Serpens & Leo Minor
Act 2 Chapter 6: You're Someone Else
Well, you look like yourself
But you're somebody else
Only it ain't on the surface
Well, you talk like yourself
No, I hear someone else
-Flora Cash
playlist/5VB5zQrKnCJEWd7NY9Zjjf?si=149f4cf0768f48a0
Draco blinks his eyes wearily against the green light filtering in the room, groaning at the strange buzzing sensation in the back of his head and the impression of emptiness in his body. He sits up and rubs his forehead, shocked at how smooth and granite-like his skin feels, shimmering like crystals where the sun touches it. Wait, shimmering?
He thrusts his steady hands out in front of him catching the weak sunlight filtering through the trees outside the wall of windows surrounding him. Light reflects off them in beams of glitter, making his skin look like it's made from pounded diamonds. His fingers caressed his face, noticing that his sunken cheeks had filled out and his features had transformed from pointy to tapered and refined.
He runs a hand through his hair and feels a wave of shock spike through him at how thick it feels between his fingers. His hair had been thinning for months due to stress and lack of eating. On top of that, the weakness and sluggishness are gone; he feels stronger like he can run for miles and not break a sweat. He sniffs the air smelling the heavy scent of alcohol coming off of him in waves. He gags, he's always hated the smell, even more so since he associates it with the worst of the Deatheaters.
He winces as he notices a painful burn in his throat and wonders if, despite his newfound strength, he is coming down with something. He pushes the worry away for later, he needs to figure out where he landed himself if he wants any hope of solving it. When his eyes adjust, he opens them and gasps in shock as he takes in the room around him. Or closest might be a better word for it.
Two walls are boxed in, in floor-to-ceiling sheets of glass, a door cut into the wall furthest from where he lays on the white plush settee. The wall across from him contains floor-to-ceiling white shelves displaying strange thin clear boxes with words on their sides.
When in unfamiliar territory learn your surroundings. Keep track of places of safety and danger.
His father's voice breaks through the disturbing blankness in his mind and compels him to move. Feeling curiously numb Draco slides off the settee and walks over to the shelf, his limbs reacting in strange ways. Too graceful and soundless, making him feel like a petite dancer or a stalking predator.
He starts reading the boxes one by one. A box called Black Sabbath catches his eye. He pulls the clear box off the shelf and takes a sharp breath when he sees a picture with a skeletal figure that resembles the Dark Lord wrapped in a blue cloak on the cover. His grip on the box tightens and the clear material on the cover shatters into clear powder scattering across the ground. Draco gasps, his chest heaving with heavy breaths. Fear and panic trickle in through the numb as his situation settles in around him. He's in a foreign place with no idea who he is or…even what he is.
He waits for the unavoidable racing heart, for his magic to rise in him and lash out. The things that precursored his attacks as he came to call them over the summer, but feels nothing, other than his feeling of rising panic. He takes a deep breath in and out of his mouth but notices no change in his panic and relief from the heaviness in his chest. With frantic fingers, he feels along his neck searching for his pulse and comes up empty. His body starts to shake as he sinks to the floor, his breath stuttering in his chest, his heart still as a stone. This means that whatever he is, he isn't human.
He feels a crushing weight sag on him that has nothing to do with the state of his heart. He knows his father will be so disappointed in him.
At the distant sound of footsteps approaching the room, Draco reaches for his wand, only to come up empty. Seconds later the door opens to a willowy figure with white blonde hair. For a moment Draco feels a leap in his emotions thinking that the figure is his mother, but a closer look dashes his hope.
Oh Merlin, his parents. The weight of responsibility crushes him as he realizes his parents are still in danger. His heart races with guilt for not thinking of them sooner. In his panic, he'd forgotten about their plight and the impossibility of them appearing anywhere near him. Guilt forces its way through him at his selflessness, he needs to be strong for them because they are the only ones that matter.
Know your allies, know your enemies. Understand their vulnerabilities and strengths, then exploit them mercilessly to achieve your goals.
Once again, his father's voice saves him and he becomes steady. He's sacrificed too much not to pull through now. So instead of wallowing in his aloneness, he faces the newly arrived figure.
His eyes fall upon Luna Lovegood, who appears strikingly different from his memories. Her features are chiselled, her face resembling a sculpted stone visage like his own. Her white blonde hair is sleek and lustrous, while her eyes appear black, accentuated by deep purple shadows beneath, captivating him despite his indifference towards her gender. However, it is more than just her physical appearance that strikes him as different; it is how she carries herself, exuding a certain deadly grace that renders her otherworldly, not quite human. Another peculiarity he notices is the absence of any palpable magical energy emanating from her or, for that matter, from within himself. Even as a vampire, he should have been able to sense it.
"Draco we are getting lunch are you com…" she trails off seeming to take him in.
Her face creases with concern.
"Draco are you alright? You sound…English" Loony Lovegood asks in a distasteful American accent.
What a question Draco thinks.
Does she mean at this exact moment in time, or does she mean ever, because Draco doesn't think he has been alright since the end of the fifth year? Even though he can no longer use Occumency he visualises the inside of his mind, picturing all his emotions flying into individual boxes. He puts his fear in one and shoves it far into the back recesses, it only impedes him right now. He needs information and as distasteful as he finds talking to her, she is his only option.
"Loony? What are you doing here?" Draco asks, his numb shock replaced with utter confusion.
Loony raises an eyebrow at him.
"Have you been drinking again?" she asks with a frown, her eyes narrowed.
Draco wears an insulted expression, and snaps, "Just because my heart isn't beating right now doesn't mean I would stoop to such an uncivilised method of dealing with my stress."
Loony's eyebrows get even higher on her forehead.
"Draco we are vampires our hearts are never beating."
Draco feels the panic he had been trying to ignore come to a head.
Vampires.
He is a vampire.
Suspecting that he isn't human is one thing, but knowing he decides feels much worse. It's the reason why his body feels so unfamiliar. His addled brain flashes back to the summary of the book he read in the library, the one he touched seconds before he woke up here. The only obvious conclusion he finds is he got sucked into the story with Potter as the vampire character, but unlike the ritual dictated, he retained his memories of the real world. Though why is Lovegood here? As far as he knows she wasn't anywhere near the book when he sucked Potter in. The door opens again and someone else sticks their head in.
"Is the old man done brooding about his unfortunate existence, yet? I'm hungry." Zabini asks, a playful grin on his mouth, his accent also appallingly American.
"Zabini?" Draco says feeling his remaining calm leave him all at once.
Zabini looks different as well. He possesses the same strange cut to his features as Loony and the same appealing cast to his black hair and black eyes. The same predator-like elegance in his movements. It sets Draco on edge.
Zabini regards him with a blank expression.
"Well isn't that a blast from the past? Is there a reason you sound like a Brit?"
"It's your name and my country of origin," Draco says confused and hating that he sounds like a prat.
Zabini laughs, "Maybe a hundred years ago, but I much prefer the name Cullen now and you talked like an American as of yesterday."
Draco stares after him frozen with shock. Loony gives him a small smile.
"You are a vampire too," Draco says, his voice breathless.
Blaise gives Loony a knowing look.
"Alcohol?" Zabini mouths.
"It appears so," she says in a kind voice.
"Well, the best cure for overindulgence is food, as I always say."
"No, you usually say more alcohol," Draco mutters.
Zabini slaps him on the back.
"Well, at least some of you are still in there."
From Zabini Draco learns that whoever inhabited this body before him possessed a disgracefully large drinking problem, and often lost his memories for periods. Even forgetting who and what he is. This works to Draco's advantage allowing him to ask more questions. Zabini tells him to act 'normal', whatever that means for this pathetic individual, around his mother and father because his 'drinking' upsets them. Draco whips around to stare at him.
"Mother and Father?" he asks, a desperate note in his voice.
Zabini gives him another strange look.
"Yeah? You remember our parents, right?" Zabini asks, his voice is a tad nervous.
"Of course," Draco says, wondering how he could forget the domineering man and his elegant mother.
The phrasing of our parents does give him pause though. His dead heart skips a metaphoric beat at the thought that his parents are in this world as well. Were they vampires too? Was he just as much a disappointment to them in this world as he was in his own?
"Are we related…?" Draco asks in a stilted voice.
Zabini gives him a lazy smile.
"In every way that counts."
"So by blood then?" Draco asks, thinking it is the only way that counts.
Zabini looks at him like he has lost his mind.
"You are fourteen years older than me and born in a different country. It's a little difficult to be related, don't you think?"
Draco thinks about how many children Pureblood families have, and how spread out they become and thinks it is very possible but keeps it to himself.
Loony gets a far-off look in her eyes and says, "They are expecting us."
Zabini gives Draco a stern look and says, "Remember your favourite food is mountain lion and don't ask questions."
"And buck during mating season," Loony says with a small laugh, a mischievous smile on her face.
"Not human?"
A dark eerie look crosses Zabini's face.
"No, we don't eat humans," Loony says, looking at him with a worried expression.
Draco feels an icy cold feeling settle into his chest as he regards their almost horrific reactions. He didn't enjoy hurting muggles, but needs must. He did think something needed to be done with them since they took land and resources from Wix, the dominant race. It wasn't his preferred method but he didn't see how being a vampire would make the situation any different. They were very effective in the Dark Lord's army, he thinks in a distant voice, remembering their feral grace displayed at meetings.
"Mountain Lions are better than humans, put up more of a fight, and make it more fun," Zabini says with a savage smile.
His throat aches again at the mention of food but he pushes past the pain. He can't imagine that he would ever pick a lion over a muggle. Unless he is referring to a Gryffindor lion. He is sure he would enjoy taking down Potter in his new form.
"Perhaps."
He knew he was no match for them in battle, but if he wanted to have a chance to speak with his father, he would have to play along for now. Know your enemies, he reminds himself. They motion for him to follow and lead him out of the room through a door into a hallway lined with glass walls. A grand, spiral staircase looms ahead, leading to other floors. Hanging next to it is a large rectangular frame adorned with vibrant fabric squares in every colour imaginable. It adds a splash of liveliness to the otherwise sterile hallway.
Loony notices his gaze.
"We need to buy a bigger frame, the graduation caps for this year will not fit," Loony says in a conversational voice.
"We need to buy a bigger frame, the graduation caps for this year will not fit," Loony says in a conversational voice.
"What are you talking about?" Draco says already forgetting about his ban on questions.
"We are seniors!" Zabini cries and Draco almost expects him to add a whoot whoot at the end in typical.
"Again," Loony says in a melancholy voice, "Maybe Theo and I will go to college this year. I've heard they've made a lot of improvements on the arts program at UoW."
Draco ignores his confusion at most of that sentence and zeros in on the one part he did.
"Nott?"
"You really are stuck in the past today aren't you?" Zabini says as they reach the main floor a surprisingly open space filled with light and nondescript furniture.
Despite the muggle-like modern aesthetic of the space, everything exudes a sense of luxury and comfort. However, Draco sneers at the sight before him. Nott and Pansy sprawl lazily on two plush sofas, their skin shimmering with flecks of glitter in the bright sunlight that filters through the large windows. Draco's eyes widen in surprise - despite all his extensive reading on vampires, he has never heard of their skin having such an ethereal glow. He had always been taught that their skin was like paper, burning and crumbling at the slightest touch of sunlight. As Pansy notices their entrance, she gives Draco a perplexed look, her glittering skin making her appear otherworldly.
"Draco?" Pansy says in surprise, a flat American accent.
"Draco is having one of his bad days," Zabini says coming up beside him.
"One of those days where he gets drunk and speaks like it's still London in the nineteen hundreds," Nott grumbles.
Zabini shrugs with a smile instead of an answer.
Pansy groans.
"One of these days I am going to smash all of those bottles," she growls with a vengeful light in her eyes.
Nott scoffs.
"Don't you remember what happened last time?" he asks.
"Buying a new bathtub was worth it," Pansy says in a matter-of-fact voice.
Zabini nods sagely, "The old one never lost that gin smell after he used it to brew in."
He, a Malfoy brewed gin? In a bathtub of all places? What backward world has he landed himself in?
"I'm too hungry to deal with Draco's latest screw-up. Let's eat first and then we can inform father and mother. Come along children," Pansy says, getting off the sofa and directing them outside.
Outside awaits an even stranger sight.
A feeling of faintness washes over Draco as he gazes at his godfather, whom he had just seen in Defence Against the Dark Arts this afternoon. But now, under the filtering sunlight peeking through the trees, his greasy black hair seems to transform into sleek, saintly locks that glimmer in the light. His pockmarked skin appears smooth and almost iridescent, contrasting his usual blemished complexion. The black depths of his eyes twinkle with an intensity that sends shivers down Draco's spine. And most striking, the usual hunch of his shoulders is gone, replaced by an aura of power and confidence It's almost unsettling how happy he looks, like a predator who has just caught its prey.
"Good of you to finally join us, Draco. It isn't like we were waiting for you or anything." Severus sneers.
"Severus, leave him alone, he's a grown adult, he can make his own decisions on when he decides to eat." Lily Potter says, looking just like she stepped out of that laughing picture his mother showed him all those years ago.
Tremors ran down Draco's spine. And most striking, the usual slouch of his shoulders was gone, replaced by an aura of power and confidence. It was almost unsettling how joyful he appeared, like a predator who had just caught its prey.
"Good of you to finally grace us with your presence, Draco. It's not like we were waiting for you or anything," Severus sneered.
"Severus, leave him be, he's a grown man, he can decide when to dine," Lily Potter said, looking just as she had in that laughing photograph his mother had shown him years ago.
The sole distinction is her trademark emerald eyes, Potter's eyes, which appeared black rather than green. Apart from the most crucial difference of her being a Muggle-born and Potter being a half-blood. She possesses the same strength in her gaze that he missed in Potter during their initial unfaithful encounter, a challenge not to underestimate her. She is forged from fire and steel, which marks her as a light to extinguish, almost as much as her blood status.
"Severus?" Draco asks in a strained voice.
"One of your distracting long-worded apologies, isn't necessary right now, son" Severus drawls with an American accent as he blurs off into the forest.
Pansy, Zabini, Loony, and Nott follow after him. Draco gaps at the speed of their departure and the word son that slipped so easily off his lips.
Severus can't be-
Severus isn't-
His father?
Did that mean that his real father didn't exist in this world? If so, how did Severus come to replace him?
"Honey are you coming?" the mudblood asks and it takes him a moment to realise that she is talking to him since everyone else vanished.
The longer he stares at the mudblood the more he feels the cracks in his limited knowledge. Why is he here with Potter's mother? It all came back to Potter, like everything else in Draco's life. His anger which he managed until this point to keep behind a wall in his mind, crashes through his defences.
"No," he hisses, his voice cold, "I'm not hungry."
The mudblood's face shifts, looking hurt and worried for a moment. It shifts again the next moment, and she smiles at him looking as bright as the sun. A determined patience towards a loved one that only comes from time and a blood relation.
No!
He refuses to accept that notion. Not only his perfect blood is infected with creature blood, but he calls a mudblood his….mother. He shudders in disgust at the thought.
"That's okay." She says, "It seems like you need some space right now. Come along when you are ready."
She gives him a kind smile makes his skin crawl and his anger spike. Then she disappears in a blur leaving him alone in front of a strange house in a strange world.
Draco storms around the side of the house not caring what direction he heads in, trembling with fury. He knows this entire mess only has one explanation.
Harry Bloody Potter.
He hates Potter. He hates him. Hates him. He wants him dead. Despises his very existence. Draco breathes heavily out of his mouth surprised when it comes out as a animalistic hiss. He does it again, hissing and growling as he stomps through what his distant conscious registers as a garden filled with stone statues. A garden that looks nothing like his mother's gorgeous topharies and flower beds, but still reminds him of her.
A wave of grief fuels his anger as he throws a punch at a nude male statue sending its decapitated head flying into a tree trunk, smashing into dust. It feels good. Lethargic to release his anger physically after forcing himself to cage it up while trapped in the manor. Even if it's a muggle way of acting and disappointing to his father. It's the way Potter and he settled their feuds in the past, so it feels right to throw the next punch and topple the rest of the statue. When nothing remains but a pile of dust Draco turns to destroy the next one.
Soon he finds himself surrounded by pieces of stone and marble, his fury barely dented. His eyes find the flowers haphazardly scattered across the space, each an arrow piercing his heart. He grips one by the stem, a daffodil, his mother's voice reminds him, and yanks it out of the ground and tosses it with dirt still clinging to its roots banishing it to wilt alone. He kicks at a patch of disappointed white orchid, lashing crooked gouges in the dirt to silence it from calling him a failure. He slams his fist into three weeping alstroemeria who think they can relate to his pain. He beheads a preening gardenia and a sneering sunflower that condemns his reckless decisions and failed plans. He stops when he spies a lily sitting proudly in a dirt-filled pot, the inscription A loving mother, carved into the stone. In a blind fury, Draco picks up the pot holds it high above and head and throws it down. The echoing smash rings through him making him feel undefeatable and powerful.
He hears a soft gasp behind him and turns around to see Nott looking at him with devastation. Draco's emotions seize like a snake and prepare to strike with venom-soaked words, but a surreal sense of calm falls over him sweeping his feelings back.
"What have you done?" Theo asks in a whisper.
Draco tries to battle through the calm, reclaim his anger, but it's no use. The unnatural calm persists.
"Stop it," Draco says in a relaxed voice, "I don't know how you are doing it, but give me my anger back."
Nott gives him a blank look.
"You've finally done it, haven't you? You've forgotten who you are."
"My name is Draco Malfoy, I know exactly who I am."
Nott's face sinks, he looks weary and tired.
"I would wish you congratulations because I know this is what you wanted all along, but forgetting your life doesn't seem to have made you any happier."
Severus comes up behind Nott and stands next to him, giving Draco an inscrutable look.
"Theo, please release him."
Draco imagines he would feel shocked at Severus's use of the word under different circumstances.
"No," Nott says.
"Theo," Severus says, his eyes narrowing.
Something seems to snap in Nott at Severus' tone.
"Why should I? You're just going to have a 'talk' with him and slap him on the wrist. Then we will all be forced to forgive him because poor little Draco is lonely and can't find a partner. I was sympathetic the first hundred times, but enough is enough. He destroyed Luna's garden, which she made for all of us." Nott yells, looking close to tears.
Draco feels a deepening nothingness.
"Theo you are pushing too hard," Severus warns.
"Do you know how hard she worked on that garden? It took her three years to figure out the correct amount of blood to use to allow the flowers to grow in this rain-drenched, sunless forest. Her blood! Those statues that took you two seconds to smash in your little tantrum took her another two years to be perfect to her exacting standards." Nott shouts.
Draco sinks to the ground as every emotion in him sucks out of him in a vortex.
"You're s-o so selfish. You don't care about anyone, but yourself!"
"Theo it's okay. I'll plant a new one." Loony says with a sad smile, placing a hand on Nott's shoulder.
He relaxes, leaning into her touch and Draco's emotions trickle back into him. First the fear, then the slight embarrassment, and then the anger. The anger flickers and spikes in the face of embarrassment. Malfoys don't lose control, they possess spines of steel, yet he feels on edge like he might snap at any moment.
"Draco, come with me." Severus prompts as he walks back into the house.
Pansy and Zabini stare at him as they walk by their expressions of hurt and horror mirroring Nott's. He doesn't meet their eyes. Draco straightens his shoulders to the point that would be painful if he were still a human as he follows Severus into the house, back up the stairs, and down a hallway lined with doors. He stops in front of a door with a large wooden cross hanging over it and opens it, walking in without pausing to see if Draco follows him. Along a back wall of windows, a large mahogany desk sits drawing most of the attention in the room. Severus positions himself behind it sitting down and gestures to a far less comfortable-looking chair than his own in front of the desk. Draco sits down feeling the same nervousness and anticipation that he used to feel when he sat in his father's office at home. Before the Dark Lord invaded it, that is. Severus opens a drawer in his desk and pulls out a large red liquid-filled vial. Clouds of fog drift out of the lined drawer as he places the vial in front of Draco.
"Drink, I'm sure you are hungry."
Draco feels a wild unnatural hunger roar in him like a caged beast, clawing through the bars to get out. He shudders in fear and clenches his teeth together. Drinking means accepting what happened to him. Severus sighs and says,
"Even without your memories, you are still impossible,"
He unstoppers the vial, letting the room fill with an intoxicating smell. Draco without thinking snatches the container and dumps it into his greedy mouth, the vial cracking in his hand causing the liquid to spill between his fingers. The cold congealed liquid slides down, soothing the burning sensation in his throat, and imbuing his limbs with strength. Spare liquid drips from the sides of his mouth and down his chin and he knows his mother would cringe if she saw him now. Severus hands him a cloth handkerchief and he wipes the liquid off his mouth and hands feeling mortified. It tastes…okay. He can't say it satisfies the bone-deep craving lingering in his brain. It feels a bit like eating raw vegetables, filling but rather bland. Severus notices his reaction.
"I only have doe." he says in an almost apologetic voice, which is out of character for him.
Draco tries not to think of the fact he just drank deer. Severus levels him with a serious look, his fingers steepled in front of him.
"How much do you remember?" Severus asks.
Draco considers how to answer, weighing his considerable acting and lying skills with Severus's ability to see right through him. He settles with telling some of the truth.
"I remember Nott, Zabini, and Pansy in vague terms. I remember their last names from their past lives at least and their personalities but I have no context for why I know them. I remember Loony-Lovegood-" Draco corrects himself at Severus's sharp look, "I don't remember the red-haired woman or that I was a…vam-pire."
Draco's voice cracks at the word vampire, a new sense of loss overwhelming him now that the initial shock and anger were wearing off. He wasn't his parents' perfect pureblood son anymore, he wasn't a Malfoy or even a Black. Purebloods had been burnt off their family trees for less than being turned into creatures.
There is something different about Severus's face as he regards him, a softness Draco was too busy panicking to notice before. He can't put his finger on the cause, but he notices the addition of it when it disappears.
"You will not be informing your mother of this. You will pretend have some idea who she is. I will help you of course. You are an adult and your choices are your own but I refuse to let your personal actions hurt her." Severus snaps at him.
Draco's eyes bug in his head at his words. He's about to demand why, but then he recognizes the change. Sees the rust that eats away at Severus's iron-clad mask.
Love.
A weakness, a disease. The entire reason he got himself trapped in this situation in the first place.
"You love her? Lily Potter? You?" he asks, having a hard time staying in his seat and not jumping up in shock.
This must be some cosmic joke. A Death Eater, the Dark Lord's right-hand man, falls in love with a mudblood, and not just any mudblood, but the mother of the Dark Lord's biggest enemy. It can't be true in his world. It must be some strange glitch in this world, that the two of them end up together. How could Severus possibly love a dirty mudblood like her? She resembles girl Weasel and Potter too much for anyone to find her appealing.
"Evans," Severus says.
"What?" Draco asks, confused still catching up from the onslaught of information.
"Her last name in her previous life was Evans, not Potter."
So, that would mean she is not Potter's mother in this life. Strange and a little unfortunate for him, his green eyes had been his only good feature.
"What do you mean by mother?" Draco asks, acknowledging the other thing that nagged at him about Severus's words.
"You can't mean to say she's my-"
The look Severus gives him shuts him up.
"In the strictest sense of the word, no, she is not your mother by blood. She is your mother in every way that matters."
"No, I refuse to acknowledge a mudblood as anything close to equal with me," Draco hisses, "She is not my mother, she is absolutely nothing to me."
The dark angry look Draco is used to seeing on Severus's face makes a glaring comeback at his words.
"I assume this transition must be hard for you, as I no doubt can guess. Though let me be the second to remind you that this state you find yourself in is your own doing. The only people you have in your corner are the ones you seem so content to grievously insult. If any of the old Draco remains in that empty head of yours I'd hope it is your sense of self-preservation, which you seem to lack at the moment."
Draco feels his spine straighten in his chair at Severus's tone, one he is all too familiar with.
"Yes, sir." Draco finds himself saying in reflex.
Severus frowns.
"What?" Draco asks, confused.
Severus sighs, "Nothing that can be addressed now."
He stands up and gives Draco one more world-weary look.
"Pretend to know your mother and resist the temptation to not destroy any more of your siblings' possessions. That's all I ask of you." Severus says walking to the door.
"That's it?" Draco asks in an incredulous voice.
"Your life is your own Draco, to live however you see fit. It's all I've ever wanted for you. To make your own decisions. You struggled with that with your upbringing, but I thought you were making some progress these last fifty years or so. I guess I was wrong."
"But what about my past? How long have I been…"
"A vampire?" Severus asks, his voice tinged with amusement.
"Yes."
"Since 1901."
"What is the year?"
"2005."
Draco blinks. He's a hundred and four years old and nine years into the future. Theoretically.
"How old was I when I…became this?"
"You were 17 when I turned you."
"Is that how I died?"
Something almost akin to panic crosses his face, then flits away. Severus looks uncomfortable, his eyes shifting away from Draco's to look out into the rain-drenched forest beyond the wall of windows.
"You were never very interested in your past before," Severus says in a heavy voice.
He seems sad, as if he now carries a burden that he used to share.
"And you didn't approve?" Draco guesses.
"Whether I approve or not is irrelevant. I said before your life is yours to build or to wreck. All I ask is that you live it."
This statement sits as funny with him as the first time Severus said it. No one had ever told him to do what he wanted with no expectations; no strings attached. Even his parents' gifts came with the cost of obedience and loyalty to them and the family. It felt too suspicious, and Draco didn't trust the feeling for a second. Some see it as callous or cold, but it is only logical, why would you help someone who couldn't return the favour?
"So, are you going to tell me?"
"Spanish Influenza. I was your doctor; your parents were already dead. I chose you because there was no one to miss you being gone."
Draco's Slytherin instincts tell him that Severus is lying, though the reason why he can only guess.
"If that will be all, I should get back to the hospital," Severus says standing up.
Draco recognizes that word, something he heard in horrified whispers at his parent's Pureblood parties. A place where muggles cut each other open to 'fix' their medical problems. How it often resulted in death. It was the day he realised that muggles were too backward to try and save.
"But all that blood….isn't it hard?" Draco asks, wrinkling his nose.
He wonders if Severus hates muggle as much as he does in his world or if it has something to do with being a vampire.
"I've trained myself to resist the urge to drink. I barely notice the smell anymore."
Same old Severus, always pushing himself to his limits.
"Is that all then?" Draco asks in a petulant voice.
Severus moves over to his desk with a determined, almost sentimental expression. He pulls out a handwritten note, a rough sketch, and some creepy unmoving muggle pictures that hold memories of a different life. Draco's heart constricts at them, thinking of the Malfoy family album that used to sit on the coffee table in the main sitting room. Before Rowle set it on fire that is. Draco examines them for clues, trying to understand their purpose while feeling a sense of unease. A smiling Loony sits in the garden he destroyed, Nott beside her looking at her like she's a forest nymph he stumbled upon. In another Pansy and Zabini tangle together in a different part of the garden, looking at each other with a desperate sort of fervour in their eyes. The mudblood and Severus lean into each other looking content in the third. They all look so happy that it is almost painful to look at them for too long.
The last picture stands out to Draco the most - one where he stands off to the side with a forced smile, his gold eyes filled with an unknowable sadness. The thought that even in this life he ends up sad and alone makes something twist inside him, but he quickly pushes it away and picks up the sketch. The sketch is a drawing of the layout of the garden, divided into sections, each with a number. The note lists each corresponding number with a type of flower and the amount needed.
"If you are looking for ideas to fix this mess you have created, those might help," Severus says leaving the office.
Sneaky bastard, Draco thinks as he gets up and wanders around the top floor opening random doors until he finds the room he woke up in. He scowls, there is no way in hell he will replant that maniac's garden. He didn't need her. He didn't need anyone. He flops down on the settee in an unMalfoy-like manner and feels pain in the back of his head as he is flooded with memories of his mother scolding him for his uncivilised behaviour. It only adds to the weight on his shoulders.
Everything feels like too much - being stuck in this foreign world without magic or power, struggling to cope with a new reality and versions of people who were supposed to be allies, and becoming a monster. He refuses to go along with this story that has taken over his life, but deep down he fears it is all futile. What if he can't escape its grasp, and it aborbs the person he used to be?
Draco pushes away those thoughts, knowing they are impossible. He will never forget his parents, no matter what this story tried to make him believe.
Death hadn't been on his mind - at least, not until recent months when the threat loomed closer than ever before. Even then, he could never have envisioned the chilling scenario that now unfolded before him.
His gaze fixes unwaveringly across the vast expanse, meeting the dark, piercing eyes of the predator. An eerie calm washes over Harry as their eyes lock, his hunter regarding him with an almost cordial expression.
Perhaps this is a noble way to depart this life - sacrificing myself for the sake of love. Such selflessness ought to carry some weight, some meaning beyond the physical realm.
Had he never ventured to Forks, this fateful confrontation would never have come to pass. Yet despite the terror gripping his core, he found no space for regret. When the cosmic forces align to grant you a dream beyond your wildest imaginations, it seems foolish to lament its inevitable conclusion.
The hunter flashes a disquietingly warm smile as he casually advances, ready to deliver the deathblow that would permanently extinguish my flame.
Sirius's Jaguar stops in front of the airport. Harry feels an ominous squirm in his stomach as if this meant more than just a temporary goodbye. He looks over to his best friend, his only friend most of the time. The one who basically raised him.
"Are you sure about this lion cub?" the man asks.
No, Harry thinks but shoves the thought down. He can do this for Sirius. He might even make a friend his age for once. One who didn't hurt him more than help him. Wouldn't that be a sight?
"Of course! If you keep this up, you're going to sound like the mother hen that Remus accused, you of becoming last week."
At the mention of Remus, a lovesick expression overcomes Sirius's face and Harry knows he is making the right decision.
"Take that back!" Sirius says with a joyful laugh, that seemed more frequent of late.
Padfoot barks in the backseat echoing his laugh, forever Sirius's shadow. Sirius grins at the black dog and high-fives his paw.
"That's right buddy, I'm no mother hen."
Harry feels sadness coil around him, what is he going to do without the two of them?
"I'm going to miss you." He chokes out, tears burning around at the edge of his eyes.
A devastating look crosses Sirius's face as he pulls Harry into a hug.
"Me too, cub, me too," Sirius says, "But the year will fly and before you know it, we will be back together again. And you'll have Albus to look after you."
Padfoot barks at them for attention and they pull apart. Harry pets Padfoot's head as the dog licks at his face, cleaning off the few tears that escaped.
"Yes, boy, I'll miss you too," Harry says with a wobbly smile.
Harry pulls on the door handle and starts to step out of the car before Sirius grabs his wrist.
"And remember my lion cub, Ceux qui nous aiment ne nous quittent jamais vraiment," Sirius says regarding him with intent eyes.
"Vous pouvez toujours les trouver dans votre cœur." Harry finishes with a sad smile.
It was his father's favorite quote and one of the first phrases Sirius taught him in French. Just the way his father wanted. Harry looks back once more before he goes into the airport, trying to memorize his face. This isn't the last time he reminds himself, forcing himself to look away and go inside.
The airplane touches down in Portland hours later and Harry sinks in his seat, wishing to put off the inevitable. Uncle Vernon waits outside the airport wearing a scowl as he stands in front of his police car.
"Get in the back." He growls.
Harry wrinkles his nose, but compiles hoping that no other riders puked back there recently. Harry takes his first deep breath of Forks air in over a decade as Veron rolls down the front windows and the damp, earthy scent floods his nostrils - the unmistakable aroma of the tiny perpetually-clouded town nestled among the lush Olympic forests. As the town rolls by the windows Harry notes that not much seems to have changed since he was last here. The same modest houses and buildings lined the main street, constructed of wood and brick that must have gone up in the early 1900s during Forks' logging heyday.
The evergreen trees crowd in from all sides, their dense foliage weighing heavy with the persistent drizzle he's always associated with this corner of Washington. He tries to appreciate the lushness of it all, the vibrant greens after leaving the dry desert behind. But it is hard not to feel a sense of dreary oppressiveness from the dim, soggy atmosphere.
'Isn't it great to be back?' he thinks as Veron turns down one of the side streets. At least the rainforest seclusion still offered plenty of privacy and peace, he reasoned pragmatically, something impossible to find in Sirius's tiny house in Phoniex. The dense woods crowding Forks allows the small town to hide away from the rest of the world. He tries not to think about how easy it would be to get lost in a place like this. As he nears his destination, he resigns himself to making the best of his return here. After all, it could be... cosy. Harry is almost relieved when they pull up in front of Dursley's house, even if being there means a different kind of torture. His platitudes were wearing thin already. He knew this homecoming was going to be an adjustment.
At first glance, it appears a perfectly respectable two-story home surrounded by pristinely manicured shrubbery and lawn. But looking closer, Harry can see the slightly worn weathered gray siding, the sloped roof undoubtedly meant to shed the ceaseless rainfall this part of Washington endures.
Part of Harry hoped for even the slightest hint that this place evolved, shed some of its artificially sterile blandness in his absence. But Harry can already envision the inside - that stiff plastic-covered living room set angled with ceremonious exactitude, the kitchen scrubbed and polished within an inch of its life, not a solitary mug or dish daring to be out of place. In other words hell.
Harry's eyes widen as he sees Ginny straddling a black motorcycle on the curb in front of the house. Vernon's face goes purple when he spots her as well.
"If she causes even a hint of trou-" he growls.
"She's not breaking the law by parking there." Harry cuts across him, challenging him to finish that sentence.
"For now." His uncle warns, which Harry translates to mean if she doesn't leave soon he will come up with a reason for her to.
Harry meets Ginny's eye as he climbs out of the car, throwing his light bag over his shoulder and shivering in the cold, rainy afternoon weather. He gestures with his hands towards the house, silently communicating with her that he will be right back. In seconds he moves through the house, and up the stairs, depositing his bag on the bed of his hard-won room, which Albus helped him get.
"Hey Gin- oofa." Harry gaffs as Ginny runs into him and wraps her arms tight around his body.
"I missed you so much!" she yells in his ear.
Harry flinches at the noise and the unexpected closeness, but after a moment hugs her back. When she lets him breathe again, he appreciates her ride. He whistles.
"Nice wheels," he says and means it.
The sleek, midnight-black metal of the bike gleams like a predator in the sunlight, giving it a dangerous air. Bold, realistic flames dance across the gas tank, their fiery colors seeming to come alive under the light. In the bold, slanted script, the name "Firebolt" is emblazoned next to the flames, completing the eye-catching look of the motorcycle.
"I'm glad you like it because it is yours," Ginny says, petting the leather seat of the cycle.
Harry looks at Ginny in stunned silence.
"What do you mean, mine?"
"Sirius shipped it to me in parts and I assembled it for you. I might have taken it on more than a few test drives."
"Ginny, you didn't have to do that!" Harry says guilt rushing through him.
"But I wanted to. It's great practice for when I open my motorbike garage. And he paid me! Plus with the money I got from selling my old orange clunker to some gullible townie, I should have enough to buy all the Harpies jackets." Ginny exclaims.
Harry gives her a sheepish smile and another hug.
"Thanks, really this means a lot to me."
He has been dreading riding the bus every day or walking to school if worse came to worst. This allows him to have a similar feeling of independence that his Nimbus 2000 gave him with Sirius.
"Oh, I have one more thing for you," Ginny says, pulling a wrapped bundle from the saddlebag.
With trembling hands, Harry rips through the paper and is left speechless at the sight before him. The object in his grasp is more than just a helmet; it's a masterpiece. A fierce lion's head, crafted from shimmering gold painted fur, snarls with bared teeth around the face shield. Its piercing yellow eyes seem to follow Harry's every move, daring him to challenge its authority. In cursive red letters, the words "Lion Cub" are etched across the surface of the helmet, adding to its intimidating presence. As Harry gazes at it in awe, memories flood back of the similar helmet his father had given him when he was just a young boy. The emotions swell within him and he can't help but feel tears welling up in his eyes. This is so much more than just a gift; it's a reminder of his past and a symbol of his future.
"Do you like it?" Ginny asks in a nervous voice, her feet shifting from side to side.
"Ginny, this is amazing," Harry says in a breathless voice as he runs his fingers over the buffed surface of the helmet following the curve of the lion's jaw around the face shield.
Ginny put such detail into the teeth and fur that he expected the hot breath to brush his fingers and for the jaw to snap down on his hand at any moment.
"Were the ears entirely necessary, Gin?" Harry asks, playing with rounded golden nobs on the top.
"They look cute," Ginny says with a devilish grin.
Harry narrows his eyes at her and pouts.
"Motorcycle drivers are not supposed to look cute."
"Motorcycle drivers are supposed to look however they want to," Ginny says a touch of challenge in her gaze.
"Touche."