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The Hex Files
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2006-10-06
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2006-10-11
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All Possible Worlds

Summary:

Harry and Draco inadvertently fall through a magic mirror that reveals more about them than they ever wanted to know, changing their relationship forever. HBP compliant.

Notes:

Note from SeparatriX, the archivist: this story was originally archived at The Hex Files, which was closed for financial and health reasons. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on The Hex Files collection profile.

Chapter 1: Time and Agan

Chapter Text

Part One: Time and Again

The world shifted, and Draco felt it come into being beneath his feet. He patted himself down, checking to make sure his limbs were all present. He opened his palm, finding only a pile of ash where the crystal had been. He cursed; he would have to Apparate out of here, and that was a chancy thing, especially when one was on the run. Besides, he was unlicensed and had never paid much attention to the Apparition lessons at Hogwarts.

He was too busy trying to kill Dumbledore.

Draco shook his head, trying to clear the past out of it. Focus on the present, and what he was here to do. Except that created quite a paradox, because he'd come here to change the past. Make the past anew, create a new future for himself.

One in which his mother wasn't dead.

The guilt, the desire to simply collapse in a heap and cry, was trying to creep up and overtake him again; Draco wasn't sure how much longer he could run away from it. It and all the Death Eaters and Ministry officials who were probably after him. And Aurors. Only Snape was wanted more by the Ministry at this point. Well, Snape and the Dark Lord. The Ministry didn't have a chance in hell of apprehending either of them. Draco Malfoy, on the other hand...

Draco didn't know whether it was panic or his good instincts for self-preservation that made him take Snape's last command so much to heart. At that point he was still trying to comprehend how utterly stupid he'd been. He should have listened to Snape when he'd first offered him help. He should have taken him seriously when he told him about the Unbreakable Vow. Perhaps then he wouldn't have been so surprised when Snape pushed him to the side and raised his wand, finishing the job that Draco had begun.

From the moment the green light flashed from Snape's wand, Draco knew he was as dead as Dumbledore. His mother too, unless he could get to her first. His father would be safe in Azkaban, and how ironic that Draco now felt glad he was there; when he was first arrested Draco only felt rage coupled with a terrible certainty that nothing would ever be the same again.

So when Snape shouted “Run, Draco!” and turned to flee himself, Draco had done as he said. But he hadn't run to the Dark Lord; that would have been suicide. Instead, he'd Apparated to Malfoy Manor, splinching his left leg in the process. Luckily, his mother had been there to put him back together. She had seemed to know what had happened without him saying anything.

“Draco,” she had said, hugging him as tears slid down her pale face. “Thank God. I knew I was right to trust Severus. I have made the preparations for our escape; I have packed everything we need. There is only one thing left to do.” She looked at him expectantly, and Draco was startled to realize they were of a height.

He nodded, and went to his father's study. In his father's desk drawer was a silver knife that could only be touched by a male with Malfoy blood. The knife was the key to a safe place, a last refuge for Malfoys in trouble. One had to have the key to find the place, and one could only open it with the key. They would be safe from the Dark Lord there, or as safe as they could be when hiding from Him.

Draco had been reaching for the doorknob when the study had opened from the inside, and Draco realized that he and his mother were not alone in Malfoy Manor. In the doorway stood Aunt Bellatrix, her dark hair framing her face, so like Mother's were she not mad. With a flick of her wand, she Petrified him and slammed him against the wall.

“The Dark Lord always knows, Draco,” she said. “You could have stood before him like a true Malfoy, like a true Black, and accepted your punishment as I have done. But you ran instead, like a little ferret bolting to its nest. But the Dark Lord knew you'd run.”

Draco would have liked to hex her for the ferret remark; while teaching him Occlumency last summer, she'd seen what that lunatic Moody had done. But he couldn't move. And then his mother's voice came from behind him.

“Leave him, Bella.”

“Stay out of it, Cissy. He had a task and he failed. It doesn't mean you need die as well.”

“Do you really think I will stand by and watch you murder my son? Expelliarmus!”

“Protego!”

The duel lasted a long time; the sisters were well matched. Toward the end Draco wished he could close his eyes, but his eyelids were as frozen as the rest of him, and he was forced to watch as a curse left his mother's face a bloody ruin, as his mother's Crucio had Aunt Bella writhing on the floor for half a second.

Aunt Bella picked herself up, Narcissa calmly waiting for her to resume the duel while blood dripped down the front of her robes. “Stand aside, Bella,” she said. “For family's sake, if nothing else. I do not want to kill you.”

“Even family is as nothing before my Lord's will,” Bellatrix spat, her limbs quivering.

“You will not kill me,” Narcissa said with certainty. “You cannot cast the curse and truly mean it.”

“You would think that, Cissy. But you would be wrong.”

“I think not. Sectumsempra!”

Draco wanted to jerk as the curse he'd last heard from Potter's mouth, the curse that left him bleeding on the bathroom floor, flashed from his mother's wand and traced long, deep cuts over his aunt's torso. But not before his aunt leveled her wand and whispered “Avada Kedavra.”

His mother's body had collapsed slowly, almost as slowly as Dumbledore had seemed to fall from the Tower. And his aunt fell too, her blood gushing from her, soaking the front of her robes and pooling on the hardwood floor. She looked at him, and attempted to raise her wand, but it fell from her fingers and rolled across the hall.

“Draco...little blood traitor,” she gasped. “and...for what?” Then she died. The spell holding Draco let up, and he slumped against the wall, eyes moving frantically between the bodies of his aunt and his mother.

“No,” he said, and winced at how weak it sounded. Well, it was fitting. Draco was a weak little child, fit only to be defended by his teacher and his mother, always standing aside as others did the work that should have fallen to him. Draco had never felt anything but pride in himself, in his blood, in his family, in the future glory that was his due. Now he felt nothing but self-loathing.

His mother was dead.

And then Draco knew what he had to do. He hurried into his father's study, stepping over the body of Bellatrix. He pulled the drawer open and searched through the magical valuables inside, swatting the silver dagger aside. He didn't need it now. Whatever his aunt said, he wasn't some stupid ferret looking for a hole to hide in. Not without his mother. At last he found it, a crystal prism with edges sharp as razors. The first time he'd held it he had cut his palm before his father snatched it away.

“Watch out, Draco,” his father snapped. “It's not a toy for little children.”

“What is it?” Draco asked in his high-pitched twelve year old voice.

“A Portkey, or something very like.”

“Where does it take you?”

“To a place any wizard can find if he has enough need. This only speeds up the process. It takes you to the House of Mirrors.”

“What's that?”

“As the name indicates, it is a house full of magical mirrors. A very dangerous place; such magical artifacts are seductive. And destructive. There are mirrors there to reveal your heart's desire, and some that will show the future, and some that can change the past.”

“Change the past? I thought that was impossible, even with time turners.”

“With time turners, it is. One can travel back, that is true, but any changes a wizard makes will have already impacted the present. Therefore nothing can truly be changed, or it already would have been.”

“That doesn't make sense.”

“Time travel is a frustrating paradox, true enough. But if a wizard enters a specific mirror in the House of Mirrors, he can go back and truly change one thing. One past mistake, made right, perhaps. Or one person saved when they should have died.”

“Father...why didn't you use it to go back and save the Dark Lord?” Draco bit his lip in trepidation; the Dark Lord was an unpredictable subject with his father, likely to bring out a fit of rage or an hours long rant in which his father bemoaned everything that might have been, if not for Harry Potter. But his father only sighed.

“Magical items like the mirrors have a mind of their own, and often bring about a different end than is expected. Besides, the price such artifacts exact is heavy, more than I am willing to pay.”

Well, no price was too high for Draco's mother. He would go to the House of Mirrors, find the mirror his father spoke of, and save his mother's life. Then they could escape together, as they'd planned. He had pocketed the silver dagger, then picked up the crystal prism gingerly. He wasn't sure exactly what to do, but his father had said that it worked based on need. He clenched the prism in his fist, ignoring the pain and the blood that welled between his fingers. Need. His mother, alive and well and beautiful again, not some cold corpse in a hallway. Need.

The world fell away.

***

Draco raised his head and squared his shoulders against the weight of guilt that had come to rest there, telling himself that in a little while, it would all be undone. He would go back, and this time he wouldn't falter. He wouldn't listen as Dumbledore blathered on about mercy and promises of safety. No, this time he would simply raise his wand cast the curse. And then his mother wouldn't be dead.

Draco looked around, and noticed that though it had been night when he'd left the Manor, it was evening here. The sun was setting, bathing the world in golden light. Draco stood at the shore of a vast lake of silver water. Behind him a forest crept up to the lake; some trees were growing in the water. Draco couldn't see any sign of a path around the lake shore, nor one leading into the forest. There was a heavy stillness in the air, and though the lake water lapped against the shore it made almost no ripples. Draco squinted into the light and looked for some sign of the House.

He couldn't see the other side of the lake, but twenty feet to the right a small boat was tethered to a dead tree. So he would have to cross the lake. Draco walked to the boat and waded into the water, black school robes billowing around his ankles. The boat rocked wildly as he clambered into it, but settled soon enough. As soon as he untied the tether it began to move forward, making for the opposite side of the lake.

The water was very clear and still. Draco's reflection stared up at him from the lake; there were dark circles under his eyes, and his cheekbones looked very hollow. He trailed his fingers in the water, distorting his face; he didn't want to see himself looking so lost.

Draco couldn't tell how long it took for the boat to cross the lake. The sun didn't seem to move at all, and at one point he became confused. Perhaps it was sunrise, not sunset. It would make more sense, considering the time he left the Manor. But it didn't feel like morning; the air had a sweet, heavy smell that spoke of dusk. Perhaps time didn't matter here. He hoped so.

The boat ran aground on the opposite shore, which looked very like the place he'd left, with the woods encroaching into the lake water. Except for the shack built of grey, weathered boards. It looked like it was about to fall down, listing heavily to the right. Draco could see gaps between the boards. He snorted; for a place with a grand name like “House of Mirrors” it wasn't much to look at. It was barely bigger than Hagrid's tiny hut.

He climbed out of the boat and climbed the bank. His shoes squelched unpleasantly, and his soaked robes twisted about his feet. He came to a stop in front of what must be the door to the House.

The door was a mirror, as tall as Draco himself. Draco looked at it expectantly. His reflection looked back at him, and Draco's first thought was that he looked utterly ridiculous. Wet robes, practically emaciated body. He looked like he hadn't slept in weeks, or eaten either. What was he doing here, anyway? Why did he think he would succeed, when so many others had failed? He couldn't kill Dumbledore the first time. He couldn't save his mother the first time. What made him think he could do any better the second time? Better to go back, use the silver dagger in his pocket, either to find a hiding place and hole up like the stinking little ferret he was, or else use it to slit his wrists. That would be a sacrifice his mother deserved.

His reflection was smirking at him; it was an expression he knew intimately as it was so often on his own face, but he knew he wasn't smirking now. He wanted to punch his reflection in the nose, wipe that self-satisfied expression off his own face. The Draco in the mirror began to laugh at him, which made Draco more angry. He was getting angry at his stupid reflection. He was mad at himself. Suddenly he knew why Potter was always jumping on him and trying to hurt him with Muggle dueling. If he looked like that, he could see why. Draco raised his wand, but didn't know which spell to cast. Draco would not suffer being laughed at, especially by his own reflection, but it was beyond stupid to hex a mirror, it would only bounce back and hit him.

His reflection began to point and mouth words at him, and though it made no sound Draco could read his own lips. Fool, the reflection said. Are you afraid of me then?

“NO!” Draco yelled, and stepped forward and pushed himself. His reflection grabbed his robes and pulled, and then Draco was tumbling forward, through the mirror.

Draco stood up, dusting himself off. His anger disappeared as abruptly as it had come. He shook his head; of course it had been a magical mirror. He wasn't sure whether it was designed to make him turn back or to draw him further in, but he was inside the House now, so he supposed it didn't matter either way.

The House was much bigger on the inside, and it didn't look like the inside of a dilapidated shack. A long, white hall stretched before him, interspersed with closed doors painted black. At the end of the hall was a golden door. There were at least fifty doors in all.

Draco took a deep breath, and bit his lip. He only knew that somewhere in here was the mirror he wanted, but he didn't have any idea how to tell which one it was. Well, he would just have to check each mirror thoroughly, then decide which was the right one.

He walked to the first door on his right, his footsteps echoing unnaturally down the hall. The black door was very heavy, requiring all of Draco's weight to force it open. Behind the door was a small, white room and an enormous mirror with clawed feet and a gilded frame.

Draco approached the mirror cautiously; he didn't want another reflection to pull him in before he knew what the mirror did. Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be any clear directions. At the top of the mirror were words, but they were in a language Draco couldn't read.

Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi

Draco sounded out the words phonetically, and it sounded like no language he'd ever heard. He read the words again. He waved his wand and said “Specialis Revelio,” but nothing happened.

Finally, Draco decided that the only thing left to do was look in the mirror. He left the doorway and stepped up to the mirror. To his surprise, he saw not his only own face, but his mother's and father's as well.

His parents stood before him, whole and healthy again. Draco hadn't seen his father since he went to Azkaban, but he'd woken from many nightmares of his father horribly changed into a ravaged shell, with long lank hair turned brown with dirt and mad eyes. Sometimes in his dreams his father didn't know Draco was his son, and he hexed him or his mother. But in the mirror his father stood tall and stern as always, looking down at Draco with warm approval. He wasn't smiling, but he seldom did.

Draco's mother was smiling. Her face was alive and beautiful, not cut and dripping blood; her eyes were their normal deep blue, not glazed over and staring. All the love she felt for him was reflected in her face.

Draco's throat felt closed and choked, and he knew he was crying, but he couldn't tear his eyes from the mirror long enough to wipe his eyes. There were other people standing behind his parents, all looking back at him, and Draco recognized his grandfather, Abraxas, and his mother's parents, and a host of other Blacks and Malfoys. He was the last of his line, except for his father who was in prison, but all his family were there in the mirror, reflected back at him. Reflected in him.

Draco was so entranced by the mirror that he forgot his purpose in the House, and he certainly didn't hear the footsteps echoing down the hall, or the door opening behind him.

“What do you see in that mirror, Malfoy?”

Draco turned around, wand raised and a curse on his lips, and his mouth dropped open in surprise.

Potter was here. In the doorway. His black hair stood out from his head even crazier than usual, and he was completely soaked. Water dripped from his Muggle trousers, and his overlarge, white t-shirt was plastered to his chest. He looked as tired and shocked as Draco felt.

Draco didn't know what to do. Potter didn't seem inclined to curse him, and he couldn't help but remember their last duel, which Draco had decidedly lost. Had Potter come hunting him? Did he think Draco had killed Dumbledore?

Well, whatever Potter's intentions were, they couldn't be good for Draco. He raised his wand to stun Potter, but Potter spoke again, his expression changing from surprised to angry.

“Do you see him dying, do you see yourself killing him for real? Do you see yourself at Voldemort's side? Is it glorious, like you thought?”

Draco flinched. “What the fuck are you talking about, Potter?”

“The mirror shows whatever you want most in the world, Malfoy. If you were the happiest man in the world, you would see nothing but your own reflection. Dumbledore told me that. What do you see?”

Draco swallowed. Potter's face when he said Dumbledore's name was crazed with grief, and his wand was shaking in his hand. Draco had never seen him look so angry, not even when Draco insulted his parents.

“I see my parents,” Draco said.

If anything, this seemed to make Potter more angry. “Your parents,” he said flatly. “You mean your murderous Death Eater father? And your traitor mother? She betrayed her own blood, her own cousin, she helped trick him to his death.”

Without thinking, without even bothering to cast a spell, Draco launched himself at Potter, wanting to smash his stupid face in, break his nose again, above all shut his mouth from talking about people he knew nothing about. He could hear obscenities flying from his mouth as he tried his best to beat Potter to a pulp.

For a moment, he had him. Potter obviously didn't expect Draco to come at him with fists, and Draco was able to knock him down and punch him in the stomach before Potter shouted “Expelliarmus!” and Draco's wand flew out of his hand and his body was thrown back against the mirror. Then Potter stood over him, tucking Draco's wand into his pocket. Potter raised his wand, and Draco abruptly remembered why he was here.

Potter didn't matter. Even getting his wand back didn't matter. He had to find the mirror that would send him back to save his mother. Before Potter could stun him, Draco forced himself up and dodged Potter's hex, pushing Potter aside as he ran out the door and down the hall.

Draco's magic was rising around him, called even without his wand to aid him, and all the doors in the hall opened as one. Draco raced down the hall, ignoring the mirrors behind each door. It had to be the mirror behind the golden door; that would make the most sense.

Potter caught him with a Reductor curse before he was halfway down the hall, and Draco was thrown to the ground again, and then Potter was on top of him, pinning his arms to floor. Draco kneed him the groin and Potter cried out, collapsing. Draco shoved him off and ran again, leaving Potter slumped on the floor, groaning.

Draco skidded to a stop in the room behind the golden door, in front of a heavily gilded rectangular mirror. Across the top were more unreadable words.

Neebe vah thgim tah tsdl roweh twohsi

The mirror showed nothing, not even Draco's reflection. Draco hesitated. Should he step through? How did he know it was the right mirror?

It didn't matter, he decided. Either it was the right mirror, or it wasn't, but either way Potter would soon recover. Draco thought he could hear him running down the hall again, but he didn't dare turn around.

He stepped up to the mirror, wondering how to proceed. Should he walk in, or put his hand in first? Should he dive in, like he would if he was swimming? Suddenly Draco wasn't sure he wanted to go in at all.

Potter's footsteps were coming closer, and Draco gave in and turned around, only to see Potter in the doorway, his face twisted with pain, breathing heavily. Draco felt a twinge of satisfaction. Potter was so angry his face was purple.

Draco backed up, as though frightened, ready to fall back into the mirror before Potter could hex him. He wasn't expecting Potter to throw himself forward and punch Draco in the mouth.

Draco's head was ringing and his vision went black for a moment, and when he could see again Potter's enormous green eyes were inches from his face, and his hands were on Draco's shoulders, shaking him. Draco's teeth were rattling in his mouth; blood was trickling down his chin.

“You little shit, Malfoy, you fucking tosser, I--”

Draco's knee went for his groin again, and Potter hastily pushed him back, losing his balance in his haste to dodge Draco's knee. Then they were both tumbling backwards, and Draco felt a moment's resistance from the golden surface of the mirror behind him, and then they were falling into golden light.