Title:             Tainted Trust
Author:         Raihne
Fandom:     Harry Potter
Pairing:         Draco/Harry
Disclaimer:     I only hope that someday my book will be this well known but alas, these charas are
                     not mine.
Spoilers:     Through the Chamber of Secrets, there may be bits and pieces here and there, but after chamber, it’s pretty much gone                     off on my own tangent.
Warning:    Naive to a sad degree, Harry in denile
Summary:     When Harry gave Lucious Tom Riddles journal, no one suspected a thing, until Lucious realizes near the end of the summer that the book was a fake. Draco is sent to find the real journal, but the third year finds a lot more than he bargined for.


Part 1

    It had been a whole summer since the Chamber of Secrets. Being extremely busy, Draco had put the whole incident out from his mind. At least that was what he told himself. In reality, he worried every day that his father would realize what he'd done. That his family would be disappointed in him for doing something so unbefitting a Malfoy heir.

    Yes, Draco was concerned with what his parents thought of him. They were good parents in their own way and he did love them, in his own way.  His father had been so excited about slipping the weasel's sister Voldemort's old book. He'd worked out the plan perfectly and everyone had behaved just as Lucious had predicted. All except one. Draco had betrayed his father and his family and no one could have seen that coming. If fact no one knew about it at all. With a simple page torn from a book in the store in Diagon alley, the young Malfoy had ruined his father's plans.

    He couldn't explain it; why he'd slipped the page into Granger's book stack while she was researching. It was just. . . when he'd imagined Voldemort's 'Glorious Rising' (his father's words, not his) he never saw the honor and glory that would come to his family and all the wizarding world. He never saw his place at Voldemort's side.  All he could imagine was a pair of clouded and lifeless eyes staring up at him from the bloody earth. Eyes once so green they had seemed more precious than any gem.

    He grit his teeth and focused on the clothes laying across his bed. School would be starting soon and a Malfoy, even a traitorous one, was obligated to dress befitting a Malfoy. The distraction was blatent in his mind but he was able to reason it away. He began packing.

    "Draco."
    
    The pale boy looked up and dropped the clothing into his chest. "Father?" Lucious looked upset about something.

    "The book." He walked in and closed the door.

    Draco willed his heart to stay calm. His face a mask of practiced boredom. There was no way his father could know about the page. He'd gone back months later bought the book and burned it. He'd left no trace of his treason anywhere.

    "Do you recall when the Potter boy freed one of our house elves and returned the journal too me?"

    "Yes." He breathed an inward sigh of releif. The journal. It was about the journal. His father had hated that he'd fallen for Potter's trick and while Draco had been indignant for the sake of his family, he'd admirred the dark boy's strength.

    "It isn't the journal."

    Draco's eyes flashed up to his fathers, "What do you mean?"

    "The journal that Potter returned to me was not Tom Riddle's journal." He growled and threw the book to his son. "This book is a fake!"

    "He kept Voldemorte's journal? Why? It was useless."

    "This is the book that Potter stabbed with the tooth. Look at it. The thing is still oozing ink."

    Draco blanched, "He kept it? But the weasely girl. . ."

    "I want you to keep a close eye on our mister potter this next school year. He is up to something. And I want that journal back. Whole as it is, the ministry can trace it back to us."

    "Why would Harry Potter keep Voldemorte's journal? It doesn't add up father. Have you spoken to our lord?"

    "I didn't wish to alarm you Draco, but Voldemorte has been missing since the Chamber was closed again."

    "He's too powerful to have been trapped inside the chamber."

    "I know that." Lucious growled. "It has something to do with Potter!"

    Draco sighed and nodded then turned back to his trunk. Everything always had to do with Potter.

**************

    ~ Summer's almost over. Schools starting soon.

    ~ I know. You're leaving tommorrow yes?

    ~ Yes. I won't have as much time to talk to you as I do now.

    ~ But you'll get to see your freinds.

    ~ Yeah, I've missed them. Hermione's been in France for the summer and Ron's promised to bring us cookies his mom baked for the three of us.

    ~ You'll talk to me at night though?

    ~ Of coarse!

    ~ I'll miss you

    ~ I wish I could tell them about you.

    ~ Ron won't forgive me for what I did to Ginny, he wouldn't understand.

    ~ Yeah.

    ~ And Hermione will hate me because of what I did.

    ~ You didn't mean to do it though. You were forced. People think you're the same as Voldemorte. They just don't know you.

    ~ To them I 'AM' Voldemorte. Even this passed shadow of me who has yet to become him.

    ~ Well you did frame Hagrid.

    ~ I thought he'd done it. It looked like he had.

    ~ But you didn't give he a chance to explain. You didn't ask.

    ~ I was scared. I don't like this conversation. We've said this before.

    ~ Sorry, I just wish I could tell them. Share this with them. I love you.

    ~ I know.  You packed yet?

    ~ Not yet.

    ~ Well you'd better get to it.

    ~ I want to talk some more.

    ~ I'm not going anywhere. Pack, then we can talk some more.

    ~ Alright. I love you.

    ~Me too.

    Harry  closed the journal and place his quill carefully back in his trunk. He gathered everything he owned, shrunk it, and crammed it inside leaving room for the books and supplies he would be buying the next day before going to the bus station.

    It was late by the time he was done. He smiled to himself thinking about how Hermione probably had six or seven spells that would automatically pack her things for her. Harry couldn't do that, he'd always be afraid that the spell missed something.  

    He lay down and looked at the ceiling thinking about Tom. The ghost/boy was wonderful. Harry liked him from almost the first moment. His heart had broken when he'd thought the other boy was evil. But he wasn't. He'd stopped hurting Ginny when Harry had been hurt and called out for help. At least that's what he said, Harry couldn't remember anything after being poisoned until he woke up to Tom standing over him begging him to keep it a secret.

    All summer they'd talked and Harry's freindship had grown into a more grown up feeling. He loved Tom. Even if he would have grown up to be evil, this Tom was a memory that voldemort had corrupted. He wasn't evil in the time he was frozen in. They couldn't actually speak in any way other than writing in the journal, since the pages only 'showed' the past. And the personification he'd seen in the chamber had been Voldemort, not Tom. Tom had stepped in and stopped his future self. He'd saved Ginny.  And saved Harry.

    Harry had to trust that he was right. Had to trust Tom. That was what love was all about after all right?

~tbc~




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