[From Samhain to the Solstice]: Malfoys Like Snakes, Like a Malfoy series, gen, AU, 6/6

[lomonaaeren]

Lucius strode out of the lift and towards the Department of Mysteries. More than one person turned to stare at him, but Lucius ignored that. He was still in a good enough political position to come and go here as he pleased.

And at the moment, it pleased him to go to the Department of Mysteries to see a prophecy.

An Unspeakable stood up and turned to face him as Lucius walked past a desk that was meant to “welcome” visitors. Like all the Unspeakables Lucius had ever seen, this one wore heavy dark robes that muffled any sign of their body, and a heavy wooden mask with carved features that did the same for their face. “What do you seek here, Lucius Malfoy?” asked the voice, modified with charms to sound ancient and personality-free, from behind the mask.

Lucius pivoted to face the Unspeakable. “To see the prophecy about the Dark Lord and Harry Potter.”

The Unspeakable considered him once more in silence. Then they said, “No one except those the prophecy is about may remove it from the shelves without being cursed.”

“I do not want to remove it. I want to see it.”

The Unspeakable paused a moment more, as if silently consulting someone else on what to do about this breach in protocol. Then they nodded and moved towards Lucius. “If you will follow me and touch nothing.”

Lucius sneered at the Unspeakable’s back. As if he would be foolish enough to do that in a place like the Department of Mysteries.

They swept down a corridor of black stone, through a room that spun with various doors and where they had to pause and wait for the right one to open in front of them, and through a muffled, mist-covered space that Lucius thought was probably part of the Department’s defenses. Then they walked into a room filled with huge shelves.

And glowing prophecy orbs.

Lucius stared around with narrowed eyes. He had only once heard this space described, by his father, who had gone with Voldemort to the Department of Mysteries years ago to see if there were any prophecies describing the rise of the greatest Dark Lord in history. So far, this seemed consistent with Abraxas’s description.

“Follow me.”

The Unspeakable had gone on striding, and Lucius hurried to catch up, his cane tapping on the floor. The silence settled over his ears, thick as a velvet blanket. And yet, not quite silence, Lucius thought, listening to it. It was filled with thousands of subtle, barely-there sounds, like quiet birdsong.

They might have been coming from the prophecy orbs themselves. Lucius did not relax his grip on his cane or move his hand far from his wand holster.

The Unspeakable halted at the ninety-seventh row and motioned with their head down it. Lucius turned and found himself facing a prophecy orb with Dumbledore’s initials on it.

There was a question mark next to the name Harry Potter, and…

Lucius stared. Then he glanced at the Unspeakable. “The prophecy orb is active.”

“Yes.” The Unspeakable had their hands folded in their sleeves.

“It has not been fulfilled.”

“No.”

“But my son vanquished Voldemort not a night past.”

The Unspeakable paused, again seeming to commune with someone who stood beyond the room. Then they shrugged a little and said, “Then maybe the prophecy was not about your son. I do not believe that your son was born at the end of July.”

“No,” Lucius whispered.

“And you see the question mark next to Harry Potter’s name. The person who wrote that was not sure that the prophecy was about James and Lily Potter’s son—who after all turned out never to have existed.”

“We were so sure…”

“Certainty is often a delusion.”

Lucius looked back at the prophecy. He hadn’t known that the person who had labeled this, whoever had done this, had been so uncertain. And that they hadn’t even known for sure the Dark Lord was Voldemort? The words on the prophecy label included his title, not his name.

Perhaps it was never him. Perhaps Voldemort thought it was, and Dumbledore, but that would not make it true.

“Thank you,” Lucius told the Unspeakable.

“There is a prophecy attached to the name of Henry Malfoy, if you would see it.”

Lucius stared at the Unspeakable, wondering. They hadn’t even known themselves that they would compromise on the name of Henry for their son until a few years ago. They hadn’t known he would be restored to them, either. Shouldn’t the prophecy have been in the name of Aldebaran Malfoy?

“When was the prophecy given?” he whispered.

“Last month.”

Lucius closed his eyes and pondered whether seeing it would be worth it. He wouldn’t be able to remove the prophecy from the shelf or listen to it, and just knowing that it existed—he wouldn’t allow that to control him, or Henry. Enough lives had been deformed by a prophecy already.

But it seemed to him that he should at least look on the labels on the orb, so he wouldn’t be taken by surprise if someone came after Henry for it.

Resolved, he followed the Unspeakable to Row 111. The prophecy orb this time looked identical to the one that Lucius had just seen, except, of course, for the label.

H. to R.

Henry Malfoy

“H and R?” Lucius asked. His first thought was the initials of his son’s best friends, but he couldn’t believe that they wouldn’t say H. G. and R. W. in that case. And neither one of them was a Seer.

“Herwert and Ragnok.”

Lucius whipped around, staring at the Unspeakable. They continued to regard him blandly from behind their wooden mask.

“Those are goblin names.”

“Well-spotted.”

Lucius narrowed his eyes. He had never been sure that the Unspeakables were even capable of humor. “And why would the goblins be interested in my son?”

“I suggest you ask them yourself, Mr. Malfoy.”

Lucius glared at the prophecy orb. Narcissa had told him that the goblins apparently had their own prophecy about Voldemort, something about someone with multiple Horcruxes, but they hadn’t heard it in detail. And that prophecy had been in existence, at the very least, since last summer, unlike this one.

“I will ask them,” Lucius said, and then he tapped his way out of the Ministry and up the lift, making a decision on the way.

He would tell Henry about the prophecy. After everything that had happened, he would never try to keep that kind of secret from his children. But he would also tell Henry that he had the choice about whether to question the goblins, or to come to the Department of Mysteries and retrieve the prophecy orb himself.

Henry’s fate was going to be his own.

*

“What do you want?”

Draco pasted his politest smile on his face. It was one that he had practiced in front of the mirror until Mother had complimented him on it. “I wanted to talk to you about the process of becoming a researcher into the secrets of magic.”

The portrait, of his great-grandmother Astraea Malfoy, paused, her eyes fixed on him. She had pale blue robes and hair so blonde it was a shimmering silver color.

“No one has ever asked me that before,” she said, voice soft.

“Then they were fools. I discovered when my brother started worshipping the Great Serpent that there were secrets I didn’t know about our family, and I wanted to learn them, so I asked Father who in our family had made such a career of knowledge. He said you were the only one he knew of.”

“Your father is perhaps not so foolish.” Astraea leaned forwards with her hands on the edge of the portrait. “I will trade you current gossip for old secrets and research methods. I had not realized that your brother was a Parselmouth, as he must be. Tell me how he started worshipping the Great Serpent again.”

Draco smiled.

*

“I will miss you when you return to your school.”

Harry gently stroked the edge of the Great Serpent’s head. It had manifested at the moment as a huge emerald-green python with gold edgings to its scales, wrapped firmly around Harry where he sat next to the altar.

“I know. I’ll miss you, too.”

“Do you have to return?”

“Yes. And I want to. But in a few more months, I’ll be home, and we can talk more about what it means that I’m worshipping you and teaching my brother the rites.”

The Great Serpent was silent for long enough that Harry thought he was going to get away with not saying anything more. And then it whispered, in a hiss like the brushing of robes along the floor, “In time, I will have more worshippers. In time, I will be known to the rest of your family again.”

“Yes. I can’t imagine having children and not teaching them about you, even if none of them are Parselmouths.”

“I will bless them. All of them will speak our tongue.”

Harry had to close his eyes for a long moment to hide his reaction to that. Then he said, “Why did you bless me? Did you hope that I would come back and find you again even though so many of our family hadn’t been with you in so long?”

“I cast that gift into your family line with no thought of receiving a return for it. The worship of your ancestors was enough. I am unsure why it awakened when it did. Perhaps it was something in your mother’s ancestry.”

Harry nodded. He could see that. Perhaps he would speak to Cousin Regulus on a totally different subject, to learn more about the Black family and the magic they had access to.

He touched the serpent’s scales for a few more minutes, and then it reared above him and sent that wave of love and acceptance through him again.

“I know that you will need to wake early for the journey back to your school. I will go to the shadows now, and sleep until you return.”

“Good-bye,” Harry whispered, as he watched the shadow move across the wall.

“Good-bye, Henry.”

Harry watched the shadow blend into other shadows clustered around the altar, and then walked slowly up the stairs. He knew their parents would have a special dinner for him and Draco, and he didn’t want to miss it.

But he was thinking of something the Great Serpent had said, something that wasn’t about history or children or Parseltongue. He went to bed thinking of it, and rose thinking of it, and packed his trunk thinking of it.

By the time he got on the train, he had made up his mind.

*

“Harry, what happened?”

Hermione knew something obviously had. Harry carried himself differently. He gave Hermione a smile when he hugged her that she thought went deeper than any of his smiles ever had.

And of course, there was the fact that the scar on his forehead was a faded silver mark, looking as if it had been inflicted fourteen years ago.

The way it always should have, but hadn’t when Harry went home for the Easter holiday.

Harry smiled at her again and then shot a glance around at the people swarming onto the Hogwarts Express. “I’ll tell you, but I think we should get a compartment first,” he said, in a voice low enough that Hermione wondered what he had to tell them.

She exchanged a slightly worried glance with Ron as they followed Harry into a compartment near the back of the train. Ron only shook his head and shrugged in response. Hermione nodded and faced forwards as she listened to Harry casting some Silencing and Locking Charms on the compartment.

When he sat down and turned around to face them again, Hermione realized he was nervous.

“What is it?” she whispered. “What happened?”

“We found and destroyed Voldemort over the Easter holiday.”

Ron squeaked, but Hermione was too much in shock to do the same thing. She stared closely at Harry, waiting to hear him say that he was kidding or the like, but he just kept watching them with wide, solemn eyes.

Hermione wanted to ask a lot of things, but just one question, “How?” exploded out of her.

“There’s a—power that’s associated with the Manor,” Harry said carefully. “My ancestors didn’t take much advantage of it, but I could talk to it because I’m a Parselmouth. It might have been the reason I’m a Parselmouth, honestly. And the power told me that it could help me destroy Voldemort. We found the last remnant of him, just a wraith, since Father already disembodied him, and this power took care of it.”

“Are you sure, mate?” Ron asked quickly. “If it’s that strong, it sounds more like this power would be in league with Voldemort.”

Harry made a face as if they’d shoved something foul-smelling under his nose. “No. Trust me, it would never do that.”

“What’s the power called, Harry? Why is being a Parselmouth important?”

Harry shook his head slowly. “I can’t tell you all the details, Hermione. But Dumbledore was there when we destroyed the last bits of Voldemort. He might be able to tell you something more.”

“I thought your father hated Dumbledore,” Ron murmured.

“He did, he does, but he wanted him there to take care of some of the wards and protections Voldemort had put up.”

Hermione frowned at Harry. Just like with so many things since he had discovered that he was a Malfoy, she knew that they weren’t getting the full story. It drove her mental to know there were secrets hovering there that Harry knew and wouldn’t share with them.

But she had accepted that she didn’t have the right to know all of them. And Harry had gone through plenty of traumatic things this year, including having Sirius Black come close to him again and being affected by whatever Dark artifact he’d run into right before the Easter holiday. So she settled back and just listened to Harry and Ron talk a little more about Quidditch and what they were going to do as far as plays went.

Then Harry said, “I have something to ask you,” and he looked more nervous than ever.

“What is it?” Hermione asked, leaning forwards. She wondered if Harry thought they were about to abandon him because he had supposedly “fulfilled his purpose” or something stupid, and she was prepared to reassure him.

“Can you—can you call me Henry?”

Hermione looked at Harry a little blankly. That was so far from what she’d thought he’d ask that it was taking some time to clear up in her brain.

Then she said, “But you’ve always been Harry.”

“I know. But over the holidays, something happened that—I thought about it, and I’m really not a Potter. I’m not a Harry. I’m Henry Malfoy. That’s who I want to be, and who I get to define myself as.”

Harry’s voice was firm in a way that Hermione didn’t think she’d ever heard it. He’d always doubted himself about something. She exchanged a bewildered glance with Ron, and then turned back to Harry. “If this is something your parents have told you—”

“No.” Harry narrowed his eyes, but his voice was cool and quiet. “It’s something I want. And it’s more than a little insulting that you assume Mother and Father are the ones who told me to do it and I’m just quietly following along with their wishes, Hermione.”

Hermione flushed. “I meant—your name!”

“You fought to keep it when you found out you were a Malfoy,” Ron said, leaning forwards with his hands clamped around the edges of his seat. “So it’s a bit alarming that you’re changing your mind now, mate.”

“Yes, but it’s my name, my identity. And I’m not Harry Potter. I never was. I never will be. I don’t want to try being that person again.”

Hermione exchanged another look with Ron. Ron looked as if he wished he had something to do with his hands. She bit her lip and turned to look back at Harry. “If you’re sure.”

“I am.”

“All right. Henry.”

Harry’s—it would take Hermione a while to get out of the habit of calling him that—smile was brilliant when she said that, and he got up and hugged her briefly before he went back to his seat. Then he turned a look on Ron that was more than a little challenging.

“You’ve always been Harry,” Ron said at last.

“No. I used to be Aldebaran. And I’ve been Henry to my family for these last few years, but I never fully accepted the name. It was just a compromise. It’s not now.”

Hermione itched, more than ever, to know what had happened over the Easter holiday, but she kept quiet. Ron looked back and forth between his hands and Henry’s face, seeming more than a little lost. It was a decision that he had to make for himself, so Hermione didn’t interfere, no matter how much she longed to.

Ron finally huffed and then smiled. “If I could accept it when you turned out to be a bloody Malfoy, then you changing your first name should be a small thing. Okay, Henry.”

Harry—Henry—Merlin, it was confusing—smiled at them, and went right back to talking with Ron about Quidditch. Ron was quiet at first, but soon he was describing the Chudley Cannons’ latest game to Henry, waving his arms around happily.

Hermione watched them as much as she read her book, and decided that what Henry wanted to call himself was none of her business, except that of course she would respect his wishes.

Because he looked happy. Lighter. Freer. Unburdened.

This was his chance to be the person he should always have got to be, and Hermione wasn’t going to deny it to him.

*

“Welcome, Harry.”

Harry—it was taking him longer to get used to thinking of himself by his name than it was for him to tell everyone else—paused in the middle of putting his bag down on the couch in the Room of Requirement. “Actually,” he said carefully, “that’s not the name I go by anymore.”

“Oh?” Healer Letham was already sipping a cup of tea that one of the house-elves must have brought her, but she leaned forwards and focused fully on him.

“Yeah.” Harry took a deep breath. “I—we got rid of Voldemort for good over the Easter holiday. And I decided that I’m Henry Malfoy now. It’s my name and I chose it. So please call me that.”

Healer Leetham paused for long enough that Harry wondered, nervously, if this crossed some kind of invisible line for her, or if she thought that he wasn’t serious about the name for some reason. Or if there was a complicated Mind-Healer reason that she didn’t want to accept calling him that.

But instead, Healer Letham gave him a gentle, brilliant smile, echoed in the momentary brilliance of her eyes.

“You’ve come a long way, Henry,” she said quietly. “I’m very proud of you.”

Harry swallowed and gave her a shy smile. He hadn’t realized what it would mean, to hear her say that.

“If you wish,” Healer Letham went on, watching him closely, “we can discontinue these sessions. We do not have to, but if you feel that you have arrived at a place where you can find your own way forwards…”

Harry hesitated. Then he said, “Ask me again in another month.”

Healer Letham nodded. “Of course,” she said. “In the meantime, why don’t you tell me what you’ve done during the holiday, and what kinds of challenges you expect to have as you explore the world as Henry Malfoy?”

Harry smiled and sat down on the couch across from her. Maybe someday soon, he would feel that he didn’t need Mind-Healing anymore, and he really could make his own way in the world.

But maybe not.

*

“Hello.”

He gave a hesitant smile to the man walking beside his parents down the main street of Hogsmeade. Apparently the new Minister who had replaced Fudge had wanted to meet him, and his parents had given permission, but insisted that they be there. Which meant they were visiting him at school during the Hogsmeade weekend, Mother and Father walking calmly behind the man called Rufus Scrimgeour.

“Wanted to meet the boy who put an end to You-Know-Who, as they tell me,” Scrimgeour said, studying him from beneath bushy brows. He had the impression that the man wasn’t easily fooled, even if not as smart as his parents. “Shake, young man?”

Scrimgeour extended his hand.

He put out his own hand, and smiled, his eyes darting across Mother and Father who looked at him with quiet pride, across Draco’s face as he stood at his shoulder.

“Henry Malfoy,” he said, settling into his skin, his name, the life he had chosen. “Pleased to meet you.”

The End.