693Chapter 2: The Disastrous Meeting
Draco woke from a deep, restful sleep to feel the sun gently warming his cheeks. Odd, considering the nightmare he had just had. It was so vivid, too. Harry's green eyes had been so empty, his body so cold, and Voldemort's laugh so...terrifying. He kept his eyes closed, a small smile on his lips, as he assured himself everyone was where they were supposed to be. Harry would be in his room down the hall, the one that had once belonged to Sirius Black, with Ginny curled in his arms. Hermione and Ron would be in the kitchen, discussing the upcoming battle and helping Mrs. Weasley make breakfast. The others would be getting ready for the battle tomorrow -
The thought jolted him to awareness, though he kept his eyes carefully shut, his breathing even. They had been in the field, last night he had been in Harry's tent. He couldn't be in Grimmauld Place waking from a dream because he had got to sleep in his own tent, on his own cot. The bed he slept on now was far nicer than that hard mattress, the covers soft and warm. Luxurious. Expensive.
He ignored the twinge of longing when they reminded him of the Manor. There were more important things to worry about, like why Voldemort hadn't bound him in a cell. Better yet, why he hadn't killed him once whatever had happened in the forest hadn't done it for him.
Harry.
The swell of grief broke through Draco's control. If it wasn't a dream - and the proof beneath him meant it wasn't a dream - his Harry was dead. He gasped, the pain clenching down on his heart, and froze, staring at an odd ly fami liar ceiling.
There was no howl of grief from within. There was no desire - another's desire - to rend and tear and make bleed the people who had taken his mate. There was nothing in the place where the wolf had dwelt. Merely silence. It wasn't possible and yet the animal presence he had grown to depend on was completely absent.
Draco was human again.
What the hell is happening to me?
No one had reacted to his awakening, nor to his gasp of agonized grief. No footsteps pounded outside his door - he assumed there was a door - which left Draco to assume no one was watching him. Either the Death Eaters had trapped him somewhere, or the odd conjunction of spells had taken him somewhere else. Somewhere with a nice bed and expensive sheets.
Draco let out a snort. His luck was never that good.
Carefully sitting up, he looked around the room and swallowed. Hard. Improbably, he was sitting in his childhood bed. Improbable because Malfoy Manor had burned down five years ago. The same night he was bitten. The same night his parents died.
The grief - always strong when he thought of his parents - threatened to overwhelm him again. With Harry - Merlin, no - gone, as well now, he almost couldn't control the emotion. Yet he had to. He wasn't safe, at least he wasn't sure he was safe. Glancing at his bedside, the table he had kept his wand on as a child was empty except for a small figurine of a Hungarian Horntail. Vaguely he recalled breaking it in a fit of temper after fourth year, but he pushed the thought aside to continue examining the room. It was exactly as he remembered, portraits, wardrobe, mirror, desk, and all.
Peeling back the covers, Draco carefully got to his feet and froze at the startling sensations translating from his limbs. He was short. Not a little short, but drastically smaller. After puberty he had shot up to nearly six fee t tall. If the bed was any measure to go by, now he was barely four.
Feeling all too much like Alice in Wonderland, a muggle heroine from a book Hermione had let him borrow, Draco hesitantly approached the standing mirror in the corner of his room. When he saw himself, he could only stare in wide-eyed shock.
Draco Malfoy stood reflected back at him, of course. All of eleven years old. The implications crashed through his mind, leaving him frozen as he stared at his younger self. Was this some sort of dream, or illusion? Had his mind snapped? Was this Heaven, or some other afterlife? Could he possibly have gone back in time?
Calling the memory of the final, disastrous battle, Draco ran through it and found himself praying that it was the final theory that was true. If he had gone back in time, well, he could stop it all from happening. He could stop Harry from dying.
You could keep him from hating you, a thought whispered. Draco ignored it. "Draco!"
The imperious female voice jerked him from his musings and made his breath stutter in his chest. He shut his eyes, waiting, praying he hadn't imagined the voice. His mother's voice.
"Draco, you had better be awake!" she called through his door. "We have a lot of shopping to finish for your school things, an appointment to keep with Madam Malkins and I need to pick out your wand. Don't make me send in a house elf to get you ready." The rush of longing that filled Draco's chest was overpowering and clarified his thoughts. It was unlikely that this was an afterlife and it was even more unlikely that he had gone round the twist. No, this was a dream, an illusion, or a miracle. He had no way to know one way or the other, but even if this was some sick game, an illusion or dream Voldemort had created, he would act as if it was real.
It was dangerous, he knew, to get lost in such hope. Yet how could he not? If he had gone back in time then Harry was still alive. His father was still alive. His mother... "Draco!" "I'm awake!" he called.
"Get dressed and come to dinner," she called back. "Trea's made your favorite."
Hurrying to his wardrobe, he dressed in black robes with a green trim over a perfectly tailored button up shirt and grey slacks. It was a quality of craftsmanship he hadn't owned in years and the made his head swim with the weirdness of the situation. He had gone back in time.
Or Voldemort was fucking with him. It wouldn't do to forget that.
Once dressed, Draco scowled as he realized he didn't know where his younger self had placed his wand. His father would be furious if he found out that he had misplaced it. As the most important tool of any wizard, his father had always impressed upon him how foolish it was to not know where your wand was at any moment. Draco had taken that particular lesson to heart and had never once lost his wand. Until now.
When he was on his hands and knees, pawing at the bed skirt to see if the wand had possibly rolled under the bed when he remembered his mother's words. Madam Malkins. His wand. School shopping. He didn't have a wand yet; he wouldnâ ™t until later today.
It was a relief on the one hand. On the other it meant he had to have his mother fix his hair.
Swallowing down the butterflies that abruptly threatened to overwhelm him, Draco slipped out the door and headed for the dining room. Everything was bigger than he remembered, but he guessed that was really just because he was shorter. It was also comforting and his nerves had calmed by the time he opened the door to the dining room. For a moment, he thought he would be able to handle this situation cooly. Calmly.
And then he laid eyes on his mother.
With a choked gasp, Draco flung himself into her arms. Though startled, Narcissa wrapped her arms around her son tightly and savored the rare hug from her only son who had adopted his father's view on public displays of affection. She couldn't help but smile, but before she could ask what was wrong, Lucius cleared his throat. Disapproval of the display was clear on his face and she couldn't help but be irritated. Once Draco saw the look, he would immediately disentangle himself and she so missed her boy's hugs. Sighing in exasperation, she let Draco go and though he turned to his father, he didn't react the way either Malfoy expected.
Heart squeezing painfully as he looked at his father, Draco took a single step before flinging himself at Lucius as well, wrapping his arms tightly about the man's waist. Alarmed - Draco was always such an attentive boy - Lucius did something he hadn't in years, lifting his son into his arms. Draco merely pressed his face into his father's neck and held on tighter, though now to his neck.
"Draco? Son? What's the matter?" Lucius asked worriedly as Narcissa stepped up, placing a comforting hand on Draco's back. Draco hesitated, briefly considered telling them he thought he had gone back through time, and then whispered, "I had a dream. You both died and…and I was alone...and I missed you...I missed you so much...I love you." Unable to maintain a stern fatherly figure image when hearing the pain in Draco's voice, Lucius said soothingly, "We're fine. We're both here with you. There's nothing to be afraid of." The tension slowly drained from Draco's body. Narcissa and Lucius allowed themselves to relax, glancing at each other over Draco's head. Realizing he couldn't stay in his father's arms forever, Draco reluctantly sat up and released his death grip on his father's neck. Leaning over, he kissed his mother on the cheek and let Lucius set him down again.
"Sorry," he murmured, but he wasn't. Not really.
"It's alright," Narcissa assured and affectionately combed her fingers through his hair before laughing. "Your hair is a mess. Let me fix it and we'll be on our way. I'll buy you something special, in Diagon Alley. Won't that be nice?" "You spoil him, Sissy," Lucius drawled, but his smile was affectionate and indulgent.
Draco just shook his head and squeezed his mother's hand.
"I don't need anything."
Alarmed again at a statement their spoiled son would never utter, both Lucius and Narcissa exchanged a glance before the later began casting diagnostic charms. Draco just grinned.
This time around, everything would be different.
The rest of the day went exactly as Draco remembered, though that didn't mean it wasn't an illusion. Draco and his parents stopped for writing supplies, the later pausing to chat with the Mr. and Mrs. Greengrass before heading to the appointment at Madam Malkins. Draco's heart was pounding in his chest as he remembered what came next. In his thoughts he had labeled it The Disastrous First Meeting. Sometimes he thought of it as That Time He Was An Idiot And Didn't Realize He Was Talking To Harry Potter, or if he was feeling exceptionally melancholy That Time He Made Sure His Mate Would Always Hate Him. The memory was making him fidget so badly that the squat seamstress kept poking him with pins and ordering him to stand still. The time see med to crawl by, but, finally, the front door chimed and Draco heard a voice he only barely recognized.
Without puberty, Harry sounded almost like a little girl, but Draco still knew that voice. He would have known it anywhere, even without the wolf's obsession with its mate. An obsession, Draco had noted, that hadn't diminished with the passing of his curse.
"Are you going to Hogwarts too?" Harry asked.
Draco found himself amused that things were already changing. Not drastically; the question was what Draco had asked Harry the first time around.
"Yeah," Draco drawled, looking over and smiling at Harry. It was strange to look at the boy and not feel the needs of his wolf coursing through his veins. "My father's next door buying my books and mother's up the street looking at wands. Then we're going to look at racing brooms, though first years aren't supposed to have them." The words poured off his tongue, like like they had the first time they'd met. "Have you got your own broom?" "No," said Harry. "Play Quidditch at all?" "No," came the answer and this time Draco looked over to see the shy, embarrassed look on Harry's face. "Oh," Draco feigned ignorance, "are you muggle born?" "No," Harry said for the third time in a row.
Draco had to resist the urge to say something cutting about Harry's inability to speak English. "But you don't know what Quidditch is?" he said instead. "I was raised by muggles. My parents are dead." "Oh, I'm sorry," and this time, Draco was. "Well, Quidditch is a wizarding sport. It's played in the air on brooms and there are four balls-" "That's you done, my dear," Madam Malkins announced and Draco felt himself scowl. "Maybe I can tell you later," he offered and climbed off his stool. "We might even be in the same House! I'll probably be in Slytherin, but I wouldn't mind Griffindor."
Ignoring the shocked look the seamstress shot him, Draco offered Harry his hand, his heart knocking about his ribs. Last time he had done this, Harry had rejected him. It was a different situation and he had been a vastly different man - boy - but it would hurt no less now than it had last time.
"Draco Malfoy." To his immense pleasure, Harry took his hand.
"Harry Potter."
Grinning, Draco gave Harry's hand a squeeze.
"See you on the train, Harry. My mum'll be waiting for me." The grin remained as Draco hurried into the street, slipping past Hagrid without a glance. Only later did he realize he hadn't reacted to the name properly. He had ignored Madam Malkin's surprised gasp, ignored that everyone knew who Harry Potter was. He could only hope Harry was too ign orant o f his own history and the wizarding world to notice the lack of reaction. He also hoped the boy didn't remember when he was older. Only time would tell.