Harry Potter: The Power He Knows Not Is…
By: Tezza1502
Disclaimer: "I own Harry Potter." The author told the mirror his Soulmate keeps leaving beside his computer for whatever reason. "Don't I?"
"No." The reflection answered with a weary shake of the head. This wasn't the first time they'd had this conversation, and he was getting worried. Imaginary voices are supposed to be the delusion, not the voice of reason. Then again, that Parseltongue fic came from the same area of the brain that he inhabits.
"Oh. Okay." The author turns back to the screen, which was winking at him suggestively, and inviting him to push its buttons firmly again. "There you go. I don't own Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling and her friends do." He nodded firmly. "So there!"
Notes: There have been a couple of comments about Harry's seemingly split personality. (Wesker's Redfeild's review is the one that immediately springs to mind) It's not so much that Harry has multiple personalities, or some such. More that he's had to deal with a sudden and massive influx of information in a relatively short amount of time. Its something that I'll be addressing somewhat in chapter's 9 to 11.
CHAPTER 9: (The Gathering of the Ministry Six, plus Two)
"Neville! Welcome to my home. How ya doin'?"
Neville Longbottom brushed some ash from his shoulders as he gracefully stepped out of the fireplace, looked around briefly, before returning Harry's greeting. "Hello Harry. Thank you, and very well. Yourself?"
"Not too bad." He shrugged. "Draco's been a bit of a pain, but otherwise..."
"D-Draco? Draco Malfoy! He's here?" Neville stuttered, glancing about wildly and almost drawing his wand. He only just managed to remember his manners. "Sorry."
"Don't worry about it. My fault for not realising that you might not know that bit of information yet." Harry waved off the other teen's apology. "Did you hear about my godfather's will reading last week. Sirius Black?"
"Uh, yeah. Gran says the other ancient and noble houses have been going crazy over the rumour that he never received a trial before being put into Azkaban. She says it sets a very worrying precedent for the next heir who might end up in a similar situation."
Harry frowned. "It's not a rumour. The Goblins can prove it. Anything else?"
Neville blinked at the certainty in Harry's voice, before continuing, "...Oh yeah. Something about Draco being named the Black Heir. And a Regent being assigned over him as well."
"Uh huh." Harry casually scratched his chest with his left hand. Neville's eye's bugged out when he spotted it.
"Merlin's moustache! Your the Black Regent?!" He shouted, pointing at the ring on Harry's left pinkie.
"Yup! Sucks to be Draco, doesn't it?" Harry smirked.
Neville nodded his head absently, working on comprehending this turn of events.
"Yo, Neville." Harry snapped his fingers in front of the other teen's face. "Snap out of it."
"Huh? Oh, sorry. It's just a bit of a surprise."
"Was for me too, let me tell you." He grinned. "But, we're getting used to each other. And he's Draco Black now. Lord Draco, if you please. Scion of the Ancient and Noble House of Black."
Neville groaned. "I'll bet he's shoving that in your face every chance he gets."
"Nah. He'd like to, but it wouldn't work." Harry dropped his left hand, and now made a show of scratching his eyebrow with his right hand.
"Oh your kidding me." Neville exclaimed tiredly, seeing the ring on Harry's other hand. "You got the Potter Lordship as well?"
Harry shrugged sheepishly. "Yeah. Turns out, by taking the Regency I got emancipated into the bargain. Combine that with being the only Potter left, plus a couple of other things, and it all means that I was eligible to get it a couple of years early. Go figure."
Neville gaped at him for a minute, before shaking off the shock. "Actually, if my Gran wasn't holding it off until I'm older, I would be Lord Longbottom by now. She wants to wait and see if I mature enough to be able to handle it before she'll make a decision." He grumbled, feeling oddly left out by Harry's new status. "You know, Ron's gonna go nuts when he sees that. Any other surprises?"
"I imagine he will, for all the good it'll do him. I'm still a bit annoyed with the Weasleys at the moment. And I haven't even got started on the surprises yet." He said enigmatically, before changing the topic. "Say, how do you manage to come out of the Floo without falling arse over tit? I can't do it, and no-one'll tell me what I'm doing wrong."
"Oh, uh, well, all you have to do is-" Right then, the fire roared behind them, drowning out Neville's next words.
Harry spun around, just in time to get an armful of Luna Lovegood as she rocketed out of the fireplace.
"Whoops! Hi Harry. Do you know that your Nargles have changed colour over the summer?" She stated as she stared up into his eyes. "And they've swarmed, too."
"Hello Luna. No I didn't, though it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest. How have you been?" He asked, still supporting her in his arms.
"Terribly bored." She smiled at him. "Daddy's fun, but I've missed having people to talk to regularly that won't make fun of me, like in the DA. Thank you for inviting me here today. Are you going to be telling secrets?"
"How'd... Never mind. Yes I am, you cheeky little butterfly." He grinned at the amusement dancing in her eyes. "Now, as much as I enjoy having a beautiful young woman like yourself in my arms, there are others still to arrive yet. And knowing my luck, they'll shoot out of that flame like a bludger and plough right into us."
"Pity." Luna's cheeks coloured slightly at being called beautiful by Harry, and she stepped backwards out of his arms with only the slightest of hesitation. "Hello Neville. How are you on this fabulous day." She turned and greeted the other occupant of the room.
Leaving those two to talk, Harry turned back to see that the flames had indeed grown again in preparation for someone. With a fiery belch, Ginny Weasley, followed by her brother Ron, stumbled out.
"Hey mate." Ron shouted when he spotted Harry. The smile as he laid eyes on him, the surprise as he noted the casual yet obviously expensive outfit with the new designer glasses Harry now wore on his face instead of his cheap old damaged ones, and the spark of jealousy when he added up in his head what the outfit's total cost would be, all flitted across Ron's face at a blatantly obvious slow canter.
"Hi Harry." Ginny's reaction to Harry was much the same as her brother's, only she licked her lips with barely suppressed desire instead of jealousy.
Harry rolled his eyes at their behaviour as he opened his mouth to speak, when suddenly, a deep clanging sound emanated from the fireplace. Raising an eyebrow, he checked the wards to see what was happening. "Did you two tell the rest of your family not to try and follow you here? That the invitation was for you only?"
Ron and Ginny looked at each other. "We did, but Mum and Dumbledore-"
Harry rolled his eyes. "Albus showed up too, huh."
The Weasleys looked at their shoes, embarrassed. "Did one of them try to follow us?" Ginny asked weakly.
"Yup." He nodded. "Albus I'd guess, by the strength of the power signature."
"What did you do?" Ron asked, seeing the expression on his dorm mate's face. It was oddly reminiscent of his twin brothers as they watched one of their pranks happen.
"Not much." He grinned. "Just shunted him back to the Burrow. With maybe slightly more power than needed."
"Why is the Headmaster trying to come here, Harry?" Neville asked, confused. "And why would you refuse him entry?"
"Questions that will be answered once Hermione shows up, and we are seated in the Tea Room."
"Hermione's coming?" Ginny blurted out.
"Uh-huh." Harry nodded again, pulling out a pocket watch and checked the time. "Right about..."
/CRACK/
"...Now."
Hermione appeared with a pop on the arm of Winky. Shaking away the slight dizziness of travelling by house elf, she spotted Harry straight away and pounced on him.
"Harry!" She cried as she engulfed him in a rib-cracking hug.
"Does every girl he knows greet him like that?" Neville asked in awe. "He's two for three so far."
"Dunno." Ron shrugged, still slightly jealous.
"Did you-?" Ginny asked Luna.
"Absolutely. By complete accident, fortunately for me." She nodded, smiling dreamily. "Though I think you missed your turn."
"Bugger." The red-headed girl groused, folding her arms across her chest with a huff.
"Oi! Break it up, you two." Ron yelled after a minute had passed.
"Yeah, I want my turn." Ginny said under her breath.
Ron spun around and glared at her. "Don't even think about it, or I'll tell Mum." He threatened.
"Whatever." She snorted. 'Mum'd probably push me at him herself if she was here, the way she carries on sometimes.' While Ginny still harboured a crush on Harry, she had pretty much moved on after all this time, or so she told herself. Though she wouldn't turn him down if he showed her the slightest bit of interest. At all.
"Oh, hi Ron." Hermione disentangled herself from Harry and gave the red-headed boy a brief hug, before turning and greeting the others while thanking Winky for coming to get her.
Neville waved a greeting, before doing a quick double-take at who was actually in the room. "Hey Harry. Why are only the people who went with you to the Department of Mysteries here?"
"Well spotted, Neville." Harry noted with a smile. "I promised Hermione an explanation about a couple of things, seeing as she's a bit in the dark about my summer so far. I then decided 'What the heck!', and invited the rest of you too. As you'll find out, it's all interconnected with what happened before school ended. Come on." He gestured for the others to follow him out the door.
"Where?" Ron asked. While he'd spent a fair amount of time at Grimmauld Place last year, he didn't actually recognise where in the house he was right now.
"To the Tea Room." Harry said. "As I told Neville, Draco's here right now, and I don't want to leave him alone for any extended amount of time. Who knows what he might try to pull."
"Draco!"
"Malfoy!?
"Here?" Ron and Ginny shouted in time with each other.
"Wow. You guys sounded just like the twins there." Harry joked. "And his name is Draco Black now, since he accepted Sirius' will."
"But-" Ron sputtered.
"'Sup, Ron. Think the little ferret's gonna get the best of me, somehow." He snorted derisively. "Please! We've had a couple of...disagreements... already, and he's about as good a dueller as he is a Seeker."
Hermione winced. "That bad, huh?"
"Yup."
"But... He's Draco." Ron reiterated, as if that explained everything. "And why's he here, anyway? Doesn't he have a manor to live in with his mother, or something?"
"I imagine that he's here because Mrs. Malfoy asked Harry to take him in. She doesn't think Draco would be safe at the Malfoy Manor right now." Hermione looked to Harry for confirmation. When he nodded, she continued. "As to why he's still here, you'll have to ask him." She pointed at the Boy-Who-Lived.
"It'll come up in conversation before long, I'm sure." Harry evaded. "Neville! Did you get a new wand yet?"
Neville jumped, surprised at being brought into the conversation. "Uh, yeah. Gran and I visited Olivanders a couple of days after school let out. She was actually proud of me for standing by my friends, and going with you." He blushed slightly at the memory of her praise of his actions. It was the first time he could ever remember his Gran saying anything like that about him.
"And so she should be." Harry stated firmly, getting agreeing nods from the others.
Neville ducked his head, embarrassed. "Yeah, well, I ended up getting a Cherry wood one, with a Unicorn hair core." He pulled it out and showed it off briefly. "It was funny actually, when we walked in." He chuckled. "The first thing Olivander said was that I was several years late picking up my wand." Everyone snickered. "When Gran explained that I had been using Dad's wand perfectly well for ages, Olivander then said that 'The wand chooses the Wizard, Madame Longbottom, not the wizards Grandmother!'" Neville was wearing a shy grin as he related the tale. "You should have seen the look on Gran's face."
The others chuckled, imagining stern Augusta Longbottom getting chastised by the ancient wandmaker.
"And that was pretty much the high point of my summer so far. What about you guys?"
They all shrugged, each wondering where to start, when they heard a high-pitched yell come from down the hallway in front of them.
"BUT HE LEFT ME THERE FOR HOURS!"
Harry pinched his nose. "Not again. Is he still going on about that?"
"Who?"
"Draco. He must be whinging to mummy about what happened a few days ago." He sighed and increased his pace. "Come on."
Entering the Tea Room, the others saw that Mrs. Malfoy was indeed sitting on the opposite side of the room on one of the couches, watching her son pace back and forth in front of her and gesticulating frantically as he related to her something that Harry had done to him.
"Will you give it a rest, Draco! You completely deserved what happened to you." Harry said forcefully, before he turned back to his other guests.
"Make yourself at home, guys." He gestured to the other couches spread around the room "Dobby and Winky will appear with snacks in a while, so take a load off while I sort this out." He faced Narcissa again. "Now, I'm guessing that Draco has been complaining about me not catering to his every whim for the last week, Mrs. Malfoy."
She nodded, knowing from experience that her son was most likely exaggerating what happened.
"And from the manly shriek we just heard down the hall, he told you about our little dust up the other day." Another nod. "Well, perhaps I should explain my side, and you can decide for yourself where the truth lies."
"Go on." She gestured, ignoring her son's now frantic demands to just forget the whole thing.
Harry cleared his throat, and got a smirk on his face that had his friends leaning in. 'This aught to be good!' They thought as one.
"Three days ago, Draco was once more acting like a trainee Death Eater-"
"I WASN'T!" The Slytherin interrupted hotly. "I was merely-"
"Shush, it's my turn to talk now." He quirked an eyebrow, and the other human resident of Grimmauld Place reluctantly shut up. Draco was quickly learning that when he ignored the expression Harry was making right then, bad things happened to him soon after.
"Where was I? Oh yeah, I found him trying to get my house elves to hurt themselves for his own entertainment. After hitting him with a stinging hex on the backside, I told him that any punishments in this house were my responsibility to mete out, if warranted. And that included for him as well. So, being the epitome of maturity that he is, Draco drew his wand and started throwing curses at me while screaming about what will happen to me when his father learns of this. Pretty much the usual spiel he does at school."
The other students grimaced. Draco's tendencies towards those who were less fortunate than himself was well known at Hogwarts, and it had only been his father's money and influence, along with the protection of Snape, that allowed the ferret to indulge himself. They were glad that Harry seemed to be taking steps to correct this deficiency in his personality.
"So, I let him get it out of his system for a while. His aim's crap, and his spell's are pretty weak too." Harry paused as something occurred to him. "Come to think of it, that's probably why none of the penalty clauses in the magical contract between us as Regent and Heir never activated. I never felt I was in danger. He barely managed to scorch the walls most of the time, even with the darker spells."
Draco was slowly turning red with indignation by now.
"Eventually, I decided to wind things up, 'cause I had an appointment at Gringotts I had to get to. And he was about to fall over from exhaustion anyway. So, I decided to give him a chance to rest."
"YOU PUT ME IN A FULL-BODY BIND AND LEFT ME THERE WHILE YOU TOOK OFF FOR THE REST OF THE BLOODY AFTERNOON!" Draco shouted indignantly.
"Was that all you were angry at me about?" Harry replied, sounding honestly confused. "I thought it was the fact that I hit you with an overpowered tickling charm as I walked out of the door."
A shocked silence greeted that statement.
"Oh Harry! Tell me you didn't?" Hermione spoke first, her face going weird colours as her imagination galloped away from her.
"Where?" Ginny put in.
Harry grinned and looked down briefly.
"Oh you didn't?!" Ron chuckled. "That's a bit below the belt, isn't it?"
"Sure was."
His friends finally burst out laughing. Draco continued to go deeper shades of red, while Narcissa was outwardly grim. Deep inside, though, she was pleased that Potter seemed to be committed to disciplining her son when he showed his father's influence on his upbringing. They were pure-bloods, and therefore naturally superior to other beings. However, Lucius' personal...fetishes... when it came to dealing with the lower beings left a lot to be desired. Decorum needed to be maintained.
As such, she felt she had to make at least a token effort to decry her son's treatment. "Regent Potter, was that really necessary?"
Harry turned to her. "Yes, it was Mrs. Malfoy. Draco appears to be trying to follow in his father's footsteps, which seems to include developing a liking for torture." His eyes grew frosty. "While in my care, he will not indulge in such past-times. And if I have to give him a taste of what he so badly wishes to mete out to others to break him of the habit, I will."
Harry took a deep breath. "I didn't want this. My life is complicated enough right now without having to deal with him." He pointed a finger at his charge. "But I took what my godfather offered me and became Regent. I chose to become his guardian. Because your son will come to a horrible and bloody end if he continues on the way he is." Harry chuckled mirthlessly. "Hermione calls it my 'people-saving thing'. It's not necessarily a bad character trait to have, despite how much trouble it occasionally gets me in to. And considering Sirius' original goal was to consign the Black Family to the history books, I think a little more gratitude on both your parts would not go astray."
"What?" Narcissa asked weakly, while Draco's face lost all it's previous colour as he sat down heavily beside his mother.
"Your vaults are a small fraction of what they used to be, Draco Black. His original intention was to drain them completely. The Heirloom vaults are in the same condition. The Black business and property portfolio is pretty much gone. While a portion of that was done by Sirius' mother before she died, in her support of Voldemort, the rest was withdrawn by Sirius. He hated his family, and everything they stood for. If he'd had his way, the House of Black wouldn't have even existed by the time his will was read."
The whole room was silent. This was news to them all. And only Ron and Hermione had ever heard Harry talk with such passion in his voice before.
"...Thank Merlin he died early then." Draco whispered unthinkingly.
The temperature in the room actually plummeted as Harry rounded on him, eyes blazing.
"oh crap!" Someone whispered.
In the blink of an eye, Harry was across the room.
"Harry, NO!" Hermione screamed as she saw Harry's wand appear in his hand, a curse already lighting it's tip. Before he could loose a spell at Draco, she had leapt to her feet and grabbed his arm, trying to force it upwards, and out from under Draco's chin. Luna had also jumped to her feet and pounced on Harry, wrapping her arms tightly around his torso. "Please, Harry. He's not worth it."
Harry paused.
"Please, Harry." He glanced down at Luna, who was looking up at him with her wide, silvery eyes. "Don't be a bully. Not even to him. There are far too many in the world as it is." She said in a quavering voice.
Harry looked from her, to Hermione, and finally towards a badly frightened Draco, who was pinned to his seat by Harry's wand.
"You ever say anything like that about my godfather again, Draco, and I will end you. Regency contract be damned."
Draco felt the tip of a Holly and Phoenix feather wand heating the main artery on the left side of his neck, looked up into those killing-curse eyes, and gulped. Harry was completely serious.
Nodding frantically, Draco watched as his guardian visibly beat his rage down into something manageable.
"Say. It."
"I...I will...I will not say anything derogatory about you godfather, Sirius, ever again." He stammered, fighting to keep control of his bowels.
Giving Draco one last glare, Harry snorted and pulled his wand from under the other teen's chin. "See that you don't." With that, he stepped back and disengaging himself from both Hermione and Luna. Turning slightly, he spoke to Narcissa through clenched teeth.
"My apologies, Mrs. Malfoy. While your son's comment was both rude, and tactless, I overreacted. The death of my Godfather is still something of an open wound to me right now. Again, I apologise for threatening your son in your presence." Sketching a bow to Narcissa, who accepted his apology with a gulp and a slight nod of her own, he looked around and noticed the expressions his other friends were wearing. "What?" He snarled.
"We're...we're just a bit shocked at you exploding like that, Harry." Hermione said weakly as she retook her seat, not wanting him to direct his ire at her. "I mean, you were more than a little scary when you were angry at us last year for not contacting you all summer. But this... violence… is way out of character for you." She waved at Draco. "What's happened to you?"
"Since that night in the Department of Mysteries, a lot." He replied, taking a couple of deep breaths to regain better control of his emotions. "And I've been through some changes as a result. Unfortunately, because of that, my control over my temper is frayed. Combine that with his," Harry gestures at a recovering Draco, "constant whining and attempts to be the top dog in this house, my house, and well, I've just about reached my last nerve."
"oh."
"Look," He ran his hands through his hair. "I invited you all here to explain some of the changes I've gone through lately, amongst other things. I'll have Dobby bring in some sandwiches, and I'll start talking. It won't explain everything, but it should give you an idea about why my temper is shorter than normal.. Okay?"
More Notes: Yes, Harry is being quite violent towards Draco. Yes, after experiencing the Dursleys for over a decade, it would be something I imagine he would be reluctant to inflict on another. However, if anyone said something like that about one of my nearest and dearest, especially one who was recently deceased, a bloody nose would be the least of my response towards them.
-CHAPTER END-