A/N Nope not mine

Chapter 8: Nature's Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy

8th July 1996

Draco Malfoy was sitting surrounded by books in the History section of the Diagon Alley public library. He only hoped that sitting in the History section prevented him from being spotted by anyone he knew. It wasn't like anyone from school would even come into this section of the library, not the way Binns taught the subject, except for maybe Granger. Now she was the last person he wanted to see here.

He had been driven to the library by events of the past week. He had been staying with his aunt Andromeda, "Call me Andy, please," for that week. And it had been hell. For a start there were no house elves and he had had to prepare his own breakfast and lunch because his aunt and uncle were at work and there was little to do. He didn't have textbooks for school yet not knowing his OWL results although he was hopeful about some of the exams it didn't do to count chickens before they hatched.

It was very odd staying in his aunt's home, she didn't even have her own house. It seemed that they'd moved into a flat in London after his cousin had finished her Auror training. After being able to hide himself away from his parents while in the manor it was very strange not being able to leave the bedroom he had been given without bumping into either his aunt or his uncle. This was one of the reasons that he had come out to the library, he needed to get out of the claustrophobic atmosphere of the house….flat. The other reason was that he had wanted to do some research. He had been returning from the Hospital Wing when Potter and his friends returned to the castle, it had taken Madam Pomfrey ages to fix the hex that Weaslette had used on him, in fact if he hadn't known better he would have sworn that she made it worse before she made it better. What had struck him in the days afterwards, when reports stared of what had happened that caused them to return to school so bloodied was not that they had been leading Umbridge around the Forbidden Forest which was what he had initially suspected but that they had taken on Death Eaters and survived.

He was aware that his father was a Death Eater and that the ruse of the fact that he had been imperioed during the Dark Lord's last reign was not true. With time on his hands in his aunts he had realised that out of the six people that had been in battle only two were not pure bloods. The Dark Lord who claimed to be all for the purity of magic seemed to encourage his followers to harm those who were pure bloods which made no sense to Draco. Sure the Weasley were traitors to the their blood but surely they were needed to maintain the population. Someone after all would have to do the dirty work. Or at least that was what Draco had always presumed, but now. Well he wasn't quite sure what had changed but he wasn't so convinced in the teachings of his father anymore. How was it that Harry Potter – a half blood - always seemed to escape from the Dark Lord – supposedly the most powerful wizard ever? How was it that Hermione Granger – a mudblood – was able to grasp the new magic they were taught so easily? How was it that his cousin another half blood had the ability that she did? And how was it that two supposedly loving parents had abandoned their pureblood son? Granted his father was in jail but his mother didn't have that excuse, she had just upped and left him, he didn't know if she had joined the Dark Lord or just disappeared. Either way he was on his own, left with family he barely knew thanks to his parents prejudices. His aunt was a Healer and his uncle worked for the WWN, both were important jobs within the wizarding community and he was having trouble now trying to figure out how his parents contributed to society. Sure they were committee members of various different things, but from what he had heard from his aunt the board members of St. Mungo's routinely slowed things down, funding going to the wrong place, something else he was here to research. He was reading through history books in an attempt to get a more balanced view of the Dark Lord's last reign. And he did not like what he was reading, quite a lot of pureblood lines appeared to have been wiped out, to the extent that one of the authors thought that without marriage outside of the remaining lines magic would become extinct. There would eventually be no one left to marry who wasn't in some way related to you and that had caused him to look at a book in the family history section – there wasn't a Slytherin girl in his year or the years immediately above or below him that he wasn't related to. While he wasn't in a particular hurry to get married he realised that if he wanted to comply with what his father had always taught him he would have to marry a relative and well that was just ick.

He'd also spent some time thinking about his sister, in some ways he had forgotten about her, she had just faded from his memory. She had not been around for a lot of his childhood anyway as he had been born seven months before she started Hogwarts. His aunt had brought her up in conversation almost accidentally and then had been shocked that he had known next to nothing about her, including the reason that she had been disowned and this in itself had made him think more about the lessons that his father had taught him. His sister had fallen in love and not with the person that their father had arranged for her to marry, but still with a pureblood. Granted it was a Weasley pureblood, but to disown her so completely and bind her magic in such a way, surely that was against the things that his father had taught him previously. And now she was gone and no one knew where to find her, Andy was sure that is Katelyn knew that he was in trouble she would be back in a flash to take care of him. He on the other hand wasn't so sure after all she hadn't visited much that he could remember before she'd been disowned why would she care about him now? He was lost in thoughts about his family when he heard the shrill voice of someone talking quite loudly and really it was quite irksome and disturbing to his concentration. It seemed as though some old biddy was arguing about whether or not a book was late back and was refusing to pay the fine owing on it. It had totally broken his concentration which might not be such a bad thing. He was currently researching the Longbottom family and he was not liking what he was reading, it seemed that his aunt Bellatrix and her husband had been jailed for subjecting two Aurors to the Cruciatus curse, something the newspaper article had reported was done in the presence of their fifteen month old son Neville. Growing up he was only aware that his relatives were imprisoned because they had been fighting for the cause, but now it seemed they had tortured two purebloods for no other reason than distress over the whereabouts of their master and the possibility that these two Aurors might know of his whereabouts. Had they been hoping that a fifteen month old Neville could tell them? In some ways it was no wonder he was so jumpy and easy to bully a memory however vague of your parents being treated like this would have been horrendous. Perhaps it was time for a break, a spot of lunch in the Alley and he could come back and read about the Lovegood family, he wasn't doing any research into the Weasley's there was no doubts about where their loyalties lay and why, but he was curious about the others and why they as purebloods didn't see the ways of the Dark…. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named as being those that were right. He had already convinced himself through his reading that blood purity was not the way to go but wanted to find out why other people had reached this decision before him and get a feeling for the general feeling of the wizarding world rather than just his fathers' view. That and he was uncomfortable being in his aunt's house alone, he much preferred being surrounded by books and learning something new. As he was passing the issue desk of the library he noted that the witch was still there complaining about the fine that was supposedly due on the book she was returning wearing a vulture stuffed hat she was a sight to behold and Draco felt sympathy for the witch behind the desk, because he wasn't watching where he was going he was forced to suddenly brace himself against a display cabinet instead of falling as he bumped into someone. The person he bumped into turned with surprise and Draco suddenly found himself face to face with the object of his previous thoughts as Neville Longbottom turned to face him.

The shock of coming face to face with the boy he had just been reading about, he didn't know where to look and yet he didn't want to look away, didn't want Longbottom to think that he had been weakened just because of his fathers imprisonment.

"Longbottom", he couldn't seem to bring himself to give the boy his usual sneer in light of his recent reading.

"Malfoy,"

"Neville", Longbottom jumped and turned and faced the woman with the vulture hat.

"Gran."

"And young Mr. Malfoy."

"Hello Mrs…..Longbottom," he was hesitant in his address not sure who exactly Neville lived with his maternal or paternal grandmother, he hadn't read that far in his research of the family.

"Indeed young man," he watched her rake her eyes over him "Are you alone today?"

"Umm, yes ma'am my aunt and uncle are working and I wanted to do some reading."

"Hmmm, well then I suppose that you'll have to join us for lunch then."

"GRAN!"

"Neville, the young man has been here all week apparently doing some research the librarian tells me, I think I would like to know a little of what he has found so fascinating."

For the first time Draco and Neville had something on common – their looks of horror at the prospect of sharing lunch and of course Draco knew the subject matter of their discussion – but he couldn't think of anyway out of this without insulting the older witch – something he didn't think he wanted to do. Deciding to bite the billywig he stepped around the witch and opened the door.

"After you ma'am"

A/N Sorry for the LONG delay, but things in real life are back on track and I should be able to update a bit more regularly than I have been. Considering it's been six months since an update that shouldn't be too difficult. I had meant for this to be a longer chapter with the discussion over lunch – but I can't get it to work out for me.

Ginny Zabini thanks for reading