Finally, the day arrived when Pansy was scheduled to go to Diagon Alley with her mother. Harry had already decided to go as well. He wanted to be able to watch over her, just in case some unknown trouble might present itself. His desire to protect her was such that he didn't even think anything of it, his instincts once again leading him. In this case though, magic, and the Potter family ring's magic in particular, were driving him to care for Pansy. She was a potential mate, and there were possible futures with her as mother to the next generation of Potters, which meant that Pansy must be protected.
Harry was unaware of this deeper layer of magic calling him to Diagon Alley that day, though. More than anything he just wanted to see his girlfriend again, even if he had to act as if they were not together yet. For once, Harry felt like a normal teenager, longing for his girl instead of worrying about danger. This brought a smile to his face as Dobby transported him to a quiet corner of the alley while under his cloak. He still was a bit wary of showing up in public, but knew that Dobby would stay close by if a quick get away was required.
This public appearance would be a bit different from his previous ventures into the magical world anyway. He had an actual wardrobe for one thing, with clothes that fit him for the first time in his life. He had a new pair of glasses for the first time in several years, and the updated prescription helped a lot more than he would have thought. He also had a set of contacts, but didn't want to reveal that little secret just yet. For this reason, he had a second set of glasses with clear lenses for when he was feeling paranoid. With all the battles for his life that he kept getting into, losing his glasses in the middle of one of them was far too dangerous and Harry was not interested in trying to fight while nearly blind past a certain distance.
The alley was fairly busy, but not as packed as it had been last year. Of course, school was still almost a week away, so both the early and late rushes to get school supplies were not going on right now. He did see a few students with their parents making their way to the various stores, but Pansy was not among them yet. A crowd was gathered at Quality Quidditch Supplies though, so Harry made his way over to see what was going on.
There, in the window, was a new broom on a special podium. A sign announced it as the brand new Firebolt, the top of the line broom that made all previous brooms look like toys by comparison. Faster, sleeker, more maneuverable, it sounded like a dream come true for a quidditch player like Harry. But the sign also revealed that the price was available only on request, and Harry was pretty sure that meant it would be insanely expensive. Harry's Nimbus 2000 was good enough anyway, and he had made Malfoy look like a fool last year even though he'd had the year newer model.
Regardless, it was doubtful that the Malfoys could bother spoiling Draco any further at the moment, what with Lucius in Azkaban for the next several months. Sadly, Harry's lack of faith in the justice system was proven partially correct. Whatever spells Lucius had used on the muggles were hard to determine, and the fact that they were locked in a dungeon below his manor was sadly not as harsh a crime as it should have been. In the end, he'd only been sentenced to 6 months prison time. The numerous dark items found did lead to a stiff set of fines, though. Hopefully, that would at least lead to Malfoy being less able to throw bribes around. Harry was worried that Fudge might go right back into his pocket once he got out.
Harry was brought out of his thoughts by a face he recognized in the reflection off the store windows. There she was, walking slightly behind her mother who looked as grumpy as ever. Pansy was scanning the crowd and he saw a flash in her eyes as she saw him. Harry forced himself to clear his head and watched her walk into Flourish and Blotts. Waiting a moment, he turned and followed them into the store.
Pansy was at the counter, reading out a list of the books she required to an employee who scowled when she mentioned that she needed a copy of the book in the window display. The Monster Book of Monsters was apparently as ferocious as its title suggested, with copies fighting each other. There was a cage separating them from the rest of the store. As the man grumbled while walking over towards them, Harry felt like this was a good opportunity at discreet interaction. Plus, it would only be the polite thing to do.
"Excuse me, sir. You might want to grab a second copy while you're at it as I need one of those too."
Pansy's mother looked over at him with a harsh, judgmental eye. Thankfully, his new clothes did not draw any disapproval from her. As always, her eyes eventually glanced up to his scar. Harry felt the negativity seeping out of this woman and it peaked when she saw who he was, but then a smile came to her face as she walked over to him.
"Well, if it isn't Harry Potter," she said as her gaze continued to size him up. Noticing his family ring, she added, "Or is it Lord Potter now?"
"I have taken my place as head of House Potter, yes madam. I don't believe we've been properly introduced, though I do recognize your daughter Pansy."
With a harsh look from her mother, Pansy walked over and introduced the Lady Dahlia Parkinson to him and he bowed kissing just over her hand, showing the proper etiquette that he'd learned for such an occasion. The skill of hiding his disdain that he'd learned from years with the Dursleys came in handy at this moment, and he forced a pleasant smile on his face as he said, "A pleasure to meet you, Lady Parkinson."
"My pleasure as well, Lord Potter. I've heard you were in my daughter's year at Hogwarts. What other electives are you taking this year?"
"Ancient Runes and Arithmancy as well."
"Good choices. Pansy is taking the same. You must be fairly ambitious to take the harder classes. I know many children your age choose the softer options of Divination or Muggle Studies," she said, and Harry noticed the note of disgust with which she said the word muggle.
"Divination seems like it would only be useful to those who have such unique talents. I doubt any of my class mates do though, so I'm not sure why the school wastes time and money on the class. As for Muggle Studies," he said, mimicking negative her tone, "I've already learned plenty as I was forced to live among them for many years."
"Oh really? That's interesting. Most believed you to have been whisked away to some hidden castle after your parents untimely deaths."
"That belief is quite wrong, sadly. It sounds like it would have been a much more interesting life that I could have lived."
"It is a shame that our great hero was raised among muggles. But at least you're taking up your proper place now it seems," she said with a slight sneering tone that Harry was still able to catch. The typical pureblood distaste for muggles was very strong from Pansy's mother and he wondered briefly how much of that attitude might have seeped into Pansy, even subconsciously.
'If she only knew that it was all thanks to her daughter' Harry thought as they continued to chat while the salesman rang up their purchases. 'How would a Death Eater's wife react to her daughter aiding the boy who lived? Probably not very well,' he thought darkly. Thankfully, the summer was nearly over and Pansy would soon be off to Hogwarts with him.
Before they could make their way outside, they encountered Draco and his mother, whom Mrs. Parkinson greeted with a measured amount of polite enthusiasm. After all, these were proper pureblood contemporaries.
"Narcissa, darling, wonderful to see you again."
"Dahlia, a pleasure as always," Mrs. Malfoy replied politely but with an obvious bit of nerves as well. She was an attractive woman in her mid thirties with long blonde hair but seemed quite a bit uptight as well. Her expression betrayed the stress that her husband's misdeeds must have caused her this summer. Something in Harry's instincts suggested that maybe this woman wasn't as evil as her husband and son but at the same time he wondered if he looked at her with less scorn just because she was a beautiful woman. Hormones don't always make the best judges of character after all.
"Might I introduce the Lord Potter to you?" Narcissa raised an eyebrow and turned to look him over with more of an interest than he thought she would. He could only guess what she might have heard of him from her husband and son- nothing good he assumed.
"Lord Potter, the proud hero of Hogwarts, I've heard," she said as she offered her hand graciously. Harry took it courteously, kissing just above her knuckles with much less disdain than he'd felt towards Pansy's mother just moments ago. He noticed her perfectly manicured nails and the softness of her skin and smiled at her as he looked up. The fact that Draco could be seen scowling in the background made it hard for Harry not to smirk at him, and he decided to be a bit flirtatious just to irritate the little bastard.
"What do you mean about him being a hero?"
"Oh, hadn't you heard Dahlia? Lord Potter here saved the school after the Heir of Slytherin supposedly attacked several students last year."
"I certainly hadn't heard anything of the sort. Were you aware of this Pansy?"
"There were rumors, mother, but Professor Dumbledore never announced exactly what happened."
"That doesn't surprise me," Narcissa answered. "The old wizard never did like to share information."
"Where did you hear about this Narcissa?"
"Before Lucius' indiscretions," the disgust was clear in her voice, "there were all sorts of rumors going through the board of governors. He never said outright what happened, but when he returned from the school near the end of term, he said that it was the boy who lived who once again saved the day. Tell us, Lord Potter, just what did happen at Hogwarts last year?"
"I'm not sure what I should say about it," Harry began, cautiously. "I assume Professor Dumbledore has his reasons for keeping parts of the matter private."
"Yes, but who knows what those reasons are," Narcissa replied. She was digging for information here, but Harry was unsure what her motives were. Maybe Lucius had hidden things from her?
"I could say that there were several students attacked and left petrified," Harry said, without mentioning how close he was to one of the victims. No matter how pleasant Mrs. Malfoy seemed at the moment, he knew he had to be suspicious of her. "There were all sorts of rumors about what could have been the cause. I was even blamed for a time."
"Why would they blame you?" Mrs. Parkinson asked.
"Because Potter is a Parselmouth," Draco spouted with a sneer. "Not such a golden boy once that came out."
"Don't be boorish Draco," Narcissa said, scolding her son. To Harry's delight, Draco appeared quite flustered at being shamed by his mother. "Especially considering Lord Potter is once again seen as the hero, you should show your manners. What if you or one of your friends had been attacked?"
"Ha! The Heir of Slytherin only attacked mudbloods," Draco said before being silenced with a slap. He stared in shock at his mother.
"Your father might have tolerated that word at home, but I will not have you swearing like some loutish commoner. Please forgive my son's rudeness Lord Potter."
"I'm sure it must be hard on him dealing with his father's absence. A boy needs a good man in his life as a role model." Harry doubted that he was able to completely keep the smirk from his face but made the attempt anyway. Surprisingly, Narcissa responded with the hint of a grin.
"Go get your books, Draco. Perhaps when you return you'll be able to converse properly with the adults," she said, dismissing her son.
"Why don't you help Draco, Pansy? I'm sure you could be a good influence on him," Dahlia said, sending her daughter away. She shot Harry a brief look of distress before following the annoying little ponce away. Harry hoped Draco would amuse her with his childishness. After his mother's chastising, even Draco couldn't be enough of a fool to cause himself more problems in public.
"Now, would you continue your fascinating tale, my Lord?" Mrs. Malfoy certainly wasn't going to stop this interrogation, but Harry had had enough time to figure out what he would reveal at the moment: little more than she could have learned from her son or husband anyway.
"As you wish, my Lady," Harry said with a slight bow. He smiled at her and continued, "I was blamed for the attacks by some at the school once my unusual ability was discovered. Later, the groundskeeper Hagrid took the blame. In both cases, it was irrational fear that led people to the wrong conclusions."
"Fear does make people do foolish things," Narcissa agreed with a look that suggested to Harry that she was thinking of something in particular, and he found her even more intriguing.
"Indeed. In my case, it was clear that I could not be behind the attacks when one occurred as I was preparing for a quidditch match with my teammates. When the final attack happened after Hagrid had been wrongly dragged off to Azkaban, he obviously could not have been behind it either."
"Was the culprit caught?" Mrs. Parkinson asked.
"The one to blame sadly escaped punishment," Harry answered.
"What do you mean by that, Lord Potter?" Narcissa noted his cryptic answer, and something in her eyes suggested she knew at least part of her husband's guilt in the matter.
"Did you know that the Chamber of Secrets had been opened once before?"
"No."
"It would have been many years before either of you beautiful ladies was born," Harry said, letting the charm out with a grin. "A student who was the last descendant of Slytherin opened it and a girl died. He was never caught."
"It seems strange that this wouldn't be more well known," Narcissa said, prodding once again for more knowledge.
"True. The original attack does not seem to have been attributed to the Heir of Slytherin. I believe he may have cast blame on someone else at the time."
"Fascinating. How do you know all this?"
"More than a bit of research, I can assure you." Harry noticed that Pansy had returned with Draco still scowling. "I can even reveal the identity of the Heir of Slytherin."
Pansy looked surprised that he would disclose this to two people that he knew were wives of Death Eaters but Harry thought this would be an interesting experiment. Plus, it would be really funny to see Draco's reaction. Besides, he had been mulling over whether to reveal this secret for a time and could not come up with any reason to keep it hidden. He'd pondered for hours why Dumbledore himself hadn't ever said anything, since it was clear that he knew as well.
"How could you of all people find out who the Heir of Slytherin was?" Draco's denial almost made Harry laugh at his idiocy.
"Probably the same way that I was able to stop the attacks. I am the proud hero of Hogwarts, after all, at least according to your mother." Harry smiled at Narcissa and Draco turned a delightful shade of purple in his indignation; it reminded Harry of Vernon, which made him feel the need to be even nastier to the little shit. "His name was Tom Riddle. He was a Slytherin Head Boy back in the 1940s. You can look up his records, he even has an award in the Hogwarts trophy room."
"I've never heard of a Tom Riddle before. Surely, such a wizard would be more well known," Narcissa said, and Harry's instincts told him that maybe she did know of Tom Riddle.
"There aren't any wizard families named Riddle. You don't expect us to believe a muggle born would be the Heir of Slytherin?" asked Mrs. Parkinson.
"His father was a muggle, I assume his mother was a witch. The reason you haven't heard his name before is that he decided he wanted a new name, one that didn't connect him to his father."
"You mean..." Pansy's mother looked stunned. Harry turned slightly and used his wand to draw the letters in the air just as Riddle's shade had down in the Chamber. The letters rearranged themselves and Harry was amused to hear several gasps.
"The Dark Lord was not a half-blood!" Draco shouted in anger.
"Of course he was. He hated muggles because he grew up in a muggle orphanage. I'm guessing he used the whole blood supremacy issue as a tool to trick purebloods into following him." Harry smiled at the seething look Malfoy was giving him and watched the two wives of Death Eaters have very different responses. Dahlia Parkinson looked so angry that it seemed amazing she was able to control herself; Narcissa Malfoy, on the other hand, looked contemplative.
Draco growled in anger and began reaching for his wand before his mother grabbed his arm. Harry watched with as passive a face as he could manage, and Narcissa asked, "If this Tom Riddle was the Heir of Slytherin, how did he re-open the Chamber of Secrets fifty years later?"
"Voldemort left behind many curses," he answered, ignoring the gasps at the dreaded name. "Even twelve years after he's gone, there are many that still bear scars from his reign.
"In this case, I was able to drive back the darkness once again. It seems my fate to have to defend against the Dark Arts. Hopefully, this year we might have an actual teacher for the subject instead of that worthless fraud Lockhart."
Narcissa laughed cheerfully, breaking the moment of tension. "It's good to meet someone else that saw through that pitiful excuse for a wizard."
"Oh, yes, I actually got to see his mask slip. He tried to Obliviate me at the end of the year, to claim that he had found the Chamber of Secrets. He admitted to stealing the memories of better witches and wizards, Obliviating them, and then passing the deeds off as his own. Of course, some of the things in his books were just completely ridiculous and impossible, so I assume there were plenty of stories he made up entirely. A magical backlash from a failed spell looks to have taken all his own memories away, which seems a fairly decent punishment for his crimes."
"Indeed. So what did you have to do to 'drive back the darkness' this time?"
"I killed the monster that lived in the Chamber."
Draco snorted, "Why should we believe you? If you really killed some beast, Dumbledore would have thrown you a celebration."
"And yet there has been no mention of it in the paper, no investigation into what lead to the attacks nor who caused the problem in the first place," Harry answered confidently. "It's almost as if someone didn't want this looked into too deeply." He noticed Narcissa looking at him shrewdly and Draco paling. "No matter what issues some may have with him, no one would think the headmaster would try to attack muggle born students.
"It would more likely be someone who believed in blood supremacy. Probably someone with wealth and connections too, if they were able to keep the ministry from digging to deep. Someone like your father possibly," Harry said as he carefully watched both mother and son for reactions. Draco appeared ready to burst, while Narcissa gave him a calculating look.
"My father-" Draco began before Narcissa cut him off with a nasty glare.
"Well, this has certainly been a fascinating conversation," she said. "You are quite interesting, Lord Potter. I've heard much of you of course, but it was a pleasure to meet you 'in the flesh' as they say.
"However, I believe we all have other business to attend to today," she finished and headed towards the door to the alley. Harry stepped in front and held the door open for her, which made her flash him a smile at his gentlemanly behavior. The others followed, with Pansy at the rear and he winked at her briefly as she gave him a brief smile. Harry really couldn't wait to be alone with her again, even though he knew she'd have questions about why he decided to reveal all this about Riddle to his audience.
As they all began to go their separate ways, an angry voice yelled out, "There's the pervert's wife!"
"And pervert junior!" a second said.
In a flash there were things flying towards them, and Harry instinctively drew his wand and shouted out "Protego!"
Narcissa Malfoy had flinched at the shouting and was stunned to see Potter's wand flash to his hand and shield her. What appeared to be rotten fruit now fell harmlessly to the ground instead of ruining her silk robes. The young man was becoming more intriguing every moment. Despite his obvious enmity with her husband and son, he treated her with respect and even a bit of flirtation. It amused her to think that she could attract such attention from the boy who lived of all people. This display of magic, however, was all the more interesting. He'd cast a spell at least two years more advanced than he should have known and done so with breathtaking speed. Clearly, Draco's disparaging opinions of Potter were based in his own delusional envy. Lucius had turned the boy into an arrogant fool, and she was dismayed to think that she may not be able to mend the damage before he returned from Azkaban. Perhaps, she could arrange a few family outings on weekends this fall.
Looking over at her son, she saw that he was far enough away that he had not been protected and had been hit by a couple of what appeared to have been tomatoes. He had red staining a large portion of his chest as well as a bit in his hair. She had to stifle a laugh at his furious expression- maybe a few more incidents like this could shock his system into curbing his ego. She had been proud to be a Slytherin, but in the last twenty years, the house had become infested with brutes and bullies. It distressed her to see her son so rash and rude. The cunning thing to do would be to ingratiate yourself with someone as clearly powerful as Potter, yet he seemed to be unable to stop himself from being constantly antagonizing instead.
Turning her head to scan for the philistines who would attack her so, she saw three men quickly fleeing down the street. Apparently, even oafs knew better than to strike against the boy who lived himself.
"It seems I am in your debt, Lord Potter," she thanked him.
"It was my pleasure, Lady Malfoy."
"Such a shame that not everyone is as respectful or polite as you are."
"I do not believe in guilt by association. I am sorry if your husband's problems have caused you pain this summer."
"Well, at least it was a bit less pain today, thanks to you," she smiled and turned away, helping Draco with a cleaning charm. They walked away towards the apothecary, while Pansy and her mother went towards Madam Malkin's.
Harry noticed Pansy giving him a curious look as she left. He sadly realized he could not follow her without drawing too much attention to himself, so he went looking for a spot to hide away. A few minutes later, he was able to slip on his cloak and went back into the alley. He found Pansy still being measured for a new robe and he silently watched her. For the next hour, he followed her from store to store. While nothing else of note happened, he found it quite pleasant just to be near her. It had been more than a week since he'd been able to see her for more than a few moments. They had gotten in the habit of kissing goodnight since her mother was most often already passed out before they went to bed, but the last time they could truly enjoy being together for very long had been when she had calmed him after learning of Black's escape from Azkaban. The train ride back to Hogwarts could not come soon enough for Harry.