¹“I have to go to Hogwarts for the day,” Severus told them two days later. “Normally I would take Draco with me, but since we don’t want the truth known right now, I’ll have to leave the two of you here. Do you think the two of you can get along and behave while I’m gone?”

“Yes, sir,” Harry said quickly as his brother nodded. “We’ll behave.”

“See that you do,” he replied, giving his godson a pointed look. “I’ve got a list of chores for the two of you to do and I want you to make sure that your rooms are clean. After that, I want the two of you to work on your summer assignments. You both should be close to finishing them.” Both boys nodded. Severus snapped his fingers before summoning his cloak and putting it on. Two pieces of parchment appeared on the table in front of the boys. “Draco, you know how to contact me in case of an emergency,” he said, before disappearing into the living room. A moment later they heard the Floo activate.

“Come on,” Draco said, leading his brother through the kitchen entry to the hallway with Severus’ rooms. He tried the closet door. “Damn! He locked it!”

“With magic?” Harry asked, moving closer. He knew that they would get into big trouble if they were caught, but right now all he could think about was flying.

Draco crouched in front of the door. “No…looks like he actually used the key for the door. Damn!”

Harry slipped back into the kitchen and returned with a knife. “Move over,” he said, using the knife to release the lock. “There.”

“Brilliant! You need to teach me how to do that!” Draco stepped into the closet and grabbed their brooms. “Let’s get out of here.”

The two boys ran outside and mounted their brooms, before taking off. They flew around the whole neighborhood at breakneck speeds, performing stunts that they knew and even making up a few as they flew. Neither one remembered that they were in a muggle neighborhood. They returned when they were both hungry and exhausted, only to find an irate Potions Master standing in the backyard.

“Have the two of you lost your minds?!” he yelled as they dismounted in front of him. “Did you forget that this was a muggle neighborhood? You two violated the Secrecy Statute! And even if we weren’t in a muggle neighborhood, you both lost your flying privileges and had your brooms taken away from you! Give me those brooms!” The two boys handed them over, knowing they had no other choice. They were already in deep enough trouble. “Get inside!” After watching the two boys scurry into the house, he went inside as well. He left them in the living room and took the brooms into his bedroom, using both muggle locks and magic to lock them away.

He took a moment to calm himself before going back to the living room and sitting on the couch. “Let’s see if I’ve got this all straight: You left the kitchen a mess, you didn’t do the chores I assigned you, you didn’t clean your rooms, you didn’t work on your school assignments, you broke your brooms out of my locked closet and you went flying in a muggle neighborhood. Did I miss anything, gentlemen?”

Harry had flinched with each thing he listed, unable to look the man in the eye. “No, sir,” he whispered.

"What you two did was not only deliberately disobedient, it was foolhardy and reckless. Draco, Harry wouldn’t have known how to contact me if you had gotten hurt. What if both of you had been hurt?” Severus paused and took a deep breath. “I am going to keep your brooms for the remainder of your stay here. You will finish the list of chores that I gave you this morning and you will have a new list to do every day. I will also give you extra essays and readings that must be completed before you leave. The first one is a three foot essay on why the Secrecy Statute is so important. Maybe that will keep the two of you out of trouble. You will also get ten swats each.” Draco started to protest, but Severus shut him up with a look. “Who had the bright idea to steal your brooms and go flying?”

“It was mine, sir,” Draco whispered, not looking at his godfather.

Severus nodded. “Come here, Draco.” The boy moved over to his side and Severus turned the boy over his knee, giving him the promised ten swats. Once allowed to stand, Draco threw his arms around his godfather, crying softly into the man’s robes.

“I’m sorry, Uncle Sev,” Draco told him as Severus rubbed his back gently.

“I know you are, dragon, and you are forgiven but this can’t happen again, understood?”

“Yes, sir. I won’t do it again.” The boy said, stepping away from his godfather.

Harry bit his lip as he watched the exchange. That hadn’t seemed too bad, especially after what he had endured with Uncle Vernon a week ago. And Draco had told him that Uncle Sev would hold him as long as he wanted after it was over. He remembered when the Potions Master had held him a few days before and how he had felt safe and…wanted. He couldn’t remember ever feeling that way before.

Taking a deep breath, he walked over and bent over the man’s knee, taking the swats without a sound. The swats didn’t hurt near as bad as what Uncle Vernon would have given him for a lesser offense, but shame at what he had done brought tears to his eyes. Once Severus let him up, he sat on the man’s lap even though he knew he was probably too old to be doing so. His fingers wrapped into Severus’ robes as they had a few days before. The move seemed to come to him naturally. Uncle Sev had been so good to him the last week: rescuing him from the Dursleys, healing him, giving him the practice snitch and even his own bedroom…but seeing the hurt and disappointment in the man’s eyes as he had fussed at them only a few minutes before made his heart ache. He buried his face in the soft, black robes as the tears spilled down his cheeks.

“It’s alright, Harry,” Severus told him softly. “It’s all over now and you’re forgiven.”

--

Later that night, after being sent to get ready for bed, Harry grabbed the photo album Hagrid had given him and walked across the hall, knocking on the door to Draco’s room. He had been trying for a couple of days to convince himself to show the pictures to his twin. Part of him hadn’t wanted to show the other boy, telling himself that the pictures had been given to him and not the other boy. But then he remembered that no one else knew that Draco was his brother. He also remembered that he had spent nearly eleven years wondering what his parents looked like and how he had spent the entire trip back from Hogwarts gazing at the pictures in the album. After the events of the morning, Harry knew that he couldn’t keep them to himself any longer.

“Come in,” Draco called, putting his book aside.

Harry walked into the room. “I umm…I thought you might want to look at these. Its pictures of…Mum and Dad. Hagrid gave them to me, but I think he got them from friends of our parents. There’s one that Uncle Sev took of Mum,” he said, handing the photo album over to the other boy.

“Thanks,” Draco whispered, taking the book and opening it gently. The first was a picture of James and Lily on their wedding day. He reached out and gently touched the picture. “She was really pretty.”

Harry sat beside his brother. “She was. I wish I could remember them.”

“I wish Father hadn’t been so stupid.” Ever since his godfather had told him the truth, he had found himself wondering about James and Lily Potter, but Lily especially. Would she have been like his mother, Narcissa, or more like Molly Weasley? Father would have his hide if he knew that he had been watching the Weasley family for years and envied their closeness.

There was a knock on the open door and Severus entered, carrying a large wooden box. “I’ve got something for the two of you.” He set the box down on the bed. “There are the presents that I mentioned a few days ago.

At that, Draco looked up from the photo album. “Our birthday presents?”

“Yes. Lily made these for the two of you before you were born, to be given to you after your sorting last year. I wasn’t sure what happened to them when Lily and James died, but I was finally able to track them down.” He took off the top of the crate, revealing two crocheted blankets: one in Gryffindor colors and the other in Slytherin.

Harry looked up at him. “How did she know?”

“Lily was a bit of a Seer. She often had dreams that would come true. She dreamed that she would have twin sons and one would be sorted into Gryffindor and one would be sorted into Slytherin. I’m not sure she ever told James about that dream.”

Dracoo reached out to touch the green and silver blanket. It was very soft and he knew it would keep him warm in the dungeons.

“I took me longer than I thought it would to find them,” Severus said, pulling the blankets from the box and handing them to the boys, before vanishing the box. “And since you don’t have mutual friends, you won’t have to worry about anyone finding out that you have similar blankets.”

Harry took his blanket and wrapped it around his shoulders. It made him feel almost as safe and warm as he had felt the two times Severus had held him. “So I guess we aren’t going to tell anyone then…”

Severus pulled the desk chair over and sat facing the two boys. “This once I have to agree with the headmaster. For the safety of both of you, I think it wise that we not say anything just yet. Have either of you ever heard of the Fidelius Charm?” Both boys shook their heads. “Most of the time it is used in order to keep people from finding buildings, but it some cases it is used to guard other secrets as well. When the Fidelius Charm is used, someone becomes the Secret-Keeper. In the case of a building, only the Secret-Keeper may reveal the location of the building.”

“Are we going to use the Fidelius Charm?” Draco asked, his hand still stroking the soft yarn blanket.

“Yes. In fact, it’s already been done. It was taken care of before either of you came here,” Severus told them.

Harry looked at him for a moment before asking. “Since you told us, does that mean that you are the Secret-Keeper?”

“Very good, Harry. I am the Secret-Keeper. And right now, only four people besides myself know: the two of you, the headmaster and Professor McGonagall. I figured that as your head of house, she should know.”

“If she knows, then you can come to Uncle Sev’s quarters at school and spend the night like I do sometimes,” Draco told Harry.

Severus nodded. “That was part of my reasoning for telling her. Now, it’s time for the two of you to head to bed.”

“Good night, sir,” Harry said, getting up and heading toward the door.

“Harry, your book,” Draco whispered, holding out the photo album.

Harry turned to look at him. “You can keep it for a couple days.”

Draco hugged the album to his chest. “Thanks.”

--

Harry walked into the study where Draco was working on one of his punishment assignments. He greeted his brother and went over to the bookshelves lining one wall, trying to find one that would help him with his next assignment. Since he had been raised by muggles, Uncle Sev had been assigning him short essays on topics that those students at Hogwarts who had been raised with magic would already know. Today’s assignment: the Ashwinder.

After a few minutes, Draco looked up. “Need some help?”

“Yeah…Uncle Sev wants me to write an essay on Ashwinders, but I don’t even know where to start.”

“Try your school books from last year,” Draco told him, going back to the essay he was writing on Salazar Slyhterin. “It’s in Fantastic Beasts.”

Harry turned to look at his brother. “Do you memorize your textbooks?”

Draco shook his head. “Photographic memory.”

Harry rolled his eyes as he continued searching the shelves for the text.

“Why don’t you just go get yours out of your trunk?”

“It’s not there,” Harry sighed. “I figured I might not get to do my homework this summer, so I loaned it to Ron for the summer. His fell apart.”

Draco got up and walked over to the shelf, taking a book and handing it to him. “Weasley should get his own books.”

“It used to belong to his brother Charlie,” Harry told him, moving over to curl up in one of the chairs by the window. “It was in pretty bad shape when Ron got it and you could barely read the part on dragons for all the notes Charlie scribbled there. Did you know that he works with dragons in Romania?”

“Harry…I really don’t care about the Weasleys.”

Rolling his eyes again, Harry flipped through the book “Hey, listen to this…” he said before reading. “The Basilisk is a brilliant green serpent that may reach up to fifty feet in length. The male has a scarlet plume upon its head. It has exceptionally venomous fangs but its most dangerous means of attack is the gaze of its large yellow eyes. Anyone looking directly into these will suffer instant death.”

“It would make a great watchdog,” Draco replied sardonically. “Of course, you’d have to be able to talk to one…and there hasn’t been one seen in Britain in several hundred years.”

“You really do have a photographic memory,” Harry told him. “That’s almost exactly what the book says.”

It was Draco’s turn to roll his eyes. “Just turn back a page and you’ll find the information you need on the Ashwinder. Your essay might only be a foot, but mine is two rolls of parchment and I’m just getting started. So if you don’t mind…”

“Sure,” Harry said, getting up and heading toward the door. ‘You’re as bad as Hermione,’ he thought.

“I heard that!”

--

Draco stared at the green and silver blanket draped across the foot of his bed. He had placed it there the night that Severus had given them the blankets and it hadn’t been moved since. On occasion he had stopped to run his fingers over the blanket, but for some reason he hadn’t been able to do more than that. Somehow it had seemed like he was being disrespectful to Narcissa to even consider using the blanket, but he wasn’t sure why he felt that way.

Narcissa was always off to some society event and had never really spent much time with her son. Oh, she was affectionate enough when she remembered him, but he had often found himself longing for more.

After another moment of hesitation he lifted the blanket to his face, brushing it against his cheek. Inhaling, he smelled something…flowery. He knew a lot about flowers because Narcissa loved them and had been teaching him about them for years. It was just about the only time she actually spent with him. He took the blanket and carried it downstairs to where his godfather was sitting in his favorite chair in front of the fireplace. “Uncle Sev?”

Severus looked up at the boy. “I figured you would be asleep. What’s wrong, dragon?”

“My…my blanket smells like a flower, but I can’t figure out which one. Can you help me?”

“Of course,” he said, reaching for the blanket. He knew that Narcissa had been almost relentless in teaching the boy about the language of flowers as well as their scents and various uses. He lifted the blanket to his nose. “I don’t smell anything.”

Draco sighed deeply and settled on the armrest of the man’s chair. “I know I smell something.”

He looked at the boy. “Well…knowing Lily, she probably charmed the blankets with her scent so that her boys wouldn’t miss her too badly.”

“What scent?”

“Magnolias,” Severus said with a small sigh. “She visited America with her parents and fell in love with the flower. Its scent is very distinct and one I will never forget.” He wrapped his arm around the boy, holding him close. “Lily loved both of you very much, dragon. It nearly killed her when the child she thought was her son died. She was a good mother.”

“Thank you, sir,” Draco said, taking the blanket and headed back upstairs, all the emotions in his head confusing him.

Severus watched the boy leave with a frown. He knew something was bothering the boy, but he wasn’t sure if Draco wanted to share with him right now and he didn’t want to push the boy. Sometimes Draco had to work things out on his own.

Upstairs, Draco wrapped the blanket around his shoulders and he crawled into bed, propping himself up against the headboard. He buried his face in the blanket once more. There was something almost comforting about the scent. After a moment, he picked up the photo album and rested it on his knees, slowly flipping through the pages, tears slipping unnoticed down his cheeks after the first few.

Harry had been reading Quidditch Through the Ages when he suddenly felt an overwhelming sadness wash over him. He wasn’t sure what was causing these sudden feelings. Wondering if maybe this was like being able to talk to Draco in his mind, Harry got up and walked across the hall, entering his brother’s room without bothering to knock. Draco didn’t even notice him open the door and Harry was surprised to see the other boy in tears.

He walked over and sat beside his brother, looking over his shoulder at the photo album. After a moment, Draco leaned his head against his brother’s shoulder, needing the silent comfort he somehow knew that his twin would offer.

Severus found them in much the same position when he came to check on them half an hour later. Draco’s head was resting on Harry’s shoulder and Harry had leaned his head against his brother’s. Both were sleeping, the photo album open between them open to a picture of Lily that had been taken a few days before their birth, her love for her unborn children evident on her face.