Chapter Text
Hermione tapped her foot and cast Tempus for the third time. Slughorn was running late. Again. With fury written across her face, she stormed past her fellow seventh and eighth-year compatriots and hammered on the door.
“Class was supposed to start five minutes ago!” she yelled into the unyielding wood.
When the door finally opened, she huffed with impatience and walked straight into the solid but still totally obnoxious form of Draco Malfoy. After having had a growth spurt during the war and summer months afterwards, he now stood almost half a head taller than her. The effect of which meant that she now spent a great deal of time staring up into his smirking face.
He was everywhere this year. They shared all of the same classes. His signature was on all of the card catalogues of the books she tried to borrow, and he never returned them on time. He was always in Scrivenshafts eyeing off the same quills and journals.
Now he was wasting her class time by encouraging their potions Professor to engage in some mystery project that ate into more of their lessons every day.
“Chill the fuck out, Granger.” He snapped, as she pushed herself off his annoyingly well-muscled chest.
He stepped back and walked over to the front of the room to rejoin Professor Slughorn. Slughorn was carefully stirring a cauldron that bubbled steadily away on the desk. He looked up to see Hermione and gestured with his free hand.
“Do come in, class. Be careful not to walk near the front,” he tutted, “this potion is very volatile, and we wouldn’t want to cause an accident.”
Malfoy was standing watch, keeping an eye on the cauldron and the incoming students. Hermione passed by him with a glare and stomped up to where she shared a table with Harry and Ron. The rest of the class filed in quietly, casting curious glances over to the cauldron. It smelled appalling. She couldn’t imagine what the potion could possibly do for someone to want to ingest something that horrific.
As Slughorn raised his wand to close the door, Harry and Ron came bustling in, panting hard. Hermione rolled her eyes. They were always late and probably quite appreciated Slughorn's new schedule.
Slughorn smiled at Harry. “Harry my boy! Come in, come in. Don’t dawdle now.”
Harry nodded to the wizened old professor as Ron grumbled. Both boys stomped into the classroom throwing glares at Malfoy whilst Slughorn went back to his stirring.
“So glad you could join us, Potter.” Malfoy sneered, “It must be so hard to be timely with the schedule of a celebrity. Sign lots of,” he waved his hand in the air, “paper napkins or something?”
Harry sighed, “Give it a rest, Malfoy,” as he moved passed.
Ron bristled and puffed his chest out as he faced off with Malfoy. “At least people want to hear his name. Instead of shuddering in fear.”
Draco pushed off from the desk as he snarled, “Say that again, Weasel.”
“I said –”
Suddenly the cauldron popped loudly.
“Oh dear,” Slughorn muttered. “The reaction is coming on much faster than expected. You should –
Without warning, several things happened at once. Malfoy pushed Ron away, sending him skidding backwards across the room, before grabbing the lid of the cauldron and attempting to cover it. Slughorn cast a shield charm over the class just before the cauldron exploded with an ear shattering kaboom.
Hermione was thrown backward with the force of it and hit the wall behind her. Her head was ringing as she tried to stand, blinking her eyes. Her vision was slightly blurry, the room fuzzy blocks of colour moving slowly around her. However, after another few blinks, she could see again.
The shield that Slughorn had cast was splattered with potion and had thankfully saved the rest of the class from the fallout. Malfoy and Slughorn however, were a different matter.
She surged forward, lifting her hands to try and determine how to dispel the shield.
“Everybody get back,” she ordered. “We don’t want any of the potion falling on anyone when I take the shield down.”
Around her, the rest of the class murmured their assent and slowly moved away. Harry had crawled up beside Ron, who appeared to be out cold, and nodded to Hermione. When she was sure everyone was safe, she dispelled the shield and began banishing the puddles of potion on the floor.
Slughorn and Malfoy were both motionless shapes on the ground, but she didn’t dare get any closer until the immediate danger had passed. Whilst she found Malfoys presence to be aggravating, she had never wished him actual harm. Especially considering he just saved Ron’s life.
When she finally finished clearing the area she rushed over to kneel by Malfoy. He was lying down, turned away from her. For a moment she thought her eyes were playing tricks on her. She knew he was bigger now, but surely not this much bigger. She frowned; his robes had changed colour as well.
What kind of a potion did that?
She grasped his shoulder, rolled him over and gasped. It hadn’t been a trick of the light. This Malfoy was bigger and much older. His teenage features had hardened into adulthood, his formerly pointy face now firmly chiselled. He started to stir, with slow jerky movements.
“Malfoy.” She said firmly as she leaned over him squeezing his shoulder. “Can you hear me, Malfoy?”
His eyes fluttered open and his gaze zeroed in on her. He raised a hand to her face, cupping her cheek gently.
“Hermione?”
Her traitorous heart skipped an unsteady beat. She was totally unprepared to deal with handsome older versions of Malfoy who held her face and called her by name.
Behind her, she could hear Slughorn shift.
“Try not to move,” she told Draco, before backing away and turning to Slughorn.
Slughorn was struggling to rise whilst battling with an ill-fitting set of black robes. Hermione reached over to help him take the hood off when it came free with a snap.
She gasped.
This man, no boy, barely looked like Slughorn at all. He was astonishingly slim with a round face and shoulder-length brown hair. Potion gas left his lungs in puffs of purple smoke as he coughed to clear his lungs.
“What in the blazes is going on?” he asked in a thin weeding voice.
“I don’t know,” Hermione replied in a small voice. “Who are you?”
The boy looked her up and down with a blatantly appraising stare before giving her a slimy smile and offering her a hand. “My name is Horry and whom my dear, are you?”
“Hermione Granger,” she stuttered in confusion.
She went to shake his hand and he snatched it up, placing a light kiss against her skin, making her grimace. As she stood there in bewilderment, she suddenly felt herself being yanked backwards by two strong hands on her shoulders.
“Get your hands off her.” The strange, older Draco Malfoy growled.
She finally came to rest firmly nestled against his broad chest and looked up – and up. He was almost a head taller than her now and so much larger. She felt tiny in his arms.
Horry gave older Malfoy a cold stare. “And who are you?”
“I am Professor Malfoy,” he gestured to the room around them, “and this is my classroom. I take it you’re a new student. This is not an ideal way to endear yourself to the faculty.”
He held Hermione out to one side, casting his gaze over her. “Are you alright? You look,” he frowned, “different…”
“I look different,” she argued, “I think you’ll find that you two are the ones who…”
She narrowed her eyes at Horry. “Is your last name Slughorn?”
His eyes widened. “How did you know that?”
She broke away from Malfoy’s grip and walked around to the other side of the table where Professor Slughorn and Malfoys notes had been scattered on the floor. Picking up the closest one she scanned through the text, a pit of dread pooling in her stomach.
“You were working on a potion that would stop the ageing process,” she murmured. “But when it exploded, pieces of it must have been warmed at different temperatures and it tried to reduce the ageing in Professor Slughorn by adding years to Malfoy, but it wasn’t completely even.”
She lifted her head to where Malfoy was still staring at her, his eyes tense and his face grim. He took two steps forward and held out a hand for the piece of paper. When she handed it over to him, he quickly scanned the contents and closed his eyes. He mouthed, fuck, under his breath.
After a moment he stood up taller and faced the rest of the class. “As you can see there has been a potions accident. If you could please assist any students who have been concussed to the medical bay to see,” he paused for a moment, “Madam Pomfrey, I assume, and then go to the library for independent study. There will be no more classes today until we get this mess sorted out.”
Ernie Macmillan gingerly stepped around one of the tables and glared at Malfoy. “What gives you the right to cancel class?”
Malfoy lifted an eyebrow at the now much smaller boy. “Headmaster McGonagall.” He then twisted and tilted his head at Horry. “Unless you’d like to hear what this one has to say.”
Horry scoffed. “I think not. I’d rather set my robes on fire than stoop so low as to become a Professor at Hogwarts.”
Several students exchanged glances and left the room. Harry slowly walked up to Hermione with Ron slung over his shoulder. He glanced warily at adult Malfoy before turning to face her.
“Ron’s pretty woozy still, so I’m going to take him to Pomfrey” He leaned in so that he could speak the next few words softly, “Are you ok? You took as much of a blast as the rest of us.”
In truth, her head was still pounding from the impact, and she did feel a little light on her feet. “Actually, I think I’ll come with you,” she grimaced. “My head is still pounding.”
“What?” Malfoy’s voice came from behind her and before she could do anything his hands landed on her shoulders, as he turned her around to face him. He lifted her chin so that he could stare into each of her eyes as the other hand came around to feel the back of her head. “You don’t have any bumps and your eyes appear to be clear.” He frowned as he stared down at her. One huge hand came up and smoothed her hair back down. “It is probably best if you go to Pomfrey for a check anyway.”
“What – the fuck – are you doing, Malfoy?”
Next to them, Theodore Nott, Blaise Zabini, and Pansy Parkinson were looking at Malfoy like he was mad. All three of them had matching expressions of confusion as Hermione felt her cheeks heat. Malfoy dropped his hands and stepped back.
“I was just…” he shook his head. “It’s a teacher's duty to look after their students and whether we like it or not, I am the closest thing you have to a teacher right now. Ms Granger said that she was experiencing some signs of concussion, and I was simply trying to ascertain how bad the damage was.”
Parkinson raised an eyebrow. “Are you planning on doing it to all of us, because my head is fucking pounding?”
Nott slapped her on the arm, making her scowl.
“What?” she objected, “puberty hit that man like a brick wall and by that, I mean he literally became a brick wall. Look at those fucking arm muscles.”
“For fucks sake Pans,” Nott cursed, biting his lower lip. “This is beyond weird. Four weeks ago, we went on a bender with that guy in Amsterdam,” he waved an arm at Draco. “Now he looks all responsible.”
Parkinson gave Malfoy another appraising stare. “He probably won’t even remember when he gets turned back.”
Malfoy cleared his throat. “I think this line of questioning is highly inappropriate given the circumstances –“
Horry sidled past Malfoy to offer Parkinson his hand. “May I make the pleasure of your acquaintance?”
“Fuck no.”
Parkinson looked horrified as she swept from the room, Nott and Zabini following after her, rolling their eyes.
“Right,” Harry said slowly, “This entire situation is hurting my brain. Come on Hermione.”
Hermione sidestepped Malfoy and fetched their bags, before gingerly following Ron and Harry out of the room. When she reached the door, she looked back to find Malfoy staring right at her, his eyes dark.
Madam Pomfrey kept most of the class for observation for half an hour, before discharging them all to their dorms. Hermione couldn’t stop thinking about how different Malfoy had acted, not to mention how it had felt to be cradled protectively against his broad chest. When she had looked up into his eyes there had been no hostility or irritation. He had seemed to genuinely care about how she was. Actually, not just her, he had taken steps to ensure the well-being of the entire class.
Now as they entered the main hall for dinner, she found herself casting her eyes around the room. She wasn’t specifically looking for Malfoy. Some people from the class had been hurt more than others. Luna in particular had seemed more than a little dazed from the ordeal and Ron was complaining bitterly about how Malfoy had tried to kill them all.
To her disgust, she caught Horry’s eye from where he was sitting at the Slytherin table and treated her to what he probably thought was a sexy wink. She shuddered. Horry was probably a nice boy if she got to know him. Professor Slughorn had always been pleasant in a particularly sexist, old-person sort of way. However, when she interacted with the young man the older was superimposed over the younger and the entire thing gave her the creeps.
She had a feeling the other students were feeling much the same way, as most were giving him a wide berth. Not all though. Gregory Goyle was sitting next to him and laughing away at something he had just said. Hermione assumed that he must be missing Malfoy’s presence.
Where was Malfoy?
They took their seats at the Gryffindor table, as they fielded countless questions about what had happened that afternoon, when suddenly Headmistress McGonagall stepped up to the lectern and tapped her wand to signal for quiet.
“I suppose that most of you have heard about the incident in our combined seventh and eighth-year Potions class this afternoon.” She paused as the hall overflowed with chatter and held up a hand for silence. “It appears that Professor Slughorn has been de-aged to his seventeen-year-old self and Mr Malfoy has been aged to his thirty-year-old self. This will, unfortunately, necessitate a temporary change in our faculty.”
Sounds of exclaim and alarm sounded around the hall as Malfoy stood up from the teacher's table and walked over to stand next to the lectern.
Professor McGonagall continued. “As Professor Slughorn is currently unable to teach his usual classes, in his absence, this position will be filled by Professor Malfoy.”
The entire hall exploded. Several students stood from their tables exclaiming loudly. Hermione could hear some yell out, “Murderer!” and, “Death Eater Scum!” Beside McGonagall, Malfoy weathered all this with a placid look of calm that Hermione would never have thought his younger version was capable of. He didn’t glare at anyone. He didn’t roll his eyes or look bored. The look he was giving the crowd was compassionate, if anything. He looked genuinely concerned about the opinions of the students around him and after a moment, he leaned in to whisper something in McGonagall’s ear.
“Oh. I suppose it couldn’t hurt,” McGonagall raised both eyebrows in surprise and addressed the assembly. “Professor Malfoy would like to say a few words.”
“Thank you,” Malfoy said, as she stood to the side, and he took her place. With a graceful flick of his wand, he cleared his throat and cast Sonorus.
“First of all, I would like to apologise.”
As one, the students around the hall fell silent, their mouths open in surprise.
After a few moments he continued. “I realise that at this point in time, the war is a fresh and open wound for a lot of you.”
Someone behind Hermione screamed, “Because of you!”
Malfoy’s gaze scanned over the crowd stopping briefly at her, his eyes widening slightly, before moving to the source of the heckling.
“I’m sorry for your loss Parvati. Lavender was a bright young witch whose light was snuffed out far too soon.” Parvati sobbed and Malfoy regarded her for another moment before continuing. “Many lives were lost, and I carry the guilt for my part in that every day. Whilst I had a very limited number of choices, the fact is, that I did choose my life and the life of my loved ones, over everyone else.”
His voice was gravelly, and his eyes were filled with conviction. “For that, I am truly sorry.”
Straightening up, he cast his gaze over the crowd. “I have devoted the last ten years of my life to making amends for the mistakes of my youth. That has primarily involved the nurture and care of the next generation. Whilst I know this is not ideal, I promise you that I will provide the same care to you, regardless of our personal interactions in the past.”
“Holy Fuck,” Ginny whispered quietly at her side. “Why is Malfoy suddenly hot now?”
“Ginny!” Hermione scolded.
“What?” Ginny objected. “I have been single for more than a month and my hormones are out of control. I’d probably shag a Hufflepuff right now.”
Luna leaned over, chewing on a bread roll that she had somehow found, even though none of the food had appeared yet. “He’s always been very pretty,” she mused, “he just hasn’t been very attractive before now, because his lack of a conscience was decidedly unappealing.”
Hermione had to agree. The attitude of a good man really did make all the difference. As McGonagall retook the lectern, he bowed to her slightly and gracefully stepped out of her way. Hermione couldn’t help the way his deference and chivalry made her stomach flutter. She could already tell this was going to be bad. Memories of her very ill-advised crush on Professor Gilderoy flooded her mind. She has to stop crushing on men in positions of authority.
McGonagall was finishing up. “The change in teaching staff will remain until we manage to reverse the changes in Professor Malfoy and Mr Slughorn. Our initial estimates indicate that it should only be for a few weeks.”
Beside her, Malfoy’s face looked pained as though he had lost something very important and when he lifted his gaze, he caught her staring. She was unprepared for how much anguish and pain she could see in his eyes. When he looked away and headed back to the teacher's table, her chest hurt for him.
This is going to be a long couple of weeks.
_______________________
One of the perks of being Head Girl, as she had always dreamed about, was the quarters she shared with the Head Boy. These were situated near the teacher's rooms and the staff lounge so that they could be easily called upon in cases of emergencies. She was also given the privilege of using the staff room and had come to enjoy the morning ritual of making her coffee as she greeted her teachers.
It was such an ordinary part of her day, that she had almost forgotten about the potions accident, when she had blearily stumbled down the hall. In fact, she had completely forgotten about the events of the previous day, until she got to the door of the room and through the crack heard a very familiar voice.
“How am I supposed to wait for weeks, Minerva.”
She could see Malfoy and Headmaster McGonagall standing in the small kitchenette. They both had their backs to her, but Malfoy was leaning down with his arms braced against the counter. His voice sounded rough and strained.
“I promise you, that we will all work together as best we can on this, Draco.” McGonagall's voice was soft and sympathetic, but it felt strange to hear his name in her heavy Scottish brogue. “But I’m afraid, there’s not much we can do, in the immediate sense, as components of the original potion had taken a week or more to prepare. Unfortunately, these things sometimes take time.”
“She’s all alone,” he said, his voice breaking. “My wife is alone with a newborn and a toddler and I’m – I’m here.” He straightened and turned to face her, his hands balling into fists at his sides, his entire body tense. “I can’t do a thing to help her and,” he buried his shoved fists against the sockets of his eyes, “I feel so useless.”
McGonagall lifted an arm to rub his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Draco. For what it’s worth, I am quite enjoying this chance to meet you as you are now. It is quite the refreshing change of pace. It gives me a lot of hope for the future.”
He dropped his hands and turned to stare at her. “Speaking of the future, Minerva. You –“
She raised a hand in a stopping motion. “Be very careful, Draco. Any hints of the future you so desperately want to get back to, could drastically change the flow of time as it is. I have only agreed to this change in faculty because you have memories of its existence in the first place. Be warned. Any slip-ups could derail everything.”
He sighed. “How am I supposed to do this?”
“I have every faith in your abilities,” McGonagall assured him. “Even before you changed, I would have considered you to be one of the strongest young men I know. If anyone can get through this, it’s you.”
He nodded dumbly.
They lapsed into silence and Hermione took that as her queue to enter.
“Good morning, Professor, Headmistress.”
Malfoy’s head snapped up, his eyes looking straight at her with a haunted quality like he’d seen a ghost.
McGonagall nodded her head at Hermione. “Good morning, Hermione. Professor Malfoy, you remember our Head Girl, Hermione Granger.”
He closed his eyes for a moment. “Of course.” When he opened them again, they were harder, the weakness from before long gone. “It’s a pleasure to be working with you, Miss Granger.”
“Likewise,” she replied, her voice breathy despite herself.
She had to get a grip. This man had a wife and children. It didn’t matter how ridiculously hot he looked sipping his tea in the morning sunlight or how much her heart ached for his situation. This was a line she shouldn’t dare cross no matter how much her body was telling her she wanted to.
He finished his tea and nodded as he left, disappearing back into the corridor.
Try as she might, she couldn’t stop the echo of his anguished words reverberating through her brain as she watched him go.