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Chapter 3
Revelations
The three of them sat in companionable silence until the lunch trolley came. Jasmine got up to leave just after it had passed. Harry turned to Draco. "We need to find you a girl mate." He stated blatantly.
"I've already got one Harry."
"How come I've never heard of her before then? How long?"
"You've never heard of her because she didn't want anyone to know. We've been together since the start of last year, and…" Draco paused, looking like he was about to say too much. Harry raised an eyebrow and delved into Draco's mind with legilimency.
"Your married!" He yelled at Draco. Draco gave a sheepish nod. "Who to?" Harry asked, very Crabbe and Goyle like. Draco seemed to lapse out of the conversation for a moment. He didn't know that it was a mental conversation like his and Bella's.
'Hey baby, my friend here kind of figured out that we're married. Actually, stole the information out of my mind would be more accurate. He's asking who you are, little help please.'
'Hey Draco. Stole the information?'
'He's a legilimens.'
'Ah, ok. I'm coming. Where are you?'
'Last compartment of the last carriage.'
'I'll be there in a minute.'
"I'll tell you in a minute Harry." They waited in silence until Draco opened the door letting in a very calm and collected Hermione Granger.
His eyes narrowed distrustfully and sneered out his words. "You married Granger? What the hell were you thinking Malfoy? What would Luc and Cissa say?"
"Shit Harry, yes I am married to Hermione, and I said that I would explain. I'm not betraying Tom, or the rest of the family." Draco tenderly took Hermione's hand in one of his. 'Lift your sleave baby. Please.' She did, revealing a mark as plain as day on her tanned forearm. Tom's mark was branded on her skin. Draco pushed his shirt sleeve up to the elbow too, showing his Dark Mark, then stepped forward and rolled up Harry's as well. "Hermione could you explain your side of the story?"
"Sure. Harry, you were my friend for five years. I noticed when you started to slip, so I went in search of answers. When I was a year old the Granger's adopted me on my parents orders. It took me ages to work out who my real parents were, but on my birthday I got a letter from my real mother. My father is Remus Lupin, and mum is Petunia Evans. The war split them apart, and forced mum and my twin brother into hiding. We both had blood adoption potions placed on us."
"Petunia Evans as in my Aunt Petunia?" He asked incredulous.
"Yes. I was speaking to Dad the other week. He still doesn't know that I'm his daughter, and I used veritiserum to get answers. He and Mum were Death Eater's. To avoid being found out after your parents were killed they hid Mum in the muggle world and imperioused a muggle man on the street to pose as a husband."
"Aunt Petunia is a witch?" He all but screamed at his once friend. "She could have protected me from the wrath of Vernon Dursley all these years, and she did nothing? And Dudley! Surely he's as much a wizard as I am. Why didn't she stop him all those times he beat me and called me a freak?"
"She didn't do anything Harry because she hasn't done magic for over sixteen years. She didn't stop them because you both would have been worse off if she had done anything. Mum didn't go to Hogwarts, our grandparents tutored her, and Lily went because she insisted upon it. Both were raised as muggles, but were purebloods. Your not a half blood Harry, you're a pureblood, from two lines as pure as they come, as powerful as they come. Why do you think Dumbledore had placed a magical damper on you? What you can do now is only a miniscule fraction of your full potential."
"A magical damper? How could Tom not have found it?"
"It's hidden deep within your core. You wouldn't find it unless you knew it was there, and the Dark Lord does not."
"Ah." Was all Harry responded with. There was a long silence as Harry thought over all that Hermione had told him. He believed her, after all, misfortune tests the sincerity of friendship. So many times in the past, she had stuck by him, even when no one else did. Hermione had been a true friend.
"Harry, please, I've told you my side of the story, can you now tell me yours?" Hermione pleaded with him.
He condescended, after all she had told him the truth. "Sure thing Hermione. Luc and Cissa will welcome you into the family too, so stop worrying about that." She smiled wearily and thankfully at him. "Last summer, my father and grandfather of sorts set me a project for when they weren't drilling me with instruction. My family history was not an easy one to research. Distantly the three of us are actually related. We are all of Greek decent, and a very powerful line at that. Going back to the last millennia or so, I found that I am a direct descendant of Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, Salazar Slytherin, Arthur Pendragon, and Merlin himself."
"You're a descendant of King Arthur?" Hermione and Draco asked incredulously in syncronisation.
"Yes I am. Going back even furthur, I found that Julius Caesar, Achilles, and Agamemnon were also ancestors. But do you know the most surprising of all?" He asked, not expecting an answer as the other two were doing a good impersonation of two gold fish out of water, slack-jawed with bulging eyes. "I am the only direct descendant of Adonis to have survived the last three thousand years."
Hermione was speechless, mouth agape. All Draco managed to say was, "Wow."
"I suppose you have been wondering about what the family is. To an outsider it would be seen as, and called, the Dark Lord's Inner Circle. We're not like that. We may be a team when we work, and we may be among the most powerful of the Death Eaters, but we are all connected in some way. My father adopted me last summer, and he is the surrogate son of my grandfather. You know them already Hermione, because my father is Severus Snape, and my grandfather is Tom Riddle. Draco is connected to them through me, as my fiancé is his Aunt: Bellatrix Lestrange. Cissa and Luc will be my brother and sister in-law on Halloween, and Draco's going to have a baby cousin in six months time." Harry beamed; his family had always made him happiest.
"After our fifth year I went to Tom. He and Sev have been training me since I took the Dark Mark. As you mentioned before, and I do believe you, I have that damper on my magic. I am the most powerful wizard alive, already, so it's only a fraction of the power I hold."
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