Rabastan petted at his back and head and smiled down at him as Harry laughed into him. Harry enjoyed the attention and the way that Rabastan was looking at him with that smile on his thin, chapped lips. His betrothed needed a drink and Harry pecked at those too dry lips before standing up and going to pick up both of their glasses, topping them up with water and handing Rabastan's glass to him.
"At least you know the baby will have dark hair." Draco told him.
"Not exactly." Harry said with a smile. "Dark hair is more dominant, of course, but my mother and grandmother were redheads and my aunt and grandfather were actually blonde. My cousin was blonde too, despite his father also having red hair. So our children could really have any colour hair."
"My mother was blonde too." Rabastan told him with a soft smile.
That was when their Christmas went wrong as a glass smashed and Rhadamanthus was on his feet looking furious.
"You have no right to talk of her!" He exploded, his face going a horrible shade of red that Harry had become familiar with due to Vernon Dursley. "You killed her! You are the reason that she is dead, you have no right to even think of her!"
"She loved him." Harry said firmly when everyone else remained silent in the ensuing minutes after Rhadamanthus' violent outburst. "She loved her son and that's what you don't like. You didn't like the new baby and you couldn't stand that your wife loved him when you didn't even want him. Well, she did want him and she did love him and there is nothing that you can do to change that! Rabastan didn't kill her, you did when you broke her heart by hating one of her beloved sons."
"You have no clue what you're talking about!" Rhadamanthus told him furiously, that dangerous glint back in his pale eyes. "You weren't even born when my wife died."
"I don't need to have been." Harry said, glaring back just as hard. "I know one thing though. In the end, before she died, it was you that she hated. She hated you for hating the son that she loved and adored. It's you who have no right to talk or think of her, not Rabastan, because she loved him, not you."
Rhadamanthus let out a ferocious scream and lunged at him, but it was Lucius who shot off a body binding spell that had Rhadamanthus falling flat on his face before he even came close to reaching him.
"I would advise you against lunging at one of my sons like some sort of wild beast in a menagerie." Lucius said mildly, but with a bite of steel to his tone and in those grey eyes.
"You are a fool of the biggest kind." Xerxes spat at his son. "You will go back to Lestrange Manor and you'll stay there!"
Xerxes lifted his son with a spell and they left the room, Harry assumed so that Xerxes could Apparate Rhadamanthus back to Lestrange Manor to give him a real dressing down without anyone watching or hearing his private business.
Harry turned to Rabastan and cupped his face, smiling at him.
"Are you okay?" He asked quietly.
"You…you stood up to him for me, when I couldn't even do it myself." Rabastan said in a strange bemusement.
"Of course, I did." Harry replied with a soft smile. "I love you and I'm not going to let that poisonous, petty bastard fill your head with lies. Your mother loved you, Rabastan. It was him who never has, not your mother. Love her and remember her fondly, as she did you. Never let Rhadamanthus poison you against her, as he's trying to do. I know that you know deep in your heart that she loved you, hold on to that."
Rodolphus sat at Rabastan's back and slipped both of his arms around his brother in a way that would have looked too close, too intimate if it had been anyone other than these two…the two who had survived through so much between them. Harry knew and he understood, and because of that, he didn't hold it against either of them.
"She did love you." Rodolphus told his younger brother. "That old fool knows it too, it's why he reacted as he did. As Harry said, she loved you, you and me, not him."
Harry patted Rabastan's hand and left him and Rodolphus to have some time to themselves. He went over to Draco and asked if he wanted to play one-on-one Quidditch, which really wasn't anything more than releasing Draco's snitch and the both of them chasing it down.
"Sure." Draco agreed easily as he stood up and stretched.
"The both of you put a jumper on." Narcissa told them. "Lucius, go with them." She ordered her husband. "I don't want either of them to get hurt."
Lucius sighed, but he stood up as well as Harry and Draco rushed to get their jumpers and broomsticks from their bedrooms before they made their way to the back reception room, where Narcissa was waiting for them.
"I'm going to make up for my losses in chess." Harry swore to Draco with a grin.
He allowed Narcissa to fuss around him, making sure that his jumper collar and hem were covering him fully before she cast a warming charm on him before moving to do the same to Draco.
Lucius joined them wearing a very expensive, calf-length winter coat and he had his ever-present cane with him in one hand.
Harry darted outside and rushed across the back decking and down the porch steps with Draco. He flat out ran over the lawn towards the Quidditch pitch. They weren't allowed to run inside the house, but outside of it was another matter entirely.
Lucius joined them, having walked at a more dignified, sedate pace, just as Draco was unlocking his own box of Quidditch balls. He only took out the snitch before closing the lid again.
"If I see either one of you cheating, you will be placed in a corner for an hour. I don't care if it's Christmas, you'll still be punished."
Harry hugged Draco and got a slap on the back for his trouble. "There's not going to be any cheating on my part." He said with a grin. "I don't need to cheat to win."
Draco scoffed but let the snitch go after Lucius had tapped it with his wand to activate it, its tiny silver wings beating against his hand.
Harry climbed onto his Firebolt and he and Draco watched Lucius intently as he smiled cruelly at them as he waited, and waited, and waited to send them both into the air.
"Father!" Draco whined impatiently as he'd finally had enough of waiting.
Lucius chuckled. "Begin." He commanded and the both of them shot off like corks from a bottle of shaken butterbeer.
Harry whooped like a maniac as he weaved around the private Quidditch pitch, it was smaller than a professional pitch, but it was still a decent size, more for use by a five-on-five team (one keeper, one beater, one seeker and two chasers per team) instead of seven-on-seven.
It was very freeing and Harry didn't focus too much on finding the snitch, he just wanted to practice his dives and moves and Draco was doing the same. It felt amazing to fly during the holidays, he didn't care that it was bitterly cold, windy, and that there was a couple of inches of snow covering everything. He just loved the freeing experience of being able to fly around something that wasn't actually the Hogwarts grounds for once, though flying around the Weasley's orchard, catching apples, was alright, but it was nothing like this. This was an actual Quidditch pitch, with actual hoops and real balls. Catching thrown apples was so easy for him, he'd been catching golf balls thrown by Oliver Wood in his first year, apples were bigger and slower and he could see them easier. But this, practising with an actual, real snitch on a good-sized pitch was incredible.
The both of them were red-cheeked from the wind and cold after just twenty minutes, but they were both laughing and funnily, neither of them were actually looking for the snitch, they were having a good time just flying around and trying to outdo one another's stunts.
Harry didn't notice precisely when Rabastan had come out to watch him, but on his next turn around the south side goal hoops, he noticed that Lucius was no longer standing alone. Rabastan and Xerxes had come out to watch them too and he grinned and he started showing off a bit more. After his most hair raising dive yet, where he pulled up, away from the ground, with less than a fraction of a second to spare, his shins sunk in the few inches of snow that had fallen, Lucius shouted at him, actually shouted at him, and told him that if he didn't stop doing such ridiculous, reckless stunts then he'd have his broom confiscated from him for the rest of the holidays.
Harry cut back on the stunts then and he went looking for the snitch instead, his grin hurting his frozen cheeks and he ignored his bright red, cold fingers that gripped his broom handle numbly. He was having too much fun and he went up to a hundred and forty feet and looked down. A dive from here would be spectacular, but he knew that Lucius would keep good on his promise and he didn't want to push him into doling out a punishment.
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