A/N: Many thanks to amazing Sadsnail for betaing!
Lucius closed the battered leather journal with a huff. An 18th-century Unspeakable, Portia Malfoy was the only one to use the family time-turner almost two centuries ago and live to tell the tale, or at least leave any notes. She dedicated decades to rigorous studies of temporal magic, modified the ancient artefact extensively and created an accompanying ritual for it, all for a purpose she refused to share. But did she absolutely have to write her instructions in verse?
He locked the journal in his drawer, resisting the urge to hurl it into the fireplace, lit despite the sunny August morning. Lucius had never quite managed to exorcise the chill of Azkaban from his bones, no matter how warm the summer weather outside was. It seeped through the thick wool of his robes, especially when he ventured to the dungeons, and he doubted that being underground was the only reason. He felt the same way entering the dining room and the East Wing, all the places that had once been occupied by his late master.
No, Lucius refused to call him that anymore. The Dark Lord had the right ideas, but in the end, he had been just a mad half-blood upstart who had not known his place. They had had a good run in the first war when clandestine meetings and fights with the Aurors had spiced up the life of a young Malfoy heir, but as a husband and a father a decade and a half later, he felt it was high time to leave youthful indiscretions behind. After all, he had enough money to buy the Ministry twice over, securing the means to teach Mudbloods and blood traitors their place without doing the dirty work and placing himself and his family in danger. If only the Dark Lord had stayed dead as any self-respecting wizard would. But if Potter's post-war interviews to the Prophet were to be believed, he had been brought up in a muggle orphanage; what else could one expect from such an upbringing?
A knock at the door brought Lucius out of his musings.
"You're working too hard, darling," his wife said, coming into his office with a soft smile playing on her lips. Lucius hadn't seen it directed at him in years.
His breath hitched. Narcissa was wearing a gown of flowing blue silk, and her golden hair cascaded down her back in flawless curls.
"You look beautiful."
"Thank you, Lucius. I'm going to take Draco to Diagon Alley today."
"Is that wise?" he asked carefully. The hoi polloi loved to spit on those who had fallen from grace. Narcissa was too fragile to deal with stares and rudeness right now. He would have to caution Draco, even though his son was disinclined to talk to him these days.
"Why wouldn't it be? We'll be buying Draco his wand and school robes today, or have you forgotten?"
Lucius felt his stomach turn to lead. Still, he kept his face blank as he got up from his desk. "No, of course, I haven't."
He gently steered Narcissa towards their rooms, knowing that she would forget all about her plans soon enough. These episodes had started soon after the war, becoming more and more frequent with each passing year. Even after all the fines, bribes and reparations, Lucius had enough gold to throw at the best healers, but none of them could do much against the damage done by the Dark Lord's Cruciatus sessions. The only one who managed to make a little bit of difference was a Squib practising some Muggle mumbo-jumbo. His blood traitor sister-in-law found him, and Lucius was desperate enough to try. He even let them take Narcissa to a Muggle hospital to place her in a metal contraption and 'scan' her brain, whatever in Merlin's name it meant. Not that he could have stopped them, being still confined to the Manor and forbidden to use all but the most basic spells. Or had any right to, being the cause of his wife's conditions, as his son had screamed at him that day. As if Lucius needed any more reminders.
"Why am I wearing this robe?" Narcissa stopped abruptly as they reached the bedroom and looked down at herself with a confused expression before closing her eyes for a long moment. "It happened again. I hoped I had some more time after yesterday."
"Narcissa—" Lucius started imploringly, putting his hand on her arm.
She shrugged it off, a graceful gesture that made his heart ache. "I wish to be alone. If you would excuse me, Lucius."
The minutes trickled away as he stood in front of the closed door. No matter. He supposed he could afford to waste them now.
The morning found Lucius in his study, asleep at his desk. He had spent the night before putting his affairs in order for the unfortunate but likely event of his failure. The flames in the fireplace had died down, leaving nothing more than dimly glowing cinders, and he shot an Incendio at them before sealing the letter to his son. Were he to fail, Draco would have to be the one to bring the Malfoy name out of disrepute. Lucius hoped that his son would understand why he had to at least try.
He wrote another missive, carefully disguising his handwriting, and gave it to Polly, his only remaining house-elf, to deliver. Now he only had to wait.
One last time, he went to their room. Narcissa was in bed, a faint crease still marring her brow even in her slumber. Lucius longed but did not dare to touch her. Narcissa's sleep had been so light these past years. Instead, his hand tightened around the big hourglass weighing heavily on the golden chain around his neck. He would make sure nothing disturbed his wife's sleep ever again.
On his way to the dungeons, he felt the wards breach: intruders at the gate. That was faster than expected. He hurried down to the empty chamber behind the prison cells where the ritual circle had already been drawn. Carefully stepping inside, he started chanting. Chalked runes darkened to a deep red of the blood Lucius felt seeping from his veins, glowed golden and dissipated into the grey stone. Wall scones flickered in the gust of raw magic.
The door to the dungeons blasted open, revealing Potter and a second Auror, their wands drawn. There really was no need for such theatrics, since Lucius had not bothered to lock it.
"What's going on here, Mr Malfoy?" Potter asked as his partner gawked at the chains hanging from the walls. Even after monthly checks for over three years, Potter's voice had never lost the distrustful note Lucius remembered since the Department of Mysteries.
"Just inspecting the masonry."
"The masonry."
"There are cracks in the foundation of this house, Mr Potter. In its very core."
"Right. Then you wouldn't mind giving me your wand for a quick Priori Incantatem," Potter demanded rather than asked.
"Of course." Lucius offered him his grandmother's wand he had been using since the Dark Lord had taken his old one, handle first. He would not be needing it anymore.
Potter cautiously moved closer, tensing and looking down as he stepped inside the now-invisible rune circle. So the boy could sense magic. Good. Maybe he was not a complete fluke. After all, he would need to repeat his Dark Lord slaying performance successfully.
Lucius kept the polite half-smile of a host as Potter reached for the wand with his left hand, his right one gripping his own. His eyes searched Lucius's face apprehensively. Unlike his oblivious partner, who was standing at the doors with a bored expression on his face, Potter was visibly on the alert, more so than during any other Auror check. Lucius squashed a snide remark on his paranoid nature. So discourteous, even if completely justified.
As soon as Potter's fingers touched the pale elmwood, Lucius's hand flew to his chest, turning the time-turner hidden inside in his robe once. Potter's eyes widened. He opened his mouth for a shout or a hex, but the whirlpool of magic caught them, rewinding the last decade. Images of the crumbling past flicked before Lucius's eyes, his chest constricting painfully, and then he knew no more.
Harry slowly came to his senses on a lumpy mattress, opening his eyes only to screw them shut at the light coming through the bars on the window. Wait—what? The last thing he remembered was Malfoy Manor's dungeon, and while it had plenty of bars, there was a distinct lack of sunshine. Besides, Harry doubted the Malfoys would allow cheap polyester curtains in any part of their home, even in a prison cell.
Come to think of it, these curtains looked disturbingly familiar. Before Harry could figure out where he had seen them, his mind still numb after whatever spell Lucius had used, there was a hoot from his side. He turned his head, mindful of the headache building behind his temples, and scrambled to his feet, blindly reaching for his glasses. There on the dingy bedstand stood the cage with Hedwig, his snowy owl who was supposed to be dead for half a decade.
"Is this supposed to be a joke?" he asked aloud, only to stumble back and flop on the bed as his voice came out in a high tenor.
"Be quiet, boy, and shut your bird while you're at it, or you can forget about food today!" bellowed a voice Harry had hoped to never hear again in his life, a voice that could only belong to his Uncle Vernon.
Harry looked at himself, taking in his ratty pyjamas, bare feet, twig-like wrists, and fingernails bitten to the quick—a bad habit he had only got rid of in Auror training. Had he really been so small? It was decidedly odd to be so much closer to the ground than he was used to, and Dudley's old second bedroom, which he recognised now that he was fully awake, had never felt so oppressive and claustrophobic.
"Either Malfoy Senior is playing mind games with me, or he somehow managed to throw me back in time. But whatever he did, he's going to regret it," Harry muttered to Hedwig.
Golden eyes regarded him suspiciously.
"It's me, girl," Harry said, his expression softening as he reached to give her a tentative stroke. "Only twenty-two instead of twelve, if you can believe it. But it's me, Harry."
Hedwig hooted softly in recognition and gave a gentle nip to his finger.
"I'm so happy to see you again," Harry said, his vision swimming suspiciously behind the spellotaped glasses. Ginny used to be onto him to get another owl for ages, but while Harry agreed that it would make his life easier, he just could not find it in him to replace Hedwig.
The mention of food from his oaf of an Uncle made Harry aware of his stomach, aching with hunger. He did not know what day it was, and how long his younger self had spent without a meal. Judging by the bars and the locked door, he ended up in early August before his second year, but so much had happened in the decade after that the exact timeframe was fuzzy in his memory. Days tended to bleed one into another over his summers at the Dursleys'. This had to be soon after Dobby's visit.
Dobby. Harry's chest constricted painfully. If he truly travelled to the past, so many were still alive. Sirius. Cedric. Dumbledore. Snape.
His hand flew to his scars. Voldemort would be alive too, for a certain definition of the word. Part of his soul would still be inside his head. Harry rubbed his forehead, resisting the urge to scratch it open. He hadn't had time to truly process carrying Voldemort's Horcrux in him before it was gone with the man himself, but now the knowledge was not doing his already cramping stomach any favours.
Down in the hall, Uncle Vernon was getting ready to leave for work—what was his drill company called again? Gruntings? Some name that one would expect to come from a troll's mouth.
The absence of his uncle would make his escape easier. No point waiting for Ron and the twins to break him out again when he had to learn what the hell Lucius Malfoy was up to. Now that his mind was clearer, Harry remembered a glimpse of an hourglass on the man's chest, much bigger and more ornate than the time-turner they once used with Hermione. Oh God, that seemed to be a lifetime ago, and at the same time, it was yet to happen.
Malfoy definitely planned to bring him along, Harry thought, and likely faked that anonymous note on suspicious activity in the Manor himself to get Harry there, but why? If he wanted to rewrite history, remaining in his old master's favour this time around, he would not want Harry with his knowledge of the future there. Nothing about this situation made any sense.
Half-listening to Vernon loudly promising to get Dudley cake downstairs, undoubtedly intending his words to be heard by his nephew, Harry opened his old wardrobe to change. The collection of clothes was truly pitiful, consisting entirely of washed-out hand-me-downs, many sizes too large. Harry had never thought about buying his own clothes before Hermione had dragged him on a shopping trip after the war. He still couldn't care less about fashion, but changing into Dudley's old T-shirt that could house two of him felt like betraying his older self and his therapist. Roger, a Muggle married to a witch, had spent countless sessions discussing the Dursleys and tried hard to convince Harry that his feelings and comfort mattered.
He briefly considered attempting wandless magic to open the door but discarded the idea as a last resort. Even if he was able to do that in his twelve-year-old body, he didn't need another strike from the Ministry for using underage magic. Sure, now he knew he was not going to be expelled for that, but he did not want to alert Dumbledore just yet. Not before he learned more about the situation.
His second option was to try and negotiate with Aunt Petunia. As a child, he had never been successful in that, but he was an adult now. A fully trained Auror. Just last month, he had managed to talk Gregory Goyle into releasing the hostages he had been keeping in the Slug and Jiggers, threatening to blow up the apothecary and himself unless they gave him 10,000 galleons and a broom. Harry had plenty of experience dealing with the maliciously stupid, and he understood what made his Aunt tick much better than a scared child in a cupboard under the stairs did. She didn't hold sway over him anymore. She did not.
He was deciding whether to stage a daring escape using the only chair in the room or start slow with blackmail when a knock downstairs interrupted his thoughts.
"Good morning, Muggles," drawled a familiar contemptuous voice. "I've come to get Harry Potter."
Well, damn.
