Disclaimer: I do not own anything Harry Potter related.

Prologue: The Return of Draco Malfoy

"Avada Kedavra!"

Potter slumped to the floor of the Great Hall, his wand rolling out of his hand. Calmly, the Dark Lord stepped forward under the gaze of the watching Death Eaters and sycophants. He picked up the wand and inspected it, then bowed down to inspect the boy.

"He is dead," the Dark Lord proclaimed. "The day has been won. Soon, we will celebrate our final victory over the pitiful resistance lead by the Boy-Who-Lives-No-Longer. But first, I need to handle a few things. Bellatrix, please step forward."

The madwoman left her spot in the silent row of lackeys and bowed before her master, an evil twinkle lighting her violet eyes. "My Lord?"

"You have done me proud," the Dark Lord said. "You have taken down many enemies this day, the young Longbottom and the mudblood among them. Let everyone here know that you are the most favored among my ranks. Whatever you wish, I will give you."

"Thank you, my Lord. I live to serve you."

The Dark Lord nodded to dismiss her. "Narcissa Malfoy."

Frightened, she stepped forward.

"About two hours ago," the Dark Lord said, "I gave you a simple task. Inspect the boy, and tell me if he is dead. You were unable to fulfill this task. Crucio."

She screamed, her arms and legs spasming wildly. The Dark Lord did not let go until Bellatrix stepped forward again.

"My Lord," she offered as he turned his eyes towards her, "please, allow me to deal with my sister's betrayal. It shall be to your satisfaction."

The Dark Lord considered that. "Yes, I will grant you this, Bellatrix. Take her somewhere else, so that I may continue my business here uninterrupted." The Dark Lord once again scanned his ranks. "Draco Malfoy, come forward."

Draco swallowed, but stepped forward, not willing to risk disobedience.

"When the castle was evacuated," his Lord said, "most Slytherins left with the other students, after which they joined my ranks. You, however, did not do so. I cannot reason other than that you decided to remain in the castle. Is this true?"

"Yes, my Lord," Draco said, bowing deep.

"If that is the case, Draco, then why was Harry Potter still alive when I called the truce? Why, even, was he still alive when the battle started?"

Because he saved my life, Draco thought, keeping his eyes locked with the ground. "Because," he said, "I could not defeat him. I attempted to depose of him, but he, the mudblood and the blood-traitor were too much for us three. Vincent died in the fight, and Gregory and me only barely got away."

"Then you have failed me once again," the Dark Lord said. "Crucio."

Draco screamed under the immense pain, as if thousands of knives fought to be the first to pierce his every nerve. After what seemed an eternity, his Lord let go.

"Leave," he said, "and do not show yourself again unless I or a member of my Inner Circle calls on you. Let it be known you hold a position of disgrace."

Draco fought for control of his still twitching muscles to leave the room. His every nerve still burned with the torment they had just endured. It was the day of victory, when the Dark Lord had overcome his last opponent, when he finally took complete control of the country, with no one left to oppose him. And what did he do? He tortured his servants for failing to bring down his enemies, even if they tried. Of course, Draco hadn't actually tried in the end, but the Dark Lord did not know that. In reality, Potter had saved his life from Crabbe's Fiendfyre – and not only that, he and Weasley had done so a second time just a little later, during the fighting, stunning a Death Eater from under that blasted Cloak of Invisibility.

Somewhere else in the castle, his aunt was torturing his mother into insanity.

Draco knew he would never see her again – at least, not in a condition any different from the Longbottoms. He knew his aunt too well for that.

And last year, last year Dumbledore had known Draco had been ordered to kill him – at the time, Draco had thought it a bluff when Dumbledore had revealed that, but he had realized later that it had not been. And despite that, Dumbledore had let him continue, until that night on top of the astronomy tower, where he had told him why. Draco was not able to kill someone like him, not able to kill someone without a wand, someone he looked up to.

It was that night that he had started to doubt.

He'd had a year to stew it over, to try and force it down, but that single spark had always remained. When Potter had saved him from the Fiendfyre, risking his own life in the process, it had ignited once again, more powerful than ever before.

What did the Dark Lord do, when he had his victory? He tortured those who followed him.

What did Potter and Dumbledore do, when he tried to kill them? They saved him, protected him.

Draco sagged against the wall of whatever corridor was in when the truth he had been avoiding sank in.

He had chosen wrong. So, so wrong.

In his mind, he saw his mother's face as she was dragged away by her sister – her own blood! – and he cried for what seemed an eternity.

"Draco Malfoy, what hurts you so much?" The feminine voice was soothing and caring. Though he found himself trusting it, Draco knew for certain he had not heard it before in his life. He blinked away his tears and looked in the direction it came from to find a transparent woman – not a ghost – standing in the hallway, wearing a green dress that went all the way down to her feet, yet left her arms exposed. It was simple but beautiful, and complemented her black hair and blue eyes.

"Who… who are you?"

"I am Lady Hogwarts, and I watch over all my students and former students. Do not worry, I would never betray a student's secrets."

"I chose wrong," was all he could say.

Lady Hogwarts approached him.

"And what can you do about it?" she prodded.

"I don't… Are you saying I should try to resist the Dark Lord?"

She shook her head. "Do you believe that will work?"

"Never. He is too powerful, and all his opposition is already gone. I'd be… I'd be all alone."

"Come, stand. It's easier to think if you're walking."

Reluctantly, he got up and started walking, Lady Hogwarts falling in step beside him.

"What should I do?" he asked.

"What do you want to do?"

"I don't know! I… I don't know… It's too late to do anything. The Dark Lord has already won. I can't just go back in time and change things." He was silent for a moment, then looked to the Lady, an ember of hope igniting in his heart. "Can I?"

The Lady smiled at him. "The possibilities of magic are endless. I cannot give you many answers, as it is not in my nature, but perhaps magic can assist you even in this. I hope you may someday find what you require to obtain peace of mind, Draco."

The Lady faded into nothingness, and for a moment Draco thought he had imagined the entire conversation, but then his eye fell on the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy and his trolls, and the last line the Lady had said played again in his mind. I hope you may someday find what you require to obtain peace of mind, Draco.

Had she led him here intentionally? Would the Room of Requirement be able to provide even this? He started pacing back and forth. I want to right what went wrong. After the customary three times back and forth the door appeared, and he stepped through, curious what he would find.

The room he was in was not big, appearing as a small, personal sitting room with a fire cracking in the hearth and a comfortable stuffed chair next to it. A small table stood next to the chair, with a single, thin book on it. Several book shelves lined the walls, and a single door led to a different room. Curious, Draco sat down in the chair and picked up the book. Unwrapping Time, it was called, written by… Rowan Ravenclaw?

As far as Draco knew, no one with that name had ever existed – in fact, Rowena Ravenclaw had taken her surname upon herself, and she had had only one daughter, Helena, who had never married. These two people would be the only ones bearing the name in all of history. Curious, he opened the book, which despite it's obvious age was written is modern English.

Greetings, reader, it started. Within this book lies my greatest secret, to be revealed only to those in the most dire of needs. First, let me introduce myself. I was born in 962 as Rowan of Aberdeen, a minor nobleman from the east of Scotland and a halfblood wizard. At the age of 29, I met with two other wizards and a witch to perform various magical rituals in the Scottish heartland. One of these rituals, performed in a remote valley, caused a number of unintended side effects and cost the two other wizards their lives. While I spent several months recovering from my own injuries, I examined the valley and it's magic, finding something highly unusual.

As I discovered, the various flows of magic that permeate our world and fuel our rituals are not equally distributed. In particular, this valley was situated on a node of time. This is what caused our ritual to go haywire, as we had been attempting to create time sand, a substance that can manipulate time (it should at this point be noted that the ritual was performed correctly and has been used in other locations since, with time sand being the active component of time turners). With this new knowledge, I realized that this location would allow for much more than making time turners – which really are more items of curiosity than anything else due to their penchant for creating paradoxes.

At this location in the world – and I strongly believe only here – it was possible to instead perform a ritual to reverse time, undoing all events of several years of history, even all the way up to a decade. I managed to create and perform this ritual, and found it had a highly unusual cost associated to it. Where most rituals require something physical, like blood, animal life, or for a more demanding ritual even part of the caster's body or even, in the case of some Dark Arts, human sacrifice, this ritual requires none of that. After all, the very effect of the ritual undoes all these costs. The only cost it has – though significant – is that it rewrites history even beyond the point to which the one who performs the ritual returns, and changes their gender as well as everyone's memories of that person to be in accordance to this change. I have performed this ritual myself, to go back from 993 to 985, and then sought contact with the wizards and witch I had previously been working with.

After proving I had knowledge that could only have come from the future, they decided to work with me. We all agreed that this ritual could be very dangerous, but also extremely powerful. After several weeks of discussing the matter at hand, we decided we would not teach the ritual itself. Rather, we would create a number of limitations to avoid both rediscovery and the possibility of the knowledge falling into the wrong hands, while at the same time ensuring this knowledge would always be available to those we considered worthy of it.

To this end, we built a castle to serve as protection for the location of the ritual – as well as each taking on a new name to signify our new responsibility. In addition to that, we hid the knowledge of the ritual inside the castle – in this very book – guarded by many charms, enchantments and more. Last, we gave the castle a measure of sentience to allow it to lead people in the right direction. For this spell to be effective, however, the given sentience required a certain amount of familiarity to the person. To ensure this familiarity would be in place with as many people as possible, we turned the castle into a school for all wizards and witches of the British Isles. Even for those who are no longer students, the castle's sentience will only need a few minutes to reacquaint itself with them if they come to visit.

To be a little more specific, the castle requires of any person that they possess four qualities, one for each of the Founders, as well the aim to save lives or otherwise avoid major crimes that have taken place in the past. The four qualities are the ambition to set right what went wrong, the wisdom to know how to approach the problem, the dedication to repeat several years of their life to achieve their aim, and the courage to dive into the unknown.

At this point, Draco stopped reading and looked up, finding Lady Hogwarts watching him.

"Why did you bring me here?" he asked.

The Lady smiled. "What House are you, Draco?"

"Slytherin," he answered, surprised. Surely she knew that.

"Ambition, cunning, resourcefulness. You may be out of grace with your Lord, but your family has supported him for a long time, and you will still be able to obtain a comfortable position in the world he plans to shape. But you're here, hoping to unwind time. What are you planning on doing in the past?"

"To… to help bring down the Dark Lord."

"If you were to turn back time," the Lady said, "you would once again be the only child of your Lord's right hand. If you were to play your cards right, you could become your father's successor. And yet, that's not your aim. You wish to join the side that lost the war and was killed to a man. You were – rightfully so – sorted into Slytherin, but what you wish to do now is not just that. You have the ambition to set right what went wrong – to defeat the Dark Lord, rather than aid his victory. But you also have the wisdom to know how to approach the situation, by seeking the companionship of the man – the boy – you have hated for the last seven years. You have the dedication to go through with that, as well as going through your teenage years again, to achieve the goal. And last of all, you have the courage to do so. Perhaps it is what you have seen in Harry Potter, and the last night in particular, but you are no longer the boy that was sorted into Slytherin almost before the hat even touched his head, Draco."

He remained silent for a minute, going through his thoughts.

"What am I supposed to do? I don't… I don't even know if I want to do this." He held up the book. "I don't like Potter, even if he's saved my life… Twice… If I would see him again, I think I'd still want to try and curse him with that stupid scar of his." By now the words came streaming out of his mouth. "And even if not, what am I supposed to do? Buddy up to him? I'm a Malfoy, there's no way he's just going to accept me. And even if he would, his best friends are a mudblood – er, muggleborn – and a Weasley. And I don't even know what they've been up to this entire year! I have no idea what happened during that Triwizard Tournament task! I know that they did something with the Chamber of Secrets, but how am I supposed to help them out? I don't know anything of what they've done! I can't just worm my way in there and be part of their group like it's nothing. I'd be useless!"

Lady Hogwarts stepped up to him and laid a solid – surprisingly so – hand on his shoulder.

"I cannot tell you much," she said, "at least not other than what I am supposed to do and what you deep down already know, but I trust that if you go back to the day you first met Harry Potter, you will be fine. And… it is alright to doubt yourself, as long as you do not let the doubt rule you. A very Hufflepuff quality, and one that too many people lack. But I know you do not, Draco. Do you wish to do this?"

"How can I not?"

She chuckled. "Spoken like a Gryffindor."

He snapped his head at the Lady, about to retort, when he realized that it was a very Gryffindor thing to say indeed. A Slytherin always had a choice.

He stood and opened the door to the second room, which turned out to be an austere room with a large cauldron in the middle. Against the walls stood shelves with various ingredients and all kinds of tools, as well as a shelf filled with various kinds of food under a conservation charm. Though most of the floor was simple, indeterminate grey stone, it was interrupted by various lines of a differently colored stones.

"As far as history is concerned, this will be the first time anyone performs the ritual," Lady Hogwarts said. "After all, when the ritual has been performed, it is then undone by it's own power." She walked over to the shelf with food. "The ritual takes about three days to perform, which is why Rowena made sure food was supplied. Luckily, as the food is no longer consumed once the ritual has been performed – once again, that act has been undone – it is still here a thousand years later. The same holds true for the ingredients, so everything you need is present here.

"Oh, and one last thing in case you don't read Unwrapping Time properly, the ritual marks your blood even in the past, leaving you unable to perform it a second time. I'll stay here in case you want to talk, but I cannot physically help you in performing the ritual, nor can I guide you through it – you have to use the book for that."

Draco looked around and saw a chair appearing just behind him, so he sat down and started reading through the instructions of the ritual. The book consisted of the introduction – which only continued a little while after what he'd read already -, a step by step guide of the ritual and a lot of arithmancy, ancient runes and more that he wasn't interested in, which was used to explain why the ritual did what it did.

Some two hours later Draco had read through all the steps, swallowed heavily a few times at some of the instructions, checked whether he indeed had all ingredients available in the required quantities, and started the ritual itself. It wasn't too hard – just time consuming. And not a little scary near the end. First off, he had to fill the cauldron with water and add a number of ingredients, every time a set coming from different parts of the life cycle of a plant or animal. Then, he had to let it simmer for about an hour while drawing various outlines on the ground with chalk, as indicated by the colors on the floor. That was followed up by half an hour of stirring, which caused his arms to quite vocally question his decision to go through with this, and again he had to let the mix simmer, this time adding even more ingredients at various moments. It was calm enough that he had the time to eat something, however. It continued like that for several more hours, after which he reached a point where the mix had to simmer at least two hours, but it wouldn't harm to let it stand any longer, and the text advised for him to get some sleep and continue the next day, which he did.

That second day continued much like the first, simmering, drawing outlines, adding ingredients, stirring, until sometime in what was probably the afternoon – judging by the number of hours outlined in the instruction. Suddenly, the room started to shake, and Draco found himself growing worried.

"What's happening?" he asked Lady Hogwarts, who was still hanging around the edges of the room, watching his progress.

"That is the Dark Lord," she said. "He is looking for something in the room where Vincent Crabbe unleashed the Fiendfyre. Do not worry, he will not be able to enter the Room in any way. The charm that protects this specific Room is similar in nature to the Fidelius charm that was developed later, and I am it's Secret Keeper. The Dark Lord knows the Room should be there, but he cannot find it, nor will he be able to destroy it."

"What if he destroys the castle?" Draco asked, still worried.

"He won't," the Lady said, "but even if he would, this room would survive, for it is not actually on the seventh floor of the castle. Hogwarts is said to be the safest place in Britain, and this is the safest place in Hogwarts."

Draco turned back to the ritual. He'd attempted to make small talk with the Lady, but apart from his own experiences and general history, she wasn't of much help. Part of her essence, apparently, kept her from spilling other student's secrets – even the Dark Lord's – whether or not doing so was actually harmful. In fact, she could not even tell him what Potter and his friends had been up to during their years at Hogwarts.

The rest of the second day passed, and again he reached a point where the mixture was allowed to simmer for a long time, and he took his sleep.

The third day came – the Dark Lord had since given up trying to break into the Room – and Draco once again continued with the ritual for several hours, until he was almost finished. One ingredient to add to the cauldron, but first… Hesitantly – she was a personification, not an actual person, but still – he pulled off his robes and underclothing. Next, he picked up the dagger that had been left on the shelf up to now and made a shallow cut on his arm, then smeared out the blood in the pattern indicated by the red stone, followed by the marks that would ensure he would be sent back to the correct day. Luckily, Lady Hogwarts had been able to supply to him that it had been July 31st when he'd first met Harry Potter. Then, he stepped up to the cauldron, ready to add the last ingredient.

He took a deep breath.

"You can do it," Lady Hogwarts said.

"What if it doesn't work?"

"You know of someone who has performed this ritual," she said. "I cannot tell you who, and he is no longer alive, but he was in a similar position to you. More similar, in fact, than I think anyone else who has walked these halls in the last century, if not longer." She stepped up to him and put a hand on his shoulder again. "You are not alone, Draco."

"Who?" he asked.

She smiled. "I cannot tell the secrets of my students. Perhaps he will tell you someday. In fact, I would expect that to happen. Show your courage, now, before the bloodlines lose their effect."

He took a deep breath. And plunged the dagger into his heart.

"Heartblood," he whispered with his last breath, "as sacrifice and lifesource, to fuel my journey."

Draco Malfoy lost consciousness, bowed over the cauldron.

As the blood entered the mixture he had created, it lit up like the dawn, bathing the Room of Requirement in a bright light. In an expanding wave, the various chalk lines started glowing white, while the bloodlines exploded in a brilliant red. It seemed as if the Room itself came apart, torn into pieces so small the naked eye could not observe them. The effect radiated outward, and shining white cracks seemed to appear in Hogwarts, expanding over the countryside and soon over the entire world as time started to unwind. The laws of physics seemed to collapse upon themselves as what had happened now existed no longer, and the Earth wound back to the past. Days, weeks, months, years, it's power channeled by instructions that yet had to be written. Seven years into the past.

It was 1991, and there was no indication of what the future would hold.

AN: Some people have been asking me about relationships. Currently I do not have any pairings planned out. In time, you will see why.