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The only sounds in the bathroom were the splashes of the droplets falling from the tips of Harry’s hair into the stillness of the bath water. His eyes were shut tight behind his glasses, fingers clenched around the edges of the tub. He’d been sitting there for what seemed like days, tense, a time bomb about to snap. Draco, heart in a fist, was watching him, waiting.
Harry’s throat bobbed.
“I think I’m ready to hear you.”
Draco didn’t think he sounded ready, but he’d promised him, months ago, that he would always respect Harry’s right to know, and had never gone back on it. Harry’s eyes remained closed, the line of his back tense like a drawn arrow. Draco breathed in the lavender and thyme steam, felt it expand his lungs, soothing every inch. This wasn’t the first time, and he knew that he could do this. He stood up, his chair scraping the floor as he moved to kneel closer to the bath. Harry’s eyes snapped open at the sound, fixed on Draco’s face with wariness and distrust. Draco stopped in his tracks, trying not to show a reaction, trying to reason his heart into not breaking over it. Reminding himself, this wasn’t the first time.
“I’m sorry,” he said, bringing his hands up, open, as though approaching a wild thing. It wasn’t far from the truth. “I won’t get any closer.”
He came to his knees where he stood, slowly, some eight feet from the bathtub, and sat back on his heels to show that he wouldn’t move. He kept his hands up where Harry could see them, knowing it would reassure him. After a tense few seconds, Harry gave him a tight nod.
Draco cleared his throat and tried to make his voice as soft as he knew how. Low, intimate in the moonlit bathroom, he whispered, “Do you know who you are?”
Silence, only broken by the splash of the droplets. Harry’s breath came quicker, each pant pulled out of him. That was answer enough. Draco clamped down hard on his reaction and waited.
This whole thing was always a masterclass in waiting. He felt just as unequipped for it as he had the first time.
“You called me Harry,” Harry said, his voice uncertain, unbearably small. Something shattered inside Draco, all the alarms in his body going off in a panic. He closed his eyes to will it all away, to promise to deal with himself only after he’d done his part here. The shock threatened to drown him, and he fought his own mind hard, trying to be what he needed for Harry. He’d never lost his name before.
“Y-yes,” Draco managed at last. “Harry James Potter.”
He opened his eyes and watched Harry take in the information, watched him repeat his name under his breath a couple times.
“Ok,” Harry said, and his fingers unclenched a fraction, his hold around the edge of the tub turned lighter. “That — that sounds right.”
Draco breathed out.
“Do you know what you are?”
It was a vague question, but Harry answered it right away: “A wizard.”
Good. He’d lost that, once. One of the worst nights of Draco’s life.
“That’s right. Your wand is in that case, next to the bathtub.”
Quick as a flash of lightning, the case opened with a creak and the wand flew into Harry’s hand in a display of quick, wordless magic. Harry seemed to sit more easily, having it in his power. He took a deep breath and set his eyes on Draco, looking at him properly for the first time in hours. Draco did his best not to smile, not to do anything. Harry’s ease came from feeling more equipped to defend himself, after all, not from Draco.
“What do you know?” Draco asked.
Harry swallowed audibly. A string of light rose from the tip of his wand, swirled, disappeared. Another followed. Draco watched the contours of his face change under the blue light of his magic, giving him time.
“I’m Harry,” he murmured at last. “I’m a wizard. I’m … thirty?”
“Thirty-two,” Draco whispered, gently.
“Ok. Ok. That’s close.” His insecurity broke Draco’s heart. It was unnatural, not a Harry trait in the least. His unwavering, thundering certainty was what made him himself, the root of his power. “And you are … you are —”
Draco swallowed the knot in his throat, brought a hand up to his own chest. “I’m Draco.”
“Draco,” Harry repeated, trying it out. “My … friend?”
It was too much. It was too much and Draco had to keep it down, remain neutral through the desperate clawing of his heart. His breathing came shorter, and he looked away for a second, regrouped before looking back at Harry’s vulnerable, confused face.
“Yes. Yes, Harry, I’m your friend.”
“Do you know what’s wrong with me? Why can’t I … why don’t I know any of these things?”
“I do. Can — can I come closer? I’m not going to hurt you.”
Harry’s fingers tightened around his wand. Draco was ready to back out once again, but then Harry gave a curt nod. Draco inched closer, giving him time, but Harry sat stoically and waited until he was kneeling right beside the bathtub.
“Do you know,” Draco started as he rolled up his shirtsleeves, aware of Harry’s eyes following his every move, ready to leap at the first sight of something suspicious. “Or remember what you did at 18?”
Harry frowned, seemingly searching his own memory, before shaking his head. “I don’t know. I have flashes; I remember … a castle. A forest.”
“Ok. That’s alright.” Careful not to spook him, Draco brushed his fingertips to the surface of the water by Harry’s legs. Then, he began his tale, “At 18, you went to battle against a dark wizard.”
He murmured an incantation. Steam rose from the spots where his fingers touched the water, taking the form of two people, facing one another in combat.
“The wizard was a monster. A powerful one. Unbeknownst to all, he had divided his soul into eight parts, only one of them remaining inside his body.” Seven clouds of steam rose from the center of the larger figure, to loom above the other. Harry’s eyes followed. “You figured this out and hunted each piece, destroyed them one by one.” Jets of steam flew from the wand of the small figure, dissolving all but one of the small clouds. “But one piece, the last one, had lodged inside of you. To defeat him, you had to destroy that piece, too.” The remaining cloud flew down and fused with the small figure. “In the end, you didn’t have a choice. It was war, it wasn’t fair.”
The small figure crumbled, becoming no more than a puff of steam. Harry looked up at Draco, a sudden understanding in his eyes.
“I died,” he said. “Didn’t I?”
Harry always got it so quickly, always seeming to know that it was, no doubt, what he would have done: sacrifice himself if that’s what it took. Draco swallowed and fought with himself to meet Harry’s eyes.
“Yes. For a little while. We don’t — nobody really knows what you went through, when it happened. I don’t know. But somehow you came back, Harry.” The small figure rose again, taller this time. It shot steam out of its wand and hit the other, weakened figure. “You came back to us, and you ended it all. The dark wizard had been terrorizing our world for years, and you ended it right then.”
Harry nodded, watching both figures disappear in silence. Draco shifted, sat back on his heels.
“That’s why, isn’t it?” Harry asked. “That’s why I can’t remember. Because I died.”
Despite his grim words, Harry’s voice was no longer unsure. He was treading more firmly now, taking the horror at face value, always better at taking it in than Draco had ever been, even when listening to it for what was, in his perception, the very first time. Draco ran a hand down his face and nodded.
“You thought — we all thought it was over. But months later, while we were all trying to rebuild our lives, you blacked out in the middle of the street.”
Draco himself hadn’t been around for that, not yet, but he remembered the headlines, the panic that seized the wizarding world. He remembered the story disappearing within two days, as though all the papers’ silence had been bought out. He’d found out, years later, that Harry’s family had taken care to bury it, to protect his vulnerability, once they’d found out he’d woken with no memory of the war at all.
“I didn’t know it at the time, but when you woke up a few hours later, you couldn’t remember the events of the past four or five years of your life. Your friends and family helped you piece it all together and, I’ve been told, after a couple days, it seemed as though something snapped inside of you, and you remembered it all, every single thing.”
Harry breathed out and leaned back against the edge of the tub, running both hands through his hair. Water dripped from his raised arms.
“Are you telling me this is something that … happens often?”
Honesty, above all. “Yes. It happened more often in the beginning. I’ve been told you used to have … an episode … every couple of months. Now it’s closer to once or twice a year. There’s been treatments developed, and it seems some of them have worked, but —”
“But it still happens.” There was a tinge of frustration in his voice, and while it pained Draco that Harry had to go through it, learn about this over and over again, the frustration was so painfully him that it soothed something deep inside Draco, a small corner of his mind that still believed Harry might one day come back not-quite-himself. Slowly, he brought a hand to Harry’s forearm. Harry’s eyes followed the movement, and locked on the back of Draco’s hand, where it touched his skin.
“Yes. It’s a little different each time, sometimes you remember a little more than others. It’s certainly never easy, but over the years … we’ve learned a few things. In the end, you always remember everything.” He smiled, a reassuring little thing.
Harry’s eyes narrowed.
“You’re not a friend after all, are you?” He leaned back to look at Draco more fully, swept his eyes all over his face and chest. “Not just a friend.”
Draco couldn’t quite contain the smile threatening to bloom, but he tried his best, remembering that he could not get sidetracked.
“We have some tricks now. If you let me, I can help you find your way to your memories.”
“How?”
“It’s nothing fancy. You just have to close your eyes and let me guide you. Though,” he backed away a little, wanting to show that he would give Harry space if he needed it. “We don't have to do it now. Whenever you’re ready.”
Harry took a deep breath. Predictably, he shook his head and fixed his gaze on Draco. His eyes were so bright he looked lit from within.
“No. Let’s just do it. I — yeah. I trust you.”
“Ok.” Draco knelt closer once again and, gently, held one of Harry’s hands between his. “I have to perform mind magic. Once I do it, you’ll be able to feel me, with you, inside your head.” He could feel Harry’s hesitance radiating off of him, his hand tense between Draco’s. Draco nodded. “I know. It sounds invasive, but your thoughts are still yours. I won’t be able to see anything you don’t want to show, or wander to places inside your mind if you’re not choosing to take me. I’ll just be there to guide you. It’s … we found this technique together. It works.” He tried to sound confident and reassuring, though neither of those were part of his qualities.
Often Draco had thought that, had their roles been reversed, there would be no force in this universe capable of making him allow someone he didn’t remember, someone he perceived as a virtual stranger, into his mind. But Harry wasn’t Draco. His legendary bravery knew no bounds. Rounding his shoulders, he inhaled deeply and nodded.
“Ok. You’ll tell me what to do, right?”
Draco smiled, proud, always amazed at the bottomless courage of his man. “Yes. Close your eyes.”
Harry did. Getting a hold of his wand, Draco muttered the spell and closed his eyes as well, waiting.
The experience of legilimency wasn’t so unpleasant as, simply, bizarre. Draco felt his mind splintering into pieces, cascading down the line of magical energy he’d created between their heads, his consciousness split so that he felt both inside his body and not.
In his mind’s eye, he found himself standing on a hill, in a forest that extended as far as he could see. All around him, the grass was as green as if in the height of spring, birdsong filled the space and midday sunlight kissed the pines that stood proud, extending for miles and miles. The air was cool and crisp against his cheeks, and the scent of earth and wood flooded his senses. This was Harry’s mind. It was beautiful and vast, but even more than that, to Draco, it felt as familiar as his own. Beloved.
“You were right,” he heard, and then Harry was standing next to him, as though he’d always been there. “I thought it would feel different, having someone here. But it’s not bad.”
“Visiting feels nice, too. At least in a mind like yours.”
Harry tilted his head. “A mind like mine?”
“Well,” Draco made a sweeping gesture, covering the whole landscape. “It’s quite beautiful, isn’t it?”
Harry hummed, looking around. He looked, Draco noted with a smile, quite pleased.
“Yeah. I wouldn’t have guessed it looked like this. What’s yours like?”
“Last time you visited, it was … mostly water. But it changes. It depends on many things.”
There were many factors that influenced the mindscape. In Draco’s many years of work, he had found that most people had volatile, ever-changing minds. He didn’t make it a habit of visiting a single person’s mind more than a couple times, but he knew, even in this, Harry was special. His forest was fixed — sometimes blooming spring, sometimes a barren winter night, but always expansive, always beautiful.
He reached for Harry’s hand. It wasn’t the time for a lecture. “You’ll know more once we find your memories.”
Harry’s expression held many questions, but, no doubt eager to find what he was missing, he let Draco pull him downhill.
“What are we looking for?”
“A lake.”
There wasn’t a path, but their footsteps were sure and their direction true. Of this Draco was sure, because it was Harry who was guiding, his hand pulling Draco in a specific direction, even if he wasn’t aware of it. They walked, with their fingers intertwined and the flowers blooming around their bare feet. The sun followed them down the hill, and it could’ve been any length of time — Draco always found it hard to tell, inside someone else’s mind — minutes or hours or days, until the sky exploded in beautiful orange and pink hues around them, and the hill flattened to a valley. Harry stopped, fascinated by the sunset of his own mind.
“Is it always like this?” He asked, spinning around with his eyes pointed skyward. He was a striking figure, dusted with gold in the warm light of golden hour.
“No, not always,” Draco answered, his chest aching at the sight of him. “Come on, I can tell we’re close.”
Harry was always warmer, sweeter, the closer they were. They trudged on, this time Harry walking ahead without asking, not quite realizing what he was doing, making turns and sometimes speeding up, beckoned by something more powerful than Draco could comprehend.
The lake, once they found it, appeared as a mirror of the colorful dusk sky, wide and peaceful. Draco was breathless, having jogged the last few miles, Harry’s hand pulling him along.
“Here we are,” Draco said. The birds had quieted, and the only sounds left were their panting breaths.
“I have to go in,” Harry whispered. “I can feel it. It’s like — like something’s pulling me.” He put his free hand in front of his belly, curled into a fist. “Right here. I feel the tug.”
Draco squeezed Harry’s hand, nodded. “Yes. Water has memory. All you have to do is take a swim, and let them come.”
Harry squeezed back. He asked, earnest, “Come with me?”
“Of course,” Draco whispered, biting down a smile.
Together, they waded in, hand in hand, until the water was up to their chests, lapping at their shoulders. It was blessedly cooling, and it smelled like renewal. Draco closed his eyes, taking in the feeling of being enveloped in Harry’s mind, and when he opened them, Harry was standing in front of him, waiting. There was something in his eyes, the mythical spark that Draco always found when he looked at him, that connected them even when Harry didn’t remember why.
“Ready?” Draco asked in a whisper.
Harry nodded. Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and let himself sink.
Draco watched his silhouette grow hazy under the water. Harry’s dark hair fanned out around his head, and he was beautiful as a painting, blurred edges, expression tight as he was hit with the knowledge of a lifetime.
When he came up, night had fallen entirely.
The only sounds in the bathroom were the splashes of the droplets falling from the tips of Harry’s hair into the stillness of the water. When they opened their eyes, Harry came up to his knees and pulled Draco close, strong arms rounding his back as he brought him into the cradle of his chest, against the edge of the bathtub.
“Hello, sweetheart,” Harry said, voice heavy with history.
Draco melted into the embrace, nearly sick with relief.