The Burden of Memory

Author's Note: Many thanks to my beta, Shannon who worked on this story for me. We're approaching the end people. One, perhaps two chapters left after this...

Chapter 23 Ten Months Earlier

Ten months earlier…

Draco took one last look around his meager flat and apparated directly onto the path between Hogsmeade and Hogwarts’ entry gate. He had the stoppered echo potion in hand and looked at it one last time before upending the bitter contents into his mouth. All at once the area filled with images of the war and it took Draco a moment to acclimate himself to the ghostly sights surrounding him. With a deep breath he soldiered on, pushing open the massive wrought iron gates and trying to figure out what to do next. His mother had suggested this as his starting point, though he had no idea why. The massive amounts of people around him –all wavering like a mirage in the heat- got him very easily confused, but just as he was about to give up and try a new method –he spotted him.

Potter, more importantly known as the bane of his entire existence, was walking determinedly from the castle toward the Forbidden Forest, which Draco knew for a fact housed the Dark Lord and his minions. “Is he insane?” Draco whispered to himself. “It’s a wonder the idiot wasn’t killed just waltzing into enemy territory. He’ll be completely outnumbered.”

It was surely bizarre, but no amount of whispering to himself like a madman would answer his questions, so Draco broke into a jog in order to catch up with his vapory victim. Harry marched into the woods without looking back even once, while the war waged all around him. People fell and Harry continued to walk away, witches and wizards begged for their lives and Harry ignored them, his eyes focused on the looming tree line. As soon as he broke into it, Potter’s determined presence faltered somewhat, as if he was just now realizing his folly.

After a moment the raven-haired wizard paused and pulled a dark stone from his pocket, causing even more confusion to well up inside the stalking blonde at his side. Within seconds Draco jumped back as other people simply materialized around him. A woman with Harry’s brilliant green eyes and a man who looked too similar to Potter not to be related stood on either side of the boy, looking down with warm caring eyes. Draco suspected they were Harry’s parents even though he knew that was impossible because he knew them to be dead. Sirius Black and Professor Lupin also found there way to the boy’s side and each offered encouraging words to the scared looking Gryffindor.

It took a moment for the pieces to fall into place but Draco finally understood what was happening. Potter was sacrificing himself. It took Draco by surprise, but he quickly discarded the seemingly brave notion because clearly the boy didn’t die, he lived on even now –a permanent thorn in Draco’s side. He only hoped he would get to see the moment that Harry decided to selfishly bring the battle back up to the castle where apparently luck would be on his side and no one else would fall before Potter killed Voldemort.

Potter was a mythology that Draco never bought into and couldn’t understand why everyone else did. What was so important about a ragamuffin boy with no family and no true skill to speak of? How could hundreds of wizarding families pin all their hopes and dreams for a safe new world on this quiet, troublemaking boy? And in the end he wouldn’t even use his own wand to kill the darkest wizard of their time, he would use Draco’s. And who kills someone as powerful as Voldemort with an expelling charm anyhow?

Draco growled his frustration into the forest. The only thing he hated more that people believing that Potter was their savior was that they were right. Even though it occurred in the most ridiculous manner possible, Potter had killed Voldemort as he had been prophesied to do. There was no poetry to it, no bravado, nothing. Just a charm he had learned in first year along side of Draco, and using the other boy’s wand no less. Just the image of Potter aiming his hawthorn wand at the man his family had devoted their service to, it still made him cringe with anger.

He’d had a chance to end it all too. He could have given Potter to his Aunt Bella, could have given the entire Golden Trio away, but no. One moment of compassionate indecision stayed his hand. Where he had even learned such an emotion he didn’t know, probably rubbed off from his mother who was always too kind for her own good. In that moment, Potter captured and swollen nearly beyond recognition, Draco faltered. He knew those raven curls and piercing green eyes even when no one else knew what prize they had caught. He could have had Potter tortured and killed right then with just a word, but all of a sudden the idea of Potter dying made his heart clench, so he paused… and then he lied. It wasn’t the first time he had ever fibbed to his Aunt Bella but it had the gravest consequences.

Draco shook his head, trying to block out his brief moment of charity and pressed ahead, following Potter further into the woods. Soon enough they came across the Death Eater camp, his crazy Aunt Bella fawning all over a regal, if not monstrous looking Voldemort.

Without a second glance, Potter cast aside the stone he’d been carrying, the one that somehow brought back the essence of his family, and the ghostly visages surrounding him began to dissipate one by one leaving Potter alone in the clearing and surrounded by enemies.

Draco rushed over and searched the surrounding ground for the item and found it at once, laying at the base of a tree, and pocketed it for future inspection before looking back toward the ominous standoff behind him.

The exchange between Potter and Voldemort was so quick that Draco barely had time to react to the fact that the Dark Lord’s wand had been drawn and a fierce green light erupted from the tip and crashed into Harry’s chest. Draco ran, feet thudding harshly on the soft forest floor, to Harry’s side and even made to pull the fallen boy into his lap –all before he realized that this had all happened before.

He was dead, that much was clear as Harry sagged to the ground, his mouth slack and his jewel toned eyes entirely vacant. A moment later Draco realized he was muttering to himself. “No, no… this isn’t how it happened,” Draco groaned, thinking he had somehow altered the way history had played out by tampering with the echo potion. “You can’t die, you have to go on and save me,” Draco pleaded, realizing for the first time that he was saved. Draco didn’t live the cursed life of a Death Eater; he was no longer forced to watch as Voldemort killed innocent people at a whim. He could enjoy a long life free of looming threats all because of Harry Potter. Harry, the boy he had tried to befriend at the start, Harry, the boy who had a captivating personality, Harry, who could care less that every head turned when he walked into the room. The proud, the brave, the true –Gryffindor through and through, but none of that mattered anymore, as he lay sprawled dead on the ground.

The resentment Draco had felt building over the years drained away as quickly as the blood did from Harry’s pale face. It seemed uncanny to look upon him this way, unable to reach out and tuck away the lock of hair that had fallen in his face, unable to apologize for having been such a prat, unable to atone for his mistakes so that Harry might somehow look at him with something other than loathing.

The thought that Harry might never look at him again made Draco choke. There would be no more banter, no more arguments, no more duels, not with Harry dead and buried, let alone what the world would be like if Voldemort actually won the war, though one look across the glade showed Draco that the Dark Lord had somehow fallen as well and all but his mother and Hagrid were attending to him.

It was then that Draco noticed his mother moving closer to Harry’s limp form. She stood warily over him but her eyes never left Voldemort. When the Dark Lord rose, it startled Draco and he looked back to see Harry gasp sharply for breath. It was subtle and no one was close enough to the boy to notice, but Draco was so happy he felt like dancing. Harry Potter was alive after all. As the closest one to him, Narcissa was chosen to confirm Harry’s death, and though he knew it was untrue, his mother shouted back that Harry was in fact dead.

The oaf Hagrid balled like an infant and was forced to tote Harry with them up to the castle, but Draco hung back. He knew what happened next and he didn’t need to witness the suddenly heroic method with which Harry would dispatch of his menace.

Hero. Fuck, Draco would do anything to be able to take back that word, but it was the truth and Draco could no longer deny it. Harry had gone into that forest with no one to help him. He had died and come back –he absolutely had to be special.

With a sigh Draco left the forest and apparated back to his hole-in-the-wall flat, cursing himself for being so stupid. He never should have agreed to take Harry down like a bully. Everyone else had known what kind of person Harry was, even his own mother had known that Harry was kind and pure and like no one that Draco had ever come across in Slytherin.

With renewed determination and a firm letter to his parents to remain inside the Manor until he contacted them, Draco left his flat to seek out Harry. He had to warn the man that he was being hunted, but he still didn’t know how to find him. His best guess was to continue with his plan of using Harry’s cousin, Lara, to find him or at least get a message to him. He was halfway to her building when a chubby hand reached out and grabbed his arm, jerking him into an alleyway.

“Any progress?” a man asked before Draco’s eyes could adjust to the sudden darkness.

“Who’s asking?” Draco balked. He knew the man must be working for Grubner, but Draco wasn’t giving away any information and stalling was his best option at the moment –or so he thought. A moment later a fat fist connected with Draco’s jaw, sending him sprawling backward.

“Does that jog your memory?” the man asked brutally. “Our boss paid you for results, so far he’s only gotten the run around. Where’s Potter?”

“He’s safe from the likes of you,” Draco spat, noticing blood tinting the spittle that now graced his attackers face.

“The likes of us? Stupid pureblood prat, we’re on the same side,” the man growled.

“Could have fooled me,” Draco hissed, pointing at his injured mouth.

“So do you know where his is or don’t you?” the man asked him, ignoring Draco’s jab.

“I don’t, but even if I did I wouldn’t tell you. I was wrong to agree to help Grubner. He’ll need to find someone new to enact his revenge,” Draco told him firmly.

“What? You can’t back out,” the enormous man replied with dangerously narrowed eyes.

“Watch me,” he replied lightly. “If you try anything I’ll have you all drawn up on charges by the Minister directly.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” the man growled, his voice rumbling through the alley.

“Oh?” Draco scoffed. “And why is that?”

“Because you won’t get a chance to,” the man snarled before his fist connected with Draco’s face once more. All Draco could do was plead with whatever power there was to keep him from telling the man about Lara. As his eyes glazed over with pain Draco thought about Harry, and how much he wished he could apologize, how much he wished he had the man’s Gryffindor courage to stand up and tell him the truth. All this time he was fascinated with hating the man, Draco was suddenly realizing it was much different.

He was in love with Harry Potter.

“Now, are you ready to cooperate?” the oaf grunted, lifting Draco to his feet and holding him there. Draco’s head lobbed to one side and he tried to focus on the man in front of him to no avail. Only Potter’s brilliant green eyes filled his vision.

“I’m not telling you anything, and if you kill me the Ministry will have you Kissed before you can say ‘Idiot’,” Draco spat, wishing the pain in his head would go away.

“That might be true, but you know too much to just be set free,” the larger man reasoned.

“We’re at a bit of a crossroads then aren’t we?” Draco sighed, trying to hold his head aloft.

“How about you take this potion,” the man ordered, extending a glass vial filled with swirling red liquid. “And I won’t kill you.”

“What is it?” Draco asked, knowing by the color that it was a memory potion, he just wanted to see if the man would lie to him.

“It’ll take away your memories of this whole affair,” the man told him.

“And if I refuse?” Draco asked as haughtily as he could manage with a busted lip.

“Then I’ll kill you and make your parents watch before I kill them too,” the man snarled, and Draco realized then that the madman might actually be capable of that exact thing.

Doubt fractured his mind into a thousand pieces as he pondered what to do, but apparently he took too long because before he knew it the potion was being poured down his throat. He sputtered and tried to cough the liquid back up, but it was no use, he could already feel his body slipping back to the ground and the rough laugh of his attacker as he left Draco there in the alley.

The last thing Draco could remember is dreaming of those smiling emerald eyes and a falsely whispered word that everything would be okay.

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Author's Note: So it's explained....