Chapter 10: Draco's secret

They went to the kitchen and asked Dumbledore to have a word; he accepted and told them to go to his office. When they entered, they saw that this room was an exact version of Dumbledore's office at Hogwarts. Fawkes the phoenix was also there.

"What can I do for you?" Dumbledore said.

"We want to know why there are four Gryffindor Head Students. The rule says two." Hermione asked suspiciously.

"As I told you before, Hermione, sometimes you have to break some rules in order to be fair."

"And how come you change him to Gryffindor just like that?" She said pointing to Draco.

"Ok, I'll tell you. When I found out that Draco wanted to be in Gryffindor, I was quite surprised. He had always hated that house."

"But the sorting hat put him in Slytherin!" Hermione interrupted.

"The sorting hat wasn't wrong. Draco was thinking about following his father's steps at that time, so he belonged to that house. When he came to ask me about this issue, I wasn't entirely sure about changing him. When he took the potion Harry gave him, he said something only I could hear. 'I need to start over; I want to make the Lord feel what I'm feeling right now.' When I heard this, I looked at Ron. He had heard this too. I asked him not to say anything because I needed to make sure he was not lying. When I was sure enough, I thought sensible to name you all Head of Houses. I know it's against the rules, Hermione, but you'll understand everything once you get to school. I assure you he's telling the truth."

"And how could you possibly find that out?" Hermione asked, now watching Draco suspiciously.

"I think it's time, Draco." Dumbledore said.

"Yes professor." Draco agreed.

"Hermione, I want you to look inside there once I have extracted Draco's memories." Dumbledore said pointing to the Pensieve in his desk.

"Ok." She answered looking from Dumbledore to Draco and back again.

Hermione saw how a delicate silver string came out of the tip of Dumbledore's wand and when it touched Draco's head, it fell on the Pensieve.

"Look." Dumbledore told Hermione.

When Hermione looked inside, she was sucked inside the Pensieve. Dumbledore and Draco were too. They were following a sleek blond boy. He was walking on a corridor of a luxurious house.

"This is my house." Draco informed Hermione. "And this dude we're following must be me..." He stopped.

"What happened?" Hermione asked him.

"It's my mother." He answered.

Draco's parents were talking to his memory self.

"This is your big night, son." Lucius said.

"Father, I can't do it."

"Of course you can! I was nervous too." Lucius said, trying to convince his son. He tried to give his son an encouraging smile, but all he could manage was a twisted smile that reminded Hermione of Snape.

"Look, son, it's just a ceremony. You'll get the Dark Mark and a lifetime of glory and protection the Dark Lord will give you." Narcissa said. "And the most important thing, you'll get power."

"That's not what I want to do! It's my life, I decide what to do!" He said.

"Not this time!" Lucius shouted. "You're going to devote your life to the Lord or die!"

"Lucius! Don't be like this!" Narcissa said.

"He will pay! Crucio!" Lucius yelled. (A/N: I know that Draco said before that his father had tried to kill him, but let's face it we teenagers tend to make things bigger than they really are, and the Cruciatus curse can torture you and I guess you could die from pain...) Hermione let out a shriek and put her face in Draco's chest. Draco was surprised at her reaction, but he wrapped his arms around her. The other Draco (A/N: the one in the memory.) fell and started screaming. He was twisting in pain, his face had a weird expression, and his legs seemed to have been attached to his chest.

"Lucius! Stop it!" Narcissa said and Draco saw his father punch his wife. The other Draco was still in the floor, unconscious. A few minutes later, the other Draco woke up. Hermione, Draco, and Dumbledore followed him as he went up to his room. He had decided to run away. The other Draco picked up all his stuff and put them in his trunk. He got out of the room and headed straight to the front door. He got in his Nimbus 2001 and set off to Hogwarts. When he got there, he went straight to Snape's office and knocked the door.

"Come in!"

"Professor, I need help."

"What are you doing here, Malfoy?" He bellowed. "ANY MUGGLE COULD HAVE SEEN YOU!"

"It's my father, he tried to kill me. He put the Cruciatus curse on me."

"Let's go with Dumbledore." Snape said getting up and led the other Draco through a set of corridors until they get to the Entrance Hall. As it was holidays, the school was deserted. They climbed the marble staircase and after a few minutes and many corridors, they got to the Gargoyle outside Dumbledore's office.

"Password?" The gargoyle asked.

"Sugar spiders" Snape said and the gargoyle stepped aside. The other Draco and Snape climbed the staircase that led to Dumbledore's office. Snape knocked the door and they heard Dumbledore say.

"Come in!"

"I think you already know this part of the story." The real Dumbledore said from behind them, and pulled Draco and Hermione out of the Pensieve.

When they got out, Dumbledore asked Hermione. "Now you believe him?"

"Yes, professor, I do." She answered quite embarrassed for having made Draco go through that horrible situation again. Then she looked at Draco, he looked at her as if nothing had happened and was now wondering why she was looking at him.

"I'm sorry." Hermione said as they left Dumbledore's office.

"What for?"

"For not having believed you... and made you go through all that again." She said timidly.

"Look." He said standing in front of her. "I'd go through that millions of times if I have to. If that makes you believe me, I'd do anything."

"I believe you... but I don't think that you'd do anything for us to believe you."

"I wasn't talking about all of you, just you."

"Why me?"

"You are the only one that is curious enough in here. Your curiosity and intelligence could have made the others distrust me." He said and Hermione's cheeks acquired a pink colour. "Some book of yours could have said I was under some strange curse that made me a good person to you... which is not the case..." He assured her.

"But you knew I was on your side, why did you make me see the truth?"

"You needed it, you were begging for it."

"What?"

"You were the one that discovered that Dumbledore was not telling the entire truth. You wanted to talk to him... I just followed you."

"You know what?" Hermione said and Draco was expecting her to slap him or something. "He didn't say why there were four Heads of House in Gryffindor."

"Yes, he did..."

"No he didn't..."

"He said we would find out once we got to school..."

"I hate it when he does that."

"Anyway, I think everyone must be waiting for us to go to Diagon Alley."

Hermione let out a shriek. "Diagon Alley! I forgot!" She said this and they both ran until they got to the kitchen where everyone was waiting for them.

"Where were you?" Ron asked angrily.

"We were with Dumbledore." Draco answered simply.

"We've been waiting for two hours!"

"We're here, ok? C'mon Ron, I have to buy some things." Hermione said exasperatedly.

"Yeah, books..." Draco said rolling his eyes.

"Yes books! Any problem with that?" Hermione shouted rather loud.

"No, none at all." Draco said smiling.

"Good." She said and looked at Harry. "Are we going or what?"

"Hey, hey, easy! We have to wait for the Order." Harry said.

Hermione turned to look at Ron with fury. "You have just told me off because I was two hours late, and the order is not even here?!"

"Why do you always have to be right? The thing is that we were going to meet and you two didn't show up!" Ron shouted.

When they go to Diagon Alley, they found Pansy Parkinson in Flourish and Blots, she was dressed in silk robes. She ran towards Draco with a great smile in her face, but it faded the second she saw Hermione was a few metres away.

"Draco! Draco!" Pansy called.

"Merlin, here we go..." Draco moaned. "Pansy! Hi! What a surprise!"

"What are you doing with the Mudblood?"

"Do not call her that!" Draco shouted. "You have no right to treat people like that!"

"What has happened to you?" Pansy asked surprised at Draco's attitude. She had her eyes full of tears.

"None-of-your-business."

"My parents had to change me to Durmstrang."

"Why?"

"Didn't you hear? Dumbledore eliminated Slytherin; he proved that our entire house was being trained to be Death Eaters. He put them in Azkaban, but before he could do so with me, I ran away and convinced my parents to put me in Durmstrang."

"So you're one of them?" Draco asked amazed.

"Yeah, but it's supposed to be a secret..."

"You make me sick!" He shouted and left Pansy standing there looking at him and crying.

"Hermione! I know why!" Draco shouted as he approached her, then he whispered to her what Pansy had told him.

"Really? Cool." She said and smiled.

When they had bought everything they needed, they went back to Grimauld place to spend the rest of the holidays doing exactly nothing. (A/N: Elinor and I need one of those! Ha-ha)