The Ghost Of Christmas Future

24th of December 1997, 11:59 PM

Draco had been asleep for maybe an hour when he heard the damn clock down the hallway chiming midnight. He counted the tolls in his head. One, two, three, he sat up on his bed, four, five, six, seven, he summoned a bottle of liquor that was resting abandoned on his desk, eight, nine, ten, he took a long swig, eleven, another sip, twelve.

The young wizard was somewhere between bored and annoyed as the last and third ghostly mist began to rise from the floorboards. He leapt out of bed and glared at the thickening clump of fog before him.

His heart stopped. Draco's whole body froze as he stared wide eyed.

Dumbledore was the third damned Christmas spirit.

Draco was dumbfounded. He should not have let his guard down. He had thought that Dumbledore would have shown up already by then. All his guilt and all the feeling that he had tried to keep locked in a metal box in his head for half a year hit him at once, eating him up from his guts outward. He fell on his knees and started sobbing at Dumbledore's feet. His ancestors would have probably kicked him in the arse if only they could see him, kneeling in front of a half-blood; begging for forgiveness.

"I'm sorry," he said, keeping his head down, not daring to meet the former Headmaster's eyes.

"I'm the ghost of the Christmas future. Now come along, lad," Albus sounded almost uninterested.

"I'm sorry I tried to kill you," Draco said again. He was fucking pathetic and he knew it, but he felt like he owed Dumbledore, everybody, really, an apology and some sort of explanation. "I'm sorry I ultimately caused your death. I had to or-"

"No need for any of this, everything that happened had to occur exactly the way it did. You played an important part in my death, but it was all for the best." The spirit grabbed his shoulders and pulled him up to standing.

"I don't understand," Draco pursed his lips, he could feel his cheeks wet and flush.

Dumbledore floated to the nightstand next to the bed and took Draco's wand into his fingers. With a knowing smile, he handed it to the young wizard. "Before we go...do you mind sharing some of your candies with me?" he asked.

Draco's eyebrows quirked in confusion as he took his wand but, nevertheless, he approached the candy bowl safely stored in his dresser and offered a handful of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. Dumbledore popped one in his mouth, humming with pleasure and then, extended Draco his arm as though he was going to side-along apparate with him. Draco took it.

The world shifted, the walls twirled and twisted until the stone wall turned into black shiny tiles. Draco recognized the long tunnel that led to the courtrooms at Level Ten in the Ministry of Magic.

The young wizard went rigid as he remembered waiting for his father's trial at the end of his fifth year at Hogwarts. He recalled the fear of losing him- he had still been stupid enough to believe in his father's teachings. The day Lucius was sentenced to Azkaban was the day Draco Malfoy realised that everything would have fallen onto his shoulders, from the estate to Death Eater's duties. As he let go of the Headmaster's arm, he noticed the prickling sensation on his own left upper limb. The Mark always itched, but he had learnt not to think about it. Dumbledore began strolling towards what Draco knew being the holding cells. He stopped in front of the first one. Within the low ceiling and the oppressing black walls, there were at least twenty people dressed in Muggle clothing.

"Harry's dead," Dumbledore announced with a nonchalance that made all Draco's hair spring up, away from his skin.

"I haven't got much to show you, I'm afraid. But watch you must, nonetheless," Albus said, putting a couple of beans on his tongue and making a face, as though he got two flavours that didn't match with each other.

A clacking sound of expensive dragonhide shoes echoed down the hallway. Two masked Death Eaters approached the holding cell in silence. Everything happened quickly.

One of them raised his wand, and a green light hit the chest of the Muggle man that was closest to the thick metal bars. His body fell and hit the floor with a thud that reverberated in the tunnel. After a second of silence screams of desperation filled Level Ten. The other Death Eater pointed his wand to another prisoner, and she also fell, stiff and dead, to the grimy floor. The masked men killed each and every one of the prisoners inside the cell, without speaking or hesitating until there were no more screams. Only a pile of corpses remained.

Draco had watched the whole scene with shallow breaths, nausea creeping in his guts. He moved out of the way as one of the Death Eaters stepped towards him. He took his mask off and slid his hood back toward his shoulders; Draco's heart felt as though it were being crushed.

Long platinum hair framed a pointy blank face. An older Draco Malfoy stared emotionless into the void before him.

"Hey, mate. Come down here!" the other Death Eater called. He had moved closer to the next cell. Too jarred by the sight of his murderous self, Draco had not noticed his movements. The man had also removed his mask, and Draco's face contorted in a forlorn grimace. Theo.

"Check this one out. She's pretty. I think I'm going to keep her as a Christmas present," Nott said, tilting his head back and laughing hysterically.

"No," the word fell out of Draco's mouth as he felt dizzy. He brought a hand up and leaned on the wall. Theo was a good lad, how did all that happen? How did he- did they- become so heartless?

Dumbledore pat Draco's back. With his eyes shut, the younger wizard didn't feel the shifting of the air and when his lids opened again he was back in his room, his hand now touching a much more familiar wall, his knees falling to the floor. Dumbledore sniffled lightly, and Draco turned his head towards him. He couldn't see well, his sight was fogging up.

"What do I need to do?" he asked, and this time he hoped to receive a straight answer.

"Soon, Harry will need your help."

No luck for Draco.

Pulling at his hair and uncertain on his legs, he rose. With stiff movements and a little embarrassed, he wiped the tears off his eyes. "Could you be a little more specific for Salazar's fucking sake? I've got nothing but half-arsed answers from you ghosts!" His foot was nervously tapping the floor.

Dumbledore's lips curled up behind his thick beard. "Calm down, lad. Breathe."

Draco scoffed, averting his eyes.

"Don't fight him. That's all you have to do," Dumbledore finally instructed.

"What does it mean?" Draco was tired, exhausted, and sick of all he'd gone through in the past couple of days - in the past two years really.

Dumbledore chewed on another candy bean and wrinkled his lips. "Oh, bogey taste. Must be new." Then, he gave Draco another smile and without further explanation, he simply said, "Merry Christmas, Draco." Abruptly, Albus was no more. His ethereal presence just vanished.

Draco's stomach flipped and jolted upward, spraying all its content - bile mostly - all over the carpet. He kept hearing the screams of all the distressed people he had observed thanks to the ghosts. At some point during the day, he realized that the cries were real, and they were coming from the garden - no doubts some sick Death Eater's Christmas fun.

"Merry fucking Christmas indeed!" he yelled sarcastically, sinking onto his bed and trying to disappear from the world. He had a doom filled feeling that his redemption would be impossible.

Draco spent months trying to make sense of the last ghost's words. It was not until the Easter holidays that the answer came to him. As he looked into Potter's green eyes, he saw pride and determination sparkling in his irises. He recognized that moment for what it was, his chance for absolution, his way to rid his family of the Dark Lord.

"I can't - I can't be sure," he told his father, refusing to identify the Chosen One among the prisoners that the Snatchers had brought in. Lucius pushed him aside, still eager to confirm the identity of the man before them. Then his father got into an argument with Greyback. Draco didn't listen, his eyes darting to the other captives; he recognized every single one of them. Potter, Weasley, Granger, and was that fucking Thomas?

His father shook him again and pushed him closer to Potter. "Draco, come here, look properly! What do you think?"

"I don't know," he spat out, and Draco blocked his mind off to the world until screaming and a collusion brought him back into his family's drawing room. Potter and Weasley were fighting his family. Draco instinctively raised his wand to protect his mother, but a voice reverberated in his mind.

Don't fight him.

Draco blinked, stopping to consider that memory. With a magical pull, his wand flew out of his hands and floated right into Potter's.

He didn't fight, Potter prevailed over him, and Draco lost his wand. In the past, losing to Potter had stung Draco's pride - like when Harry caught the Snitch in their Quidditch quarrels or when he knocked him down in a duel. But this time, it didn't feel like a defeat. Draco smirked at the contorting shape of Potter as he fled from the Manor.