Chapter Text
Letter VI
Hidden inside Hermione’s leather wand case
---
Granger,
If you find this letter in your wand case, then the timeline has progressed further than any before it.
Which means two things.
First: You trust me enough to keep something I gave you.
Second: Bellatrix has not killed you yet.
Both are encouraging developments.
---
There are other encouraging developments in this timeline.
The Order has regained control over the Ministry, where many of our peers now work.
Potter becoming Head of the Auror Office has had a positive impact, despite Dumbledore’s recent death.
We are capturing more Death Eaters now than at any other point in time.
Although this makes me wonder:
Are we really getting better at hunting them down?
Or are they allowing themselves to be found?
---
You would say I’m being paranoid.
You just did today, actually.
This morning, as I walked beside you from the lifts to our offices.
The way I always do now.
You never really cared about the way other people look at us.
You’ve never been swayed by other people’s opinions.
But you notice when my eyes are more alert than usual,
or when I place my hand protectively at your waist to draw you near.
“Is something wrong?” you asked.
But you did not move away.
I smiled.
“Nothing’s wrong,” I whispered,
so low that you had to move even closer to hear.
You smelled of parchment and vanilla.
“You’re being paranoid again, aren’t you?”
Your voice was teasing when you said it.
And your lips had been so close,
I could have leaned down only a few inches
and I’d be kissing you.
But Hermione Granger does not allow kissing in Ministry hallways.
Not in this timeline.
At least, not yet.
---
This afternoon you asked me why the Death Eaters are afraid of me.
You were not being suspicious. Or wary.
You were… concerned.
You noticed it during the interrogation at the Ministry holding cells.
Greyback—finally captured—refused to speak to the Aurors.
Did nothing but taunt and sneer at the Wizengamot.
Spit at Kingsley when he paid him a visit.
But the moment I entered the room… he started shaking.
You asked me afterward,
“What did you do to him?”
I answered honestly. “Nothing yet.”
You did not like that answer.
You are beginning to realise something about me that you previously overlooked.
You assumed I became powerful during the war.
You assumed my abilities came from Auror training.
You assumed the man standing in front of you was still the boy you knew at Hogwarts.
You assumed wrong.
I have lived this war thirty-four times.
Fought to keep you alive through every lifetime.
And when it comes to you, Granger,
I have no need for hesitation.
I could not afford a moment of doubt.
And I have decided that anyone who threatens you
does not deserve mercy.
The Ministry has called me their most effective Auror.
They mean it as praise.
They should probably mean it as a warning.
Because the version of me they admire was forged in timelines where you died.
Over.
And over.
And over again.
---
You saw a glimpse of it tonight.
The Death Eater raid in Knockturn Alley.
Six of Voldemort’s best.
Two were exceptional duelists.
One had already killed three Aurors.
You looked worried when we arrived.
You asked quietly,
“Do we need backup?”
I told you no.
You should have believed me.
But of course, you did not have reason to.
Not yet.
In this timeline you have not yet seen me fight.
In this timeline the Hogsmeade raid never happened in fourth year, because I'd annihilated them in their own headquarters before they could come near you.
In this timeline you only learned about the time loops when we became partnered as Aurors, and I showed you how our safe house door was actually a portkey to the Room of Requirement inside Hogwarts castle.
In this timeline I've had to watch Weasley fawn over you for years even as he and Potter thought of me as a friend,
and the only way I was able to endure without killing anyone
was the small smile you always gave me each time you turned him down.
It is those memories I hold onto whenever I now face these Death Eaters.
The thousand avada kedavras I never got to unleash then,
now usefully aimed at hooded figures who l often imagine have hideous red hair.
---
The fight in Knockturn Alley lasted fourteen seconds.
The first man lost his wand before he finished casting.
The second lost the ability to remember his own name.
Legilimency can do fascinating things when applied creatively.
The others tried to flee.
They did not succeed.
You were staring at me when the last one collapsed.
Your expression was… complicated.
“Draco,” you said slowly.
“Yes?”
“You didn’t even use your wand.”
Correct.
You looked down at the street.
At the broken wands.
At the broken Death Eaters.
Then back at me.
“You enjoyed that.”
You were not entirely wrong.
But you misunderstood the reason.
I did not enjoy hurting them.
I enjoyed removing anything that threatens you.
There is a difference.
Subtle, perhaps.
But an important difference.
---
Later, when we were alone in the safe house, you confronted me.
You do that often.
You stood very close to me.
You looked… concerned.
Again.
“Draco,” you said, “what has the time loop done to you?”
A fair question.
I considered lying.
Instead, I told you the truth.
“It has made me efficient.”
You frowned.
“That’s not what I meant.”
I know.
What you meant was:
Have you become dangerous?
The answer is yes.
But not in the way you fear.
"You will never be in danger with me," I said, simply.
You gave me that small smile, and placed your palm on my chest. "I know."
But then you looked into my eyes.
"I just fear you’re in danger of losing yourself."
Such a Granger thing to say.
-----
Lately we have been discussing theories again, on how we can stop Bellatrix.
In our Ministry offices I showed you the war records from the different timelines, and I told you about raids and attacks that never happened but could still happen.
In your flat you asked me for details about Bellatrix’s training, and you remarked on how her methods were violent and cruel.
In the library at Malfoy Manor we researched ancient rituals, so we could understand how she created the time loops.
It was on one such night that something… happened.
---
It was while you were reading the last page of the original copy of "Hogwarts, A History."
Your eyebrows drew close together in deep thought.
You tapped your wand on the inside of the book's cover, whispering, "Revelo."
And your hands moved as if to lift a sheet of parchment, even though all I could see was air.
Your eyes were bright on mine.
"You left me a letter," you whispered, in wonder.
You were holding air.
The letter I'd left you had been in a different timeline, in a textbook copy of the book in Hogwarts library.
But your eyes told me something else.
"Draco," you whispered, your eyes wide as you let go of the imagined parchment.
You reached for me, and the moment our hands touched your magic flared with mine.
You gasped.
"I think I remember you."
---
Your face was filled with the exhilaration of discovery, and fear from what you discovered.
You described what you saw.
Fragments.
Memories that do not belong to this timeline.
You and I in the Astronomy Tower, where I unlocked the secret room that held the war records.
You and I in Hogwarts library, when you were accusing me of manipulation.
You and I in the Room of Requirement… kissing.
Your voice was shaking as you looked at me.
“I think… I think I’ve lived this before.”
Yes.
Yes, my love, you have.
Dozens of times.
But for the very first time, you are beginning to remember.
This has never happened before.
This means something is changing…
…and I am not sure if it’s the kind of change that will keep you alive.
---
Which brings us to the most important discovery of this timeline.
It was the team of Potter, Lupin, and Black that captured her.
Bellatrix.
Although it made me wonder, once again, if she actually intended to be captured.
---
Interrogations of the deadliest Death Eaters are now conducted in a magic-suppression chamber in the lowest level of the Ministry.
A chamber you and I had created, where we combined your research on Muggle “signal jammers” and my research on magic-binding runes.
Even with three powerful doses of Veritaserum, I could tell that Bellatrix was still able to choose the version of truth that she decided the Ministry should have...
...but the potion allowed me to see all the versions she had been hiding.
---
People have always thought her mad.
But at that moment I began to understand it wasn't madness.
It was temporal magic.
Her gift, and her curse.
At every pivotal moment in her life, she would clearly see the thousand possible ways it could end.
It was why she learned Occlumency, to compartmentalise the different possible outcomes in her head.
It was why she learned Legilimency, so she could present to the Dark Lord the version of the truth that he wanted.
My own aunt, Bellatrix Black Lestrange, was arguably immensely more powerful than Voldemort ever was.
But she never had his ambitions.
Maybe because she knew the horrible ends to which those ambitions always led.
When you know what's going to happen out of every single decision ever made, you would probably grow mad, too.
---
But then, I came along.
In her mind she saw the powerful Occlumens and Legilimens I had the capacity to be.
A wizard from her own bloodline whose decisions she could never foresee,
and all of a sudden she was presented with newness,
with… uncertainty.
My existence took away her boredom of knowing what would always happen next.
"What could Draco Malfoy become?" she'd asked herself.
But of course only she could take a simple question and spin it outwards against the boundaries of sanity.
What could Draco become if I trained him brutally enough?
If I pushed him hard enough?
If I gave him the chance at love over and over, and violently took it away from him each time?
---
I admit, Granger, that the moment I realised this... I almost broke.
I thought of unleashing my mind like sharp razors around hers and ripping apart every shred of coherence she had left.
I almost did.
Almost.
But what kept me from doing so... was you.
You were there during the interrogation, too.
You were sitting next to Potter, one row in front of me, as the Wizengamot interrogated Bellatrix.
The moment I saw all that she had been doing, planning, manipulating... I looked towards you.
And as if you sensed me, you turned your head and looked at me.
There was a soft smile on your lips as your eyes found mine.
...and I knew with a heavy heart that you might not exist in the next loop
if I now destroyed the witch who created them.
So I held back.
I determined to know more, to learn how to defeat her without risking your life.
I decided I would play along with her game until I know exactly how to stop her...
...how to end her madness without ending the world.
My world.
You.
---
The most important discovery of this timeline, Granger,
is that if her madness requires me to become something monstrous to protect you…
Then I will simply become a monster.
Because I have already buried you too many times.
And I refuse to do it again.
Yes, I might lose myself in the process.
But I will always be yours.
Yours, in every lifetime that matters,
Draco