Harry Potter 1. Chapter 1

**Thou Shalt Get Kings**

Disclaimer: The characters and places you recognize aren't mine, of course. I promise I'll put them back in J.K. Rowling's toybox when I'm through with them!

I've read a couple of stories with similar plots to this in the past, but I'm not sure with whom the idea originated, so I apologize if I'm stepping on any toes. It fascinates me though, so I had to try my hand at it—I hope you find it interesting and a bit original.

This picks up at the end of the summer before sixth year, with one significant change to the end of year five. I want to keep things as close to canon as possible through Book 5, but I couldn't bear to lose Sirius! This first chapter is mostly just setting the stage--stick with me at least through chapter two where things pick up!

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**Chapter One**

THE DARKENED HOUSE at Number Four Privet Drive looked like a typical, well-maintained home. Petunia Dursley would have been horrified if it hadn't. She also would have been appalled to know that despite the best efforts of Vernon and herself, the neighbours had begun to think better of the polite, handsome young man that was her nephew than of her own mountain of a son, who terrorized the younger neighbourhood children. Dudley Dursley was a bully, but his parents ignored his flaws and pampered their son anyway, for their nephew was something they thought much worse: a wizard.

That nephew, Harry James Potter, was now in his small, sparse bedroom in the upstairs of Number Four packing his school trunk with things the Dursleys would have given their perfectly manicured lawn to keep hidden from those prying neighbours.

He had on only one small desk light to see by, and a raggedy T-Shirt was stuffed under the crack at the bottom of his bedroom door to stop the light from seeping into the hall. He didn't want his uncle Vernon realizing he was still awake and bursting in to find Harry sifting through Defense Against The Dark Arts textbooks, quills, and Quidditch magazines. That would just be inviting another lecture on the _unnaturalness_ of Harry's life.

His relatives did not like magic.

Harry didn't need very much time to pack his meagre belongings; his school robes and classroom supplies hadn't even left his trunk all summer. His textbooks were strewn around the room as he had needed to do his summer homework, but all that was required to take care of that jumble was to gather them up again and dump them into a corner of his trunk. After that, all that was left were the few muggle hand-me-down clothes that he would take with him for Hogsmeade weekends and the things he had secreted under a loose floorboard.

Harry propped up the floorboard and drew out a stack of summer letters from his friends Ron and Hermione, a few sweets left from his sixteenth birthday packages, and a large cloth bag.

The bag contained those few things that were most precious to Harry: his wand, the mirror given him by his godfather Sirius Black, the Marauder's Map, the photo album of his parents that Hagrid had made him, and his father's invisibility cloak. Harry drew his wand out of the bag and tucked it up his sleeve, then placed the bag carefully in the trunk.

He was very glad to be getting ready to go spend the last two weeks of summer visiting with Sirius and his friends at Grimmauld Place before going back to Hogwarts. The best that could be said for this summer vacation was that it wasn't the worst he had spent. The Dursleys expected him to take care of his chores around the house, but certainly didn't expect any conversation out of him. Sirius had threatened them in person at the end of last term, and as a result, the Dursleys had chosen to ignore his existence in their home as much as possible. If Harry wasn't cooking or doing odd jobs for his aunt and uncle, he was confined in his room. Of course, this meant he only had to spend minimal time with his relatives, so he didn't really mind.

However, it also meant that Harry had plenty of time to worry about what Voldemort was up to.

He knew that Voldemort was angry that his plans to get his hands on the prophecy had been foiled. Harry had felt Voldemort's anger acutely after the dark wizard's duel with Dumbledore in the Ministry. He was only glad that they had figured out Voldemort's plan in time and no one had been hurt.

Harry now knew that his original plan to rush into the Ministry to rescue the supposedly kidnapped Sirius had been foolhardy. Luckily, being caught at Umbridge's fireplace had slowed him down enough that he had remembered the mirror Sirius had given him. Harry, Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Neville, and Luna had rushed to call Sirius in the looking glass, and it had been Kreacher's reflection that had answered in it at first. Luckily, Sirius had come upon the elf and the mirror and assured Harry that he was safe at headquarters.

Dumbledore's Army had notified the Order of the attempted trap, and a reverse ambush had been quickly organized. Harry and his friends had stayed safely at Hogwarts watched over by Sirius, while Aurors disguised as Harry and other DA members had gone to the Department of Mysteries.

The Death Eaters were taken by surprise when the small contingent of Hogwarts students had turned out to be highly trained Order-friendly Aurors. A full-fledged battle had broken out, ranging from the Department of Mysteries all the way up to the entry atrium of the Ministry. Voldemort had been furious, prompting Harry's scar to give him a vision of the Dark Lord about to descend on the Ministry in a violent rage.

It hadn't been hard for the small group of determined students at Hogwarts to convince Sirius to take them to the Ministry. When they arrived, the grand lobby was a shambles of broken glass and bits of crumbled stone blasted away by curses. Half the Aurors were unconscious or injured, and the other half were struggling to take down the remaining Death Eaters. Everyone looked like they were tiring, but the arrival of Sirius and Harry's group had turned the tide.

Chaos had ensued then as some Death Eaters were captured and others wisely apparated away. Sirius was stunned by Bellatrix Lestrange, but Harry stood over him and fended the crazed woman off until Voldemort himself had turned up in the midst of it all.

But Dumbledore arrived only a moment later, and the ensuing duel between the two was fierce.

The evil wizard tried to turn Harry against the boy wizard's courageous friends, but Harry overcame Voldemort's Legilimency attack with the help of Dumbledore's words of encouragement.

Cornelius Fudge had turned up in time to witness the tail end of it all, and after that Voldemort fled, taking the few remaining Death Eaters with him.

Dumbledore had later given Harry the explanation he had demanded, and Harry had learned of the prophecy. Dumbledore had personally taken Harry to destroy it in safety the next day.

Knowing the truth didn't entirely take away Harry's anger at being kept in the dark for so long. But after a lengthy conversation with Sirius in the Headmaster's office, Harry felt he could at least understand Dumbledore's reasoning. And he had to allow that it felt good to know that such a powerful wizard cared and was looking out for him.

It also didn't hurt that Sirius had promised to make doubly sure that Harry was kept informed of any Order business that impacted his life.

A flutter at his window made Harry turn. His large snowy owl, Hedwig, soared through the open window and landed neatly on Harry's shoulder.

"Hi, Hedwig," He smiled and petted her feathers. "Catch any mice?"

Hedwig hooted softly, then fluttered over into her birdcage with her beak in the air as if miffed that he would ever doubt her hunting skills.

Harry chuckled. "Course you did, girl. Dessert?"

He fed her a couple owl treats and she nipped his hand affectionately, mollified.

"I am glad you're back, Hedwig; we're going to Grimmauld Place tomorrow."

Finished packing, Harry shut his trunk, sat on his bed, and pulled a crumpled piece of parchment from his jean pocket. It was a letter from his former professor, Remus Lupin. Anxiously, Harry read the note again.

_Dear Harry, _

_Sirius and I are eager to see you before you return to Hogwarts. We are sorry that our Order duties prevented us from bringing you to visit for your birthday, but I will be arriving Friday morning at ten o'clock to take you to Headquarters for the next two weeks. The Weasleys and Hermione will be arriving then as well._

_Your friend,_

_Remus_

Harry had the letter memorized; he had read it so often.

He couldn't say why, but he found himself very nervous about the visit. It felt as if something big was waiting to happen. His scar hadn't given him any warning pains beyond the very dull ache that had developed ever since Voldemort had returned—which he pretty much ignored now. Still, who could really say what the Death Eaters were up to lately? The skirmish in the Ministry had left him particularly on edge.

Harry lay back on his bed on top of his thin sheet, and, still in his clothes and with his wand next to him, attempted to fall asleep to make tomorrow come faster. He figured that he would feel better once he and Lupin actually made it safely though the door of his godfather's house.

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Draco Malfoy watched dourly from over the top of the article in the Quidditch magazine he was reading, _Falmouth Falcons: Favourites For This Year's League Cup? _as a wizened house elf painstakingly sorted clothes and robes for packing his school trunk in the corner of the room. It was still a couple weeks before the Hogwarts Express was to leave for the start of term, but Lucius Malfoy expected his son to be prepared well in advance.

Draco hadn't had a particularly pleasant summer.

He'd spent most of it in his room or on shopping outings with his mother. While shopping trips in Italy and Paris could be a mild diversion, they really weren't especially interesting to a teenage boy to whom high-brow destination shopping had ceased to be a novelty years ago.

His mother hosted numerous luncheons and teas during the holiday as well, and Draco was of course expected to attend those, making dull small-talk with the pureblood elite. These were the sorts of events where, even among that society, the Wizarding war and the Death Eaters were a taboo topic, which killed most of the conversation that Draco would be interested in, and left nothing but bland gossip. Draco had managed to sneak Pansy Parkinson away from a few of those gatherings and into a dim corridor alcove for a little snog session occasionally, but that was the only high point.

Flying on the Malfoy estate Quidditch pitch was a better source of entertainment, when he could get away.

For years though, Draco's father had used the summer holidays to teach Draco things about Dark Magic that no professor at Hogwarts would dream of imparting. They had also shared long after-dinner discussions over the state of the Wizarding world, the Ministry's policies, and the dogma of Voldemort and the Death Eaters. Draco always had enjoyed getting to spend this time with his father, and hung on every word, preening when his father showed approval for one of Draco's thoughts. Now and then Draco would be allowed to accompany his father to the Ministry or to other appointments, after all, he would be the head of the Malfoy family one day, and it was important he should learn how to conduct their business.

That all seemed to be in the past now. Not once this summer had Draco been invited to join his father when he left the house. And even if Lucius was home at suppertime, he disappeared without a word afterwards to his private study. His father was sharing neither time nor conversation with Draco this summer, and Draco couldn't figure out why.

He understood that the Dark Lord was demanding of his father's time, but he didn't like it.

It meant that Draco had spent the holidays largely ignored. He'd never been so ready to see a summer end.

While he would be glad to get back to the relative freedom that being at Hogwarts would give him, that gladness was tempered, as always, by the simple fact that being at Hogwarts meant bringing Harry Potter back into his life.

The very idea of Harry tormented Draco. Not because of the threat the Boy-Who-Lived posed to his father's Master, as many, including his father, would believe, but because Harry Potter got everything.

The adoration of the Wizarding World, the unbeatable Quidditch skills, friends that cared about him and not status, Dumbledore's undivided attention, and Draco was fairly certain that if the blasted brat's parents had lived, they would have _loved_ their son.

When Draco had offered Harry his friendship at the start of their first year, it had indeed been because the name Harry Potter meant influence, and Draco, as a Malfoy, had been raised to seek influence out and find a way to work it to his own advantage. Pressure from his father had played a part as well. The elder Malfoy had always harboured hopes for the Dark Lord's return and knew that to have the trust of the Potter boy would give him a great amount of power in Lord Voldemort's court if such an event occurred. If not, then it certainly couldn't hurt to be close to the saviour of the Wizarding World.

Feeling abandoned all summer had lead a bitter Draco to pay more attention to some things and re-think some others, and he knew now that his father's advice on the subject merely meant that he was using his son as a means to further his own power.

Still, Draco's anger over being rejected came from a secret, deeper place. He hated to admit to himself that he harboured a bit of hero-worship for the Boy-Who-Lived.

When he was very young and not old enough to be interesting to his father, Draco had thought the idea of besting a Dark Lord from within one's cradle a truly grand adventure. While the young Draco knew that his father thought of Voldemort as a boon to the Wizarding World and was being unconsciously steeped in these ideals, he was no stranger to the wonder his peers felt at the idea of 'Harry Potter.' And when other news was slow, he read the stories of a heroic young family retold in the Daily Prophet along with everyone else.

Draco supposed he couldn't blame himself; he had been very young then, and was obliged to have foolish childhood ideals.

It still had hurt to come face-to-face with his secret childhood hero and have him refuse to take his hand in front of their entire year. To have his friendship rejected by this legend of a boy was a sharp blow to his Malfoy-cultivated ego, and a firm hatred was born.

Draco was also his father's son, and by that time was well and truly indoctrinated in Lucius's ideas about Muggles and the absolute power of Voldemort. He was not one to refrain from voicing those opinions, so it followed that Potter and his Dream Team hated Draco right back.

Then Voldemort had actually returned.

Draco of course did not change the way he spoke in public—how could he? He had his father to impress after all, and besides, there had to be some truth to what Lucius Malfoy had been telling his son all these years, didn't there?

But now, after two summers of seeing how his father scuttled to obey the Dark Lord's every whim like some house elf, Draco wasn't as sure that he wanted to follow in his footsteps. Sure, Draco believed that purebloods were the Wizarding elite, and the Malfoys were at the top of the bunch.

But he wasn't quite as sure about a world led by Voldemort himself…

Draco looked up again, noticing that the house elf in his room had just finished packing and was slipping out the door. He watched it go, pushing down an illogical burst of jealousy that it had the run of the Manor in the course of its duties. He shook his head.

It did not do for a Malfoy to be jealous of a house elf.

He looked around his room. Accustomed as he was to the opulent surroundings, it seemed like a prison to him. Draco was never denied anything he asked for, and the room, exquisitely appointed to begin with, was filled with the latest and most expensive wizarding gadgets, playthings, and clothes. This was a fact of life to Draco. Naturally a Malfoy would only own the best, and so the room's luxuries made no impact on him.

He scowled at the door. He had heard it latch when the elf left, which meant that his father was "entertaining" this evening. Expected to stay out of the way regardless, Draco was locked in his room as an extra precaution on the nights that the Manor filled with Death Eaters. Even the son of one of Voldemort's inner circle members was not to overhear any of the actual plotting.

Draco was not permitted to have all the details, but he knew enough—from gossip at the end of last term and from overheard conversations at home—to know that Potter had once again slipped through Voldemort's fingers. The Dark Lord had apparently expected to lure Potter alone to the Ministry—for what, Draco did not know—but he knew that Voldemort himself had gone to the location and found Dumbledore ready to duel him in the middle of the Ministry entrance hall.

Somehow, Potter and Dumbledore had seen through Voldemort's trap. The secretly harboured admiration for Harry welled up again unbidden, and Draco squashed it down angrily with a thought of what his father would do if he knew what Draco had been thinking.

The boy smirked and removed a small wooden box from one of his desk drawers. His father wouldn't be too happy about _this_ either.

Draco couldn't think of anyone that annoyed him more than Ron Weasley, Harry Potter's sidekick. Even Potter and the know-it-all Hermione Granger were second to the Weasel. Them at least he could understand—of course they opposed Voldemort; neither of them was a pureblood. The Weasleys were, and therefore ought to see the benefits of a Wizarding society that limited the participation of 'muggleborn elements' in the magical world. Yet there they were, crusading alongside Dumbledore. Thinking themselves so noble despite their poverty. Besides, it had been Ron that had gotten to Harry first; if it hadn't been for the redhead, maybe Potter would have accepted Draco's hand of friendship. Maybe that one thing would have gone right and he could have made his father proud of him.

No, Draco had no use for most of the Weasleys. Two of them, however, had earned the admiration of most of the Hogwarts student body, and Draco's grudging respect. The box now open on his lap was full of products from Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes.

He had to admit that the things the twins managed to create were pretty impressive, and could be dead useful if one wanted to cause trouble during the summer when underage magic wasn't allowed. Draco sifted through the small hoard until he found what he was looking for. It was a small round green sweet in a clear wrapper that advertised in orange lettering:

_EavesDrops – Eat just one, and enjoy super-human hearing for up to one whole hour! Listen to the secret conversations of friends or foes from rooms away!_

He'd never tell the Weasleys, but Draco thought it was quite brilliant. And much more practical that those ear-things they'd come out with last year. He'd been saving this thing for a few weeks now—he'd started the summer with three of them, and used the first two to listen in on previous Death Eater meetings. Both occasions had turned out to be dreadful bores, as Voldemort had still been stewing over his fiasco at the Ministry and no new plans or information had been forthcoming.

Maybe the third time was the charm?

With the decision made to commit espionage, Draco unwrapped the candy and popped it in his mouth. Just like the first two times, a moment after he had finished swallowing it, his sense of hearing exploded outward. He took a moment to adjust, and then directed his focus to the ground floor library.

A Death Eater was speaking, the voice not one he recognized.

"Lord Voldemort, Rimsteen is ready and awaiting your orders. Baddock and I will continue watching him until you are prepared to use him."

"Very good, Parkinson."

That voice Draco recognized. It was high and hissing and belonged to the Dark Lord himself. It never failed to make his skin crawl.

_Nothing interesting again, _He sighed. Nothing more than some new recruit eager to prove himself. _Well, maybe later in the meeting they'll talk about something interesting._

No reason not to keep listening. This was his best way of getting information as long as his father didn't find out about it.

The sixteen-year-old jumped at a knock on his door, and for a moment thought that maybe his father _did_ know and had arrived to punish him, but then the door opened and his mother stepped into the room. Habit—drilled into him by his father—made Draco stand in respect.

"Draco," his mother spoke with no emotion in her voice, but that was nothing new, "Your father requests your presence in the library on behalf of the Dark Lord. It is a great honour."

Draco gulped. This didn't bode well.

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	2. Chapter 2

**Thou Shalt Get Kings**

Disclaimer: The characters and places you recognize aren't mine, of course. I promise I'll put them back in J.K. Rowling's toybox when I'm through with them!

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**Chapter Two**

SUDDENLY STAYING in his room didn't seem so bad. Being a Death Eater was all well and good for his father, but perhaps the man had done too good a job steeping Draco in the ways of being a Malfoy.

There was a time when serving the Dark Lord may have seemed like and honour, but now the only word Draco heard in that sentence was "serving."

Draco found the idea of servitude repugnant, and he found himself sticking by his idea that being a Death Eater really made one nothing more than a grovelling house elf to Voldemort. He understood he was old enough now that Voldemort would begin to expect more in the way of loyalty from Lucius's only son than a schoolyard rivalry with the Boy-Who-Lived, and he hoped that this summons was not to become an initiation. Draco felt sure that he was cut out to be neither a servant nor a murderer. It just wasn't in him.

Since he'd turned sixteen now, he'd been subconsciously waiting all summer for the subject of his marking to come up. After having gone this far into the holiday with no mention of it, he'd hoped that it would be left to wait for another year, which was well, since Draco was feeling very torn on the issue.

Could this be that moment?

He'd been sure his father would be the one to approach him first, and he would have had some warning. Now he was being called directly into an audience with Voldemort?

Merlin help him, this was the exact situation he'd been hoping to avoid.

Draco also wasn't stupid.

He knew that to refuse an order from the Dark Lord was death, and so he nodded mutely and followed his mother down the stairs into the grand entrance hall and across to the alcove accommodating the door of the library.

His mother gave him a solemn nod and disappeared back up the stairs.

_Why didn't she stay and push me through the door? I could run off right now! _

Draco took a deep breath to calm his nerves and wrapped himself in the Malfoy pride as if bearing up a shield. With no shaking whatsoever, he raised a hand and knocked confidently on the heavy oak door of the library.

He almost lost his nerve again when a high, hissing voice called "Enter." But he drew himself up and opened the door.

The large fireplace at the far end of the room was blazing away, but there was little else in the way of light. This and the rows of masked Death Eaters lining the walls in front of the large bookcases gave an ominous feel to the room that was normally Draco's favourite in the Manor.

As his eyes adjusted, Draco could see both his father and Severus Snape standing near the far end of the long table in the centre of the room. Neither of them wore a mask. Seated between them at the head of the table was Voldemort.

He was reposed in the high-backed chair with power pervading the air around him. Firelight seemed to flicker in his eyes from the depths of the chair, making it anyone's guess whether those eyes were still red, or had turned as black as the night outside. His long white fingers curled around the thick, carved armrests, uncurled, and curled again. It was the only movement he made, and something about it looked like anticipation.

Voldemort raised one of those pale hands and motioned Draco forward. "Come forward, young Mr. Malfoy," he hissed.

Draco moved to stand at the opposite end of the table. He noticed that all of the chairs except the one in which Voldemort sat had been banished from the room.

Voldemort eyed Draco speculatively, the firelight glinting in his red eyes.

"Do you fear me?"

_Yes._ Draco inclined his head in a slight bow. "As I have always been loyal to you, my lord, I hope I have no reason to."

Draco met his father's eyes for the briefest of seconds and received a barely perceptible nod of approval.

Snape's face remained blank.

Voldemort eyed him critically, and almost, Draco thought, greedily. His next call came unexpectedly. "Lucius!"

Draco's father stepped forward around the Dark Lord's chair and knelt. "Yes, my lord?"

Involuntarily, Draco's insides tightened, and the back of his mind was ringing with his father's cold commandment: _"Malfoys bow to no one!"_ He shoved the thought away.

"Crucio!"

Draco nearly winced before he realised the curse had not been aimed at him, but at his father. He quickly sucked back a gasp before it could escape and reveal his horror. He forced himself to watch his father's pain dispassionately.

Voldemort's eyes were shining with amusement at the Malfoy heir and didn't even spare a glance for Malfoy the elder writhing beneath his wand.

"Your father's torment does not move you, young Mr. Malfoy? Do you not wish for me to stop?"

Draco couldn't manage to keep his fists from clenching, but he dragged his gaze back to Voldemort and said with only the barest of tremors in his voice, "My father has pledged himself to you. That means even his body is yours to do with as you wish. If you want to cause him pain, I can only assume my lord has good reason for it."

Voldemort's eyes narrowed and searched his face, and then he smiled.

It was a terrible sight.

A flick of his wand ended the curse, and Lucius Malfoy slowly dragged himself back to his feet. To rise too quickly might only invite more punishment.

"You have done as I asked and raised the boy well, Lucius," the Dark Lord said, "I feel the time has come for us to take advantage of what we have here and put our plan into action."

Draco didn't think he liked the sound of that. He liked it even less when Voldemort aimed another chilling smile at him.

"Dear Draco," the he hissed, in what was meant to be a low, kind tone, but sounded painfully shrill in Draco's still-charmed hearing, "because you are still in school, I will not require you to take the dark mark at this time."

Draco's pounding heart stilled for two full beats. Relief that he couldn't dare to show washed through him. He knew if Voldemort had said instead that he was going to be marked tonight, he wouldn't have had the nerve to resist.

"However, I do have an assignment for you. Lucius, my friend?"

His father drew in an aching breath to answer. "My lord?"

He had made his way back to his position at the right of the evil wizard's chair, where he had tried to pull his pride back around him as if being crucio'ed were an honour everyone else in the room could only wish to have.

Draco could at least give his father credit for managing that much. But the next sentence the Dark Lord spoke meant he wasn't worrying about his father's honour anymore.

"Please remove the charms you placed on this boy when I brought him to you."

_What? Did he have some kind of enchantments on him? And what did "brought" mean?_

Draco spared a quick glance at Snape, but saw that the Potions Master looked puzzled as well. He had always treated Draco with extra care at Hogwarts, and Draco thought that the professor was probably the only person in the room that he completely trusted. But Snape clearly had no idea what was going on either.

Draco looked at his father as the man raised and pointed his wand at him. His nervousness grew as his father began to recite a long incantation and wove his wand in a complicated pattern. He didn't recognize the spell.

He thought perhaps Snape did, for the Potions Master's eyes had widened a bit. Draco had to steel himself to keep from running—he had never felt more vulnerable in his life.

After one last flourish of the wand, Lucius stepped back, and Draco felt as if every one of his cells were being pricked all at once. His vision blurred, and he was momentarily disoriented until the room came back into focus. Was he mad, or did his father look slightly taller?

Whispers swept through the hooded Death Eaters surrounding them. He couldn't catch any words, but the tone was one of shock.

Something felt _wrong_.

Yet Voldemort looked positively gleeful.

For just a moment before a blank mask covered his face again, Snape looked ill.

Draco was certain that if he could figure out what had just happened, he would be panicking. _What was that spell? I have to get out of this room!_ He forced his feet to stay planted to the carpet like he'd used a permanent sticking charm on them.

"Excellent Lucius! The resemblance is certainly impossible to overlook!" A cold high laugh followed this. "His brother's spirits have been quite low since the end of last term. I must admit I am somewhat to blame, so it is only right that I send him a companion that he will be eager to trust."

To the Death Eaters he said with an air of grand presentation, "You see how even years ago I began moulding for myself a perfect advantage over an enemy family. A pathetic boy is all that is left of them to stand against me, and dear Draco will help me to weaken his mind and his will."

The Death Eaters were still rustling, the pronouncements of their feared leader not enough to quell them. Whatever was going on, this had to be big.

"Come closer, boy."

This time Draco couldn't help his eyes widening. _Closer?_

Voldemort's left hand turned over on the armrest and made a sharp twitch of a beckoning motion.

Draco stepped around the table and slowly approached until he was standing just in front of Snape, whose lip curled briefly as he took a small step to the side, away from the young wizard.

A narrowing of Voldemort's eyes and another twitch of the fingers indicated that he wanted Draco even closer.

Skin crawling, Draco took the last four steps that put him inches from Voldemort's chair. In a lurch forward as fast as lightning, Voldemort had lunged forward in the chair and he had Draco's chin grasped in his hand. He examined the boy like he was looking over an important purchase for what felt like an eternity.

Finally he released him with a slight shove so Draco stumbled backwards, regaining his footing as far back as he figured he could be excused in getting.

"Yes," said the hissing voice, "He is just what I need."

With only an evil smirk at Draco's expression of confusion, Voldemort waved his hand in dismissal. "Go for now, young Malfoy. Your father will explain the details of my instructions to you this evening. Obey them and all will go well for you."

Draco glanced uncertainly one last time at his father, whose face was expressionless, and turned to quickly leave the library, nearly stumbling—his centre of balance was strangely off. His mind was full of questions – what had the spells that Voldemort mentioned done to him, and what was different now they were no longer in effect?

Brother? Did he really have one? Why didn't he live at the manor? Was he older or younger?

These thoughts whirled through his mind, but once the library door closed behind him, he collapsed against it, just relieved to have escaped an audience with Voldemort unscathed. His heart was pounding so hard now that the sound hurt his ears. Merlin, he couldn't wait until the EavesDrop's effects wore off. He tried to focus on another sound to distract himself from his racing heart, and the voices of Voldemort and his father came to him through the thick door.

"My lord, Draco may be disturbed if he sees his true reflection before I explain it to him," his father was saying.

"Of course he will be! It is an honour to be a Malfoy, and anyone should be disturbed to find they are not one. Draco should always be glad that I offered him to you for adoption."

"That was not quite my meaning, my lord."

"Do not concern yourself, Lucius. The boy will be shocked, yes, but he is loyal to me."

"Will he be well received, do you think?"

"He is his brother's only wizarding family. The boy will be eager for his companionship. As their parents and everyone else believed Draco dead, his brother will certainly be surprised to find his 'long-lost' relation, but he will be glad to accept him, and I will have the perfect spy and weapon."

Draco's face was slack with shock.

He was adopted! He was not a Malfoy!

Draco now realised that his "father" had been removing "family glamour" charms on Voldemort's orders.

He had heard of such charms being used by pure-blooded families that had difficulties having children. The parents placed strong transfiguring glamours on their adopted wizarding children to make it appear that the infants were actual blood descendants. Better to secretly raise an adopted child than to allow your family line to die out. The stories had seemed like mildly interesting scandal to him at the time, but he had never suspected that _he_ was such a case!

He hadn't been imagining things; his father hadn't been taller—_he_ must be _shorter_! Who knew what he looked like now, but apparently, he now wore the face he had been born with.

He could barely believe that the man he called father had no ties to him at all, other than the fact that Voldemort had chosen to bring him to the Malfoys. And if his real parents believed him dead, he must have been stolen from them! Probably in infancy, to aid the illusion that he had been born to the Malfoys.

He stumbled away from the library door, his heart clenching in pain at what he now knew.

Draco made it into the main entrance hall…and came face to face with Harry Potter.

Draco gasped.

Their eyes widened in tandem upon seeing one another. How had Potter gotten into the manor? And why? Perhaps the Boy-Who-Lived had already discovered Lucius' plans against him this year and had come to head them off.

Draco hurriedly drew his wand and saw with dismay that Harry was doing the same. If he was truly honest with himself, he knew that he could not beat Potter in a duel. They levelled their wands at each other and Draco tried to threaten Potter with a patented smirk, but was disconcerted to see his nemesis smirk right back.

Rational thought intruded then upon the instinctual response that Draco had felt upon seeing Harry Potter.

Draco's head exploded in panic as he realised just where he stood.

In the entrance hall of Malfoy Manor, where the walls were punctuated with grand floor-to-ceiling mirrors. He glanced down, and his heart dropped out of his chest when he saw what separated him from his childhood enemy. A large, thick, gilt gold frame.

Draco sank to his knees and saw his _reflection_ do the same.

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	3. Chapter 3

**Thou Shalt Get Kings**

Disclaimer: The characters and places you recognize aren't mine, of course. I promise I'll put them back in J.K. Rowling's toybox when I'm through with them!

I'm thrilled by the number of hits I've gotten in just one night, so I'm going to go ahead and post chapter three! After this, updates will probably come every few days to a week apart.

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**Chapter Three**

THE BROTHER THAT Voldemort had spoken of was Harry Potter.

No, not brother, but twin—for his appearance was identical to the boy who lived, save for that infernal scar.

Draco's entire world came crashing down around his ears as he pulled himself up and staggered to the mirror. He placed his palm flat against the glass and watched, dumbfounded, as the Potter duplicate's palm met his.

The hand on the mirror didn't even look like his own. The fingers weren't quite as long and aristocratic; the skin not quite as pale.

Harry Potter's _twin brother?_ It had to be a lie! He tore himself from the unfamiliar reflection and fled up the staircase and through the halls to his room. He slammed the door and it crashed loudly in its frame.

As if to taunt him, he could hear the laughter of the Death Eaters from the library, and the Dark Lord's voice followed.

"I believe our Draco has just discovered his unfortunate connection to the pathetic Potters. Lucius, you will help him to understand that the handicap of his bloodline will make him a valuable tool against those who oppose me."

A tool! Lucius had never been raising him to be the Malfoy heir! His upbringing was nothing but a favour done for the monster that his "father" – the word felt bitter in his thoughts – scraped and bowed to. And he had soaked up everything that Lucius taught him, thinking he was being groomed for an elite station in wizarding society.

_Lies!_

He wondered if his mother knew whose child she had fostered all these years. Was her cool demeanor towards him really her natural proud disposition, or was it because he wasn't her son at all, but Lily and James Potter's?

No! It had to be a trick! He couldn't fathom why, but his new visage surely was only a temporary glamour. His true face had to be that of a Malfoy! Any second now he would change back! Somehow, the Death Eaters knew he had eaten that EavesDrop to spy on them. His father and Voldemort thought they'd have a laugh at his expense and they staged the conversations he'd overheard…and they knew he'd hear…and it was a cruel joke…and……and…

He sank to the floor and put his head in his hands...and immediately sprang up again as if burned. That had not been his own straight hair between fingers, but a messy mop just like Potter's. Almost against his will, his feet took him to stand in front of a full-length mirror on his wall.

A dazed looking Harry Potter stared back.

No, not quite.

While his physical characteristics were identical to Potter's—same black hair, 5'8'' frame, and green eyes—the emotions burning in those eyes, the expression on his face, and the way he held and carried himself were still recognizable as distinctly Draco. It made him feel a bit better.

Only a little bit.

His chest ached and he still nearly felt like hyperventilating. _It's really just a prank!_ He wanted to scream at his reflection.

He lunged for his open Quidditch chest and in one sweeping, furious movement, he snatched one of the heavy bludgers, and spinning, hurled it against the far wall, where it crashed and then fell heavily to the floor. He glared at the shattered panelling and large crack left by the impact, and glanced back at the mirror, as if the traitorous reflection could have been frightened away by the show of his fury and left the face he was used to in the glass behind it.

In truth, he knew that his rationalizations were meaningless. This wasn't a temporary appearance charm or a joke. Voldemort's comments were not staged.

He was a Potter.

His reflection stared at him blandly, as if devoid of energy after a fight.

As Draco Malfoy, he wore his hair a bit longer than Potter did. On an impulse and feeling slightly mad, he snatched a pair of shears from his desk and began trimming his hair into a shaggy mane. He even gave himself fringe like Potter's. When he finished, he eyed his handiwork, then looked down to see the debris of his new haircut. It was strange to see the dark coloured clippings that had fallen to the floor instead of blonde.

He wasn't quite sure why he'd done it. Except now he could _exactly_ pass for Potter—the fringe even hid the fact that he didn't have a scar on his forehead.

Draco heard screams from the floor below that signalled that Voldemort was now taking information reports from his followers. A Death Eater had obviously either given Voldemort bad news, or not enough, and was being Crucioed.

The shouts of pain were a bit muffled, and he realised that the EavesDrop was finally wearing off. Fine with him. He'd overheard more than enough to last him a lifetime.

Thanks to the shocks he'd gotten overhearing the conversations of Voldemort and his father, not to mention the irrefutable evidence of his reflection, Draco was newly aware of how many lies he'd been told.

He filled with anger. His parents were a lie, his identity… even his face had been a lie!

His Malfoy breeding warred with this new information. It wanted him to stay cool and in control while all Draco felt like doing was unleashing all his emotions and fury, and actually acting on that anger.

Well, why shouldn't he?

He wasn't even really a Malfoy!

He threw himself across his bed and felt pleasantly defiant as he allowed himself to welcome the anger and grief directed at his parents that suddenly rushed to fill him inside. He had never been emotionally close to his parents, and now he abruptly realised that he despised Lucius.

Despised him for keeping him from the life that would have been his. It must have been Voldemort that had done the actual kidnapping if he had brought Draco to Lucius and Narcissa, but his fath…Lucius was the one that had raised him in fear of stepping out of line. Raised him as an accessory more than a son. If it weren't for them all, he probably would have grown up famous and coddled alongside Harry Potter.

A bit of that 'Boy-Who-Lived hero-worship' niggled at him again.

But being a Malfoy wasn't without perks, and as a Potter he may have developed his own annoying do-gooder complex. Right now Draco wasn't sure which life he would have preferred if he had been allowed the choice.

What he was sure of was that he wasn't about to be anyone's tool.

Draco sat up, looked around his elegant room, and suddenly felt as if he'd only ever been a guest in it. A hostage locked away until he was old enough to be useful.

He wouldn't stay.

His clock read 11:06. The Death Eater meetings always ended at the stroke of twelve, which meant Draco had fifty-four minutes to get as far as he could from this house of lies. Less, if Voldemort decided to unleash Lucius early to come preach about his great opportunities to serve the Dark Lord and to give him the specifics of his new mission.

Draco scoffed.

Voldemort was truly arrogant to think that he could reveal that Draco'd been deceived his entire life and not expect the young man's loyalty to even waver.

Regardless he had to hurry.

"Gibby!" he called, feeling momentarily startled when he realised even the timbre of his voice sounded slightly different.

The thin old elf that had been packing his school trunk popped into the room.

"Master Draco is needing something?" the elf squeaked, prompting Draco to glance in the mirror again to make sure the whole Potter thing wasn't a crazy dream when the house elf didn't even blink at his new appearance.

But deep emerald eyes still stared back at him under dark lashes. _Merlin, had even the house elves known who he was all along?_

"Yes, Gibby," he told the elf. "I want you to shrink everything inside my trunk except for enough clothes to get from now until school starts, and then fill up the rest of the space with as many of the things in my room as you can. Do it quickly."

"Yes sir. Gibby works very fast, sir!"

Draco wasn't overly sentimental about most of his things, but if he was going to run away from Malfoy Manor, he certainly didn't intend to live in squalor when he got to wherever he was going. Besides, he would need money, and there were lots of expensive things in the room he could sell.

He wasn't naïve enough to think he'd continue to have access to the Malfoy vault at Gringotts when his parents discovered him missing.

He got up off the bed and went to keep watch out one of his large windows while he waited. His room overlooked the vast front lawn of the manor, and he would be able to see Death Eaters walking off the grounds past the Apparation barriers if, for any reason, the meeting ended early.

Ten minutes later, he turned back around to check the elf's progress. It was cramming a squarish box into the top of the now solidly packed trunk.

"What's in there?"

The elf gave the box one more shove and it slid reluctantly into the trunk.

"Master's furniture, sir!"

Draco blinked.

Sure enough, when he actually looked at the room, he realised the elf had taken him quite literally. There was nothing left but the carpet and the draperies.

Draco gaped, but then a slow smile made its way across his face. He certainly wouldn't mind seeing Lucius' face when his father came up to fetch him and found the entire room cleared out.

The elf looked very proud of itself. "Gibby is fitting _everything_ in Master's room into the trunk! Does sir need anything else?"

N-yes!" The elf's efficiency inspired Draco with another thought. "Are you able to get into my father's private safe in the second floor study without him noticing?"

"Gibby thinks so."

"Good. Bring me the money inside it, and get me the large dark blue cloak from the stand in the downstairs back hall. Don't be seen."

The elf was gone and back not five minutes later with a clinking black cloth bag and the cloak.

Draco looked inside the bag. It held more than it looked like it should from the outside—there had to be near two thousand galleons here. He had known there would be a respectable sum in the safe. Lucius always kept money close at hand for 'emergency spending'—usually bribes.

He pulled on the heavy cloak and put thirty galleons in its left pocket and his wand in the right. He handed the closed moneybag back to the elf.

"Put this in the trunk as well, then close it and shrink the entire thing."

Gibby did as he was told, and Draco put the trunk in his pocket with the galleons.

Draco eyed the elf appreciatively as he stepped towards his room's large fireplace. He'd grown up with this elf, and it was a loyal servant. His father would punish it severely when he found that Draco was gone and the money was missing.

"Gibby, you're my personal house elf, so that means you obey my orders over my father's, correct?"

"Yes, Master."

"All right then, I order you to go work in the Hogwarts kitchens until the next time I call for you. Stay there even if my father or anyone else calls you, all right?"

The elf's eyes were wide. "Yes, Master! I is only doing as Master Draco says! Gibby will go to Hogwarts School and stay there!"

Draco nodded, satisfied, and with a 'pop,' the elf disappeared. He really shouldn't care what happened to it, but it had proven itself useful.

Draco took a small vial of floo powder from the pocket of the dark trousers he wore beneath the cloak and tossed a pinch of it into the fire. It roared green.

Now, where to go?

Until he managed to get himself safely to Hogwarts in two weeks time, Draco figured he needed to find someplace his father held no power and would find it more difficult to track him.

He would lose himself in Muggle London.

The dark-haired young man took one last look around the cavernous empty room that had been his home for the last sixteen years. Then he pulled the cloak's hood up over his head and forward to hide his face. It wouldn't do at all to be recognized by the wrong person and have to explain that he wasn't his brother. He stepped into the flames.

"The Leaky Cauldron!"

As it's my first posted story, I'll be shameless and beg for those reviews!


	4. Chapter 4

**Thou Shalt Get Kings**

Disclaimer: The characters and places you recognize aren't mine, of course. I promise I'll put them back in J.K. Rowling's toybox when I'm through with them!

Thanks to everyone that reviewed--I love reading what you have to say about this!

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**Chapter Four**

DRACO STEPPED OUT of the fireplace in the Leaky Cauldron and had a momentary attack of jangling nerves. What was he thinking, running from the Dark Lord?

It couldn't be more than twenty minutes before midnight. Lucius would discover soon that he was missing, and Voldemort was sure to be furious! Draco felt dizzy at the thought of what would be done to him if he were caught. Part of him just wanted to hurry back to the Manor before anyone found that he'd gone, but what he lacked in courage, he made up for in pride and anger, and he rallied to step forward away from the floo.

Two middle-aged witches were huddled over a table in one corner of the pub. One was whispering fervently to the other, who appeared to be nodding off. The keeper, Tom, was trying to clean up after what had probably been a large group of late night guests, but two of the large glass mugs left behind on the table seemed to be attempting to bite him every time he got a hand close. One mug made a particularly vicious snap and nearly got a finger.

"Damn teenagers," Draco heard Tom mutter.

The chattering witch in the corner paused, noticing Draco lingering near the fire, and jabbed her friend back to wakefulness with a bony finger. Both their curious gazes fell on him.

Uneasy, Draco pulled his hood forward even further until all but his chin was in shadow. Trying to appear purposeful, he propelled himself out through the Leaky Cauldron's London entrance.

Once outside, he wasn't sure which direction to head, so he simply picked one and started walking. He had to put as much distance behind him as he could. He was still far too close to Diagon Alley for comfort, and it was leaving him skittish. Near a grimy area with several pubs still open, he passed a few muggles on the dark streets, and the sight of every one of them moving along in the night made him flinch, hoping that it wasn't a Death Eater on his trail. He hurried on; taking turns here and there, until even he wasn't sure he could find his way back to the Leaky Cauldron.

As a Malfoy and a pureblood, Draco had never had much cause to visit Muggle London, and he certainly couldn't boast much knowledge of the city. But without Lucius beside him he found himself a bit fascinated despite his nervousness in the midst of his escape. It was a freedom he'd never experienced before.

Without magic, he'd often supposed that muggles lived in quite savage conditions, but he'd covered a respectable distance, and the buildings he was now passing looked rather civilized. They would never hold a candle to Hogwarts castle, but they had their own sort of impressiveness to them; some looking surprisingly similar to wizarding architecture, and some covered in glass and metal.

He'd wandered into a commercial district, and he found himself wishing the stores he passed were open so he could investigate the muggle tools and gadgets in the windows more closely. Unfettered by his father's presence, the curiosity of his boyhood was emerging. One puzzling storefront with only a large colorless apple for a sign had life-size silhouettes in its windows of dancing people holding odd little boxes connected by wires to their ears. Another window held a display of what looked like sports equipment, and Draco lingered in front of this one as long as he dared, trying to imagine what sorts of games the various items were used for. Still another store window advertised "Books, Music and DVD's," but Draco didn't recognize a single title of the books on display, and had no idea what DVD may stand for.

It appeared that muggles had plenty of their own thriving businesses, and most of them were a mystery. And for all his walking, there always remained more to see . . . Diagon Alley was beginning to seem rather small in comparison. He was one of the top in his classes, not to mention at the height of enlightened Wizarding society. Yet how much of the world did he know nothing about?

It occurred to him that Harry Potter had been brought up by muggles and probably knew the purposes of all the strange things in the windows.

Worse, he remembered that Potter had been brought up thus because his mother had been a muggleborn.

Potter's mother.

Draco's mother.

Which made Harry and Draco both half-bloods.

He wasn't a pureblood at all. It was an uncomfortable thought that brought him up short. He was going to have to deal with that issue and what it meant for his worldview sooner or later, but for now he shoved it to the back of his mind.

But if Potter lived with muggle relatives, that house might not be too far away!

No—as soon as he'd entertained the idea of finding the place and seeking shelter there, he dismissed it.

He was slowly coming to terms with who he really was, but he wasn't quite ready to explain it to Potter. Anyway, Draco was still too young to use magic outside of school, and without it, he had no idea how he'd go about locating the residence. Chances were good that it wasn't even in London. And if it wasn't, his broom was shrunken somewhere inside his trunk, and he had no money acceptable for muggle transportation.

However…

Draco remembered his mother telling him about the knight bus when he was younger. If he ever got lost, he was to use it to get home. That would be the only time a Malfoy would ever deign to take such transportation, and he had all but forgotten about its existence. It would certainly get him farther from the Leaky Cauldron than walking.

If he took the bus, however, where would he take it to?

He hadn't had time to change any of his galleons into muggle money, so renting a room in a muggle establishment was out. So were wizarding rooms simply because it would be too easy for Lucius to find him in one. And by now a search was surely underway.

Nor could he seek shelter at the homes of any of his Slytherin friends – even if any of their parents _weren't_ loyal to Voldemort he certainly couldn't take the risk that they would hand him back over to Lucius when he would inevitably show up in the course of his search. And he didn't have friends in any of the other houses.

He needed a place that would offer him safety.

Draco couldn't believe he was considering this…but what about Potter's friends?

Potter's house was still out because he didn't feel ready to face his childhood-enemy-turned-brother, but he didn't feel quite the same trepidation over Harry's little friends. If he didn't say much they would probably think he _was_ Harry. They'd be guaranteed to help him.

He'd prefer not go begging aid from Weasley if he could help it, which left Granger. She probably lived in a hovel, and he hated seeking help from a mudblood—even if _he_ was only a half-blood—but she really was his best bet. And it was someplace that Lucius would never look for him.

He stuck out his wand arm.

An enormous purple triple-decker bus screeched into view.

It squealed to a halt in front of him, and a young wizard opened the door and invited him on with a thinly disguised look of suspicion.

Draco supposed he did look rather unsavory with the dark cloak hiding his face, but he couldn't have been the strangest thing the conductor had ever seen, because the youth was showing him to a bed to one side of the first level, and the bus was moving again at quite an alarming speed.

"Where to?" the conductor drawled, taking Draco's proffered fare.

"Home of Hermione Granger, muggle-born witch." Draco hoped that was enough, and breathed a sigh of relief when the conductor merely nodded and slipped up to the front of the bus. At least his hooded cloak seemed to successfully convey that he wasn't interested in conversation.

Draco slouched on the bed, determined to draw as little attention as possible as the Knight Bus whizzed and wobbled through a dizzying maze of country lanes, highways, bridges, through two fields and over a hedgerow, where Draco was certain nobody'd ever put a road, and once, across a railway bridge with a muggle express train right on their heels.

Risking the wellbeing of his jolting stomach, a look out the window showed that the bus was now trundling down a gravel road towards a country village. A stop was made there for a small, elderly wizard to disembark, and then with a sudden mad dash they were back in London. After numerous harrowing turns at breakneck speeds, the Knight Bus lurched to a stop and the conductor intoned "Granger residence."

Draco stood up, feeling ill. He doubted he would be getting on that bus again soon if he could help it. He had barely hit pavement before the thing was off again, disappearing into the night.

The young wizard looked at the home in front of him and he felt his eyebrows rise in surprise. It was a large town home in what appeared to be a fairly upscale residential area of London. It was definitely not the type of home he'd mentally assigned to the mudblood know-it-all.

Draco absently wondered how many more of his pre-conceived notions would be shattered tonight.

All the lights were off, as he would expect at one in the morning. Draco wasn't going to endear himself by waking everyone up, but unless he wanted to sleep on the street, it couldn't be helped.

He went up the walk and up some stone steps to the first floor stoop. He slid his hood back onto his shoulders and timidly rapped the knocker in the centre of the door. When he heard no sound inside, he grew bolder and thunked the knocker harder. This time, a wash of light across the small front lawn indicated that someone upstairs had awakened and turned on a light. A moment later, another light turned on just inside the door, and the door itself opened just a bit, still secured by a gold chain that spanned the small gap. The sleepy face of a middle-aged man peered out.

"Who is it? Do you know what time it is?"

Draco swallowed. "Yes sir, I mean, I'm sorry, it's just…is this – does Hermione Granger live here?" He cringed. He'd never felt so uncertain in his life. But then he'd been feeling that a lot in the last hour or two.

The man peered a bit more closely out of the cracked door, then his eyes widened. "Harry Potter?"

Draco blushed and told the necessary lie. "Um, yes sir."

The door shut, a chain rattled, and the door opened again – all the way this time. Draco sighed in relief.

"Come in, boy!" the good-natured looking man exclaimed, as he hustled Draco through the door and into a small entry. "Sorry—we've only met the one time in Diagon Alley, and I didn't recognize you at first without your glasses!"

Bugger. Glasses. He hadn't thought of that.

The man, whom Draco gathered was Granger's father, latched the door again behind them and ushered Draco into a wide hall. It was very clean, and decorated tastefully in warm ivory, antique rose and yellow tones. A staircase rose along the right side of the hall, and on the left were a few doorways leading into other rooms of the house. Draco glimpsed what looked like a cosy parlour through the closest one.

"Now Harry, what on earth are you doing on our doorstep in the middle of the night?"

"Harry?"

Before Draco could try to formulate a response, he heard Potter's name called in a surprised tone. He looked to his right and saw Hermione Granger standing halfway down the stairs, wearing a pale green dressing robe. A frizzy-haired woman with a kind face and a respectable air stood behind her, obviously Hermione's mother. It appeared that he had indeed awoken the entire family.

Granger practically flew the rest of the way down the stairs and hugged a startled Draco. "What happened? Was it Death Eaters? Did you have a row with your aunt and uncle? They didn't hurt you, did they? Does anyone know where you are?"

The stream of question stopped for a moment, leaving Draco to blink stupidly at her, rather dazed by the deluge. He hadn't thought about the ruckus pretending to be Harry Potter would cause, but now he was committed, however distasteful the role.

He actually enjoyed the fuss the girl was making over him, and that would cease immediately if he revealed himself as Draco Malfoy. Part of him warmed at her attentions, and part of him ached as he realised this was the first time he'd been treated with such genuine concern. His mother, Narcissa, was too reserved, and he doubted anyone in Slytherin really cared about what became of him beyond what affected their own little power plays. The first time anyone had really cared—and it was because they thought he was someone else.

He tried to think of what Potter might say in a situation like this, but Hermione had already realised that she was overwhelming him and was apologizing.

"I don't mean to pester, Harry, but I was expecting to see you tomorrow at Grimmauld Place, not here at my house! Something must have happened to bring you here…I didn't think you even knew where I lived. How did you get here?"

Finally, a question he could answer. "I took the Knight Bus."

"Harry! That could have been dangerous with Voldemort out there doing who knows what!" She pursed her lips. "And where are your glasses?"

_Uh oh. Think fast._ "Um…they were broken?"

_How pathetic,_ Draco cringed. But luckily the Gryffindor seemed to be reading something else into his hesitancy to answer.

Her face darkened. "You didn't break them yourself, did you? Was it Dudley?"

_Who? Well, why not._ "Yeah." He answered quietly, affecting an injured tone.

Thank Merlin for Granger's tendency to puzzle out everything for herself. She was filling in all of his blanks for him. He just had to keep following her lead—a strange new concept.

As Hermione fumed, Mr. Granger stepped forward and put his hand on Draco's shoulder. "Harry," he asked, "why did you leave your relatives' home? As I understand it from Hermione, you're safe there."

"I'd really rather not talk about it, sir. I just hoped…would it be all right if I stayed here for the night?" Draco tried to look traumatized and pathetic (it really wasn't very difficult) and hoped they would be willing to leave it at that.

Granger looked like she desperately wanted more information out of him, but her father nodded and met Draco's eyes.

"You can tell us anything you want to when you're good and ready, son, as long as you can answer me one question right now and promise to answer it honestly."

Draco gave a hesitant nod.

"Are you in any way hurt or injured?"

_Thank goodness that's all, and easy enough to answer._ "No sir. I'm all right."

"Well, that's good then," said Mr. Granger with a smile, "That's all that's truly important. Just know that Hermione's mother and I are always willing to listen."

Draco nodded, and this time Hermione smiled as well.

It was kind of fun playing the part of the wounded and angst-ridden hero. People went out of their way to help you out and to not antagonize you. "Harry" looked drained, but relieved.

"Right, then," Mr. Granger said, "I think it's time for us to get back to bed. Harry, Mrs. Granger has gone to turn down the bed in the guest room for you, if I don't miss my guess, so why don't you let Hermione show you the way?"

Sure enough, Draco realised that Hermione's mother had disappeared from the staircase at some point during their conversation. He sent a low-spoken "Good night, and thank you," towards Mr. Granger, and followed Hermione up the stairs.

"I still wish you would tell me what happened," Hermione said as they reached a landing, and she led Draco down a short hall.

"Maybe later," Draco managed to say. "I'm just not ready, Gr—Hermione." He considered an artfully done heavy-hearted sigh to seal the act, but decided it might be over the top and settled for just studying the tops of his shoes.

"I guess I understand. I don't mean to push; I'm just concerned, Harry. You know I worry for you when you're at your relatives'."

"Yeah."

They had stopped in the open doorway of a bedroom. Inside, Mrs. Granger was just turning from the bed to come meet them by the door, and she broke the awkward silence they had drifted into.

"I left a couple of Hermione's father's things on the bed, dear, if you need something to sleep in, and there's a fresh toothbrush there for you as well." She smiled at Draco. "I am so glad that you felt safe enough to come here for help. I hope you know we're happy to have you here anytime."

She seemed to fight with herself for a moment, and then took Draco completely by surprise when she leaned in and gave him a quick hug before retreating back down the hall to the stairs.

Hermione was beaming.

Draco wanted to sneer at her, but kept his face looking docile.

"Obviously this is the guest room," the girl said, "The door right across the hall is the washroom, and I'm in the room next to that. I didn't see your trunk, did you have to leave it behind?"

"It's in my pocket. Shrunk."

"Oh …oh! How did you manage that? You haven't done magic outside of school again, have you? You can't expect the Ministry to let you off a third time!"

Potter really did get away with everything.

"No, an elf did it."

"Dobby?"

"Um, right," Draco vaguely remembered hearing his father mention that Lucius's former servant had developed a ridiculous affection for the Boy-Who-Lived. It must be true.

"Ok, then. Someone at Grimmauld Place will be able to unshrink it for you, I'm sure. We'll be leaving for there at ten tomorrow as I'm sure you know—my parents have made our connection to the floo network a permanent arrangement, so we can both go together straight from here. I bet we can also get someone to find you a new pair of glasses."

Draco nodded, not sure what else to do.

"Well…goodnight, Harry. I'll see you in the morning."

"'Night."

With one last half-grin and a squeeze of his arm, she was gone.

He knew Potter probably would have been more chatty, but he'd pulled it off. He was safe for at least a little while.

Draco turned to survey the room that was to be his for the night.

It was certainly much smaller than his room at the manor, but it was nicely appointed and looked fashionably comfortable—in a muggle way.

But really, maybe Draco was going to need to start adapting some of the assumptions he'd made about muggle life.

This house wasn't drowning in opulence, but it was otherwise very nice. Quite definitely it was better than wherever the Weasleys lived, and probably even better than the homes of a few other purebloods he knew.

Granger's parents weren't completely repulsive either. Overly trusting, perhaps, but right now that worked to his advantage. They seemed pretty…human. Maybe muggles were capable of civilization after all—even without magic. Everything he'd seen tonight seemed to point towards such a conclusion.

Fingering the large T-shirt and sweatpants left for him on the bed, Draco realised uncomfortably that all these thoughts were rather traitorous.

_Traitorous to whom?_

To Voldemort? To his fa—to Lucius?

If so, hadn't he already made the decision that they didn't rule his fate anymore? If they had lied to him about other things, was anything else they'd taught him worth trusting?

He could think for himself now!

His life was no longer all about pleasing Lucius and exerting the Malfoy power!

He shed his cloak and began to change into Mr. Granger's nightclothes.

_I've got muggle blood in me as a half-blood! And…I was just fine at living up to being a pureblood when everyone thought I was one. Why exactly _are_ purebloods better than muggleborns?_

Draco couldn't think of an answer. Granger herself was the best in their class, while the purebloods Crabbe and Goyle proved their near-uselessness in every lesson, so it wasn't about magical prowess.

And he couldn't think of any other logical reason for the superiority.

He felt irritable and betrayed by the realization and the inability to think of a decent answer, but now it was in his head, and he found he couldn't ignore it. Maybe finding out who he really was would end up leading to more changes than he'd initially thought…

He laid the clothes he'd changed out of on a chair and went across the hall to brush his teeth and wash up.

Fifteen minutes later he was still standing at the sink, staring into the mirror above it. He'd been unable to resist examining his reflection again. He'd started out just making faces, imagining some of the more ridiculous ones on Potter.

But that made him realise that when looking in the mirror, all he saw was his schoolmate, and he'd just been staring and thinking ever since.

Finally, Potter had faded from his mind, and he found that he'd begun to own that reflection for himself. It truly hit him then that the reflection was _him_, and the face he'd been wearing up until today had been the mask.

He'd completely lost the stable life that he'd had just that afternoon. He'd denied Lucius a place in his life by leaving the manor. He was now wearing his true body after having been disguised for a lifetime; a body that was identical to the Boy-Who-Lived, and that was only just starting to feel a bit familiar. On top of all that, it was pretty guaranteed that he'd made himself an enemy of Voldemort. Who knew where he would end up?

He fled from his reflection back to the Grangers' guest room. He sank onto the bed, and as the weight of the day crushed him, he began to weep for everything he'd lost. He purged it all in a rush of hot tears, which choked and burned him.

He cried for the boy that had never been able to live up to his father's demands, and had been terrified of his future as a Death Eater.

He cried for the comfortable life of a Malfoy heir, which was no longer his to claim.

And he cried for relief at the removal of a burden that had weighed him down for so long that he'd forgotten how heavy it was.

As he went to sleep, he felt calmer than he'd felt all summer.

* * *

Hermione had listened to the water running in the bathroom as she tied a parchment note to the leg of her parents' new owl.

"There you go, Isis. Take that to Remus Lupin."

She watched as the owl disappeared into the dark.

Something was very wrong with Harry, of that she was sure. He hadn't been himself at all, and something about him just felt...off. Hermione was worried about her friend, and she hoped that Sirius could encourage Harry to let everything out when they saw him tomorrow.

* * *

_Iris is the name of a Greek goddess who carried messages between the gods by running across the rainbows. I think that would appeal to Hermione as a name for an owl._

_Thanks for reading, and keep those reviews coming!_


	5. Chapter 5

**Thou Shalt Get Kings**

Disclaimer: The characters and places you recognize aren't mine, of course. I promise I'll put them back in J.K. Rowling's toybox when I'm through with them!

Kyra Windwood - No, Draco doesn't need glasses. It's not a totally uncommon difference between twins, and it will help friends tell them apart later on!

* * *

**Chapter Five**

DRACO STARED INTO the small fire crackling merrily in the Grangers' fireplace, and couldn't help feeling that fate was making all his decisions for him.

Upon waking and getting dressed in his same clothes from the night before, he'd ventured downstairs to find Mrs. Granger laying out a nice breakfast. She was frying sausages on the cooker, and looked frazzled as she tried to keep them from burning and at the same time tried to keep a large orange cat from stealing them out of the pan. Draco had offered to help, and she'd set him to pouring out orange juice into glasses for everyone.

After that, Mrs. Granger asked him to carry plates loaded with eggs and sausage to the table. He hadn't really been helping, he assured himself; he had just been pretending to be Potter.

Soon everyone was at the table for what turned out to be a long breakfast, during which the Grangers actually talked and laughed with each other! It was very different from any family meal he was used to. Luckily they didn't try to pull him into the conversation too often—it seemed that Granger's parents were trying to spend some last-minute quality time with their daughter before they sent her off. He tried to picture his…Lucius and Narcissa doing the same thing, but couldn't. For some inexplicable reason it made him angry at them.

After breakfast Hermione had flown into a flurry of activity, checking and double-checking to make sure she had everything she needed packed in her trunk. Draco had tried to stay out of the way. Everything he needed was still in the pockets of the cloak that he'd fetched from the guest room and had draped over one arm.

Now it was nearly ten o'clock, the Grangers were saying their goodbyes, and Draco's anxiety was mounting. Any second now, he was going to have to step through that fireplace into the waiting arms of half the people he'd spent the last five years hating.

He knew that he should just clear his throat and confess that he wasn't Harry Potter before he brought anyone else into this charade, but he couldn't seem to make himself do it. He would just let Granger sweep him along with her to Grimmauld Place, wherever that was.

Because if he didn't, he had nowhere else to go.

Sure, if he really wanted, he could probably find someone else to stay with who would be willing not to turn him over to Voldemort for a price. But he would always be looking over his shoulder. He knew quite well that Slytherins gave their loyalty to the ones with power. Right now, that wasn't him. As bizarre as it sounded, Granger and her friends were going to have to become his new allies. It might as well happen sooner rather than later.

Draco admittedly knew that the truth was going to come out pretty soon. Granger would find out exactly who she'd been playing hostess to either as soon as he got his nerve up, or as soon as the real Harry Potter showed up wondering why he'd never gotten his escort. Whichever happened first.

Draco thought back on what Granger had said at breakfast.

"_Oh, Harry?" Hermione said nonchalantly between bites of sausage. "I wrote to Professor Lupin last night after you went to bed to let him know you're here with us. I didn't want him to show up at your Aunt's house to bring you to Headquarters and worry when you weren't there. So don't worry, it's all taken care of."_

"_Oh. …All right then," Draco had stammered ineloquently, and Hermione had smiled and gone back to her plate._

He didn't know why it hadn't fully occurred to him until then that Granger was taking him with her because _Harry_ was expected.

Draco felt a bit badly that his brother was going to end up the one confused when Lupin didn't show, but there wasn't really anything he could do about that. Selfishly, he knew it prolonged a little bit more the task of telling Harry Potter that Draco Malfoy was his identical twin brother.

"Harry, dear, you're staring at that fireplace like it's going to eat you whole!"

The voice and a hand on his shoulder made him jump.

Granger laughed. "He's all right, mum. Harry's just never cared for floo travel."

Draco gave a weak grimace that could have been a grin.

Mrs. Granger's laugh was honest and warm. "That's all right—I don't pretend to understand how it all works, but it makes me nervous enough just watching."

Mr. Granger glanced at his watch. "It's time, kids. They'll be expecting you."

Hermione nodded and hugged each of her parents one more time.

To Draco's surprise, Granger's father shook his hand. "Like I said last night, Harry, we're here for you if you need us." He smiled. "Have a good school year."

Draco nodded. "Thank you, sir."

He was immediately scooped into another hug by Mrs. Granger.

"Be safe," she said. "We'll always be glad to see you, dear. You've been a wonderful friend to Hermione."

Draco wondered if Mrs. Granger had been given full disclosure to all the trouble that Harry had gotten her daughter into, and if not, he wondered if she would feel the same way if she did know. Though, maybe she knew and she was just glad that the know-it-all had managed to make friends at all.

Instead he said heroically, "I'm lucky to know her as well. And it was nice to see you both again, Mr. and Mrs. Granger."

Said know-it-all was tossing floo powder into the fireplace when Draco turned away from her parents. She ducked into the green flames with a firm grip on her trunk and the grumpy cat under one arm and clearly proclaimed "Number Twelve Grimmauld Place!"

The dark-haired Slytherin had no choice but to follow her.

* * *

By nine-thirty on Friday morning, Harry had dragged his school trunk down the stairs to the living room. Hedwig was in her cage on top of one of Aunt Petunia's nicer end tables. Harry made no effort to stop Hedwig from sending loose feathers floating around the tidy living room as she rustled about the cage to show her dislike for being locked in.

The Dursleys had chosen to spend the day shopping for new school things for Dudley in London. They had left early that morning and wouldn't be back until late evening, having no intentions to risk crossing paths with any of Harry's wizarding acquaintances. Uncle Vernon had merely bellowed that Harry had better not let any of _those people_ muss up the house, and then, muttering "good riddance," had waddled out to the car with Dudley and Aunt Petunia and sped away.

With his relatives gone, Harry had fixed himself a lovely breakfast, which he ate while watching the morning news.

He then killed time by washing up his own dishes and the detritus left by Dudley's morning feast, and lugged his things downstairs. He was very eager to see Remus and everyone else at Grimmauld Place, and the minutes crawled by.

At nine-forty-five he was sitting on his trunk flipping through a quidditch catalogue and watching the clock.

At nine-fifty-eight he stuck the catalogue back in his trunk and took to pacing in the front hall. He wasn't sure how Remus would be arriving, so he alternated peeking out the window by the front door and checking the fireplace in the living room.

At ten o'clock, nothing happened.

Harry frowned.

He checked the living room again, and then went out onto the front stoop. He'd never known Remus not to arrive precisely when he said he would. A neighbour's car puttered by. There was no other activity along Privet Drive.

Reluctantly, Harry returned to the living room and slouched onto the couch. Something unexpected must have Remus running late.

At ten-forty-three he was drumming his fingers anxiously on the arm of the couch.

What was going on? He checked his letter again to make sure he had the day and time right—no, Remus was definitely late. Should he write to Dumbledore? What if something was wrong?

Harry turned the television back on and found a news programme. He listened closely to the muggle news announcer for any hint of a problem that could be traced to the wizarding world. There was nothing.

By noon, Harry was near frantic. His mind had made up a hundred horrible reasons for Remus' absence—he'd gotten very good at imagining disasters after a few years of Divination classes—ranging from the DADA professor being attacked en route by Death Eaters who were building a captive werewolf army, to the awful idea that Harry had simply been forgotten, and his friends were having a marvellous time without him.

He was very nearly ready to get out his Firebolt—which Dumbledore had returned to him after Umbridge's ignoble ejection from Hogwarts at the end of last term—and make his own way to Grimmauld place. Only his promises to the Headmaster that he would try harder to stay safe were keeping him in the house right now.

He wanted to grab his broom or call the Knight Bus and head to Grimmauld Place or straight to raise an alert with Dumbledore at Hogwarts. Something had to be very wrong.

Harry forced himself to draw a deep breath. Stopping himself from running off half-cocked had prevented falling into Voldemort's trap at the ministry, and he resolved not to make that mistake this time either. He would send Hedwig with a letter to Remus, and tell her to take it to Sirius if Remus couldn't be found.

If he didn't get a response or no one arrived by five o'clock, he was going to make his own way to Headquarters, no matter what.

* * *

Draco stepped out of a soot-blackened fireplace right behind Hermione. Before he could even take a look around the room, he was clasped in his second hug of the last five minutes. That had to be a record.

"Harry! I'm so glad to see you!"

It was a man's voice speaking to him, coming from the possessor of the strong shoulder nearly smothering him, over which Draco could see quite a few people, including a number of redheads. Hermione had joined the crowd and was saying her hellos.

"Why on earth did you leave the Dursleys? You could have been attacked! Still, at least it meant that you didn't give old Moony here a chance to see you before me!"

The body pulled back to an arm's distance, and Draco almost choked on his shock as he found himself looking up into the smiling face of the infamous Sirius Black. If Lucius hadn't already informed him that Black was innocent in order to give him more information to taunt Harry with, he may have panicked.

As it was, he managed a smile and a feeble, "Good to see you too, Sirius."

Now able to take in a bit more of his surroundings, Draco saw that he was in an enormous kitchen. Its size and gloomy stone walls seemed to indicate that it was in the basement of a large house. A long wooden table ran down the centre of the room, flanked by mismatched chairs. The fireplace behind him was very large, and numerous iron pots hung from the ceiling. The entire room was freshly scrubbed, but still had the old look of a building that was long past its heyday.

The nearest redhead clapped him on the back. "Hey, mate! How's your summer been?"

His worst fear confirmed. Weasleys.

"So, Harry," asked the Weasley female, Ginny, when they had settled around the long table, "How did you end up at Hermione's house?"

"I…needed to get away from my relatives' house. I promise you'll hear the whole story soon," Draco said. _Too soon, probably_. "Can we not talk about it?"

He caught Hermione exchanging a significant look with Black and Lupin at his last comment. _Great._

"No problem, mate," enthused Ron, in the mood to be light-hearted. "But what on earth are you wearing, and where are your glasses?"

Draco looked down at his clothes. _What was so wrong with what he was wearing?_

Then again, his tailored black slacks and expensive green shirt weren't at all like anything he'd ever seen Potter wearing. The dark cloak that he had slung over the back of his chair was also made of a thick, rich fabric very different from the Boy-Who-Lived's wardrobe. Potter usually wore faded, cheap garments when he dressed in Muggle clothes on the weekends. Draco had assumed it was a ploy to encourage more sympathy from his fans, or general slovenliness, but maybe there was something else to it.

"I stopped by Diagon Alley for some new things before I showed up at Hermione's. I ripped my other shirt. And, er, Dudley broke my glasses." He went with the story Hermione had practically provided him with the night before.

"Merlin's beard, but you bought some nice stuff to replace your other clothes then!" There was a hint of jealousy in Ron's voice.

Draco's next few hours mostly consisted of hearing more than he wanted to know about Ron and Ginny's summer activities, Hermione's holiday with her parents in Italy, and the rundown of all the latest Chudley Cannons news.

Sirius Black and the other adults were content to sit back and let the students catch up. The students themselves didn't seem to expect 'Harry' to have much news about his stay with his relatives, so Draco was able to blunder through the conversations without much trouble.

It turned out that there weren't as many Weasleys there as he'd first thought. Just Ginny, Ron, their mother, and a visiting older brother named Charlie. Apparently the twins were very busy and actually had a real store in Diagon Alley now, and Mr. Weasley was still at his office in the Ministry. Plans to visit Fred and George's shop soon were discussed, and Draco found himself genuinely looking forward to that. Longbottom and the Lovegood girl were there as well, something Draco was obliged to appear happily surprised about.

Sirius he recognized, and Professor Lupin as well, of course. There was also a tall, bald black man, and a young, pink-haired woman, whom he managed to figure out from offhand comments were Aurors called Kingsley Shacklebolt and Tonks.

He had never met Tonks before, but at once recognized the name as that of a family of relatives that Narcissa pretended no longer existed. Of course, he'd never really been blood related to them after all, had he? He found that the young Auror was incessantly cheerful and surprisingly likable.

The entire time, Molly Weasley fussed over everyone and puttered around the kitchen. In spite of himself, Draco found himself liking her as well. Maybe it was just that she managed to make a habit of regularly embarrassing or reprimanding Ron. But…he couldn't help comparing her warmth to Narcissa's cool superiority, and wondered what it would be like to have a mother like that.

After a lunch just as good as any he'd eaten at Hogwarts, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Neville, and Luna whisked him up a flight of stone stairs to a musty drawing room that had that same feel as the kitchen—it had obviously been recently cleaned, but still appeared derelict and gloomy. Now having seen a bit more of the house, Draco wondered at the fact that there were an awful lot of carved snakes, frowning portraits, and dark artifacts in the décor for a house full of Gryffindors. If it wouldn't have blown his cover, he would be asking tons of questions.

Ron produced a singed deck of cards. "How about a game then?"

Hermione looked dubious. "No thanks. I've got some reading I haven't managed to finish, and anyway, I know better than to play you at anything."

"Aww, come, on, Hermione! This takes more luck than strategy. I wouldn't beat you too badly," Ron grinned.

The bushy haired witch just glared at him and flounced over to a badly faded sofa under the window.

Ron shrugged. "Well, I can't play by myself. How 'bout the rest of you? Harry?"

Draco smirked. So Weasley thought he was good at something, did he? "Why not; I'll play."

Luna ended up joining Hermione and her heavy textbook on the sofa with a copy of _The Quibbler_, but Ginny and Neville sat on the floor with Ron and Draco to begin a tournament of exploding snap.

Fifteen minutes later, Draco had to admit that Weasley had some talent for games. Ron was in the lead for points by a long margin, followed by Ginny, then Draco, with Neville close behind.

The atmosphere was friendly and relaxed, and when he suddenly found himself sniggering at one of Weasley's ridiculous jokes, Draco realised that he was enjoying himself. When Neville wasn't cowering in terror or embarrassment, he was laid back and friendly, and Ginny was a firecracker of happy energy. Ron…was quite a bit more entertaining than he'd given him credit for.

He was being forced to constrain his normal reactions of disdain and combativeness at the presence of Gryffindors for the sake of not being found out, and it meant that he was for once seeing the better side of their personalities in turn.

Draco felt a vengeful pleasure at the thought of how angry Lucius would be to see him now, and he laughed along with the others when Ginny let out a shriek as her cards detonated.

It was completely different from the power games of the Slytherin common room. They teased each other, but it was in fun, and their friendship was real and obvious. These people weren't expecting anything from him but his company. Sure, they didn't know whom they were actually socializing with, but for now, that didn't seem to matter as much as it should have.

A sense of comfort with the surroundings and with the people in the room stole over Draco. It was so gradual that he was not aware of it at a conscious level. Ready or not, he was beginning to wear the personality of his Potter roots, and to shed the guarded mask of the Malfoys. He was more at ease than he had ever been in his life.

Yet suddenly his insides seemed to twist as though being wrung by powerful hands. With a look around the companionable room, Draco remembered it was only a matter of time until his past was revealed. The friendliness now, and his parentage and his blood relationship to Potter, as real as they might be, would matter less to these people than the persona they identified with the disguise he had worn since infancy. Why did that bother him?

* * *

Just as the game in the drawing room was finally petering out around four, Tonks appeared in the doorway.

"Molly wants you six in the kitchen. She's getting supper prepared and wants some help."

Ron groaned. "Already?"

"For goodness sake, Ron, she's cooking for an enormous number of people. It doesn't hurt you to be a bit of help," tsked Hermione.

They all trudged down to the kitchen, where Tonks gave them a grin before scuttling to where Sirius and Shacklebolt were conversing at the end of the table. "I've got a job to do too. I have to help Kingsley draw up next week's schedule. Dumbledore's made it policy for there to be at least two Aurors in the house at all times, now that you're here, Harry."

_Of course,_ Draco wanted to say, _can't have anything happening to precious Potter._ He felt guilty a moment after the reflex thought. He knew better than many exactly how dangerous Voldemort could be when he wanted something or _someone_.

Mrs Weasley soon stationed Ginny in front of the stove, supervising a number of bubbling pots. The rest of them were set to work chopping various ingredients and setting the table.

"Mum?" asked Ginny, "Where're Charlie and Professor Lupin?"

"Charlie's gone to the Leaky Cauldron to visit with a colleague from Romania, and I believe Remus has gone to have a lie-down before supper."

Draco awkwardly began chopping the plate of potatoes he'd been given. It was a novelty to be doing kitchen work, but he wondered where the house elves were.

From his position at the table Draco was the only one that saw Lupin appear in the kitchen doorway, and their eyes met. Draco saw an odd look on the ex-professor's face and couldn't hold the gaze. He had an awful feeling in the pit of his stomach that he knew what was about to happen.

"Remus, what's wrong?"

Mrs. Weasley had evidently turned from her dinner preparations and noticed Lupin as well, and thanks to her comment, the kitchen chatter slowed to a hush and everyone's attention was on the werewolf.

"I've just received a rather puzzling letter," Remus began hesitantly, not taking his eyes from 'Harry.'

_This is it._ Draco thought, keeping his eyes focused on the twisting grain of the wooden tabletop.

Remus held up a creased sheet of muggle paper, his eyes narrowing. "Harry has written me wondering why I never arrived to take him from the Dursleys'. He is concerned about what could have delayed me."

The silence was oppressive as all eyes swivelled to Draco, still examining the table, and back to Remus.

"But how could Harry send you a letter? He's already here! Arrived with 'Mione!" Ron protested, not yet reaching the conclusion the others were drawing.

"I _kne_w something wasn't right," Hermione gasped softly. "That's not Harry."

"Of course it is, Hermione!" Ginny cried. "Harry, show them your scar!"

The dark-haired wizard didn't move and so the youngest Weasley approached the immobile Draco and brushed aside his fringe.

Ginny drew in a shocked breath. "It's isn't him! Look, no scar!" She slowly backed away from the impostor in horror.

Half a dozen wands converged their aim on Draco. Sirius' was the first one out, and he knocked his chair over as he leapt to his feet, anger and confusion on his face.

Ron, the last to clue in as usual, blinked at the sudden flurry of movement and then his eyes darkened with realization and his wand was out as well, and levelled at the boy sitting next to him. Hermione was the only one who didn't move, looking dismayed at having been taken in.

Lupin flung the letter on the table in front of Draco. "Do you deny it?"

Draco tensed—he didn't think he'd ever seen the ex-DADA professor angry before. Finally he raised frightened eyes to the shocked group. "It's not what you think!" He pleaded.

More sounds of shock echoed around the room at what was basically an affirmation that the accusation was true.

"Then please, explain to us exactly what it _is_," growled Sirius in a low and dangerous voice.

"It's obvious!" spat Ron. "If Harry's still at the Dursleys', then that's a Death Eater!"

"I'm not a Death Eater!" Ron's accusation prompted a strident denial from Draco.

"Then tell us who you are!"

The ferocity in that voice startled Draco. It had come from Neville. He'd never noticed when the boy had grown a spine.

"I…I…" Draco felt the last of his courage whistling out the window. He had no idea what to say or where to begin. "Look, I've been here all day and I haven't hurt anyone. Just, please, put down your wands and…I'll explain."

The others exchanged uncertain glances. Finally the Auror Shacklebolt gave a signal and all wands but his, the pink-haired Auror's, Lupin's and Sirius' were lowered. Draco noticed that none were put fully away, however.

"That's as much as you're going to get. Now explain," the Auror said. "Who are you, who sent you to infiltrate Order Headquarters, and why are you disguised as Harry?"

Draco's mouth had never felt so dry. "I'm not disguised." He could barely even hear his own voice.

"What?" Sirius' glare couldn't possibly get any fiercer.

_Just get this over with! _Draco raised his head with resolve and tried to put some confidence back in his voice. "I hadn't intended to come _here_! The Death Eaters are after me and I needed someplace safe to go. I went to Granger's house for help, let her assume I was Potter, and now here I am!"

He took a deep breath. "And yesterday…I was Draco Malfoy."

Lupin and the Aurors' wands lowered a fraction. Ron's wand was back up.

"Malfoy!" the redhead growled. "I _said_ this was a Death Eater!"

Hermione gaped. "I let you in my house! Wait, why on earth would you come to _my_ house for help?'

"I didn't know where else to go, looking like this!"

"And how, exactly, did you end up looking like Harry?" Tonks demanded.

"It's a…complicated story."

"If you don't want to be blasted to bits, you'd better get to telling it," threatened Sirius.

Draco's face twisted in distaste. "It's really no secret that L—my father is cosy with Voldemort, and I've no reason not to admit it now. The Death Eaters have been holding meetings at Malfoy Manor."

The Aurors exchanged looks; they would certainly be following up on that bit of information later.

"Voldemort sent for me at last night's meeting, and had Lucius use a spell to make me ready for the task he wanted to give me. Believe it or not, I have no intentions of working for the Dark Lord, so I took off. I imagine I'm near the top of his hit list now."

The disbelieving looks weren't completely unexpected.

"If you don't mind, son," Shacklebolt said, "please roll up your left sleeve."

Draco complied, and revealed an unmarked forearm. Their wands lowered a bit more.

"That doesn't prove anything," accused Sirius. "He wouldn't necessarily be marked before leaving school. If anyone's a candidate for being a Death Eater, this one is--I've heard plenty of stories about Mr. Malfoy here from Harry and the other kids."

"Damn right!" Ron blurted out.

"Ronald!"

Obviously Mrs. Weasley was not beyond reprimanding her son in the midst of any situation.

"Mum! You don't have to be polite to a Malfoy!"

Hermione brought the conversation back in focus. "So then Voldemort—shut _up_, Ron—had your father disguise you as Harry to spy on us? That had to have been the spell you mentioned. I know you can't be using polyjuice potion; my father looked in on you while you were still asleep this morning and you still looked like Harry. Polyjuice would have worn off during the night."

This was the part of the conversation that Draco really wasn't looking forward to having. The leftover Malfoy corner of his mind hated to admit that he was a Potter, and the rest of him was just nervous about their imminent reactions.

"Bully for you, Granger. You're right, I'm not using polyjuice, and that spell is why I look like Potter. But like I said, I'm not disguised. Not anymore."

"Oh, lets just see for ourselves, shall we?" hissed Tonks. "_Finite Incantatum_!" A jet of light hit Draco in the middle of the chest.

Nothing happened.

Tonks pursed her lips and fired a small barrage of every other revealing charm she knew. None of which did a thing to change Draco's appearance.

Draco couldn't quite hold back the smirk as they all gaped, but his voice became bitter. "Dear old dad was actually removing family glamour charms. It turns out I'm not a Malfoy after all. I'm a Potter. The Malfoys adopted me when I was a baby and Lucius only just got around to telling me."

"What!?"

"You wish, Malfoy; there's no way _you_ are a Potter!"

"You're lying!"

"Are you serious?!"

"How nice."

The reactions of Ginny, Ron, Neville, Hermione, and Luna filled the room, and most of the adults seemed to be whispering furiously. But Sirius…Sirius had dropped his wand with a clatter and had gone pale as a sheet.

"You can't be!" Draco was fairly certain that only he had heard Sirius' hoarse voice through the clamour. "He…he's dead!"

"Voldemort said he was the one that brought me to the Malfoys, so he must have kidnapped me. I just know that I've been lied to about who I am, and there was no way I was going to spend another night in that house! I was trying to find a place where the Death Eaters wouldn't think to look for me, and that's how I ended up at Granger's and then here."

"Adopted, you say?" Shacklebolt finally said. "To my knowledge the Potters never gave up a child for adoption. They only had one son."

"That's not exactly true." Remus's quiet voice silenced everyone.

"Remus!" Molly gasped. "You can't mean that this could be possible!"

"It's _not_ possible! This has to be a story You-Know-Who cooked up to get his spy in here!" Ron was getting red-faced.

"He's not under any enchantments, Ron," came Hermione's voice of reason. "You saw that nothing changed after Tonks' spell."

"So maybe he's not. But even if Malfoy _is_ Harry's brother, that doesn't mean he's not still a Death Eater in training."

"For the last time, I'm not now and never will be a Death Eater!" Draco was beginning to get frustrated. "Death Eaters are nothing more than Voldemort's slaves."

"And you're so much better, Malfoy?" Ginny's angry voice cut in. "We all know you do whatever daddy tells you!"

"That's not true! Don't you dare to think you know anything about me!"

"QUIET!"

Kingsley's deep voice reverberated through the kitchen. "Thank you. I for one, would like to hear what Mr. Lupin can reveal on this issue. Remus?"

"Lily gave birth to identical twin boys," Remus went on as if uninterrupted. "But when they were only two weeks old, Harry's brother was found dead in his cot. The medi-witch that came to the house said that he had just passed away in his sleep—that it sometimes happened with newborns that weren't strong enough…"

"Voldemort said that my parents thought I was dead," Draco breathed, locking eyes with Lupin and mentally begging the werewolf to believe him. "It had to have been a trick. Lucius and the Dark Lord were talking about my bloodline and I overheard enough to know it's true." His face darkened. "They've lied to me my entire life."

"How is it possible that no one else knew that Lily had twins, Professor?" Hermione asked, the first of the Dumbledore's Army crew willing to at least entertain the possibility that Draco's revelation was true.

"Lily was still recovering from the birth, and very few people had been invited to the house, as they were already in hiding, though not yet under the Fidelius Charm. Only the Marauders, two nurses and a doctor at St. Mungo's, Dumbledore, and McGonagall ever saw both twins. The birth announcement was set to be printed in the Daily Prophet in a week, and Lily ordered it changed to only mention a single birth. Harry. She and James were so distraught when they lost Jacob. They couldn't stand the thought of seeing sympathy on the faces of everyone they knew."

"That was my name? Jacob?" Draco grasped onto that new bit of information.

"Jacob Evan Potter," Sirius murmured, coming unfrozen. "He's alive, Remus; It's him, can't you feel it? This isn't a trick—Jacob is alive!"

"No," Ron sounded firm. "There's no way. Harry's not related to that ferret!"

Hermione pursed her lips. "I…I think Sirius is right, Ron," she said helplessly. "It sounds like Malfoy might be telling the truth. "

Sirius was staring at Draco with wonder on his face. It was clear that in his opinion, anything that Draco had done in the past was overshadowed by the joy of finding his best friend's second son alive and healthy.

Sensing a need for privacy, Molly Weasley flicked her wand to stop the heat under her bubbling pots, and quickly started ushering her dumbfounded children and their friends out of the kitchen against their protests. Even Kingsley and Tonks made no argument when she pointed them towards the door. Draco, Sirius, and Remus were left alone in the kitchen.

As soon as everyone was gone, awkwardness took over.

Sirius approached Draco as if unsure if he was really there, until with a rush of emotion, he crushed the teen in a massive hug.

Draco stiffened, but didn't say anything, taking the hug with an uncomfortable look on his face.

Remus smiled. He knew very well how close Sirius and James had been. Sirius had been making plans to spoil the twins rotten from the moment they were born, and had been nearly as devastated as James and Lily when Jacob was lost.

"Why don't the two of you talk alone," he said. "I'm going to go to Little Whinging to pick up Harry. It seems I'm quite overdue there."

"Draco Malfoy," Remus murmured to himself as he slipped up the stairs. "All this time. Who would have imagined?"

* * *


	6. Chapter 6

**Thou Shalt Get Kings**

Disclaimer: The characters and places you recognize aren't mine, of course. I promise I'll put them back in J.K. Rowling's toybox when I'm through with them!

Thanks so much to all of you that reviewed the last chapter! Your reviews made me smile, and I especially love your musings on what will happen next; who knows when one of you may give me an idea! You keep me writing!

* * *

**Chapter Six**

THE SHORT HAND on the Dursleys' mantle clock was nearing the five. Hedwig had returned from delivering his letter to Lupin a little while ago, but she'd brought no reply. Harry couldn't believe that he hadn't heard from anyone yet, and he could barely keep himself from bursting out of the house and calling the Knight Bus to the curb as his self-imposed deadline drew closer. Twenty more minutes, and he would do just that.

With no sign of Lupin this late in the day, he found it incredibly unlikely that anyone would come within those next twenty minutes. It was a small miracle that he'd managed to wait this long, and he hoped he wouldn't get into too much trouble for leaving Privet Drive. But he had passed by mere anxiety hours ago, and figured that Dumbledore ought to give him a medal for self-restraint.

At least the Dursleys had planned on a full day in the city, including dinner, and hadn't returned yet. He didn't want to hear what his Uncle Vernon would have to say if they had come back to find him still in the house. Probably he'd taunt Harry about being forgotten—

The doorbell rang.

Hedwig gave a surprised squawk and took her head from under her wing. She had gone to sleep in her cage rather than watch Harry pacing round the house.

For a moment Harry just stared at the closed front door. Then he rushed towards it.

He tried to tell himself to stay calm—it could simply be a neighbour—but he still flew to the door and flung it open so quickly that it crashed into the wall.

It was Lupin!

"Remus! What happened?" Harry cried. "Why weren't you here at ten?"

Remus was standing on the stoop of Number Four with a very strange look on his face. He opened his mouth to answer and then shut it again.

Harry's relief at seeing his father's old friend uninjured after all the horrible things he'd had time to imagine quickly faded when he looked into Moony's eyes. Something was up.

The werewolf finally found his voice. "May I come in, Harry?"

He didn't sound upset, just apprehensive.

"Of—of course," Harry stuttered as he stepped aside to let Lupin in and closed the door behind them. He followed his former professor into the living room, puzzled. "Please, Remus, tell me what's going on! I was so worried when you didn't show up this morning; and then when I didn't hear from you…"

"I'm so sorry you had to worry like that, Harry, but trust me, it wasn't intentional. Will you please sit down?"

All right, now Harry was getting worried again. He apprehensively sat on the sofa, and Remus took a chair opposite.

Remus had never been less certain of what to tell the boy he loved like his own son. He'd been thinking about what he was going to say since leaving Grimmauld Place, and wondered self-pityingly for a moment how this task had fallen to him. He had apparated to the far end of Privet Drive just so he could take advantage of the walk to Number Four to think of how he was going to break the news of Draco to Harry. Before he'd left Headquarters, Remus had met Molly Weasley in the hall and told her to floo Dumbledore and tell him about the situation. Maybe he should just get the boy back to Number Twelve and let the Headmaster deal with it.

No, Harry was looking at him expectantly, waiting for an explanation.

"Harry," he began, "the reason I didn't come to bring you to Sirius' house is that…everyone thought you were already there."

That was not what Harry had been expecting to hear. "What? Why?"

"Last night I received a note from Miss Granger saying that you had come unexpectedly to her house and she would be bringing you herself, via floo. She arrived at precisely ten o'clock this morning with a boy that looks exactly like you, Harry. We all thought he _was_ you until you wrote me about not being picked up."

"Someone who looked like me? Polyjuice! Like with Mad Eye! Was it a Death Eater trying to spy on the Order? But how did they get my hair for the potion?"

"Harry…" Remus tried to interrupt the boy's deductions. "Harry! No, it's not anyone using polyjuice…it's your twin brother."

Absolute silence filled the room for a full minute.

"My—my _what_?" Harry looked entirely shocked, and Remus couldn't blame him.

"Your twin, Harry."

"You mean metaphorically, right? Like he looks so much like me he could be my twin? Right?"

"No, Harry. I mean his parents were Lily and James Potter, and he is your brother."

Harry wasn't sure whether to feel betrayed, doubtful, or thrilled. "But that can't be right! I don't… _Someone_ would have told me if I had a twin brother! Somebody would have said _something_ about him!"

"Everyone thought he was dead," Remus said gently. "When you were born, there was another boy born not ten minutes after you. Your parents were overjoyed to have both of you. But then…two weeks later, he was gone. Lily found him dead in his cot—though now, we must assume that the body wasn't real; a trick of some kind, with Voldemort behind it all. She couldn't be consoled for weeks. I honestly think that only the fact that she still had you to look after and love helped her make it through the worst of her grief."

"I have a brother," breathed Harry. His eyes were fixed wide open, but he didn't appear to be staring at anything in particular.

"Back then, I think Sirius and I thought of you two as practically our own children—you couldn't have been more loved. James was as dear to us as a brother, and so all the Marauders were so proud when you were born. When your brother was lost…we all wanted to shut away our grief, especially with the war to distract us. I think that's why neither of us ever mentioned him to you before."

"But he's alive? And he's at Sirius' house?"

"Yes."

"Well then, what are we waiting for?" Harry cried, jumping to his feet. "I want to meet him!"

"Harry, please sit back down! It's…more complicated."

Harry wanted to argue, but Lupin's serious expression forestalled him. He slowly sank back onto the couch.

Remus let out a long breath. "You have to understand—until recently your brother had no idea that he was related to the Potters. There's still a lot to the story that I haven't heard yet, but essentially he's been under a powerful glamour charm to disguise him all his life and grew up thinking that the people who raised him were his real parents. Harry…his adoptive parents are known Death Eaters."

Harry felt sure that he wasn't going to like the answer, but he knew he had to ask. He gritted his teeth. "Who raised him?"

"The Malfoys."

It felt like he'd been punched in the stomach. "The _Malfoys?_ But—but that means… _Draco!?_"

Suddenly Harry was glad he'd sat back down.

Lupin knew that Draco Malfoy had never been what anyone would call kind to Harry and his friends at school. His memories of the boy from his time teaching at Hogwarts didn't paint a favourable picture either. Still, something, perhaps the memory of baby Jacob's still body, drove him to give the Slytherin boy the benefit of the doubt.

"Yes, it's Draco," Remus finally acknowledged. "I know it's a shock, Harry, but believe me, he's just as traumatized by the whole thing as you are. Just after talking to him for the small while that I did, I can tell he's angry at Lucius Malfoy and You-Know-Who for what they've done to him. He's run away from home, and the person he went to for help was Hermione. That should say something."

Harry made a face. "And you're sure it's not a trick? Wormtail could have told Voldemort about my having had a brother. Malfoy could just be disguised—they could have some awful plan!"

"We checked for spells, and he's not using Polyjuice potion," Remus almost looked apologetic. "He's your brother."

Harry slumped into the cushions of the couch and weighed what Remus had told him. He figured Remus would have made sure they weren't being deceived before telling him something this important.

"I believe you, Moony," he said hesitantly after a moment. "I think I'm going to need some time to get used to the thought, though. I can't promise to trust him right away."

"I don't think anyone's expecting you to," Remus smiled. "But you should at least hear him out."

The ex-professor stood then, relieved that Harry's reaction hadn't been as bad as he feared it would be. It made him a bit mournful, however, as he realised that the young wizard's life had been so deprived of caring attention that he would so quickly consider allowing an enemy to be family.

"Now, we really ought to be underway. Your friends will be eager to see you, and if everyone at the house has calmed down, we may get to hear more of Draco's story."

Harry agreed and rose. He walked stiffly to his trunk, but his mind was churning with thoughts and questions. He contemplated what Malfoy had thought of the whole thing. Harry was in utter astonishment at the news that one of his five least favourite people (Voldemort, Umbridge, Snape, and Fudge made up the rest of that list) had turned out to be related to him, but he supposed that all things considered, Malfoy's life had changed a bit more than his own. Would it be enough to make a difference in how he acted, Harry wondered?

He took a firm grasp on his trunk as Lupin lifted Hedwig's cage with one hand and gripped Harry's shoulder with the other.

"We'll be taking a rather round-about route," Remus informed him. "We'll want to be sure to throw off any Death Eaters interested in tracking us to the Order, just in case, so keep by me until we arrive, alright? Ready?"

Harry gave a nod, and Lupin's hand on Harry's shoulder tightened. There was a loud 'crack,' and the Dursleys' living room was empty.

* * *

Sirius pulled back from hugging Draco just as Lupin disappeared up the stairs to go to Privet Drive. _How many times can a person get hugged in one day?_ Draco wondered. Then again, it was clear that these people were much more prone to displays of affection than his family—er, well, than the Slytherins.

The older man guided Draco to where he had been sitting near the large fireplace, retrieved his dropped wand, and tried to right the chair he had bashed to the floor in his earlier anger. One leg was broken off.

"Reparo," Sirius muttered, and the leg reattached itself. He set it down by the chair Draco had already occupied, straddled it backwards, and gave the boy a wide grin. "Right, then. Let me have a look at you, eh?"

"I don't look any different from Harry."

"Well, no," admitted Sirius with a laugh. "You _are_ identical twins; but there may be miniscule differences that a trained eye like mine can pick up." He winked.

After the stress of telling a roomful of distrustful people that he was 'No, not a Death Eater, actually a Potter,' the simple comment made Draco laugh.

"You believe me, then?" He asked.

"It's difficult not to, when it's clear you're free of disguises, and Remus and I both know for certain that Lily did indeed have twins."

"Well, yeah, but I mean do you believe me when I say that the Dark Lord didn't send me here for some ulterior motive? I mean, Weasley is right—even though I'm a Potter, I'm not some heroic Gryffindor."

Sirius examined Draco critically. "I do believe that bit as well, I think. I know a fair share about the look of a man on the run. And I suspect you're more heroic than you realise."

"Me? Not bloody likely." Draco sounded incredulous.

"You've been pandered to your entire life," Sirius said, holding up a finger to stop Draco's argument. "Don't try to deny it—I know what Lucius is like, so I know your life probably hasn't been a bed of roses, but you've been given the easy way 'round when most people work hard for what they get. Still, when you found out things weren't as you'd assumed, you didn't take the easy way out and go along with whatever You-Know-Who was planning to save your own skin. You took a risk and ran. Sure, it's not the same thing as sticking a wand in the Dark Lord's face, but in your own way, you stood up to him and your father. You made a choice."

Draco had never had anyone compliment him in such a way before. He felt his face flush with the beginnings of real pride, and began to admire this man that he'd only met a couple of hours ago.

"How do I know I've made the right choice?" he asked, taking the leap to open up to the ex-convict. "Everyone I know is going to hate me when they find out."

"Well, if they do, you'll just have to decide if what you're gaining is worth what you've lost. Just as a hint, I think you've made the best choice you could have." Sirius leaned forward conspiratorially. "Just think, on our side you may even get the opportunity to throw a few curses at that mouldy old goat of a dictator!"

It was a genuine grin that crossed Draco's face at that. Still, he was a bit uncertain of the friendly attitude Black was showing him.

"Why are you being nice to me?" the Slytherin asked. "You don't even know me."

"I know that Lucius Malfoy raised you with specific ideals in mind. Ideals that I happen to be completely against. And I'll be honest and say that I know in the past you've done some pretty beastly things. Nevertheless, I also know you've had a rough day, and you could probably use a bit of kindness—even if you're not used to receiving any. As for the rest of it?" Here Sirius shrugged. "You're James Potter's son. I knew you when you weren't even a day old. I saw Lily cry tears of joy in St. Mungo's when she held you and Harry for the first time and saw how beautiful you both were. I celebrated with James when he thought he saw you smile for the first time, even though you were nowhere near old enough to do it. …That's enough for me."

"How touching, Sirius!"

Draco and Sirius both started and looked up to see Albus Dumbledore coming down the stairs from the first floor with a grim-faced Snape close behind him.

The sight of Snape caused Draco's heart to leap into his throat. Dumbledore didn't know that Snape was loyal to Voldemort! He'd been as good as found!

Draco stood fearfully as Dumbledore swept up to him, a twinkle in his blue eyes.

"Ah, and young Mr. Malfoy, I presume," Dumbledore peered over his half-moon spectacles. "Professor Snape has of course just finished telling me a very remarkable tale of everything he saw at Malfoy Manor last night. When Molly contacted me through your drawing room fireplace, Sirius, we thought it would be prudent to move our meeting here and include everyone involved."

Draco's jaw dropped. "Professor Snape? You told Headmaster Dumbledore about a _Death Eater_ meeting?"

Dumbledore chuckled. "Mr. Malfoy, I believe you will find you have even more in common with your Potions professor than you'd supposed. He also, is no longer as loyal to the Death Eaters as Voldemort would hope. I've long found Severus here to be a very trustworthy informant."

Snape glared at the Headmaster, and then gave a put-upon sigh. "Indeed," he growled. "As Professor Dumbledore seems willing to reveal my secrets, Draco, you might as well know that for many years I have been a spy for the Order of the Phoenix."

"Only good thing the great bloody sod's done in his life," Sirius muttered from behind Draco.

Snape scowled at Sirius, and Sirius batted his eyelashes at him. It really only made Snape's scowl grow fiercer.

"The Order of the Phoenix? I've heard my father mention it. They fight against Voldemort, don't they?"

"They do indeed, my boy," confirmed Dumbledore cheerfully, completely ignoring the posturing of the two grown men next to him. "And at this very moment, you find yourself standing in the heart of their Headquarters. Mr. Black here has been gracious enough to offer his family home to us."

_So that's what this house is,_ thought Draco. _You'd still think it would be a bit cheerier if it's the stronghold of the warriors for good. But then, I suppose spending twelve years in Azkaban means one doesn't have a lot of time for cleaning and decorating._

"Shall we adjourn to the drawing room to discuss what Professor Snape has been able to tell me?" the Headmaster enquired. "When we came down, poor Molly was very anxious to return to putting her dinner in order. I confess my own eagerness that she be allowed to continue—as long as I am here I hope very much to enjoy one of her meals!"

They all followed Dumbledore upstairs back into the entry hall of Number Twelve. Mrs. Weasley was indeed standing there twisting her apron, and when they emerged, she trundled back down to the kitchen without a word.

Draco looked towards the second floor landing above them when he heard a shuffling noise, and wasn't surprised to see the tops of a few heads disappearing from between the railings and to hear furious whispering fade away into an upstairs room.

Snape cleared his throat expectantly, and Draco turned away from the sight of the gossiping Gryffindors to see Snape, Dumbledore, and Sirius waiting for him beside the open door of the drawing room. He began to move forward again, but froze when further down the hall, he saw the main door of the house swing open with a loud creak. He didn't even hear the hideous painting in the entry start to howl with anger, nor did he notice Professor Lupin step round the figure in the doorway and struggle to pull heavy drapes closed over it.

He could only stare with trepidation at Harry Potter, who was frozen in place just over the threshold, and was reciprocating Draco's stare with wide eyes of his own.

Draco was torn. He felt like sneering just out of habit, but at the same time his stomach started doing flip-flops. For some reason, having the Boy-Who-Lived in front of him knowing that they were brothers made this whole thing seem more real. Sure, he'd accepted the truth that he was a Potter; he'd even made the choice to leave his old life behind and see what this new one may have to offer, but… Somehow, as long as Harry was still in the dark, it hadn't felt _permanent_. Like Draco was just a curious observer of an alternate society and could any minute decide he'd had enough and head home to real life.

The look on Potter's face made it clear that he was startled to come so suddenly face-to-face with an exact duplicate of himself, but also that he was very aware of who that doppelganger was. Indescribably, that filled Draco with the feeling of permanence that had been missing before.

"_Malfoy?"_ Harry rasped incredulously.

Draco raised his chin defiantly. "Yeah, that's right, Potter."

Each boy's hatred for the other young wizard in front of him was ingrained. They'd spent five years despising each other, and now that hate was warring with the new knowledge that they were family. They were both completely confused as to how to react to each other. Draco was off-balance enough to try to be polite, and Harry had spent so long wishing for family that finding it, even in a Malfoy, made him wary of sabotaging the whole thing right away.

Harry had known Remus had been telling him the truth, but part of him had expected Malfoy to still look like the same angular blonde he had always been. Instead, he could have been looking in the mirror. His eyes flicked to Draco's forehead, and through the other boy's fringe he was just able to note that it was unmarked, unlike his own. He felt a grim burst of amusement at recognizing he'd just done the same thing he'd grown annoyed at experiencing since starting Hogwarts.

But no matter what he looked like, just being around Malfoy made him feel like being difficult, and so, at a loss for anything else to say, Harry fell back on habit.

"You know, Malfoy, I always knew you were a big fan of mine, but this is a bit extreme, don't you think?"

Draco's sneer had absolutely no trouble appearing now.

"You ought to be glad I'm around to bring some class to the Potter name. Perhaps I should give you, the Weasel, and your mudblood friend lessons on being proper wizards—with instruction you might manage least a façade of decent breeding."

"I wouldn't go about using that word anymore if I were you. Seems you're not the pureblood you used to be."

Draco cringed, a nerve having been hit, and Harry considered him thoughtfully. "Take comfort though, Malfoy. At least you're better looking now."

Draco was fuming, and the two of them may have had a dust-up right there in the hall, if it weren't for the fact that their bravado was covering up nervousness on both sides, and neither seemed able to budge from where they stood staring at one another. Their brief bursts of bravado had been short-lived.

Dumbledore and the others had turned from the drawing room entry when the portrait had begun screaming, and Sirius had hurried to help Professor Lupin with the curtains. They were at last drawn closed, and the screeching became muffled and finally died away.

"Damn woman," Sirius complained. "I swear, Moony, you and I are going to find a way to get that portrait off the wall and burn her." He turned to the frozen boy in the doorway and gently nudged Harry forward until he could shut the door. He put a hand on Harry's shoulder. "Harry?" he asked softly.

Harry had a difficult time dragging his eyes from Draco, but he finally met Sirius' inquiring gaze with a pleading look in his own. "Sirius?"

Sirius immediately seemed to understand the question in his godson's eyes. "It's true, Harry," he said. "I'm so sorry I never told you about your brother, but I thought he was long dead. Will you come in so we can talk about it?"

Harry shot another wary glance at Draco and nodded shortly, settling his trunk at the foot of the stairs next to where Lupin had put Hedwig's cage, and letting out his owl. She gave Harry a nip on the finger and winged her way up the dark stairs, presumably to the perch in the room Harry and Ron had shared last summer.

After some shuffling through the entry during which Harry and Draco seemed to be trying not to get too close to one another, they all made it into the drawing room.

Dumbledore had taken one look at the dusty stiff-backed chairs flanking the fireplace, and the faded sofa that Hermione and Luna had occupied earlier, and conjured six large squashy armchairs in a lopsided circle in the centre of the room. Draco and Snape had both looked dubiously at the garishly patterned chairs before taking their seats.

Dumbledore sat in a large purple chair covered in a pattern of orange and chartreuse poppies, and Lupin sat to his left, followed round the circle by Harry, Sirius, Draco, and then Snape on the Headmaster's opposite side. Draco snuck a glance at the grim Potions Master next to him. Apart from when Dumbledore had forced Snape into telling Draco about his spy status, Draco realised that the man had not looked him directly in the eye since seeing his true face revealed back at Malfoy Manor. It sent another nervous rumble through his stomach.

"Now then," Dumbledore began, "Harry, can I assume from your reaction that Mr. Lupin has filled you in on our recent discoveries involving Mr. Malfoy?"

Harry shot a sidelong glance at Draco, his anger fading in the face of curiosity and the possibility of family. "Yes, Professor, he told me about Malfoy and…our relationship."

"Well, if I may say, I shall count myself among those surprised to find that your brother has been living all these years. Mr. Malfoy, I understand that you've revealed some of how you came to discover the truth, but perhaps you would be good enough to tell the story in more detail for all of us?"

Draco shifted a bit in the cushions of his chair as everyone's attention went to him. "I guess so."

He began to recount being called by Voldemort to the Malfoy library and everything that had happened after; seeing his reflection and realizing he was a Potter, deciding to run from Malfoy Manor, and his decision to seek shelter with the Grangers.

"Which brought him here, where we discovered what was going on," put in Sirius.

"Indeed," Dumbledore said, steepling his fingers. "Thank you, Draco. Now, Professor Snape has some further information that I would like him to share. Draco, I believe you will find this very interesting. Severus?"

The Potions Master shifted forward on his seat.

"I was at the meeting Draco has spoken of. I had no previous knowledge of Draco's heritage, nor, I think, did any of the other Death Eaters," he said gruffly.

"The Dark Lord merely told us that he had a very particular task for Mr. Malfoy, and that the boy was somehow special. When Lucius removed the spell that changed Draco's appearance, I was…surprised. Draco was sent upstairs and the meeting continued, but just before the end, the Dark Lord sent Lucius upstairs to reveal his full plans to Draco. I believe he did not mean those details for the ears of all his followers. Lucius returned very quickly, having discovered Draco was missing.

"The Dark Lord was furious. He ordered his Death Eaters to immediately begin searching for the boy. I had hoped to slip away and inform Dumbledore of what I had seen, so that we could attempt to find Draco before the Death Eaters, but Lucius wanted me to aid him personally in the search, and I could not refuse without drawing suspicion. As we hunted for Draco across the Malfoy grounds and then in Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley, I was able to persuade Lucius to give me some background information on the Dark Lord's intentions for Mr. Malfoy, both before and after his 'defeat' in Godric's Hollow."

"Did You-Know-Who do the kidnapping himself, or was it Lucius?" hissed Sirius.

Snape glared at the interruption.

"Are you so quick to forget that one of your dear Marauders was a servant of your enemy, Black? Lily and James were in hiding before the twins were born; how many people were intimately familiar with where they were?"

Remus and Sirius exchanged horrified looks.

"It was Wormtail, wasn't it? Wormtail took him," Harry grit out with a rush of anger.

Snape affirmed it with a short nod.

Remus had an incredibly sad expression on his face, but Sirius appeared to be speechless with rage. He leaped from his chair and stalked across the room to pace in front of a dusty curio cabinet, counting under his breath and fighting his temper. Everyone but Dumbledore jumped when he grabbed a crystal flask holding some long-dried up potion and violently flung it so it shattered in the fireplace.

Harry hadn't thought he could hate the rat animagus any more than he already did, but he was livid to discover yet another thing that Peter Pettigrew had stolen from him. If it weren't for yet another of Wormtail's betrayals, he would have grown up with Draco as his brother instead of his enemy.

Draco furrowed his brow at everyone's reactions. "Isn't Wormtail that twitchy little man that follows Voldemort around? The one that framed Sirius?"

"Yeah," Harry spat. "He was a _friend_ of my—of our parents until he joined Voldemort and sold them out when they made him their secret keeper."

"Oh."

"It appears that Pettigrew was acting on Voldemort's orders," Dumbledore disclosed. "In 1980, not too long before the twins were born, Rosier and Wilkes were two of the five Death Eaters involved in the murders of Gideon and Fabian Prewett, Molly Weasley's brothers. Shortly afterward, they were caught in a duel with several Aurors and killed. You may remember this, Sirius, Remus; James Potter was involved."

Remus nodded and from where he'd settled, arms crossed and leaning against the wall, Sirius made a wordless noise in the affirmative.

"James refused to let a little thing like You-Know-Who painting a target on his back keep him out of the war," Lupin smiled wistfully. "The fact he was supposed to be in hiding couldn't keep him in the house, and he kept up with his work for the Order until the Fildelius Charm was activated."

"Well the Dark Lord thought up a new form of retribution for the loss of those two followers," Snape told them.

"Even then Lucius was a favourite of his, and he hoped that Malfoy would produce an heir powerful enough to take its father's place as the Dark Lord's second should Lucius ever fall. However, it had become apparent that the Malfoys could not bear a child. With the Dark Lord eager for another generation of servants and Lucius and Narcissa desirous that the Malfoy line not come to an end, they resolved to steal a child of promising power.

"Wormtail had told of Lily and her twins, and the idea of raising a child of his enemies to be immersed in dark magic appealed to the Dark Lord. James and Lily were powerful members of the Order, and although he despised them, the Dark Lord knew any child of theirs would have great potential. He ordered Pettigrew to bring him either of the boys, and gave Wormtail a false body to lie in the cot, transfigured from a dead doxy. If the boy were thought to be dead, no one would be the wiser until the day the Dark Lord chose to reveal his powerful servant—the son of the Potters. It would be devastating to the morale of those that opposed him."

"After coming back during the Triwizard Tournament, Voldemort found that Draco could be a weapon to be used against your emotions, Harry," Dumbledore continued for Snape.

"From what Lucius told Professor Snape, we believe he hoped for Mr. Malfoy to get close to you under the guise of your long lost brother kept prisoner all this time by the Malfoys. It would not be until you had bonded as brothers that he would have been instructed to reveal that he had grown up as Draco Malfoy and was still loyal to Voldemort; presumably at a time when Mr. Malfoy could lead you to his master and then leave you without an ally as he returned to Voldemort's side."

Harry frowned at the thought. "They've very nearly had their way, haven't they?"

"Not entirely," Remus said. "We know the truth now, and I daresay Draco won't be returning to Voldemort; especially not with you in tow."

Draco remembered his realization that he was only a tool to be used at Voldemort's pleasure. There was a time when he may have been proud to be a part of the Dark Lord's schemes—honoured even. Somehow, sometime in the course of the last summer, that had lost all its appeal. Now he only felt sick at the thought of how he would have been used. Maybe not for the sake of Harry or the Order, but for his own. If he'd followed Voldemort and participated in his plan, it would have been to make his father proud of him. But Lucius wasn't his father at all. Draco was only a weapon. And a weapon didn't have power or respect. Only purpose. A weapon didn't have parents that were proud of their son.

This weapon was going to turn the tables.

Harry had been musing on other questions. "Headmaster, does the fact that Malfoy's my twin change anything about the prophecy?" he asked.

"When the prophecy was made, only the Malfoys, Pettigrew, and Tom Riddle knew that there were still three infants to whom it could refer," Dumbledore explained. "He could have chosen Draco, but at the time Voldemort certainly thought the fact Draco was being raised by the Malfoys meant he was unlikely to be the one that posed a danger to him. You are the one he decided was the threat, and you are the one he marked. No Harry, I'm sorry, but it doesn't change anything."

"What prophecy's that?" Draco asked.

Harry looked at Dumbledore, unsure how much he should say. Dumbledore solved the problem for now by answering for him.

"There was a prophecy made after the two of you were born, and only a couple of days after you were taken, Draco. Part of it foretold that a child would be born with the power to defeat the Dark Lord. Neville Longbottom and the two of you fit the description given of the infant. When Voldemort attacked the Potter family on that fateful Halloween night, he marked Harry as that child."

"Marked . . . his scar? It actually means something?"

"Quite. There is more to the prophecy, which only Harry and I know. It is up to him to decide whom he wishes to share it with."

Remus and Sirius both came to attention at Dumbledore's last, and Harry knew that now they'd be pressing to find out the rest of that prophecy. _Great._

Dumbledore obviously didn't intend for that discussion to happen now, for he was speaking again.

"Now, we will need to have a talk later about what we shall do when it comes time for Draco to return to Hogwarts, but I believe we've chatted long enough for today. Molly's delightful supper awaits us. Have we any last questions?"

"Why did you run away?"

It took a second for Draco to realise that it had been Harry asking, and the question was meant for him. Draco raised an eyebrow at him. "What do you mean?"

"Obviously Lucius and Voldemort have always known that you're my brother. You could have gone on being their favourite little junior Death Eater if you'd stayed and done whatever they wanted you to; now they're going to be after you. I want to know why you risked that."

It was a fair question. Perhaps Potter wasn't as simple-minded as Draco had come to imagine. Everyone else in the room looked equally interested in his answer.

"I—I don't want to be a Death Eater, okay?" He ducked his head. "I said as much earlier downstairs…I don't know if they believed me…but I see how the Death Eaters are treated, and I've seen some of the things they have to do. I don't think I could be a murderer. I've worried for weeks about what I would do when they asked me to take the Dark Mark, because I didn't want to, but my father expected it of me. Maybe Lucius did too thorough a job raising me to be proud, but I've realised I want power and respect that I've earned on my own. I have the second highest marks in our year—I want to be more than a grovelling house elf for an evil dictator!

"This whole thing—finding out I'm not a Malfoy—is mostly the best excuse I could have gotten to leave." Draco continued. "I'm angry that they've used me and lied to me, and I'm just tired of being what everyone expects and trying to please a man that isn't even my father. The other night I realised being a Potter means Lucius doesn't have a claim on my life. I won't let him control me anymore."

Draco drew a deep breath.

Dumbledore had a small, pleased smile on his face, but he seemed to be waiting for Harry's response. Harry stared at Draco a long minute, gauging the honesty of his statements. Finally he spoke.

"I believe you," he said, rising and going to stand in front of Draco. He stuck out his hand. "I'm not saying I want to be friends, but how about we just start over…Draco."

Draco considered the boy in front of him in mild surprise before slowly standing as well, so that they were eye to eye. He gave a faint smile and grasped the outstretched hand. "All right, then. It's nice to meet you…Harry."

The twinkle in Dumbledore's eyes was brilliant.

* * *

_I have a timeline created to reflect what I've changed in early canon, and continuing as far as the end of this chapter. If anyone would be interested in seeing it—either just out of curiosity or for better comprehension of this fanfic—__**let me know**__ in your reviews, and I'll post it!_


	7. Chapter 7

**Thou Shalt Get Kings**

Disclaimer: The characters and places you recognize aren't mine, of course. I promise I'll put them back in J.K. Rowling's toybox when I'm through with them!

-Sorry it's been a while since my last posting, but if you're sticking with me, your reward is this rather lengthy post. My creative juices have been trickling rather than flowing of late, and I'm trying to make them longer, so they may go up a bit slower, but don't worry; they _will_ keep coming.  
-I posted the previous chapter in a bit of a hurry, and so this was originally posted with a continuation of chapter six at the top, but everything is in its rightful place now.

A big thank you to my lovely reviewers! What you have to say influences me more than you know--especially to keep me writing!

* * *

**Chapter Seven**

WHEN THEY HEADED back to the basement level, it appeared that the rest of the household had gathered in the large downstairs kitchen during the talk in the drawing room. Mrs. Weasley had the table heaped with steaming dishes for their somewhat late supper, but she hadn't yet stopped fussing with her pots and pans. Draco trailed behind Sirius and Remus towards the far side of the room where Snape and Dumbledore were already conversing with Kingsley, Tonks, and a fresh from work Mr. Weasley near the table. Mrs. Weasley paused in her cooking as they approached, all of these adults eager to hear Dumbledore's confirmation of Draco and Harry's shared parentage.

However, Harry hadn't even taken two steps into the kitchen before Hermione greeted him with a guilty expression on her face.

"Harry, I'm so sorry!" she cried out, quite upset as she flung her arms around him. "I should have known right away that he wasn't you! The clothes, and the glasses…and I _knew_ something wasn't right! It just didn't _occur_ to me that he might actually be someone else!"

"It's okay, Hermione; it's not your fault." After having been sure all day that he had been forgotten, Harry found himself smiling at Hermione's frantic apologies. He should have known all along that his friends would never just abandon him.

"What I couldn't understand was why the Fidelius Charm let me tell him where we were going and bring him in here. Professor Dumbledore is the secret keeper for the location of the Order."

She held up a thick advanced Charms book with small bits of torn parchment sticking out from between its pages. From the number of them, it looked like she'd bookmarked every chapter.

"I looked up information on the charm while you were all talking, and it seems that the Fidelius let me talk about Number Twelve in front of Malfoy because I never questioned that he was you, and you already knew. The fact that the two of you share blood probably helped too…I should—"

"Hermione!" Harry interrupted. "It's not important. You weren't the only one fooled. I'm here now, and Malfoy has yet to smuggle in a horde of Death Eaters, so don't worry; no harm done."

Ron sidled up to them, Ginny, Neville, and Luna trailing close behind him. "Harry, glad you finally made it, mate."

"Hi, Ron," Harry clasped hands with his friend enthusiastically, and exchanged hugs with Ginny. "Neville…Luna! I didn't know you guys were here!"

"Mr. Black invited us," Neville told him. "I think he figured you wouldn't mind after what happened at the end of last year."

Neville blushed, as if he thought perhaps Harry did mind.

"I'm glad he did! It's great to see you guys!" Harry beamed.

Neville blushed again, and Luna blinked at him owlishly, then gave a crooked smile.

"My father says 'hi' too, Harry," the small blonde girl said. "The Quibbler is doing very well, thanks to you. Our fund for next year's Crumple-Horned Snorkack hunt is already full."

"I've got déjà vu," Ginny laughed. "She said the same thing to Malfoy this morning when we thought he was you."

Ron indicated Draco, who was across the kitchen looking like he was working up the courage to talk to Snape. The Potions Master wore a sour expression; a result of being encouraged by Dumbledore to stay for dinner.

"It's a mite creepy, y'know—seeing two of you."

"No more for you than for me," Harry agreed.

"So it's really true, then? He's actually your brother?"

"Apparently so." The idea still had Harry feeling very uncertain.

When Lupin first told him that he had a twin, Harry was sure he hadn't felt happier since the night in third year when he thought he was going to get to live with Sirius. Maybe even more, as a brother would be real blood family. Family that had to be better than the Dursleys. Having Ron as a friend was the closest he'd ever come to having a brother. He'd hoped to have that sort of relationship with someone that was a real relation, but as soon as Lupin dropped the name Malfoy, Harry'd seen those dreams flying out the window. How he wished it could have been anyone else!

Harry made a face. "I can't believe I'm related to Malfoy."

"Rotten luck, that," Ron sympathized. "I'm sorry for you, Harry."

Ginny sniffed. "Well, I think it's a good thing. It'll be nice for you to have some real family."

Ron's eyes widened at his sister. "A good thing?" He blustered, "Having that git as a brother? You must be mental!"

"And I'm not sure Malfoy's the brotherly type," Harry said skeptically.

"Malfoy's never been exactly friendly," Neville spoke up, "but I don't think he's acting the same. He seems…I dunno, a bit more civil."

Hermione's nose came out of the book that she'd flipped back open, one of the parchment bookmarks now caught in her hair.

"I think you're right, Neville," she said thoughtfully. "He did manage to get on with all of us for most of the day. And even after we found out who he was he wasn't completely nasty to us. He seemed nervous. I think he really doesn't have anywhere else to go."

Harry pursed his lips, then grudgingly said, "He—in the drawing room with Dumbledore and the rest of them—he said he didn't want to be a Death Eater. That doesn't mean he's a good person, but I believed him. I sort of told him we could try starting over…or try not hating each other at least."

They all fell silent and turned to stare at the dark-haired boy standing over by the table.

The silence drew out uncomfortably.

"If there's an infestation of pillywiggles nearby, you can keep them from sneaking out and climbing up someone's nose by staring at a person without blinking. Pillywiggles don't like to be seen."

This, of course, made them all blink at once.

Hermione gaped at Luna, whose eyes behind her glasses were as wide as they would go, and still gazing intently at Draco.

Neville looked confused and a bit alarmed.

Harry, Ron, and Ginny just covered up snickers and hurried the group over to sit at the table before Hermione could protest the existence of the shy, nose-dwelling pillywiggles.

If Draco had noticed them all staring, he didn't say anything, but he did shoot suspicious looks at the group throughout dinner—whenever one of them broke into a fit of giggles that they refused to explain to the rest of the room.

* * *

Shortly after dinner, to Draco's horror, Dumbledore waved his wand wordlessly at the ceiling and announced that there was now an additional bed in the room Ron, Harry and Neville were to share. He thought about begging for a private room—the Black house probably had plenty to spare—but a look in the Headmaster's eyes made him figure it wouldn't do any good. He therefore reluctantly trailed after Remus Lupin, who offered to show him where the room was.

As they passed the group of Gryffindors, he heard Harry finishing giving his friends an overview of what had been revealed in their meeting.

When they got to a large, dim bedroom on the second floor, Draco saw four beds similar to the ones at Hogwarts standing in a row. The first three already had trunks next to them. Draco had retrieved the cloak he had arrived in from a row of pegs in the corner of the kitchen and shown Lupin his shrunken trunk before they headed up, so Draco set the miniature trunk at the foot of the bed by the farthest wall, and Lupin enlarged it. Then the ex-professor said goodnight to Neville, Harry and Ron, who had just come in together, and slipped out of the room.

_Please don't leave me here!_ Draco nearly cried out as the door shut. For the millionth time, he wondered what he was doing in this dingy house. Was he out of his mind? He'd essentially put himself in the hands of his enemies, and now he was sharing a bedroom with them.

Could he trust that Harry was serious in his offer to start over?

Maybe not—he certainly wasn't in the habit of trusting Gryffindors. Still…his newfound brother was forgiving to a fault. He'd certainly made up with that oaf Weasley enough times to prove it. And maybe he'd ended up here for a reason. When he'd left Malfoy Manor, he'd just been thinking about getting away from the Dark Lord; it hadn't fully occurred to him that that would lead inevitably to landing in Harry Potter's camp.

Yet today he'd been forced to admit his true thoughts about joining that Dark Lord to other people for the first time…and it had felt rather good!

The nervous thoughts of rebellion that his mind had shied from back at home had blossomed into hardened opinion in the short day since he'd run. Why had he ever thought he'd wanted to follow in Lucius' footsteps? He was second-guessing everything—Voldemort's murderous campaign; blood prejudice.

What exactly made purebloods so much better than muggleborns, or even muggles themselves? Draco had begun pondering that question last night at the Grangers, and he still couldn't think of a decent answer. And if he, one of the top students at Hogwarts, couldn't come up with any logical support for his erstwhile father's argument… well, here was another thing Lucius had misdirected him in. He supposed that most children at some point realised that their parents weren't the sole source of truth in the universe, but he doubted many discovered their parent's leadership was as profoundly false as his had been.

He felt a bit guilty thinking of all the awful things he'd said to Hermione and others over the years after how kind her parents had been. And how hypocritical, when he had never been pureblooded at all! And to think of the things he'd said about Harry's parents, when they were in reality his own!

No, he would never bow down before Voldemort. But would he throw in completely with Dumbledore and Harry?

_Why not?_ He thought back to that afternoon's conversation with Sirius Black, and the mischievous glint in the man's eye when he'd pointed out that joining with the light meant the possibility at getting back at Voldemort. _I wouldn't mind that at all._

It made him recall another attempted conversation from the evening.

Snape had long been Draco's favourite professor; the man was patient with Draco where his father was not. Never in public, of course, but in the privacy of the Slytherin dungeons, the grim Potions Master had become a bit of a mentor.

When he had arrived today with the Headmaster, however, Snape had looked rather more grim than usual. Even after finding out that Snape was a spy, Draco was sickeningly preoccupied with the thought that his professor's attentions had been due to his former status as a Malfoy. He'd rejoiced in Snape's treatment of Harry in the past, but now that he was a Potter as well, would he fall victim to the same temper?

He'd approached Snape in the kitchen, hoping to find out. He didn't know what he'd planned to do—simply ask Snape if he hated him now, perhaps?

But Snape had suddenly turned to see Draco lurking behind him, and before the Potions Master had yet registered that the Potter twin beside him bore no glasses or scar, his brow had furrowed, and his mouth had curled into a sneer.

It had only been for a moment, and the expression had disappeared beneath the normal aloof countenance almost immediately, but Draco had seen it, and he'd fled to a seat at the table next to Tonks, all his courage lost.

Snape was the only person here who hadn't loathed the son of Lucius Malfoy. Well, maybe Dumbledore hadn't loathed him, but they surely hadn't been friends. Draco decided that if Snape's reaction to his new heritage turned out to be the shared opinion of all his Slytherin acquaintances, he wasn't ready to hear it yet.

Not everyone in his dorms was as under the thumb of their Death Eater parents as he had been, so a few might stand by him, but if Snape and the rest of Slytherin did abandon him, where did that leave him?

Back with Potter and posse.

So even after spending so long feeding a hatred born of jealousy and a rejected hand of friendship, to reject that hand now seemed daft. He decided he would let Harry take the lead on their newfound tabula rasa. He wasn't going to just roll over if anyone baited him, but he was going to behave nicely and try to be friendly to Harry and his friends as long as they reciprocated.

As for taking it a step further and behaving as brothers…well, that would have to wait and see.

Draco pointedly ignored the other three boys in the room as he shuffled through some of his clothes left unshrunken at the top of his trunk. He'd been wearing the same thing for two days and was eager to change. After getting so little sleep the night before, he figured he'd wash up and head to bed early, if only to get round socializing with his new roommates. He found his pyjamas, and slipped out of the room and into the hall bath Lupin had pointed out, avoiding looking at the Gryffindors whispering across the room.

* * *

Harry watched from the corner of his eye as Draco gathered up some clothing and silently left the room. Neville's casual revelation regarding Draco's behaviour had been pestering him all evening. Apart from the taunts exchanged when Harry'd first arrived, the Slytherin had been very quiet.

He definitely wasn't up to his normal bullying standards. Harry figured some of it was shock—Draco _had_ just found out he was a Potter and not in fact heir to his father's fortunes—that was bound to put any Malfoy off his game. Even so, Harry really did believe what Draco had told them about not wanting to join Voldemort. Maybe it was wishful thinking getting the better of him, but Harry was having a hard time suppressing his hopes that Draco could turn over a new leaf.

He wanted to believe that his parents' other son could be a good person.

"What was Dumbledore thinking, making us share a room with Malfoy?" Harry heard Ron grumble for the fiftieth time in the last ten minutes.

"Hey, Ron?" Since Harry found himself compelled to give Draco a shot at proving he could change, he wanted his friends to do the same. "Lay off a bit, will you? I meant what I said about starting over."

"I know you meant it, Harry, but I'm not as eager to trust him as you are. You can't have already forgotten everything he's done to us!"

"Of course not! But… he's my brother."

Ron grew quiet at that, an uncomfortable look on his face. "I wish _you_ wouldn't remind me," he finally muttered. "Seeing him going about looking like you is bad enough."

"You know he can't help it, Ron, and like it or not he _is_ my twin."

There was a sharp rap on their door, but before any of them could go answer it, the door opened and Ginny's head popped through.

"It's Hermione and me. Can we come in?"

"Sure," Harry invited, and they entered. The five of them settled on Neville and Harry's beds.

"Where's Luna?" asked Neville.

"She said something about checking the attic for invisible colonies of something or other after dinner and disappeared," Hermione frowned.

"Will she be all right?" Harry looked concerned. "There's some dark stuff hidden about this house; she could get in trouble."

Ginny reassured him with a grin. "She's fine. Sirius heard her and is following at a discreet distance. I think he was curious to see what she'd find. Besides, trouble only ever seems to bounce right off Luna." She giggled. "So…what were you talking about?"

"Ron doesn't want to sleep in here with Malfoy and Harry was defending him," Neville summarized.

"I wasn't—look, I was just saying that we ought to give Draco a chance." Harry stammered, picking at a line of stitching on the coverlet with his finger.

Ron gave Harry an odd look. "Since when do you call him Draco?"

"I don't know, but it'd be weird to call him Malfoy now, wouldn't it?"

Hermione nodded. "Well, where is he? I mean, where's…Draco?" Ron raised an eyebrow at her, and Hermione rolled her eyes. "Harry's right, Ron. That's his name."

"I think he went to the washroom; he took clothes with him." Harry told her.

"Actually, Draco isn't his name," Ginny corrected.

They all looked at her, and she stared back. "Don't you remember? Sirius told us all that the Potters named him Jacob."

"Nobody mentioned that to me," Harry murmured darkly. "You'd think someone would have told me my own brother's name! Merlin, someone should have told me ages ago that he existed!"

"Ginny's right. Sirius said he used to be Jacob Evan Potter," Hermione supplied gingerly, sensing Harry ready to unleash.

"Evan. Probably after my mum. Before she and my dad got married she was Lily Evans."

Harry James and Jacob Evan.

He hadn't even noticed it coming on, but Harry suddenly found that Draco being his brother really _mattered_. He felt hot, deep anger rising inside him at Lucius, Wormtail and Voldemort. How _dare_ they take his flesh and blood from him? Draco—Jacob—was his _twin brother_, and that meant more than any childhood feud ever could.

"Damn Wormtail! This never should have happened. We should have grown up together. Heh—then again, imagine how the Dursleys would have reacted to having to take in _two_ orphans," Harry laughed bitterly.

"You know someone would have told you about him if they'd known he was alive," Hermione said gently, covering his hand with her own and stilling it as it sketched over another line of embroidery in agitation. "You know now, and that's what matters."

"Whatever his name is, I still can't believe we have to sleep in the same room as him," Ron snipped again.

"Ronald Weasley!" Ginny had seen the look on Harry's face, and her voice was sharp and ferocious. "Harry has a brother now—family! The both of them are dealing with the news as best as they can, and it'll be hard, but they're trying to make it work. And all you can think about are your stupid sleeping arrangements! I thought Harry was your best friend, but you obviously don't care enough to back him up when he could use your support!"

Ron gaped at his sister, and looked like he wanted to mount a protest, until he glanced at Harry, snapped his mouth shut, and muttered an apology.

"I guess I don't understand it, Harry, but if you really want to give Mal—er—Draco a chance, I can try too," he said reluctantly.

Harry's face was still in turmoil, but he managed a weak smile at his friend. "Thanks, Ron. You have brothers to spare; I've just got the one … and I need to make this work. I have to."

"Okay then," Ron acquiesced grudgingly, "I'm with you, mate."

Ginny grinned at her brother. "Head like a block of wood, you have. Good to see you can manage to see sense."

Hermione, who'd taken plenty of abuse from Draco herself, did sympathize with Ron's feelings, even if she found it easier to rise above it. "Think of him as a sort of reform project, Ron, and don't let his manners get to you. Imagine the way he grew up with the Malfoys! If you'd learned how to behave from Lucius Malfoy, how would you deal with all this? Draco's taken things rather gracefully, if you stop to consider it. Nothing's ever going to be the same for him again! It really makes me feel sorry for him, in a way."

It was a sobering sentiment.

They all looked up as the door opened and Draco walked in, wearing his nightclothes.

The Slytherin looked surprised to see how the group had increased in his absence, but he nodded politely at them and carried on past to his bed. He shoved his crumpled pants and shirt into his trunk, then climbed onto the bed and drew the curtains closed around him without a word.

"Real sociable, isn't he?" Ron snorted.

Ginny thwacked him on the arm.

"Sorry."

Despite the hour being only a quarter to ten, the conversation died down very quickly after that, as none of them wanted to gossip with Draco only a bed away. They talked quietly a bit about their summers, catching Harry up on the news they'd bestowed on Draco earlier, but the soft friendly chatter soon wore out, as the excitement of the day had them yawning to follow Draco's example.

The girls headed off for their own room, presumably to also find Luna somewhere along the way.

The boys tried to hold out a bit longer, nattering about the latest happenings in the Quidditch leagues, but before long, they too changed and got into bed.

Harry tossed about on his bed long after Ron's snores began. Having at last made up his mind to make a friendship with Draco work, he now worried how receptive Draco was going to be. They may be brothers, but he had no idea what they had in common.

Well, there was Quidditch. They both liked that.

It didn't seem like much, but if he got desperate, it was a place to start.

Harry sighed into the darkened room. He'd been nervous enough about starting this school year with the threat of the prophecy hanging over his head. Now he had an estranged brother to deal with as well. He rolled over and stuffed his head under his pillow as he wondered why it was always his life that fate decided to shake up.

* * *

_Lucius Malfoy stalked into a dark mouldy cell, Narcissa trailing behind him, turning up her nose at the rank odour. In the corner of the cell, under a narrow beam of hazy light seeping through a crack in the stone above, huddled a dark-haired man and a red-haired woman, each cradling an infant in their arms. _

"_James Potter," said Lucius disdainfully, "I see you've managed to start quite the little family."_

_Narcissa peered around her husband and her eyes widened greedily when she saw the Potters. "Lucius," she whined, tugging on her husband's sleeve and eying the babies, "I want one too!"_

_Lucius frowned at his wife, who was conjuring up a lacy bassinet and transfiguring her elegant robes into clothing more like Lily's casual Muggle dress. _

"_They're nothing but a disappointment in the end, dear," he said._

"_Yes, but I still want one," Narcissa begged. "The Dark Lord wouldn't mind—he might even find it useful," she wheedled._

_Lucius stroked his chin. Apart from the gloomy corner the Potters crouched in, the cell now looked like a darling little nursery with baby blue walls._

"_All right, my dear," Lucius agreed. "As long as the Dark Lord says it's fine with him."_

_Narcissa clapped her hands with glee and pointed into the shadows behind James and Lily._

_Voldemort stepped out of the darkness, looming over the Potters, who gaped up at him in horror, each of them trying to shield the infant they were holding from the evil wizard's red glare._

"_No!" shouted James. "You can't take my sons!"_

_Tears were streaming from Lily's eyes._

"_My dear Mr. Potter," hissed Voldemort through a wicked grin. "I only need one!"_

_He pointed his wand, and an awful red light emerged from the tip and snaked its way slowly, teasingly, though the air. The Potters tried to run from the spell, but they couldn't seem to step from the dank stone dungeon into the nursery in which the Malfoys stood. The horrible red curse curled tauntingly around James' body before sinking into the head of the baby he held. _

_The baby started crying immediately, and James could only look on as the newborn's eyes took on the same foul red glow as Voldemort's, its nose became snakelike, and finally its cries turned to hisses emitted from a mouth filled with miniature fangs._

_James held the infant away from himself, terror and revulsion on his face. Lily turned her back, her tears washing over the tiny hand of the baby she held, as it patted its mother's cheek._

_Eyes wide, James turned and held out the red-eyed child towards the Malfoys. _

_Lucius smiled haughtily and nodded to his wife, who rushed forward and snatched the baby from James, with a delighted coo._

_James' arms fell slackly to his sides, as if they had lost all purpose without the baby to hold. He slowly turned and went to Lily's side, draping a limp arm about her and gazing down at the infant in her arms—rosy cheeked and smiling, with wisps of dark hair and bright green eyes—perfect and whole._

_On the other side of the divide between dungeon and nursery, Narcissa beamed down at the monstrous child she held, even as it gnashed its fangs and beat against her arms with its small fists. She laid the baby in the beautiful white cot, where nothing had ever looked more out of place._

_As the Malfoys and the Potters each stared with wonder at the two vastly different children before them, the high, cold laugh of Voldemort echoed around them..._

Draco shot up in his bed, wide-awake and drenched in a cold sweat.

The awful dream had him shaking, he noticed, as he ran a quivering hand through his sweat-soaked hair. He collapsed back against his pillows, wishing he could scrub the image of the red-eyed baby from his mind. The worst thing was that he knew he had been that infant, both in the nightmare and in real life.

Oh, he had never had fangs or glowing eyes, and his kidnapping had in reality happened quite differently, but moulding Draco into the image of Voldemort had been Lucius' goal, if in mind and spirit rather than physically.

Draco's throat felt raw, as if the entrapping ideology of his Malfoy parents had manifested into a noose that tried to choke him, just like they had hoped to choke all the goodness out of him. He hoped he hadn't been screaming in his sleep.

He listened for a moment to the sounds of the room and heard nothing but snores and deep breathing. If he had made any noise, he didn't seem to have woken anyone up. That was all well and good for them, but Draco was certain he wasn't going to be able to get back to sleep, and a peek through his bed curtains at the dirty window made it plain that it was still ridiculously early in the morning. There was only a feeble haze of sunlight beginning to brush the sky.

Draco slipped from between his covers and felt his way to his trunk. He found some fresh clothes and tucked them beneath his arm. Trying to be as quiet as possible, Draco snuck past the other beds, hoping that the floor wasn't prone to creaking. He made it to the door, which he opened carefully, and snuck out.

The lack of windows made it even darker in the hall, but he found the bathroom, and the lamps inside ignited as soon as he entered. He stripped and stepped into the shower to rinse the sticky sweat from his body, then towelled dry, rubbing his wet hair vigorously with the towel to shake out the last remnants of his nightmare.

He threw on his clothes quickly, rolling the cuffs of his pants up twice. He'd discovered the previous night upon changing into his pyjama pants, that the clothes he'd been wearing since leaving home remained a perfect fit merely because he'd been wearing them when Lucius removed the charm that had disguised him. The fit of his remaining wardrobe still wasn't a problem…except in the length of his trousers. He figured he'd lost about three inches, and all his pants would need to be shortened accordingly.

A glance in the mirror had him trying to comb back his damp hair with his fingers. He'd left it mussed yesterday in order to further his Harry impersonation, but now he attempted a tamer look. A moment's fussing made it plain that the mop of dark hair just wouldn't lay flat, so he sighed at the futility of it and gave up. He wasn't in the mood to worry about his appearance just yet. "Don't worry, dear, the ladies will adore it," said the mirror.

Draco rolled his eyes.

As he made his way down two flights of stairs, he wondered if anyone else could be stirring at this hour. He saw the flicker of a fire burning as he neared the bottom of the steps to the kitchen. Mrs. Weasley, perhaps?

He came to a halt on the bottom step when he saw that the lone figure sitting by the fire was not the redheaded matron, but Harry.

"Oh, sorry," Draco faltered, "I didn't know anyone else was awake."

He turned to retrace his steps, but his brother's voice stopped him.

"You couldn't sleep either, then?"

Draco turned and tentatively moved further into the room. "Nightmare," he confessed. "What time is it, anyway?"

"A bit past five, I think." Harry answered, still staring into the fire. "Hey—er, do you think we could talk?"

Draco blinked. "You want to talk?"

"Well, yeah. Don't you think we should?"

"I suppose," Draco agreed. It might be nice to see where this new civility would take them. He dragged another chair from the table over to the fire. He sat down casually, but clasped his hands tensely in his lap. And waited.

Harry turned his eyes from the fire, and wondered where to start. "Do you hate it?" he found himself blurting out. "Being a Potter, I mean. You always seemed pretty pleased with being a Malfoy."

That hadn't been quite what Draco was expecting to hear.

"I—no, I don't hate it," He began slowly. "I think I might've at first; I was in enough shock, but…being a Malfoy isn't all it's cracked up to be," he admitted. "I never really was allowed to do anything Lucius didn't approve of, and now that he's not around, I can hear _myself_ think, you know?"

"I think I do," acknowledged Harry, remembering his life before Hogwarts, when his primary concern was always how best to please the Dursleys in order to avoid punishment.

"It's like, when I first found out, I was so focused on getting out of there, and being angry, that it took a while before I really thought too much about being a Potter, and by then I'd already decided that my life as a Malfoy didn't look as attractive as it had from the inside. Everyone at Hogwarts thinks I get away with everything; but it's mostly because my father never cared to pay much attention as long as I agreed with everything he said and behaved like he thought I should." Draco reddened, feeling vulnerable at having offered up that much honesty; he'd never been the type to share much of his inner feelings with anyone.

"So now you're thinking for yourself, you've managed to notice what a great evil prick Voldemort is?" Harry teased.

A week ago that sort of a remark would have had Draco snarking back at Harry until both their wands were raised and sparking. Now Draco just laughed softly.

The sound took Harry by surprise—he didn't think he'd ever heard Draco laugh before without it sounding malicious. He found it made Draco seem more human, and smiled back.

"I am sorry, you know," Draco told him. "About all the rotten stuff I've said. I can't claim it was all just about making Lucius happy—I went along with him pretty happily."

"Yeah. You were a right git," Harry grinned, cocking his head and considering the boy across from him. "'Course, I'm still trying to figure if the past tense is appropriate."

"It must be the face," shot back Draco. "It gives off that 'stupid prat' impression."

"You know you're just insulting yourself now, don't you?"

"Well," Draco sniffed, suppressing amusement. "I wear it better."

Harry scoffed. "Sure you do. …Anyway, apology accepted. And I'm sorry too."

A smile slowly crossed Draco's face. This was going better than he could have hoped. Harry wasn't that difficult to get along with now that they'd both removed the chips from their shoulders.

Harry's thoughts were running in the same direction. He wondered if they would have become friends on their own in first year if they hadn't been doomed by Lucius Malfoy's efforts and Hagrid's pre-conceived comments about Slytherins before Harry and Draco had even met. They were a lot alike; both stubborn, determined, and prone to trouble; both proud and loyal in their own ways, and both made to carry a huge amount of pressure unwillingly.

Now that they were forced to start fresh, it was surprisingly easy to talk together.

"You've been clear on what you think about the whole Death Eater thing now… what about, um, the stuff you've said to Hermione?" Harry was glad that Draco seemed to be serious about his new perspectives on Voldemort, but he had to know that his brother wasn't going keep up his disdainful remarks to one of his best friends.

Draco grimaced. "Call it growing up or whatever you want, but I think I've developed a new outlook on pureblood superiority."

"Why?" Harry asked, "Because you've realised you're not one after all?" He really couldn't help being wary of the Slytherin's motivations.

"Maybe partly," Draco surprisingly agreed. "But I've thought it out some, and there's not much fact to support that way of thinking. That rotten stuff apology was supposed to include the blood comments too."

"You should say that to Hermione."

Draco nodded. "Yeah, I suppose so."

_Swallow your pride,_ he told himself. _It's the least you can do._ Draco wasn't used to making apologies, but he expected he did owe them to a few people. _It just seems like this is all happening so fast!_

"This is a bit weird, isn't it?" Harry laughed, stretching in his chair.

"Huh?" Draco said eloquently, startled from his thoughts.

"Us, talking like this," clarified Harry. "Two days ago neither of us knew we were related and we hated each other. Now we've been sitting here nearly half an hour, and no one's been hexed. It's bloody strange."

"I was just thinking something like that. You don't think we're going to start having twins' intuition and finishing each other's sentences and all that rot?"

Harry looked alarmed. "Merlin, I hope not! It's eerie enough seeing Fred and George do it."

Draco whole-heartedly agreed.

He scooted his chair back over to the end of the long table that stretched close to the hearth and plunked his elbows down. He ducked his head and regarded Harry beneath half-lidded eyes. "I'm glad, actually. To be a Potter, and…to have a brother."

Harry raised an eyebrow at the unexpected statement. He wondered if Draco had been mulling over his first question the entire time they'd been talking.

"Really? You said you didn't hate it, but I thought you'd still be a bit upset—you've kind of lost your parents, haven't you?"

"I don't miss Lucius one bit. I wasn't ever more than a means to an end to him. My mother…I dunno. I never saw too much of her. She was always pretty busy with her social engagements." Draco's eyes glazed over, looking into his past. "I think she cared in her own way, but she wasn't the type to get overly emotional. Weasley and Granger's mothers are pretty amazing, aren't they? I always wondered what it would be like to have a mother like that."

Draco's voice had been soft, and Harry was sure he was hearing things Draco'd never told to anyone else. He felt like he was at last seeing his brother clearly. He was very aware of his hopes for finding family in Draco, but now he realised that Draco might be hoping for the exact same thing from him.

"Yeah," whispered Harry. "I've wondered that too."

Both of them suddenly bashful, they watched the crackling of the low fire in silence.

The last minutes of sunrise ticked by in a comfortable quiet.

Neither of them even moved when a creak from the floor above indicated that the house was coming to life.

"Oh!" Mrs. Weasley gasped and put her hand over her heart when she came down the stairs to start breakfast cooking and saw the two boys sitting there.

"Harry! Draco! What are you doing up so early? You gave me quite a fright! I hope you haven't been fighting," she admonished them sternly. "It seems to me you'll both be better off when you can learn to get on like proper brothers."

The boys exchanged smiles. Common ground had been established. They had a feeling it wasn't going to be a problem anymore.

By the time the rest of the household made it down for breakfast, Draco and Harry had been recruited as Mrs. Weasley's helpers, and between them, a hot breakfast was laid at the table.

The other Gryffindor students were hesitant when Draco sat down next to Harry, and conversation was awkward at first, but soon they were chatting casually together. Ron remained wary, concentrating mainly on his plate, but when Draco made an offhand mention of the Falmouth Falcons' League standings, they were off and running, debating Quidditch tactics enthusiastically.

None of them paid much attention when an owl swept in and dropped the day's Daily Prophet in front of Hermione.

"The Falcons have a top team this year, anyone can see that," Draco was arguing. "The Wasps are as brilliant as always, but they're going to have to step it up if they think they can get the Cup again without a fight from—"

"Oh bloody hell!"

All talk at the table stopped as faces turned towards Hermione, who was staring open-mouthed at the front page of the Prophet.

"Hermione?" Ron blinked. "Did you just curse?"

Hermione shot a quick glance of disapproval at Ron, but flipped the paper around and held it up so they could all see. "Take a look at this!"

Emblazoned in enormous black letters right across the top was the headline:

_DRACO MALFOY: THE LOST BROTHER OF HARRY POTTER?_

"Oh no," Harry gasped in dismay.

Sirius sprang to his feet and snatched the paper from Hermione. "Let me see that!"

He began scanning the article.

"Who could have told them?" Ginny cried.

"I'll give you three guesses." Draco's face was pale and twisted in fury.

Harry stared at him. "You mean…Mr. Malfoy? But why announce it like that?"

"I ran," Draco shrugged simply. "He used to control me, and I'm not letting him anymore. If he and the Dark Lord can't use me like they wanted, he's going to make damn sure I know he can still manipulate my future. Lucius doesn't know exactly where I'm hiding, but he's probably made a good guess as to who I'm with. There's no way he would risk us releasing this information on our own terms."

Sirius let out a snort, and they looked up.

"What is it, Sirius?" Hermione asked.

"I don't think Draco's assessment is far off," he replied. "Listen to this: _'Our source has revealed that the late Lily Potter had twins on the night Wizarding Saviour Harry Potter was born. The Potters, being concerned with safeguarding two sons in those turbulent times, gave over the second-born boy to family friends Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy for adoption. The Malfoys were happy to raise the unwanted child as their own.'_" Sirius snorted again. "Family friends indeed! And _unwanted_? Do they honestly think anyone will believe that?"

"Certainly not anyone who knew the Potters," Mrs. Weasley huffed. "What a cruel lie!"

"_The 'unnamed source' goes on to say that the Malfoys have just gently broken the news to their adopted son. They were concerned what effect an unstable boy like Harry Potter might have on the character of fine young Draco, but Draco, determined to reunite with his brother, ran away from home to seek him out. The Malfoys are sick with worry, and request that anyone knowing the location of their son alert the Ministry_," read Sirius sarcastically.

"They're just trying to smoke him out!" Hermione said in dismay.

"Can we do anything about this?" Harry had plenty of experience dealing with the lies printed in the Daily Prophet, but he was concerned about how Draco would react to them.

Draco was irate. Things between him and Harry had just been settled, and now this. He was still worrying about how the recent discoveries would affect going back to Hogwarts, and now, thanks to a few galleons slipped into the right palm at the Prophet, the entire Wizarding world knew he was Harry's brother.

Remus took the paper from Sirius and read through the article himself. "I think we need to contact Dumbledore," he said.

Ron leaned over towards Harry. "Do you suppose you could have Rita Skeeter write the truth in another article for The Quibbler? Hey, Hermione—"

Harry never heard the rest of Ron's sentence, for just then stars exploded in front of his eyes as his scar gave a tremendous throb of stinging pain.

He faintly heard Ginny cry his name next to him as he clenched his eyes shut and waves of dizziness escorted him into the darkness of unconsciousness.

"_Do you have good news for me, Macnair?" Harry hissed, glowering down at the robed Death Eater genuflecting before him. His chest felt tight with anger and hate._

"_My lord, no one's been able to locate him yet," the Death Eater said reluctantly._

_Harry's face contorted in rage and he wrenched the wand he held in long, thin fingers in a slashing motion in front of him. Macnair crumpled to the ground writhing in pain. His mask fell away to reveal his moustachioed face…and little trails of blood that trickled from the corners of his eyes and mouth. He did not rise, but continued to emit muffled groans._

_Harry looked towards another Death Eater standing in the rear of the room. "Lucius," he called, "I seem to be having more trouble with your Potter brat than you promised me."_

_Lucius Malfoy moved forward and knelt, yet he looked Harry directly in the eye. "I assure you, my lord, he will not be allowed to become a threat to you."_

"_Ah, you have a plan, then? How exciting."_

"_Yes, master. I believe Dumbledore is hiding him somewhere, but he will be vulnerable soon. With your permission, I will send several Death Eaters to—"_

"Harry!"

Harry felt himself being shaken, and slowly prised his eyes open to see several faces swimming above him. He must have collapsed backwards off his chair, because he seemed to be lying on the stone floor. Remus was behind him, and helped him move into a sitting position.

He became aware that Mrs. Weasley and Sirius were beside him as well when Mrs Weasley pressed a cool cloth over his inflamed scar, and Sirius thrust a glass of water into his hands and told him to drink.

His friends' faces floated in front of him.

"Did you have a vision?" Hermione was asking.

Harry tried to nod, but the motion made his eyes cross, so he said yes instead.

"It's okay, Harry, don't try to move too quickly if you're not ready," Ginny spoke soothingly from his right side. She was clutching his arm.

It occurred to him that the only person he didn't see fluttering about him was Draco.

No sooner did he have the thought than he heard his brother's voice.

"What—"

Harry looked over to see Draco standing a couple paces from the hovering group.

Draco had a hand to his temple, and his eyes were squeezed shut. He shook his head as if trying to clear it and opened his eyes, which widened gradually as he stared at Harry. He cleared his throat and started again.

"What the _hell_ was _that?_"

Harry gawped at him. _Did Draco see that too?_ He wondered. It seemed so, but Harry wasn't sure how it was possible.

"Calling Dumbledore is a good idea," Harry rasped, without unlocking his gaze from Draco's. "I think we have more than one problem to discuss."

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_If every person that reads this story reviewed it just once, I would be a very happy author!_


	8. Chapter 8

**Thou Shalt Get Kings**

Sorry for the long wait—I've recently started a new job, and it doesn't leave me a lot of free time. I wish getting this done and posting new chapters was my only obligation, but alas, my real life is a busy one. It's taken me a while to get all the editing finished on this, but I tend to spend my lunch hours writing, so the result is this monster of a chapter. Enjoy!

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**Chapter Eight**

IN VERY SHORT order, Dumbledore had been summoned, and only a moment later, he was in the kitchen at Grimmauld Place—without Snape this time. Sirius immediately drew the Headmaster into a corner and told him everything he could of what had happened. By then Harry had recovered from the painful vision, so once Dumbledore had spoken with Sirius, the Headmaster drew Harry aside and had him recount what he'd seen.

Draco had stood quietly out of the way. He wasn't entirely sure what was going on, but he knew it had something to do with Voldemort and the splitting pain that had ripped through his skull when Harry had collapsed.

The pain had been sharp and sudden—more intense than the worst headache he'd ever had. His vision had blurred and he'd had to shut his eyes tightly against the accompanying dizziness. The pain had increased for one agonizingly long second, and the face of Voldemort had flashed in front of him, as if burnt on the inside of his eyelids, and then…then it was gone as if it had never existed, and he had opened his eyes to see everyone hovering over Harry, who was sitting on the floor. People started babbling about visions and calling the Headmaster, but Draco had only been able to stare in confusion at his brother, and wonder what in the world had just happened. Had he really seen the Dark Lord, or had that been his imagination? He felt a cold shiver roll over him. Voldemort's face had been twisted with terrible rage, and when he thought about it, he had the uncomfortable feeling that that rage had been directed at _him_.

Harry had finished with Dumbledore and now was back at the table, picking at the remains of his breakfast. Every now and then Mrs. Weasley urged him to eat, but he hadn't done much more than push the food around on his plate.

The Daily Prophet that had caused so much uproar lay forgotten on a chair.

Draco sat down opposite Harry next to Ron, as Ginny had plunked herself in his chair at Harry's side and shoved Draco's plate across the table to him. Draco didn't touch it. He, like Harry, had abandoned the idea of breakfast.

Fully up to date now, Dumbledore took a seat at the head of the table. He cleared his throat once, and everyone in assembly stilled.

Harry wondered why Dumbledore wasn't insisting on a private meeting, but then looked around the table. Ginny, Ron, Hermione, Draco, Neville, Luna, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Sirius, and Remus…Harry realized they were all people who were fully trustworthy…even Draco. And surely Dumbledore knew if he tried to kick the DA members out, Harry would tell them everything anyway.

Everyone waited for Dumbledore to begin, but their attention turned to incredulity as the Headmaster neatly flipped his long beard over one shoulder to reveal a plump drawstring bag hung on a cord round his neck. He removed the pouch and teased it open, examined the contents, and then reached in and withdrew a yellow candy. He tipped the bag in silent offering towards Luna, who was seated closest to him near the end of the table, and she took one of the proffered lemon drops and tucked it into the folds of the knotted scarf she was wearing as a belt.

"Very wise," Dumbledore approved. "As you can see, I am forever trying to find a convenient place to keep them safely."

The bag was passed about, and everyone who was inclined to selected a lemon drop. Dumbledore replaced the bag around his neck and settled his beard back into place.

He steepled his fingers in front of him, now content to begin. "Harry has described his vision for me, but before I share any of it, I would like to ask you, Draco, what you experienced?"

"Probably just faking to get attention," Ron muttered under his breath.

Obviously he wasn't ready to be completely gracious. Hermione berated him with an elbow to his ribs.

Draco really wanted to retaliate with some sort of snarky comment, but Dumbledore was peering at him expectantly, so with nothing more than a glare at the thick-headed Gryffindor, he turned away haughtily and directed his attention down the table to the Headmaster.

"It was like pictures flashing in my head," he tried to explain. "I think I saw Voldemort, and maybe a dark room for just a second. That's all I know, except that it really hurt. It felt . . . intense." He looked at Harry. "Did you see that too?"

His brother gave a kind of terse nod.

Sirius scrutinised Harry's face. "Except I think you saw a bit more, didn't you?"

Dumbledore answered for the young wizard. "He did indeed."

Draco squinted. "This is to do with that prophecy thing you mentioned before, isn't it?"

"In a way," Dumbledore acquiesced. "Your brother's scar connects him to Voldemort."

Harry squirmed uncomfortably in his seat as Draco looked at the scar like he was really examining it for the first time.

"When Voldemort is experiencing strong emotions, Harry is occasionally privy to what he is doing, seeing, and feeling through this link."

"Like looking out of his eyes and hearing what he hears?"

"Precisely."

Neville looked horrified. This was the first time he'd heard the details of Harry's connection to You-Know-Who. No wonder his dorm-mate had nightmares.

Ginny had clutched Harry's hand and was squeezing it tightly. Draco knew enough about Harry to know that he probably hated people showing him pity or having attention drawn to the more unusual aspects of his life, but Harry didn't pull his hand away. Draco smirked. The school rumour mill had the youngest Weasley spending time in broom closets with Dean Thomas, but he wouldn't be surprised if that didn't last much longer.

"Okay," allowed Draco. "I understand that, but why did I catch the show? Even if only part of it?"

"Harry and Voldemort's connection is a variable that hasn't been seen before," Dumbledore mused, "but I believe we're seeing the result of something fairly simple. The twin bond."

"The what?"

It came from both Harry and Draco together.

"Many muggles believe that twins have a special connection with one another. When the magical gifts of Wizarding twins are brought into the picture, that bond becomes more significant. Of course, it varies with each pair of siblings. Some are never overtly influenced by it, while some magical twins feel indescribably close and become quite inseparable. There have even been twins who claim such a strong magical bond that they say they can feel one another's pain and communicate telepathically."

"So that's how Fred and George do it!" Ron exclaimed. "I _knew_ they had to be reading each other's minds or something like that!"

Mrs. Weasley shook her head. "No dear, the twins aren't telepathic. They just have a very close bond."

"To have a bond that strong is rare indeed," Dumbledore asserted.

"But you think Draco and I have one like that?" Harry blinked.

"Not necessarily—and quite frankly it's not very likely. You do have a bond, that's clear, but I believe it was the intensity of Voldemort's feelings in your mind that allowed Draco his glimpse. The stronger your emotions, the more easily they are shared through the bond."

"Why hasn't it ever happened before?" asked Draco.

"The same spell that disguised you was likely suppressing it. If it happens again for any reason, don't resist it. It could be a great asset in times of trouble."

Without knowing it, Harry and Draco were in fact having the same thought.

_As if our lives could get any more complicated._

Hermione looked thoughtful. "I understand why Draco felt the effects of Harry's vision, but Harry, what did you see?"

Harry scratched at the wood grain in the table in front of him. "Not much," he murmured. "Voldemort, Lucius Malfoy, and a Death Eater called Macnair. They…weren't happy about losing Draco. Voldemort wants him back, and Malfoy said he had a plan"

Dumbledore looked seriously through his half-moon glasses over everyone in the room. The twinkle in his eyes even dimmed a bit. "Tom is angry that his plans have been foiled, that is clear. There will be retribution, and Harry's vision tells us that we may expect it sooner rather than later."

"But we have no idea what or when it may come," Remus clarified.

Sirius snorted. "It'll be devious and evil, and it'll happen when it's most inconvenient. Does it really matter? We'll be watching. The bloody tosser won't be laying one slimy hand on Draco again."

Molly frowned at Sirius' language but didn't say anything. Ginny raised her eyebrow at the black-haired Animagus. "Do you mean You-Know-Who's slimy hand or Malfoy's?"

"Either," he grinned. "They're both tossers."

A few light laughs dispelled some of the tension in the room, but Hermione still looked solemn. "Voldemort doesn't have a use for Draco anymore, does he?" she softly asked. "He just wants him dead. Like Harry."

Gloom descended again as Draco paled. No one seemed to want to answer until Remus sighed.

"Yes," he acquiesced. "That's likely the case."

Sirius ran a suddenly weary hand over his face and bowed forward in his chair. Harry watched his godfather. He'd spent enough time with the man to notice that Sirius adopted the light-hearted and teasing personality of his youth to cover his stress and worry on occasion. Sirius took the safety of James' son, now sons, very personally, ever since he'd escaped from Azkaban and had an opportunity to do so. It was one reason Harry was reluctant to share the full details of the prophecy – how would Sirius deal with knowing Harry was the one who had to fight Voldemort in the end? And now Voldemort was gunning for Draco as well. No wonder their godfather was trying to keep up a brave front.

Dumbledore frowned. "I fear we shall need to exercise greater caution in the coming weeks. Even were we lacking the insight of young Harry's vision, we would expect Voldemort's anger over losing Draco—still, it appears now that the Death Eaters' retaliation will be swift. I suggest taking several Aurors with you to retrieve the children's school things, and not allowing anyone to wander away alone whilst you shop. Hopefully they will not be so bold as to attack in such a public area, but Diagon Alley is where the boys will be most vulnerable until they return to Hogwarts."

"Chaperones?" Harry looked dismayed, but then his face relaxed in resignation. "I guess so."

Draco wondered if Dumbledore had really been giving Harry any choice in the matter, but Harry looked like he'd objected in similar situations in the past, and was beginning to resign himself to being looked after—at least for now.

"Now," announced Dumbledore, pulling his own copy of the Daily Prophet from within his robes, "I knew we would have some decisions to make regarding Draco's return to the school, but it seems that at least part of the matter has been taken from our hands."

It was with an abrupt twist of dread in his stomach that Draco recalled what had caused such a fuss before Harry's debilitating vision. The Daily Prophet had revealed his new identity to the entire wizarding world.

"How could they print that?" He asked angrily. "Couldn't we get them to say they lied?"

"What for?" wondered Harry. "It's true that we're brothers."

"I _know_, but—" Draco let out a frustrated breath and tipped his chair back on two legs, feeling incensed without knowing exactly at whom or how to put it into words. "Oh! That other stuff about the Malfoys taking me in out of the goodness of their hearts; that was a lie. And it's not anyone's business anyway!"

He punctuated his annoyance by letting his chair slam back onto four legs with a bang.

Remus stepped away from the hearth, his arms crossed, but a sympathetic look on his face.

"You have every right to be upset, Draco. It's awful to have your personal life printed for the public."

Harry snorted in full agreement of this, and Remus continued.

"But I think in the long run it's just as well that we let the article go uncontested."

"Uncontested?" Draco sounded puzzled.

"Remus has a point, Mr. Potter."

Draco and Harry both blinked and took a moment to deal with the strangeness of hearing Draco addressed that way, then re-focused on Dumbledore.

"As your identity has already been 'outed,' as I believe the Muggles say, it spares us the difficulty of deciding whether to return you to school as Jacob Potter, Draco Malfoy, or with some other entirely new disguise to protect you. I think it is best now that you remain officially Harry's long lost brother …remain family." Dumbledore's eyes were twinkling once again.

"Wait, Professor," cut in Hermione. "You mean you could have made him look like a Malfoy again?"

The former Malfoy's eyes widened at the question. It was a possibility he hadn't really considered, and he eagerly looked to the Headmaster for the answer.

Harry was frowning at the idea of it, imagining his twin blonde and cruel once more, despite knowing that they were brothers.

"It would be possible, of course," Dumbledore mused. "With a bit of effort we could devise glamours to mask Draco's real features with the illusion of his former appearance. However, they would need to be very powerful, and therefore would have to be renewed daily. Very inconvenient. We would never be able to reproduce the more permanent familial glamours that were used to disguise him the first time. Those must be cast by the person whose genetics the spells are meant to mimic, and must be sealed with a drop of their blood, willingly given. In other words, only Lucius Malfoy could renew those particular charms."

As the others nodded in understanding, and Harry looked relieved for some reason, Draco wondered if he should be disappointed. He was still startled for a minute whenever he caught a glimpse of his reflection, and he suspected it would be a little while longer before that tendency completely faded away. Surely it would have been a relief to have his old familiar face back?

He'd always been quite pleased with his Malfoy good looks, and he didn't have a problem admitting it. Not that he was exactly lacking in the looks department now—his biological father _had_ been rather handsome.

At any rate, it appeared he would be going back to school just as he was. Might as well embrace it. He decided to make his thoughts known.

"If everyone knows now anyways, I don't want to put charms on every day. I'm a Potter now, and I don't want to go back."

Draco said this very decisively, and although most people in the room exhibited no surprise, Ron's mouth dropped open and snapped closed again. Until now, he'd supposed Draco would have jumped at the chance to return to his Malfoy lifestyle. Maybe Harry'd been right, and he had misjudged the situation.

"I must say, I'm glad to hear it," said Dumbledore cheerfully. "Unless you have any objections, you will be added to the Hogwarts rolls as Jacob Evan Potter. Of course, your friends may refer to you in whatever way you feel most comfortable with, but for the purposes of our professors, you will be Mr. Potter."

So that was it. Draco Malfoy, as he had been, would never again enter Hogwarts.

"Will I need to be resorted?" Draco asked uncertainly.

"That won't be necessary. You may have grown and changed since the Sorting Hat first put you in Slytherin, but the experiences you've had up until recently in your life will always remain a part of who you are. If you were to be sorted now you may still be in Slytherin, or you may not. But even those students whose lives are not radically altered are likely to be fundamentally different from their first year to their sixth. Though we may not want to admit it when Quidditch season comes around, there is a little bit of each house in all of us."

Harry thought about his own sorting and how the hat had mentioned qualities Harry had that fell in with each of the houses, especially Slytherin. For perhaps the first time, he realized that if he _had_ been put in Slytherin, it would not have meant he was a bad person. What was the first defining characteristic of Slytherins? Being ambitious? Most people would consider that a virtue. It certainly wasn't evil. Maybe it made one more vulnerable to the lure of power, no matter who offered it, but hadn't Wormtail—a Gryffindor—fallen victim to that same desire?

Harry had a brother in Slytherin now—a brother who had turned out to be capable of formulating a boatload of opinions that didn't fall in line with Voldemort's. …Maybe Harry ought to consider giving more Slytherins the benefit of the doubt. How many had joined the Death Eaters for lack of a better option?

He'd have to talk to Draco about it.

Harry looked up and wondered if Dumbledore knew what he was thinking about.

The headmaster had that twinkle in his eye and a pleased expression on his face—probably already imagining a Hogwarts with complete house unity led by Harry and Draco. Perhaps Harry was starting to understand Slytherins a bit more, but he wasn't yet as optimistic.

"Well then," Sirius chirped brightly, "Now that we know how much danger the boys are in, and what name everyone's meant to be called by, how about a trip to Diagon Alley for school things?"

Before anyone could rise from the table in agreement, a sharp rebuke stayed them.

"Sirius Black!" snapped Mrs. Weasley. "Did you not just hear Professor Dumbledore say we have to be careful! We can't just let the children waltz into Diagon Alley to be attacked!"

Mrs. Weasley happened to be standing behind Ginny's chair, and she clutched her daughter's shoulders protectively as she said this. Ginny made a pained face and squirmed lower in her seat, trying to loosen her mother's grip.

Sirius didn't look daunted by the reminder of danger, and was nearly hopping up and down with impatience. Harry suspected someone had told his godfather about Fred and George's new shop.

"I believe what Dumbledore said was that we should make sure no one goes anywhere unescorted. We have a room full of competent adults, including Aurors, which I think would make a pretty splendid escort party."

"That's right!" Ron blurted out indignantly. "And stop calling us children. You make it sound like we all just got done wearing nappies or something. S'not like our lives have been peril-free up to now. We can handle a shopping trip!"

"Ron's right, I think we've all proved we can handle ourselves—and we know Draco knows plenty of hexes," Harry smirked at his brother. "He's used most of them on us."

Draco made a face.

"The point is, just let Voldemort himself go ahead and attack!"

Harry sounded very bold, but to those who knew him well, his eyes held plenty of tension. Dumbledore eyed the young wizard, concerned about how the boy he had come to care for was dealing with his knowledge of the prophecy.

Mrs. Weasley looked like she wanted to object, as if she wished she could prevent her children from ever appearing in public as long as there were Death Eaters living, but Mr. Weasley stepped in and spoke up.

"The students do need supplies, Molly," he said calmly. "We can't exactly send them off to school empty handed."

Molly looked to Dumbledore for support, her worry clear in her expression. The venerable professor addressed the Weasley matriarch, but his eyes were still on Harry.

"Children grow up, Molly." He said affectionately. "Though we wish we could protect them always, the world creeps in and takes them from us. We merely must be proud at how capable these seven have already proven themselves to be. Take them to Diagon Alley, stay together, and keep your eyes open. I will be returning to Hogwarts myself, but a speedy message by Patronus will bring me to you at once if you encounter trouble."

Ron obviously considered Dumbledore's word to be law, because he gave a whoop and pounded up the stairs to retrieve his small stash of sickles.

No one argued any more, so as Mrs. Weasley kept frowning, and Dumbledore said his goodbyes and departed, Harry, Draco and the rest followed Ron at a more sedate pace.

* * *

Even after the claims that they were ready for anything, Draco felt a little nervous entering the most popular British Wizarding marketplace.

He was part of an enormous group consisting of Order-Members-on-duty Mad-Eye Moody and an excitable wizard called Dedalus Diggle, Remus (as Draco was trying to get used to calling his former professor), Mrs. Weasley and Mr. Weasley—off work as it was a Saturday—Harry, Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Neville, Luna, and lastly, Sirius Black in dog form, as he had absolutely put his foot down against being left behind and could not be dissuaded. No one had raised too great a fuss at this issue, but Draco noticed Remus and Harry casually attempting to keep Sirius between them.

In the end, the large party was the very definition of safety in numbers, so Draco thought his nerves were less about the Death Eater threat, and more to do with the stares and whispers that had swept like a wave through the Leaky Cauldron the moment the two identical Potters had stepped out of the fireplace. Draco'd felt a flare of embarrassment at being seen in the company of so many Gryffindors. The superior scowl that bloomed on his face felt defensive. So, Potter or not, his pride was undiminished, at least.

He noticed that the two gossiping witches from the other night were still huddled over their corner table, and wondered briefly if they ever left. Surreptitious glances to either side of the pub revealed that at least no one in his year was there.

The group managed to ignore the pub's curious patrons and to make its way out the back of the Leaky Cauldron and through the wall by the rubbish bins into Diagon Alley with minimal crowding and stepping on of toes.

Diagon Alley didn't look quite as cheerful a place as they all remembered.

The shoppers—fewer than usual—all seemed to be scuttling along against the storefronts, slipping in and out of the doorway openings nervously. This did not appear to be because they were window shopping as much as that they preferred staying in the corners rather than moving freely down the centre of the street.

The Wizarding population had been dealt a nasty shock when finally faced with the truth of Voldemort's return, and now most witches and wizards were being much more cautious when out in public. Harry scoffed inwardly at the futility of supposing a public street was the only place one could be in danger from Voldemort.

Harry and his companions were too large of a group to slide unnoticed along the shadows of the shops' eaves and awnings. Staying close together, however, they moved as one and made their way to each of the necessary stores.

Mrs. Weasley, still displeased with what she saw as a foolhardy outing, was determined to hurry everyone through their shopping as quickly as it could be done. She immediately herded anyone that strayed or dawdled back into the group and onto task. There was grumbling, but as none could truthfully claim that she had no reason to worry, they let themselves be corralled and sped along. They trundled from one shop to the next, their arms filling with paper-wrapped packages. Mad Eye limped along a few paces ahead of the troop, and his muttering to himself about likely places for ambushes and his wildly swivelling false eye may have been the best defence they had, against at least curious onlookers, for fellow shoppers stepped out of their way just to avoid him.

As the day's shopping wore on, however, and there was nary a Death Eater in sight, even Mrs. Weasley began to relax. It was when they stepped out of Madam Malkin's after waiting wearily for nearly an hour while Ginny was fitted for new robes that Draco groaned at remembering that the specialty kit of ingredients sixth year students had been required to order for Advanced Potions was of course being owl-delivered to Malfoy Manor. He would need to stop into the apothecary for a new set.

The other sixth years going into the class had already gotten their orders, so when Draco announced his need to buy the potions supplies, Mrs. Weasley looked reluctantly from Draco to the rest of the very tired and hungry shoppers.

"It's alright, Molly," offered Remus. "How about I go with Draco while the rest of you head on back to the Leaky Cauldron for lunch? There's no sense in all of us traipsing back down the street."

"Just you and the boy, Lupin?" Mad-Eye barked. "With who knows how many of You-Know-Who's minions lurking about?"

Surprisingly, it was an exhausted Mrs. Weasley that relented. "They'll be alright, Alastor," she conceded. "It's just a quick trip down the Alley and back, and Remus can handle himself. We'll meet back at the Cauldron."

"And then to Fred and George's after lunch, right, Mum?" Ginny asked hopefully. They had been eyeing the busy store with the garish orange sign all day.

"Fine, dear. After lunch."

Draco and Remus broke away from the others and the two parties headed in opposite directions.

As they hurried down the street, it occurred to Draco that it was the first time he'd been on his own with the soft-spoken werewolf. He watched Lupin surreptitiously before he got up the nerve to blurt, "I'm sorry about the stuff I said about you when you were teaching—after everyone found out about...you know, you being a werewolf and all."

Remus looked at him, startled, and then smiled. "Don't worry about it, Draco. But thank you for your apology."

Draco gave a short nod and they continued walking through the hazy sunshine in silence for a minute.

"You know," began Remus gently, "Sirius and I both love you very much. And we knew your father and mother probably better than anyone else did. I know they would be very proud of you, Jacob."

Draco had no time to think of how he should respond to being addressed that way, for Remus' tone lightened and he announced cheerfully, "Ah. Here we are."

They were indeed standing at the door of the Apothecary. Draco opened the door, which gave an aching creak even as a tiny bell jingled. Lupin touched his shoulder before he entered, and he turned to see the older man regarding the threshold with trepidation.

"The full moon is next week," the werewolf confided. "Do you mind if I wait for you here just outside? The smells of all those potions and ingredients will give me a headache."

"Sure," Draco agreed. "I'll be fine."

The young wizard stepped into the cool, dim shop, letting the door groan and jingle shut behind him. He wandered slowly through the tall shelves that made a maze of the small emporium, looking curiously at some of the rarer ingredients for sale. He rounded the last of the shelves to reach the counter at the back of the store and froze.

There stood a Death Eater.

One he was not at all keen to confront. It was Professor Snape.

He wondered if it was too late to retreat, but the shopkeeper had looked up at his approach, causing Snape to turn and notice him there.

"Mr. Potter," he greeted with a stoic half-nod.

Draco swallowed. The professor seemed intimidating in a way he never had before, taller than Draco remembered him from his Malfoy-disguised height—a pillar of draping black robes topped with narrowed eyes. "Um, it's me, professor. I mean, Draco."

Snape pursed his lips. "Yes. Of course."

Draco's face burned and he started to wish that he had just run out of the store despite Snape seeing him. The Potions professor had always been his favourite teacher, and he hated feeling so uncertain in front of him. He willed himself to move forward to the counter. He placed his order with the proprietor quickly and without looking at Snape. Maybe it was the lack of eye contact that made him bold.

Every subtle question he'd been trying to devise in order to probe Snape's feelings flew from his head. Instead, to his embarrassment, he blurted, "Do you hate me now . . .sir?"

He immediately cringed and wished he hadn't asked it.

If Draco had been able to see Snape's face he may have taken some pleasure in seeing the expression of shock and frustration that betrayed just how ruffled the man was at the unexpected query.

Snape was quite uncomfortable, and did not want to admit how confused over that very question he had been since the Death Eater meeting at Malfoy Manor.

Draco was shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other, awaiting an answer—afraid to hear what it was, but needing to know the truth.

"I do not…hate you," Snape finally said with difficulty, feeling foolish. "However distasteful the truth of you birth may be. Snape was unable to keep quite all of the disdain from his tone.

Draco looked relieved; it was clear that his professor was not fully at ease, but it wasn't an outright rejection. He felt like as long as he knew that Snape was as conflicted as he was that the residual animosity between Snape and the Potters wouldn't be as hard to take.

"I was worried a bit," he babbled, "I mean, you don't like Potters much, and now…with everything…"

With keen inference borne of years of being a spy, Snape realized what the boy was seeking was assurance that his changing identity didn't mean that he was losing everything in his old life. But Snape couldn't be sure that wasn't true. How could his relationship with this student possibly be unaffected? He'd spent too many years hating the Potters with every ounce of emotion that he could spare—bottling up everything else. Just a glance at a Draco now sparked that loathing to life.

It was only because Snape considered himself an intelligent man that he could make the effort to suppress that automatic reaction. He knew that Draco suffered from a lack of trustworthy mentors in his life, and underneath the exterior, this was the same child that he'd protected through the last five years of Hogwarts. In respect of that knowledge…well, Snape could make an effort.

"My favour for you remains, Mr. Potter, as a student and as a member of my own house. Perhaps I must rethink laying my feelings towards James Potter against his…sons." He choked out, not sure he felt as resolved as he sounded, but offering what he could to the boy he really did care for.

Draco nodded, sensing that Snape was putting an end to the matter.

"Thank you, professor," he finished politely. "I'll see you back at school."

The shopkeeper returned to the counter with Draco's wrapped purchase. Draco handed over one galleon and seven sickles in payment, and returned to the street with one last half-bow of goodbye to Snape. He found Lupin pacing under the shop's hanging sign.

"Finally! I was about to go in after you!" Remus told him. "Did you have any trouble?"

Draco looked through the shop window, where he could just see Snape still conversing or haggling with the shopkeeper. He allowed himself a small smile.

"No. No trouble at all."

* * *

Snape's mind was half on convincing the unimpressed merchant that selling pre-sliced boomslang skin was catering to laziness _and_ a poor business practice, as the skin was only at full potency immediately after being sliced, and half on the short but significant conversation he had just had with his favourite student.

From the moment he'd seen Draco's true face revealed, Snape hadn't had time to digest much. He'd raced about with Lucius on their hunt for the boy until the end of the search had him going directly to Dumbledore and then with the Headmaster to the Order Headquarters yesterday evening. At last he had been allowed to return home to Spinner's End, but then, as tired as he had been, he could not fall asleep. His mind was too full of the memory of watching the face of Lucius Malfoy's son melt away in favour of that of the progeny of James Potter. Severus found Lucius to be a distasteful sort of person, but within the constraints and pretences of his spying they had managed a wavering, distrusting sort of mutual respect.

He got on reasonably better with proud Narcissa, which might be because she knew that he too despised her cousin Sirius. She had encouraged her "son" to seek him out at school, and at first Snape had been annoyed, and secretly wished to wring the neck of the spoilt brat. Then Draco had decided Snape was his favourite teacher and began taking advantage of Snape's position as his Head of House to come to him for guidance or help with his schoolwork, and Snape had realized that the boy was really quite intelligent, and not so annoying when not surrounded by his peers. Snape had decided not to deter him. The Malfoys_ were_ powerful, so having the favour of their heir was a wise move, and it pleased him that favouring Draco got under Harry's skin.

After Voldemort's return, it became about using Draco to keep tabs on what Lucius was up to, but somewhere along the line the professor began to recognize in his student a young man that was being shunted along a path that only ended at the heel of the Dark Lord, and he wondered if he would ever have the opportunity to direct Draco away from that life—subtly, of course.

And now the young wizard no longer needed any help in that regard. He had made his decision, and it wasn't what Lucius had imagined for his ward. Except Snape had never suspected that things would have transpired the way they did. Draco was a Malfoy, and he cared for him in his own way. Harry was a Potter, and for that sin there was no redemption.

But Draco was a Potter too.

Could he hate this young man now, knowing it would be punishing Draco for nothing more than who his parents were? And if he didn't hold that heritage against Draco, could he continue holding it against Harry?

He tried to tell himself that his every action towards Harry Potter from their first meeting was justified. Before the fateful Death Eater meeting, that surely had been without question. James Potter had treated him abominably, and Snape's quest for payback, even after the man had gone to his grave, was all-consuming, and certainly both understandable and excusable.

Yes. The fault could not have been his. Harry Potter was a spoiled good-for-nothing.

And then he was seeing Draco's transformation again in his mind. But no, his hatred certainly couldn't be tied to a simple physical resemblance between a boy and his father.

He knew he'd been deluding himself.

He wished he didn't.

Snape had tossed and turned, revaluating for the first time what it was about Harry that really drove him to a fury. Harry did not respect him, that was true, and the boy wizard was reckless, and made no secret of his dislike for the Potions professor and Head of Slytherin House. But who hated whom first?

In all honesty, Snape knew he had begun the feud himself, when he remembered the nervous first year he had come down on so hard in Harry's first Potions class. Seeing the boy in front of him, living, while Lily did not, had enraged him. Besides, he had hated James Potter, Lily had chosen James, and Harry was the proof of it. Now Draco was as well.

Still…he'd known Draco a long time, and could not now treat the boy ill. Applying the same restraint to Harry, however repugnant an idea it was, would perhaps come slowly—it would take time to adapt to seeing the boy without prejudice—his loathing came to him as an almost physical reaction at the mere sight of the teen—but Snape, above all other things, was a man of discipline. He couldn't bear to find weak-minded traits in himself that he despised in others.

He_ would _adapt.

* * *

Back at the Leaky Cauldron, the others had commandeered a long table. Food had been ordered and was just arriving, so Draco and Remus tucked in with everyone else.

The mood was light-hearted; they were having a splendid time and there had been no attack. Draco was encouraged to find that the conversation flowed even easier than it had at breakfast, as the others were getting used to having him around. Determined to make an effort, Draco tried to take the same approach with Ron as had seemed to work that morning, and a few comments on the newest accessories they had seen in Quidditch Quality Supplies had the ball rolling and Ron, while a little cautious, was soon behaving as if they had always been friends. Where the youngest of the Weasley sons was concerned, Quidditch could work miracles.

Hermione had bought a book on ancient family charms and was quizzing Draco for everything he had experienced when the family glamour had been lifted. Neville still seemed a bit nervous around Draco, but that could have just been his personality, and Luna … well, no one could really be sure if Luna noticed _any_ of them were there. Ginny and Harry seemed the most laid back. He and Harry had managed to move past most of their issues thanks to their morning conversation, and Ginny was quite willing to accept Draco and move on.

After lunch was cleared and the last tumbler emptied of butterbeer, Ginny held her mother to her promise to let them visit Fred and George's new shop.

They trooped back into Diagon Alley and towards Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes, Sirius bounding ahead, forcing Remus to call him back repeatedly with a sharp "Snuffles!"

When they moved through the doorway, Mrs. Weasley looked startled at the crowds squeezed into the cramped building. This shop was bustling with activity where others had been quiet and empty. She swept her gaze across the people eagerly pouring over the shelves and counters filled with brightly coloured candies, packages, and gag toys, until she spotted Fred and George, dressed in outlandish matching outfits and fielding customers. Her mouth opened in a small 'o' and something like pride began to cross her face.

Mr. Weasley was openly beaming, and the way Sirius was quivering, it was clear he desperately wanted to shift back to human form to investigate and congratulate Hogwarts' most recent prankster team. Moody remained by the doorway, glowering from one eye, the other spinning in every direction.

Remus and Padfoot moved off to peruse the garish displays together, even as Fred and George spotted them. George snatched something off the counter from beside an enormous old-fashioned cash register painted purple, and the two headed over. The crowd parted for them.

George was waving the object from the counter at them, and they now saw it was a somewhat crumpled copy of that morning's Daily Prophet front page. "Right nice of you all to let us in on this," he huffed, immediately spying Harry and Draco together in the group.

Their jaws dropped in amazement. "Why it's bloody true then, eh," said Fred. "They look more alike than we do!"

"And thick as thieves by the look of it. Malfoy's made a turnabout, then? Siding with the good guys, abandoning his evil ways and what?"

Draco glared.

"Ahem," Mr. Weasley cleared his throat, "well, I suppose you might say that. Sorry we didn't tell you ourselves boys, but you understand we'd just been thrown a bit of a loop."

"Draco's left home, you see. He's staying with us now," Hermione explained. "He was kidnapped and Mr. Malfoy never told him a thing until he removed the charms disguising him the other night on Voldemort's orders."

"You-Know-Who, eh?" George nudged Fred. "I knew all that rot in the paper about the Malfoys taking in the unwanted babe and needing their confused little boy back was rubbish."

"Cheers to Draco, then! We'll make nice with anyone that doesn't hold with Ol' Snakeface," Fred nodded in Harry and Draco's direction.

Clapping Draco on the back, he exclaimed, "How's it feel to have a twin, Harry?"

"I'm not Harry," Draco said indignantly.

George stepped beside Harry and scruffed him on the head as Harry tried to duck and smooth his hair back best as he could. "Nah, Fred, this one's our Harry. He's wearing his specs, see?"

"Ah, right, that's a bit of bad luck, eh?" Fred sympathized. "S'pose it makes it easier to tell you apart though. You don't need 'em?"

Draco shook his head. "Either I never did or Lucius had my eyesight corrected. I don't know which."

"Sorry," began Fred, "Sensitive topic? Anyway, why don't you let us—"

"—Show you around the place?" George finished.

Harry was paying more attention than normal to the way Fred and George seemed to operate with one mind. Was that the result of being wizarding twins? It certainly fit with what Dumbledore had been telling them. He thought of the other set of twins he knew at Hogwarts, Padma and Parvati. Despite living in different houses at school they seemed to wear matching outfits an awful lot. Maybe that wasn't a planned thing, as he'd always supposed. Harry hoped he and Draco wouldn't be affected that way. _Oh, Merlin,_ _if we ever show up in matching sweater sets, I'm packing it all in and moving away to the States where no one knows me._

The Weasley twins had both thrown their arms wide in gestures meant to encompass the store.

"Well—"

"—What do you think?"

Ron beamed. "I think it's wicked!"

"Much better than Zonko's," Ginny agreed.

Luna nodded. "It's very colourful," she complimented. "Have you any pillywiggle repellent? We've been experiencing an infestation."

"None of that; sorry, no."

"It is splendid, boys," effused Mr. Weasley. "Looks like it took a lot of hard work, eh, Molly?"

Mrs. Weasley took a long look at the giggling and enthusiastic crowd of shoppers. "It appears you've done quite well for yourselves." Her face softened. "Very well indeed."

Fred and George looked extremely pleased.

"Thanks, mum," said Fred. "Really."

"Say," George proposed, "Would you and Dad like to handle the customers a bit while we give this lot a tour of our newest products?"

Mrs. Weasley wavered. "Handle the customers?"

"Sure! It's simple—there's a list of prices for everything in the store on the counter. You just take their money and put it in the till."

"You'll manage fine," Fred breezed in agreement. "This is Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes, and you are Weasleys, after all!"

While they left Mr. and Mrs. Weasley dubiously regarding the purple cash machine, as well as the throng of excited young customers, and wondering if they'd just been had, the twins proudly showed off their shop and the many prank products and sweets practically flying off the shelves. In front of them was a large display advertising Skiving Snackboxes. A group that looked like it consisted mainly of excited first years were ogling the colourful packages.

"Betcha they each buy one," Fred said, looking them over like a proud parent.

George looked just as pleased. "Skiving Snackboxes are absolutely our most popular product, you know—"

Hermione's gasp of horror interrupted them.

"What," she demanded, "is that?"

"What?" George asked. He and Fred turned to see what Hermione was pointing at.

A house elf was tip-toeing through the door from the back room, clutching at arm's length a box of U-No-Poo. The elf looked younger that the others Harry had seen, although he was a wee bit taller than Dobby and slightly plumper. He was wearing a sort of toga made from a length of vivid orange cloth stamped with a large 'WWW.'

It scuttled out into the crowded store, stocked the U-No-Poo on a depleted shelf, and dodged back through the rear doorway.

"Oh. That's Twitch. We got him to help us out a bit."

"Twitch?" Ron raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah," said Fred. "He's a might jumpy."

Like a confirmation, a muffled crash came from the back room, and George tilted his head in consideration, seeming unconcerned by the destructive noises coming through the door.

"But then, we think he may have overheard us talking about testing some of our new products on him."

Harry hadn't thought Hermione's frown could grow any deeper, but there you were.

"How can you possibly think that's okay?" she screeched, prompting the Weasley twins to usher their huddle in the door the elf had gone through when some of the customers looked round.

"Where'd he go?" Ginny looked curiously for the elf.

"Probably hurried out on a supply errand," Fred gestured to a rear exit. "It's one of his jobs. Between us blowing up experiments and his clumsiness, we go through a lot of potions ingredients."

Hermione was growing red in the face—she had been sure that at least no one in the Weasley family would ever stoop to owning a house elf.

Ron and Harry grimaced; Hermione had been leaving off of the SPEW stuff lately, discouraged by lack of results in what the two boys considered to be a futile campaign. Now they sensed a tirade coming on, and wanted to be elsewhere.

"I'm sure they treat the thing nicely, Hermione," Ron cajoled. "There's no need for a spew intervention."

Draco leaned over to whisper in Neville's ear. "What's spew?"

"Um, it's really S-P-E-W," Neville whispered back. "It's an organization Hermione started to get more rights for house elves. She's been putting up notices all round the school for ages."

"How come I've never heard of it?"

"It never really caught on. Even with the house elves."

Fred and George had left them standing in the centre of the room. It appeared to be both a workshop and a stockroom. The walls were lined with shelves stuffed with WWW products, and two large worktables stood to either side of them, littered with a couple simmering cauldrons and the remnants of potions ingredients—some of which were either very rare or really perhaps should not have been found in a sweet shop.

The red-headed twins were rummaging through a cupboard in the corner with their backs to them.

"Now where the devil did it go," they heard one of them mumble.

"Aha!"

The twins emerged triumphantly from behind the cupboard door holding up a sheet of parchment.

They handed it over to Hermione with great flourish.

"We knew _you_ wouldn't fancy the idea, Herms," Fred grinned.

"And we couldn't have you angry with us—"

"—Bloody scary, that would be—"

"So there you go! It's Twitch's employment contract!"

It was indeed.

They all crowded round to peer at the 'contract.'

At the top of the parchment it proclaimed in an extravagant calligraphy:

Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes Contract of Fair and Lawful Employment

Below that followed the body of the contract.

_'This Very Important piece of paper does hereby establish the employment of:_

Here a line had been drawn across the page, and on it, in significantly less neat handwriting—probably the elf's own—was filled in:

Twitch the House Elf

_'The benevolent and most intelligent employers do swear to provide the above party  
__With bed and board and to pay in exchange for duties three sickles each month.'_

"Only three sickles a _month_?!" Hermione was ready to fire up again.

"He talked us down from five."

"It's a fortune to him, believe me," Fred hurried to explain for his brother. "He didn't want to bear the shame of being a free elf earning wages, so it's a miracle we even convinced him to take that."

"We have a hard enough time keeping him from spending his wages on cleaning potions for the shop. Go on, read the rest." George tapped the parchment with a finger.

Ginny plucked the paper from Hermione's hands and finished reading the contract aloud.

_'Employment shall also include, as benefits, a free sampling of any new WWW products  
__so long as the employers shall not be held responsible for any unexpected growth of  
__hair, swelling of body parts, temporary loss of speech or other senses, unforeseen  
__time spent as small feathered or furred creatures, or any other unmentioned symptoms,  
__be they unpleasant or rather funny._

_The employed may also expect that he will not be mistreated in any way,  
__Including, but not limited to: burns, maiming of limbs, intentional poisoning, tripping,  
__kicking, and general pummelling about the head._

_Signed,_

Fred Weasley and George Weasley

There was a moment of quiet. Then—

"That's bloody brilliant!" Ron guffawed. "See, Hermione, Twitch is in good hands."

The rest of them snickered at the overwrought contract, and even Hermione began to look appeased.

"Well," she allowed, "I suppose he _is_ a lot better off here than he would be with some family like the—um, with someone else." She cast an awkward glance at Draco.

He scowled but pretended not to notice.

In a moment of bad luck, the exit into Diagon Alley at the back of the workroom bumped open, and the elf in question sidestepped through, and in a solid stream of movement that looked like it could have come from a Muggle silent comedy, the top parcel on his stack, which was quivering slightly of its own accord, slipped off the pile onto the floor. Twitch immediately bent to fetch it up, and of course promptly dropped the rest of his armload of packages and cracked his head on the door, which was swinging shut again.

There was a sound of shattering.

The elf looked up, saw his audience, and his eyes went wide and apologetic.

"Twitch is so very sorry, great masters!" He squeaked. He frantically tried to move forward, presumably to gather up the brown-paper bundles that were tumbled across the floor, but his foot was now caught in the door. "He is not seeing you there! Twitch is so embarrassed he is clumsy and making such a mess! He will clean it up right away and go get new ingredients for the most handsome and clever Weasleys!"

The mortified house elf gave a great yank that freed his foot but sent him flying into the room in a somersault. He recovered and began hastily re-building the spilled packages into a tottering stack.

Hermione's stern look was back, and the rest of the group raised eyebrows.

Fred and George reddened.

"We never told him to call us that!"

They were saved by Remus, who poked his head through the door from the shop, Padfoot's head also appearing from behind his knee.

"There you are! Moody's getting nervous that he can't see you anymore." He and the big black dog stepped through the door and shut it behind them.

Sirius immediately transformed back to himself and began perusing the supply shelves.

"Padfoot!" hissed Remus. "Change back right now! We're in the middle of Diagon Alley—you don't want to be seen, do you? You're supposed to be on the run, not shopping."

"We're in a closed room, Moony," Sirius rationalized calmly. "I think I'll be safe looking around for a couple of minutes. You know, some of this stuff is pretty brilliant!"

Sirius picked up a fake wand and gave it a trial wave. The wand plucked itself from his hand, turned about in midair, and spurted Sirius in the face with a jet of cold water.

Everyone laughed, for Sirius couldn't help looking shocked for a moment, but then he laughed too, and looked past the fake wand gleefully, his hair still drenched and dripping. "See," he crowed. "Brilliant! I wouldn't mind sending one of these to You-Know-Who."

He took out his own wand and dried himself, causing little clouds of steam to puff from his shoulders.

Remus chuckled. "Not bad, boys," he congratulated, turning to Fred and George. "Boys?"

The Weasley twins, who were never without words or jokes, were pale and straight-faced, their intent stares swinging between Sirius and Remus.

Harry and Ron exchanged confused looks.

"What's wrong?" Harry asked.

"Sirius Black," George intoned.

"And Remus Lupin," Fred added solemnly.

The two adults in question looked at each other, puzzled, and each answered warily.

"At your service."

"Yes?"

George blinked at Sirius. "He called you _Padfoot_."

Fred's face was still just as blank. "And _he_ called _you_ Moony."

Harry smacked himself on the forehead. Had no one ever told the twins exactly who their idolized map-makers were?

Sirius frowned. "I still don't understand. They're nick-names from school. What's the big deal?"

Ron snorted. "They're _fans_."

"We have fans?"

"The _Marauders_ have fans," Harry laughed.

A cocky sort of smile began to spread across Sirius's face. "Heard of us, have you?

The twins came alive again with an alarming stream of dialogue.

"I don't believe it! We've known you for ages!"

"You taught us!"

"Are you really the Marauders?"

"We found your map in Filch's office first year. How'd you make it?"

"Do you really like our store?"

There followed a very animated discussion during which Fred and George quizzed an amused Sirius and Remus relentlessly on the spells and tricks they had used to wreak occasional havoc in their school days. The others tried to sneak off unnoticed back into the public part of Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes, but the flabbergasted twins rounded on them to express their displeasure that their own brother and his best friend hadn't felt the obligation to let them know that they knew two of their idols personally. Harry had felt it prudent to go ahead and sheepishly tell them that not only was the traitor Pettigrew 'Wormtail,' but 'Prongs' was his own father. The pranksters were once more struck dumb.

Draco knew he would have to question Harry later about what the Marauders were. He was amused to note, however, that the other set of twins was apparently more upset about being denied this information than being left out of the loop regarding the events at Grimmauld Place the last couple of days.

In the end, it was nearly half an hour until they rejoined the rest of the group in the main shop.

They found Mr. Weasley looking like he was having the time of his life playing shopkeeper, grinning in fascination at the cash machine every time the till popped open with a clunk and a ring. Mrs. Weasley was maintaining a sort of harried control over the counter, but she couldn't hide the pride on her face as the streams of happy customers kept coming.

Ginny leaned in to murmur to her twin brothers. "Looks like you've finally won mum over on the joke shop."

Fred and George just beamed.

The twins relieved their parents at the counter, and they all said their goodbyes and congratulations on the successful store.

Diggle was starting to look a little bored, and Moody was tapping his peg leg impatiently by the door, but at last everything had been said, those making purchases finished, and the starstruck young businessmen had pressed free samples into the hands of the two Marauders; well, into Remus's hands at least, as Sirius was in dog form again. This earned a glare from Ron, who'd been a bit affronted at handing over money to his brothers for the goodies he'd selected.

With a few sighs of relief that the day had gone smoothly, they were on their way out of Diagon Alley and back to Headquarters.

For the remainder of the waning afternoon, they busied themselves with unpacking all the new school supplies. Draco, unwilling to ask for help but realizing he had to since he still wasn't old enough to use magic outside of school, got Sirius to come up to the room he was sharing with the other three boys and unshrink all the clothes, textbooks and other supplies he would be needing to take to Hogwarts so he could re-pack them properly in his trunk, and they managed to shorten the legs of most of his pants. 'Most of' being the pairs that Mrs. Weasley had helped them with after discovering Draco and Sirius and the mangled results of their clumsy first attempts.

They filled the bottom drawer of an empty wardrobe with the rest of the still-shrunken contents from his bedroom at Malfoy Manor. Sirius had questioned Draco on the unusual packing job, and he explained about his overly eager-to-please elf. Draco's newfound godfather got a laugh out of it, imagining Lucius finding not only his son gone, but the room stripped to the bare walls.

Mrs. Weasley called them downstairs for another of her delicious dinners, after which they dispersed for a quiet evening. No one mentioned it, but they knew that even though the trip to Diagon Alley had been trouble-free, it didn't mean Voldemort didn't have something planned. The evil wizard wasn't going to let Draco escape his clutches that easily, no matter if his plans for him were now ruined. They still couldn't afford to let down their guard.

Still, the Gryffindors were certainly used to falling into dangerous circumstances, and Draco had become good at putting aside his personal fears in favour of a cocky exterior, so they managed a relaxed mood as they settled into the parlour to play games.

It was reminiscent of the first day Draco had arrived, and, sloughing off his own standoffishness, he was truly falling into the easy camaraderie with them that he had experienced when they thought he was Harry.

* * *

The next two weeks passed much the same way, with the seven students spending what was left of their holiday entertaining themselves with games and finishing summer homework together. With the bad blood between them forgotten and in the past, Draco fit well into the group. The girls were kind to him and more than willing to let bygones be bygones; Neville finally lost his nervousness around the former Malfoy heir and Draco was surprised to find pathetic, bumbling Longbottom could be a quiet but very loyal friend. Ron tried to cling to his doubts about Draco's intentions, but the discovery of a kindred Quidditch fan with a passion for the game that rivalled his own broke down the last of those barriers, and the two of them had come to an understanding. Draco wouldn't antagonize Ron with his former cruel comments, and Ron would pretend that he'd only ever known Draco as Harry's brother. Allowing that, they actually got on surprisingly well. Harry wondered good-naturedly if he was in danger of losing his best mate to his own brother.

As inevitably happens when people pass time together, Harry and Draco drew closer, sharing stories about their lives at night sitting on one or the other's bed, and finding what they had in common now that their hatred for each other had faded away. Draco wanted to know everything Harry knew about their parents—discussions that Remus and Sirius joined on occasion—and Harry came to understand Draco better after hearing about Draco's life growing up in the Malfoy home. Neither of them had the childhood they should have had, but they were family now in every sense of the word.

Dumbledore had shown up one morning to take Harry on an errand, and when he returned, Harry told the others about the nervous Horace Slughorn, whom they had persuaded to take the post of potions master. The simultaneous discovery that Snape had at last secured his coveted post in the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom had the Gryffindors grumbling, but it was only a small disaster, all things considered.

The time passed quickly and peacefully. There were still no signs as to what Voldemort and Lucius may be planning, and Harry hadn't had any more visions on the subject. They were still maintaining their watchfulness, but it looked like they might make it back to Hogwarts without major incident.

The last couple of days before they were due to catch the train at King's Cross were mild chaos as the students gathered up belongings that had become scattered around the house, and spent as much time as possible with Sirius, Remus, and the other adults they would miss while they were away at school.

The morning of September first, Mrs. Weasley outdid herself with a feast of a breakfast.

Draco was alarmed when he casually mentioned that he wished his surrogate mum had been able to cook like this, and a suddenly teary-eyed Mrs. Weasley had smothered him in a warm hug.

Despite the urge to languish around the table, they soon had to hurry and fetch their trunks downstairs to the front hall. Hermione talked Ron into helping her get Crookshanks into his travelling cage, and the two headed to the third floor, where the enormous orange cat had most recently been seen hunting mice. They returned a few minutes later, Hermione carrying a cage full of unhappy Crookshanks, and Ron sporting several nasty scratches. Ron's tiny owl, Pig, was fluttering excitedly about their heads, until Ron's hand snapped out with near Seeker-like reflexes and snatched the bird up in one fist and stuffed him unceremoniously into his own cage. Neville and Draco came down with their trunks, and Harry was helping Luna with hers as Remus called for them to hurry up.

"The car's arrived, you lot," He beckoned. "If you don't leave now, you'll miss the train."

They all spilled out onto the stoop chattering happily, until Harry, in the lead, ground to a stop, causing the others to pull up as well.

"Hey, Harry," called Ron, "what's the—oh."

For in the street in front of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place sat the sorriest excuse for a car any of them had ever seen. The car looked as if it was barely being held together by a few straining bolts, and there wasn't one inch of the thing that wasn't dented or chipped. It was very difficult even to say what colour it was, because of a nearly solid coating of rust. Not one of the four doors looked like they closed properly. Draco even spotted a length of twine holding up one side of the front bumper.

Sirius came out the door behind them. "What are you kids staring at?"

He looked to the curb.

"Ah. I see the transportation is here."

"I thought you said the Auror department was sending us a car," said Harry, looking doubtfully at the beaten old thing that made Mr. Weasley's Anglia look like a Rolls Royce.

"Harry," scolded Tonks, stepping suddenly out of the rust-covered contraption. She held open the door behind her, which dangled crookedly on one determined hinge, so they could all see the comfortable, clean, and very spacious interior. "Surely by now you'd remember that with magic, everything isn't as it seems!"

"You can't be too sure You-Know-Who doesn't know exactly how we're getting to King's Cross," explained Moody gruffly. "But who'd ever suspect this pile of scrap of belonging to the Ministry's transportation department? Constant vigilance!" He finished with a bellow.

It was actually quite a clever ruse when one thought of it that way.

They all loaded their trunks into the deceptively cavernous boot, and Tonks returned to the driver's side door.

"You know how to drive?" Hermione asked Tonks.

Tonks flashed them a huge grin and told them cheerfully, "I think I can figure it out."

Harry was sure Voldemort would be pleased when he heard about the mangled automobile wreck that finally did in the Boy Who Lived.

Goodbyes were said all around, as only Tonks, Moody, and Remus were accompanying them to the station. Draco was inwardly pleased when Sirius clasped him in a hug just as affectionate as the one he'd given Harry. He hadn't been able to help growing to fiercely like Sirius—the man was one of the first people to care about him unconditionally and show it. When the man scruffed his hair though, Draco scowled in mock anger. Unlike his brother, who still tried on occasion to tame the unruly hair they shared, Draco was perfectly aware of how attractive that mop could be when carefully ruffled. He had developed the habit of running his hand through it occasionally, unaware of how Remus and Sirius smiled behind his back at the gesture that so reminded them of James.

At last they piled into the heap of a car, which was indeed much nicer on the inside, and were on their way to King's Cross.

Tonks didn't handle the car too badly, and there were only a couple of near misses on the way. Luckily it was a short drive. They found parking near the station, by which time Harry was rethinking the cleverness of the car's outward appearance. They quite probably would have drawn less attention in a Ministry limousine, because as they sputtered and banged noisily to a stop, many muggles were staring at the car as if wondering how it could possibly run.

Moody and Remus helped unload their trunks and the group made their way into the station and through the crowds of muggles to Platforms Nine and Ten. They stuck close together, for their large company couldn't help drawing some attention, especially with seven large trunks, two owls, a cat, and a toad.

At the barrier before Platform 9¾ they lined up to go through one at a time, Tonks keeping an eye out near the wall, and Remus and Moody bringing up the rear. Luna, Ginny and Ron had already slipped though, and Draco was next in line, waiting for a tall muggle businessman to step a bit further away, when Harry's heart stilled.

_Was that?_ No, he had to be imagining things.

For a moment he swore he'd gotten a glimpse of Macnair, the Death Eater with the black moustache, his face flashing for a second in the crowd. Harry tried to tell himself that it was nerves, and he was getting wound up over nothing—but no! There!

Harry saw him again, seated on a bench not far away, peering around a muggle newspaper; and where there was one Death Eater, there were likely to be more. But why were they sneaking about? Draco was about to step through onto Platform 9¾—if they'd come for him, which surely was the case, wouldn't it have been safer to grab him on this side of the barrier, where the thick crowds of muggles would confuse any pursuit and make using defensive magic difficult? The fact that Harry wore glasses and Draco did not would have made it a simple thing to grab the right twin as they had been heading into the station and quickly disappear again.

But they hadn't.

Which meant they weren't going for subtle.

Harry suddenly knew with absolutely certainty that there were at least two Death Eaters waiting on the other side of the barrier.

All this had passed though his head in barely five seconds, but now the tall muggle had turned away and Draco was moving forward.

"Stop!" Harry cried out, and he lunged forward towards his brother, but his fingertips only brushed the back of Draco's cloak before the other boy disappeared through the wall.

"Harry, what is it?" Hermione yelped in alarm.

At his shout, Moody's eyes had narrowed, and both he, Tonks, and Remus had their wands out in under a second. Harry's wide eyes met Remus'. He pointed to Macnair, who had stood and discarded the newspaper in favour of his wand at Harry's shout.

"_Death Eaters!_" Harry hissed. But he wasn't worried about Macnair right now. He felt shock and fear wash through him, and he realized with a start that it wasn't his—that had come from Draco. _The twin bond. They have him! _

Harry narrowed his eyes. _But they certainly won't for long!_ There was no way he was losing his brother again this soon.

Harry thrust his trunk and Hedwig's cage towards Neville, Hedwig squawking in consternation as she abruptly changed hands. Remus had begun to follow Mad-Eye, who was storming dangerously in Macnair's direction, but he saw Harry's movement out of the corner of his eye and turned back. "Harry, no, wait!" he shouted.

Harry levelled a fierce gaze on the remainder of the group, Remus fighting to reach him, Tonks rushing to join Moody in apprehending Macnair, Neville looking confused, and Hermione struggling to pull out her wand and still hold onto her trunk and Crookshanks.

_I don't have time for this!_ He thought, his worry and Draco's fear consuming him. "They have Draco!" He yelled, and without any more waiting, he drew his wand and plunged through the barrier.

* * *

_Well, that's it for now! Thanks to all who reviewed the last chapter, and I hope you're still around! _

_Thanks go to: _mattitudeandrkofollower, Lady Clark-Weasley of Books, evil-sami-poo, Lexi, Moonlight Princess, ame, Illeanah, Lina, romulus-girl, fairyprincesst, Kyra Windwood, Alex, PaddysGal, Brownie88Babe, roguewriter04, tcl7189, Nameless Little Girl, Lady Rayvynne, imiko-hiei, Potterdownthestreet, ReineMauvaise, Brightshadow, kittenonabroomstick, Reta McClain, ryokothedemoncaller, tikitakatua, cloudseraph, and Rainbow2007


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Harry Potter, Adventure, Drama