Draco scowled a bit and narrowed his eyes before nodding slightly. "Call them what you wish. They would have, and many did, follow you into hell. They would and did give their lives for you! The fact that you call them friends means you care about them. I never heard the Dark Lord call anyone friends unless he was mocking them." Harry flinched at that, his features darkening. Draco recognizing the rising anger quickly continued. "That right there is my point though. You have the power. You have the ability to change the world. To stop what happened on our world from happening here. And I'm going to help you." Draco hesitated for a moment before he half growled out. "As long as you don't let Dumbledore lead you around by the nose again."
Harry's rising anger at Draco reminding him of what happened with his friends was changed at the mention of stopping it all from happening. Though his expression darkened once more. "Dumbledore is about the last person on this world I'd trust at this point. I don't know Dumbledore's motives on our world. But he was far too secretive and manipulative. And his decisions attributed directly to the destruction of the Wizarding World. I have no idea if this Dumbledore is the same or not. But too many things already don't add up. "
Harry finally smirked a little bit "Though you might have wanted to determine that before swearing that loyalty oath."
Draco snorted and finally relaxed a little bit, leaning back against the doors to the cabin and crossing his arms, matching Harry's pose. "Well it was either that, let you kill me, or obliviate my memories all the way back to birth."
He could come up with no real reply to that, Draco was right after all. Those were the options that Harry had been considering, so Harry shrugged in response. "What now?"
Draco frowned, "Well that depends on you. What have you got planned?" Harry shrugged a bit, remaining non-committal. "I'm going to do what I can to sabotage Voldemort's rise to power in this world. Events are centered around Hogwarts, especially this year. So here I am."
"Please tell me you're not just showing up and hoping to blend in and that no one notices an extra student in the halls." Draco looked startled at the idea, but genuinely concerned.
Harry quickly shook his head, "Not at all. I'm enrolled as a genuine student."
"I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and hope that you haven't already told the professors, and that you're not just going to just walk in and start spouting to Dumbledore and anyone else, that you're from another world and the boy-who-lived and all." Draco said in a deadpan. "Even I'm not that stupid. The Ministry would lock me up, if Dumbledore didn't try and obliviate the shit out of me first." Harry snorted dismissively.
"So assuming you didn't enroll as Harry Potter, and your story is that you're a long lost Potter…" Draco trailed off, waiting for a quick shake of Harry's head negatively before continuing. "Good, they would have demanded a blood test for that. And that probably would have popped up showing you as the the son of the Potters. How did you enroll? Transfer student? Merlin knows you can't have pretended to just have found that you're magical…" Draco asked.
"I'm enrolled as Ares Flamel, formerly a homeschooled student. Enrolled this year so that I might interact with others my own age." Harry responded dryly. There was silence in the compartment for several moments before Draco responded, "Please, please tell me you're joking."
Harry shook his head. "Believe me I'm not. But it's not my fault. I certainly didn't intend to change my name to Ares."
Draco quickly shook his head. "I wasn't talking about that. Ares is actually an improvement."
"Oi!" Harry responded in an offended tone.
"What? What kind of ancient and noble house names the Heir, Harry? Ares is much more appropriate. I was talking about the Flamel name." Draco responded dryly.
"What about it?" Harry asked with a raised eyebrow. "Did you just pick it out of a hat?
People know the name of the Immortal Alchemist. If you show up with his name, Owls will go out tonight, and it's going to make the papers by tomorrow. People are going to ask questions. They'll try and contact the Flamels, when they discover you're not related, they're going to try digging into your past, and when they discover nothing they're going to bring it directly to you!" Draco ran his hand through his hair as his voice got louder. "And Dumbledore… he's friends with Flamel. Dumbledore did some work with him. All it will take from him is a quick floor call or owl for him to start prying into your past!"
Harry smirked and shook his head, "You're right. Except for one thing. The name was Nicholas' idea in the first place. He's the one that contacted Dumbledore, and even the one that came up with my… unplanned name change."
Harry would deny it if anyone ever pressed him on it, but for just a moment he enjoyed the slack jawed and stunned expression on Draco's face.
Draco for his own part was just staring at Harry. "How in bloody hell did you pull that off?"
Harry shook his head, "I'm not allowed to talk about most of it. Suffice to say I… encountered them after I arrived a little over a week ago. And Nicholas doesn't much like the way magical society is spiraling down towards its own destruction. And both he and Perenelle are definitely not fans of Dark Lords, self-styled or not. So they agreed to lend me some aid." Draco regarded Harry for several long seconds and then he couldn't help it, he just began to laugh. It wasn't a mocking laughter, nor was it entirely amused, but it was certainly not something that Harry was used to.
"What?" Harry with a puzzled frown.
"Only you, stumble through a mirror and into another world and end up with allies like the Flamels." Draco finally said, after calming himself.
"I think it's honestly more bizarre that I'm having a conversation with you without it devolving into insults or curses." Harry shook his head slightly and then ran a hand over his face.
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