A Life in the Past

Harry, Ron, Hermione, Alfred, Tobias, Martha, Jonathon, Ebenezer, Nigel, and Nicholas stared into the chamber of which the door had just been opened. The chamber had stone floor and walls, and it was completely void of furniture. The room was dimly lit, and the area toward the back hidden in shadow,

Standing in the centre of the room was Edgar Malfoy, looking quite sinister (and quite like Lucius Malfoy), indeed.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione recognised him as Lucius Malfoy, father of Draco Malfoy, husband of Narcissa Malfoy. But Alfred, Martha, Tobias, Jonathon, and Ebenezer recognized him as their arch-enemy, the man who had planned to steal all of the Weasley family's possession. Nicholas and Nigel recognized him as the man who had walked threateningly down the corridors of Hogwarts with Elias Malfoy by his side.

Yes, this man was an enemy to all Muggles, Muggle-borns, and non-Muggle haters, meaning every person staring at him at that exact moment.

"Well, well," Edgar spoke coldly, voice so much like Lucius Malfoy's. "What have we here? The entire Weasley clan? Come to bid your farewell to young Wilfred, no doubt."

Alfred stepped forward, trying to look as threatening as possible, which was rather complicated, as Edgar looked cold, powerful, and evil in every way possible.

"Where be my son, Edgar?" Alfred demanded.

"Halfway to death," said a voice from somewhere in the back of the room.

Elias Malfoy stepped out into the light, sneering. "He may not live," he continued. "Very little time he has."

"Give me my son!" Alfred shouted angrily.

"You call yourself a father?" said Edgar. "It took you far too long to realise your son was not with you."

"Give me my son!" Alfred repeated, his face a dark shade of red.

"Sign over your fortune," said Edgar, calm as can be.

"Where the Hell is my brother?!" Jonathon shouted, he and Tobias charging into the chamber, face red with fury, fists clenched.

"Control those tempers," said Edgar, still tranquil. "All in good time. Now, do you sign away your fortune?"

"No!" Ron shouted, following Tobias and Jonathon into the chamber. "I'm not going to let this happen!"

"Ron, no!" Hermione cried out.

Elias and Edgar Malfoy both looked at Ron, eyes wide, for they did not know the entire story.

"You can't have the fortune! I won't let you take it!" Ron shouted. "It's ours! You've made our lives miserable, and you act as though you're above all! Well you aren't, Malfoy, you've stolen everything you've got from the Weasleys. But not this time, I won't let you!"

"Ron!" Hermione cried. "Don't do this!"

"I have to do this, Hermione!" Ron shouted. "I can't not do it. I've got to get back what's rightfully mine!"

"You can't change history!" Hermione said. "What's going to happen is going to happen some way or another, and you can't change it!"

"Yes I can!" Ron shouted.

"Complete nonsense!" said Edgar. "The gold is rightfully mine. It belongs to the Malfoy name!"

"How does it?" said Ron, positively fuming.

"When the stupid Weasleys came from Ireland three hundred years ago, they stole from us," said Edgar. "And it is my plan to take back what is rightfully ours."

"You liar!" Ebenezer shouted, glaring at Edgar. "You are just greedy! All of you Malfoys are greedy rats!"

"Tis Weasleys who be greedy," said Elias. "Power hungry."

"You Malfoys be the power hungry," Nicholas retorted, a terrible scowl on his face.

"And pay you will!" Nigel added.

"Let us tell you of a story," said Edgar. "A story of a girl named Annabelle Weasley."

"I do not wish to hear it!" Jonathon shouted. "You leave my sister alone! And give us back Wilfred!"

"Stop trying to steal from us!" shouted Ron. "You aren't being fair!"

"Where in blazes did he come from?" Elias questioned, gesturing at Ron.

"None of your business," said Ron. "And if you want the Malfoy name to live on, don't take from the Weasley family. Ever."

"Ron, no, you can't change the past!" Hermione shrieked.

"Yes I can!" Ron yelled. "And I bloody well will. Either Malfoy will have never been born, or we won't have to be poor."

"What be this nonsense?" Edgar questioned. "The Malfoy name will live forever to come. And we will diminish Mudbloods, and rule the world, as it was meant for us."

"F-father?" a choked voice from a back corner in the room said, causing everyone to look in that direction.

Alfred rushed forward and found his son, tied up in a shadowy corner. He picked up his son and embraced him. "Wilfred!" he cried. "Tis I to blame!"

"Say farewell, Weasley," said Edgar, pulling out his wand. "Your son has not long if you do not wish to sign over your fortune."

"Not if I have anything to do with it," said Ron, throwing himself on top of Edgar.

"Ron, you can't take him on unarmed!" Hermione cried. "Harry, do something!"

Harry looked around, took the wand from Hermione's hand, then rushed forward to where his best friend was wrestling Edgar Malfoy.

Harry searched his mind for some sort of spell, but all he could think of was a tickling charm. "Invisticklius!" he muttered, and instantaneously, Edgar Malfoy burst into laughter, writhing around on the floor, trying to stop the tickling.

"Get Wilfred and we'll escape!" Ron shouted to Alfred.

***

"The time is now!" Annabelle shrieked.

Draco and Ginny stared at her. She hadn't had a strange fit for a while now, and frankly they were beginning to think she was better, but now that she had screamed something out of the blue, they knew she was still somehow possessed.

"We must escape!" Annabelle went on hurriedly. "They take my brother, they take us, we escape; we leave the Malfoys imprisoned!"

"What are you on about?" Ginny asked curiously.

Annabelle hurried to the door through which the others had gone not long before.

Ginny and Draco followed her, and when they passed through the door, an interesting scene met their eyes.

A door was open, and Hermione, Martha, and Nigel were standing just outside it, allowing a space through which to see inside the dark chamber. Inside the chamber, there was a man resembling Lucius Malfoy giggling on the floor, Nicholas, Jonathon, and Tobias Weasley were standing around doing basically nothing, Alfred Weasley carrying a boy resembling Ron Weasley, Harry Potter holding a wand, and Ron Weasley walking towards the entrance of the room. And there was someone else, standing off to the side was Elias Malfoy, wearing a scowl.

Annabelle sped through the space in the doorway and slapped Elias across the face. "How dare you!" she shrieked. "Ruined my life, you have!"

"D-d-d-do so-s-some-something El-Elias!" the giggly man said through giggles.

"I think that's Edgar Malfoy," Hermione muttered to Ginny, deciding to inform her of what was going on. "That's Wilfred Weasley," she continued, pointing to the boy who looked like Ron. "And I think that boy with the blonde hair's name is Elias."

"I know Elias," said Ginny. "Well, I've had the displeasure of meeting him."

Elias Malfoy had plunged himself at Alfred Weasley and pulled Wilfred away from him. He pulled out his wand and pointed it to Alfred's head. "Do not move," he threatened.

"That wand!" Ginny cried. "That's mine!" She rushed forward and plucked the wand from Elias's fingers.

"There's two of them!" Elias screamed, very girlishly. "Father! There's two of them!"

Edgar stood up unsteadily, wand in hand. "Stupefy!" he hollered.

A blinding flash of green light was emitted from the wand, and the greenish light hit Tobias and Jonathon Weasley, knocking them both unconscious.

Edgar smirked, and pointed his wand at Nicholas. "Stupefy!" he repeated, knocking Nicholas out. He pointed his wand at Nigel. "Stupefy!" he said again, and again, the spell worked perfectly, and knocked Nigel unconscious.

Martha cried out, only seconds before she was hit also with a stupefying spell.

Alfred looked around at his family frantically. "Help me!" he cried out to Harry and Ron, who immediately rushed to his side, and aided him in carrying his son out of the chamber.

"Not so fast," said Elias, putting himself between them and the exit. "First you must sign away your fortune."

"Don't do it!" Ron cried out. "Don't do it!"

"Love is far more important to us than gold," said Alfred. "I shall sign it all away if I have to, just for the sake of my family."

"Do not father," Annabelle pleaded. "Sign me away! This trouble is all my doing!"

"Couldn't be more right," Draco smirked.

Hermione frowned at him.

"Isn't this like watching theatre?" he asked. "It's really quite interesting, but so predictable. He'll sign away the gold, the Weasleys will be forever poor, and the Malfoys forever rich. It's sad though, because now I know that the money I have once belonged to filth like the Weasleys."

"You are really sick," said Hermione, glaring at him.

"Well, Ginny isn't filth," said Draco. "Or was that not what you meant? I didn't quite get that, I don't speak Mudblood."

Hermione raised a hand to slap him, and he ducked it.

"Don't want Mudblood slime on my face," he said.

Hermione made a sound of pure frustration.

"You know, if I was writing this," said Draco. "I would make Al- what's his face sign Annabelle away, then Elias marry Annabelle, but Annabelle leave him for that Potter character, and then the Weasleys become poor because of some other reason. But that's just me."

"Why would he sign his daughter away?" Hermione asked, despite herself.

"Because she doesn't fit in, does she?" said Draco. "And if she could do that to her brother, there's no telling what else she'll do. So they'd just make themselves happier by getting rid of her."

"Then how would they lose their money?" Hermione asked without knowing why.

"Because of insurance," said Draco. "See, the mother will get tried as a witch, she'll be killed off, then Alfred has to pay all these stupid fines, but nobody ever suspected men to be wizards back in this era, so nothing will happen to any of the sons. In fact, that Wilfred will marry a Muggle, then she'll become a Weasley and have way too many children. That's how they lose the money, all the sons have too many children to support, and work goes down, meaning slowly, they have to start selling bits of their house."

"Wouldn't it make more sense if there was a fire?" Hermione asked. "A fire that burns everything down, and then they rebuild it as the Burrow?"

Draco shrugged. "What does the Burrow even look like?" he asked.

"Oh right, you've never seen it," said Hermione. "It's spectacular!"

Draco rolled his eyes. "Yeah, that would make my Manor... what, extravagant?" he drawled.

"I'll bet you don't even know what that means," said Hermione.

"So?" said Draco. "I don't need to know what it means, I've got money."

"Wonder what's going on?" Hermione said, swiftly changing the subject.

"He's signing something," said Draco. "This is the predictable part where he signs away his home because he loves his family too much."

"Why does Annabelle look so upset?" Hermione wondered aloud.

"Because she wants to be sold to Elias," said Draco. "For a girl living in a respectable era such as this, she gets around."

"Wilfred looks so upset as well," said Hermione. "He's crying."

"He'll miss the money the most," said Draco. "And think of the pain he must be feeling right now; he looks as if they beat him."

"They're Malfoys," said Hermione. "I wouldn't put it past them."

"Shut up," said Draco.

"What's your problem?" Hermione asked.

"Are you forgetting? I'm a Malfoy," Draco replied.

"Oh yeah," said Hermione. "Slipped my mind."

"So for a minute there, you didn't hate me because I'm a Malfoy," said Draco.

"I suppose," Hermione admitted.

"Yeah, I forgot you were a Mudblood," said Draco. "But just for a minute. And don't worry, I still hated you."

"What for?" Hermione inquired.

"Because you're damn annoying," Draco responded, before turning his attention to what was going on inside the chamber. "Why does Ginny look so shocked? It's like she's been petrified," he said.

"Maybe because she doesn't want them to sign the gold away?" Hermione suggested.

"I suppose so," said Draco. "Oh look, they're coming out."

Ron and Harry stepped through the doorway, followed by Ginny, Alfred, Wilfred, Tobias, Ebenezer, Jonathon, and Nicholas. (Tobias, Ebenezer, Jonathon, and Nicholas had been awoken by a simple enervate spell).

"Pleasure doing business with you, Weasley," said Edgar from inside the chamber. "I may not be richer, yet I have a new slave, and a wench for my eaters of death."

"What's up with this eaters of death nonsense?" asked Draco.

"It's like Death eaters," said Hermione. "But these ones follow Salazar Slytherin's will, although he disappeared about a hundred years before this year."

"Which year?" asked Draco.

"1143," Hermione replied.

"We're in 1143?" Draco asked. "Wow, that was a long time ago."

"You are so dense!" said Hermione.

"Don't call him dense!" Ginny sobbed. "Just because he isn't perfect doesn't mean you can criticize him. Nobody's perfect."

"What's going on?" Draco asked. "And what wench was my fath- I mean Edgar talking about?"

"Annabelle," Ginny sobbed. "They signed Annabelle away. They don't care about their only daughter!"

"Oh, it's okay," said Draco, pulling Ginny into his embrace. "She was bad, they didn't need her."

"What if that happened to me?" Ginny wailed.

"It wouldn't," said Draco. "They don't do that stuff anymore."

In the meantime, Martha and Nigel had been awoken and informed of Alfred's decision. Martha was in tears of rage, screaming at her husband. Nigel, along with the rest of his brothers was shouting evil words at his father.

"She did it willingly," said Alfred.

"That's really sad," Hermione said to Draco and Ginny. "I can't believe he did that."

"It all started out with a clever idea from a Malfoy," said Draco. "Next comes the Muggle, then the children, and then they'll sell bits of their house."

"That's unlikely," said Hermione.

"What are you two talking about?" asked Ginny, pulling away from Draco.

"Oh, nothing," said Hermione, walking away from Draco and Ginny, towards Harry and Ron.

"Draco?" asked Ginny.

"Oh, look, what's that your brother's doing?" he said, trying to change the subject.

"He's kissing his girlfriend," said Ginny. "You're absolutely terrible at changing the subject, you weren't subtle at all."

"Wonder what'll happen to Potter?" Draco said, once again, attempting a swift change of topic.