Chapter 8
Harry woke the next morning when a hyper little boy started jumping on his bed.
"Kason…" Harry groaned and then chuckled as Draco buried his head under the pillow.
"Harry, Dra! Get up, get up, get up!" Squealed the little boy until Harry tackled him and tickled his ribs mercilessly.
Draco groaned and lifted the pillow off of his head. "Too early, Kason. Why are you so happy this early in the morning?"
"Em'ly said to wake you up." Kason poked him hard in his side.
Draco groaned again then sighed. "Of course she did…" He directed this comment towards the ceiling. "Hey Kason?"
"Huh?" Kason heard the tone in the blonde's voice that meant something fun was going to happen and he smiled.
"You want to help me play a trick on your sister?" Draco grinned evilly and Harry was a bit disturbed to see the expression mirrored on Kason's face.
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One very wet and ticked off Emily later, the five of them sat around the breakfast table. Hermione was trying, not all that successfully, to be sympathetic towards the sopping wet girl, but she couldn't help the 'I told you so' as she spelled her dry.
Soon enough they were all laughing again. It boggled Harry's mind that Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger were sitting at the same table and laughing like old friends. Which in this life, they were. Harry tried to dig around in his memories to see why this unlikely group had come to be.
Harry was standing on the train platform, watching all the activity. A knot of nerves twisted in his chest and he gripped the handle of his trunk harder. His father was standing beside him, scanning the crowds. Even though they lived a short distance from Hogwarts, Lilly had wanted her son to experience the first ride on the Hogwarts Express. The knot of nerves untangled as he caught the tell tale blonde striding through the crowds, elbowing some of those that were a little slow in getting out of his way.
"Hey Harry!" he came to a stop, but his eyes continued to take in all of the activity. Lucius appeared behind him and after nodding his hello to Harry, started talking to Severus in low tones.
"You boys better get on the train." Came the soft warning as Severus gently pushed Harry towards the train. "I will see you when you arrive at Hogwarts."
Draco said his goodbyes then grabbed Harry's wrist. "Lets get a compartment!" Draco's enthusiasm seemed infectious because soon Harry was rushing along the corridor beside him, until they finally found an empty compartment.
A short while later a bushy haired girl stuck her head in the door and asked shyly. "Do you mind if I sit here?" Draco shrugged indifferently but Harry smiled.
"Yeah, sure. Are you a first year, too?" He asked as she took a seat across from Harry.
She nodded as the train started to move away from the platform. Not three minutes later the compartment slid open and a red haired boy was outlined in the opening. Harry could see a smaller, round faced boy standing behind him.
His face changed expressions quickly when he caught sight of the Malfoy blonde. "Ah, Neville. We don't want to sit in there." He practically sneered. "Wouldn't want to get tainted by them." His eyes caught sight of Hermione looking confused. "You probably should find somewhere else to sit as well, it's not safe sitting all alone with two Death Eater sons."
Harry stood up angrily and glared at the redhead. "Do not talk about my father or my Uncle Lucius like that!"
Ron glared right back. "I can't believe you stand up for them. Let's go Neville." He looked over his shoulder at Hermione. "Are you coming?"
A fierce look came over Hermione's face and her chin lifted. "I believe I am able to make my own choices, and I do not judge people by what others say of them. They seem perfectly fine, it's you that seems to have an attitude problem."
Ron left with a huff and Hermione got up to slam the door shut. She turned around, a scowl firmly in place to see Harry and Draco smirking at her.
"What?"
Draco reached across the space, offering his hand. "My name's Draco Malfoy."
She took it and smiled herself. "I'm Hermione Granger." She turned towards Harry.
"Harry Potter. That was brilliant!"
Hermione blushed slightly as she retook her seat. "I just can't stand ignorant and rude people."
Harry blinked as the memory faded away.Hermione caught him looking at her strangely. She raised an eyebrow but he just shrugged.
Draco and Hermione both left soon after breakfast was over. That afternoon Severus took him to the ministry to get his apparition license. He had been slightly worried about the test, but when he remembered apparating himself and Dumbledore all the way to Hogsmeade he figured he could make it through the test.
Now it was after dinner and Harry was sitting on his bed, staring at the wall. He was still getting used to the annoying headache that seemed to spring up every few hours. He decided it was due to the fact that the human mind wasn't designed to hold and sift through two sets of memories. He currently had his head cradled in his hands and was trying to figure out what it was he needed to do. He always felt better with some kind of game plan.
And then he remembered the book. It seemed like a good starting place. It should be at Grimmauld Place, and Grimmauld theoretically should be empty. He wondered at the security wards that were sure to be there, but thought they may be they same ones he was familiar with. With that thought in mind, he stole from his room and stealthily made his way out of the house.
Fixing Grimmauld clearly in his mind, he turned on the spot and with a crack, appeared in front of the run down building. He smiled to himself for a moment, smug that it had worked. He stalked cautiously up the walk and placed a hand on the door. He could feel wards pulse weakly. It seemed that as no one was living in the house, and Sirius really didn't care for the building, the wards had been left to deteriorate. Harry smiled again at his good luck.
He pulled his wand from his pocket and placed the tip on the door. Concentrating he gently guided the wards into the 'unlocked' position, and was satisfied when the door clicked open. Quickly pulling the door open he stepped inside and shut it behind him. He allowed his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Silently lighting the end of his wand, he sent the beam of light in an arc across the dust-infested hallway. He soundlessly padded towards the stairs, trying not to breath in too much of the dust. Giving up, he pulled his shirt up and over his mouth and nose as he ascended the stairs.
The dust was thick on the floor and he left footprints behind him. Not minding the dust crusted on the door handle, he pushed the creaking library door open. After scanning the whole room once with his lit wand, he entered. He stopped for a moment in the center of the room and thought back to the day they found the book in the library.
He swung his head to the left. Hermione had been in that corner, on a ladder. He could almost see her there; stretching to read the faded titles and tossing down books to Ron and him. His eyes scanned the shelves that were in that corner and realized with a start that there was a blank space on the top shelf, the right size to house the black book.
Harry's brow knotted in confusion as he stared dumbfounded at the empty space. There were no marks in the dust around the space, so it was not likely that someone moved the book recently.
He rubbed his head with his hand. Unknowingly spreading the dust on his face. Finally giving up on the futile hope that the book would simply appear if he stared long enough, he turned back towards the door. Once was he was back in the hallway, his eyes caught on the door to the drawing room. Feeling the need to see the place it all started, he crossed the hallway and opened the door.
His jaw almost hit the dust-coated floor. Lying in the exact spot as if the table had just disappeared under it was the black book. Its pages were open to the halfway mark and Harry could see red glinting in his wandlight. A nonexistent wind fluttered the pages and Harry took an involuntary step back.
A sigh seemed to echo through the room and Harry jumped about a foot in the air when an annoyed voice said, "Took you long enough."
Harry swung the lighted wand around the room, frantically looking for the source of the voice. "Who are you? Where are you?"
A laugh, tinted with insanity, echoed through the room. "Who am I? Where am I? Are you an idiot or are you just fooling around? When I picked you for this experiment, I thought I had finally found someone smart. I guess not."
Harry was starting to get annoyed. "How the hell am I supposed to know who you are?"
"Okay." The voice admitted. "I suppose you wouldn't likely know that…but come on. Haven't you guessed where the voice is coming from yet?"
Harry suspiciously eyed the book. "The book?"
The voice sighed in exasperation. "Hang on a moment. Perhaps I can make this easier for your simple brain to comprehend."
Harry watched incredulously as the air seemed to condense over the books open pages and a rough outline seemed to be taking shape. After a few minutes a transparent figure could be seen. He had shaggy black hair that fell into black, bloodshot eyes. He appeared to be about twenty-five or so and wore tattered and bloodstained robes. The really strange part, aside the fact that he was hovering over a book, was that chains wrapped around his thin wrists and over his shoulders disappearing back into the book's pages.
The figure smirked at Harry's gob smacked expression and with the sound of rattling chains, lifted his hand to push the hair out of his pale and gaunt face. "Perhaps I should start at the beginning?"