Lily Potter appeared, perhaps a hundred students surrounding her, in what should have been the main hall of the ministry of magic, but which was instead a swamp.
She took a moment to solidify a clearing, and to extract a few wounded students who were already knee deep in mud, before tracking down Fred, George, and Neville.
The three of them were extracting mid-level bureaucrats from alligators' jaws as she approached.
"This was the suggestion he gave you?" Lily's left eyebrow cocked.
Fred or George, the one with his hands free, turned and grinned. "Well, we took a few liberties with it."
She nodded. "Where's Lucius?"
Fred and George shot each other a worried look, and Neville stood to face her.
"He wasn't at Hogwarts, either, then? Voldemort must be holding him in reserve for something."
Lily's face was expressionless.
"Father, why is it that we aren't at the ministry?" Draco knew the answer, but he needed father to know that he knew, which meant asking.
"Draco, what have I always told you is the most important lesson of the Malfoys?"
"Never be less than second most powerful."
"And why have I needed to tell you this, rather than showing you?"
"Because of Albus Dumbledore and Lord Voldemort."
"Yet, Draco, I might hope not to leave you with such a conundrum. Surely you can think of a wizard other than our lord who might surpass you before you surpass me."
And Draco realized that Lily Potter and Hermione Granger and Cedric Diggory and Severus Snape meant nothing to his father-mudbloods, Hufflepuffs, and pawns-and Neville Longbottom frightened him.
But second most powerful did not simply mean second most powerful in magic.
And so Draco knew.
"Perhaps, father, you might give me a task to prove my strength, that all such enemies of the most powerful wizard will be easily vanquished?"
And Lucius smiled. A small, grim smirk. And from somewhere unseen he produced a small, unremarkable notebook.
"Guard this with your life, my son."
Draco thought, as he accepted the book, of a wizarding world not dominated by two lunatics.
And Lucius felt pride in his son, and hope. Hope that his son might survive the dark lord's torture, treason mistaken for stupidity and punished with pain when Lucius himself died.
Not long after, in the abandoned streets o Diagon Alley, sae only temporarily as the Hogwarts grounds were secured, two cloaked figures entered the empty offices of Gringotts. And in the deepest chamber, beneath more traps than could ever exist, down more miles than the earth has buried inside it, past dragons and giants and walls whose every door was covered by a dozen layers of brick with no path left through, the cloaked pair stood, discarding a used portkey.
And one of them tossed a small, unremarkable book into the air, and it fell into a space which opened only for a moment. In that moment, the other figure's wand was out, and the brief glimpse of buried relics was quickly obscured by flame. First the book, then the locket, then the diadem, then the opening closed. And locked away, ten layers and a thousand miles from all reality, the priceless treasures burned. Hotter than dragon's flame, hotter than the molten core of earth, as hot as the center of a distant star, they burned forever. There, removed from both space and time by secrets even goblins had forgotten.
Sybill Trelawney's mind fell again open to the cosmos, but her mouth was in no place to make words. The true seer's calling found its equal in the dark lord's cruciatus curse; the realization of her former future screams overwhelming the new fate she might have seen.
Neville stood.
"I'm going back to Hogwarts."