Chapter Fourteen of 'The Dust of Water'- The Open Door
Chapter Thirteen.
Title: The Dust of Water (14/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Warnings: Heavy angst, some violence, amnesia
Pairings: Harry/Ginny, Ron/Hermione, eventual Harry/Draco
Rating: R
Summary: As far as Harry’s concerned, he’s woken from a weirdly deep sleep the day after the Battle of Hogwarts. It’s his friends who tell him that it’s ten years later, that he’s an Auror who got cursed while chasing a Dark wizard-and that his memory isn’t going to come back.
Author’s Notes: This is going to be a heavily angsty fic, as you can see from the summary and warnings. There isn’t going to be a cure for Harry’s amnesia, either. Keep that in mind before you read.
Chapter One.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Fourteen-The Open Door
Harry took another bite of the cherry tart that Malfoy had bullied Kreacher into making, and looked longingly at the door of the kitchen. Upstairs was the completed potion, and the best chance of getting a glimpse of his memories. Harry didn’t understand why he had to wait now, when they had finally got something done.
“You know perfectly well why,” Malfoy said. Harry might have thought Malfoy could read his mind, but he trusted Malfoy enough now to know that was unlikely to happen. Malfoy moved a finger in front of his face, and Harry sighed and turned back to eating the cherry tart.
“You’re perfectly obvious,” Malfoy murmured. “And the ritual took more out of you than you know.”
“It was a little pain,” Harry objected, turning his arm to stare down at the patch where Malfoy had cut in and made his blood flow. Malfoy had healed it-he’d insisted that Harry shouldn’t, that he should save all his magic for the “struggle” with the potion-and Harry couldn’t even see a place it had been cut. “I’m already recovered.”
“You need food.”
Harry turned back to his plate, because with both Malfoy and Kreacher, who acted like “a true Black” was God, he knew he wouldn’t get away with pretending to eat. He’d already had a sandwich with the meat rare enough that it tasted coppery on his tongue and a huge glass of orange juice. Then Malfoy had commanded Kreacher to bring the tart.
It wasn’t that it wasn’t good. The problem was that Harry had more important things on his mind right now than cherry tarts.
“And we need to talk.”
Harry started. That was the first time Malfoy had said that, despite the way he sat on the other side of the table and eyed the food passing into Harry’s mouth as if he wanted it for himself. Harry had honestly thought they would go back upstairs just as silently. Malfoy was treating Harry like an experiment he wanted to work out, and as long as it did, Harry was fine with that.
Now, though…
“What about?” he asked, taking another bite of tart and looking around for a second. That was a mistake, since it made Kreacher plop a glass of milk firmly in front of him. Harry opened his mouth.
Kreacher wagged a finger at him. “Master Harry is only to be opening his mouth to put food in,” he said.
Harry grumbled and did so. Malfoy, in the meantime, had leaned forwards and rested his elbows on the table. Harry was a little shocked at his bad manners, but Malfoy didn’t notice. He watched every motion of Harry’s swallowing throat instead.
“We need to talk about where you’re going to go from here,” said Malfoy. “You told me about the Aurors. Do you think you’ll want to confront them again when you have some of your memories back? Go to your friends? Give a press conference?”
“Definitely not the last one,” Harry said hastily. There had been rumors swirling about him in the papers, he knew. Ron and Kingsley were loyal and wouldn’t say anything about the newest development, but someone might have seen him enter the Ministry. And the public was getting bored reading the same facts about his amnesia over and over again. Someone would probably try to seize him going to the Ministry and run with it. “I just want to-to see what happens.”
“But you should have a plan. Otherwise, people can take advantage of you.”
Harry cocked his head curiously. “Are you counting yourself among the people who would do that, Malfoy? It sounds interesting if you are.”
Astonishingly, Malfoy flushed and shook his head. “No,” he said. “I was-look, Potter, for years we worked together on this potion you wanted, but I also took the other curiosities you saw from your body and stored in my lab.”
“What a word,” Harry muttered. He would have shoved his food away, remembering those alcoves full of floating pieces of himself, except that Kreacher happened to be standing off to the side with a skillet. Harry gave him a sullen look and began crunching his way through the tart once more.
“It’s the best one.” Malfoy’s eyes shone like the moon. “And I thought that you were lying about losing your memory at first. Then I thought it was an experiment you’d conducted on your own, one that was successful at turning you back into the kind of man you wanted to be.”
Harry stared at him, one forkful poised in the air until Kreacher took hold of his wrist and pushed it towards his mouth. Well, that explained some things about Malfoy’s attitude when they’d first met.
Harry ate his way through that slice of the cherry tart, and then said, “All right. You’ve decided I’m not those things. Now what?”
“I want to learn who you are. What you’ll become.” Malfoy’s eyes flashed. Harry thought uneasily that it was sort of a metallic flash. “Because you’re already a more interesting person than the man I worked with for years who wouldn’t tell me anything about himself.”
“I won’t give you more blood or skin for potions unless they benefit me directly. And I’m not consumed anymore with that desire not to be a bad person, or get rid of my Darkness, or however he phrased it.”
Malfoy nodded. “I know.”
“Then why do you want to know what I’m going to do?” The words burst out of Harry without his permission, but from the slight way Malfoy recoiled, he hadn’t expected them. Harry, though, was swept away by them, consumed by them. “I can’t offer you anything now. We weren’t friends. We weren’t-lovers, like me and Rob were.” Harry had to pause and gasp those words, but he still hurried on before Malfoy could say anything. “What motive could you possibly have for continuing to care what happens to me?”
Malfoy smiled, and his head tilted to the side until it was almost completely horizontal. The dreaded word broke from his lips again. “Curiosity.”
Harry tightened his hand on his fork. “I told you that I won’t be anyone’s curiosity.”
“I want to know what’ll happen to you.” Malfoy shrugged and continued watching him. “Surely that should be enough of an explanation. You can think of me as an experimenter. Or you can think of me as a friend.”
The last words got muttered in such a soft voice that Harry didn’t hear them at first. Only a second later did he work through them and understand what Malfoy was saying.
He gave a bitter snort. “You’ve chosen a hell of a time to ask for my friendship, Malfoy. I could end up in Azkaban for all you know.”
“It’s not the benefits of your friendship that I’m asking for,” Malfoy said, and lifted his head, eyes locking on Harry so fiercely that Harry felt his mouth drying out. “It’s your friendship.”
Harry opened his mouth, then closed it. He couldn’t pretend that he didn’t know the difference between those things. And Malfoy continued watching him silently glinting eyes.
“All right,” Harry said. “I don’t think it would be a bad idea to have more friends now. And ones who don’t seem to care that much about what I did when I was Old Harry.”
“Especially ones who will understand you when you make that distinction,” Malfoy said, and settled back with a pleased smile that transformed his face. “Eat your lunch-dinner.”
Harry did, pretending to gaze off into the distance. If he didn’t, he would just stare at Malfoy, and Malfoy would probably find that amusing or affecting. Harry wasn’t ready for either emotion right now.
On the other hand, from the way Malfoy smiled, he knew what Harry was about and found it amusing anyway. But as long as he smiled down at his plate and didn’t say anything, Harry could pretend they were simply on an equal footing. Malfoy was polite enough to hold in his laughter.
Almost like…a friend.
*
“How do we do this?”
Malfoy had taken Harry back into the library, and then ordered Kreacher to take all the books out of the room. Kreacher had done it while sniveling in ecstasy. Harry didn’t know if that was because he got to take orders from a Black or because he got to hoard Black possessions.
“We do this by you facing me, first of all,” Malfoy said.
Harry turned obediently around and realized that Malfoy had already used his wand to sear an oval into the carpet. It surrounded them. Harry smiled a little. “You realize Kreacher’s not going to be happy about that?”
Malfoy didn’t smile back. “You need to concentrate, Potter,” he muttered, and held up the flask. “Otherwise, this is going to take you to random times and points in your life. You have to want to see those memories more than anything else in the world.”
Harry felt his smile vanish. “That is not going to be a problem,” he said softly, and fixed his eyes on the potion.
“You’ll feel like you’re alone,” Malfoy continued. “Or only with the projections of the past that this might create. But I’ll be here. You need to remember that, all right? Because otherwise, there’s also the chance that you might get lost in the memories and wander forever.”
Harry swallowed, feeling his throat sting. “Not that this isn’t scary or anything.”
“You see now why it’s a Dark potion.”
Harry nodded once. Malfoy seemed to relax. “Good,” he said. “Hold out your hands.”
Harry did, and Malfoy cast another spell that he didn’t recognize. Something large and square and made of iron sprouted at once from the floor, with two holes in the middle of it. The holes closed around Harry’s wrists like manacles. He hissed and tried to yank them backwards instinctively, but he didn’t even manage to rock the large stocks or pillory or whatever it was.
“Hold still,” Malfoy said. “You have this. This ensures you will.”
Harry turned his glare into a tense nod. He understood why Malfoy was doing this, even why he hadn’t warned Harry about all the precautions before. There was the chance that Harry would have refused to do it.
And that wasn’t what Harry wanted. He did want to see what had happened to him in the past, if only so that he could do something about the confused perceptions of his friends and the possibility that he might go to Azkaban.
A disturbing thought occurred to him then. If I know what happened, then could they send me to Azkaban faster? I would know about it and Veritaserum might pull the truth out. They could question me.
In the end, though, Harry shrugged away that question. He still wanted to know. There was the chance that he might wind up in prison no matter what happened, and if he did, he was going to have the knowledge to carry with him.
Malfoy had begun to chant. Harry tried to listen, but the words seemed to slide strangely away from his ears. He found his gaze fixing on the potion flask, instead. The potion was swirling and glowing from the inside with a clear light that stung Harry’s eyes. Malfoy ended by lifting the flask as high as he could and then smashing it on the edge of the iron stocks that held Harry’s hands.
Harry screamed as the potion poured over him. It seared his fingers, and made him feel as though he was holding them in boiling water. He would have jumped back and writhed all over, but the stocks held him firmly. He still cried out, and more still when he opened his eyes and realized that the room had faded. He was drifting through the middle of a transparent void, nothing beneath his feet, nothing to surround him.
I am with you.
Harry didn’t think Malfoy had actually said it. It seemed to be something that his mind had dreamed up. But he calmed himself down, and he turned and began to look around, striving to see colors in the void. If he was here for memories, then they had to be here. He would find them.
The void around him stirred and eddied like a crystal pond. Harry continued to search, though, and finally colors coalesced. He recognized himself, sitting at a heavy table in a room he didn’t recognize. Maybe it was at Shell Cottage or something. It wasn’t like he had got that much chance to study interior decorating when he was there.
He looked the way he thought he should have looked when he woke up from the “nap” in St. Mungo’s. This had probably happened during the year of the Battle of Hogwarts, then. Harry leaned forwards, studying the picture intently.
There were piles of white in front of him that at first Harry thought were snow. But then he realized they were letters-cascading across the table and piling up around it and falling in drifts from Old Harry’s hands and shoulders every time he moved. There was a lost, helpless look on his face.
Harry looked around automatically, but he didn’t see the red of Howlers. Maybe this was before anyone had lost their tempers with Old Harry, or past the time when they had scolded him. He moved closer.
Standing behind Old Harry, he could read over his shoulder. Harry looked at the first letter.
We need support, and I don’t know what to do. With my husband dead in the war, we won’t have someone to work for us now. I can go out and work, I suppose, but I don’t know how. And what is our daughter going to do without a dad?
Old Harry tossed that letter down and scrabbled for another one. Harry caught a glimpse of a long sentence that began I’ve written to you about this before, but your comforting words were so kind that I hoped-
Another one. If you can see your way to donating more gold to the Orphans’ Fund, please do so. Every little bit helps! And, of course, speaking for us would do so much good, because I know you were an orphan yourself-
I know this is presumptuous, Mister Potter, but our daughter, Amanda, is sixteen and feels like she wouldn’t be safe with anyone who isn’t you. Could you please see your way clear to agreeing to a betrothal at least until she’s eighteen?
The Ministry would welcome you to train as an Unspeakable, if you wanted to.
Are you really going to marry Ginny Weasley? That’s what one of the stories from before the war said, but I hope not! Please tell me that you’ll stay single for a little while. It could be so important for your ability to go to the other side of the world and accept speaking engagements-
Our home has been burned down. We’ve been staying in a Muggle relative’s home since that happened, but what are we supposed to do next? Where are we supposed to go?
I don’t know who to turn to, which is why I’m writing to you. The Ministry took my wife’s wand away and we still haven’t got it back.
Our littlest girl has cancer. What are we supposed to do?
Some variation of that question turned up in every letter that Old Harry leafed through, Harry saw. What are we supposed to do? Sometimes it seemed to be from people with truly hopeless problems, and sometimes from people who could have solved their problems with a little more effort, and sometimes from people who had no reason to be writing to Harry. But there they were.
There they all were, and they piled up, and they wouldn’t be dismissed. Harry thought he could understand the tormented expression on Old Harry’s face far better than he would ever have dreamed.
Someone had to do something about these problems. Harry couldn’t ignore them and be a good person. But what people wanted of him was multifarious, and self-contradictory. He couldn’t stay single and marry every girl in Britain at the same time. He couldn’t agree to multiple false and real betrothals. He couldn’t donate money to or speak at every meeting or rally that wanted him; there weren’t enough Galleons in the vault or enough hours in the day. He couldn’t get back every wand from the Ministry, and if he mastered the law enough to riddle out fair compensations for people, that would mean times when he wasn’t chasing down Dark wizards or stopping dangerous magical creatures or rebuilding Hogwarts or learning Healing magic to cure cancer.
There they were, all of them, and more letters poured in as Harry watched, coming down the chimney and through the windows and from tilting baskets that spun to spill them into the room as they grew full. And voices cried out from their paper, the voices of people who needed and needed.
Harry didn’t have all the answers, standing there and watching Old Harry struggle with the piles and piles of parchment. Among other things, he didn’t have the answer as to why Old Harry would have let the needs pile up and overwhelm him, changing him into another kind of person who did bad things instead of one who had the courage to tell people he couldn’t fulfill all their desires.
But he thought he could see the beginning. And when that memory melted and took him into another one, Harry had the beginnings of an answer, too.
If he eventually chose one path that he thought people wanted him to take-being an Auror, living an “acceptable” life, marrying Ginny…
Then it makes sense that he would want to suppress or change anything that has to do with that.
Not an excuse. But it might be a reason.
Chapter Fifteen.
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