Harry Potter :The Chronicles of Black

"I could help you with that." Harry said smoothly. "I'm her Head of House; I could insist that she gets her fertility checked if you have concerns about it as her marital Head of House."

Xerxes chuckled and he touched Harry's shoulder gently. "I would appreciate that, Lord Potter-Black."

Harry nodded and he held Lucius' arm as they reached the Apparation area.

"I will see you soon, Xerxes." Lucius said and the two of them shared a knowing look. Harry took that to mean that there would be a Death Eater meeting soon. Nearly every letter he got now asked about Death Eater meetings and encouraged him to 'pass on' all of Lucius' comings and goings or anything he'd heard the Malfoys say, even if it was out of context. Harry wasn't going to do it, he was learning so much from Lucius, he didn't want that to end and, for all intents and purposes, Lucius was his legal father, he was family and Harry wouldn't sell out his family.

Harry took a half step closer to Lucius and clenched his hand on his arm tighter and then he found himself suddenly back in the foyer of Malfoy Manor. He took a half step forward on the landing, but he was getting much better at it than when he had used to face plant the floor on his landings. Lucius had helped him with that too. "You're getting much better at that now." Lucius told him, helping to steady him a little. "Your lessons are paying off."

Harry nodded. "All of them, I believe. I understood more of what was said in the meeting this time around."

"Yes, I was very proud of you during that meeting. How you conducted yourself, how you thought about what you wanted to say before opening your mouth and especially how much sense you actually made while speaking. I was immensely proud."

Harry smiled widely, almost beaming at the praise he'd received and he excused himself and rushed away, he wanted to delve deeper into his books so that the next meeting that was called, he could do even better.

"You stop running in your home this instant!" Lucius called after him sharply, not raising his voice, but making it carry to him, where he immediately stopped and looked back at Lucius with a sheepish smile.

"Sorry." He said a bit bashfully.

"You had better need the bathroom really badly." Lucius told him as he climbed the stairs to join him on the landing above.

"I wanted to get to my room so that I could read more so that the next meeting goes even better." Harry said excitedly. "There were some things that I didn't understand still, so I wanted to check up on those and I wanted to finish the one book that I'm reading so that I could get onto the next one."

"You're prattling." Lucius told him and Harry shut his mouth and ducked his head to the floor. That got him a hex to the back of the head and he lifted it up again automatically. "I never said that it was a bad thing, only something which you need to…limit." Lucius said as they carried on down the hallway. "I am pleased that you're so excited about your duties. Let us hope that you show as much enthusiasm towards your betrothed in a few days."

Harry bit his lip and nibbled at it.

"What if he doesn't like me? Just because I like older men doesn't mean he'll want a recently turned sixteen-year-old for a match."

"If his grandfather has any say in the matter then Rabastan would be proposing and whisking you off for a wedding ceremony before you went back to Hogwarts." Lucius remarked dryly.

"Doesn't he need your permission for that? And mine too?"

"Exactly right. Something I will not be giving, my sons will finish their formal education before they decide to start a whirlwind romance and fly off to get married." Harry chuckled. "I never thought of getting married so young, I quite like the idea, just not yet. I'm still new to everything, so I want to learn as much as I can first."

"Then, go and do that reading you were so eager to do just a few minutes ago. I will see you later this evening to see how much information you have actually retained."

Harry nodded and he said his goodbyes and he once again veered off for his bed suite, at a much steadier, calmer pace than before. He didn't know what to think about having a convicted, escaped felon as a betrothal match, but it was Lucius' decision, not his, and while he was under this contract, he had to have so many meetings with his betrothed and so much correspondence with him to fulfil the terms of the contract he'd signed, but there was still no obligation for him to marry Rabastan at the end of it, which he was thankful for. He liked having that bit of control over it all. He was still nervous about meeting him in a few days, though, and he hoped that everything went well because he knew that Rabastan had been incarcerated in Azkaban for a very long time…fifteen years if he remembered right. Sirius had been bad after twelve years and he'd had his Animagus form to help him, he didn't want to think of the mental state that Rabastan was in and if he was anything like his sister-in-law, Bellatrix, then there was absolutely no way in this lifetime that he'd even consider an engagement at the end of their betrothal contract, let alone a marriage.

Xerxes Lestrange smiled at the document in his hands. Irrefutable proof that Harry James Potter was fertile and able to carry a child within his body. Lucius had willing produced the document when he had, rightly so, demanded proof of the nearly unbelievable claims that Lucius had made that the son he'd adopted had the gene that allowed him to carry a baby when he'd made the initial contract request for his Rabastan.

He laughed to himself; he should have suspected something like this…that boy was far too small and slim to be anything other than a gene carrier, but he had reasoned that the boy was still growing.

It was his soft face and that delicate, fragile-looking body combined with this document, which was signed by two different healers from Saint Mungo's that made the connection click. It had been so long since there had been a confirmed gene carrier who actually wanted to exercise their rare ability and have a child grown in their bodies that it was just a natural reaction now to disbelieve someone who claimed that they carried the gene.