Chapter Eight

Harry woke with a start, the sound of murmurs keeping him still.

"Any pain Harry?"

"No."

Draco frowned at him and slipped from the chair he was sitting in. He padded away to his mother's side.

"Mother."

She turned to look at him. He tipped his head to the bed and she went to it, cutting her conversation with the Auror off abruptly. She stopped by Harry's bed and studied his face.

"They said your magic acted as a blasting curse. Wonderfully done my child." Narcissa murmured, trailing a hand over his cheek. "What was it you used?"

"Expulso."

"And it reacted that violently? Odd."

"Lucius?"

"Apparently he is seeing to the absolute destruction of the Macnair clan. He is quite angry that his wards did not hold against that drunken fool."

Harry hummed and his eyes flickered to the Auror that had stepped into view.

"Mr. Potter." The man shifted uncomfortably under Narcissa's violet gaze. "How did you escape the Basilisk?"

"I brought it food. Why else would it not eat me?"

The Auror frowned, not pleased with the answer. He was pushed to the side rudely by Severus.

"Potter." The man said tersely.

"Snape."

"You will find your knees are not as strong as they once were. Such is the affect of that particular curse. You are bound to a cane for life."

"And I find myself unable to believe that."

Severus's chin went up as he breathed sharply through his nose.

"Then try to walk without one Potter. When yours knees give out and you find yourself on the floor, will you believe me then?"

"I do not believe the thought that I am bound to a cane for life. You must not have healed me cleanly Severus Snape, and we both know why you would refuse to do so."

Snape clenched his jaw angrily.

"Is this true Severus? Did you lie to me?" Narcissa murmured.

The black haired man shrugged.

"Why should I heal the Potter spawn correctly? What do I get from it?"

"The joy of knowing you've done right?" Harry murmured. "Oh wait; joy would make you melt wouldn't it?"

"I find great joy in making you a crippled little boy."

"You would let me go to Shadowlands crippled?"

The Auror off to the side choked on his sip of water.

"You're going to Shadowlands? Really? Are you insane, the fae there are ruthless!"

Harry shrugged.

"So are Slytherins. I'll consider this practice before I go to Hogwarts."

"Surely you'll be Gryffindor."

"Surely." Harry murmured dryly. He turned back to Snape. "I'll give you one of my favors owed by the Wizengamot. I'm sure you can find some use for it." Severus tapped his lip with a finger and thought. The door opened and shut. Harry turned to see Lucius standing next to his wife.

"Harry. What happened should not have come to pass." Lucius paused. "I apologize for it."

"That was not your doing. Unfortunately, you were in Kenya with the Tebo's."

"That was quite unfortunate. Happily I still live."

Severus snorted.

"I'll fix your knees. In return, I want that favor. You will also be in my service until I release you from it."

"I refuse to be in your service. You may ask one favor from me and that will be it."

"Then why should I heal you?"

"Would you prefer to be in my service? I am sure that I can call for one of my reparations and you will find yourself without a job."

Severus blinked. He tapped his lip again.

"Three favors from you, one of your reparations and I will heal your knees properly."

"I will have the ability to refuse to grant you favors. Depending on what the favor you call, I will do my best to serve it. I am being quite free with this bargain. You know as well as I none of what I said was necessary. But I wish to humor you."

"That is all I can ask for." Severus held out his hand.

Harry touched his hand to the elder males. There was a burst of magic. Harry sat up. Severus smirked and wandered away to fulfill his end of the bargain.

"Can you send the Auror away Mr. Malfoy? I don't wish to deal with the Ministry anymore."

"As you wish."

The sputtering Auror was led out of the room. Harry sighed and turned to Draco.

"My wand?"

"Madame Longbottom kept it. She did not want it to be confiscated."

"And where is she?"

"With the Longbottom boy in one of the waiting rooms." Draco bit his lip. "Harry, are you in any pain at all? You know I will find a way to help."

"I'm fine Dragon. I just need my knees fixed. Could you send for the Longbottoms?"

"Would you like me to bring Pansy as well? She is the one who called the Head of Longbottom to your side."

"Please do." Harry watched as Draco slipped out of the room. "No one thought I had a wand?"

"No, they put it under accidental magic. They did not even think of a second wand." Lucius replied.

"Good. It would be hard to have that wand confiscated because they sense its usage."

"Do you think they would have truly sensed it Harry? No one would think that you had a wand. You have already made a statement with your 'No one is above the law' approach."

Harry snorted.

"I lied." He paused, looking away from the elder blond. "I apologize for treating you as I have. You begged for forgiveness that I would not give. It was petty of me. I give it to you now."

"I do not think so. I have never raised a hand to any child. You should not have had to dealt with me as such." Lucius smiled; a faint quirk of his lips. "But really, the Tebo's in Kenya? Were you trying to have me killed?"

The joke fell flat. Silence filled the room. Harry reached up and pushed stray strands of his hair behind his ear.

"I was." Harry's eyes flitted to Lucius's and then away. "I had wished to be there myself, to see them pound you into the ground. To grind you to dust. I wished to see them present their partners with bits of your body. To desecrate your remains."

Narcissa made a soft sound from where she sat.

"Why?" Lucius almost choked on the question.

"You asked me why I was ashamed to show my body to you. You told me I had nothing to be ashamed. That my scars were not my shame, my flaws. I told you that I never thought of them as such and you never understood." Harry met Narcissa's eyes, she smiled at him softly. "It was never shame that kept me hidden, only rage. Why should I have a body littered with scars because of a pitiful, disgusting whale of a man and his family? Why shouldn't I just cause everyone the pain he caused me? Why shouldn't I take my revenge against the world for what they had done to me?" Harry blinked and looked away from Narcissa. He reached out and touched Lucius's arm. "I truly hated you for what you did to me. You placed scars on an already scarred body. I could not retaliate to someone who had shown me some base form of kindness even if they took it away. I wanted my magic to hurt you, to crush you, but I could not."

"And why?"

"I refused to have your blood taint me. I preferred to have you dealt with as far from me as possible. Stealing your wand and sending you to Kenya granted me that."

"And my family?"

"They would miss you. But they would get over it. I am their Head of House. Narcissa was originally a Black and her son a Black by birth. Why would they dare defy me?"

Lucius gaped at the child. There was a soft sound from the door and Draco stepped in. Pansy and the Longbottoms followed.

"Harry!" Neville ran to the bed. "Grandmother said you would wake late tonight, tomorrow even."

"She was wrong. Where is your outer robe?"

Neville blinked then blushed.

"Outside somewhere." The brown haired boy leaned in. "Grandmum will kill me for losing another robe to the wilderness." He whispered. "With my luck Devil's Snare or some idiot plant will have taken it."

"Why did you take it off?"

"I saw the light. Draco said it was you. I followed him." Neville smiled. "I don't know what I could have possibly done to help, but I went to your side."

Harry chuckled and spread his arms. Neville fairly leapt into the offered hug.

"Thank you Neville. You did well. I will come to your side when help is needed always."

Neville nodded and let Harry go.

"Grandmother found you. She has your wand. Do you know you ran straight into a Basilisk's den?"

Harry growled.

"That stupid thing is going to a nice sweet Lethifold glade."

"'But it saved you!"

"Stupid thing taunted me before it ate my attacker. And it wouldn't help me."

There was a choking sound. Harry cocked his head when he saw Pansy staring at him in wide eyed fascination and Augusta was choking next to Narcissa. Everyone turned to look at the woman. Harry broke the silence.

"You know, she's kinda old. Being deprived of air cannot be good for her."

Lucius let out an undignified snort of laughter before murmuring a spell to help Augusta breathe. Her tawny eyes fixed on Harry.

"You," She paused, snickering at some private joke before continuing. "You would not have fit in well with the Gryffindors had it come to it. They would have abandoned you the moment they knew you could speak with snakes. A mark of a true dark wizard the light calls it."

Harry smiled demurely.

"Tis good that I would not end in Gryffindor then, isn't it?"

Augusta sighed and held out her hand. Harry blinked in surprise when his wand toppled into his lap, rolling out of the swath of cloth she had wrapped it in.

"I will let my Neville go to the Shadowlands with you. He went to your side when you needed help, you promised to go to his. He has shown more bravery in this night than before. I only ask that you keep my heir safe from danger. I could not bear to lose him."

"Then Draco and I will keep an eye on him."

"You won't take me?" Pansy whispered.

"I will not. But if you show up there, I will do my best to care for you. But I can't ensure you safety. Besides, wouldn't you rather stay here and gather the group that would keep us afloat in Hogwarts? You know we'll need it. Imagine; a net of pureblood's from all the Houses working together. Slytherin cunning, Ravenclaw wit, Hufflepuff loyalty, Gryffindor courage. What would that be like?"

Pansy glared and then sniffed daintily.

"I do this not for you. I will ensure my place at the Boy-Who-Lived's side."

"If that is what you wish."

Pansy swept her hair over her shoulder and glared at Harry.

"You bet it is Potter." Her glare softened. "But I insist that I get one of those fae flowers. My mother won't allow me one. She says they're vermin."

Draco stared at the mahogany haired girl in disbelief.

"You use your one chance to lord something over Harry's head for a flower!?"

"A very wonderful flower. Very expensive too. Besides…I happen to like your Wist and his Sylph. Why can't I get one too?"

Narcissa bit her lip. She would have to teach this girl how to lead in her son's place it seemed. If Harry needed her to form his group without him, she had to at least be half as cunning as he, and a flower did not promote her in Narcissa's eyes.

"Narci? Will you get her the flower?"

"I'll have to order a new one Harry. The others are too deep in the Manor's magic to be uprooted now."

Lucius shook his head in the background. He slipped out of the room. He was happy to have been forgiven, happy to be back in Harry's good grace. He was scared of the darkness in the child. Intuitively, he knew that Harry wasn't a light wizard. He had recognized it subconsciously. After all, he had sat them in the center of the neutrals, between beige and grey.

Lucius blinked when he found himself at the entrance to The Boy Who Had Taken Up Residence in His Head's rooms. He opened the doors and was greeted with a faerie. It flew to his face and Lucius had a look at just how close to being feminine the androgynous boy was. All he needed was the curvy body and the blood red lips and he would be all female. The faerie drew back when it realized the man it had flown to was not its master. Then it flew circles around his head, green eyes deadly. It fluttered to a stop in front of him and bared its teeth. Lucius batted it away with a negligent twist of his wrist. He was surprised when he flew backwards into a wall. The faerie hovered over him and quite suddenly he was reintroduced to Harry's magic. There was a malignant look in the faerie's eyes as it wielded power not its own.

Something flew at the faerie and they toppled to the floor. Lucius watched as Harry's miniature dragon bared its teeth at the faerie. The faerie sneered and flitted out of the room. The dragon flew back to its nest, hissing softly. Belatedly, Lucius remembered that Sarasvati, the black mamba, took particular joy in poisoning him when no one was around. Lucius fled the Boy's Whose Rooms Where Bloody Dangerous domain without a second glance. He was happy that no portrait was there to see his unmanly retreat from a mere boy's rooms. He frowned however, when he remembered that Oshun, the color changing freak, loved to gossip with the Boy Who Soon Would Be Far Away From Him. Hopefully.

Chapter Nine

Harry stared at the rolling grounds of the Shadowlands. He had hoped that the name was some clever twist at the fact that it served the upper class fae. But it wasn't. Beyond the gates of the school were shadows, thick and hungry. Only a portkey commissioned by Mistress Devoric had kept them from traveling through it. The grounds themselves were stunning, if a bit odd. They were half on the Summerlands territory, half on the Winterlands. One side of the school was green and lush the other otherworldly in its icy beauty.

"You failed to mention of course, that I would be attending a school not quite in the same realm." Blaise murmured softly.

"Hmm, I did, didn't I? I thought you would have researched the base knowledge about the placement of the school that allows fae in. Even Neville did that, and we know his half-assed training of loyalty to the Potter line places some sense of implicit trust in the words that come out of my mouth."

"The sun, contrary to what you might think Harry, does not in fact shine out of your ass." Neville murmured.

"I know that. I can, however, assure you that it spits out nuggets of knowledge lost from Merlin's time." Harry smirked. "I hear those are more highly vaunted than even the sun. After all, we can replicate some of the sun's effects with a spell."

Neville, Draco and Blaise stared at the green eyed boy. He winked. Neville let out a series of incoherent sputters, finally giving up and falling silent.

"So you are the Great Harry Potter. And these are your sidekicks." The quartet spun. Draco raised a hand to balance Harry when he stumbled. The woman's garnet eyes took in the slight motion then her eyes drifted over his cane. "I was not informed that you were a crippled little boy, else I would not have allowed you into my school. Come; let me show you the Shadowlands." They followed after her and into the school. "As you may have heard, this school teaches the fae alongside other students. You may not have heard however, that there are more than fae here. The rules in place forbid head on actions against other students. However, if your death is to occur outside these gates because you were fool enough to leave; it will not be this institutions fault. If a pet decides to eat you, it will not be this institutions fault. And some of these pets can and will eat you. You are expected to attend class, skipping is not an option, unless you are dead or dying. You will watch your own back in this school or you will not survive." Mistress Devoric paused and looked at her group of inbred purebloods.

"And this is a school for children…"

"This is a school for those brave enough to attend. Your life rests in your own hands. You are the one to keep it."

Harry frowned but nodded. The garnet eyed woman sneered at him and spun on her heel.

"She's quite Snape-ish isn't she?"

"I noticed." Blaise murmured in reply to Draco's stage whisper. "Pity. I thought we were escaping that bastard." Neville snickered.

"Your rooms are this way young masters."

"I thought you were showing us the Shadowlands."

"That was until you compared me to that pet with two masters." The woman snarled. Her pace quickened. Harry bit his lip as he limped after her. She led them through hallways that resembled the students in nature. Beautiful but deadly. She stopped in front of a pair of doors with intricate carvings on it. "This is where you shall stay young masters. School begins within a week. I hope you survive to see your first day." The Mistress spun in a flurry of too long black hair and silken fabric and vanished from the corridor seconds later.

"How should we ward the door?" Blaise murmured. "I mean; to be safest here."

"This school caters to every race under the sun Zabini. We are very much the minority."

"Then why the hell did you pick this school of all to go to?"

Harry smiled darkly.

"Power, prestige. All the wonderful things most people desire." He pushed the door open. "We won't be warding the door."

"The hell!?" Neville yelped. "I want to live!"

"And we will." Harry walked into the room and emptied his pockets. As his truck fell it grew. There was a soft rattle and he flipped open a small section of the trunk. Sylph came flying out. The faerie chattered at him angrily. Harry held out his hand and the female landed on the back of his hand. Hissing angrily, it moved in the set pattern it had been trained to and then took to the air again. Blaise sighed and shut the door behind himself.

"The flying fuck that for? Think I like that box? Disgusting And you? Think you can shut me in there with a smile? Damn brat."

"Where's your pot?"

The other three boys took one look at the angry faerie gifted with speech and Harry before shuffling off to find their rooms in the home within a room they were given."

"Why the hell I tell you? I look like I like your damn containers?

"Put your fucking pot out so I can place it somewhere I won't put iron."

"You can't put iron in here! You want me dead for sure!?"

"If I wanted you dead, I'd just let Rom eat you."

"Dragon gonna be in for a hell of a time."

"Syl, get your pot and place it or I swear I'll overload our connector again." The black haired faerie bared its teeth at him and flitted to the trunk. Moodily, it lifted a tiny pot and hugged it to its stomach. "Will you enlarge it or shall I?"

"Can do it on my own you freak." The faerie bit out as it flew away. Seconds later she placed her pot in the window. Flitting backwards, she snapped her finger and it grew. Humming softly to herself, she tended to her flower which had grown into a veritable flower forest.

"When will they bloom?"

"You gonna sell them off?"

"I would not. At most I would give one to Nev and the other to Blaise. I've told you this before. The rest of your mangy spawn can live in a window box for all I care."

Slyph stared at him.

"Make me one, eh? Then I could move my sweet little da'lings over."

"Whatever. I'll do it tomorrow." Harry flipped open two more different sections of the trunk. Disgruntled hissing filled the room.

"Why does Sera get to travel with you and we get dumped in that cramped hellhole?"

"Vati manages to look like a very pretty snakeskin belt. Oshun would never shut up and you would get restless and attempt to light me on fire."

"Attempt! I'm a dragon. I could light your ass on fire whenever I wanted!" Romulus bit out.

"Shut up Rom. You can't even light a candle. I tell you you're poisonous. Not a firestarter."

"I'll prove to you that I can start fires! It is in my ancestry."

"You freaking inbred ancestry."

"I am not inbred!" Hissing laughter came from Harry's waist as Sarasvati deemed it time to move. The snake unwound itself from Harry's waist and Harry flicked his wand negligently, giving her back her soft green color. Oshun pulled her body from the space she had been confined in, her scales a venomous green. Harry flicked his wand at the trunk and it shrunk. Stooping, he picked it up and nearly bit through his lip when pain shot through his knee. He stood and limped awkwardly to the room that had been left unexplored. Behind him, his snakes called after him, worried about their human.