History Repeats Itself

Authors Note: Many thanks to my beta Shannon, who not only checks over the chapters, but also requested and stars in the fic. I'm sorry this missed the posting yesterday. The internet install did not go as planned Saturday and I still have no service (hopefully it will go up today) and so I'm having to post the chapter on a borrowed system, which means, loathe as I am to say it, Memoirs will most likely not go up tonight. I know, I know and I'm very very sorry, but we'll get back on track later this week!

Chapter 8

Only one day had passed since I realized that my fate as Malfoy heir was sealed, and that I had to break things off with Harry. My mind was still in turmoil over it.

“I can’t do it,” I moaned, flopping onto the fuzzy green sofa in the common room. Our sofa.

“Of course you can’t do it,” Shannon mused. “You love him,” she added, as if that needed the clarity of being said out loud.

“I’m perfectly capable of breaking things off with him, I just can’t get him to talk to me,” I corrected.

Three times that day since breakfast I had tried to corner Potter and tell him that we were over, through, kaput, and each time he deftly avoided me, obviously still angry that I had run out on his ‘I love you’.

“Good,” she replied, her chin raised slightly in defiance. “I don’t think you should break up with him and maybe if Harry ignores you long enough you’ll realize that you’re an ignorant prat for even thinking about it.”

“Why don’t you tell me what you really think of me?” I replied sarcastically, rubbing my fingers into my temples.

“You love him, and you’d belong in St. Mungo’s ward for the criminally insane if you let him go,” she commented. “He’s smart, he’s kind, he’s hot-“ she started, counting out each brilliant feature on her fingertips, but I cut her off with a wave.

“Yes, yes, we all know Harry’s perfect, I know this better than anyone, but that changes nothing between us. He’s water and I’m oil, we don’t mix,” I pointed out.

“More like he’s unicorn horn and your boomslang skin,” she muttered.

“Hey, whose friend are you, here?” I asked defensively.

“I’m your friend, which is why it’s my job to point out when you’re about to make a huge mistake,” she replied. “Plus it’s easier to stop you before you mess everything up as opposed to having to comfort you while you whine about missing Harry.”

“Malfoy’s don’t whine,” I corrected her. “They brood maybe, but never whine.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Shannon replied with narrowed unbelieving eyes and picked up her Transfiguration homework, indicating that our conversation was about to be overheard by a troupe of third year Slytherin’s entering the common room.

I wanted to scream and tell them all to sod off, but that would have done little good so I just sighed and started in on my own homework, silently chastising myself when I realized I was drawing little lightning bolts all over my parchment.

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That night gave me little in the way of sleep and instead decided to grace me with nightmares of killing curses and my desperate but failed attempts to keep Harry from the receiving end of them.

It wasn’t pleasant, and even less pleasant was waking up from one of them with an invisible hand pressed over my mouth. My eyes went wide as I fought for air, or to scream or for both, but I was denied until mussed black hair emerged from under an invisibility cloak and Harry had ensured that I recognized him.

“What are you doing here?” I hissed the moment he let his hand drop from my face.

“I’m here to apologize,” he said simply as he pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. One of these days I was going to purchase him glasses that fit. No, no, that’s not right; I can’t buy gifts for boys I’m breaking up with.

“Wait, what do you have to apologize for?” I asked, very confused.

“I’ve been avoiding you,” he said, “or haven’t you noticed?” he added, looking a touch hurt.

I rolled my eyes and sat up a little. “Of course I noticed, but I just assumed you were still mad about my running out on you yesterday.”

“I was, but I realized that wasn’t very fair of me. I moved to fast, I see that now. I’ve just had longer to think of you as a romantic interest and well… I blurted. I’m sorry, I tend to do that sometimes,” he added as if I couldn’t have figured so much out already. “You really don’t have to say it back, I just wanted you to know. I’m so fucking in love with you it’s ridiculous, but I understand if you’re not there yet,” he finished with a sigh, his fingers digging nervously into my blanket.

Fuck.

What was I supposed to say to that? ‘That’s nice Harry, have fun being in love with me, I’ll be off to get married to a stranger now,’ probably wouldn’t go over very well. How could I crush the man I love when he snuck into the snake pit just to open up to me again, just to give me-someone who clearly doesn’t deserve it- a second chance?

So I said what anyone would if they could stare into those deep, trusting green eyes. “I do love you, Harry.”

“I’m serious,” Harry said. “You don’t have to say it if-“ he began but I cut him off with a firm kiss, which I found was always the preferable method to stop him from prattling.

The kiss went farther than I had planned, but truth be told I could never really help myself when it came to Harry’s lips, and soon enough we were tugging at each other’s clothes and groping the bodies beneath them.

It wasn’t until my eyes fell on the letter from my father, still taunting me from the nightstand, that I stopped him. “We’ll get caught,” I lied, knowing that no one would ever discover us in my room.

But he just nodded and sighed. “Room of Requirement tomorrow morning?” he asked, this voice thick with lust.

“I have to study for potions,” I fibbed, trying to buy myself some more time to figure something out. “After dinner?” I offered.

Harry sagged and pouted but shrugged. “Okay. I suppose you’re busy during our free period tomorrow?”

I nodded; not letting him know that I would be busy trying to find out what Orion did when he got his letter. I was tempted to tell him all about it- our shared past- but knew he would be furious that I stole the time turner from one of his friends in the first place, and probably find plenty of other reasons to hate me once he heard the whole story.

With one final lingering kiss I shooed him from the room and collapsed back into bed, trying to think of something aside from betraying and leaving my dear sweet Harry.

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The golden time turner was a heavy weight in my palm.

Not the physical burden of it, but the mental one. Messing with time was a tricky thing, very dangerous and potentially deadly. I had to be so careful not to alter or influence anyone or anything so that I didn’t return to different future than the one I had left. Merlin forbid, I do something that would make Harry or I cease to exist, or worse, become related.

Clearly Orion didn’t stay with Edward, I wasn’t going back to prove or disprove that fact, as my family tree showed Orion and Isabella married and they had three children, two boys and one girl before they died. The eldest son, Leo, went on to marry Patricia Parkinson and they had Abraxas who had my father. So obviously Orion broke things off with his Potter, but I needed to know how he did it, what caused him to choose the Malfoy name over love, and what happened when he did.

I was waiting until after I got back to tell Shannon about my trip, as I hadn’t even told her about the time turner yet and it would take too long to explain. Not to mention I was eager to see my ancestor once more and learn what I could. What I learned from his past just might affect my future. They say that history has a way of repeating itself, and I clearly couldn’t argue that fact.

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This time I was prepared for the woozy feeling that accosted me as I looked around the Hogwarts of the past. It was still amazing how time seemed to stand still in this place, as if the rest of the world grew and evolved but Hogwarts and the people inside it never did.

I had set the time turner to take me back to just after the day I had been there the first time. Orion wasn’t as easy to spot as before, and after wandering the corridors for several hours I actually came across Edward first. He was looking around him suspiciously, before ducking into a nearby classroom and as I walked closer to get better look, he reached out and grabbed me by my robes and pulled me into the empty classroom with him.

It was startling, and I almost laughed as I thought of Harry having done the same to me, and how the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, or even the great, great, great grand-tree.

It was then that I realized that I had been so eager to get here that I hadn’t taken the proper precautions and forgot to set the disillusionment charm, which sobered me right up. As Edward, nearly the spitting image of Harry, had me pinned against the wall, I wasn’t sure how badly that slip would cost me, but I knew it would be have to be something unless I was very careful.

“Why have you been avoiding me?” he asked suddenly, his voice carrying an inflection to his words that I had never heard on Harry before.

“I haven’t been,” I told him truthfully, though maybe Orion had been, and if he was then I wanted to know why as well.

“Is this about Isabella?” he asked. “Because I thought we talked about that.”

“Did we?” I asked, feigning ignorance, or rudeness, I wasn’t really sure.

Harry rolled his dark hazel eyes, which made me miss Harry’s beautiful green orbs. I wondered briefly what he would say if he caught me pinned by his ancestral doppelganger, and was slightly saddened that he could never really know.

“You know we did. You were going to tell your father that you would not marry Isabella, and then I didn’t hear from you again,” he growled, and apparently striking fear in others was a Potter heritage passed on through blood, because I was genuinely afraid. Not only was I afraid of what he could do to me, I was afraid of what my answers could do to the future.

Clearly Orion had either talked to his father and been forced into the marriage regardless, or decided against confronting his father altogether, but which one he had no idea. Nevertheless it seemed my ancestor had just as hard a time breaking things off with his Potter as I did mine.

It did not bode well for me if Orion couldn’t figure it out, and he didn’t even have a Dark Lord looming over his head.

“I really should get to class,” I muttered, hoping it was in fact class time and not a weekend.

“You’re going to marry her, aren’t you?” he asked me, looking more hurt than I had ever seen another human being look. Even though this boy was a stranger to me, I could imagine that same look on Harry’s face, could imagine his piercing green eyes nearly welling over with tears; could practically feel his lips twitch in a silent sob.

“Ask me tomorrow,” I said at last, not knowing what else to do. I couldn’t say yes, I couldn’t say no, not without ruining the future.

Edward released me, and stared at the floor so I took the opportunity to slip from the room and run at full speed down the corridor. I had seen enough, heard enough, chanced enough and was about to find a quiet place to concentrate on the time turner and go back to my own time, but just as I rounded the corner I smacked right into Orion.

I cast the disillusionment charm as quickly as I could so that when he looked up, he saw nothing.

He looked around frantically and then his eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Edward?” he whispered, continuing to look around him.

“Dammit Edward, take off that infernal cloak,” he demanded.

I remained silent and watched as his face contorted into several familiar expressions and I could tell that he was hurting. Nothing prominent said so, but the gentle crease of his forehead and the thinly veiled circles under his eyes told me that he hadn’t been sleeping and that he had shed several tears.

“Fine, stay hidden. I suppose I deserve it,” he sighed. “I’ve been an arse, I know. But you knew this would be impossible. You knew I would lose against him.”

For some odd reason the gods seemed to smile upon me as they let Orion open up to me here in this room. They let me overhear things that he would have only said to Edward in private.

“I love you, Edward, you know I do, but I can’t stand against my own father, not now, not as he’s wasting away at St. Mungo’s. If his final wish is for me to marry Isabella, I have to do it,” he said, as if pleading for Edward to understand him, and if Edward had been there, perhaps he would have.

I however, felt sick. Orion left his Potter, but as a fulfillment of a dying wish to his father. Draco could make no claim, he was merely afraid of his father and Voldemort, terrified of what they would do to Harry and himself if they found out about their relationship, and far to scared to offer up the information as he refused to wed his proposed match.

How could I manage to feel even more confused than I did before now? Orion’s intentions were far nobler than mine. Could I follow his path, could I forsake Harry for my father’s goodwill? For our continued safety, no matter how fragile it might be?

I gripped the time turner in my hands, needing to know how it all turned out and took myself into the future, but not my future, theirs.

Orion married Isabella, as I knew he would, and unsurprisingly Edward lingered at the back of the crowd during the ceremony, his broken heart worn clearly on his sleeve.

“Edward,” Orion said as he approached the man reluctantly. Edward didn’t look out of place amongst the haughty Malfoy and Greengrass families, in fact I’m fairly sure at this point the Potter’s and the Malfoy’s would have been social with another as it was long before the war that divided the families. “What are you doing here?”

The brunette simply held out an envelope, which Orion took and scanned at once, his face falling. “I just came to invite you to my own wedding,” Edward told him, apparently trying for smugness, but looking just as pitiful and broken as he had before.

“You’re marrying Stephanie Prince?” he asked incredulously. “Do you even know her?”

“You only just met your wife last week,” Edward countered.

“Why are you doing this?” Orion asked, clearly hurt by the spiteful gesture, and even I felt a bit sorry for my ancestral counterpart. It was obvious that Edward was only there to hurt him.

“Why not?” Edward mused. “If you can marry for obligation instead of love, why shouldn’t I make my own loveless match?”

“That’s ridiculous, Edward,” Orion sighed. “You know we can’t marry, you know we can’t be together.”

“What I know is that you don’t even want to try,” Edward rebuked. “You’d rather take the logical road and completely ignore your heart.”

“I’m not ignoring my heart,” Orion spat, his voice rising with his temper, causing people to look. “Do you think I love you any less right now then I did years ago when we started this affair? Who do you think I wanted to recite those vows to?”

“I know who you did recite them to and that’s all that matters,” Edward hissed and stormed off, leaving Orion surrounded by questioning family members and looking distraught.

I sighed and clutched the time turner once more, having confirmed all my fears in one fell swoop. Harry and I were not meant to be together, and just as my heritage showed, I was bound to hurt him in the end, so why string it along? It might not be painless, but it could be quick, and I could leave Harry with the notion that I was never the right person for him and he would be able to move on and forget about me, instead of harboring a torch for me that would never die out.

In eight seconds I was back in the washroom where I had left, clearly back in my own time from the way moaning Myrtle was still groaning about some Gilbert Quinn telling her off.

I paced the expansive tiled room, taking deep breaths and slowly expelling them as I worked up the nerve and the words to tell Harry that I couldn’t see him again. The worst part would be devising a story that could make him angry enough to forget me.

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“No!” Shannon shouted firmly, her arms crossed resolutely over her chest. “I most certainly will not!”

I sighed and sagged onto my bed, ignoring her angry posture and attempted to look as pitiful and desperate as I felt. “Please Shan,” I groaned. “If he thinks that maybe I never really wanted him at all, it will be easier for him to just be angry with me and move on.”

“He won’t just be angry with you, he will hate you, Draco,” she chided.

“I’m willing to accept that,” I told her defiantly. Harry’s safety and happiness was more important than my own, and if Harry had to hate me in order to get over me, then I would deal with it. “I’d rather him hate me then have to attend my wedding, or me his funeral.”

“You’re being overdramatic. No one is going to die, and there are other ways to avoid getting married aside from telling your father that you’re sleeping with the enemy,” she noted coldly. Shannon’s entire demeanor changed when I asked her to pretend to date me so I could break up with Harry.

I suppose it was understandable, I was asking a lot, but what are friends for? Clearly not for fake relationships and ending real relationships. Was a being a coward? Maybe, but I was being a coward for Harry’s benefit.

“I don’t have to tell him, Shan. He’ll take it from my mind. If I give him any reason to doubt my intentions, he’ll use legilimency on me, or maybe even turn me right over to the Dark Lord,” I told her, trying to get her to understand the importance of her help.

“You’re going about all this the wrong way. You need to tell Harry what’s going on, you need to be honest with him,” she warned. “Maybe he can help you.”

“The last thing I need is him making some heroic gesture that could get him killed,” I replied.

“Surely he wouldn’t just run off headlong after the Dark Lord or anything,” she muttered with a roll of here eyes, and all I could do was stare incredulously at her.

“I’m sorry, have you even met my boyfriend?” I asked her at last. “Harry Potter, the boy who insinuates himself into every adventure he can muster, the boy who spends all his free time angering evil wizards, slaying basilisks and breaking and entering into Ministry buildings? I should introduce you, you’d like him.”

She huffed and sat down on the end of my bed, shaking her head at me in dismay. “Harry’s special, Draco. He’s one of a kind, and you’ll never find someone like him ever again,” she began, and raised her wand menacingly when I tried to interrupt. “I’m not going to be your pretend girlfriend to hurt this boy. I won’t do it, and no guilt trip or manipulation will change my mind. Just talk to Harry,” she said, her voice holding a firm resolve that I had only once heard from one other person, and that was my mother.

I sighed and fell backward on the mattress, letting my head bounce against the warm downy softness as I thought about what she said. It was easy to agree with her because I didn’t want to give Harry up, but wasn’t that just being selfish? Our being together would cause nothing but harm, but at the same time, didn’t we deserve to be happy?

After Shannon left, I was just as conflicted as I had started my day, and all through dinner, as I watched Harry talk playfully with his friends and I rolled Shannon’s advice around in my mind, I wondered what the best decision would be.

Even on my journey up to the Room of Requirement I was fighting with myself as to what I should do. Break it off or tell him the truth?

Slowly I opened the magical door, revealing a quiet little sitting room and Harry lounged in front of the fire, his glasses reflecting the bright orange light of the flames. He turned to look at me, his face half in shadow and his scar showing in harsh relief on his forehead when he ran a hand through his messy black hair.

A genuine smile erupted on his face, his perfectly soft lips curled up to show his joy at my arrival. Such a small thing to have merely opened a door; it hardly seemed worthy of such a glowing and beautiful smile.

I took a deep breath, but could not muster a smile to match his, no matter how happy I felt at seeing him as well. With the door shutting soundly behind me, I stepped into the room and could hardly meet his eyes as I said the only words that came to mind.

“Harry, we have to talk.”

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Authors Note: So, will he break up with him or tell him the truth?! I hope you all enjoyed the latest installment. Please review for Harry baked pumpkin pie (one of my favorite things about Thanksgiving which is only a few days away!!