Draco gazed up at the fading moon in distress. He was compelled to acknowledge that their judgment had been catastrophically flawed. They had chosen the wrong path and allied themselves with the wrong side.
Joining the Dark Lord had brought them no benefits whatsoever. Instead, they had forfeited their dignity, status, and wealth, living like hunted dogs in perpetual terror.
Once the Malfoys ceased to be useful, the Dark Lord would cast the Avada Kedavra curse without hesitation. He would not even furrow his brow at the extinction of the Malfoy line—the Dark Lord cared solely about himself.
Draco exhaled heavily. The intensity of his thoughts, the crushing weight of regret, the disillusionment of crumbling faith—it all left him feeling utterly powerless. He collapsed onto the Persian carpet, his fingers unconsciously clawing at the fine, soft wool, tearing at it as though he were ripping at his own heart.
He had wept alone, drowned in regret, and succumbed to despair more times than he could count.
He had never wanted to become a pathetic Death Eater consumed by shame and insecurity.
Suddenly, a thought struck him. With trembling hands, he pushed up the sleeves of his light gray silk pajamas—and as expected, he saw only smooth, unmarked skin.
The hideous Dark Mark existed as though it never had. Draco released a shuddering breath, a smile of astonished relief spreading across his face.
He stroked his unblemished wrist repeatedly, murmuring to himself again and again, "Thank Merlin. Thank Merlin."
He could feel a profound sense of liberation in his very soul. The pain, suffocation, and mounting pressure that the Dark Mark had generated in his memories had vanished entirely.
He had not been branded with that repulsive stigma.
His father had not yet attempted to steal the prophecy and consequently been imprisoned in Azkaban.
Malfoy Manor remained peaceful and beautiful, a symbol of their family's glory.
Draco stood abruptly, experiencing a wave of dizziness from the sudden movement. He grasped the antique carved table to steady himself.
Were those memories dreams or reality? Everything had occurred so suddenly, so inexplicably.
He still struggled to believe it, finding himself trapped in a vortex of repetitive, chaotic thoughts.
Then his gaze fell upon the fateful letter resting on the table—a thick envelope of yellowed parchment with his name inscribed in emerald green ink.
His Hogwarts acceptance letter.
Beside it lay another letter bearing the Durmstrang crest.
It was as though time had rewound to the very beginning.
The morning after receiving these two letters, the Malfoy family would discuss his educational options following breakfast.
According to his memories, they had chosen Hogwarts.
Draco Malfoy had been presented with an opportunity to verify whether his memories were genuine.
In a few hours, if his parents' discussion unfolded exactly as he remembered, he would possess confirmation that he was indeed reliving days already lived, walking paths already traveled.
Then, perhaps, he truly had experienced those seven years at Hogwarts, and they had not been merely a nightmare.
Wait. He must wait for breakfast. Observe the situation carefully.
Draco collected himself. He walked slowly back to his bed and lay down once more. The emotional turbulence had depleted what little energy an eleven-year-old body possessed. He stared upward at the elaborately patterned bed curtains, at the shimmering silver dragons that glittered among the folds. His eyelids grew increasingly heavy, and he drifted into sleep once more.
-------------------------
A true Malfoy never wore his heart on his sleeve. He observed, calculated, and only then acted—never allowing the world to glimpse the machinations beneath his carefully composed surface.
Draco was such a Malfoy. Or rather, the man forged in the crucible of dark memories was no longer the arrogant, willful boy he once had been. Seven years of war had stripped away his recklessness, leaving behind something harder. Something colder.
But his parents could not know this.
They remained blissfully ignorant of the seismic shift in their son's psyche, still seeing him as the eleven-year-old boy who had gone to bed the previous night. If they discovered their proud, headstrong heir had transformed overnight into someone silent and calculating, questions would follow. Uncomfortable questions.
How in Merlin's name would he explain any of it? Draco himself had not sorted through the impossibility of his situation, and he refused to blurt out something mad before understanding what had happened to him.
Trust was a luxury he could no longer afford. The war had taught him that much. He had learned, through pain and betrayal, that no one truly understood him.
Not even his parents, who loved him in their own inadequate way.
So when Draco appeared at breakfast, he forced himself to channel the energy of an excitable eleven-year-old—pulling mannerisms from the cobwebbed corners of his memory, dusting them off, wearing them like an ill-fitting costume.
Apparently, he succeeded. Lucius and Narcissa continued their meal with aristocratic precision, attended by the ever-present house-elves, noticing nothing amiss.
Throughout breakfast, Draco could not stop himself from stealing glances at them.
They were so bloody young. Far younger than his last memories of them.
His father's face was unlined, free from the exhaustion and desperation that would mark him later. He wore his favorite robes—deep emerald with silver serpent embroidery—and his platinum hair fell in an immaculate sheet past his shoulders, gleaming in the morning light streaming through the windows.
His mother was still breathtakingly beautiful, moving with the effortless grace that came from centuries of breeding. That proud, aristocratic face only ever softened for two people: her husband and her son.
Draco's certainty grew with each passing moment. The memories were real. They had to be. Because Lucius and Narcissa were discussing exactly what they had discussed before—the same Ministry gossip, the same manor business, word for bloody word.
"Cornelius Fudge has actually applied for the Order of Merlin, First Class," Lucius drawled, contempt dripping from every syllable. "The fool awarded it to himself."
"How delightfully predictable." Narcissa sipped her tea with deliberate elegance. "We do so appreciate this sort of minister, do we not? Vain, weak, short-sighted. Easily manipulated. One can only hope his greed for gold matches his hunger for power."
Lucius inclined his head in approval, the ghost of a smirk playing at his lips.
Yes. They were plotting, exactly as before, how best to ingratiate themselves with the self-aggrandizing Minister of Magic.
Draco could even predict the exact moment the conversation would turn to him. When the house-elves served the final course—chocolate pudding, his favorite—his father would speak.
"So." Lucius set down his silver spoon with calculated precision, appearing to admire the dessert before him. "Durmstrang or Hogwarts. Which shall it be?"