Chapter Text
Chapter One
Diminutio Saeculi
"Got it in for you, he has." Harry's best friend, a severely red haired and freckled Ron, muttered lowly from his left. Now Harry was happy that Ron was here with him, but it didn't take a genius to realise that that might not have been such a brilliant choice, an example would be Ron's obvious statements. Harry really was grateful that his friend would stick out another year of Potions with him, seeing as he never really tried in his other years because of the stress of having Voldemort so close, but now that Voldemort was far away in another country, Harry could at least unwind a little. Though Potions wasn't exactly the right class to relax or unwind in.
They were unlucky enough to have their first class of the year as Potions, and it was already going to hell, not that he expected it not to, he was well aware of his reputation in Snape's classroom and was just waiting for the moment where an explosion of some sort would blow from his cauldron, though Harry had scrubbed his cauldron clean almost immediately in case there was something left in there that would sabotage his potion. Harry was severely happy that Neville Longbottom, a fellow Gryffindor and friend, dropped the subject and took up another less volatile subject. Neville's work in Potions seemed to be legendary to the years below them, but it definitely wasn't pleasant when you were beside the man when it happened. Harry still has a few scars on him for evidence if anyone were to doubt their warnings about Neville.
Instead of ignoring whatever Snape was droning on about like he had in his past years at Hogwarts, Harry paid extra attention to him, especially when Snape wrote down the instructions on the black board. It was a little odd, Snape didn't seem nearly half as boring as he did whenever Harry let his voice fade to white noise, if anything, it seemed to captivate the class. If not for the useful information and tips he was giving, then for the threats in his dark eyes that spelled trouble for anyone who daren't listen.
Harry wasted no time when Snape let them gather the ingredients themselves and hurriedly took the ingredients for the potion out of the store cupboard down the front of the room. What about Ron? Harry glanced at his best mate and thought twice about Ron's dazed expression. Ron was far too absorbed in his thoughts to concentrate on making a potion, and he highly doubted that Ron even realised where they were let alone what day it was. Harry rounded back into the cupboard and doubled the ingredients for Ron and himself, though not without being elbowed once or twice from his classmates. He ignored the familiar venomous scowl on Snape's face when he dodged around his classmates that milled around the cupboard, almost dropped a jar or two of the ingredients and made his way to their table. He placed their ingredients down gently, but Ron didn't seem to notice anything. With a sigh worthy of the Slytherin house, Harry jostled Ron, which made Ron wake up from his thoughts and finally blink out of his stupor. Ron grinned at Harry in his usual goofy way, a slight tinge to his cheek, Harry hoped he was going to say 'Thanks' and then begin making his potion, but his hope half died when Ron said, "Thanks mate." And then went back to gazing into nothing.
If it weren't for his determination, Harry would have gladly joined him in La La Land, but as he was aiming to get a fairly decent grade, Harry filled his cauldron halfway with water almost immediately, and began separating the ingredients on their table. He glanced at Ron beside him, Ron was leaning on his elbows with his chin on his palms and was gazing into space. Harry shook his head in amusement before separating Ron's ingredients as well, though Ron didn't notice anything Harry was doing. Harry absentmindedly thought of Ron's cauldron and how it would have been really, really nice if it were as hot and bubbly as his was. Ron gasped beside him when his cauldron unexpectedly blazed and filled halfway with water, "Blimey!" Ron sputtered, blinking in amazement, his eyes looking all over the cauldron as if it were a small miniature Room of Requirement.
Harry barely cast Ron a glance when Ron turned to him expectantly and continued to chop up a small portion of Boomslang delicately, "You'd better get to work mate, Snape's in a foul mood for us Gryffindor's." He murmured to the red head with a grin, sliding the finely cut Boomslang into the boiling cauldron with the side of his knife.
"Thanks mate." Ron grinned at his silently working best friend, and finally began working on his own potion.
The class continued on in their work silently, sometimes speaking to their neighbours about something odd or funny about their potions before going back to slicing or stirring whenever Snape spotted them. Harry was used to this, he was used to the stench and steam of potions stinging his skin and nose, of the dark cornered room he sat in, but what he was almost painfully used to, was the snickering and sneering table of Slytherin's seated at the other side of the room. A painfully familiar white haired man snickered from that particular table, waving something around in their faces which definitely peaked Harry's interest. What was Malfoy up to now? But Harry barely looked at the table of Snake's when a phial of weird purple liquid was thrown at his feet. He tried in vain to jump back to avoid the mass of purple cloud emitting from the now broken phial, but realised too soon that Ron was easily spooked and had pushed him into the cloud in a fast motion of reflex.
Harry suddenly realised why the table of snake's were snickering when his body exploded in pain.
Draco was happy, he was in a familiar and homey castle that was so painstakingly beautiful that it was so hard to be angry in. He had his friends, he had power, his parents were happier than ever. Scratch that, Draco was in euphoria. Not even Potter could ruin his mood. He'd made his way into the dungeons to go to Severus' class and had managed to get ten points off of one of the Gryffindor's for threatening bodily harm just before they'd gone into the classroom. Draco always counted on Severus' timing, and it always paid off when he was patient enough to wait.
Draco hated to wait, everything he wanted to do was done the moment he'd thought about it and just the way he wanted it, and even though Potter was in his favourite class, nothing the man could do could touch his mood. Not even if he were crying.
Draco sat in his seat with the usual cold smirk on his lips, watching as the other students worked their hardest to create this potion. It was far too easy for him, he'd already done it many times at the manor, it almost wasn't fair. And then his eyes caught on a painfully familiar raven head in the opposite corner of the room, he watched with a sneer as Potter began chopping up Boomslang tails -albeit gracefully and delicately, to Draco's utter surprise- before he realised Potter's mistake. The fool hadn't even filled his cauldron nor started a fire yet! He thought smugly, crossing his arms and readying his arm to get his godfather's attention. But just as fast as that thought had made itself known, a flame sparked underneath both Potter's and the Weasel's cauldrons and the tripods they sat on turned an immediate burning red in a mere few seconds.
"Draco darling, what's this? I haven't seen it before, is it new?" Pansy asked smirked briefly, picking up the new bracelet Draco's mother had bought him in congratulations on becoming Quidditch Captain, and dangling it from its delicate silver chain in front of his face. It was a silver Dragon with piercing green eyes, the colours of his family crest. Silver and green, his favourite colours.
Draco smirked at her and elegantly caught it in between his fingers before Pansy could retract her hand, thanks to his Seeker reflexes, and waved it in front of her face, which turned into three, seeing as Blaise and Goyle had turned around on their stools to see what the commotion was about, "Far more precious than all of the other things your mother has gotten you, including you." He gave a short graceful chuckle at the look of amusement on Pansy's face before sliding the chain around his thin and pale wrist, and began playing with the dragon with his long slender fingers.
He was still chuckling with his friends when a loud smash echoed from the other side of the classroom, where Potter and Weasel sat. He turned, expecting to see Severus ghost over to the disgracefully clumsy pair, but was surprised when he caught a rather unsettling commotion. Weasel was perched on his seat with his feet up and was screeching like a mandrake root while pushing a severely stunned Harry Potter into a thick cloud of purple mist. It seemed over in mere seconds, and there may or may have not been an uproar around them, Draco wouldn't know, to him it was deafeningly silent, he and every other student watched as Snape hurriedly cast a spell to trap the mist within an opaque bubble and dissolved expertly it in mere seconds. Draco stretched in his seat to search for the familiar head of messy raven hair like many others, when a small whimper from the far left of him caught his attention. Crouching in the corner of the classroom under a spare table, was a small boy with messy raven hair and bright green eyes. And a lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead. Though it was hard to see due to the shadows there, but Potter's eyes seemed so green that they looked luminous.
"Potter?" Severus stepped forward warily, holding his hands and wand out in such a way that Draco had never seen before. It actually looked like Severus was trying to soothe an injured or skittish animal! Well, Potter is an animal .. He thought listlessly, but there was no heat or wish to continue to insult the scared little boy. He and everyone in the classroom were in shock. Harry Potter, the seventeen year old Boy Who Lived, was hardly waist high and younger than they'd ever seen him!
"W-where--? Who--?" Little Potter's eyes were wider than Draco had ever seen them and were darting around the room madly, a shiver tickled Draco's spine when little Potter's gaze slid over him, but that went away when a great large tear rolled down one of Potter's round pale cheeks, though it did look a little .. bruised in Draco's opinion, though it was too dark to see when Potter was crouched under the table like that. But he needn't have looked closer, his suspicion was justified when one of little Potter's hands gingerly and softly wiped the tear away from the bruised cheek with one of the very loose and very long sleeves of his robes. Little Potter immediately stopped and looked down at the pool of black cloth at his feet in confusion. "What ..?"
"Potter, are you alright?" Severus stepped a little closer, gingerly closing in on the small boy.
Little Potter looked up at his name and nodded absentmindedly, and said, "Yes sir."
Yes sir? When has Potter ever said, 'Yes sir'? This surely can't be Potter, especially when he was young, he's too disgustingly adorable and polite, if not a little too submissive, where's the spoilt brat he'd come to expect and know? Draco thought disdainfully, sneering at the boy. Who could ever think that Potter was adorable as a child? What happened to him to make him seem so .. acrimonious, as a teenager? Who cares, he can go suck on a Hypogriff's feather for all I care, Draco thought bitterly, crossing his arms over his chest and glowering at the shaking child.
Little Potter's legs seemed to fail him at that moment, and he fell on his bottom on the cold hard floor of the dungeon classroom, and two mismatched socks barely covering two tiny feet, poked out from the end of the long black robes. Teenager Potter's shoes were lying on their sides near Weasel's feet at their table, and with a note of haughtiness, Draco smirked coldly at the little boy. Potter's probably had those old ratty things all his life, He thought with a sneer.
"Potter?" Severus' voice seemed so soft now, so soft that Draco had begun to feel odd. Severus had never spoken to him like that before, and much less towards Potter. "Potter, can you come here?" He asked again, equally as softly as before with his hand outstretched towards the little boy.
Harry looked from the large pale hands outstretched towards him to the pale face of the man in front of him that looked soft and comforting. Nothing like he'd ever seen before, the Dursley's always sneered or scowled or grimaced at him no matter what he seemed to do. What had he done to be treated so nicely by this man? Harry bit his lip gently, blinking owlishly up at the soft features of a man he didn't know. But surely this man was better than his uncle, aunt and cousin? Harry shifted a little to get to his shaking feet and slowly, very slowly, slipped out from under the table and a little closer to the man.
There were so many faces peering at him, but most were incredibly blurry -much to Harry's relief, he didn't think he could take actually seeing what their expressions were-. But that didn't stop the nerves and fear from bubbling up hysterically inside Harry's chest cavity. Harry tried not to wince and look down, and instead concentrated on the black haired man in front of him. He looked a little blurry, as did all the other faces to Harry, but he didn't dare look away for a second, he was afraid that they'd disappear.
Harry hesitantly hovered one of his hands -the less damaged one- over the older man's. He was waiting for the smack, or the rough yanking or at least some form of punishment, but there was none. The other man was waiting patiently for him to make that move. Harry tried to will his hands to stop shaking, but his stomach was tense and his back was rigid, he was incredibly uncomfortable being under the gaze of others. Especially the blond one to the right of him, he was close enough for Harry to distinguish the emotions on the his face, he looked incredibly angry and hateful. But Harry was used to that look, and he found that it comforted him a little, that this wasn't a dream.
Severus and the other watched the little boy with baited breath, no one dared to breathe at all. The little boy in front of them looked so small and scared and damaged, many were trying not to cry when they saw that his cheek held a week old bruise that looked gruesome and many more were shocked and horrified to find that there were light finger marks covering his pale skinny throat. The little boy looked like he was made of sticks, he was so thin and small. Ron seemed most affected by this, he felt and looked shocked and slightly betrayed, Draco suspected that it was because his best friend hadn't told him about this, hadn't told him about the abuse that he suffered at the muggles' home.
Harry looked down at the blurry white hands in front of him and noticed something long and brown laying in the middle of the man's right hand. A stick, it's a stick, Harry concluded. "Why are you holding a stick, mister?" He asked quietly, tilting his head slightly at the stick and blinking owlishly up at the man.
This seemed to be the tipping point for most of the students in the classroom. A wand? He doesn't even know what a wand looks like? And then things seemed to escalate as that thought train led to other questions. If he didn't know what a wand was, did he know about magic? Did he know that he was a wizard? Did he know about the wizard society? Blaise, Pansy and Goyle shared looks of confusion and pity for the poor boy.
Severus seemed to be the only one who was calm, "It is a wand mister Potter, but we shall talk about that later," He said surely, and the tension in the room became a little more palpable when the next words rolled from their Potion's master's mouth, "what do you remember, boy?"
Harry paled, and withdrew his hand quicker than a snake striking at its prey. He all but threw himself back under the table, gasping and covering his head. Severus understood immediately that he'd crossed an invisible but very important line and stood swiftly, "Who threw that phial?" He demanded coldly of his students, staring them all in the eye. He easily dismissed the Gryffindor's, they were too loyal of Potter. He instead, focused on his Slytherin's. Draco's face came to mind immediately. His godson and Potter had a very dark and rough .. friendship, if anything he should call it a rivalry.
He turned to Draco and scowled darkly, "Come here Malfoy."
Draco gulped. His godfather only called him, 'Malfoy' if there was something he had done that was incredibly wrong. And then his mind worked out why he was being called upon. Severus thinks that I threw that phial! His thought frantically, But I didn't! Blaise, Pansy and Goyle can vouch for me! But as soon as he opened his mouth to explain or protest, Severus had cut him off with a fairly dark and cold, "Malfoy, come here."
Draco glanced at his friends with a frantic, 'Help me!' on his face, but they merely frowned helplessly back at him. At this moment, he hated them. They were feeding him to the werewolves, and they knew it. Draco slid off of his stool quietly and walked up to Severus' ruthless glare with a stony face. He can handle whatever Severus dishes him, he can deal with this, this is all just a misunderstanding. Draco hoped-- no, prayed to Merlin that Severus would see reason, but when he looked up at Severus' face, that prayer died before it was sent.
"Go to mister Potter and retrieve him." He commanded coldly.
Draco sucked in a deep breath. He was not a house-elf, he was a pureblood, and no one, no one controlled him. But he couldn't deny Severus anything, word would leave his Potion's masters lips fast that Draco was not behaving well to his parents, and any and all pride they had in their son would die just as quickly as his prayers had. Draco squared his shoulders and nodded sharply, before turning on his heel and striding to where Potter crouched in darkness, whimpering and covering his head with his arms. He merely looked like a spare robe that was thrown away he was so tiny.
"Potter." Draco sneered, and cleared his throat when the little bundle whimpered a little louder, "Come here." He said, trying his very hardest not to snap or grab the boy roughly. Always the attention seeker, he thought tiredly.
And then the bundle moved, and a pair of luminous green eyes stared up at him from the darkness. Draco sucked in a deep breath. Potter's eyes were not supposed to be that old and wise when he was so young. Draco froze, his grey eyes staring into bright green ones. And then the bundle moved a little more and Potter's head emerged from the darkness, though only his pale skin was distinguishable against the darkness that surrounded him. Was this kid a Vampire or something?