Draco came to his senses slowly, groggy with sleep and the disorienting feeling of waking up in an unknown place. He shifted against rough fabric, coughing as a puff of dust filled his nostrils and made his eyes water. His mouth tasted stale and dry, and for a moment he wondered how much he had to drink the night before.

As the rest of his senses recovered he realised there was someone talking close by, words unintelligible against his pounding headache.

He rubbed at his eyes, finally forcing them open. The first thing he noticed in the haze was a soft purple light coming through the window, casting the scarce furnishing in long shadows. Dusk.

Dusk.

For some reasons it didn't make sense, and memories came rushing back to him in a cold wave. The vanishing cabinet. The Astronomy Tower. Dumbledore, lifeless body white against the dark canvas of the night sky.

Night, not dusk, and Draco almost sagged in relief at what must have been just a horrible dream. He closed his eyes and let his head fall backwards, groaning when the impact sent an uncomfortable jolt down his spine. As his breaths grew deeper the voice around him became louder. Draco was about to tell Blaise to knock it off and let him sleep when he realised that the voice sounded frantic and very much not Blaise's.

The timbre was vaguely familiar but lacked the instant recognition of an intimate connection and Draco's curiosity suddenly spiked in tune with his heartbeat. It wasn't fear exactly that prompted him to move slowly, as to avoid alerting the other person of his rouse, but caution. The instinctual need to assess the situation before revealing his cards, so to gain the upper hand in case of danger.

Only when he was sitting fully straight he spotted the other man. His pupils narrowed in shock even thought the deepest part of his subconscious argued that it wasn't exactly unexpected. Professor Lupin was pacing the floor of what Draco realised must have been the lounge of a modest looking house. Remus Lupin, his brain provided helpfully.

Remus.

His former Professor moved like a caged animal, seemingly oblivious to the world. His hands were buried into his hair, tugging at the strands in a way that didn't appear entirely comfortable, and he was deep in conversation with himself.

Even if Draco had recently had his personal fair share of crazy, the man in front of him looked like he must dine with insanity on the regular.

For what he could make out Lupin was blathering about dolphins and Draco pinched himself.

The hallucination didn't go away.

Suddenly the entire situation felt so surreal that Draco relaxed, tension leaving his limbs as he sagged against the sofa. When his body regained control he felt the uncomfortable pressure on his bladder and took the opportunity for a brief escape.

"Where. . . Ahem. . . Where's the bathroom?" His voice sounded raspy and feeble but it hit Lupin as if he had shouted.

The other wizard stopped and stared at Draco like he had somehow accidentally conjured him out of thin air and was surprised that he was a real boy.

"The bathroom?"

"Yes," Draco enunciated slowly "you know, the lavatory. Unless you rather me going right here, I am not in the mood of improving the furnitures". He shrugged, wrinkling his nose at the stripy pattern of the old sofa.

"No, of course. There is a small toilet just to the right of the staircase. I. . . Uhm, I need to warn you there are anti-apparition wards in the house, so you know. . .". His eyes drifted awkwardly to a spot just a few inches away from Draco's left hand.

The surprise at finding he had not been disarmed faded when Draco noticed the second wand poking out from the folds in the cushions. His stomach churned and he hastily snatched his own wand before scrambling for the toilet.

His stomach was empty, not even the faint taste of the coffee he had for breakfast left but bile and acid. He rested his head against the cool ceramic, feeling disgusting but finding he didn't have it in himself to care.

After his bladder was finally relieved he took his time at the sink, realising only once it was under the spray of water that his wand was still clutched in his grip. He could break the narrow window and find a spot to apparate. He could attack the man in the other room, take him by surprise and demand answers. He could cast a cleaning charm to rid himself of the taste of vomit and stale.

He could.

Instead he squirted a small drop of toothpaste on his finger and scrubbed his mouth until it felt numb, mint and blood mixing.

With a last glance at the ghost of himself in the mirror, he wiped his chin and entered the lounge.

Professor Lupin sat at the small dining table with two cups of tea in front of him, far enough out of reach that they could have both belonged to Draco. Draco wanted to say no, thank you and fuck you. But there was no point in punishing himself and he peered inside the cups, picking the one clouded by a splash of milk.

"Sugar?"

"Yes." He replied, just to be a bother.

Lupin walked tiredly to the kitchen, as if knowing that Draco wouldn't have been satisfied if he were to summon it with magic. Only when the younger wizards had stirred three spoonfuls into his tea he finally spoke. "He had never seen the ocean. 16 years and living most of them an hour or so from the beach, and he had never put his feet on sand. What was I supposed to do? Almost a man and his only glimpse of water was on his 11th birthday and. . . And that went as well as it did. . .".

He looked at Draco expectantly, obviously waiting for some sort of judgment.

Draco shifted, deciding that he better ignore whatever the fuck that was about in lieu of getting the answers he needed "How did I get here, wherever here is?"

Lupin eyed him curiously, weighing the question like Draco was the one being a cryptic bastard. "Shrieking Shack" he replied, persisting in making zero fucking sense. "And Cardiff, but that hardly matters."

"Hardly matters? And. . . What. The. Fuck?"

"Side-along apparition, I took you to the Shrieking Shack and apparated us here." He matched Draco's incredulous stare with narrowed eyes "I know my way around the castle. And here is Cardiff, Wales. My home, I suppose".

Draco's exhaustion fuelled his rage and he was suddenly shouting, tea scalding his trembling fingers "You need to take me back! I need to get back with them".

"I can't. And they are gone now, you have been here for almost two days, Draco".

Dusk.

Draco shook his head in denial. "What!? My mother. . . I need. . . She is not safe. "

"I'm sorry. . ."

"The fuck you are! Take me back!" His hawthorn wand glowed, sending little sparks that caught on the other man's jumper like cigarette burns.

Lupin sighed, resigned "Look, you were exhausted. I didn't do much other than aiding your sleep, but it looked like you needed it, and I had things to take care of after. . . After" His voice drifted but Draco didn't need any help to fill the blanks.

After.

"As for your mother I cannot promise anything, but you did what you were asked." It was said such matter-of-factly that Draco stopped shaking. He had expected rage but his former Professor's gaze was gentle, pinning him to the spot. "It doesn't really matter who casted the final spell, I suppose, not when Dumbledore's. . . Dumbledore's death is an ultimate victory in the eye of You Know Who. A reason for celebration. No pure blood would be spilled over the disappearance of an insignificant pawn, no offence."

Draco shook his head again, dazed.

"I'm sure you'll be cast off as a prisoner of the Order of the Phoenix and I doubt you know enough for that to be of any importance in the greater scheme".

"But, my mother! She'll go mad!" Even as he spoke he knew that Narcissa Malfoy's pain was of no concern to the same Dark Lord that had sentenced her only son to an impossible task less than a year before.

"I'm sorry" Lupin repeated, genuine. "But I had no other choice. You have something that I need."

"The vial!"

"The vial."

Draco patted his pocket at the confirmation, feeling the hard contours of the bottle against his fingers. "Why?"

The other wizard rubbed his face, looking extremely old in a young broken shell "I was the one that found Harry on the train, the day you broke his nose. Although, I couldn't be sure it was you. We didn't exactly have time to talk"

"Potter is here?" Fucking Potter was alive. Draco scanned the room, adrenaline pumping in his veins. Potter had been in Wales the entire fucking time and Draco could punch him again. Would punch him again.

"No."

Or maybe he wouldn't. "But you know where he is!". It wasn't much of a question, still the denial startled him.

"No."

The concise answers grated on his nerves and Draco thought he might have found someone to punch, after all.

Lupin must have seen the manic glint in his eyes, because he added "Not really, not anymore."

"You LOST HIM?"

"Give me the vial, Draco." The request was still gentle but Draco took a step back and let out an incredulous laugh.

"Fat chance. Talk. What did you do with Potter?" A new fear rose in his guts, the reality of what Professor Lupin was making his head spin with gruesome possibilities. He retreated further until his back hit the wall.

The older wizard recognised the signs and hunched his shoulders, making himself smaller. He didn't try to approach Draco and when he spoke his voice was incredibly sad "I gave him a second chance, I hope. At least, I like to think I have."

The words that followed woved into a tale of new identities and Muggle metal birds, that took who had once been the Boy Who Lived into a new life in which he was just a boy. Draco stood there, pressed against the wall, and listened.

Draco's thoughts whirled around the idea of a Harry Potter that didn't even know who he was, that had no idea the two of them had despised each other for five years and counting. A Harry Potter that had never once wondered about him in the long year during which Draco's mind was often drifting to his last encounter with the prat.

It tasted as bitter as the coffee.

"So you don't even know if he is alive right now?" He spat, pondering on what he really wanted to ask.

"No, I know he is. I told you about the amulet. I don't often look but. . . I've seen glimpses. I've seen the sea, an awful lot of it, and. . . Uhm" Lupin flushed slightly and wringed his fingers together "other things. He is alive."

"Caught Potter with his hands down his pants, have you?" Draco sneered hysterically.

Lupin ignored the jab, but his skin remained tinged.

"So" Draco prodded, feeling childishly vindicated "we have all been bleeding our hearts dry thinking about poor Potter while the git was somewhere out there building sandcastles and playing muggle with his dick"

"Don't tell me you have never wished you could start afresh?" The other man's eyes glinted yellow in the pale light of the lounge, effectively holding Draco's gaze in their own.

"Not as a muggle." He said, because anything else would have been a lie.

"Muggles are people, Draco. And Harry might have not been lucky with the ones he grew up with but he spent more than half of his life as one of them. He knew it in his bones how to adapt, and it was the safest option. Magic is not everything, despite what you were raised to believe".

He wanted to scoff, argue that Magic was indeed everything, if only to be contrary. Lupin cut him off, though, and stood up, heading for the kitchen.

Draco watched as he approached one of the glossed cabinets above the stove and started rummaging in what looked like a chaos of miss-matched plates and plastic bowls. After a minute he turned around holding a small stone basin, covered in elaborate runes. It was oddly beautiful, in contrast to the sundries cluttering the shelves.

"The vial, Draco. Please"