Greetings, all! Have you missed me? I hope so. Please note that I have made some edits to the previous chapter. Nothing too big, I just trimmed some passages tending toward monologue, but you may want to check it out if this isn't your first time.

Obviously, I am not J.K. Rowlings. It is she who owns Harry Potter and all of its affiliates.

Draco opened his eyes to a hall full of shocked and confused faces. Crabbe and Goyle were staring with their mouths hanging open like great, stupid lumps. Snape was choking on his pumpkin juice and trying to seem as if he wasn't. McGonagall's eyebrows had climbed nearly to her perfectly pointed hat. Dumbledore clapped politely—he was the only one, so the sound echoed weirdly—and let his eyes twinkle in that annoyingly unfathomable way.

He reached up to remove the Hat.

This is indeed reality, by the way, it said. Not that you'll believe it at first, but just so you know. Don't try committing suicide or anything.

Was that something he would think to tell himself? Draco wondered, then gave it up as a bad job.

He schooled his face into a pureblood mask and straightened his shoulders because he was a Malfoy, damn it, and then strode to the Gryffindor table, aiming instinctively for where he remembered Potter would sit. Immediately, they closed ranks. The twins were glaring murder, hands twitching for their wands. Draco would have sneered—he tried to—but all he could see was a body sprawled in the rubble, red hair gone the color of dried blood under the dust. In the end, he looked away and seated himself at the far end of the table.

The Sorting resumed, although the next few rounds of applause were half-hearted as most of the room's occupants shot surreptitious glances at Draco. He ignored them, staring sightlessly at the empty golden platters set before him. If this was a hallucination, it was rapidly losing its whimsical fun. What if it didn't end, and he was still wearing the red and gold when the war began? He'd never convince fanatics like Bellatrix that he wasn't a traitor. They'd kill him, if just for the pleasure of it. His imagination certainly had enough to draw on in making it realistic.

Potter was Sorted, and the Gryffindor table erupted into cheers. The twins were shouting "We got Potter! We got Potter!" and dancing a little jig arm in arm. Draco buried his face in his hands, not caring in the least what it looked like.

He exhaled slowly through his fingers. There was no point in wondering. He would just play along as he had been and see what happened. If he could, he would arrange it so that the war never began and the Dark Lord remained an evil memory.

When Weasel was Sorted, he slid into the seat beside the Boy-Who-Lived, grinning and accepting his brothers' teasing with ill grace. He glanced at Draco and whispered in Potter's ear. Then he leaned over and asked Granger something. She answered, tossing her bushy hair in that bossy way that she had, and he looked doubtful.

Draco smiled. It was small, but it was a start. Who knew? Maybe he'd turn out to be a hero or something. For now, he loaded his plate with the Hogwarts' house elves' admittedly marvelous cooking, the likes of which he had never hoped to taste again.

…

After the feast, Draco followed the Weasel Prefect to Gryffindor Tower, which was hidden behind a portrait of a hideously fat woman in pink. A horrible choice, in Draco's opinion. Both the portrait and the dress, which was not her color. The Slytherin Dungeon had a nice, stone wall. Simple but classic.

"Caput draconis," Weasley prefect said to the portrait. At least their password was dignified. Head of the dragon. It seemed like a good sign.

A Common Room decorated in red and gold was as garish as one might expect. The squashy armchairs looked comfortable at least—even if the glaring red leather was an assault on Draco's poor, tired eyes—and the fire was wonderfully warm.

Full and safe for the first time in years, exhaustion fell upon him like a wet blanket as he trudged with the others up the spiral staircase and into the round room marked "First Years." Their trunks had already been brought up. Draco saw with displeasure that his had been placed by the bed right next to the door.

"Oi, Longbottom." The chubby boy jumped at being addressed.

"Y-yes?"

"Switch beds with me."

"A-Alright," he said, lifting his truck and, puffing, began to drag it towards Draco. Weasel stopped him with a hand on his arm.

"What for?" he asked suspiciously. "What's wrong with that one?"

"None of your business, Weasley," sneered Draco as, at the same time, Longbottom stuttered, "I d-don't mind, really."

Since he seemed unwilling to shove past the redhead, Draco took the liberty of levitating Longbottom's trunk for him, then waving his own over to be deposited neatly by the bed on the farthest end of the room, which was now his.

"Wow," breathed a tall, black boy that Draco didn't remember doing anything significant. "You can already do magic?"

"Of course," he said, "I am a Malfoy, after all." Never mind that he hadn't been able to do any such thing the first time around, or that they'd probably learn levitation charms in class soon. Never mind that he was planning to use these people, and from the way Weasel was still glaring, he wasn't inspiring any good faith. (This wasn't Slytherin, after all, where everyone respected good breeding as a matter of course.) He felt like he was wading through molasses, every cell in his brain screaming sleepsleepsleep, and he figured any words that made it to his mouth at that point deserved saying.

"Oh, and how's dear old daddy going to handle the news, do you think?" said Weasel nastily. "That his perfect pureblood son is a Gryffindor now, just like the rest of us blood traitors?"

Draco froze in the middle of rummaging through his trunk for his night-things.

"Now that you mention it, I expect I'll be disowned with the morning post," he said, going for languid but probably not making it past breathless. He forced his hands to continue moving: he'd had enough practice to do that, at least. "And I know it might strain your rodent brain, Weasel, but since you brought it up, you may want to actually consider that I was indeed Sorted into Gryffindor. Which I rather think puts us on the same side."

There. Let him chew on that.

He then crawled into bed and closed the curtains with a flick of his wand. He had fought in a war earlier today and he didn't have any patience left for verbal sparring with an eleven year old.

"He's such a—" There was a soft thwap, rather like a balled up pair of socks striking Weasel upside the head. "Hey! What was that for?"

"Lay off, Ron," said Potter quietly. "Especially about his family."

"I don't see you telling him to lay off mine!"

"I will if I need to, but let it go for tonight."

There was quiet for a while as the other boys got ready for bed.

"Do you reckon he was serious? You know, about his family disowning him?"

"Probably," came Longbottom's timid voice. "Some of the old families take these things very seriously. It's probably why he's being so… you know. He's in shock."

"You know, I can hear you all perfectly well," Draco said loudly. "Do shut up."

"Or he's just a git," Weasel muttered. There was another thwap, then they all lapsed into a somber silence, and the room was soon filled with soft snores.

Except Draco. Longbottom was correct in that he had not been exaggerating the severity of his situation. He had no doubt that half a dozen letters were already winging themselves toward the parents of his once-but-no-longer-future friends, all of whom would immediately write his father to either gloat or commiserate.

The situation was unacceptable. He had returned—or begun hallucinating—to prevent the wizarding world's ruin, his family's ruin, not see himself cast out before he'd even begun. And he would likely need the Malfoy fortune and his father's influence at some point in the future.

Draco flipped onto his stomach, buried his face in the pillow and sighed, a huff of annoyance muffled by the white cloth. The only way to save himself was if he could, somehow, convince his father that this turn of events worked in their favor, preferably in such a way that suggested Draco had done something incredibly clever. Worthy of Slytherin, in fact.

He rolled back over to stare at the crimson canopy above him, but the color reminded him of fresh blood and of Fiendfyre, so he shut his eyes.

…

Harry Potter was woken by a sound in the dark. He'd grown very sensitive to such things over the years. Sometimes Dudley liked to sneak up on him while he was sleeping and sock him in the stomach, or hide the incriminating wrappers of his late night candy bars under Harry's bed.

The sound came again, so quiet as to be almost unnoticeable. It was…a whimper? Whether from fear or pain, Harry couldn't tell, but it spurred him to throw off his blankets and put his feet on the cool stone floor.

Harry turned his head blindly in the dark, listening. Again, from somewhere off to his right. Harry perched his glasses on his nose and padded toward the noise until his fumbling hands brushed a velvet curtain. This was Malfoy's bed, right?

On the train, Harry had pegged him as a posturing little ponce, going on about "the right sort" of friends and looking at Ron as if he were a bug crawling over his shoe. His swaggering walk reminded Harry—just a little—of Dudley. People who'd gotten everything they'd ever wanted and always would. Except Malfoy was worse because he was clever too and knew it and had no problem lording it over everyone else.

Then he'd had that fit in the Great Hall, and now Harry wasn't sure. He'd happened to be looking right at Malfoy's face when fell down, and so he'd seen the bare half-second of shock there, followed by a welter of emotions that Harry didn't quite understand but knew didn't belong on that pale, pointed face. And now, it was different. Like that brief window had given him a peek at the key for decoding Malfoy, which he had certainly not wanted but now couldn't ignore.

The arrogance was still there, the lounging posture, the ghost of an ever-present smirk. But now it seemed translucent, a pompous veneer stretched desperately thin. When Malfoy's shoulders stiffened, was that offended pride or wariness? Was his lounging from indolence or a preparation to cringe? Was there malice under that smirk or fear?

Harry didn't know, and he didn't like it. So he'd resolved to keep an even closer eye on him than before, and now he found himself standing by the blonde boy's bed in the middle of the night with freezing feet and a growing headache.

The sound came again—the barest hitch in the inhalation of breath. It was definitely coming from behind that curtain.

Just wake him up, Harry thought irritably to himself. It's probably just a nightmare, so wake him up and go back to bed.

Harry jerked the cloth roughly aside. He hadn't thought about the sound, and flinched when the little metal balls rattled and clattered noisily in the frame. Seamus rolled over in his sleep. Malfoy, however, didn't twitch from the tense little ball he was curled in. He was glowing slightly, the faintest witchlight emanating from his white-blonde hair.

Harry's irritation vanished when he saw in the dim glow that the other boy was shaking, his face scrunched up and quivering, shoulders hunched in the same way Harry was positive that his own did when the Dursleys made him angry and that awful pressure built behind his eyes, the one that meant he was sure to do something horrible if he let it out.

Harry didn't know about Malfoy, but he'd never been so great about keeping things bottled up, and he'd rather not be the victim this time of any vanishing surfaces. Especially if it was the floor.

"Malfoy," he hissed, grabbing the other boy's shoulder and shaking it gently. "Malfoy, wake up."

…

The copper scent of blood. A dark room. The slip-slithery sound of snakeskin on cloth.

"You've failed again, Lucius. A shame that you've become so…predictable in your mediocrity."

Bellatrix cackled. In the darkness, the sound echoed from all directions.

"Such a beautiful wife…"

Draco felt his mother shudder beside him.

"Such a clever son…"

The tip of a wand trailed across his face, stroking his cheek with the promise of pain.

"How shall they suffer for your incompetency, I wonder?"

"My lord!" His father's voice and the shuffling of robes on stone.

"I did not tell you to rise!"

His father was screaming. Draco was screaming too, on the inside, screaming for the Dark Lord to stop, leave them alone, except he dare not say it. Dare not even twitch. Even though mother's vise-like grip on his wrist was shaking, he dared not make a sound. Even though there were hands on him now, pale hands with long spidery fingers trailing up his shoulders and speaking to him—

"GET AWAY FROM ME!"

Draco lashed out with his wand. It never left his hand, even while he slept. Especially then. Sometimes the other Death Eaters got bored late at night.

At the last second, he remembered where and when he was, just enough to yank most of the power from his Blasting Curse. Even so, there was a crash and a cry of pain.

Draco opened his eyes. Predictably, it was Potter lying against the far wall with his nose bleeding rather badly. The other boys had clustered around him and were all staring at Draco with something close to fear.

"I told you he was trouble!" said the Weasel.

"We…someone should take him to the hospital wing," Longbottom said rather shakily.

"There's no need for that. It's just a bloody nose," Draco said irritably, rising and donning his dressing robe. "Here, move aside." He noticed that they did so with gratifying alacrity. He crouched in front of his nemesis and inspected him. His green eyes were a bit glazed. "Look at me, Potter. No, not at my wand, my face, you idiot. I need to see the damage. Great, now move your hand."

When he did not, Draco smacked him sharply on the knuckles with his wand and jerked Potter's head up by his hair. To his considerable relief, it was indeed just a bloody nose. Had it been otherwise, there might have been awkward questions as to why a first-year knew a spell as dangerous as the Blasting Curse and, moreover, had a habit of sparking them off when awakened suddenly.

"Now this might sting a bit, Potter, so don't scream in my face. Episkey," he said, tapping the affected area with the tip of his wand. The Boy-Who-Lived blanched, but made no sound as the wound repaired itself. "Tergeo." And the blood vanished.

"Good boy, now where are your glasses? Oh, there's half of them. Weasley, you're standing on the other half." Draco summoned them, effectively spilling the Weasel onto his backside. "Reparo." He perched them on Potter's nose, who was looking a bit too bewildered to do it himself.

"Alright, then, Potter? No pain, dizziness, ringing in the ears, or overwhelming urge to sneeze? No? Off to bed then."

Draco went to dig parchment, a quill, and ink out of his trunk. His head was still heavy, his eyes gritty, but he wouldn't be able to return to sleep after a nightmare like that. He'd never been able to. Besides, he'd just had a rather brilliant idea.

"Oi, where the bloody hell do you think you're going!?"

Draco turned to the Weasel, who had pulled Potter halfway upright and was supporting him. The redhead seemed stuck somewhere between white-faced fear and glaring murder.

Draco flashed his most charming smile. Normally it was something he wouldn't waste on the Weasel, but…it had been a really good idea.

"What's it look like? I'm going to save my inheritance."

Then he was off, whisking down the stairs and out of the common room, his slippered feet scuffing softly on the stone as he headed for the Owlry.

…

It was just as he remembered: a round, stone room stretching up into a darkness filled with soft rustle of feathers and the occasional sleepy hoot. However, looking at the battered, rickety writing desk covered in owl droppings, Draco rather fervently wished he'd stayed in the common room to pen his letter. Ah well. Dramatic exits had their price.

He cast several strong cleaning charms at the desk, a reparo to smooth out the deepest gouges, and then a warming charm just to make himself feel better. He was accustomed to writing by the fire in his rooms, after all. Only then did he sit down, spread his creamy vellum across the dark surface, and begin composing the letter to his father.

The first part was easy. He was sharing a dorm with Harry Potter, after all, the Chosen One, the golden boy, the media darling. If he could claim friendship with the Boy-Who-Lived, well…fame was contagious. Draco was fairly certain Lucius Malfoy would happily sell his son's soul for that kind of his endorsement.

The tricky part was maintaining his own credibility. He couldn't afford to become a social pariah locked in his own rooms whenever polite company came around. Being Sorted into Gryffindor had to have been his plan all along, not a lucky blunder.

Tricking the Sorting Hat? A Confundus Charm or a potion?

Draco snorted. Unlikely. The Sorting Hat was an incredibly powerful magical object guarded by the wisest wizard alive. Claiming that he had succeeded where untold generations of students had failed, well, that sounded like the most desperate sort of lie.

So not magic then. Cleverness, and of the best kind. He had to make it seem as if he'd convinced the Sorting Hat that it had wanted him in Gryffindor. Draco smiled and kept writing.

Dearest Father,

You will no doubt be shocked and, perhaps, disappointed to hear that I was not Sorted into the noble House of Slytherin as we all predicted, but into Gryffindor.

Although I longed to follow your footsteps, it occurred to me that the Malfoy interests might be better served by an alliance with certain members of the House of the Brave. Therefore, I endeavored to convince the Sorting Hat to deny its instinctual leanings in the name of cooperation and friendship among the current generation of wizarding elite.

Happily, the Hat saw fit to grant my request. Rather like our venerable Headmaster, it sees the value in such honorable sentiments. No doubt it also hopes that such company as I must now keep will acquaint me with a healthy variety of new and diverse ideals. As is the Malfoy way, I fully intend to make excellent use of this educational opportunity.

Your Devoted Son,

Draco

Draco signed his name with an elegant flourish. It was perfect. The subtle jibe at Dumbledore, the mocking echo of the Light's naïve ideals, the implication that he would do his best to dig up their secrets and weaknesses. If anything, it was too clever and mature for his eleven year-old self, but that would only impress his father. What else would he do? Conclude that his son had been replaced by his older, time-travelling self?

He sealed the letter, consciously stopped himself from layering it with protection and encryption charms that he definitely shouldn't know yet, and sent it winging off into the night with his fierce-eyed eagle owl.

He watched it go, thinking that the poor bird had no idea of the weight it really carried.

Now...I'm trying to strike a delicate balance with Draco. He's both clever and dishonest, so his actions and thoughts won't always match up. However, I'm also trying not to launch into an explanation after every sentence he speaks. Hopefully everyone is following his motivations, but if not, say so in the comments and I will try to make it more transparent.