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I regret to inform you that your application to study for a mastery in potions in the magical section of Oxford University has been rejected. Unfortunately, you do not meet the criteria and so we will not be inviting you to interview on this occasion.
Do not meet. Draco stared at the parchment in despair. It was the last of his four rejections to come through. He knew he met every academic criteria so the subtext was clear: he was not welcome due to his past. A past he was impotent to change. A past he'd declared he'd not let define him. A past he'd shaken off in the rehabilitation meetings he'd chosen to attend. But what did it matter, all anyone could see was the mark on his arm and a surname associated with evil in the pursuit of power.
He did what he'd often resorted to in the dark days following the conclusion of the war. Wandless and almost friendless he'd had to find an activity to occupy his time that didn't rely on magic. He ran. Theo had laughed when he'd eventually admitted to his new hobby, with a joking ‘how Muggle’. But Muggle or not, it was the only way Draco had found that successfully cleared his head without resorting to a multitude of potions like his mother.
He paid no attention to his direction as the tarmaced country lane outside the Manor became a dirt path. The trees closed in on either side. He was running on little more than a narrow cutting through the nettles and cowslips that towered on either side. A swift charm had rendered him immune to their sting. Birds chuntered at him from the branches above, scolding his intrusion into their sacred territory. The sun hung low in the sky, casting dappled shadows across his body. These blurred into one as the tree cover intensified. Eventually he was encased entirely in shadows.
Turning a corner, the path stopped. A clearing opened in front of him.
To his far right, one tree was missing. Just its stump remained. The only aberration in the otherwise perfect circle of trees surrounding a small pool. Dancing lights above the stump coalesced into the approximation of a young woman; she faded to shadow when he turned to look closer. A trick of the light.
Turning to the pond, the water was still. No plants erupted from its depths. It looked as if it were completely lifeless. Draco peered into it. Was it bottomless? No stones were evident under its surface. It swirled with silvery grey through a deep blue stretching to the depths beneath the millpond surface.
He lowered himself towards it, intrigued at its appearance. His reflection stared back at him. It was him, yet somehow not him. He raised a hand to his cheek. The image had unmarred pale skin but the scar bestowed on him by the Dark Lord for a minor indiscretion was a raised line beneath his fingertips. His platinum blonde hair was less haggard in the image too, more carefully groomed, resembling his more youthful days before the darkness had descended.
He reached out to the surface, towards his almost double. Fingers getting closer. And closer. The surface rippled as his index finger made contact.
A swift tug emanated from his navel, drawing him in.
Darkness fell.
Draco sat up in bed, pushing the crisp Egyptian cotton covered duvet from his torso. The rejection. The run. The pond. The reflection. Had it all been a dream? He raised a hand to his face. His skin was smooth beneath his fingertips; the hateful scar was gone.
His bedroom had reverted to the decor of his teenage years. Unmistakably, he was in the Manor, complete with posters of his favourite quidditch team sticking charmed across one wall.
But if the scar upon his face was gone, then what about that other, more painful reminder? He tugged up the pyjama sleeve on his left arm. The pale skin was bare, no dark mark etched across his flesh. He traced his finger across his skin, it was soft and smooth. Where had it gone? What strange magic had that hidden pool provided?
A sharp crack jolted him from his musings. He turned his head. His house elf prostrated himself across the floor in a deep bow.
“Master,” Tippy murmured. His whole body shook. One elongated ear was dripping blood onto the deep green carpet.
Anxiety curdled in Draco's stomach. The bludger in his chest intensified. He flicked his wand to clean up the blood and the elf flinched.
“What is it?” Draco asked, but deep down he knew. He remembered this day and the pain that followed. He tugged his sleeve back down.
“Our esteemed guest requires your presence in the dining room,” Tippy said, not rising from his bow. “Your father has requested you attend immediately.”
“I…” Draco started, but then he paused. What was the purpose of reliving this day if only to meet the same fate? Was this what the pool had provided, a choice? But how and why? That was a question for later, for now, he just needed to escape. Telling his elf that would hardly be conducive to that goal. “I will be along shortly. Tell my father I am dressing,” he instructed.
“Yes sir.” The elf vanished with another crack.
Draco hurriedly pulled on his least cumbersome clothing, some old slytherin quidditch training gear that had laid undisturbed in the bottom of his cupboard. He swung open the window. Leaving his wand on his bed would make it harder to trace him. Immensely grateful that his bedroom was on the ground floor, he clambered onto the windowsill and dropped onto the flowerbed beneath, carefully avoiding his mother's prize roses. Even in fleeing, hers was a wrath he'd rather avoid.
Then, once safely out of his suite in the Manor, he ran. Not caring where he went. He headed for the relative safety of the trees. Darting behind the nearest tree, he zigzagged out of sight of the imposing property behind him.
Branches hung low under his head, occasionally bashing into his face as he pressed on. Deeper and deeper. He pushed the undergrowth away with his arms, never pausing in his flight. Following a trail that was more animal track than actual path. Still he ran. And ran.
A clearing.
A pond.
A stump from a single missing tree.
He could have sworn he glimpsed a woman sat there. But when he looked again, she was no more.
Familiarity gripped him.
Here again. But how? And why?
The surface called to him once more. His reflection still him, but different. Bare arms and no hint of a hippogriff’s anger across his forearm. He looked down at his own arm. That scar was still present, a spindly white line tracing down from his right elbow to his wrist.
He'd not be able to outrun the Dark Lord forever. He'd always known that. And so taking a deep breath, he plunged his face into the water.
Darkness consumed him once more.
Waking once more, the eerie green of the Slytherin dormitories surrounded him. Mottled light from the black lake entering through the circular windows.
He immediately tugged his sleeves up, both arms were unmarked this time. No Dark Mark and no hippogriff induced scar.
“Come on sleepyhead,” Theo shouted, swinging open the dormitory door. “You've missed breakfast. I know such a complexion needs its beauty sleep, but this is ridiculous.”
“Morning, Theo,” Draco replied, ignoring the normal jibes of his friend. “What lesson have we got first?”
Theo threw him a croissant. “Care of Magical Creatures. They've even got that oaf teaching, can you believe it?”
Draco made a non-commital noise as he shoved pieces of croissant in his mouth. Today was the hippogriff day, the consequences of interacting with that pool were getting stranger and stranger.
Once down at the paddock, Draco did everything he could to avoid raising the ire of the idiotic hippogriff. He'd learnt that lesson, taunting beasts that were stronger than you was a fool's move.
Unfortunately, not everyone had understood that truth. A derogatory comment from the lumbering Goyle sent the hippogriff into a frenzy. It headed straight at Draco. And so, once more, he ran. Dodging between the trees of the forbidden forest and out of reach of the beast’s talons.
Within minutes, he was in that strange clearing again. The pool drawing him in. Though this time, he resisted the urge to touch the water and simply stared at this new reflection. An older version of himself, with wrinkles creasing his forehead. No scars were evident across his translucent skin.
“So many choices,” an airy voice called across to him as he sat. “Do you like that future?”
A young witch with dirty blonde hair sat on the tree stump. Bright purple spectacles perched on the bridge of her nose. She looked familiar, but he couldn't place her. She cradled a twig in her hands, gently stroking it and muttering something he couldn't quite hear.
“I… I'm not sure. How is it different?” Draco replied uncertainly.
“You make those choices. You are different,” she said as if that explained everything. It explained nothing.
“I'm different?” Draco repeated, struggling to come up with anything more intelligible. “But that's impossible.”
“Is it?” She still passed the twig between her hands. “For you perhaps, although those choices were yours to make. But with them…”
“But the past is unchangeable, law 137 of immutivity.”
“Professor Flitwick will be delighted you paid such careful attention in his class. But nothing is unchangeable should you make the right bargain.”
“A bargain?” Draco wasn't sure he liked the sound of that. His father had made a bargain of sorts with the Dark Lord and look where that had landed him. A cell in Azkaban could hardly be described as a good deal.
“A bargain with me.” Her voice was light, almost breathy. Enticing.
Draco looked more carefully at the witch in front of him. She was the quidditch commentator from sixth year, some crazy Ravenclaw that had commandeered derision from even her own housemates. Loony Lovegood they had called her. Luna - touched by moonlight the Slytherins had joked, that's what made her crazy. What she was offering couldn't possibly be within her power.
“My mother was fae, my father is a wizard. He made a bargain too,” she explained.
Many childhood tales warned of the dangers of making a bargain with the fae. But to undo his past, that was alluring.
“What are the terms?” Draco asked. The patter of his heart picked up its pace.
“A marriage,” she said, so calmly she could have been ordering a pumpkin juice.
“Who to?”
“Me, of course. A proper wizarding marriage, for at least a year and a day. No other conditions.”
A year and a day of marriage to a part-fae. It sounded too good to be true if there truly were no other conditions. She was pretty enough, a little odd certainly. He studied her face, the slightest hint of grey in her irises, a dusting of pale freckles. What could there possibly be in it for her? But the benefit to him. Freedom. Would it be worth it?
“Why?”
“I have my reasons. You'll know eventually.” She'd risen and her hand now rested gently on his left forearm, humming with magic under her fingertips. “I promise it will not harm you or those you love in any way.”
Those he loved, his mother then. That was certainly enticing. And her expression spoke of honesty. “And to accept?” he asked, after several minutes.
“A kiss.”
He leant forward and accepted the bargain. She tasted of honey, sweet and warm. Her slender fingers cradled his cheeks. Draco had been kissed before, of course, but never like this. It promised so much. A wash of tenderness and care swept over him.
The darkness fell once more.
“Good morning,” Luna's voice crept into the edges of his consciousness.
Opening his eyes, the room was full of light. Pale green walls. A mural of woodland creatures above him.
“Where am I?”
“Our house. Today's the day.”
“The day?”
“Our wedding of course. Your mother was delighted when I told her.”
“She was?”
“Magic.” Luna winked at him.
Following their small wedding with just his mother and her father as witnesses, the year passed in a flurry of late nights and kisses. Luna never pressed him on anything. No enforced conversations. No pressure to be or do anything. She was just there. Ever present, always listening. A constant support at his side as he submitted applications and attended interviews. No longer marked as undesirable.
It would be strange to lose her. But she never once mentioned their bargain. To the world they were a normal wizarding couple starting out on life together. Draco watched the deadline approaching with increasing trepidation.
The final day dawned. Luna was absent. Feeling unsettled he did what he'd not needed to do for the last year. He ran.
He really shouldn't have been surprised when he found himself in that clearing once more. Luna crouched over the water, singing softly to herself.
“It's our last day,” she said, not looking up at him.
Draco's breath caught in his throat. Their last day. He'd been so happy. Was it to end just like that?
“It doesn't have to be,” he begged.
She looked at him then, her usual mirth replaced with an unusual seriousness. “Do you mean that? To commit for longer is forever, it's the way of the Fae. Speak only when certain.”
“I…” Draco paused. Did he mean it? Want it? Was there a better alternative? He doubted it. “I do.”
“It is done,” she said softly. “Forever.”
He sat down beside her, entwining their fingers together. A breeze stirred ripples onto the surface of the pond, obscuring their reflection.
“I never did ask, what did you get from this arrangement?”
She cradled her stomach, a happy smile spreading across her entire face. “Some magic of my own. The nargles foretold it and so it came to be.”
Draco gripped her hand. He'd never anticipated becoming a father so young. But the revelation was not unwelcome. “I don't know what to say…”
“Then say nothing at all.”
They sat in silence, the sun rising above the trees and warming their secret hideaway.
“Oh, and I also have this for you.” She handed him a piece of parchment.
I am delighted to inform you that your application to study for a mastery in potions in the magical section of Oxford University has been accepted. We look forward to welcoming you to our establishment in September.