Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. It and any characters from the franchise that may appear in this fanfiction are the intellectual property of J.K. Rowling. This story was written for entertainment purposes only and no profit is made from this story.
Author's note: This will be a DracoxHermione (Dramione) story where Draco travels back in time and tries to fix things. I haven't seen many of these, so I thought I would have a go at it. This story will be published both here and on AO3. Enjoy.
When one of the house elves, Tipsy to be exact, had come into his room, groveling at his feet and blabbering that he was urgently needed in the drawing room, he hadn't been sure what to expect. He certainly did not expect to be greeted by his aunt Bellatrix crouching over Granger, grinning down at the witch with a knife in her hand. Potter and Weasley were struggling against some other lowlife death eaters, silently screaming while looking at the better part of the golden trio. -Wait, where did that thought just come from? Granger was their better part?
"Draco," his father began, distracting him from his thoughts. "It is her right? The mudblood. Which must mean that the others…" he drifted off and twitched nervously. A new habit he'd created playing host to his precious Dark Lord. If there was one thing snakeface didn't appreciate, it was bad news. And usually, it was Draco's father who ended up as the victim of a well-aimed cruciatus curse.
Draco looked at Granger. It was her, no doubt about it. He would recognize that frizzy hair anywhere. Her deep brown eyes were now staring at him, panicking, as Bellatrix taunted her with what seemed to be a cursed knife. How the fuck had they ended up in this situation?
"The other one is Potter, yes?" Bellatrix giggled while waving the knife toward the dark-haired boy.
Draco got a better look at him. Even though he would recognize the golden trio anywhere, his family seemed to be in doubt. They did not want to make a mistake when it came to giving information to the Dark Lord. They had fallen out of favour ever since his father had messed up at the Department of Mysteries. And ever since he… Well. He blinked a few times trying to forget the headmaster falling down from the astronomy tower, the green light flashing in his eyes.
"I… I can't be sure." Draco said. Thank Merlin that he was naturally talented at occlumency, else no one would believe him. "It seems like whoever this kid is, he got hit with a stinging hex. Wouldn't it be better to be sure, father? Before concerning the Dark Lord with this information?"
He had to play it right so they would be unsure. Potter and his friends showing up was not how this was supposed to go. Draco had become disillusioned by snakeface and his lackeys almost right after he had gotten the dark mark. He thought he would do it to make his father proud, to save his family after his father's failure to steal the prophecy during Draco's fifth year. He thought that the Malfoy name would be associated with power again. Ha. Joke's on him. Even someone with the brain capacity of Weasley would have noticed that that would never work out. Even though the Dark Lord praised pureblood supremacy, more and more purebloods "died to the cause" every week. No matter what side of the war they were on. Purebloods were becoming extinct. The Malfoy name, or any pureblood name for that matter, was worth nothing. All that mattered was Lord Voldemort. No other name would ever be remembered. Unless… Unless Potter would just avada him and get it over with. Alas. Potter was now a prisoner at the manor and Draco had no idea how to get him and his friends out of this mess.
During his musings, his father had sent the weasel and scarface down to the basement while they were still silently screaming Granger's name. Hermione. He saw her name on their lips, tears coming out of their eyes. Oh Merlin. They would never survive without the smartest witch of their generation, would they?
Draco almost jumped when he heard Granger's screams throughout the drawing room. Aunt Bella was insane, and her torture methods were ruthless. Just look at the Longbottoms…
By now the death eater was carving into Granger's arm with the seemingly cursed knife. Draco tried to, but couldn't not look at her as he tried to find some sort of excuse to make his aunt stop torturing Granger. Her brown eyes were filled with tears, her screaming had made her voice hoarse. He remembered those tears… He remembered when he'd called her a mudblood for insinuating he had bought his way onto the Slytherin quidditch team. And yet, as she lay there bleeding on the wooden floor of his ancestral home, her blood was a deep red colour. Just like his.
He also quite clearly remembered when he found her crying in an empty classroom during the Yule Ball, her periwinkle blue dress fawned out around her. At first, he'd wanted to scoff at her, laugh at her and make her feel even worse. But seeing her so vulnerable, all he did instead was leave the classroom without saying a word. For a split second, he could swear he remembered a staircase… and birds. Lots of tiny birds. Yet he couldn't place the memory. In the past year or so he'd noticed that some memories of his Hogwarts years had felt so dull, unreal even.
Suddenly, something tugged at his mind. Being used to protecting his mind from the "guests" currently living in his home, he put up his occlumency walls at once. To no avail, it seemed. Whatever magical power was coming at him, it had just built a door in his mind fortress. What was this?
"Draco?" As he heard the intruder whisper his name in his mind, he stumbled backward. This was impossible. He wasn't even keeping eye contact with her, yet she had just invited herself into his mind. But how?
He looked back down at the girl invading his mind. His aunt had proceeded into dancing in circles around her, proud of her "artwork" on Granger's arm. Just like Draco, Granger was now marked. Mudblood. He could see the letters carved in her arm. Another cruciatus made its way to Granger's frail body, but this time she didn't scream. She didn't move an inch, even though more and more blood started flowing around her, seeping through the cracks in the wooden floor.
"How… How is this possible? The pain… How am I in your mind?"
"You tell me, Granger", he mentally scoffed at her. "You just waltzed in here without blinking."
Confusion filled his head. Filled both their heads, until she let out another scream and he physically recoiled. He better come up with something to get her out of this mess, and fast. Else the British magical world would be doomed if Potter and his entourage didn't make it out of the manor alive.
"I didn't…" she barely whispered, her consciousness starting to float around his mind. "I just followed the voice… For a second, I thought you remembered…"
Now he frowned. Remembered what? Was Bellatrix' torture breaking her mind? Was he witnessing the end of Hermione Granger, watching as she came undone?
"Impossible," he said, as he felt a surge of magical energy wash over him. He felt drunk on raw magical power. But where did it come from? A weight settled on his ring finger, and he stared down wide-eyes at the Malfoy lordship ring. Something was really wrong. His father was Lord Malfoy, so why did it suddenly…
Bellatrix stopped her torturing and taunting of Granger for a split second, as both she and his parents felt the same magical wave wash over them, Malfoy Manor shaking as if an earthquake had hit it.
"Draco, what is the meaning of this?" his father hissed at him. "What are you doing?"
What was he doing? What was this power? He could feel the manor, feel its… Anger. He could feel every single house elf that was bound to the Malfoy family, every single ward in his ancestral home, every single intruder. Did the manor have feelings?
"What is going on?!" Bellatrix yelled, pointing her wand at him now instead of the witch lying at her feet. "Is it Potter pulling something funny? Oh, I knew it was him! The Dark Lord will be so pleased," she cackled.
Narcissa shook her head at her sister, grasping her husband's hand. She would recognize the magic anywhere. Malfoy family magic. The wards had just been handed over to the rightful heir, to her son… But how? And why… Did the wards feel slightly hostile to her now?
"Draco stop this foolishness right now!" his father all but barked at him. "Narcissa, get that girl and her muddy blood away from the drawing room. She's bleeding and spreading her filth all over the floor."
Draco's eyes snapped to Hermione. She was indeed bleeding profusely. Bleeding to death most likely. And her blood… Was on the floor, dripping through to the… The wardstones which were located under the drawing room. But why would her muggle blood activate the wards? She wasn't a Malfoy. Was she? Unless… The manor recognized her as such.
Before his mother could move, the same house elf that had urged him to run to the drawing room appeared right in front of Granger. "The mistress of this manor shall not be harmed anymore!" the little elf said, as she snapped her tiny fingers and everyone but Draco was now in a bodybind.
"The what?" Narcissa whispered, fear in her eyes. "Oh, Draco… You didn't. You foolish boy. You will be the death of us all."
Before he could answer his mother, before he could even wrap his mind around this whole situation, he heard her in his mind. She was barely whispering, drifting in and out of consciousness. "Draco. What is going on? Why is your house elf healing me? And who is that voice?"
"What voice" he grunted out, still high on the family magic that had been transferred to him so suddenly. He felt like he could take on the world. Hell, he felt like he could take on snakeface himself, even though that probably was a huge overestimation of his current powers.
"Voice?" his father asked in a panic. "Don't tell me that you've heard her? The spirit of the manor?"
As his father said those words, the house stopped shaking. The influx of raw magical power Draco was feeling also came to a stop. Hermione kept bleeding even though multiple house elves had now shown up and were trying their best to heal her.
"Lucius Malfoy," a deep ethereal voice spoke. "You have dishonoured your House. Your family. Your legacy. It is time for the rightful heir to take their place and to stop this foolishness that you and your father Abraxas have brought onto us. You have twisted our House's most ancient rule into something vile and evil. Sanctimonia Vincet Semper was never about being a pureblood. It has been about being of pure conviction. Doing what is right, not what is easy. Your ancestor, Armand Malfoy, and I made a pact. I would protect and serve his family, as long as every Malfoy after him would do what was best for the Malfoy line."
"Impossible," Lucius whispered. "The spirit was just a tale my grandfather would tell me… Like the tales of Beedle the Bard."
Laughter filled the room. The walls hummed. The manor hummed. "Oh, Lucius. You should know by now. There are no tales when it comes to magic. Only twisted truths."
"Master," one of the elves bowed as they walked up to Draco. "Mistress is not well. Tipsy is not sure we can heal mistress. What should we do, master?"
"Mistress?" Draco questioned.
"Yes, sir," the elf continued. "Mistress Hermione. Your… beloved."
"ENOUGH!" Bellatrix yelled. Her hair was more crazy than usual, and so were her eyes. Somehow, she had managed to release herself from the body-bind and she was now holding her wand, aiming it straight at Draco. "Enough with this nonsense. I don't bloody care whoever holds the wards or whatever magical spirit lives under the leylines of this manor," she spat. "All I care about is that the mudblood dies and that Potter watches."
As she lifted her sleeve and pressed her wand onto the dark mark, several things happened at once.
Potter and Weasley came running through the wooden doors, wand in hand, followed by none other than… Dobby? As soon as they saw Hermione bleeding out, Potter threw a cruciatus at Bellatrix, right as Weasley cast a bludgeoning hex at her, causing a huge hole to appear in her abdomen. Draco didn't know they had it in them. Then, they suddenly pointed their wands at him.
"No."
All it took was a determined no from Granger to stop them in their tracks. "Draco wanted to save me," she said as Potter and Weasley crouched down by her side, house elves still chanting over her body.
Potter was holding one of her hands and brushing sweaty strands of hair out of her face. "Mione," he cried. "Are you alright? We should go now, Dobby can bring us to a safe place, and…"
"Oh Harry," she said as she put her hand on his cheek. "It's too late for me I'm afraid. The blade Bellatrix used is eating away at my magic, I can feel it." A deadly silence followed as she breathed out "Take care of each other, will you?"
Weasley wailed at her side as her eyes closed and her hand fell down from Potter's cheek. The house elves stopped chanting, their ears drooping down. "Mistress… is gone," Tipsy said as tears formed in her eyes. Draco felt the magic in him shift, it felt… Empty? Was Granger really gone?
"Draco." the voice, no, the spirit of the manor, whispered in his head. "It is not too late. Your magical reserves are still plentiful to fix this. To do the right thing. As long as you do it within the manor I can guide you. We are stronger here."
What was the right thing? He had just watched his crazy aunt torture Granger to death. He had watched as she cut into her with that cursed blade, watched her bleed. Why did she even tell Dumb and Dumber that he had wanted to save her? How did she know? And why were his house elves calling her "mistress"?
"Malfoys always protect their own, no?" the spirit seemed to smirk at him.
"Granger is not one of our own. I don't know why you or the wards ever recognized her as such, but I can assure you that-"
"It seems she has French ancestry, much like yourself. Armand might have come to Britain more than 900 years ago, but he did not bring his whole family with him. Some of them stayed in their homeland. And they did so for more than 800 years. One of them was his adopted daughter Celeste. A muggle-born witch, cast out by her family, but taken in by Armand and his wife."
The gears started turning in his head. If Granger was a descendant of Armand's adopted daughter, then even if she had no Malfoy blood running through her veins, the wards would recognize the magical bond. They would want to protect her. It would also mean that she'd never been a mudblood at all… It seemed all those years of taunting and bullying were based on nothing.
Somehow, he seemed to be quite entertaining as the spirit's laughter rang inside his mind. "You are right, there is no Malfoy blood in her veins. And yes, seeing as one of her original ancestors was born with magic over 900 years ago, she is at most the daughter of squibs rather than a muggle-born. However, even if the wards recognized her as one of the descendants of Armand's adopted daughter, control over the manor would not have shifted to you or to her because of a potential heir being tortured to death. It wasn't her blood that made the manor, made me, want to protect her. It was her magic, which somehow is bound to yours. Care to explain, little dragon?"
Her magic was bound to his? Impossible. He barely even knew Granger. Well, he knew she was a swotty little know-it-all with frizzy hair which would make even aunt Bellatrix's hair seem tamed. She was best friends with Potter, his nemesis. She was nothing more than a stranger to him.
"And this… Stranger… Was allowed into your mind so easily? All I had to do was show her the way. But you let her enter straight through the front door to come to you in her time of need. Almost as if you had done so many times before."
How did that happen? He felt like the answer was on the tip of his tongue, an itch in the back of his mind. The more he sought an explanation, the more confounded he became. Honestly, it had all the signs of a well-managed… Oh no.
"Miss Granger seems to be very well-versed in the use of the obliviating spell," the spirit agreed with him. "Let's see if I can do something about that."
Draco felt as if he stepped into an ice-cold shower. His body was shivering, and his head was swarming with… Memories. Of him. Of Granger. He and Granger. He and… "Hermione," he said as his eyes snapped open, an ache in his chest for the death of his friend, his beloved Hermione. Potter and Weasley were still crying and cradling her in his arms.
"I need to fix this," he breathed out. "You will help me, right?" he asked the spirit. A soothing feeling and humming from the manor was all he needed to start acting. "Potter!" he yelled. Harry didn't even look up. "Potter!" Draco tried again, shaking him. "Does Hermione still carry that bottomless bag of hers? The beaded bag with the undetectable extension charm? Where is it?"
"What would you care, ferret?" the weasel asked. "You did nothing to save her, you…"
"Pertificus totalus," Draco cast at Ron. "Dobby, bring Potter, Weasley, and Hermione to the safe place you were talking about earlier, in case all of this fails. You-Know-Who is on his way as we speak" he said to the house elf standing next to him. "Find me her beaded bag immediately, it might be the only way to save her."
Dobby's ears perked up at his former master. "Dobby will do anything to protect Harry Potter and his friends," he said with his hand over his heart. He snapped his fingers and Hermione's beaded bag was in his hands.
Draco had to stop himself from snatching it right out of the elf's hands. She had told him about her undetectable extension charm one afternoon in the library after she got a strict look from Madam Pince for being too enthusiastic when figuring out the constraints of that particular spell. Once he finally had the bag, he put his whole arm in it, trying to look for the one thing that could save Hermione. That could save all of them.
Potter seemed to be regaining his senses slowly, even though he was clearly still in mourning, but Dobby was holding him back for now, one of his tiny hands on Potter's shoulder, waiting for Draco to come up with some sort of solution.
"Thank Merlin," Draco said as his hand finally grabbed onto the thing he was looking for. As he pulled out his arm, Harry noticed the necklace immediately.
"You can't be serious, Malfoy?" he asked quietly. "If that is what I think it is, and it definitely is, then… How far?"
Draco held up the time turner in front of his face. Hermione had always said this was only to be used in case of emergency. Only for a few days at most. Never longer than that. Never further back than that.
"Hermione was always better with the calculations," Draco said as he shook off his cloak and put the necklace around his neck. "But for once, trying to best Granger throughout my whole school career has its perks. Without her, I might not have been so driven to get an O at arithmancy and ancient runes."
A memory tugged at the back of his mind when he mentioned the two Hogwarts classes he and Hermione shared without the overbearing duo with her. How the first time she'd smiled at him was in the restricted section of the library, trying to work on a project that professor Vector had forced "the top two students in her class" to work on to improve each other's skills. Oh, how he could've killed Vector when she said that in class. How he could kiss her now for forcing them together.
"He's here," Draco said to Harry as he started turning the time turner. "Better get to work. Even if I am in control of the wards, they've been violated and changed ever since You-Know-Who and his puny underlings have lived in the manor. I can't keep him out. You should leave with Dobby."
Potter nodded, taking Weasley's stunned hand in one hand and touching Hermione with the other, ready to be apparated.
"If this doesn't work," Draco said as he felt Voldemort going at the wards with his full power, "then make sure you kill the bastard for everything he has done. And… Hermione mentioned she would want to be buried at Hogwarts. There's a spot in the Forbidden Forrest where little to no trees grow and where you can see the night sky. She said it reminded her of spending time with her grand-mère in France."
Draco swallowed deeply as he kept turning the Time Turner, the spirit of the manor guiding him as he did. The doors behind them trembled as Voldemort reached the last set of wards protecting them. "If it does work… Then please for the love of Merlin accept my friendship when I offer it to you in first year."
Harry's eyes went wide as he realized what Malfoy had just said. He'd be going back years. He wouldn't just save Hermione's life. He could save all of them.
As Dobby apparated the golden trio out of Malfoy Manor, the Dark Lord burst through the wooden doors to the drawing room, fury in his eyes. He had just seen Potter disappear and the Malfoy brat had just been sitting there in a puddle of blood, staring at them.
"I always knew you were worthless," he spat at Draco. "Avada Kedavra!"
"No!" Narcissa yelled, still struggling against the body binds, crying out for her son. But when the blinding green light had disappeared, so had Draco.
