The course of true love never did run smooth
Chapter Six
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"Can you tell me your name?" A healer in muted green robes asked. Her voice soft like honey, her stare intense.
"Harry James-" He choked."Malfoy-Potter"
If she noticed, Healer Rainer didn't say a thing. Just gave him a beautiful bright smile, as if this was an accomplishment of some kind.
"Very good. And your birthday?"
"31st July 1980"
"Age?"
"I'm... I'm 27."
"Very good, you're doing great." Somehow she sounded sincere, Harry tried not to feel irritated, she's just doing her job.
"What about the first line of your address?" She peered over Harry's shoulder for a fraction of a second, before returning her gaze.
"12 Grimuald Place?" Harry mostly guessed.
Someone would've said something if he'd moved, right?
Harry wasn't too sure with all he learned about his future so far.
Ron and Hermione came to visit yesterday but were very careful with the information they shared. Talking in code half the time.
But he was shown photos of his godchildren, Rose and Hugo, after Ron let it slip and before Harry was rushed away for more tests.
They were beautiful, Harry just wished he could remember them himself. Hermione got tears in her eyes when he said that, so he made a note to refrain from saying things like that in the future.
"Excellent." She beamed, double checking with the corner of her paperwork and a swift glance behind Harry.
"erm, If you say so." Harry didn't think it "excellent" that he remembered his address but he bit his tongue.
"Are you ready for the hard ones, now?"
Sitting up straighter in his chair, he tried to sound calm, "Shoot"
"Do you know where you are presently?" She gestured to the room vaguely. Harry looked around, though he already knew what he'd find.
"St.Mungos hospital. A private wing for.. for people like me. Who need.. extra security..."
"Very good." She wrote that down too.
"Bypassing your childhood as per your husband's request." Harry felt relief flood through him and gratitude towards Draco. He struggled talking to Ron about the Dursleys, let alone healers. He didn't want to talk about that with anyone.
"Moving on, What school did you attend?" Flourishing her quill to write the answers.
"Hogwarts, school of witchcraft and wizardry. " Rolling his eyes, I thought these were supposed to be hard.
"Correct, now where do you work?"
"Erm, well I'm an auror, right?"
"The question was where do you work?"
"But I'm an auror, right?" Harry needed that clarified. Someone to officially say it beyond, 'case' ,'field work' and 'ministry files', he never heard anyone say it. They always skirted around his questions.
"Yes, you are."
Elation rang through him, he made it. He really made it!
"You are an auror." She laid the quill down sympathetically, "Do you need to stop?"
"No." He said too quickly. "I, I mean, I'm good."
"Okay, just let me know." Another glance behind him, before she smiled at Harry again. "Now do you need me to repeat the question?"
"No, I've got it. Erm, I work at The DMLE? surely."
"Are you sure?"
"I mean I think so. Haven't really checked." He shrugged with a smile.
"Okay." Harry saw as she made an asterisk on the parchment, next to workplace.
"What about why you're here, can you tell me that?" Healer Rainer tilted her head. "It's fine if you don't - or can't talk about it."
"No. It's okay. I don't remember it, but there was... there was an accident. I got hit, I was comatose for a week. I woke up. Simple."
She hummed, writing the quote down. Then a 'Simple= TBD ASAP' but she just moved onto the next question.
"Okay then, what about the nature of the accident?"
"I, I was at work on call, I guess... and I.... I was tracking someone- someone dark and they hit me with some charm, curse, whatever."
"And you've been here for?"
"A week, if I was brought straight here. Then there was yesterday, then the day with all the scans, and today so... ten? ten days?"
"Good." Relief in every word, "Yes, it's been ten days since the incident." She smiled brightly again.
"Oh, well that's good. Not good. but like, that's something, I guess."
"Moving on, timeline wise, do you remember your time at Hogwarts?
Was she going to make him talk about each year? The stone? The baslisk? Sirius? The tournament?
"I do." He said tentatively. Dreading whatever came next.
She grimaced. Harry knew it would be bad. How much had she heard from Ron and Hermione?
"I really hate to ask this next one, but do you remember the War?"
The relieved sigh stopped at the question.
"Wish I didn't."
"I'm sorry Mr Malfoy-Potter, I know this is difficult."
"It's not difficult. I have all of my memories until 2001 okay? I remember the war, I remember the reparations. And going back for NEWTS, I remember hating advanced potions, I remember Ravenclaw winning the house cup. I remember applying for work and the grueling hours of prep, and next to no sleep.
I remember celebrating the millenium. I remember Hermione ranting about the department of magical creatures a lot and Hagrid's wedding which had way too many dragons for comfort, if you ask me."
"Okay. I'll move on. Do you remember anything, anything at all, about the following year?"
"No." Harry answered quickly. Wishing this would be over now.
"Think about it for a minute. Any detail however small."
Harry tried. He really did. Tried to stretch his memory like an elastic band before it snapped back.
"I've got nothing"
She raised her eyebrow skeptically, pressing:
"Professionally what do you recall: What about your auror ceremony? Getting your badge and robes? who's your partner?"
Harry looked blank. How could he not remember?
He presumably spent hours with, and talking about, his auror partner. He tried to picture it, him sitting at his desk with his partner a mirror image, sitting opposite him.
Come on.
"What about personally? Do you remember your 21st birthday? holidays? Any events at all?"
"I- I..."
"What about boyfriends? You were publicly out by this point, if I remember rightly"
Godric, Harry hated that.
He told Luna to write the article for the Quibbler, he couldn't stand it becoming public in some other way.
Harry felt so weak, he should know this. It was his life. He felt his magic stir and bubble in his core, aching to release some of these emotions.
Finally Malfoy spoke up, "Hannah, that's enough for now."
His hands had moved onto Harry's shoulders. Softly applying pressure, automatically Harry found himself relaxing and his magic coiling neatly back away.
Malfoy had been silently overseeing this whole ordeal.
As his husband. Harry shivered at the thought. Quietly confirming with a headshake or nod when he answered the questions.
"I'm sorry, of course. I'm so sorry Mr Malfoy-Potter." Healer Rainer checked herself and the notes they'd gathered. "I wish I could make this an easier process, especially after everything you've been through and contributed to the community. But I-"
"It's okay, I understand but it's like- I've got nothing"
Like a book that's unfinished, an empty plate, a blank screen.
"I got zip beyond daily training and Friday night drinks"
"Thank you for sharing, I'll be back in a bit if you want to try again." She packed up her things and Harry tried to give her a smile. It wasn't her fault after all.
"Are you okay?" Malfoy asked once the door clicked shut.
"Yes." Harry's gut answer. "No." Harry was tired of questions. "I don't know".
"Well you have the basics down" Harry could hear the forced positive in Draco's voice.
He scoffed. He wasn't doing well. -"I'm just parroting back what I've heard."
"Well at least we know you can retain new information, that's good."
"Was that a concern?"
"Yes."
"Were you concerned?" Harry persisted turning to face Draco.
There was a pause and a sharp intake of breath. Malfoy never answered his questions head on. It was always a sighed 'Harry' and a mild shake of the head whenever he broached a topic Malfoy deemed personal.
"Harry" he sighed with his signature headshake.
So he was shocked when Malfoy continued, in a tight whisper. "It all scares me."
"Oh" he said dumbly, Harry wasn't good at this. At being... at words. At feelings. Harry was convinced that was the wrong reply.
But Draco just looked up with a meek smile, "It doesn't scare you?"
"well, I'm a little..."
"Freaked?" Malfoy supplied.
"Maybe" Harry lied, bristling at Malfoy's correct assumption, down to the fucking word.
"Harry" He rolled his eyes.
"What?"
"I know you."
Draco did this now.
He looked at Harry.
Just fucking looked right at him, locked his gaze, and said that.
Harry felt it straight through to his core. The gaze burning through, as if Malfoy actually did know all about him.
Saw right through him and could leaf through his brain at leisure. He looked so certain. Not smug, just confident in his knowledge.
Harry heard it reverberate in his head.
'Iknow you' I know you. 'I know you'
Harry hated it, the idea of his soul bared for Malfoy to see. As if he knew Harry completely, understanding Harry in a way Harry didn't himself.
Malfoy, his childhood rival, but also not.
Knew not only the history that they shared, but knew of Harry's future too.
Malfoy who had such beautiful grey eyes that swirled and enraptured.
Harry couldn't stand it; The idea of anyone, but of this man in particular, knowing everything about him and stating it so plainly.
"Stop saying that."
"I know you, and I know when you're lying."
"I-" Harry didn't know how to finish that, so he left it there.
"I know Harry. It's okay" Still sounding so sure. so steady.
"Stop looking at me like that."
"Like what?"
"Like you care."
That set Malfoy off.
Harry would've taken it back if he'd known, but he didn't.
Harry watched as Malfoy's temper suddenly flared to life, with all the pent up energy he seemed to have been repressing for days. It burst forth in a glorious, terrifying display.
"Of course. Because I don't, right? Pure-blood heir, death-eater scum couldn't possibly care about his husband."
"We marry for convenience don't we Potter? To increase our social standing or for the heirs that we're going to have."
"Or maybe it's money, that must be it Harry! I married you for your wealth. Or maybe it was your fame. Because we sure as hell can't marry for love."
"Surely not, because love is so trivial to us, is that what your thinking? That purebloods only get married when it's convenient! Because a gay marriage is so convenient Potter!"
"Not because of something more, No. Nothing as meaningless as say .... Oh I don't know? feelings! We never dare to emote, taught in our youth when handed our silver spoons, didn't you know. One wouldn't dare succum to such baseless desires, not in my world Potter."
"One couldn't possibly care for our spouses. Salazar's sake, actually love them!"
"Because you make it so easy, don't you Harry."
Draco's rant finally wound down and he stopped moving, staring into the now repaired window, out into the 'too blue' ocean. That suddenly flickered and changed to a violent thunderstorm, which Harry didn't recognise from the pre-programed displays.
Quietly, Malfoy breathed, "Sometimes you make it so difficult."
Harry assumed he was done monologuing now. He couldn't believe what he'd heard, almost afraid of what emotions had brung Malfoy, the proud prince of sytherin, to this level. But Harry couldn't help himself blurting out "Make what difficult?"
"Loving you"
It was said so honestly, so plainly, so certainly. Harry's instictive reaction was to kick it away.
"D-don't say that. You can't say that."
Harry felt out of his own body, looking down on himself freaking out. He felt disconnected from everything as he repeated "Don't say that"
"What, Say I love you?" The fire was back behind grey eyes. The challenge found there, the rebutal right on his tongue.
"Don't!" Harry couldn't feel the words he said, "You can't! You can't say that."
No one could ever, he was taught as much in the neglected years in the cupboard, the years leading up to his death, his destiny.
No. Harry had resigned himself long ago from such illusions.
Sure, there's the love of friends, but a partner? A husband?
"You can't" he repeated, sounding more broken, more pathetic than he thought possible.
Malfoy pursed his lips as if biting back some retort. Then for the nth time since waking up, he saw Malfoy sigh.
Malfoy -so different from arguments at school- just breathed it out. Withdrawing himself from the conversation and for Harry it was so unusual to how their fights had usually ended, He was baffled by this new-Malfoy.
"I'm going for some fresh air."
Then Harry was left, staring dumbly at the space where he stood.
In the place where his husband said I love you for the first time, during an argument. Perfect.
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