Author's Note:

I hope you all are happy that you get three chapters in one day. By the way, I've just gotten a bit of news in real life. It seems I'm going to be spending a large portion of my time preparing for relatives to visit in a few weeks. We never have visitors, so the house is a bit of a mess, and when I say 'a bit' it's a vast understatement. I probably won't have quite as much time to write, especially since I know a few of the chapters coming up will rely heavily on events in the actual book. (I'll probably take a lot of exact scenes from Order of the Phoenix. I hope you all don't mind.)

Anyway, I did say that this story wouldn't just be written about Harry, but about Draco as well. Clearly Draco's got some issues of his own going on. I hope you all don't hate me for leaving you with a slight cliffhanger on the last chapter. Personally, I think they're wonderful since they make the readers think so much about what could happen. Cliffhangers for a show that won't have a new episode out for another few months, not so much.

Chapter 14

Severus carefully studied Draco's face. The eyes were blank; Draco really had no idea what he had meant. "Please tell me they've told you about the Dragon blood."

"Who are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about your parents. Have they told you about the Dragon blood?"

"No, I don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about."

Severus sighed. "I suppose I'll have to tell you about it myself then. Honestly, is there anything that your parents did tell you?" He took a sip of his tea. "Well, when you were born the Dark Lord was still powerful since his spell hadn't rebounded off of Harry Potter yet. Around that time he had ordered me to create a potion that would strengthen his Death Eaters. He wanted to intertwine some characteristics of Dragons with them to make them less vulnerable. I developed a potion, and we tested it on some of the Death Eaters."

"What happened?"

"All of them died. Some held on longer than others, but it killed all of them. He was staying at Malfoy Manor the weekend after you were born as he did occasionally, and he told us that we needed to try the potion on a baby, a baby that was barely a week old, a baby that would be powerful due to his lineage."

"You're talking about me?"

Severus nodded. "Yes, unfortunately. None of us wanted that to happen to you, but we didn't have much of a choice. If we resisted he would torture or kill us, and then he would still use it on you anyway. We figured you would have a higher chance of living if we introduced the potion to you in our own way. We put a drop or two in each of your bottles, we put a few drops in your food when you grew old enough to eat, we put a few more drops of the potion in your juice and your water when you grew old enough to drink liquids other than milk, and we hoped for the best."

"Couldn't you have just made another potion that looked and smelled like the one he wanted me to take that was harmless and given it to me instead?"

Severus shook his head. "No; while I may be an extremely talented Occlumens, your mother and father are not so lucky. They tried to do that the first few times, but he would always find out and torture them for giving you a fake potion. He tortured me for brewing them a fake potion."

"How long did you all do that for?"

"We stopped the day after he disappeared, the day after he went to Godric's Hollow for Harry. We assumed over the years that nothing had happened to you since you didn't seem any different than normal children. I thought they would have said something to you about it, though."

"What does Dragon blood have to do with it?"

Severus sighed. "The potion I created needed Dragon blood in it to work. Theoretically, the same basic potion could be used with any other animal, using their blood instead of a Dragon's. It mixes the creature's blood with the blood of the wizard who drinks the potion."

"So you're saying that I'm not pureblooded? You're saying that I'm a crossbreed with a Dragon?"

"No, that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm not sure what your blood status would be now, but nobody knows about what you went through except the Dark Lord, your parents, me, and now you. Nobody can hold it against you. I wouldn't say that you're a crossbreed with a Dragon, either, because you came from two human parents. There were no Dragons involved until after you were born."

Draco sighed, slightly shaking with the weight of the news. He asked another question, even though he was afraid of the answer. "What does this have to do with what happened to my hand earlier?"

"You realize that Dragons have talons, correct?" Draco slowly nodded. "I'm not sure why it happened while you were holding hands with Pansy, but I think the Dragon genes in you turned your hand into a talon."

"What should I do?"

"Well, I definitely wouldn't go any farther than holding hands with her unless you can do that a few times without your hands becoming talons. I'm not sure what would happen, but holding hands is a much better option since there's a bit of knowledge on what happens if you do. I'll look into it, and I'll let you know if I find out anything."

Draco nodded, glancing at the clock sitting atop the mantle. "We've missed dinner."

"No matter, we'll just order something and eat here."

Draco sat quietly as his godfather ordered them two plates of whatever had been served for dinner that night. It turned out to be Shepherd's Pie. A glass of firewhiskey and a bottle of butterbeer were served with it. "So, you were marking second-years' papers?"

Severus nodded. "Did you want to help me?"

Draco shrugged his shoulders. "It might help me take my mind off of what I've learned today."

Severus nodded and stood up to retrieve them. "How was Charms class today?"

"It was Charms; it's never anything special."

"I'm sorry about that. How was Defense Against the Dark Arts?"

Draco sighed. "Professor Trendle tends to have us study the book much more often than we actually put anything to use. I'd like a bit more practice on most of the spells, but there isn't much I can do about it. I know you're not fond of him, and I know he's a werewolf, but I miss Professor Lupin in that respect. He never studied the book that much; he preferred for us to learn from actually facing what we're supposed to defend ourselves against."

Severus dropped the second-years' papers on the coffee table. "Ah, yes, I heard about the boggart. It seems the boggart took the form of me multiple times."

Draco smiled. "Yes, Longbottom's boggart especially. He couldn't get you to go away until he imagined you in one of his grandmother's hats."

Severus smirked. "Charming, I'm sure."

Draco looked at the papers. "What did they have to report to you about?"

"It's a paper on Swelling Solutions. I'm sure you know what it should include." Draco nodded; Potions was one of his favorite subjects, not only because his godfather was the teacher but because he genuinely liked the subject.

They'd eaten dinner, and they were in the middle of grading papers when a thought entered Draco's mind. "Uncle Severus?"

"Hmm?"

"What am I going to do if it doesn't stop?"

Severus shook his head. "I really don't know, Draco."