It was as if Dumbledore didn't expect him to live, so teaching him anything on how to be an independent adult would have been just a massive waste of time and it was that, more than anything, which panicked Harry and made him cling to the Malfoy family, and even to Rabastan, tighter. He wanted to live, he wanted his own family and his own life. He didn't want to die!
He couldn't just forgive and forget what Dumbledore had done and he'd needed someone to teach him what he needed to know to live a normal life. Being adopted, or even just taken in by someone, really was the only option he'd had where he sort of got what he wanted and got exactly what he needed.
No, he would never have chosen Lucius Malfoy of all people, but after seven weeks spent in his home and four months now of being 'a Malfoy,' he had to admit that it really wasn't that bad. He was happy, he was looked after, everything he needed or wanted was given to him, he was a lot more protected now and he finally had a family to call his own. Things could have been better, he knew that, but looking back at where he had come from, he also knew that things could also be a hell of a lot worse. He was happy with the Malfoy family and he was very happy with Rabastan. Things would work out for him because he'd force them to if he had to and, it was with that thought in mind, that he got out his parchment and ink and he calmly and cleverly replied to his three letters. If they were testing him, he wouldn't let them win, and if they were just genuinely curious and concerned for his wellbeing and his stance on things, as difficult as that thought was to believe, well, so much the better.
could only be classed as boys, crying and sobbing as he informed them that everything he'd told them had been lies just to get them into his bed. It had naturally started at Hogwarts. His older brother had often regaled him with tales of his trysts with women he'd had the night before, laughing as he saw their wet, red-eyed faces over the following weeks and Rodolphus had been so…joyful. He had liked hurting those girls. He had told Rabastan that he liked the power that it gave him, so he had naturally emulated his older brother and he had done the same. Only he hadn't limited himself to just girls.
He had made something of a reputation for himself while in Hogwarts, but he'd been at his worst when he was in his late teens and graduated from Hogwarts.
He still remembered the face of the one woman, a mere mudblood he had slept with just to amuse himself. He had made a grave mistake and he'd strung her along for a month, listening to her babble about how they were going to get married and have a family together. As if he would have even considered embarrassing and lowering himself to marrying a mudblood, to think that she had thought that he would ever sully his bloodline by having a child with her. But she had amused him greatly, so he had kept her for longer, which she had taken to interpret as true love, insisting to her friends and family that he was a changed man and that he was going to stay with her and start a family with her.
He still remembered the day that she had told him that she was pregnant. He could still feel the horror and the disgust, the shock of such an announcement. How had he not been more careful, how? He had told her then and there that she was mere amusement for him and that he would never lower himself to marrying a filthy mudblood and she was a fool for even thinking such thoughts. When she had been in tears and begging on her knees in front of him, pleading for him to reconsider for the sake of their baby…that had been when he'd ripped his wand out of his holster and waved his wand over her midsection in a violent slashing motion. The curse that his grandfather had meticulously taught and instructed him to cast, just in case there were any unsavoury 'accidents' in his youth, had ensured that the baby within her was no more, whether it truly was his or another man's he didn't care, he would not bear the shame of an unworthy mudblood carrying his child. A bastard child no less.
He had left that woman (her name and face eluded him now) on the floor of her small, ratty home and he had never seen her again. He had never played the 'game' again. He had realised exactly how dangerous it had been. If she hadn't believed that they would be married, that they were in love and that he had changed. If she hadn't told him that she was pregnant right away…if he hadn't strung along that game for his own amusement, then he might have had the utmost, compounding shame of a bastard, halfblood child in the world. The embarrassment of such a thought stung him even now. He had never told his grandfather or his brother about that mudblood and for as long as he lived, he never would, that haunting secret would go with him to the grave.
His trysts had trailed off after that. His grandfather had been pleased, thinking that he had finally grown up and, in a way, he had. He'd realised exactly how dangerous the little game he'd been playing was and he'd stopped immediately. All of his trysts over the following three years before he was thrown into Azkaban were carefully chosen and were mostly men without the gene that allowed them to bear a child. He would never have a bastard child, ever.
His roundabout thoughts brought him to Harry and he fingered his new cufflinks holding the cuffs of his shirt closed. He loved them, they reminded him of Harry in a way, smooth silver ovals with a ripple of green through them that sometimes exploded with colour and made green shadows dance on the walls when the candlelight bounced off of them. Plain, simple, elegant, and utterly unique.
He twitched hard and clenched his regrown teeth together, fighting the aftershocks of smaller twitches and ticks that followed. How could Harry even stand to look at him? He'd seen himself in the full-length bathroom mirror. He had seen the damage, the wastage that Azkaban had inflicted on his body. He was ugly, inside and out, what would a boy as young, beautiful, and as powerful and influential as Harry want with a broken man who couldn't even write a letter properly?
Harry was a kind, soft person, he deserved someone better than himself, but he was a selfish person also and he always had been, so though he knew that Harry deserved much better than himself, there was no way that he was going to give Harry up. Though now that his Lord was actively seeking their marriage, he would have been unable to break off his betrothal with Harry, even if he had the inclination to do so, which he definitely didn't.
Harry was different and not just because he was someone influential and from a good family, in a roundabout way. He hadn't just slept with mudbloods or sluts of no proper bloodlines or import in his youth, he had slept with pureblooded men and women as well over the years and he had treated them all the same, he had played with every single one of them. He didn't know why Harry was different to everyone else, he just was.
He wasn't sure if it was because of Azkaban, or if it was because he was the ruin of a man who was hideous to look upon and yet Harry was so beautiful and he looked and smiled at him like he was still in his late teens, with his perfectly fit body, his handsome face and all of his hair. Harry treated him like he was still normal while other people recoiled in horror and disgust. Some of them had even dared to sneer and hiss comments about his appearance, though he got a feeling that they were the people that he had played his games with in his youth. He couldn't be sure because Azkaban had blurred the faces of all of them.
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