"You won't have to. You're a Malfoy now, maybe not in name, but you're family and you're betrothed and you said that it's looking more and more like marriage. You have a family now and you're making your own family. You won't have to go back to that, you won't have to go back to them."
Harry's throat felt tight and he had to swallow hard, twice, before he could even speak.
"I just can't believe how different everything is. I've come to depend on you and your parents so much, having that stripped from me now is going to hurt me deeply and…everything is different now. I can see things more clearly, I'm coming to realise my self-worth and I don't want that taken from me. I hate those people for what they did to me."
"I'm going to owl father and tell him, he'll know what to do. Until then, I suggest that you finish that letter to Rabastan, we're almost at the station."
Harry nodded and went back to the letter, changing from purple ink to navy blue and he started telling Rabastan that he needed to see him in person to explain a few things to him. He wondered then if he should tell Rabastan about the Dursleys, but he decided against it. It wasn't something that he wanted to put in a letter. Instead, he told his betrothed that there was something important that he really needed to tell him, something that he needed to know, and that he'd explain everything to him the next time that they met up face-to-face and he left it at that. He signed his name at the bottom of the letter before he took out a new piece of parchment and he wrote to Lucius. He couldn't leave something like this up to Draco to explain, he needed to tell his adoptive father his own version of events as well as Draco's version and, as Draco sent his letter off, Harry hurriedly tried to catch up, knowing that Draco's eagle owl, Saracen, was faster than his Hedwig. He squashed as much as he could into the letter before he took Hedwig from her cage and he handed the hastily scribbled letter to her and gave her feathery head a soft kiss before he sent her off after Saracen. He'd have to wait a little longer to send his letter to Rabastan, he hoped that his betrothed didn't mind too much.
All of this being dragged up, his beatings and his starvation, it made him wonder if that was why he had made such a strong connection to Rabastan in the first place, a person who was a ruin of a man after fifteen years in Azkaban. A man who was so damaged and skeletal that he didn't look healthy enough to be alive, and that was after several months of intensive care and consumption of potent potions. Harry hadn't seen him just after his escape, he didn't know how bad it had been right at the beginning of his recovery but hearing what bits Draco knew was bad enough.
He could relate to Rabastan because he had been beaten and starved for fifteen years as well…he swallowed hard and he vowed to talk about this with his new family and with his betrothed and his family too, especially as he had been forced to watch Draco send off his eagle owl with the letter that would inform Lucius Malfoy that his newest, adopted son had been abused and starved as a child. Hedwig wouldn't be able to outfly Saracen, he was too fast and much bigger and stronger than his little snowy owl, he only hoped that his father read his letter too before he did anything or tried to claim that he was hiding things from him on purpose. He hoped too that Rabastan wouldn't mind his letter being a little late or that he didn't think that he was hiding things from him either. This was all such a mess; he just hoped that it was at all salvageable after it was all said and done.
He had been expecting it, of course. But after the events that had happened on the train, Harry had hoped that Dumbledore would have waited until at least the next day before summoning him to his office to demand answers from him, but no. As soon as the welcoming feast had ended and all the students had been dismissed, Professor McGonagall had come right up to him and told him that the Headmaster wanted to see him immediately in his office and that he particularly enjoyed Bertie Botts Beans this term.
It was bad enough that his own house was shunning him, every single one of them, and he'd been forced to sit on his own after being split apart from Draco when they'd arrived at the Great Hall. Some of the other Gryffindors were even glaring at him and he didn't understand it. He was completely confused over their behaviour. So he'd been adopted, did that actually warrant this amount of vitriol? What business was it of theirs anyway? Why did they get a say in his life or where he lived when they were nothing to him? He didn't understand it.
He'd kept his head down and he'd eaten his dinner quietly, trying to ignore the glares and hissed comments going on around him. This wasn't how he'd imagined the beginning of his sixth year to go, not merely because he'd been adopted, against his knowledge and wishes at first, into the Malfoy family.
He sighed and made his way up to the seventh floor and instead of going with the other Gryffindors and heading to the Tower to get some much-needed sleep, he went the opposite way and made his way to the Headmaster's office for a little chat that he could have really done without, even if he had been expecting it.
"Bertie Botts Beans." He said clinically to the stone gargoyle that guarded the office.
He climbed the winding stairs once the gargoyle had moved aside with a heavy heart and he knocked on the door sharply wishing that he could just go to bed, but he cleared his mind and steeled himself for the talk that was about to be forced on him.
"Please enter." Harry did so and he found himself swept into a tight, crushing hug as soon as he set foot through the door. He laughed when he smelt a familiar scent.
"Hello, Remus. How have you been?"
"I've been going out of my mind with worry."
"I kept telling you that there was nothing to worry about." He said as he pulled back to look at the haggard-looking werewolf.
"I know you did, but I didn't know if you were forced to write that under duress or not, I had to see you with my own eyes. The words you were writing, Merlin, even the way you were writing them was so different from what I know of you. I couldn't trust the letters."
"Oh, Remus, if I'd known that then I would have set up a meeting between us at the Leaky Cauldron to assure you that I was fine, all you had to do was ask. Lucius helped me with my calligraphy, so my writing is actually legible now. I don't smudge the ink all over the parchment with the side of my hand anymore either." Harry said with a grin.
"So, you are alright?"
"Of course. I've never been better. You should see how much I'm learning, Remus! And I've found out that I really like Arithmancy and I have a natural affinity for Ancient Runes. It's brilliant and with what Lucius and Draco have been drilling into me, I'm really excited to start my classes this year."
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