Rodolphus bared his teeth. "Have you been intimate with anyone other than my brother, Rabastan Lestrange?!"
"That wasn't one of the predetermined quest…" Rabastan started furiously, but Harry, forced to answer because of the potion controlling him, cut across.
"Yes."
"With who and when?" Lucius asked as Rodolphus looked triumphant and Rabastan looked crushed.
"Cho Chang, we kissed in my fifth year. I didn't like it." "Before his betrothal, before I'd even adopted him." Lucius sneered at Rodolphus.
"Do you love my brother, Rabastan Lestrange?" Rodolphus demanded, as if trying to find something to fault Harry for.
"That is enough!" Lucius commanded.
"Yes." Harry answered simply.
"Are you completely untouched and pure?" Rodolphus asked quickly as Lucius took out the small bottle of antidote, glaring at Rodolphus.
"Yes." Harry answered just as Lucius cupped his cheek and placed more drops onto his tongue and slowly, ever so slowly, Harry felt the fuzziness slipping away.
His mouth felt strange as if someone had rubbed a fluffy sock over his tongue and he was slightly disorientated, almost confused, but he remembered everything that had happened clearly. He worked his mouth, testing that it was back in his control as his thoughts came back and he was able to think again.
He blinked and accepted the glass of water that was offered to him, drinking it down to get rid of the strange, cottony feeling in his mouth. As soon as he was done and he had handed the empty glass back to Lucius, Rabastan was there, holding him close and tight.
"You owe him an apology for forcing him through this, Rodolphus! You accused him falsely of impurity and you demanded answers to questions that we did not agree to ask!" Rabastan growled to his older brother.
"Rabastan is correct. You accused Harry of all sorts and now you must amend your mistake." Xerxes insisted, looking so much happier, his back was straighter, his shoulders held high. He had thought that Harry had done something, either with Theo or Marcus or even someone else, it didn't matter. Harry was glad that he'd proven them all wrong. Or right in Lucius and Rabastan's case. Rodolphus blew out a heavy breath, before standing straighter, looking him dead in the eyes and holding his gaze. "I'm sorry that I wrongly accused you of being with others. I was merely protecting my brother and I will always do so, but in this case, I was wrong and I'm sorry."
Harry nodded. "I know you were doing it for Rabastan, that's why I agreed to it. But I do love him, I really do. No one else has ever turned my head."
"What about that Cho mentioned?" Xerxes asked.
Chang
who
was
"I only went out with her because I thought that it was what I was supposed to do. That it was what people did, asking girls out on dates to Hogsmeade. It was before I realised that maybe I'd prefer men instead. She kissed me and it just…it was just terrible." He confessed.
That broke the tension and set everyone off laughing. Rabastan's arms clenched around him and he nuzzled into his hair. Harry felt a kiss and he smiled.
"I need to go and wash my face a moment, it feels strange and all rubbery like it's not mine." He said with a grimace.
"An after-effect of the potion." Xerxes told him and Harry nodded his understanding.
"Excuse me a moment."
Harry was smiling happily as he made his way through the manor to the downstairs bathroom. Thankfully, it was free because he didn't really want to wait. He wanted to get back to Rabastan. He ducked his face and cupped his hands into the flow of cold water to splash his face.
He felt a little more normal and he swished his mouth out too, to get rid of the dry feeling he had that seemed stuck to his tongue like an unmovable coating. He'd never tried Veritaserum before, he really didn't like the effects of it, nor the after-effects for that matter. He hoped that now he had been proven to be 'pure' and in love with Rabastan that all the aggression and tension would ease off, he didn't want to fight with Rodolphus all the damn time. He was his brother-in-law, he wanted to get on with him, for Rabastan's sake more than anything else, but Rodolphus would be his children's uncle one day, everything would be so much easier if he got on with Rabastan's family and Rabastan with his family.
He sighed and lifted his head and he had no time at all to react as he saw another reflection in the mirror, right before his head was bashed into it. Dazed, confused, and now in pain, Harry collapsed to the floor and he couldn't react in time when a large body dropped onto him, forcing all the air out of his lungs as large hands wrapped around his throat and squeezed painfully tight, cutting off his windpipe so much that he was reduced to fighting for every breath; inhaling in painful, stuttered gasps. "You little shit, how dare you humiliate me in front of all of those people!" The man snarled at him.
Harry was shocked to find that it was Rowle sitting on top of him, looking no worse for wear after Rodolphus had rearranged his face for him exactly a week ago.
"Get…off!" Harry demanded, trying to draw in enough air to breathe.
"I am Thorfinn Rowle! I am a pureblood of prestige and I will not let some halfblood scum pretending to be a pureblood reject me!"
"You…deluded…fool." Harry choked out, his own hands curled around Rowle's fingers, trying to pry them off of his neck to no avail.
"Let's see if that drooling, twitching cripple still wants you when I've had you and you're growing with my child." Rowle snarled, letting go of his neck suddenly and ripping open the front of his robes, the gold fastenings flying everywhere as the expensive fabric tore. "If he actually does, seeing as the pathetic excuse for a man is desperate, then I'll just have to dispose of him and take you for myself. It shouldn't be too difficult with the poor state of health he's in and I'd have the biggest claim to you, being the father of your child. No one else would even look at you, you soiled whore!"
Harry used his hands to push at Rowle, trying to get away from him and cursing the fact that he hadn't thought to lock the bathroom door, but he was only going to wash his face, he hadn't thought he'd need to lock it behind him.
The icy anger flared when a hand popped the button on his smart trousers and forced its way into his boxers to paw at him. He yelled in fury and tried to dig his thumbs into Rowle's eyes, only to be headbutted for his efforts and then punched in the mouth.
He tasted blood and it infuriated him as Rowle tried to pull his trousers and boxers off of him, yanking and tearing at the fabric like a man possessed. He was completely committed to raping him, here on the bathroom floor of his own home.
Harry plunged his hand into his inner robe pocket, clenched his hand around his wand and he drew it out with a sharp slashing movement. He didn't even think, his icy anger took over and before he knew what had happened Rowle was gone from between his legs and he was screaming blue murder, some four feet away from him, next to the bathtub.
Panting hard and coming down from the adrenaline high, Harry scrambled to his feet and looked around, Rowle was holding an obviously broken arm (he could see the bone jutting out through the sleeve of his robe) and Harry sneered at him, his mind clouded over with utter resentment.
"Reducto!" He shouted without even thinking about it, or the consequences of his loss of control, and he watched impassively as his spell, aimed right between Rowle's legs, hit his left leg instead as Rowle had moved, wriggling around like a worm impaled on a hook.
The result was catastrophic and it rained blood in the bathroom as Harry's spell blew Rowle's leg clean off, the severed limb all but exploding from the force of the spell and spinning off into a corner, sending blood in every direction, covering everything, including him. The stump that Rowle was left with was spurting blood at an alarming rate, creating a puddle of it very quickly on the tiled floor that was spreading with every single second.
Rowle's screams hit a higher, more animalistic pitch, a sound that Harry had never heard before, and Harry took a breath, finally realising exactly what he'd done in his anger as he'd shouted out the first spell that had jumped into his head, and he realised then that maybe it would be better if he let Lucius handle this from here. He walked out of the bathroom quickly and went to look into the private room where he'd taken the Veritaserum test, hoping that Lucius was still there. He wasn't. The room was empty.
"Pimsey!" He called out.
"Yes, what can Pimsey be do…?"
"Get Lucius here, now. Immediately, with no delay." He ordered as he licked his lips nervously and Pimsey almost fell over herself to do as he'd asked.
He only had to wait a few minutes before Lucius, escorted by the three Lestranges and a huge, fearsome-looking man that Harry had never seen before, stormed into the private room with a cowering, but determined, Pimsey. They all recoiled a little at seeing him standing in the room, blood-splattered and in complete disarray.
"What happened to you?" Rabastan demanded as he immediately came to hold him, but his hands wavered and sort of hovered over his body as he didn't know if he was hurt or not or if touching him would make everything worse.
"You only went to the bathroom!" Lucius said, completely appalled at his blood-covered form.
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