10001 Nightmares Party

[Fic] shadows fall away like dust (Harry Potter)

Summary:

[Rewrite of If Only We Could Smile]

During the final battle at Hogwarts, Draco Malfoy dies. Luckily, there's a phoenix there that has taken a shine to him. Not so luckily, it sends him back to the summer before his fourth year at Hogwarts, when everything really started to go downhill.

Notes:

This is a rewrite. No worries, I'm the original author and I gave myself permission to do this. However, because my mental health is not good (I've moved on from my angry phase to the weepy phase of my depression) there's a couple of ground rules:

Chapter 1: 0

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

It’s chaos.

The Hogwarts grounds, once so idyllic and home to generations of learning, is a battlefield. There is no area left untouched, untainted, unburned. Bodies—old, young, broken, whole—litter the grounds like fallen leaves. There is a feeling of anticipation in the air; the great wave of a storm about to reach its zenith.

It’s chaos.

And Draco’s right in the middle of it.

Black-robed people wearing simple white masks are shooting off curses left and right, ancient words of might leaving their mouths as colorful spells light up the dark night. They advance with the tide of battle, leaving scorched earth in their wake. They will not stop until they break.

Against these murderous apparitions stands the light; the order fighting the chaos. The teachers and parents fighting to protect the students, the students fighting to protect their home.

An unbearable pressure fills the air—the world is at once too loud and not loud enough, terrified screaming and horrifying silence laying siege on the once brilliant castle. The battle is now hours old, the great magics finally beginning to falter as reserves start to run out. The nauseating scent of blood is all that can be smelt; all that can be heard cries of pain and agony.

The Death Eaters do their best to mutilate and viciously murder their opponents. So too do their opponents do their best to stop them.

It’s not going very well.

The night is clear, the stars in the sky breathtaking over the castle’s looming towers. Shrieking screams echoes across the battleground, loved ones stolen in brutal curses. The beautiful school of magic and mystic is nothing but the place of a madman’s crusade.

The famed Order of the Phoenix stands tall in the battle, battered, bruised, but still alive. The protectors of the Light side, fighting against the hideous Inner Circle of the Death Eaters.

It’s not a standstill. It’s just stalling.

Light bursts from wands as they wage a battle that can only be to the death. There will be no mercy, no pardon, no forgiveness. This is the second coming of Lord Voldemort and his feared followers; this time the Imperious Curse won’t be enough to get anyone off the hook. That is, if the Light side wins.

They won’t.

The Light side, Dumbledore’s side, has power and knowledge and perseverance. But they are vastly outnumbered by people with far fewer morals—and morals have no place in war.

And Harry James Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, is missing.

Draco Malfoy, traitor, curses as he barely manages to duck a hex that would have turned his insides to stone. Dropping to the ground, he crawls his way forward in the dirt, cursing in his head all the while. He drags in exhausted breaths through parched and trembling lips, arms weak against the ground.

At some point, he manages to regain the strength to force himself up again, and he futilely continues on.

This is a nightmare.

He shoots a curse, barely legal, that snaps the bones of the victim. He doesn’t stop to see if it hit the target, nor does he look behind to find out if he’s followed. His eyes stay stubbornly glued to the path in front of him, his body trembling as he forces it to continue walking.

Draco is merely on the outer edges of the battle, hidden in the night’s darkness, but his status as a traitor means that people (people that he knows, but he is very determinedly not thinking about that) keep searching him out. After several long hours—years—of this, he is barely even cognized of what is happening around him. He cannot tell who is following him, he cannot tell who he fells, he cannot tell who’s dead and who’s alive.

Regardless, he keeps going. Even severely limited by the curses he can use, he moves. A former Death Eater, he doesn’t doubt that every kill tonight (whether they are from the Dark side or not) will be counting toward his prison sentence—if his soul is not just sucked out of his body.

He hasn't seen his parents so far.

He knows they’re here. They are loyal, too loyal not to be here, but no matter where he fights his way, he can’t find them. It’s frustrating and annoying and with every black-clad body falling, a creeping fear that it might be his mother or father swallows him whole.

(There is a part of him that’s glad he hasn't found them; he doesn’t know what they will do if he does. Will they fight him? Does their loyalty to the Dark Lord supersede their love for their own son?)

Stumbling on something on the ground; his vision fading, his legs weakening with every step he takes, his hand clinging so harshly to his wand yet unable to feel it, Draco is struck by the vicious, cursing thought that this isn't what he has ever wanted.

His life wasn't supposed to go this way.

He was supposed to serve the Dark Lord; a charismatic and overwhelmingly powerful man fighting for the betterment of their society, fighting to preserve it in the face of the muggleborns insidious pervasion of their culture. He was supposed to be at his parents' side, making them proud. He was supposed to be a person to envy.

This was never supposed to be what his life amounted to. Dying like trash after betraying literally everything he's ever believed in is not how his life is supposed to end.

He'd chosen to betray his family, his friends, and his very magic.

And now, like the fool he truly is, Draco is on the losing side.

There are so many things that he wants to do, wants to learn, that he has never had the chance to. So many places he’s never been, so many things he’s never seen. And with every curse he narrowly ducks, the more he suspects that he never will. It would be a fitting end, he almost dares to say, for the last Malfoy to die in disgrace.

In the dark, below a kaleidoscope of colors, Draco falls and rolls on the ground; a vain attempt to avoid more curses headed straight for him. With no way to avoid them, he stares, thoughts running too rapidly for him to ever even grip them.

If only…

A burst of pain, the shrill ringing of a bird and—

nothing.

Notes:

· all my links are on my carrd ·

Chapter 2: 1

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Startling awake, Draco chokes on a breath. He coughs, his lungs contracting in his chest, his vision blurry from the sudden moisture in his eyes. His fingers scramble desperately for something to hold onto, tearing at the soft thing beneath him.

Finally managing to push himself into a sitting position, he heaves; eyes wide and staring sightlessly at his bedding. His fingers clench tightly on the covers as his body trembles and he tries to force the world to just make sense.

His eyes sting.

Pressing a hand to his eyes, he curls into a ball on the bed. He pulls his knees up to his chest and waits for the dream to end, for the sunlight streaming in through the large windows to transform into the night sky. Waits for the silence to be broken by screams. Waits for the unmistakable smell of blood to assault him. Waits.

Nothing happens. He begins to frown.

Blindly shooting out his hand, Draco smacks the bedside table for his wand. Cursing silently, he tears at his hair as he places his hands on the bed and turns toward his old bedside table. With increasingly wide eyes, he makes his way with fervent hands through the drawers in the bedside table while the harsh summer sunlight cuts knives across his vision, the curtains fluttering about utterly uselessly. Finally curling his fingers around his wand, Draco grips it tightly and pulls it to his chest.

It cuts into his hand, his grip too tight.

Even if it kills him, he won’t let go.

He breathes shakily as the spots in his vision finally fades. Loosing his grip on his wand just enough to allow him to actually use it, Draco looks up.

For a second, he stares blankly at the view. What he expects to see overlaps with reality, until he can scarcely tell the two apart. It is a room. An airy, huge, room. Windows from floor to ceiling, covered with thin green drapes and the door to the balcony. A large couch, a fireplace, a wall of books, a desk, a carpet, a cabinet, a door to the bathroom and closet. It is just Draco’s room.

Years ago. It is his room—the one he grew up in, at Malfoy Manor. The one he left behind when he betrayed Lord Voldemort.

When he betrayed his family.

It’s not the room as he last left it. The paint on the walls, the candleholders on the tables, the couches in the middle of the huge room; it’s the little things that are different. But it is, without a doubt, Draco’s childhood bedroom. (It is the room in which he played as a child, where he learned magic, and where his life systematically fell apart.)

“What...” he finally mutters, licking his lips and holding out the wand in front of himself. He uncurls on the bed, getting up on all fours and crawling to the bed’s edge. There, he looks at the floor and the fluffy carpet covering it. He glances at the rest of the room, takes a deep breath, and rolls off the bed.

Nearly getting tangled in his covers, he stumbles on the floor. After a moment of just looking, he scowls and hurries to his desk. Frantically, he grabs ahold of the newspaper. His hand shake around the paper, and he puts his wand under his armpit to grab the paper tightly. He brings it as close to his face as he can, his eyes almost watering from lack of blinking. His fingers wrinkle the paper as his eyes glare at the Merlin-be-damned writing.

It is, according to the paper, the year 1994.

Crumbling the paper in his hands, he stumbles away from the desk. He stares down at the paper ball and wonders faintly if he's gone insane somewhere along the way. Even the front page is about the Death Eaters’ attack on the Quidditch match, an event that he can barely remember now. It’s just old news. Certainly nothing worth reporting. But—the newspaper on his desk is always from the same day that it comes out.

His legs threaten to buckle beneath him; he puts a hand harshly on the desk, trusting it to hold him up. Gulping, his eyes desperately look around for a way out. A way for this to not be happening.

A flash of fire nearly ruins his corner vision, and Draco spins on his heel. The motion almost makes him fall and he slams his hand down on the desk again.

Draco inhales sharply when he catches sight of Fawkes, Dumbledore's phoenix familiar. And... smaller than he remembers? The red bird is flying in the air before him, fire sprouting in its wake only to dissipate. He stares at it breathlessly, his chest squeezing when the need for air overwhelms him. For a second, his eyes flicker around, but he can’t see any fuzzy edges to signify an illusion.

"Okay, Fawkes," Draco begins, leaning his hip against the desk and taking a breath. His eyes flicker to the bird again and he licks his lips, "Tell me the truth. Am I dead?" The fiery bird seems to shake its head—and how it does that, he doesn’t even want to know. Hefingers clench harshly around the desk’s edge and asks, "So, what is this, time travel?"

Fawkes lets out a beautiful tune; Draco flinches back. He places a hand to the side of his head and stares down at the floor, biting on his lower lip as his mind runs fifty miles a second. Finally, he looks up and tilts his head to the side, asking, "Am I to assume you had something to do with this, as you're here?"

The bird sings again, looping in the air. Narrowing his eyes, Draco scowls and drags his hand through his hair, twisting it around his fingers. It pulls on his scalp, making him wince (pain? so it’s not a dream?) and he says, "So, all that really happened? I wasn't just having an... exceptionally bad dream?"

The bird nods.

His lips purse, his eyes unfocused as his mind works. "Again, let me make sure I got this right. I died, and you... brought me back into the past?"

Fawkes sings and flies around him, a rush of impression that doesn’t help his dizziness at all.

Draco groans and pushes off the desk, pacing for two seconds before he breaks tracks and stalks to one of the couches, a comfortable black one. Burying his head in his hands, he closes his eyes and tries to make sense of it all. But there’s not a lot to make sense of; he’s apparently in the past. Seemingly. Just like that. Time-travel, like it’s all really just that easy. And while he’s inclined to believe the (sort of) words of a phoenix, the question why trips him up.

Because it just doesn’t make any sense. He’s Draco Malfoy. Why would it send him back? What’s so different about him from Harry Potter that he could **possibly **deserved it?

But maybe... it’s not about him at all?

Maybe he’s making it too complicated. Fawkes brought him back to a time when he’s still with his family. When the Dark Lord is still only building up his army, still only making sordid plots and planning.

Perhaps he shouldn't be bothered by the why's and how's, but rather concentrate on what to do now.

He slumps on the seat, turning around and shoving his face into the pillow. A soundless scream later and he sinks breathless into the couch, wheezing. His face is scrunched up, his lips twisted as he thinks carefully. If he was a better person, his immediate response would be to use this chance to get ahead of the Dark Lord, to use his knowledge to defeat the most fearsome and powerful Dark Lord this century.

It should be his immediate response. It is what a good person—a Light person—would do. It’s undoubtedly what Harry Potter would do.

Fuck, it’s what any sane person would do.

But Draco is selfish.

“Bloody shit,” he mutters, kicking the table just to have something to do. An enemy that he can actually fight, instead of chaos in his mind. Something concrete, instead of the nebulous thoughts flowing through his brain.

Draco is selfish. And he’s not going to make the same mistake again.

(In a year, barely even that, the Dark Lord will be back at full power.)

Draco groans, kicking the table again. “Fucking Merlin!” he mutters, pressing his face into his hands and sighing so deeply he can feel it in his bones. His foot taps on the ground, and he presses his palms harshly against his eyes, not ceasing until they hurt. Only then does he let up. Only then does he look up at Fawkes.

The bird gazes at him with calm eyes, flying in front of his face. It does a small loop, singing a quiet song that is beautiful in its simplicity. Draco purses his lips and holds out a hand, waiting impatiently for Fawkes (Dumbledore’s familiar) to do something. He doesn’t have to wait long, thankfully. The bird bypasses his hand entirely in favor of plopping down on his lap.

After a moment, he hesitantly raises a hand. It hangs empty in the air between them, not moving, until he gulps and gently, slowly, carefully, pats Fawkes’ head. “I am mad at you,” he informs it solemnly, voice quiet. It nevertheless echoes throughout his room, and the phoenix trills a note at him.

He grimaces, flopping bonelessly back against the couch. Fawkes stays on his lap, still occasionally singing a note or two. He doesn’t move—barely breathes, even.

Finally, his hand begins to smooth over Fawkes’ head in an uncertain, loose grip. Licking his lips, he closes his eyes and says the damning words, “I don’t want to do it all over again.” He waits, for fire, for an angry song, for tears even, maybe. He doesn’t know. But he can’t do it all again. Not like that.

“I can’t betray my family again,” he eventually says, after nothing happens.

His fingers smoothing down the bird’s feathers, he frowns to himself. He waits, but the phoenix only lets out a slow, calming song, like it... like it doesn’t care. It makes no sense. This all makes no sense. His lips twitch a little at that, and he shakes his head to clear his thoughts. Then he takes a deep breath. And another. His fingers continue to fiddle with Fawkes’ feathers and he doesn’t know...

He doesn’t know anything, does he?

“Libby,” he calls, suddenly. He blinks rapidly when he realizes what he’s done, sitting up straight and almost dislodging Fawkes in the process. Fawkes flaps his wings, presumably in protest, and settle back down on Draco’s lap. And across from Draco, with barely a second’s delay, pops Libby into existence.

She bows, “Yes, Master Draco sir?”and looks up at him with shining, glittering eyes.

She’s his favorite house-elf; the one who played with him when he was a child. His eyes go right from her to Fawkes, who hasn’t moved at all, and his breath punches out of his chest. His grip tightens on the feather he’s holding, and he makes a vague sound.

Libby asks, “Would Master Draco want food for his birdie?” and Draco dies a little inside. He makes another vague sound and Libby nods determinedly, saying, “I will find food for Master Draco’s birdie.” And then she pops away again, and Draco wheezes. He contains the urge to throttle Fawkes for just sitting there, and instead pulls slightly on its feather. When he looks down, Fawkes is still standing proudly on his pajamas-clad lap.

Narrowing his eyes, Draco hisses, “You are a menace.” Fawkes puffs up more and sings a quick song, making Draco feel calm and fluffy again. He narrows his eyes more and adds, “Stop that, I don't want you messing with my feelings.” (You’ve already messed with enough, he doesn’t say.)

Fawkes droops, and Draco clicks his tongue, going back to fiddling with the feathers. He gives it a good minute before he calls up his courage again and inhales sharply. “I don’t want to repeat my mistakes, Fawkes,” he says, staring up at the ceiling. “I don’t want to die for something I don’t care about.”

He stops, licks his lips, gulps, lets go of Fawkes, and says, “I don’t want to fight You-Know-Who. I don’t want to... I don’t want to be apart of that. I don’t want to be a spy again, and I don’t want to fight Dumbledore and Potter’s war again. So if I don’t tell anyone, if I don’t do anything, would you be mad at me?”

His gaze shifts to Fawkes, and he grimaces. Libby pops into his room again, on the other end of the coffee table, right in front of the fireplace. “Libby found food for birdie!” she announces, holding up a threadbare bag.

Draco smiles at her—a weak, barely passable thing. “Thank you, Libby,” he says. He clears his throat and looks at Fawkes. A thought occurs to him and he furrows his eyebrows, tilting his head as he asks it, “Do you eat normal bird food?”

Fawkes instantly disappears.

Draco’s, “Bloody—!” is especially loud in the sudden emptiness and for a second, he stares forlornly at his lap. Puffing out a breath, he then looks at Libby and says, “It appears that he doesn’t.” Libby looks down at the floor, the bag instantly vanishing. Draco’s eyes drift over her and he says, “You can’t tell anyone about Fawkes, that bird I just had with me.” He narrows his eyes, trying to appear threatening, “Not a word, you swear?”

“Libby swears!” Libby bobs her head rapidly. She grins proudly, “Libby knowsies all about wizard secrets, and not to tell! Libby’s the best at not telling!”

“Good, good,” Draco says. He stands up and begins to pace. For a couple of minutes, he says nothing and Libby doesn’t move, doesn’t so much as twitch. She’s the very picture of the ideal Malfoy house-elf, and he would spare her more thought, if his mind wasn’t already so occupied. As it is, he’s pulling his hands through his hair and pulling on the strands, trying to force his thoughts in a direction that’ll actually lead him somewhere.

“Does Master Draco wants a snack for thinking?” Libby asks after a while, voice high and squeaky like all house-elves.

Draco nods, “Yes, that’s a good idea. Kreacher—” he’s barely said the name when he slams his mouth shut and scowls. But, to his widening eyes and quickened breath, the house-elf actually plops down in front of him.

Kreacher's eyes widens to what must be a painful degree. But the house-elf straightens, puffing out his chest and pulling on his uniform. With squared shoulders, the house-elf asks, "What can Kreacher help the Young Master Black with?"

Draco stares down at the tiny house-elf, his mind blank for the shortest of moments. Then his eyes slide to Libby, who’s looking at them with gigantic eyes and not saying a word because truly, she is the best house-elf. She, too, knows the value of secrets.

He can work with this.

Looming over the elf, he steps toward it. His voice is harsh when he speak, "The locket that Regulus gave you to destroy, I need it."

Immediately, the small elf steps back and glares at him suspiciously. "Why?" Kreacher practically hisses, hunching in on himself like he has it in his grip and is afraid Draco will tear it from him.

A house-elf is not supposed to talk back, but Draco has seen enough of Dobby to know that that can be a strength. So instead of acknowledging the slight, he pulls on his familiar condensation and arrogance until it’s practically dripping from him. He looms more, a trick of perspective more than anything but effective in getting his way, and says, softly, silkily, gently, "I know how to destroy it."

(Yes. He can’t beat Lord Voldemort, but this, at least, he can do.)

The house-elf rears back, as if struck. Kreacher’s eyes shine manically, any veneer of sanity stripped from him. The elf mutters to himself, nonsense from what Draco can hear, and then disappears. Coming back mere seconds later, he’s carrying in his tiny, deformed and wrinkled a golden locket, with a large S-shaped snake on the front. A snake with ruby eyes. It is, without a doubt, a lovely piece of jewelry that the elf has in a death grip. And Kreacher stares at him suspiciously again, eyes narrowed into beady slits.

With a derisive look, Draco summons a handkerchief and uses it to grab the locket’s chain. It takes a moment for Kreacher to release it, the elf stubbornly holding on. But it does let go. And Draco watches the locket dangle in the air before him and studies it. Then he clicks his tongue.

Bundling it up in his handkerchief, he tells Kreacher, "In order to make sure it really gets destroyed, I am going to need everything you can find from the Black assets’ about Horcruxes and soul-splitting. Can you do that for me?"

"It will help you destroy it, Young Master Black?" Kreacher asks after a beat, voice hopeful and tiny.

Draco smiles kindly. "Yes."

Kreacher mutters to himself again, then nods fervently and straightens up, once more puffing out his chest. The elf fixes it’s uniform into proper place and swears, "I shall do as you order, Young Master Black."

Draco bows his head, smile gentle as he says, “Thank you, Kreacher.” Kreacher visibly blusters, muttering and mumbling to himself, but not moving. Draco keeps his smile gentle, his expression soft, but he can’t quite make his eyes follow suit. They remain cold, arrogant, distant, perhaps from the shock of his abrupt awakening.

Libby’s voice pipes up from his side, “Libby’s got Master Draco’s snacks sir,” she says. Draco pulls himself out of the near trans-like state he’d fallen into and turns to face her. There is a beautiful silver tray full of food and drinks on his coffee table.

Draco stares at it. Then he feels his eyes soften, the way they wouldn’t for the horcrux, and he says, “Thank you, Libby.”

Libby blushes.

The locket is still in his hands, a cursed object that brings no joy. Draco eyes it, turning over the cloth-bundle that holds it, and debates for a moment if he should hide it here. He has hiding-holes, little gaps in the manor where he can fit small things and the... Dark nature of it will be locked inside, unable to be sensed from the outside. But that doesn’t make the holes unfindable, nor unbreakable.

His aunt kept one there for decades, and nobody ever knew. Therefore Draco, too, can keep it hidden there. And only an insane person like Potter would steal something from Gringotts, much less actually get away with it.

“Libby, deposit this in my personal vault at Gringotts.” Draco frowns and adds, “Make sure nobody sees you, or the object. Go straight to my account manager, and let them know that this is the strictest secret. If they blab or let anyone get there hands on it, I’ll remove all Malfoy holdings from Gringotts.”

“Libby understands!” Libby squeaks. He hands over the cloth-bundle to her before he sits on the couch, nearly falling on it. Kreacher is still room, but his stomach growls at him and decides to ignore it. As long as the elf doesn’t let anyone know what Draco’s doing he supposes it’s presence is okay.

He picks up a piece of cake, and starts eating. Despite his hunger, he nearly melts at the first bite, and can’t quite make himself take a second one for the longest time. His mouth is too full of the taste—food like this wasn’t something he had access to once he betrayed his family and the Dark Lord. His eyelids flutter as he savors the cake until at last he swallows the last of his bite, and only then does he take another one.

This goes on until the cake is gone. Leaning back against the couch, Draco sighs deeply. He stares with listless eyes up at the ceiling, his appetite, at least, sated.

He thinks.

The thing is, theoretically, he knows how to destroy the horcrux. Fiendfyre or Basilisk venom will leave it without a chance of healing. It will, according to what he knows, destroy the soul piece in the object. And Draco is a Malfoy, if he actually tries, he can easily get his hands on some venom. It might be hard and take time, but he can. Draco can destroy the Dark Lord's ties to immortality.

He knows where the horcruxes are. He knows, theoretically (assuming he wasn’t lied to), how to get past the protections. He can collect them all before anyone even realizes what’s happening. And once he gets his hands on the venom, he can destroy them all. Draco can’t kill Lord Voldemort, no, but he can make sure that if someone else does, he’ll stay dead.

He can, at least in part, defeat the Dark Lord.

And he’s not going to.

“Kreacher, clear the table,” Draco says absentmindedly. He walks over to a wall, stopping in front of the lines of books. Raising a finger to drag over the spine’s he walks along the shelf until he reaches the end. Then he says, “Do you think Regulus would hate me?”

He doesn’t know why. He doesn’t care for somebody he’s never met.

But Kreacher answers, “You is working on destroying the locket!” and for him, that’s probably an answer more important than any.

Draco turns to face the balcony. The glass door gives him an unobstructed view of the large garden, and the eventual forest. He walks over to the door, curling his hands over the handle and slowly pulling it open. The smell of fresh flowers and clean air meets him.

If Lord Voldemort finds out the knowledge he holds, all that’ll await him is torture. Maybe he'll tear his mind to pieces in order to find the memories. Maybe he'll hold him under the crucio until he goes insane. But the Dark Lord is a violent man, and Draco sincerely doubts he’ll be granted a quick death.

Even Dumbledore would not hesitate to tear through his mind for the knowledge. After all, it can win the war. And there’s nothing Dumbledore won’t sacrifice for that.

On the balcony, he walks right up to the railing. He places his hand on it, delicately, and leans his head back. Closing his eyes, he feels the sun on his face, hears the birds in the sky. Breathes the fresh air in large, deep breaths as he counts down from a thousand in his mind. Calm. He needs to be calm to properly plan. Nothing good ever happens to him when he rushes ahead impulsively.

Libby reappears next to him. “Libbys done, Master Draco!” she peeps, voice high. He glances at her, and smiles. She peeps even louder and says, “Call Libby if yous be needing anything, Master Draco!” and disappears.

So the horcrux has been hidden in a vault in Gringotts, guarded by dragons. That is... a relief, honestly. If he had to have it near him, he thinks he might go insane.

But now what?

“Kreacher, keep me updated on everything you find. And don’t let anyone ever find out what you’re doing.” Draco turns to the house-elf, his eyes narrowing. Silent, he stares at the elf, and then he takes another deep breath and states, eyes narrowed on him, “Kill yourself before you let anyone find out.”

“Kreacher obeys!” Kreacher bobs his head.

“Good,” Draco mutters and turns back to stare at the garden. High hedges rise around a mini-labyrinth, and it only brings up foul memories. He sneers. His fingers clench around the wooden railing, and he closes his eyes.

What the’s next step? What does he need, if he’s to survive?

Occlumency.

Lord Voldemort, Dumbledore, Snape—they’re all accomplished in the Art of Legilimency. All they’d need is to look into his eyes for but a second and they could glimpse the future. It would ruin everything. It would destroy him.

So. Occlumency. He’s decent at it, obviously. He’s a Malfoy, and he’s a Dark wizard from a Dark family. He’s been trained to hide away his thoughts, the ones that Dumbledore can’t be allowed to see, from when he’s been a child. It’s what happens when you go to a school run by a mind reader that wants to destroy your whole existence. You learn. Or you bleed your secrets on Hogwarts’ front steps.

Pushing off from the railing, Draco spins around and swishes back inside. He stalks over to the bathroom and throws open the door, filling the tub with steaming water at a quick turn of his wand. His favorite spell, hands down.

He sheds his clothes quickly, waving away Kreacher when the elf tries to grab his clothes to clean them. “Don’t let the Malfoy elves, other than Libby, know you’re here,” Draco says, and the elf bows. Kreacher returns to Draco’s bedroom and Draco’s not sure what he does there, but as long as he doesn’t screw up his instructions he doesn’t particularly care.

Draco climbs into the tub, summing a pillow to stuff under his head, and closes his eyes. He sinks as far as he can, the water scalding his skin. He doesn’t care. It’s been ages, years and life-times, since he was able to enjoy a proper bath like this.

Occlumency is, at its core, a delicate art. Brute force isn’t a good tool for a mind reader, and neither is an overabundance of pure power. Mind reading is delicate, and the defense is naturally delicate as well. One needs not strong walls and high towers, one simply needs a sufficiently confusing design. A disorganized mind is the hardest of them all to search.

Closing his eyes and breathing deeply, he forcefully relaxes his whole body. When he opens his eyes again, he’s at the center of a colossal labyrinth.

The walls rise high above his head, reaching into the clouded sky. There are holes in the walls at some places, ladders that lets one climb over them. The ground is covered by grass and cobblestone in turn, small animals creeping through the underbrush and ready to deliver poisonous bites.

There is nothing obviously dangerous here; even the labyrinth offers plenty of ways around the walls. It won’t hold anyone out, and it won’t stop one from reaching Draco’s harmless memories and thoughts.

Even the memories a little more dangerous, a little more Dark, can be found if one searches deep enough.

That’s the point.

If he hid everything, when people already know he‘s a Malfoy and must therefore be involved in things like this, there could be nothing more suspicious. They would simply dig deeper and deeper and deeper, certain there are things to be found. So he must sacrifice some things, must scatter it around like sand, so that the truly bad things (like, say, memories of the future) can be hidden in the cracks.

Blinking his eyelids, Draco stares at the water surrounding him. Thanks to magic, it hasn’t cooled despite the time he’s spent enclosed in his mind. And it is stupid of him, maybe, to miss his bathroom, especially as since the age of eleven he’s spent the majority of the year away from home. But. But he’s spent over a year now trying to wedge himself into the cracks the Light side left for him. And the bath, warm, large, hidden in a room of his own, is tangible proof of all that he had once given up. (And all that he had gotten back.)

His fingertips trail along the top of the water, his eyes glued to the ripples that form in their wake. The bathroom is silent, save for the sound of his own breaths. Steam still rises from the tub. It’s covered the wide mirror over the sink.

Opening his mouth, he grumbles, “This must be a joke,” into the silence. It echoes briefly in the room before the sound fades. His hand presses down on the water, creating a splash that reacher his chin. He licks the water off his lips, smacking them slightly to taste it. (The water even tastes nostalgic.)

His memories don't feel like only a dream. It doesn't feel like watching a movie (Blaise dared him too, okay, it wasn't his idea!), or even like reading a book. It feels like it happened yesterday, the memories beginning to fade as normal memories do. He can even—regrettably—remember the pain when he died.

He can remember most everything.

It’s not... pleasant.

After the war against Lord Voldemort had begun, there aren’t really any pleasant (or even decent) memories that he has. There was only bad choice after bad choice—in the name of fear, in the name of cowardliness, in the name of what was right. But Good and Evil aren't objective. You can’t split every action a person commits down a line and judge them bad or good. Humans are more complicated than that.

Draco had tried to measure up to the Light side's view of Good. He'd worked hard, thrown away his whole history in order to be accepted. And he had, in the end, died for it.

But Draco is selfish. And he’s not going to make the same mistakes again.

When his skin is pruning and wrinkling, he steps out of the bath. Grabbing the bathrobe hanging on the wall, he sweeps it around his body. He steps up to the mirror and sweeps his hand across it, drawing a long line in the mist. He stares at his silent, young, young, young, reflection.

Life is already terrifyingly fleeting enough. But spending what little time he has on something that makes him nauseous? Throwing his life away for something that he doesn’t even believe in?

No.

Draco is selfish, and he’s not going to pretend otherwise anymore.

He leans head forward until his forehead lands on the mirror. His eyes are big like this, and he turns his gaze downward to the sink. He inhales slowly, sharply, the air cutting his throat. His fingers curl around the sink’s edge. Putting a label on his nature means choosing a side and conforming himself to it. (And he had twisted himself into so many knots for it.) But perhaps... perhaps it is time to just be himself. Maybe he'll just pick whatever side fits him best, no matter what that means for this war.

After all, Draco has no intention of sacrificing anything at all to save the pitiful people of the British Wizarding Community. And if the world ends, well... he's already died once. What does one more time matter?

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#Fandom: Harry Potter #Post Type: Fic #Rating: Teen #Status: On Hiatus #Tag: Time Travel/Loop #WC: 5000-10000