Remember Me Always

Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be...

~Chapter 6~

The next couple of days were spent exploring Harry’s house. Draco was slowly becoming accustomed to the workings of a wizarding home. Harry was quick to inform Draco that his house was incredibly muggle for belonging to a wizard. At Draco’s confused response, he explained that most wizards, like the Weasleys, lived without electricity. Draco was slow to believe something like that. In short, they ended up having a very long conversation about Harry’s first trip to the burrow.

Molly had agreed to take Vera for the time being, until Draco had a better grasp of his life. He and Harry both agreed that it would be detrimental for Vera to be introduced to her father while he still didn’t know anything about his own life.

In all honesty nothing particularly spectacular took place between the pair; they were very much like a new couple that had just gotten together. Harry and Draco went back to Draco’s flat to shrink his belongings in preparation for the blonde’s move. Nothing save for what would be immediately needed was taken to Harry’s home though; Draco was still trying to accept everything that he was learning.

The truth was, Draco wanted so much for what Harry had shown him to be the truth that he was terrified it would prove false. Wouldn’t it just be fitting for him to go to bed one night only to wake up and realize it was all a dream? The only thing that would be worse than that is if the whole setup provided to be a ruse for some hidden camera television show or something of that ilk. He pushed those thoughts away though, determined to make things work. This was too outrageous to be a farce.

He was amazed when Harry had taken him to a place called Diagon Alley. If anything helped to solidify his belief in the wizarding world it was that place.

Harry had insisted he wear dark glasses and allow the brunette to temporarily change some of his physical attributes. Apparently he was well known and would attract a great deal of attention.

His temporary persona was that of a tanned American (he couldn’t believe it when his voice had been altered) with still blonde, but darker, hair and a semi-muscular build.

Harry had insisted that they add to Draco’s wardrobe several sets of proper wizarding attire as he had been positive that Draco would want it once he was back to his former mind set.

He had been thoroughly confused when Harry burst out laughing over his immediate interest in a pair of dark, emerald green robes. That began a conversation on school houses that kept them busy throughout their shopping.

During lunch, Draco asked Harry about Vera. What did she like to do? What was her favorite color? Did she know about him? Does she hate him for not being there?

Harry filled Draco in on all of Vera’s extracurricular activities as well as her favorite color: pink. The conversation took on a much more sober atmosphere as Harry relayed that Vera did know about having two fathers and that she did not hate Draco for not being around. He was rather incredulous but Harry only answered him saying that six-year-olds were not prone to vendettas as far as he knew.

Their arrival back home was rather awkward. Without the help of outside stimulus, the pair fell into a strained silence broken only by equally strained conversation.

Harry wouldn’t admit it to Draco, but it was one of the hardest things he had ever experienced; to have his lover back only to be treated like a stranger.

Perhaps that was a little extreme. Harry wasn’t treated like a stranger exactly, it was just difficult to have to restrain himself every time he wanted to touch Draco, to hold him and show the man he had promised himself to exactly how much he loved him. He wanted so badly to just lock him and his lover up in the bedroom to make up for lost time, but that wasn’t an option. He was trying to be patient, but that was never one of his strengths; Draco had always been the one with that talent.

The potion couldn’t be brewed quickly enough as far as he was concerned.

~oOo~
On the day that Severus brought over Draco’s potion both of them were terribly nervous.

Harry, because he feared that Draco would feel differently about him after spending so much time living a completely different life. Draco was simply terrified it wouldn’t work. Well, that and he was afraid that he wouldn’t meet up with Harry’s expectations.

“Now Draco, I want you to take this before your morning and evening meals. You may begin to recall small things as early as tomorrow, should you begin taking the potion immediately.”

“I think I’ll do that; start now I mean. You’re absolutely positive this will work?” Draco inquired finally voicing his concerns.

“I have yet to fail at preparing a brew. I’m absolutely positive it will work. Here,” Severus said handing Draco a vial and a satchel containing several more to Harry, “drink that then have your breakfast. I have things to do today if you would forgive my quick departure.”

“Are you sure you won’t join us Severus? The apocathary will still be there after breakfast.”

“I am certain Harry, but thank you for the invitation.” Curt reply said, Severus nodded his goodbyes, turned on his heel, and left as suddenly as he’d come.

“Do you know what you’d like for breakfast?” Harry asked in an attempt to distract Draco from the current situation.

“Umm…whatever you choose is fine. I seem to have lost my appetite.”

“Bacon and eggs it is. Good choice.” Snapping his fingers, Harry caused a glass of juice to appear before Draco at the table.

“Trust me, you’ll need it.” Harry stated, indicating that Draco should drink his potion.

Taking a deep breath, Draco uncorked the vial and downed its contents in one go.

“Shit! What’s in that stuff, it’s like drinking bile.” Draco exclaimed before chugging the glass of juice in front of him.

“Well, bile could honestly be one of the ingredients, but that’s just how it is. I’ve never found a potion that both worked and didn’t taste like poison.” Harry took two plates from the cupboard and filled them before walking to the table.

“Do you feel any different?”

“No. Is that a bad sign?”

“It’s fine, I was just getting ahead of myself. Severus said that the earliest it’ll start working is tomorrow.”

The couple spent the rest of the day in the sitting room reading and, in Draco’s case, looking through more photo albums.

Before supper, Draco forced down yet another vial of potion in the hopes that it would take effect soon.

Unfortunately, they followed this routine for four days without results. Both men were beyond worried although Harry did his best not to show it, reassuring Draco that potions affected everyone in their own time. This seemed to calm Draco down quite a bit, however Harry made a point to floo Severus about the lack of progress.

~oOo~

Harry spent a good hour with his head in the fireplace having a near panic attack about Draco’s condition.

“Severus you said it should start to take effect four days ago! Four days! Draco’s getting really upset and I’ve been lying through my teeth to try and keep him calm. What’s wrong?”

“Harry, as nice as it is to see you at,” Severus glanced to his right, “two o’clock in the morning, I can assure you that there is nothing wrong with the potion. I said it would work as early as the day after Draco began to imbibe it. I didn’t say that it would work that soon.”

“But he’s supposed to have his full memory back in two days time. Vera is anxious to come home, and I’m with her on the matter, but Draco and I are severely worried about the whole father-daughter reunion when she understands our world better than he does.”

“Just trust my ability to accurately brew a potion and relax. Draco may not be getting his memory back as early as we had hoped, but he will have it.”

“What? So it coming back gradually was just a guess? He’s just going to wake up on day seven and *bam!* his memory’s back as though nothing happened?!”

Severus was doing his damndest to calm Harry down when all he wanted to do was reach through the fire and strangle the man. It was two in the bloody morning! He knew what he was doing when he brewed that potion. Harry just needed to relax and trust that it would work.

“Go to bed and stop overreacting.” Before Harry could open his mouth Severus cut him off. “If you start to have a nervous bread down in front of Draco you will only cause him to panic.”

At Harry’s attempt to argue back, Severus sneered and threatened to ward the floo against him if he didn’t let Severus go back to sleep.

~oOo~

Harry was woken by the sound of his bedroom door opening. He feigned sleep, listening for movement from the intruder.

“Harry?” Draco whispered.

No answer. Harry relaxed, knowing that he was under no threat, but was still curious as to why Draco would come to him in the middle of the night. He stayed silent, seeing if Draco would leave or try to get his attention.

“I think I’m starting to remember something. Of course it could’ve been a dream, but I’m hopeful. It was me and you, and we were lying in bed talking about what we wanted to do after the war. You were talking about how you wanted to run away from here; go somewhere like Australia or Italy, somewhere you could be normal. You hadn’t proposed to me yet, and I was terrified that you were going to run from me too.

“You told me that you had never been to the beach for the sake of it, just dragged there by your aunt and uncle and even then you weren’t allowed to do anything. I said that I had been to Australia before and I thought that you’d like it. They have beautiful beaches there, you know.”

Harry turned to Draco and sat up.

“I’m sorry I woke you. I just wanted to tell you about what I was thinking.”

“Draco, I um, we never…we never talked about that. I mean, we both wanted the war to be over, but I had never planned on moving away from London. We did talk about our future together, all the time actually, but I never said that I wanted to move to Australia.”

Draco closed his eyes and exhaled sharply. He tried to fight it, but tears made their way down his cheeks anyway. Harry couldn’t help himself; he climbed out of bed and wrapped Draco up in his arms. He murmured soothing words into the blonde’s ear, stroking his hair lovingly.

“Don’t worry about it Draco. Your memories will come back, I promise.”

“But what if they don’t?” Draco asked, his face buried in Harry’s neck.

“They will.”

“I’m serious. What if they don’t? What if there really is no cure or whatever that will work? What then?”

“Then we’ll start over. I love you Draco, nothing can or will change that. Come with me,” Harry said as he led Draco to the bed. The blonde looked a little unsure, but followed none the less.

Lying down, Harry pulled Draco to him so that his head was pillowed on Harry’s chest. He wrapped his arms around the man that he loved, and continued to whisper soothing words into his hair.

Draco’s breathing deepened as he slowly succumbed to sleep. Harry meant what he said; he would continue to love Draco regardless of the outcome of the next two days. If he had to start over he would, he just hoped that wouldn’t be the case.

Closing his eyes, Harry allowed Draco’s soft breathing to lull him to sleep.

TBC

A/N: I am so sorry for the lateness of this chapter *on knees pleading*. Real life and a whole lot of other crap I don’t want to deal with got in the way.

For those of you who are still reading, I hope this chapter wasn’t a disappointment. I hadn’t intended for there to be a problem with the potion, it just kind of happened that way. It’s like Gaines said, writing a story is like taking a train from L.A. to New York: it’s a long trip and sometimes you’ll end up in Philadelphia.

Did Draco remember some things about his past and Harry? After all, Harry didn’t go into detail about his childhood…

Roxierose13, thrnbrooke, Amessis, myniephoenix, bekki, blumvale, avihenda, angel, evalhanne, Venus, Vicky, and Lee.

You guys are awesome, and I appreciate all of y’all who take the time to review—you guys make my week!