Chapter Text
When Draco Malfoy went to bed, still grinning over his Hogwarts letter, he didn’t know just how awfully he would sleep.
It felt like he’d been asleep for years, but only some of the dream he’d had stuck— A boy with green eyes, stood in a shop with him, scowling, then with a wand pointed at him as Draco bled.
A monster with the face of a snake, with red eyes, a shrill laugh, and his wand pointed at Draco’s forearm as a strange symbol appeared there, the ink writhing painfully.
Then, dead bodies. Or rather, dying might be a more appropriate word. Dumbledore, a boy that looked familiar, Draco’s godfather—
A pain so deep, he wanted to claw his body off, he wanted to peel his skin away and chuck his bones from him just to stop the burning every time he heard Crucio. That constant state of dread, as if a stone fell into the pit of his stomach and kept drowning him as Ragnarok shook hands with Death, the horror and powerlessness hitting him like a slap in the face one summer—
After what felt like nearly a decade but was only a night, Draco woke up in a cold sweat.
He’d be lying if he tried to say it hadn’t impacted him. Draco had heard of seers, though his Father said they were frauds. Now, Draco was faced with the realisation that his father had lied, at least to some extent.
As well as, and this was perhaps even more shocking, the fact that Draco didn’t feel the need to tell his father a thing.
Despite the beatings, Draco often spilt his secrets to his father. But this? This was a secret to bear alone. Lucius Malfoy would beat him, whether it was the truth or not. And he would go down the wrong path, whatever that meant, no matter what Draco said or did. Something akin to hatred fell on Draco like a thin veil. Not the kind of hatred one has towards an enemy, but rather a feeling of injustice that Draco should be subjected to his father’s idiocy.
It all settled with a terrifying certainty, a sweet calm as if he’s had years to work through this. He should not trust his father. He shouldn’t follow him… And his mother wouldn’t help much, either. Not whilst she still followed his father like this.
Draco sat up, his face gaunt as he grabbed the closest notebook he could reach. And then he wrote.
Many years later, Draco would wonder why he’d written it all down. Not with any spite towards his younger self, it helped him greatly. But that did not take away the fact it would have been easier to ignore it. To let it be a strange dream.
But wrote he did.
It wasn’t only his life the visions he’d gotten showed, strangely enough. He knew about a younger man, with black hair that looked long, as if he hadn’t had time or will to cut it, and grey eyes just like Draco’s. Draco saw his drowning, hands of the undead clawing at him, and a single word stuck: locket.
A flash of a cup, a door that wrote Regulus Arcturus Black, a diadem between the rubble, a cabinet, a petrified cat, a triangle with a circle and a line inside, the burn of cruciatus, a skull and a snake, green light, a shout of a spell Draco couldn’t place…
None of it made any sense.
He only knew two things, even after trying to decipher the blur of faces that rapidly faded.
The first was that his family was not to be trusted. His father waslying, it was just a question of about what, and about how much.
The second was that he never, ever wanted to feel that powerless again.
When Draco asked why they hated muggleborns, Lucius Malfoy lost his wits.
His father had been somewhat amendable at first, willing to look past it with a simple hand wave and a reminder of their wizard blood.
But there was something nagging at Draco there. He’d seen muggleborns doing magic well, although he couldn’t remember when. So why would it be different?
His father shouted at him, ready to shoot singing hexes his way when his mother stepped in the way.
”Lucius, let me,” She said softly, with a glare that Draco couldn’t quite understand. Did she know what he was about to do?
”Their magic is stolen,” Narcissa explained softly, “They have destroyed our culture. They have changed our traditions, renamed them, and now we have to let rituals and celebrations that have strengthened our magic die off to appease them.”
Draco tilted his head narrowing his eyes slightly, “Why not introduce them back again?”
“…They come from Christian backgrounds. They wouldn’t understand.”
Even as she spoke, she seemed unsure, his own maman looking at him with new eyes. Not anger nor fear but rather… curiosity. As if she was waiting for him to ask the right question.
As if once he did, she would step in, and take him away.
Still, Draco had his answer, and he would try to understand how this Christian background affected things. Whether it really was as hopeless as his mother said.
Diagon Alley looked alive, which shouldn’t have surprised Draco. But a part of him was pleasantly relieved as they walked around.
At his insistence, Draco managed to convince his mother and father to take him to Ollivander’s first. The constant unease at not having a wand was already getting unbearable.
”Come on, dear. Your father has business in Knockturn Alley,” His maman said with a sigh, “Don’t you want to wait for him?”
Draco shook his head, giving her a small smile, “We can show him afterwards…”
His mother nodded, amused by her son’s excitement. Draco could read her well, better than he usually could.
When he stepped in Ollivander’s, Draco almost did a double take looking at the man. It was strange, as if some instinctive part of him was glad to see him looking so well.
And so the wand trying started. They went through a couple of wands with unicorn hair and then phoenix feather.
“Perhaps dragon heartstring might suit you better, young man,” Ollivander mused, “Yes, perhaps…”
Draco frowned as Ollivander bent down to grab a box, before the old man turned to him with a gentle smile.
“Fir wood, dragon heartstring, 13 inches… Reminds me greatly of a cedar wood wand I sold…” His eyes flicked up to Narcissa, “To your cousin, I believe, Mrs. Malfoy.”
Maman nodded tightly, “Regulus, yes.” Her voice turned softer, “I remember.”
Regulus Arcturus Black.
“Perhaps a family resemblance might be suitable,” Ollivander said, and Draco carefully took the wand out of its box.
With a flick, the wand turned alight, a flame-like golden glow exuding from the tip and curling around Draco like smoke on fire.
He glanced over at his mother, who stared at him with clear pride, and something more like… recalculation.
“Interesting, given both wands took their heartstring from the same Peruvian Vipertooth,” Ollivander hummed, “Well, Mr. Malfoy, I believe we have found a wand which works perfectly for you.”
As they stepped out of the shop, Draco insisting he keep the wand in his pocket, he turned towards his Mother.
“Who was Regulus?”
His mother smiled sadly, “My cousin, Orion’s youngest. He would have been your godfather instead of Severus, had he survived that long.”
Draco nodded, his mind going to the door with that name carved.
“Where did he live?”
“12 Grimmauld Place,” She said carefully. Something in Draco’s expression must have made her worried, for her to continue, “Draco, you must promise me never to go there.”
Draco blinked, “Why?”
”It… it could put you in a difficult situation. Magic works in strange ways.”
From the look in her eyes, he knew she wasn’t lying. A part of him, however, wandered if she wanted him to go anyway.
Draco was thinking of ways to get to Grimmauld Place as he was being measured for new robes, when the door opened, and the boy with green eyes walked in.
The same boy who had made him bleed, in his vision.
Draco’s eyes widened, and he swiftly turned to look away from him.
“Hogwarts, dear?” asked the witch behind the counter, “Got the lot here — another young man being fitted up just now, in fact.”
Draco wanted the floor to absorb him when the green-eyed boy looked over at him.
“Hi,” The boy said, throwing him a wonky and rather anxious smile, “You’re, uh, you’re going to Hogwarts too?”
”Yes,” Draco drawled, and glanced down at the robes he had on, “As you see.”
”I’m Harry,” The boy blurted out, and Draco kept his face carefully passive. Whoever this boy was, he was dangerous. Draco knew as much.
”Wonderful to make your acquaintance. I would shake your hand if I could move, but alas.”
Harry snorted, and something clenched painfully in Draco’s chest. When could he escape this damned shop?
”Do you know much about Hogwarts?”
”It’s a magic school,” Draco said with a huff, “What’s there to know other than that?”
”Oh, I just mean— like, lessons.”
”The basics, I imagine, until we choose our electives in third year.”
”Um, basics? Like what?”
Oh, Draco realised with a start, finally taking in the state of the boy’s clothes, He must be muggleborn.
Draco remembered what his father had told him about muggleborns. He also knew he couldn’t be arsed to give a fuck about what his father thinks, not when he had this unshakable realisation his father was wrong.
”There’s charms, potions, transfiguration, defense, herbology, astronomy, history of magic…” Draco started listing off, and the boy turned greyer and greyer as he spoke.
”Oh, that’s— a lot…”
”I’m sure the professors and your head of House will help you manage.”
”House? What does that mean?”
”Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin? The four Hogwarts houses?”
”Oh.”
”I take it you don’t know much about them?” Draco stole a glance at the boy, who shook his head.
”What are they?” Green-eyes asked after a moment.
Draco took a moment to think, before answering honestly ”Personality archetypes. Gryffindors are prominently brave, Hufflepuffs kind, Ravenclaws curious, and Slytherins determined, though that gets them a bad reputation. My parents were both Slytherins.”
”Oh. I’m sorry.”
Draco scowled over at him, “What for?”
”The reputation thing.
They stared at each other for a moment, and Draco looked away. The boy was back outside soon enough, and Draco breathed a sigh of relief.
Maybe that would ensure he wasn’t sliced through later on.