Harry Potter The Long Lost Malfoy

"Isn't this a bit extreme?"

"No." Mrs. Malfoy fussed for a long moment before she clasped the silver bracelet around Harry's wrist and stepped back with a nod. "There. That will disable most Portkeys, and make it impossible for someone to Apparate with you while you wear it unless they wear the complementary bracelet." She held up her own wrist. "I want you to promise me that you won't take it off, Henry."

"Fine. But—I'm just going into the next room to meet Healer Letham."

"I know. But I won't let you be taken again."

Harry swallowed uneasily. Mrs. Malfoy actually looked a little scary when she said that. He imagined what she would do to Sirius Black if the man tried to kidnap him again, and shivered.

Mrs. Malfoy smoothed back his hair and kissed the scar on his forehead. She seemed to like doing that, and Harry still hadn't decided how he felt about it. "Now, be a good boy and come find me when you're done with the healing session. We're going to go to Diagon Alley today, just you and I."

"All right," Harry said, a bit intrigued. He had never gone shopping with someone alone to buy things for himself, except for Hagrid before his first year. Going with Aunt Petunia and being made to carry most of the shopping didn't count.

He turned and walked into the grey room, only to find Healer Letham having a conversation with Dobby. Harry blinked and sat on the grey chair where he had last time. "I didn't know that you two knew each other," he said, and then could have smacked himself for how stupid that sounded.

But Healer Letham only smiled at him as if she didn't find it stupid. "Good morning, Henry. Your elf was just introducing me and asking if I needed lemonade. He brought me some." She held up the glass of lemonade.

"Oh. Thank you, Dobby," Harry said, surprised to find that the elf was handing him a mug of hot chocolate. He didn't even know how Dobby knew he liked that, unless he'd been spying on him at Hogwarts.

Dobby burst into tears of happiness, and it took Harry a while to soothe him and get him to leave. When he looked up, he found that Healer Letham's smile was fainter but there.

"Did it work out like you wanted, asking for Dobby to be your personal elf?" Healer Letham asked, and finished her lemonade with another sip.

"I think so." Harry tucked his feet under him, since Healer Letham didn't seem to mind and it wasn't like he was wearing trainers. Mrs. Malfoy had made him get rid of all his Muggle clothes when he was at Malfoy Manor for Christmas, except for a few pairs of pants and the like that Harry had hidden in the bottom of his trunk. It wasn't like he liked wearing Dudley's castoffs, but they were his. "They said in return that I should try to be happier and I have to let the elves call me Henry Malfoy. Oh, and I have to attend sessions with you."

Healer Letham frowned. "I do not like that they made your attendance at these sessions a compromise."

Harry shrugged at her. "They promised that they'd improve the house-elf quarters and they'd stop yelling at them and telling them to punish themselves. It was worth it."

Healer Letham kept frowning. "And do you think it cost them as much as it cost you to give up what you did?"

"If it's about cost, then I don't think it cost me a lot, either. I can act happier now that Dobby is my elf. I wanted to come talk to you again, anyway. And they can call me Henry Malfoy all they want. It's not my name if I don't think of myself that way."

"An interesting perspective." Healer Letham tucked her feet like she had the other day and he was doing now, and Harry grinned. "We did not talk about the matter of your name the other day."

Harry sighed. "No. Look—it's a compromise, the best one I think I'm going to get. I can understand why they don't want to call me Harry. It's always going to remind them of the Potters."

"But?"

"I think of myself as Harry. Not always as Harry Potter, now, but Harry. And I'm never going to call myself Aldebaran. That's ridiculous."

"Is Henry actively unpleasant to you?"

"Not really? It's just sort of there. Like some slime I can't rub off."

"That sounds actively unpleasant to me."

Healer Letham's voice had got cool again. Harry sighed and rubbed his head across his brow, and his scar, and his eyes that no longer needed glasses. "This is the only thing I don't like about coming to talk to you. I'm not good at this. I don't know how to explain it."

"Explain what?"

....

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