Family, a sort-of Severitus challenge response by seeker. Rated NC17 for sexuality, violence and language. No copyright infringement intended. See the end of the story for notes.

Pairings: Harry/Draco, Snape/Lily, Lucius/Snape, James/Sirius.

He thought he really should be past this by now. Harry stared out the window at the spotless, regimented garden below, and bit his lip.

Over a year since it happened. Sixteen months of life continuing as if nothing had changed, when in truth he'd lost one of the few foundations his life contained. Sirius hadn't been the most stable of guardians, living more in the past than the present, damaged by his time in Azkaban in ways Harry couldn't begin to imagine, but he'd been the closest thing Harry had to a father.

To family.

The Dursleys didn’t count. They might offer blood protection to him, but they didn’t want him. Never had. They didn’t love him. Not at all; certainly not like a son. Not like Sirius could have, given the chance.

No matter how many times Dumbledore and McGonagall and Remus and Tonks and Ron and Hermione told him (and told him and told him) that it wasn't his fault, he knew better. He fucked up. Sirius died. That was the truth.

At least Snape didn't lie to him to try to make him feel better. Snape just looked at him with those cold black eyes and told him to try again, do better, work harder, until Harry could slam a wall down over his thoughts that Voldemort couldn't penetrate. It stopped the dreams.

It didn't stop the guilt.

So here he was, on his seventeenth birthday, a month from beginning his final year in school, still reeling from the pain of his worst failure. A tiny knot of hope in the center of his chest refused to completely die, whispering that this year would be better, that this year would be the one where he got his life back.

He didn't listen to it.

Perhaps he should have.

His Aunt Petunia's shrill command to come complete yet another chore before he was fed, or he wouldn't be fed, roused him from his brooding and send him sullenly downstairs. A summer like any other. Too much work and too many worries.

At least he didn't have to worry about anybody hitting him again. Once the petrifying fear engendered by the Aurors who'd checked on him all last summer had worn off, which was approximately five seconds after his Uncle Vernon realized the visits weren't continuing this summer, his uncle thought he'd push his luck. Harry stifled a grin at the memory.

"Boy!" Vernon had yelled, "get down here and clean up this mess!"

'This mess' being, of course, the pigsty Dudley left behind himself. As usual. Harry had trotted obediently, resentfully, downstairs to clean up behind Dudley. As usual. Vernon sneered at him. As usual.

Then Vernon tried to backhand him for ‘giving him attitude,’ which from what Harry could tell, meant ‘breathing.’

Tried being the operative word.

Six years of annual death-skirting trysts with Voldemort had sharpened a survival instinct in Harry that was already phenomenal. Vernon's meaty fist never landed.

Harry flinched; Vernon's fist bounced off what appeared to be thin air; Vernon cut loose with a shriek of pain that would have made the girliest of girls quite proud.

Then he cradled his broken hand against his chest and bawled like a baby.

Petunia stormed in, grabbed up a broom that only Harry had ever used, and attempted to beat Harry about the head with it for the unforgivable sin of damaging her precious Vernon.

The broom splintered a foot from Harry's skull. Not so much as a wood chip landed on him.

Petunia stood there, gaping like a landed fish, as Dudley yelped (from his position cowering the best he could behind his rail-thin mother), "They'll kick you out for this!"

Except, of course, they couldn't. For Harry hadn't done any magic.

The shield that surrounded him was intrinsic to his person, an extension of his innate magic not called by any conscious or emotional means. Unlike when he’d blown up Aunt Marge, he hadn’t even been angry. Hadn’t done anything at all, really. Had only allowed the hatred of others to shatter against him without touching him.

The Ministry of Magic had no clue.

Well, they had no clue about much of anything, really, but particularly, they never discovered that Harry's magic was doing a fine job of looking out for Harry when no one else would.

Eventually, his relatives gave up trying to bash him one. When no further odd instances (or freakishness, as Vernon blustered) happened, they quieted down and coexisted uneasily with Harry. Of course, that didn't stop them from trying to starve him to death.

Every time they refused him a meal, however, unbeknownst to them, a piping hot dinner or tasty fried breakfast awaited Harry upon return to his tiny room. As soon as he cleaned his plate, it disappeared. His relatives never found out, and he certainly never told them.

They also tried to lock him in the cupboard under the stairs.

Once.

The door splintered, much like the broom.

So Vernon replaced the door with a metal sheet, bolted to the wall and closed with a dozen or more locks.

The locks melted. Then, so did the door.

Harry had stepped out over the slag that was no barrier to his freedom and watched with interest as it seeped away through the floor, leaving nothing behind to show it had ever existed.

"I'll just use the second bedroom then?" he'd asked calmly.

Vernon was too busy choking to answer. Dudley was whimpering and hiding (or attempting to hide, but his bulk wouldn't fit) behind the couch. Petunia nodded mutely. Harry took that as permission.

They didn't try to lock him up the rest of the summer, either.

Of course, they also didn't say a word to him beyond "Boy! Do this!" and "Boy! Do that!"

Harry was perfectly content with his interaction with his relatives, if a bit bored by it all. He had too many important things on his mind, like guilt and anger and grief, to worry about the idiot Dursleys.

The day passed, as most days had, in a dull progression of chores, magical meals, and silence. Since Dumbledore had made the Dursleys' house unplottable after Voldemort's sixth annual failed attempt to kill Harry and everyone around him, no owls bearing birthday gifts appeared. As midnight approached, Harry stared absently at the darkness through the window.

"Happy birthday," he whispered soundlessly, catching his reflection's eyes.

Hedwig hooted softly in reply. His mirror-self looked older than it should, stretched by sadness, all angular planes and hollows, his eyes dark shadows.

Dimly he heard the bells ring from the church down the way, and leaned his forehead against the cold glass. Midnight. His seventeenth birthday. The last he would see in this godforsaken place with these horrible people. It was something to celebrate.

If his heart hadn't hurt too much to celebrate anything.

The next morning, Petunia's unpleasantly shrill screech roused him to come down and cook everyone else breakfast. Harry rolled over, stretching out an unaccustomed stiffness from his muscles. His joints popped, and he groaned at the sensation. It felt rather as if he'd come out of alignment overnight, and the luxuriant stretch had slotted his bones back in place. Grinning slightly at the mental imagery, he pulled on his clothes and clattered down the stairs.

Petunia took one look at him, turned paler than normal (a reaction Harry hadn't thought possible, given how pasty white the woman usually was) and tottered on her heels. He stopped in his tracks and looked at her warily.

"What?" he asked, suspicious of her odd behavior.

Then he blinked and raised a hand to his throat. His voice was deeper, lower and smoother than it had been the day before.

"Great," he muttered under his breath, "another freakin' wizard puberty thing nobody told me about."

After a fourfold increase in magical power hitting him in the middle of transfiguration (and the resultant transformation of his entire class into chimpanzees, a misfire that took most of the day for McGonagall to correct), Harry had been rightly concerned that more wizardly weirdness would catch him unawares.

His classmates and professors hadn't seemed to grasp the fact that he'd been raised by phobic Muggles in a cupboard under the stairs, and didn't know all the things magical children and studious Muggleborns already knew. One would think after so many years they might, but Harry knew better.

"You-- you're -- you did -- WHAT did you DO, you freakish boy?" Petunia finally stuttered out.

"Woke up, got dressed, came down to cook breakfast," Harry informed her dryly. He'd found after a lifetime of practice the only defense, poor as it was, that he had against his relatives' rhetorical questions was absolute literalism. Even that got him punished.

"GET OUT OF MY HOUSE, WHOEVER YOU ARE!" she screamed at the top of her lungs.

Harry winced, shook his head, sighed, and went back to his room. There was no way to reason with the woman when she was acting more insane than usual. There was also no way he was leaving the only place he was safe. If he had to lock himself up in his room for the next two weeks, at least he had meals, a bed, a roof, unplottable wards, and a window to pee out of if he had to.

God. What a life.

Not surprisingly, that's exactly what he did.

Harry, being Harry, remained oblivious to the fact that for once in her life Petunia had an actual reason for turning into a lunatic. He avoided mirrors, didn't talk to anyone, didn't see anyone. He buried his nose in his schoolbooks, petted and pampered Hedwig, and one day shortly before he left for the train station, he glimpsed Dobby leaving Harry lunch and Hedwig treats.

"Thank you, Dobby," he said quietly, but the elf had already vanished.

When the day finally came for him to escape back to Hogwarts, he woke early. He ate Dobby’s breakfast, finished packing his trunk, and looked around the little room. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, there that he would miss.

As he came down the stairs for the last time, dragging his trunk behind him and cradling Hedwig's cage to his chest, Harry found the house deserted. He looked around cautiously.

"Hello?" he called out. His voice was rusty with lack of use. "Anybody there?" he called again, louder. His words echoed in the empty room. "Well, that's brilliant."

Setting the cage and trunk down, he rummaged until he found his wand and prepared to go call the Knight Bus. When he straightened up, he caught sight of his reflection in the shiny chrome front of Petunia's brand new refrigerator.

He dropped his wand.

Stumbled back a foot, jostling his trunk and unsettling Hedwig in her cage. She gave an indignant hoot, the noise bringing him back to himself.

Whoever the hell himself was. Judging by the stranger looking back at him with familiar green eyes, he could have been anyone. He hesitantly stepped forward and peered closely at his reflection.

His hair wasn't messy anymore. It was sleek, lying against his skull, with a blue tint to it where the sunshine hit it instead of the sable brown it used to have. His eyes hadn't changed, were if anything a little larger, but his brows were arched, his nose longer, his chin more angled, his cheekbones much sharper. His mouth was thinner, and his skin was nearly as pale as Petunia's. He raised a hand to touch the shadow beneath one cheekbone and was startled again at how long his fingers and narrow his palm seemed to be.

No. Not fucking possible.

Even as he thought it, his features began to blur. His nose broadened, his cheekbones flattened, his lips softened. The hair was still strangely tidy, his chin was still too sharp, and it looked like he'd plucked his eyebrows, but it was himself, again, as it should be.

Trembling, he reached out to touch his cheek, and took in a quick breath.

On the outside, anyway, he was more himself. His fingers traced his  cheekbone, still jutting out under his touch but not visible to the eye.

Once again, his instinct to protect himself had kicked in, in a more subtle way. He didn't want anyone else to see him like this, not until he'd figured out what the hell was going on. And no one would, until he could explain it, maybe stop it, maybe use it, whatever IT was.

Swallowing with a dry throat, Harry squared his shoulders. Picked up Hedwig's cage, muttering absently, soothingly, to her, picked up his trunk, picked up his wand, and swept with unknowing grace out to the kerb. Sticking his wand in the air with a hand that still wavered a bit, he waited for the Knight Bus to careen to a stop.

Climbing aboard, he mumbled an answer to Stan's overly-exuberant greeting and dragged his belongings to the back of the bus. He stared at himself in the window all the way to the station then, still in a daze, shouldered past the crowds to Platform 9 3/4.

Luckily, considering his state of mind, he was early, so he didn't have to pretend to be normal for his friends. Settling Hedwig with the rest of the owls, dumping his trunk in the baggage car, he found a compartment near the back of the train and stared gloomily at his reflection again.

As he watched, his features began an infinitesimal shift. Panic shot through Harry and he concentrated fiercely on the way he knew he was supposed to look. The shift ended abruptly. Just in time, too, as a bright red head attached to a gangly six-footer popped through the door.

"Harry! Mate! I've got presents for you!"

Ron tumbled into the car, bearing gifts as threatened. On his heels came Hermione, hair primly braided, Head Girl badge gleaming on her robes, contentment beaming in her expression. Harry forced a smile and moved over to make room on the bench.

The following few hours were very instructive. Harry learned that a façade was much easier to maintain than he'd expected in large part because his friends were rather wrapped up with one another. At any other time he might have felt hurt at being excluded. Right then, as he was also discovering that he had to maintain an awareness of his appearance at all times, his exclusion was a relief.

So he opened his presents, made appropriate noises, redirected attention from himself to his friends, and let their happy conversation wash over him while he wondered what the hell he was going to do with himself.

The first month of school confirmed what Harry feared. Having once been revealed, his true appearance fought constantly against being hidden.

To his relief, the upsurge in his magic from the year before remained constant, so he had the reserves of magical energy to maintain his appearance and still participate in classes. Schoolwork had never occupied more than half Harry's attention anyway, so he had plenty to spare to keep his friends from finding out he'd turned into a stranger.

Quidditch was another matter entirely.

Flying consumed Harry as nothing else did. During the first practice he got so caught up in flying, and the snitch, and listening for Captain Ron's bellowed instructions, that he completely forgot to pay attention to his face.

It was a good thing his hair had grown longer. It was a better thing that Ron was too busy tearing a strip off MacLean, the new Beater, to look at anyone else. Harry raised a hand to wipe the sweat from his face and his glasses fell off. He bent over to pick them up, and the sunlight reflected off the lens, giving him a clear view of his altered appearance.

"Bloody fuck!" he muttered, screwing his eyes shut and concentrating hard on what he was supposed to look like.

"Harry! Harry, what the hell is wrong with you?"

Ron's voice came from a long way away. Harry finally opened his eyes and stared apprehensively at his friend.

Who was perfectly clear, even though Harry still held his glasses clenched in his hand.

Ron also didn't seem to be shocked by Harry's looks, so Harry could only assume (hope) his magic had worked.

"Sorry? What?" he asked vaguely.

Ron snorted in amusement and irritation. "Nothing much, just wondering what planet you were on. You okay there, mate?"

"Um," Harry stalled. "Think something's off with my prescription. I should go see Pomfrey."

Ron nodded. "Do that. Can't have you flying blind against Ravenclaw next month!"

He grinned at Harry, who grinned weakly in return. The rest of the team dispersed to the showers, but Harry trudged toward the castle.

He didn't go to the infirmary, however. Casting a quick cleansing charm to rid himself of sweat and smell, Harry made a quick stop at the dorm to change back into his robes then kept going until he got to the Library. Once there, he started looking for any information about magical means of controlling one’s appearance. He had to get a handle on this, not let it get away from him again.

When the Library closed at midnight, he hid in the stacks. After Pince left, he lit up his wand and kept looking.

One hundred eighty seven volumes on everything from blood curses to animagi to the wizardly equivalent of plastic surgery later, the sun was coming up and Harry could barely keep his eyes open.

Staggering toward the main hall at the behest of his grumbling stomach, Harry found Hermione and Ron waiting for him at the doors.

"Where were you last night?" Hermione asked, looking concerned.

Ron nodded. "Yeah, when you didn't make it back before curfew, I borrowed your cloak and went down to the infirmary. Nobody was there."

Harry looked sheepish. "Turns out I don't need glasses anymore." His mind worked furiously. "Remembered I had to look some stuff up for Flitwick's essay and went to the library. I was so tired from practice and everything I fell asleep there."

Hermione looked suspicious while Ron looked vaguely horrified.

"Didn't Madame Pince wake you when the Library closed?" Hermione asked.

"I was back in the stacks, sitting on the floor, reading. Guess she didn't see me."

As Hermione had done the same thing more than once in the past, she couldn't find fault with his excuse. To his relief, they dropped the subject as he led the way in to breakfast.

That set the pattern for the next several weeks. Class, practice, long nights doing research, and the constant battle to maintain his appearance began to take their toll on Harry. It was a good thing his friends were so distracted by their romance they didn't notice how distanced Harry had become.

Unfortunately, or perhaps inevitably, Harry's luck ran out.

The circumstances would otherwise be happy, an irony Harry couldn't help but appreciate. In late November, two weeks before Christmas hols began, the current DADA teacher had a nervous breakdown (her students had been predicting it since the beginning of term). She was rendered immobile and carted off to St. Mungo's, once again leaving Hogwarts with no Defense teacher.

For three days Dumbledore taught the class, giving the students a whole new appreciation for just how manic an ancient wizard on a sugar high could be. They were nearly at the point of demanding their previous teacher, lunatic that she might be, return to them, when the Headmaster stood up at breakfast that Thursday and announced the new Defense teacher.

The slight, rumpled, somewhat careworn figure was greeted with waves of applause from every table (even the Slytherins, surprisingly, but then Dumbledore truly had been a frightening teacher). Remus Lupin smiled sweetly at them and sat down to tuck into his breakfast.

Harry lost his appetite.

Hermione and Ron were easy to fool, wrapped up as they were in each other. Ginny was off with her Hufflepuff boyfriend, so she hadn't noticed his disappearances. He wasn't really close to anyone else in school, so everyone had left him pretty well alone.

Lupin wasn't about to miss, or ignore, Harry's struggle.

What should have been a wonderful day was a nightmare. Harry fought to keep his desperation from showing, but he knew he'd been tense and upset during class, and Remus had certainly noticed.

Harry stared at the tipua, malevolent shape shifters of Maori origin Remus brought in to test the seventh years against, and sighed. The spirit lunged toward him and Harry reacted instinctively.

Scattered messy bits of tipua rained down over the rest of the class. A particularly large bloody chunk landed with a wet thump in the center of Remus' desk.

Immediately, the air was filled with disgusted cries and the sounds of retching. Harry winced, hunching down at his desk, looking up through his lashes at Remus, who was staring in some bemusement at the dismembered tipua flesh splattered across the papers he’d been reviewing.

"Oh, YUCK!" Ron yelped, trying to remove strings of tipua from Hermione's hair and only managing to squish them in thoroughly. She squeaked and tried to get away.

The scene was repeated, with variations, all over the classroom.

Harry sighed.

Remus gave an interrogatory hum, then waved his wand in the air. Instantly the tipua fragments disappeared, but the gore unfortunately remained.

"Class is dismissed," Remus announced calmly, his voice carrying easily over the hubbub. "Go get cleaned up."

Everyone bolted for the door.

"Harry."

Harry froze at the sound of Remus calling him. Very slowly he pivoted until he could peek at his professor again. Remus looked thoughtful.

Shit, thought Harry. I'm in for it now.

"Come here," Remus told him, motioning him toward the desk.

Harry winced again at the incredibly messy papers. "Sorry about that," he said sincerely, not daring to look up at Remus.

"Have a seat."

Harry wanted to protest that he had to go clean up, but since this mishap had, as all the others, not left a mark on him, he gave up the idea of escape and sat.

Kind brown eyes watched him as he shifted in his seat, until Remus finally took pity on him and asked quietly, "How long has this been going on?"

Harry actually considered playing dumb, for a whole two seconds, until his mouth opened of its own accord and, without any permission from his brain, began to babble.

A confused combination of seventeen years of Dursley abuse, more accidental defensive magical incidents than one could shake a wand at, and the birthday surprise from hell fell from a tongue he couldn't get to stop wagging. When he finally ran out of words, Remus sat stock still in his chair and stared at him.

"He tried to hit you?" Remus finally rumbled, his voice closely resembling a growl, the amber highlights in his eyes threatening to overrun the brown.

It was Harry's turn to blink. "Yeah," he finally muttered.

The amber turned red-tinged. Harry hurried on; much as he'd rather like to see the Dursleys ripped limb from limb by an enraged werewolf, it was over now, he was never going back, and his moment of revenge would not be worth the last godparent he had going to Azkaban.

"But really, it's the weird thing that happened with the way I look that I'm most worried about."

Remus shook his head, the amber haze slowly dissipating. "What weird thing, Harry? Other than getting taller, and your face thinning out a bit, you don't look much different than--"

Before Remus could complete the sentence Harry relaxed, allowing his real appearance to show through deliberately for the first time since arriving back at Hogwarts. It was only as he sighed in relief at the absence of strain on his magic that he realized how big an effort it had become to maintain the façade of his previous appearance.

"Good lord!" Remus stuttered, face going slack with astonishment.

"Uh-huh," Harry agreed wryly, "THAT weird thing." His voice had dropped again and the words came out sounding like a purr.

Moments passed.

Remus' eyes stayed wide and his mouth stayed hanging slightly open. Eventually Harry gave a short growl of his own. The slightly feral sound jolted Remus, and he blinked, slowly closing his mouth, a thoughtful expression stealing over his face.

"I can see... your problem," Remus said slowly.

"So what do I do about it?" Harry asked, frustration leaking out of every word.

"Well, first we find out why you made such an abrupt change, then we figure out what we're going to do about it. That is, if you don't mind--"

"I trust you, Moony," Harry cut in, warmed by the smile Remus sent him in return.

"In that case," Remus continued quietly, "I would recommend you reveal yourself very slowly, relaxing the hold on the mirage magic--"

"Is that what I've been doing?" He didn't mean to be rude, but Harry'd had no idea what his instincts had led him to do to himself. It was reassuring to know there was a name for it, so it couldn't be too outlandish, or as he’d feared, completely unknown.

"Yes," Remus went on, casting him a warm smile, "that's what you've been doing. Anyway, it doesn't appear to have harmed your ability to do other types of magic, but it can be draining. I can help you with that, work with you to help you ease away the mirage over time so the changes appear natural. Meanwhile, we shall do some research and find out why you changed so drastically."

From the look in his eyes, Harry had a feeling Remus had his own suspicions, but he also knew the man well enough to know Remus wouldn't share them until he was ready. Which, oddly enough, was perfectly fine with Harry. He had enough on his plate.

At least now he had someone to share the burden with him.

Over the next several weeks, Remus became Harry's refuge. He pulled further and further away from his closest friends, who thankfully didn't notice, being quite caught up with one another. In the frantic bustle that was classes and homework and projects and Quidditch and N.E.W.T. preparation, no one in Gryffindor noticed a thing amiss.

Someone in Slytherin wasn't nearly as blind.

He had waited seven years for this opportunity. Seven years of watching, of wanting the one thing he was never allowed to want, of hexing in public and dreaming about in private.

Harry Potter was breaking away from his cozy little nest of Gryffindors, and Draco Malfoy saw an opening he wasn't about to miss.

At first it was difficult. He'd look for openings, the Weasel and the Know-it-all would gaze like sheep into one another's eyes, Potter would be ripe for the picking, Draco would step forward... and Potter would disappear. Not literally, not disapparating, but somehow being a step closer to the door than Draco, then out the door and up the steps and out of reach before Draco could catch him.

If he hadn't known for a fact that Potter was irritatingly, undeniably real, he'd start to think the man was a will-o'-the-wisp.

Eventually, however, Potter got a step slower, or Draco got a step quicker, and one day Potter looked up to realize he was matching steps with his erstwhile worst enemy all the way to the Charms classroom. Without a rude word or hex threatened the whole way.

Then Potter noticed that his so-called friends hadn't even noticed. So when Draco left a seat empty for him, Potter took it.

Draco enjoyed this gradual awakening on Potter's part. Very gradual, as Potter was distracted by something, criminally so for someone on the hit-list of a being as thoroughly nasty as Voldemort.

That preoccupation nearly led Draco to reconsider his plan of getting closer to Potter, as the primary motivating factor had been to ensure his own safety when he didn't take the Dark Mark. He most certainly was not going to be a slobbering sycophant to a homicidal psychotic regardless of the career path his father had laid out for him. He wanted to ensure Potter knew Draco was on the side of Light and so wouldn't accidentally take Draco out with a misplaced killing curse.

He'd seen it happen. Not by Potter, of course, but Lucius' friends were known for their poor aim and an accumulation of bystanders' corpses. It made perfect logic to Draco that if the Dark were so careless with whom they killed, the Light probably wasn't all that picky either. He was determined to come through this unholy mess alive and intact.

Which led back to the reason he'd decided to get closer to Potter in the first place. More by luck than design, but also because he was truly a powerful wizard, Potter survived Voldemort. Repeatedly. Draco was going to make damned sure Potter wasn't the only one, and have some of that Potter luck or talent or serendipity look after him as well.

So regardless of Potter's naturally oblivious air, eventually he discovered that Draco Malfoy Played Nicely. Sometimes.

Given the secondary motivation for placing himself in Potter's orbit, that the man was bloody gorgeous and possibly seducible, this was a promising beginning.

Of course, while Draco's cohort weren't the brightest tulips in the field, they were highly self-protective. Draco's unusual efforts to be social with the Little Sod that Bollixed it All Up were noticed. First by Pansy, frigid jealous hag that she was; then by Blaise, looking for blackmail material; then at last by Greg and Vince, who finally got their faces out of their plates long enough to notice Draco was sitting next to Scarhead instead of next to them.

Draco beat them all to the punch, and sent his father an owl. For once his filial communication was surprisingly succinct.

"Dear Father,

The term progresses well. Circumstances warrant a change in strategy with regards to more personal matters. A breach has been detected in the walls; a slow insinuation of acquaintance followed; in less time than previously hoped I will have a much-desired gift for our benefactor that will cement our family in his good graces.

Your son,

Draco"

While the formal wording might fool anyone outside the Malfoy family, to Lucius it would be clear as a bludger to the forehead. I've seen my chance, Father, and I've taken it... Potter's mine and will soon be Voldemort's.

Of course it was a pack of lies, but his father wouldn't know that until the absolute last minute, when it was too late for him to try to drag Draco down with him. Draco loved his father, but he was not about to repeat his mistakes. Nor was he going to allow the sins of his father to be made his own.

Within a month, Potter was following Draco out to the Quidditch pitch in the early mornings. They'd fly, walk together to the broom shed, walk together to the changing rooms, walk together back to Hogwarts, parting only once inside the doors before entering the main hall for breakfast.

At first it was silent. Then there were greetings. There wasn't much else, and Draco was satisfied, because Potter was increasingly relaxed in Draco's deliberately undemanding company.

Thirty two days after he began his infiltration into Harry Potter's life, Draco kissed him.

Potter knocked him flat on his back.

Then he blinked at Draco, green eyes wide, making Draco appreciate the fact that they were no longer hidden behind those hideous spectacles. Draco gasped to regain the breath knocked out of him when Harry punched him. Then Potter reached down, grabbed him by the arms, pulled him to his feet, and kissed him back.

From that moment on their friendship had a growing intensity nothing in either’s life had ever matched. Nor ever would.

Lucius stared at the wrinkled parchment in his hand and wondered if it would be bad form for him to scream himself hoarse.

This was NOT the purpose for which he'd spent the past fifteen years living a double life. True, at least some of his motivation for leaving the Dark Lord's service was the fact that Voldemort was increasingly insane before the Potter brat decorporealized him, and since the fool rat had helped him regain physical form he was absolutely barmy.

Add the fact that Narcissa was as rabidly, blindly Dark as the rest of the Black clan (Sirius' youthful rebellion apparently spurred by his affair with the Wolf and Andromeda's poor taste in marrying a Muggle aside), making his political alliance of a marriage even more of a farce than expected (it was difficult to maintain interest in a woman who only ever got aroused when torture was involved).

Mainly it was because his lover for the past quarter century was a spy and SOMEONE had to save his hide on a regular basis. Which brought him to the matter at hand.  Draco was NOT going to live the chaos of a life Lucius had. And Severus was going to make damned sure of it.

Or next time he slipped and the Dark Lord suspected, Lucius might not be so quick to take a cruciatus to cover for him.

Even as he thought it he knew he'd never betray Severus. But neither would he hand Draco over to Voldemort on a platter, much less Potter, the only hope Lucius had of ever escaping the Dark Lord's yoke.

This would take some very careful planning, a great deal of cunning, and a hefty dose of luck.

Unfortunately, while Lucius was a consummate Slytherin so the planning and cunning were no problem, luck had never been on his side.

While having an ally who knew what was going on and how to alleviate the worst of the problem, and gradually lessening the strength of the magical drain keeping his façade intact, helped considerably, Harry still found his seventh year to be incredibly difficult.

As if dealing with Ron and Hermione’s increasing distance, the weird if rather wonderful fact that Draco Malfoy had become a friend (if friends were the sort to make one light-headed with kisses) and the ensuing shifting of his personal alliances were not enough, along with schoolwork, Quidditch practice, revising for N.E.W.T.s, keeping his guard up against Voldemort, and trying to remember what his face was supposed to look like each morning… he came into an inheritance.

He’d seen the notice in the Daily Prophet, of course, even if it had been on the next-to-last page. Only a few lines, but enough to bring back all the pain he’d felt over the summer, all the pain he’d felt since it happened.

“Sirius Black, escaped murderer, has been officially declared dead by the Ministry of Magic,” he’d read. “Black, missing since a confrontation with Aurors in the Department of Mysteries two years ago, was best known as the betrayer of James and Lily Potter, the parents of The Boy Who Lived. As the requisite twenty four months have passed, the Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge has declared the fugitive legally dead, “thus ending a sad chapter in Wizarding history,” according to Minister Fudge.”

Harry had snarled at Fudge’s name, growled to himself over the slander of his godfather repeated yet again, and late that night, he’d cried, once more, for Sirius.

A few days later, a school owl landed on his fork as he was eating lunch. Luckily he was eating soup, so hadn’t needed his fork that afternoon. Harry sighed, pulled the scrap of parchment from the owl’s leg, and handed over a tidbit of ham to the appreciative bird.

Then he unrolled the parchment, read the few words written there, and dropped his spoon into his soup. Hermione noticed, for once, probably because the ensuing splash sent bits of vegetables across her sleeve.

“Harry!” she began to reprimand him, then, peering at his face, she asked softly, “Harry?”

Unable to force any words past the lump in his throat, Harry pushed the parchment over for her to read. He didn’t need to read them again. They were burned into his brain.

“Dear Harry,

As executor of Sirius Black’s estate, it is my duty to give over to you the key to his vault at Gringott’s. You are excused from classes this afternoon and tomorrow, to enable you to sign the necessary documents awaiting you there. Please come to my office for a portkey after finishing your meal.

Yours most sincerely,

Albus Dumbledore”

Anger swept through Harry, uncontrolled, for the first time in months.

He didn’t want this. Didn’t want any of it. He wanted Sirius back. He wanted the life he’d been denied, and wanted Sirius to have the life that had been stolen from him. He wanted the world to know that Pettigrew was guilty, that Sirius was innocent, that Fudge was a bloody fool, and that his godfather loved Harry Potter as a son, and that was how it should have been.

He only realized his anger was getting out of control when Gryffindors on either side of him yelped and dived under the table. The hall was noisy, but there was a pool of silence surrounding Harry, an eerie, aching silence that mirrored the pain swirling through him.

Candles snuffed, cutlery flew up in miniature silver tornadoes, plates cracked and the table rumbled. He didn’t hear his friends pleading with him to calm down, didn’t see Dumbledore staring at him from the head table, hand on wand, didn’t see Remus get up and start toward him. He could see and hear nothing but the void inside him.

Until a warm hand settled on his shoulder. Heat behind him, thawing the ice that was coating his skin from the inside out. A voice, soft so that only he could hear it, and it was the only thing he could hear.

“Harry,” it said. “Harry. Harry.”

Just his name, over and over. Just Draco, saying his name.

Harry came back to himself with a jolt.

“What the bloody hell did you do to him, Malfoy?” Ron shrieked.

Hermione was looking at him strangely, as was Neville, though the rest of the students were too shell-shocked or preoccupied with climbing back out from under the table to pay much attention.

“He didn’t do anything, Ron,” Hermione said calmly, as if Malfoy coming over to the Gryffindor table was a common occurrence. When Ron made as if to continue his protest, Hermione absently shushed him and handed him the parchment.

Draco’s fingers tightened on Harry’s shoulder for an instant then left him, and Harry felt cold again.

“All right, then?” Draco asked quietly.

Harry nodded jerkily.

“Granger,” Draco said with restrained politeness.

“Malfoy,” Hermione answered, eyes wary and alert.

Ignoring Ron, Draco swept passed the Gryffindor table and out the door of the Great Hall. The incident had taken less than thirty seconds, and no one outside the affected students and a few of the faculty had noticed.

“I wonder how much he left you?” Ron asked, a tinge of envy in his voice.

The cutlery rattled as Harry’s anger started to rise. Hermione smacked the back of Ron’s head. Before Harry could decide between explaining the obvious to Ron, knocking Ron’s head off his shoulders, or ignoring Ron and pretending that hadn’t hurt, a calloused hand gently patted his arm.

“You okay there, Harry?” Neville asked, eyes anxious and watchful.

Harry had to swallow before he could answer, partly to stop himself from snapping at Neville, too. When he felt like he had some control back and the table was once again calm, he answered quietly, “Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks, Neville.” He gave Neville a tight smile. Neville nodded, clearly not convinced, but willing to give Harry his space.

Turning back to look at his two best friends he found Hermione glaring furiously at Ron, who looked bewildered, as usual. Harry sighed.

“It just hurts, that’s all,” he said bluntly.

It took a moment, but Ron eventually got the point. His eyes rounded, his mouth tipped into a frown, and he looked at Harry with all the concern he hadn’t felt before, hidden as it was behind the instinctive jealousy Ron often fought when he was around Harry. He gulped out, “Bloody hell, Harry, I’m sorry.”

“S’okay,” Harry lied.

For some reason, maybe because he was so tired from everything else that was going on in his life, he wasn’t so quick to forgive Ron’s baser instincts as he had been. The fact that he’d had truly undemanding friendship offered to him for the first time in his life, from Draco Malfoy of all people, was no doubt also a major factor, but he tried not to think about that. Not that Hermione let him get away with denial for any length of time.

“Harry,” she asked gently, “how long have you been going out with Malfoy?”

“WHAT?!” Ron bellowed again.

“Shut up, Ron,” Hermione and Harry said in unison. He subsided with a confused whimper under their combined glares.

“He grounded you, Harry. You were out of control, and no one else could get through to you. You didn’t even hear me or Ron…”

“Or me,” Neville put in softly.

“… but when Malfoy called your name, you came back.”

“What’s going on?” Ron asked, in slightly less than a bellow than before.

“In a minute, Ron,” Hermione shushed him absently, staring expectantly at Harry, who stared back blankly. Hermione frowned slightly. “Then afterward, he was civil to me. And he didn’t insult Ron.”

Harry shrugged one shoulder and picked up the parchment, stuffing it into his pocket. “He’s not been bad this year,” he finally said, ignoring Ron’s indignant snort. “We go flying once in awhile. It’s… nice.” He decided not to say anything about the snogging sessions yet.

From the intent way Hermione was staring at him, he had the feeling his secrets about Draco wouldn’t stay secret for long. Forestalling the rest of the inquisition, Harry pushed away from the bench. “Gotta go. Dumbledore’s waiting.”

Hermione nodded, expression full of sympathy. “Good luck, Harry. Let me know if you need anything, please?”

We’re going to talk, she didn’t need to say for Harry to hear her clearly. He nodded shortly, turned and walked out of the Great Hall.

From behind him he could clearly hear Ron begging Hermione to fill him in on everything he’d just missed. Despite his heartache, Harry found himself smiling. Some things never changed.

As he neared the Headmaster’s office his steps slowed. There was something so final, so intrusive about going through another person’s things, even if that person expressly wanted him to do it. Harry knew Sirius was gone, knew he wasn’t coming back, but this just made it all seem so real.

Remus was waiting for him beside the gargoyle, his face reflecting the pain Harry knew was on his own. Harry nodded greeting but didn’t say anything, and Remus was silent as well. Only the weight of Remus’ hand on his shoulder and the warmth beside him reassured Harry that he wasn’t going through this alone.

Dumbledore looked over his glasses at them as they walked into his office. The customary twinkle was muted to the point of near invisibility, but he offered Harry and Remus a solemn smile. Harry couldn’t bring himself to return it. Remus dropped his hand and stepped back, and Harry missed him immediately.

“I know how difficult this will be for you, Harry,” Dumbledore told him. “Professor Lupin has volunteered to go with you to Gringott’s if you would like.”

“Yes, please,” Harry answered right away. Sirius was Remus’ last old friend, and it was closure for Remus as well as Harry, even if Harry didn’t want it.

“Very well,” Dumbledore nodded, one hand absently stroking his beard. “Once you arrive at Gringott’s you will have some documents to sign.” He reached into his desk and pulled out a small purple velvet bag. Leaning over to hand it to Harry, he said, “Inside you will find an Ever-light Expanding Trunk, for use should you wish to bring anything back from the vault with you. There is, as well, the key to Sirius’ vault, and an owl feather that is the portkey to return you both to Hogwarts. Do you have any questions, Harry?”

Even if he had he wouldn’t have been able to force them past the lump in his throat. He shook his head no, then numbly took the bag from Dumbledore and stared down at it blankly.

“Right, then,” the Headmaster continued when Harry remained silent, “here you go. On the count of three.”

Harry reached out to take hold of the tatty glove Remus now held out to him. Staring at the threads sticking out at odd angles from the seams, he gritted his teeth and waited for the pull.

It was as unpleasant as it always was. Once they popped into place a block down from Gringott’s, Remus steadied him with one hand at his back.

“All right, there, Harry?” he asked quietly.

“Yeah,” Harry answered, because he had to say something, even if it wasn’t the truth.

From the sad smile on Remus’ face, he understood, as he had all year. Harry felt a sudden upsurge of gratitude that he still had Moony in his life, at least, and gave Remus a genuine smile.

Some of the tension bled from Remus’ shoulders, and he unconsciously sighed. “Shall we do this, then?” he asked, deliberately giving Harry the right of way, allowing him to go at his own pace. Harry appreciated it. With a jerky nod, he led the way into Gringott’s.

The next hour would always remain a blur to him. There were goblins, less rude than he expected, or perhaps that was Remus running interference for him. There was the usual cart ride from hell, though he didn’t cling to the sides of the car as he used to when he was younger. There was the ever-present feeling of age and weight in the caverns surrounding him as they went deeper into the vaults.

Some moments, however, were sharp as a blade, and cut as easily. The glint of gold and the small weight as Sirius’ key fell into his palm for the first time. The words ‘Upon my death’ leaping out to him from the mound of parchment he signed. The hitch in Remus’ breathing when they stood before the vault door.

There were more locks on Sirius’ vault than on Harry’s family vault, but fewer than the extreme security Dumbledore’d had on the vault that held the Philosopher’s Stone six years before. Harry watched as the gears worked to unseal the door, then stood there, staring into the dimly lit vault, after the door opened.

Behind him he was vaguely aware that their goblin guide impatiently cleared his throat, and was as equally vaguely aware of Remus’ stern whisper that stopped the irritating noise. It didn’t matter. Harry couldn’t be distracted from the import of this particular moment.

This was all wrong. Sirius should be beside him, as well as Remus, Harry’s little family, laughing and pointing things out and sharing memories with Harry as they went. It shouldn’t be so still. Shouldn’t be so quiet.

The sudden urge to move was upon him, and Harry followed it, taking his first hesitant steps over the threshold of the vault. Once inside, it was oddly both easier to move and harder to breathe. Harry was used to the piles of Wizardly money, arranged in this vault the same as they were in his own; what he wasn’t used to were the signs of personality scattered untidily around the large area.

Reaching down, he picked up a pile of black cloth, that on closer inspection was a black leather jacket. It creaked slightly as his fingers clenched around a sleeve, and from behind him, he heard Remus catch his breath. The leather was supple and soft, magically preserved to show no signs of age. Without a word, Harry turned to Remus and handed it to him.

There were tears in Remus eyes as he took it and stared down at it. Harry left him there with his memories, and forced himself to keep exploring, giving Remus a moment to collect his composure.

Over in a corner, Harry found a pair of motorcycle boots, the same black leather as the jacket. He knelt down to look at them, surprised to see they were the same size he wore. It was odd to think of himself as being the same size as Sirius in anything; in his memory, Sirius was always bigger than he, a comforting thought. Harry toed off his shoes and slipped on the boots, lacing them up and wriggling his toes in them. They fit as though made for him.

Poking further into the piles of belongings, Harry found a Muggle tool kit, a finely-worked leather belt with a square silver buckle, and a battered broom servicing kit. As he was turning back to rejoin Remus, he nudged something with his boot. It rustled. He bent back down and picked up what turned out to be, on closer inspection, a thin sheaf of documents.

Perching on the corner of the tool box, he opened the packet and looked through the contents. As each treasure was uncovered, the ache in his throat became more fierce and the pressure behind his eyes increased. Blinking back tears, he stared at the most precious fragments of Sirius Black’s life.

A handful of photos, the faces in them heartbreakingly young, so full of mischief and life. James with Sirius, pranking Remus; Remus and Sirius, sneaking up on James and making off with his satchel; Lily and James, talking together, oblivious to everyone else; Remus, legs folded beneath him, reading a book as Sirius threw apples at him, trying to draw his attention; James, flying loops in the sky as Sirius chased him; Lily, shaking her head at Sirius and James for some unseen prank as Remus laughed himself sick in the background; James, an astounded look on his face as he changed an infant Harry, who was in the process of peeing on him as Lily laughed herself sick beside them.

There were no pictures of Pettigrew. All that were left were memories of joyful times. Harry fought back tears as he gathered the photos together and rose to show them to Remus.

As Harry shuffled them back into the packet, they hit a snag. Peering into the corner of the envelope, he saw what looked for all the world like one of Hermione’s little pots of lip gloss. Shaking it out into his hand, carefully putting the photos back in place, Harry looked down into the top of the pot.

Silver swirled. Familiar silver. It was a pensieve. A miniature pensieve. A glimpse into Sirius’ memories, and if they were anything like the photos he’d found, he couldn’t wait to see them.

With the first real enthusiasm he’d felt since he got the summons from Dumbledore, Harry slipped it into his pocket. Perhaps he should have given it to Remus, but Remus had memories of Sirius, and for once, Harry was going to keep something of his godfather for himself.

Remus still held the jacket folded over his arm as Harry approached. He glanced over and saw the boots Harry now wore and smiled, a shade of pain in the expression not outweighing the happiness of seeing them worn again. He held out the jacket to Harry.

“No,” Harry told him, “please. You wear it. It’s yours now.” Then he held out the packet of photos. “Look what I found.”

They spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on the floor of Sirius’ vault, looking at photos as Remus told Harry stories. Harry laughed at most of them, found himself crying over a few of them, and wasn’t the least surprised when Remus cried right along with him.

Eventually, they brought out the expanding trunk. They gathered more papers, a few more personal effects, and a couple smaller boxes that had Harry’s name on them and stowed them in the trunk. Harry took a look around, and for a moment could swear he heard Sirius’ laughter, echoing in the shadows of the vault.

Then he turned away, and followed Remus back to the bustle of Diagon Alley.