Author's Note: This work was originally posted to my account on AO3.
Tags on AO3: Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Fix-It, POV Draco Malfoy, POV Narcissa Black Malfoy, Malfoy Family, Malfoy Manor, Mother-Son Relationship, Bonding, Family, Slytherins Being Slytherins, Horcruxes, Horcrux Hunting, Canon-Typical Violence, Pre-Philosopher's Stone, Book 1: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Wordcount: 10.000-30.000, Minor Character Death, POV Third Person Limited
YOU'LL GO THE SAME WAY
7) THREE
On a warm night in the middle of July, Draco escorts his mother to Hogsmeade.
His new clothing fits and suits him perfectly and mother looks splendid in her new dress – which she bought to replace the one she burned after visiting the shack; Draco just gave his robes to Kreacher to wash, but Narcissa felt the need for drastic measures. They even have matching gloves now, for dealing with Horcruxes and a blade imbued with Basilisk venom. They would make for quite a handsome pair on a post-midnight stroll through the village, if they were not hidden underneath thick, hooded cloaks.
It's an excellent night to be out and a perfect night for a burglary within a burglary.
Almost all of the teachers are gone for the summer – Minerva McGonagall is at her brother's farm; Pomona Sprout is on a nature hike somewhere in Brazil; Severus Snape has retreated to his home on Spinner's End – and even esteemed Headmaster of Hogwarts, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, and Supreme Mugwump Albus Dumbledore is away. He is currently attending a very important conference of the International Confederation of Wizards in New Zealand and will not be back in the country until sometime late next week.
According to the Daily Prophet, the Wizengamot isn't pleased about this interruption to their scheduled summer sessions. Lucius Malfoy, the entire Malfoy household knows well, is making a motion to dismiss the old Headmaster due to the severe neglect of his too many responsibilities and the conflicts of interest that come with having three nationally and internationally influential positions.
Draco has already unhappily informed his mother that the motion will fall through. Narcissa looked so dismayed that one might think he'd told her that the Weasleys were coming over for supper. The sulking and ranting that will follow… well… suffice to say, Draco is rather glad that they haven't yet informed his father or his younger self that he exists yet. Narcissa will never admit that she's envious of his non-existence, but he knows his mother and his father better than that – she's very, very envious.
They appear at the back door of Honeydukes' Sweet Shop, just as the village church finishing very gently tolling one in the morning. The manager opens the door, their eyes glazed with a carefully planted compulsion, and Draco follows his mother into the currently defenseless shop.
As soon as the door clicks shut, Draco flicks his wand at the manager and sends them into an enchanted sleep among crates of Icy Liquorice Liquor and Babbity Blueberry Rabbities. Just like the Flumes, the owners who live upstairs, who are busy dreaming sweet, enchanted dreams under another carefully planted compulsion.
Narcissa leads the way into the back room, from there into the cellar, and then takes two clicking strides to reach the right floor tile. A flick of her wand for a bit of levitation and the secret passageway into Hogwarts castle is revealed. It makes all of Draco's months with Vanishing Cabinets look embarrassingly ridiculous, honestly.
They climb down into the floor and then follow along the passageway. At the end, Draco knocks on a certain stone brick to have the statue move out of their way, and then helps his mother up. They silently slip into the corridors of the castle, empty except for the snores of sleeping paintings and creaking suits of armor. Draco and Narcissa have a sensible number of enchantments upon them, to borrow shadows and inattention, but they move quickly and do not speak – Hogwarts has far too many witnesses.
From the third floor all the way up to the seventh, they sneak. Until they are finally standing in front of the hidden Room of Hidden Things. Draco walks quickly past three times, turning sharply, keeping his thoughts perfectly clear – it's somewhat nostalgic, actually.
"…Oh my," Narcissa says while lowering her hood, after the door clicks shut behind them.
In retrospect, Draco supposes that the towering piles of abandoned objects are somewhat of a sight. Most of it is worthless, but there are some powerful, albeit broken, magical artifacts and genuine treasures among the rubbish. The sheer amount of it all, too, is overwhelming at first.
Unfortunately, Draco has, at best, only vague directions towards the area where the diadem may be located. An hour later and they're still looking for the diadem and its hum of Dark magic, even after they've located the general area. Draco has enlisted the assistance of a very bored Sword of Gryffindor to look for the Horcrux and to fight off any more defective and territorial magical artifacts, and Narcissa has long since opened her purse to collect anything of interest.
Despite it being two in the morning, she looks like she's having a rather good time shopping.
A thought occurs to Draco. "Mother?"
"Hmm…?" Narcissa says, inspecting a hand-mirror inset with emeralds that is, without a doubt, horribly cursed. Or at the very least jinxed. She looks to be picturing how it might look on her vanity.
"Where did you tell Father you were going?" Draco asks, because it's two in the morning and Lucius Malfoy isn't so oblivious not to notice that his wife went missing for several hours during the night. At least, Draco is fairly certain that his father would notice his fully dressed wife leaving in the middle of the night, clearly with witching business to attend to. He hopes so, at least, very dearly.
Narcissa slips the hand-mirror into her purse, where it joins, from what Draco's caught, at least a pair of earrings, another purse, an ottoman, and a stuffed and mounted peacock. Draco hasn't the faintest what she plans to do with any of that, but he's quite sure that he doesn't want to know. Especially since Lucius will most likely take exception to the peacock.
"Potentilla Parkinson is holding a meeting for our coven," Narcissa answers.
Draco almost drops someone's outdated Herbology textbook. "Mother, you have a coven?"
"Of course I do. Normally we just take tea, but occasionally we have midnight meetings, and they're perfectly understanding about nightly business that the husband need not know about. Frankly, darling, you would not believe the things that Delphine Travers gets up to in the witching hours."
Draco is rather busy readjusting his entire worldview, but manages to say, "Frankly, Mother, I am sure I wouldn't and that I really do not want to know."
Narcissa, oddly enough, looks slightly disappointed. "Oh… well… it's very scandalous."
"I'm sure," Draco says agreeably.
On one hand, he's interested in anything scandalous. On the other hand, Draco will pay good money to never ever learn about what his mother and her friends get up to in their spare time that the husband need not know about.
"Although, it's nothing, of course, compared to what the likes of Benedetta Zabini get up to."
From what Draco remembers of Blaise and what little Blaise implied of his mother, Draco isn't surprised. He is surprised, however, that the likes of Benedetta Zabini would do anything so compromising as joining his mother's coven. He says as much.
"Oh, she's not a part of my coven, but news does get around. She's neutral, but she isn't at all subtle. Delphine made such a witty comment about it – what was it? Ah yes, that the only reason she got away with her fifth husband's death was because it was too obviously her."
Draco snorts. "That sums it up well. Who didn't hear about that one?"
"Exactly! I said that part of the reason she had a child was for a permanent alibi!"
"That would be a very Zabini thing to do," Draco agrees, going through the drawers of a badly dented dresser for the Horcrux. "I have no doubt her and Blaise adore each other, and I'm sure he'd be an excellent father, but honestly."
"Oh, you knew the boy?"
"Roommates, actually, at Hogwarts. He takes after his mother with pride."
"That sounds like the voice of experience talking," Narcissa says slyly, peering at him from around a bookshelf and fluttering a decorative hand-fan over her lips.
Draco laughs. "It could have been, but you raised me better than that," he informs her, then laughs again at her overdramatically disappointed expression. "It's the voice of someone who had to share a space with the personification of charm and dodge the tears of desolated exes."
"That sounds exhausting."
"Oh, more entertaining than exhausting, really. And very informative."
Narcissa drops the fan in her purse and disappears behind a divider. "Benedetta makes an excellent and charming guest for her gossip and intrigue – oh, the scandalous secrets she can imply over a single dinner are just divine for a host, if one can control the potential disaster – is her son the same?"
"Absolutely; I swear that I knew more about Professor Vector than the woman knew about herself by proxy. It was almost traumatizing, actually." Especially after Blaise's mother came for a parent-teacher conference and all evidence suggested not much discussion had gone on. Even Blaise looked vaguely disturbed. "You know, after years with him as a roommate, I actually learned that his father was one of her husbands?"
"Really? Which one?"
"The third."
What comes next from his mother is not so much a response as… well… something unfit for all ears.
"Mother!"
"Sorry, darling, it's just… I had good money on it being the fourth husband."
"Good mo- pardon?"
"I owe Mathilde Bulstrode quite a bit of gold now."
"…Mother," Draco repeats, putting his head in his free hand. He cannot quite believe that his elegant mother would ever do anything so gauche as to bet on someone parentage. Except, after these past few weeks of knowing her as an adult of close age, he actually can. He's not sure which is worse.
"Oh, hush, Draco. It was all in good fun."
"Like dragonshit it was."
The next two hours are spent looking for the tiara. But since Draco and Narcissa are multitaskers, a great deal of discussion happens – especially as Narcissa realizes that Draco has about a decade and a half of gossip that hasn't happened yet. Including Cuthbert Mockridge's secret mistress, the Robards' daughter stepping out with a Muggleborn witch, Gilbert Wimple accidentally opening a portal to another dimension twice, and Bartemius Crouch Sr. breaking his own son out of Azkaban.
The information about the Crouches quickly leads into other information about the events that went on during Draco's time at Hogwarts, including many of Albus Dumbledore's ridiculous failures as a Headmaster. Including but not limited to: failure to notice the Dark Lord possessing Quirrell, allowing students to take detention in the Dark Forest when unicorns were being slain, hiring the absolutely useless Lockhart, allowing Dementors on school grounds, failure to notice his good friend Alastor Moody was actually a Death Eater, and the entire ridiculous mess that was the Triwizard Tournament.
This soon leads into plots on how to get the esteemed Headmaster permanently fired from his position. Both Draco and Narcissa lean more towards the simple solution of murder – all of Draco's youthful hesitation has vanished in the face of hindsight and Horcruxes – but they do manage to come up with some less murderous solutions. Emphasis on some. Murder is still very much the preferred solution.
By the time they finally find Ravenclaw's lost diadem, it's past four in the morning and Draco is wheezing with laughter against someone's old trunk. He has to hand the extremely bored sword over to his mother, so she can destroy it, while she smiles smugly at him. Narcissa has just suggested that they just point Kreacher at the man, hand the elf the Sword of Gryffindor, and tell him it's what Regulus Black would have wanted him to do. Which is probably true.
Narcissa efficiently ends the Horcrux and they leave the broken diadem on the floor. It has no use to either of them, and maybe some Ravenclaw will happen upon it someday.
Draco and Narcissa raise their hoods and exit the Room of Hidden Things, making more and more outlandish suggestions as to how to solve a problem like Albus Dumbledore. Draco has more practice as to plotting the murder of the man, but Narcissa is terribly creative.
"Who's there? Who's up at this hour?" a third floor portrait demands, grumpy and blinking blearily, after Draco accidentally makes his mother giggle a bit too loudly. "Go away! We're trying to sleep here!" They roll over, pulling their hat down over their ears. "Damn children!"
Draco and Narcissa run, giggling madly, all the way to the statue of the One-Eyed Witch.
oOo
Author's Note: This fic is finished and chapters will be posted daily until it's complete. There will be 10 chapters.
