“Draco’s dying.”
Ron is Harry’s best friend in the whole world but sometimes he can be a bit daft.
“No, he’s not,” Harry replies serenely. He’s not. Draco is in the kitchen, wearing the light blue sweater Harry gave him last Christmas and a rosy flush Harry gave him two minutes ago.
“They think you can help him.” Ron is staring at a point above Harry’s shoulder. Harry shifts slightly to follow Ron’s gaze and finds Draco standing there, levitating three steaming mugs of tea onto the table.
Except. Except, Draco doesn’t drink tea. He drinks cheap, Instant coffee, a consequence of his time spent working in America. Harry teases him about it all the time.
There’s a slight thud as two mugs hit the table, the third has vanished.
Draco settles into a chair. “No tea for me,” he says playfully. There’s a small Statue of Liberty trinket on the bookshelf behind Ron. Harry relaxes.
“Ron was just telling me a story,” Harry shares.
Draco smiles and leans forward expectantly on the table. It’s a set they thrifted last weekend: one Walnut table and four Cherry chairs— one ingredient away from a meal , Draco had joked.
“It’s a curse, Harry. 'Mione figured it out. It’s preying on your memories.”
Harry gives Ron a conciliatory nod and reaches out to brush a dark curl away from Draco’s forehead. Draco has platinum hair, he remembers, as an afterthought.
The strands shift to a blinding white immediately. Or were they always white? They must have been, Draco would never dye his hair.
“It’s you, Harry. You’re teaching it how to trap you.”
Harry reluctantly turns back toward Ron.
“What makes us human?” Ron asks. “Harry, I know you can hear me, you just have to listen. What makes us human?”
“I… I don’t know,” Harry mumbles.
“Instinct, Harry. Emotion and instinct.”
Ron is sitting on a cushioned armchair and Harry wonders absently where he got it. All Harry has are four Cherry chairs. He nearly expects to see Ron’s chair transform into dark wood. It doesn’t.
“You can’t teach humanity,” Ron continues. “You can teach a Thing how to learn, how to adapt. You can force it to consume everything around it until it knows right from wrong. Until it becomes as intelligent as any of us, but you can never teach it instinct. Look around, Harry, use your instinct.”
There’s a portrait on the wall. Four people. Harry and Draco. An older woman with almond-shaped green eyes and freckles over her nose; an older man with dark skin and Harry’s own unruly hair.
“Hermione’s calling it an AI-Curse. Artificial Intelligence. It sweeps through your mind quickly and puts together a scenario where you feel comfortable. It’ll get things wrong, of course. It doesn’t know which memories are relevant, which are wrong, which are just daydreams. That’s where you come in. You tell It when it’s wrong and you reward It when it’s right.”
Draco’s sitting still at the table. Harry beckons him over.
“I love that picture of us,” Draco says happily, laying his head on Harry’s shoulder.
“What is this?”
“Us and your parents, silly.”
“Draco, my parents are dead. They’ve been dead for 27 years.”
Draco blinks. “I know. Do you miss them?”
Harry snaps back to the portrait. His parents have disintegrated out of the frame.
Ron’s still sitting at the table in his armchair. “Malfoy’s condition is deteriorating. He’s succumbing to the curse. Once he’s given up all of his memories, he’ll die trapped in a fake world of his own design.”
“Stop,” Harry says; and then, “ STOP ,” louder, facing Ron. Ron doesn’t hear him. Because… because Ron’s not here. Ron and his stubborn, incongruous armchair aren’t here. Harry can hear the humming of Mungo’s Stasis charms echoing somewhere in his mind, the quiet bustle of the hallway, the frantic whispering.
The only person here is Draco. Draco, who barely ever comes over to Harry’s flat. Draco, who flirts with him over lunches but flinches away when Harry reaches out to sweep his blonde hair off his forehead.
There’s a rosy flush on Draco’s cheeks except Harry’s not the one that gave it to him. Harry’s never kissed Draco; they’re partners and friends and maybe something that transcends description, but not this. Not yet.
“Draco, why are you here?”
“What do you mean?” Draco’s smiling at him, eyes soft. It’s a daydream. Harry swallows down the grief of the realization.
“We’re not dating, we’re not anything, why are you in my flat?”
Draco freezes.
“No, no, no, please, no,” Harry’s grasping at him desperately but there’s nothing there. Just pixels floating away from each other, dissolving into the air.
“NO!” Harry’s kneeling, face hidden in his hands. “No, I can’t do this alone, I can’t, come back… please come back.” He knows it’s impossible; you can’t teach humanity , Ron had said. AI doesn’t understand emotions, won’t bring him back now that it knows he doesn’t belong.
“They want to Obliviate you,” Ron continues, speaking at Harry’s bedside at Mungo’s, imitated in Harry’s subconscious.
“What?” Harry turns and scrambles toward Ron.
“Hermione had a near conniption,” he chuckles. “But it’s the logical solution. The curse absorbs everything you show it and gives it back to you, better and smarter. If there’s no data for it to learn from, then you’re free.”
Harry collapses into the chair beside Ron, mind whirling. The room twists around them. They’re in the Gryffindor Common Room now, Ginny and Hermione near the fireplace, no more Walnut table and Cherry chairs. Except, Molly Weasley’s washing dishes in the corner. No .
Obediently, Molly Weasley pops away. And then, the room is shifting again.
“Without memories, the curse will implode into the simplest version of itself: a basic mind trap. Straightforward, simple. The kind that Aurors learn in training.”
“JUST TELL ME WHAT TO DO, RON,” Harry bellows.
The Burrow. Except, there are two Georges. No . The room glitches and restarts.
“They won’t try Obliviation with Malfoy. Healers think it’s too late, that he’s too weak even to break out of the simplest version.”
The office and Draco… he’s back . He’s back and alive and leaning back in his chair, feet propped up on his desk, inspecting a takeout box. Yes.
The room fills in further, encouraged. Case files pile up on Harry’s desk; Draco’s Statue of Liberty trinket is back, in the right place this time; an evidence board on the wall, newspaper clippings, Draco’s neat, white notes, Harry’s scrawl.
“It’s unethical to deprive him of his memories now.” Ron says.
Harry inspects the board closely. 7 people dead over 2 months. Inconsistencies in their deaths, but clearly perpetrated by the same actor. A pale blue envelope mailed to each victim. It explodes within minutes of delivery, enveloping its target into a coma.
Seemingly random victims. A middle-aged mother, an elderly school teacher, a teenager days away from his 15th birthday. Muggles, Purebloods, Half-Bloods, and a Squib. Varying races, different financials.
“Weird, isn’t it?” Draco’s staring at him. “Almost as if they chose the most diverse targets on purpose.”
Harry turns to him slowly, “Why?”
Draco tosses him an egg roll and shrugs, “Make sure we can’t trace them?” Draco joins him at the board, looks over the victim list.
The first had taken one month to die, slowly incapacitated. The second had taken only half that time, he had perished within two weeks. Faster and faster after that. The latest victim, a five-year old girl, was gone in three days.
It was the first time, in five years of working together, that Harry saw Draco break down. Crouched outside her Mungo’s room, shivering, quiet; Harry had pulled him up and deposited him home. He came back to work two days later, clenched jaw and fierce determination lodging itself into Harry’s heart.
Draco’s written a note under her picture: The curse is learning.
“What is this?”
“You didn’t see the Mungo’s report? They think it’s targeting memories. With each iteration, it’s getting faster and killing quicker. Hermione was telling me about this thing…”
“Artificial Intelligence.”
“Exactly,” Draco smiles, surprised, “it absorbs huge amounts of data until it learns how to adapt to every condition.”
“The diverse victims— someone is teaching it how to learn, adapt to every condition,” Harry whispers. Draco’s standing near his desk again, illuminated by the soft light of his lamp. Soft blonde locks fall into his eyes as he looks over a case file. Harry wonders if this version will flinch away if he reaches out. Wonders if the curse has learned this detail yet. He hopes it hasn’t.
“They’re going to let him die in his own fake world. A peaceful death, they called it.” Ron is still sitting in the corner of the office, in a cushioned armchair.
Harry shakes his head, silently, frantically. There’s a pale blue envelope on Draco’s desk.
“Draco, what is that?”
Draco looks at the envelope and back at Harry, nonchalant. Then, his face morphs into fear, mirroring Harry’s own expression. It’s the curse, it’s learning. And Harry’s teaching it.
“The curse was targeting Malfoy. You were hit since you were in such close proximity, but it's a much weaker variant. You can make it out, Harry. You can help Malfoy navigate out.” Ron says from his corner.
“Harry,” Draco whispers. “What do I do?”
Harry strides forward, takes Draco’s shoulders in his hands. This is real now; Harry remembers this morning. “I’ll come for you, okay? We know what it is now, we’ll figure out how to stop it. Draco, you’ll be fine.”
Draco’s falling now. His eyes are shut, he’s laying on the floor, head tilted toward Harry.
Draco’s dying.
“RON, WHAT DO I DO? TELL ME WHAT TO DO!”
Ron’s not in his corner anymore. He’s gone, and so is his armchair, and it’s just Harry alone, in his office, with Draco’s body.
The room is still filling up around him. Draco’s coffee mug, steaming on his desk. Blank walls slowly covered with Auror-standard tan wallpaper. Except. Except, Severus Snape is standing over Draco.
Harry steps closer cautiously, willful not to let the curse know that Snape doesn’t belong.
“The headmaster has asked me to teach you Occlumency. I can only hope that you prove more adept at it than Potions,” Snape says, looking up at Harry with dark, hooded eyes.
A memory, then. Out of place, but relevant. Harry remembers Ron’s words: The curse doesn’t know which memories are relevant. It’s guessing, responding to Harry’s needs. It’s helping.
“Right. You’re right.” Harry says, loud. Snape solidifies, robes saturating darker.
“Rid your mind of all emotion,” Snape continues. “Empty it, make it blank and calm.”
“Empty it,” Harry whispers. He takes a last look at Draco and closes his eyes.
He opens them to a plain white room. Nothing on the walls, the floor. Nothing, except a door. A simple mind trap. Harry opens the door.