This was originally written for the Dramione Duet on LiveJournal. I had so much fun writing this, I can only hope it translates to the reader.

I had an absolutely fantastic beta reader, 4fanci, who did an amazing job with the draft that kept running away from me. Any remaining mistakes are my own – do please point them out if you notice any.

Chapter 1

-oOo-

Draco's dragonhide boots click-click-clicked against the floor as he marched through the double doors to Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes and up to the sales counter. All eyes turned to him, as he pulled out a small parcel, carefully wrapped, and placed it on the counter.

"This," he declared, "is cursed!"

Draco felt his announcement merited a better audience than Ronald Weasley and a snot-nosed teenager stocking the shelves at the back.

"Really?" Weasley asked, carefully unwrapping the parcel, proving the last decade hadn't improved his understanding one whit. Dark Lords may rise and fall, but Weasley still remained an idiot. He finally extracted the contents, and held it up to the light. "Ah. I've tested all these myself, so I think I would know if they were. Why do you think it's cursed?" He screwed his face up in what probably was meant to be a reassuring smile.

"Whenever I try to use it, everything flickers," Draco explained sullenly. "It's like having a seizure – when it's over, things that I don't remember have happened." He was still shaky from the shock of seeing a glass of water he knew he'd spilt returned to an upright position, full of water, this morning. The little golden disc had seemed like a perfectly ordinary ornament until then, when he finally had connected it with the strange occurrences marring last week. All of them had happened when he had been wearing his new robes, with the golden disc pinned to the collar.

"It's not a curse, it's a feature. Didn't you read the manual?" Weasley asked.

With an elegant shrug Draco conveyed that he didn't read manuals; he employed people who did it for him.

"Well, if you had, you'd have known it's a Mini Time-Turner, our latest bestseller. It's supposed to turn back time." Weasley launched into what was clearly a practiced speech. He probably had it tattooed on his left arm so he'd remember it. "Are you tired of life's little disasters mounting up, when they could be easily prevented? With our Mini Time-Turners, you'll never cast a charm just to regret it instantly afterwards again. Turn back time thirty seconds, and you'll save yourself hours."

"You've made Time-Turners?" Draco was reluctantly impressed. Blaise's behaviour when he'd handed Draco his birthday present a few weeks ago made sense now; he'd been very excited about something Draco had assumed was purely decorative.

"Yeah. Neat, isn't it?" Weasley held out the little disc so Draco could examine the tiny hourglasses engraved on it, with an even tinier WWW at the bottom. "They only work for thirty seconds, but still."

Draco had always wanted to see a Time-Turner. He hadn't expected them to be sold over the counter, however. During the last few days, he had feared his Black heritage finally had caught up with him and he'd lost his marbles. "I still don't think it's right," he muttered.

"You can speak to our Complaints Department if you like. She's over there." Weasley pointed to a desk in the opposite corner, beneath a knitted banner saying "Complain Here". The greying witch behind the desk gave Draco a little wave and a cheery smile.

Recognising her as Weasley's mother, Draco decided he was urgently needed elsewhere. Ever since the Battle of Hogwarts, she'd given him the willies. It was the combination of badly knitted jumpers and magic powerful enough to bring down his mad aunt. Molly Weasley wasn't someone he cared like to cross if he could avoid it.

Draco thought he saw someone in the doorway opposite the shop, but as he emerged on the street in the dripping rain she had disappeared. The weather was probably to blame for the lack of customers – it was a truly rotten day, British weather at its very worst. This time, he noticed the display in the Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes windows, announcing a Timely Revolution, with a Sold Out! banner plastered across it.

Meandering through Diagon Alley despite the steadily growing downpour, Draco eventually decided to cut his losses and stopped for two takeaway coffees before Apparating to the Ministry. No one accosted him as he made his way from the Atrium to the Department of International Magical Cooperation and Blaise's desk, where he drew up a chair and made himself comfortable.

Strictly speaking, Draco wasn't supposed to be there. He had, however, long since realised that paying attention to what he was supposed to be doing was unlikely to get him where he wanted to be.

To ensure his admittance to the International Magical Office of Law, Draco always brought coffee. The Ministry provided passable tea but its coffee was execrable, and Blaise was a bit of a coffee snob. Being Slytherins, they had ensured their arrangement benefitted both of them – Blaise got a drinkable cup of coffee, and Draco got access to the latest Ministry gossip.

Eventually, Blaise showed up, and Draco put his memos back in his in-tray. It seemed Hopkins was on the verge of resigning from the International Confederation of Wizards, judging by the exasperated tone of his weekly report.

"Morning. Sorry I'm late, someone got themselves arrested in Paris. A Frenchman will never use one word when three would suffice. How are things?"

"Passable," Draco said, lifting the warming charm on the coffee. According to Blaise, it was never quite as good as a fresh cup, but beggars couldn't be choosers. "I saw Weasley this morning. He's as freckled as ever."

"I always thought he forgave you on purpose after the war, so he could feel extra saintly. He doesn't even sneer at you anymore, does he?"

When Weasley had announced he'd buried the hatchet, Draco had resorted to goading him to see if he would crack. He didn't, and Draco had eventually given up. He blamed Granger; she had been full of how different things should be for a few years after the war, and she seemed to have convinced her boyfriend too.

"No. Although his smile is hardly an improvement."

"He and Granger broke up recently, maybe that's why," Blaise suggested.

"Or maybe he was born ugly. Who knows. "

"What were you doing visiting him, anyway? Or the shop, I suppose."

Draco summoned his moleskin pouch, which was insulated against magic to avoid objects inside being detected at inconvenient moments (such as the wand weigh-in at the Ministry of Magic). He carefully pulled out the Mini Time-Turner, and held it up to Blaise.

"I'm afraid I didn't grasp the revolutionary nature of this little gadget when you gave it to me. Did you know what it was?"

"Pansy has talked about little else since they were released. I'm surprised she didn't bend your ear, too."

"She's got a new boyfriend, who apparently finds it hard to grasp that Pansy has no desire to become Mrs Malfoy." So had Draco, not that many years ago, but any awkwardness had been dispelled with time and his belated understanding that marrying your oldest friend just because you have to marry someone isn't the best path to future happiness.

"Ah." Blaise picked it up, careful to only touch the edge of the disc. "Pretty, isn't it?"

"That's not really the point. Have you used it?"

"No. As a rule, I tend to give gifts I haven't used first.''

"Pansy might have offered you a loan of hers, or something."

"Don't make me laugh – she doesn't trust anyone with it. How would she ever fix her nails if someone broke it?"

"It doesn't matter. It's – it's not right. It's like the whole universe shudders, and then it feels like the ground is a little askew for hours afterwards. And Pansy is using it to paint her nails?!" Draco did have to admit Pansy had always had an admirably practical outlook on things. She only cared about what affected herself directly.

"So you don't like it, then? I thought I'd hit on the perfect present for the man who has everything."

"I didn't come here to complain, I just wanted to find out if you've felt the same. It's eerie. I actually thought it was cursed, at first." Having grown up in Malfoy Manor, this was not a conclusion Draco had come to lightly.

Blaise examined the Time-Turner through narrowed eyes. "I'd offer to give it a go, but you're not exactly selling it to me." He pursed his lips, considering. "Sod it, I'll always wonder if I don't try. How do you use it?"

"Since when did you become an honorary Gryffindor? Put your finger here, and tap three times – not yet!"

Draco felt like someone had beat him over the head with a hammer made of felt, and he noticed the walls seemed to be vibrating just a little. "You just used it, didn't you?"

Blaise looked at him with concern. "Yes, you just told me not to just as I was doing it, remember?"

"The point is I don't, because it never happened. The last thirty seconds have been erased."

"So you never accused me of being an honorary Gryffindor?"

"What?"

"Forget it, it made sense at the time." Blaise sighed. "I can see what you mean – it's like everything has been given a wobble. And you don't remember anything?"

"No. You're the only one who will ever know."

They stared at each other, horrorstruck.

"How are they allowed to sell that?!" Blaise asked, blinking at the wealth of ways the Mini Time-Tuner could be misused.

"It was designed by a bloody Gryffindor – they have no fucking imagination," Draco said gloomily. Thank Merlin it wasn't his problem – he didn't relish being on the clean-up squad once the Ministry cottoned on to the implications of releasing Weasleys' little time machine to the general public. "Wouldn't they have had to get it approved by the Ministry, anyway? Who's running the Improper Use of Magic Office these days?"

"Good question." Blaise rummaged through his top desk drawer, as always in a deplorable state of disorganisation, and finally pulled out the Ministry directory. "Department of Magical Law Enforcement... Auror Office – did you know Potter got promoted?... Human Resources... Here it is – Improper Use of Magic Office, Head of. Ah." He showed Draco the page, complete with picture and all.

"Hubert Bones." Draco knew him, of course – he was the widower of Amelia Bones, and had shown little interest in his Ministry career before his wife had been killed during the war. Apparently, he had escaped the attack that killed her because he had been thrown out of the marital home before it occurred. For the remainder of the war, he had holed up with his mistress.

When the dust had settled after the Battle of Hogwarts, Bones hadn't wasted his golden opportunity to milk the Ministry for all it was worth. In addition to a huge compensation claim, he had got promoted several times. No one was going to sack Madam Bones' widower, so each superior ended up passing him on through a sideways promotion rather than putting up with his incompetence permanently. The last time Bones had crossed paths with Draco, he had been mucking up the record of the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad – they must finally have managed to get rid of him.

And now he was in charge of approving new products from Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes, Merlin help the Wizarding world.

When he left Blaise's office and made his way out of the Ministry, Draco was thoroughly depressed. A complete nincompoop like Bones could screw up again and again, and no one seemed to care. Draco, however, had made one colossal mistake at the age of sixteen, and consequently was still perceived as beyond the pale by most of the wizarding world. All right, it was mostly by the former Order of the Phoenix and associated affiliated organisations he was shunned, but at the moment they happened to be running the Ministry.

Draco wasn't paying attention to his surroundings as he decided against another Apparition – Blaise's use of the Time-Turner still had his head spinning – and chose the exit to the Muggle side instead. Some fresh air might help.

He was staring at the Muggle vehicles racing by – outomobiles, he reckoned they were called – almost wishing he could go in one. They went so fast – he'd seen some in the countryside that almost had overtaken his broom, and they looked quite comfortable on the inside.

Then someone spoke, right next to his left elbow. "Draco Malfoy, I presume?"