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Chapter Text

It was a night straight out of a story, moonless and storming so hard the rain was driving sideways, making it hard to fly. Draco dodged another curse and tried to gain height even as the wind forced him into another roll he had to flap his wings frantically to pull out of. The only saving grace of this weather was that the wizards could hardly fly either and without the moon at least he wasn't shining. Granted, a white dragon, no matter how small, against a black sky wasn’t hard to spot either.

Some kind of spell struck him, sizzling across his skin and his wings shuddered, breaking their rhythm as the magic jolted him. It shook him out of his animagus form and he fell out of the sky. He was falling impossibly fast, the world tumbling past his eyes in a blur. There was no time to think, only time to try and transform again to keep flying before the Death Eaters caught up but he couldn’t focus his concentration quickly enough.

He was still trying when he slammed against the ground, knocking the air out of him. It took a moment to realize nothing was broken and that he wasn’t even in pain. He lay still, breathing, waiting for the inevitable hex, but it didn’t come. Slowly he realized he didn’t feel the cold rain anymore. A bird cried above him, beautiful and lasting like a song. He opened his eyes and sat up slowly.

He was sitting on a dry pavement in the hot sun. Carefully standing up, he blinked and looked around to try and spot the bird he’d heard, but the sky was clear, blue, and empty. Where was he and why was it suddenly the middle of the day? How long had he been lying here?

His thoughts whirled and his heartbeat deafened him; he needed to calm down. He needed to be able to think clearly before someone Apparated in front of him and blasted him. Taking a few deep breaths, he looked up and down the street. Everything was quiet. No one appeared, nothing moved and he couldn’t even hear any voices. Had he panicked and Apparated out of the fall? No, that was impossible; nothing looked familiar, he was certain he’d never been here.

His clothes were still soaking wet from the storm. Grimacing, he raised his hands to shake out his sleeves and abruptly a purple triple-decker bus screeched to a halt on the street in front of him. The Knight Bus? He eyed the door warily. He still didn’t know what was going on or even if he was safe. He almost expected the door to open and a Death Eater to be standing there. The young witch who opened the door, however, was obviously anything but, and popped her bubblegum loudly as if to emphasize the point. Her robes were a mess of rainbows and one smiled at Draco and waved.

“Where you want to go?” she asked and then blinked at him. “You look a bit drowned. Caught in an Aguamenti Spell? Come on, can’t wait about all day.”

Draco was about to bristle when he realized she didn’t recognize him and maybe this was his chance to get someplace safe. A little nervous, he walked onto the bus. As soon as the door closed it rocketed off at top speed, sending things tumbling. Draco caught the railing and suddenly understood why his mother remarked once that she would rather die than ride this thing ever again. She’d then leveled such a glare at his father that his father had winced and mumbled weakly about being young, dares, and good fun.

“Where you want to go?” the witch asked again, snapping her bubblegum.

“Diagon Alley,” Draco said. It was the first place that popped into his mind. These days it wasn’t the safest place to go but it was a distance from the manor and it would take the Death Eaters time to get there.

“Have a seat!” she said brightly. “Another for Diagon!” she shouted towards the driver. One of the chairs slid towards them; she caught it and offered it to Draco. “Get ya’ something? Paper for a knut.” She waved her wand at him, half drying his robes. “You are seriously soaking wet there.”

Draco eyed the chair. He didn’t really want to sit on it but he didn’t want to spend the whole ride getting thrown around. He tried to push it to a place where it wouldn’t slide all over the floor. “Yes, a paper, thank you,” he said, digging into his pocket for the coin. It would probably just be drip fed dreck from the Dark Lord’s puppets but it might give him a hint as to what they were up to, and at least he’d know if his picture was splashed across the front page with a price on his head. She thrust the Daily Prophet at him as the bus screeched to a halt, almost sending him tumbling. She just leaned into it, hardly phased.

This would make a story to tell someday, if he survived. He was exhausted and starting to get shaky. He had no idea how much time had passed since his flight. The witch was right, he was thoroughly drenched, too, but he had no wand to dry himself off.

“Bishopsgate! Mrs. Ambrett!” She bellowed as she walked forward. An elderly witch tottered down the aisle looking like she’d been tossed about by a hurricane. The rainbow witch helped her down the stairs.

Draco sat down and looked at the paper, searching for the date. Water from his hair dripped down onto the paper as his eyes moved across the headline to the date. That couldn’t be right. He closed his eyes for a moment to try and clear his mind. The bus rocked again, forcing him to open his eyes and catch himself before he was thrown out of his chair. Looking back down at the paper, he read the date again and then again as if that would make the numbers change. He didn’t know long he stared at the page but it was long enough that the witch was back at his side.

“Diagon Alley!” she bellowed, making him jump. “Sorry, didn’t get your name, mate. Mr. Fizzwhickle, this is your stop! Mr….oh bugger.” She turned and ran up the stairs. “MR. FIZZWHICKLE! DIAGON ALLEY! Deaf old coot,” she finished in a mumble.

Draco stood up, hurried towards the open door and descended into Diagon Alley. He clutched the paper, uncertain what to do as a familiar bustle surrounded him. The fear that Death Eaters were going to appear and start casting curses was beginning to make him shake. He looked down at the paper again. Maybe it was just old, perhaps they hadn’t bothered to get new ones for the bus. It would be a very old paper if that was the case, which didn’t make sense.

Looking back up, he took in his surroundings for the first time and swayed with shock. The Alley was different. The last time he’d seen it, it had been a wreck. A lot of the shops had been boarded up, their owners missing or worse, flyers pasted over all the windows of the open ones, and the whole place was practically deserted. Now it looked as it had before the war, like a happy memory. It was as if he was looking at an old photograph of the Alley in an album. It was inexplicable and sent a slow creeping terror down his spine.

He rubbed his face, pulling water across it, reminding him that he was still wet. Taking another breath, he tried to keep his legs from trembling. He shook his head and opened his eyes. The Alley was still bustling with people. He looked down at the paper, rereading the date at the top again.

There was no way that date could be correct no matter what the Alley looked like. He dropped the paper in the bin, which thanked him for not littering, and searched the street. A young boy was hawking papers on the corner. Draco would just get a new paper; it would have the right date and he’d be able to get the information he needed. He took a deep breath and walked forward, digging through his pocket for another knut. The boy hardly even glanced at him as he handed over the paper and took Draco’s coin, continuing to bellow the headline at passersby.

“Malfoy?”

Draco’s head snapped up. The person coming towards him made as little sense as everything else around him right now. What the hell was Harry Potter doing here? His clothes looked rumpled and his hair was damp as if he’d been in the same storm not all that long ago.

“Potter?” he said weakly. A cold fear was seeping into his stomach and chest. He looked down again at the paper, turning the pages slowly. Maybe he was hallucinating. Perhaps he was totally losing his mind or- maybe he was actually dead? Maybe that spell he felt had been his aunt hitting him with a Killing Curse. This was a very strange afterlife if that were the case, and Potter was in it. It wasn’t a good thing at all if Potter was dead too, he thought in a daze, because who would kill that madman?

“Malfoy, what the hell is going on?” Potter demanded as he stormed up to Draco, eyes narrowed dangerously.

“I have no idea,” Draco said, too exhausted to put any real bite into his voice even in the face of his school nemesis. He pushed the paper into Potter’s hands, not wanting to say it out loud. Maybe the spell he’d been hit with had done something to his mind and he wasn’t seeing things correctly.

Potter looked down at it, brow furrowing for a moment in confusion. “Ministry outlaws sphinxes as pets?”

“The date, you idiot,” Draco growled. Potter’s eyes flicked upwards to the top of the paper and then widened. Draco felt his stomach twist. He was seeing things just fine.

“Merlin’s beard,” Potter whispered. “What the hell?” he said louder. His head snapped up and he looked around as if seeing the Alley for the first time. He whirled to take in the top of the street before he turned back to Draco. For a moment the anger in his face was replaced with pure surprise.

“That’s the second paper with that date,” Draco said. He was grateful for Potter’s reaction. They were probably both alive and Potter didn’t know what was going on either. It wasn’t exactly comforting but it was something. At least Draco wasn’t out of his mind or hexed so badly he couldn’t see straight. “So unless you’ve-”

“I heard the Death Eaters were after you,” Potter interrupted him, clearly not listening.

Draco took the paper back. Now he knew why the Alley looked like a memory. He didn’t need this right now. He’d only just been running for his life; his heart was only just ceasing to thunder against his rib cage. He couldn’t handle something as bizarre as this. He wanted something familiar, something familiar and safe, he added mentally. He didn’t want to give the universe any excuse to spawn a Death Eater around the next corner.

“They were, seven years from now,” Draco said.

“What!?” Potter said loudly enough that two people paused to stare at them. He snatched the paper out of Draco’s hands and stared down at it. “How the hell is that possible?”

“If I had any idea, I wouldn’t be standing here!” Draco snapped.

“What was happening where you were?” Potter said, crossing his arms and crinkling the paper.

“I was flying through the storm getting shot at by Death Eaters. A spell hit me and I fell out of the air and landed on a pavement someplace and the Knight Bus showed up,” Draco said as calmly as he was able. He looked up again and frowned. The Alley was subtly wrong; it wasn’t just that it was peaceful. He couldn’t place his finger on exactly what the problem was but something wasn’t right. His eyes searched the stores, the windows, the pavement, and the witches and wizards passing them by. It was like the shops were all too far to one side or the windows just weren’t quite right. It wasn’t just that everything was seven years out of fashion, wizard fashion didn’t change all that quickly. Something about everything was just wrong somehow. He took a long slow breath so he didn’t start to panic again.

“Yeah, I was out in the storm too. I wonder what the hell happened and what the hell we do now.” Potter was also watching the alley as if he noticed the problem as well.

They spoke for a few more moments, debating their options as they stood on the pavement. It was probably the longest he’d ever talked to Potter without them insulting each other. Draco was simply too exhausted to bring his banter up to par. He had to lean up against the wall as the adrenaline that had been coursing through him started to drain.

They were ignored by everyone that passed. That was strange, Draco thought, someone should’ve recognized Potter shouldn’t they? Wasn’t his face plastered all over the papers? But only one witch paused and she was only checking something in her bag before moving on. He decided it wasn’t his problem. If no one wanted to coo over Harry “Chosen One” Potter it was all the better for him.

They moved off to Knockturn Alley to try a few spells to see if it would send them back. He suspected Potter was going to take the chance to hex him but he didn’t. However, nothing Potter tried had any effect. Draco was slowly coming to the conclusion that they were going to be stuck here. Time Travel didn’t just happen by accident did it? Neither of them had a Time Turner. Potter wasn’t the type to stand around waving his wand for show. If he’d had one he’d have used it and not bothered even speaking to Draco. Draco wasn’t paying attention to the time but he was startled when he noticed the sun was setting.

Potter glared at him. “And you swear you don’t have a Time Turner?”

“If I had a Time Turner would I be standing here right now?” Draco demanded, as he leaned against the building they were standing near. He was tired. The fear had mostly faded though it would creep back up and trickle coldly down his neck when he noticed something else not quite right. “How would I have used it on you in the first place? I don’t know where you were but I was not in Diagon Alley.” It was good to have Potter to be annoyed at, it helped to keep him calm.

“No I wasn’t near here either. I came here to try and figure out what was going on,” Potter ran his hand through his hair. He looked up at the darkening sky and frowned. “I guess we should go to the Cauldron.”

They did that, walking back through the alley towards the tavern. Draco half wanted to walk briskly away and lose Potter in the crowd. He realized though as they went through the door that he was even more reluctant to try and get rid of Potter. Right now Potter was the only person he knew or who knew him. They pointedly did not look at each other as they walked, passing through the crowd who ignored them.

The Cauldron was the same sort of not quite right that everything else was. It was still a bit dark and there were still several dwarves smoking in one corner, an old witch with something steaming in her hands seated in a chair near the fireplace, and a whole table of warlocks muttering to each other in low voices. The menu was still scribbled on a board on the wall and all of it sounded unappetizing. Draco had half a thought that Tom would know him, or at least think he was his father, but old Tom at the bar smiled at them absently, like he’d never seen them before.

“Welcome to the Cauldron, from out of town are ya? You look a bit familiar there, though,” he nodded at Draco. “You got family here?”

“Yes,” Draco said, letting Tom choose which question that was an answer to. “Two rooms please.” He’d be damned if he was going to spend the night with Potter. He had enough of a headache right now that he didn’t even care if he had to pay for it. He’d just make Potter’s life miserable for a galleon later. Yes, later, he could go back to insulting Potter later. When everything made sense again.

“Of course. Name?” Tom said.

“Cygnus Lefevre.” Draco was smug at managing to come up with the name on the spur of the moment. Using his real name would’ve been a mistake. They might not know Draco but they would know the name Malfoy. He didn’t fully believe he’d come seven years into the past, some part of him couldn’t accept it and if he used Malfoy he’d give away where he was and Death Eaters would arrive. He had to take another breath to forestall fear from creeping back. He didn’t know what Potter thought of the lie but Potter put down his coins on the counter as Tom provided the keys and wrote his name in the guest book.

“From France?” Tom asked as he pushed the book back. “Portkey I guess? Those are a bit rough,” he said when Draco nodded. “Fourteen and Fifteen right down the hall over there.”

They each took themselves to their separate rooms in silence. Draco closed the door and ran his hands through his hair as he sat down heavily on the bed. He’d never stayed in the Cauldron before but the room still seemed off somehow. He put his head in his hands as he tried to think. If he was seven years in the past no one would know him but he could hardly do anything without risking altering everything. He didn’t know much about Time Travel but he knew enough to know that him just being here was probably terrible.

The real question was how the hell it had happened. He had no Time Turner and he hadn’t been casting any spells. He also couldn’t see his aunt or any of the other Death Eaters trying to send him back in time. His mind whirled in tiny circles until his stomach reminded him that he hadn’t eaten all day. He left his room, bought himself some soup which was surprisingly not awful and sat down in a corner.

He watched everyone in the place warily but the only person who glanced at him was the witch by the fireplace who shot him an annoyed look as if his chair scraping across the floor had disturbed something very important that she was working on. It was sort of freeing to go unrecognized but it was also strange. His entire life people had known him in relation to his father and his family name. He wanted to go back and at the same time he did not. It was safe here - well, safe enough, there were no death eaters after him. No one would be trying to kill him unless Potter decided to.

His mind kept spinning until his food got cold and he had to try and get the cold soup down. He kept getting distracted by half formed plans and sudden noises. Something upstairs roared loudly enough to make him jump out of his chair but Tom just told him “not to mind that old fellow, just a bit funny that one.” Draco tasted exactly two spoonfuls of the whole bowl.

By the end of his meal he decided to just go to sleep. Hopefully whatever had happened would correct itself and he would wake up far enough away from the Death Eaters chasing him that he would have half a chance at surviving.

The next morning, he woke with a start and panicked for a full minute before he remembered where he was. He sat up slowly and looked around the room. The sun was leaking through the window and showing off the dust motes drifting through the air. It was so peaceful compared to everything else he’d been through recently. He watched them move while he listened, trying to calm his thundering heartbeat.

He was almost ready to believe he’d dreamt the whole seven years thing but then he got up and peered out the window and down in the Alley. It was the same kind of memory that it was yesterday. It should’ve made him grateful but it made him feel lost. He pulled his clothes on in a daze and walked out of his room to find some breakfast. Potter joined him not long after he sat down. Draco noted that he didn’t look like he’d slept very well.

“I think we’re stuck,” Potter said as he brought his own food to the table. He had the same thing Draco did, a very large plate that Tom had assured him was a good English Breakfast. Draco didn’t even care what it was at this point. It was food, it wasn’t cursed or poisoned, and it didn’t look any worse than what they ate at Hogwarts.

“We’re going to have to do something,” Draco said as Tom delivered a paper to their table. It was another totally benign headline about something the ministry was doing. He checked the date. It was indeed only one day later than yesterday. Draco flipped it open. Perhaps there would be something in it that would give him an idea of what to do.

“We have to be careful not to change anything,” Potter said as he glared at his coffee.

“If we are stuck we’re going to need to earn money.” Draco honestly couldn’t believe he was saying that. He’d realized he might have to do that once he’d fled the manor but he hadn’t given it a lot of thought. It was a future thing, something to worry about when he wasn’t running for his life. Now he wasn’t running for his life anymore he was in fact going to need to worry about it. Especially since he was stuck in the past. He might’ve been able to access the family vault if he’d just escaped in his own time, it was a thin chance but it existed. He didn’t think he’d be able to do that here. He took a sip of his coffee to try and calm his nerves.

Potter grumbled something that sounded like “you’re right” and concentrated on stabbing his breakfast with his fork. Draco was still teetering on nervous and wasn’t able to be smug about it.

Draco looked back down at the paper and noticed a very large ad. Flashing text advertised two open positions at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. They were looking for a Potions Professor and a Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor. Draco had recalled both those positions being filled by Professors Snape and Quirrell when they attended. Snape couldn’t have been hired that shortly before the school year began, so where was he? Quirrell had been on leave before that, he might still be on leave, or missing. Or, you know, picking up a hitchhiking psychopathic snake monster.

Would it do to apply at the school? Draco wondered as his eyes lingered in the familiar seal. He wasn’t certain if he could even get an interview but it was something, wasn’t it? It would probably alter things but he felt like he was running out of options and someone there might have a clue what could be done.

“If we are in the past we can’t change anything…” Potter started to mumble as he looked over at the paper. He stopped stabbing at his plate for a moment as his eyes scanned over the text. “Why don’t we apply for those.”

“I thought you said we shouldn’t change anything,” Draco said, raising an eyebrow. The school would be safe though, if it was seven years ago there were no Death Eaters there, the protections were still intact. It also felt like a good idea but he couldn’t explain why it did. He didn’t want to be a teacher. Were they even old enough to be teachers?

“I know but what else are we supposed to do?” Potter demanded. “We’re both stuck here and we don’t know what’s going on. Maybe if we can get to Hogwarts we can figure something out. Dumbledore…,” he paused for a moment and then shook himself. “He’ll be alive! He can probably help us. We don’t have Time Turners, so we can’t just go back until we figure out what sent us here and anything we do will have happened anyway...”

Draco didn’t know what was going on and Potter didn’t seem to have any idea either which meant they were stuck in this together. He could think of maybe a few people that would be worse than Potter but not many. He frowned. He didn’t like this; he didn’t like this at all but he didn’t feel like he had much of a choice. If Potter was willing to work with him and didn’t seem inclined to hex him or turn him over to the Ministry he should at least try. He’d done less appealing things since this war had started.

It would be hard enough for one of them to interview at Hogwarts, let alone both of them. Still they made their plans and disguises. Potter would go by James Evans and Draco would continue to use the name Cygnus Lefevre. They would meet outside the Great Hall at the start of the year if they were successful and send owls if they weren’t. Draco didn’t like the idea of working with Potter but honestly, what choice did he have? He had no one else here and no one was going to believe he was Draco Malfoy, especially when his own father would deny it, wasn’t his son just a child after all. He had no one else to turn to and if Potter was going to at least be a decent human being he could try his hand at it as well.

Draco noticed a smaller ad a page later. He remembered this one. His father had placed it to find a Potioner to test some potions in the Manor. Snape had been the one to respond to that ad but Draco wondered if he could. He needed to find a way to befriend his younger self and as he recalled, he’d been very interested in this Potioner, though Snape had not been interested in him. If he could somehow convince his younger self not to get marked maybe things would go differently. Consequences be damned.

Draco counted his funds, he only had what he’d taken with him when he’d fled which wasn’t a great deal. He needed a new wand, since Potter had stolen his in the fight at the Manor. He’d been too stressed and confused yesterday to demand it back when they met. He wondered for a moment if he would receive the wand his young self was meant to receive.

He paused at the door of Ollivander’s shop, relieved to see it as he remembered. It was the first good feeling about the differences that he’d had. Ollivander was here and safe instead an uncomfortable afterthought in the basement of Draco’s home. The wand maker gave him a curious look as he came through the door but nodded when Draco tried his new name.

“Yes, a new wand then, Mr. Lefevre. Was there an accident with the old one?” It was Ollivander, Draco reflected but something was different in the same way that the Alley was different. Draco just couldn’t put his finger on what it was but it was something and it was starting to bother him. He reached for the good feeling he’d just had. It was quickly escaping.

“It was stolen,” Draco said. It wasn’t exactly a lie, actually it was the total truth. Ollivander gave him a look of wide-eyed shock, eyebrows rising about his glasses. “I do say! How interesting. Not much will come of that, won’t work for them. Hmm, well, it might, now then, have a seat.” He waved and sent a stool bouncing towards him. Draco sat down carefully. He recalled it liked to totter under children but it seemed to take his weight just fine. He looked around the shop again, trying to figure out what was different.

Now that he was calmer he thought he’d be able to set a name to the feeling but the more he looked around the less comfortable he became. He felt almost as if he didn’t belong here, this was the wrong place not just the wrong time. He tried to shake the feeling away but it kept creeping back as he looked around the store. Everything looked the same as he remembered it. Shelves, upon shelves of boxed wands reaching the ceiling. Ollivander even moved the same way. Starting forward, stopping, muttering to himself before starting forward again, reaching for box after box. He would take one down, shake his head and then put it back and reach for another.

Draco tried not to shoo the measuring tape away from his face as Ollivander puttered through his shop eying the shelves and muttering in that familiar way that was just slightly wrong. Draco remembered his first trip here. He’d been nervous and excited, ready to fly away from his mother and pick up every wand in the shop. He’d tried several before settling on the Hawthorn wand. This time there were two. The first produced an interesting set of colored lights that Ollivander deemed unacceptable and then came the second.

“Silver lime good for an Occlumens, 10 inches, unicorn tail hair, reasonably pliant.” He pushed his glasses back up his nose as Draco took it and gave it a flick. Silver and green lights swirled out and floated around the shop. It felt right, warm and perfect in his hand. He smiled before he could stop himself and Ollivander nodded.

“Yes, that’s a fit then, well then 7 galleons, Mr. Lefevre, do keep your old wand if it turns up. Though this one might be a better fit for you now.” He took the coins and nodded absently, still talking to himself about the wand. He collected the box with the first wand and sent it floating back to the shelf.

Draco left the shop. It gave him a little hope, a tiny ray of sunshine pushing through the fear and making everything seem possible. He had a wand now. He could do something. He told himself it didn’t matter that everything was just slightly off. He had a wand, he could handle it.

It made some sense that he would get a new wand considering the years that had passed. He was relieved as well, since it would mean his younger self would receive the correct wand. It wouldn’t alter anything in that respect but he was still unsure about the rest; wouldn’t they be altering things by going to Hogwarts? He put the thoughts out of his mind. There was little else to be done.

He bought basic potion equipment, though he knew his father had most of it, figuring it was better to show up with some rather than none. Then stopped into Madame Malkins to buy a new robe so he wouldn’t look like a rumpled mess. This shop was just like Ollivanders’ and the Cauldron shop, the same while being just slightly strange. Madame Malkin was the same and started when she saw him.

“Oh, oh!” she settled her hand over her heart. “My goodness but you look like someone else.”

“I’ve been told,” Draco said trying to sound amused. Ollivander hadn’t paid him any heed but the wizard in the Cauldron shop had called him Lucius twice. Now that he had a wand now he was going to have to do some sort of disguise, just a small one, anything too large or extreme would be both hard to maintain and too easily detectable. He didn’t want someone to notice he was using charms on himself though people did all the time. He didn’t want to appear to be one of those vain ponces but better to appear a vain ponce than someone trying to hide his identity. “Cygnus Lefevre, I’ve just come in from France,” he forced his face into a smile. “Pleased to meet you.”

“Oh,” she relaxed visibly and he wondered if his younger self had already been here buying robes. He didn't remember much about that other than meeting Harry Potter. Had his father said something to her, perhaps? Hadn’t he only come with his mother? He didn’t remember now. “France you say?”

She made utterly inane small talk for the entire time Draco was in the store. It felt like he was a child and forced to sit through another boring tea with someone his parents considered important. Draco forced himself to put on his best smile and simply get through it. He was certain by the end she thought this Lefevre was charming but he was ready never to enter the shop again.

He headed towards the Manor. This wouldn’t get him a professorship, but if he impressed as this Cygnus his father might give him a letter of recommendation. He was nervous and he knew he shouldn’t have been but he was. He was worried his father would see through the simple charms and then what would happen? Draco wondered how he would even explain it. His thoughts ran in circles as he walked up to the gate.

The gate seemed confused when he approached but he stated he was answering the ad and it swung open for him. He took a deep breath and walked up the path. One of the house elves appeared after that and brought him inside. The house was the same as everything else, not quite right and in some ways very different. The portraits in the front hall were different, several were missing including his parent’s wedding portrait. He forced himself not to pause and followed after the elf as it brought him to the parlor.

He checked his reflection in the mirror over the fireplace. He did look a bit like his father with his hair so long but he had changed his eyes to a bright, burning blue. Hopefully he looked different enough. He actually looked a bit like his cousin Claudius, though his cousin never wore this type of robes.

The more he looked around the more he saw other little things out of place. The clock in this room was on the mantle and not the table, the portrait of his grandfather wasn’t here, and the offered tea service was served in shining white china, not the gold and emerald he’d been used to seeing when he was a child. He frowned at the china set. He knew he should’ve been used to this feeling but he didn’t like it and he didn’t like it to a greater degree inside the Manor. He put the thoughts aside to rehearse what he was going to say. He needed to use everything at his disposal to impress.

His father did start when he walked in but Draco bowed and tried not to think of how strange it was to address his father as “Mr. Malfoy.” He was different. Not very different, his face was the same though he looked thinner and paler. He didn’t look like he had when he’d come out of Azkaban, but this was a deeper exhaustion than just a few nights of poor sleep, as if he’d had trouble sleeping for months instead of days. Lucius was also walking with a cane and a clear limp. Draco didn’t dare ask what had happened but he wondered. His father was not someone to get into a situation where such an injury would occur. He sat down slowly after the initial introduction, waving Draco to take one of the chairs. If he thought Draco looked familiar, he did not say so though his eyes did linger over Draco’s face.

Draco knew his younger self would be listening outside the door and a good way to impress himself was to impress his father. Merlin he’d been so young and stupid. As he’d gotten older he’d clashed with his father on several things but none of those were going to be part of the conversation today. He’d sat and listened to enough conversations that he had a fairly good idea what to say to impress his father. It did involve being humble, which wasn’t one of his strong suits but he did his best. For now, he was trapped here and couldn’t reveal himself. He needed allies so he would try to gain those as best he could.

The conversation went differently than he remembered it. His father had been looking for someone discrete to identify potions so he could remove dark ones from the manor before the ministry arrived. This time Lucius wanted someone who would identify the potions, decide which ones were harmless, which could be used, and which were dark so the dark ones could be destroyed. Most of them were old, he explained, almost heirlooms but it was time to be rid of them. He said that in a tired tone of voice as if the cleaning had been exhausting but would continue.

His father as Draco knew him would never want to want to destroy anything the family had passed down. He’d sold the potions with some reluctance and Draco had always suspected he wanted to buy them back or replace them later. Was this change of speech just for his benefit? Snape, he supposed, would’ve been a known entity as a fellow Death Eater, whereas Draco was an unknown.

Draco did let drop that he was considering applying for the teacher’s position and Lucius promised to write a letter to the headmaster on his behalf if he was pleased with his work. Lucius escorted him to the little workshop set up for the purpose and brought all the potions.

This room was slightly off too, there were no portraits and Draco was sure he remembered his great aunt being in here. He’d also remembered the table being different. It had been an old mahogany thing with serpents and lions for legs. This one was a light color and had two large swans carved on either side.

Draco put it out of his mind and looked at the bottles. Perhaps they’d gotten the serpent table later and moved his aunt’s portrait. He chalked it up to misremembering. The manor couldn’t be subtly wrong, something, one thing had to be right. He pushed the growing unease down and started to work.

He knew some of the bottles but others didn’t look right. Thankfully he recalled at least one of them, the one Professor Snape had admitted difficult to identify but then he noticed that two were not what he expected at all and he had to check his results twice. Once he got started it was actually almost fun. He’d always enjoyed a puzzle or complicated spell work, doubly so of course when he was using it to make someone’s life miserable but the actual work was often what pleased him the most. It was highly rewarding to finally get something right or get to the bottom of a difficult question.

It took him a long time to finish the work but he was pleased with himself when it was done. He’d been slightly worried he wouldn’t be able to carry the charade off but he had. All that actual studying had come to some good use, finally. He labeled the last bottle and turned. His younger self was crouched just at the door, watching. He smiled. He looked so young, almost innocent though he’d hardly have called himself that but compared to the things that would happen later it was refreshing.

“Good evening, Mr. Malfoy,” he said. He knew what he would like, flattery and sweets. He hadn’t brought sweets but he could try flattery. He just needed to befriend himself enough to convince himself not to take the offer, to run away, to bring his family with him. It wouldn’t be easy but by Merlin he was going to try and if he couldn’t he would Imperious the little bastard. He realized after a moment that he still remembered Snape when he came. Shouldn’t his memories be changing? Was he not affected because he was the one changing them?

Little Draco smiled back and walked in slowly. “Have you finished them all? Are they poison?” he asked excitedly. He didn’t look strictly right either. He was taller than Draco thought he remembered himself being and thinner too. His face was most definitely thinner and pointed and his eyes, Draco liked to think he knew what his own eyes looked like but this boy’s eyes were a much deeper gray. They looked gray/black instead of gray/blue. He had the urge to turn to try and find a mirror.

“I have, and a few are,” he said. There was no point in hiding that fact and his father would hardly care. Lucius had been sighing that several had to be poison and they needed to remove those before the ministry arrived. His father had said different things this time though... He shrugged the thought and the unease away again. All that happened when he was eleven, he could hardly remember everything in perfect detail.

Little Draco walked up to the table and eyed the bottles, now all labeled. He leaned on the table, reaching for one that Draco carefully moved out of his young reach. He knew his own intentions but then he noticed something different. He had nearly white blonde hair but it was longer than he recalled having as a child and near the base of his neck, half hidden in the hair were several long, white feathers.

“No, now, be careful,” Draco said, doing his best to hide his own surprise. “You don’t want to smudge the ink.” Feathers? Why would he have feathers in his hair? Had he been out plucking feathers off the peacocks? No, those weren’t peacock feathers and his father would’ve thrown a fit. He’d chased the peacocks a time or two and collected the fallen feathers but he’d never put them in his hair. He reached up to touch the back of his own neck. No, there were no feathers there. He was so baffled he could hardly take it in.

Little Draco frowned at him and opened his mouth but it was then Narcissa appeared. At least it should’ve been Narcissa, but it wasn’t. She swept into the room, thin and tall, wearing robes that accentuated her tall, lean figure. This was clearly Lucius’ wife but Draco didn’t recognize her. She smiled at him, gliding over to her son. He didn’t know this woman but she was tall, almost taller than him with waist length hair that appeared to actually be white and eyes so dark they looked almost totally black. He straightened up to bow to her.

“Are you causing trouble, Draco?” She asked and gave Draco a nod even as she reached for the little Draco’s shoulder.

“No, mother,” the child said quickly, putting his hands behind his back, convincing no one of his innocence.

“No, Madam, not at all, you have a very handsome son,” Draco said smiling to hide his shock and wondering if perhaps he shouldn’t compliment himself. He shouldn’t, he was an intolerable brat. But this wasn’t his mother; this wasn’t Narcissa. What was going on? His mother hadn’t come down when Snape had arrived at all, Draco wasn’t certain she’d even been home. No, she hadn’t been and his father had gone into his study and shut the door, leaving Snape pretty much at the young Draco’s mercy. Snape had not been pleased.

The woman smiled at him, warm and elegant. “Thank you, Mr. Lefevre. Your name is interesting to me, we almost named Draco Cygnus. Tell me, do you have Cygni in your family?” She tilted her head as she asked, as if the question were in fact the sort of thing one asked a guest, like asking about the weather.

Was this some kind of trick? Did they suspect him of something? Had he picked the wrong name to use? “No, Madame, no Cygni, I was named after the time of my birth.” You didn’t talk about things like the beast blood anymore. Who was this woman? What was she doing? The subtle dread that Draco had been doing his best to ignore came rushing back. He hoped he’d be able to keep it out of his face. Where was his mother?

“Ah, yes, star naming. Shame, I was hoping to meet another Cygni. Lucius told me you would be applying for a position at Hogwarts. I was hoping for someone who could mind Draco in case he has his first transformation away from home.” She wasn’t even looking down but she caught little Draco’s shoulder again as he reached for the bottles. The child pouted and frowned up at her but she just smiled at him, gently smoothing his hair. “It’s a little scary the first time, I’m afraid to have him alone but I can’t keep him home his first year of school.”

It was a struggle not to allow his mouth to drop open. Cygni? Draco wasn’t part Cygni and no one he knew would dare admit that! Not to a perfect stranger. It did explain the white feathers in little Draco’s hair. “My apologies, Madam, but if I am lucky enough to get the position I will be certain to watch out for him.” He half expected that to be the wrong response but the woman smiled warmly at him, clearly relaxing. Was she Cygni? This was verging back into unable to deal territory. His brain was going to shut down any moment and he was going to slide into the stony silence he’d employed his last year at the manor.

“Oh, I’m certain you’ll be perfect for the position,” she said with emphatic warmth. “I would certainly appreciate another set of eyes on him. Children you know.” Without looking away from him she delicately caught the boy’s wrist as he reached for the potions again. Draco recalled that Snape had let him take them, only noting his father would be most annoyed when he killed himself. “Please, stay for dinner. Draco, love, go run along, stop trying to poison yourself.”

Draco agreed to stay, mostly out of shock. What had gone wrong? Something had to have gone very wrong if he was part Cygni and it wasn’t a bad thing to be mentioned in polite company. He’d grown up understanding that any wizard with the “beast blood” was to be scorned. His mother was also not his mother and therefore he was not himself. His head was starting to hurt. This day had been long already and too strange. He steeled himself for dinner, he just needed to get through this while continuing to impress. His father still had influence at Hogwarts and a letter might be the difference in getting him that blasted position.

Dinner was an affair quite as he remembered though he was uncertain if he knew exactly how to act anymore. Cygni was the topic of discussion when the woman, formally introduced to him as Svana Malfoy, told Lucius that Cygnus had only been named after his stars.

“Oh, well that’s a shame. But, my dear, there aren’t that many in Britain. It’s not like it used to be,” Lucius said with an easy smile as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Not that many Cygni in Britain anymore? Had there been more? Draco tried to think if he remembered any such thing but the only recollection he had of Cygni was from a book of fairy tales his mother had read to him as a child.

“Yes, I know, still he’s agreed to watch out for Draco. I know you say I shouldn’t worry, but, Lucius, it will be his first one!” Svana smiled at him as she served herself from one of the floating platters.

“If I get the position, Madam,” Draco said carefully as the bowl of rolls drifted in his direction. His acting had been working so far, so he would continue on in the same vein and simply adjust as he could. He was proud he hadn’t gone mute in shock or flattened his face into stone thus far. His younger self was toying with the napkin rings. Draco recalled that pastime. He’d gotten quite good at rolling them in between the cups. He recalled that when his father was feeling charitable he would roll them back. Why were so many things the same but so many things so very, very different?

“I’m sure you will,” Lucius said with a warm smile. “That school needs more teachers like yourself.” He waved away the crystal wine decanter. It floated gently back to it its place on the sideboard.

“I’m sure they have excellent teachers,” Draco said quickly, catching the napkin ring and rolling it back towards his younger self as surreptitiously as he could. Little Draco made a sound that was uncomfortably close to a happy chirp. He was pleased to be making a good impression on everyone but the lost feeling was only intensifying.

“They could use a better Potioner though, tell me Cygnus, were you acquainted with Snape? He would’ve been excellent there.” Lucius looked towards Draco with a slight tilt to his head and a sadness on his face. That startled Draco a little and he started to wonder, and a cold feeling started seeping into his stomach.

“I’m not sure all Potioners know each other and Severus never taught at Beaubatons,” Svana noted. Draco could now see that she also had white feathers at the back of her neck, a larger bunch that he hadn’t noticed before because she’d been facing him.

“I knew him,” Draco said.

“Ah, I’m sorry then. It was a shame, all that,” Lucius said with a sigh and a shake of his head. “The whole family…” he let his voice trail and his hands paused, actually laying his fork down for a moment.

“Yes,” Draco agreed as he tried to look sad instead of shocked. The napkin ring rolled into his plate. Was Snape dead? Snape and... a family? Snape hadn’t had any family that he recalled. Svana reached across the table to grip her husband’s hand, squeezing it.

Lucius’ eyes grew distant for a moment before he came back to the present. “Someone killed You-Know-Who in the end though, so there’s that much we can be grateful for.”

Draco’s stomach froze as it settled on him that Snape was dead and then it flopped as he heard that the Dark Lord was dead. Had their coming back in time done this? Or had someone else come back before them? It was probably impossible to know what had gone wrong... or right, if the Dark Lord was dead. Was he really dead? That would be perfect and amazing but hadn’t they all thought he was dead the first time? Was he really dead this time or was he just banished like he’d been before? The room spun gently.

“Yes!” Svana agreed with a warm smile and then turned to Draco. “Cygnus, how long did you study in France before you decided to come to England?” she asked brightly.

He almost didn’t manage to get the napkin ring to roll back around the serving platter. “Oh, through the end of school,” he said quickly, realizing he was being called upon to change the direction of the conversation. “Then I decided to visit a relative here and thought there might be interesting opportunities for study.”

He only just managed to keep up the conversation during the rest of dinner. Lucius noticed though, and asked if he’d known Snape very well. Draco decided to just say that he had and Lucius had nodded gravely and murmured condolences.

They allowed him to use the guest floo after dinner and Draco again took a room at the Cauldron. He wanted to find Potter and perhaps talk about some of these discoveries but Potter was of course not here. Draco hardly had any luggage and made a mental note to go out in the morning and get some. He was going to need a change of robes, more equipment, and a briefcase and probably a dozen other things he couldn’t think of at the moment. He’d quoted his father the figure he’d recalled Snape using so he had some money at least. His brain felt worse than it had after studying for his O.W.L.S.

His chest ached. His mother was gone or not his mother and Snape was dead. He had to sit down on the bed and put his head in his hands. His body shook as his face flushed and the room suddenly felt overwarm. He didn’t understand what was going on or what had gone wrong. He wanted things to be right, not strange and off-kilter. He wanted to see his mother, not whoever this Svana was. He choked on tears. This wasn’t the past that he knew. What the hell had happened? His mind whirled and spun so hard that he felt sick. When he looked up again the room was starting to get dark as the sun set outside his window.

He scrubbed the tears off his face and pulled off his robes. It was early but he was thoroughly exhausted. He hung his robes carefully though he wanted to just throw them, he only had the one set right now. He flicked his wand to clean them, something he’d learned at Hogwarts though he’d always despised doing it himself. The motion made him look down at his dark mark.

It was usually an inky black blemish or a burning red brand but now it was just an old faded scar, as if he’d been hexed by someone with a poor sense of humor. What did that mean? He dared to touch it but it was just slightly raised, just like the curse scars on his chest and stomach from Potter. Did this mean the Dark Lord was dead here or was this just what the scar looked like while he was recovering from dying?

He had no idea and frankly it frightened him but he was used to the fear now. It was almost preferable to everything else he was feeling right now and the cold wash of it actually calmed him down. He finished getting undressed and got into bed. There was a long morning ahead and then a long train ride during which he needed to think of what he was going to say during his interview. His mind whirled but his body was too exhausted to keep up and he was quickly asleep.

~~~

Dumbledore met him at the station and didn’t even give him a single strange look. Draco had wondered if Dumbledore would suspect something, and indeed had been afraid Dumbledore wasn’t the headmaster. He’d dreamt that night that he’d arrived at the school and the Dark Lord had been waiting for him.

The interview went well. Draco had wondered at his own real lack of credentials, having no references other than his father and no test scores to speak of, but Dumbledore seemed to have taken this all in stride and was prepared to offer him the position after a long list of rather advanced questions about potions, which shouldn’t have impressed Draco as much as it did. The portraits kept distracting him though, some were missing and there were different ones in their places. He never had all the headmasters memorized but hadn’t there been a Black among them?

Not to mention Fawkes, who was sitting on his perch near the desk. The bird kept looking at him, silently watching, tilting his head this way and that as he regarded Draco as if he saw through the lies and the minor illusion on his eyes. Draco pointedly stopped looking at the bird.

“Mr. Lefevre, I would be pleased to offer you the position. May I call you Cygnus?”

“Yes, sir, of course. Thank you, sir,” Draco said, smiling. He wouldn’t say it had been easy but it certainly had gone easier than he expected. He wondered if he should reveal himself but decided to wait. Something wasn’t right, something was strange, everything was strange. He couldn’t explain the situation to his own satisfaction; how could he explain it to Dumbledore and expect to be believed?

Fawkes landed on the back of his chair. Only long practice sitting at the long table while the Dark Lord paced around kept him from going stiff. You just didn’t move when the Dark Lord walked behind you because if the movement irritated him he’d most likely Crucio you or worse.

“Ah, Fawkes likes you. Most excellent.” Dumbledore smiled at him, wide and merry, like that uncle that you loved who always brought sweets. He offered Draco the bowl on his desk. “Sherbet Lemon?”

All that remained, Draco reflected, was to wait and see if Potter managed to secure a position, though if Potter did get the DADA position his younger self wouldn’t need to teach defense to the other students in fifth year. Draco put the thought out of his mind. He had enough to worry about.

Chapter Text

"Things are different, have you noticed?" Draco asked as they stood near one of the old suits of armor. It was strangely good to see Potter and he wondered if Potter had been grateful to see him. They hadn’t even sneered at each other.

Draco had been trying to ignore the little changes but they kept hitting him in the face when he wasn’t prepared. He kept hoping he’d just wake up back where he should’ve been but every morning he was still at Hogwarts. It hadn’t been easy but he’d managed to dismiss most of his fear by keeping busy and taking comfort in the safety the school offered.

There had been the niggling worry Potter hadn’t made it in as a teacher. Draco had been busy using the potions payment his father had given him to secure enough luggage to be respectable, not to mention books and a dozen other things. Then he’d had to start actually planning lessons for all the years of students. He knew he was going to be teaching but the whole thing had just been a future theoretical, not real, up until he saw his office. Word had come down that the DADA position had been filled but he hadn’t bothered to ask by whom. He wasn’t going to admit that he’d been afraid it wasn’t Potter.

"Yeah, I’d noticed." Potter was watching the first years in the distance. He looked pensive, eyes searching the flock of first years. They were just reaching the shore of the lake in the squad of boats. "I think I'm dead," he said flatly. He had the sort of resigned, grim expression that bespoke a recent acceptance of this information.

“What the hell are you talking about, Potter? No one is dead,” Draco said. He had to squarely resist the urge to grab Potter’s shoulder to prove it.

“My younger self,” Potter said, looking over at him, face still set. “The me that’s here, the me that should be eleven.”

"What?" Draco was sure he'd misheard. Things couldn’t possibly be that different. He refused to panic. Potter had probably just been looking in the wrong place. Draco looked up to watch the first years. Hagrid was helping them pile out of the boats.

"I don't think I'm alive, I haven't been able to find me, my younger self, whatever. I wasn't at Privet Drive." Draco didn't know what a Privet Drive was and he opened his mouth but Potter continued. "I didn't come to Diagon Alley on my birthday either. I don’t know what’s going on.” Potter’s mouth flattened into a line and he turned back to the first years, clearly hoping that he’d missed something and his younger self would appear.

“The Dark Lord is dead,” Draco said in a whisper, trying to ignore his jittering nerves. His stomach was already doing flips. “That much I know, from being…home.” It was strange to put it like that. It was his home but it wasn’t, which was deeply unsettling. Potter turned to look at him. “So whatever happened back then as we remember it, still happened,” Draco said.

“Ok, so that’s something. Something must’ve happened to me afterwards.” Potter paused and his face gained a look of panic, eyes widening in a look that Draco recognized as sudden realization. Potter whirled to look back at the herd of first years approaching. “Shit! Neville! The prophecy could’ve referred to either of us! What if Voldemort went after him?”

Draco winced at the name. “Don’t use his name!” Potter turned back and frowned at him but Draco continued. “Try to stay calm.” He wasn’t sure he said that entirely for Potter’s benefit. “We should just look and see if we can find them in the crowd.” He turned his attention to the arriving students. He looked over all the faces with a growing dread as he realized that neither a small Potter nor a young Longbottom were anywhere to be seen.

Young Granger was there, with her bushy brown hair, and Weasley with his bright red hair and freckles. The young version of Draco smiled smugly up at him as he passed, white feathers still just visible at the back of his head and much taller than any of the other first years. Draco gave him a nod, sure that he hadn’t been that tall at eleven. But sure enough, there was no young green-eyed, black haired Potter nor a chubby Longbottom and his toad. Draco swallowed as bits of ice started to creep into his stomach. What did it mean if Potter was dead? How had that happened?

“Neville and me,” Potter muttered under his breath as the first years filed past to be sorted. “Are we both dead?” He looked understandably upset, frowning as the last of the children hurried past them. “Let’s go sit at the head table.”

Draco wanted to say he hadn’t heard the half of it yet, just wait until Potter heard about Draco’s younger self being Cygni. This probably wasn’t the moment to bring that up though; Potter looked as if he had enough to think about.

Draco hadn’t thought about other things that might be different, concentrating only on what he’d discovered. Whoever had done all this had gone even further back in time than he and Potter had. How was that even possible?

He followed Potter around the edge of the room, robes sweeping behind them as they moved towards the head table. It was strange not to see Professor Snape there and Draco reflected that he still needed to speak with Potter about the professor’s apparent death. Quirrell was also missing, which made some sense if Potter had managed to get the DADA position, but Draco wondered what that meant for the Dark Lord. Hadn’t Quirrell been the first one to help the Dark Lord gain strength? If Quirrell wasn’t here did that mean the Dark Lord was really gone?

Draco took a breath, focusing on Potter’s back as they passed by the tables full of returning students. He had started to enjoy the peace, the absence of the war that had taken over his life. Now as much as he tried to resist, fear was digging its claws into him again. What if Quirrell’s absence meant that the Dark Lord had already returned?

They took their seats and Draco stared out at the crowd without really seeing. What did it mean if Potter was actually dead here? If Potter and Longbottom were dead it looked like someone had come back, perhaps a Death Eater, and killed them to clear the way for the Dark Lord. But why was Snape dead then? Snape had been loyal to the Dark Lord, hadn’t he? Where was Draco’s mother? Why was his father married to a Cygni woman? He had a lot of questions and not a single damn answer. He clenched his hands under the table, as much frustrated as he was disturbed.

He came abruptly out of his thoughts as McGonagall started speaking, and turned his attention to the sorting. The sorting song was the same, at least Draco thought it was, but then things started to change. Granger went to Ravenclaw instead of Gryffindor. If that was the only thing that changed it would’ve been fine, she probably belonged there anyway, but there was a young girl with the surname Black who went to Slytherin and Draco couldn’t spot Gregory Goyle, nor was any Goyle called.

Draco’s younger self at least went into Slytherin and Weasley went into Gryffindor. Zabini was there and was duly sorted correctly as were Pansy and Nott. He did spot what he thought must be the Weasley twins at the Gryffindor table and someone who may have been Marcus Flint at the Slytherin table. He searched the other students for faces he would recognize but there were so many and they were hard to see under the glare of the candles and the shade of their tall hats. Those damn hats, worn for the Opening Feast and then never again if it could be avoided.

He hadn’t heard Potter’s name. He wished he had. He’d listened carefully after Pansy was called, hoping that they’d both just missed the young Potter in the crowd. It was hard to understand how someone could’ve gone so far back in time. It would’ve had to have been eleven years before this point. That seemed impossible. Time Turners were only good for five hours. He and Potter were here though, having gone back seven years. If they’d done it, totally on accident, couldn’t someone have gone back further on purpose? His head was starting to hurt and his throat was getting dry.

There wasn’t much chance to speak with Potter during the Feast, the hall was much too loud. The students were all chattering excitedly to the new first years and the older students were catching up with each other after a summer away.

After the Feast, there was a brief meeting of the teachers during which Dumbledore introduced Draco and Potter to the rest of the staff again for good measure. Most of the professors were as Draco remembered except for Brighale, the Muggle Studies professor. Draco had dropped Muggle Studies as quickly as he’d been able, but he thought he remembered that the Muggle Studies teacher had been a man. Brighale was a bright-eyed young woman who didn’t look much older than him. Draco dismissed that as just another of the ongoing string of odd changes. He was more concerned with the missing students than new teachers.

It was difficult to behave as if they didn’t know all the professors but they managed, though Trelawney predicted their swiftly approaching demises. Draco wondered if that was just how she greeted new people. She looked at the two of them searchingly before she gave her prediction in what Draco assumed was supposed to be an ominous voice. Draco would apparently die by a poison, and Potter in the Forbidden Forest, though she didn’t say how.

Draco wanted to laugh but given the rest of the events of the past days it was more unnerving than it should’ve been. He and Potter looked at each other and Draco felt slightly better that Potter looked uncomfortable as well.

“Don’t mind Sybill,” McGonagall told them with a dismissive wave as the Divination Professor flounced down the hallway. “Let me show you around.”

McGonagall gave them another tour. Draco had had a tour earlier and he’d assumed Potter had as well but since neither of them could claim having gone to Hogwarts and the castle was very confusing they had to follow her and pretend to look confused at the hidden doors and moving staircases. It gave him a few moments to try and calm down and get his thoughts in order. He managed the calm part. Mostly.

She left the two of them in one of the upper hallways, after showing them several passages intended only for teachers’ use. Draco had always wondered how she and Snape seemed to just show up places so quickly since you couldn’t Apparate inside the castle.

“Mr. Evans, may I have a word with you?” Draco said, just remembering to use Potter’s assumed name as McGonagall started away down the corridor.

“Yes,” Potter said firmly. He looked relieved. “We have a lot to talk about.”

“In my office perhaps?” Draco suggested as McGonagall vanished around a corner.

Potter nodded and followed him down to the dungeons and into the office. They walked in silence. The students they passed were milling about in the corridors, meeting up with friends from other houses. It was a relief, comfortably familiar and welcome to him. They passed a group of Slytherins chatting in the corridor and went through the classroom into Draco’s office. Draco still had a hard time not thinking of it as Snape’s or Slughorn’s office. Every time he came through the door he expected to see one of them in there.

Draco shut the door and laid a charm on it so they would be undisturbed. His head was starting to hurt again. Just when he thought everything had gone back to normal something else would be different, a portrait in the wrong place, a statue or classroom where there shouldn’t have been one. Someone dead when they should’ve been alive.

Potter ran his hands through his hair. “Where’s Snape? I mean, I’m glad you got a position but-,”

“He’s dead. My father mentioned he was killed with his family,” Draco said, not bothering to wait for Potter to finish his sentence. They had a lot to talk about and Potter wasn’t going to like any of it. Draco didn’t like any of it either and he imagined Potter had things to tell him that he was going to dislike even more.

Potter’s eyes got wide. “Killed? His family? He wasn’t married, I’m pretty sure.” He was staring and looked as if he didn’t need or want this news. Draco hadn’t wanted it either so he was happy to share.

“I know that but there are other things that are wrong. My mother isn’t at the manor. I don’t know what’s going on, but the Draco here is part Cygni and my father is married to a woman named Svana, who I’m assuming is Cygni herself or at least part.”

That got Potter’s attention. His jaw dropped open. Draco felt smug. “What? Like swan?”

“Yes, when I went to the manor Svana asked me if I had Cygni blood because of my name. She wanted someone to look out for…Draco in case he has his first transformation.” It felt good to finally tell this to someone.

Potter blinked. “I didn’t think you were supposed to talk about things like that. Or even admit things like that. Your dad would have a fit. He wouldn’t marry a Cygni any more than he would a werewolf.”

“You’re not! No! He wouldn’t! You especially don’t mention it to what should’ve been a perfect stranger!” He was glad Potter knew that at least. He hadn’t been looking forward to explaining why this whole thing was so bizarre and he felt vindicated that Potter agreed with him.

Potter shook his head. “Something is going on then. I wasn’t where I was living before. I’m not here either. I guess I didn’t survive.”

Draco frowned, crossing his arms over his chest. “Are you sure you were looking in the right place?” If someone had killed the Boy Who Lived that meant there was no one to stop the Dark Lord. Except for the Potter that was here right now, and Draco didn’t want to spend years here waiting to see if that bastard came back.

“I bloody well know where I was living!” Potter growled at him. “If I wasn’t there then I don’t think I’m alive. The hell is going on?” Potter said and threw his hands in the air. The clock on the shelf ticked at the two of them. Most of the other shelves were bare; Draco didn’t have much else to put on them. Just that clock, which he’d found in one of the cabinets, some ingredients and the few books he’d bought.

“Did you notice that Quirrell isn’t here either?” Potter added. “And there were some missing names at the sorting. I mean besides me and Neville.” Potter was frowning hard as if trying to will things back to the way they should’ve been.

“I did. I have no idea if Quirrell is alive or not. Gregory isn’t here but there was a girl named Black.” Draco leaned on the nearly empty desk. It felt better to have someone else upset about this, it made it easier to calm down.

“Yeah, I saw that, she looks like Sirius. It’s bloody weird.”

Draco thought for a moment. “We might be able to use some of this to our benefit. Isn’t one of the horcruxes here at the school? We can destroy it now.” It was ridiculous to think, he told himself. What was going to happen was just going to happen, wasn’t it? Except things had already gone wrong, things had already changed. If the Dark Lord was gone wouldn’t that be perfect? Wasn’t that what Draco had wanted? A place to hide that was far away from that madman?

“We can’t, we’ll-,” Potter began and cut himself off, looking around the office. “Except it’s too late, isn’t it? Things are already different.”

“Yes.” Draco crossed his arms. “Unless the Room of Requirement doesn’t exist or he didn’t make horcruxes, we should look. We don’t know if he can come back here or if he already has.” He was starting to get stressed again but at least now they didn’t have to worry about changing the timeline. Draco wasn’t familiar with the laws around time travel but he was fairly certain they’d already broken all of them. Possibly twice already and he didn’t care.

“Shit,” Potter sighed and looked down at his feet, shoulders sagging in a defeated way. “Yeah, it makes sense to try and get hold of them.” Potter paused and looked around the office again. “I don’t want to do that again,” he muttered. “But we won’t have a choice.” He frowned and sighed. “Just us coming back couldn’t possibly have changed all this.”

“No, it doesn’t seem likely considering we appeared in random places. What I wondered is if someone else altered things, though they would’ve had to have altered them further back than we traveled. But how did they do it? All the Time Turners were destroyed.” Draco stopped himself. There was no point in useless speculation. Draco wanted a short term goal, something to work towards that didn’t make his mind spin.

Potter blew a long breath of air. “Yeah, this just doesn’t even make sense.”

“That does seem to sum up this situation,” Draco said and looked over at his desk. It was his desk, wasn’t it? And he was going to be a teacher. He didn’t want to be a teacher. Right now he just wanted to turn into a dragon and curl up under the desk. “Do you have some lessons planned? We are supposed to be teachers.”

“Yeah, I got some. I’m ready for the first day at least. This is going to be strange, teaching here, knowing what we know.” Potter looked at him. “We need to find some time to go to Godric’s Hollow. That’s where my parents were living. Well, at least that’s where they lived before. We can start there,” he said, looking determined.

Draco nodded. He didn’t want to thank Potter but that was the kind of goal he wanted. Nice and simple. He could do this; he’d mastered the animagus transformation hadn’t he? He could handle a little time travel, especially when people weren’t trying to murder him. “There will be weekends. We can see if we can go on one of them, though I suspect we should spend the first few here.” Now was the time to plan and Draco was good at planning. He didn’t want to work with Potter but what choice did he have? Two of them could get twice as much done, provided Potter pulled his weight, and there was safety in numbers.

“Yeah,” Potter nodded. “Yeah, we can find the Room of Requirement,” his lips twisted unhappily. “And we can get a start looking for that damn diadem.”

~~~

The school year started quietly. Draco did enjoy exploring the teacher’s passages, wondering if they were the same back home or if that was one of the things that was different. It was strange to wake up behind the Potions’ classroom instead of in his bed in the Slytherin dorms, but he actually got used to the relative peace and quiet. It was harder getting used to sitting at the head table. Twice he walked into the Great Hall on automatic and almost took a seat at the Slytherin table but stopped himself in time.

He would fall into the routine of the day and almost forget that he wasn’t Cygnus, and then he would wake up in the morning and remember, and start the day uncertain if he’d be able to continue the charade. Some days were easier than others, some days the little changes weren’t as jarring, but some days he was driven almost to distraction by the feeling.

He also unfortunately spent a great deal of time with Potter, though he was managing to remember to call him Evans or James. Potter stumbled over calling him Cygnus but thankfully the one time he’d called him Malfoy in the hallway in front of others the young Draco Malfoy had been there and Potter made a marvelous recovery by reminding him that he still had overdue homework to turn in. The young Malfoy had turned to Draco, presumably for help, but Draco had just told him to make sure he got it done or risk losing house points.

Draco discovered that he didn’t like teaching. Children, himself included, were on the whole tiny brats, and older children were insufferable gits. The worst part was he couldn’t allow them to simmer in their mistakes or make fun of them when they made them, Professor Snape’s behavior aside. It was frowned upon to allow the students to come to injury and then to taunt them. He’d known that from when he was a student but it was very tempting at the best of times.

It was amazing how many ways people could find to incorrectly mix a potion or make a half-made one explode. He got very good at clearing spatters off the ceiling and his students. He had a newfound respect for how quickly Snape had always managed to get around his desk to stop the worst of them and he fully understood now why he allowed the mostly harmless ones to spatter. It also explained Snape’s sour mood. Draco was usually in a foul mood by midday.

Potter didn’t like teaching much either, and occasionally their dinner conversations weren’t centered around which things were different but the interesting ways students could hex each other, or get counter hexes wrong and break Potter’s glasses for the third time that day. Draco’s personal favorite were the sixth years that tried to steal the boggart to hide it in their common room and scare someone. The Hufflepuffs no less. Draco had wanted to give them house points for the effort.

“This was easier when we all had to do it in secret and we all wanted to learn,” Potter grumbled to him after dinner as they walked up to the seventh floor, as they did almost every day to spend some time searching the Room of Requirement for the diadem. It was occasionally tricky to avoid the students but students could be remarkably like muggles in their observation abilities sometimes. They only saw what they wanted to see and they most definitely did not want to see two professors most of the time.

“Classes go well again today?” Draco asked as they went up the long staircases.

“Ugh, shut up, Malfoy,” Potter grumbled and Draco smirked. It was nice when things were the same, it was comforting. The small subtle ways in which things were different gave him a headache, though he wouldn’t call being part Cygni subtle now that he knew about it but it wasn’t a massive visible difference. Granger was still the same know-it-all; she was just a know-it-all in a house full of the bastards. His younger self and Weasley still fought but the bizarre difference was that they only did that when others were around. Draco had come across the two of them a few times having an actual amiable conversation over chocolate frog cards in a hallway. He’d been horrified and had to fight the urge to storm up and separate them.

“Ah, James and Cygnus.”

Draco turned and managed to catch Potter’s sleeve to stop him. Potter still had a hard time responding to “James” or “Evans”, though he had learned to respond to “Professor” reliably.

Dumbledore stood on the fifth floor landing. “Do you both have a moment?”

“Of course, sir,” Potter said as they paused.

Draco wasn’t sure what to make of the headmaster. He was the same sort of same-yet-slightly-different that everyone else was, but there was something else. Draco had always known that Dumbledore was an incredibly powerful wizard. He had been the only person the Dark Lord had seemed to fear. There was just something ever slightly more strange about Dumbledore now and for some reason it made him nervous.

Dumbledore supported both of them completely. There had been some dissent among the school governors about hiring two teachers as young as they were but Dumbledore had spoken for both of them, praising their abilities and saying the students would learn quite a bit from the two of them. Draco wasn’t surprised people might’ve been hesitant. He didn’t know what age Potter had given, but although Draco hadn’t given his real age he hadn’t exaggerated too greatly either, which meant they were still very young to be professors.

It struck Draco as strange that Dumbledore seemed quite so impressed with them. Potter excelled at the Defense Against the Dark Arts and Draco was excellent at both Charms and Potions but they couldn’t have been that much better than any of the other applicants. There was the possibility that no one else had applied, but that didn’t seem all that likely.

Dumbledore walked up to them, smiling broadly and holding two sets of folded parchments. “I just wanted to give you these.” He handed over the parchments, one set to each of them.

“What are they?” Potter asked as they accepted them. Draco looked down at the parcel of papers. They felt like the kind of parchment used for official business, thick and enchanted not to smudge or be erased.

“Your records from your schools. I thought you might want copies since you were missing yours when you arrived.” He looked pleased. “Your teachers have wonderful things to say about you.”

Draco looked from the parchment up to Dumbledore, realized he was staring and dropped his eyes back down to the impossible parchment. He unfolded it and looked down at a bright colorful Beaubatons crest and then underneath that was his assumed name and all his scores. He didn’t recognize all the terms and was glad that his mother had decided to teach him French, so he could read most of it. He’d done very well in potions, very well. Also surprisingly well in Transfiguration, and he was certain he hadn’t actually done that well in Charms in the first place.

What the hell even was this? These records shouldn’t have existed, there was no way they could exist. Draco looked up at Dumbledore, who was still smiling at the two of them. A clock started to chime the hour somewhere nearby and Dumbledore looked up.

“Oh dear, already that time, well, you’ll have to excuse me. Although first I should also say both your classes are coming highly recommended! Yes, you are both doing excellent work. The ministry and the school governors are very impressed. Well done all around.” He smiled again before he turned and went back towards the stairs.

They watched him go before turning to each other. Potter was looking shocked and confused. He stared after Dumbledore again and then back to the papers. Draco turned back to his own, since Potter was still speechless. There was indeed a letter from his Transfiguration teacher, who noted he was quite talented and she was surprised he hadn’t applied for a position in that field. Draco had never seen her name before in his life.

He looked over at Potter’s parchments. Salem Institute of Witchcraft and Wizardry was blazoned across the top of the page. James Evans, it seemed, was excellent at Defense Against Dangerous Creatures and Magics which Draco assumed was the American for DADA. It would figure Potter would be good at that, though these papers still didn’t make any sense. “Did you know you are quite expert in both local and international dangerous creatures?”

Potter shook his head and looked over at Draco’s set of papers. “Yours are in French,” he said helplessly, as if that was just one thing in a long chain of things that was rattling him.

“Yes, because I went to Beaubatons,” Draco said and checked the second page. It was in fact the translation. Good to know he’d read the French correctly; his mother would be pleased. If he saw her again. He pushed the thought firmly out of his head. He was going to see her again.

“You read French?” Potter seemed to be grasping at something that he could make sense of.

“Yes,” Draco said. “I did extremely well in Potions and Transfiguration.”

“Where did you learn French?” he asked, voice still teetering on an uncertain edge.

“My mother,” Draco said and then lowered his voice a bit more. “Do you have any idea where these came from?”

“No,” Potter said. “This can’t even be possible. I’m not a delight to have in class.”

“Clearly your teachers always fawn all over you,” Draco muttered and looked back to where Dumbledore had vanished down a corridor.

“I’m not a delight in America,” Potter said. “I’ve never been- how the bloody-” He flipped the pages and scanned over a letter. “How did he-” Potter looked at him, eyes still wide behind his bent glasses. “It’s like he’s covering for us.” Potter folded the parchments and jammed them into his pocket.

Draco frowned, folded his own parchments carefully and put them away. It wasn’t possible for Dumbledore to have written to the schools and obtained their records or letters from their teachers. Their scores wouldn’t exist and there would be no record of them attending those schools.

He started walking again, forcing Potter to follow him. Soon they were pacing back and forth in the hallway to get the Room of Requirement to open. Draco had spent far too much miserable time in this room already. Why couldn’t that damn thing be somewhere else? Irritably he turned his thoughts back to the more important question.

Since those records didn’t exist someone would’ve had to have fabricated all of them, including the teachers’ letters. Did Beaubatons and the Salem Institute now have files for Cygnus Lefevre and James Evans? Had Dumbledore done that? It would be a lot of trouble even for him; too much trouble for a pair of strangers.

“He can’t know who we really are, can he?” Draco said. If Dumbledore knew who they were it might make some sense for him to do this for them. Maybe he somehow knew that they had had some magical accident and was trying to help them fit in. But surely it was impossible for him to know who they were, since it seemed that Harry Potter was dead and Draco Malfoy was part Cygni. He couldn’t know.

That left them at the question of why he would do this. What reason would Dumbledore possibly have to go through all the trouble of procuring false records on their behalf?

“I wonder if somehow those people actually exist,” Potter said they entered. They stared at the stacks of things that littered the room as the doors closed behind them.

“I doubt it very much,” Draco said. Was that possible? Could there actually be a James Evans and Cygnus Lefevre? That explanation would be far too convenient to be true. He glared at a stack of books almost taller than himself. It was more questions without any answers. He wanted some damn answers.

Potter sighed. “We should talk to him about this. He knows something.”

Draco nodded as he pulled out the parchment they had been making notes on about their progress in the Room. He would like some time to think about his questions for the headmaster and to make certain they both had their stories straight. “We should make certain we’re prepared.”

“Tomorrow morning if we can.” Potter glanced over at the parchment in Draco’s hand. “How the hell did we find that thing in under an hour last time?” he grumbled and started forward, clearly throwing himself at a task that made sense.

Chapter Text

They attempted to find Dumbledore to speak with him but no matter when they went the headmaster was nowhere to be found. When they tried to catch him after meals students would approach them, or other teachers, or Dumbledore would just turn the corner just ahead of them and be gone. Draco started to wonder if the headmaster was purposely avoiding them. Eventually they had to give up, though Potter was still determined to try.

Draco wondered if Dumbledore didn’t want to be found for some reason but he dismissed the idea. The headmaster was well known for being wherever he wanted to be and nowhere else. They would be able to speak with him eventually. Draco knew that Potter would track him down eventually, he was annoyingly persistent like that.

~~~

Draco was sitting in his office, checking potions from class. This was probably worse than teaching. Could no one make a simple boil potion anymore? He set another bottle to the side and marked his parchment with a sigh. That color shouldn’t have even been possible with the ingredients he’d provided.

“Ma-damnit, Cygnus, do you have a moment?”

Draco smirked and looked up. Potter was standing just inside the doorway with a book under his arm. “Of course, Mr. Evans, what can I do for you? Have you found the headmaster?” He was actually growing to enjoy that little verbal tic of Potter’s.

Potter glared at him as walked up to the desk. “No. I was up in the library, looking up time travel.” He looked over the rows of potion bottles on Draco’s desk. Draco couldn’t help but notice his eyes lingering on the strange colored one.

Draco waved his wand at the other chair. It tottered over and hopped up behind Potter who threw himself into it. “What did you find?” He cleared a space on his desk, marking his place and carefully putting the potions aside. He was hopeful, perhaps they could go home though he was torn on if he wanted too. On the one hand back to a place he understood, on the other hand, the Dark Lord. Then on a third point he wouldn’t have to grade potions anymore. He folded his hands to look at Potter.

“So far, just one thing,” he sighed as he put the book down. He tapped the book with his wand, setting the pages to turning. “So, most travel is done with only hours. You can actually go further but it’s really dangerous. Time travel as far as we’ve gone, not a lot about it.”

“Unsurprising,” Draco muttered as Potter found his place in the book and flipped it around so Draco could read it. He scanned down the page, eyes flickering over the many lines of text, uneasy feeling growing.

“I did find something called ‘sideways turning’,” Potter waved as the picture on the page started spinning. It looked like a time turner but instead of an hourglass at the center it was two threads that wound around each other.

Draco read the paragraph next to the diagram. “Instead of going back in time the spell caster goes sideways and back into another timeline.” That was very intriguing and a little bit strange but many spells had strange effects. The thought also made his stomach twist with instant recognition.

“That sounds like what happened to us,” Potter said, sounding just a little excited. He’d probably gone through a great many books to arrive at this one and he was clearly pleased with his discovery.

It did sound like what happened to them, uncomfortably like what had happened. It fit with everything else. The subtle differences and feeling as if he didn’t belong. This made perfect sense, especially considering if someone had changed the past they should’ve vanished. And he didn’t really like it. If they were in another timeline they didn’t need to worry about changing anything but on the other hand how could they even get back.

“This must be what happened. Otherwise, if the past was changed we shouldn’t be here.” Draco said.

Potter looked at him and nodded. “If my younger self is dead, I should be too. So this has to be what happened.”

Draco nodded. “And I should just not be here.” He looked down at the book as he started to feel the color draining out of his face at the thought. If they had gone sideways it did explain why certain things were different. It made him wonder though what had become of his mother. Where was Narcissa Black? Had she married someone else?

If that were the case though there was actually very little point in trying to befriend Draco. Things were going to go differently here anyway. There was actually no way to know what was going to happen, especially since so many things were drastically different. It would explain a great deal and Draco wasn’t certain he liked it better.

Potter rubbed his hands over his face and relaxed in the chair, sliding down a bit. “Things that are the same only slightly different, sometimes impossible to distinguish from the correct timeline. It sounds like it can happen using a regular time turner too, like on accident or at least the book says so later, something goes wrong and you go sideways instead of back.” He tapped a finger against the arm of the chair and then looked up at the ceiling, considering.

“We didn’t have Time Turners,” Draco said. That was the one thing that made it seem like this couldn’t have been the explanation. Neither of them had a Time Turner.

“Yeah, I know,” Potter grumbled. “I still don’t know how this happened.”

“Does it say how to get back?” Draco asked as he turned the page. He was afraid to know and could feel his nerves starting again. What if they could never go back? It wouldn’t be bad to be stuck here, there was no war going on, no Dark Lord, but the nagging feeling of not belonging was probably going to reach a breaking point. He also would rather like to see his own family again someday. The Malfoys here were not a proper substitute.

“You need your turner, at least according to this book, but it’s something.” Potter said emphatically and waved one hand.

“It’s a place to start,” Draco agreed. He looked up as the classroom door opened and Potter leaned over the arm of the chair to peer around. Young Draco peered around the door, his long hair strangely disheveled and Draco wondered if he’d just come from flying practice.

“Professor?” Young Draco whimpered like he was in pain. His pale hands clung to the door as he leaned in, searching for him.

“Yes, Mr. Malfoy?” Draco leapt to his feet and came around the desk. Potter was on his feet too and following Draco out of his office.

Young Draco moved slowly around the edge of the door, creeping into the classroom. He looked up as they approached and wrapped his thin arms around his chest. He looked up at Draco, glancing back at Potter, eyes afraid and Draco was suddenly afraid himself. What had happened? Had he fallen from his broom or been in a fight and been hexed? Young Draco heaved as if he would retch. Draco rushed forward.

“What is it? Are you in pain?” Draco reached him and knelt down. He waved his wand to cancel a hex but the spell faded without doing anything. The boy hadn’t been hexed or cursed. Draco took a deep breath to stay calm as his mind ran through the possibilities. He could think of half a dozen joke potions slipped into a drink that might cause stomach upset. He started to half turn to tell Potter to bring him a potion.

Young Draco opened his mouth, his face sweating and very pale. He made a strange hoarse sound as if his throat hurt and then changed. His body contorted and started to grow a kind of gray down. Before Draco could react there was a grey cygnet on the ground in front of him, half feathered and flapping its wings weakly.

Frozen, Draco stared for a moment at the cat-sized chick and then leaned down and scooped him up gently, uncertain of what to do. “Mr. Evans, could you please go get Minerva?” He was proud of how calmly he said that. The cygnet in his arms made a sad, hoarse noise.

“Yeah,” Potter gave the cygnet a wide eyed stare as he darted for the door and Draco carried the cygnet into his office. He conjured a blanket on the desk after moving aside the books and the potions with another wave of his wand. Young Draco flapped weakly as he was set down in the center of the blanket.

“Mr. Malfoy, do you hurt?” Draco asked trying to hold his voice steady. The cygnet flapped frantically sending the parchments flying. Draco waved his wand to catch the potions before they fell and transferred the whole lot to the floor. He left the parchments where they fell, he could gather them up in a moment.

“Mr. Malfoy, please try to remain calm.” Draco wasn’t sure for whose benefit he actually said that. “Please raise your left wing if you are in pain and your right wing if you are not. If you cannot raise your wings and are in pain, please attempt to make a sound.” The cygnet looked at him, head twitching from side to side as he tried to keep him in view. Eventually the right wing lifted slowly and unsteadily into the air.

“Good,” Draco said trying not to be overly or too visibly relieved. “Just attempt to remain calm.” Young Draco was fluffy with patchy down and new feathers. He looked a bit ill and every time he flapped his wings more down flew into the air. This was the transformation that Svana had wanted him to watch out for and he had no idea what to do.

He still was unsure about Svana Malfoy in general. She’d been very pleasant to him and had no doubt asked Lucius to write the letter of recommendation but she wasn’t his mother and felt like an imposter. It was the conflict of the two in his mind and he settled on very much not wanting to annoy her since if she was annoyed there was no doubt his father would be annoyed. He swallowed rising panic as the cygnet flapped again and made a hoarse hissing noise.

It didn’t take that long for Potter to return with Minerva but it felt like an eternity. She strode through the classroom and into Draco’s office looking quite calm and actually a bit excited. The cygnet made the hoarse sound when he saw her and flapped his wings again. Down and tiny feathers whirled into the air. If his father had to marry someone with beast-blood couldn’t he have married something that didn’t have feathers?

“Oh, yes, congratulations, Mr. Malfoy,” she said with a wide smile. “I imagine it feels very strange. Hold still for a moment if you please.” She waved her wand and a silver light floated down around young Draco. He made several hissing noises and watched the light, twisting his head this way and that.

“There might be a pulled muscle or two but he seems fine,” she said when the spell had finished. “No need to rush him down to the hospital wing. Would you like to see Madame Pomphrey, Mr. Malfoy?”

In response the cygnet tried to fly off Draco’s desk. Draco caught him as he jumped into the air and then started to fall in a cloud of down and frantically flapping wings. He was briefly buffeted by surprisingly powerful wings before the cygnet stopped moving and looked a bit sheepish, tilting his head to look up at him. Young Draco hissed and made that strange hoarse noise as the wings started to flap again.

“Please refrain,” Draco said. Draco hadn’t heard many swans and wondered if that was their usual call. He also wondered if he should dock house points for language. The cygnet tried to fold its wings carefully, leaving bits of down stuck to the front of Draco’s robes. Potter made a noise that sounded like he was choking back a laugh and Draco glared at him.

“My goodness, Mr. Malfoy,” Minerva frowned and put her hands on her hips. “I assure you that Madame Pomphrey has quite forgiven you for the whistling pumpkin juice incident. You’re not injured by your transformation so you don’t have to go until you change back. Once you do, however, straight to the hospital wing for a look over, do you understand?” The cygnet dropped its head and made the hoarse hissing noise. She nodded. “Professor, do you mind watching him until he changes back? I’m not sure I want him back to his dorm just yet. The other students wouldn’t hurt him of course but the excitement might be too much and he might hurt himself trying to fly. You’ll need more feathers before you do that, dear,” she told the cygnet. The cygnet started to flap, remembered that he was still being held and paused, wings pressing into Draco’s chest.

Draco set the cygnet down on the desk again and dusted off the front of his robes. “No, of course not. How long should I expect before Mr. Malfoy changes back?” This was certainly not what he’d expected although he realized as he looked at the gray cygnet he hadn’t really had any idea of what to expect. He was relieved that the young Draco was fine but still a bit dizzy at the whole idea of the thing. Why was it perfectly fine for a student to wander into your office and then transform? Especially a first year. His head was starting to hurt.

“No more than a few hours, the first transformation usually doesn’t last long,” she said smiling down at the cygnet. “Your mother is going to be pleased, Mr. Malfoy, you should write to her tomorrow.” She brushed some of the floating down off her own robes.

“Thank you for coming, Minerva,” Draco said, relieved that young Draco was ok and also flattered that he had come to him for help. It was startling that this was a normal thing that just happened and teachers expected and were pleased about. It was more proof for the sideways slip theory but no one was going to believe him if he got back. He could already see his mother’s pleasant smile as she suggested he perhaps stop drinking the pumpkin juice on the train.

“Oh of course. The first transformation is the hardest. He’ll be able to control it by next year I should think. You’ll have to pay more attention in Transfiguration class, Mr. Malfoy.” She said and the cygnet drooped again making a tiny hoarse croak. “Very exciting,” Minerva smiled at them all. “Thank you for looking after him, Professor.”

“My pleasure,” Draco said trying to sound excited. Minerva nodded at them, encouraged young Draco to try and get some sleep, and then walked back out of the office.

Potter looked at him as she left and then looked over at the cygnet. “I’ll go back up to the library and let you know if I find anything else,” he said slowly as if uncertain how to talk while there was a baby swan sitting on Draco’s desk looking at him.

“Yes, thank you. Mr. Malfoy, I’m going to move you off my desk so I can finish some work.” The cygnet flapped his wings and tumbled off the desk and waddled across the floor and then flapped frantically to get into the chair. It was comical and Potter scuttled out probably so he wouldn’t laugh.

Draco picked up the potions, waved his wand to retrieve all the scattered parchments and sat back down at his desk. Young Draco sat in the chair for a while, craning his head to look around the office. He got bored after a while though and he started flapping, trying to climb up the chair and twice attempted to fly by reaching the top of the back and then jumping off. Both times he landed in a heap on the floor that required Draco to get up and put him back in the chair. The first time had frightened him since he hadn’t been looking and just heard the thump. He’d started up to see the cygnet looking confused on the floor. He’d calmed his heart rate, picked the cygnet back up and settled him in the chair. The second time he’d cautioned him, repeating what Minerva had told him, that he’d have to wait for his feathers to come in before he tried flying.

There was down all over his desk and he could see a great deal of it scattered across the floor. He waved his wand at some making it vanish. Did all young cygnets molt this much? This was hardly dignified. There was another thump as the young Malfoy hit the floor again. Why had he agreed to become a teacher?

Draco had just finished the last potion when he heard another heavy thump. He sighed and rubbed his forehead. No doubt the little swan had tried to fly again. He looked up to see young Draco sprawled across the chair looking startled.

“Ah, Mr. Malfoy,” Draco said relieved to finally see him changed back. “How do you feel?”

Young Draco looked at him, wide-eyed, hair sticking up at odd angles and bits of gray down still stuck to his arms, though those patches were quickly fading. “A little dizzy, sir,” he said weakly.

“Why don’t we go down to the hospital wing and I’ll take you back to your dorm, since it is after curfew.” He stood up as he set his quill in his holder. That had been quite enough excitement for the night.

“Why am I all patchy?” he said as he stood up, tottering in an alarming way. Draco came around the desk and caught him by the shoulder. He hoped that Minerva hadn’t been wrong in her assessment that the young Draco was fine.

“Because you are only eleven. I’m sure your feathers will come in in a few years.” Draco was certain that was the strangest thing he’d ever said.

Young Draco pouted as he flailed his arms in an effort to steady himself and ended up grabbing onto Draco’s robe. “I look like a plucked turkey!”

“I assure you that you do not,” Draco said as he helped the young man stand and then steered him out of the classroom and down the hallway. It was an interesting walk since young Draco seemed to be having a hard time keeping his feet.

“Are you dizzy?” Draco asked as kept a firm hand on the boy’s shoulder as he tottered down another hallway.

“Little,” Young Draco murmured as he flailed his arms again. “I feel like I’m upside down.”

“You are in fact, right side up,” Draco said with a frown. He wished now that he’d thought to do some research into this. If it was such a common and known thing surely there would be books on the subject.

“It feels weird not have wings anymore,” he muttered as he flailed his arms again. Draco could see now that he was trying to use nonexistent wings to steady himself. He stumbled again and Draco caught him under the arms, pushing him back to his feet.

“That feeling will pass,” Draco said. He recalled how strange it had felt to transform back into a human after mastering the animagus transformation for the first time. It had taken him a few moments to adjust to not having a tail and walking upright. It was probably the same thing. Only with more down. Thank goodness his animagus form wasn’t something that molted.

Madam Pomphrey looked young Draco over and declared him just fine, gave him a potion for muscle strain and another to help with the dizziness. He made quite the face as he drank them but Madame Pomphrey was the same as always and simply crossed her arms and told him to hurry up because it wasn’t going to taste better for his delaying. Young Draco swallowed the rest of it with a terrific face.

“There now, off to bed with you,” she said. Young Draco hopped off the bed and started towards the door. It appeared that the night had been a bit too exciting and on his way out the door young Draco dropped to the floor with a startled cry. Draco only just managed to catch him and not panic.

“Still a bit wobbly on the feet,” Pomphrey said calmly as she came over. She waved her wand and watched the spell. “You’re still fine, Mr. Malfoy, a good night’s sleep will have you set for class tomorrow. Could you carry him, Cygnus? He should be fine by morning.”

Draco picked him up, ready as always to discover that children were heavier than they looked. Instead, young Draco was light enough that Draco wondered if Madame Pomphrey had cast a charm on him but when he turned she was already vanishing back into her office.

“Horrible half cooked goose,” young Draco mumbled with a yawn and rested his head on Draco’s shoulder

“No, just a young swan,” Draco said doing his very best not to start feeling paternal. He couldn’t honestly imagine Snape carrying anyone through the halls.

“Mother doesn’t look like that!” he whined in Draco’s ear. It was nearly enough to make the paternal feelings vanish.

“Your mother is a full grown swan and you’ll look as she does in a few years,” he said as he carried him back down to the Slytherin dorms and turned him over to the concerned Prefect who carried him down the hall to the first year rooms.

He met Potter, who had several new books under his arm, on his way back to his office. He called out to Draco, only just managing to use the right name as he hurried to catch up to him in the hall. Draco forced himself to pause until he caught up.

“Did you find anything new?” Draco asked as Potter slowed to walk next to him. He didn’t want to talk about cygnets. That had been probably the strangest few hours of his life.

“A few things, not sure if it’s anything new. I keep thinking this library has more books in it.”

“It might, I suspect when we get back you can ask Granger,” Draco said. The corridors were empty since it was past curfew. It did behoove one to pay attention though since students could always be found lingering where they shouldn’t be.

“I don’t think she’s read them all.” Potter gave a tiny laugh. “How is uh, Draco?”

“Poppy says he’s fine. He was disorientated from the transformation. It is difficult to adjust to having your entire center of gravity change and then change again. He should be in classes tomorrow.” Draco said.

Potter nodded at him. “I guess that makes sense.” He looked as if he wanted to say something else but didn’t and Draco didn’t pursue it. “You know, I know you told me that Draco was Cygni,” he said as they went back through the potion’s classroom.

“It was a shock,” Draco agreed. “He looked terrified.” Had it been terrifying? Becoming an animagus had taken months of study so he’d been attempting to change on purpose but what was it like to simply change without warning?

“Yeah, he did,” Potter agreed and then paused as they passed through the door and back into Draco’s office. “He looked like he’d been hit with a boils hex.”

Draco bristled. “His feathers are just starting to come in. So he appears to be molting. He does not look like he got hit with a boils hex!” Draco felt a bit strange defending the young Malfoy who wasn’t even him. He had looked a bit like a falling apart feather pillow, bits of fluff and down everywhere. He was sure he still had bits still stuck to his robes and he could see some still scattered across his desk. He flicked his wand at them.

“He sort of did,” Potter said, clearly trying not to laugh.

“Shall we discuss what you discovered?” Draco asked coldly.

Potter smiled as he tried not to laugh. “Yeah, yeah, course.” His eyes flicked to Draco’s hair and he raised a hand to point. “You have fluff in your hair,” he said as he covered his mouth with his hand.

~~~

The owls appeared at breakfast, swooping down over the tables as letters, packages, and papers fell like snowflakes into excited, up-stretched hands. One large brown owl flew up to Draco with his paper. He took it and put the coin in the owl’s pouch as he watched the familiar sight. The owl hooted and then hopped onto the back of his chair and took off again. Dumbledore wasn’t at the table, which was unusual. He always asked for the paper when Draco was done with it. Though, Draco noticed if he attempted to ask the headmaster anything else he always had some excuse to hurry away. He collected the papers for whatever reason, getting three from the head table and whatever the students left behind.

Potter arrived as the second wave of owls appeared. He ducked under a massive gray one that was heading for Flitwick bearing a large package. Potter looked tired, his glasses were half broken, and his hair was its usual mess. He slumped up to his chair and threw himself down into it with a groan.

“Good morning, Evans,” Draco said making his voice purposely cheerful as he looked down at his paper. His eyes widened as he read the headline.

“Morning, Ma-Cygnus,” Potter grumbled as he reached for the coffee and then sighed and tapped his glasses with his wand. They mended almost sulkily. He pushed his cup towards the coffee pot as he rubbed his face. “What classes do you have today? It’s Tuesday, isn’t it? I wanted your help with something, if you have time.”

“Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw second years, Gryffindor third years, Ravenclaw seventh years, and Hufflepuff fifth years,” Draco said automatically as he handed the paper to Potter. He didn’t need this right now. He had to take a deep breath to try and quell the rising panic. He reached for his own coffee cup to stop his hands from shaking.

“Yeah, Tuesday,” Potter said, barely glancing at it. “Do you think I can borrow you after lunch-,”

“The headline!” Draco hissed. By Merlin, how could Potter be so obtuse?

Potter took the paper back with a long put upon sigh. “Break in at Gringotts.” He read only half interested at first but as he continued he frowned hard at the paper, his voice growing serious. “It is unknown how the extreme security measures were compromised. Representatives say the only vault affected was a vault belonging to Hogwarts…”

“Do you recall what was in that vault?” Draco asked, praying that he’d misremembered that rumor. That stone was really just a myth wasn’t it? The Dark Lord had dismissed alchemy loudly and often at the Manor. He had called the stone “worthless” compared to other more powerful dark magics. Draco had gotten used to the quiet and the search for the diadem had just become a ritual, something one simply did. The madman couldn’t come back. Please, anything but that.

“He’s got the stone.” Potter looked up at him, eyes gone wide behind his lopsided glasses. “Shit, Hagrid went to move it when he brought me to Diagon Alley…before, whatever. That didn’t happen.”

Draco had been afraid of that. He rested his hand on his arm but the mark didn’t burn. “So he’s going to come back.” Draco said impressed that he’d kept the fear out of his voice. The very thought of the Dark Lord’s return was enough to make him cold and shaky and grateful to be sitting down. He was sure if were standing he would fall.

“No one believed me then and I bet no one will believe us,” Potter said as he read through the rest of the article. “They’re not saying what was taken. I’m not surprised.” He was frowning down at the paper. He looked serious, not frightened or even worried, the bastard.

“They have no reason to say,” Draco said as he looked down the head table. Dumbledore was still not here and Draco imagined he was talking to people about the theft. He sipped his coffee as Flitwick babbled excitedly at McGonagall about his new book of charms. The buzz in the hall was growing louder as the students arrived and more read their papers and started talking about the theft.

“We’re going to have to do something,” Potter said as he handed the paper back. Draco took it to stare at the headline a bit longer. “Godric’s Hollow. We need to go. At least there hasn’t been a breakout…yet.” Potter reached for one of the platters of sausages.

“I’ll talk to the headmaster about getting a weekend,” Draco said as Flitwick passed behind them, still babbling happily. He didn’t want to think about a breakout and so he pointedly stopped thinking about it. He took several breaths and forced his mind back to the present and classes. Safe, comfortable Hogwarts classes. “What did you want my help with? I should have some time.”

“Huh? Oh, right, uh, I just wanted some smoking potions for a lesson. Those brew fast right?” He rubbed his face. “I was hoping that things were different here.”

“Oh they are, just not in the way we want them.” Draco’s voice cracked and Potter looked over at him. He didn’t say anything, which was good because Draco was fairly sure if he had Draco would’ve hexed him. He slowly drank his coffee.

~~~

They went to Godric’s Hollow that weekend. Dumbledore was bothered by the theft but didn’t need them around since they had nothing to do with it, nor could they do much except give statements. Which they did but once the reporter realized the two of them didn’t know anything or wouldn’t say anything she lost interest but not before she took nearly a dozen pictures. Potter flinched away from the camera flashes and glared as they pushed past her to reach the carriages. Draco wondered how she’d gotten on school grounds in the first place.

The town was quiet and they wrapped their cloaks against the coming winter as they hurried through the street to the cemetery. There were only a few people in the streets, muggles by the look. Draco always forgot that Godric’s Hollow wasn’t a purely wizard village.

One man nodded at them as they hurried past and asked them if the weather was cool enough for them. Potter gave a dry response before Draco could and the man laughed and continued on his way. They hurried past the houses along the street and finally to the cemetery.

Draco looked around as they reached the first headstones. Most of the leaves had dropped off the trees leaving the empty branches grasping at the sky giving the whole place an appropriately creepy cemetery appearance, despite the bright sunshine. He walked around the tombstones as Potter headed directly towards one. Draco followed a moment later when he saw the look of pure shock on Potter’s face.

“What is it?” he asked as he turned. His answer was written on the headstone Potter was gaping at.

In loving memory of Severus and Lily Snape and their infant son Harry.

It was a real fight to not let his own jaw drop open. This wasn’t the first real evidence that something that they hadn’t been sent back in time but sideways instead but it felt like the most compelling. Half-Cygni Draco was still a Draco but a world in which Potter was dead?

“Mum married Severus?” Potter said, sounding totally flabbergasted. His eyes were wide and his jaw was slack. “Not Dad…? I mean, Mum and Snape were friends…but…”

Draco eyed the headstone. That’s why a young Potter hadn’t been at the sorting. He’d been killed, but why hadn’t the baby survived like he had before? What had gone so differently?

“I didn’t expect anyone else to be here.” A man’s voice made them both look up. A dark-skinned man with shaggy black hair and glasses who looked very like Potter was frowning at them both. He started when he saw Potter. “Oh!”

“Good afternoon,” Draco said quickly. “Cygnus Lefevre and my fellow professor James Evans.”

“Uh, James Potter, pleased to meet you. James, huh, funny,” he said that in way that said he didn’t find it funny at all. He clearly didn’t like a stranger sharing his name. “Evans you say, oh, you’re here for Lily then I guess.” He frowned again as if he didn’t strictly like the idea. James kept looking at Potter, frowning hard. Sweet Merlin could this day get any weirder?

“Pleased to meet you,” Potter said, still not sounding like he’d recovered from seeing his father that wasn’t actually his father. He was staring back at James looking as if he was only just managed to keep his mouth from hanging open.

“Did you know them?” Draco asked hoping to carry the situation. He knew this feeling all too well but for him it had been the reverse, seeing his not-mother. He wanted to feel smug but couldn’t quite manage it. Potter looked like he wanted to throw himself on the man and embrace him and Draco wasn’t sure James would appreciate that.

James looked down at the tombstone and sighed. “Yeah, poor old Bats.”

“Bats?” Draco and Potter said together. Professor Snape had been compared to a bat several times but Draco would never have thought to call him “bats”. He valued his life a bit more than that.

James laughed. “Yeah, uh, we all were animagi, for Moony, uh, Remus. Remus, sorry. Sev was a bat. Punch you in the nose if you called him Batty, well no, hex you really. He had some mean hexes too.” James sighed and looked over the names before laying his flowers down. “Lily was the best thing that ever happened to the poor bastard. He was a Slytherin you know, probably the only good one in the whole house.” Draco set his teeth together so he wouldn’t say anything. He had a lot of things to say about Gryffindors. Bloody self-righteous bastards.

“Good to meet you, professors you said?” James looked at them again, smiling faintly. It was a look that Draco recognized. His father got that look sometimes when a guest wouldn’t take their cue to leave. He bristled and decided he would say a few things about Gryffindors.

“Yes, at Hogwarts,” Potter said quickly before Draco could take the opening to speak. “We just got the positions this year.”

“Well done, congratulations,” James said. “I don’t think Lily ever mentioned she had a brother, but isn’t her family all…” he waved his hand and frowned.

“Cousin,” Potter interrupted. “My family is from America. Originally.” Draco felt it was an impressive spur of the moment lie. He didn’t think Potter had it in him.

“Oh that explains it then,” James Potter laughed. “Sorry, wouldn’t matter if it were all muggles would it? Muggles lose people just like the rest of us. They must have feelings.”

“Yes, it was good to meet you. Excuse us, good afternoon.” Potter said, smile growing fixed. He caught hold of Draco’s arm and propelled him away from the stone.

James Potter nodded at them with ill-disguised relief. “Good to meet you,” he said as they hurried away. And he was still a self-righteous Gryffindor bastard. Draco was starting to see where Potter got it from.

“Bats?” Draco muttered in disbelief. There was nothing that could make him believe Snape would ever agree to such a nickname.

“Ok, so my dad, Sirius, and Peter Pettigrew all became animagi to help Lupin during his transformation,” Potter whispered, peering over his shoulder once. “I guess for whatever reason they were friends with Snape and he managed it too. Somehow.”

Draco frowned. “I can’t imagine the Professor abiding that nickname.”

“No, me either,” Potter said. “My dad was an utter prat in school. I guess this time…Snape didn’t…” His voice dropped off and he looked over his shoulder again. James Potter had turned back to the tombstone.

“This time James Potter was too much of a prat for your mother to bear, clearly,” Draco noted as they walked out of the cemetery. He didn’t add out loud that James Potter was still a prat and horribly rude as well. “There’s some answers at least. You died when the Dark Lord attacked. Either your mother didn’t shield you or someone else killed you afterwards.”

“Yeah, if Mum was downstairs…shit,” Potter said. “I wonder what killed him then.” They walked towards the town square. “Huh, memorial’s still there though.” Potter pointed at an obelisk that was changing as they approached. “It’s different than I remember; there’s more than just Mum and Dad.”

They walked up to it. It was a group of wizards and witches standing together holding infants. Draco was startled to see a woman that looked like his mother with a baby, Snape with Lily holding baby Harry, and another couple with their child and a man that Draco realized looked like Greg’s father with a final infant. A few fallen leaves dusted their shoulders and the ground near their feet. It was strange to see Snape smiling, Draco wasn’t certain the man knew how to smile.

“‘In the memory of those killed on that bloody night.’” Potter read off the base. “‘To the children lost before their time; Harry Snape, Draco Lucius Malfoy, Neville Longbottom, Gregory Goyle; and their brave parents taken trying to protect their families; Severus and Lily Snape, Narcissa Malfoy, Alice and Frank Longbottom, and Phillip Goyle.’”

“That bloody night,” Draco repeated, sick with the realization that his mother was dead. “He didn’t just go after you.” That’s why his father was married to another woman, he’d remarried, possibly due to family duty. They would need an heir after all. He shook his head and let his hand rest over his eyes for a moment. Grief and confusion quickly gave way to anger, twisting him up and making it hard to breathe for a moment. He forced himself to take a long steady breath of the cold air. His mother wasn’t really dead, not back where he’d started. Unless she was, unless his flight had… He stopped thinking. They had to find their way back. He couldn’t let that happen.

“You died too! That’s what’s happened,” Potter said. “That’s who that woman is! Your dad named his second son Draco too…I guess. Neville and Goyle too. Why? It was just Neville and me in the prophecy.” Potter looked up at the statues, all smiling as they held their children.

Draco shook his head. “We can’t possibly know what the Dark Lord was thinking. Maybe he thought he should kill both you and Neville, just in case, and someone tried to talk him out of it so he took it out on his followers, Goyle, my father, and then went after you both. We don’t know what order it happened.” He paused so his voice wouldn’t crack. The Dark Lord didn’t care at all about his followers and Draco could easily imagine one person pointing out the flaw in a plan and setting the man off. The Dark Lord had killed plenty of his own loyal followers for less. “My father mentioned that the Dark Lord was killed, so either someone managed it or the curse rebounded and killed him and then someone killed whoever it rebounded off of.”

“What the hell happened?” Potter said as he looked at the statue of Lily. “This is all wrong. I know this means we must’ve gone sideways but...why is it so different? What happened?”

“I had noticed,” Draco said, swallowing hard. They were silent for a moment. Since this was a sideways timeline everything was fine back home, he told himself. Everyone he cared about was still alive, for now.

They needed to try and find a way back, which probably meant making or finding a Time Turner. Most likely finding or stealing one from the Ministry, somehow. In the meantime they had to do something about the Dark Lord. Draco was tempted to just ignore the whole thing but the problem was the madman would come for the school and there was no guarantee they would be safe there. If Death Eaters had gotten in once, albeit with Draco’s help, they could do it again. There was also the fact that Potter would never ignore the situation and he would no doubt find a way to drag Draco into it whether he liked it or not. The best thing to do was to be as prepared as possible.

They stood in silence for a several moments before Draco spoke again. “You should go to Ollivander’s and try to buy your wand.” The Dark Lord had been infuriated by Potter’s wand and that was reason enough to try to make sure he had it here.

“Yeah. Hopefully that will be the same.” Potter frowned and shook his head. A cold wind blew across the square, sending dry leaves tumbling. “Do we have time to get to Diagon Alley? Might as well get that done before we go back.”

~~~

It took them a few hours to reach Diagon Alley but they still had enough daylight left. They bought overnight tickets for the Express to Hogsmede and went down to Ollivanders. Ollivander gave Potter a hard look through his glasses.

“Mr. Evans, I see. Accident with the old one?” He was pointing his own wand at the shelves as he regarded the measuring tape that was climbing up Potter’s arm like an inchworm.

“It broke,” Potter said. Draco frowned. That might’ve been true, Draco thought, but you also stole my wand, you speccy git.

“Oh, such a shame, keep the pieces. You must be more careful with your wand.” Ollivander told him and eyed the tape measure as it busily measured Potter’s nose. Draco gave Potter a long knowing look. Potter glared back. “Problem with yours, Mr. Lefevre?” Ollivander asked him.

“No, sir,” Draco said and Ollivander nodded at him. Draco had thought his first wand choosing had been fraught but Ollivander brought out what felt like hundreds of wands. He was starting to be sorry that he’d even suggested this. Hopefully they wouldn’t miss the train. He was going to give Potter hell if they did.

“Eleven inches, holly, with a phoenix tail feather, yes, a special one,” he handed it over. Draco held his breath so he wouldn’t sigh “Finally” dramatically.

Potter flicked it with a smile and it produced half a dozen crimson lights that made Ollivander’s eyes go wide.

“A match, I’d never have thought I’d sell that wand. Hmm, special wand that…” he looked as if he was going to say something else but then just shook his head. “Seven Galleons, if you please. And. And do be careful with that wand, Mr. Evans.”

“That took a long time,” Draco said as he stood up to follow Potter out of the shop. “I thought we might miss our train.”

“I didn’t think it would take that long, I remembered it taking a while. Feels good to have it though.” He paused for a moment. “You know; I sort of thought we’d both just go back before now. Just…I don’t know, whatever happened would reverse. We’ve been here ages.” Potter kicked at the street as they walked.

Draco certainly didn’t want to spend the rest of his life teaching potions and being poor. A teacher’s salary wasn’t impressive, though they could live at the school most of the time. He was also worried about someone finding their way through their assumed identities. Dumbledore had gained them school scores but they hadn’t actually gone to those schools. It seemed shaky, not to mention Dumbledore could out them if he wanted too. Draco didn’t think he would, but it was nerve-wracking to even consider. They didn’t really even belong here; they were both dead.

“I suppose in the meantime we try to figure out if he is coming back and then do something about it. We know a lot more than we did when we were young. We can’t do anything worse by stopping him before he gets started,” Draco said instead of voicing more fear. He wondered if there would be a time in his life when he wasn’t afraid.

“He’s probably coming back,” Potter said, not helping Draco’s twisting stomach. “And things are different so I wonder if what we know is going to help us.”

Draco had considered that, he just hadn’t wanted to say it.

“Malfoy, do you still have your mark?” Potter asked in a very low voice as they made their way out of Diagon Alley and down the road towards the train station.

Draco felt his stomach drop. When had Potter found out about that? The bloody bastard and his damn invisibility cloak. At least he didn’t seem to have that cursed thing here, that was one small blessing at least.

“What do you mean by that?” Draco said carefully.

Potter didn’t seem fazed. “You have a mark. Is it still on your arm, or did it vanish?”

Draco stared and Potter stared back at him, infuriatingly calm. Draco wanted to continue acting like he didn’t know what Potter was talking about, but it was clear that was pointless.

“It’s there,” he said in a low growl.

“Does it hurt at all?” Potter was looking at his arm intently, as if trying to see it through Draco’s sleeve, unfazed by Draco’s glaring and dangerous tone of voice.

“No,” Draco said shortly and shifted his arm to put it under his cloak.

Potter looked up at him, green eyes intent in a way that Draco didn’t like. “It hasn’t panged or anything?”

“No and I have no idea if it will. Things are different here.” Draco was staring straight ahead without really seeing where he was going. “Did he mark his followers here?” he said quickly. It was true, things were different.

Draco had been doing his damndest not to think about the mark ever since he’d noticed the change. He knew the mark turned red and burned when the Dark Lord summoned people. It had burned him on more than one occasion and sometimes it would burn when he was angry. The thing had been dormant since he’d arrived here and he’d been equal parts relieved and cautious about it. On the one hand he wanted it to stay that way, never wanted it to turn red again, but the change did scare him since he didn’t know what it meant. Did it mean the Dark Lord was dead here or did it simply mean his mark wouldn’t react to this Dark Lord because he hadn’t been the one to cast the spell?

Potter looked at him. “Hmmm, that’s true. We don’t know how different that is.”

“Needless to say I couldn’t ask my father if he had one while I was there. I didn’t see it, but he wouldn’t show that to a stranger. Phillip Goyle is dead so we don’t know about him. I didn’t see Vincent at the sorting which means his father probably sent him to Durmstrang.” If he was alive, Draco thought, though they hadn’t seen anything that suggested the Crabbes were dead. Draco had wanted to talk to the people he knew, but they were children and didn’t know him as anything other than a professor. Nott didn’t even seem to like him very much. Nott hadn’t much liked Potions, Draco recalled, though he hadn’t remembered him disliking Snape.

They walked into the station and Draco was grateful that they fell to silence as they headed for the secret wall. It was a moment before they could pass through and onto the platform. The train was waiting and their tickets were checked before they were waved inside. They took one of the compartments. It was two benches with two beds above them, one on each wall. Draco pulled down the shades as Potter shut the door.

“Can I see it?” Potter asked.

Draco glared at him for bringing the mark up again, but Potter just glared back. He wanted to refuse but maybe Potter would have some insight into why it had changed. He put down his briefcase and rolled up his sleeve. The mark was still just a pale scar on his arm.

Potter stared at it. “It’s different. It really hasn’t done anything?”

“As I said before, no, it hasn’t.” He yanked his sleeve back down and sat down on the bench and pulled his briefcase over next to him. It would be nice to get back to the school, even if he did have classes to teach tomorrow. He was starting to enjoy the normalcy of teaching and grading. The normal, quiet, peaceful routine that was empty of dark wizards.

“I was hoping that would give us a clue,” Potter said as he threw himself down on the opposite bench. “We don’t have much else to go on and I’m starting to wonder if the diadem is in the room. He hid it there himself after he made it a horcrux. What if the horcruxes are different here?”

They sat in silence for a long time, contemplating that. Draco didn’t really want to think of all the effort as useless but neither of them actually knew what the hell they were doing. They were grasping at what straws they could think of and they didn’t even know if those straws actually existed. Potter was alternately eyeing the floor of their compartment or the ceiling and staring out the window at the platform.

There was a tap on the door that made them both jump slightly. “Something from the trolley?”

Potter stood up and opened the door. The witch who always pushed the food trolley when they rode the Express for school was standing there smiling as if everything in life was beautiful. “Something to eat?” At least she was the same, Draco thought.

“Do you serve whiskey?” Potter asked with a very heavy sigh.

“Of course!” The witch tapped the cart and a lower shelf opened up. There were two rows of bottles, some whiskey, some brandy, and some wine.

“Oh,” Potter said. “Uh, great.”

“What would you like?” the trolley witch asked brightly.

It had been that sort of day, Draco reflected. It had been that sort of several months actually. He stood up to make his choices. The old witch handed them their drinks, sandwiches, and bid them goodnight.

They sat back down and unfolded the table to set their drinks and food down. Draco looked at the bottle Potter had chosen. They were not full sized, probably a drink or two at best but that was no doubt so no one got terribly drunk and tried to Apparate off the train. Despite having inquired about whiskey Potter had chosen a cider. It was one of the strongest ciders though, the Sphinx’s Riddle. Draco recalled that it was available in Hogsmeade, though Aberforth would never serve it to the students.

Draco had taken a brandy with a name he recognized. He tapped the lid with his wand. It popped off and quickly grew into the proper sized glass. He’d never thought he’d been sitting someplace sharing a drink with Potter. Though they weren’t so much sharing as they were both just sitting in the same location, drinking. They sat drinking in silence until Potter spoke.

“How long have we been here?” He was eying the liquid in his glass as if he was hoping that would clear everything up.

“Three months,” Draco supplied as he took a long drink. It wasn’t bad really, not amazing but very acceptable. He wished there were more of it. Getting totally pissed was starting to sound like a wonderful idea, although he knew it wouldn’t be. What the hell. He knew how to brew a hangover cure. Though he’d have to buy a lot more to get that far.

Potter blew a long breath. “Hell, three months. And we haven’t killed each other.”

Draco raised an eyebrow. “Killing fellow staff is frowned upon.” He didn’t add that he’d had enough of attempted murder.

“I can’t believe we’ve worked this long together and not had a raging row.” Potter looked at him over his drink as if considering and then dismissing the option.

Draco was surprised at that himself. He’d spent a good amount of time seething at the start of the year over the injustice of it all but as time wore on he’d just fallen into a rhythm. Working with Potter was the way to get home so he’d done it. He’d been turning on the Dark Lord in the first place, after all. Even so, he hadn’t planned to go to Potter and his friends since he was pretty sure Weasley would’ve hexed him instead of talking to him.

He took another long sip of his brandy. The worst he’d wanted to do was trip Potter down a flight of stairs after he’d decided to use Imps for one of his classes and some of them had escaped into the dungeons and nearly wrecked Draco’s classroom.

“I am surprised as well,” Draco said. He didn’t even really want to hex Potter at this point, which was a very strange feeling. Maybe it was the brandy.

Potter shook his head and took another drink. “Thanks for your help. With the horcrux hunting, the researching, and with my classes.”

“You’re welcome; please keep any further Imps confined to your classroom. Do you think you can remember to call me Cygnus?” He had grown fond of the misnaming tic, but someone was going to question them on it eventually. Several people had commented on his passing resemblance to young Draco but so far he’d just laughed it off.

“No,” Potter laughed, sounding slightly more relaxed. “I can barely remember to turn around when someone shouts Professor, and it’s a trip to respond to James.”

“You were the one who chose the name.” Draco pointed out as the train finally started forward.

“Yeah, and I probably could’ve stuck with Potter,” he sighed and caught his drink as the train rocked. He reached open and raised the curtain for a moment but it was too dark outside to see anything and he pulled it down again. He rolled his shoulders as if trying to relax.

Draco noticed for the first time how broad those shoulders were. Potter was growing up rather nicely. He blinked and turned away, concentrating on his drink again. He could feel his face getting warm but if Potter said anything he was going to blame the brandy. He was going to blame the brandy for making him notice Potter’s shoulders in the first place.

They fell into silence again. The food trolley went past again though neither of them got up. They finished their drinks and bundled everything up to throw away. They put the table up and Potter stood up, moving the blankets on the bed above his head.

“Hey, Dra-Cygnus?”

“Well done, yes?” Draco eyed the bunk. He wasn’t sure he could sleep on that.

“Can we just shake on actually getting along until we get out of this?”

Draco turned to look at him. Potter was frowning at him, green eyes searching his face. “Just until we get out of this?” Draco wondered at the request, trying not to be caught by those eyes. It wasn’t a bad truce as truces went and they’d really already been doing that.

“Yeah, right back to trying to hex each other when we get back,” Potter said and put his hand out.

Draco was reminded of his offer of friendship in their first year and Potter’s refusal. He was tempted to respond in kind, but he took Potter’s hand and shook it. It was a strange feeling even though they didn’t even smile at each other. This wasn’t about friendship, he reminded himself, just a truce and a temporary one at that. He was going to keep telling himself that he had no interest in Potter until he believed it.

He was just feeling alone here since the two of them were the stuck in this timeline together. He missed his other friends. It had been three months since he could talk to Zabini or Goyle. Talking to Potter just wasn’t the same, despite the fact they’d been managing rather amiable conversation. It was probably just the fact that the thing they had in common now was teaching. Though this handshake was going on just a bit longer than Draco expected.

“Good,” Potter said as he dropped Draco’s hand. “Good night, Mal-Cygnus.”

“Do you have a block on my last name, Evans?” Draco asked as he turned and pulled himself up onto the bunk. “Good night.”

“Do you have a block on my first name, Cygnus?” Potter grumbled. He waved his wand and the lights in their compartment winked out. Draco had been fairly certain he wouldn’t be able to sleep on the train but he imagined the brandy had helped. Between the pleasant warmth and the gentle rocking, he fell asleep surprisingly quickly.

~~~

The conductor woke them the following dawn. They hurried off the train and into Hogsmeade and then finally towards the thestral carriages.

“When did it get so cold?” Potter asked as they climbed into their carriage. Draco was never going to get used to how thestrals looked or how friendly they were. He’d never seen them before, though he’d known they were there. It had been difficult not to start when he’d returned from his shopping before he took up the position and saw the carriage waiting for him.

“When it became winter,” Draco noted as he tucked his hands under his cloak. It was very cold and he sorely wished he had gloves. He’d never noticed just how expensive some things were. Not having money was annoying and he didn’t like it much.

“Is it winter already?” Potter asked as he pulled his cloak more tightly around himself. “I wish I’d let Hermione teach me how to make those fires.”

Draco pulled his watch out of his pocket. “Nearly,” he said, as little snowflakes had begun replacing the autumn leaves in the background.

The sun was rising over the castle as they crested the hill. The pink dawn glittered over the frost hardened ground, making it look like the carriage was riding through a field of sharp, brilliant crystal. The castle stood above it, backlit, a brilliant shadow against the morning.

It was always nice to come back to Hogwarts, Draco reflected, even if it wasn’t right. There was something always warm about the castle. It was like coming home.

Chapter Text

The season drifted towards Christmas. Draco wondered how different the holiday would be this year. He’d never spent the holiday at the school before, other than the one year the Triwizard Tournament was held.

He fell into a sort of melancholy thinking about his family. It wouldn’t do him any good to go “home” since it wasn’t his home. There was a tap on his office door that made him remember he was supposed to be making a lesson plan.

“Yes?” he said as he shook himself out of the thoughts and tried to think of something to quickly scrawl on the empty parchment.

Minvera came into his office with a parchment in hand. “Cygnus, do you want to contribute to the Headmaster’s gift fund? We just get him a big box of sweets every year, much easier.”

“Oh yes, of course,” Draco said and reached into his pocket.

“Wonderful!” She set the parchment down on his desk, allowing him to see what others had given. “Do you have any idea what I could get for James?”

Draco blinked for a moment, caught off guard as he set his coins down. A quill lifted out of McGonagall’s hat and wrote his assumed name and the amount down as she put the coins into a bright red bag.

“I was thinking of something for that hair of his, but I thought that might be rude,” she said as she sat down in the armchair.

“No, please do,” Draco said quickly and she chuckled. He did recall that all the teachers exchanged gifts. He’d heard about it once or twice in passing, Flitwick having a new quill or Sprout showing off a new pair of gloves and admitting it had been a Christmas gift but he hadn’t give it that much thought when he’d been at school. He’d always gone home for the holiday and sent a few gifts to his close friends and his family but hardly worried about anything other than that. Of course since he was a teacher now he would need to have gifts for the exchange. He hadn’t even thought about it before and he quietly started to panic.

“I hate shopping for Sybill. I’m always just tempted to get her a large black dog and be done with it,” Minerva sighed.

Draco laughed. He would’ve rather liked to see that but there would be no peace in the school if that happened. He didn’t much like Trelawny, even when he’d been a student. He’d kept away from the Divination Teacher and she’d kept away from him. He tried to think what he would buy if he wanted to assure he was in her good graces. “A nice tea? For tea leaf reading?”

“That’s a much more peaceful option,” she mused, her eyes wandering over his shelf of potion ingredients, all neatly labeled in glass jars. “And probably what I should do. Ah well, there’s next year for the dog.”

Over the next few days, Draco made a list of the other teacher’s names, made a few polite inquiries around about habits or preferences and took himself to Hogsmeade one weekend. Food, Chocolate, or wine was a fairly safe option for anyone who didn’t have something in mind or who he didn’t know very well. He was left with no idea for Potter.

What did you buy for your worst enemy when you were stuck in some sort of strange time travel accident and working together? Besides extremely strong liquor. Nothing really seemed fit and Draco went back to the school and had almost decided not to get Potter something for Christmas because they were not friends. Except then he found himself sitting at his desk with every catalogue he’d managed to find in the castle, slowly flipping through them looking for a gift.

“I am losing my mind,” he told himself. “I should just go back down to Hogsmeade and buy him a bottle of cider, or see if Aberforth has any of that Sphinx.” He picked up another catalogue to page through it. “I should buy myself a bottle while I’m at it,” he grumbled.

~~~

The following day was gray, as many winter days were. It started to snow gently as Draco stood out with Potter, Minerva, and Madam Hooch looking up at the Quidditch hoops. The charms on them and the charms on the surrounding pitch were starting to fail and they needed to go up and renew them. Draco should’ve known this was something the teachers did but somehow it had never crossed his mind. The sheer number of charms that constantly needed renewing at the school was baffling. He’d lost count of the number of potions he’d brewed for Poppy.

“Thank you all for helping with this,” Hooch said as she handed out the brooms. “The charms are fading fast and the last thing we need is for something to go out during a match. Those kids push them hard enough as it is.”

“I think the charms on the brooms need to be renewed,” Draco murmured as his broom rose shakily into the air. He’d recalled the school brooms being awful and if you wanted to play Quidditch you needed your own. It was part of the reason his father had sent him and the entire team brooms when he’d joined the team. Somehow though, he’d forgotten just how awful they were. They hadn’t been this bad his first year, had they? He was going to need to buy a broom.

“That’s another project,” Hooch sighed. “We need new brooms but it’s never in the budget.”

“I’ll ask again,” Minerva told her as her own broom rose slowly.

“I’m not blaming you, Minerva, brooms are expensive,” Hooch said as she soared easily into the air. Of course, Draco thought with irritation, being the flying instructor she’d already invested in a new broom for herself.

They all rose up into the air, drawing a crowd of interested students who gathered on the pitch below them. A few were taking advantage of the snow to build snow dragons on the wide field, another group seemed to be practicing some spells. Draco half listened to them before he soared out of range. He hoped they didn’t disintegrate the snow dragon or animate it by mistake.

“These things are awful!” Potter said as he drifted past Draco before wrenching the broom around towards the goal hoops. His broom dropped sharply before he managed to pull it back up again.

“Care to make a donation?” Draco said as he pointed his wand at the hoop. The charm on it shimmered and made a popping noise. He frowned and flicked his wand to cast it again. This had sounded easy.

“Sorely tempted. I am going to buy my own broom,” Potter said as he got up to the hoop next to him and pointed his wand at it. A stray spell whizzed past them before Potter had a chance to cast. It barely missed both brooms and soared through the hoop, cracking against the charm.

“Oi! Watch it!” Potter shouted as he whirled on him broom and looked down at the pitch. Hooch turned her broom and soared downwards to the knot of students.

“Now if only they had such good aim during the matches,” Minerva sighed as she went towards the third hoop.

“They probably weren’t aiming for the hoop,” Draco pointed out. Purchasing a broom was starting to look more and more like a good idea. They didn’t have the funds for fast brooms but he supposed he didn’t actually need a Nimbus or a Firebolt. Just something that didn’t feel like it was going to drop him out of the air. His broom trembled, either annoyed at the idea or agreeing with him.

“Then we’ll just have to position the three of us behind the goals, that should work,” she said, laughing a little at the thought.

They finished with the hoops on both ends and started to fly slowly around the edges of the pitch, setting up the wards as they flew. Draco wasn’t paying attention to anything else except keeping his broom aloft, holding the formation, and casting correctly. He didn’t know who shouted “watch out” but he turned his head in time for his broom to be hit with something.

It jerked sharply and then jolted up into the air before snapping in half. He started to fall, stomach twisting with sudden adrenaline and panic. Minerva shouted and the students screamed but in the moment he did the only thing he could think to do. He transformed and flapped frantically to pull out of the fall. He managed to miss slamming into the risers and soared upwards again, over the risers and onto the pitch where he transformed again.

The other three teachers flew down and the students rushed towards him. Draco realized that he had just transformed in front of everyone. He was an unregistered animagus. That was a trip to Azkaban and he didn’t think being a teacher was going to save him.

“Are you ok, Professor?” a Ravenclaw asked him, face red with the cold. He was twisting his hands in his scarf.

“Quite fine, thank you,” Draco said as his heartbeat started to get loud in his ears. He firmly ordered his legs not to start shaking. They didn’t want to listen. He could talk his way out of this, couldn’t he? Potter would help him, he thought as his mind started to spin. They were stuck in this together. It hit him a second later that Potter had no reason to help him; what if Potter thought this whole thing was funny? Potter probably didn’t know that unregistered animagi were sent to Azkaban.

“I’m sorry, Professor!” the Ravenclaw said again. “I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean-,”

“I didn’t know you were an animagus!” one of the others said suddenly and Draco almost jumped. “That’s neat!”

“Lucky!” a third said. “Otherwise he’d be hurt!”

Draco supposed he should reassure the student that he wasn’t hurt but he was still trying to silence his own nerves and think of a good excuse for what had just happened.

“My goodness, Cygnus, are you alright?” Minerva asked as she rushed up to him in a whirl of emerald. “What was that?”

“Ethelbert was practicing object relocation and got it wrong,” one of the students said quickly. If Draco thought he could talk without squeaking he would’ve docked house points.

“I’m sorry!” Ethelbert cried, looking panicked. “I didn’t mean- I came outside so I wouldn’t hurt anything! I’m really, sorry, Professor!” The look that Ethelbert was giving him was almost endearing. Draco did truly believe he was sorry for what had just happened, but Draco was sure if he opened his mouth he would squeak and Malfoys did not squeak. No matter how startled they were.

“Thank you for practicing that outside but may I suggest not on the pitch for now,” Minerva said sternly. “It’s a good thing for you that Professor Lefevre is an animagus that can fly otherwise he would’ve been seriously hurt!”

“Are you sure that was relocation? I wasn’t aware that spell snapped brooms in half,” Hooch said. She had both halves of the broom in her hands.

Ethelbert hung his head. “I’m sorry!”

Minerva nodded, sending some snow fluttering off her hat. “Good, now go on and practice by the lake and try not to relocate the squid if you please.” The group hurried away with Ethelbert looking hangdog. Draco watched them go, starting to feel faint with his own panic. Black spots were starting to dance in front of his eyes. He took a long breath of very cold air and scolded himself. Malfoys did not faint.

“Are you sure that you’re alright, Cygnus? You look pale.” Minerva asked him. She was giving him a stern look, the one usually reserved for students.

“Yes, just startled,” Draco said trying to stare back without quailing. He wondered if she particularly disliked unregistered animagi.

“Yes, it is startling to have one’s broom relocated out from under one, isn’t it? Very lucky that you have wings,” she said brightly as if nothing was wrong with that. “I’ve never seen that kind of dragon before, may I ask the type?”

“Yes, a very lovely little thing,” Hooch agreed and looked at him. She was smiling in an interested fashion. As if a tiny white dragon appearing where a teacher had been was not something to be startled about in the least. The snow started to fall more heavily around them.

“Miniature opalwing, I believe,” Draco said as calmly as he could, proud that his voice wasn’t shaking. Potter looked like he was holding his breath. Draco imagined they were both waiting for the outrage.

“You must show Rubeus,” Minerva said. “He loves dragons. Oh, we should finish these charms.” She turned and looked at the edges of the pitch, covered with a new dusting of glittering snow.

“I think that’s enough for today,” Hooch said quickly and took the brooms back. “We don’t have another match for a week and I’m sure we can all find time before Sunday to come out and finish. We got most of it. I’ll spend some time checking the charms on the brooms between now and then. See if I can’t manage to renew the hex protection, though I suppose that wasn’t a hex exactly.”

“That’d be great!” Potter said, a little too quickly as he turned over his broom. Hooch took them all and started back towards the equipment shed. Draco watched her go, surprised she’d made no remark.

“Yes, well, that probably is enough excitement for today,” Minerva agreed. “Cygnus, would you come up to my sixth year class? I’d love to show them another transformation. I thought I was the only animagus currently at the school. We have Mr. Malfoy and Miss Fitz but those are natural transformations and not the same thing at all. It will be just delightful to have another transformation to show the students.”

They walked off the pitch and back towards the castle. Draco looked over at Potter who looked back and half shrugged. Was she not going to ask if he was registered? Draco started to calm down. Perhaps teachers were allowed this little infraction or perhaps she assumed it was recent. Or perhaps she assumed he was registered.

“But why didn’t you mention it to Albus when you interviewed?” She turned to him as they passed through the doors. Draco almost froze but Potter was behind him and kept him moving forward. The castle was drafty, despite the charms to keep the wind out, but after being outside it felt too warm and the heat went to his face almost at once, spurred on by Minerva’s stare. He kept his feet and managed not to inhale too sharply.

“I wasn’t applying for a Transfiguration position,” Draco said after staring at her for a moment. There wasn’t much else he could say to that; it hadn’t been the question he’d expected. He tried to find some amount of calm again. If she wasn’t going to mention reporting him then he wasn’t going to mention it either.

She nodded as if that were natural. “Yes, it does feel a bit silly when there are all the natural transformations around but it is decidedly a most different thing and does require a good amount of study so it is something to be proud of! A little dragon, I’d never seen something like that! Quite amazing!” She looked at him and then frowned. “Cygnus, you look quite ill and you don’t have a good complexion in the first place. Are you certain we shouldn’t go see Poppy?”

“It’s a very recent thing, the uh transformation,” Potter said quickly stepping up next to him. Draco had never been so grateful to hear his voice.

“Oh I see, not used to it yet, I understand. And to transform in such a situation would be very taxing. Yes, it gets easier with practice though. Feel free to come up to the transfiguration classroom and practice if you like. I’d forgotten how young you are, that’s very impressive.”

“Thank you,” Draco said weakly. His broom had snapped in half in the air and he’d just revealed he was an unregistered animagus. The world started to spin again, the suits of armor tipping oddly. Who knew what the rules were here. They were probably worse.

“We just haven’t had a chance to go down to the ministry,” Potter continued. Draco felt it was an excellent point and the suits of armor righted themselves again. He’d been startled and only recently managed the transformation and the weather was poor and the train hadn’t run. His brain ran through all the possible excuses, lining up the best and most plausible ones. He started to feel just a little better. They could talk their way out of this.

“Go down to the ministry for what?” Minerva asked as she looked between the two of them and frowned at Draco again. It was a concerned frown, but any change of expression out of a pleasant smile was enough to make Draco start panicking again.

“To register,” Potter said quickly, glancing over at him. Draco didn’t turn his head; he was afraid if he moved at all he would stagger and fall.

Minerva stared at Potter as if what he said made no sense. “Register for what, James?”

“D-Cygnus’ transformation?” Potter said. Draco was grateful that Potter looked worried. Harry didn’t want him to go to Azkaban either. That was comforting. It was also a strange thing to think about but Draco was just managing to keep his feet and half his composure. He could think about Potter worrying about him later.

Minerva looked between them and frowned. “Oh my, do they do that in France? How silly, they must have such a hard time keeping up with all the naturals. Do they make them all register, too? Why, they would have miles of parchment! Goodness no, the ministry isn’t going to register you, how silly.” She shook her head as if the whole concept were ridiculous. “Register animagi, when there are probably ten of us in the country! Oh dear, what a thought. Go sit down and have yourself a drink or something, you look like you need it, or at least a sit down. I don’t know if you have any more classes today.” She walked off still shaking her head and muttering about how ridiculous bureaucracy could be.

Draco thought he would actually faint with relief. They didn’t register animagi here? That didn’t make sense but it was the most wonderful thing he’d heard today.

“Thank you,” Draco said as Potter caught his arm and started to steer him down towards the dungeons. How could the Ministry not care about animagi? You could get up to all kinds of things in animal form when no one knew you were really a wizard. Though if marrying magical creatures was in very common and there were more people like Cygni Draco it would be harder to keep track of everyone. There was Rebecca Fitz, a Hufflepuff fifth year, she was part Selkie as Draco recalled though he’d never seen her transform. He was so distracted he failed to notice that he’d just thanked Potter.

“You really do look ghastly,” Potter said as they walked. He actually sounded concerned and kept looking over as he hauled Draco down the long hallways and stairs. Draco wanted to pull his arm away out of habit but he felt unsteady. Which was worse, allowing Potter to support him or falling flat on his face in a hallway?

“Your hair is ghastly,” Draco muttered without any real feeling. It had been a long time since he’d said anything remotely mean to Potter. It didn’t feel as right as it should’ve. He was still trying to get his head around the idea that the Ministry didn’t register animagi.

“You’re getting back to normal, good,” Potter said as they went down and turned the corner towards the potion’s classroom. “I didn’t know you were an animagus.”

The panic started again. There was no reason to tell Potter, it had never even come up. He hadn’t transformed since he’d landed here. Furthermore, Potter wouldn’t care, if he’d cared he would’ve brought it up in front of the other teachers. Draco shouldn’t have cared.

“It was in fact very recent,” Draco said unsteadily as they passed through the classroom and into his office. His mind whirled as he thought of a dozen excuses for why he hadn’t told him, the same way he’d been trying to catalogue the excuses for Minerva.

He didn’t want Harry to be mad at him. Getting Potter mad had always been a fantastically amusing pastime in school, but right now they were trapped in an alternate timeline and there was a very real chance that he wouldn’t be able to get back without Potter. He couldn’t afford to antagonize Potter, but that didn’t explain why the idea distressed him so deeply. His stomach was twisting up and he couldn't even blame the brandy for this, though he rather wished he had some at the moment.

“How recent?” Potter asked after he’d deposited Draco in the arm chair. He didn’t sound angry, just curious.

Draco rubbed his forehead as he considered. Curious was good. “Days before the incident that brought us here,” he said finally. That was about right. He’d almost lost track of how long he’d had that bloody leaf in his mouth and the Dark Lord had started railing downstairs and startled him so badly he’d taken flight and hidden in the canopy of his bed. He would’ve celebrated if it hadn’t taken him almost a half an hour to figure out how to change back.

He told himself that he didn’t care if Harry was mad at him. He told himself twice as he scrubbed his face with his hands trying to soothe his frazzled nerves. Getting one’s broom broken - relocated, whatever - was a trying experience. That’s why he was so frazzled. He was going to keep telling himself that until he believed it. Any moment now.

“Wow, that was recent,” Potter said. He sounded impressed. “You’re not registered…?”

“No, I’m not. I didn’t have time; I wasn’t going to go down to the ministry or let him know I’d mastered it. So yes, I’m an unregistered animagus all around,” Draco said as he finally started to calm and not feel as faint. Why didn’t he have brandy in his office? He could handle Potter being impressed, it was an impressive thing after all.

“We have plenty of other stuff to worry about,” Potter said and Draco gave a little inward sigh of relief. “You’re uh, you’re a cute little dragon though.” It sounded uncertain, like Potter wasn’t sure why he was saying that in the first place.

Draco very much wanted to glare now that he’d calmed down but he didn’t have the energy. “Thank you.” A second later he realized how strange it was to be able to thank Potter so easily. He shook his head again; this whole trying experience was clearly affecting his judgment adversely.

“Minerva’s right, Hagrid would love to see you.”

Draco sighed. He’d rather been avoiding Hagrid. Draco was doing his best to hold back his old habits, since insulting people wasn’t going to help him. It was difficult though and usually he just elected to keep his distance from those he thought he was likely to slip up around. It was mostly just Hagrid and Trelawney.

Minerva would tell Hagrid and then he’d search Draco out before he’d had time to properly prepare himself for meeting the half-giant. Draco had felt he’d done a marvelous job thus far of maintaining his disguise as a pleasant enough Potions teacher. There would have to be sacrifices to maintain the illusion.

“After dinner,” he said weakly and let his head rest in his hands again.

Hagrid was indeed more than delighted to see Draco’s animagus form. He acted as if his birthday had come early and fussed over Draco for almost two hours. He knew at once it was a miniature opal wing and gave them an impromptu lesson in their natural habitat and eating habits, which would’ve been fascinating if Draco had cared. He only let them go when it started to get dark and Potter suggested that they had work to finish grading.

“Thank you for not hexing him when he rambled a bit,” Potter said as they walked back to the castle. He was following along next to Draco’s quickstep impressively well. “I’ve never seen him that excited about something.”

“I was unaware that miniature opalwings eat peaches,” Draco muttered. That had been the most trying two hours of his life. He hadn’t been poked, prodded, and made to promenade so much since he’d been eleven and his mother had taken him around to show people how he good looked in his school robes. How good could an eleven year old even look in plain black? The answer was like an eleven year old in plain black and not very much different from an eleven year old in almost anything else.

“And I bet you don’t care,” Potter said with a small laugh. He had looked like he’d rather enjoyed the whole thing and spent the entire time smiling as Hagrid had recounted all the ways in which miniature opal wings were actually very good for the health of a forest.

“Not one bit,” Draco said as they stepped through the doors into the castle. Students were milling around talking loudly and attempting to block their way. Draco wove around them, half tempted though to simply push through the thickest crowds. He needed to go sit quietly somewhere with no groundskeepers. He’d enjoyed peaches too but now he wasn’t certain he was going to want to eat them ever again. If nothing else he was sure Hagrid would grin at him and he’d be very tempted to throw one. He’d never played Chaser but he had fairly good aim.

~~~

Christmas was actually delightful. There were a handful of students left but mostly it was the teachers and blessedly quiet and peaceful. Christmas morning breakfast was particularly nice. They all brought their gifts to the head table and they were passed around leaving a very pleasant pile on everyone’s plate.

Albus had a substantial selection of chocolate and sweets courtesy of Minerva’s fund collection and he was quite pleased. Draco had mostly bought brandy cordials for people which proved very appreciated, though he'd gotten Hagrid a pair of dragonhide work gloves, which the groundskeeper so appreciated he thanked him twice.

Draco had been pleasantly surprised at his gifts. He’d assumed there wouldn’t be any since the only people giving him gifts would be those looking to have good relations with his family, which in this timeline wasn’t his. He’d forgotten that although he wasn’t Malfoy, he was Lefevre and people seemed to like Lefevre for whatever reason.

There was a quill from Flitwick that inscribed on crystal, for labeling bottles that would be refilled with the same contents, an entire set of Most Potent Potions from Minerva and the Muggle Studies professor, which was most appreciated, since the set he'd gathered had been mostly found in the Room of Hidden Things and was missing three of the volumes. For some reason the room had about one hundred copies of volume four and none of volume two.

Madame Hooch gave him a pair of winter gloves charmed to keep your hands warm and Hagrid gave him a scarf covered with little white dragons. He’d made certain to thank Hagrid though he wasn’t sure what he was going to do with it. Burning it did come to mind but it wasn’t actually terrible, he told himself, and he didn’t have a scarf and it was very cold. It would just have to do until he could get something better.

There was a fine winter cloak from the Malfoys as a thank you for looking after their son during his first transformation. Draco had been surprised by this. He’d sent them a card, as he figured would be appropriate, but he’d not expected a gift. It was welcome though, considering his robe selection was sorely limited and his only cloak ill-suited to the change of weather. Poppy and the music teacher had actually bought him a lined longcoat for which he was also grateful and it was even a passable style. There was also the expected box of chocolate and Trelawney had bought him a small bottle of brandy. He felt that was fair; he’d bought her a bottle of sherry. Sinistra had given him a new watch fob with a dragon on the end. He was just thankful it wasn’t a peach.

The most curious to him was a waistcoat in the Slytherin colors from Dumbledore. Draco sort of wondered at that because Harry got one in the Gryffindor colors and Dumbledore just noted that it "seemed to fit them."

Potter had bought him a briefcase with an extendable charm. It was black leather and did have the Slytherin crest in silver on the front, it reminded him of the one he used at school. He said so as they started breakfast, having moved their gifts aside.

Potter was looking at the gold rimmed glasses Draco had given him. The frames and lenses were promised to be virtually indestructible. Potter tried them on and blinked a few times as the lenses shifted. “Yeah, it was weird seeing you without it.” He carefully moved the sweater Minerva had given him, crimson with a phoenix, onto his pile near his chair. He also had a stack of books, a set of quills, chocolates, two bottles of some liquor or another, and a long, thick, wooly winter cloak in deep crimson that Hagrid had given him.

“Going to get me a uniform next?” Draco asked as the second wave of owls arrived.

“Hah,” Potter said as one of the owls dropped him a newspaper. Draco’s arrived a moment later. “So you can finally sit at the Slytherin table?”

Dumbledore caught his package with a little cry of delight.

“My sister!” he told Minerva. “I hope it's socks.”

The rest of the day was spent opening crackers and then outside where a snowball fight between the students and the teachers took place. Potter took to this challenge with gusto and mercilessly pelted the three Hufflepuffs who’d started it. Draco took his chance near the end to lob a good sized snowball straight at Potter. It made a satisfying splat on the back of his head and Potter whirled on him. Draco then found himself under threat from the same rapid fire snowball pelting as the Hufflepuffs and eventually he transformed and flew up into a tree to get away.

“Hey! No transformations!” Potter called after him, glaring up into the branches. Draco transformed back but had to pull himself up onto another branch to avoid more snowballs. There was a noise above him as Potter threw another snowball. A tabby perched in the branches above him. It padded out onto a branch and gave a little hop, sending a huge pile of snow down onto Potter’s head. He shouted in surprise before digging himself out of the pile. The cat sauntered over to a branch near Draco and Minerva transformed and carefully settled herself next to him laughing.

“Help for a fellow animagus,” Minerva said smugly, looking down. Harry was laughing as he glared up at the two of them.

“No fair, ganging up on me!” Potter shouted.

Draco shook snow out of his hair. The pelting had probably been worth it to plant that snowball on the back of Potter’s head, he thought. “Thank you, Minerva,” he said. “How did you get up here?”

She gave him a pointed look. “Are cats not good at climbing trees in France, Cygnus?”

“No, madam, they’re too busy with bureaucratic nonsense,” he said and she laughed. “Do you need any help to get down?” he added. Below, the Hufflepuffs decided to take the chance with Potter distracted to renew their assault. Potter whirled on them and started throwing snowballs towards their snow fort.

“Oh no,” she said and transformed again. She climbed down and hopped lightly out of the tree. Draco guessed the idea that cats could get up but couldn’t get down didn’t apply to animagi. He jumped out of the tree and considered his options. He could get Potter with another snowball but that would mean he’d come to the aid of Hufflepuff. He picked up a wad of snow, delighted again at how well the gloves worked and kept his hands shielded from the cold snow without melting it. It would go down in history as the only Slytherin/Hufflepuff alliance but it would be a glorious defeat of Gryffindor.

After the snowball fight there was dinner with mulled wine and a recounting of the epic snowball fight that Dumbledore had missed. It made Draco almost forget they were stuck after slipping sideways and backwards in time.

~~~

The following morning though, it was back to research. They headed to the library together. Potter had suggested they go in together on an extra-large box of chocolate for Madam Pince to try and bribe her into liking them more. His hope was that she would actually leave them alone in the restricted section instead of following them around.

They had exhausted all the books available on time travel and Draco had thought to try cross referencing it with Dark Magic to see if there any dark spells that could send people backwards or sideways or both. Since most of the Dark Magic books were in the restricted section it seemed prudent to get as much access to them as they could.

“It doesn’t seem bright to send an enemy backwards,” Potter said after Madame Pince had thanked them both profusely for the chocolates and waved them into the restricted section with a reminder that any books they checked out would be reported to the headmaster, as per school policy, and went back to a massive volume she’d was reading.

“Not backwards, no, but sideways? Your enemy may be gone for good and can’t affect your timeline,” Draco said as they wove their way through the shelves towards the back, the low murmur of the books following them. He spotted one student at a desk near one of the windows but other than that they were the only ones here.

“Other timelines be damned?” Potter said as passed through the magical gate, which shimmered but allowed them through. Two of the chained books perked up as they started to scan over the titles.

“Well yes, why should you care? They aren’t your problem,” Draco said, sparing the books a glance as they rattled their chains. It actually sounded like a perfectly dark wizard thing to do and he was surprised he hadn’t heard about it happening more often. Though most dark wizards Draco knew of weren’t subtle enough for a tactic like that.

“Ugh, that makes more sense than I want to admit,” Potter said. “But even if that’s what happened, it still doesn’t make sense that you’re here.” He had picked up a book and was checking the table of contents, frowning. He had to lay his hand firmly down to stop the book from flipping pages.

Draco knew a few of these books. They had copies at the manor and he’d read them all already. He sighed and picked up the next title that he didn’t recognize. “What do you mean?”

“Voldemort sending me backwards and sideways, sure.”

“Please stop using his name,” Draco said, wincing. He hated the way Potter just threw around that name like it was nothing. Every time he did Draco was certain this would be the time the Dark Lord or Snatchers would appear and start blasting them. He glanced around, trying to settle his nerves.

“I mean it doesn’t make that much sense since he’d rather just kill me. But why you,” Potter continued almost as if Draco hadn’t spoken.

“No, it doesn’t make that much sense. He’d just kill me or have someone else do it, no need to get creative. But we don’t know if it was on purpose. It could be that something that was cast near you and near me caused this effect. Somehow.” He scanned through the table of contents and then flipped to a chapter that looked at least promising. He had to tap the book twice to make it stop trying to close again. It hissed at him until he closed it, flipped it over, and pressed on a small gem embedded in the leather. He was rather pleased with himself for having mastered all the ways to make the books stop snapping closed on your fingers.

“Huh, here’s a spell to force someone to appear at a certain place the next time they Apparate,” Potter said. “That could be nasty. Oh, but you’d have to give the person something. This recommends a ring actually.”

“I wasn’t Apparating, I was flying and no one gave me anything,” Draco said.

“As a dragon?” Potter hadn’t even looked up. He was flipping through pages as he balanced the heavy book carefully with one hand. The book grumbled quietly as if it preferred to be set on tables and not held in the air.

“Yes,” Draco said as he scanned down paragraphs. “Were you Apparating?”

“No. You know, this whole thing would make sense if it had been Dumbledore who did it. What with him covering for us,” Potter said and flipped several more pages before he put the book back on the shelf.

“Have you managed to speak with him yet?” Draco asked, eyes scanning down text. There were a lot of interesting spells but nothing that would’ve created the effect that led to the two of them being here.

“No, it’s impossible. I’ve been trying ever since we talked about it. But he always vanishes before I get a chance or someone else is talking to him already,” Potter said as he opened a new book. It screeched at him and Potter slammed it closed. Draco reached over and took the book from him, looking over both covers. He rubbed it between a pair of tiny eyes under the title. They closed and the book huffed. Draco handed it back. Potter eyed it dubiously as he took it. “Honestly, what’s he going to tell me? He might not know anything and I’ll sound insane.”

“You sound that way all on your own,” Draco said absently. He picked up another book and opened the table of contents. It tried to bite him twice until he tapped it with his wand. It grumbled at him until he pressed firmly on one corner of the cover. It gave one last growl and stopped struggling.

“Careful, Malfoy, that wasn’t up to your usual standard of venom at all,” Potter said, looking over as he reached for a new book.

Draco ignored him and picked up another book. This chapter looked promising. It was spells for travel and trapping portkeys. He read down and raised an eyebrow. Or just petty, trapping a portkey to change the color of someone’s hair? That wasn’t even dark magic, just stupid. He turned the page to the next spell. This one was about making a portkey drop someone almost two hundred feet in the air, that was a bit better.

“I really just want to know why this whole thing happened.” Potter glared at the shelf as he put the book back. “Maybe someone else here brought us? But, that doesn’t make sense either. Ugh, nothing makes sense.”

“We should probably focus more on how to get back rather than why. Otherwise we’ll go in circles and not get anywhere,” Draco said.

“Yeah, I ‘spose so,” Potter agreed. He paused as he started to return the book in his hand to the shelf and then laughed. “I just agreed with you.”

“You’ve been doing that,” Draco tried not to smile. “You might want to go see Poppy, make certain you don’t have a fever.”

Potter laughed again and Draco told himself he most certainly did not like the sound. He also did not like the way Potter looked when he smiled like that. Not one bit. Maybe he needed to go see Poppy since he was clearly losing his mind. Potter was still chuckling and Draco found himself hoping he didn’t stop.

“You’ve been agreeing with me too,” Potter pointed out as he turned away from the shelf.

“Clearly we’re both very ill,” Draco said. It was getting harder and harder to keep a straight face. He focused on the shelf while Potter stared at him, clearly trying to hold back another laugh. Draco wanted to walk around to the other side of the shelf before he laughed too but it slipped out in a tiny chuckle. In a moment they were both laughing. They laughed for a few moments, covering their mouths as they tried not to be too loud.

“Not that any of this is actually funny,” Potter said as he calmed down, snickering into his hands. “Merlin, I needed that though.”

“I was going to try to disagree with you, but I won’t,” Draco said as he looked down at the book again. It was grumbling again, clearly having not liked the outburst of laughter.

“Because you’re ill?” Potter said with another little laugh.

Draco raised an eyebrow and put the book back. “Gravely ill. I shall expire at any moment.” Draco tried very hard to remove the smile from his face as Potter kept chuckling but it wasn’t working. He really needed Potter to not stop laughing and that was such a strange feeling.

“Time Travel flu,” Potter said and shook his head. He turned back to the shelves as Draco kept telling himself he did not like the way Potter smiled. He’d believe it eventually.

“You know, I haven’t seen you smile in a while,” Potter said.

Draco just managed to stop himself from starting. Potter had noticed that? Draco had assumed Potter had all the observational qualities of a brick wall. “I haven’t much reason to smile,” Draco said. Being trapped here away from his real family wasn’t much to smile about either but Potter had been right, that laugh had felt good. It had been too long.

Potter frowned and looked away. “I guess that’s true enough.”

“Time Travel flu is no laughing matter after all,” Draco said as he reached for another book. He felt slightly giddy and he had no idea why he wanted to lighten the mood again. It wasn’t because he wanted to see Potter smile again. He was only bothering to joke with Potter because there was no one else. Merlin, it had been too long since he'd had a proper audience.

Potter wasn't rightly a proper audience but he was laughing, and Draco was enjoying that laugh far too much. He wanted to tell himself to stop but it had been so long since he’d laughed or smiled himself and after everything that had happened it felt too good to stop now.

“Right, you’ve got to milk this for all it’s worth, don’t you?”

“If you need me, I’ll be down in the hospital wing,” Draco said as he paged through a book without really seeing the words. “I’ll expect a card.”

“I’m sick too! You should send me a card!” Potter laughed and Draco failed to keep the smile off his face. “Any other symptoms I should be aware of?”

“You mean besides agreeing with me?” Draco asked. He paused as Potter nodded. “Forgetfulness.”

“What am I forgetting?” Potter blinked at him.

“My name, Evans. You have a block on my name,” Draco said as he closed the book and put it back on the shelf. Why did Potter have such an adorable confused look?

“I do not have a block on your name, Cygnus,” he said very slowly, clearly having to think carefully about what he was saying. “You can’t seem to remember my first name.”

Draco raised his eyebrow, mock dubious. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, James, I can remember your name just fine.”

“I’m just...terrible with French,” Potter said.

“Cygnus isn’t French,” Draco said, doing his utmost to keep a grin off his face.

“No but Lefevre is!” Potter said, laughing.

“Well done! You’ve got it! We should celebrate!” Draco said just managing to catch a chuckle and stop it.

Potter rolled his eyes but kept laughing. “We should, this isn’t much of a way to spend the Christmas Holiday.” He let out a long breath and put another book back on the shelf. “Not a lot here on things that would have to do with Time Travel anyway.”

“We can go down to the kitchens and get some mulled cider,” Draco said as he turned back to the shelf to check for any others that looked promising so he could come look at them later.

“That’s a good idea,” Potter said and checked one more title. The book jumped at his face with a snarl. He swatted it and Draco tapped the front with his wand. It settled down with hiss.

“There you go agreeing with me again. It’s tragic, you’re so young.” Draco put his hand over his heart and looked down.

Potter rolled his eyes and laughed again. “You’re so dramatic. Let’s go, we can come back up here later. Maybe the cider will help us think of something.” He put the book back and turned to leave. Draco made a mental note of a title he wanted to look at later before he followed Potter out.

“You think better when you’re drunk? That sounds very Gryffindor,” Draco said as Madam Pince waved at them cheerfully. Either she hadn’t heart the outburst of laughter or she didn’t care. The student that had been there was gone now.

“Dreadfully ill, remember? Might as well get drunk,” Potter said with a grin as he started down the stairs.

“I’m not certain that’s sound judgment,” Draco said. The castle was quiet now that it was the holidays and their voices echoed off the stone.

“Tragic, this Time Travel Flu, isn’t it?” Potter said, smiling widely. “Affecting our judgment like that.”

“Your judgment,” Draco said as they passed out of the tower and down into the main body of the castle.

“You’re coming with me!” Potter said gleefully, turning to him with a too wide smile that forced Draco to smile as well.

“Clearly the illness is taking its toll,” Draco said as dryly as he was able. He had a feeling it didn’t have much weight, since he was grinning so widely.

“Tragic!” Potter agreed with a grin just as wide and they turned to the stairs that would take them down to the kitchens. “Next you’ll be telling me how wonderful I am.”

“Now you’ve gotten delusional,” Draco noted and heaved a dramatic sigh. “The end is soon I fear.”

Chapter Text

Draco stepped outside, pulling his cloak around his shoulders. A cold wind was blowing razor snow around in little whirlwinds. It was the kind of wind that cut right through his clothes and made him grateful for the cloak the Malfoys had given him. He would rather stay next to a fire and drink tea but Hagrid had promised to get him some frozen dindies from the Forbidden Forest since they were blooming now and Draco had to go collect them. He wasn’t looking forward to it since he imagined Hagrid was going to ask him to transform. At least if he was a dragon he couldn’t say anything nasty.

He turned towards the lake when he heard shouting. Many of the students had taken to skating on the lake, taunting the grindylows under the ice. He was just in time to see a red-haired student fly high into the air and come crashing down through the ice of the lake. Laughter erupted from what he could see was a group of Slytherins. Draco rushed towards the lake. It was probably one of the Weasleys and though he didn’t strictly like them the lake was full of things that wanted to eat students and it was freezing. One simply couldn’t allow students to be eaten or drowned, even Snape wouldn’t have allowed it.

There was commotion as someone charged towards the edge of the lake and Draco just saw little Draco jump into the water, transforming into a swan and half paddling, half running with wings outstretched towards the breech. It appeared someone had been weakening the ice with warming spells, either practicing or hoping to send one of the skaters through, and the young gray swan was cutting easily through the thin ice.

Draco reached the edge of the lake just as young Draco hauled Ron Weasley out of the water. He looked unharmed but was wet and shivering. Draco waved his wand to dry the young man off and wrap him in a warm blanket. He waved it a second time to dry young Draco, who was dripping and clearly trying not to shiver, and conjured another blanket that the boy was quick to wrap tightly around himself. Little Granger was standing close and had pushed glass bottles with blue flames flickering inside at the two of them. The flames grew larger inside the jars as she pointed her wand at them. Wands always looked so large in the hands of the first years.

A crimson cloak in the distance, probably Potter, started rushing towards them and Draco wondered how much of the incident he’d seen.

Draco whirled on the three snickering Slytherins once both of the first years were wrapped thoroughly. “Flint! Pucey! Higgs!” he yelled. “Do I need to remind you that tossing students into the lake is forbidden?”

The three looked up at him. They were all smirking, just barely not laughing. “He fell, Professor,” Flint said with a sneer.

“I suggest you practice lying to someone else,” Draco said icily. “Falling students do not fly ten feet into the air before they land. Come with me, we shall go down to the Groundskeeper to discuss detention.” He was pleased with himself for thinking of that. Those little brats could get all his flowers for him since it didn’t matter how badly the dindies were bruised in the picking, being due for grinding anyway, and Hagrid wouldn’t beg him to transform with a group of students in tow. He was brilliant.

“Fifteen points each from Slytherin!” he declared. He didn’t want to but he’d never really liked Flint and Higgs had once thrown a bludger at him during practice. He was aware it hadn’t been this Higgs but still, it was the principle of the thing. He turned back to young Draco, Ron, and Hermione. Draco and Hermione were on either side of Ron rubbing his arms under the blanket. Ron had stopped shivering.

“Are you alright, Mr. Weasley?” he asked as Potter finally reached them.

“Yes, sir,” Ron said. “Draco got me out fast. I think he bit a grindylow!”

“Half-plucked turkey,” Flint muttered under his breath. Little Draco stood up straight, eyes blazing. He was impossibly tall for eleven.

“Ten more points from Slytherin,” Draco declared before the little Draco could speak. “Mr. Flint, I suggest you stop talking. If not for Mr. Malfoy you would have lost a considerable amount more in points and you would be facing possible expulsion. Do I make myself clear?” Little Draco did look a bit like a plucked chicken but Draco wasn’t going to stand by and allow his…not actually younger self to be insulted.

“Yes, sir,” Flint grumbled.

“What’s happened?” Potter asked, as he reached them. His face was flushed from running and Draco did his utmost to not think about how attractive that made him look. Potter also looked annoyingly good in crimson.

“These hooligans were throwing people into the lake,” Draco said. “Professor Evans, can you take Mr. Weasley to the hospital wing for a check. I believe he’s fine but the lake is very cold and he suspects he may have been grabbed by a grindylow.”

Potter nodded and Draco noted he looked just a little startled. “Yeah, come on.” He laid a hand gently on Ron’s shoulder, put his other arm around Draco’s and started walking back towards the castle. Hermione followed behind, fluttering around them like a small black moth next to Potter’s brighter cloak.

Draco turned to the three Slytherins who were looking at the snow at their feet. “Come along then, let us go and discuss what you shall be doing for detention.”

He turned and walked towards the groundskeeper’s hut. They followed him and not a single one tried to hex him, though he imagined they wanted to. None of them liked Hagrid and he was certain Hagrid didn’t like them. Hagrid didn’t like most of the Slytherins on principle though Draco had thought he seemed less antagonistic than he remembered. Draco wondered what had gone differently here to affect that.

“Eh? Professor Cygnus?” Hagrid appeared as they got close. His shoulders were a massive pile of black fur rising above the snowbanks. He was clearing snow away from the paths with his wand sending a massive bunch of it soaring towards one of the mountains he’d created as they approached.

Draco watched him for a moment before he spoke. He couldn’t remember Hagrid having a wand, and hadn’t he been expelled from the school? He thought he remembered his father saying something about the half-giant to that effect. That must not have happened here. Draco hadn’t thought before about the changes as they applied to Hagrid.

“I have some troublemakers for detention, Mr. Hagrid,” Draco said. “I believe you wanted my help collecting the frozen dindies. I have three sets of hands for you to assist with that.”

“Aye,” Hagrid said and looked over at the Slytherins, waving his wand absently at another snowbank. It soared into the air and made itself into half a snow dragon. “Found a right large bunch blooming I did too... What have they done then?”

“They threw a first year into the lake,” Draco said.

Hagrid glared and the dragon remained half completed. Hagrid liked most of the students, but he didn’t bear a lot of natural love for Slytherins, and he cared for all the first years as if they were lost kittens that had been personally delivered to him for safekeeping. And Draco knew that one did not harm Hagrid’s kittens and expect to come out unscathed. No, not kittens, he reflected as he watched Hagrid’s face go dark. Kittens weren’t nearly dangerous enough for Hagrid’s taste; maybe very young manticores. Though manticores were quite intelligent, something he couldn’t say for most of the first years.

“I’ll be seeing the lot of you tonight after dinner then. Don’t make me come collect you myself or you’ll be picking ‘em with your bare hands.” Hagrid’s voice was a deep and dangerous growl, like a full grown dragon. “Thank you, Professor, you’ll have your flowers by morning. Is the little one alright then?” he said in his normal voice, smiling again before he turned back to glare at the three boys who wisely shrank away from the look.

“Thank you, Mr. Hagrid. Yes, Mr. Weasley is fine, just a bit shaken I imagine,” Draco said and nodded at him before turning back and walking back to the castle. The three Slytherins scattered.

Draco went to the hospital ward. Ron had been seated on one of the beds with a mug of steaming liquid. Hermione and young Draco were both still there and they were all talking excitedly to each other. Young Draco also had one of the mugs and Hermione kept telling him to remember to drink it.

“He’s fine,” Potter said when Draco arrived. “Just a bit chilled is all. The grindylow tore his robes but nothing worse than that. Mr. Malfoy said he bit something. He couldn’t see what it was but I think Ron, uh, Mr. Weasley is right about it being a grindylow.” He stood next to Draco for a moment before he leaned in to whisper. “Did Draco really…?”

“Yes,” Draco replied. “He’s already gotten better at mastering the transformation. Yes, he did dive into the lake after him,” he added in a quieter voice. “I admit to being startled though; they aren’t as…”

“Set on being enemies as we were?” Potter finished for him and shook his head.

“I don’t think you look like a half-plucked turkey,” Ron said to Draco, getting up off the bed and handing Madame Pomphrey back his cup. She took it and bustled back towards the back of the wing.

“You’re just a chick!” Hermione added quickly. “Your feathers will probably come in next year. I bet we can look that up.”

“Hermione, not everything is in the library,” Ron said as they started past them. Young Draco was frowning a bit.

“It might be?” young Draco said slowly. “Will you help me look?”

“Of course!” Hermione said cheerfully and took his arm and started to pull him towards the door.

Ron heaved a dramatic sigh. “Yeah, sure.”

Harry and Draco looked at each other, parting as the three hurried past them and back out into the hallway.

“Mr. Weasley is just fine,” Madame Pomphrey said as she came back and crossed the ward. “He got a bit chilled but he shouldn’t catch a cold. You warmed him up very quickly, thank you, Cygnus.”

“Thank you, Poppy,” Draco said. “I assume Mr. Malfoy was uninjured as well?”

“Oh yes, he was fine, the mug was just for safety, since he’s very young and his feathers aren’t fully in yet,” she smiled. “Quite some quick thinking there. I did give him a few points, they told me you deducted for the prank, but his quick actions made sure Mr. Weasley wasn’t injured.”

“Yes, very quick thinking,” Potter agreed.

“They’re such good friends,” Poppy said with a smile. Potter and Draco looked at each other again. “It’s so nice to see such good friends in the different houses.”

“Yeah, it’s great,” Potter said a little too quickly.

“Always good to see,” Draco agreed, trying to make sure his tone wasn’t flat. Poppy just smiled.

~~~

They found the diadem the next night. Draco had transformed and landed on top of one of the piles and then slipped on a box. He let out an undignified squeak and slid down the pile again, coming to a halt against a stack of textbooks. He turned back into a human and picked up the box. He wanted to open it just to see what it was before he chucked it across the room. The tarnished silver and sapphire tiara that twinkled up at him was just as Potter had described.

“Evans!” he called. Potter appeared around the corner. “Here!”

Potter rushed up and took the box from him as Draco slid the rest of the way off the pile. “This is great! I can’t believe it took us this long to-” He paused and stared down at it.

“What?” Draco asked as he stood up and dusted his robes. They could finally be done with this damn room. He never wanted to come in here again.

“This isn’t a horcrux,” Potter said. He was staring down at the diadem with a deep frown. “Your dad had one once, the diary; did you ever pick it up?”

Draco recalled the book in question. It had usually been kept in the vault. He remembered that it had felt like other dark artifacts but darker somehow. It had been fun to toy with some of the artifacts they’d had but he’d never really wanted to pick up the book and the one time his father had caught him looking at it he’d been told never to look at it again. He’d obeyed, not out of any real desire to obey his father but because it seemed a very prudent idea since it felt like that book looked back.

“No, but it did feel dark.”

“Yeah, this doesn’t feel dark at all. Here.” Potter handed over the box and Draco took it. He looked down at the diadem and realized that he couldn’t feel what he expected. He hadn’t been paying attention before but now he noticed the absence of the power he should’ve felt. He reached out and touched the silver. Potter was right. It felt powerful and magical but it didn’t feel dark or evil.

“Does that mean he didn’t make them or made different items…shit,” Potter said.

“What’s another one of them?” Draco asked as he snapped the box closed. “We might as well bring this to Dumbledore.” He wasn’t going to have spent months looking for the damn thing for it to come to nothing.

Potter nodded and they started towards the door to the hallway. “Let’s see, the dairy, the diadem, the cup we can’t get, the locket which we won’t be able to get if it’s in the same place. Nagini; we don’t know if she’s around yet, oh and the ring! The ring, I bet we can get the ring! I saw where that one was.”

“So, let’s get the ring and see if it’s a Horcrux,” Draco said as they approached the door, listened for a moment and then exited. The door closed and vanished behind them, smoothing into the wall. Draco hoped he’d never have to go into that place again.

“We’ll need something to destroy it though. I’m not having anything to do with Fiendfyre,” Potter said as they started down towards Dumbledore’s office. “We’ll need Basilisk venom.”

“Isn’t there one of those under the school?” Draco asked, pointedly not thinking about Fiendfyre. That was something else he could do with never seeing again as long as he lived. “You haven’t killed it yet.” He didn’t really want to think about that either. The chamber was closed at the moment, or at least he hoped it was. That creature had terrified him as a child; sure, they said it wouldn’t hurt him because he was a pure-blood, but how would it know? It was just a stupid creature. What if it didn’t care, what if it made a mistake? A deadly mistake. All it had to do to kill you was look at you. Did it just slither around with its eyes closed in case a pure-blood wandered by?

“You’re right!” Potter said. “If Slytherin made the chamber here, at least.”

“That time travel flu is getting to you again, Evans,” Draco said.

Potter rolled his eyes and went on, ignoring the comment. “I guess there’s only one way to find out. Let’s drop the diadem off first and wait a few hours. We don’t want students dropping by.”

Dumbledore was impressed with the return of the diadem and praised them both roundly, calling for McGonagall, who was also impressed they’d managed to find it, and inside the castle no less. It was hours before they got away again, which worked out in their favor. The students were supposed to be in bed, though they had to roust two out of a classroom, deduct house points and shoo them back to their dorms before they were able to get back down to the first floor.

“We need to think about this for a moment,” Draco said as they hurried down the stairs. “We need to figure out how to kill the thing, or just get the venom.”

Potter paused on the landing. “Yeah, if we could knock a fang out of its head that would work or maybe there will be a shed one.”

“The Chamber is closed now, isn’t it?” Draco asked. “And the Serpent is asleep. If you open the door, will it wake up?”

Potter looked at the floor and frowned. “I don’t know. The last time I was down there it was already awake. I think though, you had to say something to it, to wake it up.”

“You think but you’re not sure.” Draco crossed his arms. “We can’t just go down there and wake it up.” He wasn’t enjoying teaching, per se, but he was enjoying the peace and quiet. He didn’t want to shatter that by unleashing a murderous monster on the school.

“It was Riddle who opened it before, so I assume Parseltongue was involved. He commanded the thing before,” Potter said, looking down the stairs. “We need a fang. There’s nothing else except Fiendfyre that will destroy a horcrux.”

Draco was going to assume that Potter was right. The Dark Lord had described them as indestructible, but Potter had been destroying them, including the diary, so he would know how to do it. “We don’t have a rooster and spells bounce off it. How did you kill it before?”

“I stabbed it, but we don’t have the Sword of Gryffindor,” Potter said as he turned to continue down the stairs. He walked slowly, thinking.

“I don’t think the headmaster would let us borrow that,” Draco said as he followed after him.

“I think the one in his office is fake anyway,” Potter said.

Draco stared at him. Multiple questions immediately rose in his mind but only one made it out of his mouth. “How the hell do you know that, Potter?” he demanded.

Potter gave him an awkward smile. “Eh, long story. Tell you later?”

Draco frowned. This was something he probably actually wanted to know but right now the thought of the Serpent was rather larger in his mind than if the Sword of Gryffindor was real or counterfeit. “Fine, later.”

“Let’s go in as quiet as we can. I won’t try to talk to it or anything. We can see if it’s asleep or awake. We’ll look for a shed fang first,” Potter said.

“And if we don’t find a shed fang?” Draco asked as they started down the hallway. The corridors were all quiet now that the students were supposed to be asleep. He kept a wary eye out for Peeves, thinking that was the last thing they needed.

Potter bit his lip. “We’ll have to kill it, somehow, or knock a fang out of its head. Look, the last time I was twelve; I didn’t know nearly as many spells as I do now. And you’re here. Between the two of us, I’m sure we can do something.”

“Why don’t we look for a shed fang and check if it’s asleep,” Draco said, trying to keep his voice from shaking. He was flattered that Potter thought he could take on a basilisk, but he never wanted to see one. “If it’s awake let’s get out and close the door. We can come back with a rooster or something else.”

“Where are we going to find a rooster?” Potter demanded as they waited in the hall outside Myrtle's bathroom, listening for footsteps.

“I’m sure if we put our minds to it we can make one turn up. Doesn’t Hagrid keep chickens? I’m sure you can ask to borrow one or I can probably transfigure something into a rooster. We just probably shouldn’t go in there thinking we can fight and kill the thing ourselves.” Bloody Gryffindors, he thought, no sense at all!

To Draco’s great relief, Potter nodded. “Yeah, ok. That makes sense. We don’t have a horcrux to destroy yet.”

And they didn’t actually know they were going to find one, Draco realized, but they’d assumed that they would. That was going on the assumption that those things were the same here as they were back home. The Dark Lord had to have made at least one, Draco thought. His quest for immortality probably hadn’t changed, especially since he had stolen the Philosopher's Stone.

Draco followed Potter into the bathroom.

Draco paused as he remembered the last time he’d been in here and he looked around for the ghost. He’d spent a good deal of time here, trying to hide from life. Potter walked up to the sinks, checking the taps.

Draco looked around the bathroom. It looked the same, maybe more used and a bit cleaner, but something was slightly off. It was also very quiet. Strangely quiet. He frowned. Far too quiet. “Evans, do you notice something?”

Potter looked up and looked around. “What?”

“Myrtle’s not here,” Draco said. He would not miss a ghost or feel bad that she wasn’t here. If she wasn’t here it meant she hadn’t died and that wasn’t a bad thing. He did feel her absence though, and kept checking the walls absent-mindedly, waiting for her to drift through. If she had been present, she surely would’ve come at her name, but there was no sound except for a distant wind.

Potter looked around. “Myrtle?” He called to her several times but there was no response. “Come to think of it, they didn’t warn the first years away from the bathroom. I thought that was odd, but considering everything else that happened I just didn’t think about it.”

He looked down at the tap and hissed at it. It made Draco’s stomach twist and it was force of will that kept him from taking several steps back and away from Potter. Parseltongue was something else he could do without hearing for the rest of his life.

An opening appeared, leading to a tunnel for them to descend into, so the chamber most likely still existed. Draco didn’t know if he wanted to be pleased or annoyed. A nice big change could be pleasant. There could be an absence of murderous snake underneath the school.

Potter lit his wand and Draco lit his own a moment later, readying himself and wishing he’d thought to bring a mirror with him or demanded that they just go get a rooster. He contemplated conjuring one or the other as they walked down the long hallway. Would a conjured mirror work on a basilisk?

The floor was damp with water and when the corridor angled down the water grew deeper. He couldn’t see any shed fangs on the ground.

There had been lots of stories about this place and he remembered the terror that crept through even the pure-bloods when the creature had started wandering the halls. It would figure that Potter would somehow manage to kill a basilisk at twelve. But even the idea that Potter had done it once and could probably do it again wasn’t doing anything to ease his fear. They were both going to end up dead, Potter was going to get him killed.

They stood up to their knees in water, wet robes tangling around their legs, when they reached the actual chamber, two large pillars and then a statue of Slytherin at the back. Draco stiffened as Potter took several more slogging steps forward and raised his wand. The light was bright, casting deep shadows.

Something was strange. Draco had expected to hear something or see eyes glinting in the darkness as he drew his last breath. There was a shape in front of them but it wasn’t lying right. It wasn’t coiled. He took a few steps to bring him shoulder to shoulder with Potter.

“It’s dead,” Draco said with a great sigh of relief as his light reached towards the back of the room. He hadn’t been looking forward to trying to run if the creature was awake and it spotted them.

Potter walked forward, his wand-light driving back the shadows. Sure enough the skeleton of the creature hung out of the statue’s mouth. They walked forward slowly, both of them casting their light around the room to search for anything else that might’ve been lurking in the darkness. They reached the massive bones and Potter pointed his wand towards the skull, which looked as if it had been severed from the body.

“Who did this?” Potter wondered as the skull shifted with a flick of his wand so the jaws opened to reveal the massive fangs.

“Who knows. Maybe Riddle didn’t manage to kill anyone the first time. Maybe they killed it then. Maybe it killed him.” Draco found the idea pleasant. The bastard killed by his own blasted heritage.

“We’re not that lucky. He or Quirrell stole the stone.” Potter walked towards the massive skull and pointed his wand at one of the fangs, which shifted but did not fall. He reached into the gaping mouth and pulled. It took several moments but he worked the fang free.

“Anyone could’ve stolen it.” Draco conjured a cloth for him to wrap it in. It would be quite nice if maybe this universe didn’t have a Dark Lord in it, it would make teaching for the rest of his life almost tolerable.

“Can you think of anyone who could break into Gringotts and get back out again without getting caught?” Harry asked as he wrapped the fang very carefully and put it away in his pocket.

“You for one,” Draco said as they hurried out of the chamber, splashing loudly through the water.

“Ok, fine, but I think it’s him.”

When they arrived in the bathroom again, Potter hissed and the opening closed. “I wonder what killed that thing. I mean, good bloody riddance but how would they even do it?”

“All we have are mysteries. Let’s stick with the one we’re currently working on. If we can get rid of him, we’ll have done something and then we can concentrate on getting back without worrying about a war starting,” Draco said. He liked simple plans. Not that it was actually simple. Killing the Dark Lord could never be simple; he had an annoying habit of coming back.

~~~

They’d had a long night and so the following day was particularly trying. Draco was becoming certain that students could smell weakness; on the days he’d rather like a break because he was tired, they decided to be especially difficult. By the time dinner came around Draco was ready to dock house points if a student so much as looked at him. Potter slumped up to the head table, his robes charred but his glasses intact.

“Sweet Merlin, why did I agree to this?” he groaned as he sat down.

“I see you had an excellent day as well, Evans,” Draco muttered and waved his wand at Potter’s smoldering sleeve, putting it out.

“Thanks. Are you busy tonight?” Potter asked as he sat up a bit to reach for one of the platters.

Draco raised an eyebrow as Brighale passed behind them and gave him a knowing look and a smile. “That entirely depends,” he murmured, glaring at her back. She was already whispering something to Sinistra. He wondered what that look had been for.

“I’m going down to Hogsmeade for a drink, you want to come?” Potter hadn’t noticed the exchange. He was poking one of the bowls with the back of his fork to get it to move. It shuffled off the edge of Potter’s plate with a barely audible grumble.

A drink sounded wonderful, Draco reflected, but several drinks would be heaven. “That sounds lovely.”

“It’s been that kind of day,” Potter said.

They went down to the village that evening. The carriage ride was quiet and the Three Broomsticks was crowded as always. Madam Rosmerta called for their drinks as they took a table, and she sent them floating over when they called back. She was standing at the bar with two witches and one wizard having a rather animated conversation.

“I would’ve thought the Hogs Head,” Draco said as he picked up his whiskey.

“I don’t think I want to get pissed,” Harry said as he watched the conversation at the bar. The room was already humming with noise. The rise and fall of all the other conversations made hearing anything difficult. The old wizard standing with Madam Rosmerta was gesticulating rapidly.

“I do,” Draco said as he took a drink.

Harry raised an eyebrow at him over the pewter goblet. “Turning Gryffindor?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Draco muttered. “I don’t need to think at this point. Gryffindors drink to think better, Slytherins drink to relax.”

“Sounds like you had a great day too,” Potter grumbled as he looked at his charred sleeves.

“We were up far too late last night and I had far too many trying classes today,” Draco said as someone at another table roared with laughter. He wanted to turn to glare at them.

“Ugh, you too?” Harry ran his hand over his face. “I swear sometimes I just want to-” he cut himself off and took a drink instead.

Draco raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps let someone stew in a mistake for an extra second?” Harry still looked adorable, even flustered and Draco found himself wondering if there was any time the blighter didn’t look adorable.

“Yeah, let’s say that,” Harry said as he turned to watch someone come in. “You know what I miss? Quidditch. I liked being a Seeker.”

“Take it up again,” Draco shrugged. He didn’t miss Quidditch that much; bludgers were more trouble than they were worth. Flying was much more pleasant when nothing was trying to smash your head in.

“I would if I had time,” Harry said and sat back in his chair.

“I miss flying,” Draco said. “That’s what I miss.” He’d always enjoyed flying, it was one of the reasons he’d taken up Quidditch. Well, that and to show up Potter, who’d been annoyingly good at both things. He hadn’t just gone flying in ages.

“Just flying?” Harry asked. The pub was getting louder now as more people wandered in and filled the tables around them.

“Yes, just flying, haven’t you ever just gone flying?” Draco asked. “It’s very peaceful, above the clouds or out over the ocean. Just you and the wind.” He waved his hand and wondered why he was taking the time to even explain this to Potter.

Potter looked at him, green eyes bright and thoughtful behind the lenses of his glasses. Draco started and took a long drink of whiskey. He needed something to blame for noticing Potter’s eyes in the first place.

“That does sound nice actually,” Potter said. “I do like flying. I just hadn’t thought about it separate from Quidditch.” He leaned on the table and and picked up his goblet again. “I bet we could get to the coast pretty easily from the school.”

“We would need much better brooms,” Draco said.

“You don’t need a broom,” Potter pointed out, and they paused as the conversation at the bar got very loud. The wizard was howling with laughter, face bright red. Draco wondered just what was so funny.

“It’s much faster to fly with a broom, and a lot less tiring,” Draco said. “If you’re talking about going to the coast I’d rather take a broom, thank you, so I had some energy left to enjoy the view.”

“So you’d actually do it? You’d actually fly out to the coast?” Potter said, surprised.

“Yes,” Draco said and looked over. “If I knew I was flying on something that wouldn’t pitch me off into the ocean. Why wouldn’t I, when I just said I enjoyed flying?”

Potter shrugged. “I dunno, mess up your hair or something.” He looked at the top of Draco’s head.

“That’s what combs are for, Evans,” Draco drawled. “I should’ve gotten you one for Christmas, clearly.”

“Mm-hmm, never heard that before.” Potter took another drink. “With my hair, I’m always ready for a flight to the ocean!” he said a moment later with a grin that Draco enjoyed more than he ought to. “If I didn’t have class in the morning I’d buy a broom and go now.”

“The broom shop will be closed by this time,” Draco said, checking his watch. The idea had merit though. It would be a nice flight and not that far if he recalled his maps correctly. “Sounds like it would be pleasant though.”

“Now you’re agreeing with me,” Potter said with a laugh.

“We’d best take our flight before we both expire from this dreadful illness,” Draco said dryly and took another drink. Potter chuckled and Draco found himself smiling despite his best efforts.

“Yeah, let’s do that. Bet I could carry you, if you were a dragon. Then we’d only need one broom,” Potter said as he finished his drink. “Want another?”

“Absolutely,” Draco said and pushed his goblet at Potter while he tried not to thinking about sitting across Potter’s shoulders as a dragon. Potter had nice shoulders, it would probably be a very comfortable ride. Sitting across those shoulders, wrapped around that neck...why, he could probably nuzzle Potter’s chin... He stopped that train of thought abruptly, blushing. He hoped his color would return to normal before Potter got back to the table with their drinks.

Chapter Text

Draco had forgotten about Valentine’s Day.

The day started normally enough. He got out of bed, made a raging fire in the fireplace because it had gone out in the night again and his room was freezing cold. He washed and got dressed while he looked over his lesson plans. Then he headed to the Great Hall, only barely noticing the decorations that were floating in the hallways.

He paused when he passed through the doors into the Great Hall to look at the pink and red sparkles that were floating through the air and the massive bouquets of pink and red flowers decorating all the tables.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Cygnus.” Aurora smiled as she came up behind him in the doorway.

“Oh dear,” Draco said, eyeing the sparkles that were starting to dust his shoulders. Aurora laughed and continued through the hall towards the head table.

“What the? What’s all this?” Potter appeared in the door. “Morning, Cygnus.”

“Good morning, Evans,” Draco said with a sigh. “Valentine’s Day.”

Potter eyed the flowers. “Oh sweet Merlin,” he muttered.

“Ah, James and Cygnus!” They had just started forward when someone called them. They turned to see Dumbledore striding towards them. He was wearing bright red and had a wreath of roses on his hat. “Good morning!”

“Good morning,” Potter replied.

Dumbledore walked up to them, smiling broadly and put his arms around their shoulders. “I just wanted to congratulate you both.”

“Congratulate us, sir?” Potter asked as he spared a glance at Draco. Draco shook his head to indicate he had no idea what this was about either. Congratulate them for not allowing any of the students to get exploded, burned, turned into frogs, or all of the above? Or perhaps congratulate them on surviving this long when the students seemed determined to figure out how make a classroom explode.

The students were starting to arrive and weaving around them like a small tide of black robes. Draco noticed many had added red, white, or pink ribbons or flowers to their usual house colors. As Dumbledore stood there beaming an extremely cheerful Ravenclaw dusted the three of them with little pink ribbons before dancing towards his table.

“You should’ve mentioned it to me when you both interviewed, though you did do it separately,” Dumbledore mused, blue eyes twinkling as he added the pink ribbon to his roses.

“Mentioned what, sir?” Draco dared to ask. Had Dumbledore figured out they’d come through time? Had Potter finally managed to speak with him about this time travel business?

“Why, that the two of you are in a relationship.” Dumbledore grinned at the two of them. “I suppose the students might be jumping to conclusions about seeing you two together all the time but the thought has occurred to more than one teacher as well.” He smiled so broadly that Draco couldn’t do anything except smile weakly back. He glanced over to note that Potter looked poleaxed but also wore a frozen smile.

“It didn’t seem proper,” Potter muttered very slowly as more students started to stumble into breakfast. Draco wondered at that. He had expected Potter to shout or deny it at once. Though, he should’ve loudly denied it too and half his mind was contemplating that a relationship with Mr. Evans would be rather pleasant. He tried to push the thought away but it wouldn’t leave. It settled itself down comfortably, taking up far too much space.

“My dear James,” Dumbledore said, “I suppose I understand your concern but don’t you worry. Neither of you have a single thing to worry about. Not a single thing. Why, love is a beautiful thing, a wonderful thing. You should make sure to nourish it; it will flower beautifully for you one day. And we should celebrate it, especially today.” He patted their shoulders before releasing them and walking towards the head table.

They watched him go before they turned to each other. “I guess that’s what we get spending most nights together while we were looking for that thing,” Potter said slowly as the sparkles began to dust his hair.

“When we get back,” Draco began, not really certain how he was going to end the sentence. The thought about a friendship with Potter had been dancing in front of him for sometime. He’d spent a lot of time appreciating Potter’s good looks. Potter looked very good right now, for example, despite his horrible hair that was getting dusted with pink glitter. Draco plucked one of the pink ribbons off his shoulder.

“Yeah, don’t worry, I’m not saying anything,” Potter said. He was silent for a moment, considering. “It’s good cover at least,” he said carefully and Draco started to wonder. Surely Potter wasn’t thinking the same thing he was?

“I suppose it is,” Draco said, though he didn’t want to admit that Potter was probably right in that respect. People would have far less reason to wonder what they were doing constantly wandering off together if they were believed to be a couple. It was still making him feel unsettled and giddy at the same time.

“I can’t believe the students would say something like that,” Potter said as they started forward towards the table.

“I do. There were always rumors about the teachers,” Draco said. Students would say the exact thing you didn’t want them to. It made perfect sense. If there was an overseeing deity it was most certainly currently laughing itself sick at his expense.

“Yeah, but about us? I mean, we’re-” he broke off to swat at one of the floating sparkles that was shaped like a heart.

“Professors James Evans and Cygnus Lefevre?” Draco said pointedly. “Who do in fact go almost everywhere together when out of class and sit next to each other at the head table? Evans, you do recall that all it took to have rumors about Filius and Minerva was them sitting next to each other once.”

Potter sighed. “Yeah, ok, got it.” They passed a small knot of students that were laughing at the floating flowers.

Dumbledore was still smiling broadly as they took their seats. The owls started to arrive, dropping the usual mail and newspapers but also dozens of red or pink letters or flowers.

Draco picked up his paper just as a little white owl, half dyed pink landed in front of him. It glared as if the dye job was his fault, dropped a little pink envelope on his plate and then flew off again. His assumed name was drawn out in flowery hearts. He eyed it as if it was a howler. Two more colored owls landed shortly after, one was entirely pink and the other red with pink hearts. He looked over and noticed that Potter had a similar pile in front of his plate and was eyeing the most recent owl that had landed. It was a stunning shade of bubblegum pink and dropped a heart shaped box of chocolates.

“Do you want me to check those for love potion?” Draco asked. He had wondered why Poppy had asked him to brew so much of that particular antidote. He figured someone had looked up a recipe for a love potion or just ordered some and was passing it around, probably disguised in pumpkin juice.

Potter looked over at him and opened his mouth and then looked down at the box and then up at the pink and red Great Hall and the students filling it. “Yes, thank you.” He thrust the box at Draco without looking at it.

Draco also got a small box of chocolate with no marked sender and several more anonymous valentines. He suspected one of them was from the Weasley twins since it complimented him on not being a complete prat and said his classes weren’t as boring as Binns’. Draco raised an eyebrow at that; it wasn’t a high bar. Both boxes did turn out just to be normal chocolates, thankfully, though there were plenty of love potion related incidents that day, included one minor fistfight that sent two fifth years to Filch for detention.

Thankfully it seemed the students were more interested in attempting to send each other bizarre singing telegrams and sweets spiked with love potions than they were in the teachers. Despite the small pile of valentines that Draco had received, including one that seemed to be a totally sincere love poem nothing terrible happened. Other than the sixth year Ravenclaws begging him to teach them how to make love potions for the entire class until he started docking points every time someone brought it up.

It was just after dinner when he and Potter headed to the library. The last of the pink sparkles were starting to lose their luster, though the festivities weren’t quite over. One of the little cupid dressed dwarves went charging past them to deliver another singing valentine. He nearly knocked over Filius who was coming around the corner.

“Oh, James and Cygnus, you’re still here!” Filius said looking up at them.

“Where else would we be?” Potter asked as they paused, moving aside on the stairs. They heard the cupid tackle someone and start to sing.

“Why down in Hogsmeade; it’s Valentine’s Day!” he said.

Draco alternately wanted to glare or blush but he settled for a twitchy smile.

“Why would we go down to Hogsmeade? It’s not the weekend,” Potter said and Draco and Filius gave him almost the same look.

Filius shook his head, gestured for Potter to lean down and when he did, he put his arm around Potter’s shoulder and said something to him that Draco didn’t hear. Potter straightened slowly and gave an uncomfortable little laugh. Filius patted him genially on the back and walked away chuckling.

“Are we going to Hogsmeade?” Draco asked with a heavy sigh. He didn’t know if he wanted to go down or not but he did want a drink.

“Does everyone think we’re together?” Potter asked, exasperated.

“I would certainly like a drink now,” Draco said, deciding not to answer the question.

“I’ve just had dating explained to me by Filius,” Potter said as he stared up the stairs after the Charms professor.

“Shall I expect my Valentine on our way down to Hogsmeade?” Draco asked, sugar dripping from his words.

Potter glared at him. “I am going to hex you.”

“Oh, going back on your word?” Draco said with another smile and Potter continued to glower. “I thought we’d already agreed it was going to be impossible to dissuade people?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think the teachers would believe it too,” Potter grumbled.

“Why do you care?” Draco asked. “I’m not pleased with it either but we’re in a different timeline entirely. Eventually we’re going to get back to where we started.”

... Although Draco was starting to wonder if he wanted to go back. It was peaceful here, no one thought badly of him. They didn’t have the proper opinion or respect of him but no one was trying to kill him either. At this point he felt as if it were a fair trade. He could handle a few stupid rumors. A few of the charmed flowers floated down, some landing on him and Potter and a few on the floor.

“Yeah, I guess the question is do we want to go down to Hogsmeade so people will stop asking us or keep on to the library?” Potter looked at him and Draco was suddenly caught by his bright green eyes. He managed to pull free quickly enough that he didn’t pause overlong before he spoke. Damnit, Potter had to be attractive.

“I do want a drink, but I think we should probably continue our research,” Draco said. The Hog’s Head was probably decked out for Valentine’s Day, too. Draco had just about had his fill of pink and red sparkles and the last thing he wanted to do was have too much to drink and accidently admit something.

~~~

“Cygnus, James, do you have a moment?” Minerva McGonagall was standing by the doors to the Great Hall. Draco gave her a cautious look. Valentine’s Day was just over and he was still tense after a day full of knowing looks. As if everyone knew he’d thought about how attractive Harry was.

“Of course!” Potter said brightly as they paused. He was often good about not being concerned about anything or at least looking like he wasn’t. The students around them were hurrying to their classes after lunch. Draco’s class didn’t start for another hour and he thought Potter had a technical free period today. Teacher free periods, though, were rarely free. There was always something to grade, something to prepare, some charm or another to renew, or another potion to brew, usually for Poppy.

“Albus had a wonderful idea to promote some house unity. Did you two play Quidditch in school?”

Draco wasn’t certain what Quidditch would do to promote house unity. It had fairly cemented the house divide as far as he could remember.

“Uh yeah, actually we both played Seeker,” Potter said. Draco wondered if he was as unsure of Minerva’s wide smile as he was. She rarely smiled that broadly.

“Hmm,” she frowned just a little. “We can figure that out.”

“Figure what out?” Draco decided to dare to ask.

“Oh yes, the idea! Albus wants to have a teacher versus student Quidditch game or two and I think it’s a wonderful idea. I’m rounding up positions! Aurora and Robert are going to play Beater and Septima and Rose are our Chasers so far. I played Keeper for Gryffindor when I was in school and that just leaves Seeker and another Chaser!”

Potter and Draco looked at each other. Robert was the music teacher, a mouse of a man that Draco couldn’t imagine making a good Beater. Septima was the Arithmancy teacher and Rose was the Muggle Studies teacher. Draco hadn’t known either of them played Quidditch. He wasn’t sure this was going to foster house unity so much as give the students a chance to pitch bludgers at them and not get in trouble for it.

“I hope you’ll join us,” Minerva said. Draco knew that tone and knew it wasn’t actually an option.

“Of course, we were talking about how much we missed Quidditch,” Potter said for them.

Draco had enjoyed Quidditch while he played on the team though he’d played mostly to try and beat Potter and to show off what a good flyer he was. It had annoyed him to no end that Potter had been better. If this idea was going to take off, they would have to win, of course, and that meant they needed the best team they could muster. He would say that he and Potter were fairly well matched. It was just possible that Potter would give them an edge, though.

“I’ll take the last Chaser position,” he said as Minerva smiled at their agreement. He could probably learn the position easily enough.

“Oh wonderful!” she said, her grin growing positively frightening. “I’ll tell Albus and we can announce it at dinner, give the four teams time to meet to choose their all-star team.” She dashed off.

“Do you think this will work?” Potter asked him as they watched her go. “I mean, promote house unity?”

“In a way; they will certainly be most united in their joy at being able to pitch bludgers at us and not get in trouble for it,” Draco said. This would be fun, but he wasn’t looking forward to the inevitable bruises.

“I hadn’t thought of that but they won’t-”

“What would you do if you were given free reign throw bludgers at your teachers?” Draco said. It did give them free reign to throw the bludgers back at the students, however, and that just might be worth all the bruises he would have.

“Bugger,” Potter said and shook his head. “I’m not sure we’re going to survive this. I guess it’s a good thing we went ahead and bought brooms.”

“Not Quidditch brooms though,” Draco said as they continued on their way. Quidditch brooms had been too expensive and they’d told each other they didn’t need fast brooms. They weren’t going to be racing, just flying.

“I mean we don’t have to use the school’s brooms,” Potter said. “We’d never be able to play Quidditch on those.”

The announcement was made that night at dinner by the headmaster who encouraged the team captains to get together at once and create the best team they could, because he felt the teachers would easily take the prize. Draco suspected the prize was just a small trophy for the team’s cabinet and possibly extra privileges of some sort. The team captains all rose from their tables and converged at the back of the hall.

“Let’s all meet for our first practice tomorrow,” Minerva said. Draco wondered how on earth they would all manage to have the same period free, but they did after lunch the following day.

~~~

Quidditch practice was educational. He learned that Minerva was a fierce Keeper and it was difficult to get the quaffle past her. Robert Argleworth and Aurora Sinistra made an absolutely terrifying pair of Beaters. Draco hadn’t thought Robert had it in him, but if you put a beater bat into that man’s hands, he turned into a flying terror. Rose and Septima were also fairly good Chasers, though it was often difficult to tell when Minerva was guarding the goals. Draco felt they had a good chance of winning their games. They had agreed to a best two out of three to be played in between the regular student matches. Minerva thought that was more fair than one match. She was quite confident they were going to win.

The student team was eventually the Weasley twins from the Gryffindor team as Beaters, Hufflepuff provided their Seeker and a Chaser, the Ravenclaws gave the other two Chasers and Slytherin gave Bletchley as Keeper. It was an excellent team if they were all anything like the students that Draco remembered.

The first game the students soared confidently into the air. The teachers circled the pitch second, looking a bit rag tag since they had no uniforms. There was a notable difference in the amount of cheering for each team from the mostly student crowd.

The balls were released, the quaffle soared into the air and the match began. The teachers set the pace and the tone for the match by scoring the first points. Draco soared up and snatched the quaffle out of the air and ducked under the student chasers, went above a bludger that was quickly swatted by Robert and threw the quaffle straight through the hoop past Bletchley, who looked so startled that Draco couldn’t help but laugh.

The teachers won two hundred and fifty points to ten with Potter of course catching the Snitch, and Draco knew Minerva was probably seething about the one ball that Geddes had gotten past her. It did inspire the students into some sort of unity because Draco could hear them planning strategies every free moment that they were able. Several times he could see the all-star team clustered at a different house’s table poring over a Quidditch diagram. There weren’t even any fistfights.

The second game took place two weekends later and was much more even with the teachers leading one hundred ten to ninety before Potter caught the Snitch, securing the second win for the teachers. Draco smugly flew the victory lap, though this match hadn’t been without injury. He got a lovely black eye from a bludger that had knocked him clean off his broom, Robert had a huge welt on his arm and maybe a cracked bone, and Potter’s broom had been damaged when one of the Weasley twins had pelted a bludger at him as hard as he’d been able.

The students clamored for the third game, begging every teacher who would listen and eventually getting a large parchment that they managed to get most of the student body to sign. Dumbledore relented to this and the last and final game would take place in just under a week. The teachers met out on the pitch. Draco supposed that they’d still secured two victories so even if the students did win this one it had been worth it.

“I’m not going to be able to fly half as well,” Potter said. His broom could be repaired but he had to send it away which meant he was flying on one of the school brooms. They had all assumed that they were done after two matches so Potter had simply sent his broom off for repair without a second thought.

“We’ll just have to score high enough that they can’t win if they catch the snitch,” Septima said with an elegant shrug. “I think we can manage that.”

“Cygnus played Seeker too. Why don’t we switch positions for the last game?” Potter said. Draco wouldn’t have thought Harry would willingly give up the seeker position. “He’s a good Seeker.” Draco almost asked him if he was feeling ill. He would gloat over this memory for a long time. He was also impressed that Potter had managed to get his name right on the first try.

“I remember you said,” Minerva said. “If you think you can switch back to Seeker, Cygnus.”

“The only hard part will not be turning into a dragon to chase it,” Draco said, shrugging. He was trying not to feel stupidly giddy that Potter had complimented him. It was difficult to make sure his face didn’t break into an idiotic grin.

“Oh, you with your wings!” Minerva laughed and playfully swatted at him.

“We should make uniforms! Or at least something that matches if the headmaster is actually going to invite the village up.” Rose said.

“Oh he is,” Minerva said. “I believe he’s also sending a letter to parents. It’s going to be a well-attended match for sure. I’ll check and see if we have anything in stores that we can use.”

“We should try to get one or two practices in. So we can all get used to the new positions.” Sinistra said and hopped on her broom.

“Don’t make me regret switching,” Potter said as he mounted his broom. Hooch had clearly found him the best broom the school owned because it only shuddered once before Potter took off.

That was more like it, Draco thought. “Don’t worry, just because you occasionally beat me to the snitch doesn’t mean I couldn’t catch it, you git.”

~~~

The last game took place on a windy Sunday and indeed a good portion of the village had turned up and many parents as well. He could see the Malfoys high in one of the bleachers, sitting near Dumbledore and the other teachers. Pansy’s parents were a bit further down and so was Blaise’s mother but Draco didn’t have time to try and find the rest before they had to fly out and circle the pitch.

Rose and Robert had put together a uniform of sorts for them. It consisted of long black capes with gold trim and the school crest enchanted temporarily across the back but they did unify the look and made the teachers look like less like a rag-tag group of kids playing Quidditch in the yard. This game was even closer than the last, with the students making sure the score stayed tied. It was going to come down to the snitch.

The Hufflepuff Seeker was well aware and she was soaring around the pitch, frantically looking for the little gold ball. Draco had usually let the other Seeker spot the snitch before soaring after it but Degadio was fast and agile and had nearly out-flown Potter both times. He didn’t want to chance giving her a head start. She had a much smaller frame and a much better broom than he did and the wind was very strong. She could easily get more speed than he could if it came down to it.

Draco dodged another bludger and flew higher. Potter had just scored but the two Ravenclaw chasers were already trying to carry the quaffle back across the field. Draco saw the snitch out of the corner of his eye just a second before Degadio did and he turned his broom and leaned to fly as fast as he could. The snitch took off as snitches were wont to do, weaving through other players, ducking and dodging and flying so erratically that Draco sometimes wondered if the best way to catch a snitch was to psych it out and zig when it zagged. He also knew it was impossible to out think a snitch. The moment you thought you had it figured out it would do the exact opposite of what you expected.

He rolled under another well-aimed bludger, earning a gasp from the crowd. Sinistra passed him and swatted the bludger back, forcing Degadio to change direction to avoid it. Draco soared upwards, trying to fly against the howling wind. He followed after the little golden ball, changing direction as it did until he was it was almost in reach. He could hear Degadio’s robes flapping behind him as he reached out. He snatched the snitch out of the air and held it aloft basking in the roar that went up from the crowd below.

Draco heard a click and felt the snitch shift in his hand. He brought it down to look at it as the crowd continued to cheer madly. The snitch flickered as it opened and then exploded into flames. He let out a yell as the flames ate through his broom in a flash, burning his hands and arms, and he started to fall just as one of the tongues of flame turned into a massive hippogriff.

Fiendfyre.

Draco screamed and transformed. He barely avoided the jaws of the creature as it tried to snap down over him. He flew upwards and fire followed him, hissing and crackling.

He couldn’t fly down to the pitch or else the fire would start chasing other people or the students. His wings beat frantically as he flew higher and then remembered the lake. The wind was pelting him and he tumbled as he changed direction. The fire licked at his tail. He gave another screech and flew as fast as he could towards the lake. It felt like he’d suddenly become the snitch to the fire’s Seeker. He didn’t think he could outrun it; he wasn’t as fast without his broom.

The fire was so close he could feel the heat scorching his scales. He dove headfirst into the lake. His dive took him deep and the fire followed, not going out as it lashed at the grindylows that arrived to investigate his splash. Draco transformed and swam for the surface as two of the grindylows came after him.

He had just managed to break the surface of the freezing water when several of the creatures latched onto his legs. They pulled him back under and he sent a wandless jolt at the creatures that made them let go. His arms felt as if they were still on fire. He surfaced the second time to see Potter soaring towards him on his broom. Potter leaned to one side and dropped his arm, catching Draco’s and pulling him up and along the water.

Draco almost let go for the pain of Potter holding onto his burned arm but his grip didn’t slip until they’d reached the bank and he collapsed onto the light dusting of snow. Everything burned and he coughed as he tried to breathe.

“Cygnus!” Potter was next to him and Draco saw a wand flick but the pain was too much and despite the cold he slid into darkness.

~~~

He woke up dizzy but not cold. Opening his eyes, he squinted in the sudden light and groaned as his arms started to ache. He looked up at the ceiling of the hospital ward and heard dozens of voices talking.

There had been Fiendfyre in the snitch, who by Merlin would’ve done that? If Degadio had caught that she would’ve been killed!

Draco suddenly realized that both his arms were probably bare, although he couldn’t feel enough through the pain to tell, and the dark mark was massive. People must have seen it. His eyes snapped the rest of the way open.

“Cygnus!” Potter was right next to his bed. “It’s ok!”

Draco turned to tell him to go stuff himself because it was most definitely not ok when Madam Pomphrey appeared.

“Oh thank goodness, Cygnus!” she said even as Draco felt his face pale. “You’ll have to tell me who on earth cursed you. You have some horrible scars and you’re so young! If you tell me what curse it was I may be able to make them fade a bit but I don’t know about that one on your arm!” Draco could only stare at her wordlessly as his mind whirled. “Oh my, you must be in terrible pain. I’ll get you a pain drought.” She turned and went for her potions’ cabinet, clucking about dark wizards.

Draco stared after her and wondered if it was some kind of sick joke, but he was dizzy as the rest of his body woke up and reminded him that he had burns in many places. His legs, his knees, and his chest all started to throb.

“I was going to tell you,” Potter whispered in his ear, speaking quickly. “They don’t know that dark mark here. You were right. He either used a different sign or he didn’t mark them at all!”

Pomphrey returned with the potion. She let him drink it and then brought over two basins to rest his arms in and cover them with another solution. Draco winced when he saw the burns. Both his hands and his arms were badly burned up to nearly the elbow. The edge of the dark mark was just visible near the very top of the burn on his left arm and the curse scars from Potter peeked out of the burn on his right.

“They didn’t know what it was,” Potter said when Pomphrey had left again to fetch some more of the solution for the basins. “Poppy assumed someone cursed you at school. Dumbledore thought it might’ve been torture and asked me if the caster had been prosecuted.”

“What did you tell him?” Draco asked as he watched the purple liquid slosh around his arms. At least they didn’t feel like they were on fire anymore. His mind was still whirling with panic and it was hard to breathe.

“I told him they were still looking for the guy,” Potter said.

“Acceptable,” Draco said, as he tried to remember how to breathe evenly. “Do you know what happened?” He was slowly calming as it became clear that Potter had been telling the truth. No one knew what his mark was, otherwise they would’ve been reacting to it.

Potter shook his head. “No. They know the students couldn’t have done it because the spell is so complex, and Rolanda keeps the balls locked up anyway. I’m wondering if someone wasn’t after me.”

“What do you mean?” Draco asked. It didn’t make much sense as a whole. A random attack on the school just didn’t seem all that likely but a targeted one seemed equally unlikely.

“I’ve been asking about the war, doing some digging, trying to figure out what happened. Near as I can tell You-Know-Who actually worked with Grindlewald for a while before he killed him. I don’t know if the Death Eaters were marked or not. You-Know-Who was killed shortly after he went after the children. A lot of people think Snape killed him before he was killed himself.”

“So what makes you think someone would try and murder you at a game when a student was just as likely to catch the snitch?” Draco frowned. Potter hadn’t told him this before.

Potter blew a long breath. “I don’t know, but it bothers me because I did catch the snitch the first two times and the first announcement about the third game I was still listed as the Seeker for the teacher’s team. I also got confronted by this wizard down in Hogsmeade when I was talking to Aberforth. That guy told me if I didn’t keep my nose out of the Hallows I wouldn’t last long.”

“You never mentioned that.” Draco’s frown got deeper. He’d been aware that Potter had gone to Hogsmeade; they both had on several occasions, both alone and together, but Potter hadn’t mentioned looking into the war or being threatened. Draco had assumed that asking would gather unwanted attention since he should’ve known about it if he’d been in this time as they were pretending to be. He wondered if Harry had taken his “family from America” excuse he’d used on James Potter to ask questions by pretending to having been out of the country.

“I didn’t think much of it, a lot of people back home were pretty sensitive about Grindlewald,” Potter said. “Aberforth didn’t take it seriously so I figured the guy was just a blowhard.”

“And now you’re not so certain,” Draco said as he looked back down his arms. He could feel the curse burns pushing back against the potion. It felt like tiny claws under his skin that kept digging into his flesh and then drawing back as the potion dulled the pain again.

“I don’t know. I just don’t like that I was the Seeker and pretty much still had good odds to catch the snitch. It sure feels like someone was trying for me,” Potter said.

“But how did they get in and tamper with it?” Draco asked. They shouldn’t have been able to even touch the thing without special gloves or it would’ve been ruined.

“Rolanda is trying to figure that out,” Potter said. “She didn’t notice any of the spells being tampered with but she wasn’t checking them thoroughly.” He paused as Madame Pomphrey came up to them.

“James, can you help me with something?” she said, folding her hands. “I just need another set of hands and an extra wand to make it easier.”

“Yeah, no problem,” Potter said, and left Draco to sit with his arms in the basins.

He stared down at his arms. Right now most of the dark mark was hidden underneath the burn. Just the very top of the skull was visible by his elbow, but it was still unmistakably a curse scar and purposely placed. It was a wonder to him that Potter’s story had been believed.

There were more footsteps and Draco looked up to see Lucius and Svana Malfoy sweeping through the door. Draco had forgotten that here his father walked with a cane and a limp and it startled him for a moment. Had he been injured the night his other self had been killed? Svana smiled warmly at him and put her hand on his shoulder.

“How are you feeling, Cygnus? It’s good to see you with your eyes open.”

“Fairly well, considering,” Draco said.

She glanced down at his arms and it was a struggle not to try and hide them. Her eyes lingered no longer on the dark mark than they did on the slashing scar Potter had left before she shook her head. “Such a dreadful thing to do. Someone could’ve been killed.”

“I want to assure you that we’re taking steps to discover who tampered with the Quidditch balls, and once found, the Ministry will be prosecuting them to the fullest extent,” Lucius said firmly.

Draco hadn’t thought about that. He’d figured of course someone would be looking for them, but the more he thought, the more he realized he was just a teacher and unless someone pushed the Ministry not much would be done. They would make a show of trying, of course, but the Ministry was chronically overworked and understaffed and he couldn’t imagine that being different even here.

Lucius’ eyes wandered down Draco’s arms and Draco noticed he looked a bit longer at the curse scars. “Have you had run-ins with dark wizards before?”

“Yes, sir.” There was no point in lying when the evidence was right there. He knew what Potter had said about the dark mark not existing here, but he was still nervous.

“But you’re so young!” Svana said, clearly shocked and appalled by the idea.

Lucius locked eyes with him. Draco knew his father’s eyes very well and he could see an anger burning there, restrained. Draco could see Lucius’ opinion of him shifting and wondered if his father didn’t hold with dark magic anymore. Had the Dark Lord’s killings finally swayed him?

“Did that happen in France?” Lucius asked.

“Yes, sir, I trusted my father’s word too much.” He couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice. He wanted to scream. It’s your fault you bloody stupid old-fashioned git. You’re the reason we’re all huddled in the manor like scared rats while that madman kills people because he’s bored. You’re the reason I have a brand on my arm. You’re the reason our family name has lost any respect it ever had. You’re the reason I agreed to it out of a vain hope that maybe you were right and maybe we could earn our prestige back. You’re a blind sniveling idiot!

He didn’t say any of it, only gritted his teeth and left it at that. This wasn’t his father and screaming at him wouldn’t do anything but shock and confuse everyone.

The anger left Lucius’ eyes, replaced by surprise and then resigned sadness. It was almost as if he heard the rant, but Draco knew that Lucius wasn’t a Legilmans and hearing that rant would’ve only have made his father turn bright red and start screaming.

“I see. It is unfortunate when family fails you,” Lucius said, and Draco thought he was sincere. “Have they apprehended the wizards who did that to you?”

“No, they’re still looking,” Draco said.

“It doesn’t look recent,” Svana said with a frown. Her hand was still settled on his shoulder, as if trying to offer a comforting presence. It just made him think of his mother and he wanted to shake her off but he didn’t. He was still frazzled from his flight from the Fiendfyre.

“It happened my second to last year of school,” Draco said. They were pretending to be older than they were, since neither of them believed that anyone would hire two barely adult wizards to teach. Potter had laughed about it once in the Room of Requirement while they were searching. If they only knew they had two seventeen-year-olds teaching, he’d said. Draco had remarked they were doing better than some of the teachers twice their age.

That made Lucius eyes go wide and then narrow again in anger. “That’s deplorable, you would’ve still been a child!”

“Yes, sir,” Draco agreed firmly. You certainly weren’t thinking that at the time, he thought but didn’t say it out loud. Clearly the death of Narcissa and their young son had changed his father’s opinion.

Madam Pomphrey reappeared with Potter behind her and declared there were too many people clustered around Draco.

Lucius bowed and apologized. “Please write me when you’re well,” he told Draco. “I would like to see if anything can be done for the people who did that.”

“I will, but I doubt anything can,” Draco said.

“And what of your father?” Lucius asked as they turned to go.

Draco was briefly stopped short by the irony of his father asking after himself. He wondered if this Lucius would consider being wandless in the manor with the Dark Lord a suitable punishment for getting his son marked. “I’m afraid I don’t know where he is,” Draco said eventually. “We haven’t spoken.”

“Understandable.” Lucius nodded and bid him farewell, following Svana out the door.

“Too much excitement,” Madame Pomphrey said. “Cygnus, I’ve got the burn potion ready for you. James, can you help him? I’m sure you won’t be bothered by Cygnus in a state of undress.”

Draco and Potter looked at each other. Potter looked like he would very much mind and Draco rather minded himself.

Madame Pomphrey moved the basins and gently pulled down the light blanket. Draco realized that the blanket must have been gently enchanted to cool the burns, because without it they started to hurt almost at once, making him forget his embarrassment at being in a state of undress.

Draco had known in a rational sense that he had to be badly burned since the broom had burned out from under him, and he’d seen his hands and arms already. He looked down at his chest and legs, also covered in burns, and winced. He was just lucky to be alive right now. To think, his mother had fussed over the Sempra scars; he didn’t want to think what she would say about the scars these were sure to leave.

“Do you think you can walk, Cygnus?” Pomphrey asked him.

“I’m not sure,” he said as he tried to get up out without the use of his arms. The burns splashed across his stomach sent waves of pain through him when he tensed the muscles there. He was still wearing the remains of his Quidditch gear; most of the pants had been cut or burned away and barely any of the top was left. He was in enough pain now that he didn’t care at all that he was barely decent. Potter was pointedly not looking at him.

He managed to sit up, swing his legs off the bed and stand before his body decided that it had had enough abuse for one day and his legs gave out. He hit the floor in nearly as much pain as the time Potter had hexed him in the bathroom.

Pomphrey was at his side in a moment and sent a wave of cooling down his body. It helped enough that his lungs unclenched and he gasped for breath.

“James, help me carry him!” she ordered.

Potter came around, carefully got an arm around Draco’s waist, and hauled him to his feet. Draco hissed in pain as they carried him through the ward and around a curtain to a room with a sunken stone bath. It was filled with more of that purple liquid. Draco was dizzy with pain again by the time they got him into the bath. He lay back gratefully, and it took a moment to realize that he was naked and Potter looked distinctly red.

~~~

He woke again, slowly opening his eyes to overbright light. His whole body felt hot but not quite burning and he shifted, feeling something cool press against his skin. He looked down, noting the bandages on his arms, then glanced around at the room. It looked to be sometime in the afternoon, judging by the light coming through the window.

Potter was slouched in the chair next to his bed, arms crossed over his chest and head canted to the side, asleep. Had he been here all night?

Draco smiled without meaning to. He didn’t know if even Crabbe and Goyle would’ve spent the night unless he’d told them to. He watched Potter for a moment, contemplating what to say or if he should just stay silent and let him sleep. Potter looked adorable and Draco couldn’t believe he’d just thought that. He was going to blame the pain from the burns, they were starting to ache under the too-hot feeling.

Potter shifted in the chair and murmured. His eyes drifted open, then opened wide and he sat up straight quickly. “Cygnus!” He looked startled, and then started to turn slightly red.

Draco wanted to say something snarky but he couldn’t think through the pain to be witty.

“I’ll go get Poppy,” Potter said very quickly and jumped to his feet.

~~~

Draco spent some time in a pain-filled daze, despite Poppy’s best efforts. Fiendfyre burns, as it turned out, were incredibly painful and slow to heal. He vaguely noticed eating and swallowing strange tasting potions but was too distracted to take in much else.

He spent a total two weeks in the hospital wing. He’d always been adept at milking time in the infirmary, but this was the longest he’d spent at a single stretch where he was actually badly injured and he found he had no desire to prolong his stay. Dumbledore came to meet with him several times, keeping him apprised of the investigation into the fire. He was genial and smiling but Draco could tell he was coldly furious and Draco didn’t blame him. If the student had caught the snitch, she’d be dead, since she wouldn’t have been able to fly away from the fire.

Potter came as well in between his classes to sit next to Draco’s bed in a little side room of the wing. Draco had wondered if teachers had to sleep out in the ward when they were injured but there were a few small cells with windows with beds and chairs for teachers or other guests. Draco got a few other visitors. The other teachers came to see him, and a few of his seventh years and one Ravenclaw fifth year who had a real gift at potions and, during her visit, declared him her favorite teacher. That shocked Draco. He had figured the students disliked him on principle.

“Cygnus, I’m sorry,” Potter said when he’d sat down in the chair next to Draco’s bed.

“Did you explode my classroom?” Draco asked. He was aware there was a substitute but he hadn’t heard much more than that. Dumbledore didn’t want him to worry himself but Draco worried anyway. The seventh years had just said classes had been easy the past two weeks. Draco hoped they weren’t too easy.

“Huh? No, it was fine the last time I looked.” Potter blinked at him.

“Then what on earth are you sorry about?” Draco asked, shifting carefully. He was well wrapped in bandages enchanted to cool, heal, and hold the gooey burn remedy against his skin. He felt like he was always in the bath even when he was just lying in bed.

“I shouldn’t have let you switch positions with me. It was my fault you got hurt, if I hadn’t switched…” Potter was twisting his robe in his hands.

“You would’ve been killed, you git,” Draco said. He was well aware that just months ago he would’ve said yes of course, part of this is your doing and now I have another set of scars that’s your fault, thank you for that. For some reason the urge to guilt trip Potter failed to make an appearance in the face of his distress. “Kindly stop assuming I cannot make my own decisions.”

“But, I…” Harry looked up at him, green eyes sincerely upset behind the unbroken gold frames that Draco was still smug about buying for him.

“If I hadn’t wanted to change positions with you I wouldn’t have,” Draco said, holding his head high. “And you’d be an ugly black bit of charcoal, so what you should be doing instead of acting like a complete idiot is thanking me for saving your life.” Harry stared at him. “I don’t hear you thanking me, Evans.”

“Are you serious?” Harry said. “Cygnus, you could’ve been-”

“I can fly without a broom,” Draco interrupted him. “You cannot. Your recourse, if you’d caught the snitch, would’ve been to fall out of the sky, hit the pitch on fire and die. The same recourse that Degadio would’ve had, so really I’m a hero for saving two lives.”

Harry stared at him, then snorted. “Trust you to see it that way, Mal-Cygnus, you smug bastard.” He sighed. “I guess you’re right. I just don’t like it.”

“I assure you, despite being a hero, I don’t enjoy being burned either,” Draco said. “Have they come any closer to finding out what happened?”

“The Ministry is doing a trace on all the balls, the chest, the doors, and the snitch but that will take time,” Harry said. “Dumbledore is pretty angry, though, and so is your da-Mr. Malfoy. I think something will turn up. The papers are saying it’s the old dark wizards from the war trying to attack the teachers for supporting the ministry.”

They both looked up as they heard footsteps near the still open door. Lucius Malfoy was approaching, walking slowly with his cane. Potter stood up.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Lucius said as he saw Potter. “Should I come back another time?”

“No, sir, I need to get to class.” He turned and nodded at Draco. “See you after class, Cygnus.”

Draco nodded in return as Lucius and Potter nodded at each other and Lucius stepped in and sat down.

“Are you feeling any better, Mr. Lefevre?” he asked.

“Yes, much better, thank you,” Draco said. He didn’t hurt as much now, though the burns were slow healing because they were cursed. Madam Pomphrey, bless her, had spent a lot of time trying to make certain they wouldn’t scar too badly, while also trying to fade his old scars. The Sempra scars had faded a bit but the dark mark was stubborn. Draco didn’t think anything was going to fade it, but he kept silent on the matter.

Lucius nodded, both hands resting on the head of his cane. “We’re still looking for the people who tampered with the snitch, but they believe they may have traced it back to a small group of dark wizards. I hope I’ll be able to bring you better news on that soon.”

“Thank you for your effort on my behalf,” Draco said. He did wonder who had done it; if it was just dark wizards attempting some kind of random attack. It wasn’t the kind of attack he would’ve expected. The Dark Lord had been insane but much more directed. He’d wanted to take the school, as Draco recalled, but he hadn’t attempted to do so by randomly attacking the teachers. He’d just inserted his own people into key positions.

“It’s no trouble,” Lucius said. “Have you considered attempting to contact your father?”

“No,” Draco said. “No, I don’t believe it would do any good.” He couldn’t imagine it would, even if he could make contact from here. His father was far too stubborn.

“Seeing your scars did make me think about my son... my first son. After what happened, we wanted things to be different for my second,” Lucius said. “This was something of a call to stick to that ideal.”

So he had actually changed. A pang of sadness sliced through Draco’s chest. He wished he could have something of a similar conversation with his own father, though he didn’t think it would end well or even civilly. “I’m sorry about your loss.”

Lucius gave him a sad smile. “Please don’t take offense, but you look about the age he would’ve been, if he were alive.”

“Your son?” Draco remembered to ask. There was a very good reason for that, he thought, plucking at his blankets before forcing his hand still again.

“Yes,” Lucius replied. “His name was Draco as well. Tell me, do you know if you’re related to the Malfoy line? I’m afraid I don’t recall your family name in relation to us but that doesn’t mean there isn’t some connection.”

Draco had to consider this. An alliance with a Malfoy family that wasn’t disgraced could serve him well if he was stuck in this timeline. There were several branches of the Malfoys that had melted into other families; Chauvet, Ruiz, and Vallee all came to mind. He had to be careful. Despite what had happened so far with Dumbledore, he couldn’t risk exposing that he wasn’t who he said he was.

“I think there might be a connection in the distant past through Courtois,” Draco said carefully. “Father once mentioned some families we were related to, but I’m afraid I can’t remember all of them.”

Lucius nodded. “Courtois, yes. Perhaps some distant relation then. I also want to thank you again for looking after Draco for us. He speaks highly of your class.”

“It’s no trouble,” Draco said. “So the Malfoys don’t hold relations with dark wizards?” He shouldn’t have asked the question but he wanted to hear the statement out loud. He wanted to hear it voiced. He would never hear it otherwise.

“No, we do not,” Lucius said firmly. “I’ve lost too much to hold with them any longer.”

“Thank you,” Draco said with more feeling than he quite meant to allow into the words. “That will mean a lot to your son.”

~~~

Draco had never been so grateful to be out of the infirmary, though everything was still sore and it was hard to stand for the entirety of his classes. Filius helped him charm a stool so it stood higher than usual so he could sit and still at least appear to be standing. His older students were concerned to an extent, though they clearly wanted to use it as an excuse to get out of classes entirely. His younger students tried to jinx the stool. Thankfully, Filius had seen that coming and all of the jinxes were easily repelled. No one was injured, though two of the student stools ended up needing serious repair.

Potter walked into the Potions classroom as the students rushed out, heading to lunch in one huge, chattering swarm.

“How are you feeling, Cygnus?” Potter asked, easily avoiding a Slytherin who wasn’t watching where he was going because he was glaring down at the textbook in his hands as if it was responsible for the mess he’d made out of his potions today.

“Sore,” Draco replied as he waved his wand at his own cauldron. The remains of the lesson vanished. He started to clear away the rest of the ingredients, sending the bottles back to the shelf and the remains of the chopped herbs into the bin. “Curse burns are a lot of trouble, it seems.”

“Hmm,” Harry murmured and waved his wand at the chalkboard, clearing away the instructions written there. “Do you want an arm going down to the Great Hall?”

“How gentlemanly of you,” Draco said as he held out his hand to call the cane Poppy had lent him. “I think I can manage on my own, however.” Another time Draco would’ve assumed that Potter wanted the excuse to trip him down the stairs. Potter looked sincere though, and now he was giving Draco a dubious look.

“I’m serious, you need to be careful,” Potter said, watching as Draco came around his desk. Draco waved his wand at the last of the books, which flew back to their places on the shelves.

“I am being careful,” Draco said, trying to hold onto annoyance in the face of such earnest concern. He was pleased about it for some reason, but not in the way he would’ve expected. He would’ve expected to feel superior. Yes, this is your fault, you owe me your assistance. But all he felt was sort of warm and comforted, like a warm blanket on a winter day. He rather liked it, even if he kept that to himself. Potter was most certainly not a warm, comfortable blanket.

They walked into the hallway and Draco waved his wand at the classroom door to lock it. Students were always trying to steal ingredients for something or another, probably love potions. He’d noticed a great deal of bleeding hearts had gone missing recently.

Potter turned to say something to him when there was a shout from further down the hallway. Potter whirled and Draco looked up. Something like an angry and confused storm cloud was billowing towards them, not so much a spell as an uncontrolled burst of magic from a botched jinx.

Potter stepped in front of him and started to cast a shield but the half cast shield and broken spell collided just as Draco cast Finite Incantatem. His counter-spell didn’t cancel the whole thing and a blasting wind struck both of them. As Potter half turned again to grab him, the force of the blast slammed them into the wall.

Somehow Potter managed to whirl him around so that Potter struck the wall first and Draco crashed into him. Draco’s whole body tensed in an automatic reaction, waiting for the next curse. It was hard to breathe and his heart slammed against his ribs.

Potter swore and student’s voices filled the air. Slowly Draco remembered where he was. He shifted and realized that he and Potter were pressed so close together he could feel Potter’s heartbeat.

The events of the past months seemed to suddenly catch up to Draco in one dizzying rush and all he wanted to do was put his head down on Harry’s shoulder. Spells and hexes, the war, being ripped from his own timeline, his missing mother, it all swirled in a way that made him tremble, fingers digging into Potter’s arms as he struggled to stay upright.

The rising volume of voices brought him back to himself again. His face started to get warm and he tried to push himself back and upright, to get some distance between them. He was grateful to see that Potter was flushing too. It could be embarrassment or anger, of course, but there was something about Potter’s expression that made him suspect-

No, he told himself firmly and pushed the thought out of his head. They were barely friends. They couldn’t be anything more than that. Potter had grabbed him because Potter was a damn hero. Not because he gave a damn about him.

Potter got up and helped steady him as Draco retrieved his cane.

“What was that all about?” Potter demanded as he turned away quickly and looked back down the hallway.

“Circe and Martin are fighting!” someone helpfully shouted.

“Miss Hearne and Mr. Grant, I assume you are both aware that there is to be no spell casting in the hallways,” Draco said as he smoothed the front of his robes.

“That’s twenty points each, thank you,” Potter said, glaring at the Ravenclaw and the Slytherin who were staring daggers at each other. “And detention. Is anyone hurt?” No one spoke up as the crowd started to disperse. “I’ll see both of you after classes today,” Potter finished. He turned back to Draco. “Are you ok, Cygnus?” His face was still slightly red.

Draco’s legs hadn’t much liked getting knocked over. They were burning and starting to shake and all the terror and emotion that had come bubbling to the surface was making his hands shake as well. He was telling himself that he didn’t want to take Potter’s arm and walk all the way to the Great Hall in close quarters with him. He had to take a deep breath to try to relax and calm down.

“A little shaken,” Draco admitted, realizing he’d been silent too long. Thankfully the students had scattered, leaving no witnesses. “And my legs are starting to hurt.”

“Yeah, you don’t look so good,” Potter said slowly and offered his arm.

Draco eyed the arm for a moment before he slowly hooked his hand around Potter’s elbow. He pointedly looked away from Potter’s face as they started to walk.

“Have the burns been very painful?” Potter asked as they moved slowly through the hallway. Students cleared the way for them, but a few stared. This wasn’t helping any of the rumors about the two of them.

Draco wanted to shrug but it would’ve been awkward since he was bearing his weight on both arms. The burns on his arms were starting to ache as well. He was also trying hard not to think about how close Potter had been and how close he was now.

“Not very, usually,” Draco said.

Potter looked over at him. “Huh, I would’ve thought you’d be complaining a lot.”

That gave Draco enough distraction to remember how to glare. “And I would’ve thought you would just be using this as an excuse to trip me down the stairs.”

Potter actually looked startled, as if the thought hadn’t even occurred to him. Then Draco realized something.

“You were at my classroom just as class ended. Did you rush down?”

Potter suddenly had the look of a bird backed into a corner by a kneazle. “You should take it easy,” he mumbled, and looked away.

Draco wanted to laugh in triumph. Potter was concerned about him! He found himself smiling instead, but thankfully Potter wasn’t looking at him.

Potter stared straight ahead as they slowly climbed one of the many stairways. They were getting close to the Great Hall, and the number of students chattering around them had begun to increase.

“Thank you,” Draco said casually, as they passed through the doors into the Great Hall. He was used to a very specific set of people being the only ones who cared about him, and somehow Potter joining their number was giving him that warm feeling again.

“Yeah, you’re welcome,” Potter said. There was something in Potter’s voice that suggested he was aware Draco wasn’t thanking him for bringing him to the Great Hall, but he didn’t say anything else.

Chapter Text

Draco hadn’t thought to check the library on his own earlier for information regarding the war; he’d had too much else to do and worry about. He knew that Binns had asked the students to do papers on it because he’d heard two Ravenclaws complaining about it after class one day. He decided to go up on his own and see what he could find. It would probably be nothing Potter hadn’t found, but it would tell him all the things Potter had neglected to mention.

He discovered there were actually several books on the subject, though most dealt with profiles of Grindelwald and Riddle, how they had met, and then their falling out, which had led to the death of Grindelwald and then within a few years Riddle.

Draco had known a bit about Grindelwald, but not overmuch. Binns’ lectures were boring and difficult to stay awake through at the best of times. Draco had known that Grindelwald had been imprisoned and he knew that the Dark Lord had eventually killed him, though that last mostly through the Dark Lord’s own boasting.

Here, things had gone slightly differently. Grindelwald hadn’t gone as far as he had in the history Draco remembered. He had more quietly built up a power base and eventually he’d claimed the Elder Wand. This book thought that part of the story was a myth.

Riddle had left Hogwarts and sought out Grindelwald and they started a short reign of terror in Europe. Grindelwald, Riddle, and Dumbledore had their duel. Dumbledore claimed victory, Riddle vanished, and Grindelwald had been killed. The book didn’t know by whom, though it assumed Riddle. Riddle then went into hiding, rising again to start the first war and eventually be killed on the night he went after the children. At least he’d vanished, and was presumed dead.

The books didn’t know about the Dark Lord’s horcruxes, which didn’t surprise Draco. Those were a secret the Dark Lord guarded and only revealed to his inner circle. Draco hadn’t known what the diary was until the Dark Lord returned and berated his father for allowing it to be destroyed.

It was all interesting, but fairly unhelpful to Draco. Either the Dark Lord had the Elder Wand or Dumbledore did. Draco couldn’t be sure which, and he couldn’t imagine walking into Dumbledore’s office and asking was going to get him anywhere.

What was helpful was a tiny aside about the marks used by the two factions of Riddle and Grindelwald. There was the mark of the Hallows, the wand within the stone within the triangle of the cloak, and the mark that the Dark Lord used for his followers, which was just the Elder Wand surrounded by the serpent of Slytherin.

The book was a fairly thick tome in a set of wizarding histories. Draco checked it out from the library and took it up to show Potter.

Potter’s office was practically at the other end of the castle, up one of the high towers. It was easy enough to take one of the magical passages for teachers part way, but then there was the long climb up the stairs with Draco’s legs still aching from the slow healing burns. The weight of the book dug into his arms, making those burns ache as well. Hopefully this whole trip would be worth it.

The classroom in front of Potter’s office was empty, which meant Potter was either in his office or someplace else. Draco walked through, weaving around the practice dummy and past the wardrobe with the boggart. The wardrobe rattled at him and he ignored it. There was also a strange trunk that whispered at him as he passed. He paused for a moment, but left it be.

“Good afternoon, Evans, do you have a moment?” he asked as he entered the office.

Potter looked up from his desk where he was looking over a pile of parchments. “Cygnus! Yeah, did you walk all the way up here? Have a chair.” He waved his wand and sent a battered armchair bouncing across the floor.

“I’m recovering,” Draco said, but he was grateful for the chair and sat down as soon as it settled itself. “I was in the library and found something you might be interested in.”

“Yeah?” Potter waved his wand again to close the door.

“I found some information about the marks,” Draco said once the door had closed. He put the book down and flicked his wand. It opened to the place he had marked and Potter pulled the book around.

“That’s the Hallows,” Potter said, looking at the first one. His eyes moved on to the second. “Is that the Dark Mark?”

“It seems so, that’s the wand isn’t it?” Draco said.

“Yeah, and looks like Slytherin’s Serpent, sort of makes sense, I guess.” Potter looked up from the book. “I think Dumbledore has the wand. When the fire erupted out of the snitch he jumped to his feet - well, a lot of people did. I saw him reach for something but I didn’t see if he drew the wand or not. I was too busy chasing after you once you went towards the lake.”

Draco considered this for a moment. He had thought about how he’d managed to somehow outrun the fire and how it shouldn’t have been possible. His dragon form didn’t fly faster than a broom, despite his joke about changing into his animagus form to chase the snitch.

“I shouldn’t have been able to outfly it,” he said.

Potter looked at him and then paled. “You’re right. It should’ve just…” His voice trailed off as he looked at Draco. “I wonder if Dumbledore slowed it down.”

“Can you take control of FiendFyre cast by someone else?” Draco asked. He didn’t have a lot of experience with the spell and didn’t really want to have any more experience with it. FiendFyre had been on the curriculum but he’d had other things on his mind at the time.

“I don’t know, but I bet someone with the Elder Wand could. Honestly I bet Dumbledore could anyway, with or without it,” Potter said and looked back down at the book. “This is something at least, we know he’ll be after the Elder Wand, if he doesn’t have it.”

“Maybe it wasn’t an attempt on either of us,” Draco said. “Perhaps it was an attempt to kill Dumbledore to retrieve the wand. Has there been any sign?”

“That he’s back? No,” Potter sighed. “You get the paper too, nothing in there and no rumors that I’ve heard. Hmm, I wonder who killed Grindelwald.”

“My guess would be the Dark Lord, but then he would have the wand,” Draco said.

“Unless Dumbledore disarmed him first,” Potter said as he turned a page. “We probably can’t find out unless we ask him and he probably won’t tell us, or tell us the wand is a myth.” He sighed. “Thanks for this. At least we know what the Mark looks like now, if we see one.”

Draco nodded. “I’m going down to Hogsmeade tonight. Did you want me to see if your books came in?” He didn’t strictly want to, but Potter had brought up his potion ingredients for him twice already.

“Should you be going?” Potter asked, sitting up straighter.

Draco raised an eyebrow. “Poppy hasn’t told me I can’t drink and frankly I could use one, or several.”

“I mean should you be doing all that walking?” Potter said. “You shouldn’t go alone anyway; I’ll go with you.”

“I assure you that I am able to get a drink on my own without a babysitter,” Draco said. “If you feel the need for a drink that’s an entirely different matter, but there’s hardly a need-”

“I’m not babysitting you! You were nearly killed by FiendFyre!”

“I’m quite well now, thank you.”

“You can hardly walk!”

“I can walk just fine, I made it up here, didn’t I?” Draco snapped.

“Cygnus, what if someone is trying to kill one of us? You shouldn’t go out there by yourself.”

“Oh for goodness sakes, Evans, I’m only going to the Hog’s Head. Nothing is going to happen in between here and-” Draco was cut off when there was a screech from the classroom followed by the sound of wind and then a deep rumbling laughter.

Potter sighed and put his head in his hands. “Not again.”

As a teacher, Draco had learned the different types of screeches students emitted and which needed immediate attention. This was the kind of screech made by someone that should stew in their mistake for a while.

Draco stood up slowly. “Shall I wait for you by the carriages then?”

“Yes, please,” Potter mumbled into his desk before he pushed himself up and walked out into the classroom.

“Oh for…” he sighed. “Misters Weasley what are you doing?” Draco smirked and left the office.

~~~

The Hog’s Head was oddly crowded that night. Draco hadn’t expected so many people, but he supposed with the improving weather more people would be out and about. Harry stood at the bar to get their drinks and then brought them back to their table, a small one wedged between one of the walls, two tiny tables, and a larger table.

“What were the Weasley twins up to?” Draco asked as Harry sat back down.

“I rigged up an old trunk to mimic a cursed chest for my sixth years,” Harry said with a sigh. “I think someone was spreading rumors I had an actual cursed chest.”

“Probably trying to steal it to replace someone’s school trunk with it,” Draco said.

“I’m not sure they’d go that far,” Harry said as he took a sip.

“I am,” Draco said. Two men had taken a table nearby. It was set against the wall and was usually occupied with spare glasses or empty bottles before they were moved. Draco guessed it had been pressed into service due to the crowd.

“How could it not have worked?” one of the men was asking in a hushed and urgent tone of voice. “It was FiendFyre! Do you know how long it took to find the spell contained like that? That’s not a simple jinx!”

Draco’s ears perked up. The noise in the bar was loud but he could still hear them if he listened carefully. Thankfully the two witches at the table in between theirs and the two men’s were silently glaring at their flagons in between grumbling about gnomes, so it was easy to concentrate on the other two.

Harry was just starting in on how the twins really weren’t that bad when Draco laid his hand on Harry’s arm and glanced meaningfully over Harry’s shoulder. Harry looked at Draco’s hand for a moment and Draco feared he wouldn’t pick up the signal but he went silent, tilting his head to listen.

“We hit the wrong teacher!” the other man growled. “We need to get the other one!”

“I’m not going to be able to get anywhere near that equipment shed again. The Ministry is all over everything!”

“We need to think of a way to finish it!” the second said. “Or he is going to-”

“Don’t say it,” the first interrupted. “We just need to off the other teacher.”

“How are you going to get in the school to off a teacher? FiendFyre didn’t do it.”

“That Quidditch game was perfect, so many of the teachers were busy flying. If we just send something into the school, the teachers and, hell, half the students will take care of it before it gets to the right teacher!”

“Help me think! What do we do?”

Harry and Draco looked at each other. Draco glanced again at the wizards who were talking. It was two middle aged men, but both were hunched and it was hard to see their faces.

“They were after me,” Harry said in a whisper.

“Trying to kill a teacher? Inside the Hogwarts grounds?” Draco whispered back. “That’s bloody stupid.”

“Doesn’t sound like they’re the brightest,” Harry murmured. “Did you get all those ingredients for your seventh years?” he said in a louder voice.

“Yes.” Draco was about to wonder at the change in topic, but the two wizards had paused and were glancing in their direction. “We’ll see how the idiots ruin them this time.”

Harry chuckled a little. “They can’t all be idiots.”

“They all have their days,” Draco said.

“That’s the one who got hit with the fire, isn’t it?” one of the wizards was hissing.

“Did you manage to get that trunk redone or do you need my help with it?” Draco asked as he picked up his drink again. It was hard to even taste it now. It had been a plot on Potter’s life. Damn him for being right about that.

“Oh yeah, I fixed it and this time I locked it in my office,” Harry said, shifting in his seat.

“Not sure that’s going to stop them. They have a talent for locks,” Draco noted.

Harry sighed. “I know it.”

Draco saw the two men get up, glancing towards them the whole time. He tensed, even though no one sane would try anything in a crowded bar. The two just kept muttering to each other as they moved towards the door, though Draco couldn’t hear them anymore. He forced himself to relax when they left.

“Guess that other guy wasn’t a blowhard after all,” Harry murmured.

Draco shifted uncomfortably. He didn’t know why someone wanted to kill Harry but he’d almost been killed instead. If Draco had been more relaxed he might’ve considered that now Harry owed him, but he was too uneasy with the thought that now people were trying to kill them here as well. The whole attraction of this timeline had been that no one was trying to kill him.

They finished their drinks in silence and left together to return to their carriage.

They’d almost reached it when Harry stumbled into Draco. Draco opened his mouth to accuse Harry of not being able to hold his liquor when Harry cut him off.

“They’re following us,” Harry whispered as he pushed himself upright. He was already drawing his wand.

Draco drew his own as the first hex flew past them and crashed into the carriage. The thestrals screeched and bucked, rocking the carriage.

Harry whirled and fired back. Witches and wizards on their way to the Hog’s Head screamed and scattered. Draco raised his wand to throw a hex when he heard a curse shouted that made his blood run cold.

“Avada Kedavra!”

Draco didn’t see who cast it but Harry threw himself to one side out of the path of the spell and Draco fired a petrification jinx at the wizards they’d heard conspiring, clearly visible now that the crowd had vanished. His blood roared in his ears. Every instinct he had screamed at him to get away.

Two more Killing Curses cut through the darkness, lighting up the air around Harry with a sickly green glow. Thankfully both went wide, one destroying a tree and another digging a great rent in the ground. Draco fired again, this time hitting one of the wizards and knocking him down. A jinx flew in Draco’s direction, missing him by a wide margin and Draco had a sudden moment of blinding rage that replaced the fear.

He’d been enjoying the peace and quiet here and now these two idiots had shattered that with their pathetically foolish plans. He took two steps forward and raised his wand again, firing off several jinxes in quick succession. The second wizard fell and Draco lowered his wand.

He slowly came back to himself. His legs started to shake as Harry darted forward to cast a full body bind and gather up the wizards’ fallen wands.

“You ok?” Harry was next to him so suddenly Draco wasn’t even sure why he didn’t jump a mile.

He turned, very slowly, to look at Harry. There had just been another attempt on Harry’s life and he’d just saved him again. He was dismayed to find he couldn’t even be properly smug because he felt as if he were going to faint.

“Wonderful,” Draco said.

“Yeah, mate, why don’t you sit down?” Harry suggested.

It was very late by the time they returned to the school and had to go straight to the headmaster’s office. There was someone from the Ministry already there and there were dozens of questions about what had happened. The Ministry, of course, was going to take a plot on a teacher’s life very seriously, but seemed shocked that the attack had come on school grounds.

After the Ministry official finally left, Harry and Draco exchanged a few words with Dumbledore while sitting around his desk. Dumbledore was of course dismayed by both attacks and commended them for their brave defense of Hogsmeade.

They were about to get up to leave when there was a whump and air whooshed by Draco’s ears. He felt feathers brush the back of his head and could just see the glimmer of crimson out of the corner of his eye. Fawkes had landed on the back of his chair again. Harry stared up at the phoenix. Draco pointedly did not look back.

“Fawkes also approves of your courage.” Dumbledore smiled at them and said goodnight.

They left his office and walked down the hallway, pausing at the stairs.

“Do you think it was Riddle?” Harry asked.

“Who else would it be? Except that I’m not clear what he would want with you. The you that would be related to anything having to do with him is dead in this timeline,” Draco said. “And we’re not much of anyone here.” It pained him to say it but it was the absolute truth. They were becoming well known, but not for the same reasons either of them was known back home.

Harry nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. No point in trying to figure it out either. We’ve got to find that horcrux.”

~~~

Draco took himself back to the library on a whim. He felt as if the two of them had already read every book on the shelves in search of the spell that could send them back and come up with nothing. Still, he thought he’d have one last look, and he needed another book anyway. Irma gave him a warm and friendly smile as he walked in.

“Hello, Cygnus, looking for more books on charms?” she asked, waving her wand at a small pile of books. They floated quietly to their shelves.

“Yes, and some on potions. I want to check my memory,” he said as he headed towards the charms section.

“I’ve actually got a book for you!” she called after him and he turned back to her desk. “Filius had it checked out for a long time. It’s an old theory book on charms.” She handed him a thick old book titled, “The Nature and Building of Charms and Spells: Structural Theories and Practice.”

“Thank you,” he said as he accepted it and flipped it open. She nodded at him and he started towards the Potion’s section, reading as he went.

It was a very dense book on charms and theoretical spells, mostly concerned with crafting your own spells and charms to meet very specific needs. It was, in fact, the kind of book he could imagine the charms professor using for light reading.

He turned back to the table of contents to see if there was anything that looked promising. There was a chapter on time turners near the end and he flipped to that as he sat down in one of the small chairs in the Potion’s section.

It was a long, dry essay about timelines, time travel, and how people resonated within their own time. Draco read a few sentences and felt his eyes start to glaze. He was about to close it again when his eyes caught on a sentence. It put forward that people went sideways in time when using time turners because a nearby timeline was empty of their resonance. In plainer terms, the alternate version of them that had been there was gone.

It went on to theorize that you could pull someone sideways into a different timeline if they had died. It warned against doing this, of course. The spell was incredibly hard to focus and risked drawing not just one person but any person who was missing from the timeline, possibly moving dozens of people to random locations. But only if the spell was powerful enough; more than likely the caster would simply do themselves harm and those that they intended to move would only feel a slight pull. The spell was one of a handful that was complicated enough that if the charms weren’t set perfectly, the whole thing would come undone with the death of the original caster.

Draco stared down at the page. Harry and Draco had both been killed here, after Harry was mentioned in that prophecy. Had someone attempted to fix the prophecy by pulling Harry over, only to get both of them?

Draco marked the place, closed the book and looked at the shelves. He managed to find at least one of the titles he wanted and carried both books out to check them out.

“Oh good!” Irma said as he set the books down on her desk. “I’m glad that one was what you were looking for! I practically had to steal it out of his office!”

“Thank you for your assistance,” Draco said. “I’ll make sure to return it promptly.” She nodded and turned to help a Ravenclaw with an absolutely massive tower of books.

Draco checked one of the clocks as he left the library. Harry would just be finishing with his first years.

It was hard to hurry, even though most of the burns had healed. His legs still ached, especially after classes. He took the shortest route he knew to the tower and up the winding stairs. He passed the gaggle of first years on their way down, babbling excitedly about class as they rushed past him.

“Evans, do you have a moment?” he said as he strode into the classroom.

Harry was waving his wand at the practice dummy. It was well battered and Draco supposed that was why the first years had been so excited. They’d probably learned some simple counter hex.

“Yeah, sure,” Harry said. “Did you run up here?”

“I’m not sure I can run yet,” Draco said, only a little bitterly, as he walked into the office and dropped the charms book on the desk, keeping the other under his arm. He waved his wand at the charms book and it promptly flipped open to the spot he’d marked. “Read this.”

Harry came up next to him and looked down at the book. “Huh, making a Time Turner,” he said. “Well, I guess we could. Nothing to lose...” his voice trailed off as he got further into the essay and he bent down, placing his hands down on the desk to read.

“Merlin’s beard. You mean Neville could’ve ended up here too?” Harry said, still reading.

“Or Gregory,” Draco said. “This is probably what happened. Someone did it on purpose.”

“But why?” His eyes hadn’t yet left the page. “Why would-”

“You,” Draco cut him off and Harry straightened up to stare at him. It must be so trying to be the Chosen One, Draco thought sarcastically. So bloody popular that people in other timelines wanted to meet him as well.

“Oh,” Harry said after a moment. “Oh, because I- here I...”

“Yes, exactly,” Draco said. “I just came along for the ride, it seems.” It would figure that his whole life would get interrupted because of Potter. He wanted to say something to that effect, but the fact of the matter was, the time slip had probably saved his life, so he kept silent.

“Do you think it was Dumbledore?” Harry asked him.

“He’s the most likely,” Draco said. “But if he did why didn’t he just tell us? I can understand fearing that we wouldn’t want to help fight the Dark Lord, but I can’t imagine you turning him down.” Draco wouldn’t have turned him down either. It wasn’t as if he had any other way to get home.

“Maybe he didn’t,” Harry murmured.

“Then why would he bring us those papers from our schools?” Draco asked.

Harry ran a hand through his already mussed hair. “Yeah, I was thinking about that too. The problem is we don’t know. This seems to suggest it would be next to impossible to be sure you got the right person or even landed them someplace that wasn’t the ocean.” He tapped the page with his finger. “I mean, Dumbledore is powerful, but...” He sighed. “We just can’t know. It could’ve been an accident and he could be trying to…I don’t know, just make us comfortable here? If he admitted he knew what happened he probably thought we’d beg him to send us back.”

Draco eyed the book. It was possible. A great many things were currently possible. “There’s the fact that we can’t seem to get a chance to talk to him about the whole thing in the first place.”

“That too,” Harry said. He looked back down at the book, starting to read again and then turning the page. “Why didn’t we find this before? I’m pretty sure I read all the books in that section.”

“Filius had it out. Irma stopped me to tell me he’d brought it back. She thought we’d like to see it, given we were doing so much research on charms.”

“I’m surprised Filius hasn’t wandered up to see what we’re doing,” Harry mumbled.

“There are plenty of useful charms against minor dark magic, it’s not that interesting.” Draco shifted his weight. “So now we know what happened. The question becomes do we try to build a Turner to get back?”

Harry looked at the book again. “I guess we could try. No harm in it, if this is right we should be able to just slide right back home. Let’s finish trying to find those horcruxes and get rid of him though.”

Draco considered that. It made more sense to concentrate on building the Time Turner and get back. They had no idea how many horcruxes there were and they’d only managed to find evidence of one thus far.

Hero Potter would let him have no peace, though, unless he thought he’d saved the day. They could finish with this one, he thought, and then Draco could concentrate on building the Turner.

“If you like,” Draco said, and picked up the book again.

~~~

It would be another few weeks before Draco could travel any distance, so they waited for the Easter holiday. Draco counted himself totally healed by then, though a few of the scars ached from time to time.

Harry took them on a long journey to a little village where he expected to find the ring. Their destination was at the edge of the homes where there was just brush and then ruins. They spent several hours looking through the tall weeds until Harry finally found the beginning of a set of powerful charms.

“Watch out,” he said as he pointed his wand at the ground. Draco could just see rotten wooden boards there under the weeds. The warding spell fizzled, shot out a wave of bright sparks and finally broke under Harry’s spell. He stepped forward and carefully moved the boards.

“How many spells are on this?” Draco asked. He could see a gold box, but over it was the shimmer of another protective spell.

“Lots. This must be the Horcrux,” Harry said.

The spell hissed like a snake when Harry’s wand came near and Draco twitched. Draco waved his wand but the spell only gave a fraction and the hissing got louder.

“The hissing was rather a giveaway,” Draco growled and waved his wand again, casting a different charm. He swore he saw a ghostly snake strike at his wand as the hissing got even louder. Jolting backwards, he preemptively glared at Harry.

Harry wasn’t paying him any mind though. He was glaring down at the box and began casting his own charms now that Draco had paused. “It isn’t...” Harry paused. “Oh, it is. It’s talking actually.”

“The spell is hissing in Parseltongue?” Draco looked over at him. Merlin damn Harry for looking so bloody calm about that.

“Yeah, guess that makes it pretty obvious, huh?” He gave a little smile and went back to work.

Draco shifted uneasily as he looked down at the box. “Did they do that before?”

“No,” Harry said.

Draco took a deep breath and tried to concentrate. The faster they destroyed the ring, the faster they could get back to Hogwarts and have a drink. Several drinks. And the faster Draco could start working on that Time Turner.

It took them well into evening to remove all the spells and pry the box out of its hole. Draco should’ve known the spells would be complex but it was annoying. Couldn’t that bastard just be crazy and not an excellent wizard?

Harry opened the box and they looked down at the ring with its deep black stone. Everything seemed a little darker now, as if the ring was sucking the light out of the air. Draco shifted uncomfortably. He hadn’t really been thinking about seeing an actual horcrux and now that he was faced with one he wanted to be rid of it.

“Don’t put it on,” Harry warned.

“I’m not enough of an idiot to put on an obviously cursed ring. I don’t even want to touch the damn thing. Get that fang out and destroy it.” Draco said. His nerves were already on edge and it was only getting worse. He didn’t want someone to come along and find them, especially not some follower perhaps charged with protecting this location.

Harry pulled the bundle out of his pocket and carefully unwrapped the fang. It took a few moments to line up the tip of the fang with the stone. He pressed down hard and the stone cracked. A scream echoed out of the box and then a wave of power rocked them both. Draco grunted, catching his balance again.

As Harry was cautiously examining the ring, Draco glanced around, hairs prickling on the back of his neck. There was someone watching them, a tall figure dressed in black. He was gaunt, with black hair and bright red eyes. Draco’s blood went cold as the wizard raised his wand.

“Evans!” Draco shouted as the green light flew towards them. He pushed Harry back, sending him tumbling, and fell on top of him. Draco screamed as the curse soared over the two of them and smashed into the hillside, sending dirt and rocks into the air.

Draco and Harry scrambled to their feet, leaving the box, fang, and the broken ring on the ground. Harry fired a spell at the wizard, but he Apparated away and the spell smashed into the trees. The wizard reappeared closer, sending another Killing Curse towards them. Draco dashed to one side, sending spells towards the wizard, who blocked or dodged every one. He was praying it wasn’t who he knew it was.

The light of the spells lit up flashes of the man’s face. He was so bone thin that his eyes and the dark rings beneath them would’ve looked like the sockets of a skull if those eyes weren’t a bright and burning red.

Of course the Dark Lord was here. They were going to die- there was no way they could fight him! They had no idea how many other horcruxes he had. Draco choked back a scream and concentrated on dodging and firing spells.

The Dark Lord extended his hand and the fang flew into it.

Draco almost locked eyes with him but then felt the warning brush of minds and locked everything down and looked away. “Don’t look into his eyes!” he shouted as he leveled his wand, only barely managing to get a spell off before he had to duck out of the way of another jet of green light. His heart was thundering.

Suddenly Harry was beside him, yanking hard on his arm. “Run!” Harry shouted. Draco stumbled and ran after him.

They tore back through the field towards the road. The Dark Lord Apparated directly in front of them and they skidded to a halt, scrambling backwards. Draco couldn’t even manage to scream, his breath caught in his throat.

Draco raised his wand as the Dark Lord raised one hand. The basilisk fang floated up and shot at them like an arrow. They both jumped away, stumbling in opposite directions. Draco whirled, trying to keep his wand raised. The Dark Lord was in front of him again. Draco meant to look away but he was glancing around frantically, trying to see where Harry had gone and his eyes crossed glowing red ones.

“Imperio.”

It was the calm, even, and almost peaceful voice that Draco had learned to fear. Draco knew this spell too well; he’d used it himself for a year. He’d hadn't been prepared to resist and the spell slipped into his mind like a snake gliding noiselessly through water. He felt rather than heard the Dark Lord laugh as Draco’s arm dropped despite his attempt to keep it raised. The Dark Lord held out the fang and Draco took it.

“When I’m done here, there will be two worlds ready for me.” The Dark Lord’s voice was calm and pleased, as if this plan was near completion.

Draco turned towards Harry, who standing several steps away with his wand raised. Draco’s terror started to drain away as the peaceful fog of the Imperius smothered him. He felt the order in every limb: stab Harry with the fang. The fear crept back, dragging horror behind it, pushing through the haze and starting his heart thundering again.

He wasn’t going to kill Harry. He couldn’t do it. He hadn’t been able to kill Dumbledore and the thought of attacking Harry was just as impossible. He fought the impulse, fear and determination shaking his mind as the spell tried to hold fast. He wasn’t going to be a puppet.

Sweat dripped down his back as his body shook. He watched himself take another step forward even as he tried not to. Trying to stop his legs moving felt like they would rip themselves in half. Fighting the haze made his head ache and burn and the temptation to sink back into the cool peaceful feeling was becoming overwhelming.

He wouldn’t do it, he wouldn’t give in. He wasn’t going to kill anyone. In desperation, he dragged his mind shut against all intrusions, using all the Occlumency skills his aunt had taught him.

The spell stretched and strained and finally snapped. Draco staggered. Harry was staring at him, grimly and fearfully, ready to cast.

Draco inhaled, unable to hear anything over his thundering heartbeat. He whirled and struck out, stabbing. He feared for a moment he’d already walked too far away from the Dark Lord but the fang connected and he felt it force its way into flesh.

The Dark Lord made a noise between a scream and a hiss of anger and the last shreds of fog in Draco’s mind dissipated. Draco didn’t hear the incantation or even see the Dark Lord move his wand but he was blasted backwards and something sharp and biting struck his arm.

Draco hit the ground and skidded along it. He clenched his hands and pain seared through him. His wand was somehow still in his hand. Gathering his willpower, he opened his eyes and tried to get to his feet.

“Shit!” Harry’s voice was close. It was Harry who reached him, grabbing him and pulling him upright. Draco looked for the Dark Lord in time to see him crumple and crash to the ground.

Oh. He was taken care of, then. Who would’ve thought it would be that simple?

The pain in his arm was only growing and Draco looked down. The fang was sticking out of his arm. That wasn’t good, he thought. He yanked the fang out and threw it to the ground. Draco heard Harry say something, but it was hard to think straight, he couldn’t make sense of the words. It was getting hard to stand.

The world started to tumble and spin. The sound went in and out as if someone were plugging and unplugging his ears. Harry’s hands ripped away from him as he fell.

He seemed to fall a long way, and much too fast. Draco thought it was the venom starting to affect him, but then he hit the wet, soggy ground. Rain was pounding down around him.

Draco turned his head and opened his eyes. The sky was dark and moonless. Everything was quiet except for the rain. Where was Harry?

He tried to sit up, but his arm wouldn’t support his weight and pain lanced through him. The world lurched as he fell back onto his elbows again.

Everything was spinning, the burning pain in his arm was spreading, and he couldn’t seem to breathe deeply enough. He wondered if he was dying.

He forced his eyes to stay open. There was no road nearby and the land around him looked very different. He tried to breathe, but his lungs felt like they were on fire and trying to inhale made his head spin.

The subtly wrong feeling that he’d finally gotten used to over the last several months was shocking in its absence. Nothing around him felt strange, and the dark shapes of distant trees looked as they were meant to.

He was back? His arms trembled and gave out and he landed on his back. That meant the Death Eaters were after him and would probably find him lying here. He didn’t want to be back; he’d almost gotten used to the idea of being a teacher, settled into a different life. It hadn’t been exactly what he wanted, but his father there had changed. Here, his father was the same stubborn fool he’d always been and Draco didn’t know what, if anything, would change him. He didn’t think even his death would have much of an effect, not after the way he’d fled.

Draco had been determined to come back here and make sure that he saved his family, but now that he was here, he wasn’t sure it could be done, even if he wasn’t dying.

It occurred to him to wonder why he was back, as the cold rain slammed into his face, beating against him. He inhaled, trying to wrap his mind around what had happened. The Dark Lord had died just before Draco landed back here. The charms book had said that the spell would come undone if the caster died. The Dark Lord must’ve been the one to bring them there, for some reason.

“Cygnus! Cygnus?! Damnit! Draco!”

Draco wanted to laugh but couldn’t manage it, he couldn’t spare the breath. He could hear his pulse in his ears and his heart was hammering against his ribs. Every beat hurt.

Had they been this close originally or had the spell dropped them in the same area? Draco tried to sit up again and managed to get his head above the level of the tall grass, though his arms trembled and burned. He still had his new wand and he was still dressed as he had been, in his plain teacher’s robes and the Slytherin colored waistcoat Dumbledore had gifted him.

He raised his wand slowly, his whole arm shaking, and sent up little silver lights. It would either bring Harry or the Death Eaters, and it didn’t make much difference since either way he was going to die.

A dark shape in the distance started to run towards him through the rain. Harry was at his side a moment later bright green eyes just visible through the storm.

“Draco?”

“Get out of here,” Draco said faintly, gasping for breath. “I don’t know if Bellatrix is nearby.” His fear was giving way to a pleasant sort of numbness. Was dying supposed to feel pleasant?

“We need to get you someplace, you need help,” Harry said, looking wildly around. “Hermione! Ron! Over here!”

“Need a phoenix. Bit thin on the ground,” Draco said with a huff of a laugh. No phoenix was going to appear for him, and wouldn’t cry if it did. He tipped to one side and felt Harry catch him. His vision blurred and started to go in and out. By the light of Harry’s wand he saw the skin on his arm turning black.

From somewhere in the air above, there came a cry, high and beautiful. Warmth washed over Draco and it was suddenly easier to breathe. A light, gentle weight landed on his arm. He opened his eyes and looked down. Fawkes raised his head, the last tear falling onto Draco’s arm as the burning, consuming pain vanished.

A phoenix was probably the only thing that could still look majestic in the pouring rain. Draco stared and forgot to breathe.

The phoenix stared back at him for a moment before it took to the sky, silently soaring up into the darkness, wind, and rain as easily as if it had been a clear day. Harry and Draco watched wordlessly as Fawkes vanished.

“I found a phoenix for you, Cygnus,” Harry said. “Shit. Draco.”

Draco glared at him, shivering in the rain and drawing deep breaths as his lungs reminded him he needed air. It no longer hurt to inhale. “Because you expected that to happen, did you, Potter?”

Harry laughed a little, glasses wet with the rain. “No, actually I didn’t. I thought you were going to die.”

“So did I,” Draco said, and pushed himself up to stand, praying his legs would hold him upright.

Harry stood up with him. “Death Eaters are after you?”

“Yes. Were you really this close?” That was ironic, he might’ve been shot out of the sky by Weasley instead of Bellatrix.

“Yeah, pretty sure Ron and Hermione think I’m out of my mind,” Harry said. “I told them we had to find you because the Dark Lord had just stabbed you with a basilisk fang.” He looked up at the rain and around at the field. “Want to help us find some horcruxes?” He sighed. “Again?”

Draco sighed as well. Did he want to, no, but helping Harry would at least keep Draco alive, and maybe even get him out of the rain. There was still a Dark Lord here, but... they had killed him once. Perhaps they could do it again. It was worth working towards, anyway. He couldn’t go back, so he would have to do his best to fix things here.

“Do you think you can stop your friends from hexing me on sight?” Draco asked, contemplating casting a spell to shield himself from the rain. He was already soaking wet in the first place so there was little point.

“Yeah, probably,” Harry said.

“Do you think you can stop calling me Cygnus?” Draco said with the edge of a smirk.

“Not for at least a month, you smug bastard. I had just stopped nearly calling you Draco, too.” Harry paused, eyes thoughtful on Draco. “How about we just shake on not hexing each other until we’re done with this?”

“And then right back to it?” Draco asked, biting back a smile.

“Yeah, right back,” Harry said and extended his hand.

Draco was glad it was dark with the storm, since he wasn’t able to stop his smile. He shook Harry’s hand, then tottered, his curse scars starting to ache with the chill of the rain and all the exertion of the day. Harry dropped the handshake to catch him, one hand on a shoulder and one around his waist to hold him up.

“Take it easy,” Harry said. His voice was closer than Draco expected, because Harry’s forehead was resting on his shoulder. His own hands rose to Harry’s shoulders, as if to push him away, but made no move to do so. He didn’t want to.

“Just need a moment,” Draco said, even as he decided he needed to get himself steady on his own feet. Granger and Weasley had to be somewhere nearby, and he was fairly sure if they saw him and Harry like this, Draco was going to get hexed. Harry’s arm tightened on his waist for a moment as Draco shifted to move away. Their cheeks brushed as Harry raised his head and Draco found himself staring into Harry’s rain-streaked glasses, the charms fighting the storm to keep the lenses clear.

They both moved at the same time and met in the middle. As kisses went, it was very brief, since they both pulled back in surprise and stared at each other. Draco couldn’t believe that had just happened and Harry didn’t look like he believed it either.

Harry was turning red and Draco’s own face heated with a flush. Draco pushed himself firmly onto his own feet, but Harry’s hands lingered on his waist. Draco was still a bit shaky.

“How did we come back anyway?” Harry mumbled as he looked away.

“It was the Dark Lord’s death. He must’ve been the one to cast the spell in the first place.” The rain was cold, but Harry was very comfortable.

Harry let out a huff of a laugh. “Another world ready…he was trying to kill me so he could take over here, too?”

“Why settle for one when you can have two?” Draco murmured.

Harry glanced around the field again. “Finally, there they are!” There were two black shapes moving slowly towards them, their wands held aloft, lighting the way.

“I don’t imagine your friends will want my help,” Draco said as he pulled back, very gently.

“We need all the help we can get,” Harry said, hesitating to let go of him. “You’re an animagus, that’s going to be useful. And I need someone to back up my story of teaching at Hogwarts for nearly six months.”

Draco was looking around the field for any signs of Death Eaters, but so far it was quiet. They would’ve seen the phoenix, so it was only a matter of time before they made an appearance. He hoped Harry and his friends were ready for a fight, because Draco wasn’t sure he was.

“I doubt your two friends are going to believe anything I say,” Draco said.

“I dunno, dressed like you are right now?” Harry said.

“You’re dressed the same way, Harry.”

Harry laughed. “Which one of us gets to tell Hermione she was in Ravenclaw?”

“You may have the honors,” Draco said, bracing himself as Granger and Weasley neared. Harry stepped forward, grinning.