Draco's eyes opened. He wouldn't necessarily say that he woke up but a moment beforehand they were closed, and now they were open. But he knew that he wasn't asleep before. He was talking to the man who Draco now knew was called Death. And wasn't that something crazy. One moment, Potter was killing him, the next moment he was talking to a physical manifestation of Death, and now he was…
Wait, where was he?
Draco looked around him wildly to try to get a bearing on his surroundings. He was surrounded in a luxurious bed that was much more comfortable than anything he could remember sleeping in for a long time. The drapes were drawn, so he couldn't see anything past the bed. He struggled to get the covers off of him as fast as he could and pull open the drapes. His small leg got caught on some of the sheets in his hurry and he face-planted right onto the blankets.
His small leg?
Draco rolled over and looked at his body in surprise. He was a child. He did not have the chiseled body created from decades of constant fighting and training, but the frail spoiled child that he had grown up as. And in that moment the implications of everything that his meeting with Death had came flooding into him in one rush of revelation.
He was back in his 11 year old body.
He had a chance to change everything.
He could kill Potter.
He could be free of the pain of carrying the weight of the world on his back for all of those years.
With determination, he opened the drapes and took in what laid outside of it.
Draco had thought that he was prepared to change the world. Wanting to change the world was very simple. See something you don't like happening? You may want to change it to your heart's content. And Draco wanted to change the world so he had that down on lock. But what was difficult about changing the world was actions. You could want all you want, but to actually take that first step, your opening move, was always going to be the hardest. And there were things that could hold you back even farther. If you were emotionally compromised, it's possible that you would have things holding you back.
And in that moment, Draco was incredibly emotionally compromised. He looked around at his childhood room. Memories came unbidden of a time long forgotten to him. When the manor had been completely destroyed, Draco had been able to completely sever his life in two. There was the time that came before the destruction of the manor, where he was the stuck up pureblood who thought himself superior to all others, and after the destruction, he was a warrior fighting against an unstoppable force.
But now, the two halves of his life were beginning to intertwine. He was a warrior fighting against an unstoppable force. He was a child growing up in Malfoy Manor. He was learning about the world from his father. He knew the world was a place where people could take power and destroy everyone. He was so young that he knew almost nothing of the world. He had been a first hand viewer of the world's very end.
For a moment, his resolve almost wavered. His resolve to change the entire world was what sent him back. And in that moment, crushed by the emotions of his past, he almost gave it all up. Then he remembered someone who he had just recently lost.
He crawled out of the curtains and called out, "Dobby!"
Dobby appeared in front of him, cowering. Draco frowned. The elf was recoiling in fear of punishment. Draco recalled painfully all of the times that he had abused the elf before he had known better, known that he was in no way better than the elf in front of him. And the way the elf was cowering and prostrating itself in front of him was insulting to him.
"W-w-what do you need, young m-m-master Malfoy?" the elf whimpered pathetically.
"First," Draco said. "Refer to me as Draco." The elf looked at him in shock. "From this day forward we are equals. You serve my father but to me, I am no better than you."
The elf looked like it was going to pass out.
"Second," Draco continued. "You will accept my hug." Draco took him up into a bone crushing hug. The elf was ramrod straight, completely unable to understand what was happening. "I'm sorry, Dobby."
To Draco's shame, tears started to fall from his eyes. He had not cried since when the Manor was destroyed.
"I'm so sorry Dobby."
What was he sorry for?
He was sorry for getting him killed.
But he was right in front of him?
But he had gotten killed.
But that was his choice? A free elf deciding when his life would be sacrificed.
But it wasn't just Dobby that he had gotten killed.
All of those people who had fought under his banner of rebellion. So many bodies. So much blood on his hands. Entire races of people were extinguished because of his failures. Billions of lives of blood. And now, it was all on him to change it from happening.
And in that moment his resolve solidified, and would never break again.
Draco went to get dressed, but was disappointed by the impracticality of the robes he had. He forgot that everything in his life was not built around active combat. In this early phase of his life, he had no regard for what kind of clothes would be appropriate for wear in an active combat situation. He grabbed the most functional looking of the flowing robes, and vowed that he would buy something that was more practical soon.
He could actually shop in Diagon Alley again. That was a strange thought to have. And in Diagon Alley there was Ollivander's.
His first wand.
That was an unexpected benefit.
His first wand had been taken by Potter during the attack on Malfoy Manor. Just another thing to divide his life into two.
Setting those thoughts aside for later, he made his way out of his room and marvelled at the walls of the manor. He thought scornfully about how much money had been wasted buying frivolous things like carpets and paintings in this home.
He just about made it to the dining room before he paused. If he remembered correctly, his mother would be in the room by now, eating something small to start her day. Was he ready to see his mother again? Was he ready to see his father again? Should he pretend to be the same person that he was again? Should he tell them what he knew?
The first step is always the hardest.
He opened the door and looked at the large dining room inside. On the long dining table, there were two people sitting close to each other and eating breakfast. They wore long and impractical robes that flowed elegantly around them. They ate formally with every social grace imaginable, even though it was just the two of them alone in the room, with only a house elf for company. Platinum blonde hair, carefully treated to look as neat as possible, without a strand out of place. The room was spotless without a speck of dust anywhere, just like the rest of the manor was.
It was a waste.
The two looked over to where Draco stood. They were his parents. Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy. They were starting to look at him concerned because he was standing quietly by the entrance to the room. Draco continued to look at them.
They looked smaller than in his memories. In his mind they had become figures that he based his motivations on. They were the foundations for his determination to stop Potter. The first two people that he stole from him. Yet, looking at them, they just looked like two people. Two normal people that were too obsessed with their own aesthetics.
He loved these people, but they were not in charge of him. He was probably the same age as them mentally, and there was no grounds for them to have control over him. He could leave now if he wanted. It would probably be easier to accomplish his goals if he didn't have their contradictory motivations working against him.
These people truly believed that pureblood wizards and witches were superior to others. That was wrong on so many levels that had been explicitly demonstrated to Draco throughout his life. He knew that he was no greater or lesser than any other man intrinsically because of his birth status. His worth came from the way that he lived his life, nothing more nothing less.
But he loved the two of them. He didn't want to leave them behind, he had to make them understand.
He sent out a slash of legilimency to both of their minds, just enough for them to realize that there was something wrong with their perfect pureblooded son.
Their faces paled considerably.
"We should go to the office," Draco said. "We have a lot that we need to discuss."
Lucius Malfoy was eating breakfast with his wife when his son entered the room. To his curiosity, his son did not join them immediately, but instead stood by the entrance and stared at them critically.
Then he got a probe of legilimency that gave him a rush of memories.
Death. Destruction. Explosions. Spears made of blood ramming through his stomach. The destruction of Malfoy Manor. Muggle skyscrapers collapsing into one another. Albus Dumbledore lying dead in the middle of the Wizengamot chambers. Harry Potter lining people up and beheading them, one at a time.
Lucius took a breath and almost vomited what he had eaten. What the hell was that? What were those visions? What abomination could conjure up such horrid images. A snap of his head brought his attention to where the legilimency attack originated from. His son stared back at him.
"We should go to the office," Draco said. "We have a lot that we need to discuss."
With that, Draco turned on his heel and started walking to the office. Lucius sped out of his chair, and ran to catch up with him. He could hear Narcissa behind him by a step.
By the time that they had caught up with Draco, he was sitting in the chair in the study, with his legs laying leisurely on top of the desk. Lucius recoiled a little bit at the sight of it, the blatant disrespect to the furnishing ran contrary to his beliefs.
"Draco," he said breathlessly, still unbelieving of what he had seen. "Wh-what's going on? What were those visions!"
Draco looked at the two of them with a calculating look to his face. Lucius couldn't believe the expression on his face. Draco had never stopped to consider something in his life. He lived without wanting for anything. If he had wanted something, Lucius had found a way in order to get it for him. Draco had lived a carefree life, with no reason to develop such an expression on his face. It was like he was weighing the worthiness.
Lucius realized with growing horror that he had seen that expression on another person before. He had seen Voldemort coldly calculating the worthiness of people's lives in front of him. Deciding whether they had outlived their usefulness to him. Lucius didn't know how that look was now on his son's face.
"D-Draco, honey…" Narcissa said. "Are you okay? Are you sick? Is there something wrong?"
"Yes, there is something wrong," Draco said. "In about 30 years, the world is going to end. I don't know the exact date where I would say that the world is over, but 30 years is a good approximation. Harry Potter is going to rise to power. He is going to kill the remnants of Voldemort, then he is going to rise to power in the Wizengamot, then he is going to kill Albus Dumbledore, shortly followed by all of his enemies. Then he will engage in a decades long campaign of world domination. His campaign will succeed, and somewhere along the way he will get the idea that he should eradicate the muggle race. He will succeed. Then he will want to kill any who oppose him in the wizarding world again. He will succeed."
"STOP!" Lucius felt himself saying. "Draco! What are you talking about! How do you know this!" Lucius could hear the panic rising in his soul. For every lurid detail that Draco told them, a memory would appear in his mind of that very thing happening. He saw Voldemort laying dead in front of Harry Potter. Albus Dumbledore, dead. Bodies lining the ministry of magic. Countries falling to Harry Potter. Billions of bodies piled together.
Draco looked at him coolly. "I know this because I lived this." Lucius felt his insides drop as he got a memory of an almost 40 year old man staring into the mirror. He would have thought that the man was himself, but for scars that rippled his body. There were scars of all shapes and sizes that ran across his face, down his arms, crisscrossing across his chest. There were scratches, holes, missing cartilage, burns, acid marks, bites, stabs, and signs of poorly mended bones. The man looked like he was barely alive.
"When I'm 39 or 40, I'm not sure, Potter is going to kill me," Draco explained without any emotion to his voice. "He is going to narrow down our location, us being the resistance that is. He will rain down hell on us, but he will make sure that I'm the last one alive, watching in horror as all the others are laid low. Then, he will turn on me and kill me slowly. He will hack at my body 36 times and leave me there to bleed out."
Narcissa let out a sob as the images of Draco dying flooded her mind. He continued anyway.
"Then, I will be summoned to a room that looks like this, but in all white," Draco said. "A man who calls himself Death will be here and give me the opportunity to travel back into time until this moment in order to stop all of this from happening."
Lucius stared as the memories continued to play for him.
"And that brings us up to the present," Draco said. "Here I am. I apologize, but I'm no longer your son, and depending on what you say in this meeting will determine if I allow you to live."
Lucius' stomach dropped out from beneath him. "Allow us to live?" He asked breathlessly. Memories then played of Draco killing countless number of people, torturing them for information, and sacrificing his own allies so he had the chance to survive for another day.
"Yes," Draco said. "I know about your crimes in the first war. You were not under the influence of the Imperius." Lucius looked down in shame. "Answer me this father, mother. Your answer will determine whether you leave this room again." Draco's eyes shone with power.
"Did you serve Voldemort because you were scared, or because you truly thought that he was in the right?"
Lucius' mind cast back to those foolish years where he had fought in a war. He had not been active on the fighting side of things, but he had actively funnelled money and manipulated people into serving Voldemort. He had pursued avenues for his advancement desperately, not caring for the people that he got killed along the way. He had desperately wanted to stand Voldemort's side. To rise to power by any means necessary.
"I served because I thought what he was doing was right," Lucius answered numbly.
Draco looked at him consideringly and turned his attention to his mother. "And you?"
"I served because I was scared," she answered tearfully. Lucius looked at her in shock. Was that a lie? Did she really do it because she was scared?
"Ok," Draco said, looking at the two of them. Lucius felt dread pool up. They had chosen different answers, one of them had obviously said what he was looking for and the other had gotten it wrong. "You both pass."
"Huh?" Lucius said dumbly. Draco looked at him amused.
"I needed to know if I could trust you," Draco said. "You both told me the truth, so I can trust you."
Draco stood up suddenly, looking much too intimidating for an 11 year old. He slammed his fist against the desk hard enough to leave a dent in it. "Listen to me now," he said coldly. "From this day forward, we no longer believe that purebloods are superior."
That wasn't right. That was how Lucius had been raised for the entirety of his life. That was the mantra that his life was built upon. But then the memories started to flow into him. He saw Draco fall in love with a Muggle woman. He saw his son hold a grandson. He saw muggle soldiers beating the crap out of Draco. He saw him training with the soldiers, gaining their knowledge. He saw Draco bond with them, and then he saw them all die, all fighting until their very last breath. They were in a fight against wizards and each of the soldiers took out at least five of the wizards for every one of them that had been taken out. He saw Draco hold his dead grandson.
Lucius stared slack jawed at his son. "We are not superior to muggles," his son continued. "In many ways we are worse. Muggles have more advanced technology than us. The statute of secrecy has neutered us. While we stagnated they thrived. If it wasn't for Potter's power, the muggles would have won in the war with wizards. I repeat, we are no better than muggles."
Lucius heard the words, but the shocks of the day meant he couldn't really understand what was being said.
"What are we going to do?" Narcissa asked quietly. Draco looked at her and was silent for a long moment.
"We start working on taking down Potter through any means necessary," Draco said, before turning to Lucius. "And I know exactly where we can start."
Lucius looked at his son. His son that the day before had been the perfect pureblood heir, ready to be trained to succeed him when the time was ready. And today all of that was gone and the course of his life was changed completely.
"Father, where is the diary?"
And Lucius changed to help his son, no matter the cost.