Chapter 2
-Bloody fucking hell! - Draco said, astonished.
I beg your pardon? - Headmistress, Professor? McGonagall sounded disbelieving and offended, at the same time he heard his mother's distinctly younger voice.
-Draco! -
Draco knew that tone of discontent from his mother, he heard it a lot as a child when he did not follow the rules of pureblood etiquette strictly.
-I'm sorry, mother- he replied more out of instinct than consciously that he opened his mouth.
He felt alarmed, although that word didn't cover 100% of the cluster of emotions that were going on inside him, but alarmed would be the first thing he would say.
Is he dead? He should be, he threw himself (forced) from an eighth floor and yes, there were cases of people surviving this kind of falls, but they were very few and if so he would be waking up in a muggle hospital with all or almost all his bones broken, instead he was here, at Hogwarts, the school that saw him grow up.
-Am I... dreaming? Did I fall into a coma and I'll be trapped in the landscapes that my mind punishes me with? - Draco spoke to himself, this couldn't be real after all. He really was in a Muggle hospital, possibly plugged into machines and trapped in the most twisted scenarios his mind could give him, next he'd be trapped in Malfoy manor with all the Death Eaters swarming around and making his life miserable.
He began to feel the beginnings of a panic attack, first the shaking in his hands and the growing sensation of being out of breath. He was amazed at the capacity of the human mind, the sensations seemed real almost as if he were awake.
-Now, now young Malfoy, let's not be dramatic here, shall we? - Miss Pomfrey's soft yet firm voice brought him back to the stage in question -Here, drink this- In front of Draco appeared a glass full of water, at that moment he noticed how dry his throat felt plus the pressure of the panic closing it.
With slightly trembling hands he grabbed the glass and slowly drank its contents, the cold water did little to open the air passage to his lungs, but it helped to calm the hurried throbbing in his chest, like someone throwing water on a burning paper. Draco was able to take a second, even with the glass in his hands, to take a deep breath.
Inside...
Outside...
Inside
Outside...
-That's it, all right, young Malfoy...
Pomfrey took the glass from his hands and the sensation of something holding it guided his gaze to his arm and then to his mother who was gripping it tightly with a slight frown of concern, almost imperceptible to anyone who didn't know to look for it in the Black's patented aristocratic mask, but he knows his mother so he discreetly moves his right hand to the grip on her left arm.
He gives his mother's hand a gentle squeeze, she looks up at him and Draco expects her face to reflect the reassurance she wants to bring.
Even if this is a comatose dream, he did not wish to see his mother worried.
- What is the last thing you remember, Mr. Malfoy? -Dumbledore's deep, "I am a wise old man" voice sends a painful shiver down his spine, along with his tastelessly colorful robes, as his father used to say, standing out to him, - "You look rather confused. It may be that the blow you received was stronger than we anticipated, Pomfrey. -
-Oh Albus, you are not questioning my analysis and diagnosis of my patients, are you? - Pomfrey replied sternly.
-Never, darling. -
The director returned his gaze to Draco, he was supposed to answer now, but he didn't know what to say, he didn't know what was really going on. Maybe he should answer anything, this was his dream after all, but a part of him, his slytherin instinct as Pansy very cheerfully used to call it, was guiding him towards fitting in.
Pretend innocence, get information and adapt.
-I... I feel a bit dizzy; I remember being in class- Draco faked his best dizzy and sick voice. Bullshit, pretending nothing, he really felt bad but his performance of not being as bad as he wanted was good. To say that the last thing he remembered was being in class was a sure thing, he was in a school after all and by the light coming through the windows it didn't seem too late, although he didn't know how long he was asleep but well, he had already cast his hook. - What happened? -
-Due to the incompetence of your so-called Care of Magical Creatures teacher, you almost lost your arm and got a concussion over your head- -Due to the incompetence of your so-called Care of Magical Creatures teacher, you almost lost your arm and got a concussion over your head-
If Draco felt chills with Dumbledore, his father's arrogant and dastardly voice gave him a real shudder. The last time he had heard the man's thunderous voice had been after he had been sentenced to life in Azkaban. His father, who had already lost everything and still stood firm to his beliefs, shouted at him in front of the entire court to follow in his footsteps, not to let the Malfoy name fall into disgrace.
As if he himself had not caused that, it is fair to say that that last show did not help his son's image, but only made it worse.
Now he had the man in front of him: tall, proud, with a pointed and dishonest face, a real snake.
-Now, now, Lucius, you have been informed that it was a slight bump on the head, not a concussion, - McGonagall spoke, ever so political and moral, -and his arm has only a few lights, though long, cuts-
- And that seems little to you, Professor, Hogwarts is supposed to look after my son's safety and not put him to face Beasts without a proper teacher. Don't think I'm forgetting about last year's petrified issue either. - Lucius turned to Dumbledore, -The school board will not be happy about this. -
And there went his father feigning exaggerated concern for his welfare, when all he wanted was to get the current headmaster out of his post. Draco sighed already jaded by the interaction, but on the bright side, it gave him an idea of where he stood. Third year, after the first class with Hagrid, where his spoiled mouth caused the hippogriff to attack him and his father got the animal condemned.
-*Oh God, let this stop already, *- Draco prayed to the infirmary sky inwardly.
-----------------
Okay
Draco had already had time to analyze his situation without the constant feeling of being on the verge of a mental breakdown.
After being discharged from the nurse's office with only his arm bandaged without the cloth around his neck to support his arm, the first time was to put on more of a show and be the perfect wounded victim his father needed. He was never really that injured so he asked Pomfrey not to put it on despite Lucius' displeased look.
Leaving the place, he ran into Pansy and Blaise who were quick to ask about his health and he, as surprised and overwhelmed by the situation as he was, replied that he was fine, that they would remove the bandage in a couple of days. He wanted to run to Slytherin and hide in his bed, but he couldn't remember the password from that time, so he asked his friends to accompany him to the common room, with the excuse of resting, and they agreed without being able to avoid the worry on their faces.
When he reached the slytherin wall he was thankful for his plan, in truth the password was one that he would not remember after so long, which was strange to him. If this was his comatose dream any password should do, right?
He said goodbye to his friends and at a brisk pace made his way to the third-year rooms. Everything was just as he remembered it and even more than he would ever remember.
He quickly climbed into his bed closing the curtains and throwing a muffliatto without a wand, he needed the others to think he was asleep.
After that he spent about 40 minutes analyzing his situation in a burning panic and finally discarding the idea of comatose sleep.
How did he manage it?
Draco considered himself intelligent, after all he was always second only to Granger at the top of his class; and even in his vast accumulation of knowledge he knew that his memory would not travel so far back in time to give him this amount of detail in a dream. The softness of her sheets, the eternal cold of the dungeons, the burning in her arms after digging her nails in too hard without noticing it until she had already left the crescents in her flesh.
No, his mind wouldn't be capable of that much. Unless this was like that series Larry loves that ended with everything being a dream.
No, no.
It gave him a headache to consider.
In other details, he was almost certain he had fallen head first from the roof of the cafe, there was no way he could have survived that.
So, he had died, he had no desire or strength to delve into what that did to his psyche, and he had woken up in third year.
Time travel was his other option. Maybe Death decided it was fun to send the little Death Eater to live through the torture of war all over again and now he was there, trapped and alone. Because who would believe him if he told them: hey I'm from the future, Voldemort returns, many die, a few, because of me, yey.
Maybe he was being a bit fatalistic, but could he be blamed?
No, he had to keep that to himself, at least for now until he could truly confirm what was going on and what to do after that.
Surviving was the bottom line, that's what a Malfoy does, or at least Draco Malfoy does.
He needed a plan.
Filled with a new determination he reached for his wand. He used to carry it in a special pocket in his school robes, he remembered. Pulling the straight black wood out of his robes he stood for a minute admiring it.
This was not the low-quality wand that the ministry had given him after the trials, the one that was slightly curved at the tip, not very flexible and barely useful for his potions, no; this was HIS wand. Hawthorn wood and unicorn hair core, much to his father's displeasure at the time, quite elastic and loyal to its owner.
Draco's eyes stung a little at the sudden accumulation of tears in his eyes. This wand had been used to stop Voldemort by the boy who lived and could never see it again, he didn't even care that the piece of wood had been used for such a feat, it only made him nostalgic to feel again that which had helped him for so many years to do magic, which was his faithful companion in pranks, attacks and defenses until the brute Potter took it away from him. His fingers caressed the soft dark wood, tears that he could no longer contain fell around and over the wand, followed by a loud sob that shook the body of the now teenager again.
He held the wand tightly in both hands, as if to keep it from disappearing, and lowered his sobbing face into those hands causing his back to curve and his blond hair to fall across his forehead.
Rivulets of tears rolled from his eyes to her hands and down her cheeks combining on his chin before falling to the comforter of the bed, his 14-year-old body now spasming from his poorly contained sobs that made a shrieking noise as they escaped through the teeth that bit down hard on his lower lip.
He felt pathetic, embarrassed, heartbroken, but also pleased, all because of a simple wand, if someone from Slytherin saw him now they would surely laugh at him.
Part of him wanted to continue on this slope of sadness and pain, to cry for everything that happened and to scream for everything that was happening to him, but the strongest part of his personality, the one that Sheila had told him several times that he should try in therapy, pushed him to bottle up the emotions that had escaped. Let all the pain build up until it all exploded later.
His future self would take care of it.
He inhaled sharply as he straightened his back and looked up at the canopy of his bed, held his breath for a few seconds and slowly let it all out, experiencing how his emotions were covered by a cold blanket of false calm.
Feeling sufficiently recovered, he grabbed a piece of parchment from his nightstand and pointed his wand at it. One of his best classes was transfiguration, so transforming the scrap of paper into a black flexible notebook would be a piece of cake, plus he had the years of experience ahead of him.
He visualized the parchment transforming and cast the incantation.
With a loud burst of magic that startled him, the parchment transformed into a smooth black-covered notebook just as he wanted it to, but this one, when he grabbed it, had many more pages than he had thought and the texture and color highlighted it as one of his best works; not that he had done much after the war or before it outside of class.
Forgetting the burst of magic, leaving it as if it was just a detail of using his wand again; Draco was ecstatic to use it again; he grabbed a quill and began to write.
Later he would have to enchant the thing so that only he could read it, but this would do for now.
Draco M.'s plan of action.
1) Determine if time travel is possible and why it happened to him.
2) Save face
3) Write down everything he remembers from his Hogwarts years.
4) Avoid the golden trio
Draco considered that to be the basics for the moment, he would add more details to his plan later.
He tucked the notebook under his pillow before throwing himself backwards onto the bed. Draco had forgotten how comfortable the beds at Hogwarts were, or at least much softer than his old mattress at his apartment.
Scratching an itch he got on his neck, the blond thought about his friends in the cafeteria.
What happened to them, did he come back at the right time of his death so his friends didn't have to see his mangled body, or did time go on even though he was now in the past and Sheila had to call the police to pick up his remains? How would his mother find out?
The image of his body staining the pavement was morbid, the thought of the reaction of his loved ones was morbid too. She would leave that subject for later, as she had thought before, for now she just wanted to sleep and hoped to do so the moment the itch in her neck would dissipate.