It's half past three...

It's now three if you didn't know...

Three thirty-three is the devil's hour...

It's a quarter to four...

Four is upon you...

Tick...tick...tick...

The pestilent clicking of Draco's lavish wrist watch grew to a deafening barrage, far too much for him to handle that first day he spent alone at Hogwarts.

His beautiful and mistrustful girlfriend had left for her home in Ireland, in search of crippling answers to the dystopian reality she already knew to be true deep down, and in equal turn he had left society to skulk in his extravagantly clad bed.

Below silky locks of platinum strands his inexhaustible mind was an absolute battlefield, blasting thoughts setting off like grenades in every quadrant of his restless brain...

And the vast majority of them were entirely uninvited.

He'd skipped tea time in the Great Hall with the hopes of hiding from the ache of her departure somewhere in the depths of his dreams, but incessant mental monologue was preventing any hope at all of a well-needed afternoon rest.

Draco was certain he was going batshit crazy with his pillow firmly held over his face.

Just kill me already.

If I lose her I won't have any reason left to go on.

TICK TICK TICK TICK-

He shifted flat onto his back and ripped off the suffocating pillow, raising his arm to yank at the straps of the incessant watch which insisted on informing him of each passing second in chronological hatred.

Slamming it down on his tiny bedside table he ran both hands over his face and growled through the vexatious insomnia.

Please don't break my heart, she'd begged hours earlier, staring up at him in total devastation as she confronted him over his Death Eater status.

It was those alluring jade jewels for orbs which grew alive like the forest in early springtime when she teared up that were still staring at him in the dark void of his shut eyelids.

I don't want to break her heart.

This was the bittersweet aspect of having attained the love of his life. From the moment he successfully declared Audette Bellarose his girlfriend at the precipice to the Slytherin common room, Draco was struck with a contradictory sense of impending doom that had since followed him around like a demon with it's claws deep in his back.

She was finally his...

Lest he screw it up.

And he was constantly overburdened by a worry that screwing it up was an inescapable fate.

His thoughts raged on, bouncing back and forth in his skull like hollow plastic balls in a sticky restaurant ball pit.

I should have proposed earlier and locked her down.

Idiot. Idiot. Idiot.

She knows...she knows somehow what I am and now she's fucking shattered.

I have broken her heart, truly and irreversibly.

The pillow returned in full force as Draco once more attempted to suffocate himself, lanky fingers white to the knuckle in expression of his dread and agonizing despair.

Audette meant the entire world to him, and he not only deigned to make her happy but he worshipped her like royalty.

Now said princess was effectively out of reach and out of touch as dangerous secrets unraveled beyond his control, and if history was any indicator, then owls would be a dead end hope of bridging the expanding gap between them.

TICK, TICK, TICK...

The overzealous watch on his bedside table trilled in a metronomic melancholy at the pace of his fleeting inclinations, driving Draco to spiral out of control below the headrest weapon.

What if Montgomery tells her everything, and she chooses never to speak to me again?

What if he kills her?

No, no, no...

This reveal was inevitable, Montgomery would have anticipated and planned for it...

This isn't my fault...

This isn't...

Her father is at fault, for hiding his Death Eater status and pressuring me to do the same.

He's one of Voldemort's closest agents.

What if she can't forgive me?

What if...

Draco moaned darkly into his raven pillowcase, repeatedly raising the cushion by a few inches to slam it back down over and over.

The utter blackout of communication, coupled with a total lack of ability to corner her for corrective action, was insufferable to say in the least. Such helplessness was on par with the sorrowful destitution he'd been subject to before dating her; uncertain of her status and powerless to change it.

Suddenly his mindset swung in the direction of vile jealousy in response to the weighty pressure of losing control.

Bloody hell, Nott's no fucking better.

Bet if she was still with darling Théodore she wouldn't look at him like he's a disgusting monster for joining the DE...

"Reality check," the pillow pressing onto his nose metaphorically quipped, "Nott wouldn't rip her clothing off like a savage. He is better, he's always been better. He's smarter, and mannerly, and more attractive in every way."

Draco's eyelids crinkled in horror, I did tear her lace panties off last time she slept in my bed...

That's sure to bode well for my intentions...

"Just wait until she finds out about that lap dance from Astoria Greengrass. She'll probably cut your cock off," the antagonistic pillow cooed in his head, an unwelcome extension of his own thinking simply there to torture him further.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Draco sat up snarling in revolt of the dramatic loop of listlessness, which refused to alleviate by even a singular degree. Tears trickled through his fingers, pressed flat against his face as trepidation washed over him in a drowning tsunami.

When the whispering thoughts burned onwards he succumbed to the worst possible decision one could make at four in the afternoon on a school evening - especially on a school evening that led up to a gigantic exam the following day.

Shrugging away his better instincts to avoid popping off the cork of the Dragonheart whiskey in his nightstand, Draco slid his slender toes to the freezing stone slab flooring and hung his head back, slurping the liquor in question as if it were water.

His thoughts ran in an unencumbered river nonetheless;

I miss sleeping with her.

She's so soft, and those fairy moans she makes when lost deep in her dreams...

Her hair smells like a rose garden that clings to everything I own.

I can't go back to sleeping without her forever.

I can't...

Tears ran in delicate streams down his cheeks, and this called for more scalding alcoholic medication to be administered.

A sharp hiss released through his pearly teeth as his brain finally began to fog over; but the fog was not everlasting as it aught to be under his rapidly evolving altered state of consciousness.

Any thought of Audette Bellarose had always possessed an iron grip over his focus, no matter what action he took to squelch the agony by blurring said focus.

Now it was not simply his thoughts that pestered him - as thinking was beginning to escape his forefront capabilities - but rather it was fleeting images drafted from years of attentive memories.

Those gorgeous umbrella dresses which accented her tiny waist and petite ankles, all covered in lace, frill and sparkles alike...each day a new tone of pastel perfection...

Each day also came with an unpredictable trinket modeled after some adorable living creature sewn into her shiny locks.

Burbling giggles during a potions class as the little demon intentionally created a bomb in her cauldron...

Yes, these were his memories of her; tactic, sensual, vivid...

If he concentrated hard enough, he could still smell the harmonious aromatics in her signature perfume, which came together to produce a profusion more intoxicating than the poisonous liquor coursing through his veins.

"I love you too, Draco," her sugary sweet voice flooded his cognizance, sending cold ripples down his nervous system.

She'd thoughtfully gushed that meaningful sentence to him in that gigantic ash tree during the second trial.

What he would give to hear that string of weighty words from her just one more time.

"Wonderland," he sorrowfully breathed the nickname he'd assigned to her nearly a decade prior, irresponsibly finishing the large bottle which he then allowed to fall to the ground.

Miraculously the thick glass did not fragment upon impact, and the vessel proceeded to roll off in warbled chimes below Blaise's wonky and uneven bed next door. Of the impression that he was alone in their private quarters, Draco watched in stupefaction as the ribbed bottle vanished from his sight.

Due to the invasive garden gnome which had gnawed off two of his four critical posts, Blaise had been forced to deal with an issue he cared not to deal with at all; reacting to the destruction by not reporting it. Instead, he'd lazily jammed all of Crabbe and Goyle's untouched textbooks below the splintered stubs.

Problem solved.

The lone drunkard in the room burped and swayed on the spot, sitting there in a thin black t-shirt and blanketed by a cold sweat, gripping harshly onto the edge of his ergonomic mattress at either side of his boxers.

He was suddenly faced with the very real chance that he was going to wake up drooling on the ground and punishably late for his Alchemy exam. Thankfully, Draco was exceptionally apt, and could write that exam with a blindfold on.

For eight years he'd been overlooked by the general student population because Draco did not tend to brag about his studious nature, when in fact both he and Theodore were ahead of Hermione Granger in the ranking of cumulative marks.

The two boys had always been in competition over something, whether it was grades or girls.

Carelessly, Draco hung his pointy chin to his sternum and closed his spinning eyes again, his heart breaking with the threat that Audette was gone forever.

The only soundtrack to his desolation that eve was the bubbling Black Lake through the portholes, where in fact a vicious magical eel with one glowing blue eye and one glowing green eye was watching the suffrage through Graham's open curtains.

Two recently unearthed factors were up against Draco hanging onto his fragile relationship with the girl of his dreams, both of which he was still actively digesting along with the spirits in his twisting tummy.

One, Audette was about to discover that her entire life and most of the major players in it - including himself - were involved in dark magic, Lord Voldemort, and the Death Eater society that followed his order.

She would return to school in all colours of scorn; rage, betrayal, and pure boiling violence.

"Brace yourself for the slap of the century," Draco shook his pounding head and rubbed his temples in dread.

Secondly, was the dangerous time turner that Theodore Nott had revealed he was mending the night before, and this update was one that Draco had not - could never have - anticipated as a playing card in the deck of life.

The time turner was the fatal fifty-third card, and it had been in Theodore Nott's hidden hand all along. Represented by no numbers or symbols save for a black skull of death, if he chose to draw it against an opponent it meant only one thing; game over.

Draco let his beady forehead fall against his bed post, humming nonsense under his breath as the booz took over.

Why had he let Theo keep that stupid thing after they'd uncovered it in McGonagall's secret office?

According to Snape it had been damaged by Hermione Granger, who'd profanely abused the device in their third year to save that hideous biting chicken and simultaneously attend far too many classes.

That was the only year she had surpassed both Slytherin geniuses, and now it all made sense.

Drooling, Draco fell into an intoxicated stupor against his bed post, his soul veering back to five years prior when the apple blossoms were blooming all around Hogwarts and life was trivial and uncomplicated.

In late May of 1994, the Slytherin boys of the Hogwarts third year class were in particularly jovial moods, having just completed almost all of their exams.

Laying about like a pack of green and black worms on the lawn of the central outdoor atrium, they were playing a game of I Spy under the hot sun.

The derelict dementors who'd been occupying the grounds as temporary guardians had been driven away - sent back to Azkaban in lieu of Harry Potter predictably crying wolf.

Again.

The boy was a professional attention seeker, constantly claiming all sorts of unbelievable fibs about being attacked, and every year it was a new script of elaborate bullshit.

That year it went as such; Ronald Weasley's starchy rat had turned into a man, then conveniently back into a rat which scampered off to assist the dark lord. A rat. And it just kept getting better; Professor Lupin was apparently a derelict werewolf, and the dementors had gone feral and swarmed Harry by a forested lake to suck on his dumb face...to which a thirteen year-old Harry had impossibly duplicated himself and cast a perfect Patronus to once again, save the day.

Right.

Potty Potter would almost be better off taking up an internship with Reeta Skeeter, given the dribbling balderdash that frequently escaped his lips.

Perhaps it was because the scar on his forehead was losing it's shiny influence, or perhaps he was just extremely insecure whenever the limelight shifted elsewhere...

Whatever the case, seeing as he'd militantly gotten straight to work at the beginning of the year by pretending to pass out on the Hogwarts express, cue the school wide eye rolls.

The only positive coming from Harry's hoard of hypocrisy was that absence of the floating, soul-sucking demons allowed the students to once more go about outdoor activities without stress or strain that they would wind up extremely depressed from a walk to the lake.

Vincent Crabbe raised his ugly, chunky wand, and directed it at Cho Chang's blue checkered skirt across the way, "I spy with my little eye, Cho's granny panties."

In a fluttering invasion of charmed wind, sure enough her Ravenclaw skirt inverted vertically and poor Cho's undergarments were indecently exposed to the entire courtyard.

All nine of the nasty Slytherin boys tittered in mad hilarity as Cho broke out into a river of tears and took off into the castle.

Several more rotations betided amongst the circle before Draco was roused from his loopy doze against the base of an impressive Beech tree, "Malfoy, what do you spy?"

Before he could open his mouth to respond, the boy's were all drawn to a party of approaching and giggling Slytherin girls, Guy Cosmos leading the way with his bejeweled hands clapping obnoxiously, "Look ladies, it's the monstrous menfolk, out of the dungeons and seeking certain sunburns."

Guy was a creature of his own, sure, but his sexual preference and rabid gaiety had never pestered Draco like it did some of the other males, who had driven him out of their tower in similar regard to Harry Potter driving out the dementors.

Except for those blood curdling moments when Cosmos hit on Draco directly in front of Audette Bellarose, who had caught Draco's eye as of late.

In their second year Draco had been plagued by her attachment, where she would illicitly toy with him when he was still too immature and unprepared for female attention.

She was clearly of the impression that because he'd spent an hour with her at the bizarre Bellarose Biodome that they shared some secret connection.

They did.

They really did.

But he was determined to hide that connection.

However, as puberty hit him like a train so did clarity, and Audette had become unexpectedly fascinating, and now Draco did not know what to do with his illegal thoughts and desires.

He found himself staring at her in classrooms and taking notice of her personal style on weekends.

There she was; wedged at the center of Pansy Parkinson and Daphne Greengrass, golden waves shimmering in the sunlight, all covered in glitter with the most fabulous smile on her pretty face.

Due to the unseasonal heat of the day she'd undone multiple buttons on her white dress shirt, which revealed her collarbones and an inch of her forbidden cleavage.

Fuck.

He cleared his throat as the familial females began settling amongst the boys, striking in perfect timing, "I spy, with my little eye, a clumsy bonnie lass."

When his ankle shot out to trip the stylish, prudent girl - who'd foolishly chosen to walk past his shoes - she fell directly into his lap as he'd hoped she would, and a raucous wave of boyish guffawing emanated in response.

Instead of throwing a superior fit she elected to stretch her slender arms to the sky and collapse into his body, her hands reaching back to grab onto his sleek platinum hair at either side, "Oh well lookie here, a human chair has just presented itself in sacrifice for my royal bidding."

Draco's wide grin faded in tandem with the rate that a firm boner formed against her backside as she shimmied up against him and made herself comfortable between his bent knees.

No way she couldn't feel it. No way.

He gulped and shut his eyes for a second, begging his body to terminate the humiliating natural reaction as a plume of sweet tang from her perfume assailed his olfactory senses.

Guy noticed Draco's swoon immediately. Rolling his falsely pink gaze, he flattened his fingers in a makeshift partition, whispering to Pansy Parkinson where they'd plopped down onto the sod across. Pansy nodded, her sly brown eyes knowingly caught on Draco's expression in a manner that truly made him feel scrutinized and exposed.

"Tell us Cosmos - how itchy is that polyblend atrocity that you claim as apparel?" Draco found himself defensively picking on the gay boy who was pointing out to each girl the romantic weakness at play.

Guy bobbed his head on his spine, sending Draco a rather contumacious sneer, "Not as itchy as you're feeling this very moment, Malfoy. Best not to poke a hungry bear, unless you're hoping for an attack."

"Oh, I feel just dreadfully frozen. This day is a sunny fabrication. Be a good boy and share your warmth," Audette randomly appealed the weather in Draco's lap, innocently unaware of what was being insinuated in the social circle.

Far too comfortable with her rights to his personal space, she began rudely tugging Draco's Hogwarts robe out from behind him to form a forest green blanket that wrapped around both of their bodies, leaning her head heavily against his shoulder.

Her long eyelashes batting shut in the sunlight consumed his vision, which slid down to her freckly button nose and glossy pink lips curving up in a passive grin.

Oh FUCK..

Below the carpet of his robe he dared to wrap his arms around her waist, his pants stretching tight against the zipper over his boxers.

This girl, this friend...was slim yet delightfully curvy, his thumbs grazing over the metal outline of her antediluvian bra, and suddenly it was all too much. His heart quivered in place, as if someone had just reached through his ribcage and gripped it like a stress ball.

Maybe not a friend...

Definitely not a friend...

It was in this precise moment in time, holding the ravishing femme in his arms, that Draco realized he was very, very much attracted to the first girl he'd ever shared a friendly relationship with, both in personality and especially on a physical level.

Her ambrosial giggles reverberating in his ears, Draco had to force himself to glance away across the ornamental courtyard in order to distract from the crazy hormones demanding more where action was definitely not invited.

The I Spy game continued for ten minutes, but Draco had signed out entirely, confused by her intimate accord and what it might mean, further transfixed when she reached up her hand to paw at his cheek.

Giving up, he dropped his face into her neck and hugged her tightly.

Had she sat in his lap willingly, because she too, was interested? Or was this another classic case of reckless negligence which defined Audette Bellarose?

Was she teasingly ignoring his throbbing erection against her bum, or did she not feel it all?

Should he brave drifting his fingers higher to squeeze at one of her sumptuous breasts, or would she annihilate him if he did?

None of these questions would result in conclusion, hindered in motion when the girls abruptly decided to depart as hastily as they'd arrived.

Draco had just been considering ways to start a personal conversation with the cute girl - one that would actually be of value and creativity - when she sat up and pushed off his robe.

Guy had clambered to his feet, his Hogwarts robes dotted with stains and holes from spilt chemical potions, "WELL, as you all know, my gramps with dementia who thinks I'm of age has sent an owl carrying Slowworm Slosh, and it's expected to arrive any minute. Ladies; shall we retire and get our beer goggles on or what?"

A murmur of agreement rippled from the four girls present, who'd come to greatly enjoy having taken Guy on as a charismatic roommate.

"Not inviting us?" Goyle griped, his mouth ringed by dirty chocolate from having downed multiple melting chocolate frogs.

"Invite you?" Guy placed his painted hands on his hips, "So you can contaminate the bottle with your filthy, unbrushed choppers? I should think not. Audette - are you right and ready?"

"I am," she piped excitedly, turning once to kiss Draco's cheek before peeling away, which set off a fiery blaze across half of his face as he watched her traipse off with her friends.

Oh...he was in deep trouble.

Draco had never fancied a girl, and the resulting sensation was unforgivably uncomfortable, leaving him puffing in place.

Never before had he contemplated the sort of things that mattered to girls, but in fifteen short minutes Audette Bellarose had surfaced those manly wonders which he would not be able to shake going forth.

He scanned his bony, bent knees and veiny pale hands - was he perhaps attractive to girls? His pearly skin had recently broken out with vexatious pimples that came and went on their own schedule, and the parted hairstyle Narcissa had selected for him that year was regrettably awkward.

Draco had no clue, as he was not prone to staring into mirrors. In fact, avoiding mirrors was a usual recoil which stemmed from abuse from his father, who'd destroyed all regard for vanity that Draco could possibly have developed as a teen.

Lost in an excited daze, imagining kissing her shiny pink lips for the first time, Draco nearly failed to recognize Theodore Nott's reiterative offering of a stringy wooden pipe, "Malfoy. Malfoy, did you want any of this?"

On Theo's right, the culprit who'd brought marijuana to the outing, Blaise, nodded his beautiful mocha face encouragingly.

Theodore had passed it onwards without inhaling any, and Draco did the same, holding out the smoking pipe to Vincent Crabbe, who's eyes were already red as ripe tomatoes.

Fiddling with his black trousers, Draco was left without a chance to anchor his mindset back on Audette before Theodore stabbed at his peace again, "Do you pine after her? Bellarose?"

Scanning the round of inhumane boys to ensure none of them were paying attention, Draco shrugged his shoulders, picking at grass between his Hogwarts-issued black boots, "She's obtuse...but I quite enjoy her company. She's fine. She's really fine."

Theodore's navy eyes flickered back and forth as he absorbed Draco's reply, his Slytherin uniform crisp and pressed at sharp angles that no other student bothered to meet in their personal presentation, "She is exceptional and multi-faceted, that is confirmed. And based on this afternoon I'd be tempted to rumor she's rosy for you."

Looking back on this exchange, Draco now saw that the pensiveness in Theo's eyes was a strong signal of feeling jeopardized by what he'd witnessed that afternoon.

"You really think?" inhaling to maximum capacity, Draco allowed his breath to flow out noisily and passionately, choosing to be vulnerable with his best friend out of natural instinct, "I've always had this...inkling...that something meaningful existed between her and I. I've been dismissing it, however today when she sat with me..."

More grass met it's mortality as Draco's chewed up fingernails chomped up and down relentlessly on the herbaceous landscape.

He paused the murderous mowing to run a hand through his long, straight white hair, grinning at Theodore in genuine joy, "Today when she sat with me, I realized I do fancy her. A lot. She's sensational, and curious, and uh...well, she's...absolutely smashing, isn't she?"

Nodding slowly, Theodore blinked his abysmal blue eyes several times before he replied, "Yes, she is markedly gorgeous."

"Do you think if I asked her out, she'd say yes?" Draco kept ripping out grass, slightly imperiled by the risky sensitivity he was providing which felt perverse given that his upbringing had always inspired the opposite.

While he was a Slytherin for distinct reasons, Theodore Nott was contrastingly a perspicacious creature, and speaking with him felt akin to speaking with a spiritual being that was wise and caring beyond possibility.

He'd even been approached that year in the library by Hermione Granger with big, brown, gooey eyes, and it was now the greatest joke amongst the Slytherins that the Gryffindor fuzzball had fostered a hopeless crush on one of their demonic members.

Theodore's bent knees slid forward slightly as he considered Draco's question, sighing heavily, "I believe...I believe she would say yes. Is it your agenda to request her company immediately?"

Draco shook his head, "I'd need to be sure first...that she's really interested. This year is terminating and there's no time. But the Yule Ball is coming up in the fall. Think that would be a sensible deadline?"

Theodore reluctantly bobbed his head, purposefully avoiding Draco's imploring gaze, "That sounds like a rational itinerary. This would give you time to digest your feelings, if they are absolute-"

"-they are absolute," Draco interjected defensively. He rested his chin on his knee, eyes fading as he pictured Audette in a dishy pink ballgown, "She's the only girl I'd want to take. Can't explain this feeling, but it's like...drowning...drowning blissfully...know what I mean?"

"I do know," Theodore mumbled, pressing his lips together in a show that should have been a major sign that he was betting against Draco's achievement, "Alright, then best of luck to you in the fall."

Going forward into their fourth year, Draco had assumed that Theodore not only understood but respected his sentiments towards Audette, only for disaster to strike in similar terror as the first unfathomable nuclear bomb dropping on Japan.

"You backstabbing cunt..." Draco whispered drunkenly under his breath, before he was shaken awake in 1998.

Minutes, possibly an hour had transpired as far as he could tell, when he was shook by the shoulder out of the peaceful escape and back into his horrid reality.

Apparently the glassy sing-song of the rogue whiskey bottle had aroused Blaise Zabini, also secretly napping in his rickety bunk.

Now he was towering over Draco like a weird wizard version of Hugh Hefner, darning a fuzzy black robe and matching slippers, "Who are you calling a backstabbing cunt?"

In his fingers was the vacant jar, presenting it to Draco like evidence to a criminal, "Malfoy, you sodding bonehead - did you just down this entire thing, here and now? How are you still breathing, mate, this is seventy-percent."

Draco raised his hazy gaze to his friend, helplessly latching onto Blaise's strong forearm, "Nott's going to taggg her away from me. Do you-do you hear me?"

Blaise frowned and narrowed his eyes, glancing around at all of the drawn curtains as Draco tugged on him for support, "Nott is out of the picture, relax. I think we'd best go to the infirmary, Malfoy. You're playing hot potato with which organ is going to fail first."

"NO," Draco waved his free hand in sassy rejection, his spine bending unnaturally backwards which caused Blaise to take several steps in the exact same spot to prevent them both falling onto Draco's bed.

"Fuck," Blaise seethed resentfully of the fact that he'd been the one to accidentally end up responsible for the noxious boy.

In no circumstance did Draco ever want to return to the Hogwarts infirmary, where Theodore Nott had won the latest battle against him for visitation rights.

Dumblebore had materialized quite quickly when the two boys began to fight on either side of Audette's bed, where she'd embodied a comatose Sleeping Beauty consecutive to the second trial.

Madame Pomphrey had fallen apart into furious tears over the matter, trying hard as she might to kick out both six-foot tall vehement villains before the antique Headmaster had intervened.

Although Theodore had violently smashed a bottle of Skelegrow into a blade from a nearby trolley, and although he was clearly out of line, Dumbledore had instantly - and predictably - decided that Nott had every right to visit Audette as much as her contemporary boyfriend, given the possibility that she might not wake at all.

Then, Draco had been instructed to half his daily timeframe for visiting his baby girl, so that twelve hours a day also belonged solely to Theodore fucking Nott should he choose to come by, effectively dismantling the probability of a repeat altercation.

Unconvinced that Theodore would refrain from kissing the gorgeous, unconscious doll, Draco had wielded his wealth like a weapon once again, proceeding to pay Guy Cosmos handsomely to sit in for those twelve hours and oversee Theodore's stays.

Fueled by chocolate and bonbons meant to be bequeathed to Audette, Guy had remained there in dedication, clothed in a dirty Koala onesie for days on end, reporting back to Draco that Nott had arrived daily as well but that he'd done nothing other than pet her hand and cry.

To remind Theodore of where Audette's allegiance laid, Draco had obnoxiously sent hundreds of black roses to be arranged around his girlfriend in a haunting herbal barrier.

Back in the Slytherin tower, Draco was a drunken mess.

"I need to write an ow-owhhh-owl, an owl, to Lord Bellarose," he swallowed and leaned towards his side drawer, pawing for the handle which appeared to be dodging his fingers to the left and right as if it were a nervy piece of animated furniture from the Beauty and the Beast castle making fun of his efforts.

"You can't even write your own name. You're frothing at the mouth if you think it wise to send scribbles to Lord Montgomery Bellarose," Blaise commented in amusement, observing Draco's woozy enterprise to obtain parchment and a quill.

Draco gave up shortly and squinted helplessly up at his friend, who was dividing into multiple versions of himself, "Y-you write it then, don't-don't be a fucking git, Zabini, this is serus."

"Serus you say?" Blaise grunted sarcastically.

"She knows...I can-can't lose her. This is life or death for me," Draco solicited Blaise in a last ditch effort.

Grasping onto Draco's arm, Blaise conceded in friendly understanding, "Okay, Malfoy, okay. Wait here while I locate you some ruddy slacks."

Draco puffed on air gratefully, remarking that Blaise knew exactly where to dig in his trunk to dredge up designer sweat pants, which were tossed at his face in turbulent force.

Blaise afforded Draco two generous minutes to draw up the sweatpants before they were off to the owlery - and this was no easy trek.

Defined by crumbling stone, the owlery tower stood in sad circumstance far from the castle itself, forcing any student who wished to communicate with the outside world to plod a quarter of a kilometer down an icy pathway aligned with shoddy polygonal masonry walls.

The sun was far from set, but Draco's mind had set long ago, and thanks to Blaise he was brought back to life in circuitous reminder of the task at hand.

"Don't pass out here you slobbering prick - we're only halfway," Blaise's slick voice reverberated in Draco's head, forcing him to come to in absolute misery.

He was dressed in a t-shirt, sweater and sweatpants - appearing damn near homeless for his usual standards - his mismatching dress shoes hardly managing to avoid a broken neck on the slippery passage.

Draco placed a hand on the ancient brick wall at his side and shut his eyes in defeat, "Zabini - you've got to take over for me. Imp-im-imperious. I'll never make it."

Glancing about them to ensure no one was judging his decision, the stunning black Slytherin boy agreed without further adieu, removing his wand from his pocket to cast the unforgivable curse.

Just like that, Draco's wasted consciousness watched in the background as he was expertly possessed, the trip ahead marching on without any objection.

In his mind, he could sense Blaise's directions clamping down onto his brain like an invisible hand; right foot, left foot, right foot, up the hill to the owlery, don't trip, right foot, left foot...

"Alright Malfoy, what do you want to say?" Blaise queried suspiciously when they successfully reached the frozen owlery, releasing him from the spell.

Hundreds of nocturnal, unimpressed birds in square bunks were not ready to wake up, clipping their beaks at the two boys who'd raided their nest at an  hour that all students knew better than bother them at.

Draco clutched at the central wooden table ridden with decades of distributed fowl defecation, hanging his head  as the pain of the day swam back to him.

Audette's wicked governess had mentioned the carriage would arrive at Castle Bellarose by six in the afternoon, meaning he had just over an hour to send an owl to her father before she arrived.

Under this immense pressure he found a steady voice, trusting that Blaise would record every word,

"Lord Bellarose,

With utmost respect and regard,"

He began speaking, relieved to hear the sounds of Blaise scratching down his words onto parchment.

Ignoring the squelching and clipping of perturbed owls in their adjacent berths, Draco inhaled deeply and continued,

"I fear that your daughter has discovered the secret which you and I, amongst many others, harbor imperatively.

It cannot be named in letter, but I feel confident you will fathom what I refer to without it's penned mention.

As a result of her intelligence she has grown aware of my membership, and in natural pursuance desires answers which I cannot provide.

Due to this anonymity, she despises me outright, and I am seized by no ability to explain what she already knows.

She thus attributes my silence to betrayal.

Lord Bellarose, I humbly assure you that I am irrevocably in love with your daughter and am tenaciously dedicated to her.

Please advise me on how to proceed.

Please advise me on how I may obtain your daughter's hand by natural grace, whether that dictates placing this matter aside or not.

Draco Lucius Malfoy."

"Is that it then?" Blaise asked when Draco stated his name point blank.

"Send it," Draco confirmed bleakly, rubbing his face with both hands in quaking cringe.

So it was; Blaise tepidly tied the letter to the yellow claw of Draco's evil Eurasian owl, Ulysses, who took off into the sky majestically.

When the bird was gone from sight Draco's energy gave out entirely, slumping against the wall of wooden boxes hosting other student's gimpy owls.

Blaise hiked up his black jacket in the shuddering poopy environment, burdened by the tiresome malaise, "Come on Malfoy, Bellarose isn't worth this bankruptcy. You and Nott are both deplorable fools if you ask me."

"No one asked you. And she is worth it," Draco barked, making his way to the archway of the owlery. He clutched onto the carved stone, white hair fluttering in the freezing wind, priming himself for the miserable journey back down.

"I have to stop Malfoy from winning first place," a croaky voice echoed around the thin tower, prompting Draco to spin in animosity with his wand drawn.

As if he could cast anything in that moment worthy of a duel...

All that he saw was Blaise with both hands raised, several slumbering owls, and a suspicious raven perched at the center of an aperture with it's wings flickering.

"I have to stop Malfoy from winning first place," the raven repeated casually, before pecking it's beak down to it's dirty toes.

Draco heaved in air for a few moments before Blaise interjected with intellectual submission, "Ravens are corvids. They can mimic human speech....do you reckon this raven was buggering around when Potter came by last?"

Draco didn't really care who had taught the raven such personalized rhetoric, angrily directing his wand at the antipathic fowl.

"I have to stop Malfoy from winning first place," the bird chirped again with total lack of natural breath, it's empty black eyes dancing between Draco and the central feeder within the owlery, twitching in such a way that drove him into indescribable anger.

"Don't," Blaise bravely stepped in front of Draco, sensing that he was about to cast Avada Kedavra on school grounds, on a bird no less, "It's just a mockingbird, Malfoy."

Draco gradually lowered his wand, only for the bird to start up again.+

"If I don't the world will end Ginny," the raven freakishly repeated behind Blaise's back, who's eyes widened.

"Maybe try talking to Bellarose," it relentlessly carried on, without realizing that each word it mirrored equaled a possible death wish.

"Try talking to Bellarose...not that dumb Barbie Doll...talking to Bellarose," the bird clipped on in a clownish pitch, pecking at corn strewn around the stone coping of the window to the owlery, "If I don't the world will end. Stop Malfoy from winning first...talking to Bellarose...dumb Barbie Doll..."

Before Draco could drunkenly blow the entire owlery tower to smithereens, Blaise grabbed him by the shoulder and lugged him off down the snowy pathway, but the raven's call continued to vibrate in his prefrontal cortex unpleasantly thereafter...

The world will end.

The world will end...

One day later, after receiving reassurance from Montgomery Bellarose that his daughter would in fact carry through on marrying Draco, this information provided mild comfortability.

He found hope after Narcissa reassured him that she would branch out to Draco's stubborn girlfriend, intending to drag Audette to Cava for a ball gown and an underlying evaluation. 

But that raven...that raven had really upset Draco...and even after he sobered up and slept on it's traumatic omens for three more grueling days without any further contact from the Bellarose Castle, it was still chirping in his brain.

Edgar Allen Poe could take back his long lost loquacious and unstately raven anytime now...

The silence was deafening, so deafening, and so was the ticking of his fucking watch. 

Draco finally lost it one night, laying sleepless again, wondering what was on her mind, wondering if she would write back...when he came to the realization that all of his misery and everything that he had accomplished might be rendered meaningless in no time at all. 

Two stories above him, Theodore Nott was dozing in his tenth year bunk, and somewhere nearby was that apocalyptic time turner...

His nose crinkling in hatred, Draco envisioned burning two holes straight from his eyes through the illusion of the stars in his canopy, through the fabric canopy itself, through two sets of stone slabs and flooring, and into the back of Theodore's delicious brown curls.

He was so angry about the additional stress of the time turner, and that Theo had outwitted him with that device, that his potently negative magical energy caused the glass in his porthole to produce an ear splitting and sinister crack.

Groans rumbled from the snoozing resident Slytherin beasts and Draco froze, eyes flaring in fear that he was about to drown the entire subterranean community. 

When nothing happened he sat up to inspect the architectural vandalism, and after he'd confirmed that no water was perforating the castle through the fractured concave pane, he slipped out of his bed, gripping his wand.

Pressing off of his tip toes in order to remain ninja silent, Draco crept around the curvilinear stairwell in his soft sleeping attire, all the way to the tenth level, and pried open the door. 

"Accio time turner," he whispered uncreatively, and it was no shock that the mechanism refused to respond. Theodore was cunning and would have naturally assumed that Draco would be on his tracks, likely having already cursed the object with multiple binding wards. 

Bursting with frustration he padded across the icy floor and ripped open Theodore's curtains, hoping that he might successfully snag the time turner before his arch nemesis could even blink an eye. 

However the moment that the drapes were drawn, Draco's breath caught at the sight of the empty and folded bed spread, feeling the pointy tip of Theo's wand shove into his temple at an ugly angle. 

It was half past three in the morning. 

Witching hour.

He'd appeared out of thin air, impossibly, his rectangular reading glasses reflecting the glow of the classic floating green nightlights in the room, "Malfoy. You really do possess the intelligence of a toddler. Shocking you managed to hold off this long before parading in here to exact such a predictable panic attack." 

Draco's eyes drifted lackadaisically sideways to calmly meet Theo's, "Well aren't you the wisdom tooth in the fly trap. Guess what Nott - that makes me the dentist. You might have survived removal this long, but sooner or later, there won't be any space left for you, and I'll be the one taking you out." 

Shoving Draco harshly towards the door, Theodore continued to firmly direct his wand with the threat to cast offensively, "You will never get your hands on this time turner, and even though it is madness to speculate otherwise, I assume that is information your simplistic brain is incapable of accepting. Audette will be mine again when it is fully mended, and you will go right back to dying alone, because that is what you truly deserve." 

Draco peered injuriously through the darkness at Theodore's scalding eyes which were equally as watery behind those wise glasses - and for just a moment, for just a pin prick in time - he was struck with remorse that they had become irrevocable adversaries, doomed to harm each other until one of them finally ceased to exist.

Under Theodore's soft green hoodie, trailing around his neck in telling reveal, there glinted the chain of the time turner.

The fifty-third card.