Chapter 5
Harry blinked a few times, trying to force his eyes to adjust to the sudden brightness of the day and took in the surroundings. They were once more indoors but nowhere he’d been before, he certainly would have remembered this place. It had an ornamented ceiling with little white cherubs looking down at him, light blue wallpaper embroidered with tiny silver roses and a golden four poster with silky lavender drapings. They must have moved beyond Hogwarts, he did not believe the stone castle could hold such a room.
Draco groaned next to him. “Let’s get out of here.”
“What, is it dangerous?”
“Not per se but…”
“Then what? Where are we?”
“Potter, please” Draco pulled his arm and Harry was torn between leaving the room in order to delete the pained look on his face and remaining to figure out the meaning of the scene they’d been dropped in. Before he had made up his mind, the door opened and two boys entered, one of them Draco in his early teens, the other unfamiliar with sandy brown hair in a neat cut, wearing a thin, pale blue robe and speaking rapidly in French.
“Beaubatons” Draco whispered in his ear, draping the cloak tighter around them.
So, fourth year. And there it was, the pattern.
Harry was about to ask for some context to what had led fourteen-year-old Draco into the French school’s carriage but his business there soon became obvious as the sandy haired boy backed him up against the wall and kissed him like there was no tomorrow. Now, that was somewhat of a surprise.
“Still think this has something to do with me?” Harry asked, arching his eyebrows.
Draco hushed him but Harry just snorted. “I’ve cast a muffliato, besides I think you’re too preoccupied to hear me.”
Draco let out an indignant hmpf that did not in any way block the sloppy sounds coming from the other side of the room.
“What time of the year is this?” Harry asked after a few moments of that, grasping for something to say and at the same time trying to get some perspective, thinking of Moody somewhere at the bottom of a chest and Crouch junior roaming the castle, possibly with the marauders map in his hands, which would now show two Harrys.
“How would I know?” Draco mumbled, staring at the ceiling, his cheeks flustered.
“One would have thought you’d remember” Harry said drily.
“Well, it wasn’t like it only happened once.”
For some reason that annoyed him. “So could as well have been before or after you made the Potter stinks badges?” he asked surly. Draco had been a real shit to him that year, which must be the reason he was feeling testy next to him.
“Oh no…” Draco mumbled, ignoring his question, staring at the two boys with a mortified expression.
Harry couldn’t see that anything of significance had happened, apart from that the Beauxbatons guy had stopped eating Draco’s face and was chatting away in French again. He quieted to look at Draco imploringly, who seemed somewhat confounded. “Oui?” he tried and the boy grinned, dropping to his knees and taking Draco’s trousers and pants with him in the process.
“Potter, don’t look” the older Draco hissed into his ear but Harry was unable to tear his eyes away. The younger Draco appeared equally surprised by the development and made big eyes as the boy opened his mouth and swallowed him whole, looking like he’d never done anything else.
“I’m guessing you didn’t understand a word of that” Harry said, trying to hold back his laughter.
“It’s not like vocabulary of that kind was part of French studies with my mother” Draco muttered next to him, burying his face in his hands, leaving Harry to watch the scene.
So, this was what Draco had been up to in fourth year, getting some French guy to go down on him before Harry had even known that kind of thing existed and with yet a year to go before his first, awkward kiss. Well, he’d been busy figuring out how to battle a dragon at the time, not to mention the whole resurrection-of-Voldemort-business. It wasn’t like he’d had the luxury of such frivolities, he told himself.
At the other end of the room, young Draco appeared to have gotten over most of the surprise and was leaning against the wall with his eyes closed, making whimpering sounds.
“Merlin this is devastating” the adult Draco mumbled. “At least it’ll be over soon.”
Judging by the way the whimpers had caught up, Harry was bound to agree with him. “First time?”
“Whatever gave you that impression?” Draco said drily as his younger self let out a loud moan, his eyes going wide. He remained pressed to the wall, looking down at the other boy, his hands hoovering awkwardly a few inches above his head, obviously not knowing how to go about things from there. Harry couldn’t blame him, it wasn't like his first time of that had run much more smoothly and he had been twenty one…
The sandy haired boy rose, wiping a streak of come from the corner of his mouth. With a few more incomprehensible words he walked out, leaving Draco to pull up his pants. He did so with a stupid grin all over his face before he too got out of the room.
“Oh fuck” Draco muttered as soon as the door closed, throwing the cloak off and sinking down on one of the beds.
Harry was about to argue that they ought to remain hidden but it felt strangely hot underneath the thin fabric and standing pressed to Draco’s side after what they’d just witnessed was more than weird so he threw a locking charm at the door and directed a disillusionment charm to the windows.
“I think you were wrong before” he said.
“What?” Draco emerged from underneath the pillow he’d been pressing to his face, his cheeks burning scarlet and his hair tousled. It made for a rather amusing sight.
“Seems like Hogwarts did hold some good times for you” Harry said, laughter bubbling inside him.
“Git” Draco muttered. “I’m never talking to you again, that was completely mortifying.”
It set Harry off in a fit of liberating laughter, Draco glaring at him only made it funnier.
“Oh, come on” he tried once he’d calmed down. “You got blown by a French guy when you were fourteen, that’s pretty cool.”
“Hmpf” Draco let out, but Harry could see the corner of his mouth twitching. He considered going on about it some more but decided against it, it wasn’t like he would have enjoyed having someone witnessing his first sexual experience. It had been awkward enough on its own without having an adult version of himself and his former nemesis watching it.
“Could have been worse” he tried instead to lighten the mood.
“What could possibly have been worse than that?”
Harry fished hard for an alternative that would have been weirder than a first-row seat to Draco ejaculating down someone's throat. “Maybe… watching you on the loo or something?”
Draco groaned. “I bet that’s next stop.”
At least he seemed to agree that the time travel was about him.
“We should focus on figuring this out” Harry said, going over to sit next to him. The bed was incredibly soft and comfortable and he wondered whether teenage Draco had gotten to discover that. He shook his head, trying to rid his head of the images his mind supplied.
“Look, so far, we’ve been moving forward roughly a year at the time, right?” he said a little too loud. “We’ve showed up at different places in and around Hogwarts and you’re in all of them. Apart from that, is there anything to connect the memories?”
Draco shook his head. “No, they’re just random and trivial.”
Harry neglected asking just how trivial a French blow job was to him and took out the time turner, suspecting it would swipe them away soon but for the moment it remained still.
“Maybe it’s just trying to get us back to the present, a year at the time” Draco suggested, eyeing it. “Which would be completely pointless and a waste of everyone’s time.”
“And you don’t believe that to be it” Harry said, reading his face.
Draco shrugged. “Curses always have a purpose, but I just don’t see it this time. I suppose it must have stopped functioning somewhere along the road.”
But Harry could tell this was eating him because he’d gotten to watch Draco at work on a string of occasions and seen him taking curses apart with a rare passion. He would turn to investigate the object at hand and his usual, passive face would change, his eyes would come alive and from that moment and until the curse was dispersed, the world could alter without him noticing. Harry would bet the full contents of his vault that even if they were to make it back to the present unharmed and unseen, Draco wouldn’t rest until he had figured out what had sent them away in the first place.
In fairness, Harry had to agree it was nagging him too. He had no interest in timeturners or any other cursed heirlooms but it was still his case that had brought them here and he was eager to find out the reason behind the turn of events, almost more eager than returning to the present because if it was one thing he had learned since entering the world of magic at eleven, it was that strange things hardly ever happened by chance.
“We haven’t stayed long anywhere so far” he thought out loud. “We won’t have time to search the library on time travelling at this rate, I say we should just go with it wherever it takes us and try to figure it out along the way.”
“A thorough strategy of yours, as always Potter” Draco said rolling his eyes but then he sighed. “I guess we don’t have much of a choice.”
The timeturner seemed to take that as a cue to start spinning, leaving just enough time for him to drape the cloak around them and clasp Draco’s wrist.