Chapter 6
The rest of the week went by uneventfully, and Harry found he felt lighter knowing he wasn’t alone in the universe. Well, this universe.
On Friday, he watched the map religiously, keeping an eye out for Malfoy. Around 10 pm, he saw him approach the portrait hole. Harry opened it before he could knock.
“Welcome,” he said.
“That’s creepy,” Malfoy replied, entering the common room and taking a judgemental look around.
Ron and Hermione were waiting for them by the fire, under a Muffliato.
“Hi Draco,” Hermione greeted him with a polite smile.
“No, that’s creepy,” Harry muttered.
“Granger, Weasley,” Malfoy nodded warily to them. He took the only available seat, next to Harry.
“So, Potter tells me you know…that you know.”
“Yeah, we know. About Harry…but how do we know you’re who you say you are…or that you’re even from the same timeline as him?” Ron questioned.
Hermione looked to Harry. “That’s a good point. How did you know he wasn’t from here, Harry?”
Harry shifted uncomfortably in his seat, rubbing the back of his neck. “He had scars,” he mumbled.
“Scars? Oh, like yours that didn’t go away you mean? How do you know he didn’t have them here too?”
“Um…because I gave them to him.”
Harry wasn’t sure how much to share, given how uncomfortable Malfoy also looked.
After an awkward silence, Malfoy rolled his eyes and opened the top few buttons of his shirt. “They’re scars from an illegal unregistered curse that Potter used on me without knowing what it would do.” Seemingly for balance, he added, “If he hadn’t it’s entirely possible I would have crucio’d him.”
Harry winced. “I mean probably not though, you know, since you were crying alone in the girls’ lavatory…” he trailed off at Hermione’s horrified expression and at Malfoy’s glare.
Harry and Malfoy proceeded to answer questions from Ron and Hermione about events in their timeline, to make sure they matched. When they were satisfied, Harry prodded them to get on with the plan.
“This might be more difficult than we thought…” Hermione said, sharing an anxious look with Ron.
“What? What do you mean?” Harry asked. “How does this affect the plan? We needed a way to get rid of Malfoy, but now we don’t have to. He can help.”
“Get rid of me?”
“Yeah, the you from here,” he explained. “Nevermind it doesn’t matter. What’s the problem?”
“Well for starters, this one’s a death eater,” Ron said, gesturing to Malfoy.
Malfoy stiffened.
“We’ll need assurances that you won’t betray us,” Harry confirmed, turning towards him.
“I don’t know if assurances are enough…” Hermione piped in, biting her lip.
“What do you want? An unbreakable vow?” Malfoy scoffed.
“I mean…” Ron seemed to mull it over.
“Ron,” Harry warned. “We’re not going to force you into anything, Malfoy” he said firmly. The blond just continued to glare at him.
”Draco,” Harry sighed, risking a light touch to his left forearm. “You literally wished yourself into a different universe. A different life. Do you really want to go back to all that?”
Malfoy looked at Harry’s hand on his arm but said nothing.
“I know you recognized me at the manor,” Harry said, quieter. “We both know why you were crying in the loo. And I…I can’t tell you how but I’ve seen things, I know you lowered your wand on the astronomy tower. What seeing him torture people — being forced to torture people did to you.”
“You made a mistake, yeah,” Harry gave Malfoy’s arm a quick squeeze. “But you’re being given a chance to choose differently.”
Malfoy tore his arm away from Harry’s grasp and created some distance between them on the couch.
“I don’t need some sanctimonious speech, Potter,” he sneered. “Obviously, I did things I-I regret,” he said, giving Ron a quick glance. “But he had my parents,” Malfoy said, breathing heavily. “He lived in my house. It’s not as simple as just doing the right thing, I can’t just turn my back on my family-”
“I know,” Harry said. “I’m not asking you to. But for now, while we’re here, I need to know you won’t do anything to jeopardize this timeline, or run off and join the death eaters.”
“I won’t.” Malfoy conceded. “But I can’t make any promises beyond that.”
Harry nodded, looking back at his friends. They still didn’t seem convinced, but after a moment, they nodded back.
“Alright. Now I suppose we can let you in on the actual plan…” Harry said.
“Um about that,” Hermione interrupted. ”The whole not jeopardizing the timeline thing? I’m not sure how wise it is to tell anymore people about what’s going on here.”
“What?” Harry hissed. “Hermione, it was your idea to tell a professor! And now that we have Wormtail…”
“Wait, Wormtail is your proof?” Malfoy asked, incredulous.
“I know,” Hermione continued, ignoring Malfoy. “But I’ve been doing some reading and it seems in cases where wizards have claimed to be from different timelines, things didn’t end too well for them…Harry, in every instance the wizard disappeared without a trace. We can’t risk telling more people with all these unknowns. We don’t even know how much damage we’ve already caused just from you telling us.”
“How do you know this isn’t what’s supposed to happen?” Harry questioned, seething.
“I don’t. But without knowing for sure…You’re the one who’s used a timeturner, you know how dangerous that can be if done incorrectly,” she responded.
“When did you use a timeturner?” Malfoy asked. Harry continued on his tirade, ignoring the question. “So what do you propose we do instead?” he directed to his friends.
Hermione furrowed her brow and wrung her hands nervously. “You’re not going to like this but…I think we should let Pettigrew go.”
“Excuse me?” Harry said tightly. “You can’t be serious,” he tried, looking first at Hermione and then at Ron. Their twin expressions of guilt were answer enough.
“You’ve talked about this. You made up your minds about this already, without telling me,” Harry accused.
“He would have gotten away if we hadn’t interfered!” Hermione argued back, not denying the accusation.
“He only tried to get away because he heard me talking about the prophecy and Voldemort! We’ve already altered the timeline, Hermione,” Harry yelled in disbelief.
“We don’t know-”
“And now Malfoy’s here and we have no way of getting home, no plan. What about tomorrow? What do we tell my parents? Sirius?”
“Right, that’s the other thing,” Ron winced. “For now, we figure the best thing to do is keep up appearances…”
“What does that mean?” Malfoy asked warily. “Well?” Harry prodded when his friends said nothing.
“Look Harry, we didn't realize how…volatile your relationship to Draco was…” Hermione explained. ”But we were sort of hoping you two would keep up the couple act, just in public. It’s just, if we do — when we do find a way to send you back,” she amended, “presumably our Harry and Draco will come back too. And if we change things here while you two are…filling in for them, let’s say…I don’t know what that will mean for them when they’re back.” Harry could tell she was blinking back tears. Fuck.
He took a moment to process the absurd request.
“Absolutely not. I’ll take the unbreakable not to fuck things up any further but I’m not dating Potter,” Malfoy griped.
“That would probably be included in the unbreakable, mate,” Ron said helpfully.
Malfoy groaned. “You know what, deal’s off. You lot clearly don’t know…well, anything, apparently, so I say we go our separate ways and if one of us figures out a way out of here we can…”
“Whatever,” Harry rolled his eyes. “I’ll do it, if it means not imploding the universe,” he said standing up to go to bed, not quite sure if he meant it or if he was just being contrary.
“Well that makes one of us,” Malfoy retorted. Harry leveled a stare at him. “You promised. Literally like ten minutes ago, that you wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize this timeline,” Harry reminded him.
“That was before I knew it involved snogging you!”
“Homophobic much, Malfoy?” Harry snorted.
“I’m not that self-loathing, Potter.”
Harry raised his brows, taking in that information. “Right. So it’s just me you have a problem with.”
“Ten points to Gryffindor,” Malfoy drawled.
“Meet us in the Great Hall tomorrow morning. We leave at 10,” Harry replied without a backward glance.