Harry ignored the summons for breakfast the next morning and instead, he took a lengthy bath. He'd taken his Ancient Runes book in with him and he easily read several chapters in the hot water before he'd even started washing himself. "Young master, Master be asking if you are coming down for breakfast."
Harry looked at the elf, Pimsey, and he shook his head. "Can't you see that I'm having a bath? I don't want breakfast."
The elf nodded and left him again and Harry rested back against the side of the bath and luxuriated in the still-hot water. He really loved magic.
Hammering on the locked bathroom door ten minutes later had him getting angry.
"I'm bathing!" He shouted out.
"It's been three hours, Potter. You can't still be in the bath!" Draco yelled at him. Of course, Draco would be the only one egotistical enough to enter his rooms without permission to come and disturb him while he was in the bath.
"Well, I am. Go away, Draco."
"Stop hiding away!" "I'm not hiding, I'm having a damn bath!"
"Tell me what happened!" Draco demanded. "Why has everything changed? I don't like being out of the loop, I'm the only one who doesn't know what's happening, tell me!"
Harry sighed and he got out of the bath, drying himself with a spell before he tugged on his towelling robe. He opened the door and looked at Draco's stubbornly set face.
"Rabastan doesn't believe a word that I say." Harry told Draco as he walked past him and he went straight into his wardrobe to get himself dressed as Draco took a seat on his bed. "I told him to his face that I loved him and he turned around and he told me to go and be with another man! I could have handled him not saying he loved me back, it has only been a short amount of time, after all. I understand that he might be uncomfortable with the idea of love, but to tell me to go to another man! He said I should be with someone who hasn't been 'ruined' by Azkaban. He just doesn't get that I love him! That I want to be with him! He doesn't believe that I love him and he won't let me help him at all, but most importantly, he won't even try to help himself. I'm so frustrated with him, Draco."
"So you're going to give up?" Draco asked sceptically.
Harry actually laughed. "Merlin, no. I'm just going to show him that he has to take me seriously or I will walk away. Father thinks I should…tease him with Thorfinn Rowle. Apparently, he's coming for the New Year's Eve party?"
Draco bobbed his head. "It's basically a social gathering for purebloods of a certain standard."
"You mean pureblood Death Eaters." Harry corrected as he yanked on his chosen clothes and came out to join Draco on the bed.
Draco winced, but he nodded his head. "Do you think it'll work?" Harry asked him.
"It could do. Rowle is handsome and clever, but he's very possessive. You should have seen him when he saw me for the first time. I was twelve, it was the first party I had been allowed to attend as I was finally old enough, and the moment his eyes landed on me, he wouldn't leave me alone. He hounded my father for the next two years trying to set up a betrothal between us."
"But you don't have the gene." Harry said with a slight shock that Rowle obviously didn't care about little pureblood heirs. He was one of the sacred twenty-eight families as well, the only male Rowle left! It should have been one of the only things he cared about.
"Ah, you see, that was my father's problem with the contract too. Rowle had written a stipulation into the contract. That the both of us could each have a chosen pureblood mistress to birth our heirs for us. I was to be his husband by law, but the way I see it now, I would have been a married pet to him while he went and had sex with his chosen mistress whenever he pleased. With how possessive he is, I doubt I would have even seen my so-called mistress."
Harry actually laughed. "Seriously? Oh hell, I bet Lucius was not happy about that."
"He wasn't and neither was mother. I was a little too young to understand what was going on at the time, but now that I'm older and I look back on it, I can't believe the audacity that he had. He would not be a good husband for you."
"Or anyone." Harry stated.
"Maybe Daphne." Draco amended. "But he definitely is not husband material for my brother. I will not have Rowle in my family."
Harry laughed. "Oh, don't worry, I know that we won't be seeing that come about, he sounds dreadful. As for Daphne, well I actually like Theodore and he doesn't deserve to be treated like that just because his gutless father wants a claim on the Greengrass fortune. Maybe we should push her at Rowle. It would be no less than she deserves."
"Theo's father has been obsessed with money ever since he invested a lot of gold in the wrong stocks. He thought of himself as a genius investor and delighted in 'giving advice' to everyone and he claimed to be giving them hints and imparting his 'wisdom' to everyone else. He put the majority of his gold into this new, upcoming company and he started hinting to everyone else that it was going to be the next big thing and that it was going to make them all millions. Father always refused to buy stocks in most of Nott's little imparted hints, though he did sometimes humour the man when it suited him. But this one venture he outright refused to put his gold into it and he advised many others to do the same. He could read in the market what was going to happen, so when it did crash, spectacularly, many of the lords owed father a debt of gratitude. Nott lost almost everything and he's been trying to regain his fortune and his former status ever since."
"And he thinks forcing his son to marry a girl like Daphne is going to help?" Harry asked sceptically.
Draco snorted. "Obviously so. It will get him a good amount of gold at any rate. Harvey Greengrass knows very well what his older daughter is like and he is fully aware of how she behaves, despite his attempts at curbing her, so he'll be willing to pay through the teeth to ensure her a good match worthy of the Greengrass name. Despite his lack of intelligence and his lack of wealth, the Nott family is still a prominent and pure one."
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