"A Malfoy! Well, how wonderful indeed, how most wonderful!"
Minister Fudge had been saying some variation of that for the last hour, while they stood in a small room with a polished wooden table and chairs and waited for people called Aurors to bring in Sirius Black. Harry was getting tired of hearing it.
But he didn't say anything, because he was clinging to the hope that Black would say that the Malfoys were wrong, and he was really Harry Potter. He looked up sharply as the door opened and the Aurors, clad in scarlet robes, dragged in Black.
Harry shivered. The man looked insane. Matted black hair clumped around his face, and he had grey eyes that looked like Mrs. Malfoy's and Draco's. And Harry's, now. Harry shuddered a little.
The man glanced back and forth between them with no sign of recognition. Minister Fudge cleared his throat and adjusted his bowler hat. "I'm afraid that he's not really all that sane, Mr. Malfoy."
"That's all right." Mr. Malfoy waited until the Aurors left the room and then took out a sparkling vial from the corner of one pocket. "I assume that this stays between us, Minister?"
"Oh, well." Fudge had eyes that darted back and forth like a rabbit's when he was nervous. "The man didn't consent to Veritaserum, you know, Mr. Malfoy," he added, with a vague reproach.
"How could someone in the state he is in consent to anything?" Mr. Malfoy asked smoothly. "And we need answers."
"Yes," Draco said. He stood next to Harry, and he hadn't moved away from him since they came into this little room through the fireplace. Now he leaned heavily, so that Harry nearly staggered from the weight. We're supposed to be twins, but he's taller and heavier than me. So maybe we're not twins? "I want to know why he took my brother."
Harry sneaked a look at Draco. Why did he want Harry? Wouldn't he just enjoy being an only child, and see Harry as the competition? That was the way Dudley had always seen him.
Draco gave him a challenging stare, and Harry turned away, to look at Black again. It was still beyond weird to be reminded that the eyes looking at him now were the same color as his own.
He must have missed them pouring the Veritaserum down Black's throat, because Mr. Malfoy was taking back an empty vial. Black's head bobbed on his neck for a minute. Then he looked up with glazed eyes.
"Whazz?" he muttered.
Harry bit his lip, desperately afraid Black might not be able to talk. Then they would never get answers, and he would have to go along and be a Malfoy for the rest of his life.
Mr. Malfoy spoke. "State your name."
"Sirius Orion Black." The voice that emerged from Black's lips was unexpectedly strong and firm, nothing like the other. This time, Harry hoped that Mr. Malfoy hadn't created a potion that would just make Black repeat whatever the Malfoys wanted to hear. But no one else seemed surprised that he sounded that way.
"What are you in prison for?"
"The betrayal of James and Lily Potter."
Loathing squirmed in Harry's belly. Mrs. Malfoy had told him a little about the Death Eaters and the background of the crime that Black had been involved in. He couldn't believe he hadn't known about it before.
But, of course, he felt conflicted about it. Because it was terrible that the Potters had died, but they weren't really his parents, but they had died protecting him, but they had stolen him…
"I think we have established the baseline for the Veritaserum," said Mr. Malfoy, and then asked, "Did you steal our son, Aldebaran Malfoy, from his cradle and place him with the Potters?"
"Yes."
Harry felt as though someone had punched him. He staggered back and grabbed something. He thought it was the table, but then he realized he was leaning on Draco. He drew himself free, or tried, but Draco wrapped an arm around his shoulders and refused to let go.
"Why?" Mrs. Malfoy asked the question, soft and heartbroken. She touched Harry on the arm, as if she wanted to hover between him and Black.
"Lily and James wanted a child. They couldn't have one. They both got hit with curses during the war. They were both infertile." Black was staring straight ahead, reciting the story as if it had happened to someone else. "They wanted it desperately. It was destroying them. I would have done anything for James. And I knew that you had two children. Why did you need them both? One of them could be rescued. He could go up in a Light family and he could have parents who would really love him and not use him as a status symbol. So I stole him, and used an illusion spell, and Lily and James conducted the adoption ritual to make it permanent."
There was a dreadful silence in the room. Harry didn't think he'd heard a silence like that when they told him he was a Malfoy. He just stood there and stared, and Mrs. Malfoy hugged him from behind, her quiet tears falling on his head. Draco seemed frozen, clinging to Harry and not moving.
Mr. Malfoy was the one who stepped forwards, his face dark with rage.
"So you came to visit us. Why did you do that?"
"I knew Narcissa had had twins. I was thinking of taking one. What did you need with two children? You—"
"Yes, you said." Mr. Malfoy was almost hissing, although Harry didn't think it was Parseltongue. "How could you do that to your cousin? You were close when you were young."
"She married into the Malfoys. She wouldn't do that unless she'd given up on her heart and decided that only ambition mattered. She would have married someone else and been happy that way."
"You did it for the Potters?" Mrs. Malfoy had got her voice back, but her tears were still falling. Harry could feel them. He could feel that, and he could also feel a great numbness inside him.
"Yes. They were dying for want of a child. They were arguing all the time. I was afraid their marriage would end."
"Why did they agree?" Mr. Malfoy asked. He was coiled and quiet now, but he still reminded Harry of a snake. "I hated James Potter, but I would have thought he had more honor than that."
"All they wanted was someone to love. And once the illusion was in place, Harry looked like them. He was only a few weeks old. He could have been theirs. He was still innocent. They looked at him and they loved him at once."
Harry closed his eyes. So his parents were the way he'd always been told they were. They'd loved him at once. They had been willing to die for him.
He was aware of Mr. Malfoy asking Black other questions, and some answers, like how Black had helped them with the adoption ritual and told everyone who asked that Lily had simply been concealing her pregnancy so they wouldn't keep her from fighting in something called the "Order of the Phoenix." And how James Potter had named Harry his heir at once and bragged about him to his other friends, someone named Pettigrew and someone named Lupin.