Long Forgotten Fairytale Part 3/3
And finally, Part 3...
The silence between them grew charged as they picked at their food. Draco couldn't think of what to say to this person who he'd evidently wanted so much back in school, but with whom he otherwise had no history. They hadn't shared a lot of personal information while working out together. Other than discussing workout and training techniques, their conversation had touched on current events and culture, and even that was limited to the most banal observations.
Draco tried to focus on not getting his spaghetti carbonara all over his linen shirt, but he kept glancing up to see Harry glancing up at him with a strangely familiar heat in his eyes before returning them to his plate. This had happened several times before he realized Harry had stopped eating and was staring at Draco with patent lust in his expression. Draco had to fight down a blush - his sudden erection he didn't bother to restrain.
“I’m not hungry any more,” Harry said as he put his napkin on his plate. “At least, not for this. What do you think?”
Draco pushed his plate away and said, “What did you have in mind?”
Harry leaned across the table. “I want… I want you, Drake. Draco. I want to get to know you better.” He paused, then looked directly into Draco’s eyes. There was a challenge in them, as well as fear. “I want you to get to know me.”
“I… I want to, too,” Draco said, more huskily than he’d intended. Harry’s smile was surprisingly sweet, though it had a tinge of leer in it.
“Your place, then?” Harry said as he stood and threw some money on the table. Draco nodded, and they nearly ran out of the restaurant. Harry’s hands were down his pants by the time they Side-Along-Apparated into Draco’s living room, but he didn’t think the bums in the alleyway had taken any notice. The insistent, almost suffocating passion between them left no room for politeness, anyway.
Once in Draco’s home, Harry attached himself to Draco’s neck with a will, causing Draco to pant and claw at his arse. He broke off to ask, “The bedroom?” Draco took him by the wrist and dragged him down the hall into the large, white room.
Harry stripped off and approached Draco, but when Draco’s hands went to his buttons, he found them stilled. “Let me,” Harry whispered, and Draco was disinclined to put up a fight. He undid the buttons slowly, kissing each inch of exposed flesh. When he’d undone the shirt completely, he took a step back and raked his gaze over Draco’s chest. “Perfect,” he growled, and Draco glanced down at his torso and the faint scar across it that he could never remember acquiring - he assumed it had happened during a particularly vicious Quidditch match. He thought his chest left much to be desired; it certainly wasn’t as muscular as Harry’s, but if Harry liked it then he wasn’t about to question that.
Harry closed the distance between them with a soft moan that increased Draco’s arousal past the point of endurance. “I’ve wanted this for so long,” he muttered as his hands began to work the fastenings on Draco’s trousers. Draco thought it was a bit odd to call three months “so long,” but when Harry managed to dispose of both his trousers and his pants and wrap his fist around Draco’s by-now desperately hard cock, Draco’s critical faculties shut down.
It felt so familiar, so right, to have Harry touching him like this. Old fantasies flashed across his mind’s eye- he’d spent a lot of time imagining just how this would feel. It was like he could predict exactly what Harry would do next; he would kneel down, and take just the head of his prick into his beautiful mouth. Yes, just like that… then he would grip the base and press his tongue against the underside, licking firmly up and down until Draco’s hips were bucking towards him, urging him to swallow the whole thing… yes…
By the time Harry took Draco all the way in to the hilt, Draco was helplessly thrusting into Harry’s mouth, oblivious to possible discomfort. The sounds Harry was making, though, assured him that he was enjoying it every bit as much as Draco was. His climax came upon him so strongly that he felt echoes of it in every nerve for long moments afterwards. Eventually, he opened his eyes and looked wonderingly down at the man kneeling at his feet.
“You’re still hard,” Draco pointed out unnecessarily. Harry grinned at him.
“You’re still hot, and I still have to fuck you,” he explained wryly. Draco shuddered with anticipation and laid himself down on the bed, reaching for the lube. He knew he was blushing, which was absurd, but something about Harry made him feel as shy as he had his first time. He lay on his stomach and opened the bottle, squeezing some into his hand. Harry grabbed his wrist and scooped the lube out of his hand, turning him over onto his back and slathering the slick substance onto his own cock. Then he took the bottle and tossed it aside, muttering, “Lubricio” with his fingers at Draco’s entrance. It had been so long since Draco had had sex with a wizard that he’d nearly forgotten how much better the spell was than the oily Muggle lubrication. The tingling sensation inside him revived his flagging erection and he gasped.
“I want to see your face when you come, this time,” Harry said as his finger worked its way into Draco’s twitching hole. “Ohhh…kay,” Draco breathed, eyes closing against his will. He lost all sense of time as Harry thrust his fingers in and out, stretching and preparing him. That sensation alone was almost enough to make Draco come. He opened his eyes when he felt Harry shifting above him, and saw the look his eyes as his cock pressed against the quivering flesh of Draco’s arsehole. Draco nodded, encouraging him wordlessly to slide in.
Harry’s cock moved like it belonged inside of Draco, as though it couldn’t possibly fit as well anywhere else. Draco threw back his head and keened, barely hearing Harry’s harsh breaths as he restrained himself from moving. “Fuck… fuck me, Harry,” Draco panted, and Harry complied with a grunt.
It was like a dream he’d had dozens of times. Draco’s hands clutched the sheets as his hips leaped up to meet Harry’s thrusts, rutting against him, and everything felt so good, so right, so familiar. Intense de ja vu swept over him, and he saw himself and Harry doing this, in exactly the same way… with such clarity… not a fantasy. A memory. Their first time. But this was… oh god, so good… their first time… no. No. It wasn’t. Harry was about to come, Draco recognized the signs: the clenched jaw, the brow furrowed in concentration - And there it was… just like it had been, Harry shuddering and jerking against him, his head thrown back and neck straining.
In an instant, Draco knew the truth. But it couldn’t be.
But it was.
He pushed Harry off of him and scrambled out of the bed. He turned to gape at the man in his bed, black hair, green eyes… He didn’t just look like the boy in those books. He was that boy. That man. Harry stared back at him, his expression blank but his body tense.
“You - you are Harry Potter,” Draco managed. He couldn’t believe his own words. It was like accusing someone of being Marvin the Mad Muggle, except that Harry Potter was apparently real. And in his bed.
“Harry Potter - those books - they’re true, aren’t they?” He fervently hoped that Harry would tell him that he was being psychotic, or that he’d slipped him a mickey in the restaurant and he was hallucinating. Anything would be better than this.
More memories, clearer memories… real memories assaulted him. He really had hated Harry; they had been involved in a rivalry that nearly turned deadly. Harry had nearly killed him. He’d put Draco’s father in prison.
Harry grimaced. “They’re … sort of true. In the general outline, if not the particulars.”
“But how…?” Draco didn’t understand this, if the books were true- he’d read them when he was kid, how could they predict true events, even generally? No seer was that good. Perhaps there had been an accident with a Time Turner?
“They were written after the fact. This is a long story. Do you want me to tell it now, or can we wait til morning?”
Draco laughed hysterically. “You’re going to tell it now, or I’m going to kill you.”
“Okay,” Harry said, looking disappointed. “Well, perhaps we should make some coffee.”
“Done.” Draco marched off to the kitchen, still feeling like he was in a dream. It really must be a dream. Rather an inventive one, for him, but …. No. It wasn’t a dream. In a dream he wouldn’t be able to feel the grit of the kitchen floor beneath his feet. Sometimes he really missed having house-elves, he thought irrelevantly. He banged around the kitchen, getting the coffee brewing, and waited for Harry.
Potter.
Harry Potter.
He didn’t want to go back in the bedroom and face that beautiful, naked man who had abruptly turned his life upside down. Apparently, in light of all these new memories, that was what Harry Potter did for Draco Malfoy. “Get out here! I’m not bringing the coffee to you!” he yelled out, harshly.
Harry thudded into the kitchen, wearing his briefs and nothing else. There was a faint scar on his right hip that he hadn't noticed in the heat of the moment. Draco was slammed by the reemergence of another set of memories.
He and Harry had been lovers. But Harry had gone off to vanquish evil in the final battle and had never thereafter acknowledged what had happened between them. In fact, he'd ignored him completely. And Draco had been almost suicidally depressed, for months. Harry had testified for him at the trial, but hadn’t even looked his way.
Draco gasped. And then he felt himself falling down, but the world was dimming and he felt vaguely thankful that he wasn't going to have to deal with it for awhile.
He woke up to Harry leaning over him, with a damp cloth on his forehead. He swiped it off of himself, disgusted.
"I don't have a fever, Potter," he sneered, stressing the last name viciously, "I fainted. Gods, you are still an idiot, aren't you?"
"More of an idiot than ever," he muttered under his breath. "Look, I need to explain all this to you, so-"
"Damned right you do. You're not leaving until I know exactly why I suddenly want to rip your head off."
"So. The war,” Harry began lamely. “You know, in those Potter books , how Harry was the Chosen One?"
"Yes, Harry, I remember. I'm also remembering the actual facts." He rubbed his head, glaring at the shaken man at his side. "It's fuzzy, but I remember. You were the one that had to kill Voldemort. The prophecy. Have you forgotten what side I was on, at the beginning? He wouldn't shut up about it." Oh fuck, this was dredging up all kinds of other memories Draco had thought laid to rest, albeit unpeaceably.
"Do you remember - well, no, you wouldn't. I never told you. Look, Draco, this is going to be hard to hear. The war was so grueling, what I had to... to do, in the end..."
His voice choked up, and if Draco hadn't been feeling as hateful as he was at the moment, he would have been moved to comfort him.
"I watched Ron... gods, I couldn't save him, it was too late, Lestrange had already cast the spell… I watched his blood… And then..." Harry trailed off and started to shake, soft sobs catching in his throat. But as Draco reached out to touch his arm, he pulled himself together.
"I can't tell you everything about the last battle. It went nothing like how the papers said. Well, for one thing, it wasn't Snape who defeated the Dark Lord. But- things happened. Things I didn’t want to relive it every day of my life. In fact, I wanted to forget the Wizarding world forever." Harry took a deep, shuddering breath and opened his mouth to speak again, but nothing came out.
"But instead, you made the Wizarding world forget you," Draco whispered, oddly certain that he was right.
Harry gaped. "How did you figure that out?"
"Given what's been happening to me, it's like I'm slowly recovering from a badly cast Obliviate," Draco said, astounded that he could sound so matter-of-fact.
"You're... well, you're right. In a nutshell, that's what we did. Hermione, Snape and I planned a way to make the entire Wizarding World forget about the role I played. To most people, 'Harry Potter' was a myth, and I thought it fitting that he should literally become so. Just a myth, a fun story about a kid who has dangerous adventures, nothing more. I could go live my life in peace."
"But how did you do it?” Draco asked weakly, feeling like his world was disintegrating and being rebuilt.
"It was a complex spell that Hermione thought up. Snape arranged the logistics of it. And I supplied the power. You remember that huge celebration a year after the war? I wasn't there, not where people could see me, anyway. I was holed up for most of the year in Grimmauld Place, slowly losing my mind and waiting until the spell could be performed. The official word was that I was in an undisclosed location, recuperating with friends and Order members."
"But not with me."
"Not with you. Draco, I'll get to that. Please, I never wanted to hurt you."
"Go on,” Draco said, voice flat and cold, tears stinging his eyes.
"You were basically right about the spell. It was a very carefully designed, transmissible Obliviate. We planned to cast it at the first annual Victory Over Voldemort celebration; nearly all of Wizarding Europe was there, and of those who weren’t, most would have contact with the exposed within 48 hours of casting. One can’t be under an active Obliviate for longer than that, otherwise there’s permanent damage. Of course, there were people who never got exposed to the spell -“
“The Potter Lives conspiracy theorists,” Draco broke in. “I guess they weren’t such nutters after all.” Harry shook his head.
As Harry talked, it all took shape in Draco's mind. How brilliant. After all, most of the events in the war that the public knew about had nothing to do with Harry. He could still access how his altered memory had explained public records and interviews with “Harry Potter." They were remembered as a pleasant distraction from the war. It had been a bit of fun, everyone now thought, to pretend that Harry Potter was real, would save them. It had boosted morale.
"What about those books?"
"They helped explain residual memories about me that people were bound to have, especially people I'd gone to school with. We hired a Muggle writer to chronicle my years at Hogwarts, but had her heavily fictionalize it, changing names and altering events significantly. It was close enough to the truth to explain what most people would remember about my "adventures" without giving away information to the other side that would be helpful. Then we gave it a publication date ten years in the past and while everyone was at the victory celebration, we had liberated house-elves sneak copies into the libraries and bookshelves of most of the wizards in Britain. The spell included a false memory of the books."
Draco nodded, the thrill of having a mystery solved momentarily overcoming his outrage. "I always thought it was weird that I remembered the contents of the books but never remembered actually reading them."
"I worked so far under cover during the actual war that no one really knew what I was up to. Also, there had been only a few witnesses to the final victory over Voldemort, and all of those that survived were in on the plan to erase me from the Wizarding world.
“There were a few who had closer involvement with the events of the war, but who I didn't want remembering me, and they, sadly, had to have their memories altered a bit more invasively than the general spell could accomplish." He didn't look like he particularly regretted this.
"Who?"
"Scrimgeour, Percy Weasley, Umbridge. For instance. Mostly Ministry employees.”
Harry fell silent as though he had run out of steam. It could have been that he was just tired; it was four in the morning after all, and Harry had just come in Draco’s arse. It suddenly struck him that he’d been fucked through the mattress by Harry Potter. It was like… it was totally surreal.
"So why do I suddenly remember everything?" Draco asked, before he could too overwhelmed by the situation.
Harry shifted on the bed and looked towards the door. "The weakness of the spell is that if I have too much physical contact, or even just prolonged physical proximity to someone, they'll start to recover their memory. As it turns out, the fastest way to get someone to remember is to have sex with them.”
Draco said nothing for a while, gazing sightlessly around the room and waiting for his subconscious to figure out what question to ask next.
“Wait a second,” he said, though Harry had stopped talking several seconds ago. “So you knew it was all going to come back to me when we fucked. Didn’t you?” He didn’t wait for an answer before he plowed on. “You knew I went to that gym. You made this happen.” He stamped down hard on the hope flaring in his chest.
“I never stopped thinking about you, Draco. I tried to forget you, for years, but it just wasn’t working.”
Draco’s mind whirled in a haze. This was all too much, too fast. The memories were crowding his brain and he couldn’t place them in order, didn’t know how to put them in context.
“But you left me behind. You could have... it was more important to you to - just leave, to leave me?” The year after Voldemort's defeat welled up in him - those sleeplessness nights, the misery, the searing loneliness.
“Draco, I couldn’t live my life under constant scrutiny anymore. When I thought about what the press would do to me, and to us if they’d found out about our relationship, I just couldn't face it. I'm sorry... You know I'm not quite right in the head, don't you?" He smiled crookedly at Draco, clearly appealing for sympathy.
"Fuck you! You think I have sympathy for you? You left me - I thought you hated me! For a year, Harry! I lost weight, I couldn't sleep- " Draco paused to catch his breath, noting with satisfaction that Harry looked exceedingly guilty and miserable.
"In fact, it was something of miracle one day when I finally pulled myself together. Of course, up until now I thought I was just depressed because of the war, but now I know the real reason why I'd been such a mess. And I guess I know what the 'miracle' was. I was probably better off, not knowing about you, did you ever think of that? Fuck!"
"You - oh gods, it hurt me too. I can’t even describe-" Draco made a face of extreme derision and disbelief and Harry nodded resignedly. "I know, I know- at least I knew what was going on."
"Why did you have to cut me off so coldly?" The memory of their final encounter lanced through him. He had gone up to Harry, prepared to put everything on the line, and Harry had just looked straight through him as though he hadn’t existed.
Harry stared at a corner of the bedsheet, frowning. "Because I knew what I was going to do, and I needed to start distancing myself from people I cared about. I was going to make you forget me, I didn't want... I see now that it was incredibly selfish, but I didn't want to be attached to you and see blankness in your eyes when you saw me."
Draco got out of bed, away from the body he desperately wanted to be close to and the man he wanted to console. There was a burning anger in his chest, blooming and spreading like a cancer inside him.
"I don't know if I can forgive you. I think you should leave now."
Harry just sat in the bed, staring at the rumpled sheets. "I know that you'll need time."
Draco snorted. Harry continued, shoulders dropping in defeat.
"I deserve that, probably. Could you just... just promise me, you'll think about it? About us?" Draco tried not the hear the terrible vulnerability in Harry's voice. He stood by his dresser, watching Harry out of the corner of his eye, while a thousand possible responses flew through his head. In the end, none of them proved adequate, so he remained silent.
He closed his eyes when Harry rose from the bed, and listened to him put his clothes on. All at once, another memory rushed in, of Harry putting on his clothes after the first time they had sex. “If you… if you want to talk, you can reach me here,” Harry said quietly as he scribbled something on a piece of paper.
The anger that had been filling Draco up bled away, and he felt insubstantial in its absence. He opened his mouth, to say he knew not what, but the crack of Apparition told him that Harry had left.
The ball was in his court, he supposed. What to do with years of memories suddenly returned to you? They were all jumbled up - he couldn't sort out which events had happened first, or exactly how Harry and he had put aside their hatred and started a relationship.
And aside from the confusion surrounding the personal memories, there was the fact of Harry Potter's objective reality to deal with. Draco decided it was too early in the morning to start trying to make sense of it all and lay back on the bed, smelling Harry's scent on the bedsheets. The scent was now so familiar, so redolent of times spent in each other's arms, between each other's legs, breathing the same air - Draco closed his eyes and sighed. He didn't really have a choice.
He and Harry belonged together. They always would. He smiled, in spite of the painful memories and in spite of his current anger and confusion. Underneath it all was a growing conviction of the inevitability of Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter.
No matter what happened, they were meant to be. It was like a long-forgotten fairytale, a book you’d thought lost forever and barely remembered, but when you picked it up to read it you realized it had been part of you all along.
Fin!
Alright, now bring on the new canon! (but fuck the epilogue!)
The silence between them grew charged as they picked at their food. Draco couldn't think of what to say to this person who he'd evidently wanted so much back in school, but with whom he otherwise had no history. They hadn't shared a lot of personal information while working out together. Other than discussing workout and training techniques, their conversation had touched on current events and culture, and even that was limited to the most banal observations.
Draco tried to focus on not getting his spaghetti carbonara all over his linen shirt, but he kept glancing up to see Harry glancing up at him with a strangely familiar heat in his eyes before returning them to his plate. This had happened several times before he realized Harry had stopped eating and was staring at Draco with patent lust in his expression. Draco had to fight down a blush - his sudden erection he didn't bother to restrain.
“I’m not hungry any more,” Harry said as he put his napkin on his plate. “At least, not for this. What do you think?”
Draco pushed his plate away and said, “What did you have in mind?”
Harry leaned across the table. “I want… I want you, Drake. Draco. I want to get to know you better.” He paused, then looked directly into Draco’s eyes. There was a challenge in them, as well as fear. “I want you to get to know me.”
“I… I want to, too,” Draco said, more huskily than he’d intended. Harry’s smile was surprisingly sweet, though it had a tinge of leer in it.
“Your place, then?” Harry said as he stood and threw some money on the table. Draco nodded, and they nearly ran out of the restaurant. Harry’s hands were down his pants by the time they Side-Along-Apparated into Draco’s living room, but he didn’t think the bums in the alleyway had taken any notice. The insistent, almost suffocating passion between them left no room for politeness, anyway.
Once in Draco’s home, Harry attached himself to Draco’s neck with a will, causing Draco to pant and claw at his arse. He broke off to ask, “The bedroom?” Draco took him by the wrist and dragged him down the hall into the large, white room.
Harry stripped off and approached Draco, but when Draco’s hands went to his buttons, he found them stilled. “Let me,” Harry whispered, and Draco was disinclined to put up a fight. He undid the buttons slowly, kissing each inch of exposed flesh. When he’d undone the shirt completely, he took a step back and raked his gaze over Draco’s chest. “Perfect,” he growled, and Draco glanced down at his torso and the faint scar across it that he could never remember acquiring - he assumed it had happened during a particularly vicious Quidditch match. He thought his chest left much to be desired; it certainly wasn’t as muscular as Harry’s, but if Harry liked it then he wasn’t about to question that.
Harry closed the distance between them with a soft moan that increased Draco’s arousal past the point of endurance. “I’ve wanted this for so long,” he muttered as his hands began to work the fastenings on Draco’s trousers. Draco thought it was a bit odd to call three months “so long,” but when Harry managed to dispose of both his trousers and his pants and wrap his fist around Draco’s by-now desperately hard cock, Draco’s critical faculties shut down.
It felt so familiar, so right, to have Harry touching him like this. Old fantasies flashed across his mind’s eye- he’d spent a lot of time imagining just how this would feel. It was like he could predict exactly what Harry would do next; he would kneel down, and take just the head of his prick into his beautiful mouth. Yes, just like that… then he would grip the base and press his tongue against the underside, licking firmly up and down until Draco’s hips were bucking towards him, urging him to swallow the whole thing… yes…
By the time Harry took Draco all the way in to the hilt, Draco was helplessly thrusting into Harry’s mouth, oblivious to possible discomfort. The sounds Harry was making, though, assured him that he was enjoying it every bit as much as Draco was. His climax came upon him so strongly that he felt echoes of it in every nerve for long moments afterwards. Eventually, he opened his eyes and looked wonderingly down at the man kneeling at his feet.
“You’re still hard,” Draco pointed out unnecessarily. Harry grinned at him.
“You’re still hot, and I still have to fuck you,” he explained wryly. Draco shuddered with anticipation and laid himself down on the bed, reaching for the lube. He knew he was blushing, which was absurd, but something about Harry made him feel as shy as he had his first time. He lay on his stomach and opened the bottle, squeezing some into his hand. Harry grabbed his wrist and scooped the lube out of his hand, turning him over onto his back and slathering the slick substance onto his own cock. Then he took the bottle and tossed it aside, muttering, “Lubricio” with his fingers at Draco’s entrance. It had been so long since Draco had had sex with a wizard that he’d nearly forgotten how much better the spell was than the oily Muggle lubrication. The tingling sensation inside him revived his flagging erection and he gasped.
“I want to see your face when you come, this time,” Harry said as his finger worked its way into Draco’s twitching hole. “Ohhh…kay,” Draco breathed, eyes closing against his will. He lost all sense of time as Harry thrust his fingers in and out, stretching and preparing him. That sensation alone was almost enough to make Draco come. He opened his eyes when he felt Harry shifting above him, and saw the look his eyes as his cock pressed against the quivering flesh of Draco’s arsehole. Draco nodded, encouraging him wordlessly to slide in.
Harry’s cock moved like it belonged inside of Draco, as though it couldn’t possibly fit as well anywhere else. Draco threw back his head and keened, barely hearing Harry’s harsh breaths as he restrained himself from moving. “Fuck… fuck me, Harry,” Draco panted, and Harry complied with a grunt.
It was like a dream he’d had dozens of times. Draco’s hands clutched the sheets as his hips leaped up to meet Harry’s thrusts, rutting against him, and everything felt so good, so right, so familiar. Intense de ja vu swept over him, and he saw himself and Harry doing this, in exactly the same way… with such clarity… not a fantasy. A memory. Their first time. But this was… oh god, so good… their first time… no. No. It wasn’t. Harry was about to come, Draco recognized the signs: the clenched jaw, the brow furrowed in concentration - And there it was… just like it had been, Harry shuddering and jerking against him, his head thrown back and neck straining.
In an instant, Draco knew the truth. But it couldn’t be.
But it was.
He pushed Harry off of him and scrambled out of the bed. He turned to gape at the man in his bed, black hair, green eyes… He didn’t just look like the boy in those books. He was that boy. That man. Harry stared back at him, his expression blank but his body tense.
“You - you are Harry Potter,” Draco managed. He couldn’t believe his own words. It was like accusing someone of being Marvin the Mad Muggle, except that Harry Potter was apparently real. And in his bed.
“Harry Potter - those books - they’re true, aren’t they?” He fervently hoped that Harry would tell him that he was being psychotic, or that he’d slipped him a mickey in the restaurant and he was hallucinating. Anything would be better than this.
More memories, clearer memories… real memories assaulted him. He really had hated Harry; they had been involved in a rivalry that nearly turned deadly. Harry had nearly killed him. He’d put Draco’s father in prison.
Harry grimaced. “They’re … sort of true. In the general outline, if not the particulars.”
“But how…?” Draco didn’t understand this, if the books were true- he’d read them when he was kid, how could they predict true events, even generally? No seer was that good. Perhaps there had been an accident with a Time Turner?
“They were written after the fact. This is a long story. Do you want me to tell it now, or can we wait til morning?”
Draco laughed hysterically. “You’re going to tell it now, or I’m going to kill you.”
“Okay,” Harry said, looking disappointed. “Well, perhaps we should make some coffee.”
“Done.” Draco marched off to the kitchen, still feeling like he was in a dream. It really must be a dream. Rather an inventive one, for him, but …. No. It wasn’t a dream. In a dream he wouldn’t be able to feel the grit of the kitchen floor beneath his feet. Sometimes he really missed having house-elves, he thought irrelevantly. He banged around the kitchen, getting the coffee brewing, and waited for Harry.
Potter.
Harry Potter.
He didn’t want to go back in the bedroom and face that beautiful, naked man who had abruptly turned his life upside down. Apparently, in light of all these new memories, that was what Harry Potter did for Draco Malfoy. “Get out here! I’m not bringing the coffee to you!” he yelled out, harshly.
Harry thudded into the kitchen, wearing his briefs and nothing else. There was a faint scar on his right hip that he hadn't noticed in the heat of the moment. Draco was slammed by the reemergence of another set of memories.
He and Harry had been lovers. But Harry had gone off to vanquish evil in the final battle and had never thereafter acknowledged what had happened between them. In fact, he'd ignored him completely. And Draco had been almost suicidally depressed, for months. Harry had testified for him at the trial, but hadn’t even looked his way.
Draco gasped. And then he felt himself falling down, but the world was dimming and he felt vaguely thankful that he wasn't going to have to deal with it for awhile.
He woke up to Harry leaning over him, with a damp cloth on his forehead. He swiped it off of himself, disgusted.
"I don't have a fever, Potter," he sneered, stressing the last name viciously, "I fainted. Gods, you are still an idiot, aren't you?"
"More of an idiot than ever," he muttered under his breath. "Look, I need to explain all this to you, so-"
"Damned right you do. You're not leaving until I know exactly why I suddenly want to rip your head off."
"So. The war,” Harry began lamely. “You know, in those Potter books , how Harry was the Chosen One?"
"Yes, Harry, I remember. I'm also remembering the actual facts." He rubbed his head, glaring at the shaken man at his side. "It's fuzzy, but I remember. You were the one that had to kill Voldemort. The prophecy. Have you forgotten what side I was on, at the beginning? He wouldn't shut up about it." Oh fuck, this was dredging up all kinds of other memories Draco had thought laid to rest, albeit unpeaceably.
"Do you remember - well, no, you wouldn't. I never told you. Look, Draco, this is going to be hard to hear. The war was so grueling, what I had to... to do, in the end..."
His voice choked up, and if Draco hadn't been feeling as hateful as he was at the moment, he would have been moved to comfort him.
"I watched Ron... gods, I couldn't save him, it was too late, Lestrange had already cast the spell… I watched his blood… And then..." Harry trailed off and started to shake, soft sobs catching in his throat. But as Draco reached out to touch his arm, he pulled himself together.
"I can't tell you everything about the last battle. It went nothing like how the papers said. Well, for one thing, it wasn't Snape who defeated the Dark Lord. But- things happened. Things I didn’t want to relive it every day of my life. In fact, I wanted to forget the Wizarding world forever." Harry took a deep, shuddering breath and opened his mouth to speak again, but nothing came out.
"But instead, you made the Wizarding world forget you," Draco whispered, oddly certain that he was right.
Harry gaped. "How did you figure that out?"
"Given what's been happening to me, it's like I'm slowly recovering from a badly cast Obliviate," Draco said, astounded that he could sound so matter-of-fact.
"You're... well, you're right. In a nutshell, that's what we did. Hermione, Snape and I planned a way to make the entire Wizarding World forget about the role I played. To most people, 'Harry Potter' was a myth, and I thought it fitting that he should literally become so. Just a myth, a fun story about a kid who has dangerous adventures, nothing more. I could go live my life in peace."
"But how did you do it?” Draco asked weakly, feeling like his world was disintegrating and being rebuilt.
"It was a complex spell that Hermione thought up. Snape arranged the logistics of it. And I supplied the power. You remember that huge celebration a year after the war? I wasn't there, not where people could see me, anyway. I was holed up for most of the year in Grimmauld Place, slowly losing my mind and waiting until the spell could be performed. The official word was that I was in an undisclosed location, recuperating with friends and Order members."
"But not with me."
"Not with you. Draco, I'll get to that. Please, I never wanted to hurt you."
"Go on,” Draco said, voice flat and cold, tears stinging his eyes.
"You were basically right about the spell. It was a very carefully designed, transmissible Obliviate. We planned to cast it at the first annual Victory Over Voldemort celebration; nearly all of Wizarding Europe was there, and of those who weren’t, most would have contact with the exposed within 48 hours of casting. One can’t be under an active Obliviate for longer than that, otherwise there’s permanent damage. Of course, there were people who never got exposed to the spell -“
“The Potter Lives conspiracy theorists,” Draco broke in. “I guess they weren’t such nutters after all.” Harry shook his head.
As Harry talked, it all took shape in Draco's mind. How brilliant. After all, most of the events in the war that the public knew about had nothing to do with Harry. He could still access how his altered memory had explained public records and interviews with “Harry Potter." They were remembered as a pleasant distraction from the war. It had been a bit of fun, everyone now thought, to pretend that Harry Potter was real, would save them. It had boosted morale.
"What about those books?"
"They helped explain residual memories about me that people were bound to have, especially people I'd gone to school with. We hired a Muggle writer to chronicle my years at Hogwarts, but had her heavily fictionalize it, changing names and altering events significantly. It was close enough to the truth to explain what most people would remember about my "adventures" without giving away information to the other side that would be helpful. Then we gave it a publication date ten years in the past and while everyone was at the victory celebration, we had liberated house-elves sneak copies into the libraries and bookshelves of most of the wizards in Britain. The spell included a false memory of the books."
Draco nodded, the thrill of having a mystery solved momentarily overcoming his outrage. "I always thought it was weird that I remembered the contents of the books but never remembered actually reading them."
"I worked so far under cover during the actual war that no one really knew what I was up to. Also, there had been only a few witnesses to the final victory over Voldemort, and all of those that survived were in on the plan to erase me from the Wizarding world.
“There were a few who had closer involvement with the events of the war, but who I didn't want remembering me, and they, sadly, had to have their memories altered a bit more invasively than the general spell could accomplish." He didn't look like he particularly regretted this.
"Who?"
"Scrimgeour, Percy Weasley, Umbridge. For instance. Mostly Ministry employees.”
Harry fell silent as though he had run out of steam. It could have been that he was just tired; it was four in the morning after all, and Harry had just come in Draco’s arse. It suddenly struck him that he’d been fucked through the mattress by Harry Potter. It was like… it was totally surreal.
"So why do I suddenly remember everything?" Draco asked, before he could too overwhelmed by the situation.
Harry shifted on the bed and looked towards the door. "The weakness of the spell is that if I have too much physical contact, or even just prolonged physical proximity to someone, they'll start to recover their memory. As it turns out, the fastest way to get someone to remember is to have sex with them.”
Draco said nothing for a while, gazing sightlessly around the room and waiting for his subconscious to figure out what question to ask next.
“Wait a second,” he said, though Harry had stopped talking several seconds ago. “So you knew it was all going to come back to me when we fucked. Didn’t you?” He didn’t wait for an answer before he plowed on. “You knew I went to that gym. You made this happen.” He stamped down hard on the hope flaring in his chest.
“I never stopped thinking about you, Draco. I tried to forget you, for years, but it just wasn’t working.”
Draco’s mind whirled in a haze. This was all too much, too fast. The memories were crowding his brain and he couldn’t place them in order, didn’t know how to put them in context.
“But you left me behind. You could have... it was more important to you to - just leave, to leave me?” The year after Voldemort's defeat welled up in him - those sleeplessness nights, the misery, the searing loneliness.
“Draco, I couldn’t live my life under constant scrutiny anymore. When I thought about what the press would do to me, and to us if they’d found out about our relationship, I just couldn't face it. I'm sorry... You know I'm not quite right in the head, don't you?" He smiled crookedly at Draco, clearly appealing for sympathy.
"Fuck you! You think I have sympathy for you? You left me - I thought you hated me! For a year, Harry! I lost weight, I couldn't sleep- " Draco paused to catch his breath, noting with satisfaction that Harry looked exceedingly guilty and miserable.
"In fact, it was something of miracle one day when I finally pulled myself together. Of course, up until now I thought I was just depressed because of the war, but now I know the real reason why I'd been such a mess. And I guess I know what the 'miracle' was. I was probably better off, not knowing about you, did you ever think of that? Fuck!"
"You - oh gods, it hurt me too. I can’t even describe-" Draco made a face of extreme derision and disbelief and Harry nodded resignedly. "I know, I know- at least I knew what was going on."
"Why did you have to cut me off so coldly?" The memory of their final encounter lanced through him. He had gone up to Harry, prepared to put everything on the line, and Harry had just looked straight through him as though he hadn’t existed.
Harry stared at a corner of the bedsheet, frowning. "Because I knew what I was going to do, and I needed to start distancing myself from people I cared about. I was going to make you forget me, I didn't want... I see now that it was incredibly selfish, but I didn't want to be attached to you and see blankness in your eyes when you saw me."
Draco got out of bed, away from the body he desperately wanted to be close to and the man he wanted to console. There was a burning anger in his chest, blooming and spreading like a cancer inside him.
"I don't know if I can forgive you. I think you should leave now."
Harry just sat in the bed, staring at the rumpled sheets. "I know that you'll need time."
Draco snorted. Harry continued, shoulders dropping in defeat.
"I deserve that, probably. Could you just... just promise me, you'll think about it? About us?" Draco tried not the hear the terrible vulnerability in Harry's voice. He stood by his dresser, watching Harry out of the corner of his eye, while a thousand possible responses flew through his head. In the end, none of them proved adequate, so he remained silent.
He closed his eyes when Harry rose from the bed, and listened to him put his clothes on. All at once, another memory rushed in, of Harry putting on his clothes after the first time they had sex. “If you… if you want to talk, you can reach me here,” Harry said quietly as he scribbled something on a piece of paper.
The anger that had been filling Draco up bled away, and he felt insubstantial in its absence. He opened his mouth, to say he knew not what, but the crack of Apparition told him that Harry had left.
The ball was in his court, he supposed. What to do with years of memories suddenly returned to you? They were all jumbled up - he couldn't sort out which events had happened first, or exactly how Harry and he had put aside their hatred and started a relationship.
And aside from the confusion surrounding the personal memories, there was the fact of Harry Potter's objective reality to deal with. Draco decided it was too early in the morning to start trying to make sense of it all and lay back on the bed, smelling Harry's scent on the bedsheets. The scent was now so familiar, so redolent of times spent in each other's arms, between each other's legs, breathing the same air - Draco closed his eyes and sighed. He didn't really have a choice.
He and Harry belonged together. They always would. He smiled, in spite of the painful memories and in spite of his current anger and confusion. Underneath it all was a growing conviction of the inevitability of Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter.
No matter what happened, they were meant to be. It was like a long-forgotten fairytale, a book you’d thought lost forever and barely remembered, but when you picked it up to read it you realized it had been part of you all along.
Fin!
Alright, now bring on the new canon! (but fuck the epilogue!)