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A/N on the side-quel following Fate Has Its Ways. (If you didn't read that, just skip this line). It's in the works, and I will begin posting that in about a week.

This chapter is a preparation chapter for the main story. It basically just sets up backstory and stuff, that's why it's shorter.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.


Draco Malfoy was born on June 5th, 1980.

His parents were the illustrious Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy, from the highest class of purebloods in society.

He was their only child.

Sometimes, Draco would wish for a brother or sister. It was lonely in that big manor, all by himself. He wanted another child to play Quidditch with. His parents barely let him associate with other children, only on occasion at parties. He longed for another child, a friend. If he had a sibling, they would be friends.

But, then Draco thought of families he had heard about, like the Weasleys, with too many children to count. Surely, being an only child was a sign of superiority, because only poor families had a lot of children.

So, Draco grew content with loneliness, in exchange for that feeling of superiority which drove his early years.

Before that first tutoring session with her.

Draco spent his childhood zooming around the countryside on a broomstick. His mother, on occasion, tried to teach him a bit of magic, but he normally refused. He wanted to be in the air, not stuck up in that stuffy old manor.

He was a spoiled child. His mother doted on him. His father bragged about him to others but never acknowledged him at home. Draco didn't realize this though. He thought he was getting everything that he rightfully deserved. Broomsticks, delicious feasts, beautiful robes. Wasn't this what a childhood was supposed to be?

He didn't need his father's love or attention. He didn't need his mother to play a game with him. He didn't need a friend his age. He was fine, with his money and power.

And for a very long time, he believed he was fine.

Draco didn't have the perfect childhood, but at the time, he thought he did. For the selfish little brat that he was, this seemed like the perfect life.

However, there was a time when he realized he was wrong.

The very first time he entered the Great Hall at Hogwarts. With so many smiling faces, from all walks of life, Draco's life philosophy came crashing down. In that moment, he realized his childhood had not been perfect at all.

When Draco's seven minutes came, He barely relived his early life. It was all a blur of money and Quidditch.

No, Draco didn't really live when he was a child, and that's what the seven minutes were trying to show him.

His life.

And for Draco Malfoy, his life truly started when he went to Hogwarts.

On Platform 9 and ¾, at 10:42 on September the first, 1991, he left his childhood behind.

His mother kissed his head and his father shook his hand. Draco smiled at them both. Then, with all the swagger he possessed, he got on the Hogwarts Express for the first time.

He was amazed at everything he saw, from the cozy compartments to the trolley covered with candy. However, he kept his face straight, seemingly above it all.

He walked down the corridor, looking for some of the pureblood children he had mingled with on occasion. They would befriend him immediately. After all, he was a Malfoy.

That was when he saw her for the first time.

A bushy haired girl with two of the largest front teeth Draco had ever seen.

She was walking into all the compartments, asking people if they had seen a toad.

Draco scoffed. If she was looking for a toad, she obviously wasn't worth his time.

He walked past her without introducing himself.

As he was about to step into a compartment in which his childhood acquaintances Crabbe and Goyle were sitting, he looked back.

The bushy-haired girl was standing in a compartment door, speaking to someone.

"I'm Hermione Granger," she said, in a bossy sort of voice.

Hermione Granger, Draco mused. Has to be a mudblood.

With that, he entered the compartment.

Crabbe, Goyle and he went wandering after they had stuffed themselves with candy. There were rumours going around the train that Harry Potter was in one of the neighbouring compartments. Draco had jumped up when he heard. He had heard the stories, they all had heard the stories. Harry Potter. There was a powerful ally. As long as the rumours were true.

And they were.

Potter sat in one of the compartments with one of the million Weasley children. After a brief introduction, Draco stuck out his hand. He knew Potter was new to this whole wizarding business, and he wished to help out the boy who lived. The boy who lived couldn't be consorting with the wrong sort.

But Potter had refused his offer.

Draco had never been more embarrassed in his life. Swearing to make him regret that, he had stormed out of the compartment.

Later that evening, he had been sorted into Slytherin. He had been ecstatic. The house of his forefathers, of purebloods, of power. It was where he belonged.

He had sat down at the long table to thunderous applause. The name Malfoy was known. Keeping the smirk on his face, (the smirk that would soon become his trademark), he looked around and introduced himself to his neighbouring Slytherins. In that moment, at that table, he met some of his best friends for the first time.

Blaise Zabini, Pansy Parkinson, and Theodore Nott.

In Draco's first year of Hogwarts, he learned some spells, he was "taught" how to fly, and their Defense against the Dark Arts teacher died. But, reliving it all, the only thing that truly stood out to Draco was his friendships.

People who didn't know better assumed that these people only befriended Draco for power, or out of fear.

However, the first year Slytherins were eternally bonded by the fact that they had never had friends before.

They had all grown up alone. They lived in a world where friendship was viewed as a sign of weakness. They wanted to be weak, but were too afraid to say so. As Draco later admitted, one late night talking to her, being weak with friends was actually more powerful than being strong without them.

In that first year, they were all weak together.

In his second year, the Chamber of Secrets was opened.

However, reliving everything, that didn't affect him too much.

He became a Seeker for the Slytherin team, he called Hermione Granger a mudblood for the first time, and he tried harder in school. He kept up his friendships with his Slytherin gang. He was disgusted by Gilderoy Lockhart. He saw the Vanishing Cabinet for the first time.

In third year, he had fun in Hogsmeade, exploring the joke shop, having butterbeer, and getting hit in the head with snowballs. He hated Lupin, the sorry old bastard who couldn't even afford decent robes. Hermione Granger punched him in the face. He was mangled by a hippogriff.

Fourth year, he saw the Quidditch World Cup. He saw the golden trio running through the woods during the attack afterwards. The Triwizard Tournament happened, letting Potter live through his ginormous ego. He went to the Yule Ball with Pansy, being the first event in what turned into a very complicated relationship. He got turned into a ferret. But of everything that happened that year, by far, the one thing that he truly remembered was the Dark Lord's return.

That was the year everything changed.

His father was immediately brought back into service with the Dark Lord. This made Lucius even less of a father to Draco, and an even worse husband to Narcissa. Draco started being discussed as a potential death eater. At the time, he was excited. All that power, all that strength. It was his destiny.

However, all it took was a bushy haired girl and a transfiguration textbook to change his mind.

He relived going back for fifth year. Dumbledore, old fool, had made him a prefect. His lust for power had overtaken him, even more so when he became a member of the Inquisitorial Squad. He had strutted around the school like he owned it. No one could oppose him. He took points and gave detentions as he pleased. Even Potter held his tongue when Draco was around.

But then his father had been thrown in Azkaban.

And everything changed again.

His life was ruined because of his father's mistakes, though he didn't realize it at the time. The failure of the Department of Mysteries had set Draco on a path that had ended with his death on the Drawing Room floor.

However, when his life was ended at the hands of his aunt, in that moment, he didn't really care.

He may have died far too young.

He may have spent his sixth year in Hogwarts in constant fear, while harming others.

He may have lost his chance at a happy life, with no death and no murder.

But, the path that had sent him towards death had also sent him towards Hermione Granger.

He wouldn't trade that for anything.

His life may have been ruined, but what life did he have anyway? The life of a selfish brat who didn't give a damn about anyone?

That year with Hermione was worth all its consequences.

Draco relived his life with no idea that he was reliving it. It was as if this journey was his first time through.

Yet, his subconscious noticed Hermione Granger a little bit more than he had the first time around.

You notice the foreshadowing when you read a book the second time around.

He noticed as she jammed the Sorting Hat onto her head, it shouting out Gryffindor. He noticed her expression when he called her a mudblood for the first time. He definitely noticed when she punched him in the face. He saw her running through the forest at the Quidditch World Cup, fleeing from the attack on Muggles. He grew her teeth out even more, making her look like a beaver. She entered the Yule Ball on Victor Krum's arm, looking so spectacular that he couldn't even find an insult to throw at her. She stopped her friends from taunting his Inquisitorial Squad powers, causing him to feel the power gushing through his veins.

For five years of his life, Draco had known and hated this girl. They taunted and insulted each other. Draco thought she was a stuck-up mudblood. She thought he was an arrogant bastard.

Draco never thought his opinion of her would change.

But then again, he never thought a lot of things.

In the summer before sixth year, he received his task. At first, he was ecstatic. He would finally receive all the glory and respect he had always thought he deserved.

He pushed it out of his mind that he had to commit murder to receive it.

Reliving the first sixteen years of his life went by in a flash. It was as if Draco was half asleep, stumbling through his life. He didn't relive every single detail. He didn't really care, or at least, when Draco had written his book, he hadn't cared enough to put the details in.

That's because he only truly began to live at the beginning of sixth year.

He only began to live when Hermione Granger entered his life.

Everything before only existed to lead him to a certain place at a certain time.

And that certain place and time was Platform 9 and ¾ at 10:46 on September the first, 1996.

That was when everything truly began.


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