What's in a memory?

Chapter Twenty-Five

+

Draco was at St. Mungos, running through his patients and discussing new cases with Healer-in-Charge Imara, she was as always tough as nails with him. Calm as ice and Draco loved her for it. They had always understood one another perfectly.

He knew she had personally vouched for him to access higher-level training when it was being questioned due to his past. But Healer Imara's word held significant weight within St. Mungo's walls (and beyond). And he had earned her trust. 

He had earned every bit of that trust on endless, hideous night shifts; the worst kinds of accident scenes, and horror shows of misfired hexes.

It had been Healer Imara that had taught Draco to breathe again.

His potential return to work was, however, an inevitably strained discussion; his timeline was skewed because of Harry's recovery. Draco felt it would be like abandoning their plans to fix Harry if he came back so soon. And it would leave him essentially defenseless.

It wouldn't feel right for either of them.

Although Harry probably wouldn't see it that way. 

Bloody gryffindor he still was, despite the memory loss. 

He would no doubt insist that Draco take up his duties once again if he found out that there was a dire need for it. Never once thinking of himself, or his "dire need".

But even with that knowledge, Draco didn't feel he could come back to work with everything else going on, and discussing it with Harry right now felt out of the question. 

Not to mention, he had yet to discuss his husband's recovery details with Idir, who was the lead healer on his case.

Though Draco did understand the pressures Imara was under whilst he was out of commission. After all, Draco wasn't being falsely modest, in saying that he was one of their most skilled emergency medi-wizards. And with all the budgetary cuts the ministry was making, Imara was stressed enough as it was, constantly shuffling healers around to cover the gaps. 

Currently, she was busy raving about the newest international medi-wizard transfers from St. Raphael's conveniently ignoring the talent they had given up in order to acquire it, in Draco's opinion, when a knock sounded at the door.

"Ah, Malfoy-Potter, may I introduce to you one of our newest transfers? she will be working in your department. Healer Jennifer, this is the healer I was talking to you about earlier, Senior medi-wizard, Draco Malfoy-Potter." Imara announced looking with pride between the two of them. 

"Pleasure to meet you, Jennifer." He said, courteously standing. 

"Oh please," The blonde shrugged, her light green scrubs rising and falling with her shoulders, "Call me Jen, everyone else does."

"If you insist," He smiled, "I look forward to working with you upon my return."

"Oh, yes, I heard that you were signed off, something about your husband, was it?" She inquired with a slightly french accent, "Nothing too serious, I hope. I was surprised not to find him on the wards, as an auror injured in action, I had thought that was standard protocol here too." She added an innocent uplift in her voice as if in question.

"Ah, Draco's husband, is, I'm afraid, a special case." Imara interceded smoothly, seeing Draco's colour beginning to rise. Knowing her staff intimately well, and the sensitivity of this particular topic with Draco she thought it was wise to intervene. 

"Oh, of course, the saviour of the wizarding world, would have exceptions made for him I suppose." Jen carried on blithely, seemingly oblivious, to the sudden rising tension in the room.

Draco's grinding teeth were almost audible. 

"Was there a purpose for your visit?" Imara demanded witheringly. Her demeanour made it abundantly clear Jennifer had overstepped.

"Oh, I just had some questions to run by you Senior Healer Imara," Stammered Jen, backing up nervously, "I apologise for intruding." 

"Very well." Imara turned to Draco, "I presume you want to meet with Idir about Harry's case?"

Draco nodded.

"I'll owl you later." She stated with a finality which signaled a clear dismal. Draco gladly excited the room, giving Jennifer an icy look as he passed.

As he left, he heard Imara's lowered voice advising Jen to never push Healer Malfoy-Potter about his husband, or refer to him as the 'saviour' in his presence. She also reminded her the confidentiality clause she had signed extended to the staff as well as the patients, especially this particular member of staff. And she'd do well to remember it if she planned on a successful career at St. Mungos. 

Hard arse indeed.

Draco smiled to himself as he quietly walked away to seek out Healer Idir.

+

"Keep me safe."

As if Hermione would ever do anything else. She looked around the ministry walls looking for potential threats, but being surrounded as she was by cloaked colleagues, she wondered where to focus first.

She looked desperately down at Harry's fallen body, then at the piece of parchment, he had thrust into her unsuspecting hand so adamantly. In splotchy ink and chicken scrawl, it read:

Traitors

Betrayal

Poison

She turned over the parchment to see if anything else was written on it but it appeared blank.

"Unspeakable Weasley-Granger, what is the meaning of this?" Her superior demanded imperiously, gesturing mutely at the fallen body before her. Then with a grave shake of his head, to, she presumed, impress on her the seriousness of the offence.

As if, she had anything to do with it, she thought bitterly.

Casting a baleful eye down at Harry's inert form, he glared expectantly at Hermione.

Being scolded like she was a green 11-year-old girl going to Hogwarts for the first time but even then she would have noticed these wards literally exploding. Meanwhile, he waved a hand up and around him; indicating the now useless, shattered protection wards.

"What is the meaning of this?" He repeated, superiorly.

Hermione answered with her least favourite words, "I have absolutely no idea."

She looked again at Harry's unconscious body and at the shimming remains of the fallen wards surrounding them. 

"Just how powerful are you?" she muttered to Harry's seemingly comatose body. She did a cursory diagnostic but saw no apparent imminent fatal wounds. Sighing with relief, he was fine just unconscious. 

As the senior unspeakable approached her, she remembered Harry's gasped warning, Hermione hastily gathered Harry into her arms, casting a shield around them both. And muttered, 

"I think I should take him immediately to St. Mungos."

"Just wait one second," her superior interrupted, "this is truly fascinating. How a simple senior auror managed to break through do-dheanta wards. It shouldn't be possible." 

"Harry has never been simple, hence his defeat of Voldemort at seventeen." Hermione flamed, "and he could be hurt, I need to get him to a healer. Now."

Taking advantage of their shock at her uncharacteristic, emotional response and the lack of wards preventing apparation from the department. Hermione instantly side-alonged Harry and herself to Grimmauld place.

"Draco?" She called, "Draco. come quick!."

"No. No. Healers." Harry groaned, unable to continue in his groggy state. 

"You need to be checked out." Hermione huffed, She levitated Harry onto the sofa of the study, before laying her wand on her palm. "Point me." The wand tilted in her hand, in confusion. It spun and then stopped in front of the floo. 

"Brilliant." She growled sarcastically. "Point me, Draco." she instructed, almost desperate. 

It once again, flew around in her palm, turning full circle before landing once more, facing the floo. 

"Merlin." She cursed. "why is nobody where I need them!"

Harry groaned loudly again, "'Mione." he moaned, before promptly leaning over and throwing up on the floor.

"Delightful, first the porridge, now puke. I could've stayed at home for this." 

Harry groaned a slurred something that Hermione interpreted as 'sorry.'

"You really shouldn't have broken through those impossible wards." she reprimanded, "And I know apparation always makes you feel sick. Clearly smashing through impossible wards amplifies that effect." She continued her one-sided monologue. 

He grunted as if it were an arduous task.

"Have you any idea where Draco is?" 

Harry tried to raise his head in a semblance of a nod.

"Where? Use words for pity's sake."

"Work," He choked out. Looking like he might vomit again. 

"Merlin, one moment," She quickly transfigured one of the many pillows into a bowl and thrusted it before Harry. Refocusing she clutched her wand again and with deft movements she cast. "Expecto Patronum. Find Draco, and tell him to come home. Urgently."

The otter swam in the sky, then in the next second was out of sight, seemingly happy on it's mission. 

+

Certain that Draco would return imminently, Hermione moved on to the next priority on her mental list. Whilst Harry slipped in and out of consciousness, under her watchful eye.,She drew out the parchment holding the three mysterious words, Harry's older self had left presumably as clues for her. All but forgotten in her hasty retreat with Harry. 

She began to examine it properly, away from prying eyes and ears. Casting detection spell after detection spell on the parchment, scanning the document for any hidden messages but finding it blank of magic, bar from the obvious. 

It was Harry's handwriting alright, but he hadn't used magic at all. It was otherwise completely ordinary. Given the state of his even messier-than-normal scrawl, he must have jotted down hastily.

Was that due to an attack or his mind regression? Had Harry known that the spell was re-engaging? Had someone triggered that, or was this a natural occurrence of the hex? 

Was that just going to keep happening? Having Harry as himself reappear into his timeline, just to have it all ripped away?

Was this a question of time, or triggers? If so, who or what triggered it? 

Could this parchment be a clue into that?

And why apparate to Hermione? 

Unless, he was at the ministry when this happened...

Left with a hundred unanswered questions, Hermione's mind grappled with potential lines of inquiry. Before she could unravel any further secrets, Harry disturbed her train of thought;

Groaning, he tried to sit up with bleary eyes and tired motions. She settled him back amongst the pillows with a motherly touch.

"Draco's coming." Hermione soothed, quickly summoning a glass and an augemti for the acidic burn in his throat.  As he tried to down the liquid, "sip, don't gulp! Honestly Harry" she mothered, he blushed red before heeding her advise one sip at a time. 

Once he had finished his glass. 

"What happened?" Hermione inquired, absent-mindedly scrougifying the mess from the floor and her robes, for good measure.

"When?" Harry queried in a dazed voice, eyes unfocused.

"Before you came to me." She prompted, patiently. 

"Erm..." He paused. His brain was foggy, uncertain. The disorientated vision seemed to bleed into his addled brain. Words and pictures blurred together, leaving Harry desperately grasping empty walls for information. 

"What's the last thing you do remember?" She guided him helpfully.

"Working out with Draco." Harry grasped the easy answer, there's more. He knows there was. But, "then everything else is kind of blurred." He finished lamely, unable to properly describe the mind fog within.

The memories that were just out of grasp.

The sort of flashes of images and snatches of conversations, just out of reach.

Hermione gave a thoughtful hum. "When was that?" casting a tempus, it was now well past two. "And you said he went to work, when did he leave?"

Harry froze in contemplation, and uttered Hermione's least favourite words, "I've no idea. Actually, I don't even know how I know. I can't even remember."

Hermione groaned inwardly.

Why couldn't this be an easy fix? Hermione was the smart one, for circe's sake, she should be able to do this.

Harry's chest began to heave heavily. "I don't know." He whispered, beginning to hyperventilate.

"Why can't I..." He muttered repeatedly. Clutching his hair tightly in his grip. "I should know... Why Can't I?"

"It's okay. Dray's on his way" She reminded, "None of this is your fault Harry, you have memory loss, this is completely normal. Remember you were attacked in a line of duty." All too familiar with her own parents' issues after their obliviate experience. She kept her voice level, her tone soothing but in control.

"Draco's on his way." Harry parrotted mantra like. Slowly soothing himself, outwardly beginning to relax, Unwinding his fingers from their death grip. "He's on his way." 

Hermione blew out a sigh of relief; pleased by his approach, one that she herself had instigated eight years ago.

"He's on his way." Harry listed the facts, "And he's the best. And you're the best. You can figure this out. I know you both can."

Unknowingly uttering the belief for the second time today. The first trapped in his older self's memory, and not his own. 

Hermione's tears came unbidden. "We're the best." then, "We're going to do our best."

"We're going to fix this Harry." She promised. 

An idea suddenly flashed in Hermione's mind.

"Harry, call Kreacher for me."

No explanation needed, Harry murmured the grumpy house elf's name.

Kreacher would know when Draco left, after all. And where Harry had been before he apparated through the wards.

A puzzle piece. 

+

Draco was with Idir when Hermione's patronus arrived.

He'd found the healer in his private office on the fourth floor, dragging a hand over his bald scalp, when Draco interrupted. 

"Hard case?"

"The hardest," Idir replied emphatically. 

"That's Harry for you." He chuckled, "Mind if I sit?"

"Asking as his husband or a healer?" Idir smirked. 

"Both," Draco answered honestly, plopping himself down on the spare chair.

"What are we missing?" Idir murmured tapping at the paperwork before him. 

"Shall we run through it together?" Draco offered, shuffling his chair closer. 

And so they did.

They ran over the original diagnostics, and the main injuries whilst he was unconscious (physical and magical exhaustion, his wounded arm, the bruising on the back of his neck, open wound on his abdomen). Things that had been easy enough to solve with rest, recuperation, and simple charms. Idir wasn't the healer on the case at that point, being a mind specialist, and with Harry being a frequent flyer as it were. He was originally assigned to his usual healer, whom Draco and he both trusted, Johnsen. 

Johnsen was a pain to deal with; As his notes, whilst meticulous, were scrawled and disordered. Hospital secretaries wept at the very sight. Thank Godric for magic quill decoding. But it had left Idir with a bunch of file notes that may not be pertinent to breaking the curse. 

Once they had finally plowed through the jumble, Draco was able to raise and intersperse his newest observations:

"He came back." 

"What?" Idir immediately discarded the files in his hand, for an unused scroll and familiar quick notes quill. 

"My Harry's come back. Has broken through, Twice."

The shock on Idir's face was absolute. 

"Moments of lucidity." Draco clarified.

"How's that possible? How can he receed again? How long do these periods last?" Idir asked, eyes flashing passionately behind his calm facade.

"A couple of hours." Draco shrugged, "But it's something. It's Harry."

"Most irregular. Though Harry isn't exactly your run-of-the-mill patient." He muttered, as if to himself.

Within earshot, Draco answered, "No. He certainly isn't." 

"And what triggered these moments of clarity?"

Draco and he then poured over the new information, extrapolating the triggers as they understood them. 

"So Teddy was a key and the ring?" The black healer marked down on the page, circling the words, trying to draw the parallels.

"Yes. Specifically the bond magic." Draco said, leaning to look over his notes.

Idir dutifully wrote this too.  

"And that bond was great enough to somehow kick Harry out of his memory loss?"

"Exactly." Draco smiled, smug in this knowledge and desperately hoping the magic would mean the memories would stay longer this time. 

"And the time spent as his younger self is still there when he 'wakes' up?" Idir checks. 

Draco nods, "Today, it did. Before on Saturday, it was different."

"So he can access more? Can he tell us the nature of the curse? Perhaps, knowing more about the incident we can better handle the effects."

Just as Draco was about to respond, Hermione's patronus burst into the room. The otter recalled the instruction for Draco to come straight home. Urgently.  

"I'm so sorry." Draco abruptly stood, "But it's Hermione, and she wouldn't interrupt unless absolutely necessary."

"You've given me plenty to sort through. I'll continue to search." Idir smiled faintly. "And Healer Malfoy-Potter?"

Draco turned. 

"It's been a pleasure working with you again. Next time he's back ask him as many questions as you can, or possibly call me over?" 

He grinned boyishly, "Definitely," carefully closing the door behind him before running to the nearest apparation site. 

+

Hermione interrogated Kreacher for every possible detail. He sneered at her, distrustfully, but answered her many questions all the same as Harry was present. Meanwhile, Harry rested on the couch nearby, recovering from his earlier magical exertion.  Draco arrived with the familiar cracking sound and Hermione turned to him, face flushed in relief.

"Draco," she breathed, "Thank goodness you're here."

"Harry! What happened?" his eyes immediately on Harry's exhausted body. Fingers reaching and wand flicking in almost simultaneous movement as he rapidly approached his husband's side and pulled him into a rough embrace after satisfying himself he wouldn't injure him doing so.

"Merlin Harry you scared me!" he whispered softly into his husband's wild hair looking over him into Hermione's eyes "What did you do to scare Hermione witless this time Harry?"

"He doesn't remember," Hermione answered softly.

Harry flinches, embarrassed. 

What kind of idiot can't remember what they were just doing?

"He was just fine when I left!" Draco barked despairingly angry at once to everyone and no one. 

"Kreacher says to Mudblood this. Mudblood asks where Harry goes. Kreacher tells. Kreacher tells all to Master's dishonourable friends."

"Yes Kreacher, you've been very helpful." Hermione offers with gratitude but Kreacher looks to have been slapped. He glares at her before grumbling something under his breath.

Then, without waiting to see if he was dismissed, he disapparated on the spot. 

Hermione sighs, "It's never easy for Kreacher, But I do wish he would get over the years of poison he was fed." 

Something about that word tickles at the edges of Harry's mind, he reaches up and touches his neck "Poison," Harry repeats, rubbing at his neck.

Draco looks at him sharply, "What?"

"I dunno Dray," Harry replies hopelessly, still agitating his neck.

"Hey, hey, calm down." Hermione urges Harry, with a gentle hand on his shoulder. "It's all on the parchment Draco," she adds.

Draco looks between his husband and Hermione like they have both lost their minds. 

"Right, that is quite enough! What the hell is going on in my house? Why does Harry look like he's just dueled with a dark wizard and smell like vomit? And you look like you've been through five floo's backwards and completed the Spanish inquisition on my house elf?"

Harry looked blankly at Draco and shrugged.

"Oh no you don't Mister, we are not going with your 'I'm just an auror and these things happen' crap again Harry," Draco roared wagging his finger in his alarmed face.

"But-"

"No But's! I was getting somewhere with Idir before that bleeding Otter came swimming in with the 'come home now Draco shit!' Now, explain yourself this instant or so help me I'm going to hex your arse!"

"Hermione sent the patronus," Harry pointed out. "I asked her to leave healers out of this. I feel fine." 

"You broke through the unspeakable wards to get to me, gasped 'keep me safe', promptly passed out. Shoving some secret code into my hand. Probably going to get me sanctioned and investigated, at the very least, and then threw up! I did what was necessary. And logical. And I might point out to you, Draco," She emphasised strongly, "this is not 'our' Harry."

The blond wilted. That was a lot of information. 

He took a deep breath. 

"You did what?" Draco seethed. 

"I- i..." Harry tried, but his mind and mouth wouldn't cooperate. He was pretty sure he was in shock, at what he just heard.

-At what he had just apparently done-

He searched through his mangled mind but words were difficult to form, and his head hurt. The blurry space from earlier now completely warded off. "I'm not sure."

"He went to the ministry," Hermione answered, pleased to demonstrate what she had discovered. 

"To make his official statement," Draco nodded sharply, too many times, "but He was himself. I'd have never left him otherwise." 

If this was what happened every time he left Harry, how was he ever going to go to work again? 

"Something must have happened." Hermione surmised. Draco refrained from rolling his eyes. Knowing that she only meant well.

"Obviously." He took hold of Harry's hand to ground himself. Before casting some simple spells, he ultimately answered, "Well, He's not dying." With the sort of jovial nature that comes with being married to an insufferable gryffindor auror. Though, at Harry's surprised look, Draco softens, gives him a gentle kiss. "He wasn't injured, not physically at least. But he seems pretty magically exhausted now, do you have a headache, Harry?" 

"I said I was fine," Harry grunted. 

Draco gave him an accusatory look. "Harry." 

"Maybe."

It was like pulling teeth with Harry, Draco knew, to get him to open up and be vulnerable. 

Draco quickly summoned a potion from the lab, a pain reliever and a pepper-upper, presenting them to Harry with a no-nonsense expression. 

Harry cringed, but brought the vial to his lips, slurping the sticky substance. Grimacing. 

Happier now, his husband had been medicated, he turned to Hermione, expectantly. 

"One more time, slowly, Granger-Weasley." He commanded. 

+

After quite a few more times, Draco was finally satisfied. 

"Can I see the parchment?" The Slytherin asked, 

Hermione dutifully stretched over to hand Draco the precious last words of 'their Harry'. 

"He said he wasn't safe" Hermione added again,  worrying her bottom lip as Draco perused the paper.

"Clearly," Draco answered. Looking at the combination of words, reading, and re-reading waiting for the words to correlate. 

As if synchronised, they looked over at their current Harry, relegated to the cream sofa. 

"Do these words mean anything to you?" Draco asks, twisting the parchment towards him. 

His eyes glaze for a moment before focusing. It was an easy read, three words, but they were slanted. As if rushed. 

Traitors makes his blood run cold. He has a brief flash of a hooded face and dark green robes, but when he tries to focus on it, the image slips through his brain like sand through his fingers. 

Betrayal makes Harry think of Pettigrew uncomfortably. And his stomach was in knots. Reminds him of his parents and the trust they'd placed in their confidant. He hears an achingly familiar voice, which he does not recognise, and his gut twists. 

The final word was almost illegible, Poison, which felt out of place next to the other two. And yet Harry's hand unbidden rises to his neck. 

"Did I write this?" Harry asks, rubbing at the tendons in his neck.  

"Yes." they answered in unison.

Without a question, that was Harry's handwriting. Hermione and Draco shared a mutual look. This regressed Harry was not the one who wrote this, these were not the ramblings of a paranoid memory-lost man, but a desperate Auror in need. 'Their Harry' had left this for them. A clue to figure out the rest.

Draco drew the parchment close, casting a few charms over the paper, waiting for invisible ink to appear. Waiting for names or maybe a key to the coded message. 

"Poison is an interesting one." Hermione muses aloud. 

Which draws Draco's attention to the third and final word. The one that doesn't quite match the current train of thought.

Why would Harry-?

Then everything clicks.

Poison.

Harry's been poisoned, something missed in Harry's initial screening. Most likely because the healers had been expecting a hex outright or a mutated curse.

It hits Draco like a heavy bludger. They don't need a mind healer, they need a potions specialist.

Fortunately, the Auror department works with one who is very discreet, and Harry trusts them explicitly, which is advisory with his other warnings on the page.

Determinedly, Draco states, "We need to go to the ministry." 

+

Ron was at the hospital, desperate to find Draco due to the newest lead in the case. Harry's patronus had found him whilst out on patrol, and told him to investigate tailors for custom-made robes with magically concealed pockets. After exhausting himself at the usual haunts in Diagon Alley. He decided it was best to consult with Draco, a pureblood should have connections throughout England, or know of someone who could point Ron in the right direction. He couldn't exactly make rounds of every tailor in all Great Britain, after all. But after finding Grimmauld empty, he decided St. Mungos was the next logical conclusion. 

As Ron hurried passed the emergency ward, his trained senses picked up an odd conversation from down a sidehall.

"He's not here." A young healer's distressed voice caught his attention. Ron stalls in his stride, "The potion element must be fading by now. And I've been unable to administer a further dose..."

Curious Ron rounds the corner, worried about her missing patient. But as she flicks her blonde hair back, he sees she's already talking to Auror Phillips, who is murmuring in turn. 

"You are the only one who can do this." 

Odd, Ron thought as Auror Phillips normally only worked at the training academy, but as a senior auror perhaps he was called out considering the lack of personale they were currently down to.

Auror Phillips looks up at the sound of Ron's footfall, instantly wary. Then visibly relaxes his face.

They nod to each other over the distance in greeting. 

"Everything alright, Auror Weasley?" Phillips inquires.

 "Yes Sir, following up a lead on the Malfoy-Potter case."

They both tense up slightly, Ron notes, surprised.

"I need to find his husband, have you seen him? I expected to find him in the department as usual, but he's not in his office."

"I just saw him a few moments ago," the blonde healer offered. "He's gone to meet with Healer Idir."

Ron nods his thanks.

"Would you like me to accompany you?" She asks, helpfully. 

But Ron notices a hopeful glint in her eye. 

Another Bloody Potter Fan. Ron decides irritably. 

Just what Harry needs.

"No, you continue to find your missing patient." He notes a brief flicker of alarm on their faces.

"Missing patient?" she inquires falteringly. 

"Yes. Healer Jen. The patient we were just discussing. We need to find her, so you could administer the potion before she deteriorates further." 

Weird the emphasis on the pronoun. 

He could've sworn it was a male they had been discussing previously.

The whole interaction felt off to Ron. 

But seeing the demeanour of the senior auror change to one of authority, he backed off. "Best find that lead, Weasley. Wouldn't want any corrupt wizards slipping from our grip, would we?"

Ron falters, unsure.

But he really should get to Draco. And Auror Phillips had seniority, he'd help this Jen find her missing patient before the clock runs out. 

"Right." He calls, "I'll find Healer Malfoy-Potter myself. Good luck Healer..?" He waits patiently for her answer. His suspicions grow as she looks to auror phillips before replying.

"Jennifer." 

"well healer Jennifer, good luck. Auror Phillips" he parts, nodding respectfully as he withdraws and heads purposefully down an interconnecting corridor toward the mind healer department. The whole conversation playing on loop in Ron's mind. 

+

"Hang on a minute, Harry just apparated through impossible wards to get to me. To get to someone safe, because he was at the ministry." Hermione reasoned, stopping Draco's hasty exit.

He paused in his actions.

"Clearly he was in some sort of danger." She points out. 

"I just said he wasn't injured." Draco gestured wildly. 

"Well, Harry didn't burst unannounced through impenetrable wards for nothing." She argued rationally.

"Are we talking about the same Harry?" Draco inquired bitingly. 

"Hey" he called, mildly offended.

"We can't trust them." Hermione insisted, "he said 'keep me safe'. The parchment says 'betrayal'. We can't go to the ministry. We can't trust them."

"For Salazar's sake! It's like being back in the war. Can't trust anyone you didn't grow up with. Harry trusts this potions specialist, completely."

"I do?"

Draco gave a long-suffering sigh, before nodding. 

"But I did write betrayal." Harry pipes up thoughtfully. Wormtail features in his mind once more. He figures he should share aloud but stifles the urge. "If you're saying I apparated out of the auror department. We shouldn't go back."

"But this is the first proper lead we've had." Draco pleads. Emerald eyes met wide glistening silver. "Please, Harry, we need your memories."

"Draco, step back for a minute. You're only looking at one word. Look at the combination of the three." The gryffindor argues. 

Draco huffed, this was not like cracking a safe, turning until the tumblers clicked, then reversing through the other direction until it unlocked. 

This was about keys. Keys to unlock Harry's trapped memories. They now know that he's in there, stuck beneath the veneer of his twenty-year-old self. And whilst they sit around decoding this madness, they weren't moving towards freeing him.

He didn't have the patience or luxury to wait around while they sorted through what the other words might mean. Especially if they have this clue already. 

Draco wanted him back now.

Who knew what the poison might be doing?

"Draco, think rationally. Harry didn't just write poison. He wanted us to tread carefully."

Draco sagged. The weight of the task before them falling heavily on his shoulders. Agitated beneath his skin, desperate to get this solved quickly. "Then what do you propose?"

"Well, " Hermione turned thoughtful, twirling her wand idly. "we could contact Ron and see if there are any clues as to what Harry had been doing."

Harry nodded, "That sounds like a good plan." Always readily able to accept Hermione's ideas. 

Here we go with the golden trio club, pulling together again, Draco thought angrily. 

Grinding his teeth in frustration. 

"And until we can find out who we can trust with this sensitive information-" Hermione starts but can't finish as a exasperated Draco interrupts.

"Harry trusts-!"

"Me," Hermione shouts, cutting him off, "He came to me. He knows I can figure this out. I just need some time."

Draco flinched, as if he were struck, "If he's poisoned, he needs an antidote. Time is exactly what we don't have."

"I feel fine. Well, memories aside." Harry offers, sitting up again. 

"You don't have a say in this."

"Like Bloody hell I don't. This is me we're talking about.And I say, we trust Ron and you two only."

"Circe," Draco rubbed at his temples as a headache rapidly descended.

"You did do an extra year as a potions apprentice," Hermione observed quietly.

"That was nine ago." He hissed. Fear pooled in his gut at what he knew was coming next.

"What, and you don't have a potions lab downstairs?"

Draco glowered. "I'd prefer a specialist."

"We don't have that luxury."

"Great, we are back in the war!" Draco huffed, arms outstretched.

"Stop being a drama queen, Draco." Harry sighed. Draco gave him a complicated look. 

"Wait, How would they get a poison into me, that the St. Mungo's healers didn't find?" 

Everyone stopped.

How did they miss that? 

"It can't have been any regular concoction if it's as powerful as ridding eight years of your life... " Hermione thinks aloud.

"They weren't looking for poison, because you've clearly been cursed." Draco reasons, loudly in a voice that definitely isn't reasonable.

"Then why would I write poison!" Harry argued.

"I've no idea. That's why I want a second opinion!" The blond's voice raised even louder than previously. Draco stormed over to the couch, as Harry leapt off of it and faced off against him. Breathing harshly.

"Alright everyone needs to calm down." Hermione stated firmly, looking at the two wizards,  "Shouting isn't going to bring it back." All too aware of how explosive the couple could be when in a heated argument and really not wanting to end up in the middle of a verbal duel, right now. 

The two boys glowered at each other and then Draco took a deep breath. Harry mirrored him. 

Draco reached out a tentative hand and pushed a lock of Harry's unruly hair behind his ear. 

Harry smiled sheepishly, a soft blush rising on his cheeks. 

They were quiet for a moment before Draco pulled him into his chest, stroking down his back. 

"I love you." He whispered softly, "sorry I lost it."

"I love you too, prat."

"Okay," Hermione coughed.

"Maybe it was a combined hex and poison." Draco posed, still holding Harry.

"Is that even possible?" Harry murmured, raising his eyes to his husband. 

Draco stills. Harry feels his hand stop moving in thought? - in terror?

He pulls back, looking at Harry with wide eyes. 

"Merlin. " then a broken, even quieter, "Oh, Harry."

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