Loathing squirmed in Harry's belly. Mrs. Malfoy had told him a little about the Death Eaters and the background of the crime that Black had been involved in. He couldn't believe he hadn't known about it before.
But, of course, he felt conflicted about it. Because it was terrible that the Potters had died, but they weren't really his parents, but they had died protecting him, but they had stolen him…
"I think we have established the baseline for the Veritaserum," said Mr. Malfoy, and then asked, "Did you steal our son, Aldebaran Malfoy, from his cradle and place him with the Potters?"
"Yes."
Harry felt as though someone had punched him. He staggered back and grabbed something. He thought it was the table, but then he realized he was leaning on Draco. He drew himself free, or tried, but Draco wrapped an arm around his shoulders and refused to let go.
"Why?" Mrs. Malfoy asked the question, soft and heartbroken. She touched Harry on the arm, as if she wanted to hover between him and Black.
"Lily and James wanted a child. They couldn't have one. They both got hit with curses during the war. They were both infertile." Black was staring straight ahead, reciting the story as if it had happened to someone else. "They wanted it desperately. It was destroying them. I would have done anything for James. And I knew that you had two children. Why did you need them both? One of them could be rescued. He could go up in a Light family and he could have parents who would really love him and not use him as a status symbol. So I stole him, and used an illusion spell, and Lily and James conducted the adoption ritual to make it permanent."
There was a dreadful silence in the room. Harry didn't think he'd heard a silence like that when they told him he was a Malfoy. He just stood there and stared, and Mrs. Malfoy hugged him from behind, her quiet tears falling on his head. Draco seemed frozen, clinging to Harry and not moving.
Mr. Malfoy was the one who stepped forwards, his face dark with rage.
"So you came to visit us. Why did you do that?"
"I knew Narcissa had had twins. I was thinking of taking one. What did you need with two children? You—"
"Yes, you said." Mr. Malfoy was almost hissing, although Harry didn't think it was Parseltongue. "How could you do that to your cousin? You were close when you were young."
"She married into the Malfoys. She wouldn't do that unless she'd given up on her heart and decided that only ambition mattered. She would have married someone else and been happy that way."
"You did it for the Potters?" Mrs. Malfoy had got her voice back, but her tears were still falling. Harry could feel them. He could feel that, and he could also feel a great numbness inside him.
"Yes. They were dying for want of a child. They were arguing all the time. I was afraid their marriage would end."
"Why did they agree?" Mr. Malfoy asked. He was coiled and quiet now, but he still reminded Harry of a snake. "I hated James Potter, but I would have thought he had more honor than that."
"All they wanted was someone to love. And once the illusion was in place, Harry looked like them. He was only a few weeks old. He could have been theirs. He was still innocent. They looked at him and they loved him at once."
Harry closed his eyes. So his parents were the way he'd always been told they were. They'd loved him at once. They had been willing to die for him.
He was aware of Mr. Malfoy asking Black other questions, and some answers, like how Black had helped them with the adoption ritual and told everyone who asked that Lily had simply been concealing her pregnancy so they wouldn't keep her from fighting in something called the "Order of the Phoenix." And how James Potter had named Harry his heir at once and bragged about him to his other friends, someone named Pettigrew and someone named Lupin.
But his head was spinning so badly that he didn't really listen. It was—it was so terrible. The Potters had loved and kidnapped him. Black had thought he was saving him and he'd kidnapped him. The Malfoys would have used him as a status symbol and they'd missed him.
Nothing made sense. He didn't know what to do.
He must have said something like that aloud, because Mrs. Malfoy bent down and whispered in his ear, "You don't have to do anything, Aldebaran. Just be yourself and let us love you and teach you how to be with us."
"You're my little brother," Draco added. "It doesn't matter who you were before or that you got stolen when you were little. That's not your fault."
Harry opened his mouth to argue that he was who he was and that he wouldn't change, and not to call him Aldebaran, but then shut his mouth again. Honestly, he was tired of arguing. He was tired of standing here and listening to Black. He just wanted to leave.
Mrs. Malfoy seemed to sense it. She stood up and murmured, "Lucius?" Mr. Malfoy turned in the middle of asking another question and looked at her. "I am going to take the boys back to Hogwarts. Aldebaran needs to rest. Draco has agreed to field the questions for right now."
Mr. Malfoy nodded and locked eyes with Harry. He gave him a fierce, proud smile and murmured, "You are handling this incredibly well. I am so glad you are home."
Just a few words, but they felt as if they were the strongest ones Harry had ever heard. He let Mrs. Malfoy lead him and Draco to the door. Draco still had his arm around Harry's shoulders.
Harry managed to ask a question when they were in a lift going back up through the Ministry. They weren't going to take the Floo back to Hogwarts, for some reason. "What's going to happen to Black?"
"He'll be in prison for the rest of his life," Mrs. Malfoy said quietly. "We thought about having him go through another trial, but there's no point. He already has the best sentence he can have. A Kiss from a Dementor would be too quick."
Harry assumed the Kiss was some kind of execution or something. He said nothing, though. His stomach was roiling, and he didn't know how to feel.
Black had done what he'd done for love of his best friend. The Potters had loved Harry. The Malfoys loved Harry, or they had loved the little baby they'd had and lost.
And then Black had betrayed the Potters, which maybe proved that love wasn't so deep after all.
Harry didn't know how to think, what to feel.
Mrs. Malfoy kept him close to her as they headed back through a huge space with a fountain in the center of it, whispering to him. "We'll go as slowly as you need to. We have the rest of your life, Aldebaran. Twelve years is going to be nothing to it."
Harry wanted to ask a million questions. Like how Mr. Malfoy had supposedly fought with Voldemort, and how he was going to make that work with Harry being Voldemort's enemy.
But it was too much for one day, and he got back to Hogwarts and walked up to Gryffindor Tower when he could finally get away from the Malfoys, and went up to his bed and drew the curtains to get away from the Gryffindors.
It was so much simpler, at last, to just be able to fall asleep.