分卷阅读36（2 / 2）

Harry now had the distinct impression that Lucius and his father had not gotten along at all. Everything seemed to be Lucius’ fault to this man.

“Well then, I guess it is fitting that I be the first one to welcome you to the family. Your surname is Potter? Yes, that is fine. The Potters are an older wizarding family, not as prestigious as some, but good enough.” Then, on a direct change of topic, “How old are you boy?”

“16 sir.”

“A good age to be bonded. I’m glad to see that at least Lucius’ son is doing things correctly. Must be my good influence rubbing off on him.”

“He speaks fondly of you sir.” Yeah…Draco had never mentioned Lucius’ father, but if he was trying to make the portrait like him Harry could not have picked a better thing to say.

“Of course he does, my boy. I couldn’t trust Lucius to teach him how to do things properly. Lucius is even of the mind to let the boy pursue that horrid occupation…what was it again? Oh no matter. He doesn’t see that one has to have a certain occupation when in an upstanding family such as ours. I tried my best to educate him when he was young, but he never listened. Speaking of which, what are you going to do with your life boy? Something befitting the Malfoy name, I would hope.”

Think fast Harry, Harry said to himself. Would an auror be a job befitting a Malfoy? How in Merlin’s name should he know? How could he get out of this one? Well…if Lucius inherited his dislike for the Ministry from his father…

“My advisor in Hogwarts has suggested that I become an auror for the incompetent fools in the Ministry.”

Perfect.

“Those babbling idiots in the Ministry could never get anything done properly!”

When Harry finally got away from Lucius’ father’s portrait, he found that all of the portraits (which had been silently watching when Draco had led him through the Manor before) were equally inquisitive as to who had been left in the Manor. After a while it became easy for Harry to mingle with the portraits, and rather fun as well. All he had to do was make some comment on how the Ministry of Magic was incompetent and/or how the dress code at Hogwarts was unbearable nowadays, and make sure to always address the portrait as “sir” or “ma’am” and they all thought that Draco could not have chosen a better young man to bond with.

How the portraits viewed Lucius was puzzling to Harry though. Apparently there had been a huge rift in the Malfoy family between Lucius and his father. (Harry could only guess that it had something to do with Voldemort.) Half of the pictures followed the views of Lucius’ father and thought that Lucius was a disgrace to the Malfoy name, and the other half thought that Lucius was one of the “better Malfoys”. From the conversation with Lucius’ father’s picture, Harry could only guess that the Veriae blood also had something to do with it. Maybe Lucius’ mate was one that the traditional Malfoys wouldn’t approve of? Oh well, all the pictures seemed rather fond of Harry, so he didn’t have much to worry about.

Draco and Lucius returned home at around eleven, and Harry was just about to doze off on the couch in Draco’s room when Draco slammed open the door. Harry jumped slightly at the noise.

“I’m guessing that wasn’t the best few hours of your life.” Harry commented as Draco pulled off his outer robes. Harry regretted this statement immediately as Draco seemed to explode.

“If that girl comes near me again with something alcoholic I am going to ring her neck!” Draco began to rant about how he didn’t care if it was a muggle way to kill someone, or that it was illegal to murder someone for that matter, he would do it anyways. Harry tuned most of it out, knowing that his job in this was to just agree with whatever was being ranted about. But at the end of the rant something caught his attention.

“And since when has pink been a Christmas color anyways?”

“Pink?”

“Yes!”