Chapter 2
If you ask Harry, it’s all Draco’s fault.
Or, well, maybe that’s not strictly true, but Draco was definitely also part of the problem. Tangentially.
See, as Head Auror, there are a number of privileges that Harry is afforded, one of which being direct work with officials from the Department of Mysteries when the occasion calls for it.
Case in point: Draco.
The two of them have been working together on trying to figure out the purpose of an artifact Harry had collected during a recent case. The assailant had been hiding it inside of a hidden compartment underneath an ornate rug, something Harry had only noticed because of the protective runes carved into the wooden floarboards beneath it.
As such, it had seemed rather important. Considering it had been owned by one of the few remaining Death Eaters they’d had yet to capture, this also meant it couldn’t have been anything good.
Now having lived through its effects, Harry hates that he was right.
The implications of a Death Eater with knowledge of the future traveling into the past are bone-chilling. Imagine what might have happened, what might have changed, if Harry hadn’t found this. Imagine that their whole world changing around them and nobody would have even noticed.
It makes him shiver.
Draco eyes him as if he knows what Harry is thinking, but doesn’t say anything on the matter. It’s not like he can anyway, not with Mister Tall, Dark, and Evil himself walking them down the corridor.
And that’s another thing. Of all the times and of all the people, Harry can’t believe that it’s Tom bloody Riddle that he’s gotten stuck with.
He just knows Fate is having a laughing somewhere.
Not only that, but Harry and Draco look like they are seventeen again.
Which is to say that Draco looks like he is seventeen and Harry looks like he is fifteen, because the Dursleys did him no favors. He hopes, though, that he doesn’t have to finish going through puberty again.
That would just be cruel.
He sighs.
They had introduced themselves as Harrison Evans and Dorian Black— the unspoken implications of the latter being that Draco is a halfblood bastard from one Black or another. When Draco had grumbled about how Harry hadn’t let him keep his name, he’d done his best to communicate to other man in exasperated hand gestures that if he’d wanted to keep his name then he shouldn’t have had one that sounded so damn Pureblooded. Honestly, he should feel lucky Harry is letting him use Dorian at all. He could have been a Lionel.
Their walk rather abruptly ends as Riddle knocks on the door of the Headmaster’s office. Riddle himself seems to be about sixth year and as Harry hears the current headmaster— Dippet, he thinks— call them in, he wonders if that means Riddle’s father and grandparents are already dead at the boy’s hands.
If he’s already made his second horcrux.
It’s a grim thought.
His heart jumps as standing next to the desk, Headmaster Dippet sitting next to him, Dumbledore greets them with a pensive frown.
Nearly two decades later and he still mourns for the man. Not just the man he was, but the man Harry had wanted him to be— and everything in between.
One of the terrible things about growing older is gaining perspective that there is no such thing as purely good or purely evil, that the people who hurt you can be the same people who fill your heart with family and love. That he both loves and despairs Dumbledore in equal measure is something which has been true for most of his adult life. That, if Harry had been him, he’s not sure he would have made a different choice, is something that has only begun to haunt him recently.
Hermione says it’s unnecessary to guilt himself over something he’s never done. Ron says it’s a reflection on his own character that he hasn’t made that choice yet.
Needless to say, all of them have a complex relationship with the man.
Still, every year, they all light a candle in their windows on the day he died.
And now that man is here. Alive, but also not the person Harry once knew.
There is no long beard or lemon drops waiting on a headmaster’s desk or Fawkes fluttering up to his shoulder to caw hello.
Instead, there is auburn hair and a look in his eyes like they are two people who have never met before— which Harry supposes, from the other man’s perspective, is the truth.
Still, it hurts.
Then he remembers that Draco is standing next to him and it’s instinctive to reach an arm back. A reflex from when they were together. Almost immediately, a familiar, wand-calloused hand grips at his wrist, tight and scared in a way he knows the other man will never admit aloud.
But Harry was there for the nightmares, so there isn’t much Draco can do to hide the feelings from him.
Dumbledore is a painful subject for almost everyone involved.
Dippet clears his throat and Harry startles, shaking himself out of his daze and looking back to the headmaster.
“Tom,” Dippet says with a warm smile.
“Headmaster,” Riddle says back, equally pleasant.
Harry thinks he might just be sick. Somehow, he refrains from the instinct to vomit.
“What brings you to my office?“
“I’m afraid we have something of a situation,” Riddle gestures behind him. “These are Harrison Evans and Dorian Black. They apparated onto the Quidditch pitch nearly a quarter hour ago.”
Dippet frowns.
“But that’s impossible.”
Riddle nods.
“That’s exactly why I brought them here.”
Dippet stands up and walks over to pat Riddle on the shoulder.
“Good lad. Are either of them members of your House?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Albus?” Dippet asks.
Dumbledore shakes his head.
“I don’t recognize them either, I’m afraid.”
Harry takes a deep breath at that. Pinches his eyes shut and reminds himself this isn’t the Dumbledore he knew. Draco squeezes his palm.
He pulls together everything he remembers about the 1940s, then forces himself to open his eyes.
Forces himself not to flinch as Tom Riddle and Albus Dumbledore’s faces stare back at him.
He’s been an Auror for over ten years, dammit. This shouldn’t affect him as much as it does.
“That’s because we aren’t students,” he says. He can feel Draco’s gaze on him and he prays the man lets him take the lead. They can argue about the details later.
“And why not?”Dippet asks.
Harry keeps his gaze high, unafraid.
“We’ve been on the run.”
Dumbledore hums.
“And your parents?” He asks.
Harry allows him to look him in the eye, feels the brush of Legillimancy as it runs over the surface of his mind.
Lets it through his Occlumency shields.
“Killed.”
He directs the man to a green flash from his memories. To the sight of his parent’s graves.
Dumbledore’s lips thin.
“Grindlewald,” he murmurs. Harry allows him to draw whatever conclusions he pleases.
“Why come here?” Dippet cuts in to ask.
Harry lips twist a little, bittersweet.
He thinks back to seven years of lies, treachery, and secrets. Basilisks hidden in tunnels and horcruxes hidden behind secret doors. Three-headed dogs and deadly chess in the cellar.
Myrtle Warren. Cedric Diggory.
Kill the spare.
“Supposed to be the safest place in the wizarding world, isn’t it?” Is what he ends up saying instead. At the same time Draco says, “Where else could we have gone?”
Seems he’s finally decided that Harry shouldn’t be having all the fun.
Dumbledore and Dippet both look at them with sympathy in their eyes.
“Where did you study before?” Dippet asks.
“Our town had a small collection of tutors. All of us studied under them,” Draco says. His arms are crossed and his tone is just enough on the right side of haughty that it sounds proud.
It’s not an impossible story.
He’s met many children with similar ones on cases he’s worked in the past. After the war, especially, many families were reluctant to send their children back to Hogwarts.
The headmaster hums, fingers tapping on the top of the desk.
“You’ll have to retake your OWLs, but I see no reason you can’t study here. Albus?”
Study here?
Oh, no, he hadn’t meant to imply that the two of them wanted to go back to school. As if once wasn’t already enough.
On the other hand—
Hogwarts does have one of the most extensive libraries in the wizarding world. It’s likely either here or the Department of Mysteries— which reminds him, he should ask Draco later about what he knows on time travel.
Once what Harry is assuming is the shock wears off and the both of them start panicking about what’s actually happened, that is.
Dumbledore’s eyes twinkle that familiar twinkle at them, although there is a sadness woven about it.
“Certainly,” he says. “Let’s get you Sorted, then. We’ll have the rest figured out from there.”
He conjures a chair— actually conjures one from thin air, because he’s bloody Dumbledore.
“Do you know about Hogwarts Houses?”
They nod.
Dumbledore smiles at them. Without the full beard, it looks a little less grandfatherly, but somehow it still holds a similar comfort to the Dumbledore he remembers.
“Very good. Then, I suppose we shall commence, shan’t we?”
“Right then,” Harry says, taking a deep breath. “Would you like to do the honors Dra—Dorian?”
Draco huffs but steps forward nonetheless.
“I wonder what’ll be?” Harry whispers just loud enough for the other man to hear, tone cheeky.
“It’s truly a mystery,” Draco says dryly.
He sits down.
From its place in Dumbledore’s hand, the Sorting Hat seems to wriggle with excitement as it is placed down in Draco’s head.
Almost immediately, but less immediately than it was when they were eleven, its booming voice shouts out, “Slytherin!”
Draco nods, pleased.
Harry chuckles.
Some things never change.
Then, all of a sudden, it’s his turn.
He gulps. Bloody hell, it’s like he’s eleven again.
He takes his seat.
The hat touches down on his head and the same voice he remembers from all those years ago echos in his mind.
Harry Potter! It shouts.
He jumps and hears Draco snicker from somewhere around him. He doesn’t remember it being so loud the last time.
Back again I see. Or is it back for the first time?It chuckles at its own joke.
Hello, he thinks back to it, swallowing hard. Thank you for the sword last time.
Happy the damn thing could finally get some use!It grumbles. ‘Time It’s Needed Most,’ Gordric says. Honestly, how am I supposed to know? I’m just a hat! But enough about that. I wonder where we should put you this time…
Harry honestly has no idea. House rivalries and school days seem so childish in the grand scheme of things.
I see it was almost Slytherin last time, the hat says.Smugly, it comments, Ended up with that Malfoy boy after all, though, didn’t you?
He gets it enough from Ron and Hermione, and now he’s getting it from a bloody hat?
They aren’t even an item anymore.
Yeah, yeah, he thinks back.
For its part, the Sorting Hat takes a moment to cackle at his disgruntlementbefore moving on.
Ah, it says, but you fit all of the Houses so well! Brave, loyal, cunning, and… hmm, well, maybe not Ravenclaw.
He really doesn’t remember it being so rude last time.
Still, it’s not often I get to re-sort someone, now is it? I shouldn’t waste this opportunity, no, no, no…
Harry’s eyes drift up and, briefly, they meet Riddle’s. The boy’s eyes are a piercing gray rimmed with red.
He looks… hungry.
Harry shivers.
On the one hand, he thinks to himself, Slytherin has Tom Riddle in it.
Hmmm, the hat hums.
Then again, on the other, Harry refuses to allow himself to be scared of a child.
After all, this Tom Riddle still has a nose.
How very Gryffindor of you! The hat chimes in again.
Still, you got away from it last time, so I think now it will have to be…
“Slytherin!”
The way Draco’s jaw nearly drops from his head makes every future moment of pain worth it.
“You— you, you!” Draco hisses at him as he approaches.
“Hm?”
A well-manicured hand pokes him in the arm hard.
‘Slytherin?’ Draco seems to be gesticulating. ‘Really? Now?’
’Later,’ he gestures back.
Draco cut off from attempting to strangle Harry by Dippet clapping from behind them.
“Very good,” he smiles. “That makes things simpler, I suppose. Tom here,” he gestures to Riddle, “is the Slytherin Prefect. Wonderful lad. He’ll be able to help you get right into the swing of things, I’m sure.”
Dumbledore, for his part, doesn’t say anything negative. But he also doesn’t say anything positive, which in many ways is just as damning.
“Thank you, sir,” Riddle says. He turns and smiles at them.
Harry has to bite his lip to hide a grimace as memories of second year— of that fake, charming smile— seep into his mind.
“Follow me, boys. I’ll show you the way to the dormitories.”
They both nod.
“I look forward to seeing you both in my classes,” he hears Dumbledore call out from behind them.
Transfigurations.
Taught by Dumbledore himself.
Merlin, what a class that will be.
Then the door to the headmaster’s office shuts right and Riddle’s shoes start to tap against as they begin their trek.
It’s just the three of them now.
Draco Malfoy, the former Death Eater.
Harry Potter, the Man Who Conquered.
And Tom Riddle, the conquered villain himself.
Bloody hell.