A Tale of Two Brothers

Chapter 27

Lord Montague wasn't too keen on letting him stay in his manor, and he made no attempts to hide that.

Had Harry not been on the receiving end of such mockery for years, he might've said something. But he would not make himself fall any lower in their eyes by acknowledging their hatred for him. He was above them and he knew it. There was no need for them to know that just yet.

"You'll be meeting the Dark Lord before leaving for Hogwarts." These were Edmund Montague's last words to him before the man left for Luxembourg with his wife for the holidays.

"Your father is an exciting fellow." Harry said a few minutes after the man had left the room. He could still smell the strong scent of the alcohol the Montague's father reeked of.

Montague grinned at him and started walking towards the door. "I aim not to end up like him."

"Good for you." He followed him out of the hallway, handing over his coat to the first house-elf he saw. The elf had burnt its right ear and was shivering dangerously. "Don't get it dirty." He said to it, frowning disapprovingly when the lower end of his coat nearly touched the ground.

"Y-yes, Mister Potter." The elf replied, but Harry was already out of the door. 

"Don't worry about Lory. He knows better than to mess up." Montague said.

He showed him his room, which was significantly smaller than his own room back home. All his luggage was already in there, placed neatly in the numerous closets and drawers in thee. The whole manor was lit dimly, so it was almost entirely dark and cold. He had no idea how Montague and his family managed to walk around this place without feeling miserable. Or bumping into things. The air inside felt stifling. Even with a thousand of candles burning inside, none of them emitted any sort of warmth.

Harry hated the place already.

"It will do." He said to himself, stepping inside.

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It was a few days after living with Montague, Harry realized the predicament he was in. The few pouches filled with galleons which he had brought with himself would hardly allow him to make it through the holidays if he continued his way of spending. And it was proving difficult to cut down on his expenses, given the way he'd grown up to spend money without thinking and the person he was living with currently. 

He was homeless already, being penniless was not something he'd like to experience.

He had to take a job for the summers, which cut down his time to study more magic and left him more tired than he had expected.

Borgin and Burkes did not pay him much, but Harry did steal some artefacts once in a while and sold them for a higher value than the shop would've. Whenever Burke would send him to sell the artefacts to some customer's house, which were mostly old people, Harry always nicked a thing or two from their houses too. It wasn't ideal, but that was all he had now.

Of course, Montague did not approve his choice of workspace.

"I don't understand how you can even stand in that dump." He said one day when Harry had returned from work, scrunching his face at the stench of Knockturn Alley that had followed him to the manor.

"Try running away from home sometime, Montague. Even you'd start working at a dump then. At least my choice allows me to do this." He laid the books he'd taken from the shop on a table near him. Old family grimoires, some alleged lost books on ancient magic and a few priceless artefacts. Borgin and Burkes was a gold mine in his opinion.

"I could've just bought them if you wanted." Montague picked up one of the grimoires, going through it. Aurelia Bones. The name was inscribed in gold on the wooden cover of the book. Looking at its condition, Harry could tell that the grimoire was over centuries old.