Sorry for the lack of updates. I have a huge project for school I'm working on, and it sadly doesn't leave much room for writing. Updates might be shaky for a while…

Chapter Nine: All Intents and Purposes

The sound of the door clicking shut seemed to echo around the room. Harry, his wand now at the ready, and Draco, hidden under the cloak, stood frozen in their places, waiting for an attack. But no attack came.

Instead, Cepheus Black merely stepped from the shadows in one particularly dark corner of the room (it was amazing how dark these rooms could get with the shades drawn). He was holding a tall walking stick― a staff, ornately carved along its length to look like snakes were writhing over the surface. His face was placid, looking over Harry calmly as he advanced. Harry shifted into an even more defensive stance.

"Come, now, boy," the head of the Black family said with a sneer, "Put that away before you hurt yourself." Harry stood strong. He couldn't see Draco, but he was really hoping the blond boy was still there by his side, preparing to attack.

"What did you do to the king?" Harry asked without preamble. Cepheus's sneer only grew more sinister. When he didn't reply right away, Harry continued. "Don't deny it, it must have been you."

"Deny it?" responded Cepheus in a silky voice, "Why would I deny it?" This threw Harry off-guard. Didn't the criminal usually feign innocence? Cepheus went on. "On the contrary, I want all the credit I deserve. You are a wizard, boy. Surely you can see the injustice in Uther's methods."

The scary part was, Harry did see it. He knew that Uther was repressing magic, and blaming even innocent sorcerers and sorceresses for what came to them naturally. But his opinion on what should be done about it and the reasons it was wrong differed greatly from what the old Black wizard believed.

"After all," Cepheus added as he saw Harry's expression grow wary as he thought, "Those with magic are far superior to those without. We should not be the hunted, downtrodden beasts that Uther has turned us into." Harry's face snapped back to anger. This was just pureblood prejudice rearing its ugly head again.

"So you plan to murder him?" he accused. "I thought he was your friend."

"No, not murder him. That would solve nothing," Cepheus explained, his voice still disturbingly calm. "If the king died now, his son would simply take over the throne. He, too, has been brainwashed against magic by Uther, and so his reign would show no difference in attitude towards our kind. And as for friendship… Uther and I fought together in the Great War, and I suppose you could have called us friends. But that man is a fool; he never even figured out that I have magic."

"So what exactly are you trying to do?" Harry was stalling for time, now. What was Draco waiting for? Why hadn't he attacked yet?

"Yes, well I suppose I should not have hoped that you would understand right away," Cepheus sneered. "Especially not with my dear grandson standing there, waiting to attack." He tilted his staff forward in Draco's direction and hissed out, "Vindus cyoan."

Beneath the cloak, Draco really had been about to attack. For a few moments there, he had almost changed his mind about doing so. Cepheus's words echoed all the lessons he'd been taught growing up in the Malfoy home about the superiority of pure blood. But… at the last moment, something told him that he had to stop the old wizard. He'd just raised his wand when Cepheus acknowledged his presence and was unable to get out the incantation for a spell before Cepheus spell took effect first. A rush of wind seemed to blow right through him, taking the cloak with it and blowing it away. He stood there, revealed, frozen for a moment by the coldness of the wind as he stared at Cepheus's mildly bemused face.

Harry took it upon himself, seeing that Draco wasn't going to do anything. Once a coward, always a coward, he thought, extending his wand arm and yelling "Stupefy!"

Cepheus merely stepped aside of the stream of magic, a move surprisingly deft for a man so old. In one fluid movement, Cepheus pointed the tip of the staff at Harry, now. The dark-haired boy felt as though he was watching in slow motion as Cepheus spoke another ancient-sounding word― "saelan" this time― and sent another spell flying his way. Harry's arms snapped to his sides and he fell painfully into a heap on the stone floor, as if invisible ropes were binding him, cutting into his skin when he tried to move.

The action finally snapped Draco out of his stunned state. Almost as if he'd been able to tell what Harry had been thinking earlier and was retorting, in his head, Draco yelled, Draco Malfoy is no coward! He lifted his wand again, and was about to try the full-body-bind; as if sensing this, Cepheus repeated the spell that he'd used against Harry, and Draco fell as well, bound in the same invisible ropes.

Unable to do anything else, the two young wizards merely stared up at the old sorcerer. He looked down at them without pity, a look of triumphant contempt etched into his features.

"They'll know it was you," Harry growled, finding, luckily, that his mouth still worked. "They'll figure it out."

"Highly unlikely," Cepheus debunked. "They lack the intelligence. I have checked and re-checked; this plan is flawless." He paused, looking over the two boys restrained on the floor before him. "I will offer you one final chance," he said at last. "Join me in this cause of promoting magic."

"Go to hell," Harry said simply, wasting no time in answering. Draco rolled his eyes; as if the pride and joy of Gryffindor would ever agree to such a thing.

The Slytherin boy, however, was another case entirely.

Cepheus turned his eyes upon his descendent, waiting for his response. But it wasn't something he was just going to decide in a moment's notice, as Harry had done. He needed to consider all sides of it.

Surely, his parents would have wanted him to choose the path that would most benefit pureblooded wizards. That was, of course, Cepheus's plan, if it all went the way he intended. But there was always the chance it could fail. What would happen then? He'd likely be beheaded if it all went wrong. That just wouldn't work for the blond boy― he liked his head just where it was, thank-you-very-much. Plus, there was that whole 'mess with the past, ruin the entire future' thing that was nagging at the back of his mind…

But, overarching all of this was a strange feeling that Draco was sure he'd never experienced. What was this… this… morality he seemed to be experiencing? He actually wanted to do the right thing. It was… sickening. Did Potter feel this way all the time? No wonder he tried to save the day so often.

But his mind was now made up, and he knew what he had to do. He looked up at his ancestor's oddly patient face, his grey eyes set and resolute.

"Go to hell," he repeated Harry's words, adding, "And take your sorry excuse for an evil plan with you."

Oh snap! Yeah, Draco went there… And what happened next? Well, at Hogwarts they say that Draco's small heart grew three sizes that day.

I almost included that sentence in the chapter. Almost.

Oh, and Cepheus' plan is only half revealed. Stick around for more, and review to make it happen, please!