(A/N): Hello! Thank you so much for clicking on this story. Please note this is a sequel to a fic I have already published, called Draco Malfoy and the Death Eater's Daughter.

Hope you enjoy! :)

Draco Malfoy and the Heir of Slytherin

(or Eleanor Capulet and the Locked Box)

Summary:

Eleanor and Draco are back for their second year at Hogwarts.

Eleanor, terrified after learning that Voldemort isn't quite as gone as she believed, is committed to understanding her mother better, hoping that the knowledge will help prepare her for what's to come.

Draco wants to forget all of it ever happened. He's had an awful summer, and he wants to return to a life he understood, with goals he knows how to achieve.

But weird things start happening at Hogwarts again, and history has a way of making itself known. With muggleborn students terrorized, and Draco's cruel new mood, Eleanor must decide for herself where she draws the line and on which side she belongs.

chapter 1: summer correspondence

"I hear a voice, "You must learn to stand up
For yourself 'cause I can't always be around"
He says, when you gonna make up your mind?
When you gonna love you as much as I do?"

Winter - Tori Amos

"I'm on your side
Oh, when times get rough
And friends just can't be found
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down"

Bridge Over Troubled Water - Simon and Garfunkel

Eleanor Capulet was sick of it.

She had had it with being broke and not being able to buy anything for herself. And she was going to change that.

With the two and a half months she had on her own, away from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, she decided to take up a paper route. It didn't pay a lot, but it did give her just enough to buy the new Tori Amos album on cassette. Nell had been absolutely obsessed since the first time she heard it over a radio that summer, sitting on a bench and eating a popsicle at the mechanic shop in which her dad, William Capulet, worked.

It was just after she had returned home from that record store, Little Earthquakes banging against her leg in the crinkly cellophane, when she noticed the stately owl waiting by her window, a white rectangle tied around its ankle.

She thundered up the stairs to let the owl in, to deliver his letter from none other than Draco Malfoy, her best friend, and fellow Slytherin. She nearly tore it in half with excitement, desperate to read her first correspondence from the wizarding world since they had all gone home for the summer.

Eleanor,

How's your summer been? Mine's awful. Absolute rotten nightmare.

Father's angry about my exam results, as I expected, and about a million other things. He's been in a right mood since I've been home, and it's exhausting to deal with. Mother's been spending a lot of time in the garden to avoid him, but it's not like she even gets the worst of it.

I didn't tell them about the stone or you-know-who. Don't think it would do anything for father's temper.

They're still mad that I haven't given up on our friendship, but I've told them that I'd rather marry our house-elf than you, and they finally seemed to accept it, and have since stopped bothering me about it.

Anyway, I've been thinking… maybe Potter got it wrong and you-know-who is gone for good now. I mean, how can we even trust him to know what happened. He thought it was Snape up until then – and with everything else I think it's safe to say he's not exactly the brightest. So, let's just forget about it, alright?

Oh, I also managed to hide the Walkman. But how do I change the music on the tape? I'm sick of Kate Bush. She's begun to invade my dreams and I think if I have to listen to that album one more time I'll go mad.

Regards,

Draco Malfoy

She wrote back at once.

Draco,

I'm sorry to hear about your summer. Your grades were good, I don't understand why your dad's mad. My dad is just happy I didn't fail out. Just kidding. Kind of.

Good idea on not telling them. And, yes, I agree, if things get worse then we can decide from there. No use spending all summer looking over our backs and waiting to be killed, is there?

I got a job delivering newspapers so I'm going to have some more money this year. I thought you'd be happy to hear that. Maybe one day I can be just like you! (that was sarcasm, in case you couldn't tell.) I want to save up for an owl, or a cat, or anything really. Do you know how much they cost? Or… do you know how much one muggle pound is in wizarding money? Dad did the conversions last year but I don't remember them.

About the tape - you can't change it. If you want to listen to different music, you need to buy a new tape. If you send me some muggle money, I can get you one in London. I'd buy it for you, but I just blew all my savings on this new cassette – I'll show you in the fall.

What kind of music do you like? The Cure? Sonic Youth? Neil Young? I actually have no idea what music wizards listen to. Do you know if there are wizard music tapes?

From,

Nell

Draco's letter inspired Nell to write two more, one to Hermione Granger, and one to Harry Potter, as they both lived in muggle houses, so she could send them through the post, and wouldn't need to rely on their owls to reach her first.

Two weeks later, she received a reply. She found the letter waiting for her on her bed, when she was coming back from her latest babysitting gig. Not satisfied with the earnings on her paper route, Nell had gotten her dad to find out if any of his coworkers had kids, and if those kids needed watching. Her query had paid in droves.

The letter was addressed to Nell in the neat handwriting that could only be Hermione Granger's.

Dear Eleanor,

It was so wonderful to hear from you. A paper route sounds like a delightful way to earn some extra money and a wonderful use of your time. I hope it proves successful.

I've been spending the summer so far working through the work our Professors gave us for the holiday. Have you had a chance to look through it yet? It is quite a lot, and I hope your paper route won't interfere. Studies are most important, after all.

Ron's doing alright. The next time he owls me, I'll remind him to owl you as well. He's probably forgotten that you live with your muggle father, since you aren't muggleborn. I think trying to send him something in the post would be a waste of time. He barely understood my parents' jobs when I tried to explain it, and they're dentists.

As for Harry, I actually haven't heard from him yet, either from Hedwig or in the muggle post. I sent him a letter once I got home in case he had lost my address and another letter last week. Maybe he's been on holiday and he'll respond when he gets back. I hope he's alright. Has he mailed you?

Sincerely,

Hermione J. Granger

Eleanor read over Hermione's letter several times before she wrote out a response to tell her that she hasn't even looked at her books, and she managed to hold back in saying how impressively Hermione was able to imitate Professor McGonagall when she reminded Eleanor of her responsibilities. She was remiss to say that she had not yet heard from Harry, but had only written to him at the same time she had written Hermione, so maybe the letter was still in the mail.

A week and a half later, Eleanor had finally cracked open her summer work and was trudging through an essay on the importance of dittany in potion-making when she heard a tiny tap at her window.

A different owl, much more bedraggled than the first, came in. The sloppy handwriting was unmistakable as Ron's.

Nell -

Hermione reminded me to write you. Sorry I forgot and I've been busy.

Is she bothering you about homework? Her last letter was almost entirely about that, and how she wouldn't be able to help me over the summer. Between her and Percy, it's like I never left school.

Oh, also, I might have let it slip to Fred and George that you're an Icari. I'm sorry! It was an accident. I told them how you didn't want anyone to know, though, and I think they'll keep it a secret. They're probably going to bug you a bunch when they see you, though. Sorry.

If you come and visit this summer, you should try and play quidditch with us. I know you can't go on a broom, at least that's what Hermione said, but maybe you could just fly on your own. We don't care that it's not allowed – it'll only be us afterall.

Oh and since you're in the muggle world, you probably don't know about this, but there's this awful wizarding flu going around. My dad has been saying that it's going through the ministry and people are dropping left and right. It's not deadly, though – but you need this whole mandrake potion to fix it. With the rate of it, I'll be surprised if any mandrakes are left by the end of the summer.

Do you have a plan for Diagon Alley this fall? I was going to try and get something sorted with Harry and Hermione (as long as she swears not to ask to check over my essays unless she's going to fix them). Oh, by the way, have you heard from Harry at all? I've tried writing a few times, but Errol (that's this owl) keeps coming back empty. It's weird.

-Ron

Eleanor wrote back to Ron, commiserating about Hermione's scolding, and told him, just as she had told Hermione, that she had not heard from Harry, and it was quite strange.

She then spent the other half of the letter trying to express through writing how mad she was at Ron for letting it slip about her Icari status. She did not include that she was particularly angry that he had let it slip to Fred, of all people. She didn't want to know how it might have affected his opinion of her. Then she did her very best to not ask Ron for every detail of what Fred had said after he told him.

Draco's next letter came just the day after.

Eleanor,

Did you have a stroke at the end of your last letter? Sonic Youth? Neil Young? How can you possibly think I would know anything about muggle musicians? If you can even call them that.

On another note (another reason I think you've somehow managed to get stupider since the end of term) how on earth am I meant to give you muggle money? How would I know the conversion rate? Do you know the bartering system for donkeys? Come on, Capulet. Get a grip.

Wizards listen to a variety of music. Mother and father prefer instrumentals, and the school has a toad choir, if you haven't noticed. There are also a few bands that Blaise has told me about. His mum is being invited to concerts all the time, but I've never been to one.

I'm glad to hear you're trying to do something about your financial troubles. The quicker that's dealt with, the easier it will be to be seen with you in public.

By the way, things are still awful here. My father has managed to get even worse, though most of that is due to what he's been dealing with at work. Arthur Weasley (that's Ron's dad) has been proposing some legislation that is utter bollocks, and my dad has been dealing with it. My mother was even in my room the other week, going through my things, but she wouldn't say why. I think the Ministry has been threatening to do more raids for dark objects, and I think that Arthur Weasley might be behind it.

The next time I see Ron, I'm going to curse him for all of this. In a way, he's at fault for my awful summer.

And nevermind about the tape. I'll just continue to suffer.

Regards,

Draco Malfoy

P.S. Have you done any more research into your mother? Granger might have a book or two – maybe ask her.

Eleanor was reminded how the break away from Draco had actually been quite nice in a lot of ways. She went to her own cabinet of tapes and hunted through for something Draco might like, and she wouldn't miss too badly.

Eventually, she decided on The Smiths, as she had already played it to death, and her dad had the record, anyway. She packed it into the letter in her response, where she told Draco that she had no sympathy for him whatsoever, and, if he cursed Ron, then it would ruin all of the progress he made healing him. Though, Eleanor realized, that might be exactly why Draco was okay with doing it.

However, before she sent the letter, she decided to do the thing she had been procrastinating on since she got home.

Voldemort and his attack on Harry during their trip in the forbidden corridor had been the unwelcome companion in her mind this summer. She couldn't help but think about it before she went to bed, during the long stretches of her paper route, or while commercials played when she sat on the couch, catching up on all the shows she had missed while at Hogwarts. Voldemort's return, even in spectral form, meant that she would no longer be safe in the wizarding world. In a way, it meant she never had been safe at all.

When Voldemort had fallen, a year and a half after he killed her mother, Ottilie Hemlock, Eleanor and her dad were able to return to England from America, where they had hidden in fear for their lives. Eleanor's mother had been a Death Eater in Voldemort's inner circle, and she had absconded and left after she met Eleanor's muggle father. They got married, she got pregnant, and then shee hauled them all off to hide far away from England, and hopefully, Voldemort. But it wasn't enough, and just a few months after Eleanor was born, Ottilie had learned that Voldemort was hunting her down to kill her.

Fearing for the lives of Eleanor and William, she left them both to face off against the man who had once been her master. It resulted in nothing more than Ottilie's death, leaving Eleanor without a mother, and forcing her and William to remain hidden, perhaps for the rest of their lives. They were only freed from this isolation a year later, when Voldemort's attempted an attack on the Potter family, and baby Harry had survived the killing curse. Voldemort had supposedly died.

William and Eleanor returned to London, and Eleanor thought her little family was safe now, no longer in fear of the man who terrorized the whole wizarding community. This was only until she learned last year that Voldemort was back, in fact, and, despite his lack of power, was doing everything he could to rise back up into the horrifying wizard he had once been.

It was this realization that propelled Eleanor to look further into her mother's history and who she had been to try to understand the choices she made. It was a small step, but an important one, Nell figured, if she ever hoped to survive a potential return to power from Voldemort.

And the first step, she knew, was in finally going back over that box of things her mum had left behind.

Eleanor had ignored that box the second she got her invitation to attend Hogwarts. Back then, she was still terrified of being sorted into Slytherin, or in becoming an evil witch like her mother. She was scared that by looking through the box, her mother's evil essence could somehow seep into her mind, and would guarantee her placement into Slytherin, securing her with an evil future and a path from which she wouldn't be able to stray. Her efforts had been futile, however, when Eleanor was sorted into Slytherin just the same. And now, that box could give her some answers to actually help Eleanor become the opposite of who her mother had been.

This didn't make her fear it any less.

But with Draco's owl waiting, she finally pulled a chair from the hall into her dad's closet, stood on her tippy-toes, and pulled the wretched thing down.

In her bedroom she played her Tori Amos cassette and opened the lid of the cardboard box, taking quick glances at the owl, who she decided represented Draco, to try to find strength in it.

Inside was more or less the same of what she had remembered.

A polaroid picture of her father cooking pancakes, twelve years younger than how he looked now, and taken by her mother, behind the camera, in their American kitchen.

A sweater from the University of Chicago, one of the cities they had stopped in. She guessed that her father didn't like to see it much, since it was still in this old box.

Another stack of pictures, these ones including baby Eleanor sleeping in her mom's arms. Looking at these always made Eleanor feel sick in a way, both terrified of the woman who had caused such horror, and desperately longing for the motherly love that she was too small to remember. In the time since she had last seen these photos, Eleanor realized that she was beginning to resemble her mother in a way. They had the same long mousy brown hair, and the same sharp jaw. She wondered what else she might have inherited, and if the evil of her mother's past could be found written in her bones, or whispering in the beat of her heart.

At the bottom, she found the same old key that she always did. Her father had no idea what it was, and explained that he had never seen it until the morning he woke up to find Ottilie gone, a note explaining that she had to face Voldemort herself. The key was under the note.

It was always the biggest mystery of the old box, and when Eleanor was much younger, she'd bug her dad for hours to see it again, running around to try it in every lock she could find in the neighborhood. She gave up, eventually, chalking it up to just another of the unanswered questions her mum had left behind.

But, now, with a year behind her in the wizarding world, she had a whole new set of locks she could try out. She took a photo of the key with her Polaroid camera, and included it in her letter to Draco, asking him if he recognized what it could be.

Two weeks, just before the start of school, she received another reply from Draco.

Nell,

You absolute dolt. Merlin. I'm speechless. You've rendered me speechless.

That's a Gringott's key. The goblin bank.

You buffoon. You idiot.

Your mum left you a vault. I bet it's a vault for the whole Hemlock family.

Bring it with you to Diagon Alley. I'll show you what to do. I can't believe you. Honestly.

Regards,

Draco

P.S. I like the tape. Thanks.