Dearest Readers,
To each of you who choose to read my story, I must first say “ Thank You!!! Your time is valuable, and there are many stories for your consideration, so I’m grateful that you’ve decided to give mine a try. I hope that you love reading it as much as I loved writing it. It took a year, but I enjoyed every moment of it, and I’m quite proud of the result.
I have meticulously researched Jo’s canon and have tried desperately to stick to it. If you see something that doesn’t seem right, give it time “ it will probably be explained. (Please remember that the story is from Harry’s point of view, and if he doesn’t know, we don’t know “ at least, not yet.) If, however, you do not find it explained later in the story, please feel free to inform me, politely and respectfully, of the error, and I will do my best to adjust it. I want to be spot on and do appreciate being corrected!
With regards to non-canon inventions, if you do not like them, that is certainly your prerogative, but rude messages are uncalled for. However, if you hang with me until the end of this, you will see that these things are essential to my version of the story. And reviews are encouraged and downright adored, especially the complimentary ones, hehe.
As for other writings, you can find many interesting things on my website. I am primarily a singer/songwriter, so if you’d like, you can download my songs (including wizard rock songs) for FREE! here: http://www.sunnychristian.com
Thank you again for your time and interest. We all share this marvelous love for Harry Potter and his world, and these are truly special times, awaiting the seventh book together. I hope that my story will keep you satiated for a bit in the meanwhile.
Love, Sunny Christian
P.S. I, personally, think that the best version of this story can be read here:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3288453/1/
Harry Potter and the Progeny of the Pure-Blood
Sunny Christian
Chapter One “ The Magic Carpet
They had advanced beyond the large iron gates. Breathing heavily from the escape, the man seized the boy’s arm, and with a loud cracking noise, disappeared from the spot where they had been standing.
It was so dark that they could barely see around them. The night was soundless and heavy. Severus Snape looked about uneasily as he knocked his fist insistently on the large wooden door of the mansion that now stood before them.
“I told you that I didn’t want to come back here,” the boy hissed at him.
“Quiet!” Snape snarled back.
The door opened upon a tall, thin woman with long white-blonde hair, whose face was harsh and cold. Another blonde head stood behind her, but this girl was much younger, much smaller, and her features were not at all severe.
“Draco!” exclaimed Narcissa Malfoy, welcoming the boy and his companion into the house. It smelled of incense and antiques, a place bursting with proud ancestry.
“Is anyone else here?” Snape asked as they entered, his voice almost inaudible.
The woman shook her blonde head in response as she put her hands on her son’s shoulders and began to examine him. His pale face was flushed, his equally pale hair windblown, his breathing heavy and inconsistent.
“How are you?” she asked him.
“Fine,” the boy replied with a petulant look. “Don’t nettle, Mother.”
She frowned disapprovingly at her son, but she turned to the man who stood on her left and breathed gratefully, “Thank you, Severus.”
Snape nodded curtly to her, the greasy black curtains of hair falling into his face.
“So it’s done?” asked Narcissa, taking the boy’s chin and turning his head from side to side, inspecting. He swatted in irritation at her hand.
“Albus Dumbledore is dead,” Snape confirmed, regarding the pair of them with distaste.
Narcissa released the boy and smiled wickedly. “I am very proud of you, Draco.”
Her son shamefully averted his gaze.
“Severus?” Narcissa asked, turning to the man, uncertainty clouding her eyes.
“I was forced to do it myself,” said Snape dryly.
“But…” Narcissa began, “but the Dark Lord will not accept this!”
“No, I suspect that he won’t,” Snape agreed.
Terror spread over Narcissa’s pointed features.
“But he’ll kill us both!” she squealed. “What are we to do, Severus?”
Snape turned his eyes to the small girl who had been watching silently. She had a hand to her stomach, as if something wasn’t sitting well with her.
“I assume, by now, that the Secret Keeper has revealed to you the location of the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix?” Snape asked her.
The girl met his gaze and simply nodded in response.
“Narcissa, you are to take Draco to the headquarters. The Dark Lord will not find you there,” Snape said to the mother who was still neurotically studying her son. The stately boy continued to appear annoyed by her attention.
Narcissa halted and stared disbelievingly at Snape. “There must be some mistake! They would never allow us in!”
Snape’s upper lip curled into a knowing grimace. “Arrangements have been made. They are expecting you.”
“I will not congregate with blood traitors who work against the Dark Lord!” she cried, clearly distressed.
“Very well. But he will soon find you and I do not expect he’ll be very forgiving.”
Narcissa looked frightened at this thought. She glanced questioningly at the young girl.
“I can only protect him to a certain extent if we stay here,” the girl confirmed.
“Protect who? Me?” Draco interjected at this point. “Mother, who is she, anyway?”
Snape answered him instead. “She is here to see that you survive.”
Draco looked at the girl suspiciously, and then said, “No one can protect me now.” His face remained stoic, but his voice was layered with trepidation.
She confidently returned his stare, replying, “I can. And the Order can.”
The boy looked doubtful and seemed as if he wanted to argue, but he said nothing more, merely narrowing his eyes at her.
“I must go,” Snape declared abruptly. “The Dark Lord will be expecting me.”
He turned again to the young girl. “I can only presume that I will be wanted for murder. Therefore, contacting me may prove difficult at first. I will contact you. See to it that I can reach you by floo.”
She bobbed her blonde head in accord.
“Severus,” Narcissa pleaded, “you will defend Draco to the Dark Lord? You will tell him that all of the Malfoys are loyal to him?”
“Yes, but I don’t know what good it will do,” answered Snape, moving languidly towards the door.
Narcissa let out a muffled whimper.
“You will be safe with the Order,” Snape said serenely. “Go there tonight.”
The tall woman nodded.
Snape turned back unexpectedly and spoke quickly, firmly, “And you must make your repentance obvious to them and conduct yourselves as though you are no longer serving the Dark Lord. You will not spy on them, cause any trouble, or draw any unneeded attention to yourselves. Is this understood?”
Narcissa exchanged a disobedient glance with her son.
The thin man looked at them coldly. “You will do these things, or they will be rid of you, and you will be easy prey. It is your choice.”
He addressed the small blonde girl once more. “You will see to it that they remain… inconspicuous?”
“I will do my best,” she replied, but she sounded as though she knew that it would not be easy.
“What about my father?” Draco asked hastily, his tone still fearful.
Narcissa nodded to convey that she, too, wanted the answer to this question.
Snape looked carefully at the pair of them. “He is safe in Azkaban… for now.”
Then, speaking to Narcissa, he continued, “And see to it that you sever all contact with Bellatrix. She is devoted to the Dark Lord and will betray you.”
“She’s my sister!” argued Narcissa in outrage.
“She is first, and foremost, a Death Eater,” Snape countered calmly.
“We are all Death Eaters!” retorted Narcissa.
“Yes,” agreed Snape, “but the Dark Lord is not so displeased with others of us.”
A wounded expression came over Narcissa’s face.
“We will regain his favor, Mother,” Draco comforted her.
“Yes,” she muttered absently.
“In time,” said Snape. “For now, you will take shelter with the Order.”
Then Severus Snape saw himself out, into the warm summer night, leaving the other three to travel to a place where they were very unwelcome indeed.
Harry Potter was standing on a ledge. No, it wasn’t a ledge. It was the window of the Astronomy Tower. Far below, a crumpled body lay in the grass. He was contemplating a jump. What was another body anyway, joining all of the countless bodies to go before him? Besides, the end of him could very well mean the end of all of the turmoil that he brought to anyone with whom he came into contact. The wind was in his hair, carrying a sweet fragrance to his nostrils. Was he brave enough to jump? Cowardly enough? Could he leave behind his supposed destiny? Save the people that he loved? He placed a toe into the air, keeping his balance on one foot. His glasses slid down his nose as he surveyed the ground below. Then suddenly, two arms grasped his waist, pulling him back into the tower. He struggled to turn around, to see the person, but when he finally faced the inside of the room, what he saw wasn’t a person at all…
He awoke in a cold sweat, the blood pumping in his ears. He could feel the adrenaline in his gut, a chemically induced motivation. He sat up in bed and looked into the blackness around him. The objects were perfectly clear in his head “ a diary and a ring. This wasn’t the first time that he’d seen them. In fact, he had had this dream almost every night, and every time, he’d awoken in frustration. He had never been able to make the jump. And he had always turned to see those two objects, the objects that were already destroyed. His problem was finding the remaining Horcruxes. The task was haunting him. Unless he located them and managed to wipe them out as well, there would be no hope for him when he faced Voldemort. And he would face Voldemort. He had to.
During the course of his last summer with the Dursleys, Harry’s sleep had been repeatedly bombarded with nightmares. Even in the waking hours, he continually felt as though he were in limbo “ unable to change the past and unable to take any forward-moving action. Unfortunately for Harry, he had had a lot of time to think. He had spent most of it reliving Dumbledore’s last hours. He had felt the overwhelming fear and agony, over and over again. The image of Dumbledore lying on the grass beneath the Astronomy Tower bled against Harry’s eyelids, and he couldn’t burn it out. He kept remembering how Dumbledore had trusted him, and he had failed, by little fault of his own. This realization always brought on anger and regret. Why had Dumbledore let Snape kill him? Would Harry ever know the answer?
The locket, the cup, the snake, something of Ravenclaw’s or Gryffindor’s, Harry thought, counting them out on his fingers. He couldn’t recall how many times these same thoughts had run through his head. He didn’t know where to start or where to look. He knew he could probably use some help, but wouldn’t ask for it. There was one thing of which he was certain “ he was on his own.
His first stop would be Godric’s Hollow, where he hoped to find something that might guide him. Then he would search the places that made sense, like Hogwarts and anywhere that Voldemort had spent any length of time. And he would do it alone. He wouldn’t risk losing any more of the people that he loved. He knew that Ron and Hermione would try to accompany him, so he intended to sneak away before the new term started, sometime in the night, when no one could follow.
His head throbbed, but his scar, itself, had been unproblematic. Harry didn’t know whether this was a good omen or not. Voldemort had been practicing Occlumency against Harry for a long time now. He sometimes wished that this weren’t the case, however, because he could use the insight, but he certainly didn’t miss the awful dreams and crippling pain that he’d known in his fifth year at Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
He sighed and looked around his small bedroom. The various broken toys and shelves of unopened books that belonged to his cousin, Dudley, stared back at him through the darkness. Though it was only nearing the end of July, this was his last night here at Privet Drive. He was leaving the Dursleys' earlier than usual, in order to attend Ron’s brother’s wedding. He was also going to spend his seventeenth birthday away from here, which gave him something bright to anticipate.
Tomorrow, someone would come for him. Then, he would see Ginny again. Ginny. He had missed her. Her flowery scent, her long, soft hair, her welcoming smile, her kiss… Stop it, he upbraided himself. He knew that he couldn’t be with her now, or maybe ever, but, of course, it didn’t change the way that he felt about her. Yes, tomorrow would be welcome. Harry longed for a distraction from the desolation that he felt in the home of the Dursleys.
Though he knew that desolation was now the path that he must travel. He had known this since Dumbledore’s death. He had realized that the last of his protectors had abandoned him. He was by himself now, and destined to search for the Horcruxes and to face Voldemort, all alone. These notions loomed over him like a storm cloud.
Harry put a hand to his rumbling stomach. Just as the previous summer, he had spent the last few weeks shut up in his room, refusing almost all of the food that Aunt Petunia was delivering through the cat flap in his door. He had been much too miserable and troubled to worry about eating and had only left his room to visit the bathroom.
For some reason, Hedwig hadn’t delivered a single copy of the Daily Prophet to Harry this summer. This was aggravating, as it was Harry’s only link to his own world. He had a sneaking suspicion that Hedwig knew that the headlines would cause Harry nothing but more anxiety, and therefore, she was refusing to accept the paper.
Ron, Hermione, and Ginny had each sent numerous letters throughout the several weeks, but none of them had ever given Harry any insight as to what was going on in the wizarding world. He had always felt so shut out over the summers, and this one had been no different. Nevertheless, the letters from his friends had been the only light in his life. He had loved reading Hermione’s description of Crookshanks’s battles with hairballs. He had thoroughly enjoyed Ron’s excitement over beating Fleur at chess. And he had relished every single word that Ginny had written. He couldn’t wait to see them again.
Harry did, however, have an odd feeling that he might grow to miss the Dursleys eventually. After all, they were the only family that he had left. He wouldn’t miss their insufferable behavior or the way that they treated him, but there was certainly something that he would miss. Missing was pretty much all that he did lately. But missing was living backwards, and Harry had to move forward, no matter how ominous the future seemed.
Now that his heart had slowed back to a normal pace and he had resigned to the fact that there was nothing to be done in this moment, he lay back down and pulled the quilt up to his chin. He tried to push all thoughts from his head. Then he closed his eyes, but just as he was beginning to drift back to sleep, a knocking roused him.
He sat up, fumbling for his glasses. Shoving them onto his nose, he jumped from the bed, searching wildly around the room. The rap came again, and his eyes went to the window, where Mrs. Figg could be seen, gesturing for him to open the pane.
“What the…?” he said aloud, but he went to the window and slid it up quietly.
“Evening, Harry,” said Arabella Figg cheerfully.
“Evening?” he croaked. “It’s three o’clock in the morning!”
“Is it?” she asked. “I wasn’t keeping up. Far too much going on, you know.”
“Going on? What’s going on?”
“Well,” she began conspiratorially, her voice low and hushed, “rumor has it that Severus Snape was spotted lurking around our neighborhood just this afternoon. He’s still at large, of course, but the wizard who saw him was unable to apprehend him.”
Simply at the mention of Snape, Harry became enraged. He swallowed the emotion and choked, “Our neighborhood? What could he possibly be doing?”
“Keeping an eye on you, they say,” she answered. Then her tone grew motherly and she went on, “Harry, stay indoors and be on the lookout. The Dark Lord must be sending Snape to fetch you, and we certainly aren’t going to make it easy on him, if this is the case.”
“Snape is powerful,” Harry replied, almost to himself. “If he came for me, there’d be nothing that I could do about it.”
“Codswallop!” exclaimed Mrs. Figg.
“Shh!” he reacted instantly.
“Yes, yes, sorry,” she apologized, lowering her voice, “but you needn’t worry, Harry. I’ve only come to warn you to stay on your toes. Keep your eyes open, be wary, that sort of thing.”
“Someone from the Order will be coming for me tomorrow.”
“Is it that time already?” she asked. “The days sure do fly by, don’t they?”
“Not really,” he griped crossly.
She ignored him and went on, “You’ll be of age soon, isn’t that right?”
“Right,” nodded Harry. Then, “Wait! How are you up this high?”
She beamed at him. “Squibs may not be able to perform magic, but we can still make good use of magic items,” she answered jovially, indicating below her.
Harry poked his head through the window and saw something very peculiar “ she was standing upon a small rug, which was flapping in the breeze, but it remained sturdy and was definitely keeping her afloat. He grinned.
“Sorry about the rude awakening,” Mrs. Figg said sheepishly. “Had to get my facts straight before I came to you.”
He shrugged. “I never sleep well anyway.”
Frowning, she shook her head. “Shame for a boy your age to have so much weight on his shoulders.”
When Harry didn’t respond, she sighed, “Try to go back to bed. And lock this window.” Then she sunk beneath his field of vision and he lowered the pane, fastening the dead bolt.
He did go back to his bed, but he never managed to get back to sleep. There were far too many thoughts chasing each other around in his brain. What was Snape doing sneaking around the neighborhood? Was he really after Harry? Or was he just spying for Voldemort? Harry’s blood boiled. Well, if Snape was arrogant enough to show his face, Harry would put up a damn good fight.