Draco Malfoy had heard the saying, "Time heals all," so many times that it had only seemed logical to test it when he was most in need of healing.
His father was in Azkaban, the Dark Lord was asking the impossible of Lucius's son – atonement for family failure, he supposed – and his mother spent more time on the verge of tears than she did showing any semblance of Malfoy pride.
The family Time Turner, an heirloom tucked away on a shelf, had been beckoning to him for weeks before he actually picked it up. It was a tempting creation, smooth wood, polished glass, grains of sand that seemed to beg him to let them fall.
"Where shall I go if I do use it?" He questioned. "Shall I calculate the turns to a certain preordained time and place?"
"Or shall I just wing it?"
That idea was almost as enticing as the idea of using the Time Turner to test everyone's most beloved time-healing parable. Malfoys did not "wing it," they did not do things without planning or purpose, and they most certainly did not seek escape from hard times. Malfoys were supposed to bear up in the face of hard times by paying others off to make the hardships vanish.
Had he learned nothing from his father's fine example?
Finally, one summer day, with a clinical, white-hot sun overhead, Draco grabbed the Time Turner off the shelf and hurried to his room, passing his mother in the kitchen as she asked the house elves to make her a bowl of porridge at two o'clock in the afternoon. He wondered how close she was to insanity; it was not like her to break the scheduled, structured Malfoy meal times.
Or perhaps her willingness to eat what she wanted when she wanted it was a step closer to sanity. He chose not to contemplate it as he walked into his room with his contraband.
What would the Dark Lord's punishment be if he found out about this evasive effort? Somehow Draco doubted that he would look kindly upon a servant's need for rest and relaxation.
There was no time to worry about it now, though.
In a world of madness, there is naught to do but embrace the chaos.
He took the Time Turner in his hands and turned it over and over and over and over…
until a flash of light overtook him and everything vanished.
AN: This is the prologue for a several chapter, rather experimental fic I will be writing. To all my readers, give it a chance please?