Forgetting Hogwarts

15. What can it do?

Two days later, 17h.

And here you are, in front of me, once again. The features drawn, the air overwhelmed. You give me a bottle and I know that there are all my memories.

My past, and my future.

This choice that I will have to make, even if I have already done so, because there is no real choice.

And you know it well. What have you to offer me, Draco, that shame and disgrace?

I do not invite you to sit down, in fact I would like you to leave, and quickly. Before I crack.

But you go home and sit down. You say to me in a low voice:

- I do not explain how it works, you doubt it. Take 20 drops at once and ... in principle everything should come back.

- Thank you, Draco.

You look at me, hesitating, and you say to me:

- I ... I do not have a valid excuse for everything that happened between us during these 20 years. I made mistakes, that's for sure. I know especially that if I lost you, the last time is because I lacked courage.

I look down. I do not think I want to listen to all that.

I would like you to leave immediately.

Yet you continue:

- So, courage, I must have it now.

- Listen, Draco, I do not think it's helpful ...

- Oh ... you already know the end, right? I do not even have the right to explain myself?

- It's not the right time ... not now. It's already very hard like that. I need to be alone. I am sorry.

You get up, and you go away, mortified. I do not look at you. I do not want to crack again.

I stay a long time on this couch, to observe this transparent bottle and to question me. Would not it be easier to decide now, without knowing everything?

The essential, I already know it. And the main thing is my children, my family. Nothing else.

I'm afraid of what's in this jar.

Afraid to have bullshit.

To have memories of which I am going to blush.

At the head you were doing, Draco, I know I'll have bad surprises.

But in this bottle, there is probably also all my love for Ginny, and I want to find it. All our happy memories, those we see in the photos.

It has been a long time since I finally found the courage to count the 20 drops in half a glass of water.

At the moment of drinking, I hesitate. What did you put in this bottle? And if you had tried to confuse me even more ideas? And if this bottle was poisoned?

No, you would not have made that head if this bottle had not concealed a real danger for you.

I drink all of a sudden and I wait. Nothing happens. No flash, no sudden illumination.

Then, little by little, a dull headache that settles and images that appear.

Hogwarts. Death flight. Dumbledore. Snape.

And Draco Malfoy.

Everything comes back to me suddenly, and it's like I'm slapping.

Sudden terror seizes me.

I see, in the midst of the flames, your hand slipping into mine, the infernal heat, the cries. Your desperate look and the courage I've been looking for I do not know where.