Last-chapter recap: Avoka met Harry's friends and some friendly-enough Slytherins, demonstrating where his and Draco's personalities differ in doing so. The Harrys struggled against their own magical nature to forge ahead in their mission to shut down Vaati's disastrously-placed power generator.
Content warning for fantasy racism in this chapter.
"You are not going into the Slytherin common room!" Draco declared. "I won't stand for it!" He locked his arms around Avoka's slim waist and hauled the boy back as he attempted to follow Draco's classmates through the door. It was an undignified action (practically something a Muggle would do) but his Impediment Jinxes, Leg-Locker Curses, and desperate Full Body-Binds had kept wearing off within seconds. Crabbe and Goyle had also given up on restraining Avoka after the young government agent had elbowed the wind out of them, wriggled loose, and clocked their heads together. Now it fell to Draco himself to preserve his dignity.
Avoka raised an arm behind him punched Draco in the back of his head—hard enough to make him see stars. While Draco was busy struggling to save himself from planting his jaw on the floor, the violent little weasel pried his way free. Avoka stepped forward and wheeled around on one of the pegs of his wooden sandals.
"Just how do you intend to stop me?" the Sheikah asked, grinning behind his mask. "Will you hit me with a curse intended to cause harm, thus giving me an excuse to kick your scrawny arse? I bet my magic will work better on you than yours does on me. And if you'd prefer a good old-fashioned fight, well—" he brought up his fists and went into a half-crouch, "I'm always up for it."
Draco glared at him. "What is wrong with you?"
How could any version of himself turn out so uncouth? The Muggles around Castle Town, annoyingly gregarious and foolishly helpful as they were, had demonstrated that violence wasn't necessarily the first non-magical solution for everything. He wasn't so sure about the Muggles back in the Dark World, but the ones here used words for conflicts and swords for monster-slaying. Why, then, was this Sheikah so quick with his fists? He'd hit Draco three times already!
Avoka straightened his stance. The amusement in his scarlet eyes turned to seriousness. "People never listen to me, so I've had to find ways to get their full attention," he said. "I could delve into it, but I figure you wouldn't want me to start any deep discussions with you in front of your classmates." He gave Warrington, the Prefect on door-guarding duty, a little wave.
Warrington returned the gesture after some hesitation. "What are you?" he asked bluntly. "Like, are you human, or...?"
Avoka gave him a flat look. "Do I look like a Zora? Have I got gills? Yes, I'm a human. Just one a little different from you."
Draco flinched. He did look like a Zora, and he did have gills. Did that make him—? He sucked in a horrified breath. Did that make him less of a wizard than this near-Muggle?!
Avoka muttered a curse. "Sorry, Malfoy. Wasn't thinking," he said in a low voice.
"Did you say something?" Warrington asked.
"Not to you," Avoka answered. He hooked an arm through Draco's and dragged him into the temporary Slytherin quarters. "Now, we'll just be going!"
Draco gave one last tug in an effort to stop the hard-headed Sheikah. "No—!"
It was too late. The stares were upon them. While few lower-year students were particularly well-known throughout their Houses, Draco had made a point of establishing himself as one of the most socially powerful students in Slytherin by second year. Everyone knew him and the prestigious magical families he came from.
That fame had done nothing but work against him this year.
Draco forced his dimensional double away from him and stood tall with an air of noble bearing. Frowning down his nose at the peons looking between him and the Sheikah with wide eyes, he declared, "You all look like a school of gaping goldfish. Close your mouths and mind your own business." He towed Avoka by the wrist toward his dorm.
There was a cry in English. "Wait a minute, Draco!" Pansy pounced on his arm. "Who is that? Why does he look so weird?"
The girl frowned and reached out to seize Draco and Avoka by their pointy chins. Turning their faces this way and that, she asked, "Actually…Why does he kind of look like a more Asian version of you, Draco?" Pansy released them to put her hands on her hips. It was a lucky thing; from his expression, the thought of biting her had definitely crossed Avoka's mind.
"Speak Hylian or leave me out of the conversation. I don't know your weird language," Avoka grumbled, rubbing his chin. "Manhandling a federal agent is a crime, you know. I could have you fined if I wanted to."
"Ha! If you're a federal agent, I'm the Queen," Pansy scoffed in Hylian.
Avoka stamped his foot. His wooden sandal clacked crisply against the hard floor. "I protect the Queen!"
"Unfortunately, he's not lying," Draco admitted. How this classless brute had managed to get himself adopted and trained by the commander of Hyrule Castle's cadre of Royal Guard agents, he had no idea. "Avoka, introduce yourself."
The Sheikah elbowed him. "You're not one of my superiors. Don't give me orders," he huffed. "But fine. Hello, I'm Avoka of Hateno, a trainee of the Royal Guard. A.K.A. a federal agent in direct service to the Crown. My division is in charge central intelligence and protecting the royal family." He gave Pansy a pointed scowl. "Consider me Draco Malfoy, but less condescending and more Gryffindor."
Pansy made a face. "Ew, Gryffindor? Like my Draco would ever get Sorted there!"
Avoka made a knife appear in his hand. Despite his commander's earlier scolding, he kept on doing that. Since the boy had made no attempts to stab him yet, Draco was learning to ignore it. "I'm loud, brash, and kick arse—what can I say?" the Sheikah said airily as he twirled the weapon through his fingers. "Sounds like a Gryffindor to me." His knife vanished, and he fluttered his empty fingers at Pansy's surprised expression. "Ooh, look, I've even got magic."
"Granger only explained the House system to him less than an hour ago. He's as Slytherin as I am," Draco informed Pansy in Hylian. "The brat's just messing with us, trying to prove some kind of point."
"I'm only two months younger than you!" Avoka cried in offense. "We don't have the same birthday month, so the interdimensional time difference barely counts."
"It counts enough," Draco sniffed.
"He's here to 'prove a point'?" Pansy repeated. She gave Avoka a suspicious frown. "A point about what?"
"I'm not trying to prove anything," Avoka protested. "I only want to learn more about your culture from the people that I've heard would be able to give me the most honest, unbiased account of things. Is that such a crime?" He gave Pansy wide, guileless puppy eyes.
As Pansy's face lit up, Draco's eyes narrowed to slits behind his dark sunglasses. "What's your angle?" he muttered in French. No version of Draco Malfoy would ever not be up to something—he was certain of that. While this boy seemed as incomprehensibly altruistic as the Potters, Yellow had shown Draco that it was possible to be both a deceiver and a Goody Two-Shoes.
Avoka's eyes curled in a wicked grin. "Oh? So you know Hytopé, too?" he said in oddly-accented French.
Draco jerked back in surprise, then hissed. If he'd had any fins, they would have flared like red warning flags. "Why the hell do you know this language?" he demanded. "According to you, you're nothing more than a glorified security guard!"
Somehow, the Sheikah's expression became even smugger. "Who's to say my guardian doesn't want her protégé to be well-learned?"
Draco didn't know what specific details about this kid kept ringing as highborn to his socialite senses, but he maintained his certainty that his dimensional alternate wasn't half as ordinary as he claimed. For one thing, commoners could only afford to learn second and third languages out of necessity, and he hadn't heard a word of pure, non-garbled French vocabulaire in this country until it had started coming out of this boy's mouth.
"That's a lie, and we both know it," Draco growled.
Avoka arched one fine gray eyebrow and leaned in toward him. "Do we, though?" the boy purred. "Can you prove it?"
What was up with this infuriating near-Muggle? Why was he so confident in everything? He had to be someone important. Commoners who understood their place in society were never unaware of their status; in a room of their betters, they quickly became wallflowers shrinking to the fringes. Avoka, being a member of Hyrule Castle's staff, would have been deeply "in the know". Something was giving his alternate the spine and poise of an aristocrat; Draco was going to find out where this brat got the gall to act like they were equals if it…well, not if it killed him, but the principle was similar.
Draco skulked after his double as Pansy led him over to one of the velvet seats salvaged from the structurally unsound Slytherin dungeons. He sat there and simmered with resentment while Pansy enthusiastically explained the concepts of blood purity, wizarding politics, and general points of culture to a smiling and nodding Avoka.
For someone who claimed to be an orphan scooped up from nothing and trained into a royal guard dog, Avoka sure had a lot of questions about and understanding of different political systems. When told about the different levels of bureaucracy of the Ministry of Magic, he was inspired to go on a yarn about a country to the west called "Holodrum" that had adopted a representative democracy since the Great Flood. Like representative democracies were a thing commonly understood by medieval peasants. If this kid wasn't a prince playing at being a pauper, Draco would eat his shoes.
Pansy was currently explaining the differences between mages, nonhuman magical peoples, and magical creatures to Avoka. Under the heavy siege of Pansy's traditional pureblood rhetoric, the soft-hearted near-Muggle's enthusiastic façade was slipping. The smiling crinkles at the edges of his oversized eyes had become lines of strain and one of his hands was clenching and unclenching against his thigh.
"Your world is so deeply messed up," Avoka muttered in French for Draco's high-tuned ears after half an hour. "What's wrong with you people?"
"—so instead of servants, we usually keep house elves instead," Pansy went on. "It's a great deal on both sides! House elves work for free, hardly need any living space, don't require much food, and never complain about how you treat them. On the elves' end, they need to work or they'll turn suicidal, so when you really think about it, we're saving their lives!"
"But why can't they not work?" Avoka asked. "I mean, is anyone sure that they need to work to live?"
"The elves told us so. Obviously." Pansy rolled her eyes. "Sometimes magical creatures are just meant to be useful. House elves are like that. Goblins, not so much. They're good for handling money and guarding vaults, but a lot harder to keep in line." She rubbed her chin. "No idea why. You'd think they'd feel privileged, being able to run the banks."
Avoka dropped his face into one hand. "Draco, save me," he pleaded in quiet French.
Draco took a pointed sip of the tea he'd had Crabbe fetch for him while he watched Pansy cheerfully beat Avoka's spirits into the ground. The boy had asked for information, and it was being given to him. Why was it Draco's problem if his double lacked the ability to face the harshness of a real social hierarchy? It wasn't his fault that Hyrule was a nation of bleeding hearts.
"I swear I'll tell you some of the truth if you get me out of here," Avoka whispered desperately. Pansy was still nattering on about the ungratefulness of Goblins, with occasional tangents about the unwarranted pompousness of merpeople. "If I hear about one more race of people you wizards keep enslaved or classify as magical animals, I'm going to lose it."
Satisfaction curled the edges of Draco's lips. He hadn't expected the boy to arrange his own defeat. How convenient, for this fool to humble himself without any effort expended on Draco's part!
"Pansy, I think the foreigner has had enough for a first lesson," Draco said. "You've given him a lot to think about."
The girl beamed. "I have, haven't I?" she said brightly. "It's so nice, being able to tell a fresh set of ears about these things. Everyone in Slytherin already knows, and it's not like it's worth explaining any of that to a Mudblood. They'd just get all offended. It's like they've forgotten whose world it is that they're invading!" She huffed and crossed her arms. "In fact…where do you think Granger might be? I want to make her cry."
"Either the library or Gryffindor Tower, as usual," Draco told her. He set his tea on the small table next to him and leaned forward in his seat to snag Avoka's wrist. "Now, why don't we review what you've learned today, hmm?"
The Sheikah waved his hand at the common room and mumbled in French, "Let's get out of here first. If all you green-ties think that way, I just…I don't…" He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head.
A faint pang squeezed Draco's heart. He understood what it was like to know how his classmates treated those of lesser blood and fear it. It didn't make quite as much sense for the Sheikah to feel that way, fully human and provably magical as he was, but he could empathize.
Annoyingly enough. When had this "empathy" thing started becoming such a regular occurrence? It had to be Red's fault, he was sure.
"There are plenty of places to talk in a building as large as this," Draco told Avoka, leading him toward the door.
Blaise poked his head out of the dorms as they made their way out. "Hey, aren't you going to bring him over here?" he asked with disappointment. "I wanted to talk to him, too."
"Pansy just told him how our world works," Draco replied in English. "Since Hyrule is all sunshine and rainbows and holding hands, he'll need a moment to process."
"What is Hyrule like?" Blaise pressed. "You haven't said anything about your stay in Castle Town, and we've been dying to know. That's part of what I was hoping to chat with this ninja kid about."
"It was fine. Hyrule is fine," Draco said tersely. "Nothing worth gushing about." If he admitted how nice it had been not to worry about his make-up and glasses, and how heartening it had been to see beings even more inhuman than him still be treated as people, he imagined even Blaise—eccentric and progressive as he was—wouldn't be able to respect him after that. If the rest of his classmates learned he'd been living among the enemy (Muggles) for over a week without doing anything to establish his superiority over them, they'd tear him apart.
Blaise bounded up and put his hands on his shoulders. At Draco's side, Avoka bristled and slid his hands up his sleeves. Draco paused for a moment, evaluating whether the boy was likely to hit him again. Neither he nor Blaise had offered an insult, nor made any physical threats, so why…?
"What's up with him?" Blaise asked in English. "Was he seriously going to protect you from me right then? You? How many times has he thumped or threatened you this morning?"
Draco whipped his head around to stare at his double. Avoka, protecting him? Why? By all accounts, Avoka thought he was a wart on an Erumpent's arse. The prickly Sheikah could often be found in the orbit of Link, the Potters, or Hagrid, snapping at Draco when he insulted any of those six.
"He's probably just afraid of what you 'green-ties' might do to him. As I said, Pansy gave him an explanation of our social hierarchy," Draco said. "Or, in the highly unlikely chance he's decided to take me under his wing like he has with the Potters, he could be wary of what my housemates might do, should certain things be spoken of."
Blaise laughed. "Oh, that's—!" His grin froze, then fell. "Wait, that's actually kind of sad. What does he think we'd do to you?"
Draco gave him an empty smile. "What wouldn't you do to me?" he asked. The question was only half-joking. He'd already thought through all the possible ways his ruining would be carried out. Best case, his reputation would be so wrecked at Hogwarts that it would become impossible for his father to send him to Durmstrang, a school with an unspoken policy of turning away anyone less than a half-blood. He'd have to go to Beauxbatons instead, where he'd at least speak the language, be close to the sea, and have a couple of secretly Zora-blooded cousins around his age to talk to.
Worst case, he'd wind up dead. There were some upper-years in his House who were nearly full Death Eaters already—just missing their Dark Marks due to the Dark Lord's absence. At the start of this year, Draco had looked up to them. He'd been taught that such people were the brave vanguard for protecting the heritage of purebloods, working to eliminate Mudbloods and creature-bloods from all aspects of magical society. Now, they were the ones most likely to hit him with a Killing Curse for daring to infiltrate the pureblood ranks of Slytherin and parade around like he was better than them. It wouldn't matter that he hadn't known he was putting on airs at the time and that it wasn't his fault (or even his parents' or grandparents' fault) that he had been born like this. Willingly or not, Draco had betrayed the purebloods he associated with in a way that couldn't be repented for.
There was worry and hurt in Blaise's eyes now. "You don't really think that I would do anything like that to you, do you? Or Vincent and Gregory? Millicent, Pansy? We're friends, aren't we?"
Draco put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm fairly sure that you wouldn't," he said. "No one else will do anything, either, as long as you don't give them a reason."
When Draco started pulling away, Blaise dragged him in closer by his shoulders. "Are you seriously fearing for your life?" he asked in a low voice. "Should I tell Professor Snape? Because being afraid of people making sport of you is one thing, but I don't think that's what you were talking about."
"Don't cause me problems, and none shall occur," Draco muttered back. He pried Blaise's hands off of him, haughtily brushed his shoulders to show the common room his offense at being touched without leave, and pulled Avoka out the door.
After a few turns, a flight of stairs, a few more turns, and closing the door of an unused classroom behind them, it was time to talk. Avoka snapped his fingers impatiently as he walked out into the middle of the room. "Cast one of those silencing spells on me, will you?" he asked. "I want to scream, but I don't want to blow out your ears."
That was remarkably considerate of someone who'd punched him in the head half an hour ago. Draco put on the Potter-acquired industrial earmuffs he'd started keeping in his robe pocket at all times and cast a Silencing Charm on Avoka. The Sheikah faced the heavens and let out a half-muted screech before trailing off into a furious rant.
"I can't believe what you Dark World mages have done with all the power your world's balance has granted you! How could you subjugate beings just as sapient as you are? What would possess you to do so?!" The boy began pacing on the dusty rug covering the middle of the stone floor. "How do you look at beings similar to Zoras and go 'ah yes, we'll treat those like annoyingly big, clever fish'. How do you justify not only withholding full legal personhood from Goblins, but also treating them like 'money-grubbing gargoyles' because you people won't let them take any work in your broken society outside of banking? Why are mages like you and Professor Flitwick more legally vulnerable just because of stupid blood nonsense?" With his voice now returned to full volume, he screamed into his hands.
Wow, the near-Muggle was surprisingly worked up about this. Draco had, perhaps, expressed somewhat similar thoughts (occasionally), far away from where anyone might hear him, but he'd never gone into a full tantrum about it. He leaned against the wall and folded his arms to watch the show.
"You want the truth? I came here to learn what, exactly, turned you into the pompous, bigoted prick you are. Because we have a lot of things in common—'pompous' and 'prick' among them—but all your hang-ups about people being the 'wrong' kind of human and not being able to tell the difference between a magical animal and a person made no sense. So yes, I lied a little." Avoka straightened and adjusted his uniform collar. "This was an investigation into the differences between your society and ours. Commander Impa expects a report after we return to Hyrule Castle, and let me tell you, the details are not going to look good."
Draco stiffened with alarm. "You can't report all of that!" he cried. "We need help from you people!"
"And you'll receive it! We're not like you; we wouldn't let children starve because they're the 'wrong sort'," Avoka said, his eyes narrowing with disdain. "However, my people deserve to know how they will be viewed by yours so they can brace themselves accordingly."
"You can't." Draco peeled away from the wall. "That's how the witch-hunts happened, you know? Muggles killed a whole bunch of their own trying to get to us, just because they feared what mages could do and decided a genocide was in order."
"Oh, a genocide, you say?" Avoka gave a mirthless bark of laughter. "Like wiping out all the 'filthy Mudbloods and Muggle pigs' to make magical society safe and 'pure' again?"
"Not everyone thinks that way in the Dark World," Draco said quickly. "In fact, most don't. My family and Pansy's are outliers, even among purebloods. The general opinion of mages toward Muggles is mere separatism. Us over here and them over there. This school has plenty of muggleborns in it, and at least two creature-blood teachers. Hagrid is a half-giant, but he managed to land a professorship here."
Avoka scowled. "Your father had that poor man sent to prison over false allegations, and then you attempted to have one of his beloved animals executed earlier this year," he said icily. "I'm sure that had nothing to do with his heritage whatsoever. Nothing at all."
Draco winced. The Harrys had already taken turns telling him what a git he'd been. He stood staunchly by his opinion that hippogriffs were more appropriate for fifth-years than third-years; however, pushing for Buckbeak's execution in exchange for an annoyed scratch had been a bit much. His father was the one who'd come up with that plan in the first place and Draco had just played along. Father had been really into the idea, so Draco had done his best to please him.
"How did you learn that, if Hagrid hardly speaks Hylian?" he chanced inquiring. Inside his shoes, his toes curled anxiously.
"Because Link has been learning English and I like asking questions. Hagrid told me not to be 'hard on you', by the way." Avoka circled around him. "He said you were raised by supporters of that 'Dark Lord' that no one can seem to speak the name of—people who might have taught you some foul things."
Draco pressed his lips tightly together. That oaf knew too damned much for someone with such loose lips. "I was raised in a rather conservative household," he phrased delicately. "The Blacks and the Malfoys are some of the oldest and purest family Houses in Britain, so it's to be expected. We're considered pillars of magical tradition in our society."
Avoka put his hands on his hips and stared him down. "If I asked Ron, what would he have to say about that?"
"Tch, like a Weasley would tell you anything without their stupid blood-traitor spin on it." Draco rolled his eyes. "Ask Granger instead. She's relatively new to magical society and she's done quite a lot of reading up on it, I'm sure. Muggleborns like that are always convinced they understand more than they actually do, but she's too foolishly honest to thread her political opinion into anything without making it obvious."
Avoka's chin lifted up in challenge. "You, a pureblood, are suggesting I ask a 'Mudblood' for advice?"
"Don't call her that unless you want her or Weasley to hex you," Draco warned. "But yes, I am. If you haven't noticed, I've had to adapt to a very different set of circumstances lately." He lowered his sunglasses to show the inhuman eyes behind them. "It's led to me being forced to reconsider my allies, among other things."
"It's shaken you enough so that you realize your world is messed up, but not enough to rock the boat over it."
Draco sent him a glare. He wasn't a coward; he was pragmatic. What did this boy know of the dangerous social waters he now had to navigate? "I live in the same dorm as classmates who might kill me if they found out I was less than human, Avoka. In this world, they'd have a great many forests to hide the body in and no Aurors to hunt them down," he said sharply. "I'll leave the 'boat-rocking' to the people who don't have bloody gills. Granger is loud-mouthed and self-righteous enough to be steered in a useful direction on that front, if you want to have a go at it."
Avoka stared at him. "I'm sorry, what? You have classmates who would kill you? There are students at this school who would resort to murder because you've turned a little green?"
Draco sighed. "You sat through a half-hour of pureblood ideology, and that's the deepest analysis you can manage?"
"I'm not going to bother applying logical analysis to bigotry because such malice is, from its root, irrational, unfounded, and an excuse for horrible people in power to aim society at their personal enemies." Avoka's eyes were bright with a passionate fire. "I'm telling your headmaster about this. If there are potential killers in his school, he ought to know."
Draco leveled his Magic Rod at his double. "Petrificus Totalus!" As Avoka stiffened and fell like a chopped tree, Draco stormed over to him. "You! Will! Not!" he shrieked.
Now he understood why the Potters had been so prickly about answering questions about why they were so odd in certain ways. It felt like having someone pick up one of the fundamental threads that made up who you were and give it a sharp yank. He had endured enough upsets to his life this year! Why couldn't Professor Snape or Blaise or this violent near-Muggle leave him the hell alone so he could sort things out on his own terms?
"I will tell who I want to tell, and you will keep your mouth shut," Draco spat. "Nobody speaks for a Malfoy unless commanded to. You haven't earned the right!"
Avoka rolled to his feet and stood up, slapping the dust off of his dark uniform. "Beating me over the head with your ego to disguise how terrified you are isn't going to be effective," he said. "I deal with literal royalty day in and day out. A little lord like you can't scare me."
"I know spells far worse than the ones I've used against you," Draco growled, showing his teeth. "What about a Limb Amputation Hex? Or an Entrails-Expelling Curse?"
"If you kill me, you'll have all of Hyrule baying for your blood," Avoka said matter-of-factly. "I won't explain why, but that claim is not in any way an exaggeration."
Like so many things about this irritating mystery of a boy, that knocked some of the wind from Draco's sails. "Who are you?!"
The boy shrugged. "A loyal Shadow in service to the Crown." He reached out and grasped Draco's forearm. "Look, you should tell someone that you feel your life is at risk. If not the Headmaster, then at least your guardian. If it's just anxiety, then there are ways to manage that—like switching you to another House or something."
"That's not how Houses work—"
"And if it's a legitimate threat, then those students can be marked for expulsion once you're back in your world. In the meantime, steps can be taken to ensure your safety," Avoka continued.
"Stop treating me like I'm your precious Princess Zelda!" Draco snapped. Avoka flinched and let go of him. "You aren't my bodyguard and my business is none of yours. Don't pretend you care just because we share the same face. I'm not as desperate for positive attention as the Potters."
"I'm really starting to wonder about that," the Sheikah said. "In some ways, you're even more paranoid about being helped than they are. Why, for instance, do you think I'm lying?"
"Because helping me wouldn't do anything for you," Draco replied. "And before you try to claim that it's 'friendly concern', you don't know enough about me to have formed any sort of emotional connection. Therefore, I must conclude your intended intervention is either motivated by a desire to destroy me or to manipulate me into thinking you care about my well-being." He thumbed his nose at the boy. "Don't try playing games with me. My parents trained me too well to fall for such a poorly-planned deception."
Avoka blinked slowly at him. "Erm…Do you need a hug?" he asked. "Because you're incredibly not-okay, and Link always hugs me when I start spinning conspiracies and talking crazy. I thought you might be less messed up in the head than I am, but I think your parents might have trained it into you when you weren't born with it."
"My parents—" Draco couldn't bring himself to say that everything they'd taught him had only been to help him. Some of those beliefs were the ones now making him fear some of his upperclassmen. "They raised me in the same way they were raised, and their parents before them," he mumbled instead. "It's what most people in our social circle thinks. Among pureblood aristocrats, such distrust is what keeps you alive and on top."
"Why would you want to be on top of people like that? Why associate with them at all?" Avoka stepped closer. "As you said, you aren't a princess. Unlike Zelda, you have more paths to choose from. You could be anyone you want, so why force yourself to be around people who do nothing but climb over each other and step on everyone they consider beneath them?"
"Because I'm one of those people!" Draco shoved Avoka in the chest. His Zora strength made the trained warrior stagger back several steps. "I'm supposed to be pure enough that I'd never have to worry about any of this! Do you think I ever had to stop and consider whether the Muggles deserve eradication before? Or whether muggleborns are as unworthy of magic as my parents told me? Do you think I enjoy knowing I'm going to become the biggest target in this school if my glamour gets any worse or people catch on to the fact that I sound like a sodding lizard?"
Avoka surged forward and wrapped his arms around him. Draco didn't throw the boy off, but only because he hadn't realized how much he'd been shaking. He'd distantly noticed his eyes prickling, but not the feeling of tears on his cheeks. How humiliating!
"After I go up to Gryffindor tower to hear a couple more perspectives about how your society works, we're talking to your guardian," Avoka announced with the commanding ring of a king. "If your classmates wind up in search of a target for their ire, turn them toward me. I don't have anything to lose and I'm not afraid to plant a knife in someone's throat if they show they've earned it. You, on the other hand, need some help that I think only another version of you can give."
"I w-won't become your t-tool. I w-won't owe you," Draco sniffled. "I-I'm too good f-for that."
"Yeah, I know." Avoka patted him on the back. "Don't worry—I've never needed mind-games to be certain of my authority."
Notes: [Worldbuilding infodumps ahoy!]
-Hytopia is a large island significantly to the north of Hyrule's mainland. Magic is used to artificially warm its human settlements, while Anouki live in the naturally icy regions. Its economy depends on exports of fine furs, couture fashion, and wine and vinegar made from a modern cultivar of the ancient Ice Fruit grown by Zonai. Their royal family is distantly related to the Hyrule family to the south, having intermarried in centuries past. The language spoken there, Hytopé, is mutually intelligible with Dark World European French.
-Avoka is fluent in Modern Hylian, several editions of Old Hylian, Modern and Late Old Kingdom Sheikah, Hytopian, Labrynni, and Gerudo hand-speak. Why on earth does he know that many languages and dialects, and how he could he have found the time to learn them in his four years of being out of the orphanage? Shh, don't worry about it. Link, incidentally, knows that same list of languages (minus Old Kingdom Sheikah and a couple dialects of Old Hylian), with the addition of Gerudo, Holodai, Anouki, and several unique cultural styles of musical notation. That's because linguistics is his special interest and part of his job as an experimental spellcrafter, though!
-Hyrule skipped a lot of the bad stuff that people in the Dark World take for granted as part of history. Things like chattel slavery and institutional subjugation of "lesser" races just...didn't happen. There's discrimination, of course, particularly from Hylians toward basically everyone else. There's also blood-supremacy among Hyrule's human races, since Hylians look down on the other two races, Sheikah live in constant fear of dying out again, and Gerudo have a unique relationship with their need to rely on non-Gerudo or part-Gerudo men to reproduce. However, things like banning an entire race of people from having what's considered a basic right? Subjugating other sentient races because it's convenient for labor costs? Anyone in Hyrule who tried implementing those would be trialed to hang for crimes against the goddesses' great creation!
-Both Draco and Avoka are racially "impure" in ways that are looked down upon by their respective societies. Some clans among the Sheikah, for example, will disown members who marry non-Sheikah or mixed-heritage Sheikah; Link has never met any of his pureblood Sheikah relatives because his grandfather was exiled from the ancient, pure Fukurou Clan for marrying Kaepora Bluesmith. It also isn't uncommon to get picked on by classmates for lacking certain traits (particularly physical stature or racial magic) that purebloods are expected to have; Avoka faces this on the daily. Draco, meanwhile, has very realistic fears of getting hate-crimed by one of his upper-year classmates. He is absolutely not overreacting or being undeservedly paranoid here. If certain Slytherins found out about his heritage, he would get dragged out to the woods and buried there.
Next month: the Harrys find out just how terrible the fallout of Vaati's power generator is when they finally reach the source of London's poisoning.