Work Text:
The day Gilderoy regains his memories is also the day St. Mungo’s gets completely bloody destroyed . It’s not the first attack it has suffered recently, but it is the one that manages to blow up the entire floor above Gilderoy’s room, causing a piece of rebar to hit him on the head just so, and he remembers suddenly that he is much more than the confused but enthusiastic picture smiling at him from the piece of wall it’s still glued to. He’s not simply a fool enjoying his fame – he is an architect of his own destiny, a clever and talented wizard who has spent the last however many years languishing in a hospital room being condescended to by all and sundry.
Nurse Eliza was wrong – Gilderoy is famous. He’s a hero! In a way!
A hero drowning in plaster and cement and metal, at the moment.
That’s right—someone attacked the hospital. He needs his wand, but where...?
Wait. Wands...
Weasley’s wand is the reason he’s been in this state. It’s his fault – better yet, it's Potter’s fault. They wouldn’t have been down the Hogwarts pipes if it hadn’t been for him.
No, as a matter of fact, it’s Dumbledore’s fault. Surely his employer owes him for the physical and emotional damages Gilderoy has suffered in the workplace. Surely he and Rita can cook up a devil of an exposé about it.
He’s already dreaming of the millions they’ll make off this as he shoves his way out of the collapsed building, when he realises that the street is not much different than the building itself. It’s practically in pieces. Looks like old damage, and no one’s around. That’s... strange.
He carefully picks his way through the remains of the hospital – and there, that’s a more or less functioning fireplace. A fireplace someone has obviously repaired in a hurry, to make their own escape. There’s even a jar of Floo powder upturned on the floor. Lucky!
Between one breath and the next, Gilderoy is in Diagon Alley, and even more confused. Diagon Alley is also completely bloody destroyed, and it seems to have been for a while. All the shops that are still standing are not just closed, but have their doors nailed shut. Gringotts is only a half-collapsed ruin. There is, for some reason, the head of a wizened old goblin hanging from a spike in front of what was once the entrance of the bank.
“Oh my, what a violent display,” Gilderoy murmurs lightly, though he is thinking: did civilisation collapse while I was in the hospital? And how long was I in there?
But his sudden anguish over whether his anti-ageing spells have held is interrupted by a flat monotone just behind him: “Isn’t it just.”
When he turns, he finds himself having to look up ever so slightly –quite rare as he is a perfect specimen of wizard and therefore taller than most—and also looking into a visage that could rival his own for symmetry and elegance, although older than Gilderoy remembers being. Fifty or so, maybe. Even dressed in simple dark robes and looking like he hasn’t slept in some time, he’s easily the most beautiful man Gilderoy has ever met. Besides himself, of course.
He does however seem displeased, and though he is not doing anything but frowning silently at the severed head, Gilderoy gets the distinct feeling he should try his very best to get on his good side.
“Friend, I can’t tell you how relieved I am to look upon another human!” Gilderoy says with his best smile. His hand automatically moves for a friendly clap on the shoulder but something in the other wizard’s expression makes him desist at the last moment. “I was just awoken from my mnemonic slumber by a falling piece of rebar, and have absolutely no idea what’s going on, or what year it is, or who is doing this. The wizarding world seems to be in a sorry state indeed if what I assume is the country’s main banking person’s head is mounted on a spike in the middle of Diagon!”
“Not just the bank director,” the stranger corrects in a strange flat tone. “I was at the Ministry earlier. The Minister’s head was hanging from the fountain. All the department heads’... heads... were floating in the water. Someone is cleaning house.”
“Oh dear,” Gilderoy says, frowning a little. “Shall we try and get a look at the third centre of power, then?”
“’We’?” the man repeats, packing an impressive amount of derision in that one syllable. But almost immediately he sighs, and relents. “Why not. You might be the only other survivor. Just as well – I do have pressing business with Dumbledore. It might go more smoothly with a hostage- ah, with someone else there.”
“Splendid!” Gilderoy says, clapping his hands. “I need to talk to him, too! To Hogwarts then!”
The stranger looks revolted from the top of his dark hair to the tips of his pale fingers when Gilderoy explains his that he needs a lift, as he has not yet located his wand, but he does reluctantly grab him by the back of his hospital shirt and unceremoniously apparate them both to Hogsmeade.
Hogsmeade is also in ruins, which is disheartening but not surprising, at this point. Hogwarts, when they can see it, is... well. It’s nominally standing, but there are whole chunks of it missing. Towers just gone , the forest razed to the ground. The lake seems to be on fire .
But the lights are on.
“Do you know who’s responsible for all the destruction?” asks Gilderoy while they trudge up to the scorched oaken entrance. “You don’t think it’s that dreadful You-Know-Who again? He does have a knack for popping up when he was assumed dead, but at this point it would be simply too cliché...”
Gilderoy sees the stranger’s mouth press against some reaction—laughter, he would think, except there’s a distinct dark undercurrent when he says, mildly, “Would it?”
The two simple words merit more suspicion, but all Gilderoy can focus on is the way the man speaks, which is almost unbearably attractive—not that deep, but smooth as velvet, sweet and dangerous at the same time. Gilderoy finds himself taking notes. It’s a pity he can’t just take the voice—and, perhaps, everything else—and then obliviate him. Not just because he hasn’t figured out how to do that yet, but also because he doesn’t think it’d go over very well. Somehow he doubts an Obliviate would even come close to stopping him. He doesn’t even have a wand, anyway.
“I have a—suspicion, about who is behind all this,” the stranger says eventually. “A rumour I heard... unfortunately, I was in a situation much like yours until very recently. I know only the vaguest things about all that transpired since 1981.”
"1981". The date niggles at Gilderoy’s brain, but then the stranger is commanding the doors to fly apart with a flick of his wrist and stalking inside, and he forgets about it.
“By the way, my name is Gilderoy Lockhart,” he says cheerfully, following him in the dim-lit interior, trying not to think overused metaphors about the man’s purposeful but elegant gait – prowling panthers and whatnot. It’s... difficult. “What’s your name, my friend, if I may ask?”
This time the stranger does laugh, and the sound makes all the fine hair on Gilderoy’s arms stand up.
He doesn’t quite dare to ask a second time.
Draco has only been to Hogwarts once after it was destroyed for the second time. In a rare moment of harmonious cooperation, he and Astoria apparated to Hogsmeade together and managed to get Scorpius out of the castle just before the fire started (but after the earthquake and the poisonous gas).
He’s never cared much about the building itself, or what it represents. In his mind it’s just Potter and the rivalry they had, which became mere humiliation as the years passed. It’s incompetent and obstructive teachers who always took the Gryffindors’ side, and injustice after injustice, which culminated with being tasked to murder Dumbledore, and with Crabbe dying right in front of him.
It’s fair to say he has done his best never to set foot in the castle in all these years.
And yet here he is, again, his hand forced. In the middle of a nearly unrecognisable Great Hall. Freezing cold with the wind cutting paths through the broken windows and half-crumbling walls. About to vomit, or possibly faint, which might be a mercy at this point.
He’s shaking, and not breathing, as he bears the scrutiny of what was once a hero adored by the wizarding world.
The fallen saviour sits haggard and sickly-looking atop his makeshift throne of rubble and paintings and broken statues. He looks down at Draco with none of the mockery he’s been half-expecting. His unfocused eyes – hair-raising pinpricks of bright green in the dim candle-light – drift here and there and linger on the empty air around Draco. Watching something beyond the physical, he thinks, and tries not to think about what it is about him that is now bare before this… this god who seems to inhabit the body of someone he thought he knew – can he see some kind of aura? Draco’s magic? His soul?
“The last one,” Potter says, mouth stretching strangely on one side. It takes Draco several moments of blank panic before he realises that that thing is supposed to be a smile. “Stop thinking so loudly. It’s the last one. I can see your soul, Malfoy, and let me tell you: not pretty. Not the worst, though, not by far.”
Draco presses his lips against the knee-jerk That’d be yours, I imagine that wants to come out. It’s bizarre, that even after all this time and all this destruction his first instinct is still to say something dickish to Potter. Maybe do a mean impression. This is what he gets for being like that during his formative years.
He realises suddenly that Potter can read his mind even despite his Occlumency shields, which are fully armed, and feels like the floor is giving out under him. “I – apologise for – I don’t intend any – ”
But Potter waves him off, looking almost bored. “I don’t care about your stupid thoughts, Malfoy. I’m not doing this on purpose. It’s just an unfortunate consequence of the power I’ve acquired. Souls, thoughts, I can feel where they are and what they’re doing whether I want to or not. And believe me – I don’t. Everyone, deep down, is dirty and petty and just waiting for the opportunity to be a huge dick, it seems like. As if I’d subject myself to looking at that every moment of every day, if I could avoid it. Disgusting. Better get rid of them. Better to clean up before they become a problem, instead of giving them the chance to ruin everything. Better to burn it all down.”
Potter is very clearly not well . Not that Draco was expecting him to be — you just don’t do the things he’s done if you aren’t completely out of your bloody mind — but it’s still… well. Draco concentrates harder on not vomiting.
“Speaking of disgusting,” Potter says suddenly, and great, the horrible thing that is presumably a smile is back on his face, even more unhinged than before. “You two behind the door – I felt your black tar souls since Hogsmeade. Why don’t you just come in? It’s not polite to eavesdrop.”
Draco’s head snaps around when there’s a sound from the big, charred doors of the Great Hall. They creak open, and the ones who come in are: the most breathtakingly attractive older man Draco has ever seen in his life, and —
“Professor Lockhart?” He mutters, almost doing a double take. He is tall, handsome, and except for the hospital gown, looks virtually identical to how he was when Draco was a second year, which is to say that he doesn’t look a day over thirty. This is interesting, considering Draco has just turned thirty-seven. Who did Lockhart sell his soul to in order to just completely stop ageing… is probably not what Draco should be thinking about right now.
“Malfoy?” Lockhart says, looking at Draco, and then at the throne, with mounting horror. “ Potter? You two are supposed to be twelve – you must be pushing forty! What – that means I’m – ?! No… no, no that can’t be… ”
The other man physically shoves Lockhart out of the way, quite violently. “Potter,” he says dangerously. “What have you done?”
Potter lets out a hacksaw laugh that makes Draco cringe, and leans forward to observe the man with his iridescent stare. For the first time there’s something in his face that reminds Draco of his old self – dismay.
“To think the last survivors of my purge would include you of all people,” he tells the older man, voice echoing as though it’s coming from the very walls of Hogwarts. “I suppose I could have expected it. Staying dead really isn’t your forte, is it, Tom?”
“Do not use that name,” says the man flatly, though he can’t seem to help a small twitch of surprise.
Now Potter laughs again, and even Lockhart has stopped trying to look at his reflection in a bit of window glass and is starting to look concerned. “Judging by how freshly risen you feel, I suppose one of your horrible little fans managed to resurrect you. How? A hidden seventh horcrux? Another piece of your soul floating around waiting for someone to give it some life force?”
The man raises an eyebrow, and Draco is starting to have a really bad feeling about this. “There seemed to be a Church of... something or other, in my honour. Well, in my other version’s honour. As I understand it, it took the sacrifice of the entire sect to bring me back.”
Potter throws his head back and explodes in deafening peals of laughter that echo like a hundred pianos hitting the floor at once. “So that’s what they were up to... can’t say I'm sorry to hear they’re all gone, though. They managed to hide from me for an irritatingly long time – kind of them to all fuck off their mortal coil without my having to do anything.”
“I’m more interested in what happened to you .” Voldemort cuts in, seemingly uninterested in the collective deaths of his servants. “I’m afraid I lived before your time, but from what I was told I’d gotten the impression you were meant to protect the wizarding world. To… save it.”
The walls start to tremble slightly. Potter is not smiling anymore. “I am saving it. I’m saving it from its biggest enemy – itself. The wizarding world was broken. War after war, dark lord after dark lord. I defeated one, and another immediately took their place, with no one ever learning a single thing from the experience, never making a single effort to better society and themselves. Cockroaches, the lot of them, scuttling about in their garbage, doomed to their unthinking cycles of incompetence and prejudice… surely putting an end to it was mercy … dirty work, of course – the dirtiest – but as always, hey, I’m the man for the job…”
“And has killing everybody and destroying everything fixed society yet?” Tom inquires with a veneer of politeness so incredibly thin that it circles right back to rude.
Potter’s mouth twists. The floor shivers under Draco’s feet. “As funny as it is to hear that from you , Voldemort, I don’t much care for your opinion.”
There’s a moment of blankness where Draco’s lungs seem to be trying to crawl up his throat and he doesn’t understand why. And then his brain catches up and it’s all he can do not to scream.
Voldemort.
Voldemort?
Vol —
He’s aware he’s staring at the incredibly handsome man with his mouth hanging open (absurdly, a voice in his head that sounds like Father tells him not to gape like a simpleton, he is a Malfoy – ), and now that he knows to look for it, he can see something disquieting and strange about him. His eyes are a shade of brown that seems almost red in the faint light, and he doesn’t seem to have blinked once yet. The way he moves, too – there’s something not quite human about it, smooth and liquid as though he doesn’t need to look around to know where everything is, to know where he’s going. When, between one second and the next, his head snaps around to look at Draco with the cold annoyance of someone finding something disgusting under his shoe, Draco is hit by a flare of recognition and terror that makes him physically step back.
Because yeah , that’s – that’s the Dark Lord. That’s the way the Dark Lord used to move, when he skulked around Malfoy Manor like he owned it, and that is exactly the way he used to look at Draco – minus the sadistic glee of the last few years, when he was actively tormenting him.
Maybe if Draco doesn’t look at him and shuts his eyes, he can pretend none of this is happening.
He should have stayed in the decaying cottage with the nearly collapsed enchantments. He was starving and afraid of dying at any moment, but at least the Dark Lord wasn’t there.
Suddenly, and à propos of nothing, Lockhart exclaims, “Well, young Potter, you do seem to have come a long way since I last saw you! Remembered my teachings, did you? Although, there don’t seem to be a lot of people to celebrate you and sing your praises left, eh? I would call that a substantial miscalculation!”
Is he braver than Draco had ever suspected or simply a huge fucking idiot?
Potter makes a sound like a strangled and bitter Ha! “You three might be the last three people alive who’d willingly come here and be rude to my face. Not as funny as I’d have thought. No – in fact… yeah, it actually stings a bit to have some of the worst people I know criticise me.”
“It’s constructive criticism! In fact, I’m offering my services as a PR manager, with a steep discount on account of our Halcyon past as a teacher and his favourite pupil – ” Lockhart replies, his smile not dimming even slightly, at the same time as Draco throws himself on the ground at Potter’s feet and starts begging: “I’m not part of this – I’m not here to criticise or – I would never dare, I swear – I’m here – I’m here to pledge my loyalty!” Here he has to take a deep breath and try not to think that the bloody Dark Lord is watching him beg his Hogwarts rival for his life. “I’ll do anything… please ...”
There’s a long moment of silence, and when Draco finally dares to raise his head slightly, he sees that the display of submission hasn’t impressed or even amused Potter (and at this point, amusement would be enough, if it bought Draco mercy). No, the man’s face has darkened considerably. He looks the very opposite of amused.
“I don’t need servants, Malfoy,” he says in his strange echoing voice. “I don’t need followers, or allies. I only need corpses : yours, your parents’, your wife’s, and your child’s. I’ve made some headway, haven’t I, or you wouldn’t be here. Who have I managed to polish off? Lucius? Narcissa? Tell me.”
He can read his mind anyway. “I – only Scorpius, Mother, and I are left,” Draco whispers, swallowing against the bile that wants to rise at the memory of fire raining down from the sky, of the smell of sizzling flesh, Father shielding Scorpius with his own body, the one noble thing he’s done in his life. “Please – I will serve you, whatever you want, but please… spare them… ”
“If you truly wish to serve me, Malfoy,” Potter says, harsh and impatient, “Then you should bring their bodies to me yourself. I imagine you would grant them a more merciful death than I.”
“Please, Potter, he’s only a child … ”
“So were you, once. Didn’t make you innocent. You were already stained by this society – as is your son. I will erase every last magical person from this world. No exceptions.”
Draco doesn’t know what else to say, how to persuade him, or force him, or coax him. Potter has become something else . A vengeful demon hell-bent on destruction, who cannot be moved to pity and cannot be bought. Nothing Draco can offer will change his mind. He stays there, kneeling, as his terror ebbs and flows, his mind a blank, unhelpful void. He's out of cards, and he has come here for nothing.
“How about you, Tom – excuse me, Voldemort?” Potter is saying, and perhaps his relative disinterest in what was once his nemesis is more a sign of how he’s changed than anything else. “You want to serve me, too? As I recall, killing people was a hobby of yours. Could put it to use here, catching the last few rats still scurrying about. Not like you have much else to do, do you? There’s no ministry for you to take control of, no masses to terrorise… ”
The Dark Lord, when Draco peeks at him, looks like he has too much dignity to outright scoff, but the gesture is nonetheless strongly implied in his expression. “I don’t know what my other self led you to believe, but you should know I despise spilling magical blood. Besides, even were I inclined towards such a role – which, let me make very clear, I am not – I cannot imagine someone less worthy of my service.”
“Oh?”
“I sought to bring order and peace to the magical world, to better it under my guidance. I have no interest in this pile of rubble and corpses you’ve turned it into.”
Potter narrows his eyes – a gesture made ten times more menacing with his tapetum lucidum cutting through the dark Hall. “Is that what you call what you were doing? You actually think you’re better than me, don’t you? When it’s because of you , and everyone like you, that we’re in this situation to begin wi– no. You know what, I don’t have to listen to this. I can just kill you – I’ve certainly got enough power now.”
Voldemort raises a challenging eyebrow. Remarking that the Dark Lord is out of his fucking mind is not exactly a ground-breaking observation, but Draco is stuck thinking it anyway, because why would you dare the insane monster to kill you. Just. Why .
(The answer, of course: because the Dark Lord is also an insane monster. Go figure.)
“And yet I’ve been here for a while already, and you’re still talking to me – to us. Are you that lonely, in this world you’ve yourself rendered deserted? You don’t want to kill me. You don’t want to kill anyone, do you, Harry Potter?”
“Trying to manipulate me into sparing you?” Potter says, flat with tiredness rather than with anger. “Well, you’re not wrong. I feel no joy – no satisfaction – nothing remotely good , doing this. Believe me, I spend every moment of every day wishing that things could have been different. That something, somewhere, might have gone just differently enough to not lead to… this. To not force this terrible purpose on me. All I wanted was peace – for everyone to be safe and alive and well-treated. But year after year, decade after decade, there’s always something – always a dark lord ready to stir the people into a bigoted riot, always some upstart trying to seize control for their own ends, always troves of useless, incompetent idiots in decision-making positions… and always, always the wizarding world helplessly succumbing to them all. Always, Mr Potter please save us – well, I did .”
“Ironic,” Voldemort says, still with the eyebrow, “That you would become the very thing you sought to destroy.”
“That’s right,” agrees Potter, hard-faced. Draco thinks he hears a note of melancholy in his echoing voice. “That’s what magical society does… you don’t even notice it chewing you up, and when it spits you out you’ve become either a spineless idiot or a deranged monster,” he lets out a sound that is maybe a laugh, to indicate to which category he knows he belongs. “I was trying to break the cycle, and before I knew it, I was nothing but the next link in the chain… how did it happen? When did everything go wrong… ?”
“Are you saying you want to be stopped?”
“I can’t stop now. It’s too late. If I stop now, everything I’ve done will be for nothing. I have to go through with this – I have to hunt down every last survivor – your family included, Malfoy.”
The most terrifying thing about this, Draco thinks with the one small corner of his mind that isn’t screaming , is that Potter is not saying these things menacingly, or hatefully, or even apologetically. He sounds – and looks – startlingly earnest. Like he really thinks this will solve everything.
“Once every wizard who has been tainted by our history is dead, once every place of oppression and war has been razed to the ground, once every last trace of our society has been completely extinguished – only then we can start over with a clean slate, and do better. I can’t stop now that I’m so close – but I do wish it hadn’t come to this. I wish none of this had happened – me included .”
“My esteemed former student, you seem to have made another miscalculation,” Lockhart says in an absurd scolding tone (has he not realised that he is probably about to get killed?), “Destroying the Ministry and everything inside it proved to be a tactical error on your part, didn’t it, now that you desire to use some of the Department of Mysteries’ artefacts in your quest. Rest assured, once you hire me as your personal advisor, I’ll be able to keep you from making similar mistakes –”
“Time travel… ?” Potter cuts in, and he sounds almost… wistful. These mood swings are playing havoc on Draco’s sanity. His life pretty much depends on Potter’s mood, at this point. “I won’t deny the idea is tempting… but then again, it’s not like I’d do anything different. There was a time I was hopeful, and good … but if I went back as I am now, all I’d do is destroy everything again. No, someone else has to do it. But the few who still survive me are well hidden for now, and the rest are dead… except you three.”
No, that’s just ludicrous. Too absurd to even contemplate.
… Potter looks like he’s contemplating it.
“Everything is upside down, turned around, the opposite of how it’s supposed to be,” he says slowly. “If I – the supposed saviour – am able only to bring death, maybe you – my enemies – will be able to bring a different approach. And if it doesn’t go well, hey, I can always just destroy everything again. It’s worth trying,” he decides.
“You want to task me with fixing society?” Voldemort says, somewhere between genuinely sceptical and somewhat intrigued. “A version of the man who spent the last decade or so of his life doing his best to murder you? The one who made an insurance horcrux—” he gestures eloquently at himself, “—before going to kill an infant?”
Draco tries to convey Why would you remind him of those things? with a surreptitious look, before remembering that he should not talk to, look at, or think about the Dark Lord if he can help it.
Potter delivers another spine-chilling laugh, grim and terrible. “Do you know how many infants I’ve killed? At least a prophecy said I was a direct threat to you. My reasons, I realise, make me sound like I’m insane.”
There’s no ‘like’ about it , Draco thinks, a little hysterically.
“I’m not an idiot, though. There’s no way I’d trust any of you with anything, if I had another choice. I’ll lay so many limitations I imagine doing anything at all will be a challenge.”
“... You talk as though you already have a way to travel through time,” Lockhart says suspiciously. “Have you spared a few time turners after all?”
“Oh, I have a way to do anything , the way I am now. Don’t you feel it? Hogwarts is empty of all magic – not even unplottable anymore. Just hollow stone, indistinguishable from any old muggle ruin. All that was in it is inside me , now. Nothing is beyond me anymore. Nothing at all. Now, let’s see...”
He waves a hand, and cold wind picks up until it becomes a small storm in what remains of the great hall, with the three of them in the eye of it. The ground trembles, the walls shake, the air crackles with power – more power than Draco has ever felt in his life.
“Here are the conditions: you must save the world. You must prevent all elements of chaos and destruction from gaining a foothold. You must keep the wizarding world intact and at peace and thriving. You must do everything in your power to avoid wars and turmoil and bigotry.”
With every condition, a bright gold ring snaps closed in the air around them. Binding them. Draco feels it snap closed more metaphysically around his magic, or possibly his soul. He shudders. No wonder no one’s stood in Potter’s way all this time, with all this power at his fingertips. It’s actually shocking that he’s still alive and... mostly coherent, after taking in so much magic.
“And finally, you must prevent me from ever becoming this , from ever losing faith in the wizarding world and deciding that burning it all to the ground to start anew is the only way forward. From becoming the kind of person who would do all... this.”
Draco scrambles to his feet, beyond baffled at the turn of events. He came here prepared to beg for his life, for Scorpius’ life, maybe be subjected to a number of indignities in exchange for it, maybe just get killed on the spot. Instead, this conversation has somehow ended with, apparently... time travel .
He risks a glance at Voldemort, and finds him absolutely seething. But there’s also something calculating in his face, and he’s not doing anything at all to try and stop this. He's not even pulled out his wand. Draco can guess what he must be thinking. There is nothing and no one, anymore, to rule over – starting over must sound appealing, conditions or no.
Lockhart, on his part, mostly looks confused, but willing to go with it. He has the look of a man who isn’t completely sure this isn’t a really strange dream, but is willing to play along just in case it’s real.
“And I suppose you should keep each other alive – I trust each of you alone even less than I trust you all together...”
The wind starts picking up more and more speed – louder and harsher around them with every moment. This is... this seems to be happening. Draco. Saving the day. He tries not to inch too close to the Dark Lord, even though the eye of the vortex is getting smaller and smaller. (The Dark Lord . Saving the day ). Lockhart, offering a cheerful thumbs-up, is yelling, “We’ll do our very best!”
(Lockhart... saving the day... ?)
Draco thinks starving to death in his rotting cottage might have been a kinder fate.
“Well, my dear old enemies,” Potter says, quite sarcastically, in an echoing voice that vibrates in Draco’s bones, as everything starts to blur and melt and disappear, “ Good luck...”