"Henry—"
"Dobby," Harry said strongly, staring past Mrs. Malfoy's shoulder at the elf, "can you answer me now that I'm a Malfoy? What was the evil plot?"
Dobby slowly stopped twisting his ears and looked up at Harry. His eyes quivered as much as the rest of his face, and then big tears slipped out of them and down his face. He flung himself on the ground and started wailing, beating his fists on the carpet.
Harry grimaced. That hadn't been what he meant to do, and he hurried down the steps and caught Dobby's fists. Dobby nearly kicked him in the jaw before he seemed to get control of himself and stop moving, but then he sniffled and stared at Harry in tragic silence.
"Are you still under orders not to speak about it?" That was the only thing Harry could think of that would make Dobby behave like this now that H
….
"You must know this is an unacceptable way to behave.'
Harry kept silent, staring over Mr. Malfoy's head and out the window of the study. It was enchanted to give some kind of view of a winter forest under a blanket of silver snow. Harry wished that he could be like that. Frozen and still, instead of already sick and wanting to shout again. The numbness that had overcome him when they were on their way to the study had already left him again.
"Henry, are you listening to me?"
"Yes. It's an unacceptable way to behave," Harry droned.
That had always been enough to get him out of trouble with Uncle Vernon, but Mr. Malfoy narrowed his eyes and leaned forwards from behind the huge ebony desk where he probably plotted the kind of evil deeds that Dobby had tried to warn him about. "I want you to understand what I mean."
"I understand that exploding your windows makes you angrier than endangering students at Hogwarts does, sure."
Mr. Malfoy pursed his lips and closed his eyes, exhaling hard. Then, utterly startling Harry, he stood up from behind the desk and gestured to the sleek silver couch on the other side of the study, the same color as the image of the forest outside the window.
Harry went and sat on it, his face pinched. Maybe that made him look more like a real Malfoy. But he still didn't feel that way.
Mr. Malfoy sat on the couch next to him. He bent down and peered into Harry's eyes. Harry stared back and tried his best to put all his disgust and anger into the glare.
They treated Dobby the way the Dursleys used to treat him. If they thought one thing was wrong, they should think the other thing was wrong, too. But they weren't falling all over themselves to tell Dobby that he had to see a Mind-Healer. And Harry thought they would have kept him from seeing Dobby forever if they could.
The anger built and beat under his breastbone, and Mr. Malfoy's desk began to tremble.
"Listen to me, Henry," Mr. Malfoy said softly, and took his hand. Harry started, and the magic faded away. Mr. Malfoy kept staring intently at him.
"Yes," Mr. Malfoy said.
"Yes, what?"
"Yes, I was plotting something to do with the school," Mr. Malfoy said, and sighed. "At the time, it—made sense. It would have caused the kind of chaos that would distract certain enemies in the Ministry from our family, and it would have discredited someone I hate. And it would have…" He hesitated for so long that Harry thought he wouldn't start speaking again, but finally he did. "It would have made the Dark Lord look on us with favor."
Harry ripped his hand away, but Mr. Malfoy didn't move. He kept sitting there and staring, and Harry hated it. For the first time in his life, he appreciated the fact that the Dursleys had sent him to his cupboard when he got angry at them. It meant it was easier to think and unwind in the darkness.
He couldn't get away with Mr. Malfoy staring at him like this. Harry clenched his hands into fists in his lap and threw his words like curses instead. "So, how soon are you going to turn me over to him?"
Mr. Malfoy's eyes closed. "I would never do that to a child of mine, Henry."
"Yes, you would."
"I have asked you before to think before you speak—"
arry was part of the same family.
Dobby nodded, looking relieved. "Dobby wishes he could to the young Master Malfoy, who was the Great Harry Potter!" he said, and then made a motion of locking his lips with a key. "But Big Master Malfoy—"
"Dobby."
That was Mrs. Malfoy's voice, and Harry shivered a little from how cold it was. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Mrs. Malfoy staring at Dobby, her hand clenched down on Draco's shoulder as if she thought that she would have to keep him from moving and going to Harry. Harry didn't think Draco would actually try, though. He looked frozen with shock.
"That will be all, Dobby. You may go."
Dobby bowed his head and vanished from his lying position on the carpet. Harry turned around to face his mother and brother again.
And yeah, they were still his, even though Harry could feel a sick, dizzying spiral in the middle of his chest and head. They weren't good people. He should have known that no relatives of his could actually be good people, he told himself. The Dursleys weren't, and the Potters were kidnappers, and the Malfoys hurt house-elves.
He should have known. He was cursed. He was tainted. Nothing good ever came his way.
"Henry," Mrs. Malfoy whispered.
"Narcissa? What is going on?"
Mr. Malfoy appeared at the bottom of the stairs, a tense frown on his face. Harry glared at him and said the first thing that came into his head. "So how often do you make the house-elves punish themselves?"
Mr. Malfoy twitched a little, but only a little. They were all so alike, Harry thought. All the Malfoys. The other Malfoys. Cold and frozen and beautiful.
Not him. He wasn't like that, no matter how much he might look like it. And again the sick spiral threatened to dump him on the floor.
He'd wanted a family. And that didn't work out, of course, because it never did.
"I do not often need to do so," Mr. Malfoy said. "Many of our servants anticipate our needs perfectly and never need to be punished."
"Dobby, though," Harry said flatly. "You told him to not to talk to me about whatever evil plot he wanted to report to me—which means there was something. He's not just making it up. What was it, Mr. Malfoy?"
"I had hoped you were past the point of childish behavior in which you attempted to distance yourself from me with that name, Henry."
Harry laughed wildly as the house spun around him again. "Harry. It's Harry. I should have known this is what would happen. You still aren't answering my questions, and you hurt the people who cook and clean for you—you're like the Dursleys!"
A stormcloud came and went over Mr. Malfoy's face. Then he said, "If you come into my study, I will tell you all about it."
"Why do you mistreat house-elves?"
"House-elves are servants. They are meant to—"
"That's what the Dursleys said about me."
A wave of something pure and cold seemed to move through Harry, and then struck out from him. The stained-glass window that overlooked the staircase abruptly shattered, shards of red and blue and green flying through the air and scattering around them like the petals of an unfolding flower.
Mr. Malfoy shouted something incoherent and jerked his wand up. There was a dome of blue light over his head in half a second, and then it extended over Harry and Mrs. Malfoy and Draco. Harry watched the shards of glass falling around them in soft pattering twinkles of dust, and felt nothing.
"Henry."
Mr. Malfoy's voice was frozen, again. Harry looked at him, and felt none of the apprehension he would have felt that morning if his father was angry at him.
"With me."
Mr. Malfoy walked towards his study. Harry knew, because Draco had told him, that it was the room where punishments were assigned and scoldings took place. Draco had made it sound like the scoldings were worse than the punishments.
Harry walked behind Mr. Malfoy, and felt nothing at all.
....
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