The Seventh Turn

Well here it is: the edited and chaptered version of The Seventh Turn I should have uploaded to begin with. My apologies, but I was far too excited that I'd even managed to finish a story let alone spell it right. I would like to thank HARRYPOTTERlovesDRACOMALFOY for sitting tirelessly at her laptop to fix my mistakes and split 45,266 words into what I believe is 18 or 19 chapters.
I have directly quoted from the books in several areas and no copyright infringement is intended. I am writing for entertainment purposes only.
Enjoy the show...

o*o

"Where the hell did you come from?"
"The future, the present, the past. I don't bloody know anymore." Draco sighed. "More importantly, didn't anyone ever tell you not to mess with time?"

o*o

1

Draco's breakthrough (of sorts) came about at the very last minute on the upstairs landing of the Entrance Hall. He'd watched Crabbe die, escaped (been rescued) from the Room Of Requirement with his life (just) and was now being cornered by a Death Eater who's eyes were full of a rather psychotic hunger. It was perhaps the first moment in which he realized he really had backed the wrong side.

"I'm Draco Malfoy, I'm Draco, I'm on your side!" he insisted, though about ten minutes ago, he'd said the same to a young Gryffindor boy half his size. Merlin, he really was pathetic. The Death Eater was either deaf, foreign or well and truly didn't care. He encroached further, his face twisted as he pondered which horribly contorted curse he would use. That was one of the many drawbacks of Death Eaters, Draco thought hopelessly. They had very little loyalty and often a perverted thirst for blood.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, red light flew past his eyes, tickling the hairs on his face and startling him as the advancing Death Eater crumpled to the floor. He was saved! He looked about him, trying to find his hero when something hit him-very hard-in the face. His vision exploded in stars as he fell backwards onto the Death Eater. He felt his lip split open. "And that's the second time we've saved your life tonight you two faced bastard." spat the invisible voice that Draco recognized as Weasley's.

It probably wasn't him who cast the stunning spell, Draco thought, lying sprawled on the floor atop his potential attacker. No doubt it was Potter, who seemed to have a funny habit of saving his arse.

Draco closed his eyes and wondered if he'd be mistaken for a corpse, and left alone. He tried for a moment, breathing shallow breaths and keeping very still, but thoughts of Potter trampling the school in his invisibility cloak risking his life began to plague him. For the second time that night, he felt alien feelings of remorse, guilt and shame brewing within him like an offensive stew. They were most unwelcome.

Opening his eyes, he saw a door ahead of him. He knew that door. He had opened it in first year and been scolded by Filch for trespassing in broom cupboards. He had argued it was his right to explore his surroundings as a growing child. Of course he'd almost been shackled upside down and beaten. In third year, he had pushed a first year boy in there with Crabbe and Goyle's assistance and laughed at his piteous cries for help. That was four year ago. Crabbe had died tonight.

Draco struggled to his feet, stumbling slightly. Blood dribbled from his lip down his chin and over his shirt. He blinked unsteadily, slightly concerned about it. People probably weren't going to be looking at him tonight, he reasoned. Anyway, his shirt was black. Hurrying as the noise of a nearby duel reached his ears; Draco slunk towards the familiar door and pulled it open, slipping inside.
Yes, he thought, he'd be quite safe here.

The magnified words of Voldemort reached Draco's ears in the darkness.

"Harry Potter is dead. He was killed as he ran way, trying to save himself while you lay down your lives for him. We bring you his body as proof your hero is gone."

Perhaps, Draco thought, hysteria bubbling to the surface like a steaming cauldron, he was still asleep. He was almost certain he'd nodded off...

"The battle is won. You have lost half your fighters. My Death Eaters outnumber you and the Boy Who Lived is finished. There must be no more war. Anyone who continues to resist, man, woman or child, will be slaughtered, as will every member of their family. Come out of the castle, now, kneel before me, and you shall be spared. Your parents and children, your brothers and sisters will live, and be forgiven, and you will join me in the new world we shall build together."

Draco did not move from his hiding place. He would not kneel. There would never be a world worth living in again and he would certainly not help build it. It had taken him seven years and Harry's death for him to rebel, and the best stand he could take was refusing to come out of his cupboard.

It was common knowledge really: Draco Malfoy was no fighter. Currently, he was crouched in a broom cupboard with his lip bleeding over his shirt, trembling like the coward he was. No, Draco had never been very brave. Perhaps that was why someone like Harry Potter was their hero. Perhaps that's why he had died for them. Perhaps that was one of the many conflicting reasons why Draco loved him.

Thought he loved him.

He coughed. Dust from the collapsing castle and the smoke from the Fiendfyre had filled his lungs, making him feel worn and tenuous. How long ago had that been? Was it an hour since his arms had held Potter tightly as he saved his life in the Room of Requirement? It felt like a distant memory.

A scream from outside sent chills down his spine and the cold reality of the situation began to sink in. His parents would be worried about him, if they were still alive that is. Their eyes would be scanning the gathering crowd outside for his shock of pale hair. They would take his absence in the courtyard as proof that he lay dead somewhere in the castle. They'd cling to one another, his mother would wail, a muscle in his father's jaw would begin to twitch.

Rather selfishly, he didn't care. What was the point anyway, if Harry was dead? Draco would have to come out of his cupboard and live under Voldemort's reign. The worst part was that he helped achieve this. Not that he had done much really, the one task of killing Dumbledore he had been given he had failed miserably at. Nevertheless, that wasn't the point. He'd taken a mark of allegiance and stood with the people who wanted this.

Well get this. He wasn't coming out.

Draco's trembles grew to near convulsions. He would stay here forever. No he wouldn't, he was being irrational. Digging his nails into his palms he tried to focus. There was another option. He could do something. He could put right every last regret that was flickering through his mind as he awaited death or a life of misery. He could act.

Harry Potter had died at the hands of a man who stopped at nothing to gain power. Whether this was because of a stupid prophecy or just cruel chance, it didn't matter. He could not die. Not because he was the only chance the Wizarding world had at defending themselves from Voldemort. Not because he was their hero or their saviour, but because he was a boy. He was Harry Potter: a wizard, a Quidditch fan, someone who struggled with Potions and hated exams. For goodness sake, Draco had seen him with odd socks on in the corridor. Once, he'd even gone to put his glasses on upside down in Herbology. Like all the innocent people who had fought to prevent their world being torn apart, he hadn't deserved to die.

It might have struck Draco as bizarre to be having this revelation in broom cupboard when a war was ending outside, but he was already wide-eyed in the darkness with anticipation. Harry Potter needed help. Harry Potter could have been helped more than once over the past seven years. Dead as he was now, seven years ago, Harry Potter's escapade had only just begun.

He pressed his back against the rough wall of the cupboard and fumbled beneath his torn robes and filthy shirt. His hand clawed at the chain warmed by his skin. How his skin was warm, Draco did not know. He felt as though he had been filled with icy water. Draco pulled the chain out of his shirt and clutched his last hope: a time turner.

When his father had pressed the chain into his hand a few days before Draco had been shocked.

"I thought-"

"Not all of them. Perhaps a handful remain, and this one," Lucius had said, lowering his voice and gripping his son's shoulder, "This one will be your second chance.

"Seven years should be enough to rewrite the wrongs." Draco was shocked by his father's candidness. He was literally acknowledging the fact that every choice he had made for his son had been one for worse. Draco actually laughed. "Seven years? How many spins will that take?"

"This," Lucius said, suddenly anxious as he pressed the chain, "is warped with magic. Strong magic."
"Of the darkest kind no doubt."

His father turned away and rubbed his face, running a hand over the stubble. Draco had stared down at the time turner and wondered how soon he'd have to use it.

There were explosions outside, Draco could hear them ringing off the courtyard walls. Light from spells flickered under the door. It was very much now or never, Draco told himself. And if you want to save Potter's fat head you have to do it now.

Struggling to ignore the noise outside, he focused the remaining energy he possessed on the complexity of the time turner. He took it in his trembling fingers and began mentally reciting what he had been told.

Draco began to twist the hourglass on its thin chain.

A turn for each year, a complicated spell spoken word perfectly for the time and the place. This was harder than any exam he had ever sat, but more than his grades depended on him getting this right. He battled on and desperately tried not to muddle his words. It was working!

The broom cupboard began to dissolve around him, the sounds of spell-fire grew distant and faintly, he thought he could hear people crying out to him. Not now, he thought, I'm going. Concentrating with all his might as a sweat broke on his brow, the salt stinging his wounds, Draco completed the spell and turned the hourglass for the seventh time.

He landed firmly in one of the swaying carriages of the Hogwarts Express. He felt nauseated at the sight he had laid eyes on seven years ago; the warm lighting and the snug compartments: so far from where he had come. Draco took a sharp hold of himself as one of those compartment doors slid open. He threw himself into the toilet and banged the door shut behind him, opening it a crack to see who had appeared.

There he was. Eleven years old, pale skin, slick hair and an expression of hauteur that was yet to be wiped off his face. The young Draco Malfoy, closely followed by a younger Crabbe and Goyle, both as huge as Draco had remembered them being, left their compartment and peered through the glass of the neighbouring ones, looking for the famous Harry Potter.

Draco was about to change history.