Draco Malfoy was standing there with his wife and son, a dark coat buttoned up to his throat. His hair was receding somewhat, which emphasised the pointed chin. The new boy resembled Draco as much as Albus resembled Harry. Draco caught sight of Harry, Ginny, Ron and Lavender staring at him, nodded curtly, and turned away again…

…

The following day

“Draco Malfoy to see Harry Potter,” says Draco, looming over the young man barring his way.

“Is Head Auror Potter expecting you, sir?”

Draco’s not accustomed to being summoned by anyone, and certainly not by Potter; nor is he accustomed to having his way barred by an office junior; but he is a pure-blood, and he does have manners, so he restrains himself, and replies, crisply, “Of course.”

“Just wait here a moment, sir.”

Draco watches the lad disappear through an imposing set of doors.

Behind him, the Auror Office is buzzing, and he turns and surveys the rows of cubicles, and the men and women hurrying between them, and the departmental memos gliding through the air. He notices a shock of red hair, and wonders if it’s the Weasel, and—for a moment or two—he lets himself imagine what things might have been like had everything been different, and he’d been allowed to have the life he’d wanted.

“Head Auror Potter will see you straight away, sir,” says the annoying young man, startling him out of his day dream.

“Naturally.”

Draco sweeps into Potter’s office.

It’s the size of a Ball Room.

Undaunted, he crosses the sea of dark green marble, and approaches Potter’s desk.

Potter rises to greet him. He’s looking old. “Malfoy,” he says, stiffly, “thank you for coming. Please—take a seat.”

“What’s this about?” asks Draco, bluntly.

Potter pushes a letter across the desktop.

“Couldn’t you have owled this?” Draco picks it up. His name’s written on it, in handwriting that’s vaguely familiar, but the M has an extra arch, and the foy has taken two attempts, and there’s a smudge at the end that looks suspiciously…

His head jerks up. “What is this?”

“Read it,” says Potter.

Draco breaks the seal—noting that Potter hasn’t opened it before him—and unfolds the parchment.

Draco, he reads,

If you’d made any attempt to talk to me—to share your own pain with me—perhaps I could forgive.

But I’ll never forget.

Hermione

He looks up at Potter. Fear’s already crushing his insides.

“She took an overdose of Paracetamol last night,” says Potter, and his eyes are red with unshed tears. “It’s a Muggle pain reliever. If you take too many tablets...”

He says a lot more, but Draco isn’t listening.

…

He’s not sure how he got home.

He knows it’s late.

He can vaguely remember leaving the Auror Office, and drinking Muggle whiskey—lots of Muggle whiskey—and starting a fight with two Muggle baboons—he touches his face, gingerly—and dragging himself back to The Leaky Cauldron…

Granger’s dead.

He must have Floo’d from there to the Manor.

He picks himself up off the floor and begins the long, slow climb upstairs.

Granger’s dead.

The house is silent. His parents are in France, Thank Merlin; Astoria’s obviously asleep; and Scorpius…

His boy’s at Hogwarts.

He wishes he’d listened to his mother, and kept Scorpius at home.

He wishes he didn’t feel like shit.

Granger’s dead.

…

He doesn’t want to be alone, but it’s been a long time since he’s troubled his wife and, when she opens her bedroom door—at the third knock—she doesn’t bother to hide her irritation.

“Can I come in?”

“What have you done to your face?”

He shrugs.

She sits him down in a chair and, after roughly examining his cuts and bruises, she casts a healing charm, “Episkey.”

He grits his teeth, letting the sudden heat—and then the freezing cold—hit him between the eyes, and slowly die away. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she says, carefully setting her wand back on her bedside table. “Angry husband?”

“Something like that.”

They have an arrangement. He’s not faithful, and nor is she, but they are both discreet.

In the candlelight her elegant profile almost stirs him.

Perhaps he should tell her the whole story.

Granger’s dead.

“I need you tonight,” he says.

She’s the perfect pure-blood wife. “If that’s what you want…”

…

The sex is bad.

When, at last, he reaches a thoroughly dissatisfying climax, Astoria quickly fakes an orgasm and, as he rolls off her body, she murmurs, “That was nice, Draco.”

He lies on his back and stares up into the canopy of the four-poster bed, wishing he had the courage to do what Granger’s already done.

Astoria doesn’t even snore.

Perhaps if he’d told her everything, right at the start…

But it’s too late now.

Too late.

Granger’s dead.

…

In the early hours, he makes his decision.

He doesn’t know if it will work; he’s no idea whether anyone has tried it before, and he’s not sure how he’d know if they had.

The penalty—or penalties—for failure don’t bear thinking about.

But the only thing he has to lose is Scorpius, the one bright and beautiful spot in a life that was befouled before it had even begun—

Granger’s dead.

—and he’s convinced himself that—if he does lose Scorpius—it would be better if his precious boy had never been born, if living means that he must learn what sort of man his father once was, and have to come to terms with the knowledge.

…

He leaves Astoria’s bed without waking her.

In his own bedchamber, he dresses with care, selecting formal robes of black silk brocade and a cloak of black silk velvet.

He removes the cord from his long, platinum hair, and brushes it out. His hairline’s receding a little—much to his father’s amusement—but, if he keeps to the shadows and doesn’t let anyone see too much of his face, he thinks he can pass for Lucius.

It’s particularly important—if he’s understood it correctly—that he doesn’t recognise himself.

…

After the War, when the Malfoys had been permitted to start rebuilding the Manor, father and son had quarrelled bitterly over what was to be done with the few Dark artefacts remaining to them.

Draco had wanted to surrender them to the Ministry of Magic, hoping that co-operation would improve the family’s standing with the authorities.

Lucius had refused.

Lucius had been right.

…

Draco removes the multiple-layered locking charms, and opens the cellar door. The chamber’s lined with stone shelves, and the magical objects are carefully distributed—isolated with wards to prevent potentially catastrophic interaction.

He knows exactly where to find what he needs.

The Time-Turner’s fitted with a Time-Calibrator, a clever piece of magical metalwork devised by Abraxas Malfoy—Draco’s paternal grandfather—to turn the Time-Turner at a wizard’s spoken command—to transform a foolish toy into an instrument of Dark Magic.

Draco secures the device around his neck, touches his wand to it, and says, “Twenty-seventh of March, nineteen ninety-eight, four o’clock in the afternoon.”

The Time-Turner starts spinning.

Draco feels a sudden pang of fear, but it’s already too late.

The cellar’s disappeared, and he’s suspended in mid-air, flying backwards through a blur of shapes and colours. Faster and faster he goes, past blacks and purples and blues and greens, until—just when he’s convinced that he’ll be trapped in this terrifying tunnel forever—everything suddenly slows, his feet touch solid ground, and the world comes back into focus…

…

He’s hidden in shadow, in the cellar of Malfoy Manor, staring down at Hermione Granger, who’s huddled in a corner, her knees drawn up to her chest.

Granger’s alive.

It’s four o’clock, which means that in fifteen minutes’ time his younger self will come down the stairs. He’ll spruce her up with a few cleaning charms, and bully her into putting on some of his mother’s clothes, which he’ll transfigure to fit her, and—whilst he’s checking his handiwork—Granger will try to seduce him.

She won’t realise that that’s what she’s doing.

She’ll have sensed that he’s as scared as she is, and she’ll think she’s found an ally. She’ll try to make him like her, touching him and smiling at him, and her breath will be hot against his cheek. She’ll make his blood rush, and his heart pound.

She’ll make him hard.

He’ll say: I’m not going to change sides for you, mudblood. I’m not going to rescue you like some fucking Romeo and Juliet, so you can put that crap right out of your mind.

But, inadvertently, she’ll have made it easier for him follow Voldemort’s orders because, when he’s told himself that he has no choice, that—if he doesn’t—the Dark Lord will kill his parents, kill Granger, kill him, he’ll also tell himself that Granger fancies him, and that Granger will get over it.

And it won’t be until afterwards, when she’s sobbing beneath him, that he’ll remember that Romeo and Juliet both died.

…

“Who’s there?” asks Granger, standing up and peering into the darkness.

Something compels Draco to step forward.

“What do you want?” she snaps—she obviously thinks he’s his father.

“Nothing,” he says, drawing out his wand.

The locking charms securing the cellar door have changed with the passage of time. Draco delves deep into his memory, and begins casting the counter-charms.

“What are you doing?”

“For Merlin’s sake, Granger, let me concentrate!”

She gasps.

He turns towards her, and the meagre light from the cellar’s single candle falls full upon him.

“Who are you?” she asks. Her eyes drop to the Time-Turner, lying on his chest. “Draco?”

He’s always—grudgingly—admired her intelligence. “Shhhh,” he warns. He tries to remember the final charm.

“Someone’s coming,” she hisses.

“Bollocks!” He draws back into the shadows. “If it’s me,” he begins.

“I know,” she says.

…

It is him—his younger self. For once in his life, he’s early.

The younger Draco looks from him, to Granger, and back again. “Father? What are you—”

“Nothing,” says Granger.

“I’m here to set Miss Granger free,” says Draco, imperiously.

“What?” His younger self is torn between anxiety and filial respect. “I mean,”—his voice drops to a whisper because, Draco knows, he’s ashamed of what he’s about to say—“the Dark Lord wants her, Father.” He shows Draco the red gown and matching shoes he’s carrying. His manner’s conspiratorial.

“No.” says Draco. He risks moving a little closer, but he keeps his face slightly averted. “The Dark Lord isn’t capable of taking her himself, Draco. He can only watch.”

His younger self stares at him, stupidly.

“You and her,” he spells out. “He wants to watch you hurt her, Draco, you humiliate her, you force yourself into every orifice; he wants you to make her beg, you to make her bleed, you to make her piss herself with fear. He...”

His eyes meet Granger’s, and hers hold a question. Reluctantly, he nods.

“He’s telling the truth,” she says, and her hand moves towards him, and he realises that Granger genuinely wants to comfort him—to comfort them—

If you’d made any attempt, she’d written, to share your own pain with me...

He’s stunned.

“How do you know?” demands his younger self. “Father?”

“What?” He needs to concentrate on his mission. “I... I know because it’s what he made me do.”

The boy’s eyes are blazing. “To Mother?”

“Mother! No! No—look—it doesn’t matter who it was.” His eyes are locked with Granger’s. “What matters is that I don’t want that for you, Draco. I want you to leave, with Miss Granger... Do you know where to find your friends?” he asks her.

“I think so.”

“Will you take him to them?”

“Of course.”

“No!” cries his younger self. “If I go, he’ll punish you and Mother.”

“All your mother and—and I,” says Draco, because the boy looks so much like Scorpius, it’s easy to imagine that he really is his father, “all we want is to keep you safe. I would never ask my son to protect me at the cost of his own soul.”

…

It’s relatively easy—as Lucius—to clear a way for the younger Draco to smuggle Granger out of the cellar.

Once outside the house, they find the weakest point in the boundary—a place they both know well—and slip out of the grounds, beyond the anti-Apparition wards.

Draco watches Granger disappear with his younger self, and then makes his own escape.

Granger’s alive!

He drifts.

He goes to Paris, and then to Rome, seeking oblivion in drink and whores, but the pointless debauchery soon becomes a torture.

So he flees to the south of France where, in a tiny mountain village, he settles for a solitary life of monastic simplicity.

There, he learns.

He learns the value of hard work, for he lives without riches, and almost without magic.

He learns—through their absence—the joy of having a compliant, if somewhat cold wife, and two loving, if somewhat eccentric parents, and a wonderful, precious son.

He tells himself that, when his second chance comes, he’ll do everything differently.

He learns to hope again.

Meanwhile, in England, his other self marries his wife, and fathers his boy.

…

When the time draws near, he leaves his refuge, returns to Wiltshire, and lurks. He can’t bring himself to watch the life he’s about to destroy, but he’s terrified he might miss his chance to reclaim it.

When the moment comes, having donned his black robes, he enters the Manor—passing through the Malfoy wards, as is his birthright—and makes his way to the cellar.

Not one day in nineteen years has passed without his wondering what—if Granger’s still alive—could possibly lure his other self to the Time-Turner, nor without his fearing what will happen if his other self’s not there.

But the cellar door’s already open.

He walks inside, and catches the briefest glimpse of his double’s startled face, before his other self disappears, and Draco takes back his life.

The Manor’s silent.

His parents, he remembers, are in France; Astoria’s asleep; and Scorpius…

His boy’s at Hogwarts.

He wishes his double had listened to his mother, and kept Scorpius at home.

He pauses by his wife’s door, wondering whether he should return to her bed. After nineteen years, despite—or perhaps because of—his self-imposed celibacy, the prospect’s less than appealing.

He decides against it.

His own room’s dark, lit by starlight filtering through gauzy curtains, but—save for the pile of books beside the bed, and a few extra jars on the dressing table—it’s so familiar, he quickly finds his way.

As he undresses, draping his robes over a chair, he wonders how easy it will be to slip back into his old life.

Will he always feel alienated?

Or will his and his double’s lives have proved so similar, his old memories will suffice?

He pulls back the coverlet and climbs into bed.

He doesn’t notice the woman until she murmurs his name.

…

“Draco...”

The voice is familiar, but it’s not Astoria’s, and he feels for his wand, but—before he can find it and cast a Lumos charm—she’s pinned him to the bed.

She’s whispering some sort of apology, admitting that she’s been a bad girl and promising she’ll never do it—whatever it might be—again, but she’s straddling him, and rubbing herself against his erection, and it’s been nineteen years, and he’s too aroused to make much sense of what she’s saying.

“I’m so sorry, Draco,” she whispers—and he’s engulfed in tight, wet velvet.

He sobs.

She presses her lips to his mouth—and her breasts to his chest—and murmurs, “Shhhh... I know what you need.”

And then she’s riding him, hard and fast, just how he likes it—just how he used to pay for it—and his hands are working in the dark, trying to recognise her.

He finds her slender shoulders, slides his hands down, and cups her breasts, and they’re full and firm, and she gasps and rides him harder, and he knows that it won’t take long, feels it building, along his shaft, and he needs to thrust—needs to hold her hips and thrust—and her arse is a ripe curve moving under his fingers, and—

“Aaagh!”

He comes with a scream, his body jack-knifing as long-denied release is ripped out of him by his anonymous lover.

…

She falls on top of him and lies still.

His hand rests in her lovely, thick hair. “Give me a few minutes,” he whispers, because he knows she hasn’t come, “and I’ll make it up to you.”

He feels her stiffen, and shift her hips, and—amazingly—her movements tease some life back into his cock. “What are you...” he begins.

“Lumos,” she says. She’d been reaching for her wand.

In the dim light, he stares up at her.

“Granger?”

Granger’s alive!

“It’s you isn’t it?” she says. “Tonight was the night. Merlin! Tonight of all nights...”

She’s grown into a beautiful woman, slim, but curvy. She’s wearing a figure-hugging night robe of dark rose satin, and her long, wild hair’s falling about her bare arms. Draco’s body reacts with a sharp clench of desire. “How could you tell?” he gasps.

“You’re concerned about me.”

He’s...

He’s overwhelmed.

Granger must be his wife, or his mistress, and the sex they’ve just had was the stuff of his dreams—a million times better than anything he’d ever had with Astoria.

He slips his hand between them, and—as a sort of thank you—he strokes her with his thumb.

“Oh!” Her reaction’s gratifying, her body bucking and twisting in its effort to contain the pleasure he’s giving her. Draco keeps working her gently, using his own come to lubricate her delicate flesh.

“Please,” she moans.

“It’s all right,” he assures her. “I won’t stop...” He wishes he could reach her mouth and find out what it’s like to kiss her.

“No,” she sobs, “no—I want you—inside me—please. Please.”

Inside her.

He grasps her hips with both hands and pushes gently—“Trust me,” he whispers—and, although she’s shaking at the loss of his caresses, she lets him manoeuvre her onto her back.

He slides inside her, and thrusts, sharp and deep. She’s so tight, and she sobs, and writhes, and he has to stay focussed, because she’s the hottest woman he’s ever had.

Granger!

Granger, of all people!

Granger—Granger—Granger—Granger...

Her hand darts to her clit, and she comes.

And her spasms suck him dry.

…

He has just enough strength to lay her back on the bed, and settle her head on the pillow, before he collapses beside her and, smiling into her sleepy eyes, he whispers, “We’ll talk later...”

…

He wakes to find her watching him.

“Why did you come back?” she asks, without preamble.

“I didn’t have much choice—I’d caught up with myself again.”

“No, I mean, in the first place. Why did you use the Time-Turner?”

“I thought you’d understood, that day in the cellar.”

“Well, I realised that Voldemort had forced,”—she waves her hand, impatiently—“that Voldemort was about to force Draco to rape me, yes. But now I know you’d been living with that for nineteen years.”

He wonders how much he should reveal to her.

“Draco,” she prompts, “tell me what happened.”

“All right,” he agrees, softly.

There’s a bottle of Firewhiskey and two glasses on the bedside table. He cracks the seal, and pours two drinks. “You were dead,” he says. “You’d committed suicide. All that time—nineteen years—I’d been convincing myself that you’d got over it. When I was forced to admit that you hadn’t, I... Well, I had to try and put it right.” He takes a gulp of whiskey. “Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t selfless... Basically, I couldn’t bear for Scorpius to find out what I’d done.”

She touches his arm and, although they’ve just had sex, this is much more intimate, and he looks up at her in surprise. “I understand how much you love your son,” she says. “But, Draco, I can’t have been dead.”

“I know it’s hard to accept—”

“No, I can’t have been dead.

“I realised, that day,” she says, “that you didn’t really understand how a Time-Turner worked, but there was nothing I could do by then—it was too late to warn you.

“When you go back in time, Draco, you can’t change events. You can change causes, and you may be able to move events a little, but you can’t change them. If I’d been dead then, I would still be dead now—or, at least, I’d be about to die. So I can’t have been dead.”

“You were,” Draco insists. “Potter told me.”

“Told you what?”

“That you’d taken some sort of Muggle poison, and...” He tries to recall Potter’s exact words, but he can’t. “He gave me your suicide note. It’s in my jacket, if you want to see it.”

“Well, they must have revived me, somehow,” Granger reasons. “Or maybe they told Harry that I was going to die and I didn’t.”

“You didn’t because I changed things,” says Draco, losing track of the subtleties. “I mean—think—we’re married, aren’t we?”

“Yes.”

“Well, we weren’t before. So I’ve changed that.”

“Who were you married to?”

“Astoria Greengrass.”

Granger’s stunned, and she looks so cute with her mouth open, Draco’s just wondering whether it would be appropriate to suggest that they have sex again, when she says, “That’s amazing.”

“What’s amazing?”

“Scorpie—my Scorpie—isn’t mine. Draco had an affair—one of many—and Astoria got pregnant. I think she thought he’d leave me for her and the baby, but Draco and his father pulled some strings, and Draco got sole custody. So you see,”—she smiles, triumphantly—“nothing has changed.”

“But I wasn’t married to you before.”

“That’s obviously not important.”

“It is to me.”

“Is it?”

Draco runs a hand through his hair.

He keeps having flashes of himself and Granger and Scorpius in his little home in France. “I’ve always wanted a proper wife,” he admits, “someone who,”—he shrugs, uncomfortably—“cares. Look, Astoria and I, we did have an arrangement and, if you want, I’ll have the same with you, but I’d rather not.”

“What was it?”

“Separate lives. We kept it discreet, but she had lovers, and I,”—he pours himself another large Firewhiskey—“in those days, I had whores.”

“My Draco had whores too,” says Granger, matter-of-factly. She holds out her glass. “Mistresses, whores and, whenever he felt like slumming it, me. He had what you might call a powerful appetite.”

“He sounds like a complete shit,”says Draco.

That makes her laugh.

“Actually,” she says, “I think that’s something you did change—or maybe it’s that you didn’t... I don't know...” She shrugs. “My head’s a bit fuzzy...” She takes another sip of the whiskey. “What I mean is, I think that Darkness was forced out of you, but my poor Draco...” She rubs her forehead—and he’s tempted to pull her into his arms, because she’s absolutely gorgeous when she’s tipsy.

“He,” she persists, “was never made to plumb the depths like you, and maybe that’s why he was always looking for them. He was always testing himself, always...” She throws back her drink. “I tried to love him, I really did, but the more I gave him, the more he demanded.”

“Did he hurt you,” asks Draco, “physically?”

“Sometimes things got a little out of hand...”

“That was your first orgasm, wasn’t it?”

“No...” She shakes her head. “No, I do know how to satisfy myself. But it was my first with my husband,”—she smiles—“and it was wonderful. Thank you.”

“I swear to you, Granger, I’ve never hurt a woman, except on that night, and I’ll never hurt you.”

“I know.” She leans forward and—a little clumsy from the drink—she presses her finger to his lips. “I know that you’re different from him, Draco. I knew what you were like, that day. And, when I married him,”—she smiles, sadly— “I just assumed he’d grow into you. I even thought that, when the time came, and you came back into my life, I might not notice.”

“Is that it, then? Are you saying that we should carry on as though nothing has changed?”

“Nothing has changed,” she says. “Remember? So, yes, we have to carry on.”

“You’ll be my wife?”

“I am your wife.”

“And Scorpius—did the bastard raise him right?”

“Oh, Scorpie’s perfect. I mean, he can be naughty sometimes, but he’s not bad—not Dark. I couldn’t love him any more than I do, Draco, even if I’d given birth to him myself.”

“Does he know you’re not his mother?”

“No. Maybe when he’s older...”

“Shall we tell him about me?”

“I think we should wait and see.”

“Tell me one last thing,” he says, taking her into his arms. “Why was the other me in the cellar tonight?”

She snuggles close. “Because I lost my temper,” she says. “He’d realised you weren’t his father almost straight away. He assumed that you’d been one of my friends, transfigured by Polyjuice potion, and,”—she chuckles—“he and Lucius spent months checking and re-checking the Manor wards. Tonight, though,”—she kisses his shoulder—“I told him the truth.”

“Tonight of all nights.”

“Mm. That’s how time works...” She runs her fingers over his chest muscles, and down to his taut stomach. “You have a beautiful body, Draco Malfoy. The simple life must suit you, though,”—she suddenly wraps her hand around his cock—“I can’t believe a man like you could go without sex for nineteen years.”

“Not without sex, Granger, without a woman. I practically wore my hand out.”

She laughs.

...

He sinks into her body with a groan that rises, unbidden, from some profound place inside him.

She’s hot and wet and tight and perfect.

She wraps her arms and legs around him, and meets his strokes, forcing him deeper and deeper.

It’s not long before he’s feeling the danger signals. “I need to rest a moment,” he gasps.

“Mmm, I’ve had an idea,” she murmurs, punctuating her words with kisses. “Tomorrow’s Saturday. Let’s go to Hogwarts. We’ll tell Minerva everything, and see if she’ll let you spend time with Scorpie. We could take him to Hogsmeade and, maybe, after lunch, you could go flying together.”

Draco wonders if it’s possible to die from getting everything you’ve ever wanted.

It wouldn’t be a bad way to go.

He lifts himself up on his hands and looks down at her. “You know, you’re totally wrong, Granger.”

“About what, Malfoy?”

“About change,” he replies. “I’ve changed. You’ve changed. Everything has changed.”

Granger’s alive.

And so is he.

THE END