A/N:Well, hello there. How are you all doing?
If you enjoy the fanfic, comments, reviews, and power stones would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you for reading!
******
Diagon Alley, a long, winding cobblestone street lined with some of the world's most enticing wizard shops.
How noisy, bustling, and vibrant it was!
In the past, Draco had mostly scoffed at noisy and chaotic places like this. Even today, he still frowned at crowds.
In a Malfoy's eyes, noise meant disorder, which was neither elegant nor respectable.
However, having experienced the oppressive rule of the Dark Lord in his memory, he had learned to appreciate and cherish this long-lost prosperity.
Groups of black-robed wizards, with silly, happy smiles on their faces, walked noisily down the street, while a steady stream of people entered the various shops.
Young wizards, barely out of their teens, did not even need to crane their necks to read the shop signs. Through the spotless windows, they could see a dazzling array of magical goods: flying brooms, robes, telescopes, silver instruments, medicines, potion ingredients, spellbooks, quills, parchment, phials, pets, moon globes...
Draco silently observed the bustling scene, a sense of unreality striking him. This wasn't the Diagon Alley of his memories.
He remembered that desolate and gloomy scene vividly. The image was so clear it might have happened only yesterday:
Large notices posted by the Ministry of Magic covered the colourful shop windows, displaying photos of wanted Death Eaters. They were usually shown laughing maniacally, their distorted faces sending chills down the spines of every wizard who saw them—his mad aunt Bellatrix had been one of them.
The streets, once neat, clean, and orderly, had become filthy through the Death Eaters' sabotage and pollution. Shops had been repeatedly looted by mobs, leaving them dilapidated. Even Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour, which he had loved to visit as a child, had closed down—also the work of the Death Eaters.
For some reason, the Dark Lord of his previous life hadn't even spared a peaceful ice cream shop owner.
Fortescue had been kind to all the little wizards who liked his ice cream, regardless of their family background—Muggle-born children, pure-blood children, and even Death Eater children.
Even when Lucius was imprisoned in Azkaban, and when Draco's life hit rock bottom, Fortescue would smile and hand him an ice cream instead of spitting on him as other shopkeepers did.
Before his death, Fortescue had been seen in the dungeons of Malfoy Manor. By then, he had been driven insane by the continual Cruciatus Curse.
With a complex mix of feelings, Draco had once secretly brought him food. At that time, he had vaguely heard Fortescue mutter fragmented words like "The Elder Wand... Ravenclaw's Diadem..."
This is worth pondering, Draco thought to himself.
The Dark Lord was looking for the Elder Wand? What was this thing?
The Dark Lord never wasted time on useless people; he did not hesitate to deliver the Killing Curse at once. He would not torture someone without reason—not unless that person knew something extremely important to him.
Most wizards knew little about Florean Fortescue beyond his ice cream shop. Only a few pure-blood wizarding families might remember that the ice cream shop owner was a descendant of Dexter Fortescue, a former headmaster of Hogwarts.
So it wasn't impossible that he knew some little-known secrets.
Clearly, the Dark Lord had been very interested in what Fortescue had muttered, which meant the Elder Wand was not merely something from a story, but something that actually existed.
This was a breakthrough. He recalled how the Dark Lord had frequently changed wands later on. After his own wand broke in the battle with Potter, the Dark Lord even took away the wand his father Lucius cherished as his life.
Sadly, the Dark Lord had used that wand only once before it was mercilessly destroyed in his battle with Potter.
The Dark Lord called Lucius's shattered wand "a supreme glory, a great sacrifice"; Draco thought this was a complete bluff, and that the sacrifice was utterly meaningless.
Although Lucius never commented on the matter to his son, Draco had seen the slight pause in his father's expression when he handed over the wand. He had hesitated.
Upon learning of the wand's destruction, Lucius had remained expressionless, but Draco noticed him gripping his hollowed-out snake-headed cane tightly. He felt a pang of heartache.
But the Dark Lord didn't care. He was in a hurry to find a new wand.
Later, Dumbledore's wand appeared in the Dark Lord's hands. Draco vividly remembered the smug smile on the Dark Lord's face when he received it.
It seemed necessary to strike up a conversation with the smiling Fortescue, hoping to extract some information from him. Draco, holding his mother's hand and hurrying past the ice cream shop, had a glint of cunning in his eyes.
The Malfoys walked along the winding cobblestone street, standing out from the crowd of simply dressed wizards.
This family exuded elegance and nobility, yet their gait was unlike that of ordinary people, conveying confidence, arrogance, and self-importance. Coupled with the bright sunshine and their striking platinum-blond hair, it was hard for anyone not to notice them.
Being the centre of attention means that you should always maintain a dignified posture and walk with your eyes straight ahead, rather than looking around.
For example, just now, when Draco heard a few boys by a shop window saying enviously, "That's the new Nimbus 2000—the fastest one—", he had to keep his eyes straight ahead, instead of opening his mouth wide and staring at the broom with envious eyes like a country bumpkin.
In his past life, his father had reprimanded him in front of this shop window for being "too unambitious," and in this life, there would never be a second time.
Besides, Potter would get a Nimbus 2000 this year, and Draco had no wish to copy the Saviour.
Be patient. Next year, when the Nimbus 2001 comes out, the Nimbus 2000 will be nothing. He pursed his lips, deciding to make do with his family's Comet 260 for now. Anyway, Hogwarts doesn't allow first-years to bring brooms.
As for Potter? That was the treatment reserved for a favoured Gryffindor Seeker, a special privilege Dumbledore bestowed upon the "Boy Who Lived." Draco didn't consider himself entitled to such treatment.
By the time he finished the thought, he had already stepped into Gringotts with his parents.
It was a towering, snow-white building that rose above the surrounding shops. You had to pass through two sets of doors to reach the marble hall: first the gleaming bronze doors, then silver ones engraved with words. Inside, dark-faced, long-bearded goblins with long arms and legs bowed to greet them and respectfully led them to the Malfoy family's vault.
In Gringotts, goblins judge the wealth of a vault's owner by its location and the way it is opened. Highly secure vaults are located deep underground, and their doors are often imbued with advanced magic, not something that can be opened with an ordinary key.
As one of the oldest wizarding families, the Malfoys kept their wealth on the deepest level—miles beneath London. The Malfoys had barely boarded their minecart when it began its descent, winding down a labyrinthine network of tunnels, through frigid air and past massive stalactites and stalagmites, seemingly hurtling towards the very depths of the earth.
The cart began to slow as it passed a massive fire dragon tethered to a giant stake. This allowed Draco to catch a glimpse of the drowsy dragon—one of the main reasons he had been willing to ride this dizzying, miserable minecart in his previous life.
Draco had loved dragons since he was a child. But looking at it now, he simply couldn't appreciate this one.
It looked anything but majestic. Its face was covered in terrible scars, and its loose scales were not a shiny silver-grey but a pale white; its eyes were not deep red but a murky pink; its two hind legs were shackled with heavy chains, and its spiked wings were folded against its sides.
The sound of the minecart seemed to provoke the dragon. It turned its ugly head towards them and let out a roar that made the stones tremble, but it hesitated at the sound of the goblins' Clankers—small metal tools that made a loud, clear clinking.
A truly majestic dragon should be fearless. This one had clearly lost its pride under the goblins' violent taming. Draco gazed at it, then let out a soft sigh.
The minecart finally came to a stop at the deepest point underground. A goblin gently knocked on the ornate, ancient door, and the door slowly disappeared.
Inside the vault, coins, gold ware, silverware, various gems, rare furs, and potion ingredients were piled high. Of the Malfoy family's wealth, accumulated over ten centuries, those Galleons were perhaps the least valuable. To the Malfoys, the most precious things were likely those that money couldn't necessarily buy.
Lucius proudly brushed non-existent dust from his robes and casually swept his snake-headed cane, sending a large pile of Galleons flying into a palm-sized dragon-hide storage pouch in his hand.
"Draco, take this and spend it wisely," Lucius said, handing him the pouch, then leisurely walked out of the vault. "A proper Malfoy must learn to invest and spend money where it should be spent. You'll soon find that most of the friends in this world can be bought with money."
"Yes, Father," Draco replied, just as he had in his previous life.
This philosophy of life had been effective to some extent, allowing the Malfoy family to maintain a considerable network of connections within the Ministry of Magic over the past decade.
Ironically, after Lucius was imprisoned in Azkaban, those friends all avoided him like the plague, and some even kicked him when he was down—clearly, relationships maintained solely by money are not reliable.
The Malfoy family motto states that there are no permanent friends, no permanent enemies, only permanent interests. Of course, interests are not limited to material things.
Draco pursed his lips slightly, deep in thought. He had no intention of giving up on using money to win people's hearts; by making good use of the power of others, he could accomplish a great deal with minimal effort.
However, he told himself, he must remain vigilant even in peaceful times filled with extravagance and lavish banquets. Relationships bought with money were mostly fragile—they could be bought away again at an even higher price—and as for hearts that could not be bought with money, they were even more unpredictable.
"My dear little dragon, I've transferred some money to your private vault." Narcissa smiled and patted Draco's platinum-blond head, interrupting his thoughts. She said affectionately, "Don't let your father know."
Aside from the family vault, which only the head of the family can access, every member of the Malfoy family has a private vault of their own. Draco's had existed since his birth and already held a considerable fortune.
Grandfather Abraxas gave his beloved grandson an education fund every year, and his maternal grandfather, Cygnus Black—because of his favouritism towards Narcissa—also transferred a sum of Galleons to his grandson every year.
Not to mention Narcissa herself, one of the richest and most powerful noblewomen in the wizarding world, who would certainly spoil her child's temper and always give her son a generous allowance, for fear that her precious boy would lack food or clothing.
Draco looked up at his mother. Her smiling eyes shone with genuine love. His mother might not be the person who understood him best, but she would always be the one who loved him deeply—she had stood by him through countless anxious, gloomy days.
Looking back, Draco realised that his seemingly most vulnerable mother had become the pillar of the family when it was on the verge of collapse. Without her, Draco couldn't imagine how destitute he and his father would have become.
Even after Potter took his wand, his mother "lent" him her own.
A wand is a wizard's life. By giving him hers, she was, in a sense, sacrificing her own life to protect her son. She exposed herself to every deadly danger, with no chance of fighting back.
Like his father, she had faced the menacing, dangerous, and rude Death Eaters of Malfoy Manor unarmed. Draco couldn't even imagine how terrified his mother must have been in that situation.
They had been nothing more than lambs to the slaughter.
This time, let me protect you, Mother. Draco never wanted to see her tired, melancholy face again, nor her panicked state.
In his past life, because of his naivety, ignorance, and vanity, he hadn't made good use of this money. By the time he finally wanted to do something, that wealth had, to some extent, become a tool for the Dark Lord to win people over.
At that time, the Malfoy family had already fallen into ruin, and the three of them were regarded by the Dark Lord as disposable pawns who could still breathe. Trembling with fear, they had been exploited until the Dark Lord had squeezed them dry of their last bit of value—the Malfoy family had tragically become the Dark Lord's "lackeys" and "money bags."
It's a disgrace.
This time it won't be like that. He clutched the money pouch tightly, as if he were clutching his own destiny.
Draco looked up and gave Narcissa, who was still radiant, an innocent smile. "Thank you, Mum."
"I'll prepare myself well before I face all that is coming," Draco told himself.
The three of them rode the minecart, speeding through the labyrinthine tunnels for a while, then stopped briefly in front of the Lestrange family's vault.
Lucius was not happy about this.
He didn't want his wife to have anything to do with prisoners serving time in Azkaban. To outsiders, it was a stain on their history. Lucius had gone to great lengths to clear his family's name, and Narcissa's actions were tantamount to exposing her own shortcomings.
However, Narcissa could not abandon her own blood relatives; it was at the request of her frail father that she had to take care of everything in Azkaban, at least to prevent Bella and her good-for-nothing husband from dying there.
Fortunately, she always found a way to persuade her husband. While their son turned to ask the goblin, "Is that dragon that's tied up a Ukrainian Ironbelly?" she planted a light kiss on Lucius's cheek.
"I'll be back soon, Lucius," she said with a smile. It worked; Lucius's expression immediately softened.
He shook his head helplessly, watching Narcissa follow a goblin named Pull Ring into the vault.
Not long after, she gracefully walked out carrying a small package.
Draco casually peeked through the crack in the doorway as it was about to close. Though not as luxurious as the Malfoy family's vault, it was no less impressive: from floor to ceiling, it was crammed with gold coins, golden goblets, silver armour, the furs of strange animals with spines or drooping wings, potions in vases, and skulls adorned with crowns...
The Lestrange family, after all, did have some wealth. His aunt, Bellatrix, held the key to the vault and could clearly live a life of luxury. Draco grimaced regretfully, thinking, "Unfortunately, her taste isn't very good. Not only does she dress herself up like a madwoman, but she also follows a madman."
She's a madwoman. And a cruel one at that. Draco shared Lucius's sentiment; he didn't want his mother to have anything more to do with Bellatrix—it was dangerous.
Bellatrix is undeniably gifted. Unlike his mother, she is a master of the Dark Arts and a highly skilled Occlumens who had even taught Draco at Narcissa's request.
But she was also a ruthless madwoman who would turn her back on anyone. For a mere casual compliment from the Dark Lord, she would sacrifice everything without hesitation. She could even kill her cousin Sirius Black without a second thought, showing no regard for their shared surname.
Having different stances does not mean having no bottom line.
All wizards share a basic consensus: wizarding blood is Merlin's gift, and it is invaluable.
For prominent families that value lineage, being expelled from the family is the most severe punishment; for families with few members, even if there are blood traitors or conflicting beliefs, they cannot kill each other or wipe each other out.
Bellatrix, however, could cross that line and kill without any psychological burden.
She killed people who shared her blood without batting an eye, and even laughed out loud about it.
Absolutely cold-blooded and ruthless.
She had also tormented Granger.
Merlin, that experience was terrifying. Even though he had only been watching, he had almost suffocated.
That was probably an item that couldn't be ignored on his "list of most terrifying nightmares," tied for first place with the horrific scene of Dumbledore's death.
He couldn't wait to get his wand.
The first thing to do once he had it was to close off his own mind, sealing away these suffocating and terrifying memories so that he would never have to think about them again.