Meeting Lucius on the platform was what ramped up Harry's nerves until he felt like he couldn't keep still. He'd always been good at dealing with fear and with nerves, but this was a different kind of nervousness. He'd never been nervous because he was going to meet the man that he'd one day be marrying before. This was all new for him and it was that unknown factor that was doing him in.
"Have you boys got everything?" Lucius asked as Draco said a final goodbye to Blaise, Pansy, and Daphne.
"Yes." Harry answered softly. "You look dead on your feet. Please tell me that you haven't been so anxious about this evening that you weren't able to sleep."
Draco scoffed. "No. The little love-struck fool stayed awake all night to finish off all his homework so he could spend all of the holidays following Rabastan around like a puppy. He's exhausted."
Draco threw an arm over Harry's shoulder and Harry rolled his eyes.
"You just couldn't wait to mention that, could you?" He demanded.
"No. He also spent the entire train journey home doing homework too." Draco said. "So he's completely done with all of his homework, but he's so tired now that he can't walk in a straight line."
"Well well, no wonder you look dead on your feet. Come, let's get you both home and then I'll be looking over your work, Harry. If it isn't up to standard then all of your hard work will have been for nothing, as you will be re-writing it under my direction."
Harry nodded. "I checked it all over on the train. It's all correct and Draco said that my Rune translations were correct too."
"He actually asked for additional homework." Draco told his father.
"Only in Ancient Runes and Arithmancy, just to help me get closer to where the rest of the class are."
"Well, I'm very proud of you. Now, come along, we have guests waiting for our return."
Harry walked beside Draco, their trunks hovering behind them thanks to a spell and they went to the bank of fireplaces that were at the far side of the platform. Lucius stood back and he saw Draco through with his trunk and empty owl cage and then he urged Harry forward to do the same. Harry was nervous, but he held his feather-light trunk and Hedwig's empty cage tight and shouted out his destination. He landed in the receiving room of Malfoy Manor and he left his trunk and cage next to Draco's and he waited for Lucius to arrive.
"Have you forgotten the way to the drawing room?" Lucius asked once he had arrived in the receiving room.
"No, I just…" Harry ducked his head and then raised it again immediately as he realised what he'd done and in front of whom.
Lucius actually smiled at him and placed a hand on his shoulder. "You are nervous. This isn't a bad thing. But, would it help if I told you that Rabastan is a nervous wreck waiting for you? He has been since he arrived at the manor."
Harry grinned. "That does help." He said as he imagined Rabastan sat in the other room, Draco likely with them, waiting for him. "Don't keep our guests waiting." Lucius told him and nudged him forward. "Always face your fears and push through any nerves or anxiety or you will never achieve your full potential; you will always be held back."
Harry swallowed, squared his shoulders and left the receiving room and went to the main drawing room while Lucius organised for his and Draco's trunks to be taken up to their rooms.
He had no idea what he was going to say or do, he didn't know what was acceptable or what would be a serious embarrassment to him, his family, or to the Lestranges, but he also had no idea how he was going to react when he saw Rabastan again.
He wondered again, and definitely not for the first time either, if Rabastan had made any improvements in the four months since he had last seen him. He steeled himself not to react, to keep everything positive, even if Rabastan had deteriorated for whatever reason. He was going to be marrying Rabastan and they would be having children together, it didn't matter what he looked like.
He came to the door of the drawing room and he composed himself a little, made sure that his casual robes (that he'd changed into on the train just before it had pulled into King's Cross Station) were straight and clean. He tried to fix his hair up a little and he took a moment to just breathe as he inhaled deeply, before he squared his shoulders, stood up straight and took the plunge and he walked into the room.
It took him a moment to take everything in, Narcissa and Draco were sat happily on a settee with Xerxes who had a glass of deep, dark red wine dwarfed in his hand. Rhadamanthus was floating in an odd armchair on the edge of everything as if he had been excluded from everything, even though he was still there in the room with them, and then, on the other settee, sat the intimidating brothers, Rodolphus and Rabastan.
Harry couldn't prevent the automatic smile that blossomed over his face when he laid eyes on Rabastan, he didn't even think to check him for progress or signs of improvement or lapses. He just caught those deep blue eyes and he couldn't look away and he was so happy to see him again that the smile was involuntary and absolutely genuine.
His betrothed stood up, with a little lean onto the arm of the settee as he did so, and Harry walked right to him and stood a little uncertainly in front of him as he craned his head back to smile up at Rabastan.
It was the youngest Lestrange who broke the awkwardness by pulling him into a gentle hug, his arms were shaking and Harry felt one of his forearm muscles spasm against his back, but he ignore it. "It's good to see you again." Rabastan told him.
"I missed you." Harry said as he slipped his arms around Rabastan and made sure that he didn't squeeze him at all or make him uncomfortable about his bony body.
"You are supposed to come and greet me first as the head of the Lestrange family." Xerxes told him neutrally.
Harry pulled back from Rabastan and he blushed so hard that he felt lightheaded. He could actually feel his face flaming like a beacon. He had been so worried about how he would greet Rabastan when he first saw him again that he hadn't even thought that it might have been protocol to have greeted Xerxes first, or even Narcissa, who was his adoptive mother, after all. He was so embarrassed that he just wanted the floor to open up and swallow him whole, but he couldn't run away from this or take that luxury of escape, he needed to do some quick damage control to try and make this right.
"I'm so sorry, I didn't…I just wanted…." He stammered and that humiliated him even further. He was a lord of two houses, he was supposed to be smooth and eloquent and now he was stuttering as badly as Quirrell had. He shut himself up before he could do any further damage and tried to think of something to do to make this in any way better.
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