Memories of Us

Chapter 7

(The present)

It had been a solid week since Harry got to St. Mungos when more Healers than usual came in to talk to Draco. They told Draco he needed to go home and rest as he had not slept since Harry arrived—energy replenishing charms were unhealthy in such large quantities, but Draco couldn't care less. Healers explained that they were going to go into Harry's mind to see if he could remember anything about the potion injected into him.

Venturing into a wizard's mind while they are in a coma is a dangerous game. They'd tried to avoid it as long as they could, but it seemed to be their only other option. If Harry woke up while they were in his mind, he could lose some or even all of his memories if they weren't ready for the sudden shift in his brain. If he woke up suddenly in a shock, they could wind up messing with his mind enough to kill him—this was a rare occurrence but it was a possibility. Harry didn't have the ability to control what they could and couldn't see in his coma. All of his memories and thoughts were vulnerable. While they shuffle through Harry's memories of battles, they could stumble upon some of the war, of Voldemort. Those times had left Harry with so much trauma, shattered him into rubbish, leaving Draco to pick up the pieces. He refused to put Harry through that again. He didn't think his boyfriend could take it, and he knew he wouldn't be able to take watching him like that again.

"I'm staying here," protested the blond. His normally pale skin was somehow paler. There were purple bags under his dark, pained gray eyes. He was wearing the same shirt of Harry's that he had worn while he was away. "I'm staying here with him, and you're not going rummaging through his mind! You have no idea what he went through to push away some of those memories. He will never forget what it was like fighting a war at such a young age—none of us will—but he doesn't need you bringing it all up to the surface!"

"Mr. Malfoy," the Healer spoke. "I'm afraid we aren't asking for your permission. We cannot make you leave, but we are going to search for a memory of the potion used on him. As you aren't married and his parents are deceased, we must proceed with what we think his condition calls for. I'm truly sorry, but you do not have a say in how we handle it from here."

Draco was fuming. How dare they go prodding through his memories! What lack of respect! The boy couldn't even put up his Occlumency. They knew what the risks were, and they still wanted to do this?

The Healer closest to Draco continued, "We can't force you to go home. However, you cannot be in the room during our search for obvious reasons. I understand why you want to stay, but he's going to need you feeling your best when he wakes up. We are hoping to wake him up not long after we finish. We wouldn't want to trigger any unhappy memories so soon after we've been inside his mind. Seeing you looking anything other than well could do just that."

It hit Draco like a train then. He'd learned to forgive himself for the pain his family had caused that he'd followed to protect them. That didn't mean he'd ever be able to forgive himself for being a part of Harry's darkest memories. He knew exactly what the Healer had meant when he said it; Draco was a reminder of the war for Harry. Draco would always be a reminder of the war, of the losses, of the pain.

•••

When the press found out about Draco and Harry, they blew it up. They questioned if Harry was going through a "crisis" or if he was just "experimenting". When it got out that they were a couple, many people wrote that Draco was bad for Harry or that he could do better than an ex-Death Eater or that Harry was so kind for trying to fix Draco by showing him how to "use magic for the greater good". Many reports said that it wouldn't last long, that he was just a project of Harry's, that Harry would realize there's no fixing a Malfoy and leave him. Reporters were concerned that Harry was just using Draco as a method of self-destruction and self-punishment after the war. They said that Draco would always be a reminder of a dark period in wizarding history—they weren't wrong about that part.