Chapter 7
The sun is rising and the view is clear from the terrace, the yellow and orange of the light streaking across the sky through clouds. It looks like heaven, when a golden aura breaks through in the middle.
The terrace is where Harry finds Draco; there is still the phantom of his throbbing, beating heart, a memory.
Or rather, something that felt so visceral it was as if it was embedded into his very being.
"Morning."
Draco blinks and turns to look at him, leaning against the balustrade with his arms atop it. The wind blows through them; their clothes and hair. Draco's white-blond hair looks as soft as silk in the sway of it. Harry feels a desire to brush it away from his eyes.
"Ah. Morning. You're up earlier than usual."
How does he say, I dreamt of you and my heart raced so long that I couldn't go back to sleep for hours after.
Harry must have driven himself mad trying to figure them out, trying to pull back at all the memories he has lost. All he has are fragments and he can't make sense of any of it enough to make it all into a cohesive experience.
Draco looks ahead again. Harry doesn't. He knows Draco can feel his gaze on him, so hypervigilant he is.
"Why did they hurt you?"
Draco doesn't ask where his question comes from. The bottle he held made it clear.
"They didn't," Draco says. "Or not like you think. It was not the Cruciatus Curse."
"Then?"
Draco smiles wryly. His eyes are afar, haunting. "I would perhaps prefer the Cruciatus Curse over it."
The avoidant answer is clear. He will not speak of what it truly was.
"The Cruciatus Curse," Draco continues after a while, in a musing breath, as if recalling an old memory, "Well. That's an old story now. A very old story. I haven't had it used on me in years. But the effects... they linger in my nervous system. The potions keep most of it at bay, but sometimes when I'm under too much stress, it doesn't help."
As far as Harry knows, there is nothing more excruciating than the Cruciatus Curse. But he is not so naive as to think there are not worse things than it.
There are worse things than even death.
"Draco?"
"Hmm?"
"What were we?"
Harry is thinking about it all. All of it. From the first day; Draco's wild-eyed joy at his awakening, and the way he seemed sometimes as if he couldn't take his eyes off him; it's only now that he perhaps understands the true meaning of it. Draco looked at him as if he couldn't believe he was looking at him at all, and the way he forgot himself that time and reached for him without thinking, only to see Harry's fear and guardedness and keep his distance from then on with such care and consistency. Draco never quite allowed himself to look at Harry too long after that, unless necessary, nor did he ever come too close physically. Sometimes when Draco had to touch him, he seemed almost afraid.
There were other things. The picture that he couldn't stop thinking about; the way he felt in the dream. He thought, for a good ten minutes after he woke, that it was just something carried from the picture itself.
But it was too vivid to be imagination. It was too real. It was as if his own heart was bared to himself.
The final thing; the raid.
Even on the edge of unconsciousness and consumed in anguish, he heard it.
Ah so it is. Your little old darling.
Draco's face, so drained of colour and full of fear, and how gently he touched Harry's cheek.
For a moment, all Draco does is lean further onto the balustrade, less on his arms and more on his elbows, bowing his head. His hair hides his profile.
"There's not much point in answering that question right now, Harry."
"Why is that? You've been keeping such a huge thing from me." The anger has come suddenly. Harry finds he hasn't noticed it lurking, too consumed by the confusion and questions. But the thing is, this feels a bit like the ground has been pulled out from under his feet again; just like he always fears. "I'd only just started to believe you've always been honest with me! About everything that directly involved me, you said. Well, this does involve me and I deserve to know!"
Draco keeps saying he'll remember, but how long will it take before he does? How much does he have to wait?
The silence persists until it threatens Harry's control. Is this it then? Will Draco just avoid answering whenever he likes? Withhold information as he pleases and tell him only what he believes Harry should know?
"I must wonder how it all works," Draco muses, almost to himself. "When terrible things happen to you... it's one thing when you are the same person. I know how you would have felt then. But what happens when you wake up as a blank slate? Are you somebody else then? And when the memories return... will you become the same person again, or feel differently than you would have if you never had to regain the memories to begin with?"
"I want to see."
"I would advise against it. If it was in your best interests, I would have suggested it a long time ago."
"I'm rather tired of you thinking you know what's best for me. What are you so scared of?"
Draco's shoulders tense.
"Aren't you?" Harry asks. "You're scared of what I'll learn. You're scared that it will break my trust in you, and that would jeopardize the plans, and my sanity and peace if I am to spend years more with you afterward."
Harry expects a clever answer, or avoidance.
"Why do you know that?"
"Because I watch you all the time."
Draco does look at him then. His brows are furrowed.
Sometimes questions come up, of the past. It wouldn't be as clear to most people, but Harry... Harry has had to learn all the subtle nuances in Draco's expressions and body language. He has learned enough to know what fear looks like on him.
Harry shrugs. "I think I have come to understand you a bit better. I'm not as observant as you, but I'm quite observant if I'm fascinated by something."
And I am very, very fascinated by you.
"Harry. I don't think you know what you're asking for... It would be better if the memories returned to you slowly, so you could process them better."
Again with that.
"And I don't think you know how much I'm capable of dealing with it," Harry says. He steps forward, hands around Draco's face, his avoiding eyes. He follows those avoiding eyes, tilting his head after his turning head.
Draco tchs. "Harry." He sounds exasperated. There is the faintest of tremor underneath.
The truth is.
The truth is that all Harry knows is what he saw in that picture, what he felt in that dream. All he knows is that —
"I loved you." Harry jerks his face back to his own. "I don't think you know how much I loved you."
It's an instinctual kind of truth; intuition that is as clear as bone, and deep. Something in him knows this with absolute certainty. Whatever he will learn, it will be okay. When the memories return, and the feelings he felt that would come with them, it won't matter. Before the way he felt in the dream, he could not have answered Draco's question, but this would be Harry's answer now.
"I will still be me."
Draco's face is, for the very first time, laid bare before him. His eyes are full to the brim with feeling, the incomprehensible complexity of emotions that Harry can't quite tease apart.
But one thing is clear; Draco loves him still, to this day, even after years and years and years.
"Harry," Draco whispers. Their faces are close. Harry presses their foreheads together, and Draco closes his eyes; his face twists pink. "Harry."
The sound of his voice, the way he says his name could mean a hundred things.
Draco's hand slides into his curls. "Legillimens," he whispers, as the memories seep into Harry.
Through Draco's eyes, he sees their lives together. They are drenched in his emotions; as thick as the blood in his heart.