AN: Enjoy!

Chapter 18 - Magic Ancestry

It was the 20th of November. Winter had come early that year and snow was already three inches tall on Hogwarts' grounds. Temperatures were low inside the castle as well and most students started wearing their cold weather cloaks and jackets on the corridors.

Harry woke up that morning about an hour before his alarm clock rang. He was pumped up for the day ahead of him. Seeing as it was Friday, second years did not have any DADA class.

The first class that day, Charms, despite Professor Flitwick's wealth of experience and knowledge, could not quite catch his attention. They were studying banal charms such as the Freezing Charm and the Slowing Charm. It was hard for him to stay interested at all. After that, it was a seemingly unending History class with the ghost professor, Potions with Slughorn (Harry even slightly messed up his brew that day) and lastly, Transfiguration, with Dumbledore.

At the end of the class, Dumbledore asked for Harry to stay behind the other students.

"Mr Potter, is something the matter? I noticed you were rather distracted today. I've been hearing the same thing from Professors Slughorn and Flitwick as well. If anything is weighing on your mind, you could always talk to me," the old wizard said kindly.

'So he's still keeping tabs on me.' Harry noted inwardly.

In some way, it was understandable that Dumbledore would notice his distracted behaviour. It was always like that: when the average or bad students did not pay attention to class, professors did not notice it but once the smartest child in class appeared to be distracted, they would immediately take note of it.

"Everything is fine, sir. I am just...I can't wait to see aunt Bella. It's her birthday today and I've worked on her present for weeks. I can't wait to give it to her," Harry said. At Dumbledore's curious gaze, he added quickly: "It's a secret."

Dumbledore chuckled lightly. In fact, he was beaming.

'Young Harry being so concerned with Bellatrix's birthday further shows that he had truly grown to care about her. Placing him in her care had truly been one of my best decisions as of late.'

⁂

Harry had not lied to Dumbledore about the reason he was distracted. He was, indeed, extremely impatient. Once Dumbledore dismissed him, he made a beeline towards DADA Professor's office. He arrived there even before Bellatrix. When she finally got there, she smiled warmly at the sight of him.

'He's adorable!' she thought. The impatient and expectant face of the young boy appeared very endearing in her eyes.

Despite their recent disagreements, they had not grown apart in the least. If anything, that argument had brought them closer than before. It was impossible for two people to live together for a long time without having even one argument at all - unless they did not care about each other. Sometimes, butting heads was also a form of showing their care and concern.

"Finally, you're here!" Harry said in a mixture of exasperation and relief.

"My, my, so antsy today~. You rarely come to see me this early. At this hour, you're usually fooling around with that little girlfriend of yours," she said teasingly.

He huffed and rolled his eyes. "She's not my girlfriend. Besides, even if she were, you think I'd forget what day is today? It's your birthday!"

"Aww, aren't you cute." she cooed at him and bent to pinch him lightly from his cheek.

Harry dodged her hand and entered her office ahead of her, followed by her giggles from behind.

"Please, take a seat first," Harry asked her and she raised an eyebrow at his request but played along and sat on her chair at her desk.

Harry put his backpack on the desk and took out an old book from it. It was bound in black leather covers and a stylish title was written with silvery letters:

MAGIC ANCESTRY

by Bellatrix Black

The witch's half-lidded eyes opened wide at the sight of that book.

"How did you get that?! Most people don't even know it exists. It was never sold on the market, there are less than 50 copies in the entire world!" she said in surprise. "It was my first achievement in the research of magic...but the bigoted Ministry back then forbid me from publishing it. Have you read it?"

"Yes, I did. At the start of the year, I was very curious as to why you were so popular with all the students when you were introduced as the new DADA Professor so I started to ask around for information about you since you never speak about your past."

She let out a mirthless chuckle. "My past has nothing worth talking about-" she began to say but Harry cut her off.

"Killing four Death Eaters in a 4 vs 1 scenario and saving Frank and Alice Longbottom from being tortured to insanity - I wouldn't call that something not worth talking about! You saved their lives and the life of the Boy-Who-Lived as well. You're a hero! You've even gotten the Order of Merlin, First Class for that! How come you've never told me? I haven't seen your medal displayed anywhere at home either!"

Shortly after Voldemort's failure to kill young Neville due to his grandmother's sacrifice, a group of Death Eaters had taken it upon themselves to finish what their lord could not accomplish and also have some 'fun' while they were at it.

As it was customary between old pureblood families, back then, Bellatrix had paid a visit to the Longbottom manor to express her condolences for the death of Augusta Longbottom who had sacrificed her life to protect young Neville when Voldemort had come to kill him. Though she no longer believed in pureblood supremacy, she had not given up on her manners as a member of the Black family.

It had been Frank, Alice, and Neville's luck that Bellatrix happened to visit them at that time. Despite being outnumbered 4 to 1, the fierce witch single-handedly destroyed those four Death Eaters. Her deed of saving the family of the Boy-Who-Lived and the BWL himself had become a sensation. Even a decade after the incident, people were still in awe of her. It was also the reason why she was so famous despite that she was an Unspeakable (their identities were supposed to be secret).

"Anyway," Harry continued when he saw that she did not want to talk about that subject, "this book is the reason why you fought with your aunt and got kicked out from the family, isn't it?"

"Yeah...this book overthrows the entire pureblood dogma. There is no such thing as pure or impure blood."

She made a pause and a far look appeared in her eyes.

"I was raised to believe that purebloods are special. That we are superior. That mudbloods" - she made quoting signs with her fingers when she said that slur word - "are filthy rabble. I was a Black, a member of one of the oldest and most ancient wizarding families in Great Britain. I was very proud of my noble heritage. Imagine my shock at seeing the results of my own research..."

She let out a mirthless chuckle.

"If I found it very hard to accept it, think about other purebloods, older witches and wizards that had lived decades if not over a hundred years thinking that they are special. There is no way that they wanted to accept the truth. My senior, Unspeakable Norman Rosier, was the one who actually started this project. I was his assistant during my internship at the Department of Mysteries. But he vanished one day. Rumour goes that he perished due to an accident while developing a spell...but I know better. He was eliminated. The higher-ups did not like what his research was starting to uncover."

"You completed what he started," Harry added.

"Yes, I did. As much as I was abhorred by the truth that we have uncovered, I was just as intrigued. I wanted to know the truth. The full truth," she said.

"The truth is that wizards and witches have magic due to a special gene, a gene that is hereditary. This means that even those that are born out of muggles have a wizard ancestor, probably even a squib!" Harry completed.

"Indeed," Bellatrix confirmed. "However, I was just an intern back then, an assistant. My words held no weight. Furthermore, when I took the results of my research home, foolishly thinking that they would support me, my family cast me out. Aunt Walburga even threw a Dark Curse on me..." Flashes of anger glowed in her eyes when she spoke about her aunt, "...So I did not have the support of the illustrious Black family either. Also, since my research relied on Muggle documentation to prove the ancestry of the Muggleborns, it was deemed as 'lacking conclusive evidence' and the Minister forbid me from publishing it. They had even made a Wizengamot session just for this."

Though she had been joyous at first and ready to have some fun with Harry, she became melancholic and subdued, as she talked about her past.

"Come to think of it, this research changed my life. If I hadn't accepted that internship at the Department of Mysteries after I graduated from Hogwarts and if I hadn't learnt the truth about magic, Merlin knows where would I have been today. Back then, the Black family had been one of the main supporters of Voldemort and I used to think like them too... I could have very well ended up as one of his Death Eaters too. Merlin knows that my parents had been pushing for it and that other Death Eaters had invited me to join several times in my last year at Hogwarts too."

'She has no idea how right she is.' Harry thought inwardly.

"This isn't my present for you. This is just the beginning," he said and then he took out a wide envelope from his bag. "I received these a while ago from Muggle mail, at the Leaky Cauldron and Tom forwarded it to me through an owl."

"What's this?"

"Well, take a look and see," he said with a smile.

Bellatrix opened the envelope and took out a few papers. She skimmed through the walls of text but her eyes were quickly drawn to the family tree drawn in the middle of the page. She involuntarily looked at a particular branch that had been highlighted with a red marker.

Calliope Gaunt - Briget Brown - Wanda Jones - Zoe Taylor - Jane Owen - Lily Evans - Harry Potter.

"It's my family tree on my mother's side, from 6 generations ago," Harry explained why he had highlighted that particular branch of his family tree.

"How did you get a hold of something like this?" Bellatrix asked in surprise. "You're just a child."

Harry shrugged his shoulders innocently. "Money opens many doors. I paid Tom from Leaky Cauldron with money from my trust vault to ask Muggle authorities for these documents. I had to keep it a secret from you because I wanted it to be a surprise. Anyway. Calliope Gaunt must've been a squib from the Gaunt family. She was probably cast out by her family and forced to flee into the Muggle world to live. I am a descendant of the Gaunt family, through my 'Muggleborn' mother."

What Harry said was nothing groundbreaking. It was exactly what Bellatrix's research had proved in her book: that all Muggleborns are nothing more, nothing less, than descendants of other magical people, that magic could not come out of Muggles. Therefore, she was confused as to what was Harry trying to prove. Because Muggle documents held no value in the eyes of the wizardkind. That was also the main reason why it was so easy for the Ministry of Magic to dismiss the results of her research.

"What I'm saying will make more sense after this. Watch:" he said and took out his fir and dragon heartstring wand. "Serpensortia: Big Head!"

At his words, a huge green Anaconda appeared out of thin air. Instead of a respectful greeting towards his master, the 30-foot-long snake burst with deafening hisses of reproach and insults.

"You asshole of a master! My name isn't Big Head! How many times have I told you? It's Asmodeus!"

Harry burst into laughter at how agitated was the snake.

"You didn't even have a name before, but now you call yourself Asmodeus? Quite the fancy tastes right there. You should be grateful I named you Big Head. At first, I wanted to call you Big Turd because you sleep coiled up like a turd."

"I'll fight you! Master, I'll seriously fight you! You scrawny wanker!" the Anaconda hissed angrily and made the furniture in the room shake when he slapped his heavy tail against the floor.

It was then that Bellatrix finally recovered from her shock.

"Merlin, YOU'RE A PARSELMOUTH!"

Harry and Asmodeus had been arguing against each other in Parseltongue. The implications of that fact dawned on the clever witch instantly if the fervent look that appeared on her face was anything to go by.

"The Gaunts were the last known descendants of Salazar Slytherin! They were infamous for their pride in their ancestry, they didn't even speak in English amongst themselves, they communicated through Parseltongue. Dear Morgana! You can't be a Parselmouth through your father's line because the Potters' blood relation to Slytherin is abysmal. It can only be through your mother's side and your mother was a Muggleborn! This proves that the Muggle records are not useless and that magic is hereditary too! My god!"

At that moment, as Bellatrix fired one line after another, Harry got to see the shadow of a mad look in her eyes, one that reminded him of the psychotic woman from his past life. Except that, in this life, she was a mad researcher, not a mad terrorist and a killer.

Bellatrix did not even warn him before she grabbed him by the arm and yoinked him with her to the fireplace. Grabbing a handful of Floo Powder with her other hand, she threw it into the fire. Pulling Harry after her into the fireplace, she yelled excitedly: "Ministry of Magic!"

As the green flames roared, the two of them vanished from Hogwarts' premises.