Chapter 18: Cracked Mirror

At the top of the astronomy tower in 1997, Draco had waited in dark silence for Dumbledore to respond to the Dark Mark cast over it. Draco's ragged breath had verged on raspy. His hands had been so sweaty that he needed to keep wiping them on his trousers. Draco had trembled from head to toe.

Dumbledore had landed on his broomstick, and Draco had kicked the door open to confront him. The sound of the door never seemed to fade even slightly from Draco's memory. He had a feeling the same thing might happen again now, with the creaks of the staircase beneath his feet in the Shrieking Shack.

Dumbledore stood at the centre of the room, his wandtip illuminated and free hand lax at his side. He smiled as though he always caught people sneaking around in here. Similarly unconcerned, Harry kept his wand trained on Dumbledore when he reached the bottom of the stairs. Draco stood beside him.

Dumbledore glanced around the room. "Rather a strange place we find ourselves meeting, isn't it? Especially on a full moon."

"You could say that," Harry replied. "It's an even stranger place not to be, if you're a werewolf."

"You seem much less surprised than I for Remus to have left." Dumbledore's eyes crinkled with his smile. "And with a particularly intelligent dog, of all things. You don't seem perturbed by that, either."

Harry shook his head. "We aren't."

"So you were already aware that Sirius is an Animagus." Dumbledore hummed. "Does that also mean you were expecting him to fetch Remus? That would dash the reason I suspected for your being here. And yet—here the three of us are, regardless. Was Remus not the one you were interested in?"

"What makes you think we were interested in Remus?" Harry asked.

"Your being here, mostly." Dumbledore held his wand higher to give them a greater share of the light. "I had heard that you spoke to a handful of students prior to our meeting two weeks ago. Remus was among them. I didn't think it would be of much harm, considering he was outside school boundaries tonight and rather unaware of himself, to check on him. He would hardly be the first student to mysteriously disappear alongside your timely visits to Hogwarts. Wouldn't he?"

"No," Harry said. "He wouldn't."

Dumbledore studied the two of them.

"Fox Mulder and Dana Scully," he spoke in a thoughtful tone. "Or is it Jules Winnfield and Vincent Vega? Although, honestly, I rather doubt any of those names actually belong to you. Allowing myself to speculate that you were time travellers left me free to wonder who you really were. You, of course—" Dumbledore's gaze returned to Draco, "—are unmistakably a Malfoy. In this light, you—" Dumbledore indicated Harry, "—look rather like a Potter.

"Considering neither Lucius or James have siblings, you must be their sons." Dumbledore's eyes narrowed in further scrutiny. "You both look about thirty years old, although obviously James isn't having children for a few more years yet. I would wager you're originally from sometime between 2010 and 2015.

"Now." Any lingering amusement in Dumbledore's tone seeped away. "The what about it all hardly matters. I'm far more interested in the why. No matter how I approach it, all roads seem to lead to Voldemort."

"We had a feeling you would think that," Harry told him. "If it's any consolation, this war was going to happen either way."

Dumbledore studied Harry. "If you've been meddling with the timeline, I have no way of knowing that's true. You two appeared as mere blips in 1943. Rather unremarkable. . .Armando hardly remembered you when I sent him an owl last week. You appear, however, and the attacks at Hogwarts are immediately settled. You helped Tom get away with them, didn't you?"

"He was going to get away with them anyway," Harry replied. "The next attack would have been a death, and someone else would have been the one to take the blame."

"Was there a greater purpose to combining two ruined lives into one? Do you think Corban Yaxley's life was worth less than these other two students?"

"It had nothing to do with that. Saving Myrtle Warren's life and sparing Rubeus Hagrid of blame were mere consequences of something else we came here to do." Harry paused. "Corban Yaxley isn't dead. He's just. . .not here anymore."

Dumbledore's brow lightly furrowed. "Where is he?"

"Back where he belongs, where he came from," Harry said. "He—and we—didn't travel here from the future. We're from a different universe entirely."

Silence met that. Dumbledore's scrutiny of the two of them increased.

"You have some things right." Harry lowered his wand, and Draco followed suit. "We're from the relative future—2011 in our home universe, to be specific. James Potter is my dad."

"And Lucius Malfoy is mine," Draco quietly added.

"What are your real names?" Dumbledore asked.

"Harry." Harry pointed a thumb at Draco. "And this is Draco."

"Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy," Dumbledore quietly repeated, trying them out for himself. "And you say you're not from this universe."

"We're not," Harry said. "In our universe, the war has been over since 1998. I'm an Auror, actually—not an Unspeakable. When the war ended, several Death Eaters ran off before they could be arrested. Corban Yaxley was one of them. He's been in hiding for thirteen years, and jumped into a broken Vanishing Cabinet when he was cornered. It brought him here. My Auror partner followed. We mean to take him home tonight."

"The same way you did Corban."

"Yes."

Dumbledore was growing more difficult to read by expression or tone. Both were impeccably straight. "Who is it?"

"Ron Prewett," Harry told him. "Although, he's Ron Weasley back home."

Dumbledore lifted his chin. "That's why you asked Alastor about someone by that name."

"Yes."

"You came to the Shrieking Shack tonight hoping he might be here with Remus," Dumbledore said. "That's how you knew Sirius—and I presume the rest of his friends—are all Animagi. Because they are in your universe, as well."

Harry nodded. "They learned it themselves so that Remus wouldn't have to spend his transformations alone. It wasn't until their fifth year in our universe that James, Sirius, and Peter managed, but I guess the extra head helped them sort it out a year sooner here."

Perhaps under different circumstances, Dumbledore would have been either amused or endeared by that. He remained impassive spare a gradually lowering brow.

"I don't understand," he said. "I had known Corban for years before he disappeared. Ron, I've known since he was a young child. They also lived several decades apart. Corban was a teenager, as is Ron."

"It's an illusion," Harry told him. "They came here through a natural wormhole, and were integrated. You can't see it because you belong here."

"How exactly should that make them any less real to me?" Dumbledore asked. "You said you took Corban home. I didn't forget about him when you did. His family still mourned his loss. Corban's nephew named his son in his honour. Because of the way Corban disappeared, everyone assumed that Tom told the truth about the source of the attacks. Not only is Corban gone, having done nothing wrong, but his name was ruined. Again—for nothing."

"The Corban Yaxley you knew in the forties was the exact same one that left Hogwarts a few years ago," Harry said. "Did you never notice how alike they were? The physical resemblance? Anything like that?"

Dumbledore hesitated, quiet in the wake. "I did."

"He's a spy for Voldemort, by the way," Harry continued. "He'll claim the Imperius Curse if confronted, but that's who he is as a person. That's who he was back home, too. During the height of the war, when the Ministry fell, he had the Minister for Magic under the Imperius Curse. He himself assumed role as the Head of Magical Enforcement. Now imagine what Yaxley would have been like had he grown up the same age as Voldemort. Maybe it's better he took the blame for a handful of non-lethal attacks before he had the chance to prove what kind of harm he was actually capable of. Hm?"

"We can't know," Dumbledore softly replied. "We'll never know."

"Well, we know what he did in our universe." Sternness seeped in on Harry's tone. "He's currently sitting in holding at the Auror office. He'll be off to Azkaban in not too long. He's back to his fifty-five year old self. Yaxley has no memories of what happened while he was here."

Dumbledore hummed. "It sounds like he was quite a problem in your universe."

"He was," Harry confirmed.

"What was the issue then with leaving him here?" Dumbledore asked. "Can you say with absolute certainty that Corban was destined to follow the same path?"

Harry opened his mouth to respond, but ended up closing it again. He looked to Draco.

"He didn't have a future," Draco told Dumbledore. "We initially arrived in this universe the day prior to when we met with you two weeks ago. Corban had already been marked as having died in 1943 on the Black family tapestry when we tried to track him down. We had to go back in time to extract him, closing a causal loop in the process."

"So you believe that because it was predestined, it was the right thing to do?"

Draco fought the urge to roll his eyes. "It doesn't matter if it was right or wrong. It happened. The Corban Yaxley you knew in the forties is gone, and he's never coming back."

"Ah." Dumbledore raised his left hand and rested the pointer finger against the side of his jaw. "Indeed, I understand that. Corban's fate has been decided. Ron's, however, remains uncertain."

The tentatively calm air that had fallen over them started to leak out of the room. Heaviness replaced it. Draco hadn't been very hopeful that Dumbledore would see their perspective on Ron when given the truth, but his refusal to budge struck one option from the table. They would have to deal.

"You're right," Harry said with enough hesitation for Draco to read that he'd realized the same thing. "Draco and I expected you might not be too satisfied with the objective truth of it all. In that case, we have crucial information that you'll need if you wish to see Voldemort defeated. I'm sure there are several people salivating at the idea of getting close enough to hit him with a Killing Curse. That's not going to cut it, though. You'll only buy yourself time, and then he'll be back. It's what happened to us."

Dumbledore's eyes narrowed in scrutiny. "Am I to understand that you're offering this information in proposal of an exchange?"

"More than just information," Harry replied. "We can give you Voldemort himself."

When Dumbledore's cheeks further tensed, Draco couldn't tell if it was in suspicion, disgust, or discomfort toward the idea.

"Voldemort doesn't have to die," Harry kept on when Dumbledore said nothing. "I'll tell you right now that there's no saving him, but that doesn't mean the war has to keep going. You could end it, here and now. We could even tell you which lives specifically you would save. Gideon and Fabian, due to be killed in '78. Amelia, in '96. Moody, '97. James, along with Lily Evans, '81. Sirius, '96. Remus and Peter, '98. You, '97."

"I have no way of knowing that's at all true," Dumbledore said. "Or, if it's what happened where you came from, that it shall come similarly to pass here."

"Still, is it not worth it to you to end the war sooner than later? You have no idea how ugly it can get," Harry replied. "My parents died to save my life when I was a baby, and it almost wasn't worth it. He came back. Were it not for a couple small happenstances, you would have literally had to sacrifice me. You might not get so lucky this time."

"Again." Dumbledore's voice was steady with lacking emotion. "I have no idea that anything you're telling me is true. If you've fed Voldemort some sort of story, you could very easily do the same to me. You have before, in 1943."

"Draco and I are part of an entire generation of child soldiers," Harry told him. "Nearly thirty years of war, by the time it was all over. You could have all their names. You don't want to do anything with that information, fine. You at least know who to keep eyes on. Lots will claim being under the influence of the Imperius Curse. You could stop the madder ones before Alice and Frank Longbottom are tortured into insanity, among other things."

"As much esteem I hold for Alice and Frank, these things you keep saying will happen mean nothing if I can't know how true they are," Dumbledore replied. "If you've indeed seen the entire war through, you know which people it would bother me most to see injured, tortured, or killed. I don't much appreciate you playing with my emotions in attempt to get what you want, so why don't we put all of that aside and arrive at the point? What, exactly, are you proposing to me?"

"Voldemort himself, knowledge of how to make him mortal again, a comprehensive list of enemy combatants, and whatever other information you can think to ask for," Harry spoke, "in exchange for Ron Prewett."

"No."

Although Draco had been prepared to hear that, given how skeptical Dumbledore was of them, it still took him aback. Harry blinked rapidly beside him, his left hand clenching into a fist.

"What do you mean, no?" he asked in a curt tone.

"Exactly that." Dumbledore grew cold. "No."

"When you have the opportunity to end the entire war," Harry said, flat. "You're just going to pass on it."

"You can't honestly expect me to just hand over a fifteen year old for nothing but unfalsifiable information. By all appearances, you've meddled in the timeline to benefit Voldemort. You clearly still have some sort of relationship with him, if you're claiming the capability to deliver him as part of your trade terms."

"Of course we have a relationship with him," Draco spoke up. "I'm a Malfoy. Why wouldn't Harry and I use that to our advantage? Do you think we would come to something like this empty-handed, or unprepared to offer something concrete?"

"What do you have that's concrete, then?"

Draco pressed his lips. His first thoughts were of the Spacetime Turner or his Dark Mark. The Turner was of little help if Dumbledore already accepted the premise that they were here from an alternate universe. Showing Dumbledore the results of other timelines would have no bearing on this one, in his opinion. As for Draco's Dark Mark, it didn't necessarily prove anything beyond his association with Voldemort.

"The diadem," Harry said under his breath, then spoke louder again. "One of Voldemort's Horcruxes is in the school. He left it there when he applied for the Defence Against the Dark Arts teaching position."

Dumbledore blinked. "Horcruxes. Plural."

"Plural." Harry nodded. "One of them is Rowena Ravenclaw's diadem, and it's in the Room of Hidden Things. There's also a diary of his, Helga Hufflepuff's cup, Salazar Slytherin's locket, and a ring he stole from Marvolo Gaunt. Deal with us, and I'll tell you where they all are and how to destroy them."

"As interesting this certainly is, I cannot reconcile it with handing over Ron Prewett. How do I even know this is all true? Multiple Horcruxes?" Dumbledore squinted one eye. "That is unprecedented. Voldemort is powerful, but this powerful? Would he really split something as precious to him as his soul that many times, essentially butchering it?"

"He would, and he has." Harry started to sound impatient. "What would it take then, Dumbledore? Name your terms. What do you want?"

"Nothing," Dumbledore said. "I can't think of a single situation in which I would willingly give you someone in this manner. Certainly the terms you offer are excellent at face value, but the cost is far too high. This would be an unspeakable thing to do to Gideon and Amelia, at the very least."

"They're going to die," Harry snapped. "They won't be around to feel betrayed or sad about it."

"There's still time before that happens, unless it can somehow be averted." Dumbledore assessed Harry. "You said your parents died to save your life. Do you expect then that they should have given you up instead, to buy themselves more time?"

Harry stiffened. "Don't you dare talk about my parents like that."

"Because it shows you just how ridiculous it sounds to be on the receiving end of this proposal?" Dumbledore asked. "Does it not bother you in the slightest that James would be affected by this? You would be taking one of his best friends away from him."

"Yeah, fuck me for being selfish for the first time in my life." Harry's voice trembled with anger. "I didn't get to grow up with a family that loved me because of this bloody war, and Ron was the one who changed that. He's been my best friend for twenty years—a brother in all but name and blood—and he is coming home with me tonight, one way or another.

"Here's something you ought to consider." Harry raised his wand, which drew Dumbledore's impassive gaze. "My mum died standing between me and Voldemort's wand. When he tried to do me in, the Killing Curse rebounded. He was ripped from his body. I became an unintentional Horcrux that night, something your counterpart in our universe eventually figured out. He knew I had to die in order for Voldemort to ever be fully gone, but he bent all the way over backwards to find a way I might survive."

"Admirable, if I do say so myself," Dumbledore said.

"Back home, yeah," Harry agreed. "It's kind of too bad for you though, isn't it? Maybe if our Dumbledore had just let me walk out into the Forbidden Forest to die that night, I wouldn't be standing here right now with my wand on you."

Although Dumbledore's posture remained at ease and his wand in use with the Lighting Charm, Draco didn't at all like the way he sized Harry up. He liked it even less when Dumbledore's gaze traveled next to him.

"I've changed my mind," Dumbledore said, chin rising. "I have some terms to propose."

"And what are those?"

"Before this escalates any further, I offer you the chance to walk away."

"No," Harry said with the same certainty Dumbledore had earlier. "I've never walked away from what had to be done, and I'm not starting now."

Rather suddenly, the room felt far too small to Draco. The air pushed outward, as though a potent combination of electricity and magic created a well of power between Harry and Dumbledore. It practically crackled as Draco took a few steps back.

This Dumbledore wasn't theirs. He didn't stand there wandless, trying to offer help or console a desperate child in the face of doing the unforgivable. That Harry didn't realize that was unlikely, so clearly he just didn't care.

Draco's heart, stomach, and mind all jolted back into place on that thought. Harry didn't care because he only meant to buy time for Draco to act.

The next step away from Harry and Dumbledore that Draco took was in direction of a doorway. Things suddenly happened very fast. The room plunged into darkness as the tip of Dumbledore's wand extinguished. A red light lit it up instead. Draco cast a shield out of reflex. So did Harry. The Disarming Charm shattered on impact at a pitch that hurt Draco's eardrums. Harry said, "Go." A crack sounded beside Draco. Another red light illuminated the room, headed for Dumbledore from where Harry had Apparated perpendicular to. The spell broke like sea foam on Dumbledore. Something blue shot back that made the Shack shake when Harry Apparated again out of its way.

Draco ducked into the next room and wrenched the left sleeve of his jumper up. Colours flashed through the doorway in time with the protesting building and clap of spellfire. Draco's forearm burned and tightened. His heart pounded, ears sharp.

"Come on, come on," he whispered.

Each second felt like a year. It might as well be a year, because Dumbledore certainly had no reason to hold back. Neither did Harry. He really was holding his own, but for how long? Harry had faced Voldemort how many times, but there were reasons why Voldemort feared Dumbledore. Harry, right this minute, was finding them out. And yet, he did not yield or falter.

"Come on," Draco whispered again, springing impatiently where he stood. Fuck it. Voldemort was taking too long. Harry couldn't hold Dumbledore off alone indefinitely. Or—maybe he could, but he wouldn't have to. Draco wasn't just going to stand in the next room and let Harry do this by himself.

Just as Draco rounded the door frame, Dumbledore spoke in a tone to chill the blood. "Ah, Tom. Charmed to see you again, as always."

"And you." Voldemort stood between Draco and Dumbledore, his silhouette a black mass. "As if I would miss the last night of your life."

There was a split-second lull, and then the duel went on—two against one. Even if Draco could find a space for himself in the room to join, his feet were rooted against the calibre of skill and power that might just rattle this Shack to dust. Why were they duelling, though? Why wasn't Voldemort—?

"Do it!" Harry barked. "Just get it over with!"

Voldemort either scoffed or chuckled—Draco couldn't tell. "Not one to play with your food, Potter?"

"Do it!"

"Have it your way, then. Avada Kedavra."

Draco clenched his eyes shut. A green flash of light shone through the lids anyway. The sound of a body blowing back against solid surface at dead weight was one he'd yet to forget. The utter silence to follow life's rushing escape was broken by a smaller thump as Dumbledore slumped to the floor. Then came a discordant pair of heavy breathing. Half of that was Draco himself. Harry was the other, his exhales wheezy.

"Fuck," slipped out on one of them.

Light returned to the room as Voldemort illuminated the tip of his wand. Draco automatically pushed all of his shock down into the depths of his mind. As if a switch had been flicked, his hands stopped trembling. The muscles in his face relaxed just as wandlight washed up over him. Draco lit the tip of his own wand as he approached where the Dark Lord stood.

Harry was bent down over his knees at the edge of their combined light, still toiling to catch his breath. Dumbledore's body laid awkwardly, the silver of his hair practically glowing. He had lost his glasses. Their frames glinted gold on the floor beside him.

Draco met the Dark Lord's gaze, the corner of his mouth twitching upward. "Excellent timing, my Lord."

The scarlet hue of the Dark Lord's eyes seemed to deepen when he glanced at Harry. "That doesn't seem to be a shared opinion."

"You weren't summoned to duel." Harry stood up straight and wiped a hand down his sweat-shiny face. "Fuck."

"Oh, don't be grumpy," Draco drawled with the edge of a sneer. "Go get some fresh air. It might make you feel better."

Harry glowered, to which Draco raised his eyebrows. With the slightest hesitation, Harry stepped off toward a dark corner. The room smelt vaguely sulphurous and metallic, hot and thick with spent magic. Tentative beads of sweat formed at Draco's temples from it.

"That was a clever Holding Charm, Potter." The Dark Lord turned so that his wandlight better illuminated Dumbledore's body. "Did you see his face when he realized he couldn't Disapparate?"

Harry didn't reply. His back was to them, and his breathing still laboured. He stood straight, wand hand in a fist on his hip. He ran the other through his hair.

The Dark Lord's gaze lingered on him before straightening out into seriousness. He loomed over Dumbledore. With long, pale fingers, the Dark Lord pried the Elder Wand free from Dumbledore's right hand. He studied it reverently when he stood upright again. His gaze returned to Harry beneath his brow.

Draco casually stepped closer, dipped his head, and dropped his voice below a whisper. "I see what you're thinking, but I need him a little while longer. I can't do the Prewett boy alone."

The Dark Lord studied him. As hard as he prodded at the mental boundary Draco established, he couldn't see the fear for Harry's life hidden behind it.

"You haven't gotten to him yet?" the Dark Lord asked at regular volume.

Draco shook his head. "There's a secret passage here that we meant to take into the school. Dumbledore headed us off."

"Report to me once it's done," the Dark Lord said. "I want to know right away."

"Of course, my Lord." Draco looked down at Dumbledore. "As for him. . .will you be tending to the body, or would you rather Potter and I handled it?"

"I will." The Dark Lord switched the illuminated yew wand to his left hand and flicked the Elder Wand at Dumbledore's body. It levitated into the air, leaving his limbs, beard, hair, and robes to freely dangle. "You and Potter have other business, and I wouldn't want to slow you down—"

"Avada Kedavra."

Everything but green light vanished from Draco's vision. Magic rushed past him like a gale, and then like heat to the face in a backsplash of sound and soul. When it all faded, Draco blinked rapidly at the now-empty space in front of him. The room had shrunk slightly with only Draco's wand left illuminating it. Dumbledore had fallen back to the floor. The Dark Lord's feet and the bottom hem of his robes laid at the light's edge.

Draco turned toward Harry. Harry's wand came to rest at his side as he finished lowering it. The ugly look on his face made him hardly recognizable.

"Harry," Draco breathed. Shock tied his tongue otherwise.

"What?" Harry joined Draco where he stood. "It's not like he's actually dead. Giving everyone a decade's head start isn't anything I haven't done before."

Harry running his hand through his hair earlier had pushed it off his forehead. A few strands had fallen back into place, but not enough to hide his scar. Draco drew a deep breath and released it in a huff. His shoulders fell with it, followed by his gaze to the floor. He looked again at Dumbledore, and then at Voldemort's equally still feet.

"You never told me you were going to do that," Draco said.

"I only just decided," Harry replied. "Sorry."

"You're not hurt or anything, are you?"

Harry shook his head. "Are you hurt?"

"No." Draco looked him over. "You're shaking."

"Adrenaline." Harry ran his hands through his hair again, gaze falling long. "I just killed two people."

"Illuminate your wand for me, would you?"

Rather mechanically, Harry did as he was told. Draco extinguished his then, and led Harry over to where Voldemort's body laid. Wide, scarlet eyes stared at the ceiling.

"Levicorpus," Draco mumbled under his breath. "Follow me, Harry."

Draco guided Voldemort's body up the stairs and into the bedroom. He pursed his lips, thinking as he stared at Harry's Invisibility Cloak where it laid on the bed. A decision made, he set Voldemort's body on the floor and moved his wand in a complicated series of movements. Voldemort disappeared, leaving his robes behind. Draco squatted down and dug through them for a bone the size of a femur. A Shrinking Charm took it down to something resembling a chicken drumstick. Draco slipped it into his pocket, then vanished Voldemort's robes.

Harry's brow was furrowed when Draco stood back up. "What're you doing?"

"We'll deal with the bodies later," Draco told him. "For now, we're going to straighten up the Shack's main room as much as we can. Then, we're going to wait for Ron and the other boys up in their dorm. There's no reason not to, now. Dumbledore is off our backs, and there's no Voldemort left to summon."

"Oh. Okay." Harry blinked. "Sure."

Draco grabbed the Invisibility Cloak and held it out to Harry. "Come on. I know it doesn't feel like it, but time is still ticking."