Author's Note: This work was originally posted to my account on AO3.
Tags on AO3: Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Fix-It, POV Draco Malfoy, POV Narcissa Black Malfoy, Malfoy Family, Malfoy Manor, Mother-Son Relationship, Bonding, Family, Slytherins Being Slytherins, Horcruxes, Horcrux Hunting, Canon-Typical Violence, Pre-Philosopher's Stone, Book 1: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Wordcount: 10.000-30.000, Minor Character Death, POV Third Person Limited
YOU'LL GO THE SAME WAY
3) It takes no more than an hour to root the diary from its safe place.
It takes no more than an hour to root the diary from its safe place.
There are few secrets that can be successfully kept from Narcissa in her own home. She has won over every portrait and statue; she knows every door and secret passageway. She is the wardmaster of Malfoy Manor, like the last lady of the house before her, and there are only so many places such Dark magic could be kept in this house.
The diary is Dark, this much is obvious the moment Narcissa picks it up. Dark objects in dormancy have always fascinated her, but the sudden stirring of the diary is frightening. More than any artifact Narcissa has ever encountered, the Horcrux feels both conscious and alive. The low hum of its magic goes deep and Dark, so much so that Narcissa is certain she is only picking up on its topmost levels of its Dark thrum, and that its call reaches to depths that even she does not know of.
Draco quickly takes it from her and they exit Malfoy Manor's deepest and most secret vault. As they walk, Narcissa resists the urge to scrub her hands clean – she can feel the buzz of an unknowable horror on her skin, still. It is unpleasant. Worse still, it is unnerving.
Suddenly she understands why Draco put on gloves before they left.
She is broken from her contemplation, however, from sheer surprise as her grown son drops the diary to the floor. It gives a soft thump as it lands – a soulpiece of the Dark Lord just… dropped. That is doesn't react and sits there like any other book is a surprise as well.
But none of this is half so surprising as how her grown son then reaches into his sleeve and pulls. There is a blinding flash off long sharp edges – a brilliant gleam of blood red and bright silver – and under the hilt, the name Godric Gryffindor glints sharply off the blade in Draco's careful grip. He holds it matter-of-factly, but warily, and there is something very dangerous about the way it allows itself to be held.
If she had known the circumstances of him having it, Narcissa perhaps would have observed that neither the enchanted blade nor the sharp-eyed wizard were particularly happy about its being entrusting to him. They were putting up with each other only temporarily – for the sake of someone else – the both of them borrowing the other.
If she were asked to picture how the destruction of a Horcrux was done, Narcissa might have imagined Draco carefully positioning the sword above the diary. He would take a deep breath to collect himself at the monumental deed, as she likely would, and his hands might give away the barest hint of a tremble. There are Dark magics and momentous deeds afoot, after all, and neither are to be taken lightly – or Lightly, for that matter – or without significant caution.
However, as soon as Narcissa's eyes widen at the gleaming name on the blade, Draco twists the terribly brilliant blade in a sharp, fluid turn, and plunges the venomous silver into the diary. He does not wait a single second to even savor the moment.
And as soon as the sword pieces the diary, the Horcrux gives off a terrible shriek. Bright white light breaks out of sudden cracks, which rip across the leather of the book, and then greenish grey mist seeps from the thing as its broken black cover starts to bubble and churn. All as it screams and screams and screams. High-pitched and breathlessly long and terribly inhuman. The diary's shrieks echo off the trembling walls, pushing against the sword that Draco is straining to keep embedded.
But as long as the diary's dying scream is, its death goes by far too quickly – barely a blink and the horrifying moment has passed. The diary's scream fades and chokes and with one last throaty gurgle... ends on a hiss, which dissipates into nothingness along with the mist and the light.
The Horcrux is dead.
Draco removes the sword and all that is left is a malformed book on the stone corridor's floor, silent and mutilated and lifeless. It sits there with the distinct air – and slight smell – of a corpse.
Draco looks down at it with an expression of surprised disgust – his disdain and hatred for the thing clear on his sharp face. He strikes a dizzying picture, her grown son, standing over the destroyed vessel of such foul magic – her borrowed wand in one hand and a blade of goblin silver in the other. He looks absolutely nothing like the eleven-year-old boy that Narcissa saw off this morning.
He does not look like Lucius either, though of course they share a great many features. No, there is something about Draco's style and stance and stare – something achingly familiar. There is someone else that Draco looks like at the moment… though she cannot quite put her finger on the name, which seems to sit just on the tip of her tongue.
"One down, five to go," Draco says quietly, very surely but carefully sheathing the sword back up his sleeve. He bends down and gingerly picks up the malformed book, then stands and studies the wound through the middle before dismissing it with sharp disinterest.
He looks up at her, which, considering that he is a grown man, really means he is looking down at her.
"Mother, if you are able and willing, I would ask your assistance in the others," he says politely. "I could do it myself but… it would be much easier to end the Dark Lord with your help."
To end the Dark Lord.
It's a dangerous statement and a surprisingly tempting one.
Narcissa does not bear and will never bear any love for Muggles or Muggleborns, half-bloods or bloodtraitors – not beyond Andromeda, but… Andromeda doesn't count.
But after ten years of peace and prosperity and happiness, the thought of a second and third war is unbearable. Narcissa does not want to sit on the sidelines of another war and watch that sort of chaos befall them – either the chaos of actual war or the uncertainty of its sudden fallout. She does not want to relive such fearful times again.
The Dark Lord has taken one sister, put the treacherous other on the other side of a war, and will without regret cost her a husband and a son if they bow to his service one again. Her eleven-year-old son, who bounced around the entrance hall this morning because his father was taking him to a Quidditch match, will be Marked without choice. Her eleven-year-old boy will be yet another young wizard, bound to service, and sent off to be another casualty of war.
Family First, Narcissa remembers whispering, hidden under a table, her tiny fingers intertwined with those of a little black-haired boy with striking grey eyes.
They were the quiet children, the curious but cautious younger siblings - loyal and gullible and obedient. Each other's favourite cousins. Because they understood each other – understood family, no matter how hard it got – even, eventually, to the point of sacrifice.
It got so hard, near the end of the war. But… Family First, they told each other, and themselves as war yawned distance between them. Family First, they said, like they were still young and naïve and convinced nothing would ever tear their prestigious and noble family apart. Like they were still full of hope; like they were still ignorant of the deaths and loss facing them.
Narcissa's eyes widen, looking into Draco's sharp eyes.
Oh, she realizes. That's who he looks like.
Draco looks like Regulus.
oOo
Author's Note: This fic is finished and chapters will be posted daily until it's complete. There will be 10 chapters.