Authors Note: All characters are copyrighted by their respective owners. This work of fiction is for entertainment only. No profit is being garnered from this work. It represents an intellectual exercise only.

Rated K+ for the occassional bout of language and eventual implied violence. All comments and constructive criticism welcome!

Chapter 1 - Unexpected Letters

The sun was setting at the end of another long and tiring day for Harry Potter. He had spent the entire afternoon doing chores for his Aunt Petunia. While the threat of his godfather, Sirius Black, had made this summer slightly more bearable than the previous two, The Dursleys were far from hospitable. After vacuuming and mopping the floors in the house, weeding the garden and trimming the lawn, Harry had spent the last few hours turning the compost heap in the back yard. He was hot, sweaty, smelly and exhausted.

Though he had grown quite a lot in the last year, and was now tall for his age of thirteen, he was still rather skinny. He had a shock of black hair that was most unruly, and haunting green eyes. Supposedly, he looked exactly like his father, but had his mother's eyes. Harry had to take everyone's word for it, as he had never met his parents. They had been killed by Lord Voldemort, a powerful dark wizard when Harry was but one year old. Harry, too, was a wizard, and Voldemort had tried to kill him as well. Something, however, had gone wrong, and Harry had not been killed. Instead, as a souvenir of Lord Voldemort, he had a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead that Harry usually tried to keep covered with his wild hair. Voldemort - the spell having rebounded on him - by contrast had been weakened so terribly that he was forced to go back into hiding for ten brief years. As a wizard-in-training, Harry attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and would be entering his fourth year when the fall term began September 1. Harry sighed, remembering that it was still just over a month until the start of school, and trudged upstairs to the bathroom to clean up before dinner, careful to avoid the Dursleys. He was too tired for a confrontation at the moment.

As he waited for the water in the shower to heat up, Harry took advantage of the opportunity to look at himself in the full-length mirror on the back of the door in the bathroom. "Still too scrawny," he thought. He wondered when he would begin to fill out as much as he seemed to be growing taller. He wondered if one of his best friends, Ron Weasley, a fellow Griffyndor, was growing as fast as he had last summer. Gryffindor was Harry's house at school, his family really, and his two best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger were also fourth-year Gryffindors. As he scrubbed the dirt and smell of the day off of him, Harry was excited to realize that in a few days, just a couple of days after his birthday tomorrow, he would be going to the Burrow, the ancestral Weasley home for the remainder of the summer. While this would be happening after his birthday, he knew it to be a far better present than he could ever expect to receive from the Dursleys.

Ron and Hermione had proven to be better friends than Harry could have ever dreamed. Together they had been responsible for causing quite a bit of mischief, and solving a few mysteries. He wondered when his two best friends would finally realize they had feelings for each other that went beyond friendship. Of course, he realized that they were all just fourteen years old, but the hormones were beginning to rage, and he heard that wizarding families, especially pureblood families, tended to encourage their children to begin looking around early for potential mates. As he thought more about it, he couldn't recall where he had heard that information, there was still so much he didn't know about the wizarding world, having grown up in the muggle world until the age of eleven.

For some reason, the word 'pureblood' stuck in his head, and that made him think of Draco Malfoy, his arch-enemy at Hogwarts. Malfoy was a Slytherin - the house at Hogwarts that was reputed to be full of dark wizards in training - and was entering the fourth year, like the "Golden Trio," as Harry, Ron, and Hermione were sometimes called around Hogwarts. Draco's father Lucius was reported to be a reformed Death Eater. Lucius had claimed to be under the Imperius curse during Voldemort's reign of terror, and thus escaped being imprisoned in Azkaban, the wizard prison. Harry thought that Mr. Malfoy was probably still a Death Eater, and was just waiting for Voldemort's return to power. Draco certainly acted like he was a card-carrying member of the Future Death Eaters of England the way he, well, the way he did everything. He especially seemed to hate Harry Potter.

Harry had no illusions as to why this might be the case. It all dated back to an event on the Hogwarts Express at the start of Harry's first year. Harry had been sitting in a cabin on the train with Ron Weasley when Malfoy and his two thugs, Crabbe and Goyle, had barged in. Malfoy had demanded to know whether Harry Potter was really Harry Potter, and when his identity had been verified, immediately wanted to be friends. Of course, this was after Malfoy had made the mistake of insulting Ron, making several disparaging comments about Ron's family, social status, and preference for being friendly to muggles. Harry had refused to shake hands, and he and Malfoy had been working hard to hex each other senseless ever since. It wasn't that Harry hated Draco Malfoy. The only person Harry thought he might truly hate was Voldemort, it was just that Malfoy had been needlessly cruel, arrogant, and a prat in general. Harry hadn't exactly given him many second chances, in all fairness.

Finishing his shower, Harry got dressed and went downstairs to endure dinner with his Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon, and cousin Dudley before returning to his room (Dudley's second bedroom, but still better than the cupboard) to do homework.

The rule for a quiet dinner in the Dursley household, at least if you were Harry Potter, was to try your hardest not to be noticed. Apparently, the gods were with Harry this evening, as Uncle Vernon was going on about some huge drill order that had come in that morning (he was a director at Grunnings, a local firm that made drills), Aunt Petunia was prating about the neighbors latest vacation in Majorca, and Dudley was engrossed in some inane television program as usual.

After dinner, Harry quickly returned upstairs and began working on an essay for Transfiguration. It wasn't due until the start of the term, but Harry knew that if he didn't get it done before heading to the Burrow it wouldn't get done at all. Several hours and several close calls later with an irate Uncle Vernon, Harry rolled up the parchment and with a whispered, "Nox," put out the light and went quickly to sleep.

Harry awoke to a scratching at the window, and putting on his glasses turned to see not just Hedwig but no fewer than four other owls outside the window. This was quite a surprise to Harry as the majority of his birthdays had passed with depressing unmomentuousness. Still in his boxer shorts, he quickly opened the window (the bars had been removed long ago in an incident involving three Weasleys and a flying Ford Anglia and never replaced) and let the owls into the room. Harry cringed at the ruckus the owls were making, and was genuinely scared when he heard Uncle Vernon grumble, "Ruddy owls!"as he turned over in his sleep. The first owl, of course, was Hedwig, who had arrived with a card from Hagrid. He removed the card from Hedwig's leg, gave her a pat on the head and sent her to her cage for a nap. The next owl he attended to was a tiny little thing; it was Pig, the owl Ron had gotten from Sirius at the end of last year. Pig also had a card, and a small box, and, relieved of his burden, joined Hedwig in the cage. The third owl was from Hermione who had also sent a card, and a large heavy box as well. The fourth owl Harry recognized as being one of the school owls, and it contained a letter, strangely, from Dumbledore, the Headmaster of Hogwarts. "That's odd," thought Harry, and shrugging, he turned to the fifth owl.

This owl Harry did not recognize at all, but he noticed it as having a definite 'air' about it, as if it were rather put out at having to make a postal delivery to a very muggle address. When he removed the letter from the owl and turned the envelope over, he sat down very suddenly on his bed. The seal on the envelope was the Malfoy crest, the letter 'M' with a dragon in silhouette. Harry was stunned. Why in the world would the Malfoys send him a letter, much less on his birthday? He opened the letter immediately and read:

Dear Potter,

I know in all likelihood that you are rather shocked to be receiving a letter from me, and I would not be at all surprised if you were to throw this directly in the rubbish bin. If you have read this far, please continue to do so.

The fact of the matter is this: my father is a Death Eater, and intends to do anything he can to speed Voldemort's return. My mother, though loyal to the family, does not share my father's sentiments, and probably much to your surprise, neither do I. I have no desire to find myself on the path that my father has set for me. I do not wish to go into details in this letter, but find myself hoping that your Gryffindor sense of "right" will allow us to discuss this in greater detail at the first opportunity.

Do not reply to me by return owl, as that runs the risk of my father intercepting our correspondence.

Draco Malfoy

P.S. - I am also informing Headmaster Dumbledore of my intentions. -DM

P.P.S - Do NOT get the idea in your head that this means we're friends, and do

NOT expect me to be nice to either you, that disgrace-to-the-wizarding-world Weasley, or the buck-toothed mudblood Granger either! -DM

Harry was still stunned. In all the realm of potential letters, one from Draco Malfoy had been off the map, much less one from Draco Malfoy that indicated his intentions to break with his father's wishes. It was several minutes before Harry, who had been staring blankly into space, remembered the other letters, and opened the one from the Headmaster:

My Dear Harry,

First and foremost, Happy Birthday! I am quite hopeful, my boy, that you will pass an enjoyable day, if not today, then in the near future at the Burrow. I will see to it that all further correspondence finds you there, which I am sure surprises you not one bit.

I would also guess that at nearly the same time as receiving this letter, you have also received one from a certain Slytherin of who you are less than fond. If your letter contained the same information as mine, then we are equally dumbfounded. Young Mister Malfoy has informed me of his intentions to speak with you, and I hope you will be able to find it within you to hear what he has to say. He has also agreed to meet with me upon arrival at Hogwarts, and even offered to submit to questioning under the influence of Veritaserum.

This is a most disturbing development, my boy, but I must ask you to be as supportive of young Mister Malfoy as you can. You will also please accompany him to my office when he is summoned after the Welcome Feast. Until then, I will keep you posted of any further correspondence, and ask that you do the same.

Albus Dumbledore

Headmaster, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Order of Merlin First Class, etc. etc.

For Harry, the second letter was nearly as staggering as the first. Malfoy was...defecting? And what was even more unbelievable had offered to submit to taking Veritaserum with Harry present? It was simply too much for Harry to grasp at that early hour. He decided to sleep a little longer, as the Dursleys had learned not to bother him before he awoke naturally. Harry was convinced he would wake again in a few hours having imagined the existence of both letters. He fell asleep so quickly, he forgot about the other three cards, and the presents.