Snakes and Lions

Old Friends And Ancestors

Hermione ran off the train and hugged Harry in quite her old manner, and for a little while, Harry was happy and sure that everything would at last go back to normal. He rode back to the castle with Ron, Hermione, and Neville. Neville chattered cheerfully about a cousin he had just met again, after a gap of eight years.

After dinner, Harry finally got a chance to settle down with just Ron and Hermione. They sat in a corner of the common room, Hermione on Ron’s lap in one chair, Harry alone in another one. Harry was anxiously wondering how much he should say about his holidays.

"How is everybody?" he asked politely.

Hermione launched immediately into a funny story about something Fred and George had done to Charlie. She and Ron went on for a while, trading the lead in telling Harry all about events at the Burrow. It was all entertaining, except for when Ron was whingeing about Fred and George actually making money ("So now I'm not even better than them") and Harry enjoyed hearing about the Weasleys. Afterwards, however, as Harry lay in bed readjusting to the sound of four other people breathing, he noted that he had never needed to decide what to answer when asked about his holidays; Ron and Hermione had never asked.

The first day of classes was fairly normal. Potions and Transfiguration, the classes the Gryffindor sixth years had with Slytherin, this year, were the oddest, because Harry saw Draco, but did not speak to him. Though Draco had said they should treat each other as they used to, he did not launch any barbs at Harry, and Harry could not bring himself to start anything, or even to encourage Ron.

"What do you suppose is up with Malfoy?" Seamus asked, at dinner. "Never seen him so quiet."

After dinner, Harry collected his homework, put on his cloak, and fled to the Chamber.

The next night, Harry settled alone in the common room. He had finished his Potions essay with Draco, the night before, and needed only to do a quick timeline for History of Magic. When that was complete, he finally took out the family book Draco had given him. He started reading.

The book started with an overview, noting the tendency of the Potters, including an unusually high percentage of Potter women, to die in early adulthood, in accident or battle. Harry snickered. There was a map of England marking areas that had been, at any point, Potter lands, and a few charts, including an overview of Sortings for Potter children who had attended Hogwarts (71% Gryffindor, 17% Slytherin, 11% Ravenclaw, 1% Hufflepuff (rounded)). After that, it had a biography of the initial wizarding Potter, a Muggle-born potter's son who did glazes for his father, until a local alchemist noted that several of his designs were impossible by Muggle techniques of the time, and took him as an apprentice.

After that, the book went into long sections of genealogy, broken by occasional anecdotes on the more interesting or historically significant members of the line. Harry found some of them, such as the story of a Potter woman single-handedly taming a griffin that had been sent to eat her, rather unlikely. On the other hand, he supposed most of his life was rather unlikely, as well.

He flipped ahead to the end of the nineteenth century, and began reading about his great-great grandfather, who, under special license from the Ministry of Magic, had bred Kneazles to some sort of monkey-like thing to produce a new magical creature that detected (and disliked) the aural residue left by the use of Dark Arts. It was called a Quiri (Kee-ree) and had been used by Aurors until the defeat of the dark wizard Grindelwald, after which the whole population of Quiris had staged a mass escape. Harry's great-great grandfather, who had been lobbying for Being status for the Quiris for twenty years, had refused to recreate them. There were occasional rumors of self-sustaining colonies of the clever creatures, but no one had ever captured a living one.

"Hello!" Ron said.

Harry checked the clock. The library would just have closed, so Ron and Hermione were not late, for once.

"What's the book, Harry?" Hermione asked. Hermione would, of course, recognize that it wasn't one of his textbooks.

Harry raised the volume so that she could see the cover. "I'm reading about quiris," he said.

"Quiris?" Hermione asked. "The Auror creatures from the beginning of the century?"

"That's a family book," Ron said flatly.

Harry looked up. Ron was angry. Harry shrugged. "They were created by an ancestor of mine, Leslie James Potter, in 1892."

"Really?!" Hermione looked impressed. Ron did not.

"What are you doing with a family book, Potter? Going to start looking for a good breeding prospect soon?"

"Somebody gave me it for Christmas," Harry responded indignantly. "And I think it's interesting. I never knew there was this much information on my ancestors."

"What's a family book?" Hermione asked.

Ron sighed. "There are these books," he said. "Lineage records, with some questionable history, for the wizarding families that are deemed important enough --"

"I thought all the old wizarding families had them," Harry interrupted. "Yours doesn't?"

"We're not important enough." Ron snorted. "The Weasleys only date back a few centuries, at least in England." He rolled his eyes. "Now the Malfoys," he said sarcastically, "have probably been here since the fifteen hundreds, and--"

"Twelve hundreds," Harry answered, without thinking. Ron stared. Harry thought quickly. "At least, well, I have a Malfoy ancestor from then."

"You're related to Malfoy? I wouldn't admit it, if I were you."

"It seems rather ... a small pool, I suppose. I've found quite a few surnames I recognize. I seem to be related to Neville several ways, for example."

Neville heard his name and jumped up. He came over to them. "What about me?"

Harry held up the book. "We're fortieth cousins, or something."

"You have a family book, Harry? That's great!"

Harry smiled. Hermione, who had been looking uneasy at Ron's reaction, relaxed at Neville's.

"I'm told I should have got it by the time I was eight."

"That's usual, though some people wait longer, these days. I got mine when I was six." Neville smiled weakly. "Gran is a bit old-fashioned, that way."

"Do you know how this Eudora Selene Longbottom fits into your family?"

Neville glanced over his shoulder at the graph. "No. I'd need to look her up."

"Can I look at your family book?" Harry asked. He saw Neville's expression and backtracked hastily. "I mean, if that's permissible. I just want to see how like each other the family books are."

"There's no rule that you can't. They can be bought by people who aren't members of the family. I don't have mine at school, though." Neville forced a smile. "If you check the library, you'll probably have your choice of family books. The Cauldwells might be more interesting, or the Malfoys, perhaps. Black, like the one who was after you a few years ago, is another old name."

"Oh, that might be interesting," Harry said. "Perhaps I'll research his line." He winked at Hermione. "It could be useful to know what the family talents are."

Ron scowled. Harry deliberately looked back to his book and began reading about Leslie Potter's sons, Frederick and Raymond.