i have no idea where i'm going with this but here's a shot at past tense dgm/hp fic, ready set go

(art can be found on my tumblr esquitor because of course it can)

1: knut for your thoughts?

The first time Harry saw the boy called Allen Walker-Campbell, it was during the sorting ceremony in his third year.

There had been rumors in the train about a fourth year transferee being in the sorting ceremony. He found this hard to believe. Even Hermione had said nothing like that had ever happened before in the entire Wizarding history. Nothing that was written down.

The boy who walked up to the Sorting Hat had hair so pale, Harry almost mistook him for Malfoy. Probably a him. Allen was a boy's name, wasn't it?

"What's he from again?" he whispered to Hermione.

"Vatican City," she said without taking her eyes away. "Rose Cross Institute. Honestly, Harry, weren't you paying attention?"

"Sorry. Just thinking about... stuff."

That got her to look at him, and Ron too, since Ron wasn't paying attention anyway.

"About what happened on the train?" she asked softly, clearly worried.

"Among other things," Harry said, making sure no one else could hear them. Though it was pointless now that Malfoy knew, too.

"Hang on," Ron suddenly cut in. "Isn't Vatican City in Italy? I thought Hogwarts didn't take students from that far off."

Hermione nearly beamed. "You do pay attention sometimes!"

"...Was that really necessary, Hermione?"

"Sorry. But you're right, you know. There's other wizarding schools closer to Italy. France, for example. That's why everyone else is so interested!"

Looking around, Harry found that she was right. Everyone else was looking at the newcomer. He wondered if it was because of the hair.

"What d'you reckon he uses to get his hair that color?" Ron asked. "It's whiter than anyone's I've seen. Except maybe Malfoy's dad. Think his parents let him do that?"

The Dursley's would've never let Harry change his hair color that much. He stuck out enough as it is whenever they were forced to take him with them out of the house. Or maybe they would, and then they'd have something else to hold over his head.

"Has to be colored. Even Dumbledore's got some gray in his beard, this bloke's all white. Like snow."

"Poetic, Ronald."

"I bet I could see him in the dark!"

Hermione gave him a look of long-suffering and turned back to where the Sorting Hat was still deliberating over one thing or another at the end of the Great Hall.

Harry remembered when the Hat couldn't figure out where to put him in his first year. He'd been quite worried about being sent to Slytherin. Looking back now, he wondered if it had shown on his face.

Walker didn't look like he was worrying about anything. He wasn't looking at any of the tables, so Harry couldn't tell which Houses the Hat was trying to pick from. It felt like everyone in the room was holding their breaths.

Finally the Hat stirred after being quiet long enough that McGonagall had given it a prod with her wand to make sure it was awake and still working.

"SLYTHERIN," it shouted.

The Slytherin table erupted into cheers, as per usual. Some of the older ones only clapped and looked smug. Malfoy was one of those.

Walker looked confused when McGonagall pulled the Hat off of him. He leaned over and said something to her, and it seemed that she said something back. Then he walked up to the staff table where Dumbledore was.

Harry couldn't tell what was being said, but he could see Dumbledore nodding, and then Walker bowed. Not those little bows that Harry himself did sometimes out of courtesy. This was a full bow.

He hoped that this Walker fellow wasn't one of those Pureblood stuck-ups. Those sorts of Slytherins were the worst.

Harry watched Walker go down the steps and over to the Slytherin table. He almost stopped paying attention then, except he saw that Walker wasn't planning on stopping or sitting down at the table. He kept walking, and he was looking at the table, but he didn't seem to be looking for anyone.

It was Malfoy who stopped him, holding out his hand and no doubt using his name to rope a poor bloke into joining his gang. He looked properly smug about it, too.

Walker was halfway to shaking Malfoy's hand when his head shot up. He looked around the Slytherin table, up at the House banners, yanked his hand back, and then ran away.

From what Harry could see, he was running like a bludger had been set on him.

"I am sorry to say," Dumbledore said with the barest of smiles, once the Great Hall's doors had shut, "that our newest student is not feeling well today, and has been excused from the meal. You may, perhaps, see him in your classes from now on."

"Blimey, Harry, did you see the look on Malfoy's face?" Ron said as he piled up food on his plate. "Looked like he'd been slapped! Wish I could've seen that up close."

From the way the other table was laughing and chattering, Harry wished he could've seen it up close, too.

/ / /

Malfoy was spotted grumping about Allen bloody Walker several times that first week of school.

Harry really wanted to know what this Walker fellow was all about now. Unfortunately they weren't in the same year, and none of their classes seemed to match up. Harry saw him walking around pretty often ("Hard to miss that bright shining beacon," Ron said. "I mean, his head. Hard to miss his head."), and McGonagall might have dropped a mention about him more than a few times.

"Do they specialize in Transfiguration in the Vatican?"

Hermione gave him a look of brief frustration. "I don't know. I couldn't find anything about a school called Rose Cross in the Vatican, not in any books we have at the library here."

That told Harry a lot. Actually, it told him nothing, which mean it told him many things.

"The only one mentioned in the books I've looked through is a Noah's Academy for the Fated, but that was destroyed 35 years ago. He can't be from there."

"An entire school was destroyed?"

Her mouth thinned. He could tell she found the very thought of destroying a school not only a monumental feat, but also one near blasphemous and unheard of.

Harry wondered what this other school must be like.

Draco was not used to being avoided. No, that wasn't right; he was used to being avoided.

Draco Malfoy was not used to being ignored. He was not used to being brushed off. The mere whisper of his name was enough to get even the older students to stop and listen to him. Everyone knew of his father, and so everyone knew of him.

He never considered that Allen Walker-Campbell might not have any idea who he was.

And a good thing, because he'd have been dead wrong.

"Lucius Malfoy, isn't it?" Walker smiled at him. "Your father?"

Draco opened and closed his mouth several times. "..So you have heard of us."

"Only last night. No one would tell me why you wouldn't stop dogging me around, so I asked my uncle and he snooped about." Walker held out his hand, much like what Draco had done at the entrance ceremony. "Draco Mafoy, I presume?"

He should have felt elated. Draco was too used to seeing fear, and a desire to please in others. Few people in Slytherin got on his bad side. This should have been a victory, albeit small.

Draco did not feel victorious. This was evidenced when he went to shake Walker's hand.

The grip was firm.

"Please don't talk to me again," Walker said, still all smiles. He reminded Draco of someone in the Ministry. The lady in pink. He'd seen his father talking to her sometimes. "I don't quite like people like you, Mr. Malfoy."

"..Excuse me?" Draco demanded, aghast.

It wasn't as though this was the first time he'd ever heard words like that, nor the first time they'd ever been said so plainly to his face. But this was a Slytherin. This was his House! This was worse than being run away from!

"Hard of hearing now, are you?" Walker's accent took on an almost mocking tone and his smile grew sharper. "Shall I make it clearer? You disgust me, Draco Malfoy."

He pulled his hand out of Draco's stiff grip and left just the way Draco had found him. Calm and brisk, and smiling.

Draco swore he saw a scowl on Walker's face as the turned the corner. A Slytherin through and through, perhaps.

It was too bad for Walker that Draco was never known to be a good person who could just leave well enough alone.

"Have you made a new friend, Allen?"

"Friend?" Allen spat the word out as though it were a dung beetle. "Friend? Who could honestly be friends with that- that-!"

"Tosspot?" his uncle offered. "Weasel? Troll dung? Pile of Phoenix droppings?"

Allen looked at his uncle in despair. "You can't say that about a student."

"I'm not, I'm suggesting things you can say to him next time you cross paths. How about dragofeci?"

"What? No! I'm going to call him a-"

"Tentaculo?"

Allen let out a sound of frustration.

Neah Campbell groaned, leaning heavily against the doorway with a goblet in his hand. "Come on, boy, what's the point in knowing three languages if you won't use any of them?"

"It is meant for conversing, uncle," Allen hissed. He threw his bookbag onto the couch. "Civilized conversation."

"Is that what they call it these days," Neah murmured. He took a swallow of whatever it was he had in his goblet. It looked strong. How much had he been drinking? "Lucius Malfoy's spawn, is it? Fuckwad seems more appropri-"

"UNCLE."

"I hope you know that such language will not be accepted within the classrooms, Neah," said a voice from behind his uncle. "Especially not when directed towards students."

"Who's that?" Allen asked. "Were you meeting with someone?"

Neah waved the hand holding the goblet. "No one important."

A chuckle was heard, and a chair scraping along the ground. Albus Dumbledore emerged from the room. Allen fought the urge to scold his uncle for calling the Headmaster no one important; he knew Neah had picked up Cross's penchant for making Allen irritated for the sake of it.

"Professor Dumbledore, sir. Um, were you still talking? I can go, I have loads of homework to do anyway-"

"No need, Mr. Walker," the Headmaster said, smiling warmly. "I believe we are quite finished. Neah?"

"I'll keep it in mind," his uncle said, and waved the cup again.

Allen wondered how he'd never seen anything spill out of any cup Neah ever held, no matter how much he tossed it about. Surely a skill learned from Cross, the drunkard.

"Keep what in mind?" Allen asked. He had a feeling, but surely, surely Dumbledore knew better than to-

"Classroom conduct," Neah said, draining the last of the liquid in the goblet. "For when I start teaching next year."

Better than to employ a bum drunk with a faulty eye and a penchant for hexing anything that moved because it looked at him funny. And the killings. Dumbledore did know about the killings, didn't he? Even though they were Dark Wizards? Killing was still killing.

"What's that look on your face for, nephew? Constipation?"

"I'm thinking about how many innocent lives you'll ruin, uncle."

"You be sure to let me know if he does, Mr. Walker." Dumbledore laughed again and gave Allen a pat on the shoulder as he walked by. "Cross Marian is a good man, and a good wizard. If he says you can be trusted not to destroy Hogwarts, Neah Campbell, then I will believe him. But if you harm any student here, I cannot say that I would be able to keep my promise with your benefactor."

The hand on Allen's shoulder tightened. He wondered if it was a threat, or simply meant to be reassuring his safety.

"Cross Marian is not my benefactor," Neah said slowly, in a tone that Allen rarely ever heard him use before. It was soft. "He is the reason I must be here at all."

Soft. And angry.

"Doing a favor for a friend?"

Neah smiled. "Taking responsibility for his own actions."

"Ah." Dumbledore seemed to get something that Allen missed, judging by the way his hand was no longer trying to gouge out Allen's shoulder.

"I will not harm my students, Headmaster. Not in any permanently harmful way, at least." The anger flitted away in that moment, replaced with the thoughtfulness of a particularly sneaky simian. "I can't promise I won't jinx them."

"I would ask that you refrain, if only because you will merely add to their ever-growing repertoire to use against each other."

Neah made a zipping motion across his lips and drew an 'x' over his heart. Dumbledore seemed satisfied with that.

"Why are we here, uncle?" Allen asked, after the Headmaster left. "I liked Rosa Croce. I made friends there."

"If you're willing to call Mr. Kanda your friend, I think it's a good idea we got you out of there."

"What's wrong with Kanda?"

"He's rude."

"Well, yeah, but that's half the fun of getting him angry. And Kanda's not... awful. Much."

He had reasons for being the way he was. Allen wondered if all Magonò were like that.

Neah let out a bark of laughter. "Then why don't you do the same to Mr. Malfoy, if you dislike him so much?"

Allen felt like he'd been hit with an epiphany.

"Allen," his uncle said then, somehow instantly sober again. "Rosa Croce is closing down."

Yeah. He'd been afraid of that.

"The others have their own guardians, or they're old enough that their Trace will be removed and the Ministry can't do anything about that. You and the other young ones like you, we had to get you out early. Marian can't be claimed as your guardian, he's not related to you by blood. I can't stay anywhere in Vatican City without risking both our necks."

"Beauxbatons would've been closer," Allen said quietly.

"Mm," Neah hummed. He tapped a finger against the rim of the goblet and refilled it wordlessly halfway, then drained it all again. Might've been pumpkin juice, then. "You're not pretty enough for Beauxbatons."

Allen took out his wand and sent a spray of water at his uncle's face.

/ / /

"What was that other school you went to again, Walker?" Malinda Seymound asked while Binns' back was turned. At least, though figured it was turned. He was see-through, after all.

"Istituto degli Obsoleti Rosa Croce," he whispered. "Rose Cross Institute, for short."

"Rose Cross?" She wrinkled her nose. "That sounds like a church's name. Why'd you leave it, then?"

"Financial difficulties," Allen said with a practiced smile.

"You're a Campbell," said Cade Wynford. "Walker-Campbell. The Campbells are elated to the Kamelots. They're known to be notoriously wealthy, the lot of them."

Allen was almost surprised how much they knew about Wizarding families outside of Great Britain. He didn't know jackshit about anyone here.

"Did Malfoy put you up to this?" he asked, letting a tinge of amusement color the accusation.

"Any self-respecting Pureblood could figure out at least this much," Wynford said. He seemed affronted by the mere suggestion that he couldn't have known it on his own otherwise.

Binns turned around again (again, so they thought) and they fell quiet. Allen had no trouble staying awake through the droning lecture. Seymound had charmed a note to constantly peck at the back of his head until he snatched it out of the air.

He read it, scribbled something in reply, folded it back up, and sent it flying at Wynford hard enough to leave a mark on his forehead.

Bring me a bag of chocolate coins and I'll tell you, it read.

Of course, he had no intention of telling them anything of use.

/ / /

"The Vatican Ministry is crumbling," Neah said after drying off his face. "The truce with the Muggle world isn't going to survive much longer. Marian says the Ministry wants to take us with them when they go down."

Allen felt as cold as water he'd just unleashed from the tip of his wand. Icy.

"Oh, no, not you. Marian and I. The NOAHs and L'ordine Nero. Their elites of elites. I suppose they think we're a danger to society outside of the Vatican City's rigid walls. Not enough rules out here to keep us under control."

Under control. That definitely meant Allen and the other students.

"I'm only telling you this because I think you're old enough to understand why we had to leave. And you ought to know. But this is our Ministry's business. Don't go blabbing about it to outsiders."

Allen made a sound. "I'd do no such thing."

"My dear nephew. My dear boy." Neah had the goblet filled to the brim again. Allen really hoped it wasn't whiskey. "You'd spin a sob story out of the mole on your little finger if it would get you a free meal."

"I don't have a mole on my little finger."

Neah pointed at him and he felt his finger heat up. Allen looked at his hand. A mole had appeared on it.

"...This had better be temporary, uncle."

"If you don't return with 10 Lyras and a Knut, it will be permanent and you will be disowned."

"They don't even use Lyra here!" Allen groaned. Then, looking at his little finger, he realized something. "..Hang on. Did you use this to get us over the border by disguising as Mikk?"

By now, Neah had drifted over to one of the couches and situated himself lazily in it, legs thrown over the arm like a ravished fool. He held his foe-glass monocle to his eye, and grinned.

"I have no idea what you mean."

. . .

dragofeci: from 'drago' dragon and 'feci', which means feces
tentaculo: from 'tentacolo' for tentacle and 'culo', for 'ass'
Istituto degli Obsoleti Rosa Croce: Rose Cross Institute of the Obsolete (very tentative, may be revised with a proper translation)
l'ordine nero: supposedly 'the black order', which in this case is kind of like the order of the phoenix, but italian and under ministry supervision
lyra: from 'lyre' and 'lira', the currency of the vatican state and italy (at least until 1999). singular form currency of vatican (and maybe italian) wizarding world.