Why Do You Love Me?

“Of course, Molly,” Alicia shot Molly a cool smile, standing and patting Harry on the shoulder. “If you ever feel the need to talk, you can find me here,” with a wave of her quill, a thin slip of parchment appeared in her hand and she set it on the bedside table. She smiled once more at Harry, then walked to the door.

Molly rushed in and grabbed Harry’s hand immediately. “Oh, Harry, dear. You’re all right, aren’t you?”

Alicia waved at Harry gently, and as she walked out of the room, the tube that had been in Harry’s mouth reappeared.

…
…
…

Draco woke up that morning with a yawn. The sun was shining brightly on his face, causing him to clench his assaulted eyes shut so that he wouldn’t be blinded. He groaned and yanked the covers over his head again, and even though he wasn’t tired, he fell back asleep in seconds, snuggling deeply down into the soft covers.

And he dreamed…

He and Severus were running, running, running. They had nowhere to hide, and nothing but their wands as protection. In any other case, a normal wizard would be frightened for his life; but they weren’t. They had the protection of both the dark and the light sides, and they were safe.

Of course, they weren’t as safe as they’d like to be, but for now, the safeness they had was safeness that they were more than willing to take.

They had just pulled it off; Dumbledore had apparated back to Number Twelve Grimmauld Place seconds after Snape had thrown a protection spell at him. Of course, to any other wizard, the curse had sounded and looked like one of the deadly sort, but no one knew any better. After all, Snape was a former Death Eater; he was not to be trusted.

And so they were running, running, running. For now, they were seeking the protection of the Dark side; they were trying to pull off something that had never been pulled off before. They were trying to fool the Dark Lord.

As they ran, Draco couldn’t help but wonder if they would get away with it. Voldemort was one of the best mind-reading wizards of all time; would he be able to see straight through their lies? Draco could only hope that he couldn’t.

And all of a sudden, he was falling, falling, falling. He landed with a thud and a soft grunt. Snape looked down at him, his eyes panicked. ‘Get up, Draco! We haven’t time! We’ve got to report to the Dark Lord; he will be suspicious!’

Draco groaned and slowly pulled himself up, Snape yanking on his arm and pulling him swiftly behind him. ‘Run, Draco!’

Draco was running out of energy quickly, the small amount of breakfast that he had managed to choke down hardly enough to keep him energized, and it was starting to work its way up.

And they were running, running, running.

The running went on forever. By the time Snape allowed him to stop, Draco’s legs were ready to give out on him completely. But they were there.

The clearing looked like a normal place, but as soon as Draco stepped past the barriers, he could feel the magic flowing through him, replenishing his needs. Voldemort may be evil, but he also knew how to take care of his followers; though at times they needed punishment, most times they were treated like near-royalty.

The throbbing pain slowly left Draco’s legs, his stomach stopped tossing, and his breathing immediately went back to normal. Suddenly, a house appeared in front of him. It was more of a cottage than it was anything else, but like most Wizarding things, you don’t always see what you get.

The second the door was pulled open, Draco could tell that a very wealthy wizard lived here. And he was about to become a whole lot wealthier, with the news that the greatest wizard of the century had been murdered.

A malicious laugh filled the foyer that Draco and Severus stepped into; Voldemort stood on the landing of the stairs off to Draco’s right, and he was grinning from ear to ear (if you could call it a grin; it looked like more of a grimace of pleasure to Draco).


‘I take it you have succeeded, then?’ the cold voice of Voldemort asked, and Draco could once again feel himself falling, falling, falling.

XXX

Draco woke up with a start, flinging the covers from his sweating body in a flash as he leapt from the bed. Panting, he tried to regain his breath as he looked around; he was safe inside Grimmauld Place, but he couldn’t stop the chill that crept up his spine whenever he remembered the events that had led up to this moment.

With a sigh, he allowed himself to once again collapse on the bed. The digital clock floating next to his bed said that it was nearly noon. Groaning, he covered his face with the pillow. He really wasn’t in the mood to go and greet the Weasleys quite yet; they were probably still worried about Potter.

Draco’s lips curled into a half sneer, half smirk as he remembered the night before, the night that could have changed Harry’s life forever, just by giving him a chance to live. Draco’s sneer turned to a full-fledged smile as a superior feeling settled in his gut, and slowly, he stood and stretched before making his way down the stairs.

Everyone was grouped in the kitchen, talking in hushed voices. A few plates of breakfast items were left in various places in the room, though most items on the plates looked crusty and stale.

Draco pulled a face at the meager food that looked half-edible (all of which were plates that Draco rather loathed).

Everyone seemed to be ignoring him, which suited him much better than anyone who didn’t know him well would like to believe. Scowling slightly to himself, he sat heavily at the table and listened to the snippets of panicked conversation going on around him.

“Harry’s lost his memory!” Hermione was exclaiming to a worried-looking Dumbledore.

“That wretched Alicia Slanky is his councilor; and she’s supposed to help him get his memory back? The nerve of that woman!” Mrs. Weasley complained to a bored-looking Ronald, who was stabbing half-heartedly at the stale scrambled eggs on his plate.

Neville was staring at his own plate of breakfast, his expression somewhat disgusted. Draco was rather bored with the discussion going on around him, and without much other choice, he rather grudgingly sat by Neville and attempted to converse with him.

“When did you get here?”

Neville looked up from his food, his expression still equally disgusted. “Mrs. Weasley is really distraught today. Do you think Harry’ll get his memory back?”

Draco rolled his eyes. So much for the conversation he had attempted to engage in. “Of course he will. They’re probably not doing the correct treatment for him, that’s all.”

Neville shook his head. “I think it’s a defense mechanism, to tell you the truth. Somewhere in there, Harry remembers. He just doesn’t want to remember.”

Draco’s brow furrowed thoughtfully, before he nodded.

“I got here a little bit before Harry and the Weasleys.” Neville said after a short bout of uncomfortable silence, mostly to appease Draco. “Actually, a week before them, to be exact. I’m really glad that they came, too. It was getting pretty boring around here. There’s not much to do. Mrs. Weasley is going to be putting us to work cleaning soon.”

Draco pulled a face and Neville smirked. “Payback’s a bitch,” he murmured before standing, grabbing a biscuit from in front of Draco, and walking out of the room.

Draco glared after Neville, who was acting quite uncharacteristic as of late, with a snort.

…
…
…

Taking heed of Neville’s warning, Draco had quickly run off to his room in order to escape cleaning, a task that he had never once in his life been duty-bound to perform.

For most of the day, he hid beneath the covers of his lumpy, unfamiliar and uncomfortable bed. The two times someone had come in to recruit him for some of the heavy-duty work, he had cowered beneath his pillow and pretended to be asleep; there was no way he was going to ruin his nearly perfectly attended to hands with hard work!

It wasn’t until nearly after midnight that Draco attempted to leave his room, and he was surprised to find that everyone was still rushing about, cleaning. All of the doxies were out of the upstairs rooms and the only ones left to disinfect were the downstairs rooms. Of course, they weren’t even close to being finished, but a lot had been finished from the time they had started cleansing the home.

Even Mrs. Black seemed a bit happier. Of course, that might have been because the foyer she was hanging in had been re-papered earlier that day, and was much more pleasing to the eye now that the peeling wallpaper had been removed. Draco hadn’t seen much of the top floor, but he was sure that they were nearly done up there since they were currently working in the foyer and downstairs rooms, which Mrs. Weasley had promised would be saved for last since there was more work to be tackled within them. She was hoping to have the kitchen disinfected and rearranged by the next day, along with having all of the floors waxed and polished - by hand.

Draco groaned and plopped himself down on the bottom step and watched as Ron laughed at Hermione and Ginny, who were basically the only ones working since the adults were in different rooms of the house, attending to work of their own.

Hermione glared at Ron and threw a very suspicious hex at him, which caused his nose to inflate to nearly four times its normal size before bursting out laughing herself, she and Ginny hanging on to each other as they collapsed in peals of laughter, holding their sides as though they would split at any minute.

Ron stared at his nose in horror as it grew larger than his face, before he began shrieking. This just caused the girls to laugh harder as the adults rushed into the room to see what the matter was. Fred and George, who were the first on the scene, gaped at Ron for a split-second, before turning to Hermione and giving her a congratulatory whoop. “We’ve got to make this into a Wizard Wheeze!” George cried in delight.

“I know,” Fred said, his eyes glistening in humor. “A toffee! Just like the ton-tongue toffee!” He and George shared a wide grin, and seconds before their parents rushed into the foyer, they rushed out of it, sprouting ideas to one another as they sprinted past Draco and up the stairs to disappear into their room.

Hermione smiled at Draco triumphantly before turning back to her work. Draco raised an eyebrow and glanced at the horrified Ron, unable to hold in a soft chuckle. “Yes,” Draco agreed finally, though it was a little late. “Payback certainly is a bitch.”

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…

The next day, Alicia visited Harry once again. “Hello, Harry,” she greeted, seating herself in the chair that she had occupied the day before. Her outfit looked quite similar, though today it was in earth tones. Harry supposed that to have a job like hers was quite boring, and perhaps she had to wear something that went along with the job description.

This time she had brought a quick-quotes quill, and though Harry was rather suspicious of those types, he allowed it. Just like the day before, Alicia magic-ed away the tube stuck in Harry’s throat before they began their session.

“They say that they can release you in about three days. You’re so strong! You’ve made a large amount of improvement since you got here. You’ve made much more recovery in these three days than has been made by any normal wizard in three weeks.
Of course, they’re hoping that you remember at least something before you’re released, because it would be a rather shame if you didn’t. Now, since I don’t know where your memories end, I’m going to ask you a few questions about what you do remember. Is that all right?”

Harry nodded his head slightly in acknowledgement, and Alicia continued on. “Of course,” she smiled softly at him and set a thick book of blank parchment on the bedside table, the quick-quotes quill hovering over it. “Now then, back to this summer. What did you do?”

“I, uh…stayed with my aunt and uncle.”

“I see. Just for the record, what are their names?”

Harry stared at her for a few moments in curiosity, before stating clearly, “Petunia and Vernon Dursley. My cousin also lives there. His name’s Dudley.”

Alicia nodded. “Very good. What did you do at their home?”

“I stayed out of their way.”

Alicia’s brow furrowed. “Why would you do such a thing? They’re relatives!”

“Yes, but they’re very biased against wizards.”

“Even you?”

“My mother was born the only witch in her family of muggles. I have a feeling that Aunt Petunia was jealous, but I’ve never asked.”

“Hmm,” Alicia stared for a moment at the acid-green quill that was racing across the parchment before asking another question. “While you were ‘staying out of the way’, what did you do for fun?”

“I didn’t really do much,” Harry stated, staring at the ceiling in reminiscence. “I cleaned the house, tended to Petunia’s garden. Sometimes I went out and bought groceries.”

“Was that fun?” Alicia asked, her face shifting into an unreadable mask of glistening eyes and pursed lips.

“Not really, no. For the most part I stayed in my room. I conversed regularly with Hermione and Ron via owl post. One day I got a rather strange letter in the mail…muggle mail.” Harry’s eyes clouded over and Alicia’s eyes widened.

“What happened then?” She prodded gently, and Harry closed up slightly to her.

“Nothing,”

“But something had to of happened. Was the letter from a wizard?”

“No,”

“A witch?”

Harry looked away, his cheeks flushed brightly and his eyes glistening with tears. “Cho,”

“Cho?” Alicia watched Harry with blooming interest. “Who is Cho?”

“A…friend. At least, she was a friend.”

“So this letter was unexpected?”

Harry remained unresponsive and Alicia sighed. “Very well. What was the letter about?”

“My…birthday,” Harry’s eyes stared lifelessly at the ceiling as he thought back. “She wanted me to go somewhere.”

“Where, Harry? Where did she want you to go?”

“I…I don’t remember,” Harry looked over at her, his eyes filled with anguish. “Please stop,” he begged unexpectedly. “I don’t want to remember. Please?”

Alicia’s eyes softened. “I’m afraid I can’t, Harry. I’m so sorry,”