“I’m going to grow a beard,” says Harry, looking through the mirror at about six days’ worth of stubble because in between Voldemort, the after-party, and the spectacular mess with the sociopolitical fallout of Voldemort’s downfall he hasn’t had time or energy to shave. “It might look more wizardly, eventually.”
Ron shrugs, eyeing Harry with what feels like an unusual sort of apathy. He’s spent the last six days kissing Hermione, and for the first time in several years there isn’t even a twinge of jealousy at his better-looking and more-famous best friend. “It might. Think Hermione’d like it if I grew a handlebar mustache?”
Harry says, diplomatically, “I think you should ask Hermione if she’d like that.”
“When she gets back.” Hermione’s in Australia, tracking down her parents and, presumably, explaining to two incendiarily furious Muggles why she rewrote their memories, sent them halfway around the world, and spent almost a year running through a war zone without them. Neither of them envy her the task. It also means that she hasn’t heard any of this; the Daily Prophet has suffered a truly impressive amount of magical vandalism in the past few days, much of it involving the sort of things that can be bought at Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes, and is taking a small hiatus while its staff writers and senior editors recover from the effects of multiple Bat Bogey Hexes per person.
Harry shrugs and turns away from the mirror. “So,” he says with some distaste. “Do I look like the Lord of seventeen Noble Houses?”
He doesn’t. He looks like a seventeen-year-old boy in a worn-out school robe made for someone several inches shorter and about ten kilos heavier, with wild hair that brushes his shoulders and what will perhaps someday be an impressive beard but currently looks like he’s forgotten to shave for several days. Ron thinks about the answer for a long moment. “Nope.”
Harry’s face splits into a relieved grin. “Oh, thank Merlin. I thought I was the only one who could see how much of a tosser I looked.”
Harry looks one more time in the mirror, as though coming to a sort of peace with that he’ll probably never feel like a Lord. “Good,” is what he says.
That feeling lasts for all of a minute. Professor McGonagall intercepts him on the way down and drags him into her office, where she hands him a robe that hasn’t been dragged through multiple battles and a year-long camping trip, and a pair of shoes that aren’t falling apart. “I’m sure you don’t want any part of this, Harry, but you should try to look a bit more neat. It will show respect for your new position, which will make things a bit easier for you in the long run.
The shoes are leather, black, old-fashioned and fine. He has a moment’s thought of Dobby, polishing Lucius Malfoy’s boots in between being kicked, and bile rises in his throat. He puts the shoes on, and then the robe, which is not a school robe, but elegantly cut in some fine fabric, and it fits him. He finds himself standing up a bit straighter, and Professor McGonagall nods in approval. “That will do. Good luck, Mr. Potter.”
Another memory tickles at him, their conversation right after Dumbledore’s death, him declining to confide in her and her return to formality. “Harry,” he tells her.
“Harry,” she says, and gives him a hint of a smile.
The next person he runs into is Ginny, who runs up to him, hugs him, kisses him (Ron makes a coughing noise here, and is ignored), and steps back to look at him. “Don’t you look dashing,” she says, and Harry grins at her, feeling a bit more human. He wraps her up in a hug and is about to kiss her again when he’s hit about the head by a live chicken.
He lets go and flails about comically instead. Beside him, Ginny is doing the same thing, shoving the bird off him and in the direction of Ron, who is leaning against the wall guffawing. Ginny turns to yell down the hallway, “Just because you almost died doesn’t mean I won’t hex you!”
A pair of identical faces peek around the corner. “Good morning, dearest sister of mine!” Fred sings out, dramatically throwing one arm out towards the nearest sunlit window.
“Like our newest product?” George asks, coming up behind him; if they’re standing noticeably closer to each other than they would have done before, Harry doesn’t comment on it. He gets it.
“A chicken?” Harry asks, dubiously.
They both grin. “Not just any chicken,” says Fred.
“We started by improving our line of fake wands,” says George.
“So instead of rubber chickens and fish and parrots–”
“–They’d turn into real chickens–”
“–And ferrets,” George adds, and they all share a grin, knowing exactly who that particular fake wand is going to make its way to.
“But then we decided to go one further–”
“And make the spell triggered by kissing instead!”
Fred holds out what looks like a tiny, decorative egg. “We’re calling it the Cockblock, what do you think?”
Ginny smiles sweetly, though she’s toying with her wand in a way that has both brothers looking a tad wary. Then her smile turns full-on evil, and she says, “I think you should make a quill that turns into a really angry swan when someone uses it to write something untrue.”
Harry, sensing where she’s going with this, says, “Make it lime green.”
When he finally gets down to the Great Hall, Harry’s feeling a lot better about everything. It’s hard not to, with friends like he’s got.
The Great Hall is about two-thirds full. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner these days have all had their hours extended, to better serve the influx of families, refugees, repair workers, ministry officials and assorted others who have been in and out of Hogwarts quite a bit in the aftermath of battle.
As usual, all eyes turn to Harry as he comes in. As usual, several people detach themselves from their groups and conversations and start heading his way. As usual, he contemplates turning around and leaving rather than face an invasion of questions, requests, and unsolicited advice while he eats his French toast, but then he sees Draco Malfoy, hunched over a bowl of porridge with neither parents nor remaining sycophant in attendance, and with a polite smile to the converging adults and a silent astonishment at his own audacity he goes over and sits across from Draco.
Just as anticipated, everyone who wanted to talk to him finds themselves unwilling to interrupt somebody else’s conversation with him. At least if that somebody else is a Slytherin pureblood, and one of his new vassals.
Draco looks up. “Fuck do you want, my Lord?” Bitterness, underlaid with exhaustion, resignation, and months of despair.
Harry says, “Call me Potter, you tosspot.”
Draco’s lips twitch. Harry’s willing to bet it’s the closest thing to a smile to cross Draco’s face in months. But it’s gone almost instantly. “Can’t,” Draco says. “You’re my Head of House.”
“What, you didn’t have any problem disrespecting Snape last year.”
“Not that kind of Head of House. That’s just school. You’re head of my House, of the House of Malfoy, and that’s supposed to be my father!” This last is almost a snarl.
“And then you,” Harry reasons. “And then your kid.”
Draco nods. “And now it’s you instead, and you don’t give a shit for our traditions, or for blood, or for anything, and you look like you just escaped from Azkaban and I’ll bet somebody else chose that robe for you because you have the fashion sense of a coat rack.”
Harry giggles. Then he remembers he’s supposed to be eating breakfast here, and serves himself a slice of French toast from one of the platters. “Here I thought,” he says, looking at the traces of despair on Draco’s face, “that you were the one who just got out of Azkaban.”
Draco considers this. Harry pours his syrup and takes a bite while his longtime rival mulls this over. “Maybe, sort of,” Draco allows finally. “Still one prison to another.”
Harry frowns. That isn’t what he wants. Maybe for some of the nastier of Voldemort’s supporters, but for Draco? He casts about for something to offer that wouldn’t be rejected as empty comfort or held in contempt as though Harry were tossing him scraps.
“Maybe,” he repeats Draco’s word. At the other’s curious look, he says, “I could use someone to help me understand all this tradition and power I’ll be dealing with.” Draco looks at him, wary and yet obviously, keenly interested. Harry wonders when he got to be such an expert at reading Draco, who probably got actual lessons in not letting such things show.
Tradition, Harry thinks. Tradition, and power, or access to it. Influence. That’s what matters to pureblood Slytherins. That and lineage. He thinks back to the battle, to Draco’s mother lying to Voldemort in exchange for knowledge of her son’s survival; the image mingles momentarily with that of his own mother, standing before Voldemort, shielding him.
“For example,” Harry says, “If I adopt your firstborn as my heir to your House, do they become Head of it after me?”
The stunned widening of Draco’s eyes, the sudden blaze of naked hope, are shockingly intimate, and Harry almost nonchalantly busies himself pouring a cupful of orange juice.
“Yeah,” says Draco finally. "That … yeah.” A long, vaguely suspicious silence. “You’d do that?”
Harry nods. And feels like bursting with something like happiness when Draco straightens up, smiles genuinely, and says, “Well, then, you’ve got yourself an adviser. Have you considered growing a beard? Is that where you’re going with that?”
Harry nods, and is about to ask Draco’s advice on the matter when someone shrieks in the Entrance Hall.
“HARRY!” Hermione yells, standing in the doorway, rigid with shock but at the same time clearly missing a tension that’s been with her all year. “You’re a WHAT?!”
