Harry Potter 1. Chapter 1

The war had ended. Voldemort had been vanquished by Harry's hand as the prophecy had said. The light side rejoiced; parties covered every street as everyone left their houses for the first time in months. Even Hogwarts, in its decapitated state, stood tall and proud as light shone from every window.

There were of course casualties after the war but mourning could occur later. Right now all the student and teachers alike were crowded in the Great Hall, music blaring out from every corner. Everyone was happy. At the centre of it all Harry, Ron, and Hermione were being celebrated as heroes while Ron excitedly recounted their trek across Britain searching for Horcrux's while the younger years crowded around. The elder year merely laughed and had more fun than they had had in years.

Suddenly the music stopped and everyone quietened as McGonagall, the new headmistress, stood and spoke.

"Throughout these years you have seen more horrors than most people experience in their lifetime. You were unfortunate to grow up in such dark times but where there is darkness there will always be some light and throughout all of it, you all held onto the light and goodness in your heart even when the darkness seemed to overwhelm us all. You all showed bravery, kindness, intelligence and even cunning to survive this war and you have done Hogwarts and the entire wizarding world proud."

"However most of all we must thank Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley who were always a beacon of hope to those who needed it. They took on task no child their age should have had to and did so without complaint or reservation. You should all be proud to consider these people you housemates and friends."

With the end of those words the hall erupted in cheers and shouts of joy. People clapped the three of them on the back and hugged them nearly to death.

As the night went on the celebrations eventually ceased as everyone either collapsed from too much fire whiskey or dragged themselves to bed. Harry was in the latter group and happily collapsed onto his bed in Gryffindor tower. It had been so long since he had slept in a bed he'd almost forgotten what it felt liked. Without a second thought sleep claimed him and for the first time in years he slept deep with no fear of death, no visions and no pain from his scar. He was finally at peace.

It was a few days later. The mood in the castle had collapsed as the extent of the damage both in terms of the building and the loss of life hit people. People mourned or waited at the bedsides of loved ones waiting for them to either recover or pass on.

Harry had hardly left Gryffindor tower since the end of the party. He had seen enough death and destruction from the war first hand without having to endure the clean-up. So he Hermione and Ron sat up in the common room playing exploding snap or chess or merely enjoying the quiet. Ron continued to recount their tales to everyone who wanted to listen. The only time they left Gryffindor tower was to eat in the great hall.

They didn't talk much; there wasn't anything to talk about. Ginny had come to see harry and they had talked quietly, recounting memories and just enjoying each other's presence.

Ginny was another sore point for Harry. He liked Ginny. She was a nice girl but that was it. She was nice. Nothing more, nothing less. The only reason he hadn't dumped her the second after the war finished was because he was unsure of how Ron would react and he didn't want to lose a friend over some stupid teenage drama.

He therefore felt some trepidation when she asked Harry if they could talk privately. He could tell form her voice this wasn't a talk he would enjoy but followed her anyway to a secluded section of the common room.

Ginny took a deep breath before words started pouring out of her mouth

"Harry. I love you. You know I do more than anything. But it's only been recently, when we were separated thanks to Voldemort that I have truly realised how deep these feeling are. Harry I don't think I could survive without you, my heart would break in two and no sorrow would be worse than mine. I know it is normally the guy who asks this but well screw tradition. Harry will you marry me?"

Harry gaped at her in shock. Thoughts coursed through his head, most on the lines of how the hell do people say no to that kind of question. He took a deep breath and calmed his mind. Gathering his thoughts he prepared a speech, about how much he cared for her but simply wasn't ready for that kind of commitment but when he opened his mouth all that came out was:

"I want to break up"

It was only then that Harry realised how much guilt had built up inside of him over stringing Ginny along for such a time. As the guilt coursed out of his body he felt more free than he had in a long time. Then he saw the hurt in Ginny's eyes and suddenly the guilt was back twice as bad. Ginny, tears running down her face turned and ran out of the portrait hole as fast as she could.

All eyes in Gryffindor common room turned to stare at him. He quickly muttered something about being tired and fled up to his dormitory. He curled up on his four poster bed and spelled the curtains closed.

It was only seconds later that the curtains were being thrown open and he had Ron glaring daggers at him, yelling stuff about how he's betrayed Ginny and his family.

Eventually Harry's tempered snapped and he yelled "Well would you have rather I dragged Ginny into a loveless marriage and we were both miserable for the rest of our lives"

Ron was silent for a moment then sighed "sorry mate, but y'now how protective I get of Ginny I just don't like seeing her upset."

Surprised by Ron suddenly backing down harry blinked in astonishment. In the past they would have ended up in a yelling match which nobody won until Ron finally caved months later.

Seeing Harry's expression Ron replied "Before Dumbledore y'now. He talked to me about my anger and controlling it. He tried to get me to understand that there are some battles that aren't worth fighting. Of course I didn't realise how important what he was telling me was until I left you in the forest. It was only once I'd calmed down I realised this was what Dumbledore was getting at. It always held me back, stopped me being as loyal to my friends and stopped me as much use in the war. I might not have Hermione's brains but when it comes to strategy no-one beats me when I think things through and actually work at things"

Harry gaped at Ron in shock. He had never known his best friend to follow advice or for that matter even listen to it. But Harry smiled, this was a good thing. It would make Ron happy and would help him when he became an auror. Someone who he knew he could rely on.

"It's alright Ron; I probably could have handled that better anyway."

"Yeah mate. Oh and I'd watch out for Hermione she's livid at the moment. It was all I could do to stop her coming up here herself."

"Oh joy. I'll deal with her in the morning right now I'm just going to sleep"

"Sure thing. Oh I meant to ask are you going to come back and re-take seventh year."

"Yeah. If we want to become aurors we need all the training we can get and while I expect we're well beyond newt level in DADA in potions we are most certainly not."

"Excellent so we'll all be here next year. I think most of our year is retaking but anyway I'll let you get some rest. See you in the morning Harry"

"Goodnight Ron"

And with that harry closed his curtains on his four-poster bed and fell asleep in seconds.

Harry headed down to breakfast the next morning after explaining everything to Hermione and carefully planning it so he didn't run into Ginny or any of her friends. As such, once he reached breakfast, what remained of the great hall was practically empty.

He had barely entered the hall when professor McGonagall came up behind him

"Mr Potter, come with me to my office please". She turned around quickly but harry could see the glint of sadness in her eyes. This wasn't a good sign for him and so he slowly followed dragging his feet, dreading every step closer he got to her office.

The gargoyle leapt aside for them and as harry entered her office the sight that greeted him was not a hopeful one.

Inside was Kingsley. That meant it had something to do with the death eaters still at large and Harry really didn't want anything to do with them at the moment. He had had more than enough death eaters for the moment but it looked like they would be thrown at him once again whether he wanted them to or not.

"Harry. I don't know if you were aware but earlier today were the Malfoy's trial. Unfortunately, the result wasn't what we were hoping for. The Wizardingot deemed both of them to be innocent of all crimes they were accused. It seemed that they were in fact coerced into joining him. Furthermore a brief inspection of their house came up with no dark artefact and no dark books. Without more evidence available the two of them were released. However, we were at least given permission to put someone inside there to look around for the summer.

Unfortunately, I have all my aurors working on finding some of the death eaters still at large. Although sometimes don't know why I bother. Most seem to escape without a scratch like the Parkinson's, Zabini's and Nott's, although the Crabbe's and Goyle's are in Azkaban with the Lestranges which is something I suppose.

Anyway back to the Malfoys as my department is so busy we don't have someone who we could send away for the entire summer. As such, we were hoping you would be willing to do it?"

"What! No way. No no no I'm done with the war. I did my part that is it. I am 17 and I'm going to enjoy for once in my life. Finally there is no-one wanting me dead. That is it have done enough."

"Harry" McGonagall interrupted "I know that this isn't ideal but it's either this or return to the Dursleys. They are still your legal guardian and it would take months to have them renounced as your legal guardians after 17 years. Besides Malfoy Manor is huge, you'd hardly see Mr. Malfoy or his son."

Harry hated this. He hated being stuck in such a tight spot after everything he'd done for the wizarding world and still things didn't go his way. Even so it wasn't much of a choice. There was no way he was returning to the Dursleys and it was hardly like the Malfoys could hurt him without bringing even greater suspicion down on their heads.

"Fine. I'll stay at Malfoy Manor but I'm not happy about this."

Harry stumbled out of the floo into Malfoy Manor. The Hogwarts Express had just taken all the student home for the summer while leaving the teachers and ministry members to rebuild Hogwarts ready for next year.

Harry glanced around the room he'd stumbled into. While Harry hated to admit it, he was impressed. The floor was covered in a soft green carpet and on top of it there was a plethora of sofa's and arm chairs making the room seem almost homely. The room on its own was much bigger than an entire floor on the Dursley's house and the ceiling stretched high above him, with figures and mythical creatures carved out of the wall. A glass chandelier held in place by magic was floating high above him filling the room with light. There were also several doors which lead off this room.

Before Harry could decide which door he should try first, the one on the far right opened and the Malfoy patriarch entered. He did not seem so much to walk as to glide. While his feet definitely left the floor, there was no gap between his steps. He approached harry and looked down upon him his grey eyes staring coolly at the emeralds that were Harry's.

"Mr. Potter. So kind of you to join us for the holidays. I'm sure Draco will be thrilled." The pure contempt in Lucius's voice was obvious although no such emotion reached his face that was composed mask.

"It's my pleasure Mr. Malfoy" Harry glared up into his eyes and his face clearly showed how he felt about the eldest Malfoy.

"Don't you know it's rude to stand around in the entrance hall. Come. Trilly!"

A small house-elf popped into sight and cowered at the feet of her master.

"Y-y-yes m-m-master."

"Take our guests bags to his room."

With a frightened squeak and a pop the house-elf disappeared along with Harry's bags.

Glaring at Malfoy Harry said "You don't have to be mean to them. I mean they never did anything to you. You could try to be nice once in your life"

Malfoy merely sneered at harry and replied "I'll be sure to take you _advice _into consideration. Now come I have no desire to stand around here all day"

With that he spun on his heels and left striding towards the door he had entered through. Harry hardly had a moment to think before he was scrambling after him trying to keep up with Malfoy and having to practically jog through the corridors to keep up with Malfoy's longer stride. Being so focused on not falling over he didn't take note of where they were going until he suddenly crashed into something in front of him. Looking up he realised Malfoy had stopped and he'd knocked right into him. Malfoy merely looked down at him and sneered before saying "try to watch where you're going Mr. Potter"

Harry scrambled to his feet with none of the elegance Malfoy had and looked around. He was inside an entrance hall that clearly would have been the entrance hall had they come through the main door which stood to Harry's right. It was grand, such as those seen in old muggle fortresses. Looking around harry could see that directly in front of the door was a staircase that lead up to another set of double doors although much smaller than the entrance doors. The corridor continued to the right and left of the door leading off to somewhere which harry couldn't see. Returning his attention to the entrance hall he could see another corridor similar to the one they had just walked along but much smaller. Unlike the one they had just walked along which, now harry looked at it, was rather grand with portraits of Malfoy family members lining the wall. Mosaics covered the floor flowing along the corridor and joining into the intricate design that covered the floor of the entrance way.

"As you can see Mr. Potter the house is divided into 4 sections. The kitchen and the servants courters can be found along there" He said casually gesturing towards the plain corridor. "The corridor we just walked along leads to the floo rooms, the meeting room and the apparition points. The wards are set so no one can apparate in or out so if you wish to leave that way you will have to leave from the apparition room. The gardens are through the main door and the private courters, family rooms and guest rooms are all up the stairs." Throughout this Malfoy hardly glanced at Harry merely gesturing towards the relevant areas with a bored expression.

"I would ask you not to snoop around mine or Draco's personal quarters although I doubt that will stop you. My office is up those stairs and through the door but I will be working at the ministry most days and Draco will be visiting his friends so don't feel the need to talk to us. I'm sure this misunderstanding between me and the ministry will be over soon."

"Trilly will show you to the guest quarters which will be your residence while staying here. She will be able to show you where everything is. I hope to see very little of you over the next two months. Good day Mr. Potter"

And with that he walked up the stairs with his usual grace, snake-head cane in hand and entered his office closing the door behind him.

Harry glared after him wondering if it was possible to set fire to Malfoy with his eyes. Sighing he looked around. He knew he would have to poke around at some point but at that moment he was too exhausted. The train journey had tired him out so he made to go to his room. Until he realised he had no idea where it was. Remembering Malfoy's words he said experimentally "Trilly." With a pop the house-elf was in front of him head bowed and shaking.

"Y-y-y-yes m-m-master Potter"

"Do you know where my rooms are?"

"Yes master Potter Trilly will take you there at once Master Potter"

She then headed off in the direction Malfoy had gone, up the stairs, but rather than heading through the double doors, turned right. Harry hurried to follow and continued to as she led him down what seemed to be a maze of corridors. Eventually in front of a large pair of double doors Trilly slowed to a halt

"If you's be interested Master Potter this is the library. Master Malfoy said Harry may use the library at any point should he need to master Potter." Trilly then continued on past more doors and corridors with Harry getting thoroughly lost along the way. Eventually Trilly reached a door and said " this is being master Potters room is there anything else I can get for Master Potter"

"No thank you Trilly" Harry replied

He looked back and saw an expression of awe on Trilly's face followed by an excited squeak as she disappeared.

Harry was exhausted and so just collapsed onto the giant king sized, four poster bed that despite its impressive size barely filled any of the room. He promptly fell asleep, while dreaming about all of the things that could go wrong with his 'mission' and how he'd let himself be talked into living in the same house as the two Malfoys. He was just thankful he hadn't needed to deal with Malfoy the younger yet.


	2. Chapter 2

**AN/ if you want to skip the first section of this you can without missing very much. I promise it is the last bit of scene setting that needed to be done. **

**And because I forgot in the first chapter**

**Discalimer: I don't own Harry Potter**

Harry awoke in his room or what would be his room for the next couple of months. He hadn't really had time the night before to look around the room. He noted that the bed he was in was on a slightly raised part of the floor. As he looked around his room he noted that in the corner was a grand wooden desk. Upon it lay his school books along with spare quills and parchment placed in neat piles along it. Apart from that his room was fairly sparse in terms of furniture. Despite this the walls were a gentle shade of green which rose up to a ceiling with a chandelier similar to the one in the entrance hall but on a much smaller scale. Harry also noticed three large windows which adorned the wall to the left of him.

There were three doors leading out of his room. One being the one he had entered through the previous night but the other two were a mystery. One was presumably a bathroom but the second one could be anything.

Harry slowly dragged himself out of bed. He was still wearing the clothes he had been wearing the previous day but when he went to his trunk, at the bottom of his bed, he noticed that none of his cloths were in there. In fact none of his things were there at all. Looking around he noticed his wand position on is bedside table along with his photo album of his parents and the marauders map on the table with his other parchment. The only important thing missing was his father's invisibility cloak.

He hunted around the room for a few minutes before confirming it wasn't in his room and determining to try one of the two mystery doors. Opening the first one he saw a large cupboard. Although it was strange to call it a cupboard as it was almost as big as his bedroom. Along either side were long rail to hang the clothes on. Just to his left his clothes were hung up along with his invisibility cloak. It covered a tiny fraction of the rail and the rest was bare and empty. At the far end was a large full length mirror where Harry could see himself reflected back.

Having calmed his nerve, he closed the closet determining to explore the other room before having breakfast.

With this in mind he closed the closet and moved to the second door. Upon opening it he saw a magnificent bathroom, almost the same size as the prefect's bathroom. In the centre was what looked like a segment of a circle that was filled with water. Along either side of were two large partings that met at the centre that separated this section of the bath from the rest of it. He could only assume that on the other side of the partings was the bath for the Malfoys and that was why he appeared to only have a segment of the bath.

Promising himself he would bathe in here later he exited the bathroom and returned to the bedroom, quickly getting changed and brushing his teeth he left his bathroom and returned to the main bathroom. Heading towards the windows he drew back the curtain. It appeared as though the land went on forever. It was all fairly flat. In the distance he could see a large quidditch field that must equal if not be bigger than the one at Hogwarts. The rest of the land seemed mostly open land.

Turning away he determined he should eat something. However, having exited the room, he soon realised he had no idea where he was meant to go for food or even which direction he should head to get anywhere.

Remembering the night before he called Trilly to him and with a pop the houseelf in question was standing in front of him.

"Hey Trilly did Malfoy mention where I go to have breakfast."

"Master Malfoy said Master potter could eat wherever he desired as neither he nor young Mater Malfoy will be in the house for meals."

"Does that mean that neither of the Malfoy's are in the house at the moment?"

"Masters left early this morning Master Potter."

Harry contemplated this news. He was happy that Trilly seemed to have stopped trembling whenever he was around but more importantly he had free reign over the house and could look around without running into either Malfoy. Ignoring the hunger he dismissed Trilly and quickly left determined to begin searching the house. After all the sooner he found the evidence the sooner he could find some better summer accommodation.

Harry ran his hand along the line of book that stretched the extraordinary length of the Malfoy's library. He spent most of his time in the library. It had been a week since that first morning and the only thing he could feel was boredom. When he had first agreed to this he had expected to be outwitting the Malfoy's at every step. To have traps set up over Malfoy manor, attempts on his life, all the usual stuff. But since he'd gotten here he hadn't even spoken a word to either Malfoy. The most he'd even seen of them was the back of their heads as they left in the morning and even that was rare.

There was no petty rivalry and no arguments. And herein lay the crux of his problem, there was nothing to do. It wasn't like the Malfoy's had a TV, computer or anything that could be described as entertainment. The 20th century didn't seem to have reached the Malfoy home. And he had searched through every room in the Malfoy house. There was nothing there. No a hair out of place. There was nothing even remotely dark he could report back so he'd give up.

He supposed he should be happy that finally he didn't have constant attempts on his life but nonetheless at least it had kept him occupied. That wasn't to say he was missing the war or Voldemort but he just wished something interesting would happen.

And that was how Harry found himself in one of his least favourite places in any building: the library. Filled with books. Filled with words; and more words; and more words. All written in some tiny illegible print because Merlin-forbid someone actually wrote the books out on a computer or even a typewriter. But no: these had to be hand-written by people with so many swirls in their writing that made it completely illegible.

However it wasn't like harry had anything better to do. When he had lived with the Dursleys, while they might not be the nicest people in the world, he had never been bored. Every free moment he had would be filled with chores or some other rubbish they wanted him to do. He'd never had to entertain himself before and quite frankly he didn't own anything for entertainment apart from his broom and there was only so long one can fly around by themselves before even that gets boring.

The only other option was for him to visit his friends. However there was a problem. None of his friends were around. Ron had decided to take Hermione on a trip around Europe as neither of them wanted to remain in Britain after everything that had happened. The same applied to many of his friends. Luna, Neville, Dean, Seamus had all gone away with their respective families. Even the remaining Weasley's were off visiting some distant family relations. That was it. And so he was stuck here.

He supposed he could visit Diagon Alley but that had been hit hard during the war and most of the shops were shut or destroyed so there wasn't even much to do there.

And that was how harry had found himself in the library. He had nothing better to do and nowhere better to go. No-one to see and no-one to talk to.

As Harry looked along the book titles he looked for something that could be even mildly interesting but he seemed to have wandered into the potions section of the library and the chances of finding anything interesting in there were close to zero. But around Harry near-impossibilities seemed to occur on a daily bases.

As Harry continued on, planning on moving onto the Herbology books, he felt something. It was hard to describe the exact feeling. It was almost as if a ghost had passed through him but instead of the normal chill he instead felt warm. It caused shivers down his spine as he tentatively reached out towards the bookshelf trying to pinpoint the source of this feeling. As his fingers skimmed over the books his fingers crossed a plain leather bound book that sent a trickle of warmth through him. He took the book from the shelf and looked at the front cover. There was no title on the front and no author. He opened the book and on the front cover the following words were inscribed

**Development Of Poisons' **

Cautiously Harry turned and returned to the reading area where he opened the book and started to read. Initially he wondered whether this book could technically be counted as dark but as he continued to read he quickly dismissed this notion. There was nothing in this that was evil exactly so it probably didn't count.

What seemed like minutes later Harry closed the back cover of the book. He cast a quick tempus charm and was stunned to see that it was coming up to midnight. He was confused. He didn't have the concentration or determination of Hermione to read like she did, nor to study. He struggled to stay gripped by a book for more than a few minutes normally and yet somehow he'd managed to read for hours without even realising it.

But even ignoring this fact he was confused. The contents of the book had been fascinating. Much more interesting than anything Snape or Slughorn had taught them.

Harry's rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses. He was not used to that amount of reading and quite frankly his eyes were killing him, not to mention the fact it was very late and so he quickly returned the book where he'd found it and returned to his room.

After getting changed he lay in the bed under the covers and shut his eyes trying to drift off to sleep but his mind kept returning to his book. He couldn't understand why no-one had ever bothered to teach them about such an interesting topic. He began to wonder whether potions was the only subject where they seemed to have missed out an entire section of the subject. Admittedly they still had another year but even so. They should have at least touched upon it.

Harry put such thoughts aside and rolled over determined to fall asleep and after another hour of this pattern eventually he did.

Draco glared down at the map that showed the grounds and rooms of Malfoy manor. Specifically he glared at one dot with Mr. Potter written below it as it stoically refused to move from the library, no matter how hard he glared at it. If Potter would just go to bed already he could go home and go to sleep without worry of running into him. But, as always, Potter wanted to make a nuisance of himself. Oh no it wasn't enough that he had snooped around the entire house and looked through all his personal belongings. Now he had to make Draco's life hell by making him stay up til midnight. What was wrong with him. He was never this studious at Hogwarts. Why was it now he chose to take up such an annoying past time.

Draco glanced up at his father. He was sitting there calmly working through his paperwork despite it being some ungodly hour of the morning as if it was still mid-afternoon. He considered trying to engage his father in conversation but quickly discarded that as an option. After 3 days in each other's company from 6 in the morning to whenever the Potter brat went to bed, they were officially ate each other's throats.

Draco's problem was there was nothing to do. Sure for the first few days he had visited friends. Blaise had been interesting but no family had gotten off scot free. Some were suffering from loss of family members but more importantly loss of money. As such Blaise hadn't had much free time. Even the Malfoy's reputation had taken a nose-drive and it was taking all his father's effort to get it out of the gutter.

There was always Pansy but the day he went off to visit Pansy the piglet was the day he blasted his own name off the Malfoy family tree. Most of his other friends had either left Britain to avoid persecution or had died. So he had taken to spending days in his father's office with him all day. While at first it had been interesting to see his father work after a while it had started to drag. There was too much at stake at the moment for him to be able to help with anything so all he could do was watch.

There was no way in hell that Malfoy was going to spend his holiday in a house with Potter while the brat had free reign to wander in and out of his room without his consent. He had watched Potter wandering all over Malfoy manor over the past few days, clearly hunting around for all the dark artefacts. He honestly was surprised at the stupidity Potter had shown. Did he really think they would keep dark artefacts in their own rooms. Not only would that be insanely dangerous what with how unpredictable some of those objects were but also very condemning. Besides they'd already had the ministry inspect every inch of the house so there's no way something dark would be out in the open and it wasn't like Potter had the intelligence to spot secret compartments or anything of the kind.

Besides the ministry wouldn't be able to find something if they stuck someone in there for a year. They were too filled with mudbloods to remember even the basic pureblood magic. The house had been so full of dark magic for so long it had taken on a life of its own. It would never let anyone who meant harm to either the current Malfoy lord, or the Malfoy heir, to find anything incriminating or see anything that could harm them. Even if they hadn't meant harm he knew his father had increased the wards around and inside the house to tell him if Potter got too close to finding anything

Glancing at the map Draco saw the dot that was Harry potter finally start to move. First moving around the library before leaving and heading into potter's room. At last he could go home and go to sleep.

He stood from his seat and turned to his father and was about to bid him goodnight before he saw one of the artefacts behind his father's desk was spinning like mad and flashing a bright red.

"Father, Is that anything of importance?"

Lucius glanced up from his paperwork to look towards where Draco was pointing.

"Do not worry Draco. It means nothing. Now go home I trust the Potter brat is in his room."

"Yes. Goodnight father."

Draco was slightly suspicious his father was hiding something but knew it was useless to press for information his father wouldn't give. With that he spun on his heels keeping true to the Malfoy pride and swept out.

Lucius continued to stare at the artefact. He was not too concerned. The redness meant that whatever the Potter boy had discovered clearly hadn't been too dark. If said artefact had been blue he would already be at Malfoy Manor killing curse on his lips. It was strange though. The house should have recognised potter as a threat and have moved every and all dark books to the storage area. The house itself wasn't sentient but the magic that was built into its very foundations was and there was no reason it should have let Potter near anything like that. He would have to check the wards tomorrow after he'd had some rest. Despite appearances even he had a limit to how long he could work and having Draco around all the time had been exhausting.

Standing he exited his office warding and locking it before heading off to Malfoy Manor. At least Narcissa was staying with some distant relation of hers in France for the holidays and he wouldn't have to deal with her whining. Honestly she got on his nerves but she had her uses even if they were few and far between, besides there was no point in dissolving the marriage. Neither of them could stand each other so it was fairly easy to get away with avoiding each other which they had been doing since their wedding.

Lucius, having arrived at Malfoy Manor, entered his private quarters setting an alarm for six so as to be up before Potter. After changing and casting a few cleansing spells he went to bed.


End file.

Harry Potter, Romance