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Chapter Text

The Battle of Hogwarts raged.

"And that's the second time we've saved your life tonight, Malfoy!"

Draco Malfoy picked himself up off the ground and spat blood onto the white marble, cursing the decisions that had led him to this moment. The Malfoys had been promised glory and dominion. Why then, was his mother terrified to sleep in her own home? His father a broken man, their fortune squandered, the family name besmirched? Why did he find himself kneeling wandless and helpless in the rubble, molested by his allies and pitied by his enemies?

Such were the promises of a madman.

Draco would have laughed, if not for fear that the noise might attract some Death Eaters bored enough to want to stop and torture an insane Hogwarts student.

Blood dripped from his split lip to form little rust-colored constellations in the dust. He'd seen plenty of blood by now, but he never felt any magic in it. Just the slickness of it on his hands. He was tired, so tired of cowering and begging and looking over his shoulder. But if he lay down here, he would be caught and punished. Draco clambered to his feet and began to walk, stumbling often over debris, bodies, and his torn robes. Most of the fallen were Death Eaters, which gave him an obscure sense of satisfaction, but many were students.

The Dark Lord was supposed to have fixed everything. To have purged the wizarding world of the weak, stupid fools holding them in the Dark Ages. It was supposed to be the Mudbloods' fault, their Muggle ancestry diluting the strength of magical blood.

Ridiculous, a realization that had taken far too long coming. The number of magical families wiped out in this war was surely a greater loss than the tiny dilutions of a few Mudbloods. Those tiny leaks could have been stoppered, controlled with laws and proper education. Patience and subtlety, a Slytherin's proper tools. There had been no need for his proud father to writhe in the dirt, screaming for the Dark Lord's mercy. No need for Crabbe, who had once bloodied Theodore Nott's nose for rubbing dirt in Draco's hair, to burn with cursed flame.

Draco came across one of the Weasel twins, eyes wide and empty, his pale, freckled face wiped of the laughter that he had exhibited in life. He found Professor Lupin too, sprawled near a woman with bubble-gum pink hair and a wedding ring that gleamed gold on her too-white finger.

At some point while Draco wandered among the dead, Voldemort's high, cold voice echoed along the ruined corridors: "You have fought valiantly."

Had they? Was the Dark Lord actually praising them? No, it was the defenders he addressed now. Patronizing them before the final blow.

"Harry Potter….You have permitted your friends to die for you…I shall wait one hour….Come to me…"

Potter. He wanted Potter, of course. And Potter would go, because he'd never been able to stop himself from playing the hero. Draco wandered to a window with a view of the lawn and waited. Not long now, and then it would end.

The body of Harry Potter seemed a pitiful thing in the half-giant's arms. Strange that a boy who had loomed so large in Draco's life would seem so inconsequential in death. An unworthy end to the famously powerful Potter line.

Draco turned away and let his feet lead him. He shouldn't have been surprised when he found himself before the Room of Requirement. It had been his sanctuary last year while he repaired the cabinet that would bring about the beginning of the end. 

Aimlessly, he paced before the wall. There was a soot-stained outline of a door on it now, residue from the Fiendfyre. The Room's magic was probably gone. He paced anyway.

This isn't what I wanted. It's such a waste, such a stupid ending. I…I wish I had done it differently, taken any one of a hundred, of a thousand different paths. I wish I could go back and fix it, save my family. I wish none of this had ever happened.

It happened slowly, a gradual blurring of the door-shaped outline, then a softening and a hardening and a darkening. It was not a door that formed, just a jagged hole leading into blackness, but Draco was surprised, in a distant sort of way, that it had worked at all. He surveyed the blackness with detached curiosity. Definitely damaged. It would probably kill him, but then, continuing to wander the halls of Hogwarts without a wand would probably kill him too. The Dark Lord would certainly get around to it, sooner or later. Draco stepped through the hole and fell into nothing.

Darkness swallowed him, sliding across his skin like ink. He saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing except the warm pressure of the dark he floated in.

Child of Slytherin's House, you are a fool.

I know, he thought, I did everything wrong.

Indeed, your actions have been misguided. However, it is your lack of faith that is truly foolish. You come thinking me broken, bleating repentant words but hoping only to die.

Excuse me?

Have I not hidden you? Sheltered you? Assisted you in your time of need? Yet now, in this darkest of hours, you assume I have abandoned my children. Foolish.

I—I apologize. The Room of Requirement has done all I asked and more. I am simply...I can think of nothing within my power to undo what I have wrought.

But within MY power, all things are possible. Choose well, little dragon.

And suddenly Draco was rushing through the darkness, or perhaps it was rushing past him. His robes were torn away first, then his skin. He screamed—or tried to—as layers of the person he'd become were scraped away to expose the one he had once been. He felt a final sort of thump, as if he'd been thrown into a pile of pillows, and he sat down hard. Opening his eyes, he saw the vaulted ceiling of Hogwarts' entrance hall stretching high above him, whole and unmarred.

Screams echoed somewhere behind him, but they were the laughing shrieks of children, not the agonized cries of the dying. He turned his head and saw the ghosts of Hogwarts filtering through the solid stone, their silvery, translucent faces hiding smiles at a group of exuberant first years.

Why are there first years here? This is a battlefield, he thought dazedly as he pushed himself to his feet. Or tried to. His limbs weren't responding like they should.

"Malfoy? You alright, mate?"

Draco froze. Then a pudgy figure shuffled into view, piggy eyes squinting at his friend.

"Crabbe?" His voice was higher than it should have been, the thin, reedy tones of a child, and it cracked a little saying the name of his childhood friend. His dead childhood friend. Draco reached up to touch his face, nearly poking himself in the eye when his fingers were shorter than he remembered.

His nose was small and pointed, his cheeks soft with baby fat, and his hair was slicked back against his head. He stared at his hands: tiny, with smooth palms and short, chubby fingers. He looked at Crabbe, who was alive, and Goyle, who was staring at Draco as if he'd lost it (he probably had), and the surrounding group of first years still wondering at the ghosts' appearance.

Then he began to laugh. His voice rang with hysteria, but he didn't try to stop himself. What was the point of being mad if he didn't get to act like it? It wasn't like these delusions were going to tell on him.

"Malfoy," Crabbe muttered. "Everyone's starin'."

It was true. The first years had fallen silent and were staring at him now, wide-eyed and whispering. Dimly, he recognized Potter in the crowd, blinking at this paradigm shift in the personality of his new nemesis.

"Move aside now, students, move aside." McGonagall appeared, looking not a whit different than she had in class this morning. Couldn't his imagination have at least given her a funny hat or something?

"Mr. Malfoy, are you quite alright?" she asked, gazing severely over the rims of her glasses. "You are a Malfoy, correct? You're the spitting image of Lucius."

He nodded, and she seemed to take that as a yes to both questions.

"Nerves, I'm sure," she told the assembled crowd. "Quite common before the Sorting." A flask appeared in her hand, and the students gasped as if she'd conjured it, but she'd merely pulled it from her sleeve. "A Calming Drought," she explained, and under her stern scrutiny, he dared not refuse it.

Immediately, the laughter ceased to bubble in his throat, and logic reasserted itself. Relief and disbelief and underneath it all, so deep he was able to mostly forget, the guiltguiltguilt-it all faded into a pleasant dreaminess, and he was able to think. He didn't feel crazy. He extended his magical senses and felt nothing. If he was trapped in an illusion, it was a damn good one.

Choose well, little dragon.

Time travel? he mused. Such things were possible, but rare, oh so incredibly rare. It was far more likely he'd gone insane. Still…he might as well enjoy this dream while it lasted. Play around a little. He wasn't getting his hopes up. Not at all.

His gaze zeroed in on a scrawny green-eyed boy who kept flattening his unruly black hair down to cover his forehead, and the wheels in his clever mind started turning.

The first years were lining up in alphabetical order. Ahead of him, he saw the Mudblood—no, Granger, he had to start thinking of her as Granger—was muttering spells and facts to herself at top speed. He hadn't run into her on the train, had he? She would have no opinion of him yet.

He checked to see that McGonagall was distracted, then darted forward. He nearly tripped twice covering the short distance. Had his legs really been this short before? Was that a detail that an insane person would hallucinate?

"Relax, Granger," he hissed in her ear. "It's not a test. There's a magical hat that looks at your personality and places you in the House that will develop your strengths."

She jumped, and the look she gave him was part suspicion, part irritation, and part relief. It also said very clearly that she didn't appreciate advice from a boy who'd needed a potion to calm his hysterics. But she did stop muttering aloud, and some of the tension eased from her shoulders.

Draco returned to his place, staring intently at everything around him. It seemed real. The pictures on the walls stayed the same no matter how many times he looked. He had five fingers on each hand. He could read, which he tested by reading a note he found in his pocket from Pansy Parkinson. Good luck, Draco! it said. Come sit with me after the Sorting. Had he gotten that note the first time around?

The marble floors had silvery-grey veins running through them. He had never noticed that before, had he? So he couldn't possibly hallucinate it. Or maybe his mind had just made it up altogether. Maybe the real Hogwarts floors were just plain white.

The first years clumped together as much as possible as they entered the Great Hall. Draco finally had to turn and give the boy behind him his coldest glare to stop him treading on his heels.

Things progressed exactly as he remembered: the Sorting Hat sang its stupid song, students with expressions ranging from eager to nauseous approached and were placed into their various houses. Then it was Draco's turn, and the Hat was being placed on his head, was brushing his slicked-back hair.

"SLY—"

WAIT! Draco shouted in the vaults of his mind.

What is it, boy? Everybody's waiting for dinner.

The Sorting Hat's voice was dry and dusty, full of ancient wisdom. And quite crotchety.

Draco thought wildly. He had no idea what was really going on, so it was best to plan for the worst. For now, he would play it like the decisions he made here somehow mattered.

I need you to put Potter in Slytherin!

The mental voice grew frosty. I'm afraid I don't take recommendations, little snake, even from time-travelers. Your friend will go where he's suited.

Draco blinked at that. We are not friends!

Ah, but you want him to be, don't you? Isn't that why you're here? You even got Her involved.

There were so many things wrong with the idea of Draco Malfoy wanting to be friends with Harry Potter—even in what were probably his own hallucinations—that he couldn't even think of a reply emphatic enough, so he switched tactics. But he'll die in Gryffindor! If you can see in my head, you know he will.

On the contrary, it seems as if he'll die for a lot of reasons, one being his own self-sacrificial tendencies and another a result of you leading Death Eaters into the castle to kill the only wizard holding Voldemort at bay, therefore hastening his victory. Draco flinched. For a Hat, it was awfully blunt. Do you really expect him to be safe in Slytherin? It continued, where most of Voldemort's supporters are? If anything, he'll be murdered in his sleep.

Draco shut up. That was a good point.

Hufflepuff then, he begged. Or Ravenclaw. I won't be able to get close to him if he's in Gryffindor and I'm in Slytherin. The prejudice runs too deep. I would be in danger as well.

The Hat scoffed. I revise my earlier opinion. You're not clever in the slightest if you can't see the obvious solution.

Excuse me?

You're not the strongest candidate, I admit. Much more inclined to social maneuvering than legendary feats. But She saw something in you, that much is certain. And I suppose it was rather brave choosing to relive it all…

Oh no, Draco thought. Don't you dare!

"GRYFFINDOR!"

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Morning saw Draco wide awake and irritable. He’d returned to the dormitory only to realize he had nothing to do. No letters to write. No homework. Nothing to read other than his first year textbooks, which contained information so elementary that it actually offended him. Miranda Goshawk was apparently under the impression that the average eleven-year-old was just a bit smarter than a below-average ape.

He was halfway out the portrait-hole for a late-night trip to the library when he stopped himself. He might very well need the Hogwarts staff to one day act on faith and his word alone. Could he really afford to be caught and pegged as a troublemaker on his very first night? No, he decided. Potter and his friends would likely drag him into enough mischief as it was. Best he was seen as a rule-follower. A well-meaning, well-behaved, honest first-year who was occasionally dragged into danger by his reckless housemates.

Merlin, this was going to be difficult.

So he picked the least beat-up armchair and sat in it, staring blankly into the Common Room fire, brooding on problems past and present until dawn raised its blushing head.

As the first noises of stirring people drifted down the stairs, Draco figured that was as good a time as any to use up all the hot water. Not easy in a castle with magically heated plumbing, but possible if you caught the house-elves at a busy time. It was with great relish that Draco listened to the anguished howls drifting down the stairs to where he sat, drying his hair with his wand.

Granger clattered down the stairs first, bag and bushy hair bouncing wildly.  

“Granger, hold on a moment, will you?” Draco called.

She stopped halfway out the portrait hole. “Yes, did you need something?”

He quashed a surge of irritation. As if she could help him!

“Quite the opposite,” he answered smoothly. “You see, my father is on the Hogwarts Board of Governors, so I’m rather more familiar with the castle. I thought you and the other first years might appreciate a guide to the Great Hall.”

“Oh, yes,” she said breathlessly, trying in vain to shove some of her hair back behind her ears. “I read all about that in Hogwarts, A History. Moving staircases and trick doors. I thought it was rather horrible to leave all that in a school, but then I read that there’s so much magic around that it can’t be helped. The castle just takes on a life of its own. I was actually hoping to ask one of the teachers more about…”

As she babbled on, Draco had to rather forcefully remind himself that he was a seventeen-year-old time-travelling war veteran who had stood in the presence of the most terrifying Dark Lord to have ever lived and walked away with his sanity while she was just a know-it-all little girl with no friends and so it would absolutely be counterproductive to hex her mouth shut. He lightly cleared his throat.

“Oh, and I actually memorized the way last night, so I won’t be needing a guide,” she finished with a buck-toothed smile. She turned to go.

“It’s different going the other way, obviously,” he said, exasperated. What part of ‘magical castle’ is escaping her?

Just then Potter and Weasley came stomping down the stairs. Both were blue, shivering, and damp. Draco suppressed a smirk. Seven years’ worth of payback was going to be very sweet.

“Morning, Potter. Weasley,” he greeted cheerfully. “As I was telling Granger here, I thought I’d show you all the way to the Great Hall. It’s almost a tradition for first years to miss breakfast the first day, but Potter looks like he needs the food. And Weasley, you might find you enjoy not having to fight for scraps.”

Weasley reddened and opened his mouth, but Potter grabbed his arm.

“What’s in it for you?” he asked warily. Apparently he hadn’t quite forgiven Draco for nearly blasting his head off last night. An understandable caution, Draco supposed, although he obviously hadn’t meant to do it.

He shrugged. “You can just owe me a favor.”

Weasel scoffed. “To a slimy git like you? Not bloody likely. Come on, Harry.”

The freckled redhead pulled Potter quite firmly by the arm, and after a moment’s hesitation and a glare in Draco’s direction, he followed his friend out the portrait hole.

Draco frowned. It seems he’d lost Potter’s grudging benefit of the doubt. He’d have to fix that.

“Well then, Granger,” he said. “Shall we?”

She chewed her lip, eyes narrowed just slightly. “Ron may have a point about open-ended promises. I read that, in the wizarding world, promises can be magically binding.”

Draco rolled his eyes. They were all getting way too worked up over this. He missed his Slytherins—Crabbe and Goyle, who would have nodded in brutish gratitude; Pansy, who would have fluttered her eyelashes and readily promised him all sorts of things; Zabini, who would have smirked and made a counteroffer; and Nott, who would have rolled his eyes and pointed out that he knew the way just as well as Draco did. Any one of them would have walked to breakfast with him with the understanding that they might have to cover for him one night after curfew.

 “Favors have to be paid with like favors, Granger. For showing you around, I couldn’t ask for, say…your firstborn child.”

She narrowed her eyes a bit more, but allowed him to step past and push through the portrait hole.

“Besides.” He grinned, the sideways one that made him look cheeky and charming. “I already know what favor I want from you.”

The expression worked because she grinned back a bit, hefted her bag, and followed him. “And what favor is that?”

As she clambered over the threshold, she wobbled under the weight of her books. He stepped quickly out of range.

“Share your notes with me, of course. You’re obviously the brightest witch in Gryffindor.”

Draco tried not to roll his eyes as Granger practically flushed with pride. Her desire to be recognized by her peers and not just her teachers was almost pathetically obvious. He had just about finished laying the foundation—eleven-year-olds were so vulnerable to first impressions. She would learn to listen to him, and Potter would eventually listen to her.

Still, she frowned a little, obviously considering the morality of helping another student slack off.

“That’s seems unfair,” she hedged. “An entire year’s worth of notes in exchange for a walk to the Great Hall.”

Self-righteous little brat, isn’t she?

 “I can also answer any questions you may have about the wizarding world. You could probably figure it out all on your own eventually,” he assured her, “but it’ll be quicker to just ask me when you want to know something specific.”

Her muddy brown eyes gleamed at the idea of a ready source of first-hand information. “Deal.”

“Great. Now jump that one,” he said, pointing to the vanishing step halfway up the third floor staircase, “or it’ll swallow you.”

When they reached the Great Hall, Draco noted with satisfaction that Potter and Weasley were nowhere in sight.

“Well, here we are,” he told Granger. “See you in class.”

He wandered off to find a seat, preferably far away from Weasleys and mudbloods. He was pleasantly shocked by how few of the students glared and squished together to bar him entry. He even got a smile and a welcoming wave from a group of giggling second years. Was it because he was a Gryffindork now too that they welcomed him?

Not seeing anyone that he deigned to associate with, Draco settled himself at a relatively empty stretch of the table and reached for the toast.

“So are you excited about your first day of classes?”

He jumped and spilled crumbs on his robes at the voice of a regrettably familiar know-it-all.

“Granger,” he said irritably. “Shouldn’t you be getting to know the other girls?”

She heaved her bag up onto the bench and—with much manhandling that forced him to shift or risk having his legs crushed—shoved it under the table.

“Not really,” she said. “I talked to them last night and all they care about is how dull the uniform is and whether or not our teachers will be attractive. I don’t think we’ll be very close.”

“You really should try,” he insisted. “Connections are important.”

And being seen with you will absolutely destroy mine.

But Granger was about as socially perceptive as a stone. “Maybe later,” she said. “Now, for my first question…”

Draco considered drowning himself in his morning milk as Granger assaulted him with her grating voice. How did she make a question sound bossy? Some of them were laughably ignorant, like how wizards travelled. Others were so obscure he had to wrack his brain for half-remembered scraps of his etiquette lessons. She ignored his many hints about enjoying his morning alone time, and if his answers were vague or short in the slightest, she practically attacked him with demands for more details. She even took notes, spattering his sleeve with ink from her frantic scribbling.

His one consolation was that Potter and Weasley never made it to breakfast, so he could look forward to their miserable grumbling the entire day.

Except even that was spoiled because when the pair skidded into their first class two minutes before the bell, Hermione got up from where she was still glued to Draco’s side and dropped a stack of buttered toast in front of them.

“And maybe this will teach you not to be so judgmental of people when they offer you help!” she scolded.

The Weasel glared at Draco over Granger’s shoulder, even as he crammed an entire slice of toast in his mouth and reached for another. Draco maintained a studiously neutral expression. For all that he enjoyed his petty tormenting of the Gryffindors, he did need them on his side. He would have to make himself tolerable, if not likeable. So he clamped down on the snide comments and reached into his book bag for a small jar of jam.

“Apricot,” he said, setting it in front of the pair with the calculated petulance of an eleven-year-old reluctantly sharing with his new housemates. “It’s my favorite, so don’t be greedy.”

And it had been his favorite when he was eleven, so much so that his younger self had tucked a jar into his school-trunk and eaten it every morning until he got sick of it. Now Draco didn’t much care for it and had only put the jar in his bag hoping to fob it off on one of his classmates.

“What’s the catch?” Weasel mumbled with his mouth full, eyeing the little jar suspiciously

“No catch,” Draco said, pretending to be offended. “I’m being nice. Or would you rather we pick at each other for the next seven years?”

Weasel shrugged and grabbed the jar. When he made to upend it over his toast, Draco made a scandalized sound and conjured a butter knife, which he thrust into the redhead’s grimy hand.

“I said don’t waste it, Weasley! That means don’t dump it all over the table!”

Weasel took the knife, slightly wide-eyed. Hermione, too, was staring at it with shining eyes. “That was a third-year spell,” she breathed.

Fourth, he thought, because of the details on the handle. But all he said was, “Merlin, you can use more than that, Potter. I can always owl my parents to send me more.”

The other boy had smeared the thinnest possible film on a corner of his toast and was nibbling it in tiny, slowly-chewed bites.

“And if you don’t like it, don’t force yourself to eat it,” Draco added, confused by the other boy’s behavior. What eleven-year-old was so sparing with jam? “I won’t be offended.”

“No, it’s good,” Potter said quickly, helping himself to more. “I’d never had apricot, so I was just tasting it first.”

Still, Draco noticed that Potter was careful to always use less than Weasley. And he kept trying to flatten his unruly bangs. Hadn’t he figured out by now that it wasn’t working?

Draco shrugged and went back to his seat, satisfied that the opening salvo had progressed as planned. He plotted absentmindedly all through his classes, formulating strategies, reprisals, possible responses to likely conversations, and doing his best to ignore Granger’s pointed glances at his blank parchment and the occasional hiss of “Draco, at least pretend to pay attention!” She stopped pestering him when he transfigured his match into a needle on his very first try, although he made sure to turn it back before McGonagall could see. He wasn’t ready reveal this inexplicable level of expertise just yet.

Ultimately, Draco decided that his usual methods of ingratiation wouldn’t work on the Golden Trio. Gifts or other displays of his extravagant wealth would be interpreted as boastful at best, a dig on the Weasel’s poverty at worst. Their families could not benefit from his father’s influence, Potter’s being dead, Granger’s being muggles, and Weasel’s being mortal enemies of the Malfoys. Nor did any of them covet the reflected glory of his social standing, and any unspoken offer to become part of his circle would go right over their collective dunderheads.

Draco sighed. Sentiment it would have to be then. Gestures—empty though they might be—of kindness and consideration, favors and confidences, shows of loyalty and feelings of mutual indebtedness. Not only tiresome, but trite. Still, he supposed it would be a small price in light of the catastrophe he hoped to prevent.

Draco looked up at Granger’s sudden gasp. Professor Flitwick had toppled off his precarious pile of books and was picking himself up to the class’s collectively concerned murmuring. Many students were turning to look at Potter, whispering among themselves and pointing.

“What happened?” he hissed under his breath to Granger.

She gave him a superior look as if to say ‘this is what happens when you don’t pay attention,’ but said, “Professor Flitwick was calling roll, and when he got to Harry’s name, he startled and fell.”

Draco shot a surreptitious glance at Potter, who had ducked his head until it nearly touched the desk. What Draco could see of his face was bright red, and he was flattening his hair down again, almost as if he were trying to hide his scar…

A thought struck Draco, one so preposterous that he nearly dismissed it out of hand.

Potter—the Boy-Who-Lived, the Chosen One, the Golden Boy, that Potter—positively hated being famous.

Sure, Draco knew that Potter wasn’t the attention-seeking fathead the media made him out to be. Indeed, he had always figured that Potter’s reckless actions stemmed more from a burgeoning self-righteousness, disturbing lack of faith in authority, and misplaced sense of nobility rather than anything so banal as a desire for attention. But he had also been of the private opinion that Potter purposely cultivated an air of nonchalance toward his fame. His actions kept him in the papers and therefore kept his name relevant in the public's mind, but by refusing interviews, public endorsements, etc., he gave an impression of earnest, honest youth that would have served him well had it not been for Rita Skeeter and the Ministry’s smear campaign.

Never—not once—had it occurred to Draco that Potter had not cultivated an image at all, or that he had in fact studiously avoided any and all opportunities to wield his name and power because the attention made him…uncomfortable. Or something. He had to bend his brain in entirely new ways to make the idea fit inside it. Who could fail to appreciate a tool like that? Potter, apparently.

This theory required testing. “Professor Flitwick,” he said, raising his voice above the whispers, “is it true that you were a dueling champion?”

The class’s attention shifted. After all, dueling was much more interesting than a scrawny kid with a funny scar who did nothing but stare at his desk.

“Well, yes,” Professor Flitwick answered. “At one time, I was considered quite—“

“What was it like?” someone asked eagerly. Then the conversation was off, students practically shouting over each other as they demanded details.

And like magic, Potter relaxed. He lifted his head, dropped his shoulders, and stopped flattening his hair over his forehead. He even raised a hand to ask a question of his own.

Huh, Draco thought. For the next several days, every time the whispering and pointing started up again, he would cut in with a question, insulting observation, or outrageous story. Every time, Potter went from tense, jumpy, or obviously trying to sink into the floor to…normal. Normal for Potter, anyway.

Draco had just finished telling a truly disgraceful whopper about fleeing from muggle helicopters on a broomstick (a story he suspected he had lifted wholesale from a classmate in his future) when Granger leaned over and whispered, “What are you doing?”

She looked from him to Potter and back again with narrowed eyes. “It has something to do with Harry, I know. You tell these ridiculous lies, and then you watch to see what he does. Why?”

Draco sighed. If he didn’t answer, she’d pester him until he responded or went insane. “Have you noticed how twitchy he gets when people stare at him or ask him about his scar?”

She nodded. “Of course. It would bother anybody, having people constantly talk about how their parents died. You’re distracting them so they’ll leave him alone, aren’t you?” She sat back, surprised. “That’s…that’s very kind of you, Draco.”

Well, not exactly, but…I’ll take it. “Don’t look so surprised!” he said, letting himself sound hurt. “Why is everyone surprised when I do nice things?”

“Sorry, Draco,” she said, apologetic, “It’s just that you do seem to go out of your way to be conniving.”

“Of course I’m conniving! I’m a Slyth—I mean, my entire family was in Slytherin. Conniving is a perfectly respectable trait.”

“Yes, well, you are in Gryffindor, where you will get farther faster if you are a little less subtle.”

With that, she got up from her place at the table and moved to sit with the Not-So-Dynamic Duo. Weasel said something with a nod of his head toward Draco. Hermione answered calmly and took a bite of her mashed potatoes. Potter’s head shot up, and both he and Weasel stared blankly at her, then suspiciously at Draco.

He frowned, not sure how to handle this development. Wasn’t it a bit brash to walk up to someone and say, “By the way, I’ve been distracting people from staring at the scar you got when your parents died because I saw how it made you uncomfortable. You’re welcome.”

Draco finished his pumpkin juice and left, figuring Granger would nag Potter into making the first move.

He was right. Later that evening, as Draco was double-checking a detail of his Transfiguration homework in the textbook, Potter threw himself into the armchair next to him.

“I talked to Hermione,” he said, somewhat sullenly. “She says you’ve been telling all those crazy stories to stop people staring at me.”

“And if I have?” he said, not looking up.

“Why? What do you want from me?”

“Nothing,” Draco said. A lie, technically, although Potter never needed to know that. He decided to borrow Granger’s words. “I just thought it was rather crude, hounding a bloke for a scar he got when his parents died. Seemed like it might bring up bad memories.”

“Wow, Malfoy, that’s—“

“Potter, if I look up and see surprise on your face, followed by a statement regarding my kindness or some such nonsense, I’m going to bludgeon you to death with this textbook.”

Draco looked up and found Potter frozen with his mouth half-open, obviously about to say and do exactly that. He shut his mouth, opened it again, stopped.

“Don’t strain yourself, Potter,” Draco said wryly.

The other boy laughed. Then, “I was going to say ‘That’s very interesting.’” His expression was carefully bland.

“It really does bother you, doesn’t it?” Draco said suddenly, changing tact. “Not just the constant reminder about your parents, but the attention itself. The fame. Why?”

Potter fiddled with a thread poking from his sleeve. “I dunno,” he said, frowning. “It’s just…It’s not like I did anything to deserve it. I didn’t even know I was famous until a week ago. Everyone knows my name and expects me to do all these great things, but I’m still Harry. Just Harry.”

“You’re not just Harry,” he said, snapping his book shut and throwing it aside. “You’re Harry Potter. Just like I’m Draco Malfoy. It’s your family name that really matters. That’s the one people will remember. Do you have any idea what you could do with your name? A word from you could sway a Ministry election. An interview could buy you a majority vote from the Wizengamot. People would sell the family heirlooms for a chance to shake your hand. Name it, Potter, and the wizarding world will fall over itself to give it to you.”

Draco stopped, breathing hard. He wasn’t sure why he wanted so badly for Potter to understand this. It could very well cause problems in the future if he embraced the inherent power of his name. He and the Malfoys weren’t likely to agree on many issues. And yet…the waste of it. Why couldn’t he appreciate the true value of what his parents had given him?

Potter only looked disgusted. “I won’t profit from my parents’ deaths.”

“Your parents didn’t die just so you could survive, Potter! They died so you could live. They would have wanted you to have…everything.”

“How would you know what my parents would have wanted, Malfoy?” he said coldly.

Draco stared, clueless as to how even Potter could fail to understand something like this. “Because they were your parents,” he said. “Obviously.”

Potter’s lip curled. “Would you trade your parents for fame, then?”

Draco felt himself grow very cold. From far away, he heard his own voice, hard and brittle as ice: “Never. But if they were gone, I’d make it so no one ever forgot them. I’d make it so no one ever forgot our name. And the man who tried to take them from me? I’ll wipe him from the annals of history.”

With a vicious swipe of his wand, Draco charmed his things to fly up to his room while he himself stormed out the portrait-hole to fetch some reading material. He wouldn’t be sleeping tonight, not with the Dark Lord’s cruel, snake-like face laughing in his mind’s eye.

Chapter Text

Draco spent the next days in a black mood. Fueled by his little chat with Potter, his dreams woke him almost as soon as he closed his eyes. As the shadows under his eyes darkened, so did his temper. Even Granger avoided him.

What was he doing, pandering to these brats? He was here to stop a war. To bring down a madman. Who cared if Potter and his little friends liked him? The bleating masses may have convinced themselves Potter was their “savior,” but Draco knew better. They were children, and they would die like muggles.

Draco threw himself into research. He could never best the Dark Lord in a duel. He harbored no illusions about that. But he shouldn’t need to. At this moment in time the Dark Lord was a wraith, meaner than the weakest ghost, eking out a pathetic existence on the fringes of reality. He already teetered on the edge of oblivion. All Draco had to do was puzzle out the enchantment anchoring him in this plane, destroy the damn thing, and then the Dark Lord’s spirit would slip through the Veil. A fittingly ignoble end for the megalomaniac, Draco thought.

It was a simple enough prospect, except that the relevant theories were all Dark, dangerous, experimental magic of a complexity that most wizards could never dream of comprehending. They certainly weren’t in the texts available to an eleven-year-old in his first weeks of school.

Draco snarled and slammed closed the latest, useless book he’d checked out of the library. McGonagall frowned at him from her desk, and he lowered his eyes, pretending to go back to the short essay about the Impermanence Theorem that they were supposed to be working on.

“Harry, what did you say to him?” Hermione whispered, clearly audible from the row behind Draco. She’d taken refuge with Potter and Weasley when his waspishness grew unbearable, and she now alternated between staring a disapproving hole in his head and pestering Potter about what had happened.

“I told you, Hermione.” His tightly controlled tone indicated that the boy-who-lived was very close to a fit of temper himself. “I went and talked to him like you said. He wanted to know why I didn’t like being famous. When I asked him what he’d do if it were his parents, he went off.”

“But—”

Potter voice grew loud enough that other students started to look up, curious. “For the last time, that’s all! So stop asking me every thirty seconds. If he wants to act like a git, let him.”

Draco turned and shot the both of them a freezing glare. Was it a Gryffindor trait, he thought angrily, to assume that people’s ears stopped working whenever you wanted to talk about them?

Potter glared back.

Fine then. Draco smirked deliberately and, as he shifted his wand to make room for him to write, gave it a little twitch. Potter’s things flew off his desk in flurry of parchment. His inkwell landed in Weasley’s lap, who jerked and successfully managed to knock over both his chair and the inkwell, the latter of which shattered on the stone floor. Potter’s half-finished essay landed in the spreading puddle.

“Mr. Potter!” McGonagall snapped, mending the glass and vanishing the spilled ink in one angry gesture. Weasley picked up the ruined essay with two fingers and handed it regretfully to his housemate. “If your side conversations are so distracting that you cannot even keep hold of your possessions, perhaps you should not conduct them in my class!”

“That was Malfoy!” Potter said angrily. “He—“

“Hey!” Draco protested. “My last name doesn’t automatically volunteer me to be your scapegoat, Potter!”

“That’s enough, both of you.”

McGonagall frowned at Draco. He stared back with an expression of righteous indignation, but inside he was grinning. Considering his (supposed) magical inexperience, his so-far pristine behavior, and his implication that Potter had something against his family, McGonagall wouldn’t dare punish him. She prided herself on being scrupulously fair, and her dislike of Draco’s father would make her especially hesitant, for fear she was unfairly prejudiced against the son.

Merlin, but he loved time travel.

 “Ten points from Gryffindor, Mr. Potter, for trying to pin your own carelessness on one of your housemates.”

“But—“

“You are lucky it’s not a detention. I do not tolerate disunity and petty finger-pointing in my House.”

He had three Gryffindors glaring at the back of his head now, but at least they were quiet about it. When class ended, he packed up his things and fled before Granger could corner him. In the process, he nearly trampled Longbottom, who was gathering his parchments with glacial slowness.

“Oi, why don’t you hex him too while you’re at it?” Weasely shouted after him as Draco’s white-blonde hair vanished from sight. “That git. You alright, Neville?”

The round-faced boy blinked at being addressed. “Um…yes.”

“Good on, then.” The redhead clapped his housemate on the shoulder before he and Harry exited at a more reasonable pace, Hermione trailing an awkward half-step behind them.

Neville continued organizing his bag with exaggerated care until he was the last student in the room. Only then did he approach the desk.

“Professor?”

“Yes, Mr. Longbottom.” She put down her quill and looked at him over her square, wire-rimmed spectacles. “You have a question?”

“Not as such, Professor.” Neville took a deep breath, reminding himself of the days of careful deliberation that had led him to this conclusion. “I don’t want to get anyone in trouble, but there’s something I really think you should know.”

When Minerva knocked on the door to the Headmaster’s office, her disquiet could be read in the furrow of her brow and the pressed-thin line of her lips.

As she entered, she nodded politely to the Sorting Hat. It bowed back gravely.

“Minerva, my dear, you’re rather early.” said the Headmaster, prying apart two particularly stubborn candies. He wore lemon-yellow robes today, which clashed fantastically with his ever-twinkling blue eyes. “Would you like a toffee?” he asked, offering one to her.

“No, thank you, Albus,” she said, seating herself in the chair before his massive, claw-footed desk. “A…troubling matter has come to my attention. I felt it best to inform you immediately.”

What she really meant was that she couldn’t focus on marking papers. What the Longbottom boy had told her was more than simply troubling. The innocent explanations for the situation he had described were precious few, and the more likely possibilities both chilled and enraged her.

She adjusted her hat—a nervous tic she had developed back when the first grey started streaking her hair. She had been self-conscious about it then, such a silly thing. Now she liked to think she had a clearer sense of priority.

“The matter is in regards to a student,” she added, and Albus abruptly forgot his sweets, fixing her with the piercing intensity of his full attention. She was glad to see it. For all the children thought her stern and unshakeable, there were things she could not bear, times when she—indeed, all the faculty—needed Albus’ gentle wisdom, his extraordinary insight, his implacable will to guide them toward the greatest good.

He would know what to do.

Minerva nodded firmly to herself and touched her hat once more. “It’s one of my first-years,” she said, deciding to ease into it. Maybe she was overreacting. Lord, let her be overreacting. “He seems to be plagued by…unusually disturbing nightmares.”

“Ah.” Albus relaxed somewhat, stroking his waist-length beard. “Mr. Potter, I presume. Given his circumstances, the odd bad dream is unfortunately not—“

“Not Mr. Potter,” she said. She had made the same assumption, had been ready to explain about dark curses and their side effects and then get back to her marking, but Mr. Longbottom had interrupted her—politely but firmly—and asked that she let him finish. He was a very brave boy. She looked forward to seeing what he would make of himself. “It is Mr. Malfoy who seems to be the problem.”

The Headmaster blinked, then leaned back in his chair and contemplated her over steepled fingers. “Perhaps I should allow you to finish before leaping to conclusions.”

Minerva folded her hands to hide their half-nervous, half-furious trembling and relayed what she had been told: “First of all, the poor boy appears to rarely sleep, once or twice this week for a few hours each night. When he does…”

Levitation. Possibly animation, although she couldn’t be sure without seeing it herself. Luminescence. And once the windows had rattled hard enough to crack. Longbottom couldn’t say exactly how many of the other boys knew what was happening.

“Harry probably knows,” he had said. “He’s always cranky the morning after one of Malfoy’s bad nights. But I expect everyone else sleeps through it.” Squinting in thought, he added. “Ron thinks someone’s playing a prank, because he leaves his stuff everywhere and it floats off. Then when the glass cracked, everyone thought it was an earthquake, but no one in the other rooms felt it. I asked.”

He had ducked his head and shifted self-consciously under Minerva’s increasingly intense gaze. “Really, I only noticed anything was off because I sleep with my curtains open. To watch the stars,” he explained. “Anyway, a book dropped on me once, and last night I woke up with Ron’s sock tickling my face.”

He shuddered at that, as if a boy’s dirty sock was the most horrible thing he could imagine. Maybe it was. Minerva found herself rather hoping so.

“That’s when I saw everything floating,” he continued, “and I heard Malfoy tossing about in his sleep. But I’m not complaining about him!” he hurried to add. “Honestly. I was just worried. He can’t keep on not sleeping. It isn’t normal, and with what happened to Harry, I guess I…I just thought a professor should know. In case he was sick, or…or needed help.”

And he had been quite right to come to her. Minerva had stressed that as much as she could. Really, for all that she loved Gryffindors, as a group they had an alarming tendency to bull right into situations that they were hopelessly unqualified for.

“And then,” Minerva continued, “the night of the Sorting, Mr. Potter attempted to rouse him from a nightmare, and it seems Mr. Malfoy blasted him right across the room.”

Albus, who had been nodding thoughtfully as she spoke, suddenly frowned. He knew, as she did, that accidental magic rarely manifested in such a way. It was exactly what it sounded like—an accident. Wild. Unrestrained. The lashing out of a child.

This was not like that.

To throw a human being twenty feet across a room required control—power to provide the force, of course, but control to wield it in such a way that Mr. Potter and only Mr. Potter was affected. Essentially, it was the difference between dropping a plate when someone unexpectedly taps you on the shoulder, and throwing it at their head. Minerva suspected she herself couldn’t do it so neatly without a wand, not unless she were quite distraught at the time. Even then, she might leave something of a blast radius.

And so they were left with the question of why. Why had Mr. Malfoy felt the need to attack his fellow student? And if he had not meant to per say and had acted instinctively, where did he acquire such an instinct?

Answers were there, if one had the intelligence to see them. If one had the courage to look.

Nightmares. Common enough in children, especially newly separated from their parents, in a strange new place, surrounded by strange new people. Hardly worth a second glance.

Insomnia. Not unheard of. Combined with the nightmares—assuming the nightmares were regular and caused the insomnia, which was not certain—it suggested Mr. Malfoy might be an unusually anxious child. Perhaps.

Strong reaction when startled from sleep. That fit with the anxious child theory. And it had, after all, only been a single incident. Not a pattern. Perhaps the boy had been having a particularly distressing dream.

Albus’ blue eyed scrutiny intensified, but he did not speak: waiting, as promised, for her to finish. Minerva cleared her throat and continued, “Mr. Potter received a bloody nose from the encounter, which Mr. Malfoy repaired with his wand. The student who came to me remembered the incantation. Episkey.”

First aid knowledge. Episkey was not a difficult spell, but it was rather specialized for broken noses. Mr. Malfoy could have picked it up from watching his parents cast it. If he was gifted, seeing it one or two times might have been sufficient to learn it. Even as a child. Even without prior magical training. He may even have been able to cast it perfectly for the first time on Mr. Potter that night. It was possible. It was. But not likely. (If that was the case he deserved reprimanding. Practicing healing spells on fellow students was incredibly reckless.)

More likely that he had received training. Yes, that was better. The scion of an old, powerful, wealthy house with many enemies, his parents may have seen fit to tutor him in self-defense and first aid. He may even have requested it, if he were an anxious child. He would have excelled at it, if he were gifted.

Albus’ eyes were blazing now, but his voice was gentle when he prompted: “And his behavior? How is it?”

Minerva clutched her wand. “Disorganized. He seemed to be making friends the first few days. Ms. Granger attached herself to him remarkably quickly. He was quick to distract other students from the subject of Mr. Potter; although, I can’t say if that was jealousy on his part or consideration of the poor boy’s shyness. I even saw him share his jam with Mr. Weasley, and you know how their families despise each other.

“But the past few days…,” Minerva took off her spectacles to rub her eyes. “It’s been a complete reversal. He snaps at everyone. He does nothing but read all the time. In class. At meals in the Great Hall. Even at night, apparently. The others have begun avoiding him, even Ms. Granger, for all her enthusiasm.”

She stood and began to pace. She mustn’t jump to conclusions. Maybe the assault on Mr. Potter had been merely a prank gone wrong. Maybe the boy had anticipated a prank and retaliated preemptively. He could be staying awake on purpose for fear of reprisal, or he could be fretting over possible punishment. The nightmares could be unrelated.

Perhaps she wasn’t giving the anxiety theory enough credit. Anxiety was often accompanied by depression. Depression would explain his irritability. But if he were so anxious, shouldn’t he be either painfully shy or overly eager for his classmates’ acceptance? More concerned about his grades? Anxiety would mean there had to be at least one thing he was anxious about, surely. She had not noticed him startle easily. Today for example, when Weasley knocked over his chair. He did not flinch at the sound. Nor did he seem frightened of her, an authority figure. Perhaps because she was female? If his abuser was male...

If Lucius had hurt that boy, she would see him in Azkaban, Minerva decided, even if she had to transfigure him into a mouse and carry him there in her teeth.

“Minerva,” Albus interrupted gently. His eyes were shadowed, but not blazing with the fury she expected. Had she missed something? Some kinder explanation? Please, God, let there be—

“Minerva,” he repeated, and she forced herself to stop running in literal and figurative circles. “The boy is safe here,” Albus reminded her. “We have time to discern the truth. Resources to care for him, whatever the cause may be.”

She sank back into her chair. Yes, that was true. The students were safe here, guarded by herself, her fellow faculty, the greatest wizard alive, and every ghost, suit of armor, and stone in the castle. She breathed deeply and took hold of herself.

“Inform relevant faculty of the situation,” Albus said, looking up at the ceiling. Others might have thought him distracted, but Minerva knew it was something he did when thinking deeply. “I trust you to select the ones who can be discreet. More eyes may give us a clearer picture of young Mr. Malfoy’s emotional state and, hopefully, the situation as a whole. Advise them to contrive a reason for him to visit the hospital wing so Madame Pomfrey may perform diagnostic tests. That should confirm or deny most of our suspicions. In the meantime, I shall compose a letter to Auror Shacklebolt. If any…untoward events were reported and then buried, he should be able to dig them up for us.”

Yes, that was sensible. As much as Minerva longed to take immediate action, they could not accuse a family such as the Malfoys without incontrovertible proof. Even then, it would be a hard-fought battle. But she could be patient. She would wait, and when she finally pounced, there would be no bolt hole left into which they could scurry.

She turned, already composing a list of the most suitable faculty. Severus, for sure. For all his surly attitude, he was a clever and perceptive man. Pomona as well. Her motherly appearance put people at ease, and she was as loyal and implacable as the badger of her house. Filius, of course. He was one of the most experienced professors on the faculty, after all. Rolanda. While not a full professor, some students felt more comfortable opening up to a coach, and she might need the forewarning should the boy have some kind of flashback in the air. Binns wouldn’t even read the memo. Quirinus….no, she decided. Perhaps she was doing him a disservice, but he had changed since his days as a student, and she feared in his nervousness that he would give something away. Most of the other staff would have little contact with a first year, and she saw no need to make the young Malfoy’s sensitive situation the subject of staffroom gossip. That was enough to be going on for now, then. She reached for the door.

“Minerva?” Albus peered at her over his half-moon spectacles. “Your concern for a student’s well-being does you credit. I have no doubt that you will make an excellent Headmistress, in time.”

She nodded her head. “Thank you, Albus. Although I trust you will hold the position for some years yet.”