Chapter 7
"The last seven Seats are the ones that'll get the most attention," Blaise said.
"What do you mean, Fledgeling?" Harry asked.
"Merlin's Heir and Morgana's Heir each have two Seats and the Head of the Most Noble, Most Ancient and Most Royal House of Pendragon has three Seats. Since Arthur Pendragon died with no children, the Pendragon Heir will be Morgana's Heir. The Pendragon Heir also has the title of Prince or Princess of Wizarding Britain," Blaise said. "You know how well known Morgana and Merlin are in the Wizarding World."
"Between us, we should have a decent amount of Seats," I said. "Even if you don't include the Gryffindor Seat, we'd have the other three Houses. The Gaunts, my Father's Mother's family, are descended from Salazar Slytherin and Cadmus Peverell. I think the Potters are descended from Cadmus' younger Brother, Ignotus. The Blacks are descended from Rowena Ravenclaw and my Dad won the Hufflepuff title through Right of Conquest when he was a teenager, I think. I'm not sure if the few memories I have of him are real or not, given I was two when he disappeared but they seem real to me and I've always had a great memory."
"What's 'Right of Conquest'?" Ron asked.
"Right of Conquest is when someone offends you and/or your House enough that you want to kill them for it. Magic evaluates if the reason is worth it or not if the person who invokes the Right of Conquest kills the person who offended them. If it deems the reason not good enough, then you've just murdered someone. If it deems the reason enough, however, you get everything they own. All of their land, titles, money. In some cases, depending on the Marriage Contract, you could even get their Wives. Some Purebloods write certain things in their Marriage Contracts that claim their Wife as their property. It's quite common in proper Pureblooded circles. If you can prove it's Right of Conquest, for example, a Heritage Test at Gringotts, then you get away with it. There's no legal punishment for defending your House's honour. There's actually a Spell the Wizengamot can do to test if it was Right of Conquest or not. Most go with the Heritage Test, though, as they want to brag about their lineage. Right of Conquest isn't always an excuse to murder someone, though. If someone attacks you, obviously, it's self-defence. However, in the Right of Conquest, it's to the death. So, if it's obvious someone's trying to kill you, kill them instead. If it's not Right of Conquest, then it's self-defence and you'll be fine legally. However, if it is the Right of Conquest, you'll get the same things the other would've gotten if they'd killed you," Blaise said.
"How do you know this?" Harry asked.
"Why do you think my Mom's been married seven times and lost seven Husbands? The first three times, she invoked the Right of Conquest because of how they treated her. After that, the men she chose were greedy and wanted everything she had, so they tried invoking the Right of Conquest but instead, she invoked it after dodging their horrible attempts since she was highly offended by them marrying her just to try to kill her and get everything she owned. Even if the reason she married them was because she knew they'd try that. She kept it secret that it was Right of Conquest other than to Amelia Bones since she was running the investigations into their deaths and that's why her reputation is the way it is."
"Why wouldn't she tell people it's Right of Conquest?" Harry asked.
"Because Right of Conquest is supposed to be hard to invoke. If people thought it was that easy, many would start killing for stupid reasons and end up in Akzaban and that could change the laws about Right of Conquest," I said and Blaise nodded. "The only reason it was so easy for my Father to invoke the Right of Conquest, and he did do it a lot whilst keeping it a secret too, so people just thought he murdered them, was because he was easily offended by people. He considered failure and standing against him to be offensive and because of the type of person he was, Magic agreed. I have no idea how many titles he won through Right of Conquest but I know it was a lot. The ones I know about are Rosier, as he killed Lily's Half-Brother, Evan. Sorry, Harry. Prewett, Fawley, Shafiq and Selwyn. Obviously, there's the Gaunt title--"
"Wait, if your Dad had actually targetted me instead of it being fake, would what I did to your Dad count as Right of Conquest then?" Harry cut me off and I chuckled.
"No, of course not. Like I said, Right of Conquest is to the death. You didn't kill him, Harry. You just destroyed his body. He's still alive somewhere. But still, otherwise, yes, it would be since my Father would've been offended by your family, including you, trying to kill him."
"So, what do we do about the Hufflepuffs?" Ron asked.
"Test them. Tell them the truth and see what they do. If they prove their loyalty, we bring them in. However, if they prove distrustful, we punish them severely for their mistake," I said with an evil smirk.
...
I mean we did want this but we were already doing so much practicing and studying. We really needed a break. We tried, we truly did. We knew that Slytherins were to appear as a united front, but it was so hard to get along with Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle. So, when Malfoy challenged Harry to a duel, Ron accepted on his behalf before we could even open our mouths. Thankfully for Ron, my dislike of Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle played a big part in me silently going along with this... Mostly silent. "I still think this is a trap. Malfoy is certainly too much of a coward to just challenge us directly like this."
"Yes, but he's also an unsubtle idiot. Relax, Let, you're looking too much into it. Besides, we can't back out now, or we'd be the cowards," Ron ground out determinedly.
"I suppose so. It's half-past eleven, time to go," Hermione informed. The four of us gripped our wands tightly and headed out of our room, sneaking out of the Common Room, taking great care not to make any noises. I grinned once the Common Room entrance shut behind us. "At least, if it is a trap, we'll get something out of it."
"What do you mean, Snakelet?" Blaise asked.
"Malfoy formerly challenged Harry to a Wizard's Duel. If he doesn't show up, he's forfeiting the Wizard's Duel." Blaise grinned.
"And?" Harry asked.
"It's similar to 'Right of Conquest', Harry," Blaise said. "If Malfoy forfeits or loses the Duel, you get everything he has. If he shows up and wins, he gets everything you have. I'd be surprised if he doesn't show up, though. Surely his Mother as a Black, if not his Father as a Malfoy, would've taught Draco about Wizard's Duels. If he doesn't show, you'll be the new Heir Malfoy... Once you claim your Heritage at Gringotts, at least." Ron and Harry grinned at each other. We flitted along corridors striped with bars of moonlight from the high windows. At every turn, we expected to run into Filch or Mrs. Norris, but we were lucky. We sped up a staircase to the third floor and tiptoed toward the trophy room. Malfoy and Crabbe weren't there yet, unsurprisingly. The crystal trophy cases glimmered where the moonlight caught them. Cups, shields, plates, and statues winked silver and gold in the darkness. We edged along the walls, keeping our eyes on the doors at either end of the room. I saw Harry take out his Wand.
"He's late, maybe he's chickened out," Ron whispered. Then, a noise in the next room made them jump. I saw Harry raise his wand just before we heard someone speak and it wasn't Malfoy.
"Sniff around, my sweet, they might be lurking in a corner." It was Filch speaking to Mrs. Norris. I saw Harry wave madly at us to follow him as quickly as possible. We scurried silently toward the door, away from Filch's voice. "They're in here somewhere," I heard him mutter. "Probably hiding."
"This way!" Harry mouthed to us and we began to creep down a long gallery full of suits of armor. We were at a dead end. Ron scrambled to open the door in front of us, but much to our dismay, it was locked.
"Alohomora," I muttered, but the door still wouldn't open. I tried the spell yet again but this time I wasn't alone in doing so, as the other three also uttered the spell at the same time as me. The door finally swung open and the four of us rushed inside.
"I saw the ickle troublemakers. Naughty, naughty children," we heard Peeves say in a sing-song voice.
"Which way did they go, Peeves?" Filch was saying. "Quick, tell me."
"Say 'please.'"
"Don't mess with me, Peeves. Now, where did they go?"
"Shan't say nothing if you don't say please," said Peeves in his annoying singsong voice.
"All right. Please."
"NOTHING! Ha haaa! Told you I wouldn't say nothing if you didn't say please! Ha ha! Haaaaaa!" And we heard the sound of Peeves whooshing away and Filch cursing in rage.
"He thinks this door is locked," Harry whispered. "I think we'll be okay... Why do you look like-" Harry cut himself off as he turned around. We're in the forbidden corridor on the third floor. And now we know why it was forbidden. We were looking straight into the eyes of a monstrous dog, a dog that filled the whole space between the ceiling and floor. It had three heads. Three pairs of rolling, mad eyes, three noses, twitching and quivering in their direction. Three drooling mouths, saliva hanging in slippery ropes from yellowish fangs. It was standing quite still, all six eyes staring at them and I knew that the only reason we weren't already dead was that their sudden appearance had taken it by surprise but it was quickly getting over that. There was no mistaking what those thunderous growls meant. I saw Harry groping for the doorknob We fell backward and Harry slammed the door shut. We ran, almost flew, back down the corridor. Filch must have hurried off to look for them somewhere else, because we didn't see him anywhere, but we hardly cared. All we wanted to do was put as much space as possible between us and that monster. We didn't stop running until we reached the bare stretch of stone wall in the dungeon.
"Salazar, Salazar!" Blaise impatiently called out, sighing when it revealed the Common Room.
"Guys, did you notice the dog was standing on a trapdoor?" Harry asked.
"Well, this calls for investigation. What do you say?"
"All right," the three sighed, fondly exasperated. Harry filled me, Ron and Blaise in about the package that seemed to have been moved from Gringotts to Hogwarts and we spent a lot of time wondering what could possibly need such heavy protection.
"It's either really valuable or really dangerous," said Ron.
"Or both," said Harry. But as all we knew for sure about the mysterious object was that it was about two inches long, we didn't have much chance of guessing what it was without further clues.
"At least one thing's for sure," I said with a grin. "Malfoy won't be happy when he sees we didn't get in trouble. And once Harry's claimed the Malfoy Heirship due to Draco forfeiting this Wizard's Duel and he and his Parents find out about why Harry has the Malfoy Heirship..." I trailed off and the four of us laughed loudly.
"I can't wait to see his face!" Harry exclaimed through his giggles.
...