First some belated appreciation:
LeMon-LiCKEr-69, Crowley, moonstar, volleypickle 16, and TCU Dramaprincess I love you all. Sorry I didn't receive your reviews in time to thank you, in the last chapter I posted. Your kindness is branded forever on my heart.
Kaikiki- You are welcome to any giggles I can provide you. Thanks again for becoming one of my favorite people.
Crowley Black- Thanks! They've had a lot of practice. I don't think they'll ever give up verbal combat.
moonstar-dust- Thanks for your compliments concerning Draco. He is tough, but worth any effort.
Warning! This one is a bit long. Stick with me, and have a lemon drop in prep for chapter six.
Right now, however, I give all the kind people above, without further ado:
Unity
Part Five
History
By the time Harry woke, Draco Malfoy was showered, dressed, sipping tea, and half way finished with the talisman book. His presence was something of a shock for Harry. Had he awakened alone, he would have assumed that falling asleep on Malfoy's shoulder had been nothing more than a disturbingly vivid dream.
"Morning."
"Good morning, Harry. Have some tea if you'd care for any."
"I'm rather surprised that the idle rich know how to make tea"
"I am in no way idle, and unlike certain wizards, make excellent potions."
"What would you like to do today?"
"First, we are getting your eyes healed, then shopping. As I'm staying I need things."
"Makes your note true, too."
"An added benefit."
"I'll be quick."
When Harry had showered and dressed Draco insisted on taking stock of Harry's clothes. According to Draco, Harry didn't have any clothes. Harry decided Fred and George did not need to know that Draco Malfoy was staying above their shop, so they left via the alley exit.
Draco took Harry to a side street off Knockturn Alley up several flights of stair to a door under a sign that said:
Sickle Optical Magic
Healing- Invisible Lenses- Spectre Spectacles
The room was small dark and cramped. The ceiling was especially low. Both Harry and Draco had to duck to avoid hitting their heads. Inside at a very small desk, sat a very tall thin wraithlike wizard with large black eyes and purple robes. The man had his long grey hair twisted in rather a severe bun, not unlike McGonagall's, stuck through with several quills.
"My my! Mr. Malfoy, Mr. Potter! I've been expecting you for several years, Mr. Potter! A time or two, I even put on tea, so sure was I that you would walk through that very door! I never expected to see you here, Mr. Malfoy. Most unexpected to have you both turn up here, together. No, I never foresaw that at all! But hindsight is better than no sight at all. Wouldn't you agree, Mr. Potter?"
"I suppose so. Mr. Sickle, I want-"
"Oh! I know why you are here! You come for healing, do you not? You have come to the right place, to the right wizard, at the right time, though you are somewhat late. Better late than never! Wouldn't you agree Mr. Malfoy?"
Harry noticed that Draco looked supremely bored with the man. "This will take how long?"
"Always in a hurry, yet there is always so much time to waste. Is that right, Mr. Malfoy? Ah, youth, I remember it well! Remove that Muggle artifact from your face, Mr. Potter. Clever creatures the Muggles! Impressive how much they accomplish without any magic at all. Wouldn't you agree, Mr. Potter?"
"Yes."
"Yes! I knew you would! Close your eyes, Mr. Potter, and count backward from your favorite number over 67 and a half."
"What do I owe you?" Draco said.
"A promise?"
"I don't pay debt in promises."
"Ah, you are most wise. A lock of your hair, then, perhaps?"
"Try again."
"Oh, fifty galleons. The youth of today. No sense of adventure, at all."
When Harry opened his eyes again he could see perfectly. They left immediately after heading back to Diagon Alley.
"He's a strange one," Harry said after a while.
"He's harmless and discreet."
"Are you certain about the harmless part?"
Until late in the afternoon, Draco dragged Harry from one shop to the next. Finally even Draco was satisfied that they had bought enough to get them through his visit. They suppered at the Time Turner Cafe, so it was only a little past noon when they successfully avoided themselves to return home again.
"Do you like family history, Harry?" Draco asked him after they had put their shopping away.
"My family history hasn't been - happy."
"Family history never is but it reminds us from where we came and can indicate where we are going. I was going to talk to you about all this after the Sorting Feast. I think it will be better if we don't wait. Care to hear a little story from my family history?"
"All right."
Draco took Harry's hand and led him over to sit on the bed.
"Once a long time ago, a powerful wizard named Malfoy had two sons. One was my great great grandfather. The other married a witch named Prewett. Does the name Prewett ring any bells, Harry?"
"No, should it?"
"Well for one thing, Mrs. Weasley's name before she married was Prewett."
"You're telling me you are related to the Weasley's?
"On both sides, at least twice on Mrs. Weasley's side."
"Draco, that's hilarious!"
"Pureblood families are a finite number, Harry. Do you know what happens when the blood ties are too close?"
"Incest?"
"Squibs. But, magic lays dormant in squibs. When it finally resurfaces down the generations, it can be phenomenal in it's potential. Anyway, getting back to my little story. This Malfoy who married a Prewett had two daughters, Eugena and Luxandra Malfoy. Eugena, the eldest, was a powerful witch. Her sister Luxandra was a squib. Fearing her children would turn out just like her sister if their father was a wizard, Eugena became the only blood traitor in Malfoy family history. She married a Muggle named Thomas Riddle and produced one son, also named Thomas."
"Voldemort!"
"Ten points to Gryffindor."
"You're related to Voldemort?"
"I am. There's more.
Luxandra, the squib sister, married another squib named Lucaster Evans. You might be interested to know that Dumbledore's mother was an Evans from the same line as Lucaster. Lucaster and Luxandra, or Luke and Lucy, as they liked to call each other, had two daughters, a Squib named Petunia, and an immensely powerful witch who married James Potter and became your mother. You have a most impressive family tree, Harry. You are the closest blood tie in our generation to both Voldemort and Albus Dumbledore."
"Who knows this?"
"Dumbledore does. Harder to say who doesn't know it, really."
"What does that mean about me?"
"There are probably several schools of thought on that subject. Would you care to hear what I think?"
"Yes."
"I think you frighten them all. I think you have been denied this information that is your birthright, because they do not want you to imagine your true potential. They think if they can keep you ignorant that they control you and can use you to further their own goals."
"So my aunt is really a Squib?"
"More or less. Do you know the problem with Squibs and Wizards marrying Muggles? If the magic does not play out in the first child, it is lost, lost Harry, gone never to return. I can't imagine a greater crime than killing magic itself. Your aunt took a chance when she married a Muggle. Your cousin could have been a formidable wizard. Since he is not nor will any of her line ever be. She killed the magic in her when she had your cousin. Now she might as well be a Muggle, save one difference. Muggles with no magical ancestry at all are the only ones capable of producing a Granger. If Granger has a child with a Muggle, the magic is lost. If Granger has a red head with Weasley, the magic is lost. If Granger marries another mudblood, they can produce a brand new Wizarding line. Brand new, for all intents and purposes, Pure Blood wizards. But if your mother had been a mudblood, she could never have produced you with James Potter."
"How do I know that any of this is true?"
"History proves it. Take my word for it or figure it out for yourself- better yet, let Granger research the subject for you. There are other interesting things about your lineage. Care to hear some?"
"Please."
"Harry, on your mother's side you are a direct descendent of both Salazar Slytherin and Helga Hufflepuff. On your father's side your are a direct descendent of both Rowena Ravenclaw and Godric Gryffindor. I have similar blood ties to all four, but I am the product of generations of careful breeding on the part of the Malfoy family. The last tie to Hufflepuff was made when my father married my mother and I was born. If your mother and father were a love match, it is purely by fate or magical attraction that you are related to all four."
"Can you prove any of this?"
"It is all well documented history. There's more Harry. Shall I continue?"
"Yes."
"Your grandfather Lucaster, the Evans squib, was Dumbledore's cousin. Evans' mother was a Grindelwald. Recognize that name?"
"Not the dark wizard that Dumbledore defeated?"
"She was his daughter. You have blood relationship to three of the most powerful Wizards alive in the last century, and four more of the most powerful of all time. Tell me something. Why have you never been tested to discover your magical potential?"
"Dumbledore told me he thought the test was unreliable in my case. He went on and on about it. What is power? What is a test to say who has potential? He said I was severely disadvantaged not having been brought up around magic in my formative years."
"So was Granger but she took the test. What else did he tell you?"
"He said there was no point for me to take the test, since the results would be so terribly poor and would tend to discourage my magical development."
"Dumbledore told you that you would do horribly? How does that not discourage magical development? You believed all of that?"
"I don't know. I have never liked taking tests anyway. I just figured, one less to worry about."
"Do you realize that you and I are the only two students currently enrolled at Hogwarts never to have taken that test? My family told me that test was a mere formality, basically something to weed out the undesirables."
"Perfect. Why didn't you believe that?"
"Perhaps I'm immune to blatant manipulation. Besides, I do like to take tests because if I want to I always do well on them."
"You think your family doesn't want you to realize your Wizarding potential?"
"I know they don't. I know Dumbledore doesn't want that either."
"What are you saying?"
"We frighten them, Harry. I think the one thing they fear more than anything else is if we unite against them."
"Against who?"
"Them, anyone who stands in our way, be it Voldemort, the Death Eaters, my family, Dumbledore, the Order, the Ministry, all of them."
"You want to rule the world? You are insane."
"Am I? Someone has to do it. If what I think is true we get to do it anyway. You and I are the only ones powerful enough. We can have war apart; or we can have peace together. Do you know what my family told me about you before we met? They said you were a Pure Blood, one who hated Muggles because you had been raised and abused by them. Most of that is true. You are a Pure Blood wizard. You were raised badly in a Muggle environment. How did my family know that though, when supposedly no one did? Anyway, when our first meeting which I based on that information went badly, I started questioning the veracity of the information that I had been fed. Our bad start was subtly encouraged by the faculty. Professors who love you hate me and vice versa. No one, including my family, wanted us to get along, ever.
Divided, we can be used as weapons of war. Together we can end that war, punish those who deserve it, and create something better out of the peace. If that sounds insane, Harry, it's only because you've heard so little sanity you can't recognize it. I don't want to kill Muggles. I don't even want to see one. I don't want to kill Wizards who are all part of my family. I certainly don't want to kill you. That leaves me one option, ending this war- not by wiping out one side or the other but by declaring peace."
"What would peace entail?"
"Unity. No more divisions between so called Light and Dark. It is all magic. It is all the same thing."
"What do you propose? That the use of the Unforgivables be allowed?"
"It happens, Harry. Who stops it? Avada Kedavra doesn't kill wizards. Wizards kill wizards. Wizards enslave wizards. Wizards cause each other pain. It is not the magic that needs punishing; it is the wizards who misuse the magic. Dark magic can be used for good purposes. Light magic can be used for evil. All magic should be preserved, through the teaching of its proper use and laws designed to hinder its misuse. What we have now is close to chaos. You have most of the Wizarding population unable to stand up and defend themselves from Voldemort, in no small part because the teachings of the Dark Arts fell out of favor and were driven underground. They are depending on a student to battle a Dark Lord for them. It is an abomination. Don't you ever wonder why Dumbledore doesn't kill Voldemort?"
"Well, the prophesy-"
"Let me tell you right now, I think the prophesy is a something Dumbledore made up. Trelawney couldn't find her own backside in the Dark. Do you know that traditionally, both Potions and Divination are considered Dark Arts? The Ministry decided they couldn't get on without them, so they are now in their own category. It is all arbitrary. None of them know what they are doing, Harry. Sometimes I think that Dumbledore and Voldemort can not afford to kill each other because one serves to make the other important. They see it as a balance of power. They both want this war. If the prophesy is true, if Dumbledore wanted you to defeat Voldemort, why not give you all the information, all the education, all the support, an army behind you, and let you have at him?"
"What do you think he will do when we graduate?"
"Dumbledore will keep you close. He'll offer you a position at Hogwarts, DADA probably. The last battle will always be coming, just around the corner, any day now, but will never quite get there. The war will go on and on."
"What do you want to do, Draco?"
"I want us to take over. I thought I told you that already."
"How do you suggest we start."
"Small. Just a truce between ourselves. We can work our way up from there. I want you to think about all this Harry. Whatever happens later, whatever you decide, I want us to be friends while we can be. No matter what, I will help you kill Voldemort."
"All this time, I thought you were going to be a Death-Eater."
"I'd sooner bow down to Longbottom. At least he's a Pure-Blood. Are you all right, Harry?"
"Yes, it's just a lot to think about."
"Do you want to be alone? I could go out for a while."
"No. I don't want to be alone. Draco, please touch me."
-to be continued
