PLEASE READ THE WARNINGS AND THIS AUTHOR NOTE

WARNINGS: Character deaths (sort of), attempted suicide (half hearted at best), SLASH, 'adult' language

A/N: Okay, there are several further warnings I should give here

a. This fic includes characters from The Administration Series by Manna Francis. I have tried to write it so that you can follow the story without knowing the other characters though.

b. This is a time travel fic and will jump centuries or millennia (thousands of years) into the future at times so be warned.

c. It will eventually be Severus/Harry but that may not be for a while (Part 3 of 4). It's mostly adventure with some romance. There will be sexual interactions with other characters.

- I just realized that the site removed my section dividers! Sorry if that's made reading difficult.

(see my profile page for further comments)

DISCLAIMER - I do not own Harry Potter or any of the HP characters below; they belong to JK Rowling and her business partners. I also do not own Val Toreth, Dr. Keir Warrick or any of the characters from Manna Francis' Administration series. (If you're over 18 and have never heard of the Administration series, google the author's name and you'll find her mannazone website where most of the series is available for FREE- you can also buy the ebook from almost everyone but kindle (it feels like). It's a futuristic dystopian BDSM fantasy.)

Prologue

Only by acceptance of the past, can you alter it.
- T. S. Eliot

Draco Malfoy took another swig of firewhiskey as he watched his son, Scorpius Severus, floo to comfort his best friend, fellow Slytherin, Albus Arthur Potter.

For the millionth time he wondered at his insanity in naming his child after Snape. As if his guilt wasn't bad enough on its own, he named his son after the man he'd selfishly allowed to die. And for what? A time turner. A time turner he'd never even used.

Throwing the nearly empty bottle into the fireplace he watched the swell of the flames as they licked against the paper label shaped like a bright red-orange bird which curled and turned to ashes. 'Phoenix brand firewhiskey'; only nothing ever rose from the ashes, not for Draco anyway. Flames and fire consumed his every thought for the better part of half a century and no amount of philanthropy, or debauchery, seemed to quench those flames.

Draco reached into his robes and withdrew the time turner with its long golden braided chain. It was a beautiful object. A small crystal hourglass was held suspended inside three golden rings etched with runes. He was not sure what the ancient spells meant but his knowledge or runes and Arithmancy suggested that the rings spoke of weeks, months and years. Everyone knew that time turners worked in hours. He had never heard of one that spanned years but more than that, the runes spoke of the past and the future. No one had ever heard of a time turner that went into the future. It was supposed to be impossible and that was why, decades ago at the first Battle of Hogwarts, he stole the chain from the mystery store room which Crabbe had idiotically obliterated with Fiendfyre. When Snape stayed behind to try to save his colleague, Potter, that irritating hero prat, had tried to use the time turner's chain as a lifeline for Snape.

But Draco's natural instincts were firstly, to possessively hoard things and secondly, to always oppose Potter. And so it was that he had refused to let go when Potter tried to throw his stolen treasure to Snape.

He had hesitated an interminable second too long and for that he watched Snape burn before his eyes. Crabbe had died inside the room but Snape's death he'd witnessed. That nightmarish vision which haunted him almost nightly never left and now it seemed certain it never would. Some Muggle researcher had recently discovered that Snape had been a hero after all and had had the key to saving them. Unfortunately, thanks to Draco's selfishness, Snape had died before he could share vital information with that prat, Potter. Now, only moments ago, the Wizarding World had announced the Wizengamot's unanimous decision; they would be sacrificing their Saviour in order to kill Voldemort, this time for good. Today, Potter would die so that the Dark Lord's final horcrux in Potters scar could be destroyed once and for all.

To the fickle wizard population, Potter was to blame for the last few decades of terror and Snape, whose name had all but been forgotten, was now the fallen hero. But they didn't know the truth of what had happened that day at Hogwarts. They did not know that every death since that day was at least in part Draco's fault. Culpability for Snape's death had been enough of a burden; he could not cope with knowing that his parents, his wife, his friends and all those who he cared about who had died since that day did not have to die, would not have died, if only he had let go.

Fingering the cursed chain, Draco decided to end it all. He wrapped the length around his slender neck and pulled it tight. In his drunken struggle, he released the locking mechanism and the small hourglass moved slightly. Suddenly he was standing above himself watching as he tried to wrap the chain around his neck. Draco watched in fascination as his past self accidentally unclasped the mechanism before disappearing. Now there was only one of him staring at the now empty chair.

"Merlin's bollocks!"

Draco collapsed heavily in the chair and with the extreme caution of the very drunk, carefully locked the hourglass back in place. Staring in awed disbelief at the magical object, he suddenly knew what he had to do. Truth be told, he had known for years, but with sheer cowardice and stubborn selfishness, he had always managed to convince himself that it wasn't necessary, that the past was meant to be. Now, however, he felt an overwhelmingly urgent need to go back to that day. It was almost a compulsion to act and to do so now. Not soon, not in a while, but right now.

He had to, no, needed to stop his past self from resisting Potter. Struggling against his natural tendency for self preservation – what if he got stuck in the past? - and yet seeking to save himself from the misery of the past decades and the misery that would undoubtedly overwhelm him after Potter's sacrifice today, Draco submitted to the compulsion to use the Time Turner. He didn't want to return to that day but he needed to save Snape and ease the burdens of guilt from his life.

"Broom," he gasped, jumping into action like a man possessed, "I'll need a broom!"

The elderly Draco hovered unsteadily on his grandson's fancy broom. War research and the integration of Muggle technology over the years had made brooms so advanced and complicated! Though he had to concede that perhaps being drunk and decades out of practice didn't help his balance much.

Flying up towards to the seventh floor, he was thankful that there were no flames in sight. He was early enough to save them- or was he too late? And what exactly was he planning to do anyway?

As he rose towards the fifth floor level, sudden shouts attracted his attention. He watched as his younger self screamed Crabbe's name. He hadn't realized how scared and genuinely upset he'd been back then. He neared the sixth floor in time to hear Weasley scold Potter for extending his hero complex to saving Slytherins. He was only a few feet away from them now and could see Snape about to escape then change his mind upon seeing Potter turn back.

The realization that Snape could and would have escaped, that Snape had only turned to save Crabbe because Draco and Potter had turned back, was almost too much for the elder Draco. Shaking his head to clear it from distracting thoughts, he focused on the crisis unfolding before him. He saw when Potter spot and tugged at the chain. The time had come for him to do something and he had to do it soon. The older Draco sent a stinging hex at the hand of his younger self as the boy reached to fight for the chain. His younger self floundered but Draco would rather have died back then than live the miserable decades that had marked this life.

Fortunately, he saw out of the corner of his eye that his younger self managed to regain his balance, gripping Potter and the broom but his attention was mainly focused on Snape. He needed to watch this. He needed a new memory to replace that old recurrent nightmare. He needed to know that this journey had been worth the risk.

'No! No!' Draco watched, once again in horrified fascination, only this time Snape disappeared when the time turner chain landed over his neck. If Snape had it now, does Draco's future self have it still? It was as he always feared, how would he get back now? What was to happen to his future self? Not that anyone would notice he was missing. Scorpius barely tolerated him and Narcissa had gone mad when Lucius was killed during one of Voldemort's reincarnations. Astoria would have cared, he imagined, but she had died at Voldemort's hand too.

Lost in his melancholy thoughts, Draco barely acknowledged the red spell light headed towards him. As the spell knocked him from his high perch, he mused at the sight of the young Death Eater who had cursed him. Did he know that boy? That… child? Voldemort had ruined the childhoods of so many.

As his descent accelerated, he wondered idly whether history had changed for the better now that Snape at least hadn't died. How far into the past had Snape gone? At any rate, maybe dying now didn't matter because his future self was not haunted by guilt and would not have returned to the past. But then, should he be here still if his future or was it his past self, does not or would not have had the Time Turner or desperate need to change the past?

Time travel is so complicated, Draco thought.

And then he thought no more.