That afternoon Harry returned to Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions and purchased a set of formal evening clothes suitable for dinner.
Pobby had wanted to accompany him and help choose the outfit, but one look at her current appearance was enough to make her abandon the idea.
Around four o'clock Harry prepared to leave for Malfoy Manor.
As he reached the door, Pobby suddenly clamped her teeth around the hem of his robes.
"Come back early, all right?"
"Don't worry." Harry patted her head. "Even though you're a unicorn and don't need to… well… try not to overeat. Indigestion is still possible."
"I kno-o-ow, Da-a-ad," Pobby huffed, shaking her head. "You're exactly like my real father—equally annoying."
Harry could only shake his head with a helpless smile. He waved goodbye and Disapparated on the spot.
The moment he was gone, a soft, ghostly white light flickered over Pobby's form. In her place stood once more the beautiful young girl in Hufflepuff robes.
"Idiot…" she murmured. "As if a unicorn could ever…"
Yes. But I am a ghost…
She gazed sadly at the enormous spread of food that still covered the entire bed.
Thank you, Harry…
Yet I cannot taste any of it…
The moment Dobby returned to Malfoy Manor and reported to Lucius, the head of the family ordered every house-elf in the household into action. Preparations for the evening's dinner began at once.
Even though Harry was only a first-year student, Lucius intended to treat the visit with full seriousness. The boy had, after all, identified the Dark Mark on Draco's arm.
As for the rest of Draco's wild claims—Lucius paid them little mind.
A Harry Potter from a hundred years ago?
Lucius had no doubt his foolish son had simply been taken in by someone's tall tale.
Still, proper courtesy had to be observed. At half past four he, Narcissa, and Draco were already waiting at the great gates of the manor.
"Father, do you think Potter might still be a while—"
Draco never finished the sentence. A sharp crack of displaced air cut him off.
A short distance away the air began to twist. A second later Harry Potter stood before the three of them.
Lucius's pupils contracted.
This was a twelve-year-old?
Apparition was a spell taught only to students who had reached seventeen, after rigorous training. A significant number of adult wizards never mastered it safely; Splinching remained a constant danger.
Yet the boy in front of them—
He had just Apparated from the Leaky Cauldron in London. Malfoy Manor lay in Wiltshire, more than a hundred kilometres away. Such a distance required not only exceptional skill but a formidable reserve of magical power.
Lucius, ever the pragmatist, accepted the evidence of genius with remarkable smoothness. The Saviour, he reasoned, was entitled to a few peculiarities.
"You must be Mr. Harry Potter," he said, stepping forward and extending his hand. "Lucius. Lucius Malfoy. An honour."
"Good evening, Mr. Malfoy." Harry shook the offered hand, then executed a precise, gentlemanly bow toward Narcissa. "Madam Malfoy."
"Mr. Potter," Narcissa returned the greeting with equal formality.
"Draco. We meet again." Harry smiled at the younger boy.
Draco's face was tight with impatience; he was desperate for Harry to reveal the truth at once.
"Pot—Harry," he corrected himself, slipping into the same easy familiarity his father had just displayed.
A sharp look from Lucius silenced him before he could continue.
"Please, Mr. Potter—come in." Lucius gestured toward the house.
Harry lifted his gaze and took in Malfoy Manor.
It remained a dignified manor house of the old school, surrounded by carefully designed gardens in which several fountains played and white peacocks wandered at leisure. In a hundred years the place had changed little; if anything, a few additional ornaments had been added. The Malfoys had not allowed their name to sink.
Inside, the décor was far more opulent than it had been a century earlier. Sumptuous furniture, marble fireplaces, gilded mirrors, and floors completely covered in thick carpeting all proclaimed the family's wealth and standing.
Harry cast Lucius an approving glance. This particular Malfoy, it seemed, was no mere empty-headed aristocrat. He clearly knew how to manage—and increase—a fortune.
Lucius felt the look and found it strangely unsettling. There was no contempt in it, yet it left him oddly uncomfortable. If anything, it resembled the quiet approval an elder might give a promising junior.
He shook the thought away and decided dinner should begin.
The meal was French, as it had always been in the Malfoy household. A century earlier Septimus Malfoy had entertained Harry with the same cuisine.
Because the gathering was small and private, the long dining table had not been extended. Guided by the house-elves, Harry took the seat at Lucius's right hand—the place reserved for the guest of honour, so that conversation might flow easily. Had the hostess been the principal entertainer, the place of honour would have been at her side instead.
Harry had brought no companion. In truth he could not have done so. Vivi was a portrait. Pobby was a unicorn. And if he had chosen Cassandra… well, she would have been the true mistress of the house—its ancient grandmother. The damned complications of rank…
Lucius kept the perfect distance: neither overly familiar nor coldly distant. Harry found the balance refreshing. He had never much cared for people who presumed intimacy at once; Lucius's measured restraint was, in its way, reassuring.
Conversation stayed light—Hogwarts, Gryffindor House, a carefully oblique enquiry about the duel with Miss Farley. Harry answered every question with the composure of someone far older than twelve. Cassandra's training, after all, still showed. During the long summer holidays when he had nowhere else to go, she had regularly "recruited" him as her attendant and dragged him to the manor, where Septimus had taken him to every sort of formal gathering. Even a fool would have learned something after enough exposure.
Only when the dessert course arrived did the talk turn serious.
"Mr. Potter," Lucius said, "I must thank you once more for the help you gave Draco. No father wishes to see his son led astray."
"You are too kind, Mr. Malfoy," Harry replied with a slight incline of the head. "It was a small matter."
Lucius opened his mouth, but Narcissa spoke first, her voice urgent.
"Mr. Potter—is there any way you can save my child?" Her face was tight with anxiety. "He is my only son. I cannot bear to see him branded by that… group."
"It is an extremely advanced Dark curse, Madam Malfoy," Harry said quietly.
"I know—I know." Narcissa drew a shaky breath. "But my little dragon… Mr. Potter, if you can save him, the House of Malfoy will pay any price you name!"
Lucius exhaled softly.
"What Cissy says is my will as well," he said.
His wife's sudden appeal had placed him in a somewhat awkward position, yet he chose to stand with her. Not only for Draco's sake, but because husband and wife ought to face such things together.
Harry felt a small stir of emotion. Narcissa's love for her son reminded him of his own mother. He could see that this woman's devotion was no less fierce. Empathy of that sort was rare.
He had intended to use the removal of the Mark as leverage for Lucius's support regarding the Board of Governors. Looking at the mother before him, however, he found he could not bring himself to bargain.
"I happened to read of a counter-curse for this particular brand in the Hogwarts library," he said. "Since the curse was placed only recently, I believe I can still attempt to expel it."
Narcissa's face lit with sudden hope.
"Thank you—thank you, Mr. Potter."
"Draco, give me your arm." Harry drew his wand—not the holly one.
"Will… will it work?" Draco swallowed.
He wanted to believe Harry. In his single-minded way he had already decided that this was the legendary wizard of a hundred years ago. Yet a residual fear remained: what if the Mark truly could not be removed?
"Trust me." Harry smiled gently and touched the tip of his wand to the Dark Mark.
A sharp, searing pain shot through Draco's arm. At the same moment Lucius felt an answering jolt in his own left forearm.
Lucius's eyes narrowed.
If he had been sixty per cent certain before, he was now one hundred per cent sure: the Mark was Voldemort's work.
He clenched his teeth but kept his face carefully blank.
"It hurts," Draco muttered through gritted teeth.
"Of course it hurts. Who told you to accept the thing in the first place?" Harry rolled his eyes. Ancient magic shimmered along the tip of his wand as he pressed it to the serpent's head.
The serpent's jaws snapped open and clamped onto the wand. Harry gave a sharp pull; the entire snake was torn free of the skin.
He repeated the motion over the skull. That, too, came away.
Narcissa seized her son's arm and examined it closely. The skin was smooth and unblemished; no trace of the Dark Mark remained.
The shadowy brand, now free in the air, twisted hideously as though trying to strike. Harry flicked his wand. A jet of vivid green light struck the shadow and scattered it into nothing.
"What… what was that?" Lucius swallowed hard.
Green light?
Silent casting—no visible emotion, no preparation—and yet…
Merlin's trousers…
"Ah, Mr. Malfoy, no need for alarm." Harry laid his wand on the table in front of Lucius. "You might try a Priori Incantatem, if you like."
Lucius drew a steadying breath, produced his own wand, and touched it to Harry's.
"Lu… Lumos?!" He stared.
"Exactly. The Dark Mark is, in essence, a shadow. Once pulled free of the flesh, light is enough to disperse it." Harry smiled cheerfully.
He had done it deliberately, of course—simply to watch Lucius's reaction. And now he had finally seen another expression cross the man's face.
Lucius, as a Death Eater, had cast the Killing Curse himself. That was not the issue. The issue was that the boy in front of him was a first-year student. No first-year should be able to produce a silent Avada Kedavra on command. That was what had shaken him.
The Unforgivable Curses were not unforgivable merely because they required strong emotion (though repeated use could indeed blunt one's regard for life). Their true unforgivability lay in the intent they demanded. In legal terms it was the difference between an accidental death caused by a poorly aimed Blasting Curse and a deliberate Killing Curse. One could claim the former was a mistake. The latter admitted of no such defence: without the genuine will to kill, the curse simply failed.
Harry exhaled. "Fortunately we caught it in time. Another two months and I doubt I could have done anything."
Lucius's hand drifted involuntarily to his own left arm.
Well. At least the boy was free.
He smiled at Harry. "You have the gratitude of the House of Malfoy, Mr. Potter. You are our benefactor."
"Indeed, Mr. Potter," Narcissa added. "Without your help, Draco might have…"
"It was nothing," Harry replied politely.
Draco tapped the table, a slippery little smile spreading across his face.
"See, Father? Mother? I told you Harry was the legendary wizard from a hundred years ago—Harry Potter! You wouldn't believe me. Only a wizard of that calibre could have removed the curse from my arm…"
"Draco!" Lucius snapped, then turned back to Harry with a smooth apology. "Forgive him, Mr. Potter. He is still a child, and his thoughts tend to… leap."
Harry glanced at the boy. He had not expected Draco to cling so stubbornly to the earlier story. Still, it hardly mattered. With the Philosopher's Stone amplifying his power, ordinary wizards no longer concerned him.
"Even so…" Lucius continued carefully, "neither Dumbledore nor the Dark Lord himself possessed such strength at your age. Could it be that Draco is right after all—that you are, in fact, the…"
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