Time to put your galleons where your mouth is

Chapter 4

The Annoyance Known As Bellatrix

Wrapping both arms around the forms of his little brothers, Harry buried his face into their hair, inhaling the scents that'd become so familiar to him. A month had passed since the Parkinson's ball, a month since he'd laid down his best cards before Lord Arcturus Black, his grandfather.

.

"Grandson."

Stood before his grandfather and Lord, Harry refused to weaken under his stern grey eyes, standing tall with his head tilted upwards. Neither of his parents had spoken to him that morning, Walburga not even gracing him with a look. Sirius and Regulus had been appropriately subdued, leaving Harry to eat his breakfast as his resolve hardened. And now, now it was time to put it to the test.

"Grandfather."

"I take it that yesterday you did not express all of your grievances in regards to our way of life?"

Harry grimaced at that, allowing a small dip of his head. He was questioning the way things were, questions that had to be said but one's he should not have put forwards as young as he was, according to social graces. However, to protect Sirius and Regulus from the world, just for a little while longer, he was willing to go to war.

"I fail to see why the champion of blood purity does not use his family name. If he was serious about his cause, why does he hide? He could estrange himself from his family to save the law enforcement coming down upon them while wearing his name with pride. That he hides, it suggests he has something to hide. I refuse to follow a cause which sees the leader not submit himself to the same rules by wearing a false name. For all that we know he could be the son of two squibs, lording over his pure-blood servants that they truly are not as good as he is, silently belittling their beliefs."

Arcturus made a strange noise in the back of his throat, as if he'd not even dared to think about this.

"Pure-bloods intermarry so much that it's possible the man is as related to Slytherin as I am. We know nothing, and I see no need to submit myself to a cause on such unjustified grounds. If it were just pure-bloods within the world, then it would eventually become a battle of who has the purest blood. We would turn on each other to fuel the need to feel self-important."

"And what of the things the mud-bloods bring to out world?"

Harry grimaced at the slur, running the pad of his thumb across his knuckles from where his hands were clasped together behind his back.

"Educate them in our ways. Hogwarts has muggle-studies, yet no wizarding studies for those coming into our world. How can we expect them to follow our customs if we do not allow them to be taught? If they were to visit China, a country segregated from us by distance, they would not expect the same culture. They are wrong in the fact they approach our world as if expecting it to the be the same just because it is housed in the same country, but we are also wrong in that we do not welcome them. We do not teach them, we push them away when they try to impose their beliefs on us, without telling them why. Was the job of the Ancient and Noble Houses not to protect the magical world, and all that are in it? When did the animosity between the pure-bloods and the muggle-borns become more important than the bettering of our society?"

.

Arcturus had allowed him to leave after that, no doubt going off to do his own research. He'd agreed that the 'mud-bloods' were not the worth the time it would take to belittle them. Harry had been swift to point out the fact if the muggle-borns were to recognise him as a noble heir, he should act like it. And not just to pure-bloods. He was better than them, but it was above his station to rub that fact in their faces. He was above lording his superiority over others, he's explained, and Arcturus had muttered something to do with 'pixies' and 'more with sugar than salt'.