Time had flown by faster than Draco realized. Before he knew it, his first week back at Hogwarts had ended and Saturday was on him. He waited anxiously for his mother, who had told him that she would come to pick him up. Snape had come to get him, who had in advance gotten a letter from Narcissa Malfoy.
"Do you know why you are being summoned, Mr. Malfoy?" the Potions Professor asked, his voice the usual drawl the Malfoy heir was used to.
"I have no idea, Professor" Draco answered, doing his best to keep his face even. Snape gave him a calculating look before looking away, not a single change in expression the whole time.
Teacher and student walked to the headmaster's office, where Draco found his mother speaking with the headmaster. When she saw him enter, a smile graced her lips. Narcissa stood, walking over to Draco and pulling him in for a hug.
"We shall be going then, headmaster. I'll bring him back soon enough" the cool tone made Draco stiffen slightly. It was no secret that neither of his parents was fond of the headmaster. But hearing the tone in his mother's voice made him uneasy.
"Of course, Lady Malfoy" the headmaster gave one of his grandfatherly smiles. "Please, enjoy your time with your son."
Narcissa did not reply to that. She simply guided Draco to the fireplace and took a handful of Floo powder. "Malfoy Manor!" she shouted and threw the powder at their foot. Draco closed his eyes and let the green flames engulf him. When he opened his eyes, they were in the parlor of the Malfoy Manor.
"Not here" Draco spoke immediately after stepping out of the fireplace.
"Draco, your father isn't home. We can speak freely here"
"Mother, not here" Draco insisted, looking at his mother with uncompromising eyes. Narcissa met his gaze with a blank face, then sighed.
"Very well" she murmured. She put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him towards her. Draco stood still as his mother put a hand on each of his shoulders and a twisting feeling began to build in his gut. He knew the feeling all too well.
When the feeling passed, Draco stumbled and hunched over. Damn his eleven-year-old body and not being used to apparition. He felt a hand o his back and he stood back up straight.
"I'm fine" he wheezed. He looked around and frowned slightly. "What is this place?" he asked. He hadn't been here previously, not this life or the one before it.
"12 Grimmauld Place" Narcissa answered softly, "the ancestral home of House Black."
Draco did a double-take of the location and admittedly he was disappointed. The ancestral home of House Black, he had expected it to be something grand, more so than the Malfoy Manor. House Black was one of the richest, if not the richest of families in Wizarding Britain. And as such, he had expected their ancestral home to be something that reflected on that, not this dirty and run-down muggle house lookalike.
"Disappointed?" his mother asked.
"Yes" her son replied.
"It does look shabby, compared to Malfoy Manor" Narcissa agreed, her own eyes running over the cobweb-covered walls and the dusty floors. "Kreacher!" she shouted.
Draco heard a popping noise and looked at the house-elf that appeared before them. This one had a bulbous, snout-like nose, bloodshot eyes, and many folds of skin with white hair growing out of his bat-like ears.
"Mistress Narcissa" the elf muttered with reverence in his voice. "Oh, how long Kreacher waited for you!"
"You have been slacking" the cold tone in Narcissa's voice had stopped the elf from saying anything more. "The ancestral home of the great House Black is in deplorable conditions. This is completely unacceptable."
"Forgive me, mistress. I will punish myself accordingly" the house-elf bowed and Draco felt a sharp taste on his tongue.
"Do it later. My son and I need a private setting to talk. Make sure this room is clean and appropriate privacy wards have been set up" the woman ordered and the elf bowed deeply. Narcissa walked out of the room, Draco in line behind her. The boy shot a final look at the elf, who began to work on the room.
The duo went to the kitchen, each taking a seat on the cleaner of the available chair. Narcissa didn't speak to her son about the topic in the time they waited. She didn't talk much at all. She had a pensive look on her face while she silently assessed the house they were in. The silence wasn't all that bad for the boy. It gave him time to think of how he could relay the information he had to his mother. He knew he could trust the woman to keep it between them, especially since involved the safety of her family.
Kreacher came back after almost half an hour and informed them that the room was ready. Narcissa was the first one to walk out of the kitchen. Draco followed her after a pause, looking back for just a moment before he was completely out of the kitchen. He saw the elf had an iron poker in his hand.
"Now" Narcissa Malfoy spoke, sat on the armchair close to the fireplace. "What was so important that you needed the privacy to talk about?"
Draco put a finger to his lips before moving to the lone portrait in the room. It was not one of those magical moving ones, fully muggle in every way. Draco pulled out his wand and with the tip poked a particularly shiny corner of the portrait.
Narcissa watched in confusion as her son moved to the painting of a snake with a green pear being squeezed by it. The confusion quickly turned to shock as the portrait suddenly glowed a light green.
"What did you just do?" she asked, her voice a whisper and her eyes wide.
"Deactivated a listening device" Draco murmured, putting the wand back up the sleeve of his robe. "Aunt Bellatrix taught me this. This portrait would probably record everything we say."
"Bellatrix?" the confusion was back to her now, "Draco, that's not possible. Bellatrix is in Azkaban."
But it was. Draco had just done it in front of her. And that too with efficiency she'd seen Bella perform numerous times back at their parent's home.
"Father has a time-turner in his study. The bottom left drawer of his study table, hidden under a false bottom in a box made of Mahogany. The time turner has the family crest engraved on the back while the display is more planetary than a normal watch."
"Explain. Now!" the Malfoy matriarch barked, an unsettling glare pinned on her son.
"It all began in my first year" Draco began. "Right now, our Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher is carrying Voldemort around. Which I'm guessing you already know" he frowned seeing the look on his mother's face. "Potter manages to defeat him again. Something about some kind of touch" he shook his head. "Voldemort makes himself appear again in my second year and lets out Slytherin's beast. And in my fourth year, he fully comes back. Father readily goes back to him, which puts our family in his firing line."
He took a deep breath. "A war happens and there are a lot of deaths. You die trying to protect me from Crabbe, who thinks I sided with Potter and his gang. In the aftermath, Voldemort taunts Potter into going to the forbidden forest and when he comes back, Voldemort is in full control of him. And no, it's not the Imperius. Potter was much stronger now and alongside Voldemort killed anyone and everyone in their path."
"Father was able to Apparate both himself and me to Malfoy manor. But Potter followed us and father at the very end told me about the time turner before he dueled Potter. I used it to bring myself here so I can stop all that from ever happening. But before I could travel back, Potter had hit the time-turner with something. I passed out and came back to consciousness in my eleven-year-old body. The nightmare from those months ago, that was when I woke up."
Narcissa remained silent all through the explanation from her son. All of that sounded far-fetched at best, yet it made sense the more Draco went on. For one, she was sure neither she nor Lucius had told Draco about Quirrell. All the Death Eaters knew of course, but none of their children. And then there was the time turner. Lucius had just gotten it a few months before school had started. Narcissa was certain that it was on the same day that Draco had suddenly woken up screaming.
"How did Potter get himself possessed?" the femme questioned, her voice still stern.
"Potter is a Horcrux" the statement had made the femme stiffen. "I don't know how exactly that happened, but Granger spoke about it happening on the night Potter killed Voldemort. She didn't elaborate so I'm not exactly sure" he shook his head. "As for how Voldemort gained control of Potter, the best I can come up with is that Potter was killed and the part of Voldemort's soul inside him took control."
"Is that why you've been trying to befriend Potter? To earn the support of The Dark Lord when he takes over his body?" Narcissa inquired.
"I plan on stopping that from happening" Draco replied bluntly. "Voldemort coming back is the worst thing for us. Father will blindly go back to him and subject both himself and us to various forms of humiliations. And where will that get both of you? To your deaths. And I'll have to repeat it all over again. I'd rather do this once and live my life."
"So, what do you suggest to do? And why did you tell me? After months of you being back from the future" the femme breathed out.
"I told you because I know you'd put the good of the family before anything else. Even Father's whims and wishes. I told you because I want advice on what to do. I need someone to discuss my plans with. I want to save Potter's life. I want to get that Horcrux out of him and then hunt down the other possible ones before destroying them all. And to do that, I want Potter away from Dumbledore. Because it was that old stubborn goat's fault that I had to do what I did in the first place."
"I see" Narcissa hummed, hiding the smile she knew would break out any moment. All through the boy's life, Narcissa had seen her son follow in the footsteps of his father. He wanted to be just like him in every way. While that would have been a good thing most of the time, for Draco it was not. Primarily because his father was Lucius Malfoy, a blind fool of a man who was in no way deserving to be in the great House of Slytherin.
Narcissa was not happy with the marriage her parents had fixed with the Malfoy heir of her time. She had not even liked to be around that man at school. But in time, she had grown rather fond of him, while he had grown to be in love with her. But even that love was trumped by the hate he felt for the standing of The Wizarding World back then and now, the hate for muggle-borns, the hate for those that saw them as equals, hate for blood traitors. It was what pushed him to The Dark Lord, to begin with.
Narcissa meanwhile did not share all his beliefs. Sure, enough she found muggle-borns to be less than them, unfit to be taught magic like they were. Purebloods would always stand at the pinnacle and muggle-borns did not deserve a place in their society. But she was not blind or dumb enough to submit herself in the cause of a madman whose identity nobody knew. There was no guarantee that The Dark Lord was a pureblood. Narcissa was not someone who believed in words of the mouth with no swearing. The reason why she never took the mark herself.
"To take Potter away from Dumbledore, you must separate him from those that blindly worship him" Narcissa spoke smoothly. "He is a child and children are impressionable. Anyone who blindly worships the man will no doubt push Potter to do the same."
"I know" Draco shook his head. "He became best friends with the Weasley boy Ronald. And we both know how much The Weasley Family is devoted to Dumbledore and his cause. Potter met them on the way to Platform 9 ¾. He said that Mrs. Weasley was loudly talking about the way to the platform. Asking her children how to get there. It sounded weird to me."
"Was she now?" Narcissa raised an elegant eyebrow. "I can see why it would be weird. She has what? Six sons, who have either been to or are going to Hogwarts? And yet she needs to be reminded of it?" the femme hummed. "Sounds awfully a lot like a setup."
"I was thinking the same thing" Draco nodded his head.
"Very well" Narcissa stood up. "I'll do my digging into Potter and everything concerning him and his way into Wizarding Society. You, my son, focus on keeping Potter on the path away from Dumbledore. The Weasley boy sounds like bad news. If possible, build a wall between the two boys. It will only help you in the long run."
"Alright, mother" Draco gave a nod. He had planned on acquainting himself with Weasley. But Weasley had made it certain that there was never going to be anything more than animosity between them. There was no other choice it seems.
"And Draco," the boy looked to his mother, who had a sudden anxious look on her face. "You say his name with such ease. You weren't like this in the past. Well, before you came back from the future. What changed? What destroyed your fear of him?"
"Nothing" Draco answered and Narcissa stared at her son. "I am still afraid of him mother" he then looked to the fireplace and then back at her. But this time his eyes were blank and cold. And his voice was filled with such venom that Narcissa couldn't help but shiver.
"I hate him more than I'm afraid of him. I want him dead for everything he made us go through."