In a quiet corner of Bath, in the county of Avon, Abraxas Malfoy reclined on a deckchair at the renowned Hotspur Wizarding Spa and Sanatorium, enjoying the late June sunshine with the unhurried contentment of a man who had long since decided the world owed him leisure.
He was a gaunt old man with platinum-blond hair, arrogant and languid in equal measure. At first glance he could have passed for any number of disagreeable elderly wizards. But anyone who knew him well could not ignore the sharp glint that occasionally surfaced in those cloudy grey eyes — like light catching the edge of a blade.
Beside him, a boy in a black Muggle t-shirt stretched slowly on the adjacent deckchair, with the unhurried ease of a large cat waking from a nap. He wore a black cap pulled low against the sun, but even without seeing his face, the passing spa attendants seemed to register something — a quality of concentrated energy, of attention — that distinguished him from the other guests.
The contrast between youth and old age sat strikingly across those two deckchairs.
The only visible connection between them was a few strands of platinum-blond hair escaping from beneath the cap's brim — enough that the receptionist on duty had taken one look and correctly concluded this must be Draco Malfoy, Abraxas's most prized grandson.
"I heard your father spoke with you a few days ago," Abraxas said, glancing sideways at Draco with interest.
"Yes." Draco finally pushed the cap up from his face. The resemblance became more apparent: the same grey eyes, the same unhurried arrogance settled into the bones.
He glanced carefully at his grandfather, took in the calm expression, and continued. "He thinks I'm getting too close to certain Gryffindors."
"Making a mountain out of a molehill." Abraxas waved a dismissive hand. "The ability to cultivate friendships across all sorts of people is a remarkable gift. If someone is exceptional, you bring them into your orbit — that is proper Slytherin thinking. Does Lucius imagine that just anyone could make inroads with Gryffindors?" He sniffed. "Even I once — never mind. That's not the point."
The old man adjusted his position on the deckchair, tilting slightly to let the warmth fall more evenly across his frail frame.
"Decades of experience have taught me," he said, finding the right angle, "that the more paths you open, the more you have to walk. As long as the Malfoy family's interests are not compromised — make any friends you can, all sorts of them. One day you may find yourself grateful for it."
Draco nodded. His grandfather was, in this respect, considerably more open-minded than Lucius. That said, he was still a Malfoy to the marrow; his motives for making friends were never entirely uncomplicated.
"I'll have a word with your father," Abraxas said, scratching his nose with the air of a man who had done this many times before. "Lucius is a dedicated head of the family — a good husband, a good son, a good father, I suppose." A pause. "But his long-range thinking leaves something to be desired. Too impulsive. Too shortsighted. I heard he did something reckless recently." He exhaled slowly. "Your mother has better instincts; she'll keep him in check. That's his good fortune."
Draco sat up straighter.
He regarded his grandfather with quiet surprise. This was rare — Abraxas speaking seriously, without his usual performance of carelessness. He was usually all sideways smiles and deflection around Draco, as if gravity were an affectation he'd outgrown.
"When Lucius was young, I wasn't much of a guide," Abraxas said. He didn't sound regretful, exactly — more reflective. "I was too busy with my own affairs. I told him once not to position himself at the front, but to stand behind the one in power — to keep the wider view and stay secure. I don't think he understood what I meant by that." A dry chuckle. "Over the years, he's done a great deal by going it alone."
Draco remained quiet. His grandfather's assessment, beneath the languid delivery, remained as sharp as ever.
"Lucius has done well for this family, I'll grant him that," Abraxas continued. "He's been enterprising — built connections, accumulated influence, advanced the family's standing. But an enterprising temperament always carries its own risks: extremism, recklessness, a certain arrogance that clouds judgment. And there is no one who can follow him about constantly cleaning up his mistakes." His brow furrowed. "The Malfoy family has stood for centuries. It will stand for centuries more. Do you know what matters most to us, right now?"
Draco looked at him and said nothing, waiting.
"The most important thing is to preserve our core strength," Abraxas said. "With what this family has built — wealth, connections, influence — it would be excellent if we could advance further. But if not, we must at least not fall so far that our ancestors would be ashamed. Do you understand what I mean?"
He studied his grandson — this precocious boy who looked back at him with steady grey eyes and appeared to understand perfectly. Abraxas had been watching him carefully for years now, and had been increasingly struck by what he saw.
He was not like a normal thirteen-year-old. He absorbed knowledge at an unusual speed, particularly in Potions and the Dark Arts. His Hogwarts reports were reliably excellent, and Abraxas made a point of being proud of them.
He had purpose and resourcefulness. The capture of Peter Pettigrew alone — whatever methods the boy had used, which Abraxas still hadn't fully pieced together — had earned him an Order of Merlin, Second Class, and that medal now hung above the fireplace at Malfoy Manor. Every visitor remarked on it.
He had a gift for reading people. He navigated social situations with a grace that balanced Malfoy bearing with genuine approachability — something that Abraxas recognised from certain of his oldest friends, the kind of quality that had to be cultivated, yet in Draco seemed almost innate.
He was also, crucially, guarded. He never betrayed admiration or contempt for anyone; he was outwardly courteous while keeping his true thoughts entirely to himself. That was perhaps the rarest quality of all.
How Lucius and Narcissa had produced such a child, Abraxas was genuinely at a loss to explain.
"You need to think further ahead than most people will," he said at last. "After I'm gone, the Malfoy family will rest on your shoulders."
"Grandfather," Draco said, with an uncharacteristic sincerity that Abraxas felt rather than observed, "you'll live to a hundred."
"Don't be foolish. No one lives forever." Abraxas waved his hand dismissively, but the dismissal was fond. He looked at Draco for a moment — committing his face to memory, in the way of old men who have stopped pretending they have unlimited time.
"I'll say this — your performance at Hogwarts has made me very proud. In every sense." He settled back. "In fact, a few days ago I happened to cross paths with an old friend here at the Spa. Horace Slughorn. He came specifically to congratulate me on having a grandson who'd earned the Order of Merlin."
Draco offered his grandfather a faint, unconcerned smile.
"That old man never acts without an angle," Abraxas said, his cloudy eyes narrowing with a certain smugness. "But I will say — most of the students he's taken an interest in have gone on to do remarkable things. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he happened to wander past in the next little while."
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Draco had barely registered the thought when a heavy, unhurried tread announced itself across the terrace. A broad, bald old man made his way toward them with the comfortable self-assurance of someone accustomed to being welcome everywhere. He was portly and silver-bearded, with a magnificent moustache that was his most imposing feature, and the slow, alert scan of his bulging eyes suggested he missed very little despite the leisurely pace.
"Horace!" Abraxas beckoned lazily. "We were just speaking about you."
"I hope favourably," Slughorn said, settling himself onto a nearby deckchair with visible satisfaction.
"Naturally," Abraxas said, with the particular smile of a man being deliberately insincere. "What brings you over here, you old Niffler? Shouldn't you be writing letters to your favourite former students at this time of year?"
"I was doing exactly that," Slughorn said, perfectly unbothered. "But the weather was too fine to stay indoors." He allowed his gaze to drift, as though only now noticing the boy seated beside Abraxas. A carefully theatrical expression of recognition crossed his face. "Unless I'm very much mistaken — this must be your grandson. Draco, isn't it? The young man who received the Order of Merlin."
Abraxas inclined his head with the precise degree of restraint that communicated immense pride while disdaining to show it.
When Slughorn had finished his pleasantries with Abraxas, Draco stood and bowed politely.
Slughorn waved the formality off. "None of that, none of that. Your grandfather and I are old friends — you're practically family. He talks about you constantly." He shot Abraxas a glance of cheerful mischief. "His magnificent eldest grandson. Several times a day, at least."
Abraxas, caught out, rolled his eyes in a way he appeared to think Draco hadn't noticed.
"What a pity I retired when I did," Slughorn said, with a sigh of genuine feeling. "The talent in your year alone — I count at least two or three students I'd have very much liked to know. Ah, well."
The regret in his voice was real enough. Draco had long since learned to take it at face value.
"My grandfather has spoken of you often," Draco said. "He says you're the finest Potions master Hogwarts ever had. The students after your time were the poorer for it."
Slughorn glanced at Abraxas, who had assumed the expression of a man deeply absorbed in the sunshine.
"Is that what he says?" Slughorn's mood visibly improved. He looked Draco over with open interest. "I hear your Potions work is excellent. Well — you're on holiday now, but if you find yourself with questions about the subject, feel free to seek me out. I'd be happy to discuss it."
Draco recognised the offer for what it was — an extended hand, the first gesture of the Slug Club's particular form of patronage. He felt the strange, quiet weight of it. In his previous life, this invitation had never come. Slughorn had looked through him entirely.
He bowed with genuine respect and accepted.
Slughorn nodded, apparently satisfied with his afternoon's constitutional. He rose from the deckchair with some effort, exchanged a final word with Abraxas, and made his way back across the terrace.
Draco watched him go.
It wasn't hard to understand, now, why Slughorn had ignored him in his previous life. It hadn't been unfamiliarity with Abraxas — it had been Lucius. A son of Azkaban, a Death Eater's heir, was not the kind of association that served Horace Slughorn's particular interests. The Slug Club ran on connections and promise, not on proximity to disgrace.
In another life, the door had simply been closed before Draco arrived at it.
He found himself turning over the question of Felix Felicis. He and Hermione had been working through the theory of advanced potion-making in their spare time, and there were details in the Felix Felicis preparation that neither of them had fully resolved — certain steps in the process that the texts described without fully explaining. Slughorn had brewed it successfully. He had, by all accounts, a great deal of practical knowledge that never made it into published texts.
It would be wasteful not to use this.
"You handled that well," Abraxas said, watching Slughorn's retreating back with an expression of mild, proprietary satisfaction. "There's no harm in cultivating him. He has resources worth having — introductions, knowledge, connections you wouldn't find through normal channels. You'll need to give him something in return, of course — he appreciates a thoughtful gift. Crystallised pineapple, or something similar. He's partial to the gesture."
Draco nodded, still half in his own thoughts.
Abraxas studied him for a moment, then flicked him on the head.
Draco looked up, startled. His grandfather had entirely shed his previous gravity — the serious, clear-eyed elder of the last hour had been replaced, with remarkable speed, by the mischievous old man who treated the world as a source of mild amusement.
"Stop sitting there looking like you're running the Ministry in your head," Abraxas told him cheerfully. "I have a private gathering this afternoon — old men only, I'm afraid, no grandsons permitted. Go and enjoy the city. Bath is an excellent place to do nothing at all, and you're overdue." He was already waving Draco off the deckchair with the firm authority of a man who had raised his family to know when they were being dismissed.
Abraxas had long felt that Draco's only real flaw was his inability to rest. The boy was always taut with some internal effort, always working toward something. It wasn't healthy, at his age.
Draco surrendered, as he always did to the grandfather he couldn't quite argue with.
He pulled his cap back on, tucked his hands into his pockets, and walked out through the Spa's quieter corridors and down a deep alleyway until he emerged through an inconspicuous passage onto Bath's main street — broad, orderly, and warm in the afternoon sun.
It was two or three in the afternoon. The tourists moved slowly, retreating into souvenir shops or shaded café terraces to escape the heat. The whole city had an atmosphere of deliberate idleness.
Draco walked without any particular direction.
In the back of his mind, the thought he'd been trying not to have surfaced again — his grandfather's health. Dragonpox was one of the Wizarding world's oldest and most obstinate curses. In his previous life, Abraxas had died of it the year Draco started his sixth year. That was the year everything began to unravel for the Malfoy family — the year the dark years truly started.
He turned the problem over as he walked, searching his memory for anything useful. He had a dim recollection, from somewhere in his previous life, of hearing about an improved treatment potion — a refinement on the standard antidote. But the details wouldn't come clearly. The memory was there and then gone, like trying to read by failing candlelight.
He was still working at it, frustrated, when a hesitant voice called from somewhere behind him.
"Malfoy?"