The Golden Age

Disclaimer: Obviously, I own nothing but my own thoughts. Harry Potter and his world are the property of J.K.Rowling.

6. Restitution: Harry and the Malfoys

Harry turned to face Lucius Malfoy. He had not seen the wizard in over a month—not to speak to, anyway. Oh, he saw him often enough at the Ministry—hustled into an interrogation room, or leaving, head down but jaw still firm. He certainly looked better than he had during the war. The bruises had healed, and the eyes were less hollow. There were changes, certainly: the snake cane was gone, and the robes were not quite so intimidatingly expensive. Harry understood why Shacklebolt did not want to prosecute the family, but seeing the wizard walking freely in Diagon Alley still rankled.

Ron was sneering. "Think you can throw your money around and everybody'll forget you were Voldemort's right hand man?"

Malfoy eyed him coldly. "Mr. Weasley, when you were a prisoner in Malfoy Manor, did I appear to be his right hand man?" He dismissed him and spoke to Harry. "Mr. Potter, you know about the new school. Would you be willing to publicly endorse it?"

Surprised at the question, Harry replied, "Um—well—I don't know much about it. Professor McGonagall thinks it's a good idea—"

Ron snorted. "She'd like anything with the word 'school' tacked on it. If Malfoy's for it, you should be against it. We never needed schools like that before!"

"I was speaking to Mr. Potter. Perhaps he has his own and different thoughts on the matter." He asked Harry directly, "Can you honestly say that you would not have preferred attending such a school to whatever muggle institution gave you your early education?

Despite the knee-jerk impulse to disagree with anything Lucius Malfoy might say, Harry paused. He imagined the reaction of the Dursleys' if he had received an invitation at age five to go to a wizarding day school. It was not a pretty picture.

"I don't think my guardians would have allowed it."

"Really?" Malfoy's eyes narrowed. Yes, there was that rumor… "We are concerned about the difficulties in dealing with some muggle parents and guardians. We must find a satisfactory solution. Could we discuss this at greater length? You may have useful insights on the subject."

"Don't do it, Harry," Ron growled.

"I won't come to Malfoy Manor," Harry said firmly. "You can't reasonably expect it."

"I don't. Neutral ground, then? The Leaky Cauldron at eight this evening?"

"Who else will be there?"

"Narcissa, naturally. She is very excited about this new venture. You, of course, may bring whom you wish." He cast a regretful glance at Ron.

Ron was adamant. "He'd be nutters to meet with you lot. Don't do it, Harry!"

"I'll come alone, " Harry said. In spite of himself, he was interested. What would his life have been like if he had known about the wizarding world at age six? What if he had been protected, even if only at school, from the Dursleys? Maybe it was a good idea. McGonagall thought so, and Harry had a lot of faith in her judgement. Hermione was wild about the idea, but Harry did not want her along tonight. She would dominate the conversation, and want to talk about things like courses of study and what books to read. Harry wanted to talk about other things, and all things considered, it would be better if he went alone.

"Eight, then."

"Harry, mate, you're a moron."

-----

They met, of course, in private. Malfoy opened the door at his knock, and Harry found himself in a smallish room. Its only furnishing was a long table down the middle with a few chairs around it. There was a booklet at each place, probably a prospectus for the new school.

The greetings were awkward and monosyllabic.

"Mr. Potter."

"Mr. Malfoy."

"Draco's not here?"

Malfoy considered him. It seemed impossible that Potter would actually want to see his son, but perhaps it was simple curiosity.

"Draco is not in England at the moment. He has gone to the States, to finish his education. Gregory Goyle is with him."

"Not going back to Hogwarts, then?' Harry asked, just a little bit rudely.

"No. We thought that was perhaps not--a good idea." He looked past Harry and his face softened-- minutely, but not so minutely that Harry could not see it. He turned and saw Narcissa emerging from an adjoining room. She was wearing something that indicated… Harry winced, feeling totally squicked by the realization that Mrs. Malfoy was pregnant. It was just so wrong that people so old would be having babies.

She approached, looking Harry in the eye. They might be considered quits as far as debts were concerned, but Harry still felt a certain gratitude to her. She was the only one of the Malfoys he found the least bit tolerable, and she was—was—

"You may congratulate me, or offer me your best wishes. Either is considered courteous when addressing an expectant mother," she kindly explained. "You really haven't a clue about wizarding etiquette, have you?"

"No," replied Harry, with heavy sarcasm. "too busy learning how to stay alive to have time for etiquette lessons, I guess. Anyway," he added, ungraciously, "I hope you're all right. Isn't it sort of dangerous at your—I mean—"

The Malfoys plainly considered him some sort of human flobberworm. Lucius Malfoy's mouth tightened, and he looked away bitterly, clearly longing for the good old days when he could have blasted a wizard for such terminal bad manners.

"I'm very well," Narcissa assured him dryly. She was still taller than he, and it made him oddly uncomfortable. "So many have died, that it seemed very important to replenish our world. She's a witch, if you're interested. If you don't mind, I'd like to sit and get down to business. We were hoping to persuade you to make a public statement in support of the new school."

Harry gave her a vague nod, sitting down, continuing to watch her out of the corner of his eye. She really was very nice-looking. It was still squicky, though.

He felt there was no reason to pretend with Lucius, however. "After all the times you insulted the Weasleys about having too many children, you'll excuse me for being surprised."

Lucius looked at him thoughtfully. If he was sneering it was inside, not outside for the world to see. "I think you'll agree that an intelligent wizard is capable of changing his mind. It occurred to us, in observing the Weasleys, that their numbers, though too great in ordinary circumstances, had put them in an enviable tactical situation in these extraordinary times. And then—you may be too young to understand this, but surviving mortal danger sometimes makes one—" He paused, and then stopped, deciding against what he had been going to say. His wife smiled, and said nothing. Lucius looked at her, and simply said, "Narcissa wants more children. If it makes her happy, then I want them too."

"Lyra won't grow up an only child. We are in the process of adopting a Muggleborn orphan. She will be a companion for Lyra. She will be part of the wizarding world someday, and we think it is best that she grow up where she belongs from the first."

Lucius saw that Harry could hardly believe this, and said only, "Consider it another gesture of restitution, Mr. Potter. Narcissa has also contacted her sister Andromeda, who, it seems, would be glad of help and support, now that she has a grandchild to raise alone."

Harry growled inarticulately. He was Teddy Lupin's godfather. When the boy was old enough, Harry would take him in hand, and do what he could to correct all the Malfoy and Black influences. There was nothing he could do now, though; and after all, why shouldn't the Malfoy money go to help a boy orphaned by the Death Eater friends of his aunt and uncle?

The Malfoys were smiling at each other, holding hands. Harry thought he might gag. He looked at the cheerful purple pamphlet before him. It was discreetly decorated with twinkling stars and shining crescent moons. The Albus Dumbledore Primary School. The design reminded him of his old Headmaster, though it was far more sedate than anything Dumbledore would have worn.

"Are you going to send your daughter to the new school, or is it just for nobodies?"

"You are determined to be rude, aren't you?" The two Malfoys exchanged exasperated looks. Lucius continued, "Yes, of course Lyra will attend a wizarding primary school. I don't suppose it's occurred to you that I genuinely think them a good idea. Anything that gives the wizarding world another layer of protection against the muggles is a good idea."

Narcissa remarked,"I have been thinking about what you said to Lucius about your guardians. Had this kind of school existed then, they wouldn't have been permitted to refuse—not without some better reason than hating magic. They did, didn't they? Dumbledore actually placed you with people who treated you badly, denied you your heritage…"

"Don't say anything against Dumbledore!"

"I don't think that's necessary, really. All one has to do is state facts. Did the muggles beat you? Did they—"

"I don't want to talk about it."

Lucius Malfoy looked at him in honest wonder. "Was it to make your life so miserable that you would not mind losing it? That's—" he saw Harry's stormy face and said softly, "—extraordinary."

"I had to be there for the blood wards created by my mother's sacrifice to work. It was the only place I was safe."

Malfoy stared at the sky, obviously nonplussed. "Safe from everyone but muggles, it would seem. Who do you imagine was looking for you? I certainly wasn't. The Dark Lord was gone and life was good. The old crowd—"

Harry twitched at such a term being used to refer to Death Eaters.

"—the old crowd was getting on with their lives, and keeping their heads down. The lunatics like Bella— sorry, dearest—"

"—that's quite all right," Narcissa assured him. "She was a lunatic, after all."

"-- and Barty were locked away, one way or another. No one was going to come looking for you. Though I admit, had any rumor of your treatment surfaced, I might have. I could have caused a furor had the truth been known. You might have ended up as my ward. That would have been interesting."

"I don't imagine I would have lived long enough to find it interesting."

Narcissa rolled her eyes. Her husband sighed deeply. "That's a remarkably foolish thing to say. What do you think would have become of us if one hair of your head was injured? We would have had every incentive for you to be well and healthy."

"It would have been a bit of a problem for you when your Dark Lord turned up again, I guess."

"Certainly. I would have had to make a decision rather earlier than I did otherwise, and that might have been for the best. I never expected him to come back. I had heard rumors, those first years Draco was in school, but that night at the graveyard was the most hideous shock—"

"Oh, come on!" Harry snarled. "You knew! What about the diary? You were hot to get Voldemort back any way you could!"

"The diary!" Malfoy paled and covered his face with his hands. "The diary! It nearly cost me—Potter, I had no idea about the horcruxes. No one knew! I certainly did not, until I was asked to produce that damned diary and was nearly tortured to death when I couldn't!"

"You did know! You knew he set the basilisk on the school! Dobby warned me that you were up to something."

The Malfoys stared at him in total incomprehension.

"A basilisk?" Narcissa faltered

"Oh, come on! The Chamber of Secrets had a basilisk in it! You knew that!"

Malfoy was growing red with indignation. "I absolutely know nothing of the sort. I was hoping to get Dumbledore ousted that year, certainly. I knew someone claimed to have opened the Chamber. It was a basilisk? Dumbledore knew that there was a basilisk at Hogwarts and did not send the students home immediately? Is it still there?"

"No, I killed it."

The Malfoys looked at one another again.

"With a sword,' Harry added.

"You were what—all of twelve?"

"Yeah."

"Dumbledore never told anyone. I had no idea."

"Tell us everything—please," Narcissa asked, looking appalled.

Harry gave them the tale in short order. "Things started happening. Hermione figured out it was a basilisk. I found the diary thrown away and starting writing in it. Tom Riddle answered, and showed me Hagrid getting accused of setting the monster loose. I saw all sorts of things that happened in his time when he was in school. Then the diary disappeared again. Then we found out that Ginny Weasley had been taken into the Chamber. I'm a parselmouth. You know that. I found the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets, and went down to find her. And that's where I saw Riddle."

Lucius Malfoy's jaw dropped. "He—was there? You saw Him?"

"Yeah, Ginny was dying and he was getting more real by the minute."

"What—did he look like?"

"Like the sixteen-year-old Tom Riddle I'd been writing to. I really thought he was all right, until he wouldn't help me. Then he did this trick with writing his name in letters of fire in the air, and rearranging them to say "I am Lord Voldemort.' It was kind of a giveaway."

Lucius Malfoy was speechless.

Harry shrugged. "He set the basilisk on me and I killed it with the Sword of Gryffindor. Then I stabbed the diary with a basilisk fang and he broke apart like a mirror, and Ginny started breathing again. And then Fawkes flew us all out of the Chamber."

Lucius looked at the floor, beyond words. Narcissa looked at Harry suspiciously. "Somehow I think there's a great deal more to this story."

"That's the bare bones of it."

"And you—just left the basilisk there in the Chamber. What else was there?"

"Dunno. Didn't look around."

"Do you have any idea what a dead basilisk would be worth? Why didn't Dumbledore have Severus harvest it?"

"Dunno about that either. Maybe he didn't want anyone to know about the Chamber of Secrets."

"Is it still there?"

"Most of it. Hermione and Ron went down and took some bits off it."

A silence. Narcissa asked delicately, "Would you object to the rest being donated to the School Fund?"

Harry shrugged again. "Not really. I guess I could take Slughorn down there. I don't know, though. It might be too rough going for him. There's this long drop, you see--"

"Perhaps—a ladder?" Narcissa suggested mildly.

"I guess." He looked at the silent Lucius. "You really didn't know about the basilisk?"

"I give you my word on my magic that I did not."

"And you didn't know Voldemort was back?"

Malfoy grimaced, and he studied his hands. After a moment he said, "As far as I'm concerned, he never did come back. No, don't shake your head, Potter. That thing that appeared in the graveyard that night was not the Dark Lord I served before. I don't know what it was. It was clearly not human, that foul thing that came out of a cauldron. It had a shred of the Dark Lord in it—certainly his power and his memories—but it was not the same being. You can't imagine what he was like in the days when I came under his spell. You never saw the Dark Lord in the days of his glory: handsome, compelling, convincing. I was young—we were all young—and dreamed of a better world. He would talk—how he would talk!—about his plans for the wizarding world. It would be beautiful: a time when wizards would never fear muggles again—when we would live openly, our magic unfettered, with the whole world ours to command. We would not cling to the shadows, hiding our powers, but would walk in the sun for all to see. We would not conceal the Ministry in rubble and decay, but create buildings worthy of magic. It would be a new world—a magnificent one…"

Narcissa squeezed his hand. "And then that thing appeared. You saw it yourself. It wasn't sane, and it wasn't even very intelligent. It could cast very powerful curses, but it couldn't think things through. We didn't understand at first what had happened, but it seems obvious now that the shred of soul left to him from making all those horcruxes was not enough for the resurrection to work as it ought. Even the first time—in the last few years there were—signs of decay. Anyhow, as to you--there were so many ways you could have been destroyed—so many ways to win the war. He could have had Miss Granger receive some sort of irresistible scholarship that would have sent her far away—he could have subverted the other Gryffindors—but he wouldn't do any of those things. He had only a few ideas left in his head. The Dark Lord had tempted us with all sorts of wonders, but I don't think he ever tempted you at all."

"Not likely—he said once that I should join him—that we'd do extraordinary things together, and that I'd see my parents again. I might only have been eleven, but even I couldn't be fooled by a face talking out of the back of Professor Quirrell's head."

"His—head?"

"Yeah. Voldemort came back and possessed Professor Quirrell. The Professor wore this big purple turban that smelled like garlic the whole year. You'd have thought with Voldemort in his head he'd have been a decent Defense teacher, but he wasn't. Voldemort tried to force him to kill me, but when I touched him he burned up."

"You realize," remarked Lucius Malfoy after a moment, "that you're saying that the great Dumbledore—the Great Legilimancer-- did not notice that Voldemort was sharing skull space with a member of his staff, and that he was unaware that there was a live basilisk in the school."

Harry had thought about it from time to time. "Yeah. And he didn't catch that Professor Moody was really Barty Crouch Junior. It might have helped a lot if he had. Cedric Diggory wouldn't have died, and Voldemort wouldn't have used me for the ritual to bring himself back—or not back, according to you." He saw the look on the Malfoys' faces, and said. "Well, you're the ones who decided to name a school after him. I sorted it out with Dumbledore, and we're all right now, but even I know he wasn't perfect."

Narcissa lifted a hand in an exquisite, incredulous gesture. "Why didn't he at least say that you had destroyed Slytherin's monster?"

"Why didn't he tell everyone that you had defeated Voldemort your first year?" Lucius demanded. "If any of this had been public, it might have made a number of us think twice before surrendering to the Dark Lord."

Harry shrugged. "He had his reasons, I guess. He always did." He picked up the pamphlet and let it drop onto the table with a puff of air. "I don't want to talk about him anymore. Tell me more about this school. Is there going to be Quidditch?"

-----

Note: Disagree with me if you will, but I've always found it impossible to believe that Lucius Malfoy understood that the diary was a true horcrux. If he had known, that object would have been locked away in the deepest recess of the Malfoy vault at Gringott's. I believe that he thought it was some sort of cursed object that would embarrass the Weasleys in some way. He probably thought that the most likely scenario would be for the little girl to tell her parents that she had an extra book, and then the Weasleys would have to explain how they come to be in possession of Voldemort's diary. Anything else presupposes an in-depth knowledge of Ginny Weasley's thought processes. It's also fantastically careless. I can't believe that Malfoy would be been party to unleashing a basilisk on the school his son attended, and that basilisk controlled only by a schoolgirl who was being controlled by a cursed object of the Dark Lord.

Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that Lucius Malfoy was a true follower of the Dark Lord, and that he knew that the diary was a horcrux. In that case, he could have raised Voldemort immediately, and the first war would have gone on without hiatus.

Next: Harry and Hermione Redux.