Wednesday morning dawned, bringing with it the usual rain and cloud cover that Forks was famous for. It seemed that alternating between driving the car and their motorcycles would become tradition for Draco and Harry. They were nervous that their projects stacked themselves neatly into the small backseat of the Lotus Evora. The boys still had not discussed their presentations, though both thought that they had a good idea of what the other was bringing- other than the obvious, of course.
Harry buckled Teddy into his car seat. He had added a potion to the boy's breakfast that would halt his morphing for three hours. He had then packed enough bottles spiked with the potion to ensure that Teddy's features would remain the same all day. Harry was nervous as to how the school would respond to him having a baby. While Teddy was not biologically his, they were related legally, and the teenager only hoped that he wouldn't be given grief or called an unfit parent. He smoothed the boy's Remus-brown hair and made to close the door.
"Hold it!" Draco called to him. The Malfoy heir descended the few steps into the garage, and whistled over his shoulder. Razor was at his side in seconds, once again holding his harness in his mouth. Draco stroked the panther's head and lifted him into the car, then turned to Harry.
"Okay, now we can go. You ready for this?"
"As ready as I ever can be," Harry breathed. He got into the driver's seat, and they left for school with the windshield wipers flying at rapid pace.
The English classroom was packed. There were posters and display boards leaned against the walls, and each student had a box (of ranging sizes) on their desk. Besides Draco, only two students had brought pets, but the others were Hamsters, and not nearly as exciting as Razor.
The pureblood entered the classroom on his own, with his familiar trotting loyally by his side- nose no more than two inches from the boy's thigh. He carried his trunk with Harry's stacked atop it, and placed two rolled up poster boards on the floor beside his desk. Then he approached the teacher and spoke in hushed tones. Her eyes grew wide, then she smiled and nodded. Draco thanked her and took his seat. He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and Razor lay down under the desk at his feet.
There were twenty minutes before the first period class began, and students wandered in and out of the room at random. There was excitement in the air, as everyone was eager to tell their own story, as well as hear about others. Suddenly, the room grew silent.
Alice Cullen floated gracefully into the room, carrying a red box under one arm and a small poster in the other. Trailing behind her were her four siblings. They each handed a passcard to Mrs. Vicklind, and all 5 Cullens took advantage of the back of the classroom. As they sat, conversation in the room picked up again.
Draco checked his watch. With five minutes before the bell was to ring, Harry's head appeared peeking through the rectangular window of the door. He looked at Draco, who nodded, and then he opened the door and walked in.
If the shock in the room had been impressive with Alice's entrance, it was even more so when Harry Potter entered his classroom with a 5-month-old child in his arms.
As the perfect picture of "Daddy," the teenager held the boy in his left arm, carried a small stuffed wolf and a pacifier in his right hand, and had a well-stocked black diaper bag slung over this shoulder. Very much aware of the eyes on him, Harry moved swiftly to his seat and passed Teddy to Draco for the moment as he took back his box and poster board. Then he reclaimed his godson, sat him on his left knew, and Teddy placed one of the wolf's ears into his mouth. The class aww'ed and Harry sighed, resting his head in his palm.
Presenting in alphabetical order, Alice was the first to go. She introduced herself, (as if no one knew who she was) and displayed her small family tree. She announced that she was happy to have such a close-knit family; her father, Dr. Carlisle Cullen and his wife Esme, and her adopted siblings. She brought the four of them as her "most important thing," and after showing off two of her most prized outfits and a picture of her car, she explained that she loved to play games with her siblings, like baseball, and to go camping, (here her brothers had grinned mischievously) and how she and Rosalie enjoyed shopping. It was perhaps the most information that anyone had ever heard from one of the Cullens.
After several less exciting presentations, Draco was called to the front. Harry clapped his friend's shoulder, offered him a smile of support, and the wizard made his way to the presentation table. Razor remained patiently under the desk, twitching his tail when his master left.
"Hello. I know that you all don't know much about me and Harry, so I figure I'll be telling you quite a bit so that you can leave us alone."
The class chuckled, and he unrolled a fairly extensive family tree.
"Right then. My name is Draco Abraxas Malfoy. The Malfoy name is rather prestigious where Harry and I are from, and though I don't like my family members much, I am very proud of my lineage, so here's my tree.
I am an only child, the son and heir of Lucius Malfoy and his wife, my mother, Narcissa Malfoy, nee Black. My mother has two sisters, my aunts, named Andromeda and Bellatrix."
If any of the students found the names unusual, they did not show it.
"Bellatrix married a bloke named Rodolphus LeStrange, and they had no kids. Andromeda married Ted Tonks, and they had a daughter who is just called Tonks…"
His voice faded off for a bit, and Harry clutched Teddy to his chest. None of the students noticed.
"Tonks was my cousin- although I never really knew her. She married a great guy who was once one of Harry's and my teachers. His name was Remus Lupin. They were both killed in an accident about 5 months ago…
"Okay, so, Mother's parents, that would be my grandparents, were called Cygnus Black II and Druella Rosier Black. Grandmother was an only child, but her husband had a brother named Alphard Black and a sister, Walburga. Shemarried Orion Black, and they had two sons, Sirius and Regulus Black. They're my cousins, I suppose. And Father had no siblings, but his parents… umm, are you dizzy? I think that's as far as I will go on that."
Draco skipped over the other branches of his tree and rested the poster on the chalkboard tray. The class applauded and laughed at their own confusion.
"Right, so I still need to show you my three prized possessions." He pulled his Hogwarts trunk toward him and decided to explain this first.
"So, me and Harry attended a private boarding school in Scotland until two years ago, and everyone had cases similar to this. Mine is black and silver- clearly, and it's got my initials engraved on the side. I decided to put my possessions in here because it is important to me."
He opened the lid and pulled out the first object.
"This," he began, "is a stack of letters that I have kept for the last two years."
The stack was about 6 inches think, various papers and envelopes bound together with a straining rubber band.
"The topics in them range drastically and I won't read them to you, because they're private, but I have ones from my father, mother, and other relatives. There's also a few that I wrote myself, but couldn't find the courage to send."
He paused to think for a moment.
"The letters aren't so much 'prized possessions.' They're important because of their content, but I'm not going to read them to you."
He replaced the letters in the box, took a deep breath, and pulled out the second item.
"This," he stated with conviction, "is in here because it's the biggest mistake of my entire life."
Harry gasped as Draco pulled his Death Eater mask from the trunk. His classmates obviously had no idea what the big deal, was.
"I told you before that I am not proud of my family. I will tell you why. My Father worked for a horrible organization, similar to the Mafia, I suppose. He raised me through my childhood to grow up and join the ranks by his side… um, one of those letters actually, was sent to me from him while he was in prison. It was that letter that informed me that I was set to be inducted into the organization."
The class gasped, and Mrs. Vicklind brought a hand up to cover her mouth.
"This is a Death Eater's mask. It is designed to hide your identity while you're torturing or terrorizing others." Draco gulped again, staring into the empty eyes of the mask.
"I participated unwillingly in two raids under the force of Father's associates and my other relatives. I was supposed to avenge my father's imprisonment. Instead, I betrayed the organization."
The class released a collective sigh of relief, and Draco looked up at Harry, who smiled at him.
"What?" Draco asked his classmates. "Did you think I was a killer? No- I was just raised by my bastard of a father. It took me sixteen years to realize it though. I used to worship him."
Harry snorted.
"Hush, Harry. Okay, last possession. This is called a Slytherin Pendant. At our old school, we were divided into houses for our dormitories, and I was a Slytherin. We were a proud, sneaky bunch, and our symbol was a serpent. The house was named after one of the school's founders, Salazar Slytherin, several hundred years ago."
He replaced the pendant back into the box, and the class applauded again.
"Finally, I know that you must be very curious about my little friend here. That is Razor. He is a Black Panther cub with a genetic growth disorder. He's about eight years old, though he seems much younger most of the time."
Razor remained anchored under the desk, his tail twitching against the tiled floor, and his ears pricked up at the sound of his name.
"Razor is the most important thing in my life. He's loyal, he's comforting, he's well- he's my everything. I can talk to him, or just hold him if I want. He's also insanely intelligent. Right now he's not got his harness on, but he will for the rest of the day so that people don't run off with him. I know that he won't leave my side though. Watch this."
He whistled sharply through his teeth. Immediately, Razor picked up his harness from the floor, darted to the front of the classroom, and waited, sitting perfectly still for Draco to attach the straps to his torso. The class aww'ed and applauded.
"So, that concludes my presentation." Draco took a bow and returned to his seat with Razor at heel.
"Thank you, Draco. That was very well done, and congratulations on overcoming the pressures in your life," the teacher told him. Then she called Mike Newton to present.
"Let me hold Mini-Moony for a bit, Potter," Draco whispered. Harry could see that the Slytherin wanted to hide his shaking and passed the child to him.
"That was really impressive Draco. Good job, I know that took a lot," he whispered back.
Draco nuzzled his nose in Teddy's hair and the child giggled. "I'm sorry about the mask, mate. I just figured…"
"No, really. I don't mind." Harry interrupted him. "I was only shocked."
Draco nodded, and they both turned their attention to Mike Newton and his luck pair of converse shoes.
The class was more alert than ever when Harry was called to the front of the class. With the talent that only parents seem to possess, the teenager rose from his seat, swiftly swapped a soggy wolf's ear with a pacifier, and handed Draco everything else while walking to the front with his godson, a poster board, and his Hogwarts trunk. His classmates were still silent, all eyes set on the duo.
"Hello," he began. There were no traces of fear or nervousness in his voice- he was used to speaking in front of others.
"My name is Harry James Potter. I am eighteen years old, and I moved here with Draco just a few weeks ago. Unlike him, I haven't grown up studying my heritage, so I don't know very much about my biological family, so I have made a family tree that includes the people in my life that I call my family- even if it's not a blood relation. So, here goes.
My mother and father, Lily and James Potter- both killed when I was 15 months old. I grew up with my mum's sister, Petunia Evans Dursley, and her husband Vernon, and my cousin, Dudley. I don't really consider them family, though. Moving on, next would be my two very best friends. I met them when I started at boarding school at age eleven. Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley. Both of them are home in England. The Weasley's basically took me in as one of their own during the Summer after 1st year, and every Summer after that as well.
They're a really special family."
Harry was glad that the security guards in the building were known by first name only. Bill would not encounter any questions.
"There's Arthur and Molly, and they have six sons; Bill, Charlie, Percy, George, Fr-Fred, and Ron. And they have one daughter, the youngest, Ginny."
No one commented on his stutter, but the females in the room sighed in pity for the girl that they did not know. Harry chuckled.
"Right, so after the Weasleys would be my 'uncles,' I suppose. My father's very best friend, and my godfather, was Sirius Black. That's Draco's uh, cousin? And then another great friend of theirs was once my teacher. He was a great man, Remus Lupin. He married Tonks, and they had a baby just a few weeks before they were killed- a boy named Teddy. He is my godson, and I was granted custody of him when his grandmother was deemed too emotionally distraught to be the caretaker of an infant."
The class aww'ed quietly. Again.
"But-" Harry said lightly, "we can talk about this little monster later!"
Teddy spluttered his laughter from behind the pacifier in his mouth, as though he knew they were talking about him.
"Okay, enough of my family tree. Possessions! I also put mine into my boarding school case. It's exactly the same as Draco's except mine says H.J.P. instead of 'Damn.'" The class laughed, and he lifted the lid. He pulled a thick leather-bound book and rested it on a desk. He had spent Monday night duplicating the original and taking out the pages that displayed Wizard attire or content. Then, he had immobilized each picture. He now owned a muggle version of the photo album that Hagrid had given to him.
"This is one of my prized possessions. An old friend of my parents' learned that I had no pictures of them, so he put this together for me. The first 37 pictures in there are of them and me before their death. After that, I began to add my own pictures from my time at school."
Harry looked at the girl who's desk he had placed the album on.
"You can look at it and pass it around, I just want you all to be very careful."
The girl nodded and began to leaf gently through the pages.
"Okay, the next thing I brought: it might seem insignificant to you, but it was my first really special Christmas present." He pulled an emerald green sweater from the trunk. It was very small, about the size for a nine-year-old, and Draco laughed softly.
"Blimey, Potter. I forgot how scrawny you were in first year!"
"Shut up, Malfoy. Mike, turn to page 52 in that album."
Mike Newton, who had been skimming curiously through the photos of Harry's past, flipped to the page and a grin split across his face.
"Don't think that you should tease Harry about his past appearance, Draco." the boy said.
"What!?" The Slytherin was stealing the album away in a flash. "Harry! Who took this picture?"
A twelve-year old Draco was dressed in "weekend clotes" (sans robes) at Hogwarts. His black tailored slacks, dress shirt, and jacket flaunted his wealth and stature. His
white-blond hair was slicked back so thoroughly that it reflected the sunlight that gleamed over the grounds. The picture was taken near the edge of the Great Lke, where the boy was obviously engaged in a heated argument with a small black haired boy, who was dressed quite normally in a schoolboy's attire.
"Holy shit, man. How many bottles of gel did you get through per day?"
Draco flushed, flipped off Mike Newton, and returned to his seat, glaring at a laughing Harry.
"All right, settle down. Harrison, please continue." Mrs. Vicklind's patient voice broke across the room, and the presentation resumed.
"Okay, so Molly Weasley always made a sweater like this for each of her children. I'd never felt more accepted in a place than the morning that I unwrapped my very own Weasley sweater."
"And, the third possession that I brought is almost the same as one of Draco's. Like he said, we were divided into houses, and I was in Gryffindor, 'where dwell the brave at heart!' Here's a pendant from the dorm room that I shared for six years. It's scarlet and gold- out house colors instead of Slytherin's green and silver, and our mascot is a Lion. The house was named after another of the founders, Godric Gryffindor, and we were best known for our rivalry with the Slytherins."
He glared and Draco mockingly, and the class laughed and applauded as he concluded that portion of his project.
"Most importantly, I have saved the best for last."
The class became attentive again, eager to hear about Harry's godson.
"I present to you, Teddy Remus Lupin. Named after his grandfather and father, born in April, he is 5 months old. He's quite advanced for his age, he laughs a lot, and plays hiding games with his favorite blanket. He loves most of all his stuffed wolf, which we call Moony. Now, you probably think that I am too young to be a father, and I might be, but Teddy is the number one priority in my life. His needs come before my own in every aspect of every day, and I miss him to death when I have to come here for school. Teddy is a bright, beautiful baby boy, and he has a lovable personality in his small person. I hope that you come and meet him throughout the day!"
The class burst into applause and Harry bowed, making the baby laugh at the dipping motion. The green-eyed teen then reclaimed his seat for the next students to take their turn. The teacher approached him.
"Thank you, Harry. I am sure that you are a wonderful Daddy to your godson. May I hold him?"
"Of course, if he will allow you to." Harry passed the child into his teacher's arms, and she cooed over him and sat back with him at her own desk.
When the presentations concluded, the infant was passed carefully from desk to desk, each student poking his tummy or patting his stuffed wolf. And while Teddy laughed and squealed in delight, Draco was pleased to watch students attempt to make Razor do tricks. At their whistles and commands, the panther merely flicked an ear and remained lounging over his master's ankles. When the bell rang, the Slytherin whistled twice sharply, and the cub immediately began to trot obediently toward the door by his side, leaving shocked and impressed students behind. Draco smirked and bent to clip a short lead to the panther's harness, then made his way to French.
