Work Text:
“Harry.”
“I killed him,” Harry muttered, frantically pacing around the drawing room of 12 Grimmauld Place, much to the growing concern of his friends, “It wasn’t supposed to go like this—”
“Harry.”
“—but it did and I don’t even know what happened because no one’s ever done that ritual before and why didn’t I listen? I shouldn’t have insisted we try it, I shouldn’t have, but I did, and now—”
“Harry!”
“What?!” Harry snapped. He spun towards Hermione, who looked back at him, unimpressed.
“Mate, there’s no need to yell at her,” Ron said, leaning forward on the couch he was sitting on, “We know you’re upset, but don’t take it out on us.”
“I—” Harry sighed. “I know, I’m sorry, I just—”
He rubbed a hand over his face.
Hermione and Ron exchanged a look.
“Maybe you should sit down,” Hermione suggested quietly after a moment.
“You’re probably right,” Harry sighed again, dropping into the spot next to Ron. He let his head fall into his hands, palms pressed over his eyes.
Hermione came to sit on his other side.
“Do you want to tell us what happened?” she asked softly.
“I…no. Not really.”
But Harry knew he should talk about it.
When he frantically contacted Ron and Hermione via Patronus, he had been too rattled to properly explain the events that had occurred. And after they had met him, his panic had rendered his retelling disjointed, and he wasn't sure if Hermione and Ron had properly understood what he had done. It was so sudden. It never should have happened.
“I shouldn’t have let it happen,” Harry repeated. “How could I have let it happen?”
Hermione reached out a hand and placed it softly on his shoulder. His expression tightened when she touched him, but otherwise didn’t move away or protest. She squeezed his shoulder. Ron was a steady presence on his other side.
“Why don’t you start from the beginning?” Hermione suggested gently, giving him time to collect his thoughts. “You were with Malfoy at the vaults, there was some ritual, and he disappeared – can you give us more detail on that?”
“Right. Okay,” Harry said, trying to collect himself.
He took a deep breath and retold what had taken place.
“—so he’s dead,” Harry finished bleakly. “I killed him. It’s my fault.”
“We don’t know that,” Hermione offered. “He could have just time traveled.”
Harry would like to hope the same, but that didn’t change the fact that he was gone, ‘missing’ was the kindest description for the situation.
“Okay,” Ron spoke up. “Malfoy is maybe dead, maybe not, but if he’s gone now, what are we going to do?”
Harry shrugged listlessly, “Nothing. What else can we possibly do? He could be anywhere by now. We wouldn’t even know where to start looking.”
“Or when to start looking,” Hermione agreed. She paused, a dawning look of comprehension crossing her face. “But we might be able to find some clues!”
“How?”
“From the magical residue in the Ritual Space,” Hermione explained. “If the activation of the ritual created a magical shockwave as strong as you described, there has to be something traceable left behind.”
“Isn’t that dangerous?” Ron asked. “We don’t know what happened to Malfoy. What if one of us accidentally sets the ritual off?”
“We have to try,” Harry insisted. “It’s the only lead we have right now.”
“Alright, alright,” Ron conceded. “But if this goes sideways, I’m calling it now. I told you so.”
“I think you mean when this goes sideways.”
“Honestly,” Hermione huffed, “if you two keep being so pessimistic, something is bound to go wrong based on your negativity alone.”
“So, basically every misadventure we’ve ever been on,” Harry summarized. “I blame Potter Luck.”
Hermione rolled her eyes fondly. “That too.”
***
Harry cautiously entered the Ritual Space.
It was the same as he had left it – looking as dusty and old and abandoned as before he and Draco had accidentally activated the ritual – with Draco’s notebook and quill still on the floor where Harry had avoided picking them up in his haste to leave and call for Ron and Hermione’s help.
A small part of him wondered if the ritual had worked before, and the reason it had a history of ‘low chances of success’ was because it appeared innocuous in the aftermath.
“I know it doesn’t look much like a time travel room, but…” Harry trailed off.
Ron huffed a laugh, a placid attempt at cutting through the tension. “What would a ‘time travel room’ look like anyway?”
Hermione stepped past them.
“So, these were left behind,” she levitated the notebook and quill, examining the items hovering in the air. “It’s odd – if the ritual didn’t include non-organic matter then there should have been more evidence left behind, like clothing or jewelry. But if it did…”
“Then those should have disappeared when Malfoy did,” Ron finished.
Harry could feel some kind of magical energy from them. Unconsciously, he began to reach for them, almost as if compelled, and—
“Harry! Don’t!”
—the items fell back to the floor, the levitation spell canceled, falling out of Harry’s reach before he had even touched them, but it didn’t seem to matter because there had been a spark, a sort of connection, and for a moment, the world seemed to peel back, the time between space was exposed, the space between time laid bare, and Harry was—
—eleven years old and newly Sorted into Gryffindor, and he knew that he should be focusing on the feast, on the conversation of professors and classes, but all he can think about is the Hufflepuff across the hall, and he finds himself waving at the boy with blond hair and gray eyes—
—narrowed in derision, standing at the door of the train compartment, offering a hand in friendship, in an alliance, and he tells Harry that he shouldn’t be around a Weasley of all people because they’re the wrong sort, you know, and Harry—
—asks if he would like to join him and Ron for dinner, because Ron wouldn’t mind, really, so it would be no trouble at all, if he’s interested that is, and Harry’s heart is beating rapidly as he waits for a reply, gray eyes blinking back at him, and he says—
—Potter, in that derisive tone that he takes whenever they interact, sneering as Hermione and Ron come up beside Harry, and antagonism is so exhausting, but they keep doing it, colliding like stars, destructive and unavoidable, and—
—Harry doesn’t understand the pull that he’s feeling, but he accepts the invitation to Malfoy Manor over the winter hols all the same, drawn to the pretty boy that made time to respond to all his letters, who is so supportive of his dreams to be a writer, and Harry wants to—
—get to the bottom of what is wrong with him, because he’s acting suspicious, he’s avoiding Harry, which means something has happened, something big, he’s a Death Eater, Harry knows he is, he has to be, there’s no way he isn’t, not with how—
—he acts around Snape, all excitement and reverence, and Harry knows he must be involved with the plans to steal the stone, but Harry doesn’t want to think bad of him, especially not when those gray eyes are wide in panic at the accusation, and he’s choking, he’s unconscious, he’s being carried off to St Mungo’s, and Harry is—
—twenty-five years old, in the Black Family vaults, with Hogwarts years far behind him, the threats of Quirrell and Voldemort and Philosopher’s Stones have long since passed, and Harry most definitely did not have a crush on—
“—Malfoy,” Ron was saying, “Come on, mate, we need you to get back to reality.”
“Harry? Can you hear us?” Hermione asked, and a fuzzy part of Harry’s mind could recognize her voice, could process a question being asked, but he couldn’t parse the visions – memories? – that he had just seen.
“I – yeah,” Harry responded absently, his mind reeling with events that were, events that might have been, and events of what possibly was. “I’m – I’m here.”
“Oh, good,” Ron let out a breath of relief, expression breaking into a smile, “you’re back with us. I was worried there.”
“What happened?” Hermione was in front of him now, eyes wide with interest. “Did you see anything?”
“Draco is in a redo of First Year. He’s – he’s sick, I think. Hufflepuff.” Harry said, voice dazed. He swayed where he was standing. Ron grabbed his arm to help him maintain a sense of balance.
Ron looked to Hermione over Harry’s shoulder, mouthing ‘Draco?’ in confusion. What was with the sudden first name basis?
Hermione responded with a raised eyebrow and a half-shrug. She wasn’t sure what had happened, but Harry had stumbled upon something. It had to be a clue. It was a start.
And they would figure it out together.