A/N: I would like to thank everyone who reviewed. I've had this chapter finished for a few days now but I have not been completely satisfied. I wasn't going to post it until I had a chance to basically re write it, but then I thought I may as well post what I've written and let you guys decide.
I was asked why Draco didn't become a death eater, as it would be natural for him, as his father is one, so I have written a small explanation in this chapter as to why he is against the idea.
Please review, and I know this chapter isn't very long so I promise to make the next one longer.
Also I have to thank Mystical Maniac who BETA read my fic and has been very nicely telling me which bits are rubbish (although sometimes she used, ummm, different wording) and which bits she likes and so on. Yeah so thank you oh great and wonderful person (she made me say that).
In the end of the fifth book it briefly mentioned something about Lucius Malfoy being imprisoned. Me and my friends are in debate about it so if anyone knows if he is meant to be, can you please tell me so i can explain why he isn't in prison in my story. Thank you.
Disclaimer: Still not mine (unless J.K. Rowling is willing to hand me the rights to Harry Potter, if so please contact me!... or hey maybe you can just give me the rights to Draco Malfoy (that would be REALLY appreciated)).
I will shut up now! Enjoy...
Hermione Granger sat up in bed; silent tears flowing freely down her cheeks. The girl from her dream was so familiar but she couldn't work out who it was. The head girl shivered slightly and pulled the covers tighter around her; she wanted to hide in the depths of her bed until morning, however she knew she could not. She was seventeen years old, not to mention head girl, she had responsibilities to face up to.
Hermione knew what she had to do, it took a moment to muster up the courage, and then, before she could change her mind, she jumped out of bed and pulled on her robes… she had to tell Dumbledore before it was too late.
She scooted out of the portrait and ran down to the Head Masters office, however, upon reaching it she heard voices outside, she quickly hid herself behind a statue as so not to be seen and listened in silent horror.
"Calm yourself Miss Bones," muttered McGonagall to the hysterical girl.
"But she's …g…gone!" Stuttered the Hufflepuff seventh year.
A third voice joined the conversation, "Minerva, the girl is right, she is no longer in Hogwarts."
Hermione recognised the crying girl as Susan Bones, she was a member of the Hufflepuff house, and she shared a couple of classes with Hermione. The head girl bit her lip, not knowing what to do; she presumed that the missing girl was the one from her dream. Much to Hermione's surprise and annoyance, this caused a fresh set of tears to spill out of her already red eyes.
"They… t…took her!" wailed Susan, unable to calm herself.
"Professor McGonagall will escort you to the hospital wing where Madame Pomfrey will give you something to help calm you down." Dumbledore said in a sad tone, the sparkle in his eyes had gone and he looked old and tired.
McGonagall nodded briskly and walked the crying girl in the direction of the infirmary. Once they had gone, Dumbledore stood still for a second before muttering,
"You have something to tell me Miss Granger?" Hermione jumped, and then took a step forward, presenting herself in front of the headmaster; she was not overly surprised that he knew she was there.
He nodded curtly and signalled for her to follow him into his office; Dumbledore muttered the password and only too soon the head girl found herself seated in a comfortable chair in front of a large desk covered with books and scrolls of parchment.
Dumbledore sat himself neatly in the chair behind his desk and looked down at the girl with sad eyes. He said nothing. Hermione wasn't sure where to begin, or how much he already knew, but much to her relief he stood up and started gently pacing, before opening his mouth to speak.
"These are dark times," he paused for a moment, as if unsure of how to continue, before carefully saying, "as the Dark Lord gains power, there will no doubt be many deaths, innocent people will die." He looked at her desolately, "regretfully most of the time, we cannot stand in the way of these deaths, sometimes however we can."
He sat back down again, and looked at Hermione, who had finally found her voice,
"I've been having dreams, and they have been coming true. Then I dreamt Draco Malfoy was going to die…." She trailed off, expecting Dumbledore to laugh, or in the least think she was crazy, but instead he said in a poignant voice,
"You intervened." Hermione nodded surprised and he continued, "I don't doubt that you know already that they are not just 'dreams' but more like premonitions." The girl nodded again, she should have known Dumbledore already knew about them.
"Hannah Abbot!" She cried jumping up, finally remembering the girl from her dream, the previous conversation she had overheard came rushing back to her. For a moment the head girl felt as if a cold hand had grabbed onto her heart. "She's gone."
Hermione knew from the look in Dumbledore's eyes that she was right. The blonde girl was already missing and if her dream was right, she was probably already dead. More tears filled up her eyes and spilled over her cheeks.
You must understand," began the head master passing her a tissue, "that in the balance of the world, someone was meant to die, and that someone was meant to be Draco Malfoy. You changed that. The world had to find a replacement to restore the natural order." He paused for a moment, waiting for what he said to sink in.
"Hannah?" She asked alarmed. He nodded gravely. "So it's my fault she died?" Wailed Hermione, overcome by guilt.
"No, and you must never think that," Hermione ignored this and instead started crying harder.
"I wish I never got involved!" she moaned, wiping the tears from her face, only to have more stream down her cheeks anyway.
The head master hesitated for a moment, and then took something out of his pocket causing Hermione's tears to subsided almost immediately. He was holding a time turner.
"If you are sure that is what you want, it may happen. You have a choice," he said seriously, "you can go back in time, and prevent yourself from saving Draco, and letting fate do it's work, or you can leave things as they are." Hermione looked like she was going to be sick, she couldn't possibly decide something like that.
"But either way one of them will die!" She shouted.
"You are a smart girl," he said sadly, "you will know what to do," and with that Dumbledore handed her the time turner.
Draco Malfoy sat in the common room thinking, it was Saturday, and he hadn't yet mustered the courage to leave the comfort of the settee to go have breakfast, so instead he sat in silence, thinking.
He wondered not for the first time why he didn't just give in and become a death eater over the summer. But that thought sickened him, he didn't want to spend his life as a servant to a power crazed man. He had seen death eaters die at the hand of their own master, even worse he had seen innocent men and women alike be tortured and murdered for nothing more than the satisfaction of the dark lord and his followers. Draco had promised himself from a young age that his life would amount to more. He would serve no one. Draco had never pretended to have the biggest heart, or be the nicest person, but one thing he could never do, was kill an innocent.
He sighed unhappily. The Dark Lord never gives up, if he wants someone dead, they will be, and Draco knew they would be back for him sooner or later.
He looked up as Hermione walked through the portrait in tears, without pausing she ran up to her room and slammed the door behind her. The blonde boy was overcome by curiosity as to what could have upset her so much. He stood up edging towards her room, however he changed his mind deciding she would prefer to be alone, and instead went down to breakfast.
Hermione lay on her bed sobbing uncontrollably. No one has the right to kill another human being, yet in a sense, she felt that was what was being asked of her. One life for another. Hannah or Draco.
She didn't know either of them well, infact she barely knew them at all, she had a few classes with Hannah, and years of arguments with Draco, but that was not enough to decide which should die. Hermione for the first time in her life detested Dumbledore. How could he make her decide something like this? She banged her fist into her pillow angrily.
She should have known. She read in the book that there were 'consequences' you had to face when messing with fate. She should have paid attention to what was right in front of her.
Part of her reasoned that she should go back and stop herself from intervening, she could let fate do it's work, after all, it was Draco's destiny to die. However, as always, the other half of her was in strong disagreement. What was done was done. It would be unfair to Draco to go back now, and let him die.
She fingered the time turner gently, unable to decide what to do.
"Dumbledore do you know how much trouble you can get in for this!" Professor McGonagall almost screamed, "You can't just give students time turners to go change people's lives as they wish. How do you know Hannah Abbot is even dead?"
"That, I am sure of." The head master said sadly, "her body was found," McGonagall took a sharp intake of breath, she looked as if she was about to cry, but somehow managed to keep her composure none the less.
"You must get that time turner back." She said quietly, "the poor girl must be going crazy with worry deciding what to do, and if she does decide to use it, anything could go wrong!" The previous anger in her voice had gone, now only sadness remained.
Dumbledore shook his head. "Professor, this is a school, what I am giving Hermione is just a different form of lesson, not everything can be learnt from books." McGonagall looked doubtful so he added gently, "She is a smart girl, she knows what she is doing."
"I hope, for your sake as much as Hermione's that you're right," she sighed, "I never did really understand these crazy idea's of yours. Dumbledore's eyes seemed to twinkled for the briefest of seconds, but almost immediately, they were replaced by sorrowful ones which darkened his features, he sighed before saying,
"We will have to inform the Abbot's about their daughter," This time, there was no doubt that a tear slid from the corner of McGonagall's eye.
"They are on their way here already," she sighed wiping the tear away, "Mrs Abbot is very distressed, she can tell something is wrong. Dumbledore how could this happen?"
"This could only mean one thing Minerva, the Dark Lord has come to power," muttered Dumbledore gravely.
It had not taken long for the news of Hannah's disappearance to get around the school. In a few hours, it was all anyone was talking about. There was wide confusion as to where she was, and the Slytherins did not fail to notice the uneasy glances the rest of the school were shooting them.
"Me mam told me to watch out at school, Death eaters have been extremely active lately," Seamus muttered under his breath to his Gryffindor friends.
Ron nodded and said through a mouthful of chicken, "If you ask me this has definitely got something to do with Malfoy!"
Neville who was listening in silence up till now whimpered slightly.
"Poor Hannah, I wonder what he's done to her," whispered Harry, and with this they all turned to look at the Slytherin table for the blonde boy they were so sure was guilty of her disappearance.
Draco Malfoy however sat in the library reading, he was sick of the glares the Hufflepuff's were giving him, for some reason, they were all convinced he had something to do with the girls disappearance.
Eventually however he got bored of his book and found his feet leading him back to the common room. When he walked in Hermione was sitting on the floor in front of the fire. She had something in her hand, but she stuffed it into her pocket as soon as she realised Draco was in the room. She looked up guiltily and Draco noticed her eyes were red from crying.
"Are you okay?" he asked, casually sitting down beside her.
"Yes. I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be?" she answered a little too quickly, and her voice was slightly higher than necessary. The blonde boy raised a brow and said calmly,
"Oh, ok, it's just that people don't usually cry when they're fine," then he added, "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."
Hermione for reasons she did not understand wanted to tell Draco everything, but she managed to hold her tongue and just shake her head. The head boy nodded and they sat in a comfortable silence, Draco reading a book and Hermione gazing into the fire, deciding what to do.
The silence however did not last long, eventually, she could hold her tongue no longer and blurted out, "Dumbledore gave me a time turner." Malfoy nodded, regarding her calmly, and listened while she explained to him, all that Dumbledore had explained to her.
She seemed hesitant at first, however with a little probing on his behalf, Malfoy managed to get it out of her, "so you can go back in time and stop yourself getting involved to save Hannah's life?" Hermione nodded, biting her lip gently and holding back tears.
Draco was overcome with an emotion quite new to him. Guilt. Hermione was so upset all because of him. Even worse, the Hufflepuff girl was dead instead of him. He couldn't believe Hermione was even considering letting him live. Before he could stop himself he blurted,
"You should do it." He tried to keep his voice steady. Hermione was gaping like a fish, apparently that was not the answer she expected, "Seriously," he continued, "What have I ever done that is worthy of you saving me? Think about it, this will be the first decent thing I've done in my life." Hermione could not believe this was coming from the mouth of the 'Slytherin prince'; she did not know it but much the same thoughts were going through his mind too. He couldn't believe that he had just said that, however deep down he knew it was true.
She shook her head grimly, and determined not to cry said gently, "I have to make this choice on my own. I'm sorry."
Draco nodded and stood up. He walked to the bathroom with his back straight and his head held high, he calmly closed the door behind him leaving the girl to think alone. He turned the tap letting the cold water pour onto his shaking hands, he splashed some on his face, and tried to calm himself down. He may have sounded brave to Hermione, but he thought he was very foolish.
Yet despite how scared for his life he was, he could not get rid of the guilt that had grabbed hold of his stomach. It took him all his years of training to keep the outer composure he was always seen to have.
One thing was for sure, he didn't want to die.
Hermione looked up at her ceiling. She held the time turner loosely in her hand. Not for the first time she waswondering why Dumbledore had given it to her, and not for the first time, she could come up with no logical answer; so instead her thoughts turned to Draco.
She could tell he was being sincere when he told her that she should go back and stop herself getting involved in this mess, but she could also tell how scared he was. He masked his emotions well, perhaps too well, but his eyes were like a window into his inner most feelings, and in them, she saw guilt and fear. Though she knew he would never admit it, Draco Malfoy had changed.
She stood up abruptly; she knew what she had to do.
The next morning Dumbledore found the time turner on his desk. Unused. He smiled gently and pocketed it.