A New Family For Harry

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Their time together on that journey was both light and precious, ephemeral like the summer's days they passed through, yet imbued with a greater significance, as if they were building to an advanced understanding between them.



If Harry felt any of the substance of future promises to be made, future ties to be undertaken, he gave no indication of it, acting as carefree and innocent as Lucius might wish for a boy his age.



Yet as they met up again with Lucius's regular driver in order to proceed back into their home country, Harry seemed furtive and quiet, an unusual state for Lucius's ward.



"You are subdued today," Lucius observed as they settled in the compartment of the automobile.



"The man at the hotel..." Harry hesitated.



Lucius stilled the hand that had been about to card through Harry's hair. Had something untoward occurred with some or other of the help at their last stop? He had thought he kept Harry within proper range at all times, but there had been a few moments that morning that Lucius had conversed with the proprietor while Harry played on the veranda of the grand hotel.



"He asked if you were my father," Harry went on in a low voice. He blinked quickly. "Said my mother must have very dark hair, for I didn't look a thing like you."



"I see. And what did you say in reply?" Lucius asked.



"Said my father was dead," Harry returned shortly. His cheeks flushed all at once, and he turned away. "And that I didn't know what my mum looked like."



"Harry..." Lucius reached out to him as he tried to think of how to begin. All these years Harry had lived in his care, they had never addressed this particular matter. In truth, Lucius had planned to discuss particulars the following summer, before Harry went to Hogwarts. However, he had realized there might be some sort of questions arising, during this trip perhaps as they together explored the Potter family history. Strange how Harry had not hinted at it until this moment.



As Lucius's hand neared, for the first time he could remember, Harry pulled away from him.



"He didn't really die in an accident, did he?" Harry asked tonelessly, eyes now trained on the as yet unmoving landscape outside.



Lucius gave a gesture for the driver to start the next leg of their travels, and soundlessly cast the spell to raise the partition as the car began its course. "He did not."



"I didn't think so. Ron said..." Again Harry hesitated.



"Ah." Lucius folded his hands and inhaled slowly. Ridiculously, really, to assume the Weasleys would have observed any sort of propriety and instructed their brood to let the Malfoys handle any history of Harry's immediate family. "What tales did Ronald tell?"



"He didn't tell tales!" Harry burst out. "Said my dad died fighting someone evil," he finished in a whisper. "And my mum, that she tried to save me, but..."



"When did he convey this information?" Lucius asked. He forced his voice to remain even. Unfortunately he had relied too much on the assumption that he would be the one to relate such key facts to Harry. After all, Harry spent nearly all of his time at the Manor, under Lucius's keen eye. Yet of course he and Draco had spent time at the Burrow recently...



Really, Lucius inwardly admonished himself, he ought to have been prepared for such eventualities; his normal comprehension of strategy demanded such measures. Where Harry was concerned, however, Lucius did not always behave in his accustomed cunning manner. The unexpected developments last year related to Harry's naive yet prodigious manipulation of the Manor's wards, as well as Harry's calculated yet childlike manipulation of Severus, ought to have driven that lesson home for Lucius.



Harry shrugged. "A while back. Said he didn't know all of it, but that my parents didn't die like the Dursleys said."



Lucius regarded him with a sharp gaze. "Why did you not inquire of me what had become of your parents? When Ronald provided this news, why did you not come to me with questions?"



"Well, you never said anything, did you!" Harry's eyes flashed. "How was I supposed to know you were even going to tell me?"



Lucius tapped on the glass. "Stop the car," he instructed the driver when the man looked his inquiry through the now lowered divider.



"Outside," he said in a low voice to Harry, gesturing for him to get out of the vehicle first.



They had pulled over next to a coastal resort area. Some meters away, groups of cloth cabanas and lounge chairs dotted the sand, and Lucius could view pairs of adults as well as families grouped about them, the varied colors of umbrellas and swimming costumes bright against the golden sand.



Harry squirmed out, stalking some ten or twenty paces away before stopping.



"This has been on your mind for some time," Lucius said in a quiet voice when he caught up with Harry.



Harry frowned, looking down at the sand and scuffing a shoe in it.



"Yet you have said nothing of it until today."



"I didn't --" Harry bit his lip, turning away slightly, but not so quickly that Lucius could miss the tear rolling down his downy cheek.



"Harry. Look at me."



His young charge turned his face up to him, eyes swimming with tears and shining with uncertainty.



"Were you...did you fear to raise this subject with me?"



"I -- I don't know," Harry stammered. He made as if to look away, and Lucius gently caught his chin.



"You may ask me about this, or about anything, and I will, to the best of my ability, explain what I can to you."



Harry gave him a disbelieving look, but then his face crumpled. "But you didn't want me to know! You must not have, or you would have told me without me asking. And then Ron said --" He gasped, as though he wanted to call back his last few words.



Lucius sighed. Obviously the situation had gotten out of hand already; it was too late to call back the doubts and murmurs this Pandora's box had let escape. All this while, however long it had been, even before their travels together, the matter must have been preying on Harry's mind.



"What is your understanding of the circumstances? Do you know about this man who, as you say, caused your parents to meet their end?"



Harry dashed away his tears with the back of his sleeve. "His name was -- people don't like to say his name," he began. "And my parents were helping some others who tried to stop that man from doing bad things. He didn't like that, so he wanted them and those other wizards and witches gone. And then -- he killed them, and left me an orphan."



"Those are the bare bones of the matter, yes."



"Did you --" Harry pressed his lips together. "Were you one of the wizards that tried to stop the man from doing bad things?"



Lucius carefully removed his gloves, folding them before placing them in his breast pocket. "You are too young for fairy tales, Harry, so I cannot tell you a story of an ogre who was wrong and people who fought against him for what was right. Matters of war and peace both are more complex than that; alliances are more nuanced and complicated than 'good' and 'evil'."



"I don't know what that means," Harry said softly.



Lucius went down on one knee so that he was face to face with his ward. "It means that your parents and I were on different sides in this past conflict -- because yes, this was no matter of a few people, but about the future of our entire world. The people James and Lily Potter fought with had goals interfering with what I and my peers wished for at that time. It means that, had your parents not been killed as they were -- and I can assure at this moment, before I go further, that I had no knowledge they were to be destroyed in so crass and underhanded a manner as they were -- then you and I, Harry, would have been on opposite sides in the aftermath."



Harry swayed where he stood. "Then you -- then we --"



"Of course your upbringing would have been far different had those been the circumstances. But as it was, your parents appeared to have arranged things to leave you with your aunt and uncle. As you know, Minister Fudge made appropriate arrangements to have you removed from so craven an environment, and you came to live with me."



"I don't like to think about before," Harry said fretfully.



"You needn't, not if you do not wish to."



"That man is gone now, Ron said," Harry continued in an uncertain voice.



"That is what many people think."



"If he ever came back --" Harry took a shuddering breath. "Would you be on his side again? What if he wanted to hurt me? What would happen?"



"Harry, Harry." Lucius reached out, and this time Harry rushed into his arms and clung to him. "My only side in any circumstance is my own," Lucius whispered in his ear. "And you are my own, Harry, and I have pledged my holdings and family and life to you."



Harry leaned back, a vulnerable and wondering expression on his face. "You -- to me?"



"Yes."



"So if that man ever came back..." His voice quivered.



"You would be my first care," Lucius answered. He brushed some of the stray strands of hair from Harry's eyes.



"And you will be mine," Harry answered impulsively. He held fast to Lucius once more, and then pulled back. "May I ask you -- if I have questions..." he said slowly.



"You may -- and should -- always come to me first."



"All right." Harry glanced to the side, seemingly for the first time noticing the bathers and picnickers of the resort on their stretch of strand. "Oh! Look!"



"We needn't return today or even tomorrow," Lucius told him. "You said you should like to visit the shore, did you not?"



"We could stay here?" Harry's face lit up.



Lucius glanced back. The driver leaned against the far side of the car, watching in the opposite direction; the bathers and any other stragglers on the beach were too far away to see. "To please you, we might," he said in a low voice, taking Harry's hands and brushing his lips over the small knuckles.



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