Harry Potter The Long Lost Malfoy

"Tell me how your first week back at school has been, Harry."

Harry relaxed against the couch behind him with a little sigh. Healer Letham had come to Hogwarts through a Floo that Harry had learned to open up for her in a version of the Room of Requirement. As long as he got there first, it worked fine.

And this looked a lot like the room in Malfoy Manor where they'd worked together this summer, down to the dove-grey cloth of the chairs and the quiet crackling of the fire and the smooth black marble walls. It relaxed Harry further.

"Weird."

"Weird?"

Harry looked at her closely, but as always, Healer Letham didn't sound like she was judging, just like she was curious. She had one foot tucked underneath her leg and the other leg dangling, the way she almost always sat, and a calm expression on her face.

Harry nodded. "Weird. There are people staring at me and whispering about what happened during the Third Task, and people who are saying to my face that nothing happened, and people speculating about my parents…" He shrugged.

"Why speculating about your parents?"

"It's become obvious that Fudge is doing something unusual, what with promoting these Muggleborn initiatives." Harry glanced to the side, silently asking for a copy of that morning's Daily Prophet, and the room materialized it for him. Harry picked it up and flipped to the second article, since the first was about some scandal involving Celestina Warbeck. "'Minister Fudge announces new security measures for checking on Muggleborn children in abusive Muggle homes,'" he read. "It's noticeable because it's not something Fudge has ever cared about before, and my father is known to have a lot of control over Fudge."

"And it's also not something your father has ever cared about before."

Harry nodded. "So they're speculating that he's doing it for me, which is true enough. It's just…weird to have everyone muttering about my family like that. But a lot of them still think of me as Harry Potter, so I suppose that's one reason why."

Healer Letham smiled gently. "I would never wish your childhood on anyone, but at least some of your first year in this world prepared you for such things."

"Yeah." Harry leaned further back in his chair and shrugged. "Part of the weirdness is people not knowing what to think about me. I'm Harry Potter but I'm not. Harry Potter was the savior but he didn't exist."

"Do those people include your friend Hermione?"

Harry swallowed and put down the cup of tea that he'd brought with him. The Room didn't seem able to produce tea the right way; it popped up the things to make it or what tasted like hot water and nothing else. "Yeah," he whispered. He swallowed again.

"I am here if you want to talk about it, Harry. But I won't press you if you don't."

Harry frowned. "That's pretty effective manipulation, you know. Then it makes me want to talk to you more."

Healer Letham only smiled, and sipped her tea.

Harry closed his eyes and did his best to organize his thoughts. "Okay," he said at last. "I can't blame Hermione. I know that. If her family had been the kind of people who used to want to harm me, I would have a hard time trusting them."

"But?"

"But I don't know what she wants me to do." The words burst out of Harry like rocks running downhill. "I'm not going to give up my family. I'm not going to say that Father should go to prison when he's changing his ways. I'm not going to say that what he's doing isn't enough. I'm not going to tell her about everything he is doing, because there are some things that I don't think anyone but us should know."

Healer Letham nodded. "And when you speak with her, what does she say?"

"It's mainly because of Father being a Death Eater. And I know he was a willing one, I know he wasn't under the Imperius and that story is bollocks, but…he came for me in the graveyard. He killed Voldemort's snake and the bit of him that was there. Or he did his best. I think the wraith flew away again the way he did after my first year. I don't know how much more strongly I can show Hermione that he's turned against Voldemort."

"She thinks he should have done it before this point," Healer Letham said softly. "She thinks he shouldn't be doing it simply because of his son, but because of disinterested principle."

"Yeah. Which is bollocks, too, because Hermione doesn't even do everything out of disinterested principle. She's lied to professors before so that we wouldn't get in trouble, and she decided to still be friends with me when it came out that I was a Malfoy because she liked me. She should have just turned her back on me then if she thought all Malfoys were bad and couldn't change. She didn't really know much about Father then, but she knew Draco, he'd been pretty bad, and I accepted him."

"What do you think pointing out the hypocrisy would get you?"

"Yelling."

Healer Letham paused. Then she said, "I would still make the effort to talk to her. Miss Granger has been a good friend to you for a long time. But there is a spell I could teach you beforehand, which you could cast on her if she gives her permission."

Harry blinked. "What kind of spell is it?"

"The kind that would make sure there is no yelling. That is the last thing you need. And while I think keeping Miss Granger's friendship is worthwhile, a confrontation is not worth upsetting you as much as I think the yelling would."

Harry looked down, flushing. Sometimes it felt humiliating to be so understood. But good, at the same time.

He nodded. "What's the spell?"

....

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