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It was pretty fucking classic that Draco didn’t realize he was in love with Harry Potter until he was dead. All ‘you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone’ and other Joni Mitchell claptrap.
So that should have been it. Draco could just bottle that emotion up just like all of the other ones and go hide away in some dark little hole somewhere away from both toxic family members and people who wanted to kill him and especially the serious overlap between those two categories.
Except. Not to be dramatic here, except, when you fall in love with the Boy-Who-Lived he doesn’t just sod off and die, does he? No; he suddenly is alive again and you scream his name and run across the courtyard to him and throw him your wand and oh fuck everyone saw that Joni Mitchell does not have a song for this scenario. Yeah, so.
Everything ended pretty quickly after that. Draco lost quite a few family members and quite a few friends, some to death, others to second-hand embarrassment, and then he was being shuffled off by adults who couldn’t quite decide where he was on the naughty or nice list.
He ended up at Aunt Andromeda’s, who wasn’t terribly happy to see him, what with them never having been met before, and him being a death eater, and also her daughter having just been killed, etc etc. Draco couldn’t blame her. He spent a lot of time lying in bed, not sleeping, trying to convince himself the Dark Lord was dead. Potter’s alive, the dark lord is dead, he muttered over and over, staring up at the textured ceiling of Aunt Andromeda’s guest room. Sometimes he sang softly to himself, just to stave off the loneliness.
When he wasn’t failing to sleep he crept around the house like a house elf, cleaning things to the best of his ability (not well), and cooking things (terribly) and trying to be a help but generally being a nuisance.
Aunt Andromeda tried to be kind, forcing a smile when she saw him, always asking him how he was, if he needed anything. She must have heard him singing because she showed up in his room a few days later with a record player and a small stack of albums. She put the record player down on top of the dresser, handed him the albums. Joni Mitchell’s name scrawled on the top one.
“This was mother’s favourite album,” he said, and sat down, hard on the bed.
Aunt Andromeda sat down beside him, put her hand on his shoulder. “I know,” she said, softly. “She used to listen to it non-stop when we were girls. She thought it was edgy because it was muggle,” she added with a small smile. “Did she play it for you?”
Draco shook his head. “But she used to listen to it herself often,” he said. “When she was alone in her study. She’d sing it. All the songs are stuck in my head.” He swallowed. “I keep thinking of her like she’s dead, but she’s not dead. Just… I just betrayed her.”
Aunt Andromeda comforted him, stiffly, until he stopped crying, then left him to listen to the albums while she made dinner.
Potter came over a few times a week, determined in that overly good way of his to be a good grandfather to little Teddy. Draco hid in his room and told himself he wasn’t hiding, listened to his albums, read his books, tried not to think about what his life had been or what it would be.
He and Aunt Andromeda were both relieved when Draco got the letter inviting him back to Hogwarts.
He didn’t have a panic attack in the loo on the train, curled up between the metal toilet and the wall, snivelling like a first year, didn’t sneak out of the welcoming feast halfway through and curl up in his familiar school bed, didn’t pretend to be asleep when his dorm mates- only two now, Blaise and Greg, the rest dead or fled or in Azkaban.
No one mentioned that Draco had turned, but everyone left him more or less alone. He, Blaise, Greg and Pansy sat at the corner of the Slytherin table, partnered up in classes or sat alone, stuck together in the hallways.
It was hard to walk through the hallways like nothing had happened, especially on the main floor where most of the fighting had been. Draco kept looking for bloodstains on the flagstones, kept looking for evidence that someone had died there and there and there.
But there wasn’t anything. The floors had been scrubbed, the damage repaired, the bodies buried. All that was left was his nightmares, his bereavement, his shame.
Just before Halloween word came that his father’s trial had been held. He’d been found guilty. Of course he had. He had been guilty- he had tortured and killed. He’d invited Voldemort and all of his horrible followers into their house, had soiled it beyond recognition.
He received the kiss, death for not just the body but also the soul. Draco, the letter informed him, was now master of the Malfoy estate.
He ran out of the hall, letter crushed in his hand, all the way to the top of the Astronomy tower, where he stood on the edge of the parapet and heaved and heaved, shaking with cold and fear.
He’d thought he’d been disinherited. He’d thought he’d been freed. Stripped not just of fortune but of obligation. A perfect wife, a perfect family. Living up to the name. No disgraceful behaviour, no time off.
He’d thought, for a moment, he could just be himself.
He crumpled up the paper and threw it over the edge and for a moment, a long moment, he was going to follow it. Escape from all this, this shame and this obligation and this hated life…
And then he heard a voice in his head.
“Stupid boy,” it hissed.
“Sev?” Draco choked out.
“You have magic,” the memory of his godfather said. “Use it.”
He descended the tower in a daze, until he was back in his dorm, pulling a box from under his bed. He’d been Sev’s heir too, it had turned out, and had spent days sorting through his things. He hadn’t had much that was worth keeping, and in the end Draco had ended up with only this box of notebooks, recipes for potions and invocations for spells he’d invented.
He turned the pages until he found the potion recipe he was looking for. In his spidery handwriting, Sev had written ‘To erase the memories without destroying the mind’. Draco scanned the ingredients. Like so many of Sev’s recipes, there was nothing exotic or too difficult to acquire. He’d been working with limited resources, after all.
He scanned the recipe, frowning when he saw that in a few places Sev had written suggestions for variations. Did that mean that the potion wasn’t entirely complete?
It was stupid to take an experimental potion, Draco knew, but not nearly as stupid as killing himself. He put a bookmark in the notebook and swallowed and stood up.
He’d do it, he thought. It would be like starting over, no guilt, no expectation, no obligations. He could, finally, just be himself.
Whoever that was.
Harry was scowling down at his eggs, trying to wipe the remnants of yet another nightmare from his mind when someone sat down across from him and cheerfully said “Hi!”
He looked up and his mouth fell open. Draco Malfoy was sitting across from him, smiling happily across the table. It was an odd look on him, a happy smile, not a sneer or a smirk. He grabbed a mug, poured himself a steaming cup of tea, then reached a hand across the table.
“I’m Draco!” Malfoy, or, more likely, someone using polyjuice potion to disguise themself as Malfoy, said.
Harry would have opened his mouth to reply except his mouth was already gaping.
“I know who you are, Malfoy,” he finally said, as coldly as he could manage.
Malfoy frowned, grabbing a scone from a platter heaped with them. “Is that my name?” he asked. “Draco Malfoy? Seriously? I sound like a vampire.” He dropped the scone onto his plate and stuck a finger in his mouth. “I don’t think I have any fangs,” he said, thoughtfully. “Perhaps you have a religious artefact I could use to check? A cross? Some holy water? Anything silver would do, I think.”
“Er,” Harry said. He looked over at Hermione, who had lifted her head from her book and was staring, just as dumbstruck as he was. “I don’t think you’re a vampire,” she said.
“Oh, no?” Malfoy asked. “Well, that’s a relief. Imagine having to sleep in a coffin! It must be unbearably stuffy. Anyway, it’s a terrible name, I think we can all agree.”
“I’ve always thought so,” Ron, on the other side of Hermione, said.
Malfoy shook his head. Whoever this was, pretending to be Malfoy was doing a bang up job, Harry thought, deciding to play along.
“You could always use a nickname,” he suggested. “Drake? Dray?”
“Ugh,” Malfoy said, brushing his hair aside. He’d forgone his usual overly styled look and Harry had to admit it looked a lot better. That was, whoever was pretending to be Malfoy had forgone it, Harry corrected himself.
“Both of those are terrible,” he said, shaking his head. “Perhaps I have a middle name I could use that isn’t just straight up awful. But how do you know me?”
“Er, what?” Harry asked.
“You’re not a man of many words are you?” Malfoy asked. His eyes flickered from Harry’s face, down his chest and back up to his face again. “That’s fine- I can work with that. I was asking if we already knew each other? Since you know my name and all. Oh, but we’ve been going to school together, haven’t we? Of course you would know me.” He looked around the hall, a sly smile on his face. It was the most he’d looked like himself the whole conversation. “I bet everyone knows me here. I’m probably super popular.”
“Uh, yeah, mate,” Ron said sarcastically.
Malfoy shot him a brilliant smile. “But you’re probably my best friend,” he said to Harry, doing that eye-flicking thing again.
“Uh, well,” Harry began, having no idea how he was going to finish.
“Draco!” someone called from across the hall. “Draco!”
They all looked up to see Pansy Parkinson waving from the Slytherin table.
“Who is that?” Malfoy asked, his voice filled with contempt. “And what is she wearing?”
Pansy’s school robes were open, revealing a bright fuschia jumper.
“That’s your girlfriend,” Ron said, buttering a scone.
Malfoy laughed, now sounding exactly like his normal self. “You’re joking,” he said, when no one laughed along.
“No, mate,” Ron confirmed. “I’ve seen you snogging in the hallways and everything.”
Malfoy now looked horrified. “Snogging?” he demanded. “No- I can’t… that… ewww…” He looked at Harry almost desperately. “Please tell me he’s joking.”
“It’s true,” Harry confirmed.
Malfoy looked back over at Parkinson, who was now whispering ferociously with Zabini. “I can’t possibly have a girlfriend,” he said.
“Why not?” Hermione asked.
Malfoy snorted. “I’m bent, obviously. Look at me. Gay as a fucking maypole. Total poof. Seriously.” He looked between them. “This is… you didn’t already know? I would have thought it was obvious. I mean, do I honestly seem straight to you?”
They all stared at him.
“Mr Malfoy!” someone called across the hall. Madam Pomfrey was running towards them, panting. “Mr Malfoy, you were supposed to wait in the infirmary!”
“I was hungry!” Malfoy said, gesturing with his half-eaten scone.
“Poppy, what’s going on?” Headmistress McGonagall asked, coming up behind her.
“Oh, Minerva, didn’t you receive my message? Mr Malfoy here has lost his memories.”
Harry felt his mouth drop open again.
Harry, Herminone and Ron exchanged glances as McGonagall and Pomfrey dragged Malfoy away.
“I was certain it was someone polyjuiced as him,” Hermione said, with a small frown.
“Me too,” Harry said.
“Mate,” Ron said. “Malfoy is bent?”
Hermione whirled on him. “Ronald Weasley, you are not going to make fun of Malfoy for being gay! I don’t care how awful he is or how much you dislike him, the moment I hear one homophobic thing coming out of your mouth…”
Ron held up his hands. “Okay, okay,” he said. “I wasn’t going to be homophobic.”
“He’s right though,” Hermione mused.
“What?” Harry asked. “‘Draco Malfoy’ does sound like the name you’d give a vampire?”
Hermione shook her head. “I don’t know why I didn’t see it before,” she said. “He is so gay.”
“What does that mean?” Harry asked.
“Oh ho!” Ron cried. “Who’s being homophobic now? Even I know you can’t determine someone’s sexuality from their behaviour!”
Hermione flushed. “You’re right,” she admitted, embarrassed.
“Harry, did you hear that?” Ron crowed. “Hermione just admitted I was right about something.”
They were just finishing up with breakfast when Parkinson and Zabini accosted them. “Potter!” Parkinson cried. “What did you do to Draco?!”
“Uh, nothing,” Harry said.
“Why was he sitting with you?” she demanded.
“I don’t know,” Harry said.
“What did Madam Pomfrey say?” Zabini asked, in a much less hostile tone.
Harry had opened his mouth when Hermione interrupted. “That’s personal health information,” she said, with a frown. “If you want to know, you should ask him.”
Parkinson huffed off, Zabini trailing her.
“Well,” Ron said, “she’s going to get a shock when she finds out the truth. Do you think he really is gay? Maybe he just forgot he was straight?”
“If he’s lost all his memories,” Hermione mused, “maybe all he’s left with are his feelings.” She looked at Harry. “And his feelings seem to be that he’s gay and that he wanted to be friends with you.”
“He wanted to be more than friends, I wager,” Ron added, with a leer. “He was totally checking you out, mate.”
Harry flushed. “No he wasn’t,” he argued. “Come on, we’re going to be late for transfiguration.”
“It makes sense,” Hermione mused, grabbing her bag and following him. “I mean he has been pretty obsessed with you.”
Harry steadfastly ignored her.
The 7th and 8th year NEWT transfiguration class had an odd number of students and Harry had somehow managed it at the beginning of the year so he was sitting alone, Hermione and Ron across the aisle from him, away from the stares and hero worship of most of the other students and the stares and hissed insults of the Slytherins, so he was shocked when, halfway through class, someone sat down beside him.
He looked over and his eyes widened when he saw Malfoy, grinning at him.
“Hi again,” Malfoy said. “I never got your name before.”
“You really lost your memories?” Harry asked.
Malfoy nodded. “I don’t even remember my middle name. Which is Theuderic apparently, so that’s right out as a nickname.” He sighed, blowing the hair out of his face. “Draco Theuderic Malfoy. Honestly. It’s like my parents signed a pact in blood to turn me into a vampire as soon as I came of age.”
“You could go by ‘Eric’,” Harry suggested.
Malfoy choked. “Eric?! Do I look like an Eric?!” Malfoy asked. “Be honest. Our friendship hangs in the balance.”
“Uh, no,” Harry admitted.
Malfoy smiled. “I appreciate that,” he said, like it was a compliment. “I knew I could count on you. Uh, what’s your name again?”
“It’s Harry Potter,” Harry said..
“Mr Malfoy,” the new professor of transfiguration said from the top of the room, “having forgotten your memories does not excuse you from common courtesy.”
If anything, the inhabitants of the class seemed more surprised by Malfoy’s ‘sorry, professor!’ then by the news he’d forgotten his memories.
Malfoy glanced over at him, grinning, then bumped his shoulder against Harry’s.
“How are you still good at transfiguration when you’ve forgotten your memories?” Harry asked twenty minutes later when Malfoy had successfully transfigured a snake into a knitting bag, complete with a cute pattern of cats chasing balls of yarn printed on it, while Harry’s still had a scale pattern.
“Madam Pomfrey said that my situational memories were gone but my informative memories were intact,” Malfoy said, shrugging. “You’re doing the wand movement wrong. Let me show you.” He gently wrapped his hand around Harry’s and moved his wand in the intricate pattern necessary for the spell.
Harry looked down at their joined hands, Malfoy’s long white fingers wrapped around Harry’s stubby brown ones, and swallowed.
“Okay?” Malfoy asked, letting go.
Harry nodded and tried the spell again, this time bungling it so badly he ended up with a ball of yarn somehow made out of snakes.
Malfoy laughed, a bright, happy laugh that had nothing in common with his normal snide chuckle. “Oh my days!” he cried. “This would make an amazing scarf. Those sour-faced buggars over there, with the snakes on their robes would probably appreciate it.”
“You have a snake on your robe as well,” Harry pointed out.
“Oh?” Malfoy asked, pulling at his robe so he could see it. “Oh, and there’s that girl you said I was dating. Oh, no! Harold! Am I supposed to be hanging out with them and not you? But they’re so pinched looking. Look at that beefy one- it’s like someone just squeezed all the happiness out of him.” He gestured to Goyle, who was looking a little shrivelled.
“They’re having a bad year,” Harry said. “And it’s Harry, not Harold.”
“Oh no,” Malfoy said. “Why? Did their best friend just die?”
“Er,” Harry said. “Um, yes? A few of them, I think.”
Malfoy hit him in the shoulder. “Are you serious?” he asked. “They’re experiencing a death in the coven or whatnot and you just let me go on like that? Hector, I’m beginning to really wonder if we’re actually friends.”
“Er,” Harry said. “We’re not. Friends. And it’s Harry.”
“Oh!” Malfoy exclaimed, pressing a hand to his heart. “How can you wound me like this, Hank? After all we’ve been through?!?”
“You knew,” Harry said.
Malfoy shrugged and turned the snake yarn back into a snake. “It was pretty obvious from the way you were acting,” he said with a smirk.
“Don’t you want to go back to your actual friends?” Harry asked.
Malfoy glanced over at the Slytherins, then shook his head. “I like you better, Hecate,” he said.
Harry flesh a blush growing up his cheeks. “You don’t even know me!” he protested. “Or my name,” he added.
“I don’t know them either,” Malfoy said. “Now here, give it another go.”
When class was over and Harry had successfully turned his snake into a knitting bag, (although his had been covered in dead pigeons. “Morbid,” Malfoy had said, approvingly), Mafoy smiled at Harry. “Do you have any idea where I go next?”
“Arithmancy,” Hermione said, packing her bag.
Malfoy turned towards her and smiled. “Brilliant!” he said. “Arithmancy is one of my favourites. Are you in it too?”
Hermione smiled back and nodded.
“I thought you would be,” Malfoy said. “You seem like a…”
“Swot?” Ron cut in.
“Huh?” Malfoy asked. “I was going to say… well it doesn’t matter.” He leaned in towards Hermione. “For what it’s worth, I’m a bit of a swot too. I don’t think you can be taking NEWT level Arithmancy otherwise, right? I like swots,” he added, then glanced back at Harry. “But jocks are alright too,” he said with a wink.
“I dunno mate,” Ron said, as they went to the library. “You think maybe it’s some kind of scheme?”
Harry shook his head. He’d been wondering the same thing. “You think Malfoy would tell us he was bent- and a swot- as part of an elaborate prank? And he’s actually not very good at being devious. Look at how inept he was at killing Dumbledore.”
Ron gaped at him and then started laughing. “The one time!” he exclaimed as they entered the library. “The one time you don’t think he’s up to something. Is it because he’s flirting with you?” he asked, lowering his voice at a look from Madam Pince.
“He’s not flirting with me!” Harry protested.
“Yeah, okay, mate,” Ron said, rolling his eyes. “Still, I think we ought to be careful. We have no idea what he could be scheming.”
“Yeah, okay,” Harry said. “But Voldemort is gone; what could he be up to?”
“Maybe he just wants to ride your coattails like all the other hero-worshippers,” Ron said.
Harry snorted. “You can only ride the coattails of someone going somewhere,” he said.
When they met up with Hermione and Malfoy outside the Great Hall, just before lunch, they were giggling together, honest-to-god giggling. “Harrison!” Malfoy cried. “What a sight for sore eyes. I was just telling Hermione here…”
“No!” Hermione interrupted, still giggling, bumping his shoulder with hers.
“I was just telling her…”
“Don’t you dare!” Hermione threatened, pretending like she was going to hit him.
He laughed and ducked away.
“Okay, okay,” he said. “You’re so violent ! If I’d known you were this violent I wouldn’t have made friends with you.” He followed them into the Great Hall and slid into the seat across from Harry, his back to the Slytherin table.
“Why did you decide to become friends with us?” Ron asked, grabbing bread and beginning to make himself a sandwich.
“Oh, ah,” Malfoy looked down at his plate, his pale skin beginning to pink. “I came into the Great Hall and I didn’t know where to sit, and you looked like you were my age and you looked… nice. All chatting away and being chummy. So I thought… I felt… well, you must be my friends. Because I’d have wanted to be your friend before, so...”
Harry thought about Malfoy extending his hand to him first year and tried to swallow down his guilt.
Hermione, who’d sat down beside him, leaned against him a little. “We’ll be your friends,” she said.
“Well you have to be now,” Malfoy said, rolling his eyes. “Since I have blackmail material on you.”
Hermione giggled again and batted at his arm.
Ron and Harry exchanged a look.
Malfoy talked all through lunch, remarking about everything he’d seen and thought that day, from wondering where Professor Vector got her robes “It’s like they’re a hundred years old but they’re also very fashionable? Is she trying to single-handedly bring the 1890s back? Because I’m a fan of the robe styles, but pigeon-fronted blouses…” to the horrifying battery of tests Madam Pomfrey had subjected him to. “She stared into my ears for hours. Hours. I don’t think there’s even anything to see in there. Look, Hermione, look into my ear and see if you see something.”
Ron choked at this and Malfoy made a concerned face and passed him a glass of water. “Ronald,” he said. “You have to be more careful when you’re eating. What would poor Hermione do if you died before she had a chance to…”
Hermione clapped a hand over his mouth. “Draco!” she exclaimed.
“Are we calling you ‘Draco’ then?” Harry asked.
“Oh, I guess so,” Malfoy said, sighing. “I couldn’t think of any nicknames that weren’t truly cringe.”
“We could call you Coco,” Ron suggested.
Draco idly inspected his fingernails. “You could,” he agreed. “I need practice hexing people.”
They all looked at each other.
“Er,” Harry said. “Mal-Draco. You can’t hex people.”
Draco narrowed his eyes at him. “I’m pretty sure I can,” he said.
“No,” Hermione said. “It’s not that you can’t, it’s that you really, really shouldn’t. It would violate your parole.”
“My what?” Draco asked, confused.
“Your parole,” Hermione repeated. “It was the only way Harry could keep you out of Azkaban. That’s the wizarding…”
“I know what Azkaban is!” Draco exclaimed. “But why did… what did… Harry kept me out?!”
“He spoke on your behalf,” Hermione said. “It’s a long story.” She looked down. “A horrible story.”
“That’s why the Slytherins look so miserable?” Draco asked, even more alarmed. “Why people look at me like they hate me? Why… why…” He rubbed at his left forearm. The Mark, Harry realised. He must have seen it and wondered about it.
Draco slumped in his seat.
Harry leaned forward, across the table, grabbed his wrist. “It’s all over,” he said. “Everything that happened is over, and we all get to be new people.”
“You are actually a new person,” Ron pointed out to Draco. “Considering you can’t remember your old self at all.”
Draco pursed his lips. “I don’t feel like I can’t remember myself,” he said. “I can remember the things I like and dislike.”
“But you act completely differently,” Hermione said. “Which either means your memory curse changed what you like and dislike, or that you’ve spent years repressing yourself.”
Draco laughed. “If no one knew I was bent, then that was obviously the case. But this conversation is so depressing! I’m bored. Let’s… can we go for a walk outside? Or do we have class soon?”
“We have about an hour until potions,” Hermione said. “We could go for a walk.”
“Brill,” Draco said, jumping up. “Uh, where do I keep my things?”
“In your dorm, probably,” Ron said, stuffing the last of his lunch in his mouth.
“And where’s my dorm?” Draco asked.
“Come on,” Harry said. “You can borrow our spares. It would be faster than going to the tower and then down to the dungeons.”
Draco stuck with them the whole day, walking with them about the grounds, sitting next to Harry in Potions and helping Harry make the best potion he’d made since he got rid of the Half-Blood Prince’s book, going to the library with them and arguing about revision time-tables with Hermione, eating dinner at the Gryffindor table.
Only after dinner, when Hermione frowned at him and said it was a bad idea for him to go with them to the Gryffindor common room did he nod sadly and slip away.
“Do you think he knows where the Slytherin dorms are?” Harry asked.
“I still think he’s faking it,” Ron said.
“He knew where the classrooms are,” Hermione said, “so probably?”
“I don’t think he’s faking it,” Harry said. “He was so sad when he found out about the death eaters and everything. Anyways, he’s always been bad at that kind of thing.”
“If he isn’t…” Hermione began, then shook her head.
“What?” Harry asked.
“It just makes me sad,” Hermione said. “I mean, if that’s his real personality… Can you imagine having had to pretend to be someone else for so long?”
The unhappy Slytherins are waiting in the common room when he gets there and they look angry and hurt.
“Is it true?” the tall black one demanded, his arms crossed in front of his chest. He was distractingly fit and if Draco hadn’t basically fallen in love with Harry Potter the moment he’d seen him, he’d have set his sights on this tall drink of water.
“Is what true?” Draco asked, his eyes still skimming over the boy.
“You lost all your memories,” the girl in the fuchsia jumper said.
“Oh,” Draco said. “Yeah.” He twisted his hands together. “I guess you guys are my friends,” he said. He felt bad, he really did, but they’d looked so miserable and he’d just been drawn to Harry Potter.
The expression on the girl’s face softened. “Draco, what happened?” she asked.
She clearly cared about him- they all did, the three of them. He could see it in their eyes. He felt even worse.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I woke up in the hospital wing and couldn’t remember anything. I’m sorry,” he added.
The girl put her hand on Draco’s shoulder, but he jerked back, hating the look of hurt on her face.
“Look,” he said. “That Weasley boy told me you were my girlfriend, but I can’t, okay, I’m sorry.”
They stared at him for a moment, then they burst out laughing.
“What?” he demanded, flushing.
“Of course I’m not your girlfriend,” she said, finally. “You’re gay.”
“I am?” he asked. “I mean I am, but you knew? The others didn’t know.”
“No,” the gorgeous boy said. “Because we’re your friends, Draco.”
He frowned. “But why did they think you were my girlfriend?” he asked.
“Because we’re going to get married, babes,” the girl said.
“We are?” Draco asked, horrified.
She nodded, seriously. “A marriage of convenience, of course. You’re going to keep me in luxury and we’ll do the deed a few times so we can have a few kids and then we’ll both have flings on the side.”
“But that’s horrible,” Draco exclaimed, backing up. “Why would I ever agree to that?”
“It was your idea,” the gorgeous boy said in a bored tone. “You need to keep up appearances.”
“No,” Draco said, stepping backwards. “I’m not… no way.”
The other boy finally speaks, slowly. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” he said. “You can always change your mind.”
Draco looked at the other two for confirmation and they both nod. He breathed out, relieved.
“Good,” he said. “Because I know what I want to do.”
The gorgeous boy raised one eyebrow with spectacular elegance.
“I’m going to marry Harry Potter,” Draco declared.
The Slytherins broke into peals of laughter again.
He paused as he entered the Great Hall the next morning, wanting to go and sit with Harry again, but not wanting to abandon the three who had turned out to be rather decent friends. They’d stayed up late talking, telling him about themselves. They hadn’t, at his insistence, told him anything about himself. He’d already heard enough to know it wouldn’t be pretty and the sight, later, of the awful tattoo inscribed on his forearm had confirmed it. Something terrible had happened to him and he’d done something terrible in return. Why would he want to know more than that?
He tried to hold on to what Ron had said, that he was actually a new person. He imagined he’d cracked straight from an egg (better than imagining he’d come straight from a vagina… eww) and into the world. Or risen from the sea like Aphrodite in that painting. He just…. He just looked like the old Draco Malfoy, that was all. People who look at him with disdain- or worse, with terror- just didn’t know that he wasn’t that person. He was new.
“Go on,” Pansy whispered to him, pushing him in the direction of the Gryffindor table. The three Slytherins had explained to him a lot about the houses and rivalries, though they’d respected his wish not to tell him more about his history. He hesitated, looking at her.
“Go on,” she said. “McGonagall keeps going on about inter house unity and all that.
“I don’t think I’m really cut out to be a trailblazer,” Draco admitted, but he still crossed the hall and sat down across from Harry.
“Draco!” Hermione greeted cheerfully, sitting down beside him. “Were the Slytherin dorms as bad as you feared?”
“No,” Draco said. “They’re actually really nice,” he looked back at the Slytherin tables and smiled.
“Nice?!” Ron choked out.
“If the Slytherins are nice, why are you sitting with us?” Harry asked.
Draco felt something inside him wobble. He started to get up. “I don’t have to… I mean, if you want me to go back…”
“No,” Harry said, reaching across the table and grabbing his wrist. “I didn’t mean… you could stay.”
“Oh,” Draco said. “Oh, I guess… if you want me too.” He sat back down.
“Yeah,” Harry said, and grinned. “I do.”
“Harry Potter!” a voice called and Harry spun around, shoulders relaxing when he saw it was Ginny.
“Ginevera Weasley,” he said.
She stalked towards him until her outstretched finger was poking him in the chest. “What the hell is going on with you and Draco Malfoy?” she asked.
“What?” Harry asked, blushing. “Nothing, I mean, I’m not bent or anything.”
Ginny rolled her eyes. “Labels,” she said, ambiguously.
“Why do you think there’s something going on between us?” Harry asked.
“Because suddenly you’re all buddy-buddy,” she said.
“He lost his memory!” Harry said. “He’s like a different person!”
“He’s the same person,” she argued. “Capable of doing the same things!”
“Capable of not doing them!” Harry exclaimed. “It’s just… this… He was just a kid!”
“You were just a kid!” Ginny cried.
“Yeah,” Harry said. “Yeah, that’s my point. We were all just kids and none of this should have happened to us. You or me or him. We all just did what we were told, didn’t we? Never really had a choice. So yeah, if he wants to be different, I’m going to help him. If I want to be different…”
Ginny sighed and rested her head on his shoulder.
“If you want to be different, we’ll all support you,” she said. “You can be anything and we’ll still be there for you. Even if that’s being gay.”
He pulled away. “I told you I’m not,” he said.
“That’s fine,” she replied. “But it’s fine if you are, too. It’s fine if you aren’t sure or if you’re not ready to tell us or if you’re only gay for Draco Malfoy. Whoever you are is fine.”
“Glad I have your permission,” Harry said, when he got his emotions under control enough to speak.
Ginny grinned up at him. “Any time,” she said, and flounced off.
Harry became more determined after that conversation. More determined about what, he couldn’t say exactly. Not letting this chance to be Draco’s friend slip away or forgiveness or absolution or whatever it was. He made choices. He invited Draco to study with him and let his friends come to, he stood up for him when that tosser Ernie MacMillian insulted him, he smiled at him and played quidditch with him, and just let it happen, really. Pushed aside his reservations and suspicions and let it happen.
Draco was, well maybe Harry had never known him, really. Maybe this was who he was, full of light and happiness and quick wit. Sly sideways smiles always aimed at Harry. Maybe this was who he should have been all this time.
Shouldn’t he give that a chance?
Draco woke heaving and gasping, solid arms around him. “H… Harry?” he whispered, only to feel a chest heave with a laugh. “No, you berk,” Blaise answered, his grip loosening.
“Blaise?” Draco said. “What are you doing in my bed?”
Blaise laughed again. “That’s the thanks I get for waking you up?” he asked, and suddenly Draco remembered the nightmare.
Blaise stopped laughing. “Was it bad?” he asked.
Draco nodded. “There was a… it was horrible… a man who looked like a snake. He was… he was going to… I was terrified.” He breathed for a moment, just focused on breaths coming in and going out. He shook his head. “It was the most vivid dream I’ve…” He stopped. He didn’t remember any other dreams, not really.
“Draco,” Blaise said, too gently, too compassionately. “That wasn’t a dream. That’s a memory. That was Tom Riddle.”
“The…” Draco hissed in a breath, pressed his right hand against his left forearm. “That’s… I…?”
“Yeah,” Blaise said. “I’m sure you had your reasons.”
“Harry killed him?” Draco gasped.
“Or he killed himself,” Blaise said. “The stories I’ve heard are all very confusing. But, you know what that means, don’t you? It means your memories aren’t all gone. They’re in there… somewhere. They’re going to come back.”
“No!” Draco exclaimed, pushing himself up, back, against the headboard. “No! I don’t want them to.”
“But Draco,” Blaise began, confused.
“I don’t want to be someone who…” he yanked up the sleeve of his nightshirt, held out his arm, the black mark vivid against his pale skin. “I don’t want to be someone who would do this,” he said.
“But you are,” Blaise said, too gently, too kind. He covered Draco’s arm with his large hand. “You are, but that’s not all you can be.”
“Harry won’t love me,” Draco said, yanking his sleeve down. “If I’m…”
Blaise huffed out a laugh. “Oh, I think Potter will love you regardless,” he said.
There was something wrong with Draco, Harry noticed the next morning. Draco, usually bright and cheery at breakfast, a relentless morning person, only picked at his fruit. His face was drawn and worried and he reminded Harry uncomfortably of their sixth year, when Draco had been given the hopeless task of assassinating the most powerful wizard alive.
Which reminded Harry of what had happened in the bathroom that year, the knowledge that the curse was a mistake the moment it slipped through of his lips, the sight of Draco bleeding out on the wet floor.
He cornered him in the hallway after charms, pulled him into a window alcove half hidden by a tapestry.
Draco didn’t protest, just looked at Harry warily.
“Are you okay?” Harry asked.
Draco rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Yeah,” he said. “I just didn’t sleep well.”
Harry waited, but he didn’t elaborate.
“I’m sorry,” he said instead. “I have a hard time sleeping a lot too.”
Draco hesitated, then looked up at Harry. “I’m sorry,” he said.
Harry looked back, confused. “About what?” he asked.
“The war,” Draco said. “Everything. If I ever… If I was mean to you.”
“I thought you couldn’t remember,” Harry said.
Draco frowned and shook his head. “Does it matter?” he asked.
“It’s like you’re apologising for something you haven’t done,” Harry said.
“What if I could remember?” Draco asked.
“Then you could apologise then.”
“And you’d forgive me?” Draco asked.
Harry took a deep breath, looked away from him, didn’t know how to reply.
After that he had a dream every other night or so, some just as horrifying- trapped in a room that was on fire, watching his mother being tortured. But some were just, well, memories. He saw Harry over and over in them, but he was always on the other side of the room, on the other side of the fight. He taunted Harry, insulted him and his friends, schemed to hurt him.
And every morning he resolved, again and again, that no one would know he was getting his memories back, that he’d never put Harry in the place of having to forgive him. (And how could he?) How could he forgive himself?
The school year passed quickly, the eighth years finding themselves snowed under with work, and before they knew it the winter hols were almost upon them and they were snowed under with snow.
Harry wrapped his scarf more tightly around his neck and shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. Beside him, Draco walked so close that their arms brushed. Draco was so hollow these days, growing thinner, quieter. Harry wanted to shake him and demand he tell him what was wrong. Harry wanted to wrap him in his arms and tell him everything was going to be okay.
“You’re going to stay here for the hols?” he asked Draco.
Draco nodded. Harry felt something pinch inside of him. He’d already promised Molly he’d be at the Burrow, but he hated the idea of leaving Draco alone.
“What if I stay with you?” he asked, suddenly.
Draco turned to him, surprised, eyes wide and round. “You’d do that?” he asked.
Harry nodded. “Not the whole holiday,” he clarified, feeling the heat rise in his cheeks, glad his skin was too dark to hide it. “But yeah, some of it.”
Draco’s face split into a smile, as blindingly brought as the sun reflecting off the snow. He grabbed at Harry roughly and pulled him towards him and the next thing he knew Draco’s lips, warm and wet, were on his and Harry was pulling him to him, like an animal trying to burrow under a warm blanket.
Then he pulled away and Draco was blanching and stuttering, cheeks red and blotchy. “I’m… I’m sorry,” he stuttered, and turned and ran back to the castle.
Harry looked after him in confusion.
“Maybe you’re right,” he told Ginny a few days later. Ginny took a moment to be smug before asking “About what?”
“Maybe I’m a little gay,” he said. “I still like girls I think, maybe…”
“It’s Malfoy, isn’t it?” Ginny asked. “He looks up at you with those big liquid eyes…”
“He’s taller than me,” Harry pointed out.
“...and you just melt,” Ginny continued. She sighed and smiled a happy smile. “Young love.”
“What are you, an old hag?” Harry asked. “I think there’s something wrong with him though,” he said. “He was so happy and now…”
“Now he looks like someone who went through a war?” Ginny asked.
Harry nodded, then gaped at her. “You think he remembers?” he asked.
Ginny looked thoughtful. “Maybe,” she said.
“Why wouldn’t he say anything then?” Harry asked.
“He’s probably terrified you only like him when he’s not himself,” Ginny said.
The more he thought about it, and observed Draco, which was increasingly hard to do, since the boy seemed intent on avoiding him, the more he began to think that she was right, that his memories were returning and he was too afraid to let anyone know. He was growing twitchier and twitchier, dark circles blooming under his eyes. By the time the hols began, he seemed like a ghost.
Harry saw his friends off to the train then went back to the castle to find Draco, using the password to the Slytherin common room Blaise had given him, following his directions to the eighth year boy’s dorm.
Draco was lying on his bed, a muggle record player playing a song Harry had never heard before, a woman’s crooning voice, a piano.
Harry sat down beside him.
“This was mother’s favourite album,” Draco said.
“Who is it?” Harry asked.
“Joni Mitchell,” Draco said.
“You remember her,” Harry said. “You remember everything.”
Draco didn’t say anything.
“Who cursed you?” Harry asked.
“No one,” Draco said. “I took a potion. It didn’t work.” He grimaced. “It worked for a while, and then the memories started coming back.”
Harry found his hand tangled in the bed covers and took it in his.
“Why did you take it?” he asked.
“I wanted to be free,” Draco said.
“Of guilt?” Harry asked.
“Of guilt and grief and everything,” Draco said. “Of myself.”
Harry carefully laid down on the bed beside him, wrapped his arms around him.
“You do forgive me then?” Draco asked, his voice muffled against Harry’s shirt.
“Of course,” Harry said, smoothing a hand down his back. “I’m sorry I didn’t answer before. Of course I forgive you.”
He pulled back so he could look the other boy in the face, reached up so he could cup the pale cheek, and kissed him.
The next time he was at Aunt Andromeda’s house, it was just to visit. She looked over at him and smiled. “You’re looking better,” she said.
He was feeling better. Having his love reciprocated wasn’t a cure-all, not for his guilt and grief and depression and the suicidal thoughts that sometimes slipped in. But Harry would be there, or one of his other friends, and that would ease the pain for a while. And then there was forgiveness and hope for the future.
He looked over at Harry, who was holding Teddy in his lap and cooing in his ear, and swallowed.
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, it’s better now.”