Mrs. Malfoy sounded gentle, but that tone held steel underneath. Harry knew that tone. It was the kind that she had used to tell Harry that he would be going to a Mind-Healer this summer. He sneered at Draco from behind his mother's back when Draco caught his eye.
"That I shouldn't say it in public."
"Well, don't," Harry snapped, although he felt a jolt of pain that apparently, Mrs. Malfoy hadn't just forbidden Draco from saying that word altogether. "And Neville is Neville Longbottom. I like them. They're my friends. If Draco can have his friends over, I don't see why I shouldn't be able to—"
"Of course, of course." Mr. Malfoy made a little patting motion on the air. "No one has said that you can't."
"Draco said you would say I can't!"
"They're Gryffindors."
"So what?"
"Not in public, boys," Mrs. Malfoy said, and led Harry away from the platform with her arm still around his shoulders. Harry tugged at his trunk, but Mrs. Malfoy lightened it with a tap of her wand, and a slight glance at Harry. "Why would you think we wouldn't let your friends come over?" she added, as Mr. Malfoy fell behind with Draco. Mr. Malfoy looked like he wanted to say something private to Harry's older brother. Harry viciously hoped that it would be about what a git Draco was.
"Because Draco said that you would be the one to give permission," Harry muttered, and ignored, as best as he could, the impulse to kick at the ground. Now that he came to think about it, Draco hadn't actually said that their parents would forbid it. He'd just implied it. "And he said that his friends wouldn't insult anyone, but Ron would. That was after he insulted Ron for being a Weasley."
Mrs. Malfoy shook her head. "The main problem I can see in our inviting Mr. Weasley over is the lack of permission from his parents, rather than Mr. Weasley himself."
"Oh." Harry tried to relax his tense shoulders, but Mrs. Malfoy seemed to know that was what he was doing, and gave him a single, affectionate squeeze before she let go.
"It's all right, Henry," she said. "You and Draco couldn't get along perfectly forever. You're siblings. It's natural for siblings to fight." She sounded like she was speaking from experience.
"Um. I wouldn't know."
"Of course not. But you will find that it will be fine."
Harry did his best to relax further as they arrived at the Apparition point outside the station. "Okay."
Mrs. Malfoy smiled down at him, and then they whirled in place and were gone.
....
"Henry! Mother wants to see you."
At least Draco didn't appear to think it was a good idea to talk about friends coming over for the summer any time soon. Harry looked up from his Potions essay and found his twin brother standing in the doorway of Harry's room, studying him intently. "All right." Harry put down his quill.
"Why are you holding your quill like that?"
"Like what?"
"Like you're trying to strangle it to death."
Harry bristled as he passed Draco. "Just because some of us were born able to buy quetzal-feather quills if we want—"
"You were, too!"
"It's not like I grew up knowing that, though, did I? It's not the same—quit following me."
"Mother thought you might not be able to find her rooms by yourself," Draco said, and sped up a little, as though he wanted to get in front of Harry. "You haven't been to this part of the house very often."
Harry shot him a skeptical glance, and then came to a stop altogether as they reached the bottom of a grand, sweeping staircase (there were always staircases like that in Malfoy Manor, from what Harry had been able to tell). There was a small creature standing in front of him and staring up at him with his mouth open.
"The Great Harry Potter is Henry Malfoy," whispered the elf.
"Dobby?"
"No, his name isn't Dobby," said Draco hastily, whipping around in front of Harry and standing tall as if he would be able to hide the house-elf from sight. That didn't work well with such a wide staircase, of course. Harry simply stepped to the side and stared at Dobby again. Draco hopped in front of him. "His name is—Shobby. Yes, that's it."
"No, I know Dobby," Harry said softly, his mind flying back to the summer before second year again and how Dobby had shown up at his relatives' house. Well, no, the Dursleys' house. He shook his head. Thinking of Lily and James Potter as his parents was still something he wasn't entirely over.
And then his mind snapped back to the far more disturbing evidence in front of him.
He narrowed his eyes at Draco. "Dobby said that his family was evil and treated him badly."
"Dobby would never be saying that about the great and noble Malfoyses!" Dobby exclaimed.
Harry blinked at Dobby, and Dobby held out his hands with a pleading expression. Harry understood that well enough, at least. It was the way he had sometimes looked when one of his primary teachers noticed something out of the ordinary at the Dursleys' and tried to help him. Dobby didn't think Harry could do anything, and he was begging Harry not to get him in trouble.
"Boys, what is the matter?"
And now Mrs. Malfoy was climbing the stairs from the bottom, her frown faint and reminding Harry of the kind that Aunt Petunia would wear when someone mentioned Harry in public. Dobby squeaked and bowed and began to wring his ears. Draco sighed as if he thought that meant the problem was solved and darted over to stand at his mother's side.
Harry folded his arms.
"You were the ones who were going to do something evil at Hogwarts and mistrusted Dobby?"
Mrs. Malfoy reached out a hand. "Henry, darling—"
"Did you mistreat him?" Harry backed up and away a step. He glanced over his shoulder, quickly, but then quickly back towards Mrs. Malfoy, because he had figured out what happened when he removed his eyes for too long a time from someone in front of him. "Dobby said that his masters would punish him for warning me, and that they were cruel. What did you do to him?"
"Nothing," Mrs. Malfoy said. "Truly, Henry, my word. House-elves are—formed such that they punish themselves when upset. What Dobby got upset with, I don't know. Why he would have sought you out in the middle of a Muggle neighborhood…" She shook her head.
Harry narrowed his eyes. Last year, the subtleties of what she was saying would have passed him right by, but not anymore. "Just because you don't know doesn't mean you can't guess. And you didn't actually finish the sentence about why he would have tried to find me when I lived with Muggles."
"Henry—"
....
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