Harry Potter and the Perversion of Purity
Year 2: The Advancing of Shadows
Chapter 3: Reunions and Riots
By ACI100
Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction based on the Harry Potter universe. All recognizable characters, plots and settings are the exclusive property of J.K Rowling. I make no claim to ownership.
Acknowledgements: Thank you to my editors Athena Hope and Fezzik, as well as my other betas 3CP, Luq707, Raven, Regress, and Yoshi89 for their incredible work on this story.
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Harry Potter and the Perversion of Purity
By ACI100
Book 2: The Advancing of Shadows
Chapter 3: Reunions and Riots
July 23, 1992
Malfoy Manor
8:03 AM
Harry awoke to a loud bang that instantly jolted him. He was jumpy at the best of times as a result of his childhood, but this was particularly notable. He had spent the better part of a month locked up in the same room; there had certainly been no sounds like that to occupy his day — especially not in the house of his terribly normal muggle relatives.
It actually took him a moment upon waking to realize where he was. The bed felt much too warm and comfortable and the room was much too bright. His room on Privet Drive only had a fairly small, grimy window. Wherever he was now seemed so bright, as though the dazzling sunlight streamed inside unimpeded.
“Where the hell have you been?!”
It was the familiar voice that prompted Harry to remember what had happened. He knew that voice all too well; it was a voice he had been hearing regularly for most of the past ten or so months. A perpetually bored-sounding voice that, in its current state of excitement, didn’t quite carry it’s typical drawling quality.
“Morning, Draco,” Harry muttered, sitting up on the bed and steadily remembering how he had escaped Privet Drive, been given an official warning for underage magic, and then arrived at Malfoy Manor in the middle of the night.
It was really no wonder he was so disoriented. He couldn’t remember even a single time Draco had been awake before he had. It marked a first, but he supposed it made sense.
It was the first time in weeks his sleep had been anything resembling restful. The pendant that allowed him to communicate with Grindelwald was an incredible bit of magic — no matter how conflicted Harry felt about the moral troubles of the situation it presented. Its biggest downside was that while he was technically asleep, communicating with Grindelwald didn’t seem to really recharge him. Mixed with horrendous nightmares about his friends’ necks snapping right in front of him and their spines piercing their jaws as their heads contorted in horrible ways whilst somehow at Nurmengard prison, Harry hadn’t been experiencing much in the way of rest since the school year had concluded.
Last night had also been more than a little bit eventful. Even if Harry had been well rested, he doubted he would have completely escaped the emotional exhaustion inevitably associated with such an eventful night.
“That’s the first thing you say?” Draco asked incredulously. “I haven’t seen or heard from you in a month and then you just greet me like nothing ever happened?”
And that was when Harry remembered something else from the night previous; a much smaller detail from his very brief conversation with Lord Malfoy he hadn’t put a whole lot of stock into at the time.
“You wrote to me?” Harry asked, still rubbing furiously at his eyes before clumsily jamming his glasses onto his nose, having to once more blink from the onslaught of light.
He had been placed in one of the many spare rooms at Malfoy Manor. The floor was made of rich, dark wood, as was the desk and other bits of furniture. The walls were a deep, tasteful green, as were the bedsheets Harry had just pushed aside. Notwithstanding the attached bathroom — that put any Harry had ever seen before to shame — and the expansive walk-in closet filled with rich-looking clothes, the room’s main feature was the massive, floor-to-ceiling window. It made up an entire wall and its centre slid aside on command, allowing one to step out onto the balcony and observe the breathtaking view of the grounds, which were comprised of stunning gardens that looked fit for gods; vast, open fields; not one, but two lakes; a full-sized Quidditch pitch; and a forest far off in the distance.
These were much nicer surroundings than Harry was accustomed to, but that came as no surprise. The Malfoys weren’t just one of the wealthiest families in the magical world, but they also liked people to know that fact. Everything about this place screamed of ostentatious wealth but Harry didn’t mind. He thought it was, barring Hogwarts, the single-most incredible place he had ever seen.
“Of course I wrote to you,” Draco said with a roll of his eyes. “I’ve been writing to you almost every second day.”
Harry finally stopped blinking the sun out of his eyes and peered intently towards Draco. “I never got your mail. I never got any mail from anyone.”
Draco, who had seemed to be building up towards some kind of tirade, paused and suddenly looked aghast.
“You… what?”
Harry just nodded, biting his bottom lip. He had never told Draco any details about his time at the Dursleys. Doing so now was doubtlessly going to be uncomfortable, but that wasn’t what worried him most.
“Draco… if I… tell you how my summer’s gone so far, will you promise not to tell anyone — no matter what?”
Draco looked taken aback. “Why would I need to promise that?”
The real answer was because Harry knew enough about Slytherin to understand how it worked. The house was a nest of vultures. First years were largely let off the hook, as older students seemed to have a sort of honour code and mostly left them to their business. That wasn’t entirely true, but at the very least they wouldn’t openly antagonize them. Travers and his group of thugs had been a bit different, since they themselves had only been second years. His older brother who had been stopped by Fawley… well, that had been a sort of exception.
Now that Harry was officially entering his second year, that safety blanket was about to disappear, and he would be lying if he said he wasn’t more than a little bit apprehensive about it. The last thing he wanted was to give his foes ammunition like details about his home life.
The good news was that he had the open support of the heirs — and in Pansy’s case, heiress — of some of the most important and influential pureblood families in the country. The bad news was that Harry knew Travers was far from the only student who didn’t appreciate the halfblood defeater of Voldemort being sorted into the house of cunning.
He hadn’t been deaf to the whispers and he wasn’t daft. He knew by now that many Slytherins had close familial ties to those who had once served Voldemort. Some of their relatives had died in the war, while others were sent to Azkaban. The Travers brothers, for example, had an uncle who was serving a life sentence in the prison. Even Draco and Diana were related to Bellatrix Lestrange, who had been convicted for torturing Neville Longbottom’s parents into insanity.
Harry shook his head to rid himself of any thoughts about Neville. They brought up memories that were best left untouched, especially when he was trying to think with anything resembling rational clarity.
“Just answer the question, Draco.”
Draco looked a bit annoyed at the curt address for a few seconds before composing himself.
“Fine,” he agreed. “I won’t tell anyone about whatever’s happened over your summer.”
And then, Harry began his tale.
It was only some time later — and a considerable amount of cursing on Draco’s part — that the two young Slytherins made their way downstairs and into the family’s main dining hall. If Harry hadn’t seen the Great Hall at Hogwarts, he might have lost his jaw to shock. The chandelier alone looked like it cost more than the Dursleys’ entire house, and that was to say nothing of the rest of the room.
“Ah, Draco, Harry. A pleasure to see the both of you awake.”
“Good morning, Father,” Draco greeted, taking a seat across from the man as Harry sat beside him and across from his sister, Diana. All four Malfoys were now present at the table, which struck Harry as being somewhat odd.
“How did you sleep, Mister Potter?” Mr. Malfoy — as the man had told him last night to drop the title of lord whilst in his home — asked.
“Better than I have in a long time, sir.”
“I’m glad to hear it. We never did get much time to talk at King’s Cross. You seemed most… distracted by your unfortunate plight.”
Harry was relieved the man only suspected his state to be as a result of his dread over returning to the Dursleys. When the Malfoys had found him on the platform, Harry had been as white as a ghost, shaking like a leaf, and trying not to vomit.
“I… yeah, sorry about that, sir.”
“Not to worry, dear boy. Your misfortune was truly a thing to dread. I do not blame you. I blame those who forced you into such a… position.”
“The real question,” asked Narcissa, examining Harry with her cool blue eyes, “is how are you feeling now? I can only imagine your treatment under the care of those muggle savages.”
“I’m… okay now. It wasn’t a great month.”
Draco glanced meaningfully between Harry and his parents. There was a moment during which Harry thought the blond might break his promise just minutes after making it, but he mercifully stayed quiet.
Not that his message wasn’t obvious. He clearly wanted Harry to tell his parents about what had occurred on Privet Drive. Harry wasn’t necessarily opposed to the idea, but he would need to feel out his current situation first. The Malfoys had treated him with nothing but the utmost kindness since he had entered the magical world, but he didn’t really know them on a personal level. He was much too worried about how they might react to such a tale to just throw it out casually. It also wasn’t exactly easy for him to talk about, so it would require a bit of familiarity on his part.
There was also the small issue that they were adults… adults had never really helped Harry much in the past.
“I’m glad you’re at least better now,” Narcissa said with a small smile. “How was your first year at Hogwarts? Like Lucius said, we never did talk after your arrival back in London.”
Harry clutched onto the switch of topics with the grace of a drowning man who had been thrown a life jacket and launched into a heavily edited account of his first year at Hogwarts. He made no mention of dead classmates or monologuing dark lords.
The next day…
Harry’s first day at Malfoy Manor had probably been the most pleasant day outside of school he could ever remember.
The conversation about Hogwarts had taken up much of breakfast. Narcissa had professed open pride about Harry’s outstanding grades in all of the wanded subjects, which had made him blush and feel oddly uncomfortable. It wasn’t until several hours later that he realized why. It was the first time he could ever remember an adult openly indicating that they were proud of him. It was just… an odd feeling he wasn’t entirely sure how to deal with.
Perhaps the best part of that meal had come when Harry had been discussing some of the troubles he’d had with older students.
The previous morning…
“You mustn’t let them get to you,” said Lucius. “They attack you out of jealousy emanating from many reasons.”
“It doesn’t really bother me,” Harry responded. “I’m just a bit worried now that I’m not a first year. I’m not sure it will be as easy holding off older students who know more magic.”
“Well if you are as studious as it seems, I suppose there is the summer for you to use to try and close that gap.”
Harry had frowned deeply at that. “The summer, sir?” Lucius had just nodded and raised a brow, obviously unsure as to the source of Harry’s confusion. “I thought we weren’t allowed to use magic. Doesn’t the ministry know right away?”
“There is a trace, yes, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they know when you cast magic.”
“But… when I… used it to get away from my relatives, I got a letter about it right away.”
“Did you?” Mister Malfoy asked, leaning forward. “Tell me, Harry, could you have gotten away from your relatives’ home without using magic?”
“No, sir.”
“Hm, I think I’ll have a chat with some old friends of mine at the ministry and explain the… extenuating circumstances which led to that particular bit of magic. You should have that warning removed by the week’s end, I imagine.”
Draco was grinning ear-to-ear at Harry in a way that screamed of superiority. Harry had never seen him look so smug. It was odd. He had heard Draco speak of the power his father wielded many times, but bearing witness to it was an entirely different thing altogether.
“Thank you, sir. Your help truly means a lot.”
“It is no trouble. Simply a horrible flaw in our governing system. To answer your earlier question, the ministry can’t track who is casting magic. That is very much impossible. What they can do is detect where magic is being cast. They knew it was you because you were residing in a muggle neighbourhood. If only one person in the area can cast magic, it makes the job of identifying the culprit quite redundant. In highly populated areas or pureblood homes, the ministry can only detect that magic was cast. They have no way of knowing who cast it unless there are witnesses who come forward and report a violation of the Reasonable Decree for Underage Sorcery.”
“Not that the ministry could detect magic here,” Draco pointed out. “Not with the wards on the manor.”
Lucius smiled thinly. “Indeed. Much like many of the most prestigious homes in the country, this one is protected by very ancient and powerful magic that makes the ministry’s efforts wasteful. Not that it would matter. The ministry largely relies on the families of students to enforce the law involving underage magic. I, for one, have no intention of depriving my children of such an advantage. Since you are now my ward for the summer, the same rules extend to you.”
“So… I can cast magic?”
“Of course,” said Narcissa. “All we ask is that if you’re going to cast anything new that you think might be dangerous, please do it with supervision.”
“There’s also the family library,” Diana said with a wink to Harry. “I have a feeling you might be interested in that, as long as Mother and Father don’t mind you using it.”
“Of course not,” dismissed Narcissa. “I would just ask that you stay away from the books closest to the right wall. Just avoid the closest few rows of shelves. Those books might be a bit… mature for now.”
Back in the present…
Harry had spent the rest of that day with Draco, but he made his way into the family library that next morning, keen to investigate the place.
It wasn’t quite the size of the Hogwarts library — which, according to Hogwarts, A History, was the largest collection of books in the country — but it was still massive. Rows upon rows of shelves dominated almost all available floor space. Each shelf stretched high towards the ceiling, far taller than any ordinary bookshelf Harry had ever seen. Narcissa’s warning actually barred Harry from reading a great number of books purely because of the volume of each shelf, but that number seemed small in comparison to the rest of the library.
The room had a very different sort of feel to it than the one at Hogwarts. Heavy curtains were pulled over what Harry could only assume to be a massive window, veiling all natural light. The room was lit only by a scarce number of torches dotted here and there, mostly at tables setup around the room so one could read with the aid of their light.
Harry looked around for some time before settling on a book on duelling. His discussion about the older Slytherins yesterday had really planted the idea in his mind that he ought to get better at using magic in combat. His mind briefly ventured towards images of broken necks and mutilated corpses, but Harry ruthlessly fought against that line of thought and dragged his mind back on track with a great degree of difficulty.
He had spent several hours in the library, sitting in a comfortable armchair, reading up on all kinds of new spells, and taking notes on all of them before the door opened loudly.
“There you are,” Draco drawled. Harry couldn’t help but notice how through those three words alone, he managed to somehow convey how he had spent so much time looking for Harry.
“I’ve been in here for ages,” said Harry. “Sorry, but you weren’t up when I got out of bed and I was curious.”
“Yes, well, you were always going to end up in here eventually, weren’t you?” He glanced towards the book in Harry’s hands, but its cover was facing away from him. “What’s caught your attention this morning?”
“A book on duelling,” said Harry, flipping it around so that Draco could see its cover. “I’ve read about all kinds of new spells in this one. Not sure I can do a lot of them, but they seem dead useful.”
“Ah, that one. Father warned me off that one a few years ago. Said most of the spells would be more aimed at older students. Have you tried any yet?” Harry shook his head. “Shame. If anyone our age can do them, it’s probably you.”
“We’ll see how it goes, I guess.”
“It’ll have to wait, I’m afraid. Pansy’s going to be here soon with Crabbe and Goyle, and Theodore is already on his way. I think Diana is having her friends over too. With the amount Pansy’s been droning on about you in her letters, I think she’d kill me if I didn’t drag you out to see her.”
As Harry followed in Draco’s wake, he couldn’t help but reflect on that last statement and think just how odd it still felt to have people who were genuinely concerned about him.
Just another point in favour of the wizarding world. They didn’t care if you were different, nor if you came from a background they didn’t understand. They offered a fresh start and let one make something of themselves. Harry would be forever grateful for that.
Several hours later…
Harry, Draco, Crabbe, Goyle, and Cassius were all laughing by the time they landed, despite the fact they were all quite sore.
They had spent the better part of the last few hours up in the air on broomsticks playing Quidditch. They had played countless games of two aside, with the odd man out playing seeker. The game would end when the seeker caught the snitch. It just so happened that in addition to their full-size Quidditch pitch, the Malfoys had a fleet of brooms — though Draco could be heard loudly complaining that none of them were any of Nimbus’s last few models — as well as several sets of balls and beater’s bats.
Harry was actually astonished with how well he did. He was quite good as a chaser, though he did get knocked around a bit by the others. He was the smallest of the bunch by a considerable margin, and it showed. He was the quickest on a broom and seemed the most talented at quick maneuvers, but when he didn’t manage to get out of the way, he was in trouble. He was completely rubbish as a beater, but the position he actually enjoyed most was that of seeker.
Nobody had caught the snitch nearly as fast as Harry and it wasn’t a one off fluke, either. He did it on a number of occasions; by the time he caught his final snitch, he could see that Draco was visibly frustrated over something. Perhaps that he couldn’t match Harry’s impressive punctuality in catching the snitch, seemingly no matter how hard he tried.
The last round played saw both Harry and Draco as chasers on the same side though and they were laughing merrily by the time they landed near their other friends.
Theodore and Pansy had sat out the Quidditch games. Theodore had just never been interested in Quidditch and Harry doubted Pansy would be caught dead on a broom. Even if they could somehow convince her, the laughs wouldn’t be worth the hours after them, during which Harry had no doubt she would complain endlessly about how the wind had completely ruined her hair and all sorts of other things he simply couldn’t will himself to care about.
Diana and her best friend — a tall girl named Cassandra Yaxley who had golden-blonde hair and deep green eyes — had also sat out, talking amongst themselves and the younger Slytherins as they watched the rest of them up in the sky.
“Have fun?” Diana asked as soon as they landed, smiling vaguely at their unanimously displayed, care-free expressions.
All of them nodded, taking seats and happily beginning their assault on what was left of the picnic some of the Malfoy elves had prepared for them. Harry thought this oddly reminiscent of the day early in his first year when he and Draco had been flying, only to land and for Harry to meet Diana’s friends for the first time before making quick work of a similarly prepared picnic.
The jovial atmosphere persisted for some time… right up until Pansy asked about why on earth Harry hadn’t been answering any of her mail. The shriek she let out when he explained what had happened would have put a banshee to shame. Of all gathered, only Diana and Cassandra — who preferred to be called Cassie — managed not to react outwardly.
“Pathetic,” cursed Theodore, spitting in the grass to show his distaste. “You should tell Lord Malfoy, Harry.”
Draco’s chest puffed out and his chin rose. It was similar to how he had looked the day before at breakfast, but Harry ignored him.
“Why though?” he asked. “What is there he can do? It already happened; it’s not like he can fix it.”
“With that,” said Cassie, “he could probably do more than you could imagine.”
“Not to mention making sure you never go back,” Cassius muttered darkly.
“Why did you go back in the first place?” Pansy asked, stomping her foot on the grass as she glared at Harry. He tried hard not to wither under her stare, since he knew he was not the true source of her ire. “Didn’t you hate it there?”
“I didn’t have a choice,” he mumbled by way of an answer.
“What do you mean you didn’t have a choice?” asked Diana.
“Dumbledore told me I had to—”
“Of course it’s Dumbledore,” sneered Draco. “That old fool has to stop sticking that long, stupid nose of his where it doesn’t belong. He has no right to tell the Boy-Who-Lived where he can and can’t go. Honestly, if Father knew about this—”
“He might have the right,” mused Diana. “Well, he might have the right to tell Harry he needs to stay there specifically.” She looked at Harry. “Those relatives needed to sign a permission form for you to spend Yule at the manor, didn’t they?” He nodded. “There you go; that probably means that they’re his legal guardians.”
“But that’s blasphemy!” Pansy exclaimed. “Surely, some good-for-nothing muggles can’t have custody of the Boy-Who-Lived! He’s a cultural icon! Every child in our world knows who Harry is and he has to listen to muggles!”
“They’re not even fit to lick the grime off of his boots,” muttered Theodore. “Them giving him orders makes me sick.”
“You should really tell Father, Harry,” said Diana. “He could appeal this to the ministry and the Wizengamot. Between the two bodies, I’m sure we could get this… atrocity sorted.”
“Do you really think so?” Everyone nodded, but Harry still hesitated. Somehow, telling Mister Malfoy about all of this just seemed like he was taking the plunge. The man had been nothing but kind, yet he still intimidated Harry more than the boy would care to admit.
In the end, he promised nothing, though the thought now lurked seductively at the corners of his mind.
July 27, 1992
Malfoy Manor
8:32 AM
Mister Malfoy was in a thunderous mood the Monday morning following Harry’s arrival at the manor. It was the first time the man had been anything less than either pleasant or neutral in Harry’s presence, and the image was one he was not keen to see often. His visage spoke of a man who was not to be crossed and his very stare seemed to do its best to burn a hole straight through the newspaper headline that had so drawn his ire.
WIZENGAMOT OFFICIALLY PASSES MUGGLE PROTECTION ACT!
By Rita Skeeter
“At least the woman tore the Liberals down a peg,” Narcissa observed.
It was true.
Harry didn’t understand most of the article, since he knew absolutely nothing about politics, but this Rita Skeeter had not held back on her negative opinions of the bill and those who had passed it. The extent of what he knew was that the Wizengamot was divided into three factions. The Liberals, the Neutrals, and the Conservatives. From the little he had read, he was pretty sure the Conservatives were more traditional in their views and that they were the ones who typically pushed the pro-pureblood agenda. The Liberals largely advocated for the passing of new, progressive bills, while the Neutrals took whichever stance benefited them at the time.
Harry had no doubts that was a horribly simplified and generalized description that did not at all accurately reflect the deeper workings of Magical Britain’s politics, but he really wasn’t that interested. He was more than content letting the adults deal with that mess while he just focused on school.
“Skeeter’s quill might be sharp,” said Mister Malfoy, scowling, “but it should have been a dagger. One right under the chin of Weasley, if I had my way.”
“What does the bill do?” asked Draco.
“Among other ridiculous things — all benefiting the muggles and outsiders — it gives Weasley of all people the power to invade the privacy of upstanding citizens. I have no doubt he’ll be here within the week. Trust the Liberals to get some trash like this passed.” He pushed his breakfast away from him as he stood to his feet. “Pardon me for the morning, there are matters that I must see to at once.”
Harry didn’t see Mister Malfoy for the rest of that day. Not that he took the chance; he spent most of the rest of the day locked up in the library since the last thing he wanted was to cross paths with angry adults. That had never gone well for him in the past.
Later that night, in the Hog’s Head…
Glasses clinked against the table as two men sitting across from one another each set theirs down.
Both men wore standard robes, though one was a normal-looking black and one was periwinkle blue.
The one in the blue robes glanced over his contemporary’s shoulder towards a portrait depicting a young, blonde girl with an oddly vacant expression. The man looked strangely sad, just as he did every time the portrait was in his line of sight.
“So,” began the man in normal robes, “why are we here?”
His flamboyantly dressed counterpart raised an eyebrow. “Is the bond of family not enough?”
The other man snorted. “Your games won’t work on me, of all people. We met two weeks ago; we almost never meet more than once a month with your schedule and band of pandering admirers.” The luridly dressed man frowned deeply, but he didn’t deny the accusation. “You wanted a meeting badly and there’s a reason. I’m just curious to know what that reason is.”
His brother sighed and graced him with a fond smile. “You have never gotten the credit you deserve. I take the blame for that and am sorry for it—”
“You can keep all of the attention. Shove it somewhere unpleasant, while you’re at it.”
“Why must you make passing along a simple compliment so difficult?”
“Not many things are difficult for you, are they? I’ve got to make your life interesting somehow.”
“Well, there is something else I have had great difficulty with this summer. I was hoping you might be able to be of some assistance on that front?” The other man grunted to show he was listening and the speaker withdrew a number of parchments from his robes and put them on the table between them.
“Oh, hell,” cursed the man in black robes. “You can’t be serious—”
“I would not bring something like this before you if I were not.”
“You can take all of this to hell, Albus. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t laugh you out of the building?”
Albus Dumbledore studied his brother pensively. “Harry Potter is shaping up to be quite the masterful young mind,” he said after a moment. “I just thought you might wish to be in a position to, as you might put it, make sure my meddling doesn’t start another war.”
Aberforth cursed aloud and downed his glass of fire whiskey. This was going to be a long night.
Author’s Endnote:
This was a fairly wholesome chapter, which was fun after the end of book 1. I’m thinking two more chapters left for the summer.
Please read and review.
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