He could only hope now that he could do some damage limitation and get Harry back to his way of thinking during the school year. Perhaps if he told the boy that it had been Sirius who hadn't wanted him to know of his lordships? After all, he was dead now and couldn't contradict him and Harry would be appeased that it had been Sirius' intervention that had prevented him from knowing of his birthright. That might work….yet, he could only hold on to mere hope that it would work at this point. After all, Harry had been living with Lucius Malfoy for six weeks now and there was no telling what the man had done to the boy in that time or what thoughts he had planted into Harry's impressionable, young mind. He needed to work on immediately splitting Harry away from the Malfoys, which was proving to be difficult, much more difficult than he ever would have imagined, but Harry would be at Hogwarts now for the year, so he had some time to work on that, until then though, he had one more week to wait until Harry came back to Hogwarts and then he could assess the damage that had been done to poor Harry and he could plan and act accordingly.
Harry was sat on the scarlet steam train, the Hogwarts Express, in a compartment that was empty except for him and Draco. He was currently quilling an expressive letter to Rabastan. It was already nearing two feet in length and it was only growing longer. He was writing it in several different coloured inks, a new colour for each new paragraph because he believed that it would help Rabastan to keep track of lengthy letters and allow him to easily know what he had already read and what he hadn't.
"I have a pot of silver ink if you need to use it." Draco offered, even as his pointy nose was still buried in his book. He was looking for questions to test Harry with on Arithmancy.
"That would be helpful, thank you, brother." Harry said with a grin, knowing that Draco hated being reminded that he and Harry were now legal brothers by Harry himself, as ridiculous as that seemed.
"Do not call me that or I'll curse you."
"You can try. I will remind you that I am at the very top of our year group in Defence Against the Dark Arts and that I scored the highest 'Outstanding' grade that the examiners have given out for over seventy years." Harry said with a smirk.
Lucius had written to the board of examiners and he had demanded a breakdown of all of Harry's grades and his examination marks. Harry hadn't even known that he could do such a thing, which had earned him a withering stare when he'd voiced that thought. But, Lucius was incredibly pleased and proud of his achievement in Defence Against the Dark Arts…it was just everything else that he wasn't too thrilled about and he'd sat Harry down in his study and had told him that he expected his grades to be much higher this year…or else.
"Just hurry up and finish your love letter. You've been writing it for a week and a half; your betrothed is going to be going out of his mind with worry."
"Our contract states that we have to send so many letters and they have to be a certain collective length. I've been so busy over the last three weeks that my letters have been a little short and clipped, so I wanted to take the time to pour out everything into this one letter because I'm sure that once we get to school I'll be swallowed back up by schoolwork and learning. Not to mention homework and my duties to the Wizengamot and I need to review some more of the neglected Black family accounts too. Eighteen huge, thick folders and I have to personally read them through and change everything I don't like, which is a lot."
"I noticed that you removed the disownment on Sirius, Alphard, and Andromeda." Draco stated in false nonchalance, trying to hide his interest and curiosity.
"You've been itching to question that for the last week, haven't you?" Harry chuckled. "Yes, I welcomed them back into the Black fold. I don't think Sirius' behaviour warranted a disownment, so I reversed that decision and I really don't think giving money to your nephew is grounds to be disowned, so I reversed that decision against Alphard as well. I really don't think that marrying a muggle is grounds for disownment either. Andromeda is a woman, she could never have had the title of Lord Black and with only the one daughter, she is unlikely to ever produce a son. Besides, I am Lord Black now and I fully expect to produce several sons and daughters to carry on all three families that I'm connected to, so I don't see her or her choice of husband as a threat to the Black family."
"Every man fully expects to have a son, sometimes it doesn't work out that way."
Harry chuckled. "Yes, I understand that. But I'm prepared to keep trying and having children until I am completely incapable of having any more children. With that amount of children planned, at least one of them has to be a boy, surely."
"But you need at least three."
"Ah, no. You see I thought that too, but then I started thinking harder about it. I am Lord Potter-Black. I am the lord to two houses. If I do, by some misfortune, only have the one son and a gaggle of girls, then my lone son will be named as the heir to all three houses, the Potter, the Black, and the Lestrange lines and then Rabastan and I will set him up with a suitable match and then he can name his sons as separate heirs…of course, this is all just a hypothetical situation in the event that I only produce the one son in my lifetime, which I think is highly unlikely."
Draco shook his head. "I never would have believed that there was a mind capable of thinking such analytical things inside your head."
Harry laughed. "I've always been good at problem-solving. I have a surprisingly quick mind, but only if it's actually applied to the task. Before, it was only really fully engaged when my life or others' lives were in danger. But if I don't push myself and have the drive and desire to do something, then it goes in one ear and out the other." "Then I suggest you apply yourself one hundred per cent this year, otherwise father will be most displeased and I'll smirk at you internally as you're unable to sit on your chair comfortably."
Harry laughed harder. "I hate that he has the house-elf take the pads from the chairs as an added punishment. Those chairs are hard and horrible without a cushion at the best of times, it's only worse when you have a sore bum."
They didn't mention any more about their home life as the compartment door was pulled open only a few moments later and Draco's Slytherin friends came in and arranged themselves around the compartment as if nothing out of the ordinary had ever happened and that Harry had always been included amongst them. Harry deduced that their parents had told them that he was a pureblooded lord of two old, powerful houses and that they weren't to do anything to him to jeopardise their delicate politics with him. That or they were too composed and refined to say anything after they'd heard of him being adopted into the Malfoy family.
Many of the lords were cosying up to him, likely aware of his strengthening position with the firm betrothal contract between him and the, now heir, of the Lestrange family. Not that that was public knowledge, of course, but it was currently travelling through certain pureblood circles.
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