'But wait,' Draco said, sudden realisation dawning on his aristocratic features. 'That means that your Uncle James and Aunt Lily are really your parents!'
'That's right,' Harry replied. 'Dad was my godfather. They wanted him to take care of me if anything happened to them. As it turned out, everyone thought he had betrayed the Potters to Riddle, so he was tossed into Azkaban.'
'Is that why you went to live with Aunt Regina in France?' Draco asked.
Harry sighed. 'Actually, Draco, there's a bit more you need to know.'
He ended up telling Draco everything: how Dumbledore had packed him off to live with Muggles, how the Dursleys had mistreated him and he had been rescued by the Squibs, how they and the portraits had come up with the plan to disguise Harry as Sirius's son. Draco listened to everything patiently, but Harry could see his face falling with each new revelation.
'Who knows the truth?' he asked Harry at the end.
'Dad and I, of course,' Harry replied. 'Aunt Clytemnestra, Aunt Cassie, Uncle Moony, Mopsy and the portraits.'
Draco's eyes went wide. 'And Aunt Cassie doesn't mind that you're not really the heir by blood to the House of Black?'
Harry grinned. 'She was mollified by my rather precocious ability to vanquish invincible Dark wizards.'
'Does anyone else know?'
Harry began to shake his head, but stopped himself as he remembered. 'Oh, I almost forgot. Dumbledore figured it out.'
'DUMBLEDORE KNOWS?' Draco exclaimed.
'That's right,' Harry said smoothly. 'He made the mistake of trying to blackmail us, which only succeeded in making Dad angry. That's why he's cataloguing Flamel's papers and I'm still parading around as Aries Black.'
'How did you manage that?' Draco asked in shock.
Harry laughed. 'Let's just say, if you ever have any dark secrets you don't want to get out, make sure to keep Aunt Cassie on your side.'
Draco looked down at his toes. 'So, none of us are really family then. This is all a big sham.'
'That's not true!' Harry protested. 'Dad really is your mum's cousin. Uncle James – my real father – was the son of Dorea Black, so Aunt Cassie, Aunt Clytemnestra and Uncle Marius are really my aunts and uncle. We're still cousins as well, just a bit further apart.'
'Second cousins, once removed,' Draco snapped. He had a good head for figuring out family relationships. 'That's practically strangers!'
'We grew up with one another, Draco,' Harry whispered. 'We have a lot of things besides blood to hold us together.'
Draco frowned pensively, and stood up from the sofa.
'Thank you for telling me this,' he said sincerely. 'I promise I shan't tell anyone.'
Harry had a sinking feeling in his stomach as he looked at his best friend's face. Draco looked calm, but Harry knew him well enough to see the pain in his eyes.
'I thought you mightn't take it very well,' Harry said.
'I'll be fine,' Draco replied automatically. 'I just need some time to think about it.'
Harry nodded sadly, and Draco left him all alone in the Shrieking Shack. Moments after the blond boy left, Harry felt a shooting pain in his forehead. He collapsed on the sofa and found himself witnessing a vision. Previously, he had only ever experienced these visions as dreams when asleep.
He sat in a stiff, high-backed armchair beside a small fire that flickered dimly within an iron grate. He had the strange sensation of simultaneously seeing the upholstered back of the chair and also the filthy room in front of him. Lucius Malfoy knelt on the dirty floor, still shivering from the Cruciatus Curse he had just endured.
'I am very disappointed, Lucius,' Harry said in the strange, high voice he had come to know so well from his dreams. It sounded weaker, though, and hoarser, and for the first time Harry recognised it as the voice of Lord Voldemort. 'I designed the diary for use as a weapon, but I did not expect you to be so careless as to allow it to be revealed.'
'It was not my fault, my lord,' Lucius replied faintly. 'Black discovered the truth on his own. He spoke to Draco.'
Harry felt enormous rage build within him. The useless wizard in front of him had been so confident that his plan would work, that there was no way things could go wrong, and now the precious diary was in the hands of his enemies.
'CRUCIO!' he bellowed, and Lucius screamed in pain. The pain in Harry's forehead mounted with it, and the sound of his own screaming stirred him from the vision. He lay on the floor for several minutes before he felt able to stand. He realised now that he had been dreaming of Tom Riddle all this time. Harry supposed that made sense, seeing as the dreams had started around the same time he had begun writing in the diary, but somehow he had never made the connexion before.
He rose to his feet tentatively and wobbled his way through the tunnel and back up to the castle. He needed to let Sirius know what was happening.
.....
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