a shaky breath and let it out slowly. His nerves spiked back up when he thought about what the hell he was going to say, what did he say to a man who was thirty-six and had spent fifteen years in prison?
"What do I talk about?" He asked quietly.
"Your studies." Draco told him immediately. "How you're doing in school, what career you want, how many children you want. You're not here to talk about niceties; you're here to set up the budding beginnings of marriage. Show yourself off, talk about your wealth, your lordships and how much you're enjoying the Wizengamot meetings. Do not mention the weather or anything else just as inane and nothing to do with the war either, or you risk offending them or making yourself look completely foolish. Talk about anything you think will help the Lestranges realise that you'll be the perfect bride for Rabastan."
Harry snarled and went to stand up to pummel Draco into mush, but Narcissa jerked on his shoulders and sat him back down, swatting his head with a careful hand as she did so.
"There will be none of that." She declared fiercely. "Don't goad him, Draco. It's far beneath this family. You know that he will be a consort, not a bride."
Harry calmed himself down, simmering the cold rage that had just been there, under the surface, waiting to come out. He didn't like this cold rage; he didn't like the thought that he'd take it out on just anyone when the one person that he wanted to unleash it on was Bellatrix. She had been the one to kill Sirius, it was her fault that he was dead and his body lost to the veil. He'd even tried to cast the Cruciatus curse on her…the next time he'd take her advice and really, truly mean it, right down to his very soul. The next time, she wouldn't be getting back up again and his curse would stick…
Harry felt a pinch to his shoulder and he took in a deeper than normal breath, but he didn't show any other sign that he'd been pinched by Narcissa. He looked to where Lucius was greeting four people, who had been shown in by the Malfoy house-elf, Pimsey, and he swallowed, his heart started racing and his palms started to sweat.
He remained seated as was expected of him and he greeted Xerxes Lestrange first as the head of the Lestrange family. He smiled genuinely; he liked Xerxes, even if he was always sniffing around his ankles. Which was a hilarious analogy really as the man was three times the size of Harry at six foot six at least, whereas Harry was still waiting for a growth spurt at five foot three. "This is my son, Rhadamanthus." Xerxes introduced and Harry had to force a smile at the cold, calculating glitter in those pale eyes.
Rhadamanthus was shorter than his father, at six foot two, but he had the same amount of muscle bulk and the same broad shoulders. It seemed that everything else he must have taken from his mother, from the pale hair to the paler eyes.
Rhadamanthus squeezed his hand hard as he brought it to his lips, but instead of laying a simple pressure on the back of Harry's hand with his lips, the man flicked out the tip of his slimy tongue and licked it, the angle made it impossible for anyone to see him doing such a thing, even Harry himself couldn't see it, but he could feel it and he knew that the man had just offered him an insult.
He calmed himself and forced his body not to react to what had been done, he forced himself to ignore the glistening wet patch on the back of his hand and he had to fight with himself to keep from wiping it. Xerxes he liked…his son, Rhadamanthus, was a filthy pig.
"This is my oldest grandson, Rodolphus." Xerxes carried on, not knowing that his son had just offended and insulted him and had actually slobbered all over the back of his hand.