CHAPTER TWO

Reality?

Seven twists up and seven spins right.

It was a simple straightforward procedure, really. But it was with every twist and spin that made Harry's stomach recoil with nausea, bile building up in the back of his throat, threatening to spill out. The last time he had found it necessary to use any Time-Turner for anything was with Hermoine, just like it had been in their third year in order to save Buckbeak and Sirius, was during their little expedition in the Department of Mysteries in pursuit of a handful of runaway Death Eaters that had miraculously managed to slither their way in.

He adamantly refused to remind himself that it was the day that he had lost two of the bravest souls he had ever had the privilege of meeting since his arrival to Hogwarts.

They stood there huddled in the room with their time devices held close to their chest, the silence deafening in their ears as they waited in eager anticipation. Malfoy's face was scrunched up in a rare display of weakness, his fingers tightening around the embellished core of his necklace. It was in that single, mind-numbing moment that Harry had the most long-overdue epiphany in this lifetime; that he wasn't alone in his grief over loss and sorrow.

He was never alone, to begin with. The people that he had once known as former classmates or just kids that he occasionally spotted in the hallways suffered just as much as he did because although he might have forgotten about it, they were all in the same war; they were all fighting for their own causes, their own survival or for their loved ones. Or in most cases, by simply finding the will to live. To keep going. Because Merlin knows how derisively arduous it was to just keep on fighting, over and over again.

Malfoy had lost a son to the congregated stowaways of Death Eaters that had the sheer tenacity to take the life of a child, in addition to his wife. Once the lot was apprehended by a personally assembled party of Aurors that non-other than Harry Potter himself had demanded, Harry gave the liberty of turning a blind eye to whatever Malfoy's intentions were to the handful of people that were arrested.

So, it wasn't all that surprising when each individual was later pronounced dead. Nor was it shocking to see that the interrogation room had been redecorated with spontaneous splatters of blood and human entrails littering across the walls and ground; Harry thought it was mighty artistic at the time. The masses of paperwork that came along with it definitely had their cons, though.

As time slowly trickled by, Harry frowned, about to ask Malfoy if they'd done something wrong when one of the industrial lightbulbs connected to the ceiling flickered briefly before bursting into shatters, quickly followed by a series of others coming from both the hallway and the small kitchen in the back. Malfoy didn't even flinch, and there was a borderline delirious grin plastered on his face, eyes wide and breathing rapidly.

Harry was the same in that manner, except, he was dearly preparing himself for potential death. While he was no stranger to the close brushes and encounters of death ever since all the way back into the years of his infancy, it was only natural to be afraid of what might happen. Like in war, you used any weapon at hand to win an individual battle, and then you fought the next one. And the next, and all the ones that followed.

But it's the last battle that marks the culmination of years of a lifetime of wretchedness and regrets.

Harry twists his head around to look at Malfoy who's staring right back at him with a genuine smile that Harry hasn't seen in what feels like decades. Their Time-Turner's are spinning and whirling erratically now, the distant sound of windchimes echoing around their heads.

"I'll see you on the other side, Potter." It's a sudden urge that overtakes his senses, and Harry desperately wants to grab a hold of the blonde's lapels and demand that he stop whatever hocus pocus he's doing to trick his head into believing that time travel (oh god, they were going to time travel) was actually real and not a load of—

Before he's able to even reach a hand out any higher than his chest, vivid darkness consumes his vision before the last vestiges of consciousness slips through his frenzied attempts of staying vigilant. The only thought that's capable of registering in the back of his mind are the words that Sirius embarked to him, and he couldn't help himself but think;

Death really is quicker than falling asleep.

The stark smell of bleach was overwhelming. It assaulted Harry's nostrils like it was a surge of fire soaring through the thin gaps before slamming right into the root of his nose, inadvertently enkindling a hammering migraine that throbbed on one side of his head. There was the telltale chime of a health monitor going off in a repetitive rhythm that made his mind buzz into static for a quick second before circling back into something that was more tolerable for his ears to handle.

His eyes felt as though they were bags of lead, and he couldn't feel the temple wires of his glasses prodding into the side of his head, so someone had taken them off. The thought of that was enough to induce a swirl of adrenaline that kicked his already insufficient supply of energy into overtime. He grunted at the unfamiliar weight — or, lack thereof — that his limbs sustained; they were more scraggy, more… flimsy. Nonetheless, he was quick to bolt himself upright, using his delicate — younger — arms as leverage.

Eyes skittering around, devouring their current surroundings, Harry felt himself deflate slightly when an all too intimate plaque nameplate caught his attention.

Harry James Potter

It appeared as though it had just gotten a new polished coating added, the faintest of light that managed to trickle in through the windows reflecting back onto it. There were curtains that were drawn around his hospital bed, leaving only a side table, a rickety chair that had most certainly seen better days before, and the steadily rusting table that was in front of the bed holding his plaque on it. Alongside a multitude of floral bouquets and the typical confectionary that the wizarding world adored. There were even a few letters that came with them; a majority of them had something along the lines of: "Get better soon!" or "Thank you!".

For a moment everything came to a grinding halt, the constant beeping noise that emerged from the heart monitor (why was there a heart monitor again?) by his bedside every two seconds dwindling into a stagnant silence as he withdrew from the presence of his mind.

Ten minutes later, Madam Pomfrey slipped back into the room her most recent patient had been gradually recuperating in. Thirty seconds later, with a gasp (apparently, he was still supposed to be unconscious) and a mild nudge towards Harry, she soon found herself with a screaming patient. And then with an additional fifteen minutes of desperately endeavouring to pacify the boy in all matters possible, she was forced to tranquillize him with a silent spell and flick of her wand.

Sentient louts.

Draco rammed past the two morbidly podgy boys with his stiff shoulders, robes whipping out resplendently as he frantically fiddled with the tips of his lapels in an effort to correct them properly. He left the two nonplussed morons behind him standing at the entrance into the Slytherin common room, rigorously pulling the openings of his dratted school robes into a more formally appetizing angle that he found suitable. He had forgotten just how utterly smaller he was compared to when he was nearing his forties.

While seeing both Vincent and Gregory not mauled to pieces to the point of where their faces were indecipherable was both heart-stopping and left him in a daze of disarray that lasted for a couple of minutes, he was forced to push those matters to the side when the real issues began to arise.

The Slytherin common room had been crowded with painfully familiar faces; each and every one of them appearing so much younger, so childlike— so alive unlike before. And in the midst among the sea of heads and Hogwarts school robes was Daphne, reading in front of the fireplace on one of the wingback chairs. Legs tucked underneath her with a book laid out on the armrest.

For a moment, he considered walking over, to ask her, to throw question after question and expect her to easily comply and indulge him in his questions of how has your sister been? Is she eating well? She still craves those awful blueberry pop tarts, doesn't she?

But he doesn't. He doesn't carry out that scenario because he knows that shouldn't. And it frightens him. He's eleven (physically, and hopefully only physically), and he's a kid. And by this time frame, Astoria would be even younger than he was.

She was just too young. Just like him, just like everyone. It had taken him a solid minute of just standing there gazing at her, contemplating the pros and cons of asking her about her sister, before someone called him out on it as he whisked away. He absently decided that the cons outweighed the pros by a long shot.

Wherever Potter was, he had to find him and fast. Merlin knows what that war-torn imbecile would get himself into. First and foremost was the Hospital Wing; it was still early June and it was without a doubt in Draco's mind that the man— boy, he's a boy now — was still unconscious from his previous expedition of challenging death and protecting that blasted Philosopher's Stone. He could only hope that Madam Pomfrey was well-equipped enough to be dealing with a potentially psychotic patient that might scream at her for the most inane reasons.

One reason is that she should have been dead.

Draco swore profusely under his breath as he walked down the dimly lit hallways in the dungeon, rolling his eyes as one of the portraits placed her hands to her mouth and fainted, screeching about vulgarity, why I ought to—!

If there was one thing that was going to be proven finicky to get under control very shortly, was Potter. Draco Malfoy was not an overly sentimental person, but he wasn't ruthless or heartless either. He knew what the grief of loss did to a person, whether it be woman or man, it was a cycle that didn't always end in the most pleasant of ways. There were stages — he'd read it in a muggle book once — of them that outlined each phrase like it was simply demonstrating how to solve a math equation.

There was nothing that stated or even brushed upon the subject of the possibility of someone getting stuck in one of them. And he was afraid, concerned even, that Potter was one of those people. Stuck in the same loop of anger at others, at himself, and the ever simmering feeling of self-loathing just barely pouring over the surface. It reminded him quite vividly of their late Potions Professor (wait, no. He was alive as well, wasn't he? Oh, Merlin).

Just as he was nearing the base of the stairwell stony, a wild billow of ebony robes fluttered about in the corner of his eye down the hallway to his right, skulking closer to the shadows where the torches didn't gleam. Draco hesitated mid-step, swallowing back a gulp that had begun to accumulate in the back of his throat.

Potter had once told him a lot of things about Snape in the past — future, Draco. In the future. — most notably the moments where the brusque man had actually protected lives. Potter's life. His life. The night on the Astronomy Tower was evocative like a fever dream in his mind, the violent flashes of green rupturing from the tip of a wand blinding half of his vision while the deranged singing of Bellatrix's hysterical laughter rang in his ears.

He'd resented the man since then; whether it was all planned for or not.

"Draco." He felt a shiver run up his spine at the silky baritone voice that had often reprimanded him behind the doors of an office after fights or even in the middle of the Slytherin common room if he'd injured someone in a duel — which, ironically, was typically Potter all year round.

The blonde sucked in the top of his lip with his teeth before clicking his tongue, closing his eyes tightly before returning to his placated demeanour and turning his head around to face the odious Potions Professor. If he was startled at the lack of worry lines and wrinkles that customarily outlined the man's facial expressions, he didn't show it other than the fractional widening of his eyes. He hadn't realised just how young the man was before everything went barmy.

"Slinking around in the shadows of the dungeons isn't an entirely appropriate quirk, sir," said Draco, the words spilling out of his mouth before he could filter them into a sentence that would have reduced his chances of being yelled at by Snape. He pursed his lips, however, and in a valiant — absolutely horrendous! — display of Gryffindor courage, turned his back on him and started up the staircase without even the slightest of faltering in his steps. Potter would be proud. Or terrified. He didn't care.

Light steps stalked behind him slowly, the sound bouncing off the walls with the slightest of echoes. "Classes are due to begin in a matter of minutes," the man pushed on, choosing to permissively disregard the blonde's previously made comment. Though Draco knew that the man was probably already bristling at his foolhardiness at turning his back on him. It was likely that he'd thought that he was leaving himself vulnerable; something that was said to be unwise; especially for Slytherins. Draco had a reason though— he wholeheartedly blamed Potter for rubbing off on him for all those years.

Draco waved an arm his way as he quickened his pace, refusing to admit that he was purposely trying to run away from the man. "I'm going to the Hospital Wing." He looked over his shoulder briefly, a sneer overriding his earlier demeanour of forced politeness once he spotted the taciturn Potions Master right behind him. "I'm afraid that I'm feeling rather... ill," he stated lamely, launching himself to the top of the staircase with a grunt when the cloth of their robes were close to nearly touching.

He didn't want Snape touching him. Not even the fabric of their clothes. He didn't even want to be near the man. He didn't want to be called "Draco" by him. He didn't want anything to do with him, not yet at least. Whatever Potter had told him regarding Severus Snape had gone on deaf ears— even if the man had saved him. Took an Unbreakable Vow for him. Told him to be wary in his senior years at Hogwarts when the Death Eaters were rising. Saved his life again from nearly bleeding out to death because of stupid bloody Harry Potter.

It wasn't guilt that he was feeling— most definitely not.

Snape frowned, his forehead crinkling ever so slightly as he reached a hand out before freezing when Draco had violently flinched away from him at the prospect of being touched. "You do not appear ill," Snape bridled, leaning forward with his hands retreating within the folds of his inky robes. Draco had stopped walking now, taking a second to recollect himself lest he falls apart like a badly put-together puzzle.

Snape was real.

"If this is some juvenile endeavour to skive off of your classes — my class especially — for whatever inane reasons that you have going on in that brain of yours, you can expect to see me in the afternoon scrubbing cauldrons for an hour."

The airway in his throat felt clogged up, a choked sound slipping through his mouth before he was able to stop it. He covered his mouth with a trembling hand, swallowing hard. Snape's words were muffled in his ears, incoherent but audible enough to remind him that he was there. That he wasn't dead in a casket buried six feet below.

Snape was alive.

He still couldn't fully comprehend why exactly that was the epiphany he was making just now, seeing as he'd already seen a dozen of other people — children — that had been killed, maimed, and had even gone missing in his former timeline. He'd never seen their bodies when they were officially declared as deceased, but he'd heard of the reports, seen them even from Potter himself—

—Oh.

Draco needed to get to the Hospital Wing now.

There were hands touching him. Everywhere. At least it felt like it was everywhere. They kept trying to hold him down, to brush through his hair, to pat him and stop it, Potter! Stop it!

The abrupt command halted his trembling limbs, made his rapidly pumping heart freeze and skip a beat or two. His breathing steadied, and the hands had retreated, only staying on one place of his body instead of travelling everywhere; his shoulders. He swallowed a lump that had formed in the back of his throat, the salvia saturating the uncomfortable dryness that made him wheeze and cough.

"There you are," a mellow tone broke through the barriers that were held around his ears, the noises of his surroundings slowly coming back to him. The voice, though anonymous but oddly familiar, brought on a paltry sob from him. "It's all right, dear. You're okay." He wanted to scream that no, he wasn't okay and it's not all right, but most of all, he wanted to ask where the hell am I at the same time.

Bleak and emerald eyes unbolted to regard an exasperated pair of grey ones, the lines of age outlining the lids. Harry felt his nose burn when he scanned the maiden's face, the heaving of his chest quickening with every breath. He could feel his bottom lip quiver, his teeth chatter against each other with each attempt of holding himself together. The nurse frowned faintly when she realised his distress, but Harry simply treasured the reality (was this really reality?) that she was alive and not pale and dead. He admired the way her expressions morphed from worry to a stern countenance in a matter of seconds, knowing with an ardent passion that he was about to be lectured.

But that was fine. Because it's Madam Pomfrey. And if she was giving him a full-blown lecture of his usual foolhardiness like she always did whenever he woke up in the Hospital Wing, then he'd take it with open arms. Because that means that she isn't dead.

Because that means that his friends, Remus, Sirius, Dumbledore— everyone. It means that everyone is alive.

He breaks down crying in the arms of Pomfrey at that revelation.