Work Text:
“I’m content.”
Or so I tried to tell myself as I – Draco Malfoy – stares at the defective Time-Turner in my hand. Poisonous as well as promising in its golden gleam.
I’d always imagined my life to turn out as I expected it. Turn out like it had for my father and everyone before him. With a manor, money and power.
I imagined I would marry some girl and be happy with that. And I had married a girl. Her name is Astoria Greengrass and she’s pregnant. I’m going to be a father but that’s not a good thing anymore. It’s like a bomb to be honest, ticking down by the minute until it explodes right in my face. Wiping out Draco from the face of the earth and replacing it with Malfoy.
Potter used to call me Malfoy. And somehow that was the problem, wasn’t it.
I never really believed in happiness. Pure unyielding happiness that made your brain go haywire and your insides squashy. I believed in mutual benefits of a relationship – perhaps even companionship as time went – but never a beautiful bliss.
I once heard a man say that there are opposites of everything on earth and beyond. There’s night and day, cold and warmth, pain and sooth and so on and on… And all these opposites are there to make us understand what we’re missing.
My father used to say that we could never appreciate the worth of money until you’ve experienced a life without it. My father didn’t know about poverty, I didn’t either at the start, rather the opposite.
Now I know.
I’ve never been poor in my whole life, not even now as an ex convicted Death Eater. I’m a rich businessman with lots of equally rich contacts outside of Britain that doesn’t care about a civil war that happened eight years ago. They don’t care that my branded arm stands for something foul, because to them it doesn’t.
But you can be poor in a lot of different ways. I am in more ways than I believed possible, in all the ways that counts. Because when I hold my wife and smile at her I feel myself slowly fade away, like a stone that rolls in the ocean. Getting slowly but certainly turned into nothing. Greengrass (Merlin I still call my pregnant wife by her last name in my mind) is as pleasant as any wife I presume. But the way she looks at me eats me from the inside. She looks at me fondly and even caring. Like I’m everything she wants from this world.
And I lie. I whisper to her how happy I am for us. For our baby. How this is exactly as I’ve wanted things to be. The manor, her, our unborn baby and her ugly paintings decorating the halls. I puke out the lies while I kiss her tenderly and every time she smiles at me another part of Draco disappears.
Maybe things didn’t have to be like this. Maybe this would have been okay if not for him.
Harry Potter. My archenemy and nemesis. The boy who saved us all and ended up with the dream girl and fame.
Every time the Prophet post another picture of Red-head and Potter with their son I want to claw at my insides. Life had turned out so bloody great for Boy Wonder while I on the other hand was falling apart. Falling apart because of a stupid crush and six years of animosity. Falling apart because I loved the one I would never get.
“I’m content.”
But how could I possibly live with Greengrass and her weird paintings, shrill giggles and dreamy eyes. How could anyone expect me to live with a girl whom wasn’t much more than a stranger? She didn’t have a wild black mess on her head or a lopsided smile. She had dull brown eyes instead of blazing green ones and her way to take a snide remark was by crumple.
No matter how I looked at her – how I tried to force myself to fall in love with the girl I’d married – I just couldn’t. She wasn’t him. She wasn’t clumsy or courageous; she didn’t try to save anyone or had compassion for those around her. Her hands weren’t roughened my quidditch and her eyes didn’t have a fire burning in them.
My life is stuck. I am stuck.
Sometimes I awake in the middle of the night with a big lump in my throat that wants to suffocate me. I usually have to crawl out of the bed those nights. Wobbly and trembling for something out of my reach.
If Greengrass ever heard me crying in our bathroom those many nights of paralyzing loss she never came to comfort. An exact opposite to what a certain Potter would have done.
So I move on with what I have. Even thought I know that I – Draco – am slowly disappearing I’m moving on. I’m going to keep moving on a few months more. After that my heir will be born and I’ll become like my father. I’ll become a detached and cold Head of Family, a Malfoy.
Maybe that’s why I cry in the bathroom? I’m afraid to die. Because I will die at 25 and be buried at 75. Because Draco is who will let go of Potter, Draco is who will die with thoughts of Potter.
I sometimes wonder if things might have been different. If my silly crush that should have stayed small wouldn’t have grown so big if Potter had let me die in the bathroom so may years ago.
Because when that slicing spelled had made my blood flow I’d felt peace for the first time that year.
‘I won’t have to kill Dumbledore. I will die.’
That didn’t mean that I wasn’t afraid or in pain, but a burden was lifted from my shoulders in tact with my life bleeding out on the floor.
And then HE was there.
Bending his head slightly over my fallen body and with horror scratched over his face. Like he couldn’t believe what he’d just done. That widened expression and the feeling of pure concern for my wellbeing what was pulled me in from the beginning.
Because after that I was a goner. After the salvation from the Fiendfyre I might as well have cut my heart out, because then I knew it wouldn’t beat for anyone else than a certain boy in round glasses.
But how do you say to someone you have no reason to love that you do? How can you explain that even thought you’ve never talked or kissed in the rain you love them? You’ve watched – like an obsessed – their every move, savoured every moment and for every scratch on the cheek or hand through the hair you’ve fallen a little harder. And then one day – like any other day – when you see him smile you cry and you hurt. Because he will never smile at you.
I never believed in love. But then again that was before I’d met Harry Potter.
But when I’m not wondering what would have happened had I’d never noticed the thousands of small quirks that made me love him, I think about my first train ride to Hogwarts.
Of course that’s not all that I think about. Sometimes I think about Madame Malkin’s shop and what I brat I was then. But mostly it’s about the Hogwarts express.
What would have happened if we’d become friends? Would our years at Hogwarts have become different? Would my life have turned out different?
When I think back on my last couple of days with Greengrass and her swelling stomach I can’t help wondering if what I’m doing is even considered living. If an everyday pace with no excitement and a constant craving of things not to be is even remotely close to what is called life.
It’s perhaps strange when I think about it. That I – Draco Malfoy – who in all way fought to stay alive have come to value life less and less. But then again, some people might call this pain inside of me karma for all lives I’ve messed up. Perhaps this limbo I’m currently stuck in is just that? Karma.
Perhaps if I had another chance to do things right – to fix things instead of breaking them – I would be redeemed for my bad choices. Maybe if I’d been nice to Potter that first day on the train he could have helped me to become a better person? Maybe.
I stare down at the Time-Turner in my hand. A loud ‘Maybe’ hanging in the air of my and Greengrass grand bathroom.
Maybe Potter and I would have become friends. Maybe the first year of Hogwarts would have been filled with happiness and playful banter instead of the hate that always sparkled between us. Maybe Potter would have picked me over the Weasel and Granger? We could have played quidditch, exploding snap and a whole lot of other games. I could have listened when he told me about his upbringing, his home and his new feelings about Hogwarts. I could have told him about the manor. Perhaps even invited him over the summer?
But… I feel a cold grip covering my heart. Father would never have allowed that and back in the days… I’d been a right out daddy-boy.
But I can’t seem to let go of the idea of Potter’s lopsided smile directed at me. Of years at Hogwarts as friends before ending up as something more. Imagination flows as I see Potter lean his forehead towards mine and smile before slowly cradle my chin with his left hand. I look up at him with bubbles bursting inside of my stomach and it’s nothing like kissing Greengrass. It’s nothing like kissing someone you despite simply because she’s not IT.
Potter is solid and warm. His lips are slightly chapped and his stubble would probably rub against my own smooth cheek. But even though the kiss would be imperfect – because nothing could be completely perfect when it comes to Potter, because then it simply wouldn’t be him – it would be more than I’d ever wished for. It would be the purpose of my life to share another breath with him.
Someone once said that pain is inventible in life, we can only choose who’s going to hurt us. That someone was wrong. Sometimes you don’t pull the strings. Just like time will inventible run out, so will some people just as inventible fall. Usually hard and usually without getting up.
Because just as you can’t buy more time neither can you catch someone who’s hit the ground.
Potter would never kiss me. If lucky he might acknowledge me, but it would be wishing for stars to hope for more. I wish I had stars.
Tears streams down my face as I watch the object in my hand. My thoughts are once again returning to that one thing holding me back.
“I’m content.”
I try to scratch the words into my brain. Try to scream the words loud and with finality to convince myself not to do this. Because I am content. But really, I’m not.
I imagine Potter’s lips against mine as I imagine his dead body lying next to the goblet of fire. I try to mesmerise his hands on my chin as I see Voldemort emerge from the chamber of secret. I can almost feel dark silk hair underneath my fingers as I watch Hogwarts burn in the same fashion as the ministry, completely without hope for rescue. I look into green eyes as I look out over a world without Potter in it. Because if we became friends he wouldn’t have Weasley and Granger with him. With me Potter would die.
I want to throw the golden life-line away from me. It’s tempting, but it’s even more so to keep it. I measured up the right amounts of hours – 131 487 – and spun just as many times. Everything is ready and if I just spin the item a last inch, I’ll be back. If I on the other hand let go of the small device my hours of counting will be for naught.
Potter loves his life. He has the girl he wants, a family in the Weasleys and a son. A beautiful son with black hair but brown eyes.
I will soon have a son. I will, but I don’t want to. Not that it stopped Greengrass. Mother and father are delighted and they better be. After all, if not for them I’d never married the brow-haired witch.
My name is Draco Malfoy and I’m not content. I hate my life and it’s killing me with its pacing and expectations. I’m going to die in a couple of months due to heartache because of the one boy I could never have. I’m going to die with my love for Potter.
My name is Draco Malfoy and I’m an ex Death Eater. I’m a selfish son of a bitch and I’ve never been anything but selfish. I’m going to change. Become a better person, save lives and smiles. I’m going to become unselfish.
But first… Let me be selfish. One. Last. Time.
*
The train station was packed as I moved though it. My feet were light and I had a distinct feeling of flying. My heart pounded as if it never done anything quite so wonderful before and even though I once again was four and a half feet, I’d never felt taller. The station was crowded and everyone was giants but I didn’t care. With the energy of the eleven-year-old I now was, I jumped on the train. My robes fell around me gracefully as I started striding down the corridor looking into every compartment.
‘Not here, not here.’
My brain buzzed as I realised that the defective Time-Turner worked as figured. I wasn’t going back in time, I was redoing time.
My brisk pace took me further down the milling corridor and I stopped outside THE compartment. Because HE was inside.
I felt a brief moment of panic. What if this doesn’t work? What if everything is going to get fucked up once again?! I wondered if I could live through a life of faked hate against Potter and realised no. I couldn’t, wouldn’t and shouldn’t. I would succeed. I was a smart 25-year-old on the inside and Potter was in desperate need for a friend. Right now he was alone.
I opened the door carefully before sliding in. The dark haired boy looked up at me and scowled as he saw me. I swallowed audibly as I nodded in greeting. He hesitantly answered the gesture.
“Hi”, I begun, awkwardly scratching the back of my head. “I just wanted to say sorry if I offended you at Madame Malkin’s shop?”
Potter stared at me for a minute, his green eyes puzzled. Then he shrugged his tiny shoulders before giving me a lopsided smile. “No worries”, he said easily as I stood in front of him, breathless. That smile alone made this visit to a twisted reality worth all the trouble.
I shook. My breath danced and my eyes prickled.
Potter stretched forth his hand towards me, still with that maddening smile on his eleven-year-old face. “My name is Harry”, he declared.
I tried to hide the trembles that travelled through my body as I responded in a similar fashion, my face lit up by a permanent smile. “Hello. My name is Draco.”
Harry – Because he wasn’t Potter anymore just as I wasn’t Malfoy – gestured towards the empty compartment behind him. “You want to sit down?”
“Yes”, I whispered as Harry turned his back at me. “God yes.”