Lucius watched Harry as he kicked a ball around one of the gardens terraced into the mountain that Snape Castle was carved from. They were high enough that even though it was nearly summer it was still cool and he was happy to see Harry was dressed warmly.

The blonde stood in a hallway two floors above the garden watching from a large arched window. He would have preferred to be closer to his mate but for the past two weeks Harry had barely tolerated the two Slytherins.

It had been six weeks since Harry had challenged their right to be his mates. The first month had passed in a sexual nirvana interrupted only by the hours Harry had to return to Hogwarts.

But then things had changed, Harry had become irritable and short tempered. While these things weren't necessarily unusual, the touch of his mates no longer soothed the boy. In fact their mere presence seemed to exacerbate the situation. Now he was barely consenting to sleeping in the same room with them, never mind the same bed.

The two Slytherins had spoken with Severus and his mates a few days after Harry's challenge and they determined that the challenge itself must have stemmed from their Draconian instincts and the lack of a physical consummation of their bond. Apparently Hermione had instigated a similar, if less heated, confrontation only a month in to their relationship.

But this new behavior had them all puzzled. Severus had pointed out that it could be something related to their all male union, or even something specific to Harry himself.

What perplexed the blonde even more than his Gryffindor's behavior was his own reaction to it – or lack thereof. Tom was practically climbing the walls in frustration and hurt while Lucius was calm. He felt almost like this was normal for some reason; to be expected even.

Summer Holidays started in a little over a week and Harry would be returning to the Dursleys'. A situation none of them were happy about, but so far had been unable to prevent. Severus had tried every trick he could thing of but Dumbledore would not relent in his absurd belief that the wards around Privet Drive were needed to protect the Boy-Who-Lived.

The Slytherins had batted around ideas from re-kidnapping Harry to the flat out destruction of the Dursley home, a not undeserved fate, but Harry in his new agitated state had thrown the most spectacular fit Lucius had ever seen followed by two days of the silent treatment.

And so Harry would be staying with the Dursleys' for a month.

The only question mark was their need to be near one another. Currently this was not a problem – Harry's emotional state seemed to be overriding that need, but Lucius couldn't shake the feeling that this was a temporary development.

"Where did he get that ridiculous thing," Tom growled over Lucius' right shoulder.

"Hermione bought it. A football, I believe she called it."

Tom grunted and stalked away.

The blonde sighed and continued his vigil. He just hoped his feelings were right and this impasse would end soon, otherwise he would end up strangling both of his mates.

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Tom slumped in his chair and stared blankly at this cluttered desk. He was restless, irritated, hurt, and felt helpless to do anything about it and all of those emotions together were making him angry. Harry's behavior was slowly driving the Slytherin insane – again. All his attempts to talk to the Gryffindor ended in loud screaming matches that only Lucius could put a stop to.

His eyes fell to the map on the desktop – and now this.

The Dark Lord had had to completely reformulate his plans for taking over the Wizarding World when Harry and Lucius had become his, and he had done so gladly. With the way things had been going before his 'rebirth', he would have been dead within a few years and the Magical population would have been decimated.

For the first step on their new path he'd sorted through his followers and weeded out the unstable ones, those who would not be amiable to the changes he was going to make, and most importantly those who'd developed the same obsession with the Potter heir as his insane self had. All of the undesirables in his ranks had been set up to fall into the hands of Aurors to either be imprisoned safely away in Azkaban, or executed.

But someone was still staging attacks – torturing Muggles and magical folk alike and casting the Dark Mark.

From Severus he knew that Dumbledore's little Order thought nothing was amiss, attributing the attacks to business as usual for You-Know-Who and from the Daily Prophet he knew that the full list of Death Eaters he had allowed to be captured had not been revealed to the public.

His eyes narrowed. So where exactly were his missing ex-followers and were they the ones carrying on in his insane incarnations' footsteps?