Chapter Text
If anyone had told Draco Malfoy that he would end up sort of dating Harry Potter anytime during his Hogwarts years, he would have (probably) sent a deadly curse at them. But war changes everyone.
And for the two boys forced to fight on opposing sides thinking they wouldn’t live to see the end of it, suddenly adjusting to peacetime was a daunting task.
You could say Harry and Draco’s relationship was one of the few things left mostly unchanged from before the death munchers threw in the white flag. Hogwarts was rebuilt, the dead buried and memorialized, the people that were kept silent through subjugation rose up to demand freedom and equality for all.
The wizarding world seemed to be heading towards a golden age thanks to their very own golden boy. The only problem was said golden boy didn’t seem to get the memo.
No, Harry Potter, child soldier, just wanted to drink and fuck away his nightmares. Without the distraction of being public enemy number one on a psychopathic Dark Lord’s murder list, Harry was plagued with nightmares from traumas he was fairly certain he had gotten over years ago.
Everything from his parents’ murder, to old beatings from the Dursleys, to his Hogwarts battles and beyond. You could say Harry wasn’t dealing well and everyone knew it, with Hermione Granger being the top proponent for the benefits of mind therapy.
But Harry knew no mind healer could help him because Harry was keeping one huge secret.
While the majority of the world knows he survived another killing curse, no one knows that he had accepted death.
No one know that he had been raised as a lamb for slaughter, to die at the right moment. No one knows about the last Horcrux and what he had to sacrifice to get rid of it.
No one knows that now that Voldemort is dead, Harry feels like he served his purpose. No one knows about the train station and how he wishes sometime that he could have just gotten on one.
Harry Potter was a soldier without a war to fight until someone pointed in the direction of the death eaters that had escaped captivity and needed to be brought in. Working as a field agent for the ICWs (International Confederation of Wizards) new Dark Wizard task force seemed to help for a while as he was deputized to hunt down death eaters across the globe.
But within a year, all of Voldemort’s former supporters were either dead or captured. And Harry never found the fight he was looking for in the servants of his greatest enemy.
His reputation had started to precede him. Enemies that used to mock him were suddenly cowering in fear.
For unknown to Harry, the death of the Horcrux in his scar had unintended consequences on his MPR (magical potential rate). Like a parasite, the soul piece had been steadily siphoning off a little magic from Harry’s core since he was a baby.
Though never enough to kill him or leave him a squib, the horcrux needed a living container as much as a consistent magical source in order to survive.
Amplified by its creator’s debilitating fear of death, survival was the horcrux’s only function.
With good old Tommy Parasite out of the picture, Harry suddenly had access to a magical core capable of sustaining two living souls.
Mixed with his sometimes homicidal PTSD rages, Harry was pretty scary for a little while before he learned to control his new powers.
Truth be told, the new Minister of Magic was more than happy to send Harry on a vengeance hunt. Idle hands are the devil’s playground after all. And he knew the wizarding world wouldn’t survive if their new superpowered savior decided to fall.
And considering how beaten some of those former death eaters were when they were handed over for processing, it’s no wonder how many others started to immediately surrender when Harry got too close.
Truthfully seeing Draco Malfoy again was probably the reason Harry kept what little sanity he had left.
It started off as you’d probably expect, bloody.
Stumbling into each other after a night of drunken sorrows, lead to a few nostalgic curses of ‘Scar-head’ and ‘Ferret’. Followed by bloody knuckles and matching shiners and rolling around in the dirt outside of the Hogshead until Aberforth Dumbledore, sick of the commotion, forcibly handed them their arses like they were two squabbling school boys.
Exhausted but slightly more clear-headed, Harry started laughing. It was the first time he laughed in a little over a year since the war ended. Harry painfully sat up and looked over at his former childhood nemesis. Draco’s hair was a mess, his lip was busted from a particularly hard right hook, and he was staring at Harry with wide silver eyes like he was witnessing a robbery happen right in front of his eyes and didn’t know whether to scream for help or run away.
It was one of the few times Harry saw Draco as anything other than a Malfoy. And tumbling around with him as they’d done, made Harry feel startling normal.
For one moment he forgot about the pain in his chest from Voldemort’s last curse, the Witch Weekly article that interviewed his last few shags, Hermione’s nagging to see a therapist, Ron’s anger at breaking up with Ginny, Ginny’s calm understanding and promises to, ‘wait for him’, the Ministry’s badgering to be more involved in the rebuilding, and Andromeda’s slightly threatening reminders that he needed to set a better example for his godson.
For a split second, Harry was able to feel like ‘just Harry’ and he didn’t want that feeling to go away. So he looked at Draco and smiled.
“Old Abe really knows how to pack a punch. He’d probably physically throw us out if we tried to go for another drink, you think?”
“Probably,” Draco replied as if he were talking to a wild animal as he stood up. “He might just stun us next time and leave us out here all night.”
“Ha yea probably. That’s alright. I have a bigger selection with cleaner glasses at home anyway.” Harry bit his lip considering. “You wouldn’t want to come over for a few would you. I promise not to attack you again. I can even get you an ice pack for your lip,” Harry pointed towards Draco’s bloody lip that was starting to swell. “Though it might just be a bag of frozen peas.”
By the time the sun rose the next day, old war stories were told, secrets were shared, and clothes were ripped off as Harry pushed Draco into the drawing room wall and pressed their bruised lips together.
Harry would later ask Draco why in the world he agreed to come over that first night. Draco thought about it for a minute before replying, “I had nothing better to do”.
Calling Draco and Harry’s time together romantic would probably be attaching too much emotional intimacy to their relationship. No it would serve them both better to say it was their emotional outlet.
When once they were drinking alone to escape nightmares and the endless pursuit of purpose, now they had someone to scream at. They had someone to fight, to wake them up, to drink with.
They had someone to talk to that didn’t try to turn a casual hangout into a therapy session. Someone that didn’t try to fix them because, deep down, they knew they couldn’t be fixed.
As much as Harry cared for Hermione and the Weasleys and as much as Draco adored his mother, being the constant source of worry in your loved ones’ lives is exhausting.
Now they both had someone they didn’t need to wear a mask around. Because they had already seen each other at their worst, there was no fear of disappointment or rejection.
So when Draco woke up at 2am to Harry banging on his door, drenched from the falling rain with a messenger bag carelessly thrown over his shoulder, he knew whatever they had, would be coming to an end.
Truthfully, he knew from the moment he mentioned the Temporal Splicer that their relationship had an expiration date. That Harry would jump at the chance to go back and fix things.
A small part of him is a little disappointed if he is being honest with himself. That whatever they had would never develop into anything more than some fucked up toxic codependency.
Because sometimes after they're finished shagging and they were collapsed next to each other in physically exhausted bliss. Right before the nightmares demand their screams, Harry would pull him over to pet his hair and Draco would rest his head on Harry’s chest to hear the steady pitter-patter of his heartbeat. And he thought at those times, he may be able to fall in love with this man.
But a larger, more selfish part of him wonders what his life would have been like if he wasn’t forced to give his youth away to an unyielding, unloving father or a sadistic power hungry dark lord.
Without prejudice being beat into him before he could walk and talk, without fear of war or death, only childish worries of passing the next exam and making the quidditch team.
Because who knows maybe in that world, a kinder, more respectful Draco Malfoy might fall in love with a Harry Potter that doesn’t have the weight of the entire wizarding world on his shoulders. A Harry Potter that didn’t grow up with relatives that wanted to ‘beat the magic out of him,’ but rather by loving and supportive parents that made sure he never questioned his worth, by a fun and quirky godfather that he could go to for anything without fear of rejection.
The dream was so powerfully vivid that Draco slept without nightmares for the first time since 6th year. He had hope that in this more perfect world, a nervous if slightly arrogant boy might once more have the courage to offer a hand in friendship and that this time, one might be extended in return.
With new hope Draco gave up on any tentative dreams for this world when he knew deep down, the two of them would never fully find happiness here. And he told the person who stood the best chance of fixing their hopeless lives so perhaps one day they might stand a chance in another.
With bittersweet clarity, Draco Malfoy pulled a rain soaked Harry Potter into his flat one last time. Their lovemaking had never been done so slowly as if by some unspoken agreement that they both wanted to savor every second. And if their eyes got a little watery, they never said a word. They just pulled each other closer.
Until Harry gently interlaced his fingers with Draco’s and brought their joined hands to rest above Draco’s head. With his head buried in Draco’s neck, and barely held back, ‘I love yous,’ on the tips of their tongues, they finished.
A few hours later, they managed to make it to the soft mattress of Draco’s king size bed. Draco was breathing slowly but not quite asleep as Harry softly combed his fingers through Draco’s hair.
“Some day they’ll go down together
And they’ll bury them side by side"
Harry recited as he kissed Draco across the top of the head and quietly got out of bed. It would be better to leave while he’s asleep, Harry knows. Let him wake in a new world never having suffered.
Harry silently got dressed and shrank his beat up black messenger bag containing only a few essentials and put it in his front jean pocket. He knew he would need to acquire mostly everything, from money to clothes in 1977.
With one last look back, Harry determinedly left Draco’s flat and apparated close to the lake in the Forest of Dean where Hermione and he camped during the war. He didn’t know who owned Draco’s flat in the 70s nor did he want to stumble across any of them in their sleepers. He might have to claim he was Qui-gon Jinn from planet Naboo to stop them from calling the bobbies.
Harry secured his trusted holly wand into his dragon hide wand holster, an 18th birthday present from Charlie Weasley that he has come to deeply treasure for its usefulness.
The prototype Temporal Splicer looked like a pocket watch attached to a long golden chain with a sculpture of a clear hourglass engraved on the roof. He opened the lid and twisted the knobs on the side to set the time of his destination and nodded as the date he had chosen was digitally projected slightly above the bottom of the watch.
Harry closed the lid and a small barely visible needle popped out the bottom. Without hesitating, Harry closed his hand around the Splicer so that the needle pieced the bottom of his palm. His blood started to slowly fill in the hourglass, turning it red.
As Draco explained, the blood was to make sure he didn’t get thrown through time by making sure his body wasn’t separated from the Splicer during the trip. A bit like super-gluing yourself to a portkey that travels space time. He was messing with powerful magic here. He couldn’t afford to fuck it up.
Without further hesitation, Harry threw the chain around his neck and pressed the hourglass till it dissolved into the watch and disappeared. Not one millisecond later, so to do the rest of his time.