Please Be There If I Remember

Chapter Twenty-Five: Thinking

A/n: Another Harry POV! Also warning for canon typical violence and nightmares (yes, it's that one) and random side note: I died about fifty times while writing this—I've never been more proud over something like this before, I was literally fangirling over my own work; it was actually embarrassing. 

Harry wandered aimlessly through the empty hallways, his invisibility cloak draped over his shoulders and head like a thin blanket. The cloth was shimmery and smooth on his skin, Harry able to see through it just the same as someone who walked by him would be able to see through him too. His feet made echoing sounds on the cobbled tile and he hastily cast a silencing charm on his footsteps lest he be caught out after curfew.

One thing he did not need was another detention with that pink-bitch who haunted his waking hours to add to his nightmares.

The picture of that door kept appearing and each night it felt as if he was getting closer to it every time, sliding along the cool tiles of the floor like a snake, the door flickering in and out of his vision like it was taunting him.

Harry sighed into the darkness.

Lately he had taken to wandering along the hallways, cloak on and map in hand to make sure he didn't get caught by Filch, to help clear his thoughts.

By God was that man creepy. Not to mention his cat...

Harry shivered involuntarily, causing the invisibility cloak to ripple along his shoulders like someone dropping a pebble into a lake of water.

He was currently walking along the fifth floor, although he was more focused on his thoughts than his surroundings. The hallway was dim and Harry had to fight the urge to cast a Lumos. He ended up deciding against it, worried that the light emitting from his wand might wake up some gossiping portrait that would ultimately send him to Umbridge's office.

Next, his thoughts turned to Draco.

He drifted through the memory of them in the room of requirement together, the sound of the boy's laughter flitting through his ears like birdsong.

His red hair had fallen in front of his face and, unlike any other time that that would have happened, Malfoy didn't push it back and instead let it hang there, making him look the most normal Harry had ever seen him—a blinding grin strapped onto his features.

Harry still didn't know why he had initially trusted Malfoy as he struggled to separate the new memory-wiped one from the old sneering face that would glare at him and sabotage his potions. The one that had created that song for Ron as he played keeper for Gryffindor. The one that created those pins last year which had made him feel so excluded from everyone, even his best friend who had refused to talk to him.

The one Harry had hated.

He felt as if he might ever be able to differentiate between the two, but seeing Malfoy then, face flushed and hair ruffled after laughing so much they had doubled over in their chairs, he had never felt such a strong emotion towards someone else before as he did then.

It was a stuttering of his heart, a beat that it had skipped which made him rethink the past fifteen years of his life.

He never wished to gain that singular beat back; he never wished his heart to work again like normal. For Harry knew that that singular thump like a pounding on a drum was one that, like Malfoy, separated the old Harry from the new one.

The one that hated Malfoy, and the one that was slowly starting to fall for Draco.

The revelation was slow—dripping into his brain and crowding his thoughts until all he could think about were silver eyes, dimpled cheeks, and the smooth hand that Harry had shaken which changed everything.