A lonely night and a shiny object
When everything you've ever lived for suddenly stops being a part of your everyday life, you're left with a void.
No, this isn't about nostalgia.
It was anything but nostalgia what Draco Malfoy felt as he wandered in solitude the empty corridors of the seventh floor.
He didn't regret his life before the war at all.
He was glad it was over, and he was certainly thankful that his side hadn't come out as the winner.
Yet, despite everything, the end of the war had left a void.
With nothing left to think about, with no fear to fill his days, no anxiety to wake him up too early every morning and kiss him goodnight, he had slowly slipped into an apathetic routine devoid of any feeling.
He should have felt better.
Surely not feeling any emotions was better than feeling only negative ones, right?
Yet he didn't feel good at all.
His feet inexplicably took him, as they had for several nights now, to that fateful place where he had taken refuge over the past year.
The room of requirement was the best place to hide: no one could find him once inside, no one could reach him. He was alone with himself, and there was nothing else he wanted.
He would have happily stayed at the Manor and completed his final year studying at home, but for some inexplicable reason McGonagall insisted for him to return to Hogwarts.
First-year students winced as soon as they spotted the silvery halo of his hair in the corridors, and his own housemates were determined to keep as much distance from him as possible.
But he didn't blame them. He understood them, and he accepted what was happening to him. He deserved it. He deserved every single thing.
What he couldn't understand, however, was her.
Her.
The one who had been tortured in his home, in front of his eyes, by his own aunt, and was apparently the only one who didn't flinch at the idea of approaching him.
When Professor Slughorn had announced that they would have to work in pairs for the next potion, a bitter smile formed on his face.
Of course no one would want to work with him.
And so when the last one left without a partner, an unusually tall Hufflepuff boy whose name he couldn't even remember, had told the professor that he had no intention of working with him, Draco had lazily lowered his gaze to his cauldron, mentally preparing himself to do the work alone.
Not that he minded. He loved working alone. He did everything better when he was alone.
The thing that surprised him, however, was hearing an irritated snort from the front row.
He didn't look up, staring at the ingredients on his counter as a voice he knew well stated, "Work with Ron, McMillan. I'm on it."
His breath caught inside his lungs.
"Thank you, Miss Granger," replied Professor Slughorn, whose voice came muffled to his ears, covered by the sound of his own heart beating wildly inside his ribcage.
It wasn't possible, she couldn't really want that.... Why the hell had she offered to work with him?
Did she want to humiliate him?
Avenge the torture he had endured on her by making him get a bad grade in potions?
It was all too ridiculous.
He heard unglamorous footsteps heading in his direction, and when he finally looked up two large brown eyes were staring at him with an indecipherable gaze.
"So, shall we begin?"
He shook his head, trying to push that image away.
Recently his mind had been doing nothing but tormenting him with images regarding Hermione Granger.
He was forced to take refuge here: to hide from his own thoughts, he told himself, but also a little bit from her.
She was acting strangely.
That she wasn't afraid of him was understandable; she'd faced things way too terrifying to be scared of a disgraced former Death Eater.
But why was she trying to be kind, or at least civil, with him?
He didn't deserve this.
From anyone.
Least of all from her.
Did she feel pity for him?
He didn't deserve that either.
And he didn't want it, most of all.
He hated the way she spoke to him, as if he hadn't insulted and discredited her for years, and the way her eyes stared at him.
Try as he might, he couldn't read even a hint of hatred, or contempt, for himself in her gaze.
He kicked a half-broken chair that stood in the middle of the pile of objects in front of him, wishing he could push Hermione Granger out of his thoughts just as easily.
He started wandering around the room, hoping that looking at the strange objects within would distract him from the feeling that twisted his stomach.
Something shiny caught his eye, momentarily diverting the flow of his thoughts. The object was high up on top of a stack of old desks.
He decided to make an effort to reach it, climbing with little balance one step after the other.
The fear of falling and the curiosity to find out what it was succeeded in diverting momentarily is thoughts about the Gryffindor.
When he finally managed to grasp the object with his fingers, he almost fell down in amazement: a time-turner.
A real time-turner.
The only clue that it had belonged to someone was the chain broken at the end.
He held it in his hands, turning it over in his fingers to look at it.
It was strange: someone must have used it recently, a strange ticking sound came from the inside.
He brought it to his ear, noticing that the rhythm with which the different ticks followed each other only increased.
It was as if...
He threw the small object backwards, not having time to finish formulating that thought.
His lungs took a deep breath, and the room began to spin.
His body swayed along with the mountains of junk all around him, while the worst sense of nausea he had felt since his first apparation invaded his stomach.
He closed his eyes, only opening them again several seconds later as his head stopped spinning.
He breathed a sigh of relief.
He was in the same place he had been before: in front of his eyes was the exact same stack of desks and the small golden object was only a few feet from his eyes, were he must have thrown it.
Everything seemed normal.
"Siriuuus" shouted a voice in the distance, echoing through the piles of objects.
Blood froze in his veins, and he instinctively hid behind a large statue near the desks.
"Please, it's not a toy," the male voice continued. "I don't want to get in trouble, neither with the principal nor with the minister, for heaven's sake-"
The boy froze, and from where Draco stood he could see the red and gold color of the tie he wore, partially buried under an all-too-broad sweater.
He couldn't see his face, but there was something vaguely familiar about the way he moved.
The young Gryffindor bent down, affirming the time-turner from where he had thrown it moments before.
"Okay," the boy shouted again. "That wasn't funny at all."
He sighed, running a hand through his brown hair and heading back the way he'd come.
On his way back he turned around, and Draco thought he recognized his face.
He had seen it before, but in a more tired, more adult version.
Professor Lupin.
"Of course it was"
Draco jerked, almost risking revealing his presence when another boy appeared out of nowhere.
He had long black hair, so shiny and thick to remind him of his Aunt Bellatrix's.
"It looks to me like you're smiling" stated the newly appeared boy, moving with a casual air.
"I-" lowered his gaze Remus, barely bending the corners of his mouth. "Listen, Sirius-"
Draco gasped.
Sirius.
Sirius Black?
"Shh".
The man who was apparently a younger version of his deceased cousin interrupted him. "I don't feel like talking," he said, staring intently at the brown-haired boy and lowering himself to his knees.
Draco immediately looked away as his heart began to pound wildly. When he heard the sound of a belt unfasten, he closed his eyes and cursed between his teeth.
What the hell was happening?