"I see your point," Thistlethorne admitted at last. "A pity. I happen to think the young man could benefit from a more formalized relationship."
Snape gave a sharp nod. "I will still be here to guide and counsel him. I am, after all, his Head of House and an old friend of the family. It is my full intention to do all I can to assist Draco."
Harry felt like he'd been watching a tennis match or something, and that Snape had finally won. He'd been holding his breath without realizing; now, he let all that air out in a whoosh. Snape gave him a derisive glance, which Harry tried to counter with an innocent look. He could tell it wasn't working. Snape knew what he'd been thinking, that he really really didn't want Draco adopted alongside him.
Well, that obviously wasn't going to happen, crazy brothers-dream or not.
So what was that dream about, then?
Had he managed to change the future, and set them all on a different timeline? There was that day when he'd really wanted to punch Ron's smirking face... but Harry had resisted. For all he knew, that that one decision had changed everything that followed. Maybe, there'd be no punching-Ron, ever, and no brothers-with-Malfoy idiocy to worry about.
Maybe, Divination was just as big a crock as he'd always thought, and his so-called seer dreams--some of them, at least--were just complete malarkey.
Harry smiled.
Snape's black eyes narrowed.
Harry shrugged.
Snape's nostrils flared before he looked away.
The casewitch had gone back to her forms for a moment. Now, she signed one with a flourish and announced, "My recommendation that this adoption be approved. Now, the two of you will need to provide signatures. Then, after the documents have been granted final sanction and recordation by Wizard Family Services, you will officially become a family."
She offered a quill to Snape, who ignored it to turn to Harry. "This is a magically binding contract we are about to sign. Do you understand the implications of that?"
"Well, yeah," Harry drawled, a little bit affronted. "I might have grown up in a Muggle home but I have been paying attention the last five years or so. It means it's a serious thing, me becoming your... er, adoptee."
"Adoptee?" Snape echoed, rolling his eyes with disgust.
"Give him time," the casewitch gently advised.
"Anyway," Harry rushed past that, feeling really bad. Adoptee... where had that word come from? "I don't have any magic to bind, so that's sort of a problem, isn't it?"
"You have magic to bind."
He probably meant Parseltongue, Harry figured. Just as well not to remind the casewitch about it, as she hadn't seemed to like it any too well. Too Voldemortish, probably, not that Harry could help it. He couldn't even control it, for Merlin's sake. Put him face to face with a snake and it just came out. "So where do I sign?"
Snape took the parchment Thistlethorne extended and passed it to Harry, though he didn't give him a quill. Harry shrugged and reached over to the desk for one, only to be brought up short by a drawled, "I recommend you read it before you commit yourself."
Harry took Snape's advice, though it was a bit difficult to concentrate through the feeling of incredible stupidity swamping him. Sometimes he felt like he was six. He did know better than to sign contracts without reading them, though who would believe that now? He glanced up, expecting to see Snape's eyes mocking him, but the man was simply reading another copy of the contract.
All in all, there wasn't that much to the legal document, though it was very long. It seemed to Harry that it used an awful lot of words to convey just a few ideas.
Most of the contract seemed perfectly reasonable to Harry. Basically, Snape was agreeing to take care of him and Harry was agreeing to let him, including acknowledging that Snape would have a parent's rights over him and could direct his education and things like that. Since Harry trusted Snape, none of that gave him any cause for concern.
He was a little uncomfortable, however, when he ran across the phrase right of inheritance. It reminded him of Snape's face in the mirror. He didn't want to end up getting Snape killed, and the idea of inheriting all Snape's money afterwards made him feel faintly ill. It didn't help that precisely that sequence of events had happened with Sirius. Not for the first time, Harry wondered what he should do about the Black vault and 12 Grimmauld Place.
Pushing that thought away, Harry kept on reading. "What's right of abode?" he asked a few moments later.
"It means you're entitled to live wherever I reside," Snape answered, his voice rather distracted.
Forgetting the casewitch completely, Harry blurted, "Don't you always reside right here?"
Snape glance up, his black eyes amused. "I do have a life outside Hogwarts."
"Oh, okay," Harry murmured, feeling even stupider than before. He put his contract down on his legs and took up his tea again, though by then it was completely cool.
"Have you any other questions?" Snape asked, drawing a quill from his robes.
"I don't think so, no..."
Looking closely at Harry, Snape extended the quill. "Are you quite certain?"
Harry might not pick up on every nuance in Snape's speech, but he couldn't miss the double meaning in that inquiry. Snape wasn't just asking if Harry's questions had been exhausted. He wanted to know if Harry was ready--really, truly ready--to be adopted.
All at once, Harry felt just awful about his reaction to the whole Draco thing. He didn't want the Slytherin boy for a brother, but now that that issue had been dealt with, he could see that it had been a bit childish to sit there fuming that he might have to share.
He would want to be adopted, he suddenly realized, even if Snape had decided to extend a similar offer to Draco. Or, Merlin forbid, even if he still did decide that. It could still happen, right? Snape could figure out some way around the money thing. Or Lucius could be given the Dementor's kiss--unlikely as that was when the man practically owned the Ministry. The obstacles could vanish; that was the point. And where would Harry be, then? He'd be brothers with Malfoy, just as the dream had foretold.
And the simple truth was, if he couldn't stomach that, he had no business agreeing to this.
But he wanted to agree to this, he realized, even if later, he ended up stuck being brothers with Malfoy.
"Yes, I'm quite certain," he calmly answered, though he was aware Snape had raised an eyebrow at his long silence. For all his confident words, his hand was shaking a little bit as he reached out for the quill Snape was still holding out.
His teacher's fingers brushed his, the touch imparting encouragement for all its lightness.
"Sign here," the casewitch instructed, pointing a stubby finger at a line near the bottom of the parchment.
Harry did, jerking a bit in surprise when he noticed Snape's own signature magically appear above his own. He glanced at the papers scattered across the desk and saw it happening everywhere. "My own signature didn't transfer," he pointed out when he had finished writing his full name.
"The parchment must be spelled to interact with Light Magic," Snape murmured. "It's all right. Just sign each by hand."
There turned out to be nineteen copies, which struck Harry as a ridiculously excessive number.
The casewitch performed a drying spell on them, then summoned all but two of them into a dragonhide case. "These interim copies are yours," she explained. "When the adoption becomes official, you will know it, as the Wizard Family Services seal will appear over your signatures."