'The Eighth Tale' bởi lettered 

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<a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/393118"><strong>The Eighth Tale</strong></a> (12022 words) by <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/lettered"><strong>lettered</strong></a><br />Chapters: 1/1<br />Fandom: <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/tags/Harry%20Potter%20-%20J*d*%20K*d*%20Rowling">Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</a><br />Rating: Explicit<br />Warnings: Major Character Death<br />Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter<br />Characters: Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter<br />Additional Tags: Time Travel, Timey-Wimey, Alternate Universe - Time Travel<br />Summary: <p>Draco Malfoy tries to fix the past, but instead mucks it up some more. For Harry, it all becomes quite clear.</p>

Draco Malfoy tries to fix the past, but instead mucks it up some more. For Harry, it all becomes quite clear.

shipsharry, if you end up reading this (don’t feel obliged), I bet you can guess what SPN author I was reading when I started this (thus the abuse of parentheticals). I’m so easily influenced.

curiouslyfic’s not-fic-athon. At more than ten thousand words, you might be saying, “That’s a fic!” However, you might also be glad I saved you the 70,000 words of meta, sex, and sad that would have happened had I wrote the “actual” fic.

There is a tale between every event that occurs, and a tale between written words. There is a tale whose ending isn’t set, but that tale can’t be told.

Harry thinks he’s Regulus Black, at first. They know he’s dead, but that’s what Harry thinks. They catch him skulking in the woods, and even though he has blond hair (and it’s thinning), he has grey eyes, and Harry only ever saw just that one photo. He’s in his thirties; maybe something could have changed, and he has the Black cheekbones, so much so that when Harry stuns him, and binds him with a spell, he almost says a name—a name that isn’t Regulus at all. The man just grins, and says, “You got me, Harry.”

The others don’t think he’s Regulus. Regulus was a hero, in the end; heroes can’t be this annoying, Ron says. Hermione says,

well, yes they can be, because for some reason Hermione always thinks more than one thing can be true at once, but she does have to admit that Regulus (if it is Regulus) isn’t really what she would have hoped for in a hero either.

Harry doesn’t know what he would have hoped for, but they’ve been on the run (mostly camping) for almost a year now, and he didn’t hope for this. Regulus (who might not be Regulus) is smirky—and that’s just one thing; he’s condescending, now that’s another. There’s also something despicably light-hearted about this man, and that’s the main thing. That’s the thing Harry really doesn’t like.

Then they’ve got to decide what to do with him, and Regulus (if it’s Regulus) really isn’t any help, not at all like a hero would be. He smiles at them as though they amuse him terribly, and Ron’s all for banishing and a good sound Obliviate, but Regulus (and if he isn’t Regulus, what else are they going to call him?) obviously knows something, so they don’t.

He won’t tell them who he is, but one of the things he so obviously knows is who they are (then again, who doesn’t, by now). He knows other things as well (how to enlarge the tent), things he shouldn’t know (all about the Horcruxes), and other things he definitely shouldn’t know (that Harry’s scar is hurting, even though he hasn’t told anyone that it is). When they decide to petrify him and bind him before finally going to sleep that night, Regulus knows which side Harry’s going to sleep on, and tells him not to put his glasses there, because he’ll roll over them in his sleep, before Harry even puts his glasses down.

When they wake up the next morning, they decide to take Regulus with them, bound at the hands so he can walk; they hope he might prove useful. Hermione is in front and Ron is scouting, and Harry has fallen behind with the prisoner, thinking, Prisoner? Am I taking prisoners now? and Regulus says, “You do what you have to, Harry. And stop worrying about Weasley; he’ll forgive you.”

Harry looks at him sharply and asks him, what the hell? and Regulus (probably not Regulus) laughs softly, as though Harry is adorably unsophisticated, and laugh is all he can do.

That’s the part that Harry likes the least, absolutely the least, because they’ve been running since last August, and Harry never thought that this was how it would be. For some reason, he’d had it in his head that Voldemort would be defeated (once and for all) by the end of the school year, and here they are in April, and they haven’t even destroyed the locket yet (at least it’s somewhere safe, not dragging them down, and Ron came back. At least Ron came back, because Regulus is right, of course—Harry still worries about Ron).

It seems ridiculous now, when Harry thinks about it, the idea that they’d be rid of Voldemort so quickly. It’s not like real life runs on a school calendar (except it always used to). It’s to be expected that killing the most powerful wizard in existence would take some doing, and yet Harry can’t stop himself from feeling that something has gone terribly, horribly wrong.

(Of course it’s wrong; everything is wrong. Souls should not be cut up into pieces just like meat, and mad men should never rise to power. A seventeen year old—one person, any age—should not be entrusted with saving the world, and when you really think about it, magic shouldn’t even exist, but everything is wrong, more wrong than the entire premise of the thing, even. Something is wrong with the entire world; it wasn’t meant to be like this.)

But Harry can’t say that to Ron, who these days, doesn’t like to look up while he concentrates on putting one foot in front of the other; he can’t say that to Hermione, who’s clinging, now, to a bare thread of hope.

He can only say that to Regulus (who, okay, probably isn’t Regulus at all), whose mouth tightens on one side, who looks at him softly when he says it—just for a moment, warm, pitying grey eyes that seem to know him, before he tightens up again and smirks. Telling him that—this man who isn’t Regulus, isn’t a Black, isn’t an ally, isn’t a friend (Harry has to keep telling himself that; he isn’t their friend)—telling him that everything is wrong feels right, which feels more wrong than anything else.

Harry is so tired. His bones ache; his skin feels gritty; there is grime caked not only in every fold of his clothes but in his skin, the lines of his hands darker than before. He wants to scour his eyes, because maybe if he could make them just feel fresh again, make them less like sandpaper, just less crusty, just a little, then maybe—just maybe—he could see clearly again, and things wouldn’t be so bad.

But as it is, things are bad. Things are really bad, and Regulus (not Regulus) isn’t making things any better.

He asks when they stop for lunch (arms wrapped about his knees, watching them prepare their meagre victuals, an air of curiosity), “Did you even destroy the locket yet?”

Each of the three of them freezes in their own way, and usually it’s Ron who loses his temper first, but there’s something grating about Regulus’s voice, something so familiar, that it’s Harry who turns on him. “What do you know?” he asks, but really what he wants to say is, why didn’t you destroy it yourself? even though he knows it isn’t Regulus (it probably isn’t Regulus).

Regulus’s brow is furrowed. “Didn’t Snape . . .?” he begins, then trails off.

After lunch, Harry binds his hands again. They have to bring him, because he knows something. He knows something, even though apparently he doesn’t know that Snape’s already dead.

Ron has protested it of course and Hermione still looks uncertain, but Harry knows that this man knows something; he can feel it.

“Are you sure you’re not,” begins Hermione, and Harry says:

“I’m not,” because since they found out who Snape was and what he was doing—he hasn’t been.

“I’m not,” and shakes off the eerie feeling he had sixth year, when yes, he had been (obsessed), but also—

Regulus just follows along, smirking slightly and not protesting at all, hands bound in front of him, kissing at the wrists and elegantly bowed, and looking at Harry whenever he thinks Harry is looking at anything but him. He knows something, Harry thinks; can’t they see he knows something; and doesn’t he—doesn’t Harry—doesn’t he somehow know him?

But Regulus still won’t say who he is, and so he smirks and smiles (things that seem so sinister and Slytherin, yet so unlike Snape), and the worst part is that he’s not taking any of this seriously, as though nothing is bad at all. He acts as though everything will turn out fine, as though he knows, when he can’t know, when right now, it’s getting difficult to believe it ever could—though Harry believed it, once, and wonders why he did. It all seems so ludicrous now, a boy slaying Voldemort (and yet there’s a part of him that still thinks it should have happened, doesn’t understand why it didn’t happen; it was supposed to happen—

The other disturbing thing about the man who isn’t Regulus is that even though Harry is sure he definitely isn’t Regulus (probably isn’t Regulus), he’s still familiar; he looks just like—just like—just like someone Harry can’t really put his finger on, unless you count Sirius. Harry doesn’t count Sirius though (he hasn’t been, Hermione), because it still hurts sometimes, unexpectedly, when he isn’t waiting for it. It hurts sometimes even looking at Regulus-who-isn’t-Regulus, because of the way he smiles that smile (the Black smile), because of the way he is sharp and dark and seemingly rather wily, but doesn’t ever hurt them.

They’re in the forest when they see the Snatchers, who have set anti-Apparition wards and an alarm as a trap. By the time they realize it, they’re too late, and the alarm has sounded. Hermione’s first to act, but since they’ve been walking single file they have to find separate cover, and Harry’s going around behind a bush when suddenly Regulus (who . . .?) is there, shoulder pressed against his, lips against Harry’s ear.

“Careful, Harry,” is all the Regulus (who is . . . ?) says, because he always calls him Harry, as though he knows him.

Harry looks and there’s the Devil’s Snare, and he narrowly avoids it before Regulus (who is just like . . . ?) is pressing on his shoulder once again.

“This way,” he (just like—but he can’t be . . . ?) says softly, and all Harry can feel is the press of his breath before suddenly he knows—

“Malfoy,” he says, and Malfoy’s lips against his ear say:

So Harry gets down, and the stunning spell, instead of hitting Harry, is countered.

A flurry of spells and shouts, disassembly of the wards, pops of Apparition by Hermione, Ron, then Harry, who reaches out his arm, and Side-Alongs his saviour.

They meet in their agreed-upon place (a marsh somewhere in Yorkshire), and assess their injuries (a couple scratches). It’s only after they’ve caught their breath and are all okay and set up camp that they turn to the man who isn’t Regulus at all, and demand an explanation.

He looks just like him (how could Harry not have recognized him?), but there’s one essential difference (something wrong), the reason Harry couldn’t possibly have known him.

Draco Malfoy is more than twice as old as he should be.

The first tale Draco Malfoy tells them is that after he defeated Voldemort, Potter grew quite plump, and married the Weasley chit (“naturally”). Together they had eight or nine children (“Jamie, Harriet, Flower, Ginger, Ronda, Shermione,” “I can’t remember,” “don’t bother me any more about their names,” and, “how should I know?”). All day Potter sat on his throne, being fed treacle tart and being read tales of his victories. In the forecourt of his palace there was a garden with seventeen statues of himself (“in various poses, at least one of them lewd; don’t ask me”).

Harry doesn’t believe a word of it, but Hermione and Ron seem interested, even though Hermione’s supposed to be the clever one. Maybe it’s the possibility of time travel (as though she herself hadn’t done it a thousand times third year), or maybe it’s because Hermione became a member of the Wizengamot, and Ron was a famous Quidditch coach. Maybe it’s because they were married (in a hut with a thousand and one daisies). They had a daughter by the name of Ismene, who was a child genius, and as it turned out, Viktor Krum was gay, so they could all be friends without envy or concern. They had holidays with Harry and were internationally famous, and Ron had seventeen trophies to prove it. (Malfoy doesn’t say if one was lewd, and Hermione had thirty-eight degrees.)

Harry asks him how he defeated Voldemort (if this is even true), but Malfoy just says, “I can’t tell you about your future, Harry,” even though he already has (except he hasn’t, not really, because this obviously isn’t Harry’s future).

Harry could press him; he could torture him—torture? Do I torture people now? Malfoy says (and it’s as though he’s read Harry’s thoughts), “No need to do anything drastic, Harry. You’ll learn the truth, in the end,” and so Harry leaves him be.

The problem is it’s just been so long since they had hope of a happy ending (or even of treacle tart).

In the second tale Draco Malfoy tells, Voldemort fell off a cliff. The ground had opened up and swallowed Hogwarts castle, erupting with the final secret Helga Hufflepuff (“it’s always the quiet ones”) had woven in the stones. Voldemort went with it, though in the end he was gripping the roots of the Whomping Willow clinging to the cliff face, and Harry Potter put out his hand. Voldemort sneered, refused to take it, and tumbled down into the abyss.

After that Harry went into hiding (“ashamed, perhaps, of not having killed the Dark Lord by his own hand”), living as a hermit. They say he painted extraordinary works of art (“I don’t know; they looked fairly ordinary to me”), only leaving his forest cabin (“more of a hut, really”) for those rare appearances, in which photographers snapped his picture, and his portraits came out looking miserable (“drenched Kneazle; that’s the best way of describing it,” and Malfoy looks at Harry with those grey eyes—those warm grey eyes, dancing, slightly, with mirth—and says, “I’m sorry, Harry; you’re just so pitiful when you’re popular”).

Harry finds this slightly more plausible, but Hermione doesn’t; she was Ron’s wife and stayed home taking care of Ron’s children (“Wilhelmina, Carolina, Perdita, Fredricka, Georgiana, Ronda and Gervaine,” and Hermione says, “but I thought Harry’s daughter’s name was Ronda,” and Malfoy says, “When you’re telling the story, you can name them anything you want”). Ron was a top Auror, which no one really expected (“especially me,” and Ron says, “Well, why not?” to which Hermione says, “Why don’t you take care of Ronda, or whoever.” “Learn your children’s names,” says Ron. “Learn your own name,” says Hermione, and they’re off again).

Harry asks him (again) how he could possibly have traveled this far into the past, and why he did, but Malfoy just says , “I can’t tell you about the future, Harry,” even though he already has (except he hasn’t, not really, because maybe he isn’t from the future at all; maybe nothing has ended yet; it’s still going on).

The problem is that they when they think of what the ending might be, they never want it.

When Malfoy tells a third tale of the future, Hermione says, “Just don’t listen to him; he’s obviously lying,” and Ron says, “Honestly Hermione, what do you have against our future? My mum, you know, was a housewife, and nothing’s wrong with her.” “Oh, isn’t there?” says Hermione, and even though they aren’t keeping the locket with them (any more), they argue like this all the time.

Harry slew the Dark Lord by beheading, and from that he developed a thirst for violence, or maybe he’d always had it. He became an Auror, hunting down Dark Wizards, and everyone agreed he was maybe a little too obsessed with it, just a little too vehement (“even his friends are scared of him”).

That wasn’t to say that Harry was unpopular; he had a string of girlfriends, and some even lasted more than a week. Once or twice he even dated twins; they said he liked some kinky shit (“don’t even ask,” says Malfoy, “but if you ask, I’d be happy to tell you”), and he liked debauching virgins, especially; they said he was an expert at it.

He drank a lot (“and they say he’s into potions”), but that never seemed to interfere with his work (“holds the record in the Aurors for bringing in the highest number of dark wizards with their faces bashed in”). He also partied like an animal, went clubbing all the time, kohl about the eyes, mesh over the chest, and heaven help us, Lord, leather pants (and for some reason, Malfoy bursts into delighted laughter, at this).

Potter’s friends thought he was an addict, and the news media loved him for it, but he was a hero wasn’t he; he saved them all, didn’t he, and after all he chopped off someone’s head, so no one ever bothered him (“because they’re all afraid; don’t you see?”)

“What about you?” Harry asks him.

Malfoy just says , “I can’t tell you about my future, Harry,” and the thing is, he hasn’t yet, not at all (because he hasn’t talked about himself; he’s only talked about Harry and his friends, and now that Harry’s noticed it, Malfoy looks, for the first time, a little bit less certain. And yet, he should be certain, shouldn’t he, because this is the past, as a matter of fact, this present, but it could also be the future; it could have happened a thousand—three, to be precise—times before; it might not ever happen, but the operative question is has this has happened yet?).

“I would have thought you would have found the Sword of Gryffindor by now,” Malfoy says quietly.

He’s looking steadily at Harry, who leans in; he almost hisses. They’re by the fire, and Hermione has flounced off into the forest, Ron chasing after her. “Where is it?” Harry says. “Where’s the sword?”

“I can’t,” Malfoy begins, and then searches Harry’s eyes. There’s something he sees in them that Harry doesn’t like, because sudden realization floods Malfoy’s eyes. He’s always so arrogant, as though he’s so much older, and knows so much more than them, but he’s not, and he doesn’t (does he?). He’s the same age; he’s exactly the same as they are (except he’s not; he never has been; he’s from the other side; Harry has to keep reminding himself).

Malfoy looks away. “You found it in a lake,” he says quietly, and less mirthful than Harry has ever heard him. “That’s what . . . that’s what you always said.”

Why the hell would the Sword of Gryffindor be in a lake? is what Harry says right now.

Shrugging, that fluid movement of his narrow shoulders, Malfoy doesn’t turn back to look at him. “I don’t know. S—someone put it there to help you—I mean, I suppose—and then they led you to it.”

“Someone put it there to be an idiot. Why wouldn’t he just give it to me?”

“It could be a she.” Malfoy doesn’t seem to think it really could be. His shoulders curl inward, his voice dull. “’The Lady of the Lake held forth the shining sword . . .’ That’s how the story goes.”

“Yes, it is,” says Malfoy. “I’m here to find out how it ends.” His eyes are full of pity, but for Harry or himself, Harry cannot say.

Of course he is; somehow Harry knew that he would be; he knows that somehow Malfoy knows him, knows his magic, knows exactly how to extricate himself from Harry’s binding spells. The worst part is that Malfoy always knew; he always could escape; he just never did till now.

Three days later, Harry sees a doe, and hears Malfoy say, it could be a she, because Harry’s thinking, Mum. It has to be his mum; his father’s Patronus is a stag, after all, the one who loved someone who had a stag as a Patronus would naturally have a Patronus that complemented it. Harry follows the doe to a lake, and at least Malfoy told the truth about one thing.

It’s nothing like a story; the water is cold and Harry almost drowns, but Ron’s set off after him and saves him, and maybe that’s a little bit like a story, but Harry doesn’t think too much about it. They have to get the sword (there is a sword, in the water) to the locket, which is with the Order at their new headquarters (a house by the beach, Shell Cottage, where Bill used to live. When he lived).

When they get there, Malfoy’s there already. The Order’s holding him captive, and they’ve administered Veritaserum, so they know who he is. After destroying the locket, Harry sees this as the perfect time to finally question Malfoy, and get some answers.

The fourth tale Malfoy tells Harry is that Harry defeated Voldemort with Expelliarmus, which sounds even less plausible than all the other tales, and yet of them all, Harry longs for it to be true. Besides, Malfoy is under Veritaserum (though the truth is nothing but another tale, and every tale changes in the telling).

Harry married Ginny Weasley (again), and had three children; their names were James, Albus, and Lily (a freckled girl, with red hair like her mother’s). Hermione married Ron and they had two children, Hugo and Rose, and Harry lived with Ginny in a magic town with a white picket fence.

Harry asks him (again) who Malfoy is in this new future, what he does, and Malfoy starts to say , “I can’t tell y—” but stops, because actually he can; he’s under Veritaserum, so he has to; he just hasn’t yet (except perhaps he’s told them everything, and the truth is just a lie).

Malfoy looks away. They’re in what should have been a nursery (it’s not, now). There’s a cot, a bucket (for reasons Harry doesn’t like to think about) and twice a dozen anti-Apparition wards and binding spells, the kind you find on prisons. Malfoy’s voice is dull when he says, “I married Astoria.”

Harry waits for an explanation, but there appears to be none forthcoming. “Who?” he asks at last.

Malfoy smiles a wry smile with absolutely no humour in it. “I know,” he says. “It seems poor form to marry someone like me off to a character who wasn’t even introduced in the central narrative.” At last he looks at Harry, that warm look with kindness in it, for no reason Harry can discern. “She was Daphne Greengrass’s sister, if that’s any consolation.”

Harry searches for something to say. “I thought it might have been Pansy,” he lights upon at last.

“I did, too.” Malfoy looks away again.

Harry wonders whether he wanted to marry Pansy (why didn’t he?), whether he was supposed to marry Pansy (or did he, in some other future?), and whether that’s why he doesn’t seem too happy with the situation. Harry wonders if finally seeing Malfoy (this Malfoy) like this—pasty skinned, hollow cheeked, not half so handsome, now he’s finally stopped smiling—perhaps this is why Harry finally believes him.

The problem is, Harry has to believe in a future, or else there might not be one.

The summer passes in warm waxen days that take ages just to burn and melt away, and Harry feels like he’s moving through a thickness of time, gone still and sulking in the hazy summer heat. He’d been convinced that if only they could destroy the locket, their problems would be solved; they could find the next Horcrux and move on.

Instead, the summer comes and passes, and Shell Cottage is attacked while Harry, Hermione, and Ron are out searching for a golden cup. Draco Malfoy, as it happens, saves the Order with a Patronus as a warning, and they all come out alive (except for Dobby).

After that, the Order frees Malfoy, who stays of course; he says he’s going to help them find the next Horcrux. The problem is, he was never here (in the past) and doesn’t know the whole story (no one does), and has to piece together all the bits he learned after the end. He doesn’t know where the cup is either, and as the summer melts away to autumn, his general good humour melts with it.

He grows agitated (it’s taking too long), moody when Harry visits him, which he does. For some reason, this Draco Malfoy is easier to comprehend, this Draco Malfoy who seems to think that everything is going wrong. It’s a feeling Harry shares (this essential wrongness of the world, an intense feeling of should not have been), and yet the fact that Malfoy feels it too makes things easier, and Malfoy said that things would turn out fine (in the end). Harry remembers Lily’s freckles, and for the first time feels the thread of hope (as before him, Draco Malfoy slowly unravels).

Ron and Hermione don’t share those feelings; Ron is too grounded for such abstraction and Hermione too determined (why waste time on the wrongness of the world?) Only Malfoy shares it, and Harry does not know what to do with that, other than to waste his time with Malfoy when they retreat back to Shell Cottage (which happens more and more).

Malfoy won’t tell him any more tales (though Harry hasn’t asked since learning about Lily’s freckles). He snarks at everyone; there are shadows under his eyes; maybe he’s a bit like Snape after all, when eventually he asks Kingsley Shacklebolt (in a fit of snide disapproval at the way the Order seems to be handling everything), “Has he been to Malfoy Manor yet?”

Shacklebolt doesn’t need to ask who ‘he’ is, but he questions Malfoy anyway, and Malfoy isn’t giving any answers. When they give him Veritaserum, he’s still sullen and all he says is, “They should have gone to Malfoy Manor by now.”

“He was tetchy,” Shacklebolt says. “He kept blinking, scratching the back of his neck.” He looks at Harry gently, and Harry is tired of people doing that, of all the adults looking at him like they know better, because they don’t (except one does). “Harry, you do know that some people can fight Veritaserum, don’t you?”

Harry hasn’t wanted to ask. He doesn’t like to ask, but when he does ask (“what was the shape of Malfoy’s Patronus?”), he already knows the answer.

Malfoy knows a secret way (of course he does; it’s his house). It’s underground, and they end up in a sort of cellar (dungeon, Harry thinks, and wonders if he would have thought it if it wasn’t Draco Malfoy’s house). Inside the cellar are Luna Lovegood, Dean Thomas, Ollivander, and Griphook.

They usher the prisoners back through the tunnels, and back outside to safety; then Malfoy leads Harry, Hermione, and Ron back inside the tunnels, insisting, “Only them. Only these three. You can’t go,” he tells Shacklebolt, and seems to be resisting sticking out his tongue. He’s supposed to be in his thirties, but not for the first time, Harry thinks this might just be Malfoy under an aging potion. Then he remembers Lily’s freckles, and tries to forget the things that might not be true.

Suddenly, the inhabitants of Malfoy Manor realize something has happened to the prisoners. An alarm goes up, and Malfoy hangs back; “I’m not supposed to meet myself; that’s the first rule of time travel,” he tells them.

Bellatrix screams and tortures Hermione; Harry fights her and Malfoy’s father; suddenly there’s Nagini, and Draco Malfoy. The real Draco Malfoy—Malfoy who’s supposed to be here, anyway, and God, he is so young (am I that young? Harry doesn’t feel that way).

He doesn’t understand why he never noticed that Malfoy—even this Malfoy—looks just like a Black; he never noticed that perhaps, if this Malfoy would only smile in his direction—not with a sneer or insult attached, but with friendship, Harry could have—maybe they really could have been—

A spell pops directly in front of him, narrowly deflected, and Harry looks over in the shadows to see where the Protego came from, finding Draco Malfoy (the other Draco Malfoy). He’s taller, longer hair, broader shoulders, long legs and thighs (his thighs—for a moment, Harry can’t think of what he’d say about Draco Malfoy’s thighs—and yet somehow, he can’t stop looking, because they’re long and lean and muscular and they belong to a man, but still he can’t stop looking), but that Draco Malfoy (his Draco Malfoy—or anyway, the one on his side) is waving Harry back, telling him to pay attention.

Harry defends himself, defends his friends, but periodically there’s something he doesn’t see, and someone he thought he knew, but doesn’t really, protecting him.

It’s when the chandelier is going to fall on the younger Malfoy and Nagini has finally scented the elder Draco that there’s a choice to make, except there’s no choice at all. Still, that moment is suspended in time, suspended in Harry’s memory (maybe Draco used the time-turner), and later, he actually thinks about it.

He thinks that if the elder Draco really is a later version of Malfoy, he should have saved the younger one, because if the younger one had died, the older one wouldn’t live, and then Harry would never have found the sword, and never have saved Luna, and whatever else they’re going to achieve because the elder Draco helped them.

But Harry isn’t thinking in that moment, and so saves his Draco Malfoy, and not the other one. It’s just an instinct—maybe because Draco saved him; maybe because of Lily’s freckles; Harry doesn’t know. What he does know is that Draco, when he sees Harry’s save him instead of the younger Malfoy, breaks from a look of concentration into an expression that’s so crushed, hurt terribly, overwhelmed by disappointment, that the only word for it is crestfallen.

“I’ve fucked it up,” he says in horror; “Oh my God, I’ve fucked it—”

“Are you,” Harry begins, and Draco waves at him wildly, still standing in the shadows.

“Him,” Draco shouts, waving at his younger self. “Him, goddamn you, Harry, him!”

Harry glances at the younger Malfoy, and Mrs. Malfoy has saved him from the chandelier, so he thinks for a moment that maybe he made the right choice after all. The younger Malfoy, regaining his balance, steadies himself and points his wand (haphazardly at best) at Harry.

Turning slightly toward the elder Draco, still in shadow, Harry says, “Do I . . . ?”

Cursing (inaudibly, but the intent is obvious), the elder Draco disarms his younger self, and Malfoy doesn’t know what hit him.

When they finally get away, all they have to show for it is a Malfoy’s hawthorn wand and a bit of Bellatrix’s hair. Draco (wearily) says that it’s enough, but Harry worries that he’s messed up the future (or is it history).

Draco shakes his head. His expression is warm and his voice is soft, and though his words tell a different story, the corners of his mouth speak only of regret. “No,” he says. “You were fine. It’s not your fault. Don’t blame yourself; of course it’s not your fault; I just—you were magnificent,” and there’s something in his eyes that also says, you always were.

Harry can’t sleep that night, or the nights that follow, because he knows the truth is too perfect to be true. Autumn’s rolled in on waves of leaves and sunsets, harvest colours in Gryffindor gold and red. Meanwhile Harry dreams of Lily’s freckles (red hair, her smile, gold skin, green grass; the grass was so green at spring in Hogwarts, the first time Harry kissed her mother). All Harry can think when he wakes up is that green grass is a dream, which also means Astoria isn’t real.

These days Draco doesn’t smile nearly as much as he did when they first found him, so that now when Harry says, “it isn’t real,” Draco doesn’t give him that shit-eating grin. Instead he looks a little pensive, a little surprised, and says quite kindly, “What isn’t real, Harry?”

“That story you told me,” Harry says.

Draco looks at him a little while, and looks away. “If you want it to be,” he says, which answers nothing.

“I don’t mean me and Ginny. I don’t mean you and—and her. I mean . . .”

“You and I?” Draco’s voice is bitter; he looks at his hands, which slowly clench and unclench, fist and unfist, hold and unhold all the thousand futures he has not yet told.

“You nodded to me once on Platform Nine and Three Quarters,” is all that Draco says.

Harry opens his mouth, closes it. “Why was I—why were you on Platform Nine and Three Quarters?”

“Didn’t I tell you?” Draco unfolds his fists again. “I had a son.”

Harry wants to say something, but can’t, because he doesn’t believe in Lily’s freckles; he doesn’t believe in green grass, and he doesn’t believe Draco. “You knew my scar was hurting,” he says. “You know the way I sleep. You know my magic,” he says, “so you can’t say you don’t know me.”

“Of course we know each other, Harry.” Draco’s voice is toneless, and his hands clench again. “We went to school together. Don’t you remember?”

“Of course you do,” and now Draco just sounds tired. “We’re talking, aren’t we?”

“We’ve been changing tenses,” says Draco. “That’s not good form either.”

“Stop. Just stop.” Harry wants to shake him, wants to shake himself, because he doesn’t like this truth either, this truth where there aren’t any answers, and the story isn’t clear. “Just give it to me straight.”

“Straight.” Draco scoffs. “We’re friends. Is that what you want to hear?”

“Yes,” says Harry, who sits down, and listens.

In the fifth tale Draco tells him, Harry spoke for him in the trials that followed the war, saving Draco’s life. Harry got to know Draco then and gradually they became friends. Harry learned that Draco regretted all the things he’d done, and Draco learned that Harry wasn’t half such a ponce as he used to be (“well, you were”), and from there they established a relationship of mutual trust and respect. Harry, after witnessing the corruption in the Wizengamot, became a barrister, and Draco made a Quidditch team, and was friends with Viktor Krum.

Harry still married Ginny, and Draco still had a son, but though he was married to Astoria, it wasn’t a love match. He says it was a marriage of convenience, so that the wizarding world would not think less of him, but Harry’s not sure what he means by that, and wonders if his marriage to Ginny was a love match also.

Draco looks away and says, “I can’t tell you your future, Harry,” but of course he has (only it keeps changing, which is why you can never tell the future, never).

The problem is, in a story, as you go deeper, the ending seems inevitable, but in everything else, as you go deeper, the possibilities seem endless.

Draco tells him the sixth tale after Harry’s broken into Gringott’s and got the cup, and come out riding a dragon. It was Draco who told them to go there, and Malfoy Manor had proved fruitless, but Draco says it needed to happen, and Harry believes him.

“I don’t believe you,” Harry says, having destroyed the fifth Horcrux. “Why are my children all named after—” he can’t believe he’s asking this—“after Gryffindors?”

Draco looks surprised he’s asking it as well, but he welcomes Harry’s company (or seems to), and has a look he saves just for Harry, behind his anxiety that things aren’t going as they should (as they’ve already happened). Harry thinks the look is fond, and Draco looks at him that way now, a slight smile, light behind it. “You like Gryffindors, Harry,” he says mildly.

“Right,” Harry says, “but Slytherin had heroes too. Snape,” he says first, and can’t quite meet Draco’s eye when he says, “You.”

He looks at Draco from under his lashes, and sees the way Draco’s expression changes, melts into something warm and gentle and yet more fond, and Harry used to think that expression was condescending, but he didn’t know him then. “Maybe you gave one of them a middle name,” Draco suggests. “James Snape Potter.” He pauses, as though he can’t quite meet Harry’s eyes, either. “Lily Narcissa is pretty,” he adds.

“Or a constellation, like the Blacks,” Harry says. “Albus Scorpius.”

Draco flinches, but he only murmurs, “I never knew you paid attention in astronomy.”

Harry’s eyes narrow. “It’s not enough, is it,” he says, but it’s not a question, really. “Just a middle name. I would think I would do more than that.”

“Would you?” Draco’s murmuring still, his lashes gold in the sunlight slanting through the window off the sea.

“Yes,” says Harry, certain now. “That was just another story, wasn’t it? I’m not even a lawyer, am I.”

“No, Harry.” Draco’s voice is almost obedient now, so soft. “You’re not a lawyer.”

“Then what am I?” Harry asks, but the question’s really, what are we?

In the sixth story Draco Malfoy tells him, Harry doesn’t have any children. He was married, then divorced, and then he was all alone, in a series of relationships. Draco says he was an Auror, though, and still got lots of collars. He was still a bit too abusive towards dark wizards, but Harry guesses it can’t all be pretty, and besides, dark wizards deserve it.

Meanwhile, Draco worked in international relations, along with Viktor Krum, who was an ambassador to Britain. Draco didn’t marry Astoria (“let the wizarding world disapprove of whom they may”), but he got to know Harry because they both worked at the Ministry. There was a case involving trans-Atlantic wand trafficking, and they had to work together, but it turned out not to be that bad, so they started going to the pub, and played Quidditch, and Draco even hung around Ron and Hermione sometimes, even though he still wasn’t friends with them.

And then sometimes Harry would have tea with Draco’s mother (“of course, father’s always out on those days; I make sure of it—but you stayed with me, when he was Kissed, and wouldn’t let me be alone.” Draco pauses. “Prat,” and Harry believes it because he didn’t let Draco be alone that day in the bathroom, either, and Harry hadn’t really thought about it that much then, but now he wishes that had ended differently).

Harry thinks of Lily’s freckles, and thinks that he should mourn their passing, but then again, it’s unclear whether they actually existed (whether they will exist), and he can barely remember Ginny’s face these days. She was some future that he wanted, a tale he told himself to sleep at night, but as the nights drag on and slaying Voldemort seems less and less likely, it gets hard to think about what will be, and Harry begins to focus on what is.

Right now is evenings in Shell Cottage with Draco Malfoy, spinning tales about futures that could be and never were, and it feels more real than the dreams that Harry had when he still believed in happy endings. Winter whispers at the windows with promises of frost; Ron and Hermione have their own dreams of the future, and the nursery where Draco Malfoy sleeps holds a future that never can be, now. At night they light candles and drink tea, and sometimes Harry thinks that if they could live forever in right now, the only tale he would tell would be this one.

The problem is the truth is in the telling, and the future’s what you make it.

Draco tells Harry the seventh tale because Harry’s finally figured it all out. He’s read between the lines of all those other stories and listened to the secrets in them, and can’t believe he never realized, “You’re gay.”

“They call me joyful, at the office,” is all Draco says, but he doesn’t look at Harry in that way he has and he’s picking at his nails. It’s a habit he’s picked up, like the other ones Shacklebolt described (the blinking, scratching his nape), and Harry wonders if it has to do with being somewhere he does not belong (but rubbing his arm, that’s the main thing, and Harry doesn’t think that has anything to do with time travel at all).

“You keep saying the wizarding world doesn’t approve of you,” Harry accuses, “and you’re always bringing up Krum—it’s always you and Krum—and you said Krum was gay.” He crosses his arms, as though he’s proven his point.

“You can be such a child sometimes.” Agitated, Draco stands, turns away, looks out the window at the sea. Braced against the frame, he’s never looked quite so much like an adult, like a man, the long lean lines of him limned in light, grown thinner in the last few months—waning, like the sun. “Is that all you can think about?”

“I haven’t thought of that at all.” Harry knows he sounds as immature as Draco has just accused him of being, but he can’t help himself. Uncrossing his arms, he drops his hands to his sides, and frowns. “I haven’t had time. I’ve been doing . . .” he thinks about it, “more important things.”

“Of course you have,” but the line of Draco against that window is tense and hard, coiled tight.

“How am I supposed to know?” Harry says, but he’s not quite sure what he’s asking.

“You’re not. You’re not supposed to know anything at all.” Draco turns around then, and Harry almost takes a step back; Draco looks so absolutely wrecked. “Harry, you’re seventeen.”

“I’m eighteen,” because July was three months ago. Harry lifts his chin, and he knows it sounds so young, even as he says it. “That’s old enough.”

Harry falters, then. It’s the sound of Draco’s voice. “Old enough to know about—about being gay. About you being gay,” he says, but the correction sounds half-hearted, even to his own ears.

“It’s not old enough to save the world. No one’s ever old enough. I’m not old enough, and I’m . . .” He trails off, and for the first time, Harry realizes he doesn’t know how far in the future Draco’s from. Old enough to have children, old enough to put them on the Hogwarts Express, old enough for thinning hair . . . Draco rubs his arm, and though they say children are different, Harry thinks no one is too young to have regrets.

“This shouldn’t be happening,” Draco says, sounding so broken. “It’s all wrong. You said it yourself—it’s not just this.” He gestures around him wildly. “It’s everything. It’s this world—what was it that you said—the entire premise; it makes no sense.”

“This makes sense,” Harry says, coming closer.

Draco looks unbearably wretched. “This makes the least sense of all. I’ve fucked it so completely, Harry; you have no idea.”

“You haven’t fucked it,” Harry says. “You’ve fixed it. See,” he holds out his hand, “we’re friends.”

“We’re not friends.” Draco turns away. “I’ve lied. Don’t you see, I always lie?”

Harry defended Draco at the trials, but he didn’t do much more than that, and afterward, Draco was left to make a life for himself. There weren’t many opportunities open to a former Death Eater, so Draco opened up a shop, but it didn’t do well, and his mother was slowly going mad, and there was no one to turn to when his father died.

Draco got back at him (his father) the only way he could, cavorting with thieves and filth and Muggleborns (“filthy Mudbloods,” he actually says, in a fit of bitter savagery aimed at the frosted window glass). He made a spectacle of himself any way he could; he drank too much and took to potions; he got in brawls and would fuck anything that moved (“so that makes me gay, Harry, and because you’re so grown-up, because you’re so mature, I’ll tell you the truth; it makes me worse than gay; it makes me a fucking slut; is that what you wanted to hear? Is it?”)

It’s just like the second story (or was it the third? The one in which Harry was debauched, and wore leather trousers, only Draco isn’t laughing at all, now. He seems to think not a bit of this is funny, now that he’s given Harry hope) only in reverse.

Harry Potter, politician, peacemaker, and possible Unspeakable, disapproved, of course. He arrested Draco (“more times than I care to count”) and told him he should get a girlfriend, and Draco leered at him and said filthy things (“like, ‘you could fit the bill’”). Harry only ever frowned and told him to do something better with his life, something involving chasing criminals or making friends or picket fences, and Draco sneered and said (“this is what I am. This is all I ever was”).

When Draco tried to cut the Dark Mark off, it was Aurors and Harry who broke into his flat. Once the blood was cleaned up, his arm healed, wounds washed away, Harry looked stern in his scarlet, and gave him all his platitudes (“something’s got to change,” “you can’t go on this way,” “you’ve got to think about your future”). That was when Harry gave Draco something from the Department of Mysteries, and when Draco looked at it, it was a time-turner.

“I don’t believe you,” Harry says.

“Don’t worry, though,” Draco says. “You live happily ever after.”

Later, Draco calms down. He apologizes to Harry, and even though he hasn’t said it isn’t true, he hasn’t said that about any of his other tales either. Bits and pieces, Harry’s beginning to think, bits and pieces can be true—because obviously, not all of them at once can happen. There’s only one future; he knows that, but after a while of staying at Shell Cottage the lines of his hand begin to look clean again.

After that they go to Hogwarts, because it’s the only thing Draco can figure out they need to do (“there are hazy in-betweens, but let’s just get to the climax, shall we? I mean that metaphorically,” he adds, and leers at Hermione, who looks horrified, and Harry thinks there’s a sharper edge to his smirk than there was before).

Shortly after reaching Hogwarts (Draco in the Invisibility Cloak), they’re found out, and have to split up. Ron and Hermione go down to the Chamber of Secrets to fetch the Basilisk tooth, and Harry and Draco go to Ravenclaw Tower to find some kind of diadem (Harry doesn’t know; Draco told him). Out in the Forbidden Forest, Voldemort is calling for Harry’s blood, and the Grey Lady tells them to go to the Room of Hidden Things.

“You go without me,” Draco says, stopping at the top of the stairs.

“What?” Harry stops as well. “No. What’s wrong?”

“You are,” says Harry. “I wouldn’t have found it without you,” because this is how he can have a happy ending.

Draco simply shakes his head again. “No. It isn’t right. I’m not supposed to be here.”

“No,” says Harry. “Of course I’m not going without you. There are Death Eaters everywhere.”

“It’s okay,” says Draco. “Just let me go; I’m supposed to—”

“I don’t care what you’re supposed to do.”

Draco’s growing paler. “Harry, this is how it’s supposed to go. I wasn’t—this is how it needs to be.”

“No,” says Harry. “I don’t care. I’m not leaving you; you’re coming with me.”

Draco grows paler still, looking sicker by the second. “Harry, no. I’m not—I’m not even meant to be here.”

“I don’t care, I said,” because even if this is Draco’s past, Draco is Harry’s present, and he’s eighteen and maybe he die and the present’s all he’s got; he’s got to hold on to something. “I’m not leaving you,” he says. “I’m never going to leave you.”

Draco looks stricken at those words, and says, “My God. Oh, my God. I’ve fucked it up.” He begins to back away.

“Don’t,” Harry says, and reaches for him. He grips Draco’s arm and his hand slides down, down into Draco’s own, Draco’s lean strong hand, his calloused—manly, Harry thinks—fingers, and it’s one of the easiest things Harry’s ever done. “Come with me.”

Draco just looks at him, and his expression is stricken with sadness, and loss. “I understand now,” he says. “I know why you left.”

“It was so this wouldn’t happen,” Draco says.

“Nothing’s happened yet,” Harry says, and tugs again.

“I’m sorry, Harry,” Draco says. “I did it wrong. I didn’t mean for—I didn’t mean for it to be this way. It just—it happened.”

“Please, come,” Harry says, tugs once more, and Draco comes.

So Harry and Draco go to the Room of Requirement, and Draco’s eyes are as grey as wishing wells—empty, and yet holding a thousand hopes of things that could never be. There’s a weight of inevitability in them, as though Draco’s finally decided something, and Harry doesn’t like it.

Harry turns to him, and he isn’t looking for the diadem any more. “I die, don’t I,” he says, but that, also, is not a question.

Draco lets go of his hand. Harry can see the dust in the Room of Hidden Things, floating gently down. “What?” is all Draco says.

“I die,” Harry says. “It’s okay. I’ve known for a while now—all those stories you made up. It was just to get me here.”

Draco blinks, shakes his head. “No. No, Harry, you don’t die.”

“It’s why you came back, isn’t it?” Harry says. “Dumbledore sent you, or maybe Snape.” He shrugs. “I always knew. I mean, I didn’t want to face it, but I knew deep down. I had to die. I didn’t want to at first, but I—I think now I can do it.”

Draco shakes his head. “No, you don’t, Harry. You don’t. I promise you, you’re . . .” His eyes flick up to the scar. “You’re the Boy Who Lived.”

“You’ve made a lot of promises,” Harry says, and lifts his chin.

Draco blinks again, but this time slowly, and his eyes are so, so clear. “I have done,” he says, just as slowly and just as clearly, “but they weren’t to you. To you I’ve mostly lied, but trust me, Harry. I’m not lying now. You’re why we lived. Harry,” he says, “you’re why I lived.”

“Then tell me how we are.” Harry steps closer. “In the future. Tell me how we really are.”

Draco looks down at him (but they’re almost of a height) and falters. “I can’t tell you,” he tries to say.

“Tell me about this,” Harry says, and brushes his lips over Draco.

Draco closes his eyes and breathes, breathes, breathes, so harshly. Very carefully, he removes Harry’s hand from his arms. “I’m over twice your age,” he says, very gently.

“I’m still older than you. I . . . was born in May,” Draco adds, nonsensically, but from the expression on his face, he could have been born just yesterday.

“We do this every day, don’t we,” Harry says. “You and I, together.” His fingers curl around Draco’s nape, and he brushes Draco’s bottom lip with a rough thumb. “This.”

Mutely, Draco shakes his head. “Harry,” he says, “please,” but Harry can legitimately say he doesn’t know what Draco’s asking him to do, because Draco’s lips are parting, his head is leaning in to Harry’s touch, his hips are canting upward, and Harry has never done this before, but he thinks he might have done it a thousand times.

Outside Voldemort is calling for his head on a platter, and Hogwarts seems to be crashing down around them, but Harry doesn’t care. He doesn’t care, because his whole future is standing right in front of him.

“I can’t,” and Draco chokes on his own words, “I can’t tell you about our future,” and for the first time, the future is ‘ours’, not ‘yours’ or ‘mine’; it’s theirs.

Harry presses his hips inward, fitting against Draco’s; they fit. “I may never get another chance,” Harry says.

“But you said,” Draco begins, and Harry doesn’t care that if he does die, he can’t have this future, because he wants this present so badly that he’s willing to give up all the rest; he kisses him.

He kisses him and kisses him, and Harry’s only kissed one person just like this, and it was nothing like this because Draco’s nothing like Ginny. Draco’s kissed before (a thousand times before), and he knows how to do it, strong and sure, and putting his hands in the right places on Harry’s body, pulling Harry against him and fitting them yet more surely, more perfectly than Harry thought they could.

“Tell me,” Harry said, and they break apart. “Tell me our future,” and the eighth tale (the one that comes at the end, after everything) is that they fell in love eighth year.

“This is the eighth year,” Harry says, because it’s October, and he kisses him again. He worries that his kisses are too wet or wide, that he’s using too much tongue and that Draco may remember he’s a teenager, but Draco doesn’t seem to care. He’s using too much tongue, too, and when he breaks away there’s a line of spit and Harry licks it off of him and it’s so warm and wet with the world crashing down around them; he just doesn’t care.

So then (and then) they got to know each other, in temporary dormitories set up for the eighth years. They learned each other under the practice Quidditch stands and against the midnight sky, in the corners of the corridors and when the sun rose in the morning. They learned each other’s bodies, just as Harry’s learning Draco’s now, pulling off his shirt and tracing every part of him, kissing him and tasting.

“You liked it when I kissed you here,” Draco says, and kisses the corner of his jaw.

Harry shivers, but can’t read the truth in that because he would like it if Draco says some future self gets to have it, whether he would originally have liked it or not (prophesy is self-fulfilling). “Do you like it when I do this?” and Harry can’t help being a teenager, being over eager; he’s got his hand on Draco’s crotch, but Draco groans and says he likes it.

“It always got me,” Draco says, and makes a little circle of his hips, right into Harry’s hand. “Always.”

“And this?” Harry says, and grabs his arm. There are no scars besides the Dark Mark, and Harry can’t believe that if Draco really tried to cut it off, there would be no scars, and so he sinks his teeth into the Mark with something like relief.

“I,” Draco says, and then he makes a sound like pain, so Harry starts to take his mouth away and Draco makes an ah, a torn up, terrible sound, and then says, “Don’t stop. Please, don’t stop.”

“So,” Harry says, and smiles, “You like it.”

“I like it. I like it, Harry.” Draco’s hips buck against him. “Please don’t stop.”

“I won’t,” says Harry. “This is never going to stop.” He sinks down to his knees.

“Please, Harry, don’t, not yet,” Draco says. His hands bury in Harry’s hair, pulling up.

“I want to,” Harry says, and opens Draco’s trousers.

“Please, you’re so young, please—can’t we just—can’t we just . . . take it slowly?”

“I just want to taste it,” Harry says, and he does, and Draco makes more sounds, all those perfect sounds, and Harry wonders if this is what he sounded like then, or whether Draco never made these sounds at all.

Harry’s still pretty sure he’s going to die, and so he sucks it more, because to him it tastes real, and like life.

“Now let me,” Draco says. “Harry, just let me.”

Then he lays Harry down on the bed (because of course, there’s a bed, in the Room of Hidden Things), and starts saying things, things that couldn’t possibly be true, in the world of the other seven tales, things that aren’t sequential, things that make no sense, a thousand interpretations of a thousand endings, and Harry believes them all. All of them are true here, and Harry wonders if every story ever told maybe has an ending here, where everything is true.

“When I touched you like this,” Draco says, dragging his fingers down Harry’s chest, “I couldn’t believe how much you needed me. God, and I was so afraid.”

“You’re not afraid now,” Harry says, because Draco’s taking off the rest of their clothes.

“And when I touched your cock, I couldn’t—I couldn’t believe how much I needed you; I just wanted you to fill me up with it; I wanted you inside of me, and you wanted—you wanted to be inside, and I thought—God, Harry; I thought that I could keep you safe—you don’t know how I want to keep you safe.”

“I know it,” Harry says, because in this moment he cannot care less about the Horcruxes, Voldemort, that he is going to die. He just wants to think of this—just this once, in this hidden room, where time can last forever, and he can be eighteen, as he should have been, feeling this for his first time and remembering in the back of his mind there’s something valuable—something he’s forgotten, that he has to find.

A little phial of oil appears in Draco’s hand, and he says, “I’ll do it.”

Harry says, “I want, I want,” and needs to get the words out; he arches. “I want you to be inside of me.”

Draco’s breath catches, and he seems to have to look away. When at last he looks back, and opens his eyes, Harry thinks they may be wet. “Have you—have you done it before?”

Harry shakes his head, and Draco makes a choked sound and just says, “You can’t, oh God, you can’t—”

Taking the bottle from him, Harry looks at it. “Why not?”

Draco still won’t look at him. “If I hurt you—”

I fucked up; I fucked it up, I fucked it, Draco kept saying when they came in here, and Harry still can’t figure out what he means, or whether he meant this. “I’ll forgive you,” is all Harry says, and smiles a little. “We have plenty of time,” even though they don’t. “Please,” he says. “I want you to.”

Sucking in a breath, Draco takes back the bottle, and looks at it, just looks. “When I,” he begins, “when we . . . I wondered, once, who your first was, and you would never tell me.”

Harry spreads his legs. “At least now I can say it’s someone that I loved.”

“That’s just it.” Draco puts his hand on Harry’s ankle, and his flesh is warm, so so warm, and he’s looking at Harry’s legs and cock and other private places as though he’s never seen such things. At last his eyes lift back to Harry’s face. “That’s what you always said.”

Harry thinks about that. “Then it was always you,” he says, and Draco puts his fingers inside, but his fingers won’t stop shaking, his arm won’t stop shaking; all of him is shaking, and he’s trying too hard to be gentle.

“I might as well be eighteen again,” Draco murmurs.

Harry says, “I want to hear what we’re like. I want to know, years from now, how we do this.”

Draco shudders, and says, down low and close to Harry’s ear, “You stretched me out like this, and I would open for you. God, I’d open for you. You gave yourself to me and I took you. Oh God, how I’d take you.” Draco’s fingers are deep inside Harry know, slowly working open, and Harry’s never felt this before, this sensation of another person inside him, and he doesn’t know how to feel about it other than he wants it; he doesn’t even know if he likes it, but he wants it, and wants more.

“You were everything to me; you were trust and hope, redemption, all combined, and sometimes when you looked at me, across the Great Hall, and I knew—I just knew— what you were thinking, and God, you could be so dirty—so filthy fucking crude, and I should have been ashamed, I would have been ashamed, of all the things I wanted you to do to me, but it was you. It was always you, and you were so—you were so good.”

Draco’s looking at him intently, now, and Harry’s squirming under his eyes, around his fingers, against his knees, and he so spread out, splayed open, just for Draco’s eyes and mind and body, and Harry feels scared and awkward and too hot, and he wants to give him everything, all at once—everything, so Harry just says, “I want to be good for you,” because this is the choice he gets to make. Saving the world, his whole life—they were never really choices, but this is a choice he chooses.

Draco’s eyes go so soft; his fingers press in deep; his lips brush Harry’s cheeks and he says, “You’ll always be good, Harry. You’ll never be anything but good, don’t let yourself believe that you’re anything less than that. No matter what happens, Harry. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, and I have no regrets.”

“Do you talk like that to me?” Harry says, and cants his hips again, into Draco’s fingers.

Draco laughs a little, drily. “No,” he says. “When we first started this, mostly I just moaned, and later tried to play it off with snark.”

“What did I say?” Harry asks, but instead of speaking, Draco gets on his knees, positioning himself, and then he pushes into Harry’s body.

It’s wider than he thought, and burns more than he expected, and Harry doesn’t care, because he’s eighteen, and having sex, and he never thought he would live to do that, much less with a man, much less with this man, much less right now, forever in this room, and always.

“Whatever you said,” Draco says at last, his voice warm and ticklish, right by Harry’s ear, “never think for a moment that I didn’t learn what you really meant. Never think that I won’t learn to love you, because I always do. Never think that this won’t happen, because it will. No matter how hard you try, this always happens. It always will.”

“It’ll happen,” Harry says. He’s adjusting to the girth of Draco inside of him, and though it still burns, he just can’t get over the fact that Draco is inside of him, and he wants more; in every future he wants this; this is every breath and every moment, because in this one, still fractured beat of time, life can’t possibly be more than this. “It’s happening.”

“But you thought it wouldn’t,” Draco says, moving against him, spreading Harry’s legs farther, pushing deeper, stroking hands down Harry’s thighs until he’s gently cupping what’s between them and squeezing, softly, carefully, excruciatingly slowly. “I know you thought it wouldn’t. You thought that you could stop it, and that informed everything you did, all those things you said.”

Draco puts his lips on Harry’s ear. “Listen to me, Harry. I’m telling you right now—I would rather have had this more than an entire lifetime of never knowing you, like this, never knowing your body, like this, never knowing—” He lifts his head and kisses Harry’s scar, and Harry thinks he means, your soul, like this, because that’s how Harry feels.

“Oh God,” Harry groaned, and arched. “Oh God, harder Draco; give me more; I want all of you—harder, harder—”

Draco’s fucking him, and he’s saying, “I love you, remember that I love you, always remember, I love you in the future, I love you in the past, and I love you right now, forever.”

“Oh, God,” Harry says again, “I’m going to come.”

“I love everything you are,” Draco says, his hips thrusting long and slow and almost gently; “I love everything you become.”

And Harry has a lifetime, he suddenly realizes, he has Draco Malfoy as he is right now, young and probably still vain and stupid, but he knows who Malfoy will become just as this Draco knows who Harry will be, and Harry doesn’t know how he can possibly deal with that, losing this Draco and learning to love that Malfoy, except he’ll always have this to look forward to.

He will always have this, and the thought of it—just the thought of Draco now and getting to have Malfoy now and getting to have this, in the future—just the thought of it makes him come; it makes him come and come and come, and he can hear Draco pumping into him and saying—

“I forgive you; I didn’t understand at first, but I forgive you; just forgive me for this—for this, Harry; you should have known that this would always happen—it’s always going to happen—” Draco was coming too, wild erratic thrusts, hungry and uneven.

Afterwards Harry lies with Draco in his arms, and thinks it’s strange, to be holding an older man like this, but in the future he won’t be older. He’ll be Malfoy, and Malfoy won’t know that this is going to happen, but Harry will. Harry will always be thinking of this moment when he’s with Malfoy, and he’ll stay with Malfoy forever so that this moment can come true.

For the first time, he thinks of his other (older) self. He puts his hand in Draco’s (thinning) hair and says, “What did you mean?”

“Mmph,” says Draco, and snuggles against his neck.

“You weren’t talking to me,” Harry says. “You were talking to my older self.”

Draco kisses the hollow of his throat, and simply says, “I can’t tell you your future, Harry.”

“Except you have already,” Harry says, and goes on, “You think I’m going to regret this.”

Draco just makes another noise. “I don’t,” kissing his way up to Harry’s ear. “I don’t regret it.”

“No matter what happens,” Draco says, and kisses him deeply between his words, “I absolutely don’t regret this.”

“Tell me what you mean,” Harry says, but Draco gets out of bed, and starts getting dressed.

“We’re out of time,” he says. “I’m due through that door.”

“What?” says Harry, but he gets dressed too, because as good as everything was, Voldemort is still outside, and he’s probably going to die.

A moment after he throws on his shirt, Malfoy, Vincent Crabbe and Goyle step through the door, and Draco’s nowhere to be seen.

“Malfoy,” Harry breathes, and feels utterly slammed by the disorientation of Malfoy’s pale young face, beautiful still, but not beloved yet.

Malfoy just sneers. “Potter,” then he sniffs, “hiding like the coward you are, I see.”

Harry wants things to be different, but he’s out of time here, too.

The problem is, there’s never enough time, even when you can control it.

In the final battle, Harry goes to the Forbidden Forest, and he dies, just as he always knew (deep down) he would. He dreams of King’s Cross, then comes back to life (that part, he never knew). Then he’s the Dark Lord’s prisoner, and Draco is hiding somewhere in the forest, waiting, watching—here to ensure the future; Harry’s always known that was his purpose here.

What he doesn’t understand is why, in the final face-off with Voldemort, Draco comes out from the shadows, and points his wand at his younger self. Harry doesn’t know what’s happening, but Malfoy doesn’t either; he’s staring fearfully at Voldemort, and doesn’t see his elder self at all.

There’s another moment of choice right here, but this one’s a little different; only one Draco Malfoy is being threatened, and it’s the other Draco Malfoy that’s doing the threatening. Of course it’s (his) Draco Harry loves, but Malfoy he doesn’t want to lose, because Malfoy is his Draco, and he’s already begun to think of them as one (in spite of the fyre, in spite of everything).

But (his) Draco is firing the curse, even while Harry’s fighting Voldemort, offering him mercy, and all of the sudden, Harry knows what Draco wants him to do. What he doesn’t know is why, but he does it anyway.

Later they will say Harry Potter tried to disarm the Dark Lord twice, and missed the first time, but it’s not true. Later, Harry will figure out that he had to disarm Draco in order to control the Elder Wand, but it won’t be much comfort, because in the moments it takes to look away and disarm (his) Draco, Voldemort aims at Harry, and Draco throws a different kind of (wandless) magic into play.

It’s the same magic that his mother used, when she gave her life for Harry, and in the end, that’s how Harry gained mastery of the Elder Wand and survived, and Draco Malfoy—his Draco Malfoy—disintegrates before his eyes. When Harry casts Expelliarmus the second time, this time in Voldemort’s direction, he wants him to die (he does).

Harry looks at then at the place where Draco Malfoy—his Draco Malfoy had been, and is no more, and slowly after that, he turns to look at the other Draco Malfoy—not his Draco Malfoy at all.

If life is a book, then the pages are being written as we speak; if the end is already written, and we skip ahead to read it, then it is not an ending but a beginning, and all the pages afterward are unwritten. This isn’t a book, Harry’s thinking, as he looks at Draco Malfoy (the new Draco Malfoy, the unwritten Draco Malfoy), and nineteen years later isn’t written yet (and if it is, and he doesn’t like it, he’ll rewrite it; he’ll rewrite it and rewrite it).

Harry, in this future, will always come back to the Room of Requirement, , where the eighth tale was told and can be told again and will always be told in infinite different ways and still be true; he will always be coming back to that, back and back and back, even as he moves forward.

Harry looks at Malfoy and thinks, if Draco had never loved me, this would not have happened. He thinks that he can stop this, that if he never loves Malfoy, never touches him, never makes a future with him, then this present cannot be, and so Harry looks at Malfoy, and turns away.

He’ll marry Ginny (won’t he?) and have children (won’t he?) and stand one day on Platform Nine and Three Quarters, and when he sees Draco Malfoy standing there, Harry will nod like he doesn’t know him, and he’ll pretend like this never happened.

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