Diagon Alley—that long, winding cobblestone street packed with the most alluring wizarding shops in the world—was bloody chaotic.
Noisy. Bustling. Aggressively vibrant.
Draco had always despised such environments, and even now, he frowned at the press of bodies crowding the street.
To a Malfoy, noise meant disorder. Neither elegant nor refined.
But having lived through the Dark Lord's reign of terror in his memories, he had learned to appreciate this gaudy prosperity for what it truly was: freedom.
Black-robed wizards streamed past, wearing idiotic, blissful smiles, chattering loudly as they moved between shops. Underage wizards did not even need to look up at the signs—through spotless windows, they could see magnificent displays of magical goods: brooms, robes, telescopes, silverware, cauldrons, potion ingredients, spell books, quills, parchment, phials, owls and rats and toads, lunar globes...
Draco watched the bustling scene quietly, and a profound sense of unreality washed over him.
Diagon Alley in his memories had not looked like this.
He remembered its desolate, bleak appearance with painful clarity, as though it had been yesterday:
Massive notices from the Ministry of Magic plastered over shop windows, displaying photographs of wanted Death Eaters—laughing maniacally, their faces twisted with madness that terrified anyone who glimpsed them. His aunt Bellatrix had been featured prominently.
The streets, once pristine and orderly, had become filthy from the chaos the Death Eaters wrought. Shops bore the scars of repeated attacks, their windows smashed, their doors hanging crooked. Even Florean Fortescue's ice cream parlor—which Draco had loved as a child—had been shuttered.
The Death Eaters had closed it.
For reasons Draco still did not understand, the Dark Lord in his previous timeline had not even spared a harmless ice cream shop owner.
Fortescue had been kind to every child who entered his shop, regardless of blood status: Muggle-borns, pure-bloods, even the children of Death Eaters.
Even when Lucius was rotting in Azkaban and Draco's life had hit rock bottom, Fortescue had handed him ice cream with a warm smile instead of spitting at him like the other shopkeepers.
Before his death, Fortescue had appeared in the dungeons of Malfoy Manor, driven insane by repeated Cruciatus Curses.
Draco had secretly brought him food once—a complicated gesture of reciprocity. He had heard the broken man muttering fragmented phrases: "The Elder Wand... Ravenclaw's Diadem..."
Worth pondering, that.
Why would the Dark Lord care about an Elder Wand? What even was that?
The Dark Lord never wasted time on useless people. He would simply kill them. He would not torture someone unless they possessed information vital to his plans.
Most wizards only knew Florean Fortescue as an ice cream vendor. Few pure-blood families remembered he was a descendant of Dexter Fortescue, a former Headmaster of Hogwarts.
Given that pedigree, it was entirely possible the man knew exclusive secrets.
Clearly, the Dark Lord had cared deeply about whatever Fortescue mentioned. And the objects were real, not myth.
A breakthrough.
Draco recalled how the Dark Lord had changed wands frequently in later years. After his own wand failed against Potter, he had seized Lucius's wand—the one his father treasured like life itself.
The wand lasted precisely one use before being destroyed. Draco remembered it shattering during the Dark Lord's aerial battle with Potter.
The Dark Lord had called the sacrifice of Lucius's wand "a supreme honor, a great privilege." Draco thought that was absolute rubbish. The sacrifice had been meaningless.
Lucius had never commented to his son about it. But Draco had seen his father's expression when he surrendered the wand. He had hesitated, just for a heartbeat.
After learning it was destroyed, Lucius's face had gone blank. But Draco had noticed how his father's grip tightened on his snake-headed cane—now just a walking stick, hollow and powerless. The pain in that gesture was unmistakable.
The Dark Lord had not cared. He had simply been anxious to acquire a new wand.
Later, Dumbledore's wand had appeared in the Dark Lord's possession. Draco still remembered the smug satisfaction on that inhuman face.
It seemed prudent to establish a connection with the smiling Fortescue. Extract information before the man's brutal end. Draco squeezed his mother's hand as they passed the ice cream shop, a calculating gleam in his eyes.
The Malfoy family cut through the crowd like royalty among peasants.
Elegant. Noble. Their very gait set them apart. They radiated confidence, superiority, self-importance. The sun was particularly bright today, and their platinum hair caught the light like spun silver—impossible to miss.
"Attracting attention" meant maintaining perfect dignity at all times. Eyes forward. Spine straight. Never gawking like some uncultured fool.
When Draco heard several boys exclaiming enviously by a shop window—"That's the new Nimbus 2000! Fastest broom on the market!"—he kept his gaze fixed ahead instead of pressing his nose to the glass like an idiot.
In his previous life, his father had publicly reprimanded him in front of that very window for behaving "like a common street urchin." That would not happen again.
Besides, Potter already owned a Nimbus 2000 this year. Draco refused to share a broom model with the sodding Savior.
Patience. Once the Nimbus 2001 was released next year, the 2000 would be obsolete. He could make do with his Comet 260 until then. First-years were not allowed brooms at Hogwarts anyway.
Potter's broom was special treatment—Dumbledore's favoritism toward his precious Gryffindor Seeker, the Boy-Who-Lived. Draco did not expect such privileges for himself.
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