Please do not ask when the next chapter will be. I do not know. I do not wish to be asked.
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Here's the thing. The very, very, stupid thing. Despite all his planning for this trip, Danny had no idea what his birth family looked like. Presumably, they also had no idea what he looked like.
As much as Danny would like to blame this on a wizardly aversion to the internet and photographs, he couldn't. Danny could have sent them a picture of himself through the mail at any time. Even if wizard mail involved owls for some unexplained reason. But he didn't. Because he was dumb.
And his equally dumb wizard family had also failed to send any pictures.
What were they thinking? Did they assume they'd somehow recognize each other on sight? Was that a wizard thing? Did they expect to spontaneously develop blood-relative telepathy? Was that a thing?
Danny did not know what to expect. He honestly didn't know enough about wizards.
The end result was that Danny was standing in the middle of the wizarding world's equivalent of an airport, which involved way more open fires than could possibly be safe, and people stepping into those open fires, which, again, could not possibly be safe. Of course, Danny had done it, as uncomfortable as it was for his core, and anything that used internal combustion was technically also using fire as a means of transportation, so Danny might have been a bit of a hypocrite, but still.
But, back to his dilemma. He, a dumb teenager, could be expected to do dumb, thoughtless things and make easily avoidable mistakes. It was basically a requirement. His actual family, who probably could have realized the error, didn't want him to go and could be forgiven for any oversight. But dumb wizard birth family had at least one semi-competent adult in it. Supposedly.
Despite himself, his desire to kidnap his brother increased. Even though it would most likely cause an international incident.
He sighed. Maybe he should just follow the crowd and see if anyone stopped him. After all wizards might have magic blood-relative detection something or other.
He trudged along, pulling his trundle suitcase behind him. Silver lining was that whatever happened, he didn't have to spend hours in a metal tube breathing recycled air. Silver lining. Silver lining. Silver—
Ah. Hm.
Danny blinked at his name written in large letters on a square of poster paper. His first and middle names, that is, and his bio-family's last name.
He was highly tempted to turn around and go back home, but there was his twin, holding the card and looking fragile and hopeful, standing next to a tall woman with greying black hair.
He sighed. He was doing this, then.
"Hi," he said, "you must be Draco. I'm Danny. And, uh, you must be Narcissa Malfoy?" He sort of held his hand out, feeling awkward.
"You can call me mother, Deneb," said Narcissa. She sounded slightly tearful.
"It good to meet you, Deneb. Er. Danny." Draco's eyes flitted up to his mother.
"Yeah, um. Please don't take this the wrong way, Mrs. Malfoy, but I don't actually know you. And I've got a mom."
"Yet," interjected Draco. "You don't know mother yet. That's what this visit is about, right?"
"Right," said Danny. "I'm… really looking forward to it."
Draco looked relieved. "Excellent. Well, then, Looky can get your luggage and we can floo home."
A very small, rather wizened person stepped out from behind Draco's legs.
Okay. Danny had questions.
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Danny did not particularly care for the answers to his questions.
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Draco didn't know why his twin had stopped talking to him before they'd even gotten home. He had, to some degree, expected rough spots. Merlin knew his family didn't get along perfectly. But that didn't mean he hadn't hoped he and his twin would have a special connection. That they would mesh.
That… wasn't happening. In fact, this was rather… awkward. Painful, almost.
He thought back to what they had been talking about. He didn't think he'd said anything particularly objectionable. Had he hit on some chip on the shoulder those squibs had inculcated in him? Well, he thought, rather shamefacedly, he shouldn't think of them like that. They hadn't been the ones to abandon Deneb – Danny – just for not being immediately magical.
"Right," he said, as Danny stepped (jumped, looking slightly disturbed) out of the fire. "Let me show you your room. We've had the house elves clean it out."
Something on Danny's face went dark, but he visibly controlled himself. "Thank you," he said. "And, um, thank you, Looky. For your help."
Draco frowned. He was confused, and he didn't like feeling confused. He knew muggles didn't have house elves, of course, but still. The concept wasn't that hard to understand, was it? Although, it was possible Danny had never come across house elves at all, even second or third hand.
He supposed they might be unsettling if they were the first magical creature one came across. Ugh. He'd never tried to put himself in the position of someone learning about magic for the first time. Why would he? That was mudblood business, and he'd never associate with one of those.
But Danny was in that position, just about.
That meant it was Draco's job to help Danny understand.
.
Danny was hoping he was misunderstanding something and that wizards did not, in fact, practice slavery.
This seemed to be a forlorn hope.
"So," said Draco clasping his hands behind his back in the doorway of 'Danny's' room, "er, house elves. You've probably not seen them before."
"Can't really say so, no."
"Probably the first magical creatures you've seen."
"Um," said Danny. "Also no. I did have to go get a wand and stuff, and you've got to go to a wizard town to do that. I saw a bunch of different stuff there." He didn't really want to explain the ghosts, but… "Also, my parents study ghosts."
"You mean, your adopted parents."
"My parents, yes."
"I didn't know squibs could see ghosts. Well, they never seemed to have any trouble with it, so…" He shrugged.
"I… see."
Danny doubted it, somehow. "But you were saying? About house elves?" Benefit of the doubt, he reminded himself.
"They're servants," said Draco. "Magically bound to serve certain families."
"Magically bound," repeated Danny, liking this less and less.
"Yes, it's very old magic. An ancient agreement between our race and theirs, and the individual families and the house elves in question."
"They can't, like, opt out or anything?"
"That would defeat the point."
"Okay," said Danny. "So… Do they get, you know, paid at all?"
"Of course not," said Draco.
Danny closed his eyes. "Okay. Um. Draco." How to put this in a way that wouldn't immediately alienate him. "Isn't that slavery?"
"No," said Draco, immediately. "They want to serve."
"Well, they might say that to you, but human slaves used to say the same thing, because they'd get in trouble if they didn't."
Draco opened his mouth, closed it, and then said, confidently, "It isn't like that."
"Are you sure?"
"They aren't human. They want to do this."
Danny was no stranger to dealing with inhuman mindsets (but he most definitely did not have one himself). Even so…
"I think my point still stands. Like, are there very many house elves in this situation?"
"I don't know," said Draco. "I suppose so. Most families of substance and breeding have at least one."
"Okay. Ah. Look. I'm not even sure where to start with this. Slavery is bad, right? We can agree on that."
An annoyed expression passed over Draco's face. "Yes, we can. That's a given. But that's for humans—"
"Great. Let's start there. It's bad for any human, right? Even, like, no-majs, or stupid humans, or—"
"Muggles," corrected Draco. "No-maj is the American term."
"When in Rome, I guess, sure. Muggles, then."
"Yeah," said Draco, uncomfortably crossing his arms.
Oh, Ancients, there was something there. Which Danny should have expected, given his birth father, whom he had yet to meet, threw him out of the house literally at birth.
Wizard supremacist weirdos corrupting his poor twin brother.
"Then what makes house elves so different?"
"Like I said, they want to do this. It's in their nature. You wouldn't, I don't know, decide a dog was unhealthy because it barked instead of meowed, would you?" He spread his hands in frustration.
"I'll give you that, but Looky looked actively afraid of you. And what was she even dressed in? That can't be comfortable."
"Giving them real clothes would free them – only if it's their master, which in this case is Father." He shifted slightly. "Except for Looky, I suppose, who is technically mine. Great Aunt—Oh, you won't know her. Why do you even care?"
"Why do I care about other people suffering? But other than that, what's the difference between a house elf and a human servant? Like, would you treat a human servant like that? If you were a servant, wouldn't you want to be treated with respect, even if being a servant was all you'd ever wanted?"
"But I'm not a servant."
"But if you were. Can't you just try to imagine it? A little? Please?"
"I… fine. But don't bring this up to Mother and Father. They wouldn't be pleased."
"Okay. Deal."
"Deal," agreed Draco. "So. Do you like your room?"
Danny looked around. "Yeah, actually. It's nice. Bit different from what I have at home, but, yeah. Good, um. Good floors. And wallpaper. And, um. Do all wizard paintings move like that?" He genuinely hadn't noticed until just now, intent on the house elf problem.
"Yeah," said Draco, seemingly relieved at the more normal topic. "It's an enchantment on the canvas and paint."
"Seems like it'd be hard to work with," observed Danny.
"Well, the spell isn't finished until after the actual painting part is done. At least, that's my understanding."
"I see, that would be easier."
Silence.
"Would you like to see the peacocks?"
"Sure, why not?"
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It took a bit of time to get bundled up in coats (cloaks in Draco's case) because it was cold outside, but once they did…
"Wow. They're albino peacocks."
"Yes."
"Wild."
"No, they're quite tame."
"Oh, it's, um, it's an idiom. Like cool. Or wicked, I guess? Do British people use that?"
"I've heard some people use it. But Mother and Father are… not particularly enamored of slang."
"Right," said Danny. "I'll remember that."
They continued walking through the garden, towards the pond. Danny tried not to dwell on how much labor it would take to keep the grounds here so pristine.
"What do you do for fun in America?" asked Draco, out of nowhere.
Danny blinked. "Different people do different things," he said. "Uh, a lot of things I usually do won't work here because of the whole magic and electricity not getting along well thing. Have you ever heard about video games?"
"No," said Draco. "Is it anything like quidditch?"
"I have only the loosest of understandings of what that is. It's that broom sport, right? The one where you fly?"
Draco looked scandalized. "… Yes," he said, finally. "I'm going to have to teach you how to use a broom before you have to go back to America."
"The flying type of broom?" asked Danny, teasingly. Sure, he already could fly, but whatever.
"Merlin, yes." Draco rolled his eyes. "I'm part of my house's quidditch team. Letting you leave without some understanding of the rules would be a crime."
"Draco, are you a jock?" asked Danny. "What is this world coming to. Related to a jock." He shook his head dramatically. "I'll never live it down."
Draco nudged him slightly. "I'm not a meathead beater, at least," he said. "I'm the team seeker."
"I have no idea what that means."
Draco's smile slowly slid off his face.
"What?" said Danny.
"It's just… you should. You should have grown up here, with family, as part of this world."
"I did grow up with family," said Danny. "Just not direct blood relatives. It kind of sucks that we didn't get the chance to grow up together, but, like, I'm not really impressed by your parents so far."
"Mother was very upset when she heard what Father did."
"Sure, but she also kind of ditched us as soon as we got back here."
"She has a delicate constitution? I'm sure she's just trying to decide how to act… giving you space to make you feel more comfortable?"
Danny shrugged. "Well, we'll see what happens. I'm going to be here until the end of the break, after all."
"Are you sure you don't want to go to Hogwarts, just for the rest of the school year? I'm sure they'll be better than any alternative in America, when it comes to catching you up. Father has friends on the board of governors and the Ministry Department of Educational Oversight. It would be easy for you to go."
"My friends are all back home," said Danny, "and magic or not, what I really want to do with my life is become an astronaut, and I need 'muggle' grades and school for that."
"A what now?"
"An astronaut?"
Surely, Draco had just misheard him.
"Is that some sort of muggle thing, then?"
"I- Do you not know what an astronaut is?" asked Danny, flabbergasted. "Really?"
Draco's eyebrows were furrowed. "No, I don't."
"How about cosmonauts? Do you know about them?"
"No," said Draco. "Is this related to the Argonauts, somehow? That Greek thing?"
"No," said Danny. "I mean, the root word – But no. Not the same thing at all. How do I even… Do you know what outer space is?"
"Astronomy is a class at Hogwarts."
"Not a very good one," said Danny, "if you don't know what an astronaut is. I think I'd die."
"It's a very good class. Hogwarts is the best wizarding school in Europe. And I know what outer space is. It's the space up above the atmosphere, where the planets and stars are, and stuff."
"Okay. I mean. I'm not trying to make you feel bad or anything," reassured Danny, sensing that he had ruffled some feathers. "I'm just… an astronomy class should teach about astronauts. Astronauts are people who've been to space. Outer space."
"That's rubbish," said Draco. "You can't go to space."
Danny refrained from informing Draco that he had, in fact, been to space. "Well, I want to go to space," said Danny, "and other people have been there."
"No one's been to space," said Draco. "Unless maybe someone apparated there by mistake, but how would you even do that?"
"I don't know what apparating is," said Danny. "Some kind of teleportation?"
Both of them stared at each other, each one probably at a loss for words regarding the other's ignorance of things they themselves considered common knowledge.
"Yeah, more or less," said Draco, finally. "But you can't get to space. It's impossible."
"It isn't. There are people up there right now," said Danny. "On the International Space Station. Which is… it's sort of a little house. In space."
"There's no air up there."
"They bring the air with them."
"Wouldn't it explode?"
"They figured out how to make it so it wouldn't explode. It's very, um. Sturdy. Rigid. The space station is airtight."
"And you're saying that there are muggles in it. In space. Outer space. Right now."
"As we speak. I mean, I guess some of them could be secret wizards, but considering your reaction, I'm doubting it."
"Muggles. In space."
"Yeah. We made it to the moon, too. But that was—"
"The moon?"
"Yeah?"
"In the sky?"
"That, uh." He looked up, as if expecting to see the moon despite the thick cloud cover. "Yeah. The moon."
"You're telling me," said Draco, in a hushed voice, "that there are muggles on the moon. Right now. As we speak."
"No, that was before we were born," said Danny.
"What."
"Yeah, some people went, but it was really expensive, so they haven't been back. Which I think is silly, because can you imagine the scientific advancements we could have made? The resources we could have brought back?"
"The moon."
"You seem really hung up on this. Are you okay?"
"You- That- The moon. And muggles in space?"
"Yeah," said Danny. He rubbed the back of his neck. "So, you see why I need to go back. I'm sure Hogwarts is great and all, but I really want to be an astronaut."
"Can you see them through a telescope?"
"See what?"
"The muggles in space."
"On a clear night, sure, if you know where to look." Before the Accident (the Big One, the Unaliving, the Green Flash, the Knockoff Origin Story), Danny usually checked the internet for the times the ISS passed overhead. But he'd developed a ghost power that gave him a pretty good sense of where anything in the sky was, so long as he concentrated for a few minutes. "It orbits the Earth every ninety minutes or so, although it doesn't always catch the light enough to see properly. You can actually see a lot of satellites."
"There are more of these things?" hissed Draco.
"Not with people on them."
"I'm getting my telescope," declared Draco, starting to stride back to the house.
"We won't be able to see anything now," said Danny.
"It's enchanted to see through cloud cover and ignore non-reflected sunlight. It's top of the line."
Danny had never wanted a physical object so much in his entire life.
"What? What? Magic can do that?"
