Harry Potter The Long Lost Malfoy

Mother blinked a little. Harry wasn't sure if she'd expected him to ask for something different, or what. The fact was that things were stretching out, and Draco still stood there with an intolerably self-satisfied look on his face.

"You really think swearing at him is worse than saying it's fine to torture or kill some people?" Harry asked.

"Your abusers." Mother stared at him, the air around her brilliant for a moment with magic that looked as if it was reflecting off water.

"Muggles," Draco added.

"Wow," Harry said. "So I still don't fit into this fucking family." He ignored the next admonition about swearing and stomped out of the dining room. He would go up and sit on his bed and stare at the wall anyway. It was probably no worse than the punishment than they would have given him.

"Henry!" Draco yelled, but Harry didn't turn around. There were some things he was learning better about, and some things he was willing to compromise on, and some things the Malfoys were right about. Harry could even admit that it was useless to ask them not to hate the Dursleys or the Potters.

But murder was not okay, no matter what the people in question had done. Harry wouldn't have wanted to murder Voldemort if the man suddenly appeared in front of him and handed him a knife to do it with.

Murder was wrong.

.....

"Henry? May I come in?"

Harry lifted his head from his folded arms. He'd been lying on his bed with his eyes closed and his face buried in his pillow most of the afternoon, but he hadn't fallen asleep. His mind was whirling too much for that. He stared at Mr. Malfoy, who was standing in the doorway of his bedroom and tapping his cane on the floor with something that might have been nervousness. Maybe. Harry had to wonder if he was reading that wrong, too.

"Okay," Harry said finally, and sat up and moved over a little in case Mr. Malfoy wanted to sit on the bed. He stared out the window, and watched a white peacock running on the grounds. Everything from the way that the peacock spread its shimmering tail to the fact that white roses were blooming around it, distinctly out of season, screamed wealth, the kind the Dursleys could only dream about.

With all that wealth, you'd think it would be a little easier for my parents to afford compassion.

"I understand that you were raised with a different set of morals," Mr. Malfoy began, taking one of the chairs that stood next to Harry's bed. Harry had just asked for them to be comfortable; Dobby was the one who had found chairs with elegant, carved wooden backs that still felt, leaning against them, as if they had Cushioning Charms. "But I would ask you to try and be sympathetic to us, as well."

"I can be sympathetic to you hating them," Harry mumbled. He looked back at his father with reluctance, and saw the agonized expression on his face. Harry sighed and kicked his heels against the bed. "But I'll never be sympathetic to you killing them. Or Draco thinking that Muggles are less than human. Or the choice you made to get that on your arm."

He could see the Dark Mark poking out from under his father's sleeve, for the first time. He supposed Mr. Malfoy had been thinking of other things than carefully arranging his shirt to hide it, the way he usually did.

Mr. Malfoy reached down as if to cover it up, and then sighed and raised his hand again. "I think that our response is exaggerated, as well," he admitted. "Every time you find fault with something we've done, it's as if we're about to lose you all over again."

Harry tamped down his outrage over the idea that it was exaggerated to think Muggles and wizards were equal or dislike murder, and simply shrugged again.

"We have to get past that initial reaction," Mr. Malfoy continued in a musing voice. "And you have to, as well. Unless you do intend to declare that you're rejecting us as your family and go off on your own again."

"I never made that choice in the first place!"

"But you can understand why we feel that you might?"

"And you?" Harry demanded. "How can I have faith in you when I think you might turn right around and hand me to Voldemort when he comes back?"

....

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