A/N: Well, so it has been a hot minute since I updated this. Apologies. It's just been out of sight, out of mind, because there aren't too many reviews on this compared to my other currently-publishing story.

Still, that isn't really an excuse not to update this for whomever IS following. Henceforth, I'll try to keep to a regular schedule until the end of first-year material (which is, as I mentioned at the start of this, the extent of what I have so far).

Thanks to BrightWatcher and Louise Spinster Black for reviewing the last chapter a month ago.

Chapter Fifteen: Things Told in Confidence

"You found Flamel?" Hermione exclaimed. "When? Where?"

In response, Harry held up a Dumbledore Chocolate Frog card. He had gone straight to his dorm after getting back from the dungeons, found the card, and read what Draco had clearly meant for him to read, at which point he had pulled Ron and Hermione down to the dark common room to tell them.

Hermione missed the point. "Harry, this is no time for sweets!"

"No, look!" Ron pointed at the words on the card, visible in the firelight. "'Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the Dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, for the discovery of twelve uses of dragon's blood, and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel'!"

Thank you, Draco. Before Harry could explain about the Philosopher's Stone, Hermione's entire face brightened and she cried, "Wait!" She jumped up and ran up the stairs to the girls' dormitories, returning seconds later with an impossibly thick, positively ancient book.

"I can't believe I didn't think to look in here!" she said excitedly. "I got this out of the library weeks ago for a bit of light reading."

"This is light?" Ron said incredulously.

"Hush!" she shushed him. She quickly but carefully turned the pages until she found the passage she was looking for. "Here we go! Nicolas Flamel is the only known maker of the Philosopher's Stone!"

"The what?"

Hermione shot Ron an exasperated look. "Honestly, don't you read?"

"I've heard of it, but I can't remember exactly what it does." Harry had decided to play dumb, though not as far as Ron's acluistic level.

"Here, read that." She pushed the book to them.

The ancient study of alchemy is concerned with making the Philosopher's Stone, a legendary substance with astonishing powers. The stone will transform any metal into pure gold. It also produces the Elixir of Life, which will make the drinker immortal.

Ron paled suddenly. "Elixir of Life?" he repeated.

"Yes, Ron, what's wrong?" Hermione asked.

"Harry." He gripped his friend's arm. "Unicorn blood extends life too."

Harry gasped as he caught the connection, and he had to sit down. Unbidden, Lucius's and Severus's repeated warnings over the years about Voldemort and his potential resurrection came to mind, causing a chill in his blood that had nothing to do with the February winter air.

"The Dark Lord will return one day…"

"It's possible he could return. Dumbledore certainly seems to think so."

Then, of course, there were Snape's deadly serious words less than two weeks ago.

"…should the wrong person discover the truth, the consequences could be dire. Perhaps not now, but in the future when the Dark Lord returns."

When, not if. Lucius was more cautious about the possibility, but Snape had always been adamant that it was only a matter of time before Voldemort rose again. Suddenly, with what he had seen in the Forest and the presence of the Philosopher's Stone at Hogwarts, the notion of Voldemort's return didn't seem as far-fetched as it once did.

"Harry!"

Harry blinked, seeing Ron's and Hermione's concerned faces and realising that they'd been trying to get his attention for a while now.

"Mate, you all right?" Ron inquired worriedly.

"It's Voldemort," Harry whispered.

His words had an immediate effect. Hermione recoiled. Ron blanched violently and looked like he was about to be sick.

"Harry, don't say that name!" he whispered fearfully.

Hermione, though clearly shaken (her Muggleborn status notwithstanding, she had read and heard enough about the century's greatest Dark wizard to be afraid), was more pragmatic. "Harry, what makes you think it's…him?"

"Think about it," said Harry, still feeling rather dazed. "I stopped Voldemort when I was a baby. Dumbledore put me with my aunt and uncle to keep me safe. I get here and suddenly Quirrell's trying kill me, and he wants to get a Stone that'll give people immortality…and someone's killing unicorns to drink their blood to keep himself from dying…don't you see?" He met their frightened gazes. "That hooded man that I saw drinking the unicorn's blood — that must have been Voldemort."

"Harry!" Ron moaned, terrified both at the sound of the name and the thought that his best friend had been mere feet away from the man who wanted to kill him more than anyone else.

"Remember what Hagrid said?" Harry continued. "Those who drink unicorn blood are cursed — they live a half-life. But the Philosopher's Stone can restore Voldemort to a full life — Quirrell doesn't want the Stone for himself, he's working for Voldemort — he wants it for him. And once Voldemort has the Stone, he'll be able to come back and finish me off."

"Harry, stop saying the name!" Ron hissed.

Hermione squeezed his shoulder. "Ron, calm down." She looked at Harry, who was still quite white and seemed to be looking at something very far away. "Harry, you too. Panicking won't help. Come on, breathe, you two."

As if to demonstrate, she drew in a deep, bracing breath. The boys followed her lead, and soon they were, if not completely calm, then at least calm enough not to think that history's greatest Dark Lord was about to appear in the Gryffindor common room to murder them this very moment.

"All right," said Hermione slowly. "Okay. It makes sense, and it's scary."

"You think?" Ron said sarcastically.

"But," Hermione stressed, "even if You-Know-Who is out there, it's quite obvious that he's not at full strength — and he won't be unless Quirrell gets the Philosopher's Stone to him, which isn't going to happen anytime soon. There're too many traps protecting it, and we know for a fact he doesn't know how to get past Fluffy."

"That's true," Ron agreed.

"And You-Know-Who's not in Hogwarts. That's why he needs Quirrell to find a way to the Stone, because he can't be here."

"Also true."

"Also," Hermione continued, her voice stronger now, "Hogwarts has Dumbledore, and Dumbledore's the only wizard You-Know-Who was ever afraid of. You-Know-Who won't touch you with Dumbledore around, Harry."

Harry exhaled, feeling some of the tension in his shoulders relax. "You're right," he conceded, managing a weak smile.

There was a long pause as they all settled down from the scare.

"So now what?" asked Ron. "We've put a lot of the puzzle together, but we still can't tell anyone without looking like paranoid nutters, can we?"

"No," Harry agreed. Although this conversation had been an alarming wake-up call to the reality of his situation, he didn't want to tell Snape about it until he had something to back up his claim. Besides, his earlier statement to Draco still held true — while he knew a good deal more than he did before, he still didn't have any information that would actually help. "This is too out there. We need to find proof before any of the teachers will believe us."

"How are we going to do that?"

"That," said Hermione, "is something we should sleep on. I'm being serious, boys — it's past midnight, and tomorrow's Tuesday. We need to sleep if we don't want to be zombies during class."

"What's a zombie?" Ron asked quizzically.

Hermione was about to answer, but then she decided that they didn't need to be thinking about anymore scary monsters tonight, fictional or not. "I'll tell you tomorrow."

"Harry, would you come over here, please?"

Harry looked up from where he was lounging on the floor with his nose almost literally buried in a book. Due to the fact that the Dursleys had never bothered to get him the right prescription for his spectacles, it was hard for him to make out the words without looking very closely at the page. The fancy, curly script of the current book he was reading from the Malfoys' library only exacerbated the situation. Nevertheless, Harry was immensely enjoying being able to read openly for the first time in his life.

At Narcissa's call, he got up and made his way to the next room. "Yes, Mrs. Malfoy?"

"Harry, how many times must I tell you to call me Narcissa?" the beautiful woman said with a smile. "You've been here a month already."

Still unused to the familiarity with which the Malfoys — Narcissa more so than Lucius — treated him, Harry mutely shook his head. The Dursleys had always thrown a fit if he addressed anyone older than he without a 'Mr.', 'Mrs.', or 'Ms.' He wasn't about to start calling his new foster parents by name until he was absolutely certain that their invitation to do so wasn't merely a test to see if he had enough manners and respect to live under their roof.

Narcissa's smile became slightly sad at the evidence of the lasting psychological marks those horrible Muggles had left on Harry, but she said kindly, "Well, we'll have plenty of time to work on that. For today, though, I want to see to something else." She pointed at a wooden stool in the middle of the room. "Sit here, Harry."

Obediently, the boy seated himself. Narcissa darkened the room and proceeded to wave her wand over his head and in front of his eyes with complex motions, much to Harry's confusion.

"Er…Mrs. Malfoy?" he ventured. "Can I ask…what are you doing?"

"I'm testing your eyes, Harry. Something needs to be done to fix your eyesight."

"Um…" Harry had never been to an actual optometrist, but a few of his classmates in school had, and what Narcissa was doing didn't match anything they'd told him about their visits to get their eyes checked. "I thought eye-testing is supposed to be done with…letters?" he asked hesitantly.

"Letters!" Narcissa appeared genuinely astonished. "What good would that do? I already know you can't see letters properly — now I need to find out exactly how bad your eyes are."

Harry reminded himself that Narcissa was a witch, and wizards and witches likely had vastly different ideas and techniques for medicine than Muggles did.

"Okay. So…what's your magic doing?"

"It's checking your eyes for me. When it's done it'll tell me what the problem is," Narcissa explained.

"And it'll fix it?"

"No, that's for me to do once I've seen the results of the test." As she spoke, the strands of her magic twisted themselves into shapes before her. "Hm," she said with a frown. "It appears that your eyesight is worse than I thought."

"Is that bad? Does that mean you can't fix it?"

"No, Harry, it just means I need to do more research." Narcissa ended the spell and let the room brighten again. "Run along, now. I'll keep working on this and let you know once I've decided what we need to do."

"Okay," Harry agreed easily, hopping off the stool.

Slytherin played Ravenclaw in the third Quidditch match of the season and absolutely flattened them. The final score was 200-40, which did two things: put Slytherin within 40 points of Gryffindor for the Quidditch Cup and gave them the lead for the House Cup. There were celebrations in the Slytherin common room that night, with special praise for Seeker Higgs, who had located the Snitch at the beginning of the game and kept an eye on it throughout, but refrained from catching it until Slytherin's Chasers had managed to take a hard-fought lead in the scoreline.

Draco made sure to personally seek out Pucey. He'd hardly seen the older boy lately, what with his detentions and Pucey's Quidditch practices — and he wanted to make up for being rather rude in the last proper conversation they'd had.

"Thanks!" Pucey said upon receiving Draco's sincere congratulations. His eyes were bright and his cheeks were flushed with victory and personal accomplishment; of Slytherin's five goals, he had scored three. However, he was a considerate boy, and he remembered the difficulties Draco had been having. "Did you manage to work things out with your friend?"

"Yes, I did."

Pucey grinned. "Good. I'm glad. I'd hate to see you sulking around and losing us points again after all our hard work today," he teased.

Draco stared at him. "How'd you know it was me who lost the points?"

Pucey shrugged. "Shot in the dark," he admitted. "I mean, I figured your black mood a few weeks back was costing us a few points here and there — heard Greengrass complaining about it as well — but I didn't know the 50-point loss was you too." His tone was light, without condemnation, but there was genuine curiosity. "What exactly did you do?"

Draco took a few seconds to think. Unlike Gryffindor, who knew exactly which of their members had lost them their points and were more or less aware of what they had done to lose the points, Slytherin had not bothered to hunt down the identity of their own culprit, focused as they were on the opportunity to gain the lead in the House Cup. Greengrass knew it was him, but she appeared to have kept it to herself — and the only Slytherin besides Draco himself who actually knew what he'd done was Severus. Pucey had been a good friend to him, and he clearly wasn't judging Draco for his lapse like Greengrass had. Draco saw no harm in letting Pucey in on the details of his misdemeanour — was actually happy to, because that was a normal thing that normal friends did.

"Just don't tell anyone else, all right?" Draco didn't mind telling Pucey, but he wasn't about to allow a story that made him look bad spread throughout the rest of the House.

"Okay," Pucey agreed.

"Potter made up some story about sneaking a baby dragon out of the Astronomy Tower at midnight. Like an idiot, I fell for it, and I tried to report him. Of course, no one showed up at the Tower that night, which made Professor McGonagall quite unhappy, as you can imagine. She took the points, gave me a thorough dressing down and a nighttime detention in the Forbidden Forest" — Draco shuddered — "and told Professor Snape all about it."

Pucey looked thoughtful. "So, the detentions you were serving all last week with Professor Snape…"

"Extra punishment," Draco confirmed. "He wasn't pleased about my 'dunderheaded action' at all."

"No, I don't suppose he was." Pucey smirked. "Correct me if I'm wrong, Malfoy — but did you actually take McGonagall up to the Astronomy Tower at midnight to wait for Potter and his imaginary pet dragon to show?"

Draco went a bit pink, but he admitted, "Yes."

Pucey hooted with laughter. "Oh, Merlin. I would have paid money to see that!"

Draco was rather disgruntled. "If you're going to be this way about it, see if I ever tell you anything again."

"Oh, don't be such a prick! It's funny and you know it. How you swallowed such a load of tripe I've no idea, but it's nice to know that not even the mighty Malfoys are immune to the silliness that plagues us all on occasion."

Pucey was so heartily amused, it was hard not to join in his mirth — even if it was at Draco's own expense. Against his better judgment, Draco found himself beginning to smile. "Oh, shut up," he said, trying to hide his blossoming grin. Pucey saw it anyway.

"Well, you're learning to laugh at yourself. That's a definite improvement." Pucey looked across the room and saw a few of his fellow third-years beckoning with bottles of Butterbeer. "I think my friends want me to toast with them," he noted semi-apologetically. "I'll catch up with you tomorrow, okay? I have an essay on planetary phases to complete…" It was obvious from his hopeful expression what he was trying to get at.

Draco smirked. "Do you have payment?"

"Four Honeydukes sweets?"

"I suppose that'll do. 10 o'clock tomorrow morning?"

"Deal." Pucey waved at him and went over to join his friends.

"His eyesight is abysmal, Lucius," Narcissa confided. "The poor boy can hardly see past his nose. And those horrible spectacles are utter rubbish. Where did those inept Muggles get them from? A toy shop?" she said contemptuously.

Lucius sighed. He knew without asking where this was going. "We can't take him to an oculist, Narcissa. He'd be recognised at once."

"Well, I don't have the expertise to treat him on my own," she flared. "There appear to be multiple interplaying contributions to his shortsightedness — the lack of proper nutrition, certainly — the shape of his eyes — problems with the muscle — difficulty focusing light — not to mention two years of wearing the wrong prescription…he needs further tests to determine the exact issues we need to address, and then he'll require a plethora of corrective potions and eyedrops to get his eyes functioning at least half as well as they should. I don't think it's possible to perfectly restore his eyesight at this stage, not with the damage that's already been done — but he should at least be able to take off his glasses without being practically blind."

"Would it be so terrible if we simply gave him spectacles with the correct prescription rather than attempt to completely reverse the damage?" Lucius suggested mildly.

Narcissa shot him a scathing glare. "And what if he loses them or they get knocked off in an emergency? He can hardly wander around with the world in a blur. No, Lucius — Harry needs proper treatment from a certified oculist. We would be negligent if we did any less."

"Oh, very well." Lucius considered. "I suppose we can bring an oculist here to treat Potter and Obliviate him afterwards. Or possibly extract an Unbreakable Vow."

"I don't care what measures we have to take, Lucius — Harry Potter will get his eyes fixed."

"Time?" Harry inquired.

Ron checked his watch. "Ten-twenty-eight."

"Are we sure we can trust the twins to do this?" Hermione questioned.

"Fred and George may be jokers, but they keep to their word," Ron promised. "And they're very good at what they do."

It had been decided that the best way to find proof about Quirrell's evilness was to snoop around his office for incriminating evidence. Ron had been all for waiting till nighttime and sneaking in under Harry's Invisibility Cloak, but Hermione had put her foot down.

"It'll be nearly impossible to look for good evidence without proper light," she'd said. "And I'd rather not face any Dark objects owned by one of You-Know-Who's followers at night, thank you."

Moving the snooping to daytime, of course, necessitated Quirrell being otherwise occupied for the duration of their search, which meant they needed a diversion, because Quirrell's habits were so erratic that it was impossible to predict when and how long he would be out of his office. Harry had suggested getting the Weasley twins to stage a diversion by making trouble in the Defence corridor. Fred and George, upon being informed by Ron (on Harry's recommendation) that they wanted access to Quirrell's office as part of a prank, were only too happy to help. Indeed, the news sent them into raptures.

"The day has finally come, Fred," George said solemnly. "Our little brother, all grown up —"

"— following in our footsteps —"

"— executing his very first prank —"

"— and on a teacher, no less." Fred sighed dramatically, placing his hand on his heart. "Thank Merlin, our legacy will continue."

They had chosen to carry out their plan on the Sunday after the Slytherin-Ravenclaw Quidditch match, and so here they were, waiting for the noise to begin and for Quirrell to rush out of his office to find out what the twins were doing.

At ten-thirty precisely, a most unholy ruckus arose from the corridor behind the wall. Fred and George had refused to tell the three first-years exactly what they were planning, but they had promised that it would do the job. Sure enough, within seconds, Professor Quirrell came dashing out of his office — looking surprisingly fierce — and headed straight for the source of the disturbance.

"Go!" Harry ordered.

Ron and Hermione did not need to be told twice. Springing into action, the trio darted into the office and immediately began opening drawers, scouting furniture, and turning over papers in an effort to find Something Bad.

"Anything?" Ron asked.

Hermione closed a desk drawer. "No."

"Keep looking," Harry instructed. "There's got to be something — wait! What's that?" He pointed to a piece of parchment by Hermione's elbow that had strange symbols scrawled all over it.

"Whoa, that's mental," commented Ron as Hermione pulled it out from under a book entitled Dark Spells for the Curious.

"What are these?" Hermione wondered.

"Runes," Harry answered. He'd seen similar symbols in books and on certain surfaces at Malfoy Manor. "They're a type of wandless magic."

"They look weird," said Ron, taking the parchment from Hermione to examine it himself. "And what's up with the book?"

"Proof," said Harry in satisfaction.

"I don't think so," Hermione disagreed. "Looking through a book of spells, Dark or not, doesn't mean Quirrell's intending to use any of them."

"What else would he want it for?" Harry demanded.

"Research," Hermione replied promptly. "He's the Defence teacher, after all — maybe he's trying to think of counterspells to teach us."

"And maybe pigs will fly," Harry retorted.

Hermione scowled disapprovingly at him.

"All right, sorry," he apologised. "That was rude."

"Harry, I know you want to find proof as fast as possible…" To remove all possibility of Voldemort returning was not said. "…but we can't just grab the first thing we see and call it evidence. We're making serious accusations against a teacher — we need something really good, something which really can't be explained, if we want the other teachers to believe us."

"Hermione's right," Ron agreed. "Though that book's not something I'd take lightly, this parchment looks a lot more dodgy." He turned it in different directions. "Er…either of you have any idea what these mean? 'Cause I don't."

A sharp whistle sounded — the signal Fred said he'd give once Quirrell started heading back to his office. Harry and Ron exchanged looks while Hermione hurried to the door.

"Put that under your robes and let's go," said Harry urgently. "Hermione, is the coast clear?"

"Yes, but I hear footsteps. We need to leave now."

"Come on, then!" Ron, having stuffed the parchment down his neckline, was out of the door like a shot, followed closely by Harry and Hermione. They disappeared from sight just as Quirrell rounded the corner.

The Malfoy line had originated in France and Lucius still kept abreast of happenings in the French wizarding world, which was why, when Narcissa demanded he find someone to fix Harry's eyes despite the need for secrecy, a man named Francois Delacour came to mind.

Monsieur Delacour was a well-known and highly respected pureblood in Paris who had earned his reputation as France's foremost wizarding physician. He was also one of the few French Healers who specialised in treating the eye. Lucius's own mother, Adalind Malfoy, had herself received treatment from M. Delacour before — and Lucius was positive that somewhere in the history of France, the Malfoys and the Delacours had shared a common ancestor.

The more Lucius thought about it, the more it seemed that M. Delacour was the best choice. Voldemort's reach had not extended beyond Britain, and while news of his rise and fall had reached mainland Europe, none of it had been reported in any great detail. Just to be certain, Lucius obtained a copy of the Journal du Sorcier — wizarding France's daily newspaper — that had circulated on 1 November 1981. Sure enough, the story about Voldemort's defeat in Godric's Hollow was included, somewhere in the middle of the paper, but the Journal didn't make nearly as much fuss about baby Harry as the Prophet had. It did comment on the remarkableness of a one-year-old being the only person to ever survive the Killing Curse, but it did not include a picture or even a brief description of Harry himself, nor was there any mention of his distinctive scar. Indeed, the only piece of information that could possibly have identified Harry was his name.

Confident that M. Delacour would not be able to recognise Harry if they introduced him by a different name, Lucius penned a missive. In it, he explained Harry's (whom he called Xavier) unique situation, of being a maltreated orphan whom the Malfoys had taken as a ward, and described the problems Narcissa had found with his eyes. He further elaborated that for various reasons, the Malfoys would prefer not to advertise that they had taken Xavier in, and wished to be as discreet as possible; therefore, would M. Delacour consent to come to Malfoy Manor (all expenses paid, of course) instead of their taking Xavier to Paris?

M. Delacour sent back a reply saying he would be pleased to help the poor child, and asked if the Monday a fortnight from now was too soon. Lucius showed the letter to Narcissa, who was delighted, and bustled off at once to begin preparations for M. Delacour's arrival while Lucius wrote back to confirm that Monday would be perfect.

Monsieur Delacour arrived at Malfoy Manor with a bag full of potions and equipment. He greeted Narcissa with a gentlemanly kiss on her hand and on each of her cheeks, and Lucius with a formal bow.

"And this must be Xavier," he said cheerfully as he held out a hand to Harry. "How do you do, my boy?"

"Well, thank you," Harry replied in the manner Narcissa had instructed.

Draco, having been taking etiquette lessons since he was five, performed the traditional greeting of a young wizard to an elder by taking M. Delacour's hand in his right hand and pressing it lightly against his forehead, while his left arm remained at a right angle behind his back. It was a gesture left over from medieval times and was rarely used in current society, but Draco wanted to show off his knowledge to this distinguished man. It always paid to make a favourable impression on those in high positions, after all.

M. Delacour was delighted. "Charmant!" he exclaimed, pleased. French wizarding society was generally more open and liberal than their British counterpart, but at the same time they placed greater emphasis on the old customs. Draco suppressed a smile, knowing that he had just cemented himself in M. Delacour's good graces (not that that would have been that hard — Delacour was an affable man). Lucius and Narcissa nodded approvingly, while Harry looked confused.

"We've prepared one of the workrooms for your use," said Narcissa.

"Ah, yes," said Delacour. "Lead on, madame."

The parchment was taken back to the Gryffindor common room and studied at all angles, but neither Harry, Ron, nor Hermione could make head or tails of any of it.

"We'll have to look up runes in the library," said Hermione. Her eyes were already alight with the prospect of exploring a new branch of magic.

Ron, predictably, was not as enthused. "Hermione, that'll take ages," he groaned. "Why can't we just show these to a teacher? They'd know what the runes are, wouldn't they?"

"Not necessarily," said Harry. "It depends whether they took Ancient Runes as an elective, and how much further they pursued their studies after Hogwarts, and how complicated these are…" He trailed off at the blank looks from his friends, and felt like kicking himself upon realising that he wasn't supposed to know any of this.

"Harry, how do you know this?" Hermione asked slowly.

"Uh…I came across a book about runes while I was doing research for my Charms homework. I thought it looked interesting, but I didn't even get past the introduction before I gave up on it — it was that boring." Harry wondered if he should be worried that the lie came so readily. The truth, of course, was that Lucius Malfoy was something of an expert in runes — which was why so many objects in the Manor were inscribed with symbols that granted protection, or good health, or other magical properties — and he'd told his boys a little bit about them in the hopes of getting them interested in his field. Draco had been fascinated; Harry not so much.

Ron and Hermione both accepted his fabrication easily, and Harry was both relieved and a tiny bit guilty. It was such a simple, trivial thing, yet because of the charade he was putting on, he had to lie to his closest friends about it. For the first time, he got an inkling of what Draco must feel every time he had to defame Harry to the Slytherins.

"Do you remember the title of the book?" asked Hermione. "We could start researching there."

"Sorry, no," Harry said regretfully. No doubt there was a book like that somewhere in the library, but he honestly didn't know where to look for it.

"Well, that's too bad, mate," said Ron, wincing at the thought of trawling through endless bookshelves for proper referencing materials. "It would've helped a lot."

Fred and George entered the common room just then, spotted the trio in a corner, and made a beeline straight to them. Harry hastily snatched the parchment off the table.

"Well? How did it go?" Fred inquired.

"You didn't get caught, did you?" added George.

"No, it went well," Harry confirmed. "What about you two?"

"Quirrell never saw us," Fred said smugly. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one was listening, then met Ron's gaze pleasantly. "Okay, now spill."

"W-what?"

George scoffed. "Don't insult our intelligence, Ronniekins. We knew something was fishy from the moment you asked us for a diversion. Since when do you prank anyone?"

"Um, I…" Ron glanced helplessly at Harry and Hermione, who were looking panicked. He swallowed and tried to sound more casual. "How do you know I don't prank? There's a first time for everything."

Fred rolled his eyes. "Even if we believed that, we definitely don't believe that Hermione would be involved in such a thing." He caught the girl's eye and raised his eyebrow challengingly.

Harry winced. How had they missed that massive blunder when they were making up their (admittedly shoddy) cover story?

"So?" said George. "Are you going to tell us what's going on, or are we going to have to report to Percy that we found you sneaking into Professor Quirrell's office?"

"You wouldn't!" Ron gasped.

Identical evil grins met his horrified, indignant stare. "Try us."

Harry made a decision. "All right, we'll tell you. But not here."

M. Delacour spent a long time with 'Xavier' in the workroom. He performed the same diagnostic spells as Narcissa had, but then he moved on to more complex and thorough methods. He used a tiny measuring tape to evaluate the dimensions of Harry's eyes, conjured moving lights to determine how well Harry could track them, and even squeezed a few drops of different potions into Harry's eyes. All the while, he kept up a light conversation with Harry, warning him when some things might smart slightly, but assuring him that it was nothing to worry about.

"You have glorious eyes, child," he remarked. "So green, so bright! Are they from your mother or father?"

"His mother," Lucius replied quietly from where he was observing the procedure. Harry filed that little tidbit away — he hadn't known that.

"Not surprising," said Delacour. "I find that children's most striking characteristics are usually inherited from their mother. My own daughter, Fleur — she's about three years older than you, Xavier — she is lucky she inherited her looks from her mother rather than myself," he joked.

After several more minutes, Delacour finished his testing and referred to the notes his enchanted quill had been taking down during the process. His eyebrow quirked slightly as he read the full diagnosis.

"Well, mon ami," he said, "it appears that your eyesight is indeed quite bad."

Harry nodded; he already knew that. "Can you fix it?" It would be nice not to have to put a book right in front of his face in order to read.

"Not perfectly, I'm afraid — but not to worry, there is still a great deal I can do," Delacour said reassuringly as he swiftly mixed several potions into different bottles. "I will prescribe these potions for you to take daily, and once a month for six months I shall return to check your progress and cast corrective spells. Your eyesight will never be perfect, but by the end of your treatment, I guarantee there will be a vast improvement, and I will provide you with spectacles that help with the little problems that remain. Will that be satisfactory?" he questioned of Lucius and Narcissa.

"Very," Narcissa replied with a charming smile. "Our thanks, Monsieur."

"Oh, no matter," he said graciously. "It is my pleasure to aid such a delightful child." He presented Harry with a cup full of some thick blue liquid. "Drink this, jeunne homme, and then I shall instruct your family on your potion regime."

Harry led the way to the same unused room where he'd found the Mirror of Erised. Some small part of him hoped it might still be there, but as Dumbledore had promised in their conversation, the Mirror was gone.

Perhaps it's for the best, he mused to himself. He didn't want to have to explain it to his curious friends.

"Okay, what we say here doesn't leave this room, got it?" he said. Fred and George took note of his suddenly serious tone with some surprise, but after exchanging a glance with Ron, they nodded. Ron, for his part, couldn't believe they were about to let the twins in on the Quirrell secret, and couldn't decide whether to be glad that someone older than they would be in the know, or resentful that he couldn't have even this adventure without being upstaged by his brothers.

As briefly as possible, with occasional helpful interjections from Ron and Hermione, Harry described the situation to them. The twins took Quirrell and the Philosopher's Stone more or less in stride, but turned rather pale when Harry told them their suspicions about Voldemort.

"Bloody hell, Ron, what have you got yourself into?" George breathed.

"No idea," the younger Weasley replied honestly. He'd decided that he didn't mind the twins knowing the secret. They could help with the research.

"While I admire you three discovering all this by yourselves," said Fred, "I'd like to ask why none of you have told the teachers anything about this?"

"We don't have proof," said Hermione. "We can't tell the teachers without proper evidence. Even Hagrid wouldn't believe us when we said Quirrell was evil."

"That's why we needed to get into Quirrell's office," explained Harry. "We were looking for something to use against him."

"And did you find anything?"

Harry produced the parchment. George took one look at it and his eyebrows shot up.

"Well, that's…complicated."

Fred gave a low whistle. "You don't really think you can translate that, do you?"

Harry grimaced, but he said, "It's the best thing we can think of."

"What if you translate it and it's nothing but harmless spells or research?"

The trio exchanged sheepish glances — they hadn't even thought of that possibility.

"First-years," George sighed.

"Do you have a better idea?" Ron asked grumpily.

The twins looked at each other and grinned slowly. "We might."

For the next half-year, M. Delacour Floo'd to Malfoy Manor, like clockwork, on the second Monday of every month. Each time he came, he exchanged genuine pleasantries and sometimes news with the elder Malfoys, and chatted amicably with Harry and Draco. Harry found himself looking forward to his visits, and he was also thrilled that his eyesight was steadily improving. By the second month, he was able to read books at least six inches from his face, and by the fourth, he could do away with his ineffective Muggle glasses entirely. On Delacour's sixth visit, he announced that Xavier's eyes were as good as they were going to get, and presented Harry with a brand new pair of glasses, made the wizard way with unbreakable, waterproof lenses and a frame of polished Fire Crab shell, instead of metal that could corrode or plastic that could crack. While Harry delightedly examined his new glasses, Lucius pulled Delacour aside to deliver his earned payment.

"You have our thanks, Monsieur," he said to the Healer. "My wife was quite insistent that we do something to repair Xavier's eyes, but as I explained, we were unable to take him to a local oculist."

"Yes, I am quite curious as to why young Xavier's presence here is such a secret," confessed Delacour. Upon catching Lucius's warning gaze, he lightly added, "Oh, don't worry, Monsieur Malfoy, I will not pry. I am sure you have very good reasons. But am I correct in presuming that Xavier is not his real name?"

"Yes," Lucius admitted.

"I can only assume that he is quite well-known in your country, since you must go to such lengths to conceal his identity," Delacour mused absently. "Strange that such a young boy is already so famous, but I imagine whatever made him so must have been quite spectacular."

Lucius narrowed his eyes, immediately on guard. Delacour was highly intelligent, and he was already skirting dangerously close to the truth. Lucius did not wish to Obliviate six months from the man's memory, and neither did he want to invoke the risk of an Unbreakable Vow, so he moved quickly and smoothly to head off Delacour's train of thought.

"Monsieur Delacour, we in England are still recovering from the effects of a…disturbing period in our history. Any sort of attention is unwanted at this moment, particularly for a child as young as Xavier. I would be most appreciative if you would not dwell on this matter."

"Monsieur Malfoy, my curiosity is such that I cannot promise I will not think further on it, but you have my word that I will not speak of Xavier to anyone."

Lucius met the Frenchman's earnest eyes, saw the gentle honesty there, and nodded curtly. "I am choosing to trust you, Delacour." Even if he did surmise Harry's identity, Delacour had no reason to tell anyone in France about it, and there was a certain implicit magical contract that guarded Healer-patient confidentiality — the Healer could not reveal anything that would negatively affect his patient. Still, allowing Delacour to leave without extracting some sort of oath was a demonstration of trust that Lucius rarely undertook.

Delacour surely understood the significance of Lucius's concession, for he bowed respectfully. "I thank you for your confidence. That boy is special, and I look forward to his future. Perhaps one day, there will be no more need for the secret."

Lucius smiled wryly at Delacour's optimistic proclamation. That was the plan, but Merlin himself wouldn't be able to tell if it would come true. "Perhaps."

It took a good three hours for Draco and Pucey to finish Pucey's essay, mainly because the two were doing more chatting than actual work. Draco told Pucey about growing up in Malfoy Manor and even revealed his secret drawing hobby; Pucey, in turn, discussed how much he loathed half the Slytherin Quidditch team — "Flint, Montague, and Bletchley are right pains in the arse" — and how he was looking forward to his sister joining Hogwarts in September.

"I'm not sure she's one for Slytherin, though," he confided.

"Where do you think she's going to go?"

"No idea," Pucey admitted absently as he corrected a spelling mistake with his quill. "My parents don't really care which Houses we're in, so wherever she ends up will be fine, though I think it might be a bit complicated if she goes to Gryffindor." He suddenly seemed to realise who he was talking to, and he became a bit flustered. "Um, I mean…"

"I understand what you mean, Pucey," Draco assured him. His apparent disdain for any and all Gryffindors was well known; he knew his friend was worried about setting him off on a rant against the Lion House.

Pucey gazed at him warily. "Just so you know, Malfoy, I'm not going to stop talking to my sister if she's Sorted into Gryffindor."

"I wouldn't expect you to."

"And I'm not going to stand for hearing anything disparaging against her if she is a Lion."

"Naturally."

Pucey narrowed his eyes quizzically. "And you're okay with that?"

Draco shrugged. "She's your sister, Pucey. It's completely understandable and right for you to support her over any Slytherin friends you have."

"I see." Pucey ducked his head, trying to hide his disappointment. Draco mentally swore; the older boy had totally misunderstood his statement.

"Pucey, I don't mean that I'd cut you off for associating with a Gryffindor relative," he clarified.

"So you'd just privately view Heather the same way you view all Gryffindors and think less of me for not shunning her like Slytherins should shun Gryffindors."

Draco gaped at Pucey's bitter tone. "I wouldn't…the situation…Merlin, Pucey, it's not like that!"

"Why not?" demanded Pucey. "It's no secret that you loathe the Lions. And as friendly as we've become, I know full well that any Malfoy worth his salt would drop an acquaintance who deigned to fraternise with their enemy."

"You don't understand," Draco groaned.

"You're right, I don't," Pucey agreed. "The rivalry is stupid. The blood purity nonsense is stupid. The fact that half this House buys into that rubbish is stupid."

"Pucey, shut up!" Draco hissed. A few other Slytherins in the common room were frowning in their direction; Draco recognised Flint, Parkinson, and a few other hardcore pureblood supremacists among them. Pucey's views would not be popular with them, and they could make life difficult for him if they chose, especially Flint. To head off that disaster, Draco said loudly, "You've made your point; Gryffindor spiel pretty much boils down to that."

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed most of the Slytherins relax and return to what they were doing. Flint continued to glare at Pucey, but he eventually shrugged and turned back to his homework. Draco heaved a sigh of relief.

"What were you thinking?" he demanded in a low voice. "You know it's not a good idea to say things like that in front of them."

Pucey ducked his head, already regretting his slip. He was usually more subtle than that, but something about Malfoy tended to bring the conflicting political views in Slytherin House to the forefront. Pucey was beginning to think his Astronomy grade wasn't worth the trouble a continued association with Malfoy would bring him, given their radically different views.

Draco sighed. He could read the turmoil flashing across Pucey's dark eyes clear as day. Pucey was not one to hide his feelings. Draco knew that unless he did something, their burgeoning friendship wasn't going to last much longer.

"Pucey, listen," he said earnestly. "I'm going to tell you something, but you can't tell anyone else, understand?"

Pucey's expression became suspicious, but he nodded. Draco made sure no one was listening, crossed his fingers, prayed he wasn't making a big mistake, and whispered, very quietly, "I don't hate the Gryffindors."

Pucey blinked. "What?"

"Don't get me wrong, Slytherin is by far the best House, but if we hold a prejudice against the other Houses, we'd be disrespecting the other Founders of Hogwarts, and that just isn't done."

"I don't understand," Pucey said softly. "If you don't hate the Lions, why do you act like you do?"

"I have to keep up appearances. I can't tell you more than that."

Pucey was not a blood purist, but he was still a Slytherin, and he understood at once that Draco had a reputation to maintain as a Malfoy.

"Why tell me?"

Draco gave him a small smile. "Because we're friends."

Pucey mulled over that for a second. "You know, I can't figure you out, Malfoy."

"I know. It's best to keep it that way."

"Hard to be friends if I can't know who you really are," Pucey pointed out.

"Well, I suppose you have a decision to make, then," said Draco, trying to sound casual, though he really didn't want to lose his only Slytherin friend. "Because I can't be any less complicated than I am right now."

Pucey gave him a long, appraising look. "Since you're being more honest than usual, what exactly are your views on blood purity?"

Draco winced. "Pucey, there are issues I can't talk about. If we're going to be friends, you're going to have to accept that, and not mention certain things."

"I'm assuming there's a lot of politics involved?"

"You have no idea."

There was a long silence as Pucey thought it over. Draco tried not to fidget and look like he was anxiously awaiting the verdict.

"All right," Pucey said finally. "I can't promise that I'm forever going to be okay with this, but for now, I'm willing to see if we can stay friends. I'm not going to pass Astronomy without your help, anyway."

Draco couldn't help a grin. "Ah, I see. You're keeping me around because I'm useful."

"You'd better believe it. I may not be a Malfoy, but I am a Slytherin. I don't do things unless there's something in it for me."

Draco actually laughed. "Fair enough."

"By the way," said Pucey, "since we're going to properly try this friendship thing, I have one condition."

"Which is?"

Pucey smiled, a proper, genuine smile. "Call me Adrian."

A/N: Up next: The Weasley twins get involved in the Quirrell conspiracy, Draco receives unexpected homework, and Harry realises something terrifying.