The noble families

I literally freeze then I suddenly get up and start looking for some kind of camera in the room. There is no way this is not some kind of joke or test. For the whole time, the guy in front of me keeps watching my every reaction. I can't believe he's Draco Malfoy. It's not possible. I must be dreaming or going crazy. I need to calm down, I need to do my breathing yoga. I breathe through the right nostril, then I hold my breath. I exhale through the left nostril, then I hold my breath. I breathe in my left nostril... After three long cycles I can feel calmer and see the situation more clearly. I begin to theorize the whole situation in my mind.

"Look, it's not that I don't want to believe you. But this conversation is clearly beyond crazy. If this is not really any kind of test, I would like to get more information about your story. If you are, in fact, Draco Malfoy, how did you end up here? Your claim that the world of Harry Potter I know has come to an end seems to me too simple-minded. Why are you saying these things to me? Even if I have the same soul as Neville, what would my relationship be with his life? l would like to know more, Mr. Grosvenor."

"Really good questions. Unfortunately I do not think I will have the complete answer to most of them. What I can do is tell you a little about my story and how it seems to be intertwined with yours."

He then stares at me. I nod. He gets up, picks up a set of teas and serves me.

"With or without milk? Without I presume."

"Without..."

"How do I get started? First I would like to say that the books in the Harry Potter saga are pretty accurate, but the story is practically exposed from Harry's point of view. And as you know, Harry does not know the whole wizard structure of power. Dumbledore deprives him of it, even though he is a Potter. He is too young to understand all the political disputes and when he begins to be old enough to actually start to understand the wizard world structure he finds himself compelled to fight one of the most powerful wizards of his generation.

Thus it is clear why we do not quite understand by reading the books the reason why, for example, my father has so much strength in the Ministry of Magic, even though he was a death eater. We also can't grasp from the books the parallel relations that occur outside of Harry's point of view.

Just like ours. We've met a long time before we went to Hogwarts. We both belong to the so-called Sacred Twenty-Eight, the twenty-eight British families that were truly pure-blood. Of course, from the point of view of a Muggle society member like Harry Potter, these titles of nobility mean nothing. However most wizards knows the older the lineage, the more treasures, spells and secrets it possesses. That's why our families are so influential and respected. Each of the families has relics that go thru many generations. In fact, it was the oldest relic of the Malfoy family that brought me here."

At that moment, Draco takes from the inner pocket of his suit a sort of necklace with a pendant in the shape of a Celtic Triquetra. It has a very dark gray color, and even without having much brightness, emanates a very strong energy. This energy seems to bewitch me. I want to touch it.

" Yeah, that's the reaction I was looking for. This Triquetra is in my family for more than one thousand years. My father said that it was Merlin himself who gave us the amulet and told us that he has three very special powers. Two of the three powers are related to our huge wealth. The first power is: this pendant can feel the magical concentration of a certain object. It glows one of the edges of the Triquetra for minor power, two for medium power, and the three edges of the Triquetra for a major power concentration. The second power is used together with a spell, you have to say 'I swear solemnly to be the sole master of my fate', and then if one of the edges of the Triquetra shines it means that some kind of treasure related to you is in that direction. My father told me that the greatest treasures of our family were found with the help of this pendant."

"And the last power?"

"The last power is what brought me here, i suppose. I don't know how or why, but there is a prophecy in our family that when Merlin gave us this pendant, he said this pendant contains the power essence of destiny itself. I suppose that's the power that brought me here. So here I am."

"But how? I don't understand, but first of all, tell me, what happened after the Hogwats' Battle?"

" I don't know it all. I just know the story thru my point of view. After the Hogwarts's Battle, my family decided to enter in seclusion. But before we could, we had to took out the Voldemort vassals who were occupying our castle, removing his presence and energy from it. As we were at war, Voldemort did not discover our best-kept treasures, so we still had some kind of back up power going on.

But, shortly thereafter, we received an invitation to attend a meeting with the remaining main post-war powers. It was when I discovered that the Eastern and American community were demanding that the European Ministry of Magic be presided by a group of 5 members, two Americans, two Orientals and one European. Their main argument was that in less than a hundred years, two wizards with pretensions to world purification and domination had arisen from our region, demonstrating our lack of control of our region. The talks ended up being fruitless"

" Then the war begun..."

"Yes, it begun. You have to understand that there was a World Treaty in effect. The battle of good against evil had already taken place in the East of the World. Now it was happening in Europe, the center of the World, and in the middle of the 27th century the power struggle would happen mainly in the Americas, completing the planetary cycle, according to predictions of all the greatest wizards of all time, among them, Jeoshua Ben Pandira, Merlin, Siddhārtha Gautama, Confucius, Zarathustra... Both communities knew of this planetary itinerary, however our extreme fragility aroused their greed.

But what they did not expect was our resistance. Even in extremely minor numbers, we still had many treasures and secret spells, much of it from the Sacred Twenty-Eight families. The war lasted more than twenty years, with no real winners. What was left was a devastated planet, lacking magical particles and completely failed on the evolutionary scale."

Draco gets up and serves himself more tea. He breathes deeply, looks at me and continues.

" The survivors of our group of wizards, in the face of the impending calamity, were searching for solutions to restore the planet. Due to the nature of my treasure I decided to search for a legendary artifact, the Holy Grail. According to legend, this treasure has an inexhaustible source of energy, mana, that would be able to restore the evolutionary structure of the planet and, consequently, of its inhabitants. I found some clues to the whereabouts of the treasure that led me to the Stonehenge region. Over there i entered the stone formation and my pendant began to shine at its three ends. Once i recited the spell for its second power, i fainted. When I woke up I was Gerald Grosvenor Junior.

At first I thought everything was weird, it was a world so similar and so different from mine. After trying to perform some magic, I decided to visit the Leaky Cauldron, but it did not exist over here. I started to think I went crazy. I decided to lock myself in my room to reflect what to do with this life of mine and that's when I notice a set of books titled Harry Potter. As I read book after book, I convinced myself I'm not crazy. My story is real. I really existed as Draco Lucius Malfoy.

I then begin to try to understand my reasons for being here. What is my mission here? I try unsuccessfully to activate my pendant, I try to go to Stonehenge again, and nothing happens. Until I read a newspaper article about your college football team. I didn't know why but you reminded me of someone. As you may know, my father is one of the richest men in the world, it was not difficult to start investigating you. For every new information I got about you, the more I was sure you and the Neville Longbottom of my world share the same soul."

"So, you are saying that today is not a job interview, but a personality interview..."

"It's more than that. It is an experiment and I dare say a successful one. The moment you looked at the Triquetra, I felt the power of magic again. The triquetra is a symbol that represents the interconnectedness of life, death and reincarnation. And as Merlin have said, it's full of destiny power. I believe it must belong to you now."

Then, Draco reveals the pendant once again to me. The moment my eyes focus on this mysterious object I can not help but feel a tremendous attraction.

"So, is my story believable? Was it able to convince you? Above all, do you want to become the sole master of your destiny, Arthur?"