my significant other.” Draco replied, a sarcastic smile forming “Because that’s the only way you’d be invited.”

“Ah…good. Then I won’t have to worry about where I packed my dress robes.”

Harry wondered exactly what he could really do with both Malfoys out of the house. He supposed they didn’t care that he was left there because the House Elves would make sure that nothing was out of its proper place when they got back, but he still wasn’tfortable with it. He began walking back to his room to find something to do. He didn’t get very far.

“Left riff-raff alone in the house did they? My son will never understand proper decorum,” a snide voice on his right spoke.

Harry turned to see a picture of a stately man with blond hair slicked back so it made him look like a vampire. He had steely grey eyes, almost cat-like in their perusal of Harry. Harry got a distinct feel of Lucius from this man, but Lucius didn’t have the same nose or chin as this person.

“Well, don’t just stand there boy. Tell me who my son has let walk about unchecked so that I may properly address the matter with him later.”

It all clicked. This was Lucius Malfoy’s father. Somehow Harry got the feeling that this man could be worse than Lucius if he put his mind to it.

“My name is Harry Potter sir.” Harry gave a little bow as he said so and, lying through his teeth, continued. “I’m sorry for my appearance I haven’t had time to change out of the school uniform yet.” He figured that he should at least try to get on the portrait’s good side…if it had one.

The man’s lip curled. “Yes, they certainly have to change that. Ever since Lucius went to school the uniform has been absolutely horrid. A result of allowing muggles into the school. They don’t have the same background as the old wizarding families. Horrid. Just horrid.”

Harry didn’t know exactly what was horrid, the muggles in the school or the uniform because of allowing muggles in the school, so he didn’t darement. After all, he didn’t want all of the pictures in Malfoy Manor to hate him…that would be so very annoying and he doubted Draco would allow him to burn them all…

“But I haven’t seen you around the Manor, Potter was it?”

“Yes sir. I just came for Christmas break sir.”

Lucius’ father frowned. “And he let one of Draco’s friends have free reign of the Manor?” The man shook his head as if his son was a hopeless case.

“Not exactly sir.” A sharp look from the man made Harry continue. “I am Veriae- bonded to Draco, sir.”

“Ah, so Lucius passed down that blood did he?”

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 wee 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 upation…what was it again? Oh no matter. He doesn’t see that one has to have a certain upation 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 be an auror for the ipetent 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 somement on how the Ministry of Magic was ipetent 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.” Harrymented as Draco pulled off his outer robes. Harry regretted this statement immediately as Draco seemed to explode.

“If that girles 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!”

“Neon pink?”

Draco stopped for a moment to think. “No, not neon, the kind of pink that says ‘new baby girl’.” Draco shuddered. “It clashed with the red so horribly.”

Harry couldn’t help it he had to laugh, picturing red, green, and pink as Christmas colors.

“Harry, get up! Presents!”

Harry barely had time to register who was speaking before he found himself falling off the bed and on to the floor with a startled yelp. Fixing a glare at the Malfoy whose fault that was through the mattress of the bed, he muttered, “You have a king size bed, Draco. Was that really necessary?”

Draco didn’t respond, as he was perched at the end of the bed, a delighted smile on his face. Wait…a smile? Harry blinked. Yes, Draco Malfoy was smiling, almost gleefully, as he shifted through a mountain of presents. Harry watched him methodically tossing the topmost presents back towards the head of the bed.

“Any reason why you’re doing that?” Harry asked, crawling back on the bed, barely ducking what looked like a wrapped book.

“Relatives and friends. Father always puts his presents under all this junk.”

Harry looked in shock at Draco as the Malfoy surfaced from underneath the pile of bows and expensive wrapping paper with three presents wrapped in plain black paper with the name “Draco Malfoy” written in white calligraphy on them.

“You’re kidding me.” Harry muttered, looking back and forth from the pile of presents that Draco had virtually disregarded to the three simple looking presents he held. Here he was, with more presents than Dudley had gotten for the last three birthdays and Christmasesbined and all he cared about were those three.

“They don’t really put any thought into it anyway, Harry. So those presents don’t really count.” Draco explained as he climbed out of bed and made his way towards the nearest chair. “Crabbe and Goyle always send their presents by mail, so I don’t expect those for another hour yet.”

So Draco only cared about five presents? Startling. Harry found himself respecting Draco somewhat for that. But as Draco began to lightly remove the paper from the first of the three presents that Lucius had gotten him, Harry’s eyes found the present he had gotten for Draco in the sea of presents.

“You might want to open this one too.” Harry spoke, picking up the present and placing it on the floor near the chair, before crossing into his own room (noting that it was snowing out today) and looking at the pile on his own bed. Much smaller than Draco’s, but everyone seemed to be ounted for…and it seemed bigger than usual. Oh well, he’d find out soon enough. So starting from the top, Harry began unwrapping.

Fred and Ge had sent him a box full of “surprises” from their shop (latest inventions, they’d said in a note). Mrs. Weasley had sent a tin of fudge and a sweater as she had for the last five years running, and Harry gleefully started in on the fudge as he turned to his other presents. Hermione had sent him a book (The Many Uses of Parseltongue in History and Today by Snora Serpentis), and Ron had packed a chocolate frog and a Chudley Cannons poster for his present. There were also gifts from Remus, Tonks, and a few of his dorm mates, along with a small present (candy of some sort with a card, mostly) from every member of the DA. Then when Harry removed Ginny’s present to see what was underneath that, he had to blink twice to be sure he was seeing what he thought he saw.

A present that was wrapped in the exact same manner as Draco’s three important presents had been wrapped, except that it was his name written in white and not Dr

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