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Not As It Seems	By : SailorSol Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 4953 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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Not As It Seems

Chapter 2

When Harry woke, it was to sunlight streaming between two drapes, and the smell of coffee. He opened his eyes to see a house elf sitting patiently in a small chair, darning a sock. On the card table sat a tray with an upended coffee cup, and a covered coffee pot. Harry sat up, curious. The house elf looked up at the noise, and then quickly put down the mending, poured a cup of coffee, and brought it to Harry. It then went back to the card table and returned with cream and sugar.

�Sugar or cream, Master Harry?� the elf asked. Harry accepted and sat in bed, sipping the hot coffee, mulling over how his life had changed in the span of only one day. He had gone from the family disgrace to the son of a valued ally. He was no longer in danger from Voldemort, if he truly ever had been, and was in a place where he could practice his magic uninhibited.

A knock on the door interrupted his reverie, and the door opened to admit Draco Malfoy, clad in Slytherin green silk pajamas with a matching velvet robe over them.

�Glad to see you�re up, Potter,� he said. �Breakfast�s in full swing, and His Lordship wants to talk to you before we have our Quidditch match.� Draco stepped aside, and a different house elf entered with some clothes in its arms.

�I noticed they didn�t give you time to pack,� Draco said. �Father and I will help you remedy that later today, probably after lunch. In the meantime, you can borrow some of my clothes. We�re about the same size.�

�Thanks,� Harry said. He put down the coffee cup and left the bed to take the clothes from the house elf. He immediately went into the bathroom, and came out dressed, running his hands over the fit of the clothes.

�The only clothes I had were my cousin�s cast-offs,� Harry explained. �He�s about the size of a whale.�

�It ought to be a crime,� Draco said, shaking his head in disbelief.

Harry smiled at the look on Draco's face, and then laughed as his erstwhile rival did something very un-Malfoyish: he stuck out his tongue.

�I'll be right back, Potter,� he said. �I need to get dressed, too.� He left, not realizing that Harry was watching him with a look of pain on his face.

When the two boys entered the dining room, Harry saw what Draco had meant about breakfast being in 'full swing.' There were several tables in the room, and there were people at all of them. Some of them were reading while they ate, and others were holding conversations that looked to be of the greatest importance.

Draco led Harry to where food was laid out in a buffet, encouraged Harry to filling his plate, and then led him to the closest table, presided over by Voldemort. Bellatrix Lestrange and her husband sat at the Dark Lord's right hand, and the Malfoys sat at his left.

Next to the Lestranges was a stunningly beautiful woman with dark mahogany colored hair, who reminded Harry of the sixteen year-old Tom Riddle that he had met in the Chamber of Secrets. She was holding a young baby in her arms.

�You must be Harry,� she said, smiling at him. �Have a seat. � She gestured to a chair across from her, next to a young man who reminded Harry of Snape. He actually seemed a year or two older than Harry, but his smile was warm and engaging.

�I see you've met Mother,� he said. �I'm Orion Snape.�

�Are you Professor Snape's brother?� Harry asked as he speared his first forkful of food.

�Professor Snape is my father,� Orion responded. �He and Mother married right out of school.�

Harry looked across the table at the woman who had told him to sit down. She was engaged in wiping the face of an ebony-haired girl with a pixie face who had climbed into Bellatrix's lap.

�There, Ophelia,� she said. �Remember that farina is food, not makeup.� Bellatrix put the child down and watched as she walked around to her seat.

Harry watched the little girl and realized that there were several black-haired children at the table, ranging in age from Orion to a little girl of barely two that was eating oatmeal with messy enthusiasm. Next to her, a boy a few years older was watching corn flakes dance on the edge of his bowl.

�That will be enough, Horatio,� Snape's voice interrupted Harry's musing. �You know what your mother thinks of playing with your food.�

�Okay, papa,� the boy said. The cornflakes all dove into the bowl with tiny splashes of milk and the boy began to eat the same cereal that had so recently been entertaining him.

Harry turned to his plate again, and realized that the woman across from him was watching him. After a moment, he also realized that, against her green gown, there was a green snake loosely clasped around her neck. She smiled at him and the snake turned emerald colored eyes to him, and then looked at the woman.

//Is this the one, mistress?// it hissed.

//Yes,// she responded in Parseltongue. //Do you approve?//.

//He smells right,// the snake told her. //When starts his training?//

//This afternoon,// the woman replied. She turned her dark eyes on Harry.

�I am Aquila Lestrange-Snape,� she said. �I am the Lady of the House. I take care of all of the orphans. Most of them call me 'Aunt' or 'Aquila.' You, on the other hand, are going to be a special case. We will talk about it after lunch.� She turned her attention to another child, about eight, with dark brown hair and startling violet eyes.

Harry turned his attention back to his breakfast, but he was startled when the oatmeal messer slid out of her chair and, unafraid, approached Voldemort and tugged on his robes.

With an avuncular smile that looked strange on him, Voldemort picked the child up, put her in his lap, and proceeded to clean the remnants of her breakfast from her face.

�There you are, Portia,� he said. �Now, what do you have for your grandfather?�

Without hesitation, the little girl stood on the lap of the Dark Lord and placed a sloppy kiss on his cheek. She followed the kiss with an enthusiastic hug, and then she walked across his lap, Rudolphus Lestrange's lap, stopped at Bellatrix for a kiss and hug, and then she sat down with every sign of being completely content.

After breakfast, Harry retrieved his broom and followed Draco out the rear of the building to where a Quidditch pitch was set up in a natural valley. Harry was surprised to see Snape and Aquila from the rear, and the whole brood of black-haired children sitting on the grass. To Harry's surprise, Horatio was ears-deep in a first-year potions textbook, occasionally pointing something out to Snape and speaking about it.

Draco pulled a Snitch out of his pocket and showed it to Harry before releasing it. Harry forgot about the Snape family in his rush to mount his broom and race after Draco to catch it.

*~*~*~*~*~*

After lunch, Harry was led by his house elf to a library that dwarfed the library at Hogwarts. Aquila was sitting at a large table, surrounded by stacks of books and rolls of parchment. Snape was standing next to her, a quill and parchment in his hands.

He was writing things down while she murmured to him. Finally, he put down the quill, rolled the parchment, and tucked it into his robes. Before he walked away, he did something that startled Harry, and showed him how much the Snape he knew at Hogwarts must be either an act, or a 'professor' persona.

He took one of Aquila's hands and passionately kissed each knuckle before pulling her to her feet and kissing her tenderly on the lips.

Snape froze when he saw Harry. He smirked at Harry, kissed her again, and then swept from the library.

Aquila smiled at Harry and beckoned to him.

�Come with me, Harry,� she said. �There are things you need to know, and things we need to know about you. Considering what we know about your parents, we have a fair idea of what kinds of gifts you should have, but children are always a surprise.�

�Okay,� Harry said. �What do I do?�

�Come with me,� Aquila repeated.

She led the way to a large room, completely devoid of furniture. There were tumbling mats on the floor and thick padding on the walls. She indicated that Harry should stand in one place and made her way to a spot a distance away.

Without any further warning, Aquila drew her wand and started throwing curses at Harry.

He dodged the first few while pulling his own wand out. Then, he started throwing curses back at her, wondering what was going on. Was the previous night just to throw him off the track and get him to a place where they could kill him?

In the midst of a flurry of spells, one curse got through Harry's defenses. He responded with a curse that he had never been taught. He didn't know where it came from. The curse hit Aquila in the chest and threw her against the padded wall behind her..

A door Harry had not noticed opened and Snape, Voldemort, and the Lestranges came in. Snape ran to his wife and roused her, and then helped her to her feet. She swayed for a moment, and then smiled at Harry.

�I told you that children are full of surprises, Harry,� she said. �I wanted to find out how much you had absorbed from Father. It seems that he absorbed more than the gift of Parseltongue.�

�How is that possible?� Voldemort asked. Aquila shrugged.

�I have no idea,� she said. �I'll have to find out if there is anything in the Library. My personal opinion is that it is not duplicatable, and the gifts are not inheritable.�

�I must concur, My Lord,� Snape said. �Mr. Potter has not demonstrated any particular talent at Hogwarts except for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I will point out, though, that he did stop that hair-brained scheme of Malfoy's involving Virginia Weasley.�

�Your point is well taken, Severus,� Voldemort said. �This means that we do not have to worry about Harry in a battle, if we train this talent of his.�

�Yes,� Aquila said. �In the meantime, he can take regular training with Draco and the others of his age group. I'll tutor him privately after dinner, so that he can catch up with the others.�

�Catch up?� Harry asked. �What do I need to catch up for?�

�You're behind other wizarding children, Harry,� Aquila said. �Most children raised in wizarding households know that majority of what you were taught in your first year. The wizarding children are bored to tears, waiting for the Muggleborns to catch up.

�What we should do� Aquila continued. �Is take the Muggleborn witches and wizards at eight or nine. Then, when the wizarding children join them at eleven, then all of them are on a level field.

Also,� she went on. �There are traditions that Muggleborn children don't know. We are in danger of losing the ways that we have kept for thousands of years, because part of the new generation of witches and wizards will not know those traditions. Dumbledore will not allow them to be taught at Hogwarts.�

�Is that why you don't want Muggleborns at Hogwarts?� Harry asked. �Because they would hold the others back?�

�It's not that we don't want the Muggleborns at Hogwarts, Harry,� Aquila said. �We want to take them earlier, so that they can be properly educated to be witches and wizards. The problem is, that the current government, and the current Headmaster, will not allow such things. We have to stop him.�

There was a knock on the door, and it opened a moment later to reveal Lucius Malfoy.

�My Lord,� he said. �The tailor his here for Mr. Potter.�

�Excellent, Lucius,� Voldemort said, smiling.

�Don�t let him leave without seeing me,� Aquila said. �Five of the children need new school robes, and the last time we took children to Diagon Alley, we ran afoul of the Order. I�m not risking them again.�

�Of course, My Lady,� Lucius said, bowing to her.

Aquila rolled her eyes, but she smiled indulgently at him. Harry could understand why. Lucius Malfoy was handsome, and charming when he put his mind to it.

�You go see the tailor, Harry,� Aquila said. �Lucius, you make sure he has a proper wardrobe. Not just fancy things, either. The boy plays Quidditch and acts like boys do. Sturdy clothes, as well.�

Lucius bowed again, and waited for Harry to accompany him out of the room.

TBC
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Not As It Seems