AN: I do not own Harry Potter.

A Time Skip Forward

Lucius Malfoy sat back at his desk. His paperwork for his business completed, he set his mind once more to the problem of his family's survival. He did not believe that the madness of the Dark Lord could be healed, and surviving under a mad man that would mistreat his servants and survival was conditional was not the way forwards. His son had shared an interesting story from Harry Potter about an unusually sentient diary, and he had spent a lot of his off time researching that recently. Now that he believed that Harry Potter had actually destroyed a good section of the Dark Lord's soul, his belief that the current Dark Lord could not regain his faculties and actually start heading into a sustainable direction and actually follow ideologies was further cemented. Therefore, he had allowed his son to further talk to the Golden Trio about what he believed, besides what it seemed he had already blabbed. His son had had his beliefs challenged as well, and had shared the group's counters. They had made him think as well. Besides the belief that muggleborn witches and wizards, as well as squibs, had no place in the wizarding world, and all the beliefs that really stemmed off from that, his son had reported that there were many beliefs that the golden trio mirrored.

However, there seemed to be an important consideration that before last summer he had not really put much weight on: the Golden Trio fought for survival. As part of a group that he had become such an important part of that had started for the very same reason, he could respect that. His vow that he had sworn to Diggory and Potter last summer was all about survival and making sure that the two young men could survive past leaving the burning cemetery.

He took a deep breath of the fresh spring air that flowed through the open window, filled once again with the scent of green leaves and the first flowers. His peacocks were squawking beneath the window somewhere, providing a louder tone that mixed with the native sparrows and the returning robins.

Speaking of said vow from the cemetery, it could be said that it was still active. While it was not really on anyone's mind then, there could be pursuing repercussions from going against Potter even now. However, he still had vowed to the Dark Lord, but even then, he had already found a way to transfer those vows to another.

There was a very annoying reason that slavery and servitude vows were not illegal in Wizarding Britain. It was because that magical vows to serve another for the entire family line were still magically enforced by those family lines. There were ways to get around that, such as disownment or the lord releasing them magically, but normally there was no way to be released in which the servant was the freed without contacting his immediate lord or head of house. Seeing as his father had sworn his family and then died basically as soon as he himself graduated from Hogwarts, he had had a very narrow window of time to get himself disowned once he learned what the Knights of Walpurgis were willing to do. He had also worshipped his dad to an extent at that age. Despite what was currently the fact, he could, with a number of factors that had already been completed, switch his allegiance over to another. The only other that he was willing to consider was Harry Potter.

Believe it or not, Lucius Malfoy had followed more than one leader. His very first leader, and one he followed even when he was ill, was his father. His father had been a master strategist financially, and Lucius had followed closely his example in finance and was able to apply them to warfare. His second leader had been the Dark Lord Voldemort, but it had been a leader that was going downhill mentally as fast as his father physically, and he ended up carrying a bunch of the weight strategically. The third leader he had followed was the Minister, and there followed had been used loosely. The beginning had been much closer to the typical type of following, especially as it was close to his trial and the clean-up following when the war had ended temporarily, but he had quickly gained a reputation for having knowledgeable replies, knowing how to spin things to make them palatable for the politicians who were more concerned with their image than their reputation for being fair. In that, he metaphorically doffed his cap to Madam Bones, for while she may have some concern to her image, she followed her reputation of strict fairness and following the law while enforcing it with reliability, even as second in command to the likes of Rufus Scrimgeor. In fact, the two of them became differing views quietly respectful of each other while trying to get things done with a cabinet of fair weather allies that were more concerned with what they had for breakfast, who they were seen with, or how the laws being updated affected their popularity over what was being done with those laws.

The one leader that he would not ever follow was Albus Dumbledore. He was a war-leader and teacher, and it showed in how he dealt with everything. He was ruthless in knowing how to bend the laws or say things that would make things reasonable. He had already dealt with somebody who viewed all their people as pawns, and he was not looking to exchange it for another. He had no idea how Snape did it.

He huffed at his thoughts. He had already started sounding out people in order to set things up that they could, if it worked out favourably, that the Death Eaters en mass would speak to Potter. He could understand much of their disquiet; Potter was a boy his son's age with none of his son's training in this world, whose survival so far seemed accidental, and seemed to have no concept of his own life's value. However, while he seemed to struggle with theoretical magic, he excelled in practical magic. He may have difficulty with minuities, but he excelled at giving his magic direction and emotion. An example of this was his ability to use his patronus against dementors in third year so soon after learning the spell, never mind that the first time he thought he was attacked by dementors it had actually been Draco and others. He still later succeeded, as was written to him by Draco. Once again though, he was younger than his son, and able to take the Cruciatus Curse twice before getting up to duel Voldemort. He shouldn't be able to do that with the standard home life, though he did know someone else who had been able to stand quickly after as well, Severus Snape.

Meanwhile, he had sent a letter.

"Hey."

Harry Potter turned to meet the owner of the voice, Draco Malfoy, with his fellow Slytherins as they were coming up beside him and the other Gryffindors in the hall at the doorway for Transfiguration.

"What's up?"

"I've got a book I think you would like."

"Should we meet in the room after dinner?"

"That sounds like a plan. We don't have Snape after, do we?"

"No, that's tomorrow," answered Ron, who, while he may have issues studying, could memorize positions and placements more easily.

Harry was looking forward to after dinner, but not too impatient. No, the person that matched that description was Hermione. He looked over as he ate his meal, and added Ginny to that description as well. It seemed that Draco and Hermione alternated between weeks to bring up a book, and it normally reminded him that Draco was in a similar academic ranking as Hermione. Not that he didn't try, but not doing better than Dudley had started a trend that he still struggled to break of not doing as good as he could in a class setting. Either way, he was not waiting long before his friends were done eating, and they were heading to the room.

Once they were all there, Draco handed him a letter, which was inside the book he took out of his bag.

"I know you don't think well of him, but my Father sent me a letter to give to you."

"Okay..." Harry dragged out. "Yeah, he's fairly neutral in my mind. He's attacked me once in a group setting and once by himself, but he also got me and Diggory out of the fire at the end of the third task."

"He's attacked you by himself?"

"Back in second year when I manipulated him into freeing Dobby, Dobby kept him from getting the spell off by knocking him down the walkway with his magic. He left rather quickly after that."

"Do you know what spell it was?" asked Draco.

"No, I was just in shock that this man I had met once before with the Minister was going to attack me with his wand," said Harry, untangling his hair out of his glasses. "But then that was the Minister that was going to kill my godfather even though more than one person had told him my godfather was innocent and had not received a trial before being put into jail."

"He's still the Minister right now, but his term is coming up to an end."

"Oh, right, aren't the terms for Minister for Magic for six years?" asked Hermione. "I think I remember that because here they have term for two years longer than the ones in the world my parents live."

"Aren't you going to read that?" said Ron, bringing back the conversation to the letter in Harry's hand, and noticing that Draco was getting a little antsy.

It was quiet when the letter was read.

"Huh."

"Interesting..."

"I'd like to talk to an adult about this, but there's nobody in the school I feel comfortable going to with this."

"Yeah, Snape's not going to listen to you, mate. McGonagol's tied too closely to Dumbledore, and has already ignored us this year. Flitwick doesn't seem to get normal human interactions any more than Luna, otherwise he would be a good resource. Sprout is always in the Greenhouse or with the Hufflepuffs, but she would also want to go to the Ministry about this and that is something that we do not want in this instance."

Draco nodded, "With Professor Snape's involvement with the same group as my dad, and his ties to Dumbledore, he could either be the best person or the worst person to get advise from."

"He's gotten better since he apologized."

"No, he's not, he just broadened his range. I guess it's better that he's not just focused on you, but he's not suddenly a great potion's teacher."

"I guess it's like those famous football players hired because they were a good player, but aren't that great at coaching," muttered Harry.

"Why don't we talk to both Flitwick and Snape at the same time? Both know about keeping secrets, and Flitwick would have to have a neutral perspective."

"Why do you say that?"

"Flitwick is a goblin, isn't he? Or at least part? He's got a goblin name. Verb first, then noun. Like Griphook's name, who's a cart driver."

"Oh, that's so obvious."

"Right? He doesn't act like the goblins at the bank."

"What better camouflage is there? He acts like the humans around him, and pretends he's a midget."

"How'd he get around the rule about goblins not being allowed wands? Right, he'd have to be part."

"Isn't Snape technically part of the Order? I mean, he went to the Order meetings, because we know he walked to and out of them," stated Ron.

"Well, wouldn't an Order member want to fight against less people? I mean, just because Snape is an Order member doesn't mean he's a light wizard any more than Lupin stays human during the full moon because he's human the rest of the month. Its even the same type of fallacy."

"Thanks Hermione," laughed Draco.

"I think I should also ask Cedric too. He knows a lot more about this stuff than I do, and he's a lot better at explaining things," finished Harry.

A day later, Snape was headed to the Headmistress's office when he heard a voice that he unfortunately recognized. The Dark Lord was in the room somehow with the Headmistress. Upon knocking and being let in, he didn't see the man, nor did he hear another breathing during the short time period he was in the room with her, even upon getting her into a conversation. Upon leaving he stayed by the door out of sight to see if he could hear him through the wall. He did, talking to the Headmistress that he had just been talking to. He closed his eyes in realization that once again he was in between vows, and this time he had gotten himself into a harder place than he thought he could get out. Upon walking to his office, he found his evening was not yet over, as a group of students were waiting for him outside his office with his fellow coworker, Filius Flitwick.