“Whatya goin’ to do next, snake-spawn’ get You-know-who as a godfather.” guffawed Seamus.

“Ignore them, Draco!” hissed Blaise, grabbing his friend’s wand hand.

“Oh look, Zabini and Malfoy are holding hands ‘Blaise and Draco up a tree, K.I.S.S.I.N.G” added Dean.

“Leave him alone, you lot.” said Neville sharply “I think its great Harry and Snape are happy and, if you don’t like it…”

“They can take it up with me” said a silky voice. Ron and Seamus flushed crimson, suddenly realising the stupidity of hassling Harry on the way to Potions.

“Inside. Now!” Professor Snape snapped.

The Gryffs ran for their desks whilst the Slytherin’s followed at a more leisurely pace. Harry grinned at his new father as he passed: his Dad had told him that, in Hogwarts, children of Professors, while not receiving preferential treatment, were not expected to call their parents ‘Sir’ or ‘professor’, though many chose to do so. (It had been a rule which Slytherin, in his usual obstinate way, had insisted upon, with the backing of Madam Hufflepuff: as Salazar firmly stated ‘I aym Faeder erst und Basilysk second.’) Therefore, if Harry slipped up and called Professor Snape ‘dad’, he knew that he didn’t need to feel embarrassed .

OoOoO

“Guess what, Harry” Hermione said smugly, as she sat down between Harry and Draco in the common room that evening.

Theo sighed “We’ve only discovered that the muggle book was right.” He whistled a few bars.

“Oh, do you have the book?” Blaise asked, looking pleased.

“No, it was, er… from the Restricted Section” Hermione whispered, blushing.

“The Restricted Section?” Harry gasped.

“Way to go Hermione!” Draco grinned.

“I didn’t actually mean to… I mean, Madam Pince was levitating a pile of books from the returns desk and this slim, grey volume fell off as she turned into the Restricted Section and I picked it up. I was going to give it back to her, I really was…”

“But the title was ‘Kerberos’!” Theo added “It was a fantastic piece of luck”

“It was Heracles autobiography” Hermione said quietly “Not the original, of course, but a faithful copy.”

“A blow by blow account” Theo enthused “He was the half-blood son of a wizard and a princess; Heracles was not only powerfully magical, he was really strong physically and he made his living by taming or, if that failed, killing magical creatures who were, you know, making a nuisance of themselves. He wrote it all down; the animals, their strengths, their weaknesses, habitats, the lot!”

"Sounds like Hagrid's long lost ancestor" grinned Blaise.

“Why didn’t you come and get us!” Draco demanded.

“Because we didn’t know how long we had before Pince noticed it was missing” explained Hermione.

“If we’d hung around, she could have taken the book off us before we’d learnt about the you-know-what.” Theo added “It was a near miss, anyhow; she summoned it and it flew right out of our hands.”

“Anyhow, Heracles explained how he tamed the you-know-what in his book” Hermione continued “It was his proudest achievement; he really liked dogs and, well…”

“Like Hagrid, he thought bigger equalled better” giggled Theo “Heracles bred the you-know-what with the orthrus, which was a female, two-headed version of the you-know-what and all the you-know-whats are descended from them.”

“Okay…” Harry said thoughtfully “Does anyone know how to play music?”

“I know how to play the double bass…” Theo grinned.

“And I know how to play the piano but it’s a bit daft trying to lug either of those into the you-know-what’s cave” Draco sighed “We’d be dead before we set up!”

“I’ve got a recorder” ventured Hermione “But I’m not very good.”

“What’s a recorder” Blaise asked.

“Oh, it’s a bit naff.” Hermione giggled “It’s this plastic pipe which we learnt to play in Primary school. I think I’ve still got all the pieces.”

Draco nodded “Well, get your parents to send it to you, you can borrow Strix if you like.”

“Okay” Hermione smiled “Thanks Draco!”

Harry grinned, Hagrid had told him that his little owlets were going from strength to strength and had even, to Harry’s delight, been able to slide into the nesting-box one of the six way mirrors. Hermione still didn’t know that one of the owls was meant for her but her obvious enjoyment in watching the baby owls had made Harry’s tummy fizz with pleasure.

oOoOo

Lucius sighed. The dark arts… so captivating, so empowering… Light Mages spoke of them as unholy yet, when one allowed the Darkness to infuse one’s soul, when one used one’s wand as a sword of retribution, burning in ones hand and one’s heart… A good person would never, could never know how it felt to close ones eyes as a mortal and open them as an angel. An angel of death.

Yet, Lucius was no longer a child; that confidence in his judgement, the feeling of his superiority, his right to choose who lived and who died had faded. At nineteen, everything had been so easy: muggles were poor, weak, stupid creatures, it took them nineteen weeks- nineteen- to heal a broken leg, whereas a mage could cure it in two. Tom Riddle had waxed lyrical about the benefits to muggles, should the statute of secrecy be overturned: surely it was inhumane to allow such a species to struggle on when they would be better off under the supervision of wizards, like other lesser creatures? However, now that Lucius had seen something of muggle culture… well, making pets of muggles now would rather be like watching a man pull himself up from the gutter to affluence and then insist on him being one’s swineherd. It seemed a little hard on them to step in now.

As for muggleborns diluting the power of Wizarding bloodlines, Lucius, despite his best efforts, had been unable to ignore how Magical some of these muggleborns were. That Evans girl, Harry’s mother, had been top of her year, for example. And, after all, none of them had realised that Riddle was only a half-blood. If a Malfoy had to admit fearing a half-blood, then he could jolly well concede muggleborns didn’t appear much weaker than purebloods.

And, of course, there was the fact that Lucius had not killed or even raised his wand against another for ten years. During the first war, Lucius had only been sent on political assassinations, rather than simple terrorism. Lucius was somewhat dark but not actually evil; he had standards and killing children and muggles, those too weak to defend themselves, was unacceptable and Riddle, to give him his due, had allocated Lucius's duties accordingly.

Now, as a father himself, Lucius wondered whether he could, now, kill another father, knowing that children would mourn the dead man as Draco would mourn him.

That was the crux of it. Draco. As much as Lucius loved Severus, he had not decided to defect for him, he had done it for his son and, now, it was time to relinquish the accoutrements of his misspent youth.

Lucius levitated the heavy stone lid off his baptismal, stepping back sharply as the fiery demons of the fiend-fyre leapt towards the high ceiling of his concealed room. With a treacherously heavy heart, Lucius levitated his little collection into the flame, sparing the books alone. It was not just his property that he was destroying; Lucius had been named as trustee by many of the Death-eaters now in Azkaban and, having ready access to their vaults, Lucius had no compunction of ridding them of anything which could be used against him or his family. Including money, to a number of charities' eternal gratitude.

Finally, he picked up a small diary and a cup; these two objects, the former entrusted to Lucius by Riddle and the latter found in Bella's vault, seemed immune to magic so Lucius physically threw them into the flames, shivering at the ghoulish shriek which sounded as they burnt.

oOoOo

“Strix is a lazy old feather-duster! Two days! Two whole days!”

“Sorry Draco” Hermione sighed, piling scrambled eggs onto her toast “Mum… she kind of likes owls and Strix is really cute.”

“Cute!”

“Draco” Blaise sighed “Strix is fluffy, bright-eyed and purrs when you touch him. I hate to break it to you, but he doesn’t exactly live up to his name. I bet he’s being fed fillet steak and having his tummy tickled.”

“At least you’ve got Isis” Harry nudged Draco.

“Yeah” Draco grinned ruefully.

“Hey!” cried Theo “There he is”

Strix skimmed over the children’s heads and held out a somewhat plumper-than-usual leg to Hermione, whilst casting ostentatious looks of interest at the bacon.

Hermione untied the light package and pulled out the recorder pieces and a few folded up sheets of recorder music and, of course, a letter.

“Let’s go!” squeaked Draco “We have 20 minutes before our first lesson!”

“Draco” Blaise sighed, feeding Strix his bacon rinds “we need at least two hours!”

“Not necessarily” Draco urged.

“I’ve got to relearn my recorder” said Hermione firmly “No, Draco. Saturday morning, and not a moment earlier.”

Draco stabbed viciously at his mushroom; why were women always so damn unsporting?

oOoOo

“Recorder?” asked Blaise.

“Check” said Hermione.

“Mirrors?”

“Check” replied Harry, Draco, Hermione and Theo.

“Water”

“Check” grinned Theo.

“Sweets”

“Kind of check” Draco gave a chocolaty grin.

“Sandwiches”

“Check” said Harry.

“Dashing, smart and heroic leader” asked Draco.

“Check” Grinned Blaise, pointing to himself.

“You wish” replied Draco, nudging him in the ribs “I was referring to myself.”

“Okay: we wish to be let out into the room where the philosopher’s stone has been hidden” Hermione intoned, scrunching up her eyes and bunching her fists, putting every atom of her resolution into the wish.

“Open the door Harry.” Blaise said.

Harry, who had nominated himself to venture out first, lest the Secret Room open into the Cerberus’s den, raised his wand, focused his magic and yanked open the door.

Everyone held their breath.

“It’s okay, there’s just this little room; all that’s in it is a mirror” Harry said, stepping over the threshold.

Blaise, Theo and Draco followed him: Hermione had been voted, three to one, to stay in the doorway, keeping the door into the ‘Secret Room’ open; closest to the door equalled furthest from danger and, although Hermione was a powerful witch, it was plain ungentlemagely to do otherwise.

By the time the other three were in the room, Harry had already walked over to examine the ancient mirror.

“Harry” Draco said in an exasperated voice “You do know how thick it is to look into a mirror which you don’t know anything about, don’t you? Some can suck your soul right out of your body.

“It’s just a plain old mirror.” Harry said, disappointment heavy in his voice “I think the room’s made a mistake.”

Draco sauntered up and did a double take “I… it shows me… I’m Minister… Dad’s clapping me and Mum, she looks so happy. And you’re there too Harry, and you Blaise and Theo and… Hermione?!” Draco blushed, stepping away quickly.

“What?” Harry asked, surprised.

Theo, who had been poking around the corners of the room walked up to the mirror and gazed into it’s depths “I’m… I look a lot older, like sixteen, and I’m standing in the Great Hall, in front of the Staff Table and Professor Dumbledore is handing me an award… Award for Academic Excellence. I’ve… I’ve invented a potion to cure Multiple Sclerosis! And my Nan… she can walk! She’s thanking me and her voice is clear again…” Theo looked at Harry, tears in his eyes.

“Maybe this mirror tells the future?”

“Draco…” said Blaise quietly.

“No, I mean, maybe not one hundred percent actually but the gist!”

“Draco, look at the inscription.” Blaise prompted.

“What?! It’s just nonsense. Some obscure language”

“You’ve got to read it from right to left, like Arabic: ‘I show not your face but your heart's desire.’

“What?! But how can that be? Harry just saw himself. He doesn’t desire himself!”

Hermione stared intently at the mirror, her face sad and serious “Blaise is right.”

Theo turned away, taking a gulping breath. “This was a stupid idea.”

“Yeah” Blaise said, walking over and placing a hand on Theo’s shoulder “Let’s go back.”

Hermione pulled the door open and stepped into the Secret Room “Oh!”

“Huh? What’s wr… oh!” the children had stepped into a rather different room, one laid out like a research lab. The bookshelves were lined with titles like ‘Murtlap and Myelin; an investigative essay’, ‘Healing Properties of Australian Plants’ and “The Nervous System: an introduction.’

“Well, there’s nothing to say what the Mirror showed can’t come true” Draco said, grabbing a book.