Memory Loss (Harry Potter Drarry slash)

27: [And so the Tables Were Turned 16] Darkly Dreaming Draco

Harry felt as if his heart stopped and froze to ice at that moment, and a terrible pain ran across his chest.

The one word echoed through his dumbstruck mind. No, no, no, no, no ...

He had been so certain that Draco would throw himself around his neck and yell "Yes, yes, yes!" that he had been totally unprepared for this. During the past two or three months, Draco had given him small hints that he indeed wanted to marry Harry-that he wanted Harry to propose-despite all his scornful snorts and bitter comments. Even though he claimed not to need marriage to be happy, Harry could see in his eyes that he wanted it. And he wanted it bad.

So why say no?

The blonde must have seen the shock and the hurt in his face, because tears began to stream down his face. He was silently crying, and his grey eyes apologised for having hurt Harry. Slowly getting up from the floor, backing away from him, he squealed, "I can't. I'm sorry, but I can't."

Heart pounding savagely and head spinning dizzyingly, Harry got to his feet on unsteady legs and stumbled after Draco. "What do you mean 'you can't?'" he asked exasperatedly. "How can you just go and say you can't?! I love you and you love me ... what's the bloody problem?!"

The blonde only cried more violently, and a wretched sob escaped him. "I just can't, Harry-I'll hurt you."

Harry raised his eyebrows in astonishment. "Hurt me? How could you ever hurt me if you become my husband?"

Draco sank down on the couch. He was shivering so bad his teeth were clattering against one another. "I-I'll hurt you ... don't you see? I'm ... doing things ... I don't have any control over myself anymore ... I can't marry you, Harry. I want to, I want to so bad, but I just can't because I'll hurt you and then I'll lose you and then I won't have you at all."

He was rambling, and Harry could sense just as well as see the panic rising inside of him.

Beautiful, glimmering silver eyes focused on Harry. "I'm losing time," he whispered in terror.

Harry blinked. "What? Losing time? What d'you mean?"

He sat down next to Draco and coaxed him into leaning his head against his shoulder.

Sobbing uncontrollably, Draco finally told him what had been bothering him for the past six months or so. Harry listened with growing dread and anxiety as the blonde told him all about the blackouts-his lost time.

"And I ... I think I've done loads of things-bad things, really bad things," Draco whimpered. "I ... I think you were right ... I think I did have something to do with Slutty's death ... and the night we were invited to the Weasleys ... I lost forty-five bloody minutes that night, Harry. I remember congratulating Ron after Jonathan's proposal ... and then it's just blank. All of a sudden I was standing in the library upstairs, and I have no idea how I got there, or why. And what is worse is ... I think I'm responsible for Blaise's disappearance."

Harry pressed him closer. Shut his eyes. He could not tell Draco that he needn't worry, because he had already dreaded this. He had already come to the conclusion that something was wrong with Draco, that something significant had changed about him some time ago. And he was afraid that Draco was right in thinking that he was responsible for Blaise's disappearance.

But if that was true ... if the blonde really was 'losing time' ... did that mean that he had somehow developed a second personality?

The past six months, the blonde had seemed really weird from time to time, and there had been a strange, cruel shine to his eyes. Almost as if ...