Chapter 1: With Little Ado, Onwards

Draco sighed, itching to get away from the condescending bugger in the trunk shop. He had first just become annoyed when the insults began, woven into the shopkeeper's sales pitch, about how sorry he was to hear of his fathers death and his mothers imprisonment, with platitudes like "Why lad it's all for the best, isn't it?", said with an almost mocking tone.

It quickly became clear that the shopkeeper, Aldershot or whatever his name was, couldn't decide between gleefully needling Draco about his newfound status as a 'Ward of the Ministry', which legally speaking he had become after the war as part of his plea arrangement, or whether to actually try and sell him the trunk he wanted.

After a second mention of how awful it was that his mother would suffer the dreadful Dementor guards every day for the rest of her life, Draco finally gave up on being patient and turned his polite smile into a venomous frown, cold grey eyes keenly locking with the shopkeeper's suddenly apprehensive brown eyes. Channeling everything his father had taught him about intimidation into a straight posture, intentful eyes and a voice that would make just about any wizard or witch of sound mind to hesitate, he bit out, "Will you sell me a trunk to my specifications or not? I shall thank you not to waste my time any further".

"I.. well of course I", the shopkeeper stammered, not so sure of his words anymore. Clearing his throat to hide his broken attempt at a reply and as an attempt to gather his wit, 'Whatever he has to begin with, bloody ignoramus', Aldershot then gestured towards his customer as if to wait there, and in a much more fitting tone, or so Draco thought, replied, "If you would wait here, young man, I will fetch the aforementioned trunk". The old fool disappeared into the back room to do just that, returning only moments later to Draco with a trunk made out of dark cherry, its corners and sides furnished with supple chestnut wood, the top smooth and elegantly gleaming.

Galleons went from one hand to the other, with just a few sickles and knuts returned for change, and Draco swiftly exited the shop, determined to be on his way to.. to.. anywhere but England. He was clearly persona non grata, regardless of whatever Potter and his ilk had managed to say in his defense. Not that he wasn't thankful of the attempt but really what did the damn Gryffindor think, that the magical population of Great Britain would forgive and forget just because The Boy Who Killed said so? All it did was make the pointed looks, muttered curses and wild gossip lessen slightly. The disdain, the ill concealed hatred, even the pity, it was all still there, barely hidden. Draco hated it.

Having charmed his trunk small enough to fit into his mokeskin pouch, Draco wound his way through the throngs of people in Diagon Alley happily bustling about on errands they had post-poned during the war. As he headed towards Gringotts, his thoughts turned to his new trunk. Its shiny top cover was still unmarked and awaited the inlaid crest of a Noble house like his.

Not that he had much to fill it with, not yet. Nor much money left to buy things to fill it with, after buying the trunk itself. Only a handful of galleons and some smaller change remained in his pouch, the last of the savings he had carefully saved from his plentiful allowance during the school years, and he needed to save that for where he was going. Most of his savings had gone to room at the disgusting inn he had found nestled deep in Knockturn Alley, where voices and activity from the nightly traffic of young witches and enamored (or ensnared) wizards penetrated into the depressing room he had called his for the past month. Still, it was cheap and his reputation was already irrepairably damaged.. what would it matter if someone saw him being a knut pincher, staying at Knockturns favourite house of debauchery.

Yes, the trunk would suit him well for his journey. A perfect replacement for the one the Ministry had confiscated along with everything else found at Malfoy Manor and in the family vaults. His father had made many mistakes, but failing to prepare for the worst was not one of them. Now that all the dust had settled from legal proceedings and the Daily Prophet's hunt for injustice, of course printing as many editions as possible in the process, Draco would visit Gringotts vault number 1109 as instructed.

If it had had any gold or valuables in it, or if it had been in the Malfoy name, the goblins would have been forced by law to turn it over to the Ministry as part of its asset seizure. Lucius Malfoy was no fool however and knew all about those laws and the loopholes that naturally occured within them.

In the vault, registered to the well paid Malfoy family solicitor, Peter Snodgrass, was a single, worthless, and broken, wand. Ten and a half inches, ash and with a dragon heartstring core, rigid and unyielding.

Once belonging to a particularly paranoid Lord Malfoy, particularly paranoid considering the fact that all Malfoys were naturally suspicious, it had numerous of nasty curses and questionable enchantments on it that would instantly make any non-Malfoy who touched it bitterly regret their choice. The magic was still active centuries later, even though the wand itself was broken and not worth a knut, kept so by the ambient magic inlaid in the delicately carved golden runes covering the stone floor it lay on.

This was a Malfoy family secret worth knowing, his father had assured him, a last cheer if the darkest times were upon the family.

"Its secret is that its primary purpose was never to be a wand. It is a portkey, Draco. A portkey meant for one trip, fueled by similar magic to that found in the luck potion, Felix Felicis. Created by blood sacrifice and in the most exacting, costly rites ever performed by a wizard. You will arrive somewhere where you will find the most opportune of beginnings, a way to start the family anew, free from the tarnished reputation it now has. Just remember one thing, son. Wherever you end up, keep in mind that if you have to create enemies, do so in the most profitable manner possible. Hold the Slytherin ideals high, do not repeat my mistakes and never ever lose your wand". Those were the last words his father had said to him, whispered urgently, desperately, and with a haunted look in his eyes. Moments later the Aurors dragged him away for his life's last Kiss, his soulless body now laid to rest in some unmarked plot instead of in the Malfoy family crypt, beneath the Malfoy Manor in Wiltshire. A place Draco could never return to, it having been sold by the Ministry along with all its furnishings and belongings.

There were so many questions he had wanted to ask him about this special portkey awaiting him and where it would take him, so many accusations and hateful words he wanted to hurl at his father, a thousand things he wanted explained, but all he could do as his father tried to look noble while the Aurors dragged him away, was cry. Tears flowed down his face, but he did not make a sound. Father had always told him that Malfoy's do everything with dignity and this was one of those moments where there was no question of how to act.

Furious at his emotional weakness and the tears threatening to escape from his eyes, Draco clenched his jaw tight and shook away the painful memory as he ascended the Gringotts steps, only just avoiding collision with a witch exiting the bank. The witch quickly moved away from the young well-dressed wizard. He looked much like his father had at his age, with his long, pale blonde hair, almost silver in colour, and it caused all kinds of reactions in people he encountered or passed by, not that he was noticing the effect today, lost in his thoughts.

Some determined steps later, he found himself entering one of the side corridors just off the Gringotts entrance, leading to various private offices and meeting rooms. After passing a half dozen doors, Draco stopped outside the one labelled Sharptooth, Manager of Accounts and knocked decisively, forcefully. Goblins did not respect timidity. Living up to their creed that time equals money, he did not have to wait long for the door to open.

"Ah, young Mr. Malfoy. Or should I say Lord Malfoy perhaps? You are expected. Enter. You may sit there", the goblin said while gesturing first for him to come in and then for him to sit in one of the padded, high-backed chairs sat in front of the massive oak desk occupying most of the room. The walls were covered by filing cabinets and a few portraits of murderous looking goblins, naturally.

Draco entered the room and gratefully sat in the indicated chair, briefly stopping to execute a short bow before moving directly to the business at hand, "Thank you for agreeing to meet me on such short notice, Account Manager Sharptooth. I was told that there is a vault in Gringotts that I am allowed to visit despite the recent Ministry seizures. A vault 1109?".

The aged and fierce goblin stared at him, not moving a muscle, eventually responding, "I suspected it would be that", Sharptooth grunted, "And are you aware of the properties of the item found in that vault, Lord Malfoy?", he inquired.

"I have been told what I needed to know by my late father, yes", Draco affirmed.

"And are you aware of the cost?", the goblin demanded.

"What cost would that be, Master Sharptooth? Surely all vault fees and associated cost have been taken care of by Solicitor Snodgrass?"

Sharptooth snorted and clarified, "I do not mean a monetary cost, Lord Malfoy. The price you will pay is of a more intangible nature. We of Gringotts do not know the details of the magics ensconced in the object found in vault 1109, only that it is the result of arcane ritual magic, likely blood magic. As such, your magic and your body's safety cannot be assured in any way by Gringotts, once you touch the item in question and utter its activation phrase."

Draco put on a confident smirk, even though he felt nowhere close to being confident. "The Malfoy family does not need the assurance of goblins to know that our own family heirlooms are safe to touch", he proclaimed.

"Well, then we need not waste any more time here. I will call upon an escort for your journey to the vault. May your gold flow freely, Lord Draco Lucius Malfoy, and may your enemies tremble", Sharptooth offered as a last token of respect to the son of what had once been his most important account holder. He inclined his head slightly, then touched something beneath the desk. Before Draco could utter his formulated reply, the door behind him opened and a goblin stood in the open doorway waiting for him.

Draco rose from his chair and took his time to bow respectfully, deeper this time than before. "May your gold flow freely and your enemies die painfully, Account Manager Sharptooth", he replied. Following the goblin waiting for him down to the vault tunnel tracks, taking in the grand lobby of Gringotts and its varied occupants one last time, he entered the cart that would take him to his next destination right after the goblin did.

The cart quickly started moving forward, downwards, the wind shuffling Draco's hair and it made him think morosely of how he might never be able to play Quidditch again. Eventually the broom's enchantments would fail too, hopefully not before he was dead and gone but, the newer brooms weren't made to last more than a hundred years and he was young still. Surely father would not send him to some place with no magic though. He couldn't be that cruel.

It did not take very long before his depressed musings were interrupted by the cart stopping outside of its destination. The vault was not one of the older, cavernous ones occupying an entire level and thus deep down in the earth, so the journey was a short one. As always, the goblins were an impatient folk and his current escort was no different, opening the vault doors before Draco had even exited the cart.

Despite the sneering, irritated expression that looked permanently pasted on the goblin's face, Draco took his time entering the vault. With measured steps, he walked forward, not sure if he should go ahead or if he even wanted to. What awaited him? Could it really be better? Was it some type of time-turning portkey that would take him back to the time of the founders? No, that kind of thing was just found in the stories. At most it would deliver him to some other magical community on Earth where no one knew his name. That wouldn't be so bad.

Pausing at the vault entrance, he gathered his thoughts and then in the manner befitting the Lord of House Malfoy, purposefully walked in to find a space perhaps the size of the Slytherin common room, with cave walls blasted smooth and curving like a dome around the floor, half again as tall as Draco was. On the ground in the centre of the vault, inside golden concentric circles which were clearly part of the larger rune design covering the rest of the floor in flowing lines, he saw what he came here for. A wand not so dissimilar from his own, except that it was clearly cracked in several places and would be dangerous to cast magic from.

'Doesn't look like much. Maybe it's a joke? A grand joke played on whatever idiot managed to doom the family into this cowardly kind of escape', Draco pondered as he came close to it. But he knew though, that whomever designed this 'lucky portkey', did so for the family and thus it would work as intended. Anything else was unacceptable to a Malfoy.

Carefully going through his cloak pockets, he mentally began inventorying all his various belongings that he would take with him, from the expanded mokeskin pouch containing his trunk and money to his bottomless bag, a sixteenth year birthday gift from his mother, which contained some of the books from the library at Malfoy manor that he had loaned away to school and his own school books of course. Other than that, there were some common magical artifacts, various knick-knacks and a decent supply of ordinary yet useful potions. In one cloak pocket, he also had a shrunk shopping bag from Honeyduke's Sweetshop in Hogsmeade, filled with a good amount of sweets and butterbeer. Who knew when he would taste well made sweets again.

Going through the items one more time, then a second, Draco finally arrived to the conclusion that this was it. There was nothing else to do, no one to say good bye to, nothing to leave behind except for a host of bad memories and horrible experiences. Drawing a deep breath, Draco bent down and touched the broken wand, muttering the words that would activate its latent magic, "Alius mundus, alius locus". (A new world, a new place)

The runes on the ground lit up and the wand in his hand began to burn. A breath later and the world disappeared around him. He felt the typical sensations of portkey travel, but it seemed grander, endless and hurt like being sat on by a troll. The sense of time passing by eventually faded into a feeling of nothingness, before eventually he arrived at, or rather was spat out at, wherever it was. In mud. Rain and mud and lighting and thunder. Dazed, about to lose consciousness, Draco looked about and concluded that he was in the middle of a forest. Exerting what felt like the last of his energy, he dragged himself to the nearest tree, for some cover from the stormy weather. Not wanting to waste a pepper-up potion or use a headache potion to ease the pounding in his head, he barely managed to cast a warming charm on himself and close the thankfully water-proof cloak around him, before he gave in to the exhausted and weary feeling permeating his body. Draco passed out beneath the tree he had crawled beneath, glimpsing through its canopy and a gap in the storm clouds, a starry sky.