In His Memory

by WeasleyTwin2

This is a story set one year after Final Confrontation ends. Draco Malfoy discovers things he never knew about himself and a new and powerful enemy arises. An After Hogwarts Tale. ~Final two chapters uploaded~.

17. Default Chapter Title

In His Memory

Part 16: But Where There's Hope…

By: WeasleyTwin2

I have imprisoned the Evil one who must be unnamed for all eternity within his tomb but I know the battle is not ended. Thousands of years will pass and He shall rise once more. His final defeat lay in the hand of my heirs…two who will be born of the same year…one hidden in the Light…the other in by Darkness cloaked…through them will the Weapons of Gryffindor flame…joined at last and thus will the unwilling servant be freed.

Godric Gryffindor (Osirius)

From the door to Seth-Ra's tomb

320 B.C.

No words describe a mother's tears

No words can heal a broken heart

A dream is gone, but where there's hope

Somewhere something is calling for you

Two worlds, one family

Trust your heart

Let fate decide

To guide these lives we see

Two Worlds

From the Soundtrack to Disney's Tarzan

I could hear voices somewhere high above me. They were talking in whispers and so rapidly that I could not follow their conversation. Everything around me was misty gray and my whole body felt as if it were bruised both inside and out. My stomach was rolling and my head throbbed in time with my heart, which seemed to be fluttering in my chest as if it would seek escape from it. I moaned softly.

"He's coming around…"

"Draco can you hear me…"

I nodded my head slowly and my eyelids fluttered open. I saw Ron, Hermione, Sirius and Remus hovering over me, looks of concern on all their faces. I looked around at them in confusion for a moment and then I spotted Harry. He was floating nearby, looking at the mural covering the nearby wall. He looked as he had in the Osirius Room but there was no glowing light around him now. He turned to face me and smiled.

"How are you feeling, Draco?" he asked. He looked as concerned as the others did.

"Awful…Like I've been turned inside out…" I replied as I tried to sit up. I winced as a sharp pain shot through my chest.

"You're lucky to have survived…if you hadn't been holding the Amulet up at the time Seth-Ra's spell would have killed you," said Harry gravely as he stared deeply into my eyes.

Ignoring the pain that moved over me like a wave, as well as the protests of the others, I stood up and walked to where Harry hovered. His green eyes bore into my own and I saw a hint of sorrow there. I stopped mere inches from him and looked at the mural behind him. It was the last panel, which depicted Osirius' defeat of Seth-Ra thousands of years before. I stood staring at it for some minutes in silence, trying to gather my thoughts. Something had been bothering me since the day of the Remembrance Ceremony. Waking up in great pain after this attack by Seth-Ra reminded me of his first attack on me and the whispered comment of someone: Do you think he knows…

"The day of the Remembrance Ceremony… the first time I was attacked…What really happened to me?" I glanced over at Harry.

If it was possible for a ghost to get any paler, Harry did for a moment. Then he looked straight into my eyes with his own, searching for something in them. For a moment I was afraid he was going to refuse to tell me but he only nodded and glanced at Ron and Hermione.

"You…died in Seth-Ra's attack…" he said very softly.

My eyes widened and I stared back at him in disbelief.

"Your soul was forcibly taken from your body and your body died from the shock. It would have stayed dead if I hadn't left a part of my own spirit inside your body at the exact moment the spell was cast. I journeyed to rescue your stolen soul from His realm and restored it to you body. I was almost too late to save you. Seth-Ra had almost completely drained it of all power by the time I got there."

"Why?" I asked hoarsely. "Why did he attack me? Why did you save me if I was already…"

"I had too…you are the one spoken of in the ancient prophecy. The one destined to defeat Seth-Ra for all time. You are the 'heir cast in darkness, who will turn from that darkness after a time of great trail and sorrow," Harry interrupted. "I had to protect you at all cost. You are and have always been the last Heir of Godric Gryffindor."

There were gasps around the room and I stood in shocked silence, totally surprised by this new information. It was not possible…

"I'm…heir to Gryffindor?" I asked incredulously. "But I was in Slytherin…"

"There were two born in this century and in the same year. I was one and you are the other…I was just as shocked as you are now when I first learned of this just before my death. I took the opportunity to explore it father in the library several months ago and I discovered there were two heirs born though not the names of them. I knew I was one of them but was unsure of who the other was until I read Gryffindor's prophecy. Then I knew it had to have been one of my year mates. I spent another month searching for the name of the second and while I was doing so your name popped into my head, more then once. Finally, I was able to get a look at the Hogwarts Record Book, which holds all the names of the wizarding children in it. I looked under the year of my birth and quickly found my own name: Harry Potter~Son of James and Lily (Evans)Potter. Next to my name was a glowing mark a lion with the initials of Godric Gryffindor underneath it.

Harry paused a moment to look at each of us in turn before continuing.

"Now that I knew what to look for, I went back to the top of the list and worked my way slowly down it, noticing that there were no others with that particular symbol after them. Finally, I reached your name and saw the same symbol that had followed mine with one difference: the lion was completely black and then it became a misty gray. As I watched it began to change color until it became a bright gold that seemed to glow. I looked back at my own and saw it had changed too from bright gold to tawny yellow signifying the transfer of Gryffindor's power to you."

Harry looked into my stunned eyes and grinned sheepishly.

"I image this discovery surprises you," he said, searching my face trying to determine my reaction.

I was more than surprised; I was in almost total shock. I stood there mutely staring at the mural behind Harry, not really knowing what to say or even what to believe. I shook my head, trying to make sense of what I'd just heard but it refused to make sense to my confused brain. After several minutes of silence so deep you might have been able to hear a pin drop I finally managed to croak out: "How…"

Harry shrugged, "I'm not exactly sure but we probably have a common ancestor somewhere far back in our families' lines."

I tried to think of anyone in my own family's history that might have been this ancestor but could come up with no one. This didn't surprise me, however, because if there had been any such ancestor they would have most assuredly have been erased from the family records. The Malfoys had never been kind to those who had failed to conform to the Dark ways of the family. There were a hundred possible scenarios that could lead to being disowned within the Malfoy ranks and most of them were seen as dishonoring the family name. The ancestor in question could have been in Gryffindor or could have defied their parent's wishes by marrying below their station or to someone who was of the Light. I shook my head and tried to clear it of the thoughts that were chasing one another through my mind. I looked up at Harry and found that he was grinning.

"I guess that means we are related then, eh Potter?" grinning at the irony of that fact.

"Several times removed but you are."

I groaned while Harry continued to grin at me, a look of mischief in his eye.

"You know what this means don't you?" he asked with a bemused look.

I thought for a moment, trying to figure out what he was getting at. After moments thought I groaned again.

"It means that I am also related to Dudley," I said with a sorrowful expression.

"Well, at least you didn't have to live with him," Harry rolled his eyes and smirked.

I nodded, know that this was true and that it was unlikely that I would ever see Dudley anyway as his fear of anything to do with the wizarding world was well known. I turned to the others, who had stood in silence during the whole exchange and saw the looks of shocked disbelief on each of their faces. Finally, after several minutes passed, Ron came forward and held out Gryffindor's sword.

"Then this belongs to you as well."

"And the cloak too…" began Hermione as she fished into her bag for it.

I turned back to Harry, who wore a slightly bemused expression.

"No," he said. "They are yours. I gave them to you for your own protection and because you were the ones meant to carry them into this battle. Even if I had lived, you still would have been the ones to carry them."

The others nodded and I stood surveying Harry, my mind still reeling from the information he'd revealed to me. I couldn't believe it and yet it seemed to be true. It would explain everything that had happened to me in my life and yet…

"Is there any other proof you could give me that could make me believe what you say is true. I mean the story sounds…" I asked as a lingering doubt surfaced in my mind.

Harry looked at me intently for a moment as the old animosity between us surfaced. Then the fire in his eyes subsided and he nodded.

"The book," he pointed to it. "It can only be opened by a descendant of Gryffindor. If anyone else touches it they get shocked by it."

I must have looked skeptical because the next instant Hermione reached out to touch the book in my hand. There was a flash of red light and Hemione leapt back with a cry of pain. One by one the others did the same and in each instance the book shocked them. Harry reached out to touch it and nothing happened.

My thoughts began to swirl inside my head. It just couldn't be true. There was no way that I could have been a descendant of Godric Gryffindor. I had been in Slytherin and, as far as I knew my whole family had been. Yet here was the proof, the only proof I was likely to get until I could see the Record Book itself that I was. I thought back to a few months ago when I had returned to the wizarding world after my self-imposed exile. I had wondered at the time if I would have been sorted into Gryffindor having forsworn all Dark magic. It appeared that I now had the answer to that question.

It also explained so many things that had occurred in my life. Why I had been shown no love as a child, why the Dark Arts had been a part of my earliest training, why I was taught to hate everyone around me, especially Harry Potter. But though I was taught only to hate and although it appeared that I was but an exact copy of my father, there was always a part of me that no one else ever saw or even knew existed. It was hidden away deep inside me, so deep that I'd spent most of my life unaware it existed. I first became aware of it when I'd first "met" Harry and his friends on that first train ride to Hogwarts.

At the time I remember thinking of him, not as the savior of our world but as a rival that must be put in his place quickly. He was nothing to me and yet, as he stood there with his green eyes blazing, defiance in his stance, I saw the lightening bolt scar peeking from under his unruly black hair and felt as if I had been punched in the stomach. I knew, without knowing how I knew, that there was a connection between us and this was no mere rivalry. For in the instant I saw the scar I remembered something from my earliest childhood memories.

I could not have been more than five or six. It was Halloween night and I lay in front of the fire eating sweets while my parents talked. Their conversation floated above me and I really wasn't paying attention, just staring into the flames daydreaming. One of them mentioned the name Harry Potter, I think it was my mother, and for some unknown reason I burst into silent tears which I later blamed on the smokiness of the fire. Shortly after this, my nurse came to take me to bed. She noticed my tears and I asked her about this Harry Potter whose name my parents uttered with such hatred and contempt.

"That is a sad tale, that one is, young Draco, but I'm thinking the time is right for you to hear it." Her eyes were bright and her voice full of a sorrow I didn't understand.

She told me what I found out later was a watered down version of the story. How Voldemort had come in the dark of a Halloween night five years past and begun murdering innocent families whose only crime had been to resist his demands. In the dying moments of Halloween he had come upon the Potters who had long resisted Voldemort and they were killed. Voldemort had then turned his wand on their son, Harry and tried to kill him too but the curse had rebounded back onto the Dark Lord. Lynn continued saying that I had cried out at the exact hour the Potters as if I was in pain.

I had kept this and many things Lynn taught or told me buried deep in my heart. She was the only one who'd ever shown me warmth and seemed to be concerned about me in any way. She left our service when I was seven and a cold, strict governess took her place but I still could not forget the lessons Lynn had taught me although it seemed I had. Looking at Harry's scar on our first trip to Hogwarts reminded me of a different time and seeing him for the first time nearly made me cry. Here was someone who had already given so much to a world that he'd been unaware existed for ten years but beyond that I felt the connection between us, something within a yet unopened chamber of my mind was echoing. At the time I didn't know what but it made me angry and because of all the years I'd been taught to hate him I lashed out.

I shook my head at the memory. I was laying back down now trying to sleep. We would be leaving for Hogwarts in the morning. I touched the Amulet of Osirius under my robes and felt warmth spread through me. I began to relax as much as the current situation would allow.

"Now we have a chance," I thought as I watched Harry standing guard over us all.

He had a serious look on his face and I could tell he was thinking of the coming battle and I remembered something I'd heard him muttering Voldemort had appeared in the Quidditch Pitch a year ago.

"What's coming, will come and we'll meet it when it does."

I closed my eyes. We would meet it but this time I would not fail and I would be ready for the encounter.

Sorry this story seems to be taking so long to post but I've been really busy. It is my intension to post the rest of the chapters of In His Memory as a single post in a few weeks (I hope). Hope you enjoy this part…and thanks for the reviews.

WeasleyTwin2