Memory Loss (Harry Potter Drarry slash)

6: Memory Loss Revisited

He was still alive. Amazing. How could that be? The Avada Kedavra curse was supposed to kill everything that it hit in just a fraction of a second; there was no known cases of survival. Except, of course, for one small boy who sixteen years ago came out of it alive with only a scar on his forehead. And here he had done it again-The Boy Who Lived.

He was still alive. Alive. Weak and slashed, sure, but alive. The scar on his forehead was bleeding, but not much. His breathing was pained and his emerald eyes shimmery with tears. Although he evidently did not possess the strength to pull himself up from the floor, he managed to raise his head and look at Draco.

A flash of pain shot through him.

"Do you know why I fell in love with you?" he asked the blond boy with a weak and bitter smile on his cracked lips.

Draco stood immobile, suddenly paralysed by fear.

What had he done? He had almost killed his lover!

And suddenly everything came back to him-their Defence Against the Dark Arts lessons in the dungeons, their first kiss, the reactions of their classmates when they announced their relationship, how Ron and Hermione became his friends, summer break at the Dursleys' and celebrating Harry's birthday, the first time they made love, Christmas Holidays at the Burrow, his becoming a Gryffindor ... and his decision to return to the Manor to try to talk some sense into his father.

How on Earth could he have forgotten about all that? It was the two most precious years of his entire life-and he had forgotten about them! And that was not all that he had done ... He had killed Harry's best friends intentionally, in cold blood, and now he had almost killed Harry, too!

"It's because you never judged me," Harry answered his own question.

His head fell back down on the floor; the raven-haired boy was too weak to hold it up any longer. A last sigh of warm air escaped the ex-Gryffindor before his eyes closed and he became still.

Draco waited for him to move again, to open his eyes and look up at him anew, or at least for him to utter his name in the midst of a feverish, unconscious dream-but nothing. Harry stayed still on the floor, not a limb moving, not nothing.

Fear rose in Draco anew, but not just fear this time, but also sorrow, pain-agony. And loss.

Acting on an impulse born out of sheer despair, he knelt beside Harry's limp body and put his forehead on the other boy's back. "No!" he yelled. "No! You can't die on me! You can't die on me, dammit! I won't let you! Do you hear me, Potter? I won't let you ..."

His last words became a mere whisper as the fear and the sorrow created a huge lump in his throat. Crying, he clung to Harry, desperately clutching his shoulders, and his tears spotted the raven-haired boy's jumper.

Until then, the Death Eaters had all been quiet, watching in astonishment at this new development, but as soon as it became clear that Draco the traitor had returned from the bottom of his amnesia, they began to move in on him.

"How dare you cry over that half-blood?!" Pansy was shrieking, beside herself with anger, but Draco only heard the echo of her scream inside his by sorrow twisted head.

They had made him a murderer. They had made him kill his own lover, his Harry ... and they had to pay for it.

Resolute and deranged by agony and loss, he stood up, his right hand tightly closed around his wand, and with a primeval cry of rage he pointed it at them all and screamed: "AVADA KEDAVRA!"