Just Another Recollection, part four
Title: Just Another Recollection (part 4/4)
Author: Nepenthe (si_ta)
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Genre: Drama (little bit of everything)
Format: Complete
Rating: NC-17 Sex be here
Warnings: Some swearing.
Disclaimer: I don't even own the idea to this one. XD
Summary: Based on 50 First Dates and insane conversations with freaky_zero on MSN. Draco’s short-term memory is destroyed from Harry’s dueling spell, causing him to wake up every morning like it’s just the next day. When, in fact, it has been three years. We come in on the morning that Draco wakes up early and finds a Mister Harry Potter in his bed...
Please Read This: Special thanks to rurounihime for beta’ing. Sex in chapter three. Thank you for reading!
Part One | Part Two | Part Three
Morning came quietly and Draco let himself drift between dreams and reality, rolling over at least twelve times. Smiling to himself, he stretched his legs out selfishly to take up every inch of room on his bed. Opening his eyes again - he’dlost count quite some time ago - Draco finally stretched and pulled himself up to a sitting position. He blinked sleepily at the unknown surroundings for a moment, leaning back on his hands, and trying to remember where he was. Yesterday finally dribbled to the surface, of Potter approaching him with his wand raised.
Draco groaned.
Not again, he thought.
Patting his face to check for injury and finding no bandages, Draco blearily looked the rest of himself over. He was a little disturbed to find himself naked, especially when he knew what a little pervert Madam Pomfrey was. Couldn’t contain herself, he decided. Just had to see the rest of the package. It comforted him, but only a little.
There was a bedside table and Draco squinted at it; it was pretty bright in here. There was a rolled letter for him, sitting next to a pensieve that perturbed Draco somewhat. Strangely, there was also a set of broken glasses that looked familiar, though Draco couldn’t recall from exactly where. Picking up the parchment, Draco unrolled it.
Good morning, Draco -
All answers to your questions about your surroundings and certain arrangements are stored in the pensieve. Please take a moment to look inside before you go wandering; you might be a bit confused if you do not.
Hope that you are well and have a splendid day,
Headmaster Dumbledore
Draco raised an eyebrow at the scrawled handwriting; it didn’t look like Professor Dumbledore’s writing. But maybe Potter’s spell had hit him a little harder than he thought. He tossed the paper aside, dragging the small pensieve towards him. He looked at the liquid for a moment, his reflection blinking back at him.
Draco fixed a stray hair.
Ah. Better.
Now for the unpleasant part. Draco dipped his head into the water and felt himself being sucked inside.
+
"Bugger off, Potter," a familiar voice snarled.
Draco recognized this scene. It had just happened yesterday after all. Potter was being a stupid, angsty git again and in a fit of teenage rage, had taken it out on poor Draco. Potions were brewing hotly around them as they faced each other off between the rows of long tables. Draco had been on his way to get another newt, but Scarface was in his face.
"Why don't you go around?" Potter snapped back and the real Draco sighed, taking a seat to watch his other self have another round in front of everyone.
"Why don't you bloody sit down and let me pass?" Draco ground out. They had just played this game the day before and quite frankly, the two Dracos were sick of it.
"Why should I do anything nice for you?" Harry challenged, green eyes hot behind his steamed glasses.
"For fuck's sake." Draco, fed up, stalked forward and tried pushing himself through. Just as Harry knocked into his table, an explosion went off - right next to the real Draco who yiped and fled underneath the table. The hot air current, however, knocked a few students backwards, including Pensieve Draco and Harry, who crashed to the floor.
"Ew! Yuck!" Pensieve Draco squealed as he threw himself off of Potter's body and quickly patted himself. "Somebody sanitize me! Help, help, I've got Potter germs all over me!" Draco sympathized with his other self. He did look quite sick. Harry, though, was still on the floor, looking dazed and angry at the same time, if it were possible. His cheeks were rosy, probably from the hot room, and quickly gaining color as Draco danced around checking himself over. When Pensieve Draco was sure he was not close to death, he sniffed delicately and continued on his way. Harry glared furiously at his back.
Suddenly everything slowed down. Confused, Draco looked around. And like a camera, the scene zoomed in one event that Draco was supposed to be looking at. Feeling off-balance, he squinted as Neville picked up a wand, presumably his own that had flown across the room and Harry swiped up the other.
"Harry picked up the wrong wand," somebody said and Draco whirled behind him. No one there, but the voice continued. "He should have noticed but he was...otherwise distracted."
The scene drained away and then blurred back into focus. Harry and Draco were facing off again, this time outside the Potions classroom and no one was around.
"Can't you leave me alone for one day?" Draco yelled, stomping his foot childishly.
"Can't you grow up!?" Harry screamed back.
"Can't we stop asking stupid questions with the same word every single time!?" Draco hysterically shouted.
"FINE!" Harry yelled, raising his wand. "We'll just do it the old fashioned way!"
"I'm not armed!" Draco squeaked, scrambling for the wand in his robes.
"I don't care!" Harry bellowed, charging forward. "Furnunculus!" Draco threw himself to the side, ripped his wand out of his pocket, and ducked behind an armory. He gave a quick sigh of relief; boils would scar his complexion.
“Come on out, Draco,” Harry’s flat voice called, dead in anger.
“Confundo!” Draco cried as he came out from behind the armor. Unfortunately, Harry was no longer standing where he was and it harmlessly hit a wall.
“Conjunctivities!” Harry screamed, appearing in the corner of Draco’s vision, and the spell struck him hard. Draco stumbled, slapping a hand on the cold floor to keep him from falling, and whirled around. His vision was immediately blearing and Draco, panicking, stuck out his wand at Harry’s fading figure.
“Tisortia!” “Impedimenta!” They both screamed at the same time. Draco heard the roar of his spell materializing as he was hit again by Potter’s spell. He felt himself slow down, in permanent slow motion.
“Deletrius!” Potter’s voice cried to get rid of Draco’s transfigured tiger, but the spell missed. The tiger’s blurry form flicked to the left and the spell kept going - straight for Draco. He tried to duck but the spell was still in full effect, and he only managed to move an inch before the third spell hit his head and he flew backwards. The scene blacked out, leaving the real Draco in darkness for a moment before Dumbledore's voice started to drift into coherency. Confused, he blinked when the scene appeared; he didn't remember this. Dumbledore was sitting like a fond grandfather on an infirmary bed with Pensieve Draco, a large wrap around his head.
"I'm sorry, Draco, but the damage is permanent," Dumbledore said softly, taking a chance to pat his knee. Pensieve Draco immediately recoiled, glaring coldly at the old face.
"I won't remember anything for the rest of my life and you're sorry?" Draco snarled. "What are you sorry for, you old man? What are you sorry for!?"
Draco blinked and the scene melted away.
"Draco."
Draco knew that voice and he whirled around. Potter was standing there, looking just as he last saw him except dressed in muggle clothing. He had his hands in his pockets and was smiling tightly. Draco tensed his shoulders, taking a step back in a more prepared position to blot away.
"This is just a recording of me and my thoughts," Potter said, taking his hands from his pockets. "It's hard to explain through just pieces of memories, so we thought this would be easier."
"Easier?" Draco echoed, but the recording continued like he hadn't even interrupted.
"That day I attacked you in the corridor..." Harry began, biting the corner of his lip. "Do…Do you remember that spell I used on you? Deletrius? It means to destroy. Or to wipe…to wipe out or erase.”
As if in pain, Harry curled and pressed his dry lips together tightly before releasing them.
“The spell started to eat you alive an-and we stopped it,” he said, swallowing. “But not without it’s side effects.”
Draco glared at him, hoping that he would finally get to the point. He ignored the twisting in his gut.
“It…It ate away your short-term memory, Draco,” Harry delivered quickly, his shoulders heaving like he just dropped some heavy weight. Draco didn’t move. “The spell I hit you with destroyed your short term memory.”
Draco still didn’t move.
“You still have all your memories to that moment!” Harry rushed on, trying to reassure Draco even though he could not see him or hear him. “It was shoved into your long-term memory like...uh, like a book on a shelf. But when the spell hit you, it...it broke the bookcase, Draco."
Harry scrubbed at his eyes then, lifting his glasses off his nose, and Draco realized that the boy had just gotten teary-eyed. Over HIM.
"What's in your long-term memory is safe and sound," Harry continued, fixing his glasses. "You still remember your childhood, the spells you've learned...all our fights." Another tight smile that drizzled like rain destroying a painting. "But you won't remember anything after that day. Ever."
Draco stood still, staring straight ahead.
"Short-term memory eventually becomes long-term memory after a day," Harry explained. "Without it, however...you'll have nothing beyond that day."
"I know what it fucking means," Draco snapped, teeth clenching and his body shaking. Harry continued.
"We have pensieves, however," Harry said, trying to be cheerful. "We record everyday and we have anything at hand that you might want to know about your...your life. This pensieve is just a summary of what you have been doing the...the past couple of years."
"Whoopde fucking doo," Draco said lamely, his voice void of feeling. He clenched his shaking hands.
"I'm...I'm also sorry, Draco," Harry continued, sounding uncertain. He twisted the hem of his shirt. "You'll never know how sorry I am."
"No," Draco snapped. "No, I guess I wouldn't know, would I?"
Harry blinked out and Draco turned around to confront the memories charging toward him.
+
"Why!? Why couldn't you just leave me alone!?" Draco screamed, punching Harry again and throwing him to the ground from the weight of the blow.
"I don't know, Malfoy," Harry sobbed, hand over his broken glasses. "I don't know."
+
"Um...Malfoy?" Hermione hovered over his table in the library.
"What?" He snarled, but she failed to recoil like everyone else.
"Would...Would you like to go to Hogsmeade with me?"
"Trouble in the kitchen with Weasel, Granger?"
A blush rose quickly to her cheeks.
"No," she said heatedly. "I just thought...Well, I thought..."
"That I need friends? That I need Gryffindor pity?"
"That we could stop being children and...and confront this!"
"There isn't a cure, Hermione."
A sniff, not indignant, but more heartening. "I know. At least, not for your head. But...maybe a cure for somewhere else."
+
"You can't be serious."
"I am very serious, Mr. Malfoy."
Draco gazed at the stove then back at Mrs. Weasley who had her arms crossed and wand at the ready. She stared back at him.
"But...I can't cook. I won't be able to remember how to tomorrow," he protested.
"Would you rather clean?" She said, raising her eyebrow. "You don't have to learn how to do that."
Draco hesitated, horror over his face, before fleeing to the stove. "What are we making?"
+
Draco rushed down the stairs as he heard the door creak open and the three bodies filed quickly filed through it in a hushed manner. They took their cloaks off and shook away the snow, before all three heads looked up to watch Draco's loud descent.
"You!" He cussed loudly, not even caring it was nearly midnight. Their shocked expressions quickly melted toward guilt.
"No note!" He roared, his cheeks warm from fury. "Nothing in the pensieve! Just gone! JUST GONE!"
"We're sorry, Draco," Hermione squeaked in quickly. "We just had to leave immediately-"
"I WOULDN'T EVER KNOW!" He screamed and they stepped back toward the wall, eyes wide. "NEVER! WHAT IF YOU NEVER CAME BACK!? I WOULD NEVER KNOW! I WOULD NEVER FUCKING KNOW!"
Harry's eyes were wide, Ron looked very pale, and Hermione had a hand over her lips.
"Don't," he said, breathless and trembling. He clutched onto the banister for strength as he felt his insides breaking. "Don't you ever do that to me again. Don't you ever. Ever do that. Again-" And Draco broke, right in front of them. He brought a hand quickly to his face to hide the evidence. His legs gave way, in relief from worrying for his friends, and horror that he couldn't contain himself any longer. He sat heavily on the steps and cried into his hands, trying to keep quiet as he heard bedroom doors opening and people creeping out of their rooms. Everyone was going to see him like this, broken and crippled, and useless to this whole war. He couldn't let them see, he couldn't, and he was about to scramble up when Hermione threw herself at him, hugging him tightly.
"I'm so sorry, Draco," she whispered, and he felt her tears go into his hair. "We'll never do that again, never, never, I swear-"
Ron behind him, hand on his shoulders and legs on one side of him. Harry on the other, a hand treading across his back and holding his trembling wrist.
The realization that he cared for these people so much nearly killed Draco right then and he sobbed into Hermione's brown hair.
+
“Potter?”
Harry peeked around his drink of pumpkin juice, his head lying on the table, glasses discarded on the wooden top. When he saw Draco, he sucked in his bottom lip and drew his teeth across the flesh repeatedly.
“Why haven’t I seen you today?”
“I’ve…I was busy,” Harry replied with a sigh, lifting his head. He glanced quickly at Draco before looking away. The blonde boy gracefully took a seat, a frown frozen on his lips.
“I see.”
“Yeah.”
Silence between the two, Harry picking at a loose thread in his sleeve. Draco was staring sightlessly ahead before blinking with a sigh.
“Well, I’m going to go to bed.”
“I’ll see you in the morning, Draco.”
Draco stared at Harry’s profile. His shoulders were hunched and curling inwards, as if to make a smaller target. As if to disappear completely.
“Yeah. Maybe.”
+
Draco braced his body on the icy wall, pressing his thundering skull against the cold rock.
“You should tell him, Harry.”
They were whispering on the other side of the door.
“I don’t have to tell him anything, Hermione.”
About him.
“He’s your friend. He’s your-”
“He isn’t anything!” Harry’s voice, harsh, angry, and cloaked in a handful of broken glass.
Draco closed his eyes.
“You can have everything.”
“Sometimes, Hermione, when you have everything it doesn’t mean anything at all.”
“You’re making a mistake.”
“I’m doing what’s right!”
Their voices were getting louder.
“You’re doing nothing!”
“So it won’t become anything!”
“You’re so selfish, Harry!”
“That’s rich, coming from you!”
Draco sighed, opening his eyes that were heavy as rocks attached to them, and turned, pushing the door open.
Their voices grew silent.
Draco stepped out into the hallway and stared at their frozen figures, Harry’s hands like claws poised in the air and barely restraining from reaching to Hermione in anger. He stared at them, looked at their terrified faces. Did he know? they must have thought. Did he know what they were talking about?
“Draco-“ Hermione started.
“I’m not going to put this in the pensieve,” Draco broke in before anything more could be said. They flinched - not physically, but mentally; a ripple in their magic as it was rebuked. Harry’s hands dropped like lead to his sides.
“This never happened,” Draco told them sternly, nodding at their guilty expressions. He then turned and left them to continue their heated spat that would mean nothing in the morning.
Draco lied, however.
He did put it in the pensieve, although he didn’t remember doing so in the morning.
+
“The pensieves!” Harry cried, scrambling up the stairs. Hermione reached out for him, dived to grab his cloak, and missed, stumbling on the steps.
“No, Harry!” Hermione yelled after him. “No, it’s too late!”
“We have to get them!” Harry yelled over his shoulder, in such a haste up the stairs that he was pushing paintings and swaying them precariously on their nails. They cursed loudly after the Boy Who Lived. Hermione ran after him, brushing the blood on her temple into her hair and slicking it back. They ran down the hall and burst into Draco’s bedroom, where two swirls of blonde hair greeted them. Luna and Draco stared at them, bewildered.
“You should be gone,” Luna told them, shaking her head. “I can take care of Draco.”
“The pensieves,” Harry said, walking to the chest and opening it quickly.
“We don’t have time,” Draco growled. “Leave them, Harry.”
“No!” Harry spat angrily, trying to pull all the rocks out and carry them all at once. “I won’t let you forget all of this!”
A crash downstairs of broken china and a swirl of black magic seeped up through the floor.
“We have to get out of here!” Hermione panicked, grabbing one of the pensieves from Harry before it slipped out of his arms.
“It will just slow us down!” Draco yelled at Harry, fire spitting from his eyes.
“Stop this,” Luna ordered and looked surprised when everybody stopped arguing. Licking her lip nervously, she strode forward and handed out two pensieves for Hermione and Harry to hold. Then, grabbing the last two, she shoved them quickly into Draco’s arms.
“Behind the painting, there is a staircase,” Luna explained. “You’ll be able to get out.”
They stared at her, unmoving, even as they heard the trample of footsteps on the stairs.
“Go,” she said. “They will find it soon enough. You’ll only have so much time.”
“Luna-” Harry started in a tone of argument, but her sober eyes turned on him.
“You are not naïve enough to think there would not be sacrifices, Harry,” she said. “Let me do this.”
“We can fight them off!” Hermione scrambled, her voice choked on desperate panic and tears.
“No,” Draco said, shaking his head. Luna looked at him. “We’re going.”
Without waiting for a reply from the others, he took to the painting and pushed it open with his foot.
“Go,” Luna said and shoved Harry and Hermione through the painting. She and Draco glanced at each other quickly.
“Goodbye,” Draco said, stepping through the archway. Without a reply, Luna closed the painting quickly. He heard her murmur a spell. There was a dragging of something heavy and then he watched as the painting bent inwards as it was pushed against.
“Draco,” Luna whispered to him, beyond the shadows of the staircase.
“What?”
He could hear the smile on her lips. “He loves you.”
A dry smile on Draco’s lips as well. “I know.”
Then Draco could hear the door being slammed open and Luna’s cry of defense, before he left her and shot down the moldy stairs.
+
“So, you survived.”
“Seems like it.”
“Missing any body parts?”
“I haven’t looked. I can’t really feel anything.”
“Hm. Can you feel me touch you here?”
“Yes.”
“How about here?”
Irritated sigh. “Yes.”
“Here?”
“That tickles.”
“How about here?”
“…Yes.”
“Here?”
“…Y…Yes.”
“…Here?”
“Draco…”
“You seem to be intact to me.”
“How long did you know?”
“Every morning.”
Silence.
“Usually after breakfast.”
“Are you mocking me?”
“You have quite a lovesick smile, Potter.”
“Well, you…Well, you have…Um…”
“Yes?”
“Well, you fall in love with me every day!”
“…”
“…Merlin…”
“…”
“Draco…do you really fall in love with me every day?”
“I think your head is swelling by this…
…
Are you crying?”
“No!”
“…Hm. Yes, you’re not crying and I’m not in love.”
“That sounds like a perfect beginning to me.”
“…I think so too.”
+
“Why do you care?”
Harry stared at him, his right hand threatening to twist into a fist.
“Why do you care, Harry!?”
A shiver laced through Harry’s frame, most apparent in his cheeks and lips that trembled with words he couldn’t say.
“…I don’t want this.” Draco said. And like a mirror reflecting its owner from every side, Draco appeared in different positions all over the room. Draco, who held his head in his hands. Draco, who was lashing out blindly to some invisible thing. Dracos that cried, Dracos that raged, Dracos that lay sprawled on the floor wishing for something else. And all of them repeated the same phrase…”I don’t want this” and fading as quickly as they arrived.
But Harry remained the same, a statue whose jaw tightened and whose marble eyes were thick with angry tears.
“How come you get to be so selfish?” Harry asked, and Draco raised his head from his hands. He didn’t wait for Draco to respond.
“Why can’t I!?” Harry questioned harshly. “Why can’t I be selfish for once and have you?”
“Is that what you call it?” Draco snarled, his fingers curling inwards. “‘Having me’?” As he leapt to his feet, there was a small howl from the other side of the room that they both ignored; that they could not hear. An onlooker who could not be seen, heard, or touched; but could feel and feel so strongly; it must be impossible to be so angry and confused all at once.
“This is not having me!” One Draco cried.
“This is not having me!” the other screamed at the same time.
“You will never have me, Harry!” the memory yelled. “All those memories you have of me are nothing but fake-they are meaningless and unreal, and all you’ll ever have. If they were gone, you would have NOTHING and that is what you really have, that’s all you really have, Harry-“
Before the memory knew it, Harry was in front of him, gripping his face. Draco’s rambled tangent melted off his tongue as he looked up at Harry’s keen expression, who stared back like a man trying to understand a confusing painting; focused, determined, and loving.
“If it’s fake, Draco,” Harry whispered, “why do we feel like this?”
“I don’t feel anything-“ Draco started but the hands tightened and he stilled.
“Look at me, Draco,” Harry ordered. “Because every time you do, you know. You look at me and you know-you know.”
“What do I know?” Draco challenged spitefully.
“You know me,” he replied, like it a common knowledge. “You look at me and you know me in a way you shouldn’t. You know me like I was a dream you just had. You know me like I’ve been in your life forever. Because…” Harry paused for a moment, his eyes turning within himself as he sought for the right words. When they focused back on Draco, it was with such intensity that he was sure burning bricks were being thrown upon his person; they stung and scorched his body that much. “You remember me.”
From far away, someone was crying.
“Impossible,” Draco whispered shakily, his eyes drowning in tears.
“Maybe,” Harry said. “But not fake.”
+
Draco surfaced with a quick intake of breath, jerking himself out of the water and falling back onto the bed. The pensieve rocked precariously in his lap and he locked onto it; whether to keep it from falling, or to throw it across the room, he didn’t know. He stared up at the ceiling; he could feel his eyebrows curling toward one another in a slow progression that somehow required his disorientated concentration. He scratched his nails down the stone surface of his memories and faintly, he noticed his eyes were stinging. But they were a pale comparison to the swirl of thoughts that were making his entire head ache. Letting go of the cool rock, he raked a hand slowly through his hair, trying to swipe his head clean, or maybe catch a foothold of some kind. But he could not; he felt like the mattress was crumbling beneath him and he did not have the will power to stop it. He could not voice or write these thoughts down; his only accomplishment would be to sit poised over an empty sheet of paper for a half an hour. These thoughts made no sense; had no real words but were rather just sounds and emotions that spoke more to him than any language could.
Peeling his eyes from the roof, Draco glanced over everything slowly, forcing himself to recognize something…anything. But nothing-nothing that he had not own all his life-was identifiable. Putting the pensieve aside, Draco dragged himself out of bed on hands and knees, grabbing a crinkled blanket as he got out. Wrapping it around his bare waist, he trotted quickly to the wall that had caught his attention. Pictures of himself and others waved frantically back at him as he approached, smiling in welcome as he peered cautiously at them. Pansy was on Blaise’s shoulders, performing a stunt, before falling and landing on everyone posing nearby. Some of the pictures were at parties, where other wizards walked around them, but their photo counterparts seemed content to smile, wave, and pose for the camera forever more. But the mass collection hanging from the wall was of Harry and Draco-in each other’s arms, looking at each other, smiling shyly…some were captured when Draco was having one of his temper tantrums…some were taken when he didn’t know it and he was staring at Harry, a small smile on his lips…
“You seem in a better mood today,” one of the photos said and Draco whipped his head to the one he had ignored; Luna smiled gently at him from her frame.
“…Luna?” Draco said, surprised. “I didn’t know…I mean, I don’t re-“
She shrugged her shoulders. “Oh, don’t be sappy. You’ve threatened to burn me to ashes many a time, so you really don’t think I believe you’re happy to see me, do you?”
“What?!” Draco cried. “I would never say that-“
Luna snorted loudly, causing Draco to snap his jaw shut for a moment and think.
“Okay, maybe I would have said that…a few times…” Draco started. “But I don’t mean it…”
“Of course not,” Luna said, all knowing and sounding a lot like Hermione. “You couldn’t hurt me, anyway. I’m enchanted.”
“By Weasley, I’m sure. He still doesn’t trust me.”
“He trusts you. Just not a lot.”
“Ah.”
Luna leaned forward then, slapping her hands energetically onto the frame, and tilted so much that it appeared she was about to crawl right out of the painting.
“How are you this morning?” she asked.
Draco thought about it, looking away before glancing at her again. “How was I yesterday?”
“You knocked me down, you brute,” Luna sniffed good-naturedly. “I’m still bruised.”
Draco smiled slightly. “I’m sure you’ll heal just fine.”
“Oh, yes,” she replied. “Bruises heal. But some things will never stop bleeding.”
Draco tilted his head, looking away from her.
“I hate it,” he whispered, letting a little bit of his fear leak through.
“Nobody likes bleeding,” she said, her voice loud in cheer but lacking in warmth. “That doesn’t mean you can’t live with it.”
“How?” He asked. “How can you live with something like that? How can you do it over and over again and just not wish for this…this imperfection to go away?”
“Oh, Draco, perfection is so boring,” Luna sighed, checking out her nails with the roll of her eyes. “You know what to expect everyday. It’s the same drabble everyday. You love each other because it is so imperfect.”
Draco finally glanced at her now that the game was forgotten and they were speaking plainly.
“By every right, you shouldn’t. By every right, this shouldn’t work and the two of you shouldn’t be together in the first place. No one expected it. No one wanted it to happen. But it did.”
Draco continued to stare at her, shaking his head slowly.
“Go downstairs, Draco. All your answers are there.”
“How can he love me?” Draco asked desperately, his eyebrows coming together tightly in pain as he fought back tears.
“How can you love him when you don’t even remember him every morning?” She countered, and Draco’s breath trembled in a sigh.
How can he love me when it must be so painful for him? Draco thought as he turned away.
How can he love me when it must be such a strain to be with me? Draco mused, as he got dressed.
How can we be together when I wake up every morning, thinking we are enemies? Draco brooded as he walked cautiously downstairs.
How can we be together when I don’t know anything about him after the accident? Draco thought as he heard the sounds of breakfast and voices at the bottom of the staircase.
How can we love each other at all? Draco sighed as he peeked shyly around the corner.
“Good morning, Draco!” Hermione cheered from the stove, waving a spoon thick with batter at him. Pansy and Ron turned in their seats at the table, their backs to the staircase, and greeted him nonchalantly before going back to buttering their toast. Blaise popped up from the other side of the table, wrestling with Hermione’s cat and trying to get him off.
“Hermione, if you don’t get this thing off me right now-“
“I told you it was evil-“ Ron pitched in.
“Crookshanks isn’t evil, Ron Weasley! It just attacks evil things.”
“HEY!” Blaise and Ron cried.
“Oh,” a new voice broke in, and Draco’s attention was immediately drawn to it. Harry stood in the opposite doorway, holding a few parchments in his hands. He smiled shyly at Draco, and he could literally hear the flip-flop of Harry’s heart from the other side of the room. “Morning, Draco.”
Draco wasn’t any better, and without thought-without knowing really why-he found himself smiling back just as shyly, his insides twisting up noisily. Surely, everyone in the room could hear it.
There was a slight hesitation on Harry’s part, but then he quickly ate the distance between them and stood before him. He looked at Draco, checking for any slight rebuke, before leaning forward, and pecking him softly on the lips. It was short and sweet; nothing long lasting, deep, or meaningful; it was just a common greeting that normal couples would expect to receive from a lover or spouse every morning.
But that was all they needed.
Without any more hesitation, Harry took Draco’s hand and guided him to the table. For Draco, his head was spinning in a free-for-all sensation. His insides were fluttering. He found, in that small second when their lips connected and hidden somewhere in the corner of Harry’s lips, the answer to his questions. Pensieves couldn’t answer it or show it; they were just mirrors reflecting what everyone saw. Letters of love, understanding, and apologies could never express it. The answer lay just between them, little pieces of themselves, and invisible to the rest of the world. It was imperfect; it was cracked on the sides and would never be fully repaired; it was handicapped. But it was still there. It was there because Draco wanted it to exist. Because Harry wanted it to exist.
Draco decided…that’s all he needed to know. All he had to have. He didn’t need perfection to be in love. He didn’t even have to remember him every morning because he already knew, somewhat subconsciously, that he had already given his heart away. Their relationship was what it was; all they had and Draco was willing to take it.
Besides, Draco thought with a smile as he sat next to Harry at the table. He got to have the feeling of falling in love every day. And that wasn’t what he could say for most people.
.Fin.
I hope you enjoyed. Thank you for reading.
Author: Nepenthe (si_ta)
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Genre: Drama (little bit of everything)
Format: Complete
Rating: NC-17 Sex be here
Warnings: Some swearing.
Disclaimer: I don't even own the idea to this one. XD
Summary: Based on 50 First Dates and insane conversations with freaky_zero on MSN. Draco’s short-term memory is destroyed from Harry’s dueling spell, causing him to wake up every morning like it’s just the next day. When, in fact, it has been three years. We come in on the morning that Draco wakes up early and finds a Mister Harry Potter in his bed...
Please Read This: Special thanks to rurounihime for beta’ing. Sex in chapter three. Thank you for reading!
Part One | Part Two | Part Three
Morning came quietly and Draco let himself drift between dreams and reality, rolling over at least twelve times. Smiling to himself, he stretched his legs out selfishly to take up every inch of room on his bed. Opening his eyes again - he’dlost count quite some time ago - Draco finally stretched and pulled himself up to a sitting position. He blinked sleepily at the unknown surroundings for a moment, leaning back on his hands, and trying to remember where he was. Yesterday finally dribbled to the surface, of Potter approaching him with his wand raised.
Draco groaned.
Not again, he thought.
Patting his face to check for injury and finding no bandages, Draco blearily looked the rest of himself over. He was a little disturbed to find himself naked, especially when he knew what a little pervert Madam Pomfrey was. Couldn’t contain herself, he decided. Just had to see the rest of the package. It comforted him, but only a little.
There was a bedside table and Draco squinted at it; it was pretty bright in here. There was a rolled letter for him, sitting next to a pensieve that perturbed Draco somewhat. Strangely, there was also a set of broken glasses that looked familiar, though Draco couldn’t recall from exactly where. Picking up the parchment, Draco unrolled it.
Good morning, Draco -
All answers to your questions about your surroundings and certain arrangements are stored in the pensieve. Please take a moment to look inside before you go wandering; you might be a bit confused if you do not.
Hope that you are well and have a splendid day,
Headmaster Dumbledore
Draco raised an eyebrow at the scrawled handwriting; it didn’t look like Professor Dumbledore’s writing. But maybe Potter’s spell had hit him a little harder than he thought. He tossed the paper aside, dragging the small pensieve towards him. He looked at the liquid for a moment, his reflection blinking back at him.
Draco fixed a stray hair.
Ah. Better.
Now for the unpleasant part. Draco dipped his head into the water and felt himself being sucked inside.
+
"Bugger off, Potter," a familiar voice snarled.
Draco recognized this scene. It had just happened yesterday after all. Potter was being a stupid, angsty git again and in a fit of teenage rage, had taken it out on poor Draco. Potions were brewing hotly around them as they faced each other off between the rows of long tables. Draco had been on his way to get another newt, but Scarface was in his face.
"Why don't you go around?" Potter snapped back and the real Draco sighed, taking a seat to watch his other self have another round in front of everyone.
"Why don't you bloody sit down and let me pass?" Draco ground out. They had just played this game the day before and quite frankly, the two Dracos were sick of it.
"Why should I do anything nice for you?" Harry challenged, green eyes hot behind his steamed glasses.
"For fuck's sake." Draco, fed up, stalked forward and tried pushing himself through. Just as Harry knocked into his table, an explosion went off - right next to the real Draco who yiped and fled underneath the table. The hot air current, however, knocked a few students backwards, including Pensieve Draco and Harry, who crashed to the floor.
"Ew! Yuck!" Pensieve Draco squealed as he threw himself off of Potter's body and quickly patted himself. "Somebody sanitize me! Help, help, I've got Potter germs all over me!" Draco sympathized with his other self. He did look quite sick. Harry, though, was still on the floor, looking dazed and angry at the same time, if it were possible. His cheeks were rosy, probably from the hot room, and quickly gaining color as Draco danced around checking himself over. When Pensieve Draco was sure he was not close to death, he sniffed delicately and continued on his way. Harry glared furiously at his back.
Suddenly everything slowed down. Confused, Draco looked around. And like a camera, the scene zoomed in one event that Draco was supposed to be looking at. Feeling off-balance, he squinted as Neville picked up a wand, presumably his own that had flown across the room and Harry swiped up the other.
"Harry picked up the wrong wand," somebody said and Draco whirled behind him. No one there, but the voice continued. "He should have noticed but he was...otherwise distracted."
The scene drained away and then blurred back into focus. Harry and Draco were facing off again, this time outside the Potions classroom and no one was around.
"Can't you leave me alone for one day?" Draco yelled, stomping his foot childishly.
"Can't you grow up!?" Harry screamed back.
"Can't we stop asking stupid questions with the same word every single time!?" Draco hysterically shouted.
"FINE!" Harry yelled, raising his wand. "We'll just do it the old fashioned way!"
"I'm not armed!" Draco squeaked, scrambling for the wand in his robes.
"I don't care!" Harry bellowed, charging forward. "Furnunculus!" Draco threw himself to the side, ripped his wand out of his pocket, and ducked behind an armory. He gave a quick sigh of relief; boils would scar his complexion.
“Come on out, Draco,” Harry’s flat voice called, dead in anger.
“Confundo!” Draco cried as he came out from behind the armor. Unfortunately, Harry was no longer standing where he was and it harmlessly hit a wall.
“Conjunctivities!” Harry screamed, appearing in the corner of Draco’s vision, and the spell struck him hard. Draco stumbled, slapping a hand on the cold floor to keep him from falling, and whirled around. His vision was immediately blearing and Draco, panicking, stuck out his wand at Harry’s fading figure.
“Tisortia!” “Impedimenta!” They both screamed at the same time. Draco heard the roar of his spell materializing as he was hit again by Potter’s spell. He felt himself slow down, in permanent slow motion.
“Deletrius!” Potter’s voice cried to get rid of Draco’s transfigured tiger, but the spell missed. The tiger’s blurry form flicked to the left and the spell kept going - straight for Draco. He tried to duck but the spell was still in full effect, and he only managed to move an inch before the third spell hit his head and he flew backwards. The scene blacked out, leaving the real Draco in darkness for a moment before Dumbledore's voice started to drift into coherency. Confused, he blinked when the scene appeared; he didn't remember this. Dumbledore was sitting like a fond grandfather on an infirmary bed with Pensieve Draco, a large wrap around his head.
"I'm sorry, Draco, but the damage is permanent," Dumbledore said softly, taking a chance to pat his knee. Pensieve Draco immediately recoiled, glaring coldly at the old face.
"I won't remember anything for the rest of my life and you're sorry?" Draco snarled. "What are you sorry for, you old man? What are you sorry for!?"
Draco blinked and the scene melted away.
"Draco."
Draco knew that voice and he whirled around. Potter was standing there, looking just as he last saw him except dressed in muggle clothing. He had his hands in his pockets and was smiling tightly. Draco tensed his shoulders, taking a step back in a more prepared position to blot away.
"This is just a recording of me and my thoughts," Potter said, taking his hands from his pockets. "It's hard to explain through just pieces of memories, so we thought this would be easier."
"Easier?" Draco echoed, but the recording continued like he hadn't even interrupted.
"That day I attacked you in the corridor..." Harry began, biting the corner of his lip. "Do…Do you remember that spell I used on you? Deletrius? It means to destroy. Or to wipe…to wipe out or erase.”
As if in pain, Harry curled and pressed his dry lips together tightly before releasing them.
“The spell started to eat you alive an-and we stopped it,” he said, swallowing. “But not without it’s side effects.”
Draco glared at him, hoping that he would finally get to the point. He ignored the twisting in his gut.
“It…It ate away your short-term memory, Draco,” Harry delivered quickly, his shoulders heaving like he just dropped some heavy weight. Draco didn’t move. “The spell I hit you with destroyed your short term memory.”
Draco still didn’t move.
“You still have all your memories to that moment!” Harry rushed on, trying to reassure Draco even though he could not see him or hear him. “It was shoved into your long-term memory like...uh, like a book on a shelf. But when the spell hit you, it...it broke the bookcase, Draco."
Harry scrubbed at his eyes then, lifting his glasses off his nose, and Draco realized that the boy had just gotten teary-eyed. Over HIM.
"What's in your long-term memory is safe and sound," Harry continued, fixing his glasses. "You still remember your childhood, the spells you've learned...all our fights." Another tight smile that drizzled like rain destroying a painting. "But you won't remember anything after that day. Ever."
Draco stood still, staring straight ahead.
"Short-term memory eventually becomes long-term memory after a day," Harry explained. "Without it, however...you'll have nothing beyond that day."
"I know what it fucking means," Draco snapped, teeth clenching and his body shaking. Harry continued.
"We have pensieves, however," Harry said, trying to be cheerful. "We record everyday and we have anything at hand that you might want to know about your...your life. This pensieve is just a summary of what you have been doing the...the past couple of years."
"Whoopde fucking doo," Draco said lamely, his voice void of feeling. He clenched his shaking hands.
"I'm...I'm also sorry, Draco," Harry continued, sounding uncertain. He twisted the hem of his shirt. "You'll never know how sorry I am."
"No," Draco snapped. "No, I guess I wouldn't know, would I?"
Harry blinked out and Draco turned around to confront the memories charging toward him.
+
"Why!? Why couldn't you just leave me alone!?" Draco screamed, punching Harry again and throwing him to the ground from the weight of the blow.
"I don't know, Malfoy," Harry sobbed, hand over his broken glasses. "I don't know."
+
"Um...Malfoy?" Hermione hovered over his table in the library.
"What?" He snarled, but she failed to recoil like everyone else.
"Would...Would you like to go to Hogsmeade with me?"
"Trouble in the kitchen with Weasel, Granger?"
A blush rose quickly to her cheeks.
"No," she said heatedly. "I just thought...Well, I thought..."
"That I need friends? That I need Gryffindor pity?"
"That we could stop being children and...and confront this!"
"There isn't a cure, Hermione."
A sniff, not indignant, but more heartening. "I know. At least, not for your head. But...maybe a cure for somewhere else."
+
"You can't be serious."
"I am very serious, Mr. Malfoy."
Draco gazed at the stove then back at Mrs. Weasley who had her arms crossed and wand at the ready. She stared back at him.
"But...I can't cook. I won't be able to remember how to tomorrow," he protested.
"Would you rather clean?" She said, raising her eyebrow. "You don't have to learn how to do that."
Draco hesitated, horror over his face, before fleeing to the stove. "What are we making?"
+
Draco rushed down the stairs as he heard the door creak open and the three bodies filed quickly filed through it in a hushed manner. They took their cloaks off and shook away the snow, before all three heads looked up to watch Draco's loud descent.
"You!" He cussed loudly, not even caring it was nearly midnight. Their shocked expressions quickly melted toward guilt.
"No note!" He roared, his cheeks warm from fury. "Nothing in the pensieve! Just gone! JUST GONE!"
"We're sorry, Draco," Hermione squeaked in quickly. "We just had to leave immediately-"
"I WOULDN'T EVER KNOW!" He screamed and they stepped back toward the wall, eyes wide. "NEVER! WHAT IF YOU NEVER CAME BACK!? I WOULD NEVER KNOW! I WOULD NEVER FUCKING KNOW!"
Harry's eyes were wide, Ron looked very pale, and Hermione had a hand over her lips.
"Don't," he said, breathless and trembling. He clutched onto the banister for strength as he felt his insides breaking. "Don't you ever do that to me again. Don't you ever. Ever do that. Again-" And Draco broke, right in front of them. He brought a hand quickly to his face to hide the evidence. His legs gave way, in relief from worrying for his friends, and horror that he couldn't contain himself any longer. He sat heavily on the steps and cried into his hands, trying to keep quiet as he heard bedroom doors opening and people creeping out of their rooms. Everyone was going to see him like this, broken and crippled, and useless to this whole war. He couldn't let them see, he couldn't, and he was about to scramble up when Hermione threw herself at him, hugging him tightly.
"I'm so sorry, Draco," she whispered, and he felt her tears go into his hair. "We'll never do that again, never, never, I swear-"
Ron behind him, hand on his shoulders and legs on one side of him. Harry on the other, a hand treading across his back and holding his trembling wrist.
The realization that he cared for these people so much nearly killed Draco right then and he sobbed into Hermione's brown hair.
+
“Potter?”
Harry peeked around his drink of pumpkin juice, his head lying on the table, glasses discarded on the wooden top. When he saw Draco, he sucked in his bottom lip and drew his teeth across the flesh repeatedly.
“Why haven’t I seen you today?”
“I’ve…I was busy,” Harry replied with a sigh, lifting his head. He glanced quickly at Draco before looking away. The blonde boy gracefully took a seat, a frown frozen on his lips.
“I see.”
“Yeah.”
Silence between the two, Harry picking at a loose thread in his sleeve. Draco was staring sightlessly ahead before blinking with a sigh.
“Well, I’m going to go to bed.”
“I’ll see you in the morning, Draco.”
Draco stared at Harry’s profile. His shoulders were hunched and curling inwards, as if to make a smaller target. As if to disappear completely.
“Yeah. Maybe.”
+
Draco braced his body on the icy wall, pressing his thundering skull against the cold rock.
“You should tell him, Harry.”
They were whispering on the other side of the door.
“I don’t have to tell him anything, Hermione.”
About him.
“He’s your friend. He’s your-”
“He isn’t anything!” Harry’s voice, harsh, angry, and cloaked in a handful of broken glass.
Draco closed his eyes.
“You can have everything.”
“Sometimes, Hermione, when you have everything it doesn’t mean anything at all.”
“You’re making a mistake.”
“I’m doing what’s right!”
Their voices were getting louder.
“You’re doing nothing!”
“So it won’t become anything!”
“You’re so selfish, Harry!”
“That’s rich, coming from you!”
Draco sighed, opening his eyes that were heavy as rocks attached to them, and turned, pushing the door open.
Their voices grew silent.
Draco stepped out into the hallway and stared at their frozen figures, Harry’s hands like claws poised in the air and barely restraining from reaching to Hermione in anger. He stared at them, looked at their terrified faces. Did he know? they must have thought. Did he know what they were talking about?
“Draco-“ Hermione started.
“I’m not going to put this in the pensieve,” Draco broke in before anything more could be said. They flinched - not physically, but mentally; a ripple in their magic as it was rebuked. Harry’s hands dropped like lead to his sides.
“This never happened,” Draco told them sternly, nodding at their guilty expressions. He then turned and left them to continue their heated spat that would mean nothing in the morning.
Draco lied, however.
He did put it in the pensieve, although he didn’t remember doing so in the morning.
+
“The pensieves!” Harry cried, scrambling up the stairs. Hermione reached out for him, dived to grab his cloak, and missed, stumbling on the steps.
“No, Harry!” Hermione yelled after him. “No, it’s too late!”
“We have to get them!” Harry yelled over his shoulder, in such a haste up the stairs that he was pushing paintings and swaying them precariously on their nails. They cursed loudly after the Boy Who Lived. Hermione ran after him, brushing the blood on her temple into her hair and slicking it back. They ran down the hall and burst into Draco’s bedroom, where two swirls of blonde hair greeted them. Luna and Draco stared at them, bewildered.
“You should be gone,” Luna told them, shaking her head. “I can take care of Draco.”
“The pensieves,” Harry said, walking to the chest and opening it quickly.
“We don’t have time,” Draco growled. “Leave them, Harry.”
“No!” Harry spat angrily, trying to pull all the rocks out and carry them all at once. “I won’t let you forget all of this!”
A crash downstairs of broken china and a swirl of black magic seeped up through the floor.
“We have to get out of here!” Hermione panicked, grabbing one of the pensieves from Harry before it slipped out of his arms.
“It will just slow us down!” Draco yelled at Harry, fire spitting from his eyes.
“Stop this,” Luna ordered and looked surprised when everybody stopped arguing. Licking her lip nervously, she strode forward and handed out two pensieves for Hermione and Harry to hold. Then, grabbing the last two, she shoved them quickly into Draco’s arms.
“Behind the painting, there is a staircase,” Luna explained. “You’ll be able to get out.”
They stared at her, unmoving, even as they heard the trample of footsteps on the stairs.
“Go,” she said. “They will find it soon enough. You’ll only have so much time.”
“Luna-” Harry started in a tone of argument, but her sober eyes turned on him.
“You are not naïve enough to think there would not be sacrifices, Harry,” she said. “Let me do this.”
“We can fight them off!” Hermione scrambled, her voice choked on desperate panic and tears.
“No,” Draco said, shaking his head. Luna looked at him. “We’re going.”
Without waiting for a reply from the others, he took to the painting and pushed it open with his foot.
“Go,” Luna said and shoved Harry and Hermione through the painting. She and Draco glanced at each other quickly.
“Goodbye,” Draco said, stepping through the archway. Without a reply, Luna closed the painting quickly. He heard her murmur a spell. There was a dragging of something heavy and then he watched as the painting bent inwards as it was pushed against.
“Draco,” Luna whispered to him, beyond the shadows of the staircase.
“What?”
He could hear the smile on her lips. “He loves you.”
A dry smile on Draco’s lips as well. “I know.”
Then Draco could hear the door being slammed open and Luna’s cry of defense, before he left her and shot down the moldy stairs.
+
“So, you survived.”
“Seems like it.”
“Missing any body parts?”
“I haven’t looked. I can’t really feel anything.”
“Hm. Can you feel me touch you here?”
“Yes.”
“How about here?”
Irritated sigh. “Yes.”
“Here?”
“That tickles.”
“How about here?”
“…Yes.”
“Here?”
“…Y…Yes.”
“…Here?”
“Draco…”
“You seem to be intact to me.”
“How long did you know?”
“Every morning.”
Silence.
“Usually after breakfast.”
“Are you mocking me?”
“You have quite a lovesick smile, Potter.”
“Well, you…Well, you have…Um…”
“Yes?”
“Well, you fall in love with me every day!”
“…”
“…Merlin…”
“…”
“Draco…do you really fall in love with me every day?”
“I think your head is swelling by this…
…
Are you crying?”
“No!”
“…Hm. Yes, you’re not crying and I’m not in love.”
“That sounds like a perfect beginning to me.”
“…I think so too.”
+
“Why do you care?”
Harry stared at him, his right hand threatening to twist into a fist.
“Why do you care, Harry!?”
A shiver laced through Harry’s frame, most apparent in his cheeks and lips that trembled with words he couldn’t say.
“…I don’t want this.” Draco said. And like a mirror reflecting its owner from every side, Draco appeared in different positions all over the room. Draco, who held his head in his hands. Draco, who was lashing out blindly to some invisible thing. Dracos that cried, Dracos that raged, Dracos that lay sprawled on the floor wishing for something else. And all of them repeated the same phrase…”I don’t want this” and fading as quickly as they arrived.
But Harry remained the same, a statue whose jaw tightened and whose marble eyes were thick with angry tears.
“How come you get to be so selfish?” Harry asked, and Draco raised his head from his hands. He didn’t wait for Draco to respond.
“Why can’t I!?” Harry questioned harshly. “Why can’t I be selfish for once and have you?”
“Is that what you call it?” Draco snarled, his fingers curling inwards. “‘Having me’?” As he leapt to his feet, there was a small howl from the other side of the room that they both ignored; that they could not hear. An onlooker who could not be seen, heard, or touched; but could feel and feel so strongly; it must be impossible to be so angry and confused all at once.
“This is not having me!” One Draco cried.
“This is not having me!” the other screamed at the same time.
“You will never have me, Harry!” the memory yelled. “All those memories you have of me are nothing but fake-they are meaningless and unreal, and all you’ll ever have. If they were gone, you would have NOTHING and that is what you really have, that’s all you really have, Harry-“
Before the memory knew it, Harry was in front of him, gripping his face. Draco’s rambled tangent melted off his tongue as he looked up at Harry’s keen expression, who stared back like a man trying to understand a confusing painting; focused, determined, and loving.
“If it’s fake, Draco,” Harry whispered, “why do we feel like this?”
“I don’t feel anything-“ Draco started but the hands tightened and he stilled.
“Look at me, Draco,” Harry ordered. “Because every time you do, you know. You look at me and you know-you know.”
“What do I know?” Draco challenged spitefully.
“You know me,” he replied, like it a common knowledge. “You look at me and you know me in a way you shouldn’t. You know me like I was a dream you just had. You know me like I’ve been in your life forever. Because…” Harry paused for a moment, his eyes turning within himself as he sought for the right words. When they focused back on Draco, it was with such intensity that he was sure burning bricks were being thrown upon his person; they stung and scorched his body that much. “You remember me.”
From far away, someone was crying.
“Impossible,” Draco whispered shakily, his eyes drowning in tears.
“Maybe,” Harry said. “But not fake.”
+
Draco surfaced with a quick intake of breath, jerking himself out of the water and falling back onto the bed. The pensieve rocked precariously in his lap and he locked onto it; whether to keep it from falling, or to throw it across the room, he didn’t know. He stared up at the ceiling; he could feel his eyebrows curling toward one another in a slow progression that somehow required his disorientated concentration. He scratched his nails down the stone surface of his memories and faintly, he noticed his eyes were stinging. But they were a pale comparison to the swirl of thoughts that were making his entire head ache. Letting go of the cool rock, he raked a hand slowly through his hair, trying to swipe his head clean, or maybe catch a foothold of some kind. But he could not; he felt like the mattress was crumbling beneath him and he did not have the will power to stop it. He could not voice or write these thoughts down; his only accomplishment would be to sit poised over an empty sheet of paper for a half an hour. These thoughts made no sense; had no real words but were rather just sounds and emotions that spoke more to him than any language could.
Peeling his eyes from the roof, Draco glanced over everything slowly, forcing himself to recognize something…anything. But nothing-nothing that he had not own all his life-was identifiable. Putting the pensieve aside, Draco dragged himself out of bed on hands and knees, grabbing a crinkled blanket as he got out. Wrapping it around his bare waist, he trotted quickly to the wall that had caught his attention. Pictures of himself and others waved frantically back at him as he approached, smiling in welcome as he peered cautiously at them. Pansy was on Blaise’s shoulders, performing a stunt, before falling and landing on everyone posing nearby. Some of the pictures were at parties, where other wizards walked around them, but their photo counterparts seemed content to smile, wave, and pose for the camera forever more. But the mass collection hanging from the wall was of Harry and Draco-in each other’s arms, looking at each other, smiling shyly…some were captured when Draco was having one of his temper tantrums…some were taken when he didn’t know it and he was staring at Harry, a small smile on his lips…
“You seem in a better mood today,” one of the photos said and Draco whipped his head to the one he had ignored; Luna smiled gently at him from her frame.
“…Luna?” Draco said, surprised. “I didn’t know…I mean, I don’t re-“
She shrugged her shoulders. “Oh, don’t be sappy. You’ve threatened to burn me to ashes many a time, so you really don’t think I believe you’re happy to see me, do you?”
“What?!” Draco cried. “I would never say that-“
Luna snorted loudly, causing Draco to snap his jaw shut for a moment and think.
“Okay, maybe I would have said that…a few times…” Draco started. “But I don’t mean it…”
“Of course not,” Luna said, all knowing and sounding a lot like Hermione. “You couldn’t hurt me, anyway. I’m enchanted.”
“By Weasley, I’m sure. He still doesn’t trust me.”
“He trusts you. Just not a lot.”
“Ah.”
Luna leaned forward then, slapping her hands energetically onto the frame, and tilted so much that it appeared she was about to crawl right out of the painting.
“How are you this morning?” she asked.
Draco thought about it, looking away before glancing at her again. “How was I yesterday?”
“You knocked me down, you brute,” Luna sniffed good-naturedly. “I’m still bruised.”
Draco smiled slightly. “I’m sure you’ll heal just fine.”
“Oh, yes,” she replied. “Bruises heal. But some things will never stop bleeding.”
Draco tilted his head, looking away from her.
“I hate it,” he whispered, letting a little bit of his fear leak through.
“Nobody likes bleeding,” she said, her voice loud in cheer but lacking in warmth. “That doesn’t mean you can’t live with it.”
“How?” He asked. “How can you live with something like that? How can you do it over and over again and just not wish for this…this imperfection to go away?”
“Oh, Draco, perfection is so boring,” Luna sighed, checking out her nails with the roll of her eyes. “You know what to expect everyday. It’s the same drabble everyday. You love each other because it is so imperfect.”
Draco finally glanced at her now that the game was forgotten and they were speaking plainly.
“By every right, you shouldn’t. By every right, this shouldn’t work and the two of you shouldn’t be together in the first place. No one expected it. No one wanted it to happen. But it did.”
Draco continued to stare at her, shaking his head slowly.
“Go downstairs, Draco. All your answers are there.”
“How can he love me?” Draco asked desperately, his eyebrows coming together tightly in pain as he fought back tears.
“How can you love him when you don’t even remember him every morning?” She countered, and Draco’s breath trembled in a sigh.
How can he love me when it must be so painful for him? Draco thought as he turned away.
How can he love me when it must be such a strain to be with me? Draco mused, as he got dressed.
How can we be together when I wake up every morning, thinking we are enemies? Draco brooded as he walked cautiously downstairs.
How can we be together when I don’t know anything about him after the accident? Draco thought as he heard the sounds of breakfast and voices at the bottom of the staircase.
How can we love each other at all? Draco sighed as he peeked shyly around the corner.
“Good morning, Draco!” Hermione cheered from the stove, waving a spoon thick with batter at him. Pansy and Ron turned in their seats at the table, their backs to the staircase, and greeted him nonchalantly before going back to buttering their toast. Blaise popped up from the other side of the table, wrestling with Hermione’s cat and trying to get him off.
“Hermione, if you don’t get this thing off me right now-“
“I told you it was evil-“ Ron pitched in.
“Crookshanks isn’t evil, Ron Weasley! It just attacks evil things.”
“HEY!” Blaise and Ron cried.
“Oh,” a new voice broke in, and Draco’s attention was immediately drawn to it. Harry stood in the opposite doorway, holding a few parchments in his hands. He smiled shyly at Draco, and he could literally hear the flip-flop of Harry’s heart from the other side of the room. “Morning, Draco.”
Draco wasn’t any better, and without thought-without knowing really why-he found himself smiling back just as shyly, his insides twisting up noisily. Surely, everyone in the room could hear it.
There was a slight hesitation on Harry’s part, but then he quickly ate the distance between them and stood before him. He looked at Draco, checking for any slight rebuke, before leaning forward, and pecking him softly on the lips. It was short and sweet; nothing long lasting, deep, or meaningful; it was just a common greeting that normal couples would expect to receive from a lover or spouse every morning.
But that was all they needed.
Without any more hesitation, Harry took Draco’s hand and guided him to the table. For Draco, his head was spinning in a free-for-all sensation. His insides were fluttering. He found, in that small second when their lips connected and hidden somewhere in the corner of Harry’s lips, the answer to his questions. Pensieves couldn’t answer it or show it; they were just mirrors reflecting what everyone saw. Letters of love, understanding, and apologies could never express it. The answer lay just between them, little pieces of themselves, and invisible to the rest of the world. It was imperfect; it was cracked on the sides and would never be fully repaired; it was handicapped. But it was still there. It was there because Draco wanted it to exist. Because Harry wanted it to exist.
Draco decided…that’s all he needed to know. All he had to have. He didn’t need perfection to be in love. He didn’t even have to remember him every morning because he already knew, somewhat subconsciously, that he had already given his heart away. Their relationship was what it was; all they had and Draco was willing to take it.
Besides, Draco thought with a smile as he sat next to Harry at the table. He got to have the feeling of falling in love every day. And that wasn’t what he could say for most people.
.Fin.
I hope you enjoyed. Thank you for reading.