Hogwarts, Estd. 920 AD

As a secondary note, the 'o' in Solvarr is accented- with two dots on top of it. For formatting reasons, the normal 'o' will be used here.

I have also started a livejournal - find updates on HESTD and myriad other snippets of info there.

Once again, let me reiterate, this is a leap of faith. Please do tell me your opinions. They are valued.

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Hogwarts, Estd. 920 AD

Chapter Two: Just Call Me Cupid

*

It was at times like this that Draco was glad his father had given him all that practice in poker-facedness.

His mind drowned, and the processing part of it took over.

Fact 1: He had really gone back in time [shit- he had been hoping that was just a dream] to the 10^th Century AD.

Fact 2: Because of fact one, he was now looking up at the Founders.

Fact 3: Due to fact 2, he was probably messing with the timeline right now.

Fact 4: Fact 3 would ensure that the Handyman would hunt him, find him and kill him like a dog.

Fact 5: All facts considered, he was buggered.

At which point, his logic failed, and he had to rely on normal thought once more.

Calm. Be calm. You've just met the Founders. There's nothing to be annoyed about in that.

Sometimes, his own sarcasm annoyed him.

"Who are you and what in Heimdall's name are you doing here?"

Draco looked at Solvarr [now was that Salazar? As in the Salazar Slytherin?] and decided his previous assessment had been perfect. Polished. He had thick black hair, very pale skin and the coldest grey eyes he had ever looked into [which was saying quite a bit when you yourself had a Gaze of Iceâ„¢]. His features were small but strong; angular eyes, a sharp nose and almost white lips. He stood with a carefully calculated precision, and there was a languid undertone to his voice that suggested he could slice you into wizard fillet with just his words if he wanted to, it was simply that he didn't choose to do so at the moment. That slight smile was more than a little unnerving.

"I'm not very sure..." He began cautiously. "I think I hit my head quite hard...sir."

"Why are you dressed so strangely?" That was the other man, lighter haired, with brown eyes and a square, strong face. It was the visage of heroes everywhere and everywhen.

This prompted him to study the clothing of his 'saviours'. Both women were wearing wool gowns in bright colours, embroidered at the hems, underneath fur-trimmed cloaks. From the jewelled brooches clasping the cloth together at various points, he guessed that they were either filthy rich or doing an excellent impression of being so. The men, too, were dressed in embroidered calf-length tunics; the fair-haired one had on a pointed, jester-ish hat. [The bloody Sorting Hat!]

Godric looked thoughtfully at the Gucci silk shirt and black trousers. "Are you new to these lands, perhaps?"

Making an effort not to bite his lip with consternation, Draco tried to remember those History of Magic classes about the Founders Era. If only that damn Professor Binns had been a little more interesting...if only Draco had been more awake than an abysmally bored cabbage. "Indeed, I am...my name is Draco. Draco de Malfoyé..."

"Oh, of course," Draco was devoutly thankful of the flash of recognition in Godric's eyes. "But you live quite far from here, monsieur, what business have you in these lands? And where is your conveyance?"

"Lord Godric, the last memory I have was of travelling with several others; my father wished to extend a hand of friendship to his neighbours and dispatched me to meet with you." Draco congratulated himself for the greatest work of fiction since vows of fidelity were included in the French marriage service. "Our party met with brigands and, seeing that our number was less that theirs, we chose the sensible course and tried to escape." Okay, Draco, think helpless animal...[the word 'ferret' kept popping into his mind but he pushed it down vehemently] think sad, pathetic, and above all, innocent, little animal. "I do not know how long I have ridden or how far...all I remember was being very, very tired...and then, you woke me."

Solvarr's smile widened slightly and he glanced at Godric. "Sensible...but Lord Godric," there was the same note of mocking in his tone as there had been in Mrs Ponde's. "Would disagree. He would have stood and fought."

"There's nothing wrong with that," came the strong, brassy reply, not from Godric but Helga.

Draco turned around to look at Helga Hufflepuff properly, expecting a short, dumpy woman with more than a passing resemblance to Molly Weasley. Boy, was he wrong.

It was love at first sight.

From the tips of her carrot-red hair to the ends of her bony toes, Draco Malfoy totally, completely and beyond redemption fell for the woman who had suggested killing him three minutes ago. The fact that she didn't even look at him [or if she did, it was the sort of look you gave something nasty on the sole of your shoe] didn't particularly matter to him.

"I didn't say there was," Solvarr turned around and hissed, his eyes narrowing. A lesser woman would have crumbled, but Helga stood her ground. "Your opinion isn't required right now."

Rowena rolled her eyes and concentrated on Draco with a smile. There was a look in her eyes that made him a little uncomfortable. "Lord Draco, Gryffindor manor is quite nearby, and Godric won't mind if you stay with us."

"You all live together?"

"Ah, not always-," her negation was interrupted by a soft 'Thank God for that' from Godric's direction. "The Gryffindor family foster the three of us for a few months a year...they're famous for teaching, I am sure you know."

"Oh, of course, who doesn't?" He replied, with more than a little sarcasm. It was, however, lost on Rowena and Godric. They, like their future house members, had not quite mastered the art of tonal inference.

Godric cleared his throat, but Solvarr and Helga showed no signs of abating. Solvarr spoke very softly, and Helga seemed to have no compunctions about yelling, so on the whole it was an extremely odd thing to hear. Like a zookeeper talking to a deranged giraffe [Helga did look somewhat like a giraffe, albeit a very attractive one]...Draco was quite sure that if it were given a few more minutes the argument would descend into a fistfight. "Stop it!" Godric yelled finally. "What kind of impression are you giving Lord Draco?"

The suddenness with which Solvarr stopped and turned was startling, and even Helga managed to look a little ashamed. He smiled at Godric and raised one eyebrow. "Indeed...what kind of impression are we giving him...?" Without waiting for a reply, he took Helga's arm and began walking in the direction Rowena had indicated. After a slight hesitation, the redhead fell into step beside him.

Draco turned to Rowena to ask something, but her attention was definitely elsewhere. She was biting her lip and watching Solvarr and Helga walk away hand-in hand with a very odd expression; and Godric was watching her with an even odder one. The tension was so thick you couldn't have cut it with a knife [tension that you could cut with a knife had the consistency of melted butter, this tension was more like his mother's failed baking experiment. They had used the fruitcake to pave the driveway]. As if snapping out of some kind of dream, Rowena turned back to him and grinned very unconvincingly.

It was the kind of over concentrated smile that suggested the person making the expression would quite happily kill anyone in her path.

"Come on, then, Lord Draco." She said, starting to trudge in the same direction. "I'm sure Aelryth will have set out a great supper by now...I'm starving..."

Draco couldn't have agreed with her more. Apparently one of the less documented side effects of time travel was that it made you feel as hungry as a lion [the ampleness of feline hunger, of course, being documented from first hand experience being it's focus]...but from the way Rowena was looking at Helga around Solvarr, [bloody Salazar Slytherin!] she would gladly drink the woman's blood.

*

The Handyman pushed the rim of his cap back and scratched his head slowly. "The bloody kid jumped through a portal! This is a problem. Oh, hell, this is the mother of problems. This is- huh?!"

He inspected the area a little more carefully, looking up and scrutinising the sign...yes, it all looked in order...but there was something wrong...

With a flourish, he unrolled a map that was hanging from his waist and traced a pathway with his finger, coming slowly to the Corridor 13A. A little bubble above it said 'Sewage System B01', not, as would have been expected 'Portals 80-129'. Which could only mean someone had been rearranging the Hub to make sure the kid jumped through a portal.

The Handyman almost snarled- someone else buggering about with his hub and his timeline!? There was only one logical explanation for it...and that logical explanation was going to get its non-corporeal ass kicked.

With the determination of a brick wall [yes; brick walls are damn determined- Have you ever tried playing chicken with one?] he stalked over to a console and took out his wand. 'Fourth Dimension', he muttered, as a jet of blue light shot out of it and split the floor. A small platform levitated a few inches above ground level and the handyman stepped onto it. "Go," he snapped, and with a pneumatic hiss and some very interesting smoke effects, it went.

*

Draco awoke in the darkness of an unlit room, his arms cool and bare but the rest of his body snug underneath the warm blankets. He lay there, motionless, a recollection of the previous day's events filtering through his brain. The last thing he remembered was sitting on a sofa waiting for his room to be made ready... Draco almost laughed- what was he on? The last time he'd had a dream like that was when he had inhaled some magically altered marijuana... Of course, in that dream he'd been a circus performer with an act called 'The Amazing Malfoy and His Pet Stick'-

There was a flash of light, and then the coarse, friction-infused sound of candles being lit.

Solvarr [Salazar! Bloody Salazar Slytherin!] stood not two feet from his bed, the light darkening his eyes into pools of blackness. If it had been a Muggle horror movie, this would have been the time when he would have taken out a gleaming knife and grinned maniacally, advancing inexorably toward him. But, it wasn't; and instead he simply smiled. That is to say, his facial muscles contracted and pulled the corners of his lips upward. Smiled was much too warm a word for the expression.

So it hadn't been a dream, after all. In a twisted way, Draco was glad. At least he knew his imagination wasn't that buggered up.

"Hello there, Lord Draco...I trust you slept well?"

Draco began to nod, but then the object in Solvarr's hand caught his attention. It was a chrome and plastic cigarette lighter from the pocket of his shirt, which lay in a tangled heap on the floor. He made a mental note to pick it up and smooth out the wrinkles; being caught in another time didn't justify looking like a washerwoman [or worse, Scarface Potter]. "I...slept fine..."

It was obvious that Draco had noticed Solvarr going through his things. At least the man could have had the decency to look abashed about it. Immediately after that thought, the voice in his head reminded him that this was the Prince of Supreme and Utter Darkness...And that very same Lord of Eternal Evilness was looking at Draco like he could read minds.

"You don't have to be afraid, you know," Solvarr said, in a tone of voice that implied 'Be afraid. Be very afraid' complete with the Jaws music.

"Oh, I'm not afraid." Draco made a borderline pathetic attempt to inject a little levity into his words. He might as well have tried to tame a werewolf with the words 'Little doggy wanna bikkit?'.

"Mr Malfoyé," he began, with a little sigh. "You're looking at me like I'm the CEO of Evil Incorporated." He gave Draco a few moments to let his words sink in; only speaking once the desired expression of surprise had plastered itself all over Draco's face. "That's right. You didn't think I'd waste half my life in this hellhole of a time, did you?"

Draco found himself, for one of the rare occasions in his life, utterly speechless. "That means- which means you know- about- about the future..." He spluttered with the syntactical coherence of a three-year-old.

"Actually no. I've had to use spells to keep myself from gaining any knowledge about the future me because that causes...shall we say...problems with the timeline...most of which would end in me exploding and dispersing throughout the known universe in six-millimetre blobs. Though I do know quite a bit about everything else, especially the-" he almost shuddered. "Muggle world...but let's just keep that between ourselves, shall we?"

"Of course, Lord Slytherin." Draco decided he had better start showing a little more respect, since Solvarr was going to turn into Slytherin any day...and this Malfoy did not want to get on the Founder's bad side.

"Oh," he looked surprised, the widened eyes a drastic change from the otherwise set expression. "So I am openly known as Salazar Slytherin?"

"Yes...actually, I didn't know you had another name..."

"My birth name is Solvarr Sturluson...said in Parseltongue it becomes Salazar Slytherin. The language is rather sibilant-heavy, you see. I don't believe snakes can quite manage a 'v'. I tried teaching them, but, alas, to no avail-"

The thought of a group of snakes having daily lessons in diction caused a slight smile to rise to Draco's lips, which he hurriedly hid with his hand.

"Anyway, it would just be a lot better if you just called me Solvarr," the man grinned suddenly- a menacing sort of grin, as grins went, but still firmly classified in the 'safe' category. "It's so weird when you call me Lord Slytherin!"

With a slight smile, Draco suddenly understood that the Founders weren't Founders yet. They were his age...in fact; they looked a little younger than him. He could easily make friends with them [with the Founders!...did 'friends in high places' ring a bell?] They probably didn't even count him as inferior to them [with the possible exception of Helga].

An annoying voice cut through the rose-and-watermelon daydreams, reminding him that it would probably mess up the timeline...though, Slytherin, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Malfoy had a certain ring to it.

"Okay, Solvarr."

"I think you should tell the others that you're from the future, Draco. Not," he added hastily. "Because it's the right thing to do or any drivel like that, but mostly because the Malfoys are visiting us at the end of this month...and while you have a striking physical resemblance to the line, your innovative little tale will be cut to shreds."

"Thanks...I will, when we're all together, I suppose." Draco shivered slightly, very aware that it was quite cold. Struck by a sudden suspicion, he delicately picked up the covers and looked down. His suspicions were confirmed. He was quite completely naked. A slight flush rose to his cheeks- being daring was all well and good, but chatting with Salazar Slytherin au naturel wasn't on his list of Top Ten Things to Do when Temporally Dislocated [come to think of it being actually Temporally Dislocated wasn't on his list, either.]. "I appear to be missing my clothes..."

Solvarr winked with a bit of a smile. "Ah, that was Rowena's idea after you fell asleep on the chair outside. Not quite sure about the reasoning behind it, but she was quite adamant." He turned and picked up a tunic and leggings that had been lying on the desk, tossing them to Draco in a smooth motion. "I think she has a crush on you."

"Really?" Despite himself, Draco felt flattered. "But...I'm not really interested in her..."

"She's considered very pretty."

An image of Rowena's perfectly oval face, with her bluish eyes and straight black hair, crept into his mind. Very pretty, but in that perfect, doll-like way that seemed to preclude an interesting character behind the wide-eyed gaze. "I'm not really into her type, actually."

For a brief moment, Solvarr's features darkened into an expression of pure dislike; Draco could almost see the Slytherin of the future. It quickly dissolved into mild sheepishness. "Ah, you mean Helga, don't you?"

"Yes, of course," Draco said, offhand. "They've got her all wrong in the future. I mean, she's supposed to be this molasses-sweet, plump, cheerful girl."

"Helga's the sweet one?" The wizard burst into laughter; cold and loud, like the discordant clinking of badly fashioned bells. "And plump? Now there's something you don't hear said every day."

"I can imagine... So, what's her story?"

"Helga and I have Nordic ancestry- though I was born in England and she was born back in Scandinavia. I wanted to continue my education, so my father sent me to the Gryffindors...and of course, I had to bring her along." He raised one eyebrow in dislike.

"Oh, you knew each other, then?"

Solvarr fixed Draco with his eye and shook his head. "Not at all. We were just married."

"You're married to her?"

"Oh yes..." He dismissed Draco's incredulity with a wave. "it was a family ordeal. Hers is held in quite high standing back home. You keep forgetting we're in the bloody dark ages, my dear Draco..."

"Married."

He sighed. "Really, it doesn't mean anything." Solvarr grinned, a little lewdly. "She'll be more difficult to impress than Rowena. Not easily swayed, is our Helga."

Draco was wondering whether he was suffering from a severe case of delusion. He wished a talking hippo or one of the Muppets would walk through the door so that he could just lie back down on the bed and curl up into a whimpering ball of crazy. "You're married to her...and you wouldn't mind if I made a move on her?"

"It's more a legal marriage than an actual one. I despise the woman. And besides, I'm interested in someone else..." He hesitated for a moment, looking closely at Draco.

It reminded the boy of the kind of look you gave a three-day old slice of cake in the fridge [in other words, the should-I-shouldn't-I look].

Apparently, Solvarr decided he should. The wizard sighed rather voluminously; as if it was some shameful thing he was about to impart. "I don't know why I'm telling you this- but- I have a rather gaping flaw when it comes to my taste in partners. I am, by some unfathomable cosmic joke, hopelessly in love with Godric Gryffindor."

The wizard from the future just gaped.

"Oh, don't look at me like that, Draco!" He made an expression between annoyance and helplessness. "You're in love with Helga, whom you've seen for ten minutes at best. And five of those ten minutes she was trying to get us to stick a sword in that chest of yours. You can't help who you fall in love with," he took a deep breath, and then sat down on the edge of the bed. "But I know it's rather pathetic."

"With Gryffindor!" Draco managed to squeak.

"I know, I know- I shudder to think that I share this particular trait with about 90% of the double-digit IQ female population...I believe you have a word for it in your time. What is it?...Ah, yes...fangirl."

It was an effort not to burst into laughter. Hercules would have been proud of that effort. Draco kept having flashes of Slytherin at some kind of concert, screaming and holding out a pad for an autograph and jumping up and down. It was not an image conducive to seriousness. "But, if you're in love with Gryffindor...why aren't you two together? I mean..." He trailed off. The end of his sentence was obvious: Godric couldn't be that hard to get. Especially if you're a Slytherin [or the Slytherin- it worked both ways].

"You know The Song? Oh come on, the Weird Sisters, about the various...shall we say...attributes of a hedgehog?"

Draco knew the one. Everyone knew that song.

"Well," he said, utterly miserable. "The chorus might as well be 'Godric Can Never Be Buggered at All'." The intense look of embarrassment and despair on the Founder's face tugged at some forgotten pity in Draco.

More than that, it tugged on his very well remembered opportunity-detectors. Playing 10^th Century cupid to the Slyth-man could be the clincher. "That bad, huh?" Draco nodded in what he hoped was a sympathetic manner. In actuality, it had all the sympathy of a circling vulture. "What have you tried so far?"

"I tried so many things to make him take notice, and then I decided it would be a lot simpler just to make his life miserable." It was a perfectly logical sentiment, to Draco at least. "He's always making puppy-eyes at Rowena, so I decided I'd make him a little jealous, if you know what I mean. He's tried giving us lectures. Lectures! You sleep with the woman a man loves and you expect something more! I've made so many plans- they've never failed me before, but Godric is impervious to all of them!"

"He can't be infallible. We'll find something." Draco reached out hesitantly and patted Solvarr on the shoulder. "Don't worry about it."

With a little shake of his head, the Founder stood up and cleared his throat. Within seconds, his cool, imperturbable face slipped back on. "Right..." even through the semi-darkness, Draco could see the genuine grin on his lips. "Thank you, Draco. I think you and I are going to be...great friends."

With that, he walked out, leaving Draco completely awed and very, very pleased. It looked like Malfoy might end up on the honour roll of Founders after all; despite the inevitable issues this might create with the very fabric of reality itself [he paused here for a moment to wonder how exactly reality had bowels if it was made of fabric].

Ah, but back to the point: his thoughts on the well being of the Universe could be summed up in three and a half words. I. don't. -ing. care.

Unfortunately, he was going to have to rethink that strategy very soon...

*

"Kronos! Kronos you barmy old codger!" The Handyman blasted the red-and-white door open with far more force than was necessary. "Where in the seven dimensions are you? Come out right now or I'll flush you down a spatial drain like the temporal hairball that you are-,"

His flow [which was more like river rapids thundering over a waterfall than a gentle 'flow'] was interrupted by the appearance of a rather mild looking man dressed in a white jumper and clutching a cup of tea.

"Er, yes? Oh, Consuela...there you are, now, I've been looking for my glasses all evening-," the man stopped rather abruptly and peered at the Handyman very myopically. "You're looking a little...tired...today, my dear girl, perhaps you should get some rest?"

"I'm. Not. Consuela. You dim-witted old fool!" Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, the self-preservation instinct was telling him it wasn't such a good idea to go around yelling at Gods, but right now, anger was treading very firmly on self-preservation's face. "You've been mucking about with my Temporal Hub again! Don't deny it! -,"

"Now, now, old chap, no need to get all upset... I just let darling May and her little friends have a go at the Dimension Rearranger for a bit. You know how the young are, dear boy, just raring to have a go at daddy's doohickeys," he said this with the vague pride and intermingled fear of parents with beastly children quite often display. Some parents have rose tinted spectacles; Kronos had a greenhouse on his nose. "Very keen. Got the proper spirit of the thing, you know."

The Handyman calmed himself with a visible effort. "You let your daughter, who, might I say, is the under Goddess of Mayhem use your Rearranger?-" The rebuke had absolutely no effect on the God. "Oh, alright, now- who exactly are her friends?"

"Chasey, Mischelle, Venadora, Mallory..." Kronos ticked them off in his head, his face scrunching up as he tried to remember the last once. "Oh...and Lusille."

It took a few moments before the Handyman remembered that taking human names was the new fashion among the rebellious youngsters now. He'd seen an article about it in The Celestial Chronicler a while ago, when the Crusade against Anti Divine Activity released their manifesto and were quoted as saying, "It's the job of every God to make sure good things happen to good people and anything else is Anti Divine! We're prepared to take bold steps to show the rest of the Universe the error of their- arrgh!- arrgh! you bloody bastard, wait till I get you!" -at which point the speaker hopped off the podium and ran after a very quick member of the audience [who happened to be trailing very rotten tomatoes]

"Ah, of course, of course, Mayhem would hang around with Chaos, Mischief, Vengeance, Malice and Lust." There was a sudden coldness to the Handyman, giving one the feeling that if he were to show his anger, the result would be worse than a very large atomic bomb exploding inside one's cranium. "Do you, you senile twat, have any idea what they were planning?"

"Well, they were rather upset and kept going on about how it was unfair that the rest of mythology labelled them...teenagers, you know? Going through a bit of an identity crisis...had one myself," he chuckled to himself, and seemed on the point of relating a story about his youth. One look at the Handyman changed that. "Er, well, they said they wanted to do some good for the humans. Punish the bad, and so on..."

"But she's Mayhem! She doesn't do good!"

The old man reached up and scratched his stubble thoughtfully. "Well now, I reckon that's the sort of thing she was upset about. Mayhem has to cause mayhem and all that sort of thing."

"But she will cause it! She has! She always has been! It's her basic nature, you can't change that."

"Yes, well, she was so very enthusiastic..."

"How could you let her mess around with Time and Space?! It could be dangerous!"

A sudden flash of cognisance presented itself in Kronos watery blue eyes. "Dangerous? My poor little May's defenceless. She's a rabbit, really, on the inside."

"I'm sure she bloody is, once you get past all that leather and chainmail. Now," the Handyman decided to Take Action, seizing Kronos's hand and dragging him along. "You're coming with me and we are going to find your trigger-happy girl. After which we're going to get that twentieth-century prat out of the past."

""Do I get to be Master of Time?"

The Handyman glared at Kronos for a few moments before sighing deeply. Sometimes, he wondered whether it was all worth it...

"Oh, all right." He muttered.

*

There was a rap on the door, soft and gentle. It was the sort of rap that apologised for itself and told you that the person rapping was wishing very hard to be somewhere else. Possibly somewhere quieter and nicer, where people said 'please' and 'thank you' far too much. And that the person was probably rather sentimental about things like raindrops and roses and whiskers on kittens.

Draco, who had been checking his appearance in the magically conjured mirror, quickly ended his spell. The tunic and associated fancy bits [of the vaguely useless kind only nobility could afford] looked quite good on him, even if he did say so himself. He cleared his throat and straightened up; preparing to act every bit the Lord to whichever unfortunate soul was on the other side of the door. With what he believed was regal poise, he flung open the portal, and immediately stopped dead, his mouth hanging open in a vague but accurate imitation of the South Asiatic Guppy fish.

"Mrs Ponde?"