Stupidity

Tom didn't know why but he felt a lump rising in his throat when he heard Malfoy's words. Still, he tried not to let his emotions show on his face and casually flicked a glance at Heir Black. 

When he saw that Black hadn't even looked up from his work to respond to the words, he scowled darkly at the floor and tried not to think about why such news made him feel anxious. 

He had spent enough time with Black that he noticed the minute tightening of Black's fingers and then how the boy loosened them so as to not give way to his temper due to the ribbing. 

Harry knew that the others wouldn't stop talking about it unless he gave them something to chew upon. 

As he looked at everyone around him, his eyes seemed to pause upon Heir MacNair and with a beatific smile on his face, he turned to Macnair.

"Heir Macnair, forget about the business of House Black. What I am more interested in knowing is, where were you for the past two nights in a row?" 

When everyone looked at him with questioning eyes, he shrugged his shoulders and drawled, "Can't say I missed how you were absent from your room and the half-blood sharing your dorm took advantage of it and called in his 'friends' to have some fun away from the eyes of the pureblood overlord." 

His words had the desired effect as everyone stopped doing whatever they had been immersed in and simultaneously turned their sparkling eyes towards the said boy. 

Macnair felt a shiver run down his spine when he saw how his friends were looking at him as a new gossip material and mentally chided Heir Black for turning them towards him so as to escape his own interrogation. 

He slumped into his seat and with a forlorn look replied, "Nothing. I was just pulling an all-nighter. After all, we are sitting for our OWLS this year. Is it so hard to imagine that I might have been studying?" 

Everyone knew that he was lying to get out of telling his real whereabouts and so nobody questioned him further. 

However, it seemed that Heir Black wanted some revenge for the earlier incident and had made Macnair his target. 

He continued, "Oh! How forgetful of me. I seemed to have forgotten to tell you that the following day I saw you coming from the Astronomy Tower within minutes of Miss Bradley and the look you both were supporting was more than enough to work out the rest of the details." 

As soon as Harry's words landed, there were cat-calls and jeering from everyone in the group. 

Macnair blushed and sputtered, "I — I was just having some fun, that's all. Don't let the news out to my father or he might just lynch me alive." 

Malfoy snorted at those words and said, "Yes, yes, Heir Macnair. We will simply tell Lord Macnair if he asks that you have been devoting all your attention and free time to your studies and don't go around having night long study sessions with the opposite sex." 

Harry looked at Macnair with a roguish grin and waggled his eyebrows and everyone laughed uproariously at Heir Black having once again one-upped another one of them. 

The raucous atmosphere was broken when Lestrange walked up to them and nicely uttered, "At least, he is getting some unlike you, Heir Black. You seem incapable of even wooing the girl you seem to be interested in." 

Each of the Heirs looked at Lestrange who had come up to them uninvited and was standing there spouting off nonsense. 

Lestrange had implied so many insults in that one line that it boggled their minds as to how House Lestrange gave birth and brought up such an idiotic Heir when the Lord and the Lady Lestrange were known for their taciturn nature. 

At those words, Harry placed his quill on a side table placed near his seat and turned his full attention towards the idiot who seemed to be raring to jump around in front of him. 

It was fine if allies or friends - the people he could trust somewhat joked about it but for someone who was already on the blacklist of his family to say such words was a grave breach in etiquette. 

Not only was Lestrange implying that he had some unclear designs upon Heiress Delacour, but he also made him out to be someone who was incapable of finding and wooing a partner of his liking. 

If these words were spread around, House Delacour could demand hefty reparations from House Black for besmirching the name and character of their Heiress. 

More importantly, they could take this god-given opportunity to demand a betrothal contract between him and the girl in question. 

Then, Harry would really have a matter to cry and rage about. 

The idiot was blatantly trying to insinuate things and make it difficult for him. After all, not everybody present in the common room was on good terms with House Black and even for those who had allied themselves with his house, which of them wouldn't use this opportunity to plunge a knife into him or his family behind his back. 

What irked him, even more, was the moving glint in the other's eyes. 

It clearly showed that he was doing this deliberately and was entirely aware of the ramifications of his words. 

Well, since the other person wanted to be a court-jester so badly, let it not be said that the Master of Death didn't fulfil the wishes of immature brats.