Memory Loss, part three: I don't even know your name
Draco came to several hours later, and the first thing he became aware of was the immense pain in every limb and every muscle of his entire body; the second thing was the alarming dizziness when he tried to sit up. His left eye was swollen shut, and he was bleeding from two cuts in the forehead. His right wrist was broken.
Must have fallen on it when I fainted, he thought grimly. He was surprised to be alive despite his father's words. But on the other hand, the old man had said that he knew something worse than death, and Draco did not doubt it. His father was a cruel man, capable of anything.
He gazed around at his surroundings. Two men were watching him, apparently waiting for him to wake up. He wondered where they had taken him; he did not recognize the place, which meant that he was not at the Manor anymore.
"Welcome back, Draco," one of the men said, the bigger of the two. Draco recognized his voice, but he could not quite place it. "Your father has ordered us to take care of a little something for him."
"Oh, really?" Draco croaked. Blimey, his throat was burning!
The smaller man laughed. "Yes, we have distinct orders to cast a Memory Charm on you—"
"—to make you forget your little boyfriend," the bigger man finished. "And then … we have orders to kill him."
Draco felt fear wash over him. No … anything but that … not Harry …
He wanted to hit them, kick them, kill them, whatever, but he could not even muster enough strength to lift his own head. All he could do was to watch as the two Death Eaters raised their wands. He closed his eyes as a pure reflex.
The bigger man was the one who spoke: "You won't remember anything about your precious Potter, and you certainly won't ever meet him again. You're condemned to forever live in oblivion."
And then they both cast the spell.
"Oblivius!"
She watched over him every day and did not leave his side for a minute, not even to eat or to go to the bathroom. Ron brought her food from the kitchen, so romantically loyal despite the fact that he neither could nor liked to cook, and she easily managed her toilet duties by using a spell on herself that effectively drained her of all excessive fluids and emptied her bowels.
She was worried about him. The only movements he made were the mechanical fluttering of his eyelashes when he blinked and the automatic rise-and-fall rhythm of his breathing. He never ate, never slept. Not for three whole days. It became more obvious now than ever how much Draco must have meant to him; something they had all strongly doubted during the past two years. It simply seemed too absurd to be true, their love for each other. But now Hermione had become a believer. When she saw the agony and the emptiness in Harry's eyes, she knew in her heart that Draco had been his entire life. They had been inseparable, and now it seemed as if they were forever separated by death.
The hours that went by were all the same; nothing could distinguish day from night anymore. Every minute was the same minute, and every second was the same second. They were caught in a time loop, forever condemned to live through the same hideous moment.
"They're coming for me, aren't they?" he mumbled all of a sudden. It was the first words he had spoken since the owl had delivered the letter from the Death Eaters, and even though they were dark, melancholy, and defeated—tainted with a profound and heart-breaking sorrow—they warmed Hermione's heart and brought her some hope.
Harry was still staring up into the ceiling as he had done for at least 48 hours now, not seeing this world. But at least he had made contact with it again.
"They're going to kill me, aren't they?" he went on when no answer came.
Hermione swiftly took his hand in hers. "We'll fight them off together," she assured him. "We'll keep them at bay."
"No."
Hermione flinched. "Harry, if you're worried that they're too many …"
"What's the point?" Harry queried, and Hermione felt as if she had been stabbed when she heard the hollowness in his voice. "What's the point of fighting them off when it won't bring him back to me? He's gone."
Hot, smarting tears came to her eyes when she realised where he was going. No …
"Just let them kill me. There's no point in going on without him. My life is meaningless without him. Promise me you'll let them kill me when they come."
"Harry!"
"Promise me, Hermione! I don't want to be in this pain. I don't want to spend seventy years or more without him. If dying is the only way to be reunited with him, then I will gladly embrace death."
"Nooo!" Hermione shrieked, getting up from the chair that she had pulled up to the bed. "No! I won't let you give up that easily, Harry! I miss Draco, too, and I think it's awful that this had to happen, but I can't let you get yourself killed on purpose! Remember your destiny, Harry—the prophecy. You are the only one who can stop Voldemort. Otherwise the world will be turned into his battlefield!"
"Then so be it. I don't care anymore. It doesn't matter how much I fight, how much I strain … it will never bring him back. Don't you see? My destiny cheated me."
This was too much for Hermione to bear. Crying in frustration and fright, she deserted the room and retreated to a secluded corner in her study. How could he …? How could he …?
She did not know how long she sat there crying, but suddenly she became aware of an odd sound. She forced herself to stop sobbing and listened carefully. It had sounded as if someone had opened and slammed shut the front door. But who …?
"Harry."
Silently praying that he was not so stupid as to actually seek out trouble for himself in the streets of London, she hurried back to the bedroom. But all her worst fears seemed to have been justified; Harry was gone.
He needed to clear his head a bit. In a sense, Hermione had been right in telling him that he could not just lie there and do nothing—which she had told him a hundred times since he had gone into his semi-catatonic state. But when it came to the prophecy about him and Voldemort, he really did not care anymore. All those years when he had persistently fought Voldemort and his Death Eaters, it had been without a real purpose; he had just been fighting. He had told himself that he was fighting for mankind in general, and for all good witches and wizards out there, because he was the only one who could fend off evil long enough to make it matter in the long run, but deep inside he had known better.
It had not been enough to fight for the world, because he had been doing someone else's job. Then, when he got involved with Draco, all that had changed. Suddenly he had something to fight for; their future together. And that could not happen with Voldemort and the Death Eaters around. They had vowed to always stay together, to never leave each other—and they had taken him away from him.
You did not just break a vow like that—it was sacred.
Harry shuffled his feet along the blacktop as he walked down the streets of London, silently hoping that a huge truck would run him over. But that was too easy, was not it?
"Spare some change, sir?"
Harry flinched. An aching pain began to throb in his heart, as if he had been mortally wounded and was swiftly bleeding to death, his heart pounding out the last ounces right there and then. No. It was not possible, it was not fair god damn it! How dared they impersonate his deceased lover at a time like this? Not even Death Eaters ought to be that cruel …
As if frightened to find a ghost behind him, Harry slowly, slowly turned around—and whimpered. There, on the ground, leaning his back against the graffiti-covered wall, Draco was sitting. Dirty, beaten, exhausted, yes, but still his Draco; there was no doubting it. Seeing him alive and well, even looking as bad as a person could without actually being dead, pained Harry more than the message from the owl had done, because this could not be his Draco. Draco was dead. But why on Earth would the Death Eaters impersonate the young Malfoy heir just to play a cruel joke on him? Would not it just be easier to kill him on the spot?
"Spare some change, sir?" Draco repeated, holding out an empty aluminium can.
Was it really him? Was he really alive?
Harry did not know what to think, but he bloody well knew what he wanted to believe. But if this was Draco … then why did he not recognise him? It was just that … this lad was wearing Draco's clothes. His favourite emerald green silk shirt, and the expensive grey trousers that went so well with his eyes, even the shoes were the same. But now they were all slashed and dirty. Still …
With a tremulous voice, Harry tried to make sure whether it was true or not. "Dra … Draco? Is … is it really you?"
The young blonde on the ground frowned. "Do I know you, sir?"
Acting on a sudden impulse, Harry kneeled beside the blonde and grabbed his arm. Before the boy had time to object, Harry pulled up the sleeve of his silk shirt. When he saw the heart-shaped birthmark just below the elbow, Harry stumbled backwards in shock. It was him. It was him!
Draco …
Wide-eyed, he looked at the blonde anew. "You're alive!" he breathed, beside himself with joy and relief. "They didn't kill you!"
Draco stared at him indignantly—oh, yeah, this was his Draco alright, there was no mistaking that self-righteous expression—and had apparently decided that Harry was a madman. "Get your bloody hands off me, mister! You have no right to assault me just because I'm worse off than you! If you don't intend to spare any change, then please bugger off!"
Harry grinned from ear to ear when he heard those words. The voice, the tone, the superiority—they were all Malfoy trademarks. He is back, he thought happily. Without thinking, he threw himself around the blonde's neck. "Draco, you're back! Bloody menace, I thought I'd never see you again!"
Draco heavily pushed him away. "Just what the Hell do you think you're doing?" he roared, his face going a healthy rage-red.
Harry stared at him in bewilderment. "But … don't you recognise me?"
"And how the Hell am I supposed to recognize you when I've never seen you before in my life!?" Draco yelled incredulously.
"But Dracums … it's me—Harry. It's Harry."
"Harry who? Does it look like I care?"
Yet again, Harry felt as if someone had stabbed him right through his heart. Draco did not remember him. And there was a simple explanation to that. "They used the Obliviation Charm, didn't they?" he stated to himself. "They forced you to forget all about me and our life together, must've figured it would be a crueller punishment than death. The note they sent me was just a warning."
The blonde glared at him with evident fright in his eyes. "Wha-what are you rambling about?" he stuttered.
The decision was not hard to make. If it came down to living his life entirely without Draco in it or to live it with a Draco that had no recollections of the past whatsoever, he would have chosen alternative two any day. "You're coming with me," he said firmly, rising from the pavement. Then he offered the blonde his hand. "C'mon, let's go to the apartment, it's cold out here."
Draco studied his hand with suspicion. "Why should I go anywhere with you?" he asked, but Harry thought he detected at least a faint shadow of the trust that Draco used to have in him.
"Because I know who you are," Harry said without hesitation. "You don't, do you?"
"That's none of your bloody business!"
"You still have your colourful vocabulary, I hear. That must mean that you're closer to the surface of what you once were than Professor Lockhart could ever get."
"Professor who?"
"Oh, sorry mate, I forget that you've lost your memory. Now get up from there, you're going to freeze to death if you stay out here. I can give you a warm bed to sleep in, food on the table as often as you want, and a shower—and I can help you regain your memory. How does that sound? Or would you rather stay here and wait for that spare change of yours?"
Those words hit the spot, just as he had hoped. Draco allowed himself to be dragged up from the ground, and with Harry supporting him he managed to walk back to Hermione's apartment.
When the front door opened, Hermione shot up from her chair and ran out of the kitchen. "Oh, Harry! I thought you'd never come back! Where have you—"
She lost all contact with her brain when she realised that Harry was not alone. And when she saw who it was that he had brought back home …
"Draco?" Her voice was merely a faint trace of a whisper.
The injured blonde scowled at her. "And who the Hell is she? Your girlfriend?"
Hermione flinched. She looked at Harry. "What …?"
Harry closed the door behind them. "They took his memory, Hermione. He can't remember anything. I need to help him."
Hermione watched as Harry escorted the blond vagrant into her obsessive-compulsively spotless living room. "But Harry, how can you be so sure that he is—"
"I found proof," Harry said immediately, "the birthmark on his arm. If anyone should recognise it, it's me, right? And if you don't believe me, just listen to how he speaks."
"And what exactly is that supposed to mean?" the blonde expelled angrily. "Are you implying that I have some sort of pronunciation disorder, you filthy lunatic? First you force me to come with you to your apartment, and then you have the nerve to insult me! Is that any way to treat a guest?!"
Harry gave Hermione a knowing look. "See what I mean?"
Yes, she understood perfectly well what he meant. If that boy was not Draco Malfoy, then the world must have spun out of its course. Yet, she worried about Harry. Taking in Draco now might be the biggest mistake of his life, bearing the blonde's amnesia in mind. She did not want him to get his hopes up without being absolutely sure that he would be able to bring the real Draco back from the depths of his spell-induced memory loss. If Harry failed to make Draco remember … he would be even more devastated than if the blonde really had been dead.
And then there was the matter of the Death Eaters. If they had wanted Harry to believe that Draco was dead … what would they do when they found out that Harry had found him? This whole business seemed way too risky, and there were other more important things at stake than the love between two seventeen-year-old boys.
"Hermione, could you bring Draco some water, please?" Harry asked her while fluffing a couple of cushions for the blonde. Turned to Draco, he said, "Are you hungry? Would you like me to whip up some food for you?"
Draco was still regarding him with apparent suspicion. Partly letting his guard down, he said, "All right. I guess I'm a bit hungry … Can't remember when I last ate." He scratched his nose.
Harry sat down in the armchair opposite the sofa where he had put Draco. "I hope it wasn't the end-of-term feast that we had before we departed five days ago."
"'End-of-term?'" Draco repeated. "Please don't try to fool me into believing that we went to school together, too." The blonde snorted and shook his head as if to confirm his own words to himself.
Harry knew he had to be patient. "We did," he said calmly.
"Oh yeah? Then how come I don't remember it?"
"I told you. The Death Eaters erased your memory."
"Death eaters? Yeah, right. And what's next? Wizards?"
Harry raised his eyebrows in astonishment. "What makes you say that?"
"Well, bearing your other hallucinations in mind, I wouldn't be surprised if you were convinced you were some sort of sorcerer."
"I am."
"Of course you are."
"And so are you. We went to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry together for seven years. It's a castle a little north of …"
"Please, spare me the sob stories," Draco scorned, and made a wry face.
Hermione returned with the water and carefully put it down on the coffee table in front of Malfoy. Then she took a seat in the armchair next to Harry's.
Harry decided to be bold and show Draco his true colours right from the start. It might be the only way to make him believe me, he thought as he withdrew his wand from his jacket pocket. Draco stared at it wide-eyed. Evidently he understood precisely what it was. Harry pointed the wand at the coffee table and made a few swirling movements in the air. "Munchilato Apparo," he said, and five of Draco's favourite dishes appeared on the table. The blonde stared at the food in disbelief, and then he stared at Harry with terror in his silvery eyes. "Ho … how did you … Wh-who the Hell are you? What are you?"
Harry looked him deep in the eyes when he replied, desperately searching for some kind of trace of his Dracums in there. "Hermione, could you leave us, please?" he said in a calm voice without breaking eye-contact with his lover. He did not notice the sigh of exasperation that escaped Hermione when she crossed her arms and said, "Oh, alright," and Disapparated to her bedroom.
Draco stared at the spot where she had been sitting only a second ago. "What the Hell just happened?" he asked. "Your … your girlfriend just … disappeared into thin air, for fuck's sake!"
"She's not my girlfriend, she's just one of my closest friends, and she's letting me stay here until I find my own apartment," Harry informed him. "Well … until we find our own apartment."
The blonde stared down at the food on the table. His grey eyes glimmered with dark anticipation and suspicion for a while, most likely because he was trying to determine whether the food had been poisoned or not. "What do you mean, 'we?'" he asked in a low voice.
Harry wished that he had not allowed Draco to go. Then he would not have had to explain everything to him as if they had never met before. This was their future they were talking about, and Draco knew nothing of it. He rose from the armchair, intending to make the spare bed for his lover. "Eat your dinner—it's all your favourites. You were hungry just a while ago, right? And try to get some sleep. We'll talk more in the morning."
Draco was still looking down with that bewildered, self-conscious, and doubting expression on his pale, perfect face. "And what will you be doing?" he asked.
Harry stopped short in the doorway. "I will watch over you, like I always do."
The other boy was silent.
Feeling bold, Harry dared to add: "Does that comfort you?" He got no answer, but he thought he sensed some kind of reaction from the blonde ex-Slytherin. And just when he was leaving the room, he heard the blonde respond silently, as if he was talking to himself. "I'm just not used to having people watching over me."
Harry wondered what Draco had gone through during the 5 days that they had been separated. Listening to him, it almost sounded as if his lover had spent his whole life on the street, depending only on himself for survival, since long abandoned by the world. It saddened him, because in a sense, it was true.
Watching Draco sleep so troubled made his heart sink, and he wondered if the wry face that the blonde was making even in his sleep would be the only expression that Harry would ever see on his face from now on.
Was it really possible to erase it? He had seen what had become of Professor Lockhart after being hit with the Obliviation Charm—and he still could not even remember his own name. He was not even aware of where he was, and he had to be taken care of by a bunch of Healers all day long. But Draco's amnesia seemed to be far from that severe, because he was well aware of his surroundings, and he was not at all demented.
At first, he had seemed very uncomfortable with the thought of going to sleep while Harry was watching over him, but eventually his eyelids had grown way too heavy to keep up and he had drifted off into a dream world plagued by monsters and evil spirits. Twice he muttered about 'the bright red light' and tried to fend something off. Harry promised himself never to sleep again until he had succeeded to bring Draco's memory back, but he was only human; drawing upon the early hours of morning, he fell asleep.
He dreamt that he was walking through a long corridor, many doors on each side, all of them closed. They all looked the same, but he knew that Draco—the real Draco—was hidden behind one of them, waiting for him to get him. He opened the doors, one by one, hoping that he would find his lover in time—he had to be quicker, he was running out of time! But all he found behind the doors were Cornish pixies, trying to tear his hair from his head, making it even messier than it usually was.
Finally, there was only one door left. Panting, his heart racing, Harry put his hand on the knob and slowly turned it. A happy smile forming on his lips, he began to say, "Draco!", but when he opened the door he stood face to face with Voldemort as he remembered him from the last day of the Triwizard Tournament, and with the worst rotten halitosis in the world the Dark Lord said, "Your boyfriend is dead."
Harry shook his head in denial, stubbornly yelling, "No, no, no!", and then Voldemort reached out and grabbed the collar of his shirt—
—Harry woke with a start and fell out of the chair. He fell to the floor with a loud Thump! and woke Draco, as well. "What? What's happ'nin'? Where's the fire?" he asked drowsily, surveying the gloomy room with fright. Then he spotted Harry on the floor. "Oh, it's you. What are you doing down there?"
Something in his voice encouraged Harry and led him to believe that the blonde's memory had returned during the night. "Draco! You're back! Aren't you, Dracums? Sure it's you, Draco? You remember me now, don't you?"
His lover frowned warily at him. "I remember you forcing me to come back here with you last night, and then you fed me and put me to bed. Gee, thanks Mummy, I really appreciate the hospitality. Now will you let me sleep in peace? And leave my room, for God's sake. What are you, a pervert?"
Harry's heart sank again. Why did he keep working himself up like that? Of course Draco had not regained his memory yet—it would take a lot of time and hard work. He wondered if he would be able to cope with it or if he would eventually go mad trying. "Sorry, baby. I just … I had a bad dream, 's all."
Draco stared at him with eyes big as saucers, and the look on his face reflected utmost fury and indignation. "Excuse me—what the Hell did you just call me?"
Harry blinked sheepishly. "What?" And then he realised what he had just said. "Oh. 'Baby,' you mean? Well, there is a perfectly good explanation for that …"
"So tell me before I punch your fucking lights out!"
"I …" Blimey, how was he supposed to explain all this to him without sounding even more deranged? "I love you," he heard himself saying, which was probably much, much worse than calling him 'Baby.'
"WHAT?"
"I'm your boyfriend."
Draco gaped at him in astonishment for several seconds. Then he seemed to collect himself. The fury was once again burning in his silver eyes. "Are you trying to fool me into believing that I'm gay, too?! I can't believe the nerve of you! Do you know who I am?"
Harry flinched. "What?" The blonde's last words echoed through his mind repeatedly. Do you know who I am? Do you know who I am? Do you know who I am? Did he remember? Did he remember who he was? Had he somehow found his name and origin in his sleep? Did he … did he remember being a wizard? Did he remember being the son of Lucius Malfoy? Because those six words implied that he was aware of the Malfoy blood running through his veins, of his family's belief that they were worth more than any 'regular' wizard. Did he also remember that Harry was a mere half-blood? Was that why he …?
There were so many questions he wanted to ask, but none of them wanted to leave his sheepishly gaping mouth.
Directly after uttering those six words, Draco himself flinched. He looked surprised himself to have said that. "Do you know who I am?" he repeated, but this time it was said in a much lower, more pitiable voice that reflected the utter despair that was so painfully visible in his eyes. "Do you know who I am?"
He was questioning himself why he had said that, how he could have said that, why those words had even come out of his mouth … He looked up at Harry, and Harry was startled to see that his eyes were filled with tears now. "I don't know who I am," he whispered, as if the truth had suddenly struck him with the force of a sledgehammer. "I don't know who I am—so why did I say that? Why did I say that?"
Harry stared at him. "I dunno."
The blonde was shaking badly. With great effort, he lay back down on the pillow, staring hollowly up into the ceiling. "I think I need some water."
Harry swiftly used a spell to conjure up a glass of water and offered it to the blonde, but Draco could not seem to possess the strength to sit back up, so Harry simply conjured a straw and helped his lover take careful swigs of the cold, clear liquid. When he had drunk almost all the water, Draco said, "Will you help me remember? You said you know who I am, didn't you?"
Harry closed his eyes. He could see the End-of-term banquet before him. Draco had been so beautiful then, and now he was all bruised and beaten and slashed, a mere memory of what he had once been—the proud Malfoy heir. "Of course I know who you are," he said calmly. "You're my boyfriend. And I promise you I'll do my best to help you remember, because I can't live without you. Without you … I'm dead."
The silence between them was tense and uncomfortable, but still it soothed both of them. Once, in a past that seemed to be lightyears away now, they had shared many silences, good silences—lovely silences. No words had been needed to tell the other what they felt; the bond between them had been incredibly strong. But now, the silence was getting oppressive, because Harry did not know what Draco was thinking. He did not know what his lover felt anymore, other than the pain that was so plain to see. But that pain had been there even two years ago, and the fact that Harry no longer was allowed to mend it depressed him.
Right before falling back to sleep, Draco said, "You know, I find you bloody disgusting, and you say such utterly corny things, but right now I'm glad you're here. And I don't even know your name."
A part of Harry died at that moment.
I don't even know your name …