Chapter Text
The first snow of the year fell silently over Hogwarts.
The castle had been almost entirely restored. Walls once shattered by curses had been rebuilt, and the stained-glass windows destroyed on the night of the war now stood whole again, as though nothing had ever happened. Yet the more normal everything looked, the sharper the memories of that final night became.
Sometimes Draco still heard explosions in his head in the middle of the night.
The sound of collapsing stone.
The sound of screaming.
The voices of Death Eaters begging for their lives.
The war was over, but no one had truly walked away from it intact.
He wandered alone along the sixth-floor corridor that evening, his black robes stirring faintly in the winter wind. His leather shoes echoed softly against the ancient stone floor.
Several students avoided his gaze as they passed.
Some fell silent.
Some hurried away.
Draco no longer cared.
At first, after returning to school, he had noticed every stare. But after months passed, exhaustion slowly replaced anger. He had grown used to being something people no longer knew how to treat.
A traitor.
A former Death Eater.
Lucius Malfoy’s son.
Sometimes even Draco himself no longer knew what he was supposed to become.
Footsteps echoed from the other end of the corridor.
Draco did not turn immediately. He recognized the rhythm of the walk instantly.
“Malfoy.”
The voice sounded the same as ever, except now it carried a weariness that had deepened after the war.
Draco turned slowly.
Harry Potter stood beneath the dim light pouring through the tall windows. His black hair remained as untidy as Draco remembered, though his face looked sharper now, and far more exhausted.
Potter had changed after the war.
Quieter.
More careful with his words.
And burdened with the eyes of someone who had seen far too much death.
“What do you want?” Draco asked flatly.
Potter stepped slightly closer. “You skipped Defense Against the Dark Arts.”
“So?”
“And McGonagall is looking for you.”
Draco let out a quiet laugh beneath his breath. “Then you should hurry back and answer her before she starts thinking you’ve wasted your entire day chasing after someone like me.”
Potter did not respond immediately.
Sometimes Draco hated his silence more than their arguments. It felt as though Potter were staring straight through every wall Draco had built around himself.
“You’ve been disappearing from classes too often,” Potter said at last. “Slughorn is starting to ask questions too.”
“I didn’t realize you’d become Hogwarts’ caretaker.”
“I didn’t come here to fight with you.”
“And yet you came looking for me anyway.”
A cold gust swept through the corridor. Snow drifted through a half-open window, and Draco felt the chill all the way to his fingertips.
Potter studied him for a moment before speaking again.
“You look awful.”
Draco froze for the briefest second.
He hated words like that.
Hated being looked at the way people looked at wounded animals.
“How observant of you,” he replied coldly. “I’m deeply touched.”
“I mean it.”
“That somehow makes it worse.”
Potter sighed slowly, as though he lacked the energy to argue anymore.
They stood facing each other beneath the gray light of the winter evening, the silence between them strangely heavy.
The war had changed everything.
Once, they had hated each other clearly, simply, absolutely. But after surviving a night in which they had both nearly died, those feelings had become tangled into something Draco no longer wanted to understand.
“You don’t need to involve yourself with me,” he said eventually.
“I know.”
“Then stop trying.”
Potter hesitated slightly before replying softly, “Do you really think I’m trying to save you?”
Draco laughed, though it sounded more tired than amused.
“Aren’t you?”
Potter said nothing.
And for some irrational reason, that angered Draco even more.
He hated the way Potter looked at him like that, as though searching for the right words, when the truth was that no words could fix any of this.
“You don’t understand,” Draco said quietly. “People like you never will.”
This time Potter remained silent longer than before.
When he finally spoke again, his voice had gone so flat it was almost cold.
“You think you’re the only one whose life fell apart after the war?”
The words stopped Draco cold.
Another gust of winter wind swept through the corridor. Somewhere far away, a window rattled softly against its frame.
Potter looked directly at him, green eyes carrying a kind of exhaustion Draco rarely saw.
“No one came back the same.”
Something tightened painfully inside Draco’s chest.
He did not want to hear this from Potter. Did not want to know that the boy standing before him carried burdens too. Because if that were true, then the hatred Draco had clung to for so long might begin to crack apart.
“Stop acting like you know me,” Draco cut in sharply.
He turned to leave—
—but the stone floor beneath them trembled faintly.
Both of them froze.
An ancient mechanical groan echoed from the far end of the corridor, as though something were shifting behind the castle walls.
Draco frowned.
A wooden door slowly emerged from the smooth stone wall.
It looked impossibly old. The wood had faded with age, as though centuries had worn it down, while silver lettering upon the surface glowed faintly with unnatural light.
“Have you ever seen that before?” Potter asked immediately.
Draco shook his head.
Suddenly the door swung open on its own.
A massive surge of magic exploded from within, twisting the air around them. Draco stumbled backward instinctively, but the snow beneath his shoes made him lose his footing.
He only had time to feel Potter seize his arm.
“Malfoy!”
Draco’s fingertips slammed against something inside the room.
A surface cold as glass.
Then the entire world shattered into white light.
A violent force tore him forward into emptiness. Potter’s voice faded further and further away.
The last thing Draco saw was the look of panic on Potter’s face.
Then everything went dark.
When consciousness returned, the smell of dust and damp stone rushed into Draco’s lungs immediately.
He coughed violently before pushing himself up from the freezing floor, his head splitting with pain.
The same room.
But something had changed.
There were no cracks in the walls.
No scorch marks from curses.
Even the lantern light looked too bright— too new.
Draco’s heartbeat began to quicken.
Footsteps sounded behind him.
“Who are you?”
Draco turned instantly.
A young man stood at the end of the corridor wearing dark Hogwarts professor robes. Auburn hair was neatly combed back, and blue eyes watched him carefully behind half-moon spectacles.
The face was far too familiar.
So familiar that Draco felt the blood drain from his body.
Albus Dumbledore.
But impossibly young.
Decades younger than he should have been.
Nausea twisted violently in Draco’s stomach.
“…No.”
The man frowned slightly. “Were you given permission to enter this part of the castle?”
Draco did not answer. Instead, he hurried toward the nearest window.
Outside, there was no trace of war.
Hogwarts looked too perfect.
Too quiet.
Too old.
His breathing began to shake.
“What year is this?”
Dumbledore paused briefly before answering slowly.
“1938.”
In that instant, Draco felt the ground disappear beneath him.
1938.
Before the war.
Before Voldemort.
Before everything began.
And only days before a boy named Tom Riddle would arrive at Hogwarts.