I believe it was about this time that my story became infinitely better as Xikum began to beta. I seriously appreciate all of the time and effort she put into working with these stories. I wish I could see how many hits this story receives, but unfortunately that doesn't seem to be working on the traffic page. Still it's very nice to see how many people have favorited or alerted, and even more wonderful for those that have actually taken the time to write and tell me what they think. You could join them you know ^_^.

Mythic Alliance

by Jendra

"Do you really think they got the idea?" Draco asked once they were alone again.

"Yes," Harry replied. "Hermione will have, at any rate."

"Too much to hope Weasley would use what little brain he has," Snape muttered.

Harry glared at him. "You've never played chess against him, have you? The boy's bloody brilliant at strategies, it's just that in real life, his heart overrides his brain."

"You mean his temper overrides his brain," Draco muttered.

"That too," Harry admitted. "Of course, I thought we were going to give them the idea that I was getting tutoring in Potions, not Defense."

"This was more believable," Draco suggested. "After all, no one would really believe you'd willingly take extra Potions lessons."

Harry laughed. "True," he conceded. "At least Defense makes sense. However, the Potions one would have explained 'you' being involved."

"You should have just told them it was none of their business," Draco said loftily.

"That might work with you, oh Lord of Slytherin, but Ron and 'Mione are my friends, not my minions."

"See," Draco said haughtily. "There's your problem."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Why I didn't just have them catch me scrubbing cauldrons, I don't know."

"Because if they thought you were here scrubbing cauldrons every day, they would have complained to the Headmaster," Severus reminded hm dryly. "And he would have said it had been long enough."

"At which point, Draco would once again throw something into my cauldron, causing it to explode and giving you an excuse to give me detention again," Harry responded just as dryly.

"Would I do that?" Draco's look of innocence was only slightly overdone.

"It wouldn't be the first time."

Snape's eyes narrowed. "I would hope that you researched what you were throwing and how it would impact the potion you were throwing it into at the point at which you added it."

Draco gulped and paled slightly.

"Yeah, right," Harry scoffed. "He just grabbed whatever he could get his hands on, and tossed it in when your back was turned."

The Potions Professor drew himself up to his very impressive height and glared mightily. "You added ingredients to someone else's potion without knowing what the reaction would be?" His voice was a cold sibilant hiss and all the more deadly for it.

Harry smiled, delighted to see the blonde finally get in trouble for all the problems he'd given them over the years.

"I want five feet of parchment on what exactly you've done and what *exactly* the reaction has been. Since I do not believe your mind is sufficiently capable of remembering all the way to First Year, you may go with the times in the last year and any truly spectacular ones before then."

"Five feet!" Draco squawked.

"Seven then," was Snape's simple response. He turned to Harry, who didn't have the time to wipe the enjoyment off his face. "I expect three feet on the dangers of allowing someone else to add things to your cauldron while brewing. Include historical and recent examples."

"Yes sir," Harry growled out. He knew if he complained the man would just make it longer out of spite, but it just wasn't fair! It's not like he could have done anything to stop him!

He might not have said anything, but that didn't keep the professor from knowing what he was thinking. "Life isn't fair, Mr. Potter, you should know that by now. There are spells available to stop any unwanted things from falling into your cauldron. If you were being ambushed, you should have researched those spells and used them."

"Hermione didn't say anything about spells like that," Harry frowned.

"And there, Mr. Potter, is the main problem I have with Ms. Granger," Snape growled. "You have a brain, but as long as you continue to allow her to have all your ideas and do all your work, you will continue to refrain from using it!"

"She doesn't do my work for me!" Harry disagreed vehemently.

"Doesn't she? I finally had time to look over your summer homework."

"That's different. You know I have no way of doing my homework during the holidays. I don't even have access to my books. That makes it kind of hard to do my work. So yeah, I use her notes and write on the train. I don't have much other choice. But during the year, I do my own work."

"Badly," Snape couldn't resist commenting.

"Will Potions help me defeat Voldemort?" Harry bit out.

"Don't say his name," Snape ordered.

"Voldemort, Voldemort, Voldemort!" Harry retorted childishly. "He can't tell when someone says his name you know," Snape was still glaring. "Fine, I'll call him Tommy, will that make you happy?"

"Tommy?" Draco asked, confused.

"His real name is Tom Marvolo Riddle. He was Slytherin Head Boy in 1945. He's also a half blood who was raised in a Muggle orphanage because his Muggle father couldn't deal with the fact that he married a witch."

"You're making that up!"

"Oh please, if I was making it up, I would have said his name was Archibald Rufus Dogbottom or something like that."

"My father bows down to a half blood?" Draco asked in disbelief.

Harry stilled, watchful. In all of the weeks they'd been working together, it had never come out like this. Certainly they'd talked about Voldemort, even joked about him. Harry didn't think Draco had any intention of joining the Dark Lord, but still it had never been said straight out, nor had Draco ever admitted he knew his father was a Death Eater. The one thing Harry did know was that Draco adored his father.

Draco, meanwhile, had realized what he had admitted to, and worriedly looked in the other boy's direction. His breath drew his breath in, in a gasp as he caught sight of the dark, watchful eyes. Never had he seen the other boy so intense, not even when he was going after a snitch. For what was probably the first time, he realized that the Boy Who Lived might be just as dangerous as some people thought.

"Yes," Harry said softly. "Your father does bow down to a half-blood."

"But... why?" This time his question was plaintive and addressed to his father's best friend.

Severus looked at the two boys in front of him. He was just as surprised at the look on the black haired boy's face as Draco was. He knew that they deserved an answer, but this was not the place.

He was glad he hadn't been doing anything important as he cleaned up and then led the way to his sitting room.

Harry and Draco sat on separate ends of the couch while Severus settled in the chair across from them. The Potions Master placed silencing charms around the room before he began to speak.

"Harry, what do you know about the Death Eaters? Not as a group, but the individual people?"

"Well, there's Draco's father and Crabbe's and Goyle's and Nott's, then there's Pettigrew and Karakoff and Quirrel, you" Harry petered off, not sure what the older man was trying to get at.

"How old would you say we all were?" Snape prompted.

"Well... most of them have kids my age, so... middle thirties?"

"So when V... he rose to power twenty years ago, we would all have been...?"

"Our age!" Draco exclaimed.

"Teenagers!" Harry said at the same time.

"That's correct," Severus agreed. "And do either of you know any students of your own age who would understand what exactly they were getting into by taking the Dark Mark? Especially considering he was just rising to power at the time?"

Harry thought of all the students in his own year. Hermione... perhaps, but she could be seriously naive if it wasn't written in a book and she tended to take what was written in a book as gospel. Ron... not even. None of the others would really have any idea either. He shook his head and saw Draco doing the same thing.

"He was very good at saying what you wanted to hear," Snape said in a contemplative tone. "To some he promised power, the ability to get out from under their family's shadows." Harry noticed the glance that was thrown in Draco's direction at that and filed it away to think about later. "To some he promised knowledge that was impossible to get in any other way." That would be Hermione's downfall, that was for sure. He wondered if it had been Snape's. "To some he promised respect, to others that they wouldn't have to hide from Muggles. The killing, the torture, none of that came up in the recruitment spiel. None of it came up until *after* you took the Dark Mark, and by then he had access to your soul, and there wasn't a single thing you could do about it."

Harry frowned. "For some reason I got the idea that it was a family thing. That families wanted their kids to swear to the Dark Lord? Especially ones that had served Grindelwald."

Snape shook his head. "Grindelwald had an entirely different agenda than He does. He was trying to repeal a number of the Dark laws, the ones that called certain creatures and spells Dark, especially when they were nothing of the sort. Of course, what his actions actually did was give the Ministry a reason to increase the number of things they considered to be Dark. It was also after his reign that 'Dark' came to equate with 'evil'. Even the adoption spell was put on the Dark list, which led to problems with Him."

"Adoption spell?" Draco wondered.

"Why would that be considered Dark?" Harry said immediately after.

"Any spell or potion that uses human blood as a main component, or blood from a person not the caster is considered to be Dark. The adoption spell used the blood of the child and adopting parent to actually bring the child into the family. It was usually used for Muggleborn children who were orphaned or had families that would not do well learning about the magical world. With the adoption spell, the child's appearance and bloodlines were changed so that they became part of the new family. Even the magical family trees recognized them as part of the family, and adopted children were never considered to be less than the natural born children. Most children never had any idea if they were adopted or not. It was really only after that spell was made illegal that the big differential between purebloods and Mugglebloods started."

"That's stupid," Harry groaned.

"Indeed," Severus agreed. "Many of the Ministry's actions during the past hundred years fall into that category. Anyway, to answer your question, *he* expects the children of his Death Eaters to join him, but most parents did not approve of their children joining."

"Too bad that's changed," Draco muttered unhappily.

"I doubt it did," Snape said thoughtfully. "I believe you did exactly what your father expected you to do. And because of what you did, no student will be taking the Dark Mark while they still go to Hogwarts. Unfortunately, there's nothing yet we can do about those who just graduated, but there aren't too many of those yet."

"But... father said that I had to take the Dark Mark," Draco looked confused.

"If he truly wanted it to happen, he would have taken you to Him without telling you about it first. No, I think you did exactly what he wished."

"You don't think I disappointed him?" Draco sounded almost wistful.

"Not at all," Severus said surprisingly gentle.

Harry looked at them and wondered. Why did Draco care so much? He'd seen that look in his eyes when he'd yelled at him. He'd been abused too; Harry was sure of it. But he wanted so much to have his father approve of him. His look softened a bit. At least with the Dursleys he had given up on getting their approval a long time ago. But Draco obviously still loved his father. That had to hurt worse than anything that had been done to him.

"Here's something else for you both to think about," Severus said, breaking the mood. "If all of the Death Eaters were such willing followers, delighting in killing and torturing, then how come no one took over once the Dark Lord disappeared?"

Draco and Harry looked at each other in surprise. That really was a good question, wasn't it?

"Now, I believe it is time for you both to get back to your dorms, and I expect those reports to be ready by Saturday."

With that, both students got up and said good-bye. They both had plenty to think about, and the papers that were due took up very little of their brain. Draco kept considering Severus' words. That he'd done what his father wanted him to do. He hoped and prayed that the older man was right. After all, he was his father's best friend. Surely he would know. He hated the thought that he'd disappointed his father.

Harry was considering the Death Eaters as a whole. He suddenly growled under his breath.

"What's the matter?" Draco asked, shocked out of his own thoughts.

"If most of the Death Eaters really didn't want to fight with Voldemort anymore, and no one tried to take his place, then I seriously doubt anyone tried to take revenge for his death," Harry bit out. "So *why* did I have to live with the Dursleys all these years?"

"You know, that's a really good question," Draco replied.

"And knowing Dumbledore, I'll end up back there again next summer," Harry said angrily.

"Then we'll just have to figure out a way to kill him before than, won't we?" Draco murmured.

"We?" Harry blinked in disbelief.

"If my father really doesn't want to serve him, then it's my duty as his son to get him out of there, isn't it?" Draco shrugged, though his eyes showed his worry. It was a big step he was considering.

"What if Professor Snape is wrong?"

Draco's eyes showed his fear of that before he straightened up and his eyes blanked. "Professor Snape? Wrong? I don't think so."

"I hope you're right," Harry admitted. "I think your father could be a lot worse than Voldemort is, if he ever tried to take his place."

Draco smirked. "That's exactly right."