note: Despite being otherwise healthy, my cat baby had two consecutive seizures not even 24hrs apart during the weekend after I published c2, so I was in no state of mind to write fic. She's fine now, but I was worried for a long time. 2020-21 was awful to a lot of people, but it's proving to be particularly awful to me in a very specific way regarding my loved ones and I hate it.
Overall, I've gone off the flimsy schedule that I had and this is why this chapter is so late. The past few months were not great for me — my health stonks are dropping so, so much — and it was difficult to find motivation to write.
As always, a massive thank you to Katie (dreamsofdramione on ao3 & tumblr) for all of her help and support. She's a magnificent human being and I'm lucky to be her friend.
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chapter three: fly where eagles dare
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— August 1992 —
"Draco, peel yourself off the shop window, it's unseemly."
Draco reared back quickly from the arch-headed, plate glass of Quality Quidditch Supplies's front façade. He had been peering excitedly at the store display, where a top-of-the-line racing broom was exhibited: sleek and swift, made out of polished ebony, it was black and silver with revolving stirrups and had long, very straight and smooth tail ends.
It was beautiful.
Reluctantly, Draco tore his eyes off the broom and obediently walked towards his father. The two of them were shopping in Diagon Alley for his Hogwarts supplies with Mipsy, a young, pink-cheeked maidservant elf with a propensity to sneak Scorpius treats from the kitchens, who was carrying their purchases. The day had been rather pleasant; the weather was bright and sunny, and the Malfoys had not encountered any acquaintances who'd infringed upon their time. Draco could almost pretend it was a leisurely father-son outing.
Lucius Malfoy tapped his cane on the rounded, ashen cobblestones and studied his son for a prolonged moment before his eyes cut to the rout of noisy Hogwarts students crowding the Quidditch shop's storefront. "Tell me… what were your grades from last year's exams?"
Draco drew himself taller then, tugging his waistcoat down, his spine was as straight as a guardsman's awaiting inspection. "In the top ranks. Scoring in the ninety-ninth percentile in all of my classes barring History of Magic, where I scored in the upper ten percent."
"Hadn't Severus mentioned something about your Potions scores?"
Draco brightened with palpable pride. "He had. Best Hogwarts had in years."
"What a talented son I have," Lucius murmured softly in acknowledgement, even as his face remained inscrutable. "Such a laudable achievement deserves a worthwhile reward. Let us strike a deal: if you get into the Slytherin Quidditch Team on your first try, I'll gift the team a brand new Nimbus Two-Thousand each."
"Make it Nimbus Two-Thousand-and-One."
"You dare to barter when you're in a position of weakness? Cheeky. Very well, if you insist, I'll do so, but only if you get the Seeker position." Just like me, was left unsaid.
Draco paused, mulling over his options, before deciding to press further. "Can Scorpius get one, too?"
"No," Lucius said, decisively. "Your brother is much too young for such an advanced broom. He'll have to contend himself with your Suisei model, and even then, I won't let him have it without casting protective charms on it first."
Draco ran his tongue over the back of his teeth in contemplation. Suisei was Japanese-made and used to be the top broom on the market before the Nimbus Two-Thousand was released. Draco's was only three-years-old and well-maintained, Scorpius shouldn't feel too put out by inheriting this particular hand-me-down. Especially since he was only eight-years-old and, by all rights, too young for a proper broom of his own.
"All right," he agreed, thrusting his hand forwards, "it's a deal."
Lucius calmly shook his son's hand and nodded. "Yes, a deal."
Draco coughed lightly and stepped away, busing himself with looking over the supplies list. His cheeks were flushed from excitement and the tops of his ears felt hot. "We have to go to the bookstore next to pick up what seems to be Gilderoy Lockhart's entire bibliography. May we stop by Magical Menagerie on the way? I think Scorpius was terribly lonely last year. He's not used to being without my company since Mothe—"
Draco hastily cut himself off, inwardly cursing himself to be a dim-witted fool, but the damage has been wrought. What little good humour had creeped into Lucius's gaze drained away in an instant, his expression shuttering off. The sun shone as brightly as British summer would permit and the sky above remained a cloudless blue, yet Draco felt a dreadsome chill seep into his bones.
He looked away, a familiar sensation of unfeeling detachment washing over him, and, distantly, he wondered if it was possible to love someone so strongly, so fiercely, one buried one's heart with them when they were gone.
Draco felt phantom hands brush his hair, then his face; he felt nails scrape his neck and evanescent fingers cup his chin. He heard his mother's gentle voice whisper into the shell of his ear: "If a man sits in despair, deprived of joy, with gloomy thoughts in his heart; it seems to him that there is no end to his suffering*—"
"Mipsy," Lord Malfoy called.
The elf hurried over to them. She was outfitted smartly in the standard uniform of their Great House — a black dress, a white apron, and white, lace-trimmed cap, which almost fell during her hasty, sloppy curtsey. "Yessum, your lordship?"
"You are to accompany Draco in his errands. Do not take one step away from him. If anything happens, it's your head," Lord Malfoy ordered. "Find me once you're done."
He settled one hand heavily on Draco's right shoulder; the hefty Malfoy signet ring hit his collarbone sharply, the cold metal biting Draco's skin — it was leadened with power, charms, and bloody history. Lucius Malfoy stared down at his eldest son, and Draco tilted his face up and unabashedly stared back. Dispassionately, he considered, not for the first time, if his father could sense his buried trepidations, his dissembling heart.
Lord Malfoy squeezed the bones of Draco's shoulder and calmly said, "Try not to get into trouble."
Then, he briskly unhandled Draco and walked away. The sound of his steps was swallowed by the street's cacophony as a path was cleared before him; the crowd parted like the churning waters of the Red Sea. People easily made way for Lord Malfoy, the assortment of feelings manifesting on their faces in his wake ranged from acrimony, to apprehension, to reverence, to abject horror.
"That went away," Draco unthinkingly echoed aloud his mother's whisperings, his eyes unwavering from his father's departing figure. "This also may."
— June 1996 —
Draco Malfoy rolled backwards out of the parlour room's fireplace in a graceless heap of black robes and flailing limbs, and groaned.
He pushed himself up into a sitting position, body heavy with exhaustion, and furiously tore the silver mask off, hurling it into a far corner of a room, where it smashed into a wall with a crack. Draco grit his teeth and gripped his sweaty hair, pulling it. A spike of sullen resentment tore through his chest, even as an involuntary sob escaped him.
Lucius had—he'd—
It was fine, Draco told himself as he pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, repressing the urge to scream. Everything would be fine. He was Draco Malfoy. He would get through this. He could get through anything.
Draco took a series of deep, steadying breaths, letting his anger and distress pass over and through him — ocean waves over smooth stones at a beach, unfailing and sempiternal, until nothing remained.
Several minutes later, Draco dragged his left leg closer, tearing at the fabric of his trousers and examining the injuries — they were not deep, but the wooden splinters were rather sizable and the tissue around them was tender and crusted with drying blood. It would be prudent of him to take care of it now, before he limped his way into a raging infection. Draco took out his wand from his trouser pocket and began to pull jagged splinters out.
A Tegeo siphoned off the dried blood, then a Scourgify burned away the dirt and grime. Draco gritted his teeth from pain. He extracted the dragon-leather coin purse from the innermost breast pocket of his jacket, rummaged in it, then withdrew a fist-sized glass jar and unscrewed the metal lid. Inside was a translucent gelatinous substance, as thick as grindylow slime. Draco generously slathered it onto his thigh, hissing sharply as he felt the telltale cold burn of bacta. He tore a wide piece off the bottom of his robes, scouring it with a Scourgify before transfiguring it into a clean, linen bandage and wrapping it around the healing wounds.
He sighed, got to his feet, and glanced down at his filthy, torn robes; there was dust in his hair and blood on his suit — he made quite a sorry sight. Pansy would renounce their lifelong friendship if she saw him now. He ought to contact her, send signs of life, else she'd wring his neck for excessively worrying her. Habitually, Draco pulled out his pocket-watch to check the time—
His eyes widened.
A mad, wild glee bubbled up in his chest and spilled out in pearls of chortling laughter. The object in his hand was decidedly not his pocket-watch. It was made out of untarnished sterling silver and looked like a miniature lantern. Long and thin and engraved with runes, it hung on a slender silver chain, which pooled in Draco's palm like a coiled serpent. In the middle of the lantern was a clear, sparkly crystal sphere, inside of which a delicate silver hourglass was suspended.
It was a time turner.
Draco threw his head back and his laughter turned maniacal as his whole body shook with it. Oh, Circe, this was absolutely brilliant.
Immediately, a tricky scheme surfaced from the depths of his consciousness and muscled its way to the forefront of Draco's mind, overwhelming the buzzing multitude of abstract thoughts and half-formed questions until only it prevailed. The plan was ambitious and reckless, and the stakes were high, but he would gain everything by it — there was no question in Draco's mind he'd follow through.
"Wenzel!" he called, pocketing the time turner, and the elf popped into the parlour with a snap and a mild-mannered Yessir. "Report," Draco said, inspirited, his grey eyes fever-bright. "Where is our august Dark Lord? What of his attendants?"
Wenzel's large brown eyes locked onto Draco's left hand. "Young Master is… Lord of the Manor?"
"Yes, yes." Draco impatiently waved him off. "I am the new Head of House of Malfoy. We shall discuss succession of power later, Wenzel. Tell me quickly: where is the Dark Lord?"
Wenzel nodded and complied, stringy fingers nervously worrying the hem of his black tailcoat. "His Eminence, the Dark Lord, departed from the premises not ten minutes ago. Wenzel knows not where, sir."
Draco paced the length of the parlour. "Who was in the manor upon mine, Lady Lestrange, and Lord Malfoy's departure and where are they currently?"
"His Eminence, and Masters Pyrites and Pettigrew. Presently, Master Pyrites and Master Pettigrew are in the great chamber, taking tea. Camomile with honey."
Draco raised an eyebrow, gazing down at the anxious creature. "No one else is in the house? Are you quite certain?"
"Yes, Master Draco. Only Wenzel and the staff elves, and upstairs the—"
"What of the grounds?" Draco cut the elf off. "Anyone who is not part of the household lurking outside the manor's walls?"
"No, Master Draco. Master Lucius had ordered everyone to remain within the manor and cancelled all appointments."
Draco smiled fiendishly. What a stroke of fortune, he thought, gleefully. It seemed opportunities were tripping over one another to hurl themselves into his lap. He would make for a poor Slytherin and even poorer Malfoy if he did not exploit them thoroughly.
"Wenzel, find Ulrich and tell him 'red cardinal is preparing for the winter'. He'll know what to do. If he gives you any instructions, you are to obey and enforce them as if they came from my mouth. Then, inform the household of the succession. I am the new Head of House of Malfoy and my word is absolute law. Scorpius is my heir presumptive. From now on, none of the Malfoy elves answer summons from Lucius Malfoy or Bellatrix Lestrange, and you are to disregard any and all orders from them. Understood?" Wenzel nodded mutely, eyes as wide as saucers. "Good. You are dismissed for now."
The overwhelmed house-elf vanished with a pop, and Draco clapped his hands and rubbed his palms together, thinking through stages of his plan. The prudent part of him cautioned to curb the excitement, forewarning vigilance and care. He glanced at the eighteenth-century longcase clock standing by the far wall and took note of the time.
Draco picked up the half-empty jar of bacta from the floor and tossed it high into the air, before catching it with one hand as he pulled the coin-purse with the other. He stuck his whole arm into it, depositing the jar into one of the boxes in the Elsewhere, and briefly rummaging inside the folded space until his active search had triggered the magic and his fingers found what he was looking for — a round compact mirror.
(Once again proving that few spells were as singularly convenient — and also technically illegal for non-licensed practitioners, but that was a negligible factor — as an Undetectable Extension Charm. Take that, Theodore Nott Junior and his 'Fourty-Seven Unique Uses of Accio, or Fuck You, Draco, Bet You Cannot Think of a Fourty-Eighth' thesis, pinned last Christmas to the Slytherin dorm's notice board.
Arguably, Draco could have simply purchased a new mokeskin pouch once the magic on the old one had started to wear off, but then he would not be able to modify the Elsewhere to his personal preferences — and where was the fun in that?
"Because it was such fun to lose three fingers on your hand, huh?"
"I didn't lose them," Draco argued in the tone reminiscent of Professor McGonagall's introductory Transfiguration lecture for First Years, earning himself a snort from Theo. "They were momentarily misplaced. In any case, Pomfrey reattached them easily enough.")
Then, with a sweep of his robes, Draco exited the parlour room and proceeded to actualise phase one of his plan.
The great chamber was the palatial Malfoy Manor's most magnificent space and one which — unlike the numerous lavishly decorated and grand drawing rooms and music rooms the manor boasted — had not been refurbished since the Jacobean era, granting it a stately and dignified atmosphere. The chamber was a celebration and demonstration of wealth and sophistication, imposing in its bright splendor.
Draco understood why Lucius had allocated the Dark Lord to it. One could never too frequently or too subtly remind one's autocratic leader whose support and connections funded the bulk of his radical revolution on British soil.
Still, it was inconvenient to his plans that those mangy twits, Pyrites and Pettigrew, were being entertained in the chambers where the portrait of Etheldreda Opitria Malfoy resided. Only child of the British branch and Head of House of Malfoy until she was succeeded by her third son, Abraxas Cepheus Malfoy. She was Draco's great-grandmother and headstrong, ironfisted woman, but a notorious busybody and a gossip; she had died late in life at the birthing bed, along with her stillborn daughter by her affair with Herbert Burke, whose portrait was prominently featured in the Ministry of Magic's auditorium for his contributions to protecting wizarding Britain's interests in the Egyptian Affair in the fifties. Hopefully, Lucius's discretion meant he had sent all portraits on the ground floor out of their frames.
Wand at the ready and with soundless steps, Draco crept towards the great chamber's double doors, one of which, luckily for him, was ajar. He pulled the compact mirror out of his trouser pocket and surreptitiously used it to spy into the room and its occupants.
Pettigrew was… being Pettigrew. Draco had met the man a handful of times and despite his perpetual attitude of cowardly subservience, he was remarkably unoffensive, if rebarbative and visually remindful of a rodent. He was happily lounging in a wingback by the towering fireplace, feet propped up on a footstool, and eating a cream tea scone with surprising delicacy.
On the other hand, Basil Pyrites was a dandy wizard who had a penchant for wearing white, silk gloves, which he often stained with blood. He was smartly-dressed and blond, much like Lucius, but where Lucius was sharp and suave, Pyrites was superficiality personified. He was staring out the far window, his hands clasped behind his back, as he spoke about Blodwyn Bludd's latest album, On The Far Side Of, and how it was a betrayal of Bludd's integrity as a musician now that he had stopped killing his victims.
The scene was oddly domestic. Draco grimaced and shook the unpleasant thought out of his head, setting to work. He burst through the door and, before either man could react, stunned both of them in quick succession with two well-aimed Stupefies. Two Incarcerous spells and a flick of his wand later, the bound and gagged unconscious men were floating past Draco towards the parlour room he left but a minute ago, where they would remain until his return. Draco glanced at the portrait above the fireplace and breathed a sigh of relief — his great-grandmother had not been privy to the scene.
Well, then, Draco thought, onto phase two.
He approached the grand stairwell, bit his thumb, and with his blood traced a rune for FAITH in the air. It blazed into existence with heatless fire, the bold strokes and sleek curves burning out in a flash, and Draco watched as the smooth marble steps shifted and divided, sliding to the sides one by one, to reveal the underground entrance into the bowels of Malfoy Manor.
Draco walked forwards and it was like stepping into the darkness of a grave.
As he descended the ancient stone steps, torches flickered to life illuminating his path and bathing the narrow passageway in deep red light. He was not sure how long he walked — it felt like hours, though it must have been minutes. He could not have been down here for too long, or the timer spell he'd set to keep himself on schedule would activate, but he also knew his ancestors were not above impregnating the stones with time dilation magic and powering it for centuries with ritualistic blood sacrifices to safeguard their sacred chamber.
And secure it was — the chamber resided deep beneath the manor, below the cellars and the vaults, below the dungeons and the crypts; surrounded at all sides by the soil brought from their motherland, from the place where Morgan le Fay swore vengeance and birthed the first member of their Great House. The surrounding land was steeped in Malfoy blood and permeated with the deep strength of their ancestral magic, whose sole purpose was to protect the family at all costs.
When Draco finally entered the chamber, his breath caught in his throat.
It was not a large space, square and thirteen feet in length on either side, but it was minatory and ancient, the oldest structure in the demesne, and against the far wall, shining in the darkness, was the coveted Heart of Malfoy. His legs ate up the length of the chamber in two strides and Draco knelt before the everlit fireplace that burned with eerie colourless flames. Inside of it lay an iridescent hearthstone the size of a newborn babe's skull — it glowed from within, as radiant as the sun.
Draco stared at it, watching the colours within the hearthstone shift and churn, drawing him in and swirling before his eyes with innumerable shades, each more beautiful than the last. He could feel his own magical core grow warm within his chest and echo every pulse of light from the hearthstone, reverberating through him, clawing into his bones, and etching itself into his marrow. In the otherworldly stillness of the chamber, the sound of his loneliness resonated, his heartbeat picking up and driving him mad with its speed. Relics of remembrance like shipwrecks dragged him down further and further into vortex memories of the things he loved, the things he lost, and the things he never had. He could see it, at the edge of his consciousness, the burning shadow—
Draco slapped himself, and it was like a sudden rush of water through his heart and lungs.
Unsurprisingly, the first thought that came to him was that he was not letting Scorpius into this place any time soon. He shuddered, and realised his skin was clammy with cold sweat and he was breathing laboriously. Draco swallowed heavily, and deeply sliced his palm open with a muttered Diffindo, sticking it into the hearthflame.
The world burned.
The pain spiked through his nerves with electrifying clarity, searing into his heart and mind, and yet he found himself unable to move, unable to speak, unable to scream. His throat seized tight in a vice and his body petrified from magic as he felt like his arm was being flayed and cooked alive.
I must not balk. I cannot yield. I must bear it all. I must, I must, I must.
Draco grit his teeth and shut his eyes, stars exploding behind his eyelids in flashes of white. When he opened them, he watched, in mute horror, as the skin of his hand boiled and bubbled, blisters swelling and bursting and oozing viscous liquids. The flesh of it singed and burned and blackened, curling off the bones in strips of charred crimson, and scattered into dust and ash within the colourless flame.
Blood of my blood, bone of my bone.
Words were wind, naught and useless. This was an ancient rite, beyond chants and incantations — it necessitated lifeblood, demanding a sacrifice, to forge a bond. He had to endure it, until the iridescent hearthstone was besmeared with his blood, until it quenched its thirst and had its fill of his pain.
Flesh of my flesh, bond to the heart of stone.
The heart of stone, the white heart in darkness, the light that brings the dawn — the Heart of Malfoy. The glow of it dimmed with each passing moment even as the chalk-white hearthflames rose higher and higher, engulfing the fireplace. Finally, the hearthstone was caked with his blood and Draco yanked his hand out of the fire, drawing it close to his chest and cradling the limb. When he looked down, his pupils shook — it was whole and unmarred, as it was when he entered the chamber.
Magic, Draco thought, with a jolt of irritation. He was born to it, yet it never ceased to amaze him what a fucking menace it was.
"This better have forged the bond, or I'm having strong words with the portrait gallery," Draco muttered and reached deep into himself. He tuned and strummed the strings of his magical core like one would a violin, and listened to the drone and hum of magic reverberating in the stale air.
Ancient magic thrummed through the stones like the song of a battle drum: promising strength and protection to those of Malfoy blood, and woe and heartbreak to their enemies. Next to it, Draco could feel the quivering magic of the house-elves, lively and rapid like the palpitations of a mouse's heartbeat. And then his own, high and clear and strong, like a blackbird's song.
Draco got to his feet and dusted off his knees. Few estates could compete with the power slumbering in Malfoy Manor's walls, the impenetrable warding that had only grown as centuries passed. Now it, and all the other properties connected to the hearthstone, were under his control. Draco smiled smugly; a bit of pain and trauma was a small price to pay for such power.
He focused and mentally searched for the thread that connected the hearthstone to the estate's wards. Once he found it, Draco grasped its strings, and they burned and twisted, resisting interference, but Draco gripped them and pressed his will into the magic. Sweat beaded his forehead and his muscles strained, but Draco persevered and forced the magic to obey, to bend to his desires. Finally, it yielded and Draco impressed new commands onto the wards: all rights of entry onto the estate were revoked, and those who could access it must have both Malfoy and Black blood in their veins.
After the initial struggle, Draco spent an hour fine-tuning the wards to his specifications, and inculcating into them that he was Head of the House and not Lucius. Additionally, he had strengthened them to the best of his abilities, but although he had studied and researched wards and protective enchantments for years with the specific intent of making them impregnable to undesirables, he was only a teenager, and even knowledge and talent could not overcome the deficiencies of youth.
Draco sneezed and looked around the chamber. It really was intolerably dusty here, it must not have been cleaned in centuries. No Malfoy would have permitted a house-elf to enter the sacred chamber and no Malfoy would have stooped as low as to clean his own quarters. Draco rolled his eyes and cast a series of cleaning spells, removing all but the most ingrained dirt — good thing he was not the sort of Malfoy his ancestors imagined would seize control of their Great House.
Draco moved towards the stairwell and placed his foot on the first step, when he turned back and spared the Heart of Malfoy one last glance before walking away. In this darkness, he had met his creators; and it could not be denied, the story printed in his blood.
When Draco entered the parlour room, he was pleasantly surprised to find that only seven minutes had passed since he'd left it last. The sacred chamber was definitely imbued with time dilation magics. He made a mental note to research those and find a way to utilise them — for one, the time he spent on his projects would increase exponentially, and he would be free to indulge in the labs to his heart's content; for another, the commercial value of such a magic would propel his family's wealth into the stratosphere.
Before his mind could gallop away with the thrilling possibilities, Draco reined himself in and refocused on the phase three of his plan.
He summoned the silver mask he'd discarded prior and put it on. Then, he turned to look upon the unconscious Pyrites and Pettigrew, bound with thick ropes and gagged. They were slumped against one another in the centre of the room.
Draco flicked his wand in their direction and, compelled by a Mobilicorpus, they floated up and hovered at his hip level, rigid like planks of wood. He waved his wand in a circle around them before cutting through it from the top, casting a Bedazzling Hex. He watched as the figures of the two men involuntarily shuddered and wavered before turning invisible. Draco tilted his head this way and that, examining his captives; they were mostly unseen, save for the nearly imperceptible shimmer of their silhouettes indicating their presence. The spell would suffice well enough for his purposes.
He took out the time turner, grabbed a fistful of one of the men's robes, and turned the silver knob on the side of the crystal sphere one-and-a-half times. Draco watched the time rush backwards around him, smudged figures flowing like shadows through milk, then, he and his cargo were delivered out of the time bubble with a quiet pop.
Draco glanced at the clock behind him. Everything was going according to plan.
He twitched his wand, and the two men shuddered like puppets pulled by invisible strings and drifted into the fireplace. Then, Draco sauntered into the fireplace himself and, with a handful of green Floo powder, vanished in a swirl of emerald flames.
Draco stepped out of a fireplace for the fourth time today, shoes scraping against the dark wood floor, followed by his invisible Death Eater prisoners. A glance to his left told him he'd arrived at the correct destination: Ministry of Magic's Atrium, fireplace number fourteen, the same one he had been sent through — will be sent? — by Lucius not too long ago. He put the time turner back into his waistcoat pocket and pulled out his trusty coin-purse, summoning an Erumpent horn out of it.
Thicknesse had assured Lucius he had disengaged the security system monitoring the ministerial Floos, but the public Floos in the Atrium each have an internal log of destination points, which were accessible by Floo Network Authority. An inconvenience for Draco, for it was an easily recoverable trace of his presence at the Ministry during the Death Eaters' infiltration.
He cast an Ice Jinx on the Erumpent horn and tossed it into the fireplace. Once, the Erumpent horn was exposed to fire, it would blow up and destroy the fireplace along with all the evidence. The Ice Jinx was there to delay the reaction, as Draco did not want to inadvertently detonate his past self — future self? — in the process. Internally, he bemoaned wasting an expensive Class-B Tradeable Material ingredient, but, Draco reasoned to himself, the benefits outweigh the squander, even if he was motivated by paranoia.
Stepping away from the scene of a future crime, Draco frowned and tapped his wand against his thigh, mulling over possibilities and their probabilities in his head, thoughts expanding in multiple directions and analysing patterns. However improbable, he reminded himself, plan for the absolute worst. Then, at least you'd be pleasantly surprised by whatever happens.
Right then, onto phase four. He had loose ends to tie up.
Swiftly, Draco Disillusioned himself. Now was not the time to get cursed by those hex-happy classmates of his as he was dressed as a Death Eater and prowling the Ministry.
As he soundlessly made his way towards the Brain Room, Pyrites and Pettigrew tugged after him by an invisible tether like a fishing boat towed through the sea, Draco pondered. He did not remember being passed a time turner, which narrowed down his options to five potential avenues of action. Briefly, Draco wondered if the Muggle theory of 'when time travelling, one cannot touch oneself' was full of shite or not — it sounded plausible, but contact between matter with identical genetic composition did not equate to matter occupying the same space, thus, it was most likely a load of bollocks.
"RON? GINNY? LUNA?" Draco heard Potter bellow like a cow in heat once again. And just like last time, Dolohov and Jugson rushed past both him and his equally Disillusioned past self on their way towards the office where the three Gryffindors were very loudly hiding.
Draco made his way into the chamber, edging his way around the mayhem and debris by hugging the wall, and watched as the quick, threeway skirmish unfolded. Then, the other Draco ducked behind a column, his Disillusionment Charm extinguishing with a ripple, and Draco took out the time turner, readying his wand. Soon enough, Potter, Granger, and Longbottom ran past both of them, and once his past self tucked his pocket-watch back into his waistcoat pocket, Draco cast the Entanglement Spell with admirable swiftness. It linked two objects together of approximate size and weight, switching them. When the silver time turner flickered out of existence on his palm and was replaced by the familiar sight of his pocket-watch, Draco breathed a sigh of relief. He hoped superposing an object as delicate and volatile as a time turner would not blow up in his face. Literally.
Once the other Draco Disillusioned himself and dashed out of the Time Chamber, Draco lifted the Bedazzling Hex off his Death Eater captives. He broke the Mobilicorpus spell with a slash of his wand and the pair of them collapsed onto the floor awkwardly. Draco knelt by them, examined the tightness of the ropes, and pulled back the eyelids on either man to check their vitals. They were still unresponsive, but, just in case, he cast a Stupefy each. One could never be too careful.
Briefly, Draco contemplated leaving a calling card of some sort, so Aurors who would inevitably find the bound and gagged Death Eaters could appreciate how he'd delivered them to the Ministry: stunned, gift-wrapped, and on a silver platter. His pseudonym should be properly striking and dramatic — something like, Great Sage Equalling Heaven or The Dragon of the Morningstar; utterly senseless, but they sure sounded impressive.
Draco snorted, getting to his feet. It was an entertaining thought, but such action would be ultimately inutile and counterproductive to both his anonymity and the thinly veiled charade that the two men had simply left the manor of their own accord.
He made his way into the office belonging to Time Chamber's Department Head and darted towards the cumbrous desk in the middle of it. It was littered by papers and folders, and ravaged by stray spells, courtesy of trespassing Gryffindors, but given that the main stock of time turners was stuck in an endless loop of falling over, un-falling, and then re-falling back in the chamber proper, it was the only place where Draco could find—
There!
Draco shot his arm out and grasped the silver time turner before it toppled off the edge of the desk. He examined the item and grinned wolfishly — he'd closed the time loop.
Draco paused, frowning. Or did he?
He'd cast Implicatio on the time turner and bequeathed it to his past self, before he had actually obtained it. However, one of the fundamental rules of time travel stated that nothing could be changed because anything the traveller did merely produced the circumstances they had noted before travelling. Theoretically, his actions should have closed the loop, because the loop had always been closed.
Draco cursed and rubbed the back of his neck, kneading the tense muscles. Deliberating time travel always gave him a headache. It was Theo's forte and area of interest, not his.
He cracked the fingers of his right hand, one by one, as he mentally checked all the boxes and methodically examined his plans. Technically speaking, phase five was optional. He did not have to do it. But what was he going to do until enough time passed for him to initiate phase six — cool his heels and be a spectator to the skirmishes which will soon unfold in the Death Chamber?
"As if," Draco snorted, and stalked out of the Time Chamber in search of Avery, determined to uncover what the private mission the Dark Lord had entrusted the pinched-faced Death Eater with was.
Finding Avery was easier than Draco had expected.
Subduing Avery was another matter.
The pair of them were in a dark, shadowy room full of planets floating in mid-air. One third of the solar system had collapsed and scattered on the floor, and Pluto was a smoking, shattered crater by which a Disillusioned Draco was crouching. He had expected Avery to still be in the Truth Chamber, so when he made his way there, he had been surprised to find him rummaging through the office of the Space Chamber's Departmental Head, muttering obscenities to himself.
Cooly, Draco evaluated the situation. His muscles ached, his stamina was nearing its limit, and there was a residual tremor in his hands from the rite in the Malfoy sacred chamber. If he was a wiser man, he would have abandoned his quest for uncovering the Dark Lord's plans and quit while he was ahead. But cleverness was not wisdom, and Draco, in full possession of the former, had never claimed ownership of the latter. He studied the older man with a trained eye and grimaced — Avery was in rude health. The odds were not in his favour. Draco closed his eyes, breathing in deeply. Inhale. Exhale. He jumped out from his hiding place, exclaiming:
"Stupe—!"
"Expelliarmus!"
Draco's wand ripped itself out of his grasp and sailed across the room into Avery's waiting palm.
"Well, well, well, who do we have here?" Avery said, smiling. He had discarded his silver mask some time ago, and in the dusk of the chamber, his pallid face took on a ghoulish, sunken look. "Revelio."
Draco felt a chill sweep down him and he knew Avery had broken his Disillusionment Charm. He ducked and rolled, narrowly escaping a red spell Avery threw at him and tucked himself behind fallen Jupiter.
"A spy or a traitor? I wonder which one you are? Come on, little mouse, it's time to play."
"How did you know I was here?" Draco asked, pitching his voice low, eyes darting around the room, searching for an advantage. Keep him talking, he thought, when he's talking he's not casting. He had to buy himself time to come up with a plan.
Avery pointed at a silvery looking glass perched on the Department Head's desk. "I found a lovely Foe-Glass in one of the offices. Seemed a shame to leave it there, all alone and unspoiled, so I decided to put it to good use for my Master. And what do I see in it? I see you, little mouse. Snooping where you ought not to, crawling on your belly, a prey primed for a strike—Confringo!"
"Protego!" Draco threw up a wandless blue-tinged shield just in time to absorb the Blasting Curse and break on impact. He vaulted out of his hiding place and rushed at Avery, shouting, "Depulso!"
Avery flew across the chamber, hitting the back of his head against Venus, and Draco thrust his hand forwards, willing magic to yield to him. "Accio wand—!"
"Reducto!" roared Avery, blood trickling down his face. The curse hit Draco's wand mid-air, blasting it into large splinters. "Diffindo!"
Draco spun on his heel, barely avoiding the light green arc that would have sliced him in half like a scythe. He had no time to process the destruction of his wand or the near decapitation as Avery tried to set his robes on fire with an Incendio. Draco leaped out of the way and sent a bolt of blinding white lightning, but Avery dodged and it hit Neptune behind him, smashing it into smithereens and setting them aflame.
Draco jumped forwards, aiming to tackle Avery to the ground, but the Death Eater caught him in a Momentum-Reversing Spell and hurled him against a thick pillar, smashing him against the stones soundly. Draco slid down, coughing; his vision swam. He tried to get to his feet, but felt a sharp, stabbing pain in his side. Then, a shadow fell over him and Avery was there ripping the arabesque mask off his face.
"Draco Malfoy," Avery said, voice dripping with poorly controlled glee. "Lucius's boy — a traitor? Oh, this is positively splendid. He's so arrogant, your father, so full of pride over his name, his status, his two perfect, flawless sons." A sly look came over Avery's sharp features. He rolled his sleeve up, exposing the Dark Mark, and put his wand on it — summoning his Master. Draco's insides chilled. "One of whom is not so perfect, as it turns out. Who would have known Lucius's pride and joy is a filthy, double-crossing traitor? You will drink your fill of sorrow for your disloyalty to the Dark Lord, little mouse, and your brother… is he as faithless as you? His bright future is tarnished by his brother's treachery… I wonder what the Dark Lord will do to him? Will he cry and scream, or will he show true mettle when we—"
Whatever Avery wanted to threaten Draco with was cut short when Draco kicked him viciously in the knee and yanked him down by the front of his robes, felling him. When Draco Malfoy got angry, his blood ran as hot as magma, boiling and sizzling and rushing through him thunderously, but his mind never lost its faculty to think, thus with anger came a terrible, dark clarity and a coldness that burned like no other. And, at the moment, nothing made Draco angrier than listening to sadistic and sanctimonious Alfred Avery talk about Scorpius.
Draco launched himself forwards, grappling for Avery's wand. He felt Avery claw the side of his face, scratching it and drawing blood, but he managed to yank the other man's wand and slam it against the smooth stones of the floor, snapping it in half. Avery howled and forcefully kneed Draco in the stomach, making him gasp in pain. Taking advantage, Avery bore down hard on Draco, pushing him steadily against the floor with growing force, and wrapped his hands around Draco's throat, squeezing.
"Before you go any further," Draco rasped in-between shallow breaths, "know this: today is not the day, and I am not the one."
The momentary befuddlement that came across Avery had distracted him enough for Draco to manage a swift, solid jab to the jugular with a hook fist, crushing the windpipe. He scampered away as the Death Eater violently wheezed on the ground, gripping his throat.
Draco quickly took out his coin-purse and summoned a small, leather pouch, dumping its contents on Avery, before darting behind the pillar for protection. He gave a frosty smile, his grey eyes hard and sharp, and bright with malice.
"Incendio."
Avery exploded.
Well, not literally. Draco did not have enough black powder on him to blow up anyone, much less a full-grown man, and the explosive Theo and he had cooked up in their lab was not nearly as refined as the ones Muggles produced. But it had done its job — Avery, while neither mutilated nor eviscerated, was lying prostrate on his side, body covered in patches of burns, robes charred and smoking.
Draco limped over, cradling the right side of his ribs, and kicked Avery. Hard. He waited a moment and kicked him again a couple more times. Avery didn't respond.
Then, without preamble, Draco fell to his knees and rolled over onto his back, breathing heavily, adrenaline leaking out of him with every shallow exhale. His tongue darted out. Once, twice. He clutched his hands so tightly together that the knuckles strained. Finally, he glanced at Avery out of the corner of one eye. His chest was moving. He wasn't dead. Draco breathed a sigh of relief.
He pushed himself up into a sitting position and slumped forwards, limbs drained of all energy. His tense muscles screaming in protest, he uncurled his spine, and rolled his neck and shoulders, joints cracking like logs in a fire. If Scorpius was here, he'd snicker and call him an old man.
Today, Draco concluded, was terribly tiring. Magical duels, physical fights, painful blood rituals, time travel, infiltrating the Ministry of Magic, a near death experience — it was hard to believe just a handful of hours ago, he was in Hogwarts, sitting for his last exam of the term.
Draco dragged his palms down his face, hauled himself towards Avery's unconscious body, and started going through his pockets. There he found what he was looking for: the mysterious object the Dark Lord had sent Avery searching for in the Department of Mysteries.
Draco examined it with a critical eye; it did not look special, but many powerful things were deceptively plain, thus he wrapped it back into the white linen cloth and carefully deposited it into his coin-purse. He gave the office up ahead a long, contemplative look before shaking his head. Appropriating a Foe-Glass for his personal use was an attractive prospect, but he decided he had tempted fate enough today, what with all the secrets he'd looted from the Department of Mysteries already.
As if urged by some entity with a penchant for dramatic timing, seven blue jays flew into the Space Chamber, circling Draco, before swooping down gracefully in formation and landing in front of him. Draco smiled, and gently petted the biggest one in the middle, her eyes dark and sparkling like twin elderberries.
"Good girl," Draco said, and the bird tweeted happily.
She was a golem he had made, designed for espionage and information gathering; the other six birds were her copies he'd hastily transfigured from the rubble when his uncle Rabastan had destroyed half of Time Chamber with his unfortunate spellwork. The Department of Mysteries was on the bleeding edge of esoteric magical research, and since he had trespassed already, he might as well use the opportunity to his advantage.
Time turner was such a useful tool, it gave him a chance to collect his little birds now, rather than have them secrete themselves in the Ministry till later notice.
"Get in," Draco ordered, and opened the coin-purse wider. The seven birds lifted off and flew into it in a line, one after another, vanishing from sight and into Elsewhere.
Phase six was complete.
Draco spared a smoking Avery a glance. Phase five, too; if semi-successfully.
Speaking of Avery. Draco rummaged in his coin-purse again and, after a moment, extracted a black-leather potion-kit bag, and started going through its contents. In an ideal world, Draco would cast a Memory Charm and then a False-Memory Charm on Avery, and they would be invincible and faultless, and not even the most gifted Legilimens would spy neither the trace of Obliviate nor the artificiality of the new memories; and Draco's identity would be safe from all. However, it was not an ideal world, thus a) Draco had never practiced neither Memory Charms nor False-Memory Charms — though now he made a mental note to grow proficient at them; and b) he was a lot of things, but stupid was not one of them — casting complicated magic pertaining to the mindarts as a magically exhausted, wandless teenager was a one way ticket to the Janus Thickey Ward for permanent spell damage.
Thus, in lieu of casting a Memory Charm, he had Potions.
Draco, none too gently, tipped Avery's head back and poured three potion bottles down his throat: one bog-green, the other milky-white, and the third was the colour of a Jobberknoll feather. Avery swallowed all of them and a few heartbeats later his skin turned as black as doxy eggs, then it flashed scarlet red, before returning to his normal, unhealthily pale shade. Perfect; Avery would recall none of what transpired today, and what little he would remember would transform thoroughly into unrecognisability by the drunken nightmares he was about to experience.
Draco tucked all of his instruments back where they belonged, got to his feet, hobbled over to where Neptune's debris was still aflame, and picked up the remains of his wand. He stared down numbly at the broken pieces.
His wand had been quite beautiful — uniformly a glossy jet-black, warm to the touch, and its handle resembled a hawthorn tree's thorn, the wood there was knotted and fissured. It was too late to lament the loss, yet Draco felt it keenly. The hawthorn wand hadn't been his first wand, far from it, but it had been the first one that chose him and it had served him well. A pang of regret shot through him; had Draco known what tonight would entail, he would have grabbed his unregistered wand from the dormitories on the way to Severus's office.
There was a crash and then shouting behind him, and Draco hurried towards the Death Chamber to investigate. Teetering on the edge of the entryway, favouring his injured side, he observed as the still-functioning Death Eaters rallied around Rookwood, but there were very few of them and their adversaries circled like sharks. A flash of red light caught his peripheral vision, and—
"SIRIUS!" Potter roared from down below. "LOOK OUT!"
There was a moment where time, as it was, seemed to stop. In all probability, it was just Draco Malfoy's heart.
He ran.
.
.
.
note: Suisei — "彗星" meaning comet, but individually, "彗" is broom and "星" is star.
* an extract from The Lament of Deor, an Old English poem by Exeter Book.
Is Draco an opportunistic little shit? Yes, he is. I love him. Half of his characterisation is inspired by me remembering the COS movie, and that scene where Harry & Ron polyjuiced into Crabbe & Goyle and how Draco shamelessly stole someone's present from the common room. Was that moment there to highlight that Draco is "a bad kid" who'd steal despite being wealthy? Yes. But morality police failed with me and the scene forever stayed with me as one that portrays indiscriminate Slytherin opportunism. In this story, if Draco sees an opportunity to advance he'll take it, despite the risks — which is… not always a good thing, as the above chapter illustrated.
Can you guys feel where the winds of plot are blowing? I feel like you should. You guys are smart, I want to hear more theories. Also, to clarify, when I say [REDACTED] AU, I don't mean this story is based on a particular book or film or anything like that, it's just a canon-divergence AU.
Not to sound like a review whore, but feedback and engagement make me feel a lot more confident about the story decisions that I'm making, and having an involved audience helps me motivate myself to pursue the story further. For example, I had two people come out of nowhere on ao3 in March and leave reviews, and it was their interest that motivated me to get out of my funk and finally write the chapter. So… like… be a friend, drop a line, share a thought. Please and thank you.