Chapter Two | Dragon Badfaith Party Bash

AN EXPLOSION OF blue sparks filled the air. Harry leapt to the right, a shock of pain hitting his left shoulder as he tumbled along the concrete slabs.

'Come on, Potter!' shouted the violet eyes she-devil. A chain of four spells whizzed passed Harry disfiguring the arrangement of furniture in the room.

He wiped his brow with his sleeve, ignoring the dampened sleeve as he swished his wand several times, he aimed for the floor around the level 6 witch. Her black curls were almost levitating with the power she was exuding as the two traded spells. Shields and blasting curses fired. Neither able to land a solid spell on the other.

They had been at it for almost an hour before the door to the duelling room opened. A tall, well woman with long red hair that curled to frame her heart shaped face stood in the doorway, hands on her hips and a cross look on her face.

The dark-haired witch Harry had been duelling raised her hand and, after wiping the sweat from her brow, and straightening her black vest top, she smiled at the woman.

'Hey Lily, everything okay?'

The woman stared at the witch.

'Bella, Dixie has popped in several times.' Lily said, as though that explained everything. When she got no response, she sighed. 'The ball is in a few hours, and we can't be late.' Bella just rolled her eyes. 'Bella! You especially can't be late! It's your nephew's birthday!'

Bella scoffed and walked towards Lily, throwing a towel at Harry.

'Well, she was the one stupid enough to agree to call their son Dragon. I mean, come on! You should be expecting people to not want to attend their birthday party.'

'Like the boy's name or nor, you are Bellatrix Black, and you have got to show up for your family.'

She sighed and walked past Lily. Mumbling under her breath as she went. 'Supposed to be friends… Was just getting good.'

Once Bella was out of the room, Lily turned to Harry, her face still flushed from yelling.

He sighed and started walking towards the door.

'Don't worry, I'll go get dressed now.'

She grunted in agreement.

'Good. Dixie's laid out your dress robes on your bed,' she said, then placed a hand on his shoulder. 'I'm worried we're going to have a breakdown on our hands if someone doesn't calm Iris down.'

Harry scoffed.

'Yeah, I might pop my head in and make sure she okay.'

Lily smiled at that.

'That's all I ask.'

Harry couldn't help but smile at his reflection when Jeromo finished straightening his tailed jacket.

'You sure have grown a lot these past few weeks Master Potter,' the elf said.

'Thank you Jeromo,' he said. 'You may be dismissed.'

With a nod, the house elf popped out of the room, to return to this job or another.

It had been two weeks since Harry had awoken in this worlds Harry's body and found that he had a lot to quickly adjust for.

Whereas in his world he grew up living a semi-normal muggle life (minus the abuse and trauma), in this world, Harry Potter lived a life of near luxury. A wealthy ancient family with connections and power that Harry barely had a chance to tap into in his world.

Another major difference was a levelling system to classify wizards and magical creatures that was used internationally. The highest level any wizard could be registered at was Level 7—of which Wizarding Britain had only a handful of. Albus Dumbledore and Voldemort were the most famous in the rankings, being the only Level 7s to exist. Harry lived with a Level 6 witch, Lily Potter, and was godchild to two others—Bellatrix Black and Sirius Black.

The levelling system was classified through a few different areas, of which this worlds Harry's classification sheet was sitting on his dresser.

Harry James Potter,

Level 1, Wizard.

Age: 15

Individual Levels:

Duelling; level 0

Potions; Level 1

Transfiguration; level 1

Mental Arts; Level 2

Runes; Level 1

Flying; Level 0

Beast Care; Level 0

Additional Aspects:

Holly Wand

N/a _

A part of Harry wondered what his sheet would look like before his curse set in back in his original world. He ran a comb through his hair one more time and nodded once he was sure there wasn't a hair out of place and retreated from the room, he had started to feel really was his and made his way across the landing towards the only door in the house that was white. With the signature Potter stag horns decorating the edges of the door.

He moved to tap it but saw that the door was already askew. He pushed it open and looked inside. There, aggressively brushing her hair and cussing under her breath was the beautiful Iris Potter, the Girl-Who-Lived. She was sitting in her sage green dress; Harry could almost see the smoke coming from her ears.

He chuckled as he stepped towards Iris, easily taking the brush from her hand and stroking her head. The older twin didn't even bat an eyelid as she rested her head into Harry's hand and moaned in content.

'Stress yourself out anymore and those blonde streaks may actually turn grey.'

'Hmm!' Iris then moved away from Harry's hand and banged her head against her make up desk. 'I knew it. I look old and haggard. I'm not going.'

Harry gently pulled her back and started brushing her hair. Gently combing it with his fingers as well.

'You've got to go Iris. I think mum may actually have a break down if the famous Girl-Who-Lived didn't turn up with the Other-Potter-Child to that git Malfoy's birthday party.'

She growled at him.

'You only want to go so you can see Daphne!' she accused.

Harry pretended to look embarrassed as best as he could. He learned quickly when he arrived that this world's Harry had confided in Iris that he had a crush on Daphne Greengrass, one of Harry's friends at school. A friend who was in the same house as Harry. Slytherin.

'Can a guy not want this sister to come to a party and enjoy herself without having any ulterior motives?' he asked.

She stared at him through the mirror for a moment before rolling her eyes and giving up the fight.

'Fine. Make me pretty Rey.'

Harry smiled and did as he was told. He was patient as he brushed her hair, her complaining every step of the way, and helped zip up her dress and then redoing her hair. Subtly using magic to make sure it stayed in place. Although she had Lily's hair, Iris also had the Potter's unruly hair attitude. Luckily the Harry of this world had learned a thing or two to deal with that.

Once she was happy with her appearance, she straightened an imaginary crease in her dress and turned to Harry.

'How do I look?'

Harry looked her up and down and smiled at his sister.

'You look fantastic Reina.' Harry replied.

This world's Harry and Iris had grown to call each other Rey and Reina. They'd been on holiday to Spain when they were younger. They'd overheard a handsome man and woman call the other those names whilst they were at the beach, and thought they sounded nice. So, they called the other it in a teasing way, at first, especially after they realised the meaning.

It had started out making fun of the lovey dovey couple, but over time, the pair had adopted the joke as their nicknames for the other. Harry had to keep reminding himself of this.

'Uh hmm.'

The pair turned to see their mother waiting at the door, her figure sitting comfortably within a figure hugging deep green satin dress adorned with golden jewellery.

'You two ready?'

Harry turned to Iris to see her response. The red headed girl looked to Harry and nodded.

'Let's go pretend to be happy to be at Dragon Badfaiths 15th birthday.'

The party wasn't that bad. At least, Harry didn't think so. The three main halls of Malfoy Manor were in use, music filled the air, as did the chatter of politicians and other small talk filled conversations.

Harry had been dragged into several conversations in which he was asked how school was going, and if he was looking forward to his ranking examination in the coming easter term. Once or twice, he caught the pleading eye of Iris, and pulled her out of a conversation or two by informing her that she must "say hello to" this person or other, wherein they actually escaped to one of the many balconies of the manor.

On one such occasion, when Harry could no longer bare to hear himself say how excited he was for the examination, he retreated to the balcony. On this particular occasion, a tall, lithe figure stepped up to the stone curve of the banister, running her arms along the stonework until she was almost bent over it, and groaned.

Harry watched her do this, and when she turned her head to face him, he quickly averted his gaze to the grounds surrounding the manor.

'You. I would recognise those high cheekbones and green eyes anywhere.' She then stood up and leaned against the banister, almost slipping as she did. 'Potter.'

There was a pause, Harry kept his gaze firmly on one of the peacocks in the garden.

'Potter? Hello, Merlin's beard, you can't seriously be as dense as—'

'I can hear you Cassandra, I just don't think I'm—'

'Shut it, Pretty Potter!' She then scooted towards him and stared at his face. After staring for a moment, Harry couldn't deal with it anymore, and turned to face her. He straightened his back, causing him to stand almost a head taller than the older Malfoy girl. She audibly hummed when she turned her head up to look into his eyes.

'H-have you somehow grown in the last two weeks?' she asked.

Not wanting to risk slipping up about actually being an older Harry Potter from another world who followed Voldemort through a swirling vortex just to wake up in the body of this worlds Harry Potter. He decided to change tactics.

'Is everything okay, Cassandra?' He asked.

Cassandra Malfoy's eyes widened. She stood there for a moment, just staring into Harry's eyes. Then she cleared her throat and swung her arms over the banister dramatically.

'This whole day is for Draco. That's fine. Love the guy. He's my brother. But, I just thought that my parents would… I don't know, at least pretend to be interested in me. Even Draco hasn't said anything to me today. Not even a simple "you look nice Cassie" but nope. Nothing.' She said, then stifled a sob. 'Way to let everyone know that Draco's the child that you planned and poor old Cassie is the child that forced the two of you together.'

Harry took his jacket off and slipped it over her shoulders and placed a hand on her left shoulder.

'I don't know how helpful this will be… but I'm a twin. I don't resent her, if anything I worry for her, but with Iris being the Girl-Who-Lived, it did, at one point make me feel like I was just a spare child. No one outside of the family really gave me much attention when Iris was around.' He wasn't lying, he'd been diligently making his way through Harry's memories, and he and Iris had gone through a rough patch, because Harry could no longer dela with feeling inadequate.

Cassandra didn't say anything. She placed her hand on top of Harrys and dropped her head.

'Be careful Potter, the noble Gryffindor is trying to leap out,' she said and in a blink of an eye she was walking back towards the door back into the hall.

She stopped, and turned back, her pale grey eyes, for the last time that night, locking with his.

'But if channelling your inner Gryffindor means you say more things like that. Maybe I'll have to sway from the Malfoy family values.'

Harry thought he saw the ghost of a wink as she disappeared into the manor.

The rest of the party was uneventful. None of the people this world Harry considered to be friends turned up at the party—they all had stayed at Hogwarts over the Christmas break.

Harry guessed that because in this world the Malfoy's had two children, that they'd had children at different points in time. Meaning Draco was born in the December rather than the June.

When they all returned to Potter Manor, the last thing Harry saw before retreating to his bedroom, was of Bella and Lily being led back to the former's bedroom by Iris. He chuckled to himself and got into bed.