Harry Potter and the Heir of Slytherin

Harry's scowl grew as did the red flush on his cheeks when his mind caught up to what he was saying. He couldn't believe he had fallen for such a simple trick.

"I do not find her attractive ― I mean yes I find her attractive," he said, then quickly added. "But it's not like that! Her physical attractiveness is something I only recognize from an objective stand point."

Andromeda raised an eyebrow.

"An objective standpoint?"

"Yes," Harry nodded his head, "an objective standpoint."

"So, you are telling me that you're not attracted to her?"

Harry gave a stiff nod.

"That is exactly what I'm telling you."

"I sense a liar," Andromeda said in a slightly sing song voice. Harry quickly looked away form the woman, unable to look her in the eyes. He could feel his cheeks heating up again.

"You're really not helping me prepare for this meeting with the way you're talking, you know," Harry mumbled a tad petulantly.

"Sorry," Andromeda apologized, though from the smile on her face and the tone of her voice, he did not think she was being very sincere. "I'm just trying to get you to relax. You don't want your posture to be too tense, it will betray your anxiousness to him. Nathaniel is a master at reading emotions, and he will find out that you are nervous if you do not relax. Remember, you want to come at him as a confident heir to a powerful pureblood family, not a child worried for his friend."

Harry did not know how her teasing him about his attraction to Daphne would help him relax. If anything, it made him more tense. Still, he wasn't going to say anything, if only because he just didn't want to bother getting into a pointless argument over something so inconsequential as to whether her teasing was helping him or not.

"Right," Harry also ignored the child comment as best he could as he closed his eyes and practiced taking in a few deep breaths. It was unfortunate that keeping his mind clear on a constant basis was a near impossible task. Keeping his composure would have been much easier otherwise.

Perhaps as he advanced in Occlumency he would be capable of constantly keeping his mind clear of distractions, but for now, he would simply have to make due with what skills in the art he had.

"It looks like it's time for you to leave," Andromeda said as she glanced at a small watch on her wrist.

She knelt down, placing both hands on his shoulders and looked at him intently.

"Remember what I have told you and you'll do fine."

"Don't worry," Harry made sure to give her a look only someone with the utmost confidence in themselves could possess. It would not do to let anyone see how nervous he was. "I'm not about to let my friend down now."

"Good."

Leaning forward, the beautiful former member of the Black family placed a small kiss on his forehead. She, quite thankfully, was not wearing lip stick. Harry had no desire to clean it off when he was on a tight schedule.

"Good luck, Harry," Andromeda said to him as she held out a small pot filled with floo powder for him to take.

"Thank you," as Harry grabbed a handful of floo powder, he knew that he would need more than luck to win over Nathaniel Greengrass. He could only hope his intelligence, fame and cunning would see him through this meeting. His friend was counting on him.

XoX

Harry almost broke character and gave a sigh of relief when he managed to come out of the floo network without a single hitch; no shooting out like a muggle canon ball, no missile Harry, nothing. It was the first time since using that particular method of travel that he did not get himself shot out like those kamikaze fighters from Japan that had attacked the Americans in world war two.

He was going to have to find some way to thank Emily Smith for her help. Had she not told him about how he was constantly leaking more magic than his body was able to use, he would have never found a solution to his problem with the floo method of travel.

Stabilizing charms, used by mothers on various objects like baby walkers to help keep their children from tipping over when they got carried away or had spikes in accidental magic. They were a rather ingenious spell that kept an objects equilibrium in balance at all times, ensuring they would not tip over from anything less than a purposeful act.

The spell hadn't even needed much modification to work on a human, just a small added equation to configure the spell for organic material, his height, body weight and magical resistance. It had been a surprisingly easy equation to make, though that might have been due to him getting some help from Andromeda when it came to creating the arithmetic equation.

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