Chapter Text
May 2, 2003
2003 had started off at a low point for Draco Malfoy, and it hadn't gotten much better as the year progressed. Since finishing his business program at Oxford the year prior, he'd joined his father's company, eager to jump in with both feet and hit the ground running, as it were. But the last eighteen months or so had instilled in him little more than quiet panic and a cold sense of dread, as though waiting for the worst. Starting with his very first project with the company, he could see the things were decidedly not on the up and up. Since then, he'd been trying to quietly suss out the questionable business decisions of Malfoy, Ltd.
Draco had always known that Lucius Malfoy was not the fine, upstanding businessman he'd always proclaimed himself to be, but actually seeing irrefutable evidence of these dealings up close had rattled him.
In the next twenty years or so, he would be expected to take over day-to-day operations of the business, and he wasn't sure he had the heart for it. In only January of 2003, they had stiff-armed a hostile takeover attempt from a firm in Spain. It was only through Lucius's cunning and Draco’s attention to detail that the plan was scuppered. When it was over, Draco breathed a sigh of relief, but also of concern. Was he really cut out for another sixty or so years of this?
Then in March, the invitation had arrived. That coming May, there was to be a five year reunion celebration at Hogwarts for the class of 1998. The idea filled him with no small amount of panic and dread of its own. He hadn't seen many of these people since he'd finished school with them five years before. Even when he had been there, his time at Hogwarts had not been particularly wonderful. He had seen to that.
It turned out, having good looks and plenty of money wasn't nearly enough to get by at Hogwarts. For much of his school career, Draco had been constantly plagued and beleaguered by the threatening, looming presence of the same wizard for all seven years. He was a menace that demanded focus and attention, who fed upon fierce loyalty and devotion. Universally favoured and yet quietly disliked by most of those around him except for his handful of extremely loyal followers, this wizard seemed to jeopardise everyone and everything simply with his mere existence. The wizard's ego and reach were unmatched.
When up against a formidable power like that, there was little that one could do to stop it. Who was Draco Malfoy to even try?
And so now here he was, in an evening in May, wearing his nicest dress robes, and getting positively shit-faced in the Hogwarts dungeons with his former potions professor and head of house, Severus Snape. Meanwhile upstairs, his erstwhile schoolmates were being forced to relive the moments of infamy brought about by his nemesis.
Knowing who was about to descend upon the castle grounds for this celebration, Snape had started drinking as soon as his final class departed at four o'clock that same afternoon. Therefore, the professor was a bit ahead of Draco on the scale between sober and tiddly. It was for this reason that Draco did not take what Snape was about to say very seriously, at least not at first.
“Did I tell you I've been working on inventing a time machine?” Snape asked casually, his eyes working to focus on Draco through the haze of fire whiskey.
“Wha?” Draco asked. He had been daydreaming, letting his mind wander a bit, picturing Hermione Granger's red dress puddled on his bedroom floor.
Earlier that evening, his longtime school crush had come into the Great Hall wearing what was possibly the tightest Gryffindor red muggle gown that many at Hogwarts had ever seen. Her body, which had been quite nice back in school, was now sheer perfection.
The quiet hubbub of conversations had faltered as soon as she stepped through the double doors, accompanied by one of her old school roommates, Parvati Patil. The eyes of every wizard (and a fair few of the witches) were dragged to the entrance to follow her progress into the room.
For Draco, who was trying diligently but in vain not to stare openly at her, it reminded him very much of that day in their fourth year. That was the day that he'd first fallen arse over elbows for the witch. Hermione Granger had caught his eye before, of course– but he'd always been able to dismiss it as a passing fancy. But there was no dismissing her after that day.
It was the first truly hot day of spring in 1995, and an early warm spell had swept over their little corner of Scotland. She'd come into class without a jumper, only a thin cotton blouse that she had nearly outgrown covering her pert breasts. This delectable choice in attire was paired with what was possibly the shortest skirt in Hogwarts’ history– with no tights, only socks and court shoes. All eyes had been on her.
This was made worse by the fact that it was a practical Transfigurations class, and that day, they were meant to be transfiguring a frog into a flame. Needless to say, there were many lost frogs and burnt fingers in the class that day, at least amongst the male students. Draco himself had transfigured his frog into a tarte flambee, which his friend Theo had then dared him to eat. He had done so, hoping against hope that it might impress Granger.
It did not.
It did, however, earn him a detention and an upset stomach. And the tarte had tasted gamey, to boot.
Now nearly nine years later, she was back in Draco's life, if only for the night. Her sighed. She was a gorgeous goddess of perfection who was so far out of his league as to be entirely unattainable. As was to be expected, she'd already caught the eye of a certain wizard, in any case. Just as she had back in school, Draco was sure. And once she'd fallen under his mesmerising spell of power like everyone else, no one else stood a chance. What that wizard wanted, the bastard got.
Draco sighed and blended unobtrusively into the background of the room once Hermione has passed him, making his way to the huge doors to escape the stuffy atmosphere of the Great Hall reception. As a Slytherin, he found his feet automatically making their way to the dungeons; he decided to spend a bit of time with his favourite former professor. It was this very same professor who currently seemed to be struggling with staying upright. “A time machine, Draco. Do keep up,” Snape slurred.
Draco focused on uncrossing his eyes, more from tiredness and the daydream than from the effects of the large bottle of fire whiskey that they'd very nearly emptied between the two of them. “You invented a time machine? What do you plan to do with a time machine?”
“I thought we might go back in time and fix our… You Know Who problem.”
Draco sat up straighter, a fleeting manic expression on his face. “Do you mean–”
“Yes. I think there's a chance we can be rid of him, perhaps forever.” Snape sniffled.
All manner of tipsiness on Draco's part was gone. Snape had been just as beleaguered and persecuted by this wizard as he had been. The professor had been one of Draco's few allies in the school against the power of the wizard. The man was so feared, his influence so far reaching that when speaking of him together, they did not even refer to the wizard by name if it could be helped.
If there was a chance, even the slightest one, that they could be rid of this man, to not have to experience the nightmare of the last several years–
But could it truly be possible?
“How would you do it?” Draco asked breathlessly, quietly. He remembered that, in Hogwarts Castle, sometimes even the walls had ears.
“I know of a pivotal moment in the wizard's life. A certain time and place that if events had gone a bit differently, perhaps everything would be changed. I believe it's possible to go back and change the past, which will change the present. For all of us.”
And that's how Draco became the accomplice in a plot to go back in time and bring down one of the most treacherous wizards ever to grace the wizarding world.
-O-
“Is this some kind of a joke?” Draco asked snidely.
It was about twenty minutes and a couple of sober up potions later. Snape had disillusioned himself to walk through the Entrance Hall, lest he be waylaid by any of his other former students or his colleagues. He and Draco were now standing in a small clearing in the Forbidden Forest, one of them to each side of the rusted, scratched, and dented blue Ford Anglia.
“I assure you, I'm not joking. This is our chance to be rid of him once and for all,” Snape answered vehemently.
“It's a sodding muggle car,” Draco said. “You made a time machine from a muggle car?”
“What would you have had me use, Draco? A cauldron? How were two people going to fit inside a cauldron?” Snape sneered at him in annoyance.
“I don't know; I'm not an expert here. I suppose we could have just both held on to the sides of a cauldron or something, like a portkey, but for time instead of space?”
Snape stared at Draco impassively before continuing as though he hadn't spoken.
“The time machine is built inside of this Ford Anglia because it is truly one of a kind. It would be easy to mix up one cauldron for another. With this automobile, there can be only one.”
Draco nodded slowly. “Well, you're the professor, Professor. So, when are we going back to this critical time to get rid of You Know Who?”
Snape smiled a bit wickedly. “I find there's no time like the present. Or the past. Whatever,” he waved his hand as though fighting off a pesky bug. “Are you ready?”
“Malfoy?” A soft, tremulous voice from the darkness of the forest startled them both. Both wizards turned, lit wands drawn to face down whoever it was that had followed them out here.
Her copper eyes seemed to shine from the misty, wandlit shadows before her form appeared, her messy curls expanding with the heavy moisture in the air.
“Granger? What are you doing here?” Draco choked out. Shit, he thought. Of anyone within the castle that he would not want to catch him out here, at the top of the list was Hermione Granger. He was skulking around a muggle car in the Forbidden Forest with a former teacher of theirs. To say that this looked odd at best and vaguely scandalous at worst was an understatement.
“I just stepped outside to get some fresh air. I saw you leaving the school, and I was curious to see where you were going.”
“Just like old times, huh? Trying to catch me out after curfew on your night for prefect rounds. Will it be detention, then?” Draco smirked at her.
She narrowed her copper eyes. “Very witty. No, I was only worried about you. I didn't realise Professor Snape was here with you as well,” Hermione said.
“Now that you realise it, Miss Granger, please see yourself back to the castle,” Snape said stiffly. He'd never had any love lost for the Gryffindor lot, Draco knew.
Hermione looked back with uncertainty at the gathering, ominous shadows between herself and the safety of the castle. She turned back to look at Draco.
“I don't suppose you could walk with me, Malfoy?” She asked hesitantly.
Draco began focusing very hard on continuing to breathe as he nodded and started to move her way, but Snape put out a hand to stop him. “Miss Granger, we don't have much time. I'm afraid you'll need to go back to the castle alone.”
Hermione's eyes turned to take in the brooding potions master. She gave him a knowing little smirk. “On the contrary, Professor Snape. It seems that all you have here is time. At least, according to what I overheard you saying a few moments ago.”
Snape swore softly. “I suppose you plan to tell the Ministry that I've made an illegal time machine,” he sneered.
“Actually, my plan was to go with you,” she said primly.
Draco gasped and even Snape seemed stupefied for a moment. Then their former professor asked, “For what reason do you wish to go with us?”
Hermione's copper eyes seemed to flash in the soft glow around them from the three wands. “You're not the only one he's hurt over the years. He pursued me and harassed me for years, all during school and even now. I've lived with constant strife and challenge in my life because of him. Even this long after school has ended, a part of me loathes him. If there's a way to bring him down, I'm in.”
Snape stared at her appraisingly, then gave her the briefest of nods. “Very well.”
The professor opened the driver's door and sat down inside. Draco opened the passenger door and slid to the middle of the bench seat, holding the door open for Hermione to sit snuggly next to him. He leaned across in what he hoped was a smooth move to pull the door closed behind her.
“Where are we going?” Draco asked.
“Not where. When,” Snape said grimly, conjuring a tiny scroll of parchment and a quill. “We simply write a time and place on a scrap of parchment and push it into this slot. The automobile will move us through space and time to our destination.”
Snape wrote quickly on the parchment and pushed the little scroll into a small opening above the radio.
“Is that an 8-track player?” Hermione asked curiously.
Snape turned a beady, black eyed stare on her. “No. It's an integral part of the time machine. Do keep up. Now we simply turn on–” the man started the engine with his wand and flicked the radio dial, twisting it wildly to and fro until he landed upon empty silence at 88.7 megahertz.
The exterior of the car was suddenly bathed in the brightest of white lights. Orange and white-blue flames seemed to erupt from under the car, licking up the doors. Hermione leaned into Draco, and he broke out into a cold sweat at her touch. Then the car shook and writhed with some immutable power.
“What the hell?” Draco muttered to himself. Hermione's eyes grew, if possible, even wider. She reached down without seeming to realise it and grabbed Draco's thigh high up on his leg.
The worry about what was happening outside of the car was suddenly vying for attention in Draco's mind with what was happening inside of the car. His body heat quickly seemed to increase threefold, turning his neck and the tips of his ears a bright pink. He took deep, steadying breaths, but then forgot to breathe at all as the world outside of the car windows cleared and he was able to take in everything in front of him.
The car was no longer in the Forbidden Forest in the middle of the night. Instead, they were parked upon an overgrown, seldom used lane, just outside of a little stile. When they had left the forest, it had been pitch black darkness. Now they sat bathed in daylight.
Draco pushed aside thoughts of Hermione's hand on his leg and turned to the potions master. “Are we there? Did we make it?”
“I believe so, yes,” Snape answered in awe, staring out of the windscreen.
“Is this Godric's Hollow? Just before– just before everything happened? When Voldemort–”
“No,” Snape said softly. “This is truly when and where it all began.” He turned off the car's engine with his wand. “Hogsmeade. October 25, 1975.”
“1975? Nineteen seventy-five?? I don't understand!” Draco nearly shouted. “I thought we were going to 1981! That's the catalyst, that's where all of it began growing from. The legends, the myths, the stories, everything and everyone agrees that 1981 is when it all began!”
Snape pushed at the door handle to get out of the Ford Anglia and Draco reached across Hermione to do the same on their side, bustling her out of the car as well. Snape met them in front of the car's bonnet.
“You do not understand, Draco. I was there. I saw everything that led up to that point. I know exactly where this began, and this began in 1975.”
“What are you on about, Snape?” Draco cried in disbelief.
Snape gestured around himself. “This is the truly pivotal moment. This was the night that marked the beginning of the end. Today in the village of Hogsmeade, Lily Evans has decided to spurn the years-long friendship between herself and a young man who truly has her best interests at heart. She will decide instead to spend the evening in the company of an arrogant toe rag who is only after her for the conquest of it all.”
Draco shook his head in confusion. “What does that have to do with anything that happens six years in the future?”
Snape circled to the boot of the Anglia, engrossed in his task and in his tale of woe. From the boot he withdrew a couple of muggle suitcases, which he placed upon the ground. “It has to do with everything, young Malfoy. Lily Evans will eventually begin to date this pus stain, and he will turn her against her best friend. She will go on to marry this twat waffle and they will have a child together. Her jizz catcher of a husband will become so puffed up by her love and devotion, so full of himself that he feels he can do no wrong. Eventually the time will come that her husband will duel a wizard who, until that time, had been poised upon the precipice of greatness.”
Draco frowned in concentration, but it was Hermione who answered. “You mean, when he battled against Lord–”
“Precisely,” bit out Snape, crossing to Draco. “And in that battle, bolstered by her love, this conceited puddle of cat sick named James Potter defeated that wizard, Lord Voldemort. Potter went from overly confident to thinking he could do absolutely no wrong, and unfortunately the wizarding world agreed. The man's fame and popularity soared by leaps and bounds.
“Because of that pivotal moment, Potter's child now in our time has become just as egotistical and self-important as his wart scab of a father. The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world, Draco. Harry Potter is the menace that he is today because he was raised by the boil on the arse cheek of humanity that is James Potter.”
Draco's eyes went wide, too shocked to speak. Snape was right. All of Potter's fame and bravado and cheek stemmed from his father's highly lauded actions all those years before. If they were to find some way to bring the father down a peg now, perhaps he wouldn't raise his son to be such a bluster fuck in Draco's time.
Snape drew even closer to him, dark cloak billowing in the afternoon light. “And that is why we are here, Draco. We've come to stop Lily Evans from ever marrying James Potter in the first place. If the Potters never marry, she will never give birth to You Know Who. If Lily never loves James, he won't have the arrogance to believe that he could battle and defeat a dark wizard. And we at Hogwarts will not be plagued by the maniacal machinations of a mad marionettist named Harry Potter.”
Snape returned to the suitcases, opening them on the ground and selecting a couple of outfits, holding them out to Draco and Hermione. “Here. Put these on. You can't go into Hogsmeade wearing those modern clothes.”
Hermione cleared her throat. “Sorry, Professor– but I've read a bit about the wizard that Potter defeated that night. Voldemark, or whatever his name was. He sounded a bit evil himself. Aren't you worried about repercussions if he isn't killed?”
Snape sighed deeply, dismissing her concerns with a flippant wave of his hand. “Voldemort was on the periphery of society. He had a handful of followers, yes, but only a few were extremely loyal to him. When he died, most of them turned tail and ran, pretended that they never believed in the man’s words. Still, it wasn't as though their numbers were large enough to take over anything. Be certain of this: the hardships and never ending nightmares we have experienced with the awful and pompous Harry Potter– a conceited prat who apparently can do no wrong– would be nothing compared to the trifling annoyances of having to deal with a wizard like Voldemort.”
Draco and Hermione looked at each other with uncertainty. Hermione shrugged.
Finally, Draco said, “Well, you're the professor, Professor.”
Snape grinned darkly at the pair of them, and Hermione sighed in resignation, snatching the outfit from Snape's outstretched hand.
“Fine,” she said. “The two of you turn around so that I can get changed in the car. And whilst I'm doing that, Snape, I'm going to need you to tell me your plan.”