Save The Date (A Drarry FanFiction)

Chapter Three

   "Hmmm," said the dog, clearly not convinced. "Okay, what did you eat, what was your dinner?"

"Bat spleen soup," said Draco immediately. It was one of his favourites. "With toadstool risotto and pumpkin...pumpkin..." He blinked. He knew he and his mother had dined on pumpkin rind, but he was also recalling a steaming hot pumpkin pie, with several scoops of melting ice cream. He grimaced. That sounded far too sweet for his liking, but he was seeing it quite clearly in his mind's eye. He was sat at a long table full of others around his age, all eating and making merry.

Who were they? He was sure he didn't know them. Except...he had been sitting next to a girl he felt very familiar with, with jet black hair bobbed just under her ear lobes. She had placed her hand on his knee, and leaned in to whisper to him. "Be patient," were the words she'd uttered, but that was wrong – wrong wrong wrong!

"No," Draco said, shaking his head. The castle he turned to look up at now, his life-long home, had no such hall, and he'd never seen those people before. He couldn't have, they weren't residents of Halloween Land, he was sure...wasn't he?

"You alright there?" the dog asked with a modicum more sympathy.

"I'm fine," Draco snapped. He was probably getting confused with a bad dream. That was what those images were most likely, and also the probable cause of his strange mood this morning.

"Sure," the dog agreed in an infuriating placating tone. "How about after that, after you went up and did your hauntings. You remember going to bed?"

Draco opened his mouth to say that of course he did, he'd woken up in his room as usual after all. But he couldn't quite picture himself specifically doing it last night. He knew he normally changed into his night robe and read for an hour or so, listening to the groaning and the clanking of the castle to sooth him off to sleep. But last night felt like a distant and hazy memory, not solid at all.

"Why can't I remember?" he rasped, feeling a prick of fear dance up his spine.

The dog trotted over to him and rested a paw on his shiny boot. "It's alright Sunshine," he said kindly, which surprised Draco somewhat. "It'll come back to you, just think. What's real?"

Here, this was real, Draco stubbornly thought. This was his home town, he'd spent his whole life in Halloween Land, he knew every nook and cranny of it, and these other images were just the result of some poorly digested mushrooms.

But they wouldn't leave him be. He could feel that girl's hand on his knee, the earnest twinkle in her dark eyes making his stomach flip over. They'd been looking at a boy, and Draco's heart actually contracted in his chest as he recalled his messy black hair, the reflection of the candlelight on his glasses...

Now who was he?

"I don't know," he whispered, not wanted to confess out loud. "I don't know what's real. Why do I have other memories? It's like...they're side by side?"

The dog grinned toothily at him. "That sounds about right," he said.

"How can it be right?" Draco snapped, fear making his temper short. "It's nonsense, that's what it is."

The dog huffed. "No need to get testy, Your Highness. Ain't my fault you fell through a portal."

"I did no such thing," Draco retorted, even as the same image of the pumpkin on the tree came to mind.

"Suit yourself, grumpy pants," the dog said with a roll of his eyes, scratching himself again. His fabric wings were strange; Draco didn't understand why he was wearing a costume, like someone from the Living Land might?

"Why would you say these things?" he asked, curiosity getting the better of him.

The dog shrugged. "It ain't the first time I've seen this," he said. "It's rare, but I've seen plenty like you before, and it takes a good bit a prompting for you to override what they've done to your head."

"They?" Draco asked, not liking the sound of that. He thought of the mayor and his council, always meddling where they didn't belong.

But the dog nodded. "They, them, the usual ominous undertones a secretive governing body usually implies. They dragged you down here and messed with your mind. If I hadn't of said anything, you would never have known."

"So..." Draco began, trying to unravel what was going on. "You think I'm not really the prince?"

The dog squinted at him. "No clue what you might be up there," he said with a flick of his eyes to the cloudy sky. "But down here, nah. Sorry mate, there weren't no prince here yesterday, but now everyone thinks there was. It's just the way it works. They shift everyone's reality, so they don't remember it being any different."

Draco rubbed his forehead. "I don't understand," he said, his insides writhing like snakes. What was going on?

The dog sighed. "Alright, here's bones of it, you ready?" Draco wasn't sure he was, but he was tired of talking in circles, so he nodded. "You were living up there – in the Land of the Living," he started explain. "The veils between worlds are week on the days of their holidays, but to actually fall through..." He shook his head. "I'm guessing you're one of those wizard types, using magic and all that, that always exacerbates things."

Magic – now that did spark something in Draco's mind. "Magic – I have a magic wand," he cried, his hands automatically flying to his trouser pockets, but of course there was nothing there. "Or I did?"

"Still do, I imagine," the dog said. "Just not with you right now. You starting to get it?" he asked hopefully, his tail giving a tentative flick back and forth.

Draco looked at his hands, at the black nail varnish that this morning had seemed essential and now felt totally out of place. What was happening, why was he struggling to remember who he was? He was a Prince...wasn't he?

"What's going on?" he rasped.

The dog licked his nose. "It's alright mate, take your time. But," he added with a tilt of his head. "Not too much time. We're on a clock here."

"Is this..." Draco began, starting to pace widthways across the cobbled street between the crooked terraced houses. "Is this even real?"

"Oh it's definitely real, I'm afraid," the dog scoffed. "It's just not where you come from, not who you think you are."

"My name is Draco," he announced with sudden defiance. "Darkling Prince of the Land of Halloween." But...was that all? Why had he awoken with such a startling sense of unease, of misplacement?

What were those peculiar images he had floating around his head? The more he focused on that grand hall with the feast, the clearer it became. He could see so much green and silver, and he thought again to that idea he'd had about the wand.

"My name is Draco...Malfoy," he said with sudden clarity. He covered his mouth with his hand. He rolled the word around in his mind. Malfoy. Yes, that was right. But how could it be? "What's happening?" he whispered. He was a prince, but he was equally sure he was a wizard too, a student no less.

It was all coming crashing down now.