IV
"False face must hide what the false heart doth know."
—Macbeth
14 October, 2017, 8:01 A.M.
Draco awoke to a stream of sunlight hitting his face. He groaned and arched his back. With the all of the pops and creaks his stretching produced, it was impossible that he'd slept in his bed in the Slytherin dungeons, but perhaps he was in the common room?
He cracked open a single silver eye and nearly fell out of the three wooden chairs he was lying across.
Bugger...
"Malfoy, you're awake." Granger stood before him, her arms wrapped around her chest.
"Brilliant observation, Granger. You really are the brightest witch of our age," he said, the bite to his words not up to par with his usual standard. It was, however, fairly early in the morning, and he'd only managed to get a few hours of sleep. He was completely knackered to put it mildly.
"Well I was smart enough to find a comfortable chair to sleep on," she said, smirking at his choice of resting place.
"Hmm," he murmured noncommittally, annoyed both that she was right and that his spine felt like a stiff metal rod.
"Malfoy, are you—"
"Whatever it is you're about to ramble on about, I'm sure it can wait until I've gotten a few more hours of sleep," said Draco, eyeing a plush-looking recliner by one of the library's endless bookshelves.
"It can't, actually," she said, a bit uncomfortably if Draco was reading her visage correctly. She waited a few seconds, shifting on her feet and chewing her lower lip.
"Well go on, then," he snapped, pleased to hear that the sharpness had returned to his voice. It simply wasn't worth his time to talk to Granger if he wasn't going to either make her cry or extremely angry, neither of which he could do if he didn't have the proper venom to his tone.
"Harry, Ron, Ginny, and I think that we should take a look round the castle, see if anything can shed some light onto our...situation." As soon as she finished speaking, she resumed tugging on her lip with her teeth.
"Granger, would you cut it out with the lip-biting? You're going to end up chewing it off with those beaver teeth of yours," Draco said in reply, though he did agree that it wasn't a bad idea to roam Hogwarts for a bit. He could find out more about what happened between the Dark Lord and Potter, possibly even discover something about his own sorry fate. No, he chastised himself for what felt like the thousandth time, he was not in the future. But like he'd pointed out to the Weasel earlier, it wasn't a dream either. So what else could it be? Clearly the Gryffindors were resigned to accepting it as their "destinies" or something equally ridiculous, considering Potter had spent the majority of the past eight hours spouting tears of what Draco now presumed was happiness. Even Granger seemed earnest in ruminating upon the idea that the Hogwarts they were in was the Hogwarts of the future, which was perhaps the most convincing factor of all.
"It's a nervous habit; it's not like I do it consciously," she said, desisting nevertheless. "Are you honestly going to stand there and act like you're not in the least bit worried? Or afraid?"
Draco regarded her question. Was he worried or afraid? Well, he was bloody terrified that this was the future, that he would be dead, that the Dark Lord really had been killed, that they wouldn't be able to return to their time... Would he let Granger know all this, however?
The thought was laughable.
Sharing emotions was not common among Slytherins, and as a Malfoy, Draco was even less inclined to spill the unsavory contents of his thoughts. He'd grown up in a household of unspoken criticisms and fleeting looks of affection, of happiness hidden in tiny twitches of mouths and anger in creases between brows; tiny, transient hints at feeling that he'd learned to pick up on over time. Above all, Draco carried with him this lesson: Visible emotion is weakness.
"Why would I be worried?" he said, meeting Granger's eyes. "I thought Gryffindors were supposed to be brave, but you lot are pitiful."
"We are brave, but that doesn't mean we don't ever get scared. Bravery isn't the absence of fear; it's being able to keep going in spite of your fear," said Granger, looking at him strangely. He wondered briefly if she could see through his cocksure façade, but he doubted it. He'd been practicing it for years, after all.
Draco mulled over her words in his mind. He hated having to admit it, even to himself, but she had a point. He'd wasted so much time attempting to rid himself of his fear, wishing it away, even internally berating himself for having it in the first place. Do not embarrass me by being a coward, his Aunt Bellatrix's voice echoed in his head. The Dark Lord is bestowing a great honour upon you. Did being a coward mean merely having fear or letting it absorb you so fully that you gave up? He was starting to consider the latter connotation.
"Either way, Granger, you're still pathetic," he settled on in answer. "But I suppose your exploration idea isn't entirely idiotic."
"Let's go then. The others are waiting in the front of the library."
He followed her a few steps behind, suddenly not at all confident that he fancied seeing what was waiting for him in the corridors. It was easy for Potter and Weasley, who already knew some of their lives, but what if he didn't like the answers to his questions? What if his life in this alternate universe was rotten, and he was in Azkaban? What if he didn't have a life at all? Draco ran a hand through his hair and glued his eyes to Granger's mop head. Bravery isn't the absence of fear, he told himself. It's being able to keep going in spite of your fear. If he pretended like the Mudblood hadn't been the one to say it, the definition wasn't a shit inducement to keep walking.
"Okay," said Potter, the calmest Draco had seen him since the Room of Requirement. "I think we should try the Great Hall. The professors will be there, and they could discuss any number of things that could help."
"Not to mention, your...well, Hugo, James, and the other one," said Hermione, covering her near blunder. She was probably trying to keep things from getting too uncomfortable, but Draco took the opportunity to promote a sense of malaise, if only to make himself feel better about the slight nausea he was experiencing.
"Who names their son something as lame as Hugo?" asked Draco. "Not to mention the irony. Hugo has something to do with intelligence, doesn't it? Hardly screams 'Weasley' to me."
"We — we don't that Hugo is..." The youngest Weasley trailed off, casting surreptitious looks at her brother as if she feared he would faint with no warning.
"I thought the consensus was that we've somehow landed in the future, which would put Hugo as Weasel Junior and the black-haired ones as Potheads," Draco said, folding his arms and daring them to refute his claim. "I can't wait to see your offspring, Granger, if any bloke was crazy enough to marry you. I'll bet they have dead animals for hair too."
"At least I have a good chance of being alive," she countered, unknowingly voicing Draco's greatest fear about their predicament. "I'll bet you're in your grave, or at the very least, wasting away in Azkaban."
He realized when she said it that he hadn't ever wanted anyone to be wrong as much as he wanted Granger to be in that moment.
No emotion, no weakness. Reveal nothing.
He shrugged.
"Well, that means I'll be away from you, so it can't be entirely awful." He smirked but had a sinking feeling it hadn't reached his eyes. "In fact, your husband will probably off himself and join me soon if he hasn't already."
"Enough, Malfoy." Potter rubbed his eyes with his palms and sighed. "It's bad enough that we're here. Don't make it worse for yourself by antagonizing everyone."
Draco bristled. Potter just had to act like he was above it all, didn't he, when only hours ago he'd been the one pointing his wand threateningly at Draco? Bloody hypocrite. Still, Draco could see the advantage to not making the Gryffindors hate him more than they already did. He was stuck in a terrible situation with only them for companionship, and if he wasn't careful, they could try to get out of it without him. He couldn't let that happen. So after Potter spoke, he gave a slight incline of his head and remained silent.
"Wow, didn't think that would actually work," muttered Potter. "Right. Shall we?"
.
~#~
.
8:42 A.M.
It was bedlam in the Great Hall. There were students everywhere, raucous despite the hour, and Draco didn't know which direction he should be looking. The tables were overflowing with food — that was normal at least. Draco was curious as to what would happen if he took some. He was famished, and they would all have to eat eventually, but would the other students see the food get taken, or would it turn invisible as soon as he touched it?
"I'm hungry," he announced to the group of Gryffindors. The Weasel's face crumpled in anguish as soon as the words slipped off his tongue.
"Me too," he moaned. "D'you think we can eat some of this?" He looked to Granger for her judgment. "We can be sneaky about it, right?"
"I suppose we have to try," she said, placing a hand on her stomach. "Get some off the ends of the tables, where there aren't as many students sitting, and make sure to do it when they're focused on their conversation rather than their plates." Weasley nodded and headed for the Gryffindor table. Shocker.
"I think the rest of us should split up while Ron gets food," said Granger. "Harry, you take the professors' table, Ginny, Ravenclaw, and I'll take Slytherin."
"And leave me with Hufflepuff? Not bloody likely, Granger," Draco said, shaking his head. He more often than not had a reason for loathing Gryffindors and Ravenclaws, but Hufflepuffs? Hufflepuffs he couldn't stand on principle. "I don't need to listen to stories about rainbows and unicorns and all that shit. I'll go to the Slytherin table, and—"
"Fine, no one will go to Hufflepuff, and we'll both go to Slytherin. I don't trust you to report what you hear."
After deciding to meet back after breakfast had ended, Draco matched Granger's strides as she headed for his house's table. He nodded in approval as he saw the table's occupants, though the number was disconcertingly small compared to what he was used to, and the Gryffindor table looked close to overflowing with students. Though he was confident that Slytherin was still the school's best house, he wondered why the houses had grown somewhat uneven. He wondered if any of them were his kids. It would be bloody bizarre, but at least he would be able to rest easier knowing he was alive. He was worried enough about making it to the end of this year, let alone to whatever decade they'd recently happened upon.
"Look, the post is coming." Granger pointed to where, sure enough, owls were swooping down to the tables and dropping letters, packages, and The Daily Prophet. "The Prophet should be enlightening, and it'll tell us which year we're in," she said, covertly grabbing one from a student mesmerized by the package he was opening.
Draco took a seat next to her on an empty section of the bench. As she unrolled the newspaper, he felt that the headline blaring at them in thick, black letters was a harbinger of his fate before deciding that the thought was ridiculous. The chances he'd be mentioned in the article, even if he were alive, had to be slim.
As Draco moved the paper to allow them both to see, his eyes quickly scanned the front page, which featured a picture of an older Potter, grinning widely next to Kingsley Shacklebolt. He was disappointed to see that Potter didn't look any more hideous in his old age than he did in the present time.
14 October, 2017
WAR MEMORIAL TO BE ERECTED FOR THE MINISTRY OF MAGIC
The Minister for Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt, announced just yesterday that a war memorial will be built and placed in the centre of the Ministry of Magic's offices in order to honour the fallen heroes of the Great War, which ended nineteen years ago. The memorial, which is expected to feature the names of all those who lost their lives in battle, is to be completed by the twentieth anniversary of the war and will be unveiled during a grand celebration in Diagon Alley before being moved to its permanent resting place in the Ministry. The celebration, under the direction of head event planners Lavender Weasley and Parvati Boot, will include a parade, fireworks, and speeches from the "Golden Trio" as well as Draco Malfoy and Neville Longbottom, who were instrumental in the defeat of You-Know-Who.
"WHAT?" Granger had to have reached the same line as Draco. "You were — you were—"
"Instrumental in the defeat of the Dark Lord," Draco whispered, not understanding what he was reading. It couldn't be... Him? He helped kill his own master? Why would he do that, and how? The slight rush of relief he felt at being alive in this universe was smothered by an overwhelming sense of disbelief and horror. "No," he said aloud, his voice cracking. "I don't — I wouldn't—"
"You did," said Granger softly, shaking her head and looking up at him with wide, honey eyes. "You must have."
Draco didn't answer her. He had to know more. He didn't believe this; obviously it was bullocks, all of it, and yet...
Fucking hell.
He didn't actually think any of this could be true, did he? He wanted desperately for the answer to be no, but there was an undeniable pull in his gut enticing him to keep reading. He snatched up the paper and stood, scanning the remainder of the page as swiftly as he could.
The article didn't mention him again. After leafing through the rest of the paper, he confirmed that his name wasn't included in any other articles. It felt like the universe had thrown him into a sandpit of confusion and questions, and he was sinking, sinking... He glanced at his left arm, mercifully covered by his stiff, white shirt, and felt his breath hitch.
"Malfoy, are you—"
"DON'T TALK TO ME!" he screamed, pushing his white-blond hair out of his eyes. "You or any of your sodding friends! Just— just stay the fuck away!"
Granger's eyes, if it was possible, got even larger before tightening into slits. She placed her hands on her hips and raised her voice.
"I'm just trying to HELP! I'm sure that this information is a lot to handle, so—"
"You think?" Draco barked out a hollow laugh that burned his lungs.
"So let us help, Malfoy," she tried again, taking a step forward. "If what The Prophet says is true, then—"
"SHUT! UP! I don't need or want a Mudblood's help!" he yelled, clenching his fists. And what he wanted even less was any trace of compassion, which only served to provoke his rage further. "Even if what the bloody Prophet says is true, which I refuse to believe, that doesn't make us allies!"
"Maybe not now, not yet, but—"
"But nothing!" He ran his hands through his hair, further disheveling it. "I still hate you, all of you!"
Granger stopped her movement.
"The feeling is mutual; I assure you," she said. "But you can't deny what's written in black and white. Somewhere along the line, you must have changed. People can do that, you know." With that, she turned on him and strode away, seizing the paper as she did so.
Granger was wrong. People don't do complete one-eighties. They don't start with a Dark Mark on their arm and end with a Phoenix badge. They don't serve the Dark Lord only to become a Potter supporter. They don't stop despising Mudbloods and blood traitors when it's all they've ever known. And because he knew people couldn't change like that, that he wouldn't change like that, he could deny the contents of The Daily Prophet as much as he bloody wanted.
.
~#~
.
9:19 A.M.
Draco dreaded returning to the middle of the Great Hall, where everyone was expected to reconvene after breakfast. No doubt the other Gryffindors would react in the exact manner Granger had, trying to help him, acting like they were some sort of team now. Merlin, this place was fucked. Suddenly the idea of him ending up in Azkaban wasn't so bad. At least if he were there, he wouldn't have presumably betrayed his family and everything he believed in. If what was written in The Prophet was to be taken as fact, Draco realized, then he was a blood traitor. His father probably despised him, maybe even his mother, and most definitely his Aunt Bellatrix and his uncles, Rabastan and Rodolphus. It was like a punch to his gut.
His entire family against him.
Him, on the side of Potter and the Order.
A line drawn between everything he thought he knew about himself and everything he was discovering...
"Oh, Malfoy, there you are." He recognized Potter's voice and didn't bother raising his head; he was sure Potter would have plenty to say without him needing to comment. "Did you and Hermione find out anything?"
"What?" Draco blinked. Granger hadn't told him? Why was she bothering to withhold anything from Potter and the rest of the motley crew? It couldn't be out of deference to him; she'd made her dislike abundantly clear.
"I guess that's a no," said Potter, who Draco noticed was not carrying a paper or looking at him with anything other than hesitant toleration. "Do you at least know where she went?"
"Right here." Granger joined them, a heap of fruit in her arms and both Weasleys on her tail. She set it down on the now-empty Slytherin table, and all of them took seats on the benches, enthusiastically digging into the food. The Weasel had also managed to bring toast and muffins, and the Weaselette carried a stack of gold plates and cups and a near-full jug of pumpkin juice.
Draco, feeling the need to connect with something in his normal life, took a gleaming, green apple out of the pile. He bit into it, enjoying the satisfying crunch and tart taste to the juice.
He could feel Granger staring.
"Take a photo, Granger, it'll last longer," he said, wiping his chin with a napkin. Not his best line and hardly original, but he couldn't be expected to be on the top of his game only a few minutes after The Prophet had brought on his personal Armageddon.
"I'd only consider that if someone turned you back into the amazing bouncing ferret," she said calmly, choosing a blueberry scone to munch on.
Good. She was back to being a bitch. But it didn't do anything to explain why she'd neglected to mention his future...actions to her friends. Actions that had been "instrumental" in saving their sorry arses.
Why would any incarnation of him think that was a good idea?
"So," Granger said, clapping her hands together. "Did anyone have any success?"
"You could say that," Potter replied slowly.
A few seconds stretched out in silence, and Draco decided that along with being exceedingly sensitive, Gryffindors were also unbearably patient. He would have to rectify that.
"Explain, Potter," he drawled, taking another bite out of his apple.
"McGonagall is Headmistress."
Draco looked up, now much more attentive. If the crazy cat-lady was in charge of the school, did that mean Dumbledore was dead? And if so, had Draco been the one to do it? He couldn't imagine that being the case if his future self was asked to speak at the unveiling of a war memorial. So did the old loon retire after the war, or had the Dark Lord gotten someone else to do what Draco could (or would) not? Even as the thought occurred to him, he discounted it. His mission was to be carried out by him alone; he had an accessibility that the Dark Lord could never hope to have, and the Headmaster was weaker, more vulnerable this year. Draco had noticed his shriveled, blackened hand on the very first night he'd returned to Hogwarts, and Snape had let slip that one of the potions brewing in his office was for Dumbledore. He'd said nothing more, but Draco hadn't needed him to elaborate — he was sure that the potion had something to do with whatever it was that had ravaged the Headmaster's flesh from the inside out.
"And she was talking about an article in The Prophet" — Draco held his breath as Potter got on with his story about McGonagall — "but I couldn't get my hands on it."
He let out a sigh of relief.
"I glanced at the date," said Granger. "It's 2017. What did you find out about the article?" Was Draco imagining things, or did she look nervous? She cast him a furtive glance, and he scowled back.
"She thinks they'll specially honour Dumbledore in a war memorial service, along with..." Potter grimaced and paused for effect. "Snape."
"Snape?" Weasley echoed. "Why the hell would they honour Snape?"
"Dunno," Potter said. "Dumbledore always trusted him though. Maybe he was right all along."
"I can't believe Dumbledore didn't survive the war," whispered Granger, her eyes getting misty. "I wonder who killed him..."
"It had to have been You-Know-Who." At a pointed look from Potter, Weasley's teary-eyed sister corrected herself. "I mean V-Voldemort. Who else would have stood a chance in a battle with Dumbledore?"
Draco silently acknowledged that her point had merit, but it couldn't assuage his earlier doubts. Could Draco have got out of his mission after all; could the Dark Lord truly have changed his mind and decided to do the deed himself, to face the one wizard he was rumoured to fear?
No. He had to stop deluding himself, giving into the temptation of entertaining anything but worst case scenarios. The Dark Lord had made Draco's mission all too clear. He was to complete it on his own, and the deadline was non-negotiable. Nothing about service to the Dark Lord was negotiable. There were moments he wondered if he'd been set up to fail, and he knew that was his mother's wholehearted belief. It was a punishment for Lucius, she was sure, and whatever time she'd spent outside of her bedroom after Lucius's arrest, she'd spent with Draco. Sometimes, his mother looked at him so piercingly and with such intensity that he wondered whether she thought she could protect him with just a look, could keep him from disappearing. From dying.
As for Snape, he didn't know what to think. Despite the fact that Snape was his Head of House and the professor he'd always most admired, he had never been close enough to the man to learn much of his personal life and on no occasion anything about his private beliefs concerning the Dark Lord. Most of what Draco did know was based on loose assumptions and hearsay. He knew that Snape was a spy for the Dark Lord, but he couldn't discount the idea of him being a double agent. He was mysterious, quiet, and expressed even less emotion than the normal Death Eater, never allowing the others to be privy to his internal monologue. Never once had Draco seen him kill or even suggest killing, and now that Draco thought about it, his solemn professor had not uttered the word "Mudblood" in his company.
Snape had been harbouring a secret as big as his sodding nose for years, decades even, and Draco was helpless against the swell of anger and hurt that bubbled in his chest. He'd always fancied his favorite professor partial to him, thought that their relationship was one of trust and respect between mentor and mentee.
Snape, deceiving him his entire life? Snape, a spy for the Order and a blood traitor? He was as bad as...
Well, Draco apparently. The realization induced a grown — the bloody mental cartwheels he had to do just to keep up with this shit…
"You're absolutely right, Ginny," Granger was saying, "which is why we're going to find out how it happened and stop it when we get back to our time."
"Do you really think it's a good idea to try to mess with the future? And is it even possible?" Draco asked. The results couldn't be any better than messing with the past, and those could be disastrous, based on what he'd read of them earlier that day. Eloise Mintumble was evidence of that; the Unspeakable had traveled to 1402 for five days and managed to erase the existence of twenty-five descendants of the people with whom she interacted. Upon returning to the present, her body had aged half a millennium, and Eloise, shrunken and wrinkled like an old raisin, died in Saint Mungo's soon thereafter. "Besides," Draco added, "I thought we were on a closed loop — if we're seeing the future, anything we've done in the past has already happened, including any attempts to change it."
"Well you can't expect me to sit around and not try!" Granger swiped at a tear with a cloth napkin. "From what I've read of time travel, Novikov's principle is fairly clear, but there must be a way around it. Eloise Mintum—"
"Oh excellent, you're going to use that shitshow as your inspiration? I'm sure the old coot will apprecia—"
"Don't call him that!" She squeezed her hand into a fist, and crumbs danced onto the table. "Just because you aren't upset by this—"
"Don't you dare act like you have a clue what I'm thinking, Granger," said Draco, seething. "I was merely suggesting that we consider the implications of running round, changing the future on a bloody whim."
"Sure you were," she said sarcastically, rolling her eyes. "Besides, this is far from a whim! It's Dumbledore!"
"Sorry, but what's the Novikov principle?" asked Potter.
"It's a time travel theory by a Muggle named Igor Novikov; it basically means that the probability of any event that changes the past is zero," Granger said, opening her first and letting the rest of the scone crumbs tumble out. She used her index finger to push the flecks of pastry into piles. "For instance, if we save Dumbledore, our future selves will have no reason to figure out what caused his death and save him in the first place."
Potter looked crushed by her answer, as did both Weasleys. Draco wasn't sure what they'd been doing during the hours they'd spent in the library, but it was evident that he and Granger had taken in far more information than anyone else (though he assumed she'd learned about Novikov from somewhere other than Hogwarts; he didn't think the school possessed any books on Muggle theories).
"So there's no hope of saving anyone who we find out died in the war?"
"I don't know, Ginny." Granger's compiled the trio of mini crumb piles into one, and she shaped the heap into a star. "If Eloise found a way to ch—"
"Again with the Mintumble shit; you need to accept the truth of the situ—"
"Accept the truth of the situation? You're one to talk." Her eyes blazed, and he could have sworn that he felt the brush of a newspaper against his arm under the table.
Draco grit his teeth in annoyance. First she was disappointed when he lashed out at her, and now she couldn't see it when he was actually trying to help?
"Fine, prance around, fuck everything up. See if I care."
"Who pissed in your pumpkin juice?" asked the Weasel, sniggering into his own glass.
"Keep talking, Weasley, and I'll be sure to piss in yours," Draco snapped, done with this breakfast, done with these Gryffindors, done with this horrific universe.
He didn't speak for the rest of the morning, even after Granger acknowledged that it was likely impossible for them to do anything to correct what had already happened. She was oddly knowledgeable about the subject of time travel, beyond the material available in the library, and he wondered whether she had experienced it before. As for the rest of the group, the Weaselette hadn't learned much of interest at the Ravenclaw table, though she did find out that Loony Lovegood was married and had twin boys in the house. According to her, Lorcan and Lysander were perfectly normal, but Draco found that hard to believe. Knowing Lovegood, she'd probably trained them to conduct searches for Nargles before they could walk.
The other Weasley had been so focused on collecting food that he hadn't heard anything, and Potter said that the rest of the conversation among the professors was negligible, though he'd been quite glad to learn that Longbottom was, in fact, the Herbology professor and that Hagrid remained the Care of Magical Creatures teacher. Draco, however, wasn't so pleased. The half-giant was probably still letting the repulsive creatures he brought to class injure defenceless students, looking on gleefully as people incurred bites and bruises.
And the worst part? The Gryffindors wanted to go.
"No," Draco said stubbornly, the first word he'd spoken since his previous quarrel with Granger. "Absolutely not. Any class but that one."
"Muggle Studies, then?" asked Granger, lifting an eyebrow. Draco made a sound of displeasure. "That's what I thought," she said, marching down to the shabby hut the gamekeeper lived in. Potter and the two Weasleys were already almost there.
"Are you always such a bitch?"
"Are you always such a prick?"
"It's called being confident, Granger. You should try it sometime, maybe even pluck up the courage to tell Weasley how much his ginger hair turns you on," he taunted.
Her cheeks burned pink. "I hardly think it matters now," she said, holding her head up and failing miserably to convince Draco with her wobbly smile. "He's going to marry Lavender."
"Must be devastating for you, the whole Novikov thing," said Draco dryly, kicking a stone along the hill down to the gamekeeper's hut. "Which would you do if it were possible — save the mad professor or get it on with the Weasel?"
"No need to be crude," Granger snapped, but to his surprise, she answered his question. "Preventing death is not the same thing as preventing two people that love each other from being together, which I assume will one day be the case with Ron and Lavender. One is selfless, and the other is entirely selfish, so it should be obvious which I'd pick." She gazed up at him with what he interpreted as suspicion. "Why do you care anyway?"
"I don't," Draco said in a bored tone. He kicked the stone too hard, and it rolled the rest of the way down the hill, out of his reach. "It's getting my mind off the torture I'm about to endure."
"Hagrid's class—"
"Is a waste of time, and anyone with half a brain knows it, which is probably why Weasley and Potter are so bloody excited about going. Every word that comes out of that oversized troglodyte's mouth is bullshit."
"Don't you dare insult—"
"You asked for my opinion, Granger," he said, shrugging.
"No, actually, I didn't," she shot back, stomping away from him, her bushy hair flying behind her.
"Whatever," he called, but the word was lost in the susurrus of the autumn wind.
.
~#~
.
10:33 A.M.
"Today I have a special treat for yeh," said Hagrid, his face alighting in glee.
"Oh lovely," Draco said darkly. "Thank Merlin we don't have to participate."
"Shut up," Granger hissed. He had a feeling she was still upset about his earlier remarks about the idiocy and uselessness that was Care of Magical Creatures class and likely his reaction toward The Prophet too.
"Feast yer eyes on this incredible beauty," the professor exclaimed, gesturing to a green ball in the cage behind him. As if on cue, the thing stretched out its long limbs to reveal webbed hands and feet, tiny head horns, and a revolting pustule on its forehead. It grinned, and Draco swore it looked right through him.
Incredible beauty. Right.
"What the hell is that?" asked Draco. He heard one of the students ask the same question behind him. It was comforting to know he wasn't the only one who thought the half-giant should be put in a nuthouse.
"This here, Mr Malfoy, is a clabbert."
Draco froze. There was no way the oaf could see him, was there? No one had been able to in the Great Hall...
"Malfoy." Granger gave his sleeve a tug.
"Thanks a lot, Granger; now I have to burn this shirt."
"Malfoy," she repeated, and he grudgingly turned to where she was gesturing.
For a moment, he forgot how to breathe properly.
The resemblance was uncanny. Same platinum hair, same angular features, same well-trained posture... He couldn't place the eye colour, but the boy couldn't be anyone else's son.
He had a son.
"It doesn't attack humans, does it?" the younger Malfoy asked, eyeing his professor with thinly-veiled distrust.
"Only prats like you." Draco recognized the Potter boy from Gryffindor Tower. James, was it?
"Then you'd better run and hide too," said the blond, smirking. Much to Draco's consternation, James actually laughed back. His son was friends with Potter's kid?
"Since they seem ter know so much about them, how's about James and Scorpius come up and tell us what they read on clabberts in their textbooks las' week?"
Scorpius. His name was Scorpius.
Of course, Draco had always known that he would eventually become a father. It was no secret that the family mantle would one day be passed to him, but the idea used to seem far more desirable than it had for the past few months. He could no longer help the traces of bitterness that permeated his conversations with his mother, the reluctance with which he signed her letters to his father in Azkaban.
Your son, Draco.
They say blood is thicker than water; sometimes it's so thick it weighs you down to your bones.
He often found himself wondering whether his parents resented him for the obligation of child bearing they'd been forced to fulfill, whether that's all he was to them — an obligation — but according to tradition, the Malfoy name must live on. An heir must be produced — a legacy even more than a child, especially in his case. Draco need only pull up his sleeve to reveal the mark that was his father's stamp of approval. But this... This was surreal.
The possibility that he would continue the Malfoy name was no longer hypothetical; the obligation had been dutifully carried out despite his blood traitor status. Draco supposed it was always going to be this way, but when he looked at Scorpius, he wasn't hit with the rush of resentment he expected. He almost felt... proud.
But of course a Weasley had to ruin the moment.
"I can't believe you made fun of me for naming my kid Hugo when you named your brat Scorpius," he said, snickering. "What kind of name is that anyway?"
A bloody better one than Hugo...
"My family has a tradition of naming their children after constellations and stars," Draco said instead, not sure why he was bothering to explain. It wasn't as if he owed it to Weasley. "Scorpius is—"
"One of the brightest constellations, given the Latin name for scorpion." Draco sighed. It figured that Granger, otherwise known as the human encyclopaedia, would know all about it. "But fascinatingly, not every culture refers to it as scorpion. In Chinese mythology, it's actually considered part of the Azure Dragon, so I suppose it fits that you named him Scorpius." At Weasley's obtuseness, Granger continued. "His name is Draco, which means dragon, so it makes sense that he would—"
"If he doesn't get it yet he never will," Draco cut in, wanting to watch Scorpius, to learn more about him. It was odd that he was friends with a Potter, but, well, no one could reach perfection, not even Malfoys.
Though they certainly surpassed any Gryffindor family in the pursuit of it.
Besides, if Granger somehow succeeded in tampering with the future, why couldn't he make a few changes as well? The first would be advising his son to stay far away from Potters and Weasleys...
"Wha', Mr Malfoy, will cause the growth on a clabbert's forehead ter turn red?" asked Hagrid.
"Wait — clabberts! Now I remember reading about them," Scorpius answered, his eyes bright. "Sensation of danger, right?"
"Exactly! Five points ter Slytherin. Now, Mr Potter." The half-giant stepped in front of the dark-haired boy. "Clabberts are a crossbreed of which two animals?"
James' eyes widened in distress before he locked his gaze to the ground. "Er—" he began sheepishly, fiddling with his robes.
"That's what I thought," sighed his professor, smiling fondly at his student despite his lack of preparation for class. "Scorp?"
"Frog and monkey," said Scorpius automatically.
"Another five points ter Slytherin. James, are yeh tryin' ter let them win the House Cup this year?" He laughed boisterously.
"It's the only way they can win, Professor," said James. "I'm just trying to give the poor snakes a chance."
"Feel free to let my mum know," said Scorpius. "She and Dad have one of their friendly bets going, and to hear that Gryffindor is throwing the competition...Let's just say she'll be less than pleased, and I'd rather not be on the receiving end of that tantrum."
James visibly flinched. "Well, maybe I'll do a little reading next time."
"Alrigh' class. Everyone needs ter write forty lines on the clabbert — twenty on background information, twenty on observation."
Draco blindly followed Scorpius and James, who were finding a picnic table where they could complete the assignment, and reflected on this new information. Things kept getting more and more convoluted, and unfortunately he could no longer blame Potter for his earlier mental breakdown. He felt on the verge of mental incapacitation himself as the vestiges of his Slytherin scepticism began to slip away.
He reviewed what he'd learned thus far: This was the future. His future. He'd helped Potter win the war. He'd survived it and now had a son and wife.
Draco's head sunk onto the table as he realized the infinite calamities that could result from any attempt to alter the result of the war, however unlikely its success, but he had to try, didn't he? He didn't revel in the obsequious behaviour expected of him by the Dark Lord like his Aunt Bellatrix, but at the same time, his master represented the value Draco held closest — the idea that some wizards were better than others because of their blood. And without his beliefs, what was he?
Nothing. He was nothing. And that feeling of nothingness, that possibility of obliterating the foundation of his being, was enough to discount whatever and whoever he could be in the future. The tinge of pride he'd felt around Scorpius couldn't possibly be worth losing his identity and ostracizing the remainder of his family. Nothing was worth that.
He looked up and noticed that the Gryffindors had congregated around him, varying expressions on their faces. With a nudge from Granger, Potter opened his mouth to speak.
"Malfoy, er—"
"Shut it, Potter."
a/n: I know some of you expected Draco and Hermione to realize right away that Scorpius is their son, but a prolonged discovery has been my plan all along. You may have noticed that I made another age change - I put Scorpius in James's year instead of first year. I wanted him to be a bit more mature. Hope you liked the chap!