A New Family For Harry

Author's Note: Thank you to everyone for being so patient in waiting for this installment! The holidays have created way too many obstacles to writing, but now I'm ready to get back to regular postings of this story.



Thanks to each and every person who left a review -- your feedback keeps this writer going! And if you want to be updated when there is a new part to this story, please leave me your email address in comments -- I'm happy to alert you when I post more of this fic.



Especial thanks to sisterae and Jilliane for their marvelous and generous comments. I hope you enjoy this part!



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Lucius watched as Harry wriggled slightly on his lap. The boy was obviously unsure about what to do with his arms now that he had followed Lucius's directive to stretch out, for at first he dangled one off to the side, then clasped his hands in front of him on the mattress. Another beat, and he put his palms flat onto the duvet, raising his head and shoulder slightly.



If the night were longer, Lucius would have been content to watch the nervous jittering for a considerable time. Seeing Harry move and pose this way and that certainly had its appeal. But the situation being what it was, Lucius cleared his throat discreetly to attract Harry's attention.



"Erm...Are you just going to...start?" Harry asked in a tremulous voice. The twin rounds of his arse clenched a little, as though he was bracing himself for the first blow.



"Let me think." Lucius let his hand hover just above the small of Harry's bare back. The boy had left his pajama top behind in Snape's guest quarters, and Lucius had given it to the house elf watching over Snape with instructions to bring it along to the laundry room. Now, Lucius gazed at the tan bare skin, the fuzz of hair along Harry's lithe body glowing golden in the candle light. How singularly lovely this child was. Lucius could feel the heat rising from him, and in the space of a moment, imagined abandoning this exercise in discipline to caress and stroke Harry's eager little body.



But there were treasures that were best enjoyed over time at leisure, not meant to be despoiled with haste. Lucius breathed in, out, and brought his palm to rest on the sweet swell of Harry's buttocks.



Harry said nothing, but there was a little hitch in his breath.



"You put yourself into a dangerous situation," Lucius mused. "Additionally, you tempted a man, a man of whom I believe you are fond, putting him in a circumstance meant to rouse my anger to gain my attention. But above all, you did all this without thinking of your own welfare in an attempt to teach me a sort of lesson, yes? You did not like it this afternoon when I observed I would be your guide in such things, that I would decide how...intimate our encounters would grow."



"I'm sorry," Harry whispered. He sounded earnest and emotional, of that Lucius had no doubt. But there was also no mistaking the slight press of Harry's hips down against Lucius's thighs. Even in this situation, then, Harry was keen to test his boundaries.



"It will be fifteen, I should think," Lucius remarked.



"What?" Harry had curled his fingers around Lucius's left thigh, and now he flexed them.



Lucius brought his right hand down to Harry's bottom. It was a swift smack, but moderate in force. Still, Harry yelped in surprise, and reached back without thinking to cover himself.



"None of that, now. What you need is to focus -- remember that I am doing this for you, Harry. In fact, I would like you to count."



"Count?" Harry echoed. "Oh!" he shouted when Lucius spanked him immediately after.



"That should have been two," Lucius observed wryly. Harry's white pajama bottoms were riding a bit lower now, and Lucius fancied that soon he would see the dull red glow of Harry's skin through the thin material. "Shall we begin anew, if you are not ready to count properly?"



"No, no, don't start again, the next I will -- oh, oh, three," Harry choked when Lucius brought his hand down once more.



"Very good." Lucius rested his hand for a moment, and then, unable to resist, cupped Harry's bottom and rubbed.



Harry moved fretfully. "Will you -- can we --" he started, but then Lucius resumed his intended strike, and Harry burst out, "Four, that was four, oh!"



Through five, six, seven, and eight, Harry clenched his small fists, bunching the bedclothes in them as he gritted out the numbers assigned to each of the smacks.



Lucius paused, listening while Harry drew in a ragged breath. "You saw me observe you, when you were with Severus on the bed," he said in a near whisper, just as he struck the ninth blow.



"Oh, nine -- yes," Harry sputtered. "I could see you; I knew you would be watching."



"How did you work through the wards I'd put up and espy me?" Lucius asked. He spanked Harry.



"Ten! I -- I don't know! I thought you'd be there, I knew you wouldn't like it if I -- with someone else, and so -- eleven, that's eleven," Harry sobbed.



"You've seen me watching you before?" Lucius asked harshly.



"What? No!" For a moment, Harry twisted on his lap, turning his torso so that he could meet Lucius's gaze, but Lucius shifted him back and dealt the twelfth strike.



"You have circumvented my wards before, though -- you have slipped through them without alerting me," Lucius said. This was conjecture, obviously. He had no proof whether Harry had been able to subvert the systems of warnings he had put into place. Yet those practiced kisses with Ron Weasley; the times that Harry and Draco had obviously continued their mischief without Lucius finding out; the fact that Harry had seemed to know when to trip the wards and when not to, as he clearly had meant for Lucius to discover him and Severus tonight: all of it fitted together to indicate Harry's manipulation of invisible magical webs that should have been beyond his ken even to understand, never mind detect.



"Twelve! I didn't mean to," Harry cried. "It was just -- I could feel them, the what-do-you-call-em, like a little pricking on my skin, and -- it was like layers of locks and just knowing how to imagine the keys turning in them. Then after the party, you said you could keep people in and out of places if you wanted, and I knew you could make it so you could see, if you could do that kind of thing..." A gasp, and "Thirteen!"



Lucius paused for an infinitesimal duration. Harry had no idea what wards were precisely. But if Lucius was sorting through his agitated blather correctly, Harry had managed, without wand or knowing any sorts of proper spells, to feel his way through the tangles of complicated magic Lucius had set in place, and rearrange them to his liking. This was not normal for a child -- it was not normal for even a post-NEWTS Hogwarts-trained wizard.



Lucius stared down at the child on his lap, and a sort of fierce thrill went through him. From the time that Fudge had brought Harry here, the boy's presence in their household had opened all sorts of possibilities that would never have presented themselves to the Malfoys otherwise. But this, this power -- what Harry offered was not only symbolic import, which Lucius had already used to diplomatic and political effect, but raw ability and extraordinary magical power.



And Harry was his -- Lucius knew that, from the adoration he saw in Harry's eyes, from the way Harry had breathed his name out with such feeling when he thought he was alone. There may have been others, and would be more -- Lucius could not imagine that his own son and Ronald Weasley would be the only companions who would turn Harry's eye or who might gravitate towards the boy's charms and his offerings that would become only more enticing as he became older.



What was important was that Lucius would be first and last for Harry. Even if Harry had no unusual abilities beyond the normal wizard child, with only his startling beauty and open affection, Lucius would want to take that place in Harry's heart with the sharpest desire of which he was capable. This revelation of Harry's nascent talents only deepened Lucius's hunger to possess Harry, not in the mundane way of having him at this particular moment, but in cultivating a tie that would bind them beyond anything Lucius had ever felt or known, beyond the shockingly small scope of his existence, as he now recognized as his world before Harry had entered his life.



"Fourteen," Lucius said quietly, and brought another smack down upon Harry's bottom. "Fifteen," they said together as the last spanking was spent on Harry's body.



Harry lay limp across him, but when Lucius gathered him up, he immediately flung his arm around Lucius's neck and held tight. He was crying again, but not in the desperate fearful way of earlier. Rather, it seemed the small body Lucius held was heaving in relief.



Harry pulled his head back, and blinked at Lucius through eyelashes beaded with tears.



"My Harry," Lucius soothed. He pressed his lips against that tear-streaked face, kissing away the droplets before he slipped his other hand down the back of Harry's pajamas, placing the coolness of his palm against Harry's heated cheeks.



Harry bit his bottom lip but relaxed against his touch. "Lucius," he said simply, and leaned his head against Lucius's shoulder. Then, almost too quietly to be heard, Harry whispered, "Love you."





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