Title: be brave

Disclaimer: not my characters

Warnings: AU; minor character death; mentions of violence

Pairings: none

Rating: PG

Wordcount: WIP

Point of view: third

Prompt: Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy + Any, History is written by the ones with the Time-Turners.

Note: Dudes, I want to continue this so much. If I do, it'll just be drabbles in the same 'verse. Please prompt me!

More notes: This will be the only part with a heading unless the warning changes. As of this moment, I have four parts done, including this one. Please leave a prompt!

It is a tiny little thing, tinier than any the Ministry had once created. Mother explained it to him, years ago, back before Draco cared or had need of it. Every turn is a year, little dragon, Mother had whispered. This is our heritage, passed to the child most suited to it. She continued, talking about sisters and disappointments, about mudbloods and prisons, but Draco no longer listened.

Mother is dead now. As is Father. Voldemort is Lord of Britain and the muggles planning their vengeance, and Harry Potter failed before he ever even got the chance to try.

We prove who we are in times of adversity, someone said once. Draco cannot remember who, or when, or why. But these are the most adverse times of his life, and this is not a world he can stand to live in. No longer. What is the point of being victorious if all that's left is an ocean of blood?

Spells to travel in time always fail. Or so the Ministry once preached, when they kept a room of time-turners and policed their use viciously. But.

Draco looks down at the bone-pale hourglass, full of dark sand, and thinks, I could go back and save them.

Spells to travel in time always fail – but how could anyone know? If things go rightly, everything changes. If things go wrongly, nothing does. So how could anyone know either way?

Father died first, executed for failing. Mother died days later, for refusing to try. And Draco ran. The Lord of Britain had more important things to worry about, and Bellatrix let Draco go, because he was the only member of her family left. If the stories are right, it is the only act of mercy Bellatrix ever showed.

Where did things go so wrong? He stares down at the inscription - be cautious, be wise, be sure, be brave, in a language he knows only because he is blood of the creator – and tries to decide when, exactly, he should travel to. How many years? What does he know for sure?

Harry Potter died in second year, when Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets opened and the monster escaped. The Dark Lord returned.

Hogwarts is rubble, now.

So to second year? Twelve turns. Is that far enough?

No. Because looking back with adult eyes, that child in Madame Malkin's had no idea at all. The Harry Potter he first met as an arrogant prat had no idea about magic. Harry Potter went to Hogwarts with no more knowledge than a mudblood. That Granger girl knew more than the Boy Who Lived.

So before that.

Maybe… "Be cautious," he whispers, tracing the words. "Be wise. Be sure." He closes his eyes, imagining how painful it must have been, when Voldemort tortured his parents to death. "Be brave."

Draco has been cautious. But can he be wise, or sure of anything, or brave?

After Hogwarts fell, Voldemort had announced to the survivors the prophecy in full. To utterly destroy all hope, Mother said. So that everyone knew defying was pointless.

Voldemort cannot be killed. Many have tried. Many have died. The resistance crumbles more each day. If they had any chance at all, Draco might go to them.

"Twenty-four," Draco muses. It would give him time to build a history, to lay in the foundations, to hide away supplies. Everyone knows, now, where Dumbledore hid his Chosen One. Draco knows where to wait.

Draco knows so many things he wishes he didn't, things the savior must know to beat Voldemort. What had Dumbledore been thinking, sending that little boy from Madam Malkin's into a war?

"Be brave," Draco says and counts the turns.