Mistaken Identities

Draco shifted and tried not to stare around him in shock. He simultaneously wanted to make sure his jaw wasn’t hanging open and pinch himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. He’d been in the Headmaster’s office before. Sooner or later nearly every student had. This was not the same.

For starters, Professor Snape was standing next to Dumbledore looking at him thoughtfully. Nothing that strange about that... except this was a meeting about how to take Voldemort down and Snape was one of his top spies. Snape was a traitor and a bloody brilliant one at that! Next to his father, Snape was the last one of Voldemort’s followers he would have expected to find in cahoots with Dumbledore. It meant that he didn’t have to leave his entire life behind him and for that he was grateful. It was also good that he wasn’t the only Slytherin Dumbledore trusted. It made his, and Hermione’s, life easier.

Leaning against the wall and staring at him with piercing eyes was a clearly intelligent, totally together Sybil Trelawney. It was unnerving. Her thick glasses hung from a chain around her neck and even her wild hair, flowing skirts, and jangling earrings did not hide her straighter posture or the smirk on her lips. She was the same woman he had rolled his eyes at in the classroom but she was also a stranger. She had yet to say a word.

And it just kept going. No matter where he looked he saw someone familiar looking jarringly different. Even Dumbledore. He was leaning back in his chair stroking his beard but there was no twinkle. No vapid staring off into space. No offers of lemon drops. Instead he was looking at Draco as if he were a very interesting bug he was thinking about killing and pinning in his collection. Instead of that dreamy-wiser-than-thou voice he always used he fired off questions in a sharp, staccato tone that Draco found himself answering with alacrity.

And Harry and Ron... Draco just managed to suppress a shudder at how close he had courted death. Underneath the soft, youthful faces their charms showed the world, the faces he had mocked and tortured mercilessly, were a couple of hard-edged... men. There was no other word for it. Hermione looked different when she dropped her charms but she had never been quite as... temperamental or rebellious as her counterparts... and it looked like all that emotion and energy had been honed and focused. Harry’s hair was cut short and his scar was prominent on his forehead. He didn’t seem to care. He slouched on the couch, legs spread and one arm tossed carelessly on the back of the couch. He was taller and leaner than Draco had expected and though he looked more muscular his body still had a gangly teenage look to it- all elbows and knees. But the bright green eyes Harry leveled at him, sans those ridiculous glasses, were as cool as ice and Draco felt like Harry was in midst of picking him apart and putting him back together. Draco felt a muscle in his neck start to twitch.

If Harry had finally gotten a hold of his emotions, Ron has grabbed his and wrestled them into submission. He sat close to Harry, one arm resting on the leg he’d cocked up onto the couch. He’d tipped his head down and was glaring at Draco. The air around him practically vibrated with his disbelief and distrust but he had yet to move so much as an inch. Ron in control of his temper was a terrifying thought. Draco was used to Ron looking at him with such ferocity but the tall, muscular, nearly shorn Ron that sat off to his left looked like he wanted to break his legs rather than curse him with flobberworms. Ron had filled out faster than Harry and his body no longer looked so awkward... or soft. *A lot like his brothers. Damn but he’s big.* Draco flicked his eyes over Harry and Ron again but he brought them sharply front when he met Ron’s angry blue eyes.

“Why should we trust you?” Ron’s voice whipped out into the brief silence that had fallen after Draco and Hermione had given the sex-free version of their story.

“I tested him under Veritaserum, Ron. How much more do you need?” Hermione said, folding her arms and matching Ron glare for glare.

“That’s no guarantee.” Harry replied, tipping his head to Snape. “We all know there are ways around it.”

Snape looked as if he were about to say something sharp to Harry but Draco beat him to it.

“You don’t have to trust me. Test the spells yourself. They work. They’re useful.” Draco tried his best to make his voice reasonable though he knew it came out sounding a bit snotty. Harry shook his head.

“It’s not the spells that are the problem. The question is how much Voldemort knows about the spells. Can we really build an attack plan on spells we don’t know are secure?” Harry did manage to make his voice sound reasonable and that irritated Draco even further. *Perfect Potter.* These two made him insane. They always had.

“Hermione’s been with me for everything we can remember since the spells. If you are so worried about me selling you out, lock me up and send Snape in to make sure Voldemort doesn’t know anything. Or make me take a Wizard’s Oath. Whatever.” This time his voice sound even.

“You’d do that?” Ron leaned forward, moving for the first time since he’d sat down. “You’d give up your wand? Stayed locked up? Take a Wizard’s Oath?” Ron looked Draco up and down with a sneer.

The though of losing his wand filled him with a flush of panic. But this was the do or die moment. *What an awful expression.*

“I will.” Simple answers for complex questions.

“Why did you do it?” Harry asked, leaned forward and... *Did he just... stroke... Ron’s back?* Even in his head the question sounded strangled.

“Do what?” His voice sounded a little tighter than normal but other than that he was covering his shock well.

“Switch sides.”

“Oh.” *Fucking brilliant answer, Draco.* “I’d like to say it was a calculated decision but…it was sort of a spur of the moment.” Harry’s eyebrows lifted and Ron snorted.

“Well you could bloody have a spur of the moment decision to switch back couldn’t you?” Ron wasn’t yelling, a minor miracle, but his voice was intense and condescending. Now it was Draco’s turn to shake his head.

“That doesn’t mean the idea just occurred to me. I never wanted to follow Voldemort. Even if he wins...” Draco couldn’t find the words to express how unappealing the idea was to him. “But neither did I want to end up being tortured and turned into some mindless, shambling slave. I was... wherever I was... trying to figure out how I could get out of this without getting killed.”

Dumbledore, Snape, and Trelawney were just watching the exchange and Draco realized with a start that whatever they thought, it was Harry’s opinion they were waiting for. He felt a little light-headed with the realization. His future was in the hands of the closest thing to an enemy he had.

“Why didn’t you come to us sooner?” Again, Harry was the voice of reason…which was seriously creepy.

“Well, to be honest, that didn’t sound all that appealing either... side with a couple of kids who hate me with a passion and a doddering old man just so I can be a social outcast. No money, no power, no friends. I figured I’d be dead in a heartbeat. You don’t trust me now and I’ve brought you something tangibly useful. What you really have done if I’d shown up with empty hands and a pitiful expression?”

“We have taken you in, of course, Draco.” This from Dumbledore and the look Harry shot the old man confirmed Draco’s suspicions.

“Yeah, and then you would have treated me like dirt, used me with little or no care for my safety, and never, ever trusted me.” *What the hell do they want from me? My blood on stone?*

Snape made a quiet wheezing sound that sounded a lot like a laugh and when Draco met his Godfather’s eyes, Snape gave him a small nod. *So, he agrees with me.*

“Which brings us back to the original question... why did you do it?” This time the question came from Ron who was still glaring at him.

“Well, as it turns out the doddering old man isn’t so doddering, the kids aren’t so weak and soft, and at least one of them,” He shot a significant look at Hermione who gave him a small smile back, “...isn’t a complete wanker.”

Ron bristled at that but Harry smiled.

“And now we have spells that makes switching sides even more logical... don’t we Draco?” Harry had a strange little smile on his face... almost like he understood Draco’s logic. *This is so disturbing.*

“Ooo, now you’re catching on.” Draco couldn’t help the sneer he aimed at Harry. He could only go so long before he had to get his fix. They both really were wankers.

“It’s ok.” Harry said to Ron and this time he very clearly stroked the side of Ron’s neck. Ron shot Harry a look and then he actually relaxed. Just like that, he backed off. Draco resisted the urge to whistle. Harry had apparently found a way to keep Weasley on a leash. A sudden mental image of Harry holding a collared and leashed Ron filled his brain and he blinked trying to get it out of his head. “Do you trust him?” Harry asked, looking past him to Hermione.

“Yes.” No hesitation there. *Wow.*

“Good. That’s enough for me. But understand this, Draco; I call the four corners to witness my Oath of Wizard’s Vengeance if you betray us. I’ll spend the next fifty lives hunting you down and making you pay. Am I clear?” Harry leaned forward as he spoke and his cool eyes heated up with a promise of rage. A low knell shook the room as he made the Oath.

Draco could not control his jerk at Harry’s words. A Wizard’s Vengeance Oath was an ancient practice, long out of style, and nothing to be taken on lightly. While fifty lives was far from the eternity some of these oaths entailed it was still a long time. A wizard’s life was far from short. *How the hell did Harry even know about it?* Then he looked at Dumbledore, who looked shocked, and Snape, who didn’t, and found the answer.

“Well, that was unnecessarily dramatic,” Draco said to cover his surprise. “But I’ll take it. So who wants my wand and which tower do I get locked in?”

“No one. None of them.” Harry spoke before any of the adults in the room could. Draco shifted his eyes to Dumbledore.

“Are you sure about that Harry?” Dumbledore asked delicately and Draco had to hold back an eye roll. *What, you expected him to trust you?* The voice in his head was sarcastic but he acknowledged the small pang that came with the idea he would never be trusted again.

“Yeah,” Ron answered for Harry. “He’s too good with his curses and defense spells to not use when the time comes. And he knows what Harry will do if he betrays us. I saw it in his eyes.”

Draco blinked and finally put his head in his hands. That was the final straw. Snape, a traitor. Trelawney, not crazy. Dumbledore, clever. Harry and Ron, scary. All these things he can handle with Malfoy aplomb. After all, he’d been training to handle the unexpected with a straight face from birth. If you fall off your broom and break your leg, you stand and walk on the damn thing until no one is looking. If you walk into an orgy, you say excuse me and walk out. Unless you’d like to join... then you say excuse me and take off your clothes. If someone bumps into you, and you drop all of your things, you sneer and question their parentage. However nothing, absolutely nothing, in his entire life had ever prepared him to gracefully accept a compliment from Ronald Weasley. He barely registered Snape and Trelawney’s agreement with Harry’s assessment.

“Who the hell are you people?” The words popped out of his mouth before he could stop them. He looked up and met Harry’s eyes. When you say something you didn’t mean to, act like you meant to. Harry and Ron gave him synchronized wide smiles before Harry answered.

“We’re the good guys.”

A/N This chapter took a while to get out of my brain and onto paper (electronically speaking) so I hope people enjoyed reading it. With any luck, the next chapter will go a bit easier. And thank you to everyone who has reviewed...it makes such a big difference.