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: Eternal thanks to my beta, GeekandProud (AO3) a.k.a. AnimeIsMyCrack (FF) who also made the cover image for this story.
A surge of magical energy washed over him, right as Draco realised that Granger was dying. For a second, he felt drunk on raw magical power. Where did that come from? He hadn't felt this good in months. Scratch that, he had never felt this good. A weight settled on his ring finger, and he stared down wide-eyed at the Malfoy lordship ring. "Impossible," he whispered, staring at the ring dumbly, turning his hand around to look at it. Why did the lordship so suddenly transfer from his father to him? And what was this headache he felt coming?
Bellatrix stopped her torturing and taunting of Hermione 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. Fuck. How would he explain this? He didn't even know how it had happened. At least, Granger was getting a small reprieve from Bellatrix's attacks. Dear Merlin, her skin looked so grey. With a sense of foreboding, he realised that he'd fucked up and wasted too much time. She was dying… And it was his fault, because he hadn't…
"Draco, what is the meaning of this?" his father hissed at him as he roughly grabbed him by the arm, interrupting his thoughts. "What are you doing?"
He pulled his arm out of his father's grip, finally strong enough again, even if Granger was seeping more and more magic out of him as she struggled to stay alive. What was he doing? What was this magical 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? He felt so high on magic that he couldn't keep his thoughts straight. He should prioritise Hermione for now, get some house elf to come and save her…
"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, already lifting the sleeve of her left arm. No. She was going to call him… They would all be doomed.
"Tipsy," Draco barely whispered, ordering the head house elf to come to his side, hoping that she would be in time, hoping that she'd felt her loyalties shift to him.
He grabbed hold of his wand and silently cast a silver shield between Granger and Bellatrix, hoping no one would notice. He watched his mother carefully and realised she had noticed what he'd done as Narcissa Malfoy shook her head at her sister, grasping her husband's hand. Draco was certain that she would recognize the magic he'd just used anywhere. A mix of Malfoy and Black family magic. In the back of his mind, he could even feel that the wards felt slightly hostile to his mother, and how… Accepting they were of Granger. What the fuck was going on?
"Draco stop this foolishness right now!" his father all but barked at him, now also realising what he'd done. Tipsy popped up right next to Draco, as his father yelled at the elf: "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 back to Hermione. She was indeed still bleeding profusely, even if Bellatrix couldn't reach her anymore without breaking through the shield. Why did his father want her to be moved now? He didn't seem to have had an issue with the girl bleeding to death earlier… With a start, he realised what had made his father so eager to move her. Every Malfoy born at the Manor knew what was lying under the Drawing Room. The ward stones which were connected to the leylines in Wiltshire were directly underneath the floorboards. The only reason why the Manor's allegiance would have shifted to him as if she… He shook his head. Why would her muggle blood activate the wards? She wasn't a Malfoy. Was she? Unless… The manor recognized her as such?
Before he could even defy his father, Tipsy apparated to stand 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. Well, that was certainly unexpected.
"The what?" Narcissa whispered, fear in her eyes as she barely struggled against the bindings. Realisation dawned in her eyes, and for a second, he thought like he could see pride in her eyes. "Oh, Draco… Son, you didn't... You foolish boy. You will be the death of us all."
Before he could answer his mother, or before he could even wrap his mind around this whole bizarre situation, he could feel her presence enter his mind again. She was barely whispering, drifting in and out of his consciousness. "Draco. What is going on? Why is your house elf healing me? And who is that voice?"
"What voice" he grunted out, stumbling his way over to her and Tipsy, still high on the family magic that had been transferred to him so suddenly. Confused as he was at their predicament, he needed to try and heal Granger. She would know what to do. She was the brains behind Potter's whole operation, wasn't she? As he fell down next to her on his knees, he could feel his magic pouring out of him as he started whispering healing spells. He could easily get used to this power. 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. A boy could dream.
"Voice?" his father asked in a panic, distracting Draco from his healing slightly. "Don't tell me that you've heard her, mudblood? That you have heard the spirit of Malfoy Manor?"
As his father said those words, the house finally 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 popped up and were trying their best to heal her alongside him. Why wasn't this working? Had his aunt done that much damage to her?
"Lucius Malfoy," a deep ethereal voice suddenly spoke, almost making Draco drop his wand as he turned around and looked for whatever entity was speaking to them now. "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. Today, you have broken the oath between your ancestor and me, by having one of his heirs be hurt in your own home."
"Impossible," Lucius whispered, his eyes darting around in fear to find whoever had spoken to him. "The spirit was just a tale my grandfather would tell me… Like the tales of Beedle the Bard. Besides, that mudblood is no Malfoy."
To Draco's astonishment, laughter now filled the room. The walls hummed. The manor hummed. "Oh, Lucius. You should know by now that there are no tales when it comes to magic. Only twisted truths. And if you had not forsaken your house duties for playing lackey to a man with a wicked and twisted mind, you would have known how that so-called mudblood is connected to our family. Even if you did not research your ancestors as well as you should, for the past year or so, that girl has been front and centre on the family tapestry. You just never bothered to look close enough, to see through the magical shimmer."
Wait what? Draco had spent multiple days researching in the hidden study that housed the tapestry. He'd stared at that family tapestry for hours, wondering how it could have all gone so wrong… Wondering if his long family legacy had finally come to an end after the past three generations had fucked up royally. He'd definitely never seen Hermione Granger on it. He frowned, as something stabbed at his mind… The shimmer. He hadn't remembered, but now it was clear as day. Something had been hidden on the tapestry, but-
"Master," one of the elves distracted Draco as he clasped one of his tiny hands on Draco's. "Mistress is not well. Tipsy is not sure we can heal mistress. What should we do, master?"
"Mistress?" Draco questioned. Had he heard that right? Did the elf just call Granger Mistress? That could only mean… Oh no. He really had doomed them all to die, hadn't he? But why couldn't he remember?
"Yes, sir," the elf continued, his ears flapping around worriedly. "Mistress Hermione. Your… beloved."
"ENOUGH!" Bellatrix suddenly yelled, making Draco look behind him. Fuck. 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 him. "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 again and pressed her wand onto the dark mark, several things happened at once.
Potter and Weasley came running through the wooden doors of the Drawing Room, wands in hand, followed by none other than Dobby. Draco couldn't help but frown as his personal elf now fought so valiantly at Potter' side. As soon as the three of them 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. Loath to admit, Draco was impressed. He didn't know they had it in them. Then, they suddenly pointed their wands at him, as he was still sitting beside her, his wand hovering over her. Oh fuck. This did not look good.
"No."
All it took was a determined no from Granger to stop them in their tracks. "Draco wanted to save me," she said as he lowered the protective shield so that Potter and Weasley could crouch down by her side, house elves still chanting over her body.
Potter almost knocked him out of the way as he took hold of one of her hands and brushed sweaty strands of hair out of her face. "'Mione," he cried out desperately. "Are you alright? We should go now, Dobby can bring us to a safe place, and…"
"Oh Harry," she said sadly as she put her hand on his cheek. There was so much love in her eyes, and Draco almost felt the need to look away. "It's too late for me I'm afraid. The dagger Bellatrix used is eating away at my magic, I can feel it. I'm sure Draco can too."
A deadly silence followed as both Gryffindor boys looked at Draco, frowning. Great. He wasn't the only one left out of the loop then. But what she said was true. Even his additional magical power, and all of the healing they had done, would not be enough to save her. If they did, she would be nothing more than a squib. But the blood she'd lost… He was surprised to find that tears were forming in his eyes, as her magic stopped tugging at him as forcefully as it had been since he'd first entered the drawing room.
"Remember the plan," she whispered in his mind, confusing him even more.
Before he could ask her what she'd meant, she'd started addressing her two best friends. "Take care of each other, will you?" She breathed out. Weasley started wailing at her side as her eyes closed for one last time, and her hand fell down from Potter's cheek. The house elves stopped chanting, their ears drooping down. "Mistress… is gone," Tipsy exclaimed as tears formed in her eyes as well. Draco felt the magic in him shift, it felt… Empty? Was Granger really gone?
"Draco," the voice of the spirit of the manor, whispered in his head sadly. "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 did she mean? 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 dagger, and watched her bleed to death. Why did she even tell Dumb and Dumber that he had wanted to save her? He'd been too late, had spent too much time contemplating what to do. How did she even know that he was attempting to come up with something, anyway? And why were his house elves calling her "mistress"? He knew why. He just didn't want to admit to himself, because there was no way that he and Granger had…
"Malfoys always protect their own," the spirit seemed to smirk at him. "That's why you've been wanting to get her out of here ever since you laid eyes on her."
"Granger is not one of our own," he defied her. "I don't know why you or the wards ever recognized her as such, but I can assure you that-"
"Have you not been listening, boy? I know you have. I could see it in your mind that you realised something had been hiding on the tapestry. Miss Granger 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. If anyone had bothered to do a heritage test, magic would have recognized her as his adopted descendant, making her show up on the tapestry."
The gears started turning in his head. If Granger was a descendant of Armand's adopted daughter, then even if she had no actual Malfoy blood running through her veins, the wards would recognize the magical bond and recognize her as a Malfoy heir. The wards would want to protect her. It would also mean that she'd never been a mudblood at all… He cringed, remembering what he'd called her. It seemed all those years of taunting and bullying were based on nothing. But was that even important anymore? Even if she had been a muggle-born, she… She had always been better than him. Better than any pureblood walking the Hogwarts grounds.
Somehow, his thoughts seemed to be quite entertaining as the spirit's laughter rang inside his mind, Potter and Weasley's crying muted in the background. "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 your blood and your magic. Care to explain, little dragon? It wasn't me who put that shimmer on the tapestry. That has all been your doing."
It was? And her magic was bound to his? Had they truly bonded? 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 archnemesis. She was nothing more than a stranger to him. Right? But then how… Why did his magic provide for her for so long? None of this made any sense.
"And this… Stranger… Was allowed into your mind so easily?" The spirit asked. "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. She'd obliviated him. Of course, that would explain why he couldn't remember putting a spell on the family tapestry… Why she told him to remember the plan. Why he couldn't remember how Granger's magic had become so intertwined with his. His mother had immediately seen it once the wards shifted over to him. He'd been the only one blind enough not to accept it.
"Miss Granger seems to be very well-versed in the use of the obliviation 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 when the spirit's magic went through him, almost as if he'd walked through one of the Hogwarts ghosts, his headache becoming worse. 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 best friend, of his beloved Hermione. Potter and Weasley were still crying and cradling her in their arms. How could he have forgotten this? How could he have forgotten her?
"I need to fix this," he breathed out, more to himself than to Potter and Weasley. If her plan worked, Potter and Weasley wouldn't even remember any of this. "You will help me, right?" he asked the spirit as the plan started reforming in his mind. A soothing feeling and humming from the manor was all he needed to jump into action.
"Potter!" he yelled, trying to get the Boy Who Lived out of his sad stupor. Draco did his best to ignore his own inner wailing and emptiness at seeing Hermione's corpse. No, he could fix this. He had to fix this. 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?"
Potter still didn't reply, but somehow he'd gotten through to Weasley. "What would you care, ferret?" the weasel asked. "You did nothing to save her, you…" he started to grab for his wand. Draco had no time for this nonsense.
"Pertificus totalus," Draco cast at Ron, the redhead falling backwards, taking Hermione's upper body with him. "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, taking note of the elf's angry face. "Find me her beaded bag immediately, it might be the only way to save her."
Dobby's ears perked up at his former master and with a nod from Tipsy, the elf finally agreed to help him. "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 tiny hands.
Draco had to stop himself from snatching it right out of Dobby's hands, shooting a grateful look at Tipsy for coming to his aid. Hermione 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. He sighed, as it took him a while to find what he was looking for. How much had she stuffed in here?
Potter seemed to be regaining his senses slowly, even though he was clearly still in mourning, but Dobby was holding the wizard back for now, one of his tiny hands on Potter's shoulder, waiting for Draco to come up with some sort of solution to this desperate predicament they were in.
"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 and gasped.
"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, studying it, making sure it hadn't been damaged during the past year. Hermione had always said this was only to be used in case of emergency. That this was their contingency plan. Only to be used for a few days at most. Never longer than that. Never further back than that. Anyone who attempted to go further back, had been splinched through time, never to be seen again. At least, that was the theory. He desperately hoped that was all it had proven to be. He had more magical power than he needed with the Spirit by his side. This had to work.
"Hermione was always better with the calculations," Draco said as he shook off his outer robes 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 Outstanding 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 to work together. How strange that the fate of the wizarding world now seemed to be dependent on that one simple project.
"He's here," Draco said to Harry as he started turning the time turner, feeling Voldemort's presence enter the outer wards of the Manor. His aunt had succeeded in summoning him after all.. "I 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. Draco had to make sure he was focused, not lingering on the corpse of his… He couldn't even begin to think it. She would have had to have been his wife. No other way would there magic have been connected. How the bloody hell had that happened? His memories were such a mess, having been tampered with for almost three years of his life. He definitely could use some time figuring everything out.
"If this doesn't work," Draco said as he now 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 if she had no family left. There's a spot on the western side of the Forbidden Forest 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, seeping in the magic of the leylines to aid him in his quest. He couldn't remember how he knew what to do, but he trusted his gut feeling. He'd thought about this before, of that he was certain.
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 realised 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. Perhaps he had a little Gryffindor courage in him after all?
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, a time turner around his neck.
"I always knew you were nothing but a worthless minion, just like your father," 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.