"Oh, you would, Potter!" Draco scathed. "You thought Steyne's letter was sweet too, didn't you? I don't believe for an instant that my mother is so worried I need family that she'd recommend Walpurgis Black of all people!"
Black... Harry knew, of course, that Draco's mother had been a Black, but he didn't often think about it. "So this Walpurgis was a relative of Sirius Black's?"
"Some relation, I'm sure," Draco muttered, his brow creasing in irritation. "Look, I don't know exactly what he is to my mother, even. She calls him her great-uncle but that's just for convenience. He's her grandfather's second cousin's once removed uncle or something just as complicated. Anyway, what matters now is whether I should write him. I don't like the feeling I get from the letter. My mother's got some plot brewing, sure as I'm sitting here."
Snape lowered himself into a chair and crossed leg over another as he lightly tapped his cheek with one long finger. "Just what do you know of this Walpurgis? I must confess, despite all the time I've spent in Malfoy Manor, I've never once heard the name arise."
"Well, it wouldn't." Draco levitated the letter over toward Snape. "We don't talk about him much. Too much shame involved. He's sort of a black sheep. Or, considering my family, maybe Walpurgis is a bit more of a white sheep. Though that doesn't really fit as he's a criminal through and through."
Feeling like an intruder into deep dark Slytherin secrets, Harry stopped hovering uncertainly and announced, "I think I'll go back to the lab and start my potion over--"
Draco's hand snaked out to grab Harry's wrist and yank him down next to him on the couch.
"Okay, I'll stay," Harry changed course.
Snape chuckled softly, but his humor died almost at once. "Walpurgis, Draco," he prompted. "Coherently, this time, if you would."
Nodding, Draco took a minute to assemble his thoughts. "Okay. The letter's right; I've never even seen him. All I know is he's some distant relative of my mother's and she used to see him when she was little. But the family cut him off because his ah, business practices came to light. Well, not to light, but we found out about them, I mean."
"Business practices?"
Draco gave Snape a sour look. "Do I have to go on? It's really quite tawdry and not very relevant."
"I think anything that illustrates just how great the divide between Walpurgis Black and your-- excuse me, Lucius Malfoy, is quite relevant. I'm trying to decide if you should write the man as your mother suggests."
"Oh, well the divide is more like an abyss, if that's what worrying you. Lucius can hardly stand Walpurgis' name to be mentioned, Severus. Because... well, you see, he's what we very politely call a blood traitor--"
"He married a Muggle?" Harry guessed.
Draco laughed. "Oh, it's worse than that. Much worse. He cooked up a plan ages ago to switch squib and Muggleborn babies at birth--"
"What?" Harry cried out, horrified.
"Just listen," Draco advised. "Walpurgis developed a highly complicated and very illegal charm that can sometimes identify a squib just hours after birth. Identifies Muggleborns, too. But it's not so reliable. Well, what I mean is, if the charm responds to the baby it's completely accurate, but most of the time it doesn't respond at all, see? Anyway, for apparently forever, Walpurgis has been discreetly offering his services to wizarding families. He'd swap out squibs, when he could find them, for babies guaranteed magical, all for a hefty charge. Well, when the family found out he was tainting bloodlines all over wizarding Britain with Muggle spawn, they cut him off completely. The way I hear, it wasn't any great loss. He'd stayed well out of the war, anyway, so he already had a big black mark against his name."
"Just how many children's lives did he ruin?" Harry demanded.
"How would I have any idea?" Draco haughtily inquired. "And besides, Harry, wouldn't you have been happier growing up in a magical family?"
"Yeah," Harry admitted, still frowning. "But why would purebloods agree to this? I mean, the parents had to know, right?"
"Oh, I'm sure good old Walpurgis didn't have many hard-core blood purists among his clientele," Draco drawled. "Though you must realize, Harry, that in such families as that, squibs are sometimes killed outright." He ignored Harry's gasp of horror. "At any rate, there are plenty of moderates who'd believe their own squib children are better off growing up Muggle. Why taunt the children with things they can never have? And in exchange, they got to take in some magical child who otherwise might have been persecuted and tormented in the Muggle world. My mother explained to me that that was how Walpurgis must have seen things, though of course she was careful afterwards to tell me how wrong he was to encourage people to corrupt their families with Muggleborn children, who of course weren't told their true origins and might end up marrying into pureblooded lines."
"You really did grow up... steeped in this... um, philosophy, didn't you?"
Draco favored him with a rather superior stare, but said, "Call it tripe, why don't you? If the boy with a Muggleborn mother can stand up to the Dark Lord when purebloods cower... well, I told you I knew then that blood wasn't everything."
"Yeah," Harry admitted, glancing over at Snape who seemed content to just listen for the moment. "So... this Walpurgis. Um, your family found out what he was doing. Why didn't they have him thrown in Azkaban? You did say it was illegal."
"Yes, swapping babies tends to be," Draco drawled. "Especially as the Muggle parents didn't know it was going on. I believe he used a fair amount of memory charms to pull that one off. And the identifying charm is illegal too, of course. Mostly because blood purists would love a tool like that. It's so inconvenient waiting a few years to see if a child manifests any magic. Far easier to know from the start so one can commit infanticide."
"Your family's sick," Harry pronounced.
Draco shook his head. "My family's here," he merely corrected. "Now, where was I? Oh yes, Azkaban. Well, Lucius hardly wanted it known that his wife's relative was going around tainting bloodlines like that. Not something that tends to get you into the Dark Lord's favor, besides the mere fact that the public scandal would put the Malfoy name into deep disrepute. So the family hushed it up, and tried to influence Walpurgis to close down shop--well really, it's quite vulgar to even indulge in commerce at all, don't you know--but as he never cared much what others thought to begin with, I don't know if he ever did stop swapping babies. This is all years and years ago, you understand. For all I know, he's tired of it by now."
Snape finally spoke again. "Who told you Walpurgis' story, Draco?"
The boy shrugged. "Lucius and Narcissa both, with a bit of grandparents and aunts and uncles chiming in about the shame, the shame... You see, they all knew. I guess it came out in a way nobody in the family could miss. Nobody who was alive then, I mean. But as for me, it was Christmastime, and Lucius was hosting his annual fÃte at the manor, and I'd been in the attic exploring my mother's old school books. I'd found a story book inscribed to her from your dear old Uncle Walpurgis, and I'd wandered down with it, innocently asking, Who's Walpurgis, Mother?"
Draco shuddered. "Lucius hit the roof. First it was how dare you befoul your tongue with that name, Draco? and then he rounded on my mother and it was, How could you keep anything his filthy hands once held? And it all got worse from there, with everybody chiming in bits and pieces about blood traitors and such, and all of them yelling at me until I ran upstairs to get away." He shrugged again, that time clearly defensive. "Well, I was only about six or so. My mother came upstairs after a while and explained it all again because I think she could tell I'd been confused by all I'd heard down in the parlor." He smiled a tiny bit in remembrance. "She gave me eggnog with lots of nutmeg."