Can you figure out the secret before Harry? I could do a better summary, but I thought it might be fun to have a mystery! ...even if it's revealed next chapter.
And yes, there is a "Cepheus Malfoy", but he'll only be around briefly. Never fear, if you dislike OCs!
Harry Potter defeated the Dark Lord with the wand of Cepheus Malfoy, an unfortunate third-year dragged into a vicious war.
Harry had never liked the Malfoys, Cepheus included. The few times Harry had seen him, he'd come across as a spoiled little hellion, talking about his father and shouting how the heir would kill the mudbloods. His father had slipped that diary to Ginny in the first place. No, Harry didn't like the Malfoys.
But no amount of brattiness could vindicate Cepheus's suffering. Harry couldn't hate him even when he'd disarmed the headmaster, a sobbing mess of a job. Voldemort had threatened a child to punish the father, and it was hard to hate him after that. Cepheus had been twelve at the time.
The trials to prevent the incarceration of Cepheus and Narcissa had finally finished, making this visit the last time he'd need to speak to the kid. His fingers grazed the boy's wand; the hawthorne felt warm at his touch, as though anticipating the reunion with its proper owner.
He never wanted to set foot in Malfoy Manor again, but he couldn't ask the kid to meet him in public, especially when he had his wand. Their affluence allowed them a degree of political acceptance, but with the current public opinion, Cepheus should stay out of sight. Many people who'd suffered during the war would target the Malfoys.
So Harry channeled his inner Gryffindor, ready to face his past and tie up loose ends. With Lucius incarcerated and Voldemort dead, he reasoned, he had nothing to fear: the Manor itself wouldn't do him any harm.
Then again, as a magical house, it just might. Harry chose not to think about it.
He trailed after the house elf who let him in, shivering as he came in from the late November cold, untying his scarf and draping it loosely around his neck. The hallway was nowhere near as dark and terrible as when the Snatchers had brought them in, but it still had a dreary ambiance. Harry could almost see its former grandeur, how it could have been someone's childhood home, luxurious if not welcoming. But a sadness clung to its walls, its gloomy chandeliers, and Harry prayed that the house elf wouldn't lead him into the room where Dobby had died.
She didn't; the house elf gave a polite, "I will fetch the young master, sir, Harry Potter, sir," and left him in a parlour that he'd never seen before. It was in an out-of-the-way, rarely-used corridor; before Harry had walked in, the elf had given a discrete snap of the fingers, vanishing away a layer of dust. She peeked at Harry anxiously, checking if he'd seen, and he feigned ignorance.
The wait took a while. Harry sat in one of the grand chairs, then stood and paced, restless and uneasy in the former home of a Death Eater. Logically he knew Lucius was locked away in Azkaban, and Narcissa hadn't sent him to his death even when given the perfect chance. Cepheus was only thirteen years old, and a jittery mess after the war besides.
Who else could there possibly be?
Growing impatient and wanting to distract himself from the harrowing memories the manor stirred up—perhaps this hadn't been such a good idea—he wandered to the door, tugging it open and peering out.
Wandering would test his luck, given that he could stumble across a room that he did know, but a morbid fascination drove him, never having been in another dark pureblood home aside from Grimmauld Place. His footsteps tapped out a hesitant trail of sound as he drifted down the hall. Portraits spoke to him, asked why a Potter roamed the Manor, if he was related to Dorea, if the business with the mudbloods had finished. Some seemed disappointed at the lack of gore, others expressed relief that no more "filth" dirtied their home, prisoners or not.
He paused at one of them, a beautiful painting of a young woman, hair blond enough to be a Malfoy, and long enough to double or triple her height. It was a large portrait, taller than him, and he gaped.
"What is it?" the woman asked, winding the end of her hair around her finger.
"Um," said Harry. "You have...a lot of hair."
"Yes, wrong end of a Hair Growth Curse. Took years to break. I'd cut it and it'd grow back twice the length," she sniffed, dropping her hair with a refined flick.
"Ah," Harry said sympathetically. "Something like that happened to me once, when my aunt tried to shave off all of mine."
"Did it really?" the girl asked with mild interest. She had a bit of a pointy chin, but bright eyes. "With hair like that, I can hardly blame her. At least mine isn't a nest, too long or not."
"Thanks," Harry replied dryly. It said something about pureblood uppityness that he found this portrait one of the more pleasant and approachable ones in the house. "Say, you haven't happened to see Malfoy around, have you? The house elf brought me in to see him, but I've been waiting a long time."
"He's in his room," she responded. "Or at least one of them is, I don't know where the other went."
Azkaban, Harry thought, surprised that she didn't know since he'd heard other portraits mention Lucius's imprisonment, but he didn't want to be the one to tell her.
"Er, could you point me in the right direction?" he asked when she didn't seem inclined to continue.
The portrait studied him assessingly, looking down her nose at him and reminding him even more of Lucius. Yes, he definitely didn't want to be the one to tell her that the "other one" had been tossed into Azkaban, she was probably the git's great-great-who-knew-how-many-greats-grandmother.
"I suppose if you leave your wand on that table there, I could let you up to see him," she said eventually. "Terribly poor manners to keep your guest waiting. I don't know where pureblood propriety has gone."
"Well," Harry stalled, not wanting to give up his wand in a place that made him so uneasy. Then he had an idea, a somewhat dishonest one, but he'd hardly attack the kid or anything, so he didn't feel too guilty.
"I'll get it back, right?" he checked, because he didn't want to lose it, even if it didn't belong to him.
"Of course," the woman sniffed, offended. "The House of Malfoy does not need to steal any wands, we win them."
Harry tried not to fidget visibly at the words stealing wands as he placed Cepheus's wand on the mahogany table. He figured he could double back for it once he'd found the boy. His own wand felt warm in his pocket, and he caught himself before he gave a guilty twitch.
"Can you tell me where he is now?" he asked, trying to keep his voice as polite as possible in the face of her Malfoy-ish poshness.
"Hmm," she said, eying him suspiciously. "I suppose."
To Harry's surprise, the portrait swung forward, revealing a spiraling staircase, reminiscent of the one that led to Gryffindor tower. He'd thought that only Hogwarts had passages hidden behind portraits, but he supposed that would be a presumptuous thing to assume, given how many people had gone to the school and been influenced by its architecture.
"Oh," he said in astonishment. "Thanks."
And he started up the stairs. And kept going. And going. And going.
And going.
Harry climbed for long minutes, jogging at first and then slowing to a steady but tiring pace. He wondered if the portrait had sent him into some sort of cursed room, a never ending staircase meant to trap trespassers in the Malfoy Manor.
He was growing more panicked as that idea grew less ridiculous with each step, his legs aching and his scalp sweating uncomfortably, when finally he reached the end. He stumbled into the room, and drew up short when he came across its occupant. He found himself staring at the back of a blond head that most definitely didn't belong to Cepheus. The person spoke without turning around.
"Is Mother upset again?" the blond asked wearily. "I can brew you another Calming Draught, but you should take it down to her yourself, I don't think– Who the hell are you?"
Harry gaped openly at the person in front of him, a young boy—man—around his age. He looked like a younger Lucius with shorter hair. For a wild moment he thought the older man had escaped and taken some sort of De-aging Potion.
"Who are you?" Harry blurted with equal confusion, hand on his wand, but refrained from drawing it at the last second.
Upon closer inspection, he could see differences in the jawbone, the nose, even the lips. It was just the overall demeanor which had struck such a familiar chord, the way that they held themselves and the aristocratic mien.
Despite the disparities, they obviously shared lineage; bloody hell, the guy looked more like Lucius than Cepheus.
The boy's face shuttered. "You come storming into my room and have the nerve to demand who I am?"
"Your room?" Harry asked in surprise, since that implied that he lived here. With apprehension, he remembered how Moaning Myrtle had claimed the first floor bathroom as her own. "You're not a ghost or something, right?"
He eyed the boy with dread; he'd gone without an attempt on his life since the Battle of Hogwarts, and now he wondered how he'd never heard of Malfoy's secret cousin, or whoever this man would turn out to be. A sudden thought occurred to him, a terrible idea spurred by memories of a solidifying teenage Riddle.
He prayed to whatever magical gods were out there that some ancient Malfoy relative hadn't made a horcrux. Maybe he was just a vampire; those lived a long time, which explained why Harry hadn't seen him at Hogwarts despite his young appearance. He was certainly pale enough.
"What are you, a muggleborn?" the possible vampire sniffed haughtily. Definitely related to the Malfoys. "I'm obviously solid. How did you get Raiponce to let you up, anyway?"
"Rey-puns?" Harry asked, confused, the foreign name pronounced oddly, sounding French.
"Raiponce," the blond drawled condescendingly, correcting his admittedly butchered pronunciation. Harry belatedly realized the boy must be talking about the portrait. "Were you hit with a deafening jynx, or are you just stupid?"
"Shove off," Harry snapped defensively, crossing his arms and feeling rather dim-witted in the face of the boy's sharp words.
"Stupid it is," the git concluded dismissively. "Well then, did you actually want something, or did she just take a fancy to you? It's rude to wander around people's homes without an escort, you know."
Harry narrowed his eyes, but behind his smug attitude, the blond did appear to have a hint of genuine curiosity in his eyes, and a touch of wariness. Harry felt some of the anger drain out of him; of course he'd be tetchy when a stranger came bursting into his room. The house had just barely escaped the control of a madman a few months ago.
A paranoid part of Harry wondered if he'd stumbled across a Death Eater in hiding, but the man hadn't made any aggressive moves, and he had a point. Harry shouldn't be snooping around the Manor or intruding upon his private quarters.
"Er," he managed, running a hand through his hair. "Look, I think we got off on the wrong foot. I am sorry for bursting in like this...I was looking for Cepheus. I'm Harry," he said awkwardly, and then stuck out his hand.
The blond looked down at in distaste, before returning to his face. After Harry's fidgeting with his hair earlier, his forehead showed, and the boy's eyes flickered briefly to his scar. It was such a short glance, though, that Harry almost wondered whether he hadn't recognized it.
The boy glanced one last time at his hand, something odd flashing across his expression, and he turned away without shaking it. Harry clenched his hand into a fist, drawing back his arm and flushing angrily.
"Look, I said I was sorry-"
"And I'd rather not have you demanding my own apology later, when you realize who you shook hands with," the boy said sourly, chin up proudly as he wandered to the window, looking out at the grounds far below. "Draco Malfoy, by the way. Run along now, I have better things to do than talk to you."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Harry asked, piqued at the dismissal, and more than a little puzzled.
Why would Harry not want to shake his hand? He had been the one to offer. Maybe he wanted to hide the Dark Mark and thought Harry would attack him? But he'd given up his name readily enough, and Harry had never heard of any Draco Malfoy, not at school, and not on the list of at-large or acquitted followers of Voldemort.
He received no answer. Draco Malfoy's pale skin looked healthier in the sunlight, but he kept his face firmly facing the window instead of him, so finally Harry gave an exasperated huff, turning on his heel. He dreaded climbing the long set of stairs again.
"I wouldn't mention our meeting to Cepheus," Draco called after him resentfully, and Harry paused at the door. "Or anyone, really. Terribly awkward business."
Harry peered back at him, but Draco still didn't glance up. Harry thought he looked bitter and maybe just a little bit sad.
"Right," Harry said slowly. "You're not going to tell me why?"
Silence. He sighed. He turned to go again, but he felt an inexplicable bout of sympathy for the antagonistic wizard. He looked lonely.
"Well, see you then," Harry offered hesitantly, and Draco snorted.
Harry started down the stairs with a scowl, stung at his rejected peace offering, but behind him, he heard a quiet, "I doubt that."
ooo
Oh ho ho, but why is it such a terribly awkward business?
…I don't know if it's totally obvious, but I'd love to hear your guesses. Or lack of guesses. Or just what you think! :D