Chrononauts, Part Ib
May. 5th, 2012 06:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annafugazziPairing(s): Harry/Draco (implied Ron/Hermione, brief Harry/Ginny, Draco/Astoria, Draco/Blaise, other minor pairings)
Summary: Harry and Draco learn that Time is making fools of them again. And then they learn it... again.
Rating: R
Warning(s): Drug use, general confusion.
Epilogue compliant? That's a good question!
Word Count: ~39K
"And that is what has caused time to go badly?" said Severus. "To diverge and keep diverging until now there are numerous cracks in time, and they are becoming larger and more frequent?"
"That's what we believe," said Granger. "Something that happened on that day and in that place. You must admit, it probably counts as a cornerstone of history."
McGonagall sighed heavily. "All right, then. Do we have any solutions?"
"Yes," said Draco. He nodded at Granger and Patil. Time to explain this, and make it palatable.
"There are two possible solutions that Geschichte wrote about," said Patil. "The first is what she called 'patching'. It's like patching a house; the weakness is seen, patched, and the house remains as it was. Time is solid again."
"And how do you do that?" asked McGonagall.
"Geschichte believed that if temporal divergence occurred, it might be possible to develop a way to compare an original timeline to an altered one, and try to weave a spell that would fix the cracks in the altered one. It’s not clear whether the spell would somehow make the new timeline stronger, or bring it closer to the original timeline. Hermione and Malfoy and I decided I would do the research into this area, and what I've found looks promising. I think it's doable. Possible, even."
McGonagall frowned. "But what could you possibly do now, seven years after that date, to bring us closer to what the original timeline would have been?"
"It’s impossible," said Fred.
"Not impossible," said Patil. "Not according to Geschichte. And she knew more about Time Magic than anyone else."
"You still don’t exactly sound reassuring," said Harry.
"To be honest... we’re not enthused about it," admitted Granger. "It looks a bit like trying to mend a ripped cloth when you’re running out of thread--"
"Loathe though I am to interrupt your brilliant presentation," said Severus. "Is time a house, a horseshoe, a butterfly’s wing, or a piece of cloth?"
"It’s all of those, and none of them," said Granger patiently. "We speak in confusing images because we don’t have the proper vocabulary for discussions relating to the fabric of time. It’s like trying to explain ‘sweet’ when you’ve never had a sense of taste at all. Would you describe it as a sort of a soft, high sound on your tongue? Or like a reddish colour? Like silk?"
"The point is," said Draco, "patching doesn’t look terribly promising. Like patching a hole in a wall when you’re not sure you have enough nails. And the problem is that I don’t think the house can be saved," said Draco. "It’s falling apart, and I don’t think we can patch it. It’s time to either put back the stone that was taken off, or patch extensively, and I very much doubt we will have time to do enough research to figure out what Geschichte herself hadn’t fully explored, figure out how to detect the cracks, and how to patch them, before our time runs out and the Disappearances destroy everything."
"Do you have a Plan B?" asked Moody.
"We have a Plan A, actually," said Granger.
"What is it?"
"Somebody has to go back in time, to the Nexus," said Granger. "And fix whatever happened."
"What do you mean?" asked Moody.
"Go back in time and make events happen properly. The way they should have."
"The problem is," said Patil, "that if we put back that one stone, the rest of the house will not be how we know it."
"Might be better than having it collapse all about us," said Moody. "So you think we can send someone to the past, and that would fix the paradoxes?"
"If nothing else, it might bring back the people who’ve died in this pointless war," said Arthur.
"You’re admitting it’s pointless, are you now, Arthur?" said Moody.
"It’s always been pointless," said George. "If you lot would stop attacking us, the war would stop."
"If you lot stopped behaving like you belong in St. Mungo’s Idiot Ward, the war would stop," shot back Fred.
"What do you think of patching?" Arthur asked Granger, giving his sons a pained look.
"I have to agree with Malfoy," said Granger. "I don’t think it’ll work. Padma’s good. Very good. And if she says she can come up with a spell to help us figure out how to patch, I believe her. But..."
"But I can’t say when it’ll happen," Patil admitted. "I don’t know how long it would take to perfect it. I don’t know how many people would be involved doing the patches, and whether it might not just make things even worse."
"And in the meanwhile, we do have some idea -- theoretically at least -- of how to travel back in time," said Granger, "and fix this at its source."
"I’m assuming we’re all thinking this means somebody would have to save Albus Dumbledore," said McGonagall.
"Wait, how do you know it was actually Dumbledore’s fall that day that caused everything to go wrong, though?" said Ron.
"Do you doubt that he would have made a difference if he’d still been able to lead us?"
"That’s not what I’m asking," said Ron. "I mean -- the progress of the war aside -- what if the Nexus wasn’t Dumbledore’s fall, but something entirely different that happened that day? Who knows -- maybe it was a house elf who was tricked into picking up a sock that day and its freedom changed everything."
"I think we need to study this more," said Arthur.
"We’re running out of time to study it," said Granger. "The Nexus is approaching. Soon it may be too late."
"What d’you mean?"
"Draco has a Sieve opened to the days before Dumbledore’s fall, but the day of that event is approaching."
"Then make another Sieve open to an earlier time, then. Buy us time."
"I’m not sure I can," said Draco. "It’s bloody difficult to make a Sieve. I’ve only been able to do it four times, after a lot of effort, almost a year’s worth in each case. And while I faff about with that, the fractures continue to increase."
Silence.
"Well," said Kingsley Shacklebolt, "assuming we do decide to send someone back to fix this, who'll go? And how will they come back to the present?"
Draco shook his head. "Whoever goes can’t come back," he said. "We have no way of returning. Whoever it was would be going back in time seven years, and would have to wait until now to meet everyone again."
Harry stared at him. "And what happens to the rest of us, when the past had been fixed?"
"Seven years," said Moody. "A lot could change in seven years. If Albus hadn’t fallen that night... who knows what any of us would be doing right now."
George nodded, brooding. "A lot of things might have turned out very different."
"Some people who died might not have," said Fred. "Like Neville Longbottom. And Colin Creevey."
"And some who are alive now might not be," said Moody.
"That’s worth considering," said McGonagall. "What if Albus Dumbledore’s salvation could prevent the Schisms, but kill off individuals? What if certain people who are alive now died in that timeline, because of Dumbledore?"
"We’re talking about time itself breaking down here," said Harry, annoyed. "That affects all of us. It’s already making people disappear, and the disappearances are speeding up. So what if saving Dumbledore killed individuals?" He paused. "Even if I knew it would kill me, I would still vote for it, in a heartbeat, if that meant the rest of you could be safe."
"How very noble of you," sneered Lucius.
"He’d do it, too," said Ron.
"He’s still holding on to his pathetic fantasy about having to be the one to kill the Dark Lord," snapped Lucius. "His willingness to engage in pointless heroics has nothing to do with saving us and everything to do with his narcissistic need to be The Chosen One."
"Who’s talking narcissism, Malfoy?" Ron snapped back. "You’re only disagreeing with him so you can--"
"Weasley. Malfoy. Enough," said McGonagall impatiently, and both men bristled but closed their mouths. Draco had an uncanny flashback to the many times she’d said those exact same words in Transfigurations class. It felt a little unreal, having his father step into Draco’s place.
"He wouldn’t be going," said Draco. "I would."
Beside him, his mother uttered a small sound of dismay. Lucius’s eyes widened slightly before he got his expression under control.
"You said it was only theoretical," said Draco’s mother. "You... why would you go yourself?"
"For one thing, it’s my Sieve, showing me my own past," said Draco. "It’s familiar territory. Anyone else would have to try to remember what they were doing at that time, and extrapolate where they would likely be. It would be much easier for me."
"And although nobody’s done it yet -- that we know of -- Padma and Draco and I have been doing some preliminary research on this," said Granger. "And I’m fairly sure I’ve worked out a few of the uncertainties Draco had been unable to deal with. He should be able to do it."
"And you trust her?" said Lucius, addressing Draco for the first time in years. His father's face was slightly paler than usual, Draco noted. Was Lucius actually concerned for his safety?
"Yes," said Draco.
"A Muggle-born?" Lucius's lip curled with a sneer.
"I trust her too," said Ron quickly.
"As do I," said McGonagall. Bill Weasley and Padma Patil nodded their agreement.
"So Lucius, your entire group's going against you," smirked George. "Not too happy with having let Muggle-loving members into your little club now, are you? No matter how pureblooded they are, blood treason shows, doesn’t it?"
"This has nothing to do with blood treason and everything to do with logic and rationality," said McGonagall.
"Which you brave little rebels could stand getting acquainted with," said Fred.
"George, please," said Arthur, putting a hand on his son’s arm as George opened his mouth for a retort. "How soon do you estimate somebody would have to travel?"
"To get to the past with any hope of influencing the Nexus? Less than two weeks. To prevent time from breaking down beyond repair? Less than six months."
"How long does it take to make a Time Sieve?"
"About six months or so."
"So, really, whoever it is would have to travel back in less than two weeks."
"Yes."
"Those are all estimates," said Lucius. "You’re engaging in fear-mongering worthy of the Order. Not surprising, considering who is assisting you." He glanced at Granger.
Arthur Weasley pressed his lips together and ignored him. "I think it’s worth getting more information. Hermione, please consider this your highest priority. Take whoever you need to help you."
"What if we come back with proof? Proof that going back in time is what we need to do in order to stop these rips from happening?"
"Then we shall decide what to do," said Lucius.
"Who is ‘we’?" asked Granger. "This group?"
"We are here, we are representatives from all three factions," said McGonagall. "And we will need the resources of all three factions to figure out how to do this and carry it out."
"This doesn’t just touch us, though," said Arthur.
"Well, I’m sorry that we can’t bring in wizard representatives from outside the British Isles--" Lucius said sarcastically.
"Not just that. It affects the Muggle world."
"I can tell you for certain that the Muggle world would want to change," said Granger. "They’re the ones suffering the most. Not that the rest of you care," she said, giving Ron a scathing glance.
Oh, lovely, thought Draco, and sat back to watch the bloodletting as the three factions began to tear into each other. Once he would have been thrilled to see this kind of thing -- infighting among enemies. Now it just made him sad.
He wished for some Gilly or Morph. Automatically checked his hands. Good. No freckles. He sighed and sent his thoughts ahead, out of this room with its bickering representatives, back to his lab and his Sieve, and his need to do something, anything, to make the crawling anxiety die down.
"I simply don't see this as the responsible thing to do right away," Arthur was saying a while later. "We don't know enough."
"We know that the timeline is cracking," said Granger. "Those blank spots--"
"Can you prove that it's due to this change in the past?"
"I can't prove it, no--" said Granger.
"But we are running out of time," said Patil. "Look, all three of us believe it's happened."
"What will happen to us, if Dumbledore is saved?" asked Lucius.
"We don't know," admitted Patil.
"Look, I was a friend of Dumbledore's," said Arthur. "I would love to be able to see him strong and healthy again, but--"
"But the fact is that the man was already dying before that night," Snape said impatiently. "You know that. He would have had less than a year of life left anyway."
"He could have used that year to--" began Harry.
"Could have doesn't matter," said Snape.
"No, what could have happened doesn't matter," George said impatiently. "What matter is that whatever it was, it should have happened."
"Would you still say that if in this supposedly intact timeline, you died?" said Lucius. "Or been permanently injured or maimed, or driven mad?"
"Typical Slytherin cowardice, looking out for nobody but yourself," said Harry, and Draco rolled his eyes.
"Think we're done here," said Moody, cutting off the bickering that was sure to follow. "We're taking a vote. All in favour?"
There was a rustle of disquiet in the group, and then hands started to go up.
"Against?" Moody paused to count hands. "Abstain?" He paused again. "Right, then, six vote to go ahead, four against, five abstentions."
"We do nothing, then," said Draco, feeling ill. "Albus Dumbledore tumbles down the Astronomy Tower, and I'll get to watch it in my Sieve in thirteen more days. Any of you feel like witnessing it yourselves, by all means come and take a look on that day."
1.7. Truce House, Nexus plus 7 years 23 days
"The Nexus is in less than a day," said Draco thirteen days later. "And my father will not allow us to do anything about it." He looked around at the small group of glum, exhausted people who had gathered at the Truce House.
Patil sighed. "Look, I can keep trying, I’m pretty sure we can still get the delegates to--"
"They’ll never agree," said Granger. "They will discuss to death what all of this means, and by the time they’ve made sense of it, it’ll be too late."
"It won't do any good," Draco agreed wearily. How fucking infuriating. Lucius had always been a piss-poor father -- Draco could understand that now as he hadn't been able to as a child -- and in the last few years since the Schisms had not said a single word to him or to Mother, but in this circumstance Draco couldn't say for sure that it wasn't belated paternal concern fuelling his obstructionism. What bloody awful timing. "My father won't budge."
"And McGonagall's too close to losing control of the Wiltshire Faction to the Death Eaters as it is. She can't keep fighting him," said Ron Weasley. "And he’s got my father, of all people, convinced that we 'need more information' before making any rash decisions."
"And Moody doesn’t trust me or my research," said Draco. "And he doesn’t trust Harry with anything that has to do with me, and hasn't trusted Granger since she went underground with the Order, and--" He stopped himself. "There’s no point in discussing this any longer. We will not be able to get everyone to agree, or even to carry a majority vote. But this isn’t a democracy, and we don’t actually need their approval."
"I can’t believe I’m saying this," said Granger, "but you’re right. I can’t convince Arthur, and I hate to go against him, but..."
"You are sure that the Nexus concentrates on Fenrir Greyback, then?" said Severus.
"Padma confirmed it," Granger nodded. "The fracture lines concentrate on both him and Dumbledore, on the Tower. Unfortunately..."
Patil stepped in. "Unfortunately there’s a slight complication. We’ve found it’s not just one focal point or Nexus."
"The others aren’t as big, though," said Draco quickly to the disheartened group. "And it’s quite possible that if we deal with the big one, the others will disappear."
"But it still muddies the water a bit," said Granger.
"What are the other disturbances?" asked Severus.
"We’ve now found a number of different possible alterations to the timeline at that general point in the past," said Patil. "The biggest and most obvious is of course Dumbledore’s fall, but there were two others in the Room of Requirement that day, then at the old Black Family mansion the next day, then Gringott’s a few days later, and the Forest of Dean where Voldemort and Nagini were killed a few weeks after that."
"You know, that's probably the answer to the Great Horcrux Mystery," Harry mused, and Severus's eyebrows went up.
"The what?" asked Patil.
"Nothing, never mind, it’s utterly irrelevant," said Granger. "And has nothing to do with Dumbledore." Patil still looked uncertain. "It’s nothing, only we’d thought there were some objects that Voldemort had that helped protect his life, and we thought they’d have to be eliminated before he died. We believe there were four of them left around the time of the Nexus, one of them probably being Nagini herself. The disturbances may have been somebody getting rid of them."
"And killing Voldemort himself?" asked Patil.
"Maybe," said Granger. "It’s hard to tell, though. The main Nexus is still the Tower."
"So the general assumption," said Harry, "is that whoever goes back--"
"That would be me, Harry," Draco said.
"Whoever goes back," repeated Harry, not looking at Draco, "has to somehow prevent Fenrir Greyback from getting onto that Tower. The files I got from the Ministry’s inquest into that night give a fairly good estimate of where people were and when that night -- Draco, Dumbledore, and me, that is. We never figured out where Fenrir came from."
"Funny to think another great mystery’s most probably now been explained," mused Granger. "In that he came from the future."
"Fenrir Greyback, history’s first Chrononaut," said Draco with a grimace. "And who goes back is not up for discussion. I have the Ministry’s information and I know what I was doing that day. At least I’m unlikely to meet myself."
"We don’t know, though, how Greyback got to the Tower," Granger pointed out. "Nobody did, since he had the decency to fall off with Dumbledore and not linger on."
"I only have to stop him, then go to the other places at the times we have written and make sure there’s no other interference. I’ll have Harry’s Invisibility Cloak--"
"That’s it?" said Harry. "What if whoever else came back has other stuff? Things that can see through my Cloak? A powerful Charm?"
"Why don't you monitor the Sieve, then," said Draco reasonably. "And if they end up having, say, the Elder Wand itself, then you can come back in time to save me."
"The what wand?" said Granger.
"Old children's story, wand that can’t be beaten," said Draco impatiently. "You’ll be watching--"
"We don’t know what’ll happen when - if you go back, though, do we?" said Harry. "Do we wink out of existence the moment you step back? Do we--"
"Harry, we can’t keep arguing about this forever. Somebody has to go. That somebody has to be me. I have to stop Fenrir Greyback."
"No Fenrir, no push," said Patil.
"No push, no broken Dumbledore," said Granger.
"Loathe as I am to bring this harmony up at this late point in time," said Severus, "just how exactly do you know that it wasn’t Dumbledore’s death that was prevented? Maybe in the original timeline, he didn’t just fall from the Tower, but actually died."
"Fenrir Greyback, coming back in time to save Dumbledore’s life?" said Draco. "Why would he do that?"
"Besides, Dumbledore was as good as dead anyway," said Patil dismissively. "Why would anyone come all the way from the future to go back in time to save Dumbledore’s life and then leave him as he was?"
"I’ve wondered about that too," said Granger. "It might have been the reason the other time disturbances happened. If they tried to save Dumbledore and couldn’t, then they tried to do something else that would be helpful to us."
"It could be the answer to the dead Death Eater mystery," said Patil. "If whoever went back in time killed all those Death Eaters."
"Maybe that's why your Vanishing Cabinet didn't work that night," Granger said Draco. "Maybe somebody disabled it before the Death Eaters could--"
Draco rolled his eyes. "Yes, thanks for that sop to my ego. I got over that years ago."
"Maybe somebody came to push Dumbledore and kill the Death Eaters," said Severus.
"Who would do that?"
"Someone wanted both Dumbledore and Voldemort out of the way. Wanted power. Wanted to play both sides against each other." He glanced at the Wiltshire Faction. "Heavens, I wonder who that might have been."
"Stuff your little looks, Snape," said Ron. "I don’t care what you think; nobody from Wiltshire would’ve wanted this. And we don't 'play both sides against each other.' It's you lot who have the monopoly on that."
"Even you must admit it doesn't make much sense that somebody would send Fenrir Greyback, or that Fenrir would send himself, back in time to push Dumbledore off the Astronomy Tower, and then go and do exactly what Dumbledore would have helped Potter to do if he'd been able to."
"We’re getting away from the point here," said Granger. "And I don’t think it’ll do us any good to start questioning whether the person who went back in time did so to push Dumbledore off the Tower or save him."
"I don’t think we are getting away from the point," said Harry. "Because the point is, there may have been more than one Chrononaut."
"If there were, there's not a lot we can do about that," said Granger.
"We could send more than one Chrononaut back, too."
"Not a chance," said Draco flatly. "We risk making everything even worse."
"Draco--"
"I said no," said Draco.
Harry glared at him but, then pressed his lips together before trying another tack. "All right then, what happens if you go back?" he asked. "You save Dumbledore, and then what?" He paused. "How do you come back?"
"Harry, we told you, there’s no way to travel forward in time," said Patil gently.
"Thought you might've worked on something," Harry muttered, turning away from her. "What with all the scurrying back and forth in the past two weeks and making exciting discoveries and all."
"Besides, this future won’t even exist," said Granger, oblivious to the strained silence between Harry and Draco. "It will turn into a future where Dumbledore lived and helped Harry find the Horcruxes and then kill Voldemort."
"It’ll still be a contaminated timeline, though," said Harry.
"It’ll be as uncontaminated as possible," said Draco patiently.
"You’ll still be in it."
"I don't know about that. I may disappear in a puff of temporal logic. In any case, the method I’m using to travel back isn’t the same as the one Geschichte described in her initial works. So assuming whoever went back used her method and that’s why they changed history, I think my actions will simply dovetail into how history should have happened. Fix it all."
"Am I the only one who thinks there’re an awful lot of assumptions there?" asked Harry.
"Not really," Granger admitted. "But we're really not sure there’s any other choice."
Patil cleared her throat. "There’s another small elephant in the room that we’re all ignoring."
"Which is?" asked Harry.
"Well, say he saves Dumbledore. History goes on as it should."
"Yeah?"
"Including the part where, some years later, someone, probably Greyback, goes into the past and pushes Dumbledore off the Tower. Again."
"Oh god," groaned Harry.
"And it all goes wrong," said Patil. "Again."
"Mental," said Ron.
"Possible," said Severus.
"And I’m not sure we have enough information to speculate as to what will happen if--"
"All right, enough," Harry interrupted her. "We don’t have all the information we need, and we don’t know what’s going to happen, and we don’t have the authority to do anything about it. But we’ve run out of time to get any of that." Harry cleared his throat. "Fine, Draco. If you want to go, go."
Draco blinked. "Really?"
"Really."
Draco frowned, disconcerted by the speed of Harry's about-face.
"You like a mystery," said Harry. "Well, here’s loads of them -- the great mysteries of what the hell happened to the Horcruxes, what happened to the Death Eaters, and how did Voldemort die even though I had bugger-all to do with it..." and his voice caught.
Draco looked away.
Harry cleared his throat again. "So, you’re going. I assume every minute counts?" he asked Granger, who nodded, her eyes filled with compassion.
"Well, you can’t go right this moment," said Harry. "You’re exhausted, you’re irritable... you haven’t had any Morph in a little too long..."
Granger’s eyebrows went up.
"Don’t tell me you didn’t know," said Harry.
She traded a glance with Severus. "I’d had my suspicions," she said. "We both have. I have some in my purse, you know."
"Trust a member of the Banned Order to carry Morphmagus Potion in her purse," said Harry.
"You’re not going to arrest me for it, are you?" she said, giving him a small smile.
Harry shook his head.
"Well, I can either take some or sleep, not both," said Draco.
"Go rest, then, Malfoy," said Granger. "Padma and I will finish our work, make sure the incantations are right so we don't send you back in time and have you arrive in mid-air without a broom."
"Thanks." Draco stood, feeling a bit unreal, and headed for the bedrooms set aside for Truce meetings that went too long.
"Harry," said Granger. "Go with him."
Draco blinked.
"Go," said Ron. "You’ve got three hours. Get some sleep."
"Or do... whatever it is you need to do to get ready," said Patil innocently. Draco noticed Ron’s slight blanch and sniggered.
Harry followed Draco into the small Ministry bedroom, expanding the single bed into a double, and turned down the bedcovers. Draco took off his glasses, got into the bed, and pulled the covers around himself. It was so cold, and he was so tired. And he needed Morph, so much. He rubbed at his scar.
Good old Morph. He hadn't grown dependent on it for its pain-relieving and muscle-relaxant properties; those had merely been a happy side-effect. The real dependence came from the fact that the twinges from his scars, while not terribly painful, always reminded him that he'd once been mauled by a bloody great werewolf, on one of the worst days of his life, and that he could have died -- or worse, become a werewolf himself.
Damnation. Maybe he should've taken Granger up on her offer. He tilted his head from side to side, trying to get rid of the discomfort, knowing that what he needed the most right now was sleep and Morph wouldn't help with that. It tended to energize rather than sedate. Maybe he'd take some with him, and take it as soon as he arrived in the past...
Harry got into the bed, settling into Draco's arms and resting his head on Draco's chest. Draco shifted, tilting Harry's head up and pulling him closer, kissing him.
To hell with sleep.
"Erm... what are you doing?" murmured Harry between kisses.
"If I have to explain it to you," Draco chuckled, "then maybe we should stop--"
"You’re supposed to rest," said Harry, pulling back a bit.
"I'm supposed to do something that’ll make me feel better," Draco countered. "What do you think I'm doing?"
Harry chuckled and kissed him back. "I'm just thinking maybe this isn't the time."
Draco blew out his breath. "Harry. We won't have any other time."
"Maybe I'd rather not think about that."
"Would you rather go and have a drink? Stay good and numb until I'm gone?"
"Thanks, Draco," said Harry, his voice low.
Draco pulled away and sat up, turning his back on Harry.
"Maybe I don't want to think about the fact that you may not be alive in a few hours, if what you're doing doesn't work," said Harry, behind him. "Maybe... maybe I don't want to think about the fact that I may not be, if you manage to correct history. Or that we may both survive, but have no memory of the last four years."
Draco heaved a sigh. "I know."
Harry put a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Please, just... lie down. We can do whatever you want."
"As long as it doesn't involve talking," said Draco, and Harry laughed.
"D'you remember when we first started dating?" he asked.
"Vaguely," said Draco.
"Remember Hermione said she could never understand how relationships between two men could ever work, since men were so pathetic at communication and having two men more than doubled the difficulty?"
Draco chuckled. "Granger's always been too smart for comfort," he said. He turned around and gave Harry a kiss. "We haven't done that badly, have we?" he asked quietly.
Harry's eyes abruptly filled with tears, and Draco pulled him close and pressed a line of soft kisses down his cheek and towards his ear, pretending he hadn't seen.
"I'm sorry," Harry whispered. "I'm sorry for... the last four years."
"They weren't so bad," said Draco, nibbling on Harry's earlobe.
"They weren't always so good," said Harry.
"It hasn't been all you," said Draco. "Besides, it doesn't matter. We've got right now, and right now's pretty good."
"I--"
He stopped Harry's lips with his own. Words weren't necessary. They didn't have anything to talk about. And they'd never been any good at talking. Just at avoiding, and fighting.
He lay back on the bed, drawing Harry down with him, and tried not to think about just how long it had been since the last time they'd shared a bed as more than a sleeping space, with sex confined to the occasional fuck on the couch or against a wall.
Harry lay on top of him, covering him and gently biting the side of his neck, and Draco shivered. He moved them onto their sides, and then slowly unbuttoned Harry's shirt and ran his hands over Harry's chest. So strong, so familiar, so scarred. There was the one from the raid on the old McNair estate. The one from fighting an enraged centaur. The long sinuous whip-like one from the Slashing Ivy, that wended down from his ribs across his stomach to his pelvis -- the only one that Harry had had covered, with a glittering tattoo of a silver snake.
He left a trail of kisses down Harry's chest to the tattoo, then licked his way down the curving snake the way that always got Harry hissing in Parseltongue. The actual appearance of the snake still filled Draco with ambivalence; Harry claimed it was a Slytherin thing and a sort of peace-offering to Draco for being a shit in school, but somehow it always reminded Draco of Voldemort's murderous pet. The effects of the tattoo, however, were very definitely worth the appearance.
Draco felt himself hardening as Harry's neck arched back and his mouth dropped open and a hiss came from his lips. He touched Draco's hair, gently stroking it, and Draco took Harry higher, and higher, and Harry moaned and hissed and trembled under him, and how was Draco going to live without this? Even if they didn't always have much to talk about, even if some days their flat seemed more like a Truce House than a home, even if this kind of thing happened less and less often because they were better at numbing themselves than facing each other, how could he say goodbye to this?
"Stop, I'm too close," whispered Harry. He put a hand under Draco's chin and pulled him up, kissing him with all the passion they'd first discovered in one another so many years ago, when they'd found each other in the middle of all of Harry's confusion over his Weasley girl and Draco's uncertainty over his own future in a post-Voldemort world and all the chaos of the Wizarding world teetering on the brink of disintegration. Some days it seemed they'd disintegrated along with everything else. Some days it seemed they were the only thing that hadn't fallen apart.
Harry ended their kiss and turned them over, undressing Draco slowly, caressing him gently, teasing him with lips and tongue and teeth.
"Merlin, you are too good at that," Draco sighed.
And now Harry's tongue was doing wicked things to him, and he was quickly losing the plot. This was better than Morph. Better than Gilly. Better than anything.
And they were running out of time. Much as he wanted to prolong this until the next week...
He took a deep breath and pulled Harry over him. "Please. I want you," he said, and parted his thighs in invitation.
Harry's eyebrows rose, but he murmured a spell and reached down, stroking Draco with the lube he'd just conjured. Gently, almost too gently and slowly, and Draco just let himself feel all the care that Harry couldn't express in words, all the love they never talked about.
"Now. Please," Draco whispered. Harry moved over him and he tensed, as always a bit uneasy when he wasn't topping. He forced himself to relax, reminding himself to see this as joining, and not an intrusion.
And then they were joined, their bodies together as their minds could never seem to be for long. Harry took Draco's hands in his, lacing their fingers together, and nuzzled his neck as he started to thrust harder, his rhythm speeding, pushing Draco higher, setting them both on fire. Harry was holding him, keeping him safe, and Draco was pushing him to go faster, harder, holding on to him with all he had, wishing this moment could last forever, and then Harry tensed and gave a small cry, and Draco followed, his entire being shaking with the force of his release.
1.8 Truce House, Nexus plus 7 years 23 days
"Draco?" Severus’s voice at the door was uncharacteristically gentle, but Draco wasn’t really asleep.
He took a deep breath and turned on his side, where Harry lay watching him.
"Time to go," he said. "And I’ll see you in seven years."
Harry’s eyes were shadowed. "I suspect if you’re right, I’ll never see you again."
He stood and started to get dressed, handing Draco his glasses and clothing. They left the bedroom and went back into the Truce conference room. The Sieve had been placed in the centre of the room.
"I think it should be safe, sending you back now," said Granger nervously. "Your younger self is doing a detention with Snape, and there should be nobody in the corridor just outside of the Room of Requirement. You step in while we surround the Sieve with Time Magic." She handed him a bag. "We also thought you might need a few supplies -- some of your research, some food, that kind of thing. Harry said you should also take his Cloak."
Draco nodded and took out his wand. Severus, Granger and Patil took out theirs and stood around the Sieve, and as each one cast a wordless spell, a warm yellow light surrounded the bowl.
"Somehow I can’t quite believe you’re doing this," said Harry, his voice hollow.
"I have to," said Draco.
Harry took him in his arms. "Yes, you do." He touched Draco’s lips with his own. "I love you. Goodbye."
It was just like when he'd stepped into the Cabinet. The fear and desperation, the knowledge that he just might end up dead at the end of this trip, but there was no choice.
Draco stepped back, took a deep breath, and stepped into the Sieve.
Link to Part Ia (Previous)
Link to Part IIa (Next)
Link to Part IIb
Link to Part IIc
Link to Part IId
Summary: Harry and Draco learn that Time is making fools of them again. And then they learn it... again.
Rating: R
Warning(s): Drug use, general confusion.
Epilogue compliant? That's a good question!
Word Count: ~39K
"And that is what has caused time to go badly?" said Severus. "To diverge and keep diverging until now there are numerous cracks in time, and they are becoming larger and more frequent?"
"That's what we believe," said Granger. "Something that happened on that day and in that place. You must admit, it probably counts as a cornerstone of history."
McGonagall sighed heavily. "All right, then. Do we have any solutions?"
"Yes," said Draco. He nodded at Granger and Patil. Time to explain this, and make it palatable.
"There are two possible solutions that Geschichte wrote about," said Patil. "The first is what she called 'patching'. It's like patching a house; the weakness is seen, patched, and the house remains as it was. Time is solid again."
"And how do you do that?" asked McGonagall.
"Geschichte believed that if temporal divergence occurred, it might be possible to develop a way to compare an original timeline to an altered one, and try to weave a spell that would fix the cracks in the altered one. It’s not clear whether the spell would somehow make the new timeline stronger, or bring it closer to the original timeline. Hermione and Malfoy and I decided I would do the research into this area, and what I've found looks promising. I think it's doable. Possible, even."
McGonagall frowned. "But what could you possibly do now, seven years after that date, to bring us closer to what the original timeline would have been?"
"It’s impossible," said Fred.
"Not impossible," said Patil. "Not according to Geschichte. And she knew more about Time Magic than anyone else."
"You still don’t exactly sound reassuring," said Harry.
"To be honest... we’re not enthused about it," admitted Granger. "It looks a bit like trying to mend a ripped cloth when you’re running out of thread--"
"Loathe though I am to interrupt your brilliant presentation," said Severus. "Is time a house, a horseshoe, a butterfly’s wing, or a piece of cloth?"
"It’s all of those, and none of them," said Granger patiently. "We speak in confusing images because we don’t have the proper vocabulary for discussions relating to the fabric of time. It’s like trying to explain ‘sweet’ when you’ve never had a sense of taste at all. Would you describe it as a sort of a soft, high sound on your tongue? Or like a reddish colour? Like silk?"
"The point is," said Draco, "patching doesn’t look terribly promising. Like patching a hole in a wall when you’re not sure you have enough nails. And the problem is that I don’t think the house can be saved," said Draco. "It’s falling apart, and I don’t think we can patch it. It’s time to either put back the stone that was taken off, or patch extensively, and I very much doubt we will have time to do enough research to figure out what Geschichte herself hadn’t fully explored, figure out how to detect the cracks, and how to patch them, before our time runs out and the Disappearances destroy everything."
"Do you have a Plan B?" asked Moody.
"We have a Plan A, actually," said Granger.
"What is it?"
"Somebody has to go back in time, to the Nexus," said Granger. "And fix whatever happened."
"What do you mean?" asked Moody.
"Go back in time and make events happen properly. The way they should have."
"The problem is," said Patil, "that if we put back that one stone, the rest of the house will not be how we know it."
"Might be better than having it collapse all about us," said Moody. "So you think we can send someone to the past, and that would fix the paradoxes?"
"If nothing else, it might bring back the people who’ve died in this pointless war," said Arthur.
"You’re admitting it’s pointless, are you now, Arthur?" said Moody.
"It’s always been pointless," said George. "If you lot would stop attacking us, the war would stop."
"If you lot stopped behaving like you belong in St. Mungo’s Idiot Ward, the war would stop," shot back Fred.
"What do you think of patching?" Arthur asked Granger, giving his sons a pained look.
"I have to agree with Malfoy," said Granger. "I don’t think it’ll work. Padma’s good. Very good. And if she says she can come up with a spell to help us figure out how to patch, I believe her. But..."
"But I can’t say when it’ll happen," Patil admitted. "I don’t know how long it would take to perfect it. I don’t know how many people would be involved doing the patches, and whether it might not just make things even worse."
"And in the meanwhile, we do have some idea -- theoretically at least -- of how to travel back in time," said Granger, "and fix this at its source."
"I’m assuming we’re all thinking this means somebody would have to save Albus Dumbledore," said McGonagall.
"Wait, how do you know it was actually Dumbledore’s fall that day that caused everything to go wrong, though?" said Ron.
"Do you doubt that he would have made a difference if he’d still been able to lead us?"
"That’s not what I’m asking," said Ron. "I mean -- the progress of the war aside -- what if the Nexus wasn’t Dumbledore’s fall, but something entirely different that happened that day? Who knows -- maybe it was a house elf who was tricked into picking up a sock that day and its freedom changed everything."
"I think we need to study this more," said Arthur.
"We’re running out of time to study it," said Granger. "The Nexus is approaching. Soon it may be too late."
"What d’you mean?"
"Draco has a Sieve opened to the days before Dumbledore’s fall, but the day of that event is approaching."
"Then make another Sieve open to an earlier time, then. Buy us time."
"I’m not sure I can," said Draco. "It’s bloody difficult to make a Sieve. I’ve only been able to do it four times, after a lot of effort, almost a year’s worth in each case. And while I faff about with that, the fractures continue to increase."
Silence.
"Well," said Kingsley Shacklebolt, "assuming we do decide to send someone back to fix this, who'll go? And how will they come back to the present?"
Draco shook his head. "Whoever goes can’t come back," he said. "We have no way of returning. Whoever it was would be going back in time seven years, and would have to wait until now to meet everyone again."
Harry stared at him. "And what happens to the rest of us, when the past had been fixed?"
"Seven years," said Moody. "A lot could change in seven years. If Albus hadn’t fallen that night... who knows what any of us would be doing right now."
George nodded, brooding. "A lot of things might have turned out very different."
"Some people who died might not have," said Fred. "Like Neville Longbottom. And Colin Creevey."
"And some who are alive now might not be," said Moody.
"That’s worth considering," said McGonagall. "What if Albus Dumbledore’s salvation could prevent the Schisms, but kill off individuals? What if certain people who are alive now died in that timeline, because of Dumbledore?"
"We’re talking about time itself breaking down here," said Harry, annoyed. "That affects all of us. It’s already making people disappear, and the disappearances are speeding up. So what if saving Dumbledore killed individuals?" He paused. "Even if I knew it would kill me, I would still vote for it, in a heartbeat, if that meant the rest of you could be safe."
"How very noble of you," sneered Lucius.
"He’d do it, too," said Ron.
"He’s still holding on to his pathetic fantasy about having to be the one to kill the Dark Lord," snapped Lucius. "His willingness to engage in pointless heroics has nothing to do with saving us and everything to do with his narcissistic need to be The Chosen One."
"Who’s talking narcissism, Malfoy?" Ron snapped back. "You’re only disagreeing with him so you can--"
"Weasley. Malfoy. Enough," said McGonagall impatiently, and both men bristled but closed their mouths. Draco had an uncanny flashback to the many times she’d said those exact same words in Transfigurations class. It felt a little unreal, having his father step into Draco’s place.
"He wouldn’t be going," said Draco. "I would."
Beside him, his mother uttered a small sound of dismay. Lucius’s eyes widened slightly before he got his expression under control.
"You said it was only theoretical," said Draco’s mother. "You... why would you go yourself?"
"For one thing, it’s my Sieve, showing me my own past," said Draco. "It’s familiar territory. Anyone else would have to try to remember what they were doing at that time, and extrapolate where they would likely be. It would be much easier for me."
"And although nobody’s done it yet -- that we know of -- Padma and Draco and I have been doing some preliminary research on this," said Granger. "And I’m fairly sure I’ve worked out a few of the uncertainties Draco had been unable to deal with. He should be able to do it."
"And you trust her?" said Lucius, addressing Draco for the first time in years. His father's face was slightly paler than usual, Draco noted. Was Lucius actually concerned for his safety?
"Yes," said Draco.
"A Muggle-born?" Lucius's lip curled with a sneer.
"I trust her too," said Ron quickly.
"As do I," said McGonagall. Bill Weasley and Padma Patil nodded their agreement.
"So Lucius, your entire group's going against you," smirked George. "Not too happy with having let Muggle-loving members into your little club now, are you? No matter how pureblooded they are, blood treason shows, doesn’t it?"
"This has nothing to do with blood treason and everything to do with logic and rationality," said McGonagall.
"Which you brave little rebels could stand getting acquainted with," said Fred.
"George, please," said Arthur, putting a hand on his son’s arm as George opened his mouth for a retort. "How soon do you estimate somebody would have to travel?"
"To get to the past with any hope of influencing the Nexus? Less than two weeks. To prevent time from breaking down beyond repair? Less than six months."
"How long does it take to make a Time Sieve?"
"About six months or so."
"So, really, whoever it is would have to travel back in less than two weeks."
"Yes."
"Those are all estimates," said Lucius. "You’re engaging in fear-mongering worthy of the Order. Not surprising, considering who is assisting you." He glanced at Granger.
Arthur Weasley pressed his lips together and ignored him. "I think it’s worth getting more information. Hermione, please consider this your highest priority. Take whoever you need to help you."
"What if we come back with proof? Proof that going back in time is what we need to do in order to stop these rips from happening?"
"Then we shall decide what to do," said Lucius.
"Who is ‘we’?" asked Granger. "This group?"
"We are here, we are representatives from all three factions," said McGonagall. "And we will need the resources of all three factions to figure out how to do this and carry it out."
"This doesn’t just touch us, though," said Arthur.
"Well, I’m sorry that we can’t bring in wizard representatives from outside the British Isles--" Lucius said sarcastically.
"Not just that. It affects the Muggle world."
"I can tell you for certain that the Muggle world would want to change," said Granger. "They’re the ones suffering the most. Not that the rest of you care," she said, giving Ron a scathing glance.
Oh, lovely, thought Draco, and sat back to watch the bloodletting as the three factions began to tear into each other. Once he would have been thrilled to see this kind of thing -- infighting among enemies. Now it just made him sad.
He wished for some Gilly or Morph. Automatically checked his hands. Good. No freckles. He sighed and sent his thoughts ahead, out of this room with its bickering representatives, back to his lab and his Sieve, and his need to do something, anything, to make the crawling anxiety die down.
"I simply don't see this as the responsible thing to do right away," Arthur was saying a while later. "We don't know enough."
"We know that the timeline is cracking," said Granger. "Those blank spots--"
"Can you prove that it's due to this change in the past?"
"I can't prove it, no--" said Granger.
"But we are running out of time," said Patil. "Look, all three of us believe it's happened."
"What will happen to us, if Dumbledore is saved?" asked Lucius.
"We don't know," admitted Patil.
"Look, I was a friend of Dumbledore's," said Arthur. "I would love to be able to see him strong and healthy again, but--"
"But the fact is that the man was already dying before that night," Snape said impatiently. "You know that. He would have had less than a year of life left anyway."
"He could have used that year to--" began Harry.
"Could have doesn't matter," said Snape.
"No, what could have happened doesn't matter," George said impatiently. "What matter is that whatever it was, it should have happened."
"Would you still say that if in this supposedly intact timeline, you died?" said Lucius. "Or been permanently injured or maimed, or driven mad?"
"Typical Slytherin cowardice, looking out for nobody but yourself," said Harry, and Draco rolled his eyes.
"Think we're done here," said Moody, cutting off the bickering that was sure to follow. "We're taking a vote. All in favour?"
There was a rustle of disquiet in the group, and then hands started to go up.
"Against?" Moody paused to count hands. "Abstain?" He paused again. "Right, then, six vote to go ahead, four against, five abstentions."
"We do nothing, then," said Draco, feeling ill. "Albus Dumbledore tumbles down the Astronomy Tower, and I'll get to watch it in my Sieve in thirteen more days. Any of you feel like witnessing it yourselves, by all means come and take a look on that day."
"The Nexus is in less than a day," said Draco thirteen days later. "And my father will not allow us to do anything about it." He looked around at the small group of glum, exhausted people who had gathered at the Truce House.
Patil sighed. "Look, I can keep trying, I’m pretty sure we can still get the delegates to--"
"They’ll never agree," said Granger. "They will discuss to death what all of this means, and by the time they’ve made sense of it, it’ll be too late."
"It won't do any good," Draco agreed wearily. How fucking infuriating. Lucius had always been a piss-poor father -- Draco could understand that now as he hadn't been able to as a child -- and in the last few years since the Schisms had not said a single word to him or to Mother, but in this circumstance Draco couldn't say for sure that it wasn't belated paternal concern fuelling his obstructionism. What bloody awful timing. "My father won't budge."
"And McGonagall's too close to losing control of the Wiltshire Faction to the Death Eaters as it is. She can't keep fighting him," said Ron Weasley. "And he’s got my father, of all people, convinced that we 'need more information' before making any rash decisions."
"And Moody doesn’t trust me or my research," said Draco. "And he doesn’t trust Harry with anything that has to do with me, and hasn't trusted Granger since she went underground with the Order, and--" He stopped himself. "There’s no point in discussing this any longer. We will not be able to get everyone to agree, or even to carry a majority vote. But this isn’t a democracy, and we don’t actually need their approval."
"I can’t believe I’m saying this," said Granger, "but you’re right. I can’t convince Arthur, and I hate to go against him, but..."
"You are sure that the Nexus concentrates on Fenrir Greyback, then?" said Severus.
"Padma confirmed it," Granger nodded. "The fracture lines concentrate on both him and Dumbledore, on the Tower. Unfortunately..."
Patil stepped in. "Unfortunately there’s a slight complication. We’ve found it’s not just one focal point or Nexus."
"The others aren’t as big, though," said Draco quickly to the disheartened group. "And it’s quite possible that if we deal with the big one, the others will disappear."
"But it still muddies the water a bit," said Granger.
"What are the other disturbances?" asked Severus.
"We’ve now found a number of different possible alterations to the timeline at that general point in the past," said Patil. "The biggest and most obvious is of course Dumbledore’s fall, but there were two others in the Room of Requirement that day, then at the old Black Family mansion the next day, then Gringott’s a few days later, and the Forest of Dean where Voldemort and Nagini were killed a few weeks after that."
"You know, that's probably the answer to the Great Horcrux Mystery," Harry mused, and Severus's eyebrows went up.
"The what?" asked Patil.
"Nothing, never mind, it’s utterly irrelevant," said Granger. "And has nothing to do with Dumbledore." Patil still looked uncertain. "It’s nothing, only we’d thought there were some objects that Voldemort had that helped protect his life, and we thought they’d have to be eliminated before he died. We believe there were four of them left around the time of the Nexus, one of them probably being Nagini herself. The disturbances may have been somebody getting rid of them."
"And killing Voldemort himself?" asked Patil.
"Maybe," said Granger. "It’s hard to tell, though. The main Nexus is still the Tower."
"So the general assumption," said Harry, "is that whoever goes back--"
"That would be me, Harry," Draco said.
"Whoever goes back," repeated Harry, not looking at Draco, "has to somehow prevent Fenrir Greyback from getting onto that Tower. The files I got from the Ministry’s inquest into that night give a fairly good estimate of where people were and when that night -- Draco, Dumbledore, and me, that is. We never figured out where Fenrir came from."
"Funny to think another great mystery’s most probably now been explained," mused Granger. "In that he came from the future."
"Fenrir Greyback, history’s first Chrononaut," said Draco with a grimace. "And who goes back is not up for discussion. I have the Ministry’s information and I know what I was doing that day. At least I’m unlikely to meet myself."
"We don’t know, though, how Greyback got to the Tower," Granger pointed out. "Nobody did, since he had the decency to fall off with Dumbledore and not linger on."
"I only have to stop him, then go to the other places at the times we have written and make sure there’s no other interference. I’ll have Harry’s Invisibility Cloak--"
"That’s it?" said Harry. "What if whoever else came back has other stuff? Things that can see through my Cloak? A powerful Charm?"
"Why don't you monitor the Sieve, then," said Draco reasonably. "And if they end up having, say, the Elder Wand itself, then you can come back in time to save me."
"The what wand?" said Granger.
"Old children's story, wand that can’t be beaten," said Draco impatiently. "You’ll be watching--"
"We don’t know what’ll happen when - if you go back, though, do we?" said Harry. "Do we wink out of existence the moment you step back? Do we--"
"Harry, we can’t keep arguing about this forever. Somebody has to go. That somebody has to be me. I have to stop Fenrir Greyback."
"No Fenrir, no push," said Patil.
"No push, no broken Dumbledore," said Granger.
"Loathe as I am to bring this harmony up at this late point in time," said Severus, "just how exactly do you know that it wasn’t Dumbledore’s death that was prevented? Maybe in the original timeline, he didn’t just fall from the Tower, but actually died."
"Fenrir Greyback, coming back in time to save Dumbledore’s life?" said Draco. "Why would he do that?"
"Besides, Dumbledore was as good as dead anyway," said Patil dismissively. "Why would anyone come all the way from the future to go back in time to save Dumbledore’s life and then leave him as he was?"
"I’ve wondered about that too," said Granger. "It might have been the reason the other time disturbances happened. If they tried to save Dumbledore and couldn’t, then they tried to do something else that would be helpful to us."
"It could be the answer to the dead Death Eater mystery," said Patil. "If whoever went back in time killed all those Death Eaters."
"Maybe that's why your Vanishing Cabinet didn't work that night," Granger said Draco. "Maybe somebody disabled it before the Death Eaters could--"
Draco rolled his eyes. "Yes, thanks for that sop to my ego. I got over that years ago."
"Maybe somebody came to push Dumbledore and kill the Death Eaters," said Severus.
"Who would do that?"
"Someone wanted both Dumbledore and Voldemort out of the way. Wanted power. Wanted to play both sides against each other." He glanced at the Wiltshire Faction. "Heavens, I wonder who that might have been."
"Stuff your little looks, Snape," said Ron. "I don’t care what you think; nobody from Wiltshire would’ve wanted this. And we don't 'play both sides against each other.' It's you lot who have the monopoly on that."
"Even you must admit it doesn't make much sense that somebody would send Fenrir Greyback, or that Fenrir would send himself, back in time to push Dumbledore off the Astronomy Tower, and then go and do exactly what Dumbledore would have helped Potter to do if he'd been able to."
"We’re getting away from the point here," said Granger. "And I don’t think it’ll do us any good to start questioning whether the person who went back in time did so to push Dumbledore off the Tower or save him."
"I don’t think we are getting away from the point," said Harry. "Because the point is, there may have been more than one Chrononaut."
"If there were, there's not a lot we can do about that," said Granger.
"We could send more than one Chrononaut back, too."
"Not a chance," said Draco flatly. "We risk making everything even worse."
"Draco--"
"I said no," said Draco.
Harry glared at him but, then pressed his lips together before trying another tack. "All right then, what happens if you go back?" he asked. "You save Dumbledore, and then what?" He paused. "How do you come back?"
"Harry, we told you, there’s no way to travel forward in time," said Patil gently.
"Thought you might've worked on something," Harry muttered, turning away from her. "What with all the scurrying back and forth in the past two weeks and making exciting discoveries and all."
"Besides, this future won’t even exist," said Granger, oblivious to the strained silence between Harry and Draco. "It will turn into a future where Dumbledore lived and helped Harry find the Horcruxes and then kill Voldemort."
"It’ll still be a contaminated timeline, though," said Harry.
"It’ll be as uncontaminated as possible," said Draco patiently.
"You’ll still be in it."
"I don't know about that. I may disappear in a puff of temporal logic. In any case, the method I’m using to travel back isn’t the same as the one Geschichte described in her initial works. So assuming whoever went back used her method and that’s why they changed history, I think my actions will simply dovetail into how history should have happened. Fix it all."
"Am I the only one who thinks there’re an awful lot of assumptions there?" asked Harry.
"Not really," Granger admitted. "But we're really not sure there’s any other choice."
Patil cleared her throat. "There’s another small elephant in the room that we’re all ignoring."
"Which is?" asked Harry.
"Well, say he saves Dumbledore. History goes on as it should."
"Yeah?"
"Including the part where, some years later, someone, probably Greyback, goes into the past and pushes Dumbledore off the Tower. Again."
"Oh god," groaned Harry.
"And it all goes wrong," said Patil. "Again."
"Mental," said Ron.
"Possible," said Severus.
"And I’m not sure we have enough information to speculate as to what will happen if--"
"All right, enough," Harry interrupted her. "We don’t have all the information we need, and we don’t know what’s going to happen, and we don’t have the authority to do anything about it. But we’ve run out of time to get any of that." Harry cleared his throat. "Fine, Draco. If you want to go, go."
Draco blinked. "Really?"
"Really."
Draco frowned, disconcerted by the speed of Harry's about-face.
"You like a mystery," said Harry. "Well, here’s loads of them -- the great mysteries of what the hell happened to the Horcruxes, what happened to the Death Eaters, and how did Voldemort die even though I had bugger-all to do with it..." and his voice caught.
Draco looked away.
Harry cleared his throat again. "So, you’re going. I assume every minute counts?" he asked Granger, who nodded, her eyes filled with compassion.
"Well, you can’t go right this moment," said Harry. "You’re exhausted, you’re irritable... you haven’t had any Morph in a little too long..."
Granger’s eyebrows went up.
"Don’t tell me you didn’t know," said Harry.
She traded a glance with Severus. "I’d had my suspicions," she said. "We both have. I have some in my purse, you know."
"Trust a member of the Banned Order to carry Morphmagus Potion in her purse," said Harry.
"You’re not going to arrest me for it, are you?" she said, giving him a small smile.
Harry shook his head.
"Well, I can either take some or sleep, not both," said Draco.
"Go rest, then, Malfoy," said Granger. "Padma and I will finish our work, make sure the incantations are right so we don't send you back in time and have you arrive in mid-air without a broom."
"Thanks." Draco stood, feeling a bit unreal, and headed for the bedrooms set aside for Truce meetings that went too long.
"Harry," said Granger. "Go with him."
Draco blinked.
"Go," said Ron. "You’ve got three hours. Get some sleep."
"Or do... whatever it is you need to do to get ready," said Patil innocently. Draco noticed Ron’s slight blanch and sniggered.
Harry followed Draco into the small Ministry bedroom, expanding the single bed into a double, and turned down the bedcovers. Draco took off his glasses, got into the bed, and pulled the covers around himself. It was so cold, and he was so tired. And he needed Morph, so much. He rubbed at his scar.
Good old Morph. He hadn't grown dependent on it for its pain-relieving and muscle-relaxant properties; those had merely been a happy side-effect. The real dependence came from the fact that the twinges from his scars, while not terribly painful, always reminded him that he'd once been mauled by a bloody great werewolf, on one of the worst days of his life, and that he could have died -- or worse, become a werewolf himself.
Damnation. Maybe he should've taken Granger up on her offer. He tilted his head from side to side, trying to get rid of the discomfort, knowing that what he needed the most right now was sleep and Morph wouldn't help with that. It tended to energize rather than sedate. Maybe he'd take some with him, and take it as soon as he arrived in the past...
Harry got into the bed, settling into Draco's arms and resting his head on Draco's chest. Draco shifted, tilting Harry's head up and pulling him closer, kissing him.
To hell with sleep.
"Erm... what are you doing?" murmured Harry between kisses.
"If I have to explain it to you," Draco chuckled, "then maybe we should stop--"
"You’re supposed to rest," said Harry, pulling back a bit.
"I'm supposed to do something that’ll make me feel better," Draco countered. "What do you think I'm doing?"
Harry chuckled and kissed him back. "I'm just thinking maybe this isn't the time."
Draco blew out his breath. "Harry. We won't have any other time."
"Maybe I'd rather not think about that."
"Would you rather go and have a drink? Stay good and numb until I'm gone?"
"Thanks, Draco," said Harry, his voice low.
Draco pulled away and sat up, turning his back on Harry.
"Maybe I don't want to think about the fact that you may not be alive in a few hours, if what you're doing doesn't work," said Harry, behind him. "Maybe... maybe I don't want to think about the fact that I may not be, if you manage to correct history. Or that we may both survive, but have no memory of the last four years."
Draco heaved a sigh. "I know."
Harry put a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Please, just... lie down. We can do whatever you want."
"As long as it doesn't involve talking," said Draco, and Harry laughed.
"D'you remember when we first started dating?" he asked.
"Vaguely," said Draco.
"Remember Hermione said she could never understand how relationships between two men could ever work, since men were so pathetic at communication and having two men more than doubled the difficulty?"
Draco chuckled. "Granger's always been too smart for comfort," he said. He turned around and gave Harry a kiss. "We haven't done that badly, have we?" he asked quietly.
Harry's eyes abruptly filled with tears, and Draco pulled him close and pressed a line of soft kisses down his cheek and towards his ear, pretending he hadn't seen.
"I'm sorry," Harry whispered. "I'm sorry for... the last four years."
"They weren't so bad," said Draco, nibbling on Harry's earlobe.
"They weren't always so good," said Harry.
"It hasn't been all you," said Draco. "Besides, it doesn't matter. We've got right now, and right now's pretty good."
"I--"
He stopped Harry's lips with his own. Words weren't necessary. They didn't have anything to talk about. And they'd never been any good at talking. Just at avoiding, and fighting.
He lay back on the bed, drawing Harry down with him, and tried not to think about just how long it had been since the last time they'd shared a bed as more than a sleeping space, with sex confined to the occasional fuck on the couch or against a wall.
Harry lay on top of him, covering him and gently biting the side of his neck, and Draco shivered. He moved them onto their sides, and then slowly unbuttoned Harry's shirt and ran his hands over Harry's chest. So strong, so familiar, so scarred. There was the one from the raid on the old McNair estate. The one from fighting an enraged centaur. The long sinuous whip-like one from the Slashing Ivy, that wended down from his ribs across his stomach to his pelvis -- the only one that Harry had had covered, with a glittering tattoo of a silver snake.
He left a trail of kisses down Harry's chest to the tattoo, then licked his way down the curving snake the way that always got Harry hissing in Parseltongue. The actual appearance of the snake still filled Draco with ambivalence; Harry claimed it was a Slytherin thing and a sort of peace-offering to Draco for being a shit in school, but somehow it always reminded Draco of Voldemort's murderous pet. The effects of the tattoo, however, were very definitely worth the appearance.
Draco felt himself hardening as Harry's neck arched back and his mouth dropped open and a hiss came from his lips. He touched Draco's hair, gently stroking it, and Draco took Harry higher, and higher, and Harry moaned and hissed and trembled under him, and how was Draco going to live without this? Even if they didn't always have much to talk about, even if some days their flat seemed more like a Truce House than a home, even if this kind of thing happened less and less often because they were better at numbing themselves than facing each other, how could he say goodbye to this?
"Stop, I'm too close," whispered Harry. He put a hand under Draco's chin and pulled him up, kissing him with all the passion they'd first discovered in one another so many years ago, when they'd found each other in the middle of all of Harry's confusion over his Weasley girl and Draco's uncertainty over his own future in a post-Voldemort world and all the chaos of the Wizarding world teetering on the brink of disintegration. Some days it seemed they'd disintegrated along with everything else. Some days it seemed they were the only thing that hadn't fallen apart.
Harry ended their kiss and turned them over, undressing Draco slowly, caressing him gently, teasing him with lips and tongue and teeth.
"Merlin, you are too good at that," Draco sighed.
And now Harry's tongue was doing wicked things to him, and he was quickly losing the plot. This was better than Morph. Better than Gilly. Better than anything.
And they were running out of time. Much as he wanted to prolong this until the next week...
He took a deep breath and pulled Harry over him. "Please. I want you," he said, and parted his thighs in invitation.
Harry's eyebrows rose, but he murmured a spell and reached down, stroking Draco with the lube he'd just conjured. Gently, almost too gently and slowly, and Draco just let himself feel all the care that Harry couldn't express in words, all the love they never talked about.
"Now. Please," Draco whispered. Harry moved over him and he tensed, as always a bit uneasy when he wasn't topping. He forced himself to relax, reminding himself to see this as joining, and not an intrusion.
And then they were joined, their bodies together as their minds could never seem to be for long. Harry took Draco's hands in his, lacing their fingers together, and nuzzled his neck as he started to thrust harder, his rhythm speeding, pushing Draco higher, setting them both on fire. Harry was holding him, keeping him safe, and Draco was pushing him to go faster, harder, holding on to him with all he had, wishing this moment could last forever, and then Harry tensed and gave a small cry, and Draco followed, his entire being shaking with the force of his release.
"Draco?" Severus’s voice at the door was uncharacteristically gentle, but Draco wasn’t really asleep.
He took a deep breath and turned on his side, where Harry lay watching him.
"Time to go," he said. "And I’ll see you in seven years."
Harry’s eyes were shadowed. "I suspect if you’re right, I’ll never see you again."
He stood and started to get dressed, handing Draco his glasses and clothing. They left the bedroom and went back into the Truce conference room. The Sieve had been placed in the centre of the room.
"I think it should be safe, sending you back now," said Granger nervously. "Your younger self is doing a detention with Snape, and there should be nobody in the corridor just outside of the Room of Requirement. You step in while we surround the Sieve with Time Magic." She handed him a bag. "We also thought you might need a few supplies -- some of your research, some food, that kind of thing. Harry said you should also take his Cloak."
Draco nodded and took out his wand. Severus, Granger and Patil took out theirs and stood around the Sieve, and as each one cast a wordless spell, a warm yellow light surrounded the bowl.
"Somehow I can’t quite believe you’re doing this," said Harry, his voice hollow.
"I have to," said Draco.
Harry took him in his arms. "Yes, you do." He touched Draco’s lips with his own. "I love you. Goodbye."
It was just like when he'd stepped into the Cabinet. The fear and desperation, the knowledge that he just might end up dead at the end of this trip, but there was no choice.
Draco stepped back, took a deep breath, and stepped into the Sieve.
Link to Part Ia (Previous)
Link to Part IIa (Next)
Link to Part IIb
Link to Part IIc
Link to Part IId
