Draco stood on the second floor of Flourish and Blotts watching the crowd of women below. They were all making fools of themselves while waiting for Gilderoy Lockhart to show up. He didn’t really understand what the big deal was with the man, but he knew that the Weasleys were around here somewhere and had to come into the bookstore to get school books for the next year. And where the Weasleys were his brother wasn’t too far away.

While it had been easy to accept the truth at Spinner’s End, once he had returned to Malfoy Manor, he had found himself plagued with doubts. It didn’t help that Lucius had been on his case ever since he had gotten home…correcting him for every little thing. He had gotten a taste of his father’s cane once already and had been threatened with it again this morning. Tomorrow he could get some potions from his godfather once they were at Hogwarts. And maybe next summer he could convince his father to let him stay at Spinner’s End the whole summer.

He was pulled from his thoughts when he heard a commotion downstairs and saw that Gilderoy Lockhart had pulled Harry from the line and a photographer was taking pictures of the two of them as Lockhart went on about something. ‘Enjoying yourself?’ he asked his brother with a smirk.

Harry stopped trying to pull away from the man and looked around. ’Loads. Can’t you tell?’ he told his brother as a stack of books was shoved into his arms.

‘Did I hear that idiot correctly? Is he going to be the new Defense professor?’

‘I sure hope not!’ he said, finally walking away from Lockhart and moving over to the Weasleys. He handed the books to Mrs. Weasley and headed toward the door, needing some air. He could hear the younger Weasleys following him.

‘Remember, it’s just an act’ Draco told him before coming down the stairs and bumping into Harry, hard. “Watch where you’re going, Potter!” he spat.

Young Ginny Weasley stomped her foot. “You bumped into us!”

Draco raised an eyebrow at her. “Got yourself a girlfriend, Potter?”

But Harry wasn’t listening; his eyes were on a tall man with long white-blond hair. He had seen this man before…in the memories they had watched with Severus. Before he could warn his brother, the man’s cane came down on Draco’s shoulder and the boy tried not to show any reaction. But Harry saw it. ‘Are you alright?’

‘Don’t worry about it, Harry,´ Draco responded, as his father pushed him aside, moving closer to the Weasleys.

Harry tuned out the conversation between the two adults. ‘He hurt you!’

‘That was nothing, little brother.’

‘Don’t call me that! And you need to tell Uncle Sev!’ Harry told him, somehow managing to glare in his brother’s direction.

‘Uncle Sev knows…and he’ll take care of me tomorrow. Oops! Got to go!” he said, turning to hurry after his father.

--

Harry sat at the breakfast table his first morning at Hogwarts, trying not to glance up at the table that lined the front of the room. He knew Snape was furious with him, especially after he had broken the Secrecy Statute when he and Draco had gone flying this summer. It had been quite hard not to throw himself at the man last night and beg forgiveness. He had to settle for keeping his eyes glued to the floor and enduring the blistering lecture the man had given to himself and Ron Weasley for flying Mr. Weasley’s enchanted car to school yesterday. It really had been rather stupid of them, but they had felt they had no other choice.

Dumbledore had told them last night that he would inform their parents and only moments before Ron had gotten a Howler from Mrs. Weasley. Harry wondered if the Headmaster had informed his Aunt and Uncle and he knew what would be waiting for him when he returned to Privet Drive next summer.

‘He’s pretty pissed, you know.’ A soft voice whispered in his head.

Harry glanced over Ron’s shoulder toward the Slytherin table and saw the back of his brother’s head. ‘I know…and I know I’m in deep trouble. Did you talk to him?’

‘Yes, little brother. I talked to him and I’m fine now.’

A school owl landing in front of him pulled Harry from their conversation. He took the slip of parchment and read the unsigned note. It didn’t need to be signed, he knew that handwriting. Sighing, he stood and making up some excuse, headed for the door. ‘He’s going to kill me!’

Draco turned and glanced after the boy. ‘Nah. He won’t kill you, but he might wallop you.’

‘What?! Here at school too?’

‘Yep.’ Draco couldn’t help but smirk. ‘I got it good after our little detention last year.’

‘Great…I’ll see you in class later.’

--

Ten minutes later, Harry found himself sitting on the Potions Master’s lap in his private quarters, sniffling softly into the man’s robes as the man rubbed his back and whispered softly to him. “I’m really sorry, Uncle Sev. I didn’t think…”

“That’s right, Harry. You didn’t think,” Severus told him. “You need to start thinking and stop rushing headlong into things. Quirrell last year, the brooms this summer, now the car…”

“We didn’t know what else to do? How were we supposed to get to school?”

Severus sighed. “The Weasleys would have found you if you had waited a few minutes and would have made sure that you got to school and neither of you would be in trouble right now.”

“Yes, sir,” Harry said, looking down at his hands.

“Draco said that he saw you at Diagon Alley.”

Harry nodded. “Don’t worry. No one knows. He was nasty to me and everything before Mr. Malfoy and Mr. Weasley started arguing and then they forgot about us.” He looked up at the man. “Mr. Malfoy hit him in the shoulder with his cane…and it looked like it hurt.”

Severus held him closer, tucking Harry’s head under his chin. “He came to see me after the feast last night and I healed him. But it’s not the first time that Lucius has used his cane on Draco.”

“You mean that Mr. Malfoy uses his cane on Draco like Uncle Vernon uses his belt on me?”

“Yes, Harry. But it’s still not right,” he said, allowing his mind to wander for a moment back to the abuse he had suffered at his father’s hand before shoving those thoughts away. “It’s never right to do that to a child.”

Harry closed his eyes and leaned against the man’s chest. If Ron or Hermione asked, he would never admit to enjoying being held. Would his own father have held him like this? Or would he have been more like Uncle Vernon and Mr. Malfoy? He guessed it didn’t really matter, but he was going to take advantage of it while he could. Besides, he figured he had some making up to do for all those years as a kid that he’d had to sit by and watch as his aunt and uncle had held and cuddled Dudley. “Uncle Sev?” he asked after a while.

“Yes, Harry?” Severus answered. He had been lost in his own thoughts…thoughts about Lily and what might have been if only things had happened differently at the end of their fifth year.

“You said this summer that Draco knows how to contact you in case of an emergency. How does he contact you?”

Severus reached into his pocket and pulled out a small mirror. “This is a two-way mirror. He has one and I have one. He’s supposed to keep his on him at all times.”

“How does it work?” Harry asked, taking the mirror into his own hand.

“It’s quite simple. You look into the mirror and say the other person’s name. When they hear you, they look into their mirror and you talk. It’s the wizarding version of a telephone.”

“It’s brilliant!”

“Draco is the only one who can contact me on this mirror and I am the only one who can contact him on his. Would you like me to see if Professor Flitwick can charm us a third mirror so that you can have one?”

Harry looked up at the man. “Really? You mean it?”

“Yes, Harry. I’ll get you one too. But the mirrors are for emergency use only. If I find that you and Draco are playing with them, I will get them charmed so that you can only contact me.”

“Oh, we won’t play with them!” Harry assured him. Besides, we can talk to each other without the mirrors.

“You better not,” he told Harry, putting him on his feet and giving him a light swat. “Go on, scamp. You don’t want to be late for classes on your first day.”

Harry wrapped his arms around the man’s waist and gave him a hug, slipping the mirror back into the pocket of the man’s robes.

He tilted the boy’s face up. “Just remember that how I treat you outside of these rooms is just an act.”

“I will, Uncle Sev,” Harry told him, before heading toward the door.

--

After the slug incident, Harry stayed with Hermione and Ron in Hagrid’s hut while Ron continued to spit up slugs, but he kept his eye on the window and the Quidditch pitch beyond. When he noticed that the Slytherin practice seemed to be ending, he slipped away and hurried over to the pitch, hiding himself near the changing rooms. ‘Find a reason to stay behind,’ he told his brother as the team finally headed back up to the castle.

He saw Draco look around and then say something to Flint, the Slytherin captain, before turning around. Harry nodded toward the changing rooms and they both slipped inside.

Once they were both inside, Harry moved to punch his brother, but Draco lowered his shoulder and tackled the other boy. They rolled around on the floor for several minutes, each trying to get the better of the other before Draco managed to pin his brother to the floor.

Harry knew that it was his brother that had him pinned to the floor, but his mind flashed back to the times his cousin and his friends had done the very same thing and suddenly he found it hard to breathe.

Draco didn’t notice the trouble his brother was having. “Look, I know you’re mad at me for calling her that, but you have to understand. I had no choice! Every player on the team is the son of Death Eaters! I know she’s your friend, Harry, but if I hadn’t called her that one of them would have reported it back to Father and then what do you think would happen? You know what Uncle Sev said. We have to keep pretending.” It was then that he saw his brother struggling to breathe. Getting off his brother, he fumbled in the pockets of his robes for the mirror that he always carried with him. He finally pulled it free. “Uncle Sev!”

A moment later the man’s face appeared in the mirror. “What’s wrong, dragon?”

He glanced at his brother, trying to keep from panicking himself. “Harry can’t breathe!”

“Where are you?” he asked. He could Harry’s wheezing through the mirror and see the panic is his godson’s eyes.

“At the Quidditch pitch! Hurry!”

“I’m on my way. Try to get him to calm down and breathe.” With that the man was gone.

Draco dropped the mirror and moved closer to his brother. “Uncle Sev’s on his way…you got to breathe, Harry.”

“Can’t…” Harry gasped.

He remembered something his godfather had done one day when one of the little neighborhood boys at Spinner’s End had an asthma attack and panicked. Hoping that it would work, he pulled his brother into a sitting position and moved behind him, letting Harry lean against him. “Come on, Harry…match your breaths to mine…” When Harry didn’t seem to hear him, he tried again, this time using their mental connection. ‘That’s it…’ he said when Harry’s breathing started to become more regular.

Draco inched backward to lean against one of the lockers, dragging his brother with him. “Don’t ever scare me like that again…” he said as Severus and Madame Pomfrey hurried into the tent. He looked up when the two adults knelt in front of them. “Took you long enough.”

“Just tell me what happened,” Severus told him as the medi-witch pulled out her wand and began to run a diagnostic.

“We were just wrestling,” Harry whispered. “He sat on me and I panicked. Sorry.”

“Just wrestling?” he asked, looking at the two boys.

Draco nodded. “I told Flint that I wanted to stay after practice to get some extra flying in on the new broom…and Harry snuck down here after. No one saw us. We were careful. I started teasing him and then next thing I knew we were wrestling…we were just playing,” He told the man. ‘Thanks, little brother.’

‘Don’t call me that!’

Madame Pomfrey stood. “They are both fine, Severus. I’ll leave them with you.”

“Thank you, Poppy.” When she left, he turned back to the two boys. “What were you teasing him about?” Severus asked them.

“He keeps calling me ‘little brother’ just because he’s a little taller than I am. I told him that just because he’s taller, doesn’t make him older,” Harry told him quickly. “Which one of us is older?”

Severus sat back on his heels and crossed his arms, looking down at the two boys. They were still sitting exactly where he had found them: Draco leaning against one of the wooden lockers and Harry leaning against Draco. “You two did this because you had a disagreement on who was older?” Both boys nodded sheepishly. He shook his head. “Harry is the older one.”

“How do you know?” Draco asked him.

“Surely you know this already. In the old wizarding families, the first born son is always given his father’s first name as a middle name. Even though my mother married a muggle, the Prince family is one of the old wizarding families, so my mother named me Severus Tobias, after my father. Not all families have continued that old tradition, but Lily loved learning about the old traditions and followed as many as she could. The two of you are the last of the Potters, another old wizarding family. As the oldest, Harry was given the middle name James.”

Draco made a face. “Harry’s still shorter, so I can still call him little brother.”

Severus looked at Harry. “When he does that, just call him ‘baby brother’.” He was rewarded with a smile from Harry.

“Hey!” Draco protested, giving Harry a gentle shove away from him.

“Now, are you sure that the two of you don’t want to tell me what you were really fighting about?”

“Do we have to?” Harry asked him, looking up at him.

Severus made the mistake of looking at Harry’s eyes…those green eyes the boy had inherited from Lily. He sighed. “No. You don’t. But ten points each for fighting.”

“Uncle Sev! You can’t!” Draco exclaimed.

“I just did, dragon,” he told the boy. “And the next time I catch the two of you ‘wrestling’ it will be fifty points a piece.”

Draco threw himself at his godfather. “Please don’t take points…anything but take points.”

“It’s only ten points, Draco,” Harry told him. “We lost fifty each last year for being out after curfew.”

“You don’t understand,” the blond wailed, burying his face in Severus’ robes.

Harry looked up at Severus. “Uncle Sev?” he asked, confused.

“Slytherin punishes its own when points are lost,” Severus told him. “It has been that way since the days when Abraxus Malfoy was a student.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that there is a list of ‘approved’ hexes and charms that Slytherin house is allowed to use on another Slytherin who has lost points,” Severus explained.

“Can’t you do anything?”

The man sighed. “I could, but I’ve found that it is a good deterrent. Most of my house will do whatever it takes to avoid getting points taken away simply because they know that they will be fair game in the common room.”

Draco pushed away from his godfather, his face resigned. “Most teachers don’t give us points, so it’s a big deal when we lose points.”

“That’s not really fair…” Harry told him.

“That’s just the way it is, Harry,” Severus replied. “Don’t worry, my prefects never let things get out of hand.” The man consulted his pocket watch. “It’s nearing time for dinner. Harry, you should run on ahead. Draco and I will follow in a few minutes.”

Harry nodded and scampered from the room.

Once Harry was gone, Severus looked down at his godson. “Draco, you know how I feel about the use of the ‘mudblood’. Yes, I know about what happened in the courtyard, so don’t attempt to lie to me about it.”

“I had to, Uncle Sev,” Draco sighed. “You know they are all sons of Death Eaters.”

“I was there, Draco. You were not following the others, you were the ringleader. I have told you that you may use that term only if you must.”

The boy sighed again. “Yes, sir. Are you going to punish me?”

Severus nodded and pulled his wand from his pocket. “You know the consequences.”

“Not the mouth washing charm, Uncle Sev! That’s ten times worse than an actual bar of soap!”

The man stood and helped the boy to his feet. “Lily is the one who taught me that charm, so you can blame her for it.” He led Draco from the tent. “I owe you two mouth washings.”

“Two?!” Draco exclaimed, looking up at him.

“Yes. Two. One for the use of that offensive term and one for lying to me,” Severus told him as they walked back to the castle.

He stopped and looked up at his godfather. “Lying? How did…”

“I always know, Draco. Your shields were down while you and Harry were trying to convince me that it was just a friendly little argument.”

“You used legimency on me?”

He gave his godson a look. “You know better than that, Draco. But when your shields are lowered, you show everything on your face. Harry does it all the time.”

“Fine…are you gonna do it to Harry too?”

“I most certainly will,” he told the boy. “Now run clean up and don’t be late for dinner.”

--

That night at dinner, Draco sat where he could watch his brother’s reactions just in case Uncle Sev decided to use the mouth washing charm on Harry as soon as he had finished his dinner. He hadn’t gotten either one of the two that the man had promised him, but he knew that he would get both before he went to bed tonight. The man often used the charm on his Slytherins for foul language or lying and he usually hit them with the charm when they were least expecting it.

As dinner started to wind down, Draco decided to give his brother a little warning. ‘He knows.’

Harry and the Weasley twins were telling Percy and Ginny about what happened to Ron that afternoon when Harry heard his brother’s voice. ‘Knows what?’ he asked, leaving the twins to finish telling the story. Neither of them had yet learned to carry on the conversation in their heads while continuing to do something else.

‘That we were lying this afternoon. But I don’t think he knows the truth…just that we were lying to him.’ He looked across the tables and into his brother’s eyes.

‘Damn!’ Harry thought with a wince. ‘What is he gonna do?’

Draco made a face. ‘Wash our mouths out…with a charm…’

‘There’s a charm for that?!”

‘Yeah, and it’s worse than actual soap.’

Harry shuddered.

Up at the teacher’s table, Severus watched the two boys in amusement. They were staring at each other across the crowded room and if he didn’t know better, he would say that they were communicating with each other. Perhaps they had found some way of communicating between themselves. He would have to do some research into that…and observe the two a little closer. With a smirk, he pulled his wand from his pocket and, holding it under the table, gave the silent command, ‘Tersus os, Potter’. Before he could repeat the command for Draco, he noticed the boy’s grimace and had to bite back a laugh. Apparently using ‘Potter’ in the command now worked for both boys. This could be fun. If he had said ‘Weasley’ would all five Weasleys be affected by the charm? He just had to do some researching and experimenting with this.

At the Gryffindor table, Harry started coughing and gagging as soon as he was hit with the charm.

“All right, Harry?” one of the twins asked him.

He shook his head, still coughing and gagging.

Percy looked over at the boy. “He got hit with a mouth washing charm. I saw Snape hit Flint with one in class yesterday.”

“Think it was Snape who got Harry?” George asked, patting the poor boy on the back.

“It could have been anyone. Flitwick taught that charm to us last year,” Percy replied.

Fred patted Harry on the back as well. “It will pass in a minute, Harry.”

None of them noticed that Draco had been hit with the same charm at the same time over at the Slytherin table. Only the poor Slytherin wasn’t getting comfort from those seated on either side of him. The Slytherins were all still pretty upset about the boy’s loss of points earlier in the day and were all quietly smirking and wondering what the boy had done to piss off their head of house.