Per Semitas Tempus

Draco: Waking Up

The sight of vaulted ceilings and elaborate Roman-era crown-mouldings was not what immediately set off the alarm bells in fifteen year old Draco Malfoy's head as he woke up. It wasn't the feel of the heavy, warm sheets or the thick down blanket across his chest - it was winter with Yule just around the corner, such a thing was not out of place. It might not have been any of these things, but the lack of sound from outside the room most certainly did alert him to something not quite right. With the exception of himself, his mother and father were chronic early-risers, never one to waste a minute in a day if they could be doing something productive.

So why didn't he hear the swish of his mother's skirts and robes, the echoing of his father's strident footsteps off the marble that so adorned the hallway floors? Even the usually aggravating crack of a house-elf apparating would have been preferable to the eerie silence of outside the room.

Pushing the down blanket away from his body he swung his feet over the edge of the bed and let his eyes - narrowed against the sun rising through the gauzy curtains - survey the room. There were a few things out of place and quite a few unrecognisable objects, though the Slytherin colours brought him a small degree of comfort in this strange situation.

His feet hitting the floor set off another alarm bell. All of the bedrooms were black hardwood, and besides the small rug that sat at the end of his bed to ensure that his trunk didn't damage the polished floors, there was no carpeting or anything of the sort. So why were his feet sinking into finely made furs?

Before he could contemplate this frankly bizarre situation any further, a knock came at the door and it opened far enough to allow a figure to pass through before it closed just as silently as it had opened.

"Cousin," the young man in front of him says, sounding slightly surprised. "You're up. I was under the impression that you were still ill."

Ill? When had he gotten sick? And a cousin? He didn't remember having any older cousins that would have referred to him so familiarly, nor any that resembled the young man in front of him.

Indeed, his supposed cousin, stood over him by at least a head and a half with white-blond hair that dusted his shoulders. He leaned more on the side of broad-shouldered, but was still lean and the sharp angles of his face spoke of aristocracy. His eyes were heterochromatic, slate grey in the right and emerald green in the left like he'd never seen before.

('Aurelio,' some part of his mind whispered, a belated thing and that stunned Draco into further silence, despite the fact that, in this context the name meant nothing to him.)

"Praetorian?"

Draco couldn't help it. He faltered.

What?