A.N.: Well, here is the next installment! Again, not mine, but I have made minor edits to correct grammar and spelling. I hope you all enjoy! Also, thank you to all who have read, reviewed, favorited, and followed both this story and myself. I would love to hear feedback from you all! Until next Sunday!

-Laerwen

Chapter: 2

A few months after Harry Potter became an honorary Malfoy, Henry Black was a much healthier child.

The nightmares stopped after the first month, but until then Harry would wake up screaming for "Mummy" and shrieking about the "bad man" who was "gonna get me", but after a few minutes of Narcissa's cooing and petting, he'd be back asleep - usually in the Malfoy's bed, and usually with Draco right beside him, daring the bad man to try and hurt his brother.

He was now the same size as Draco, and every bit as rambunctious when it came to personality. Draco'd had more than a year as the sole focus of his parents' attention, and despite how quick he was to defend "Henry" against other children (Blaise Zabini's hair would eventually grow back...), he was also quick to stake his territory.

Harry, while similarly willing to watch Draco's back, (It's not like Millicent Bulstrode's nose looked worse before he hit her with the toy hippogriff...) had just enough emotional scarring from his time with the Dursleys to guard his own space and things like a dragon on its nest.

That first year was turbulent, to say the least, but at least when word finally circulated about the Malfoy's long term house guest, the story put the family in a good light. (Oh, how wonderful... taking in a poor baby like that!)

Rumors flew about who the child's mother could be, and more than a few well known social climbers tried to claim him. Each one was unceremoniously contacted by the Malfoys' attorney and informed that claiming the child would result, not in his custody and the Black family inheritance, but a report to the Aurors complete with the certified hospital records from St. Mungo's to detail the abuse his "mother" had reportedly inflicted upon him.

That effectively silenced the clamor, and the strategically salted details of the boy's pre-Malfoy home life gave the family an excuse to stay out of sight long enough for people to lose immediate interest. Occasionally, someone would call or owl to inquire about formal adoption, but knowing that would lead to familial testing to determine bloodlines (Lucius actually grumbled about being a Pureblood for once...), Narcissa simply stated that once her cousin was cleared of the false charges against him (like there was a chance of that - HA!), he was welcome to have his son back.

Their other motive for not legally changing Harry's name was that to do so would be to draw the wrath of Dumbledore, and no matter the bumbling facade he put on, neither Malfoy was foolish enough to believe he was harmless. Both official and unofficial reports had surfaced saying Harry Potter was now officially missing and the Muggles to which he was entrusted had no idea where he'd gone - or that they'd ever seen him.

Petunia Dursley was also rumored to have a tail, but that was probably just gossip.

By the time both boys were two years old, they'd had their share of posturing and tantrums and had flung enough porridge across the breakfast table that the house elves turned it into a game to see which one could catch the most of "his" boy's meal in a bowl on his head.

Harry was still a blond, despite his early whimpers about looking like Duddy Pig... whatever that was... but his huge green eyes stayed unchanged. Narcissa insisted - it was the only way she could really tell them apart when he and Draco got it in their heads to "fool Mummy".

Both were excellent mimics by the age of three, and far more shrewd than a pair of toddlers had any right to be. And the morning of their (now shared) fifth birthday, they orchestrated a nursery break and liberated their birthday cake.

Narcissa arrived in the main hall just as the little monsters were being chased up the stairs by house elves, Dobby and Tripp, each wielding a wooden spoon and the threat of forced bath to remove blue and green frosting from pretty much their entire bodies... they thought it made great paint.

The house routinely looked like small scale nuclear war had broken out whenever the boys left one room for another, and frankly, she'd be relieved when they opened their birthday presents, got their training brooms, and found an excuse to play outside. But she'd also be the first to admit she loved the chaos.

Lucius would be the last to admit it, but the truth was, he did, too. His own upbringing had been stuffy and starched, and while he still expected both Draco and Harry to display impeccable manners in front of guests, he took a perverse sort of joy in watching them "improve" the portraits of his ancestors that lined the hallways. His father had been livid, and threatened (as much as a portrait can) to disinherit him if Lucius didn't immediately have his hair restored to its proper grey (Red! Honestly! I look like a Weasley!) and the garish bow tie removed. Lucius had in turn threatened to have him dipped in turpentine if he ever raised his voice to one of his grandsons again - and yes, he was to treat Harry like a grandson, like it or not.

Abraxas harrumphed, then left his frame and took up residence behind the closed doors of a barn in a lovely pastoral scene on the second floor.

So Lucius wasn't at all shocked or angry when he arrived home after a business trip to see the mess at his feet.

"They found the cake, again, I see," Lucius said with a mock scowl as the kitchen elves, Ruby and Button, scrubbed the remains of the mess from the floor, and walls, and- "How did they get it on the ceiling?"

"I believe their exact words were 'I bet you can't...' followed by both of them trying to win the bet," Narcissa sighed. "This is why I told you we needed the decoy cake."

The real one was safe and sound in box marked "squid liver" behind the potatoes in the kitchen.

"I bow to your woman's intuition," Lucius said with a graceful sweep of his arm.

"Woman's intuition is nothing compared to those two hurricanes in a bottle," she said. "You know, I think this is why the rivalry between Slytherin and Gryffindor is encouraged. When you get them to work together, they're unstoppable."

"You think Harry will be in Gryffindor?"

"Both his parents were," Narcissa said. "And I think McGonagall might sew the Sorting Hat's mouth shut if it even thought of placing a Potter in Slytherin. She's been made the House Head, you know."

"I did... how did you?" Lucius asked. His wife had never been particularly interested in the continued politics of the school, even though he had a place on the board.

"Our guest told me about it over tea."

"Guest?" Lucius said suspiciously. "Did one of their friends arrive early?"

They'd been very careful about who they let into their house since Harry arrived, and watched the boys like hawks even when the only guest around was another child. The children they knew all came with Death Eater parents, and that meant danger for the boy they both considered a son by proxy.

"No. This one's a confirmed bachelor with no children..."

"Severus," Lucius sighed. "What's he doing here?"

"The boys are five," Narcissa said. "They start their formal education this year, which means Hogwarts starts keeping track of them, their marks, and their medical records. Dumbledore's insisting they inventory the entire class. The entire class - even those among Muggles."

This was not a happy revelation.

"With self-addressing envelopes to find the students no matter where they're at, I suppose," Lucius drawled. "Just like the Hogwarts' letters?"

"I know," she said, off her husband's look. "I thought we'd have more time, too."

"More time for what?" a raspy hiss of a voice asked from shadows she would have sworn weren't there a second earlier.

Lucius looked up, scowling, and Narcissa looked shockingly guilty for someone used to hiding her true face, and was that... fear... he saw?

"Your tea's gone cold," Snape said, depositing the cup next the Narcissa on the table. "You didn't come back, and then there was the sound of a crash and something I could only describe as a rampage of rabid thestrals, and then I was certain I heard Lucius' dulcet tones..."

"Always the dramatist, Severus," Lucius practically growled. "How long have you been eavesdropping?"

"Long enough." The edges of his mouth tugged into a less than pleasant grin.

"And just what it is you think you heard?" Lucius' voice, much like Snape's, didn't get louder when he was at his most dangerous, it got softer and more controlled... unlike the aforementioned rampaging rabid thestrals who were now stampeding back down the stairs, high on sugar and still being chased by house elves.

"Stop it Tripp! I'm clean!" Draco insisted. He'd collected a toy sword from his playroom and he and the elf were in a duel - spoon against toy.

"Get off my head Dobby!" Harry shrieked, wishing he'd thought to grab a weapon to defend himself as the elf attacked his ears with a flannel to get out the last traces of frosting while perched on Harry's back. When the verbal commands did nothing to dislodge the cleaning frenzy, Harry changed tactics and started to spin in a tight, fast circle, hoping to make the elf dizzy. Unfortunately, it was a fate he inflicted on himself.

He stumbled sideways, knocking into Draco, who up to then had been winning the duel. They landed side by side on their backs, and at their father's feet.

"Hello, father," they said in unison.

"Hello," he said, not quite able to keep the earlier tension out of his voice. Both boys thought the look was for them and immediately jumped to their feet upon realizing there was another man in the room; they thought they were in trouble.

"Sorry, father," came another twin declaration. "Hello, sir."

Snape fixed both boys with an icy stare. Draco, whom he hadn't seen since he was an infant, when Lucius named him the boy's godfather, looked just as he expected him to. The supposed Black brat was a shock, and not just because he seemed to be a clone of Draco down to the last shoe button. It was the one difference in the boys that hit him hardest - a pair of very green and unmistakable eyes.

"Boys, this is a very old friend of mine." Lucius stepped between Snape and his children, blocking them from view. "He's stopped by for a visit - why don't you and the elves take your games outside for a while?'

"Yes father," they said.

The polite contrition was followed closely by Draco's shout of "Dobby's a troll!" as he brandished his toy sword overhead, to which Harry added: "Squash the troll!" He grabbed Tripp's discarded spoon and the two thundered out of the house after the elf, who was now running for his life.

"My, my my... what have the two of you been up to?" Severus snarled. "You have exactly five seconds to tell me who that boy is - who he really is - and how you came to have him, or I swear I'll call the Aurors myself."

"I wouldn't think you'd be in such a hurry to see Moody again," Lucius attempted a threat.

"I'm not," Snape hissed. "Which is why he'll believe it's worth his time to Floo over."

"You know who he is, Severus," Narcissa said. "He's Sirius'-"

"Don't!" Snape snapped. "Don't presume to manipulate me like that insane Skeeter woman and her acid quill. That boy had Lily Evans' eyes - a fact I would affirm with my dying breath. I see three possibilities as to how such a thing occurred. One - the blond hair is natural, in which case, given his age, Lucius here was unfaithful to you within moments of Draco's conception. Two - that mongrel of a cousin of yours betrayed his best friend with his wife. Given his latter acts, that's not all that unbelievable on his part, but either of those options would make Lily Evans a whore, and that is in no way possible. So I'm left with the third option - that boy, to whom you have assigned the name Black, is, in fact, the son of James Potter. Making him Harry Potter. Making him the child for which the entire Magical Community has been searching for FOUR YEARS!"

The same boy Snape was dreadfully certain he'd failed and allowed to be destroyed.

"We're the only family he has, Severus," Narcissa said, weakly.

"He was with family! Lily's family!"

"The Muggles," Lucius scoffed and turned away. Snape wasn't exactly a hulking giant, but he could be intimidating enough when he wanted to be - even to someone who had once been his mentor... which gave him an idea...

"This isn't some game you can play because you don't like the factory the pieces came from, Lucius! You had no right to-"

"Keep a child from being abused?" Lucius supplied the end of the sentence. "Being starved? Ignored? Hurt for no reason with no way out?"

"What are you talking about," Snape hissed. "If this is some attempt to sway me by mention my father, Lucius, I warn you you're on thin and breaking ice. I'll skip the Aurors and go straight to Dumbledore, by the time he's done, there won't be enough left of either of you to fill one cell in Azkaban, much less two."

"Dumbledore left him on the stoop, did you know that?" Narcissa asked. She placed a practiced hand on Snape's shoulder and he jerked away at the contact. "At night. In a basket. He left him, Severus, all alone where anyone or anything could have snatched him up and taken him."

"He didn't leave him unprotected. Even Dumbledore's not that careless."

"I couldn't go near the house," Lucius said, "and I'd imagine neither could you..." Snape grabbed his arm reflexively "... however Narcissa had no trouble at all strolling up the front walk. And less trouble than that convincing the Muggle woman to hand over the child."

"If you think you can sway me with tales of Imperiusing helpless Muggles..."

"Imperius wasn't on the list of Unforgivables I wanted to hurl at that harpy," Narcissa lost control of her temper for a moment. "She came very close to explaining her actions to her sister in person."

"What actions?" Snape asked, carefully.

"I know you were familiar with Lily Evans as a child," Lucius said, searching for cues on how to proceed in Snape's unreadable face. "Did you know Petunia, too?"

"Should've named her Poison Ivy. Hemlock. Sumac..." Narcissa grumbled.

"Not an unfair assessment of her personality traits," Snape said. "But she wouldn't harm her sister's child. She and Lily had their troubles, but Petunia was never cruel. Jealous maybe..."

"How about vindictive?" Lucius asked.

"Not enough to take it out on an innocent," Snape said.

Narcissa whirled around and stormed out of the room. Snape craned his neck to see if she was heading out to the yard, perhaps to Apparate with the boys before he could turn them in, but she only went to Lucius' office and opened an invisible safe. When she returned, she was carrying a sealed parchment, certified by St. Mungo's hospital.

"Our first stop after taking possession of Petunia Dursley's "beloved" nephew," she spat and shoved the parchment into his hands.

Snape fought the bile in his throat as he unrolled the parchment and read the inscription: "Let it henceforth be known that the staff of St. Mungo's attests to the following..." what followed was a detailed list of the then baby's first year of life. Everything from birth to his first birthday went perfectly within normal limits, save the allergic reaction to powdered dragon eggs in his breakfast one morning. There was a marked adrenaline spike the night his parents died, coupled with a generically recorded "healed scar" no one had realized the significance of since it wasn't visible. Then, immediately after, came a downward spiral that started with mild exposure and frostbite coupled with emotional distress, tiny contusions dotted his skin like large purple freckles, he went without sleep or proper food, had a lung infection from dust inhalation, suffered multiple insect bites, vitamin deficiency and overall poor health.

Petunia'd left Lily's child to rot.

Snape clenched the parchment so tight it shook in his hands. Of all the stories and excuses he'd expected to hear - most of which centered on the Malfoy's using the boy as leverage... the boy he'd been worried sick over since he'd promised to keep him safe himself - none of them included one stupid Muggle family and their ineptitude toward childcare.

"I won't lie to you, Severus," Lucius said. The other man had gone glassy eyed and pale; Lucius struggled to retrieve the parchment without ripping it. "My initial motives were hardly philanthropic. At best you could credit me with wanting to pull Cissy out of her fog, but now... you'll take my son over my dead body."

Snape didn't answer; he was still shaking. In his mind, he'd raced through a dozen very satisfying near death experiences all starring Lily's sister and her worthless family. Just as he was trying to decide how best to coax Peeves into moving to Surrey for a change of scenery, Narcissa put her hand on him again.

"He's happy here, Severus," she said, then pointed out the window to where Harry and Draco had cornered Dobby in an elementary sort of pincer maneuver. The elf popped out of reach at the last second and the boys bounced off each other, laughing as they fell to the ground. "Rescue never came for you... it did for him. Don't take it away from him."

Snape had always thought that when it came down to it, the Malfoy matriarch was far more dangerous than her husband, and that instant proved him right. Despite every plan that had formed the moment he saw Lily's eyes in that boy's face, another barrier between Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter had just been erected.

The Boy Who Lived was now under the protection of a growing cadre of Death Eaters. If he hadn't already banished the Dark Lord to the ether of unlife, Voldemort would have died from a heart attack on the spot.

"We know we can't keep him a secret forever," Narcissa said, "but if we can at least keep it quiet until he goes away to school, he's got a chance of learning what he needs to survive."

"We may spoil him a little."

Snape's eyebrow hit his hairline as he glanced from Mt. St. Birthday Gifts in the dining room and then back to Lucius.

"Okay, we may spoil him a lot, but you can't deny that I'm in a better position to show that boy how to survive than a bunch of uniformed, backward thinking Muggles."

"It sounds like he's already survived quite a bit," Severus said.

"You're not suggesting that's a good thing," Narcissa gasped. Her hand fell dangerously close to her wand in her pocket. "Childhood shouldn't be survived. It should be a strong foundation on which the rest of his life is built! Take him back to those people and you'll have to put him back together before he can even begin to move forward."

"Claws in, Cissy," Lucius said. "I don't think that's what Severus meant at all... is it?"

"Not in the least," Severus said. "But I think it might be what our dear Headmaster had in mind. If the boy was treated poorly - enough to break his spirit, if not his body - he'd likely cling to the first kind voice he ever encountered."

Narcissa nodded, thinking how he'd stuck to her like glue for months.

"He'd be exceedingly... malleable," Snape hissed.

"Severus, you've been stirring that tea for fifteen minutes. Unless you're trying to separate the liquid by centrifuge, I think it's cool enough to drink," Narcissa said.

"If I didn't owe him my life, I'd kill the old fool myself," he snarled, and set the tea aside.

"Why not meet us halfway and just frustrate him for the next six years?" Lucius suggested.

"How?"

"It's obvious that this upcoming census is another attempt to find Harry. Owling families at five years of age is ridiculous, most Muggle-borns are almost twice that before any notable magicality surfaces."

"I wasn't aware you were so ... informed, Lucius," Snape said, almost amused.

"Being uninformed is never a good idea," Lucius countered.

"Do you know when the notices will be sent?" Narcissa asked. "Lucius didn't, so he's obviously keeping this from even the Governors."

"The thirty-first," Snape said. "Harry's fifth birthday."

Well, that was a rather obvious date to choose...

"He says that way they'll be sure to get all of the children that make the August cut-off date for enrollment."

"I'm sure," Lucius drawled.

The three of them spent the final hours before the boys' party making plans, and by the time Snape had left (after delivering his elementary potions sets, which was his gift and reason for coming in the first place) and cake ( a red and green Quidditch pitch) was on the table, things were set.

Lucius would take the boys on a trip the week of the 31st. He wasn't sure what a theme park was, but he'd heard from some of the other families that Muggle children loved them, especially something called roller coasters.

The owl would arrive at a rented house and it would depart from the same. A Muggle house, not on the Floo network, and in a crowded enough area to prevent Apparating. Narcissa would take Draco home as soon as he was asleep the night before, so his notice would come to the Manor. By the time Dumbledore could get anyone close enough to investigate, Lucius and Harry would be back at the Manor. The boys would love it. Dressing up in Muggle clothes was one of their favorite pastimes.

"Mum," Harry said as they got ready for bed that night (he and Draco both refused to take off the Quidditch robes they'd gotten, and their brooms had to be forcibly removed from their fingers. Even if they could only fly six inches off the ground... it was still flying!)

"Yes?"

"Why are my robes red?" he asked. "Draco's are green."

A half asleep cheer for Slytherin came from Draco's room across the hall.

"Draco's father was a Slytherin," Narcissa explained carefully. "We thought maybe you'd like something to remind you of your own father; he was a Gryffindor."

"But everyone says Sirius (he refused to call him "Father") is a criminal. I don't want to be a criminal!"

"And you aren't," she assured him. "You aren't your parents, Harry."

"But what if I want to be like you and Father?" Harry asked. "What if I want to be a snake?"

"You'll be who you're meant to be," Narcissa said. "Be it a lion or a snake or even a raven... don't even think about coming home with yellow robes or I'll have Dobby feed them to the nifflers."

She grinned, teasing him, and he smiled as he drifted off to sleep. Lucius was watching from the door; Narcissa stood from his bed side and left the room.

"We're going to have to tell him the truth," she said.

"I know," he said.

They turned off the light and went to their room, but neither found it easy to sleep.

Well, I hope you enjoyed that. See you again next week!