Blood Ties.

Harry woke the next morning with a sense of unreality lying heavily upon him, the feeling enhanced by the emerald curtains that surrounded his bed. He closed his eyes and took a few moments to recall the events of the night before, grimacing as he imagined what everyone's reaction to his decision, and the news of his blood ties to the Dark Lord, would be.

He sighed and rolled over to shove the curtains aside, nearly screaming when he came face-to-face with Draco, Blaise, Pansy and Zacharias.

"Morning, Harry."

He blinked slightly, their harmonious greeting only bringing back that feeling of being somehow trapped in a dream.

"What the bloody hell are you guys doing, trying to give me a heart attack?"

He snatched his glasses from the bedside table and sat up, eyeing the quartet of snakes with a certain feeling of unease.

"Of course not, Potter. I hope you don't mind, but I told a few people about what you told me last night, figured it would make it a lot easier for the others to accept you."

Harry smirked wryly and stood, reaching for his robe and slipping it on.

"Not at all, Malfoy. You think I would have told you if I didn't want it all over the school by the time I woke up this morning? You're more reliable than owls."

Malfoy blinked at him and the others laughed a bit, then the slight scowl on Draco's lips turned up into a grin.

"You're already thinking like a bloody Slytherin, aren't you?"

"Ought to be, shouldn't I? After all, I've got the blood for it. Now, if you lot will excuse me, I'd like a shower before breakfast and I don't fancy an audience."

~~:~~

A hush fell over the Great Hall when Harry strode in with Draco at his side and most of the Slytherin 7th years following after them with smirks on their lips. He flicked a mild look over the other tables as he approached the one draped with green and silver, almost laughing aloud at the amount of wide-eyed stares that tracked him.

"They look as if they're afraid I'll curse them all without a second thought."

Draco's cool laughter rose as they settled in at the center of the table, the blond on Harry's right and Pansy at his left.

"Of course they do. Their hero has become a Slytherin, and now they all know you're related to the most powerful Dark Wizard ever known."

Harry gave a bland shrug and piled food onto his plate, ignoring the feeling of being stared at that made the skin on the back of his neck prickle.

"As if it changes anything. I was always related to Voldemort, it's just no one knew, except possibly Dumbledore. And the house you're in doesn't define who you are."

Draco tilted his head to study Harry, then shook it.

"You don't get it, do you? Before it didn't matter who you were, except maybe to Granger and Weasley. Most everyone else only cared what you were, the Boy-Who-Lived, and everything else about you was inconsequential. Now you're an unknown entity they can't connect with their beloved hero. It makes you dangerous."

Harry contemplated this in silence as he ate, then sipped his pumpkin juice before chuckling and muttering under his breath.

"Good."

~~:~~

"Harry?"

The soft, tentative voice almost wrenched a weary sigh from Harry as he lifted his head from his Potions text to look up at the worried face surrounded by bushy brown hair.

"If you've come to yell at me like Ron did, you might as well save your breath, Hermione."

She flinched from his chill words but sat in the chair across from him, folding her hands on the table and staring down at them.

"I'm not mad at you, Harry, just confused. I realize you think you had to switch to Slytherin when you found out you were his heir and related to V-Voldemort, but...why were you so mean to Ron?"

"Because, I meant what I said. I know you and Ron want to think that you've helped me out over the years, but the fact is you're both more trouble than you're worth. I was willing to put up with you when I thought I couldn't do any better, but now I've got all of Slytherin to choose from, and I don't have to settle for a Mudblood and a blood traitor, do I?"

He watched her eyes widen and then fill with tears, feeling as if he were the biggest arse on the planet, but he couldn't dare give any hint of his plans to even his best friends. Her mouth worked silently for a few moments, then she jumped to her feet and ran off sobbing.

He sighed and dropped his head onto his arms, wondering briefly how Snape managed to do it without going completely bonkers.

"You seem to have embraced your heritage quickly, Potter."

The icy voice of his new dorm mate finally dragged the sigh from Harry's chest and he rolled his head to glare at Draco, sneering.

"Guess it was in me all the time and I just needed a good reason to let it out."

Draco studied him intently and shook his head, turning to head away with a mutter tossed over his shoulder.

"Somehow I doubt that, Potter."

~~:~~

Harry was looking down on an assembly of Death Eaters, their ranks forming a circle around a tall, slender form that was cloaked in black, face hidden behind a simple, white porcelain mask. He watched the figure kneel and bend low, a familiar voice rising from behind the plain mask.

"My Lord, I have news."

Harry caught sight of his hand rising from the corner of his eye and had to supress a scream, the long, white fingers were tipped with glossy, black talons, and the voice that slithered from his lips was one with which Harry was intimately familiar.

"What news have you brought me, Draco?"

The whippet-thin figure rose and Harry sensed a smile curling the lips of the creature he now inhabited, as Draco spoke calmly.

"Harry Potter has renounced Gryffindor, turned his back on his friends and claims that you are his half-uncle, My Lord. He seems much changed, even going so far as to call his former friends Mudbloods and blood traitors."

A dry, hissing chuckle slipped from his lips and he reached toward Draco, curling his fingers.

"Come, Draco. This news has made me most pleased and you deserve a reward."

Harry thrashed his way free of the dream, his scar burning like a brand in his skin, drawing a low whimper from deep in his chest. He rolled over on his stomach and pressed his head into his pillow to muffle the sounds he was incapable of controling. After a few moments the pain subsided and he sat up, drawing open the curtains on his bed, eyes focused on the one opposite him.

'So, Draco's done what I expected. I figured it would be tonight, before any of the other Death-Eater spawn could get news off to their parents. It's good Draco gets the credit.'

He watched the empty bed, waiting silently and wondering what reward Draco would recieve for his services to the Dark Lord, unable to imagine anything he'd personally want from him. Almost two hours had passed before he heard the dorm room door open, and he watched Draco make his way silently to the empty bed.

"Come here."

Draco's head jerked up at the whisper and he stared at Harry with fear draining the remaining color from his face, but he did eventually make his way to Harry's bed. Harry motioned him onto it before closing the curtains and casting Muffliato so that they could not be overheard. He studied Draco silently a moment, taking the time to savor the other boy's trepidation and confusion.

"Relax, Malfoy. If I didn't want Voldemort finding out about all this, you think I would've told you?"

Draco's eyes widened and he exhaled in a rush, shaking his head hard.

"How did you know? I mean...How?"

Harry chuckled and leaned back against the wall, eyes casually moving over the willowy boy, looking for some indication of the reward he was supposed to have received.

"I'm sure you know that Voldemort's thoughts and my own are connected, and sometimes we can see through one another's eyes. That's how."

Suddenly Draco's face went beyond white to an ashen gray and he turned his head, trembling like a leaf.

"D-Did you see...it all?"

Harry arched a brow at himself, knowing there must have been something more after the news was given, and deciding to find out what it was the easiest way he knew.

"Of course. Why do you think I called you over here?"

Draco let loose a low whine and Harry watched in stunned facination as the boy began to strip off his clothes, looking ill and terrified.

"Wait...Draco, what are you doing?"

Elegant hands paused in the process of unbuttoning his shirt and Draco looked up, confusion flickering in his eyes.

"I'm taking off my clothes. I thought that was what you wanted?"

Harry stared at the pale flesh revealed above the hands that had been working to free the button at Draco's sternum, trying to order his thoughts properly, brow furrowed.

"Why would I want that, Malfoy?"

The hands fell and he heard Draco hitch in a shivering breath, looking up with a frown. Draco's eyes were closed and his lips were pressed in a firm line, face pulled tight with the effort to remain calm.

"So...So you can do...me. Like...the Dark Lord."

A jolt went through Harry and his eyes grew, mouth dropping open with the realization of what Draco's 'reward' must have been.

"He raped you!? That is his idea of a reward?"

Heat flooded Draco's face and his head lifted, wet, silvery eyes peering at Harry with a combination of fear and resignation as he nodded.

"I thought you knew? He...He says that being raped is my gift, getting to...to feel him inside...of me. Being...so...so...close."

Draco bent forward with a dry wretch and covered his face with his hands, sobbing and shaking as Harry watched with a growing sense of rage and sympathy.

"Well, why did you tell him, then? Why not let one of the others..."

Draco jerked away from the hand Harry tried to lay on his shoulder, head rising and fire burning in the mercury pools of his eyes.

"Because! He'd know you told me, and if I wasn't the one who told him then he'd think I was keeping secrets and kill me!"

A sense of terrible guilt fought with the anger and empathy he was feeling, making Harry wonder if he was cut out for this spy business after all. He sighed and dropped his head back, closing his eyes.

"I'm sorry, Draco. I didn't know he'd...do that to you."

Draco shook his head and shifted, sliding to slip free of the curtains, mumbling miserably.

"Just don't do me any more favors, Potter."