Harry nodded. "It was where I slept when I was younger."
"Pardon me?" Lucius asked in his softest, most deadly of voices.
"I slept in the cupboard." Harry said a bit breathlessly. He could feel the icy anger inside of him being stirred awake, like a snake that was being prodded with a stick, slowly uncoiling itself to strike.
"Draco mentioned a bedroom. He said that you had mentioned a bedroom with bars over your window."
"That was after." Harry told him, trying to calm himself. "It was after I'd gotten my Hogwarts letter. It was addressed to the cupboard under the stairs and it worried them, they thought that wizards were watching the house. So…so they told me to move all of my things upstairs, into Dudley's second bedroom."
"Your cousin had two bedrooms?" Lucius asked, those eyes glinting like a knife-edge.
Harry nodded. "It was a four bedroomed house. My aunt…Petunia and Vernon shared a room, Dudley had two rooms and one was a guest room."
"Those vile muggles had a four bedroomed house, two of which were free for you to use and you slept in a cupboard?"
Harry nodded. "It wasn't about the space or how many bedrooms they had free, they did it to punish me. To prove to me, even at that young age, that I was nothing and didn't deserve a room or any space in their house. That I wasn't worth anything to them or anyone else. They told me lies about my parents and how they'd died as worthless nobodies. They actually told me that my dad had killed my mum because he was drunk and that that was how I'd been left with the Dursleys. Orphaned and left overnight on their doorstep like a bag of rubbish." Harry took in a deep breath and calmed himself. "They never wanted me, I was nothing to them and they made sure that I knew it too."
"Did you hate them even then?"
Harry considered the question seriously. "I think I did, but in my young naïvety, I wanted to change their mind about me. I wanted them to like me, love me even, as they did their own son. I pushed myself so hard. I forced myself to complete all the tasks they set for me every day, convincing myself all the while that if I did, then they would love me. They never did. I was maybe thirteen before I stopped caring, though I was eight or nine when I realised that nothing I did would ever be good enough for them. That I would never be good enough. I still wanted them to like me, but I knew that they never would. I could become a self-made millionaire or a world hero tomorrow and they'd still see me as nothing. As the little boy they beat, starved, trod on and locked up like an animal and I will never forgive them for that."
"I don't think anyone would expect you to forgive them for that, Harry. I certainly don't." Lucius assured him.
"It's difficult for me to speak of any of this. I never…it's not something that I ever wanted anyone to know." Harry said quietly.
"I understand that, but I need you to speak of this, Harry. I need to know what has happened so that I can help you."
"I think I'm dealing with it alright." He muttered defensively.
"Don't grumble into your chest, if you have something to say, look up and say it clearly." Harry sighed heavily. "I think I'm doing okay. I mean, I'm not completely messed up, am I?"
He hated that his supposed statement turned into a question at the end and he threw his head back against the chair, furious with himself.
"You're not messed up. You're surprisingly level-headed and pulled together, but there is no doubt that you have suffered and that you are still suffering because of their treatment of you. This anger of yours is perhaps a very good indicator that something isn't quite right. You've become desensitised to pain and fear because when you live with either for as long as you have, you learn to deal with it in any way that you can, which might not be the healthiest or the best way of dealing with such things, but you learnt to cope. You got yourself through this ordeal and you are perfectly functional. I believe that you have lingering damage from those people still, but, to use your words, you are not messed up." Harry felt oddly reassured that Lucius didn't think that he was messed up and he relaxed a little from his tense, defensive stance.
"Now, if the physical abuse started when you were four and the mental abuse has been going on for as long as you can remember, it is my belief that you may need to see a medical professional so that they might evaluate yourself and help you to deal with anything that might need to be dealt with."
"No." Harry said immediately and stubbornly. "I don't need any healer poking around and asking questions about what happened in my past. Do you know how hard it was for me to open up to you about these things after the short amount of time we've known one another, and especially after our own past? How do you expect me to tell actual strangers?" Harry demanded angrily.
Lucius sighed. "I am not a healer, Harry. I am not qualified to actually help you in a way that will…unburden you of this lifetime of suffering. If I draw up a solid contract that a highly paid, trusted mind healer would be required to sign before anything is even revealed to them, would that be more of a comfort to you and reassure you a little more that this is not intended to harm you in any way?"
Harry scowled and he felt like pouting, or doing a repeat of the end of his fifth year when he'd smashed up all of Dumbledore's spindly, delicate little trinkets. He had the feeling that Lucius would not sit still and just watch as Harry raged around and trashed his study though.
"Harry? This needs to be sorted out. This could be an issue that will affect your betrothal."
Harry's head snapped up and he stared at Lucius, his teeth clenching in anger and disgust. "You would use my betrothal against me to get what you want?" He demanded icily.
"Me? No. You've misunderstood, Harry. I wouldn't use this against your betrothal. It is in my interests to marry you into such an old, wealthy, and influential pureblood family such as the Lestranges. If Xerxes finds out and realises that you're not even having an evaluation when he is pushing Rabastan through all sorts to help him recover that little bit faster for the betrothal between you, then he might feel aggrieved and like our family is just mocking his. If anyone is to break the contract between you it'll be Xerxes or Rhadamanthus. Even though Rabastan is an almost forty-year-old man, he is not in the best of health and he therefore cannot conduct his own betrothal. His grandfather is doing it for him and as his actual father, even Rhadamanthus, despite not being the recipient of the formal contract or the Head of the family, can break the contract if he has a good enough reason. You being, potentially, mentally or emotionally unstable when Rabastan is in a vulnerablecondition would be just the reason Rhadamanthus would be looking for, as I don't believe for a moment that you haven't realised that he isn't particularly fond of you or the budding relationship between you and his youngest son."
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