If Only We Could Smile

Summary: During the final battle at Hogwarts, Draco Malfoy dies. Luckily, there's a phoenix there that has taken a shine to him. Not so luckily, it sends him back to the summer before his fourth year at Hogwarts, when everything really started to go downhill.

(WARNING! Time-Travel, AU, Slash, Voldemort/Draco, Sporadic Updates, possible grammar and spelling mistakes, English is not my first language so mistakes are inevitable)

A/N: So, for some reason, I like this pairing, but it is frustratingly difficult to find good fanfics with it that aren't just PWP. And so I embarked on this foolish journey of loneliness and despair as I wrote something I have literally never written before. Join me in my suffering, I dare you. I have no idea what I'm doing.

Btw, the romance is going to be slowburn and updates will forever and always be sporadic. Just PM me if you have any questions (or recommendations for good LV/Draco fanfics). Reviews are always appreciated. I hope you enjoy. Tell me what you think! :D

Disclaimer: I don not own Harry Potter.

Prologue

The Hogwarts grounds were in chaos.

People wearing black robes and white masks were shooting off curses and hexes left and right, the colorful spells lighting up the dark night. They had been fighting for hours, students and teachers and members of the Order of the Phoenix, all of them banding together to protect their last sanctuary. Their home.

There were bodies littering the ground, some of them with the intestines' ripped open, others with their eyes wide in death without any visible wounds and even more with boils and cuts and bruises. Behind the battle stood the high castle of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, towering above them all like some terrible omen. The air was full of the rotting scent of the death and despair as people fought for their very lives.

As the Death Eaters did their best to mutilate and viciously murder their opponents, so too did their opponents do their best to stop them.

It was a clear night, not very suitable for the somber happenings.

The screams of sorrow and pain filled the air of the battlegrounds as people saw their loved ones fall, their breath taken from them in brutal curses. What had once been a beautiful school of magic and mystic was now reduced to the place of a crusade for a madman. In the middle of it all were the members of the famed Order of the Phoenix, protectors of the Light side, fighting against the Inner Circle of the Death Eaters.

The battle wasn't at a standstill, but they were evenly matched, both of the sides powerful and knowledgeable in magic, both obscure and not.

They fought, lights bursting from their wands, words of magic and might falling from their lips, as they fought a battle to the death. There would be no mercy, no pardon, no forgiveness. This was the second coming of Lord Voldemort and his feared followers and this time the Imperious Curse wouldn't be enough to get anyone off the hook. That was, if the Light side won.

It didn't seem like they would.

The Light side had power and knowledge and perseverance. But they were vastly outnumbered by people with far less morals and consciences to stop them from resorting to truly horrific things.

Harry James Potter, the Savior that had all the hope of the Light, was missing.

All hope seemed to be lost.

Draco Malfoy, traitor to his family and magic, cursed as he barely managed to duck a hex that would have turned his insides to stone.

This was a nightmare come true.

From his wand came a curse, barely legal, that snapped the bones of the victim. He didn't stop to see if it hit the target, nor did he look behind him to find out if he was followed. He was on the outer edges of the battle, hidden in the darkness, but his status as a traitor meant that people kept searching him out. And as an ex-Death Eater, he didn't doubt that if he killed anyone here tonight, whether they were on the Dark or Light side, he would be going to prison—if not have his soul just sucked out of his body—for a very long time.

He hadn't seen his parents so far.

He knew that they were present, they were still far too loyal to the Dark Lord not to be, but no matter where he fought his way, he couldn't find them. It was frustrating and annoying and with every body clad in black billowing robes and white masks that fell, a creeping fear that it might be his mother or father overwhelmed him.

This wasn't what he had ever wanted.

His life wasn't supposed to go this way.

He was supposed to serve the Dark Lord, a charismatic overwhelmingly powerful man. He was supposed to be at his parents' side, doing what was necessary to live up to his name. He was supposed to be a person to envy, at the top of his classes and wealthy. This was never supposed to be what his life amounted to.

He'd chosen to betray his family, his friends and his very magic. And now he was on the losing side.

There were so many things that he had wanted to do, wanted to learn, that he had never had the chance to and with every curse he just narrowly ducked, the more he suspected that he would never have the chance. It would be a fitting end, he supposed, for the last Malfoy to die in disgrace.

Draco fell and rolled on the ground in an effort to avoid more curses headed his way. Ah, he thought, if only I wasn't such a coward. If only…

A burst of pain, the shrill ringing of a bird and then—

nothing.