Chapter Text
The Room of Requirement was filled with the ghosts of forgotten things, and tonight, Draco Malfoy felt like one of them.
He slammed his fist against the towering, splintered wood of the Vanishing Cabinet. A puff of acrid dust exploded from the impact, making him cough. It was useless. Still broken. Still inert. And with every passing day, the Dark Lord's deadline crept closer, a phantom hand tightening around his throat.
Draco was sixteen years old, and he was failing.
He was also, according to the Healers at St. Mungo's and his own cursed biology, a Beta.
It was the most painfully average, unremarkable, and useless thing he could be. In a world rapidly dividing itself into the powerful and the prey, Draco was neither. He was just… part of the background. Like Crabbe. Like Goyle. Like Hestia Carrow, for Merlin’s sake. His father, for all his faults, was an Alpha. His mother, a Beta, but one with the grace and steel of a high-born pureblood. Draco was just… nothing. A pale, pointed, disappointing nothing.
His presentation, late as it was, had been a quiet, humiliating affair over the summer. No sudden surge of power. No intoxicating scent marking him as dominant. No delicate shift into a cherished, protected class. Just a mild fever and a note from his Healer confirming his status. Beta.
Then, there was Potter.
Draco’s lip curled in a familiar sneer just thinking about it. Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived-To-Be-An-Absolute-Git, had returned for Sixth Year as an Alpha.
It was, Draco admitted with a searing, private bitterness, a spectacular transformation. The scrawny, knobbly-kneed Gryffindor idiot was gone. In his place stood a man. Potter was suddenly, infuriatingly, 6'4", with shoulders that strained the seams of his school robes and a presence that saturated every room he entered. He didn't just walk into the Great Hall anymore; he claimed it. The air crackled around him. Weaker Betas and even some younger Alphas unconsciously deferred, stepping out of his path.
Draco, who had spent five years lording his height and breeding over Potter, now had to crane his neck to glare at him. The jealousy was a physical sickness, a sour bile that rose in his throat whenever he saw Potter laugh, his voice a new, deeper timbre that carried across the Hall. He was everything Draco was supposed tobe: powerful, respected, dominant. An Alpha.
Draco kicked a rusted suit of armour, sending its helmet clattering to the floor. His mission was impossible, his future bleak, and his own body a traitorous, average failure.
He slumped against a pile of discarded desks, his head in his hands. He was so tired. So scared. He just wanted a way out.
His boot hit something small and hard. Looking down, he saw a small, silver-backed hand mirror, its glass cracked and dark with tarnish. Probably some girl's forgotten trinket. Idly, desperate for any distraction, he picked it up. He wiped the grime from the glass with his sleeve, expecting to see his own pale, stressed reflection.
The glass rippled.
Draco froze, his heart lurching. It wasn't his reflection. Images, smoky and indistinct, began to form. He saw himself, older, but not by much. He was standing in the Malfoy Manor drawing-room, looking just as he did now—thin, pale, unremarkable. A Beta. The Dark Lord was there, a shadow with red eyes, and he was looking at Draco with utter, chilling disappointment. Then the vision dissolved, and the Dark Lord’s fury was palpable. Draco saw his own body, lifeless on the marble floor.
He gasped, dropping the mirror. But it didn't hit the ground. It hovered, and a new vision swirled to life.
He saw the Great Hall, but it was shattered, the roof open to a stormy sky. And in the centre of it all stood Potter. He was an absolute giant, radiating a golden, oppressive aura of pure Alpha dominance. He was broad, buff, and fearsome. He raised his wand, and a cowering, pathetic figure—Beta Draco—was blasted into oblivion.
Draco snatched the mirror from the air and hurled it against the far wall. It shattered into a thousand pieces.
He was breathing hard, a cold sweat on his brow. That was his future. Failure. Death. Utterly overshadowed and destroyed by Potter. The jealousy and fear coalesced into something new. Something sharp and desperate.
If he was a Beta, he was disposable. A pawn to be sacrificed by the Dark Lord, a gnat to be swatted by Potter. He had no power, no influence.
But…
A new thought, insidious and wild, began to unspool in his mind.
There was another, rarer designation. One so scarce it was almost mythical. Omega.
In all of Hogwarts, there were only two. A Hufflepuff fifth-year and a Ravenclaw seventh-year. They were, for all intents and purposes, royalty. They were exempt from difficult exams, excused from stressful detentions, and constantly surrounded by a protective coterie of friends, Betas, and even Alphas. Professors softened their voices when addressing them. Filch, Filch, had been seen clearing a path for the Hufflepuff girl when she looked distressed.
Omegas were cherished. Omegas were protected. They were seen as too precious, too delicate for the harsh realities of the world.
And male Omegas… Draco had never met one. He’d only read about them. They were so rare as to be a statistical impossibility, a one-in-a-million genetic lottery. A male Omega would be… untouchable.
Draco’s breath hitched.
If he couldn't be an Alpha, with the power to fight... he could be an Omega, with the power to flee.
The Dark Lord would never trust such a... delicate creature with a mission like this. He would be recalled, set aside. Dumbledore, with his bleeding-heart protection of the weak, would move heaven and earth to shield him. And Potter… Potter, with his idiotic, hard-wired Alpha-hero complex, would be biologically compelled to protect, not to harm.
It was brilliant. It was insane. It was his only way out.
For the next three weeks, the Vanishing Cabinet was forgotten. Draco lived in the Restricted Section, pouring over ancient, leather-bound tomes of biological magic. He wasn't looking for a cure for his Beta status; he was looking for a weapon.
He found it in a rotting book bound in what looked suspiciously like human skin: Sanguis Mutatio: A Forcing of the Second Self.
It wasn't a simple glamour or a hormonal supplement. It was a potion, enhanced by a blood ritual, that didn't just trigger a presentation—it rewrote one. It was hideously complex, monstrously illegal, and unbelievably dangerous. The text warned that the body would "violently reject" the forced change. It spoke of "biological reconstruction," "unbearable agony," and a high risk of "systemic collapse."
Draco didn't care. He meticulously gathered the ingredients: powdered Moonstone, Ashwinder eggs, a vial of Runespoor blood, and a dozen other restricted items he liberated from Snape’s private stores. The final ingredient, just as he finished the brewing in a disused potions lab, was a ritualistic offering of three drops of his own blood, spilled onto the pearlescent, viscous liquid.
The potion swirled, turning a pale, sickly rose-gold. It was done.
He stoppered the vial, his hand shaking so badly he nearly dropped it. This was it. This was his escape.
He chose dinner. The Great Hall. The place of his greatest, most public humiliation. He would walk in a Beta, and leave as something else entirely.
He stood outside the great oak doors, the tiny vial heavy in his pocket. His heart hammered against his ribs. He could feel the thrum of the school inside—hundreds of students, the scent of roast chicken, and beneath it all, the oppressive, ambient hum of Potter’s Alpha energy.
Draco pushed the doors open.
He walked with his head held high, a perfect mask of pureblood indifference on his face. He felt hundreds of eyes on him. He hadn't been seen much outside of class for weeks. He saw Potter’s head snap up from the Gryffindor table. Potter was watching him. Harry had been watching him all year, his gaze filled with a stupid, righteous suspicion.
Draco had heard the rumours. Potter thought his secrecy, his pale and stressed appearance, was just late-onset presentation trouble. The thought that Harry might be worried about him was so laughable, so pathetic, it almost made Draco gag. Let him watch. Let them all watch.
He slid onto the bench at the Slytherin table, next to a blissfully ignorant Pansy Parkinson, who immediately started prattling on about a new set of robes.
"Draco, are you even listening? They're velvet, trimmed with..."
Under the cover of the table, Draco's hand closed around the vial. He pulled the cork free with his thumb. His hand was shaking again. He looked across the hall one last time. Potter was still looking at him, his brow furrowed, his green eyes sharp and focused.
You want something to watch, Potter? Watch this.
In one smooth, practiced motion, Draco brought the vial to his lips and downed the entire contents.
It tasted like ozone, ash, and old, cold blood.
For a moment, nothing. He set the empty vial down on the bench beside him. Pansy was still talking. He picked up his fork, pretending to focus on his plate. He stabbed a piece of potato.
Then, the heat began.
It started as a low, coiling warmth deep in his stomach, as if he'd swallowed a hot coal. He managed to lift the potato to his mouth, his hand trembling slightly. He chewed. It tasted like cardboard.
The warmth flared, becoming a searing, liquid fire that flooded his veins. His fork clattered onto his plate.
"Draco?" Pansy’s voice sounded very far away. "Are you all right? You've gone white as a sheet."
"Fine," he managed to hiss, but the word was stolen by a sudden, violent cramp that seized his entire lower abdomen. It was a pain unlike anything he had ever known—not the sharp sting of a curse or the ache of a broken bone, but a deep, tearing pain. A changing pain.
It felt like his very bones were being dissolved and reformed. He could feel, with horrific, intimate clarity, his insides shifting.
"Urgh..." A small, choked sound escaped him. He clutched his stomach, bending over.
"Draco!" This time it was Blaise Zabini, from across the table.
The pain doubled, tripled. It was a white-hot spike driving up from his pelvis into his stomach. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't see. The potion was rewriting him, just as the book had promised, and it was excruciating. He was going to be sick. He was going to scream.
He shoved back from the bench, his goblet toppling over and spilling pumpkin juice across the table.
"I... need... air," he gasped.
He stumbled away from the table, lurching toward the doors. He could hear Pansy calling his name, but he couldn't stop. Every step was agony. He felt the eyes of the entire Hall on his back, a prickling, heavy weight. He didn't look back to see if Potter was one of them. He just knew.
He burst into the Entrance Hall, the cool air a brief, blessed relief. But the potion was relentless. Another wave of nauseating, grinding pain hit him, buckling his knees. He clung to the stone wall, panting.
He couldn't stay here. He needed somewhere private. Somewhere he could fall apart.
Myrtle's. The sixth-floor boys' bathroom. It was always empty.
He hauled himself up the marble staircase, his legs shaking violently. He was leaving a trail of... something. Sweat? No, the scent was wrong. It was musky, sweet, and metallic. It was the smell of his own terror.
He nearly fell through the door of the bathroom, his hand slamming against the cistern of the nearest toilet to keep from collapsing. He ripped his tie loose, his breath coming in short, sharp sobs.
"Merlin... Merlin, make it stop... please..."
The pain wasn't just in his stomach anymore. It was lower. A horrific, pressurized, wet agony. He felt a sudden, terrifying gush of warmth between his legs.
Draco’s blood ran cold, colder than the stone floor beneath his feet.
He looked down.
A dark, wet stain was spreading rapidly across the front of his grey school trousers, originating from the crotch. It was blood. So much blood. It soaked through the thick wool, dripping onto the grimy, puddled floor.
The smell of it hit him—coppery and raw—mixed with that new, sweet, terrifying scent. His scent.
"No," he whimpered. This wasn't supposed to happen. The book mentioned pain. It didn't mention this. It didn't mention bleeding.
His body was being ripped apart from the inside out. The pain peaked, a blinding, all-consuming supernova of agony, and he couldn't hold in the sound anymore. A high, thin whine tore from his throat, a sound he didn’t recognize as his own. He sank to the floor, his back scraping against the wet porcelain, his hands clutching his bleeding, cramping stomach. He was crying, hot, panicked tears carving paths through the grime on his face.
The door to the bathroom slammed open, rattling in its frame.
Draco flinched, his head snapping up.
Harry Potter stood in the doorway, his chest heaving. He was even bigger up close, his Alpha presence flooding the small room, suffocating Draco, amplifying his pain and terror a thousand times. Potter’s face was a mask of righteous fury, his wand already in his hand.
"Malfoy!" Potter’s voice was a low, angry growl that vibrated in Draco's aching bones. He took a step into the room, his eyes scanning for... for what? A dark artifact? A potion?
"What are you doing?" Harry spat, advancing on him. "What was that in the Hall? More Dark Arts? Finally taking your orders, are you? Serving your master?"
Draco tried to answer. He tried to form a sneer, a witty retort. But another wave of biological reconstruction ripped through him, and all that came out was a choked, broken sob. He curled in on himself, a fresh gush of blood pooling beneath him.
"Answer me, you coward!" Potter shouted, striding forward. He was only a few feet away now. He raised his wand. "What are you up to?"
He kicked Draco’s leg, not hard, but enough to try and turn him over from his protective curl.
Draco rolled with the impact, his hands falling away from his stomach.
Harry stopped. His wand tip wavered. The anger on his face didn't just fade; it evaporated, replaced by a sudden, stark, bewildered horror.
His eyes were locked on the front of Draco’s trousers. On the dark, spreading stain. On the undeniable, visceral puddle of dark red blood forming on the stone floor. It wasn't a cut. It was internal. It was wrong.
"Malfoy..." Harry’s voice was barely a whisper. The anger was gone, replaced by a raw, stunned confusion. "What... what is that? Are you... My God, you're bleeding."
Draco just looked up, his silver-grey eyes blown wide with a pain so profound it was inhuman. He was shaking, his body slick with a mixture of sweat and blood. He opened his mouth, to scream, to beg, to curse him.
But all that escaped was another broken, agonized whine.