lomonaaeren

Part Two.

Part One.

Title: A Year Like This (3/6)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Background Lucius/Narcissa, otherwise gen
Content Notes: Massive AU (Harry is a Malfoy), angst, violence, dysfunctional family issues
Wordcount: This part 3700
Rating: PG-13
Summary: AU. Harry goes back to Hogwarts for his third year, after a charged summer with his family. Sirius Black is still out there somewhere, the Ministry thinks it’s a good idea to send Dementors to the school, Dumbledore has things he wants to talk to Harry about, and Harry still doesn’t really know how to react to the notion that his father was once a Death Eater and his mother would literally kill to protect him. Also, Draco is a very, very annoying brother.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “From Litha to Lammas” fics, being posted between the summer solstice and the beginning of August this year. It’s also part of my “Like a Malfoy” series, and follows “How Like Hatred,” “A Name Like Henry,” and “A Godfather Like Him.” Don’t read this without reading those first. This will likely have five or six parts.

“Come in, come in, Harry. Please sit down. Thank you for coming to see me on such short notice.”

Harry sat down in the chair in front of Professor Dumbledore’s desk, and sighed a little, and decided that he’d better say something before Dumbledore got started talking. “You’re welcome, sir. But I do want you to call me Mr. Malfoy.”

Professor Dumbledore only paused for one moment, and then nodded. “As you wish. Now, as I expressed to you last year, although the prophecy that led Voldemort to attack you and your family—”

“The Potters.”

Dumbledore watched him with something like pity. “The people who loved you and died for you.”

“And kidnapped me.” Harry stared at him. Dumbledore just stared back, and so Harry decided to do something that Draco and his father never would have done. “It’s confusing enough to deal with what they were to me, sir. Please don’t make it worse by insisting that I need to only think of them as people who loved me.”

Dumbledore winced a little. Harry held back his chuckle. Yeah, that hurt, didn’t it?

“Of course,” Dumbledore whispered. “It would be a confusing morass to deal with if you were an adult, never mind being a teenager. I shall not forget again, Mr. Malfoy.”

“Thank you.” Harry smiled at him. “So you think that the prophecy is still in play, sir?”

“I don’t know if it is or not.” Dumbledore shrugged. “I honestly have never run into a situation like this before. But I believe that Voldemort will think it is still in play. It might be one reason he told Sirius Black to break out of prison and go on the run.”

Harry sat up straight. He hadn’t even thought that someone might believe that about Sirius breaking out of prison. That meant he had to tell the truth now, and hope that maybe Dumbledore could capture Sirius and get him a trial for the kidnapping instead of believing he was Voldemort’s faithful servant.

“He didn’t!”

Dumbledore frowned. “Pardon me, Mr. Malfoy, but you sound very certain of that.”

“I am.” Harry tried not to clench his hands together as he looked at Dumbledore. It might make him seem guilty, or uncertain, or something. “Sirius Black came to Malfoy Manor over the summer. He was unfortunately able to slip through the wars because he had Black blood.” Harry thought that was a safer lie than trying to tell the truth about the Black madness and the fact that his mother had it. “He told me that Peter Pettigrew was the real traitor, because he was the real Secret-Keeper. And our house-elf took away his madness, so he’s sane now. I don’t know why he’s still lurking around, except maybe because he wants to kidnap me again. He did say something about that. About using a necromantic ritual to try and make me a Potter. But he didn’t betray the Potters.”

Harry reached the end of that and found his voice a little breathless. He hoped that he didn’t look like he was lying or uncertain now, either. He looked hopefully at Dumbledore.

Dumbledore blinked, and blinked again. Harry had only seen him look more surprised on the day they found out that Harry was a Malfoy.

“Mr. Malfoy,” Dumbledore said slowly, “if he only told you this story when he was mad, then what makes you think it’s the truth?”

“He never got a trial,” Harry said. That was true enough. He had looked through all sorts of old newspapers that Mrs. Malfoy had found for him in the library—charmed to keep copies of all paper or parchment that passed through the family’s hands—and he’d found that. “They just took him straight to prison. How do they know that he betrayed the Potters or he was even their Secret-Keeper? He said Dad—I mean, James thought about it, but they decided Sirius was too obvious. So they made Pettigrew the Secret-Keeper. But he was a traitor, obviously.”

Dumbledore’s frown went on and on, deepening. Then he shook his head. “I admit this is a striking idea, Mr. Malfoy, but it cannot be true.”

“Why not, though? If he didn’t have a trial?”

“He must have.” Dumbledore’s voice was strained now. He stared at the perch where his phoenix sat with a disturbed expression. “I thought…” He shook his head. “I don’t remember. I should remember, but I don’t.”

“Did he have a Dark Mark?” Harry asked. “Did anyone ever check, sir? I thought most Death Eaters had a Dark Mark.” He had noticed that his father was very careful to keep his left sleeve always pulled down. Sometimes Harry liked that, and sometimes he thought it was Mr. Malfoy coddling him.

“It’s true that I can’t remember them checking,” Dumbledore murmured. “But the Ministry would not simply have put a man in prison without a trial, even a Death Eater accused of a serious crime! I remember trials for other Death Eaters, including Bellatrix Lestrange, who was born a member of the Black family.”

Harry had the feeling that Dumbledore thought he would be upset about that or something, but Harry ignored it. Sirius was the important member of the Black family right now. “But you don’t remember attending it. Do you remember reading it about in the papers, sir?”

“No.” Dumbledore sat slowly back. “That is strange. There was article after article about his betrayal of the Potters, of course, but all based on the fact that he was found laughing and crying at the scene where young Peter and the Muggles died. Laughing and crying and saying it was his fault.” He looked at Harry then. “Why would he say that if he was innocent?”

“He might still feel like it was his fault even if he didn’t directly betray them, sir. I know I’ve felt responsible for things that weren’t really my fault.”

And Healer Letham is working with me to change that. But that was the kind of thought that only needed to belong to Harry himself. Well, and maybe Healer Letham.

Dumbledore stroked his beard. “Now that you place it before me, Harry, I do feel shortsighted not to have recognized the problems with the claim of betrayal.” He gave Harry a rueful smile. “I hope that Sirius will forgive me if it turns out that we all rushed to judge him in the court of public opinion instead of in the court of the Wizengamot.”

“I hope so, too,” Harry said. He was feeling a little more hopeful this time. Maybe Sirius would listen to Dumbledore, and stop stalking Harry, or hanging around in the background, or brooding on top of towers, or whatever he was actually doing.

“But in terms of the prophecy,” Dumbledore said, “I would like to make sure that we are protecting and training you to face Voldemort when the time comes.”

Harry stared at him and blinked. Then he said, “Who’s we?”

He hadn’t thought of the question more than a minute or two before he said it. He thought, even as the words came out of his mouth, that his father would probably be proud of him.

Dumbledore said, “What?”

“Who’s we, sir? You haven’t offered me training before. Would it be you? Professor Lupin?” Harry grimaced in spite of himself. He really didn’t want to learn anything from Professor Lupin except what he had to to pass Defense Against the Dark Arts.

Dumbledore seemed to see and misunderstand the flinch. “Professor Lupin is a good teacher, Harry,” he said chidingly. “Or I would not have hired him.”

“It’s Mr. Malfoy, Headmaster,” Harry said, staring at him. “And I’m sorry, but you hired Lockhart.”

Dumbledore seemed utterly thrown for a long, long minute. Then he laughed, and shook his head ruefully. “Ah, Mr. Malfoy, I miss the days when students surprised me on a regular basis. But I actually meant not just professors here at the school, or me. During the war in which your p—the Potters died, I led an organization called the Order of the Phoenix. We were some of the few who dared to oppose Voldemort, whose very name evoked fear. I would like to call them back together and give you lessons in stealth, tracking, battle magic, and other spells that aren’t regularly taught at the school.”

Harry sat bolt upright, feeling a thrill run down his spine. “Brilliant! I can’t wait to tell Draco, and Ron and Hermione—”

He paused, because Dumbledore was shaking his head. “What?” Harry asked, sure that this was going to turn out to be a disappointment.

“I’m sorry, but I cannot allow you to tell young Draco,” Dumbledore said gently. “The word would get back to your father. And I am doubly sorry for this, but even with a son Voldemort was hunting, I cannot be sure that Lucius Malfoy would turn his back on the Dark Lord.”

“I think he would,” Harry whispered. “For me.”

“He might try to persuade Voldemort to leave you alone or choose a different target. But I do not believe he would succeed. And when he failed, then he would have no reason not to pass on those secrets.”

“When I’m dead, you mean?”

Dumbledore gave him a sad look, and a nod.

Harry swallowed. “I—sir, this just doesn’t make sense. If Voldemort killed me despite all this training you’d be giving me, what would it matter that I’d had the training? What kind of secret would that be to pass on then? Who would care? Besides, I think Mother would castrate Father if he did something to cause my death.”

“Entertaining as that image is, Mr. Malfoy,” Dumbledore said with a slight shake of his head, “I don’t think your father would have a choice about fighting at Voldemort’s side. The Dark Mark makes it impossible for his servants to turn from him.”

“Then Father shouldn’t have been able to tell people he was under the Imperius, either,” Harry snapped. “I think that you don’t really know this would happen, Headmaster. You just assume it would. And we’ve already seen what happens when you assume things about Sirius and me.”

Dumbledore clasped his hands on his desk. “It’s true that’s an assumption,” he admitted. “But Mr. Malfoy, I know more about fighting Voldemort than almost anyone else. I believe you need the training. And I believe that you cannot tell your family about it.”

Harry thought for a second, longingly, about learning from a whole bunch of people like Tonks. Maybe Flitwick would have taught him how to duel. And a friend of Dumbledore’s would teach him to be an Animagus. And Dumbledore would share powerful, mysterious magic with him like the kind that the Headmaster was always said to be able to secretly wield.

But Harry had to reject it. There was just no choice.

“Sorry, Headmaster, but no.”

“You—Harry, please. I want to see you survive this war.”

“And I can’t do that if I turn my back on my family.”

Dumbledore sat up at once, a brilliant, outraged light in his face. “You fear your father would kill you if you accepted my offer?”

“I mean, emotionally,” Harry said, feeling weary to the bone. Dumbledore thought his family was evil, and so did Sirius, even though Harry was trying so hard to love Mrs. Malfoy and Mr. Malfoy and feel like part of their family. And his parents thought the Potters were evil, and Harry didn’t know how he felt about them. But it seemed like no matter who he called Mother and Father, or Mum and Dad, someone would hate them, and tell him he should choose the other set.

“Harry—”

“I told you not to call me that, sir,” Harry said, and got up and left the office, even though he hadn’t been dismissed. He heard Dumbledore call after him, but he didn’t actually try to keep him there. Harry supposed he could be grateful for that.

He rode the moving staircase down, his eyes closed and tears threatening beneath his eyelids.

*

“I’m so sorry, Harry.”

Harry held Hermione tight. She and Ron were the only ones he’d told. He would tell Draco, he knew. But that would mean telling Mother and Father, and Harry honestly couldn’t face that right now. He just didn’t want to listen to rants. He wanted someone to tell him they were sorry and hug him.

Ron had patted his shoulder instead of hugging him, but he’d also glared at people who’d tried to come into their corner of the Gryffindor common room, and put up privacy charms after a little while. Now he sat there with his face very red, and pounded his fist into his palm.

“It’s not fair, mate,” he said. “Why does life always have it out for you specifically?”

“I don’t know.” Harry leaned his head on Hermione’s shoulder, so miserable that he almost wished he could have actually cried. But that impulse had passed soon after he got back to his friends. He had cried, just not that often. It never seemed to make things any better. “And I don’t know if Dumbledore is going to try and get a trial for Sirius, either. I forgot to ask him about that.”

“Surely he will,” said Hermione, but she sounded a little doubtful. “He knows there wasn’t one, now. Or he could go and look if he wasn’t sure. But he has no reason to keep Black from getting one.”

“Even if Black is still mad,” Ron muttered. He had shown extreme reluctance to believe Harry’s story about Dobby taking away the Black madness from Sirius.

Harry didn’t want to argue about it. He didn’t want to do anything but sit there and feel the stupid heaviness move through his body. And dread the reaction his family would have when he told them.

He would tell them. He didn’t want to keep it a secret. But he would tell them later.

When he thought he could bear what they’d say. What they’d do.

*

“Professor Dumbledore told me that you turned down his offer of training, Mr. Malfoy.”

Great. It had been almost a fortnight since Dumbledore had dragged Harry up to his office to confront him, and Harry had managed to put it partially behind him and write to his parents that he had something important to tell them, the next time he had a session with Healer Letham and then saw them afterwards. He was on his way to the session with his Mind-Healer right now, and he’d almost settled in his mind what he would say and how his parents would react.

And Professor Lupin just had to stop him now.

Harry turned around and stared resentfully at his teacher, not even trying to hide the resentment. Lupin gave him a slightly nervous smile, but didn’t retreat. He cleared his throat. “I just want to know why, Mr. Malfoy.”

“He told me to keep it a secret,” Harry said flatly. “I don’t want to keep it a secret.”

“But with your family being on the opposite side of the war…surely you can understand…”

“You assume I’m on the same side of the war as you?”

Lupin stared at him in abject horror, and then glanced up and down as if making sure that there were no portraits or students around to be horrified with him. Harry sneered at him. He wondered for a second if it was as good a sneer as Draco’s and their father’s, but Lupin was rambling at him again.

“How could you…you know that Voldemort killed…” Lupin stopped abruptly. He licked his lips and then said, “You know that he’ll kill you if he gets the chance. Just because you stopped him once—”

“I think that was probably Lily Potter,” Harry snapped. “And anyway, yeah, I don’t want him to kill me, but I also don’t want to lie to my family and not tell them the truth! I want to fight him and be a Malfoy.”

“They’ll never let you do that,” Lupin said steadily. “You should have taken the training when Professor Dumbledore offered it. It’s the only way I can see that you’ll stand a chance of surviving the war.”

“What training?”

Harry turned around with the sensation that someone had shoved a brick through his stomach. Draco was standing behind them, his eyes darting between Harry and Lupin, and his wand in his hand, as if he thought he would have to duel Lupin.

Lupin stepped around Harry and looked as if he might herd Draco away like a sheepdog. “Nothing in particular, Mr. Malfoy. Nothing you need to worry about, at any rate. If you would?” He made a huge sweeping motion with his hand, as though inviting Draco to leave.

Draco looked at Harry instead of moving. “Henry? What is he talking about?”

Harry swallowed. He had no choice but to tell Draco now, if he didn’t want to lie, the way he’d said he didn’t.

“Dumbledore offered me training when he called me up to his office,” he said. “But he told me I would have to keep it secret, and that I would be trained by the members of something called the Order of the Phoenix that Dumbledore used to run. And I’ve been trying to work up the courage to tell you, but I knew Mother and Father were going to be furious, and I didn’t want to deal with their anger, and…” Harry trailed off. “I’m tired,” he said.

“Harry!” hissed Lupin, looking scandalized. “Do you know what you’ve done by telling him that?”

“Do you know what you did by not telling us earlier?” Draco demanded, looking horrified.

Harry shuddered, and his magic broke out of him. A stone shot out of the far wall and crashed into the one opposite, hitting so hard that it split and sent up sparks and flecks of dust and splinters of rock. Lupin raised a shimmering shield in front of him. Draco took a step back and looked around wildly, as if he thought something other than Harry’s accidental magic had flung the stone.

“And that’s quite enough of that.”

Healer Letham was stepping around the corner, shaking her head as if she couldn’t believe that matters had come to this pass. She cut Lupin with a sharp glance, said, “Stop gibbering, Mr. Malfoy,” and cast a spell that whipped the stone back into place and repaired it. Then she held out her hand to Harry.

“You have had enough stress for right now,” she said. “Come with me, and I’ll make sure that you can have a Calming Draught and hot chocolate if you need it. The house-elves in Hogwarts are most accommodating.”

“Excuse me, madam, but who are you?” Lupin demanded. “I am this young man’s professor—”

“No, just at the moment you’re his tormentor,” Letham said briskly. She pulled Harry gently closer, without tucking him into her side, and turned around to walk towards the classroom where they would usually talk. “Mr. Malfoy,” she said over her shoulder, at Draco, “if you would please tell your parents what transpired here?”

Harry hoped Draco nodded. He wasn’t really in the mood to look back and see if he did. He just concentrated on walking, placing one foot in front of the other.

This felt like a nightmare.

*

“The hot chocolate has Calming Draught mixed in with it.”

Harry nodded and swallowed half the drink at one gulp. He felt the potion shift around inside him, settling his stomach and his spirit. He leaned back on the grey couch with his eyes shut and his hands slowly stilling.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?” Healer Letham asked gently.

Harry tried to keep his voice flat as he told her. It wasn’t easy, at least not until he swallowed the rest of the chocolate and thus the Calming Draught dose. And even then, his mind kept bolting in small, restless circles, wondering what else he could have done, if he should have told his parents right away even thought they would have been so angry, and what Draco would think, and how Dumbledore and Lupin would react.

“Did you keep it from me because you thought I would urge you to tell your parents?”

“Yes,” Harry whispered. “And I just wanted some time to think about it. I was really going to tell you today. And then them. But Lupin had to come along and ruin everything.”

“I understand,” Healer Letham said. “I can’t promise that your parents will be completely calm about it, but I’ll be happy to accompany you to talk to them, if you want. Or talk to them in your place.”

“No,” Harry said. He was sure of that, at least. “I have to be the one to do it.” He set the mug down next to him and finally looked up at her. “So you’re not going to get angry at me about keeping this secret?”

“Taking a while to talk about something isn’t the same as deliberately keeping it a secret that you never intend to tell anyone,” Healer Letham said. “No, Harry. You’ve come far enough that I don’t think you would never do the second one on purpose anymore. I wish your situation was such that you did feel you could have talked to your parents right away, but it’s not your fault that it’s not.”

She held his eyes until Harry nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I just…why are things crazier now when there’s not even a mass murderer hunting me anymore? Or the spirit of Voldemort possessing my Defense professor?”

“Who you used to be is always going to be a focus of some people who should have better things to do with their lives,” Healer Letham murmured. “Are you calm enough? In that case, I think Draco should have had time to notify your parents. Are you ready?”

Harry nodded. He was sure that some of his courage came from the Calming Draught, but he also no longer felt as if his world was going to end, the way he had when Draco was talking to him.

“Will you please come with me?”

“Of course.” Healer Letham smiled as she stood. “I think your parents could use another reminder that I work for you, not them, even if they are paying my salary.”

Harry chuckled as much as he could through a dry throat, and walked beside her as they made their way towards the Floo Harry usually used to go to Hogsmeade.

This isn’t going to be fun. But it’s survivable.