Hmm, by your reviews there's a lot of mixed feelings about the story. I don't know if I'll continue posting it then, maybe you can sway me. Also: it's kinda important to keep notes the date I'm writing about. I'll start adding in breaks where time-travel takes place. Review, please.
Chapter Three:
Across the table they sat from one another, more distant than anything imaginable, even though one came from the other. It was nights like this, as he watched the curved white line of her arm pour the drinks, that he admired her most of all. She was beautiful, poised, and arrogant. There was so little of her that could be shaken and yet he had hurt her terribly, enough so that the pale arm shook just a tiny bit as the last of the wine dropped into her glass.
"Mother," he whispered softly, though there was no one but the portraits of their anscestors to hear them. "I am sorry." It was a lie, and she knew it. Her hand, with it's red nails on the table gripped the linen in defiance.
She looked up at him and her eyes were unreadable, at an impasse. "We agreed never to speak of him at my table." She still had the linar sharp note of pride in her voice.
"I know," he whispered. "But, Mother, you're the only person I have left of my family," he looked at her pleadingly. "You are my mother, please don't turn away from me now. Please, at least look at me." His voice was slowly turning hysterical.
The soft, elegant head turned slowly. "Do you love him, Draco?" The question had no emotion fused into it. She may have been asking the weather report.
"Yes," was the low response. "I know what you're thinking: I'm a Malfoy, I'm a pureblood, I've been practically engaged to Pansy since birth, and he's a boy, and I'm gay and I'm not a Death Eater and never will be, and he's Harry Potter. I suppose the last is the biggest one of all." He gave a low bark as a sign of amusement. "Isn't it, Mother?"
Narcissa turned her head, again, and her expression was of faint amusement, her full lip twitched softly at his corners. "Almost twenty years we have known each other, Draco. And you have no idea at all what I am thinking." Her voice was almost flirty, teasing him into asking what.
Draco lowered his head and studied the pasta on his plate dilligently. It was nothing like he had expected, seeing his mother. He had expected a faded woman, a Narcissa Malfoy with a broken belle charm, like a Tennesee Williams herione. Instead his glamorous, otherwordly mother was smiling at him, in the face of her husband leaving her to join the war, in the face of her son fighting on the opposite side. In the face of her only child coming to her to tell her he loved another man.
They ate in silence, and finally at the end of the dinner, the candles were low and Narcissa rose from her seat. As a reflex, Draco rose also, and she crossed the table to touch in shoulder and he sat down suddendly.
Her hand gripped his shoulder tightly and there was a faint smell of alcohol mixed with her expensive potion-perfumes. The large diamond ring on her finger caught the light of the nearest dying candle and it sent a purple hue to the corner of the oak panneled wall nearby.
Draco watched the light as his mother spoke, and her voice was very steady. "I never loved your father," she whispered softly, and the ring's light shook a little. "You must not die in this war, Draco," she said firmly.
"I understand, Mother," he said softly. There was the fainest brush of her cool lips against the fringe of his hair.
"Good," she replied softly and the purple light faded altogether.
Draco left in the morning before Narcissa rose. It was the last conversation he ever had with his mother.
Hogwart's 1999
Professor Dumbledore's presence in the room had sufficently shocked most of the students, as he expected it would. It was not everyday that he paid a visit to the dungeon or to a Potion's class. But Juliette Weston's message had been clear, and he had come to collect the future heroes.
"Professor Snape, I'd like to see Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy in my office after class, please, if you do not mind. And you might as well send Miss Granger and Mr. Weasely along with them."
Across the room Draco glared at the unfortunate Gryffindors. Though he shared the same eventual fate in Dumbledore's office, he made his was quickly up the stairs, leaving the others behind. Implusively, Ron stuck his tongue out at the retreating figure.
"Now that was adult," Hermoine said, unable to resist the urge to chastize.
"Look at the trouble the bloody ferret got us into," Ron replied. "Dumbledore's going to be furious. Right Harry?"
Harry was looking at the backside of the Slytherin with interest. "Harry?" Ron repeated, twice, before waving his hand across Harry's field of vision. "Helloo, Harry Potter!"
"Sorry mate," Harry said quickly. "What was it?"
"Nothing," Ron said, tiredly, they were now standing outside of Dumbledore's office. "We are just screwed, is all. Bloody screwed."
The door opened and Dumbledore appeared, and held it open for the group as they entered. Draco entered last, and as unfortunate fate would have it, the last seat was vacant next to Harry. As he sat down, Draco heard Harry take in a sharp breath, but he could hardly guess why. Dumbledore looked at them all pityingly. This was not going to be easy to explain.
"Today, a body was found in my office, students. It was a young auror, and she had been killed. What I soon realized was that she was from the future. She had used a device similiar to Miss Granger's time turner to return to Hogwart's. She brought with her a message, actually several messages. Here is the first."
No one spoke as Professor Dumbledore placed a small rectangular silver box on the desk. It was no different than a muggle jewlery box of a small size, though they jewels inlaid on it seemed real. Inside were several tiny scrolls of paper with nothing written on them. Professor Dumbledore opened the first and the hazy sound of three voices began, then became sharp.
"Test, test," said the unrecognisable voice of Juliette Weston. "Hello, this is Jules Weston, here with Mr. Harry Potter on his twenty-first birthday," the loud blaring of music behind them almost drowned out the speakers before Hermoine shouted at Ron to lower it. "Do you have anything to say to prosterity, Mr. Potter?"
"No," Harry heard his own voice said, amused. "I don't give interviews, Weston. Only that and I plan to get utterly trashed this evening."
"Weston," it was Draco's drolling voice which came in next. "Will you put that blasted thing away now? How are we supposed to have fun with you hounding us for interviews every five seconds?"
"Oh all right!" Juliette Weston's voice said, exasperated and the clip ended.
"Professor, this is some sort of joke," Ron said, surprisingly the first to speak. "Someone tampered with some magic. It isn't true, it hasn't happened yet."
"Calm down, Mr. Weasley," Dumbledore said soothingly. "Believe me that I have studied this thoroughly and so have several other wizards. It is completely authentic, I assure you. And it has happened, Mr. Weasley, you have heard it for yourself. Or it will happen, either way, it is real. Miss Granger, say what you're thinking."
"If it is real . . . won't us knowing about it change it somehow?" Hermoine said hesitantly.
"The long answer of course, is yes." Dumbledore looked at them seriously. "But you must also remember that the great events in are life are the minute ones. So immaterial that even when they are occuring we hardly notice their importance. You may have a slight feeling of deja-vu as the Muggles call it when this event does occur. But it will not be enough for you to alter it. Our minds seem to protect us that way."
"There are more scrolls," Draco said, suddendly joining the conversation. "What are on them?"
Dumbledore adjusted his glasses slowly. "Some of them are conversations between Death Eaters after Voldemort's fall. Others are simply of a private nature, and I don't believe it would do you any good to hear them. It seems Juliette was a spy, children. She was recording meetings."
"Why?" Harry asked softly. "If Voldemort is dead then why is she recording them? Why aren't they in Azkaban?"
"I do not know," Dumbledore said slowly. "I do not know. All I can gather from the tapes is the fact that you defeated Voldemort almost a year before they began. It seems some Death Eaters survived, formed a group and wanted some sort of vengance. I cannot say anything more. As I said, most of the tapes are of a private nature."
"But, Professor, why did she come here?" Hermoine said worriedly. "Why did she die, sir?"
"She came here to warn you, all of you, that your lives were in danger," Dumbledore said slowly. "She was tortured, I believe, and had told the Death Eater where you were hiding. So Miss Weston sent herself into the past as a warning, and also as a hope for you all. She knew of a way you could save your own lives."
"How?" Harry said, his face white.
"If you travel back into the future," Dumbledore said, "And you find a way to warn yourselves of the Death Eater attack."
"Us?" Ron said, his face red with nerves. "We have to go into the future? Professor, this isn't like the time that Harry and 'Moine went in third year, is it? We are going to have help, won't we? I mean, Death Eaters!"
Dumbledore shook his head sadly. "No, Mr. Weasely, I'm afraid no wizard, no matter how much they may want to, can help you. This is a journey you must make alone. Powerful magic surrounds the safehouse were you are staying. Only a few priviliged people can enter and exit it. It must be you."
"If there are others, Professor," Hermoine began after the long pause ended. "Isn't there a way we could contact them, warn them about what we happen to us?"
Dumbledore smiled sorrowfully. "You are a clever witch, my dear, but there is no one to send the message to. The other members of your group have died, you see. Juliette Weston was the last of the group to lose her life."
Silence befell them as they sat in the room, trying to put together the horrors of what had occured so that it would make sense, seem real, and not just like some strange story Dumbledore had told them.
Harry put his head in his hands. Unlike the others, he could see the future and it seemed like an endless wasteland of war, fear, and exhaustion. For Voldemort was dead, and there was still fighting. And if they were threatened now, how many times before had their lives been in danger? If they saved themselves this time, when would they die? When would it end?
"Well," Draco said callously, breaking the ominous silence. "I don't care what you think. I'm not risking my life to save Harry Potter's."
"It's your's too, you mindless git, that's in danger," Ron said, turning to Harry. At the same moment, Draco turned to look at the Gryffindor. The ice in his gray-blue eyes frightened him slightly, and then a trickle of pained amusement came through. That's what he'll be like when we fight in the war together, he mused thoughtfully.
"The way I see it," Draco said sharply. "Is either we die now or die later. I rather prefer having another few years of life."
"There's a chance we might save ourselves," Harry said softly. The softness of his voice caught Draco off-key. "Think about it."
"Fine," Draco said, suddendly implusive. "Let's go kill ourselves either way!"