lomonaaeren

“You’re doing very well, Mr. Malfoy.”

Draco accepted Flitwick’s praise with a nod and a smile. His mind was busy with the letter that the owl—from Bernice Greengrass, of all people—had delivered to him at breakfast.

She’d written a note with it, so it wasn’t as if it came entirely out of the blue. In the note, she’d explained that Draco’s father wanted him to have the results of her research, and she’d simplified and condensed it a bit. She also offered to discuss it if Draco had any questions, which was—kind of her.

Draco had questions. Mostly about how in the world she’d found those stupid results.

“Draco?”

Harry’s voice was soft and tentative. Draco blinked and turned to look at him. Harry had been quiet for most of Charms, but now he was looking at Draco with vague fear.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, fine, of course,” Draco said, and drew himself up, noticing the way that Harry shrank back. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason.”

Harry was already turning away, folding back into himself as he reached for a piece of parchment, and suddenly Draco found that he didn’t want to let that happen. He sighed and reached out to rest his hand on Harry’s wrist. “I got a letter, and it was disturbing,” he said quietly. “That’s all.”

“Oh.”

Harry blinked at him, and then Professor Flitwick called their attention back up to the front of the class, where he was showing them how to make a feather float. Draco squeezed Harry’s wrist one more time and sat back.

He would think about it and write a letter to his mother. She was the one who knew Bernice Greengrass better, and she was the one who would be able to tell him if this was a—a joke, or something. If Draco’s father already knew about it, he probably wouldn’t appreciate Draco writing to him to ask the question.

And in the meantime…

He would just have to keep the letter secret and think about it, that was all.

*

“Do you know why I summoned you to my office, Mr. Potter?”

“No, sir. I don’t know what I did wrong.”

Severus paused for a moment to evaluate this boy who apparently thought that no professor could be interested in speaking to him unless he’d done something wrong. Then he shook his head, remembering that Potter had grown up with Petunia. Of course the woman would do her best to crush any wizard’s spirit.

“It’s not what you did wrong, but what I may be able to help you with,” he said, and noticed the incredulous eyes that Potter lifted to him. “You had no idea that you had magic before your eleventh birthday?”

“No, sir.”

“Then there are things you will not know. Writing with a quill. The best way to interact with house-elves. How to make sure that a letter is sealed. How to dry ink with a simple charm instead of having to wait for it to dry on its own. All the casual, everyday things that those raised with magic take for granted.”

“I’d like to learn that, sir.”

There was, at the moment, so much of Lily in the way that Potter was looking at him, Severus had to close his eyes. When he opened them again, he wished he hadn’t. Potter had taken a step back and was pressed against the table behind him, his eyes locked on Severus, as if he expected a blow.

“I will not harm you, Mr. Potter.”

“Yes, sir.”

The boy clearly didn’t believe him.

Severus breathed out and shook his head. “Do you know why your relatives didn’t tell you about magic, Potter? I know, at the very least, that your aunt knew about it.”

“I don’t think they liked thinking about it, sir. And I understand why. It was something foreign and bad, and I just got dumped on their doorstep, and they had to take care of me even though they didn’t want to. So they didn’t want to think or talk about it.”

Severus tightened his grip on his rage. Part of him had hoped—wistfully dreamed, he could admit now—that Petunia had sought out the opportunity to take custody of her nephew. But of course that hadn’t happened.

“Dumped on their doorstep?” he repeated slowly.

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you know why?”

“No, sir.”

“Do you know who?”

“I know Hagrid was one of the people who brought me there, sir.”

Severus suspected he knew perfectly well who. He was also sure that Potter did. But Potter sat there with his straight back and his calm face and gave nothing away, except that he was uncertain and frightened.

Severus sighed and attempted to lean as casually as he could against the wall, his head tilting as another idea came to him. “Did you know that you could say incantations in Parseltongue, Mr. Potter?”

“I can?”

“Yes. Some wizards feel that makes them more powerful. At the very least, it means their opponents in battle wouldn’t understand what they’re saying.”

“I—wouldn’t want to fight a battle, sir.”

“Wouldn’t you?”

Potter glanced at him, then looked swiftly away. Severus nodded. He doubted that the boy was completely devoid of Gryffindor traits, no matter what the Hat had chosen for him. Probably Potter just felt like he couldn’t fight against what the Malfoys were demanding of him no matter how much he might have liked to.

“There are other ways of doing battle than a duel, Mr. Potter.”

“Wouldn’t they require money or power, sir?”

“Don’t you feel that you have that, Mr. Potter?”

“Not if other people control it.”

The mutter was low and so bitter that it reminded Severus of Skele-Gro. He cocked his head and regarded the boy again. Potter had gone back to staring at his hands, a light blush on his cheeks. Again, he looked like someone who thought Severus would run off to report his behavior to the Malfoys at the least opportunity.

Or the Headmaster?

Time to disabuse the boy of that notion, at least. “Did you know that I’m friends with Lucius?”

“Mr. Malfoy? Yes, sir. He mentioned.”

“Did you know why I didn’t visit him this summer?”

“Um. No, sir.”

“The relationship is more distant than Lucius supposes,” Severus drawled, and watched Potter’s eyes rise to his face, so quickly that it looked as if it might have hurt. “I associate with him for the benefits I can gain from him, but not so much for his—character.”

“Oh. But—that’s not different from the reason that I have to stay with them, right, sir? Because it would be worse if I didn’t?”

“Do you see me cringing to them as you do, Potter?”

Potter winced, and Severus wished, for once, that his tongue wasn’t so quick. But it didn’t discourage the boy from answering. “No, sir. But you already have the power. And you don’t have to live with anybody you don’t want to. I do.”

“Would you prefer to go somewhere else besides the Malfoys’, Potter? I could find another family who’s eager to take you in.”

“Would they be as honest?”

“As…honest?”

“They would probably want to use me, sir. They just wouldn’t say it like the Malfoys do. I’d rather know.” Potter shook his head, and his hair stayed in place instead of flying everywhere the way Severus remembered that other Potter’s doing. “Or they would listen to the Headmaster and want to place me back in the Muggle world. At least I know Mr. Malfoy will never listen to Professor Dumbledore.”

Severus saw the way the boy peered at him under his eyelashes after speaking those words, and had to restrain a bark of startled laughter. Yes, the Hat had known what it was doing, placing Harry Potter in Slytherin, even if he retained some Gryffindor traits. Even now, Potter was looking to see how Severus would react, preparing to shape his own reaction based on that.

I’ll have to be careful with him. It would be easy to believe he was being honest if one didn’t look at his eyes.

He made his voice as calm and straightforward as he knew how, without nuance. “It’s true that most of them are Headmaster Dumbledore’s allies.”

“And the ones that aren’t?”

“Would probably want to use you,” Severus had to allow. Honestly, someone like Marigold Bulstrode would be more graceful about it. Lucius had forgotten what he knew of grace, drunk on his own wealth and importance. “And it’s true they would probably try to say they didn’t want to and just encourage you to do a few interviews.”

“Mr. Malfoy hasn’t done that.”

“No. He would think it crass.”

“Do you, sir?”

“I think it wouldn’t pass muster with a wider public when it comes to Lucius’s goals,” Severus acknowledged. He could see the confusion in Potter’s eyes, but at the moment, he wasn’t inclined to put it in clearer terms than that. “That is another thing I can teach you.”

“What’s that, sir?”

“How to handle your fame.”

Potter stared at him with wider and more startled eyes than most owls Severus had seen. Severus was about to get impatient when the boy whispered, “But—how, sir? I didn’t think you were famous or anything like that.”

Severus gave him a grim smile. “No. Rather the opposite.”

“Sir?”

“I was blamed for my part in the war, Mr. Potter. And not in the way that Lucius managed to be, blamed but then exonerated.” He could see Potter mouthing the word to himself, and he added a little impatiently, “Declared innocent after being suspected. I didn’t see the inside of a cell in Azkaban because of Dumbledore, but there are plenty of people who are still upset about my being a Death Eater.”

Potter swallowed. Then he said, “Sir, I think I need to know the history of the war, too.”

“And what Azkaban is?”

“Yes, sir.”

Severus nodded slowly. Better, perhaps, that some parts of the truth come from him instead of someone else. There were people here who would soften and conceal it, or make the truth as blunt as possible because they blamed Potter for not living up to their expectations. Oddly enough, Severus could tell him the real story.

Lily would laugh and laugh.

Severus put that notion aside, because Lily’s son was right in front of him and he had work to do. “You should probably know about the Dementors, and that your godfather, Sirius Black, is there…”

*

Draco reached for his mother’s letter with trembling, eager hands. He had explained that he didn’t understand Bernice Greengrass’s research, and it was probably because it had been too complicated. He knew Mother would be able to interpret it for him and get him out of the impossible bind of believing purebloods had better magic but not being able to prove it.

My dearest son,

I hope that you’ll trust in your knowledge more than the way that your father wants you to interpret the world. You are too intelligent to prize blind obedience over reality.

What Bernice has researched is the truth. Magical strength does not follow blood. In fact, it’s doubtful that magical strength as we understand it is even a coherent concept. We have thought that those who could cast more difficult spells were stronger, but some difficult spells can be learned by anyone who puts in the time and work, and others were only classified as difficult because they weren’t widely-known.

To give an example I believe is relevant to the conversation: the Imperius Curse is not, in fact, particularly hard to cast, or requiring special knowledge or a reservoir of magic. It only demands desire. You have to want someone else to follow and obey you so utterly that it becomes your world for the duration of the casting.

There was more, a lot more, but Draco lowered the parchment and sat staring at the wall.

It was real? He hadn’t misunderstood Greengrass’s research? There was—

It was possible that powerful magic just showed up? That people didn’t inherit it because they were pure of blood and more worthy than the Muggleborns and half-bloods?

Draco didn’t know what to do with that. He could remember Father telling him, over and over again, that people with Muggle blood were dirtier and stupider and more limited than people who were pure. And they had to preserve that purity by only performing the right magic and marrying the right people. Draco knew that.

And Mother had done the same thing, hadn’t she? Why was she telling him this now, as if it were real?

Then Draco sat back and closed his eyes. And he didn’t care that he was at the Slytherin table in the middle of the Great Hall, and people must be staring at him and murmuring about him.

No, she really hadn’t done that. She hadn’t spoken against Father, and she had looked ill when Father had talked about Muggleborns and half-bloods sometimes. And she had warned Draco that she would never take him to the Muggle world, even when he had been a child and begged her to do it.

But she hadn’t said anything about those who were pure of blood having more powerful magic. Or deserving it.

Draco opened his eyes, turned back, and skimmed down Mother’s letter to the end.

It isn’t something we like to hear. But we need to face the reality, Draco, whether we like it or not. It isn’t true that some people have more powerful magic or more worthy magic because of their blood. We don’t understand how magic chooses its wielders, or even if it does at all. There are too many generations between someone possessing a gift and their descendant who does the same to simply decide that we understand everything.

Mother didn’t like this. But she wanted to face the reality, and she wanted the same from Draco.

I can do that.

And there had to be a specific reason that she’d brought up that line about how no one could really know what magical gifts a family could have when their ancestors were so distant.

Draco leaned back and looked around Blaise’s chair at Harry. Harry was talking with Daphne Greengrass, his face uncertain, but his smile edging towards something real as she laughed.

He never looks like that when I talk with him, Draco realized with a sudden jolt.

I want him to. I want him to really be my brother.

And if he’s not beneath me because of his blood…

He could even be Slytherin’s descendant. It’s been so long that no one might know. His Parseltongue could come from Salazar Slytherin himself.

Draco swallowed. If he wasn’t careful, someone else would tell Harry that, and Harry would listen to them, and then he might go off and become that person’s brother instead. Or just their best friend.

Maybe…maybe sometimes Father is wrong.

It felt shattering. But Draco was going to listen to Mother and do what he had to do to face reality.

No matter how much he didn’t like it. Truth was still a greater reward, and a better path to get what he wanted.