Written for the DG Fall Festival Fic Fest on AO3 (and Discord). Prompt is below in the notes.

underneath the skin there's a human
buried deep within there's a human
despite everything I'm still human
...but I think I'm dying (here)

Human - Daughter

|| part one: elegy ||

Draco Malfoy had always considered himself to be a fortunate person. He had managed, thus far, to go through life without any of the standard misfortunes. He hadn't been abused as a child or bullied in school—in fact, he was the bully—and his parents had never split up, nor had either died; none of his girlfriends had ever cheated on him, at least as far as he knew, nor had he been dumped in a dramatic way.

It wasn't as if Draco had spent much time thinking about any of this, but whenever it did occur to him—how fortunate he was—it was with a satisfying sense that everything was going exactly as planned. Everything was on track: his career, his marriage, his family. All aces.

Of course not everything had always gone his way. There had been that whole last year at Hogwarts and the ghastly battle that ensued shortly after he had managed to smuggle Death Eaters onto the grounds. Still, no one could deny Draco's fortuity when he managed to escape punishment for such a singular dastardly act. There was no simple explanation for his exoneration other than luck.

That wasn't to say that Draco was unaware or unappreciative of his fortune. He knew his faults, of which there were a few, in intimate and serrated detail. He could lay out his crimes in a neat line, stark and runic as black twigs on the snow, and stare at them until he almost convinced himself that he was a monster. But then all it would take would be the sound of a train going by, an abrupt Floo call from his mother or a sideways shaft of afternoon light at a particular angle, and he was lost—in thrall of his fortunes all over again.

Still, as fortunate as Draco was, sometimes it all felt like sands slipping through his fingers. One night he had actually Floo'd Blaise to talk about it, this luck of his. It was some time before Christmas and he had been a little drunk on mulled wine from some god awful party, or he would have never rung Zabini to begin with, or at any rate not to ask for his opinion or advice on whatever it was he thought he was looking for.

Blaise clearly thought it had been a ridiculous question—"Well, yeah, obviously we were lucky to have come out of it all unscathed." And into Draco's silence: "If you're still hung up on all that other stuff, then personally, I wouldn't be. I know that's easier said than done but, seriously, mate? Picking at it like a scab after all these years—what's the point? You've got it good. Be happy about that. But... whatever." He could hear the shrug. "You do you."

Draco had got mildly belligerent at his friend's rather blasé response because, to Draco, it had mattered. It mattered as far he was concerned, for whatever that was worth, and soon it would come to mean more to him than anything.

First, it began with his wife, Astoria, leaving him. He should have seen it coming, and he had, but it didn't make him feel any less bitter about it. But the second bit of misfortune—well, that had been far more blindsiding, far more cruel.

Draco stared at the newspaper in front of him and recalled his conversation with Zabini almost a year ago, and why it had taken him this long to start thinking about what luck could mean, how smoothly deceptive it was, how relentlessly twisted and knotted in its own hidden places, and how very, very lethal.

Narcissa Black Malfoy passed away peacefully in her home today after a year-long battle with cancer.
 Up until the end Narcissa had maintained her grace, compassion and appreciation of beauty, love of family and friends.
 A life full of wonderful and varied experiences, Narcissa is survived by her husband, Lucius, and her loving son, Draco.

22 October 2008
Knockturn Alley, London

.

The sound of someone barking nonsense in his ear woke him.

Draco stirred in his seat, still slumped over in that unattractive pose of inebriation, and opened bleary eyes to see a stout man peering down at him over a grotesque bulbous nose. He didn't appear to be all that happy. Although he was showing Draco a generous line of crooked, yellowing teeth, it wasn't so much a smile he was offering but a grimace.

"Order somethin' or yer out," the man demanded.

Draco blinked back the gathering confusion and annoyance that hovered on the rim of his awareness and tried to suss out where he was. His mouth and chin were wet and he wiped at them with a wince, pulling away bloodied fingers. Tentatively, he touched his bottom lip; it was sore and swollen, and that was when he noticed that his knuckles were scraped raw. Even his dress shirt was torn and missing a few buttons on the side.

Had he been in a fight?

Draco's mind quickly shuffled through the select few locations where something like this could have happened. It ended at a seedy tavern in Knockturn Alley. He recalled, then, a particularly mouthy bloke saying something he hadn't wanted to hear and his fist colliding with his face. The images were still hazy, but he recollected that he gave as good as he got.

"I'll 'ave another," Draco slurred, holding up the tumbler that apparently never left his hand. "An' bring the bottle."

The barkeep just nodded and slung a towel over his shoulder before going back around the bar. A moment later he returned with a bottle of something dark and pungent that Draco could only assume was used to grease engines and wasn't at all fit for human consumption.

It was perfect.

It was a good thing he didn't care about his liver anymore.

The bartender left shortly thereafter, which was convenient. At least someone in this place knew well enough to leave him the hell alone. For what the tavern lacked in cleanliness, ambience and service, it more than made up for in anonymity and ambivalence. After all, Draco was there to drink, not make friends.

The blond then chased back the ache in his heart with a bolt of what he could only hope was whisky, straight from the bottle. The burn in his throat almost distracted him from the burning in his head and his heart.

The alcohol, however, seemed to have shaken loose a few memories and the funeral began to play over in his mind like a loop on a reel. He saw the faceless crowd adorned in a black shroud, his father staring at him disapprovingly as the orator chanted his sermon.

He saw the framed photograph of his mother, taken when she was still young and full of life. He saw her body interned, her name etched into a polished onyx plaque like so many others before her. His name would be etched underneath someday soon, and the thought worried him less now than it had before.

Mostly he just saw his mother's face shortly before she died—a face ravaged by an illness that invaded her body like a demon possession. He watched it strip away her once youthful glow and replace it with something else, something foreign. He saw that face and he felt a crushing sadness. Not because it was the face of death or a reminder of his own mortality, but because even when broken and destroyed she still held that strange, forlorn beauty. But now that beauty has been silenced forever.

So here Draco sat, wallowing in self-pity like pitiful wankers were wont to do. He drank and he mourned what is, what was and what others would still be after all was said and done. For nothing had really changed. He was still the same sad pathetic sack he'd been at school.

He took another drink and reflected some more.

Draco supposed he could suss out why and how he turned out the way he did. His upbringing probably wasn't especially ideal in the eyes of liberal witches and wizards nowadays. But his mother had tried to raise him right; he knew this innately.

She'd been a strong woman, opinionated like all mothers were, controlling like some mothers could be and loving like all mothers should be. She was coddling yet stern, strict yet fair. She was his entire world until the peskiness of adolescence reared its ugly head and weaned him from her. Shortly thereafter, he found another woman to fulfil her role and he never looked back.

Yes, he supposed his father was right: he was a terrible son.

When she had become ill, Draco hadn't been sure how to react. How did you act around someone who was dying? He'd never been sick himself, nor had he been around those who were. He wasn't used to the image of his frail and dying mother. He was afraid—afraid of her and afraid of the death she carried.

He was in denial.

She was surprisingly stubborn towards death, at first, but accepted in the end. The earthly meaning of eternal life was death, so obviously she chose to live as long and as meaningful as possible until there was no fight left in her.

She had died alone.

His father never forgave him for that. Truth be told, neither did Draco. Lucius's stern looks across the dignified pews at the funeral did far less damage than Draco's own conscience.

Maybe he was punishing himself, condemning himself for not appreciating what he had until it was gone. Maybe if he drank enough he'd die, too, and put an end to this mockery of life.

He raised the bottle in cheers, a toast that this self-abuse would be his living effigy.

"Draco! There you are."

The blond turned, wincing at the painful crick in his neck. Theo and Blaise stood behind him in full funeral coats, slightly winded as if they had been looking for him for some times.

Ah, right. The funeral was today.

"Wot are you two doin' here?" He lifted the bottle of whisky to his lips.

"Looking for you," said Blaise, sliding into the booth seat across from him. "You just left the after-service and no one could find you. We were worried, mate."

He swallowed. "You were?"

"Well, Pansy was."

Blaise clasped his hands together with a wry smile and Theo shoved him over to sit beside him.

"Even Astoria asked about you," the tall wizard added.

"Sure she did." Draco snorted, taking another drink. "Wot about my father?"

The two shared an uncomfortable look that Draco knew all too well. He felt like getting into another fight. Where was that bloke who bloodied his knuckles?

"Y'know, he tried to blame me for Mother's death," Draco began, "said I was a horrible son. Said I should have been there with her when she died."

He slammed the bottle of whisky down on the table, the sticky liquor sloshing up over the rim of the bottle and onto his hand.

"Well, wot about him? Where was he?" asked Draco, wiping his hand on a crumpled serviette. "He was a terrible husband and an even worse father.

His father hadn't been with his mother because he had still been serving the last few remaining months of his sentence in Azkaban. Still, the man could have pleaded for an early release to be with his dying wife. He could've tried harder for her.

Draco should've tried harder.

"I'm not going to be like him." Draco had said it like a promise, one he intended to keep. "I'm not."

"We know you're not," Theo said quietly. The silence in the booth was awkward and palpable. "Did I turn out like mine?"

Draco mumbled something unintelligible and glanced down at his bloodied knuckles, examining them.

"Yeah, you're right," he said with a sharp nod, raising his bottle in cheers. "Fathers—who need 'em, right?"

His mates smiled sadly. Draco knew they were only pitying him. Normally something like that would have set him off, but right now he didn't think he had any pride left in him to be offended.

"C'mon, mate," said Blaise, filing out of the booth with Theo in tow, "let's get you home."

Draco took one last swig from the bottle and let them pay his tab. They took him home shortly thereafter. He didn't resist because there was nothing left to fight for. He had already given up.

23 October 2008
Kensington, London

.

Draco woke up the next morning acutely aware that he was hungover. He should've taken a draught last night to counter it, but he couldn't have been arsed. Pain he could deal with. At least his hangover was direct, like a bailiff hitting him upside the head with a baton to let him know how very stupid he had acted last night.

He briefly considered going back to bed and sleeping it off, but if he didn't get something into his stomach soon he'd probably spend the rest of the day crying into his pillow. So after wrestling with the sheets, he managed to stumble out of bed and take a shower, sloughing off last night's sweat before getting dressed.

When he finally made it into the kitchen a few minutes later in a hazy stupor, he expected to be alone. Crazy notion, considering he lived alone, but instead he had company of the best mate variety.

"Theo?"

"Draco."

Theodore Nott stood in front of Draco's kitchen table with a white plastic bag and a grimace. All limbs, the gangly man was dressed in a decidedly expensive suit that looked plain on him, simply because he didn't know how to wear clothes. It was like he got dressed in the dark. Draco could even see that a few buttons on his dress shirt were done up in the wrong place. The man had no flair and clearly no fashion sense, and yet he also didn't seem to bloody care.

Must have been nice.

Theo had always been a puzzle in school and out of it. He was always changing yet remaining the same. His eyes were often red around the rims but not from drinking. Insomnia was his poison. He was often working, more of a workaholic than Draco's father, Lucius. Theo also had this nervous tick of looking over his shoulder, like he was being followed. Maybe he was, but certainly not in Draco's home.

Speaking of which...

"How did you get in here?" Draco asked.

"Your security is shit."

He said it so matter-of-factually that Draco was almost inclined to agree with him, but then he remembered the little shit was notorious for breaking wards since they were teenagers. He had only got better since working for the Ministry.

"Or maybe you're too liberal with your little gadgets from work," Draco groused, but Theo just rolled his shoulders in an easy shrug and sat down.

"Speaking of work, how's business going?"

"It isn't." Draco slumped down in the chair across from Theo. "I was forced to take mourning leave. Father insisted." He shrugged languidly. "I'm rather fed up with it all, anyway. It's time for a change."

"Is that so?" Theo looked at Draco curiously for a moment before pushing the bag across the table. "Well, I brought you lunch."

"How thoughtful of you... and suspicious," Draco muttered.

Theo just laughed and grabbed some chopsticks from a drawer. Draco should have questioned the meaning and the intention behind the free meal—as all Slytherins were self-serving—but the tantalising scent of red curry curbed his suspicions, at least for now.

Theo set the chopsticks on the table, as well as a copy of the Daily Prophet, and the two sat down to a meal of Dim Sum. After a few bites, Draco unfolded the paper to peruse. The front-page news was his mother's funeral, with a picture of Draco standing by himself in front of the crypt. He looked like shit with his long hair and a sparse beard and harrowed eyes.

Merlin, he looked like his father.

Draco absently rubbed his stubbled chin with a grimace. He needed a shave.

Further down the paper was a side article about him, telling him to go to section C3 page 1 to read more. He quickly turned the pages and saw the columnist's name: Ginevra Weasley. Her stylised portrait was smiling brightly at him, her ginger hair darkened to an auburn, glossy and perfect.

THE PRODIGAL SON RETURNS

Draco Malfoy returned to England to attend his mother's funeral held in Wiltshire yesterday. Socialite and philanthropist Narcissa Malfoy had lost her battle with breast cancer on Thursday, hitting the Malfoy family hard, especially her son, Draco.

It was Narcissa who had aided Harry Potter in order to help save her son on that fateful day on 2 May 1998. In fact, Harry was in attendance, paying his respects to the grieving family.

The loss of a parent is hard on any child, but in particular for Draco, Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy's only child. Mother and son were especially close and shared a special bond. It is believed that Draco was with his mother in her final hours—

Draco exhaled loudly and closed the paper, wrinkling the pages in his fist. He couldn't read any more. They were all lies. He hadn't been there with his mother when she passed. He hadn't been the loving son making a repentant return. His return was meaningless.

Worse still, he had no idea why Weasley would write something like this. As far as he knew she hated his guts, and the feeling was mutual. The woman had all but destroyed his marriage for some exposé article on his unknown involvement with a Dark Wizard. Which was absolute rubbish. He hadn't been collecting artefacts or colluding with criminals.

The ex-Gryffindor had done all of that just to secure her position as senior columnist and reporter for the Dark Arts section of the Daily Prophet. It was very ambitious and ruthless of her, very Slytherin. No wonder Potter was considering separation.

But after all that effort to make a name for herself, she was writing fluff pieces now? Honestly, she was no better than Rita Skeeter.

"What is it?" asked Theo, looking up from his steamed dumplings.

"Nothing." Draco pushed the paper away and folded his hands together on the table. "So what is it that you want, Theo?"

"What?" Theo took a large bite out of the dumpling. "Can't a mate bring his mate lunch?"

"Anyone else, sure, but with you there's always an agenda." Draco leaned forward. "So let's have it."

Theo finished chewing and set down his chopsticks with a grimace. He always had this way of looking uncomfortable and even a little bored around people, including friends, like it was all beneath him.

Arrogant little prick.

"If you must know," he began loftily, "there's a project at work that I think you might be interested in."

"What, the Department of Mysteries?"

"Mhm."

Draco had to admit that Theo's answer did stump him a bit. Theodore Nott had never asked anyone's help for anything; more than that, he knew Draco wasn't the sort to offer or even consider aiding someone unless it was to his advantage. And it was highly unlikely that this boon of Theo's would be to Draco's benefit at all.

Still, he was curious.

"What's this project, then?" Draco asked with a bored drawl, and adivot formed between Theo's brow in the form of a scowl.

"You know I can't tell you that."

Draco sighed. He didn't even know why he bothered.

Unspeakables had to take vows not to discuss their work with non-Unspeakables, hence the name. Still, how did Theo expect Draco to be interested in a project that he couldn't tell him about?

"This isn't enticing at all, Theo. It's annoying."

The tall wizard lifted an eyebrow and actually smirked at Draco. Prick. "Trust me, Draco, you'll be interested."

"Yeah, sure."

Draco rolled his eyes. At this point there was very little in life that could interest him. He had never considered working for the Ministry. He had never wanted to be an Auror. At one point he had desperately wanted to be a pro-Quidditch player, but that ship had long sailed.

"You know what division I'm in," said Theo. "You're a smart lad, Draco—take a guess as to what my project's about."

Nott worked in the Time Division of the Department of Mysteries. Although he never discussed his work, Draco figured he had to be involved in the development of new Time-Turners recently sanctioned by the Ministry.

"I've been working on a particular device for the past couple of years now and it's ready for human trials. Nothing too dangerous." Theo shrugged, and nothing in that shrug gave Draco confidence that this device of his was remotely safe. "It just takes commitment and fortitude: two things you don't necessarily lack."

Oh, a back-handed compliment. Nice. Draco raised his glass in cheers.

"I thought I'd give you the opportunity to test it," said Theo, "if you'd like."

Draco paused, his lips pursing. It was almost like Theo was insisting.

Nott had always chosen his words carefully. He wasn't a stupid man. In fact, he was brilliant, perhaps more brilliant than Granger. He never gave anything away about himself; he never pushed anything onto anyone, and he certainly never insisted.

"Sounds like something that will grossly take up my time," said Draco with a scowl.

"Depends on what kind of pay-off you're looking for," countered Theo, a slow smirk creeping at the corner of his lips. "And as for time—you'll have plenty of that."

Draco clicked his tongue along his incisor in annoyance. Could this prat be any more cryptic?

"But no pressure," Theo continued with a wave of his hand. "If you're curious, come by the office tomorrow or sometime this week and we'll have you sign a temporary contract."

"What, and become an Unspeakable?"

It wasn't as though such a position was dishonourable. Draco just found the whole concept creepy. Unspeakables as a rule were creepy. Strange. Loners. Theo-like.

"Hear what I have to say," said Theo, "and if you don't want to be involved, I'll just wipe your memory of the interview and this particular discussion."

"How convenient," Draco muttered, fiddling with the rim of the glass.

Dammit it all if he wasn't so curious about it now, and Theo knew it.

The bastard.

"So when would this interview be?" Draco hedged.

"Tomorrow, if you'd like."

Draco studied his friend for a moment and then looked down at the newspaper, sighing. He pushed back on his chair and nodded.

"Fine," he said. "I'll come in after lunch."

After all, what else did he have to do?

24 October 2008
Whitehall, London

.

Signing an Unutterable Vow was an odd sensation. Draco had signed confidentiality agreements before but never anything this serious. Of course it wasn't as dangerous as an Unbreakable Vow, but there were still restrictions and consequences like with any pledge; however, this one made not breaking the vow a lot easier since he literally couldn't articulate himself should someone ever question him about what he'd learnt here today at the Department of Mysteries.

He now understood why they were called Unspeakables.

Once they were both inside Theo's office, the tall wizard immediately began explaining this new time travelling device he had invented. It was far superior to the old Time-Turner, or so he said, and paradox-proof. Whatever that meant.

"You can go back in time as long as it's within your own lifetime," explained Theo in a rather imperiously tone, "thus avoiding the grandfather paradox."

Grandfather, what?

Draco had always considered himself more intelligent than most, but Theo was always on another level, another plane. Draco wasn't exactly envious of this, but he wasn't applauding Theo's intellect, either. His childhood mate was just, well, he was just a stupid know-it-all prick.

"So what makes this different from an extended Time-Turner?" asked Draco, and Theo smiled.

"Dimensional shifting."

"What?"

Theo went on to explain that a dimensional shift was a phenomenon whereby an object or person was transported from one location in time to another via folded-space transport or thereby shifted to a parallel universe on a different dimensional plane. It was the concept of bending the very fabric of time and space. Elementary stuff, apparently.

"That sounds... dangerous."

"It can be," said Theo with an unaffected shrug. "It's a condition that used to only exist in black holes. Speculatively speaking, of course."

"Black holes?"

Theo tried to explain it in layman's terms, or what Draco assumed was layman's terms and not actually ancient Arabic, but the metaphysics of temporal mechanics was swiftly giving him a headache.

"Okay, fine!" Draco snapped, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "So you're going to send me back to a fixed point in time, but no one will be able to see or hear me?"

Theo nodded. "It's the best way to observe the past without interfering."

"What about food and water?"

"Theoretically, you won't need them."

"Theoretically?" Draco baulked. "You did say this device of yours was ready for human trials, yeah?"

Theo waved a hand dismissively. "That's why I'll only be sending you back a few days."

Oh well, then. Since this was nothing, just a regular old walk in the park, why wasn't Nott offering his own services? The tosser.

"We will need to wait until the first day of Samhain to begin," explained Theo, shaking Draco from his thoughts.

"Why Samhain?"

"Because that's when the veil between our world and the Otherworld is at its thinnest."

"The Otherworld?" Draco repeated, brow furrowed. "I thought we were testing out a magical device, not opening portals to the underworld."

Theo gave a laboured sigh. "We are testing the device, Draco. And I would like to do it under favourable conditions, such as the festival of Samhain. Give the Time-Turner a little extra juice, y'know?"

Draco regarded Theo with an extra scrutinising glare and the taller wizard capitulated to the blond's wordless demand for an explanation with an upturned hand.

"Right, so Samhain isn't just about the harvest or communing with the dead. It is about opening this world to the Otherworld: a parallel world that exists alongside our own." Theo pointed at the blond. "That's what you'll be doing, Draco: existing in a realm of space and time parallel to our own. The device will tap into that magic from Samhain and the Otherworld and, hopefully, we can eventually harness that magic independently with the Time-Turner."

Draco licked his lips. It all sounded so very convoluted, so very tedious. Yet here he was, asking another question.

"Would I need to use this device in any place in particular, like near one of the portals to the Otherworld?"

Theo shook his head, exuberant. "No, that's where the device comes in—as its own portal. You will, however, need to travel from a specific point, but only because where you use the device is where you'll end up," he emphasised. "It needs to be a place you know well, is relatively free of heavy magical traffic, and somewhere you know existed during the point in time you're travelling to."

"What?"

The wizard smirked. "Think of it like splinching. If you don't know exactly where you're going, one part of you will go one way while the other will go another, usually thrown into the fabric of spacetime."

"Sounds painful," said Draco, clearing his throat with a grimace. "Why exactly did you think I'd be interested in trying something like this?"

"It'll be fun, Draco! You'll get to see people, places and things again, albeit somewhat differently..." Theo paused contemplatively. "Let's just say that you'll see things in an entirely new light." He folded his hands together on his desk and looked at his mate expectantly. "Now, do you want to try it or not?"

Draco outright glared at Theo. He was being such a pushy salesman, and it was effective. His interest was piqued. He was curious, intrigued, even exhilarated and a little frightened of the prospect. Most of all, Draco was bored and depressed and this experiment promised alleviation of such conditions.

"Alright," Draco said begrudgingly.

Theo's eyes lit up with a smile, though Draco couldn't exactly say that his mate was surprised by his capitulation. The smile Nott wore was a bit too self-congratulatory for Draco's liking, like the git had expected this answer all along. Probably since he first mentioned it in Draco's flat yesterday.

"Excellent." Theo opened his desk drawer and took out a quill and piece of parchment. "Do you have a particular date in mind that you want to travel back to?"

Draco sat back in his chair, studying Theo warily. Yeah, this was his plan all along. The intelligent bastard knew Draco would be tempted. The question was whether he was doing this all for himself or for Draco. Probably both, but mainly for himself. He was a Slytherin, after all, and it wasn't like Draco was doing this to help a mate out.

"Yeah," Draco finally said, loathing the smug smile Theo wore. "Take me back to the day of my mother's death."

Notes:

1. My prompt was my own to choose, so I decided to utilise some of the core concepts of Samhain: of travelling between the worlds, of experiencing death and rebirth, and ultimately transcending both in the process.