History Repeats Itself

Authors Note: So I totally frakked up and posted the chapters out of order, so those of you who saw my update first thing got two chapters! lol. Thanks to my beta Shannon for her brilliant work!!

Chapter 11 Falling Into Place

It would take two weeks to make the potion that would send me back in time and I could hardly wait to get started. The potion itself was fairly easy to brew. It was a straightforward method of adding ingredients, stirring and then waiting, nothing fancy had to happen like waiting for a full moon or the third Tuesday in a month beginning in ‘J’.

The tricky part was going to be getting the needed ingredients.

There were ten items needed to complete the process, and I knew Snape had some of the more common ones like the bloodroot, cedar, wormwood, larch, mistletoe and mandrake roots in the classroom cupboard.

It was easy enough for us to sneak in and take what we needed without any major problems and we stored it under my bed while we devised a plan to get the rest.

Eyebright, butterfly weed, vervain and lotus flowers however would only be kept in Snape’s personal cabinet, which was much riskier to access and take from. He would notice at once if even a petal or leaf were missing from his private store.

Two days passed before we were able to work up the nerve to even attempt breaking into Snape’s quarters. It seemed luck was apparently on our side as our beloved Potions Master was called away on some private business away from the castle, giving us ample time to disable his locking charms and get in.

“If one of us gets caught the other needs to bolt, no questions asked, alright?” Shannon whispered once we were inside Snape’s bedchamber.

“What? I’m not going to leave you here all alone,” I replied with a withering look.

“And what makes you think that I’ll be the one getting caught?” she asked haughtily.

“That’s not what I said,” I replied with a roll of my eyes.

“You implied it,” she countered. “And anyway, if I get caught I’ll talk my way out of it and vice versa, but if we both get caught it will look far more suspicious.”

“You make a good point,” I muttered.

“I usually do,” she chimed and pulled me further into the room before I could say anything to the contrary.

The room was musty and damp, which didn’t really surprise me given the location and the occupant. Clearly Snape spent very little time in his bedchamber and he was probably so used to the foul odor of the potions he made that he couldn’t even smell the mildew-like fragrance of his room.

All of the furniture looked old and worn out, as if he was the hundredth generation of professor’s to use it, and perhaps he was. His private potions laboratory however, was a stark contrast to his living quarters and as we entered the room through a door that had been left ajar, I marveled at the comfortable magnificence of the room.

Lining every wall of the windowless room were thick mahogany cabinets with black wrought iron handles. In the center were four wide tables in a matching wood with polished red marble counters and multiple cauldrons set up so that several potions could be brewing simultaneously.

Only one potion was bubbling at the moment and its course gray liquid filled the room with an aroma of lavender and lemon.

“I have no idea what that potion could be,” I muttered, chastising myself for falling behind in my potions training. It had been so important to me before Harry… but then a lot of things had been important to me before that.

“It’s a medicinal potion to cure foul stench jinxes,” Shannon noted as she started checking cabinets on her side of the room. “I heard about a second year getting a whole list of them somehow, and no there’s an epidemic in the Hufflepuff House.”

“How did I not hear about that?” I groaned. Hufflepuff’s always got into the most ridiculous messes and it was one of my few gossip indulgences to find out what their latest fiasco was.

“You’ve been distracted,” she replied with a gentle shrug, which was probably her nice way of saying that I had been too busy being an arse to worry about the Hufflepuff’s.

I let the subject drop though, no use dwelling on now when we had a task at hand. After a few nasty stinging curses, we managed to break Snape’s security charms. It came in handy that he used nearly identical measures to protect his ingredients as he had on my father’s cabinets and I’ve known how to get into those since third year.

Splitting up was by far the quickest method and before long we had the remaining ingredients. We only took what was needed and no more as it would be a miracle if we weren’t caught in the first place.

We made our hasty exit from the laboratory with our ingredients in tow, but before we could get out of the Professor’s quarters altogether we heard the sound of his main door being unlatched and we both panicked.

I pulled Shannon into the nearest room, which unfortunately happened to be Snape’s bedchamber and handed her all the potion ingredients. “Here, take these and cast a disillusionment charm on yourself now,” I ordered.

“What are you going to do?” she asked, looking concerned.

“Whatever I need to in order to get out of here in one piece,” I replied and shooed her to the other side of the door so that when it opened, she could slip out unnoticed.

“Why don’t you come with me?” she hissed, getting quieter as we heard footsteps in the other room.

“He’ll need to be distracted enough not to notice an invisible body slipping out of his quarters,” I reasoned.

She sighed and did as I said, although she appeared grudging to do so. Only a moment later the door burst open and Snape came striding in, a look of clear surprise on his face at my presence in his bedroom.

“Mr. Malfoy?” he asked. “What in Merlin’s name are you doing here?”

“I wanted to speak with you, sir,” I offered and stepped back further into the room in hopes that Snape would follow and give Shannon enough room to escape. It worked, and with two long strides, Severus was practically right on top of me, angling me toward the bed.

I swallowed thickly and tried to resist his movements, but he was much larger and stronger than me. “Sir,” I gulped, “what are you doing?”

“There are only two reasons for a student to break into my private chambers, Mr. Malfoy,” he intoned, a predatory look on his sallow face. “And I didn’t find you in the laboratory.”

“I just needed to talk to you,” I repeated. “About my father,” I added for good measure and also to remind him whose son he was trying to seduce.

“You’re father?” he asked, backing up a step and looking at me speculatively.

“Yes,” I replied, trying not to show my relief at no longer being pressed against the Potions Master. “He hasn’t written in some time and I wanted to know if you were aware of any… difficulties at the Manor?”

I hoped it sounded like a legitimate question and the entire time he scrutinized me I held my breath. Finally he nodded curtly and backed up another step. “I know of nothing that might affect the immediate health of either Lucius or Narcissa,” he replied at last, meaning that they were currently living with Voldemort and nothing is for certain, but last he heard they were as safe as they could be.

It had taken me a few years to learn how to decipher the circles that my family and their friends spoke in, but once I did it came naturally.

I sighed in a relief that was both true and partially manufactured. It wasn’t at all why I was really there, but it was always nice to know that my parents were still alive because at any moment that could stop being true.

“Is that really your only motive here today?” he asked me then, taking another step closer. “You needn’t be ashamed if it’s not.”

“I’m not sure what you mean, sir,” I replied inching closer to the door.

“Slytherin boys often like to… experiment,” Snape mused. “You’re of age now after all.”

A shiver ran up my spine at his words, and not the kind of shiver I got with Harry, but more of a sticky, clammy shiver that made me feel unclean. “I assure you, Professor, that concern for my father was all that brought me to you.”

“As you wish,” he replied looking a fair bit disappointed. “Of you change your mind, my bedchamber is always open to you, Draco.”

“Noted,” I replied, trying not to gag and with a bow I left the room as quickly as I could while maintaining my dignity.

“Professor Snape is a pervert,” I exclaimed as soon as I made it safely into the corridor.

“What happened?” Shannon asked, dispelling the disillusionment charm and pulling me through the dungeons toward our common room.

“I’d rather not talk about it,” I replied with another shiver. “Suffice it to say I think I need a shower.”

Her eyes widened significantly and she stopped us, whirling me around to face her. “You didn’t?” she asked, her eyes begging that I wouldn’t tell her that I had done anything… unseemly with the older professor.

“Merlin, no!” I shouted, yanking my arm out of her grip. “What the hell do you take me for?”

She just chuckled with relief and shrugged. “It was just, what you said…”

“He tried,” I admitted with a groan. “He even told me his bedchamber was always open to me.”

“I would have loved to see that,” she said with a laugh and grabbed me by the elbow and started pulling me along the corridor again.

“You could just say ‘thank you’ for letting you get away unscathed and drop it,” I grumbled.

“Where would be the fun in that?” she asked and laughed again.

“I’m going to have so many nightmares,” I groaned as I thought of the leering professor.

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Waiting for the potion to complete was excruciating, but finally the day arrived when I could confirm or deny the odd dream about my ancestors and a curse. We decided to take it at seven the next morning when all the other students would be on their way to breakfast.

When Shannon came into my room that morning I had already been wide awake for hours, unable to find sleep in my excited state.

“Do you have the potion?” I asked.

“Of course,” she muttered, rolling her eyes.

“I’m nervous,” I admitted as she took a seat on the edge of my bed.

“You should be. This is dangerous, Draco, and part of me wants to dump it down the drain so that you can’t hurt yourself,” she replied.

“Hey! I had to endure being hit on by Snape for that potion,” I announced defensively and took the potion vial from her hand. “It’ll all be okay,” I assured her.

“Remember what we talked about?” she asked. “You have to think of the time and place you want to be and then once you’re done you have to get back here. You have until nine to get back into your body or else you’ll be stuck forever,” she warned.

“I know, mum,” I replied as gently as I could muster after hearing the same lecture over a dozen times through the course of the previous two weeks.

She huffed and narrowed her eyes. “That means no Harry,” she added and I laughed.

“Thanks. I was going to dally and get back right at the buzzer, but now I’ll hurry,” I replied and she stuck out her tongue.

“Well, I’ll be right here when you wake up,” she replied softly and gestured for me to drink the potion. “I hear it tastes retched,” she warned.

“Don’t they all,” I teased and upended the vial into my mouth.

“It does taste retched,” I told her as she gripped my hand. It tasted like someone had mixed bile with an herb-encrusted meat and it was all I could do to keep it down.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“A little tingly,” I replied, poking at my limbs with my free hand.

“Draco?” she called a little louder that necessary.

“What?” I answered, but she wasn’t looking at me, she was looking through me. Turning around I quickly realized that my body was still limp in my bed, eyes wide and staring blankly ahead, while I was floating just above it like a bad parlor trick. I tried to reach out and touch Shannon, but my hand went right through her like a ghost.

I laughed and spun, relishing in the feel of this new weightless body, but then my eyes trained on my beside clock and already ten minutes had passed, so I shut my eyes and started to concentrate on the room and the people from my dream.

It took a few attempts, but finally when I opened my eyes the room was different, ornate and luxurious and my ancestor’s were there, Edward and Orion in a heated exchange of passion and their significant others watching from the doorway.

This time everything was much clearer that it had been in my dream and the scene on the bed made me squirm slightly as I thought about Harry.

“How long,” Isabella whispered from the door, pulling me from my thoughts and it was exactly as it had been in my dream.

The men on the bed were startled away from each other and the exchange of words brought them closer together until by the time Stephanie began the curse, they we entangled together once more, as if magnets resided in their bodies and pulled them ever closer.

Stephanie’s curse was as it was in my dream; her haunting voice filled the room with it.

“Every generation in the line of Potter and Malfoy will produce a single male heir and one alone. These heirs will have a cursed existence, bringing unneeded strife and even early death into their midst unless they follow their heart instead of the heritage and family laws pressed upon them. The heirs will only find peace with each other, and only then will their lives make sense and become fulfilled. Only then will the curse be broken.”

The words flowed over me like warm silk and made my entire body tense with the excitement that Harry and I were destined to fall into our haphazard affair.

I shook the feeling off though and tried to pay attention, because what would come next had faded away in my dream, but now I would get to witness it.

“How can you place a curse on your own children?” Orion demanded, pulling a naked Edward to his feet but not relinquishing his hand.

“You brought this upon our families, not me,” Stephanie replied haughtily.

“There’s little point,” Edward shrugged. “I’m simply going to inform our son of what you’ve done.”

“Try,” Stephanie replied in a singsong voice. “You won’t be able to utter a word about it, not specifically anyway.”

“You evil wench,” Orion howled and launched himself at Edward’s wife.

She evaded him easily and laughed as Edward restrained him against the bed. “Calm yourself,” he soothed and he watched Orion’s pallor return and his breathing steady.

“If Xavier chooses Leo and vice versa, all will be well in their lives, but if not, then their lives will be forfeit,” Isabella told them reasonably, and much more calmly than I expected a mother to act. My mother could be cold, but she would never place a curse upon my head.

“You’re both vile,” Orion hissed. “These are your sons too, how could you condemn them?”

“We’re leaving you and starting again,” Isabella replied, speaking for both women. “These children were conceived out of deceit. Leo is no son of mine,” she growled and left the room.

Stephanie followed, though she looked slightly more hesitant than Isabella had. “You won’t be permitted to say a word to them,” she reminded the couple, still nude and gaping by the bed, before she was gone.

The minute the door closed, Orion let out a vicious string of admonishments for their behavior. “What have we done?”

“We’ve broken our vows and they have taken their vengeance upon us,” Edward replied. “I fear they knew our sons were more important to us than ourselves.”

“But how could they? They have no reason to believe that Xavier and Leo will follow in our footsteps. What if they prefer a more suitable match?” Orion replied.

“More suitable? You think my Xavier wouldn’t be suitable?” Edward growled.

“I think he’d be less suitable than a woman of high standing and magic,” Orion answered honestly.

“So you think Isabella is more suitable than me?” Edward demanded.

“I married her didn’t I?” Orion spat, and I could tell from his face that he didn’t mean it, he was just angry.

But clearly Edward was just as upset and stormed from the room with a flurry of obscenities directed at his lover.

After a moment Orion followed, but I didn’t need to. It had to have been that moment that served as the catalyst in the Malfoy/Potter feud, as clearly Xavier and Leo had not broken the curse. Even if the men reconciled that night it would only be temporary.

History was very clear on that point.

So with stubborn bigotry the Malfoy’s and the Potter’s sentenced all their children for generation after generation to a terrible fate because of their hatred of one another. Had Harry and I been the first to break through it or had others before us tried? If not for the Time Turner I might have always seen Potter for what my family made him out to be; not good enough for a Malfoy.

I could have just as easily found a tortured existence and early death at the hands of my ancestors and the lies they handed down.

Pulling myself from my dreadful thoughts, I looked at the clock on the wall and started to panic, I had already been there for over an hour and had no idea how I would get back to my body. I paced the room looking frantically for a door or a rip in the air that might signal a passageway from this time back into mine.

It was then that I noticed that Edward had come back into the room and was looking right at me. Only something was off.

The clothing he wore was modern and familiar and he walked right up to me, as if he could see me, even though to him I shouldn’t exist. But then I saw his eyes, the emerald green of damp Irish grass and I realized it wasn’t Edward at all.

“Harry?” I asked, my frantic facade breaking at the sight of him smiling in front of me. Knowing now that I could be with him, should be with him made my heart swell, but this image I had couldn’t possibly be the real Harry.

“You look like you might need some assistance,” he teased, taking his arm and looping it through mine. I’m not sure why but I expected it to float through like a ghost would, but it didn’t. It stuck and suddenly he was a solid warmth at my side.

“How?” I asked, not even knowing what I meant to say, but Harry seemed to know.

“I can feel you wherever you are, Draco. I’m always with you,” he replied and pulled me toward the door to the hall.

Once in the corridor I recognized it as the manor right away. Oddly enough I hadn’t known the room, but I made a mental note so that if I got back –when I got back- I could find it again. Harry led me to my own room, a glossy white door with a silver inset, and then he stopped and turned to face me.

“We have to go inside,” he told me softly and placed my hand on the doorknob.

I turned it, and the door burst open with a vicious crack and a brilliant white light. I squinted against it and pulled my arm up to ward off the brightness of it and all the while I could feel Harry pulling me into it.

The light began to fade and I opened my eyes to find myself inside Hogwarts once more, my own dorm even. Harry was still at my side and smiling gently as he walked with me toward a shimmering form on my bed, which I realized after a moment was actually me. My body looked like a dessert mirage, all blotches of color and heat waves until I moved closer.

I could see Shannon hovering over my body, clutching my hand and looking worriedly between my face and the clock on the bedside table. I only had a few minutes to get back inside my body before I was stuck in limbo forever.

Authors Note: Eek! I can't believe this story is almost over!