A/N: Onto chapter 16!
Chapter 16: The Trouble with Sneaking Out (or Lack Thereof)
--------------------------------------
Upon reaching the headmaster's office, he was plopped in a chair by the two that had supported him. They now began to speak to Dumbledore, and Harry vaguely realized it had been Professors Lupin and Cal. Taking a wide, unfocused gaze at the room, he noticed all the teachers were now whispering anxiously around the room, casting gazes in Harry's direction every now and then. He felt like he had just died down there on that floor and didn't really care what happened right now in this lit office full of sun.
"Harry, would you care to explain what has been going on that you have kept a secret for so long?" asked Dumbledore, resting his chin on his steepled fingers.
At this, Harry just let out a low, almost inaudible sigh, and motioned to Lupin. Lupin began to immediately tell everything he had been told in that private hospital room word by word. As Harry summoned himself a hot cup of tea to warm his hands with, an odd ethereal voice seemed to float across the room to him. Looking around, no one was moving their lips and everyone's attention was on the story being told, but it came again.
'I know what you did to that man, Harry. You've been practicing with your powers of persuasion, haven't you? Don't even bother to try to find out who this is speaking to you. Your strength cannot compare.'
So, feeling too emotionally drained to do anything, he didn't bother to try. Lupin was now finished with the story, and the staff as well as portraits were all looking at him. Dumbledore, of course, spoke first.
"Well, Harry, I wish you had told us sooner. It could have saved you some injury and regret. However, it seems all of us have neglected telling you the nature of what happened to your mother, so you couldn't have known. As far as I can tell, there is no problem."
Snape jumped forward at this. "Headmaster, you cannot be serious! He's drawing blood from students! He's been in the Forbidden Forest feeding! He now is wanting to go spend the holidays with Mr. Malfoy! Surely there are problems to be worked out!"
Harry turned his deadened eyes on Snape with such a fire and unconscious fierceness Snape jumped back into Cal, who was looking at Harry wide eyed. Harry now turned to the old man behind the desk who was now speaking again and felt himself filling with an odd sense of loathing and superiority toward this old manipulator.
"Well, Severus, I'm afraid we only have one problem. Draco has been fully willing to let Harry take blood, and Harry has been aware of his friend's needs with the replenisher. The forest, well, no one goes into the forest at night to discover him, which won't matter now anyways. However," and at this point he turned to Harry,"I do have a problem with you spending the holidays at Draco's manor."
While Harry appeared calm and indifferent in appearance and voice, his eyes glinted as though with lightning, even the white one. He said without a glance,"And why should that be a problem? I'm sure every student here would feel safer without me around. Besides, I would do no harm to the family."
"I'm sure you wouldn't, Potter," said Professor McGonagall, slightly pale upon looking on him. "The problem is that we can't put you out where the Dark Lord could so easily kill you. You will be staying at Hogwarts for the remaining time."
Harry snorted, then responded in a dignified and indifferent manner, as thought waving her response aside,"And what makes you all think you can hold me here against my will?"
"Well," said Dumbledore, with a gentle smile,"we'll start by taking away your wand first off. Then we'll take your Invisibility Cloak and put a sentry at the secret passageway out of your rooms and the Gryffindor entrance."
"Alright then," said Harry. "I'll just get your items for you now, shall I? Accio Invisibility Cloak!" In a minute the cloak came through one of the office's open windows and landed in Harry's hands. Here, Harry sat his wand on top of the cloak and set them on Dumbledore's desk. He started to walk toward the exit, the teachers making a path for him, when he turned around. He said,"Oh yeah. Don't forget to bolt shut my window; I could fly out of there in Animagus form you know. Goodbye, Professors!"
And Harry left the office toward his private chambers, grinning at himself all the while for the ignorance of all who had sat in that room.
He had packed what he needed when he got back to his living quarters, and the bag was stealthily hidden behind a few stacks of towels in the bathroom. He was waiting for the guard to enter his quarters and see that he was still there. 'However,' thought Harry, grinning to himself,'once I do leave for Draco's, they can't set foot there without the Malfoy's consent which I know won't come. It doesn't really matter when I leave.' At this, he fingered the bag of Floo powder Draco had sent, hiding it back into the folds of his robes.
After Professor Cal made sure that he was there and had been back in the corridor for ten minutes, Harry got up from the chair he'd been sitting in. He grabbed his bag with everything he needed for the trip in it (including the brewed potions) and stood in front of his lit fireplace.
"Why they didn't close the Floo network from my fire, I'll never know. Ah well. In this moment, I'm happy for the ignorance of others." And at that, he threw a pinch of the glittering ash into the fireplace, stepped into it, and said,"Draco's Room, Malfoy Manor!"
------------------------------------------------------
He managed to walk out of the fireplace into a lovely room that had to be decorated by Draco. The entire room was done in blues and greys and all the wood furniture a lovely pale oak. All of a sudden, he found himself being jumped on by Draco who yelled,"You made it!" in a very un-Malfoyish way. He immediately summoned a houseelf to take Harry's bag. The muscled little thing had no problem with Harry's bag, and Harry turned back to Draco.
"Come on!" said the excited blonde,"I'll show you your room and around the manor, and you can tell me all that has been going on at school the past few days."
Harry's room was very alike to his rooms at Hogwarts, only it had a lovely bay window with a sitting place and a wonderful view on the lusch Malfoy estate. Draco showed him the rest of the manor inside, and Harry was done with his story by the time Draco was done. The young Malfoy stood staring at him, shocked.
"No doubt this will be the front page of the Daily Prophet tomorrow, you're right," murmured Draco. "And that Weasley called you filth?! I'll kill him! No, seriously, I will!"
"Calm down, Zurui," said Harry, using that name which he knew would calm the boy down. "I've been in the Prophet too many times to care what they say anymore. Can I see the grounds?"
The grounds were truly spectacular, and Harry knew it would have taken him hours to be shown all of it. His favourite part, though, was that they did this all by horseback. Draco had first taken him to the stables and had shown Harry how to put on the horse's tack and how to ride. Harry had ended up mounting a powerful Palamino stallion. Draco told him the horse had never let anyone mount him except Harry, so with a light heart, they rode around the grounds until the sky began getting dark. Putting the horses back in the stables and entrusting their care to a stable elf, they headed inside to change for dinner.
Coming down the stairs and into the dining room, Harry spotted Narcissa Malfoy as she got up from the table and smiled warmly at the two boys. Harry was amazed how pretty she was when she didn't have that haughty look on her face.
"I'm pleased you'll be staying with us for the time being, Harry," said Narcissa. "I've already had inquiries about you from school, but I'll not give them consent to take you away until you get back on the Hogwarts Express! Come, you look pale, why don't you have a bite to eat?"
Harry looked uncomfortably at Draco, who turned to his mother and said,"Harry can't eat anything mother, he's, uhm, he's feeling a bit sick..."
"He ended up being vampiric, didn't he?" she questioned once they all sat down at the table. Harry almost fell off his chair while Draco said,"How did you-"
"Really, Draco," said Narcissa, tutting slightly,"Surely you two have found out about his mother?"
"Yes, I did," said Harry, recovering slightly."She was transformed by that vampire clan's leader, Cicila Sachol. She worked for Voldemort." And it clicked in his head.
"Well, Harry, you know full well that as a Deatheater family, we do have other members over on occasion, sometimes even the Dark Lord himself. But I've met Cicila, very nice woman. After hearing what happened to your mother, I knew you'd at least turn out part vampire."
"I'm supposedly three-quarters. Where is this Cicila Sachol now, anyway?" stated Harry, watching the other two eat.
"We all have no idea. Well, I think the Dark Lord knows, but he won't tell any of us. She's disbanded her clan of vampires and destroyed them all, not trusting a one with her secrets. She was a strong ally and a more powerful being under our master I do not know of. She's rumoured to be just under one thousand years old. Imagine, seeing the turning of eras and times as she has."
Harry went back to his rooms after saying goodnight to Draco, and changed into a simple pair of blue-grey boxers. He pulled back the warm comforter on the bed, and fell asleep dreaming of riding the Palamino throughout the school building, trampling down the fools who underestimated him. He smiled.
--------------------------------------------
The next day, Harry and Draco went with Narcissa to Diagon Alley to pick up presents for everyone on the Yules. After they found a few things in the main alley, Narcissa took them down Knockturn Alley. The boys found this stretch of odd and eerie shops much more interesting, and Harry told Draco of his incident here before second year which got a loud snort out of Draco.
They split up so they could buy eachother's presents without the other seeing, and when they were done with that, they sat at a little table outside a restaraunt enjoying a lunch, Harry watching the crowd go by and reading from the Daily Prophet. Of course his revealed secret made the front page news, the story made up of the story of Lily and then Harry's revealed news through interviews with the students.
'"I honestly don't think I could feel safe in his company anymore. I mean, if he's been deceiving us about this, what else can he be keeping from us?' said Lavender Brown, a fellow sixth year in Gryffindor."
He had no trouble hearing the entire area around him bustling with the news. However, on Knockturn Alley, it was met with excitement, where he had only heard scared and anxious thoughts in Diagon Alley. The article had used an old picture of him, and no one outside of Hogwarts knew what he looked like now, so he was able to get past a lot of public shows. He was happy for once, watching Narcissa and Draco finishing off their meals.
Draco managed to drag Harry into a pet shop before they left full of (in Harry's opinion) a lot of illegal creatures. Draco had wanted to show him all of the snakes they had here, but Harry said he didn't know if he wanted a snake right now. They left back toward Diagon Alley, and it was Harry's turn to drag Draco into Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. Using a bit of his supernatural strength, he was able to push Draco and himself through the crowd toward where he spotted Fred, George, and Lee.
The trio of pranksters didn't recognize Harry at first, but when he started speaking, they knew it was him. Fred and George immediately went into an enthusiastic conversation with him which luckily went unnoticed by the crowd. They said that everyone at Grimmauld Place was in an uproar at this news, that Mum had fainted and Dad had to revive her. Harry explained the reason why he had said those things to Ginny.
"Is Mum ever going to wallop Ron!" crowed George. "I mean, you were really protecting Ginny! Oh, Ron'll never hear the end of it! Mum really wants to see you, Harry. Maybe you could drop by on summer hols, or are you going to stay there? I mean you can't exactly go back to the Dursley's, can you?"
"I'll see how everything goes between now and then. Send everyone my hellos, okay?" said Harry, and Draco and Harry left the shop back to Narcissa, and they left the busy little street for the quiet of the manor.
-----------------------------------------------
A/N: Harry is at the Malfoy Manor! Isn't it odd how everyone says "Malfoy Manor" or "Snape Manor"? I don't get it, but whatever. What did ya think? Just sign in and review! What's going to happen next chapter?! Oh god! Don't ask me that! I'm just making this story up as I go pretty much! AH! The anxiety, the pressure!
(October 26-October 27, 2003)
"You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions." - Mahfouz Naquib
Whoa. Out there, man. Really.
Chapter 16: The Trouble with Sneaking Out (or Lack Thereof)
--------------------------------------
Upon reaching the headmaster's office, he was plopped in a chair by the two that had supported him. They now began to speak to Dumbledore, and Harry vaguely realized it had been Professors Lupin and Cal. Taking a wide, unfocused gaze at the room, he noticed all the teachers were now whispering anxiously around the room, casting gazes in Harry's direction every now and then. He felt like he had just died down there on that floor and didn't really care what happened right now in this lit office full of sun.
"Harry, would you care to explain what has been going on that you have kept a secret for so long?" asked Dumbledore, resting his chin on his steepled fingers.
At this, Harry just let out a low, almost inaudible sigh, and motioned to Lupin. Lupin began to immediately tell everything he had been told in that private hospital room word by word. As Harry summoned himself a hot cup of tea to warm his hands with, an odd ethereal voice seemed to float across the room to him. Looking around, no one was moving their lips and everyone's attention was on the story being told, but it came again.
'I know what you did to that man, Harry. You've been practicing with your powers of persuasion, haven't you? Don't even bother to try to find out who this is speaking to you. Your strength cannot compare.'
So, feeling too emotionally drained to do anything, he didn't bother to try. Lupin was now finished with the story, and the staff as well as portraits were all looking at him. Dumbledore, of course, spoke first.
"Well, Harry, I wish you had told us sooner. It could have saved you some injury and regret. However, it seems all of us have neglected telling you the nature of what happened to your mother, so you couldn't have known. As far as I can tell, there is no problem."
Snape jumped forward at this. "Headmaster, you cannot be serious! He's drawing blood from students! He's been in the Forbidden Forest feeding! He now is wanting to go spend the holidays with Mr. Malfoy! Surely there are problems to be worked out!"
Harry turned his deadened eyes on Snape with such a fire and unconscious fierceness Snape jumped back into Cal, who was looking at Harry wide eyed. Harry now turned to the old man behind the desk who was now speaking again and felt himself filling with an odd sense of loathing and superiority toward this old manipulator.
"Well, Severus, I'm afraid we only have one problem. Draco has been fully willing to let Harry take blood, and Harry has been aware of his friend's needs with the replenisher. The forest, well, no one goes into the forest at night to discover him, which won't matter now anyways. However," and at this point he turned to Harry,"I do have a problem with you spending the holidays at Draco's manor."
While Harry appeared calm and indifferent in appearance and voice, his eyes glinted as though with lightning, even the white one. He said without a glance,"And why should that be a problem? I'm sure every student here would feel safer without me around. Besides, I would do no harm to the family."
"I'm sure you wouldn't, Potter," said Professor McGonagall, slightly pale upon looking on him. "The problem is that we can't put you out where the Dark Lord could so easily kill you. You will be staying at Hogwarts for the remaining time."
Harry snorted, then responded in a dignified and indifferent manner, as thought waving her response aside,"And what makes you all think you can hold me here against my will?"
"Well," said Dumbledore, with a gentle smile,"we'll start by taking away your wand first off. Then we'll take your Invisibility Cloak and put a sentry at the secret passageway out of your rooms and the Gryffindor entrance."
"Alright then," said Harry. "I'll just get your items for you now, shall I? Accio Invisibility Cloak!" In a minute the cloak came through one of the office's open windows and landed in Harry's hands. Here, Harry sat his wand on top of the cloak and set them on Dumbledore's desk. He started to walk toward the exit, the teachers making a path for him, when he turned around. He said,"Oh yeah. Don't forget to bolt shut my window; I could fly out of there in Animagus form you know. Goodbye, Professors!"
And Harry left the office toward his private chambers, grinning at himself all the while for the ignorance of all who had sat in that room.
He had packed what he needed when he got back to his living quarters, and the bag was stealthily hidden behind a few stacks of towels in the bathroom. He was waiting for the guard to enter his quarters and see that he was still there. 'However,' thought Harry, grinning to himself,'once I do leave for Draco's, they can't set foot there without the Malfoy's consent which I know won't come. It doesn't really matter when I leave.' At this, he fingered the bag of Floo powder Draco had sent, hiding it back into the folds of his robes.
After Professor Cal made sure that he was there and had been back in the corridor for ten minutes, Harry got up from the chair he'd been sitting in. He grabbed his bag with everything he needed for the trip in it (including the brewed potions) and stood in front of his lit fireplace.
"Why they didn't close the Floo network from my fire, I'll never know. Ah well. In this moment, I'm happy for the ignorance of others." And at that, he threw a pinch of the glittering ash into the fireplace, stepped into it, and said,"Draco's Room, Malfoy Manor!"
------------------------------------------------------
He managed to walk out of the fireplace into a lovely room that had to be decorated by Draco. The entire room was done in blues and greys and all the wood furniture a lovely pale oak. All of a sudden, he found himself being jumped on by Draco who yelled,"You made it!" in a very un-Malfoyish way. He immediately summoned a houseelf to take Harry's bag. The muscled little thing had no problem with Harry's bag, and Harry turned back to Draco.
"Come on!" said the excited blonde,"I'll show you your room and around the manor, and you can tell me all that has been going on at school the past few days."
Harry's room was very alike to his rooms at Hogwarts, only it had a lovely bay window with a sitting place and a wonderful view on the lusch Malfoy estate. Draco showed him the rest of the manor inside, and Harry was done with his story by the time Draco was done. The young Malfoy stood staring at him, shocked.
"No doubt this will be the front page of the Daily Prophet tomorrow, you're right," murmured Draco. "And that Weasley called you filth?! I'll kill him! No, seriously, I will!"
"Calm down, Zurui," said Harry, using that name which he knew would calm the boy down. "I've been in the Prophet too many times to care what they say anymore. Can I see the grounds?"
The grounds were truly spectacular, and Harry knew it would have taken him hours to be shown all of it. His favourite part, though, was that they did this all by horseback. Draco had first taken him to the stables and had shown Harry how to put on the horse's tack and how to ride. Harry had ended up mounting a powerful Palamino stallion. Draco told him the horse had never let anyone mount him except Harry, so with a light heart, they rode around the grounds until the sky began getting dark. Putting the horses back in the stables and entrusting their care to a stable elf, they headed inside to change for dinner.
Coming down the stairs and into the dining room, Harry spotted Narcissa Malfoy as she got up from the table and smiled warmly at the two boys. Harry was amazed how pretty she was when she didn't have that haughty look on her face.
"I'm pleased you'll be staying with us for the time being, Harry," said Narcissa. "I've already had inquiries about you from school, but I'll not give them consent to take you away until you get back on the Hogwarts Express! Come, you look pale, why don't you have a bite to eat?"
Harry looked uncomfortably at Draco, who turned to his mother and said,"Harry can't eat anything mother, he's, uhm, he's feeling a bit sick..."
"He ended up being vampiric, didn't he?" she questioned once they all sat down at the table. Harry almost fell off his chair while Draco said,"How did you-"
"Really, Draco," said Narcissa, tutting slightly,"Surely you two have found out about his mother?"
"Yes, I did," said Harry, recovering slightly."She was transformed by that vampire clan's leader, Cicila Sachol. She worked for Voldemort." And it clicked in his head.
"Well, Harry, you know full well that as a Deatheater family, we do have other members over on occasion, sometimes even the Dark Lord himself. But I've met Cicila, very nice woman. After hearing what happened to your mother, I knew you'd at least turn out part vampire."
"I'm supposedly three-quarters. Where is this Cicila Sachol now, anyway?" stated Harry, watching the other two eat.
"We all have no idea. Well, I think the Dark Lord knows, but he won't tell any of us. She's disbanded her clan of vampires and destroyed them all, not trusting a one with her secrets. She was a strong ally and a more powerful being under our master I do not know of. She's rumoured to be just under one thousand years old. Imagine, seeing the turning of eras and times as she has."
Harry went back to his rooms after saying goodnight to Draco, and changed into a simple pair of blue-grey boxers. He pulled back the warm comforter on the bed, and fell asleep dreaming of riding the Palamino throughout the school building, trampling down the fools who underestimated him. He smiled.
--------------------------------------------
The next day, Harry and Draco went with Narcissa to Diagon Alley to pick up presents for everyone on the Yules. After they found a few things in the main alley, Narcissa took them down Knockturn Alley. The boys found this stretch of odd and eerie shops much more interesting, and Harry told Draco of his incident here before second year which got a loud snort out of Draco.
They split up so they could buy eachother's presents without the other seeing, and when they were done with that, they sat at a little table outside a restaraunt enjoying a lunch, Harry watching the crowd go by and reading from the Daily Prophet. Of course his revealed secret made the front page news, the story made up of the story of Lily and then Harry's revealed news through interviews with the students.
'"I honestly don't think I could feel safe in his company anymore. I mean, if he's been deceiving us about this, what else can he be keeping from us?' said Lavender Brown, a fellow sixth year in Gryffindor."
He had no trouble hearing the entire area around him bustling with the news. However, on Knockturn Alley, it was met with excitement, where he had only heard scared and anxious thoughts in Diagon Alley. The article had used an old picture of him, and no one outside of Hogwarts knew what he looked like now, so he was able to get past a lot of public shows. He was happy for once, watching Narcissa and Draco finishing off their meals.
Draco managed to drag Harry into a pet shop before they left full of (in Harry's opinion) a lot of illegal creatures. Draco had wanted to show him all of the snakes they had here, but Harry said he didn't know if he wanted a snake right now. They left back toward Diagon Alley, and it was Harry's turn to drag Draco into Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. Using a bit of his supernatural strength, he was able to push Draco and himself through the crowd toward where he spotted Fred, George, and Lee.
The trio of pranksters didn't recognize Harry at first, but when he started speaking, they knew it was him. Fred and George immediately went into an enthusiastic conversation with him which luckily went unnoticed by the crowd. They said that everyone at Grimmauld Place was in an uproar at this news, that Mum had fainted and Dad had to revive her. Harry explained the reason why he had said those things to Ginny.
"Is Mum ever going to wallop Ron!" crowed George. "I mean, you were really protecting Ginny! Oh, Ron'll never hear the end of it! Mum really wants to see you, Harry. Maybe you could drop by on summer hols, or are you going to stay there? I mean you can't exactly go back to the Dursley's, can you?"
"I'll see how everything goes between now and then. Send everyone my hellos, okay?" said Harry, and Draco and Harry left the shop back to Narcissa, and they left the busy little street for the quiet of the manor.
-----------------------------------------------
A/N: Harry is at the Malfoy Manor! Isn't it odd how everyone says "Malfoy Manor" or "Snape Manor"? I don't get it, but whatever. What did ya think? Just sign in and review! What's going to happen next chapter?! Oh god! Don't ask me that! I'm just making this story up as I go pretty much! AH! The anxiety, the pressure!
(October 26-October 27, 2003)
"You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions." - Mahfouz Naquib
Whoa. Out there, man. Really.