A/N: It has been suggested that this chapter is confusing - that it is difficult to tell when things are happening. After rereading, I am not surprised. So. If it helps, we begin with Harry on Halloween, locked in his room, drinking to forget. Cut to a bit later, he's still sitting by the fire. Then, flashback to the previous spring when he realizes his memories have been tampered with and goes to Hermione. Brief cut to the present, where he's sitting by the fire, drinking. Then a dazed/drunken dream/vision/hallucination/whatever with his patronus. Then, finally, he passes out.
---
Tues, October 31, 2017
Halloween.
Harry hated Halloween. Not because of the ridiculous frivolity, the tricks and treats and mayhem – those he didn't mind, really. Those were just kids being kids. No, what Harry hated about Halloween was that to everyone else, it was a day of playing and laughing and feasting. While to him... to him it was the day that his parents died. The day that Voldemort destroyed the Potter family, dooming Harry to a childhood of being unwanted, forgotten, enslaved.
Harry dropped his head into his hands. At least he didn't have to teach today. Thank Merlin for that. Tomorrow he would have to teach, of course, since half-term break would be over. It wouldn't be pleasant, but that was a problem for tomorrow.
He stared morosely at his agenda for the day, lined up on the small table he'd scrounged from an abandoned classroom and pulled up beside his chair before the fire. Firewhisky, several small bottles - the strongest he'd been able to find - and, for later, a bottle of the strongest hangover potion money could buy. He poured a generous measure of firewhisky, held it up to the early-morning light. The light shimmered on the surface of the dark amber liquid, glanced off the cut glass panes of the tumbler.
"Happy Halloween," he said, voice rough with unshed tears, and raised the glass to the small photograph on his mantle where his parents stood, arm-in-arm. They smiled sadly back at him.
---
Some time later – he didn't know what time it was, but he was well into his second glass – he pulled out the small piece of paper he kept in his pocket and started to fidget with it, folding and unfolding the well-worn creases. He read again the familiar word, etched into his memory in letters of flame.
Potter
He crumpled the paper in his fist, sighing. Draco.
---
He'd dreamed it, the first time. Had awoken confused, soaked in sweat, with unfamiliar images dancing at the edges of consciousness. And one word, standing out sharply against the hazy background of the dream.
It had taken him ages to figure out that it was Draco he was dreaming about. Then ages more to realize that it wasn't a dream - not exactly. Little things kept repeating - things that were too consistent and specific to be mere coincidence.
He'd gone to Hermione, of course. That's what he'd always done when confronted with something that he felt he couldn't handle... and even without Ron, Hermione still filled the same role in his life. He trusted her, where he didn't trust anyone else. Not even Ginny.
---
Monday, March 13, 2017
"Ms. Granger? You have a visitor."
Harry forced a smile for the bouncy young secretary, who tucked a strand of bright red hair behind her ear and grinned at him as she replaced the receiver. "Go on in."
Harry smiled in earnest as he stepped into Hermione's office, and found her, as usual, nearly buried behind precarious towers of books, scribbling furiously. She held up a hand to stop him, never looking up. "I'll be with you in a moment."
He stood silently, content to watch her work. It was so familiar, seeing her like this, and he felt a pang of nostalgia.
She looked up before his thoughts turned maudlin, and frowned. "Hello, Harry. There's nothing new for you to sign. Didn't Ginny tell you? We're just waiting for things to get approved now, and - "
"I'm not here about Ginny, Hermione."
"Oh." She straightened, adjusting her glasses and then folding her hands on the surface of her desk. "All right. How can I help you, Harry? Is this personal, or professional?"
He hesitated. "Personal," he said finally.
She nodded and reached out to pick up the phone that was shoved precariously close to the edge of the desk. "Liv? I'm taking a break now, OK? Will you let Pansy know when she gets back? I should be back - " She stopped, covering the receiver, and looked at Harry. 'Half an hour?' she mouthed.
He hesitated again, and she nodded, uncovering the receiver. "I'll be back in an hour, Liv. Yes, I know we've reservations. Can you reschedule that for next week?" Harry opened his mouth to object, but she shook her head, sending her frizzy hair flying. "Right. Thanks, Liv. Yeah, tell Pansy I'll make it up to her tonight."
She grinned as she put the phone down, and Harry rolled his eyes, grimacing. "How did you get a muggle telephone to work here?" he asked curiously.
She gave him a sly wink. "It's not a muggle telephone. Not exactly. It's me and Pansy, Harry - what did you expect?"
He shuddered slightly, still not used to that unlikely partnership, no matter that they'd been together for nearly as long as he and... He felt himself slump back against the wall, mourning the loss of their relationship more than Ginny herself.
"Right. Come on, then." Hermione snatched her coat in one hand, snagged his arm with the other, and marched them out the door.
"Er. Where are we going?" He waved helplessly at an amused Liv as they passed her desk.
"Well, it seems the least you could do is buy me lunch, since I'll be missing my reservation."
"Er. Right. Of course."
Hermione grinned at him and tugged him down the street to a quiet little cafe. Once they were seated on the patio, at a quaint wrought-iron table, and the server had taken their order - soup and sandwiches and tea - she turned to him. "Right. Now, what is bothering you so much you interrupted me at work?"
Harry flinched. "I'm sorry, I - "
"No, no." She waved away his apology. "I don't mind - Blaise drags Pansy away for bitching sessions regularly. I just meant that you never have before." She fixed him with a penetrating stare, ticking her points off on slender fingers. "Your divorce is proceeding without any real trouble. Your family situation hasn't really changed. You don't have a job - you don't need a job. So... what is it? What do you need me for?"
He sighed, but it was as good an opening as any. "I've been having these dreams...
---
Hermione opened her eyes and sat back, biting her lip. "Well, it's definitely a memory. You're right about that. Trouble is, I can't tell you anything else. I think you've been obliviated, but it's incredibly delicate work - whoever did it had finesse and skill."
"But... how do you know? Can you undo it?" Harry looked at her hopefully, but she was already shaking her head.
"There's no test for this sort of thing, Harry. No cure. The only person who could restore your memories is the one who took them away in the first place." She leaned back in her chair, studying him. "Do you know who that might be?"
"I..." he trailed off, thinking of the lithe figure that haunted his dreams, the moonlight-pale hair. "No."
"Harry..."
"I - I'm not sure."
She frowned. "You'll tell me later?"
He hesitated. "I - how can you be so sure this is what happened?"
She gave him a look that said clearly what she thought of his obvious subject change, but humored him. "You remember how I obliviated my parents? During the war?"
"Yes?"
She took a sip of her tea. "Well. When I went back and restored their memories..." She trailed off, staring pensively into space.
It had been a hard time for her, Harry remembered. One she didn't talk about with anyone.
She shook her head, eyes returning to Harry from the distance she'd been staring into. "Anyway. It was... tough. They didn't believe me, for the longest time - wouldn't let me close enough to restore the memories. They had little things they fidgeted with - like that piece of paper."
Harry looked down, surprised.
Hermione reached out, touched his arm. "Harry. What does it say?"
He hesitated, then unfolded it. It had only one word - the one that had been burned into his brain when he woke from the dream the last time. He hadn't realized he was still carrying the slip of paper around. He looked up into Hermione's eyes - eyes that were far too knowing and sympathetic.
"But... you restored their memories," he said slowly, looking at the paper instead of her eyes. "They're fine, now." He glanced up, needing to see her response, as well as hear it.
Her shoulders sagged. "Yes. And no. I mean... I did eventually restore their memories. And they were glad to get me back, of course, but... it's never been the same. I don't know how much of it is just that I've grown up, fought a war, and so of course our interactions are different, but... Well. They don't trust me."
She fiddled with the ring on her fourth finger, the elegant emerald glinting in the light. She looked back up to him, and her eyes were bright and liquid with unshed tears. "Harry," she said softly. "Harry you - you have to be sure about this. It might not... things might not work out the way you want them to."
"I want my memories back, Hermione," he said coldly. "I want to know what he - what Draco stole from me. I want to know if - " His voice broke, and he finished in a whisper. "I want to know if I was ever truly happy - if I'm even capable of it."
Hermione nodded. "Well. The first thing to do," she said briskly, all business once more, "is to get close to him. He's never going to restore your memories unless he trusts you." She paused, took a deep breath. "And, Harry... you have to trust him, too."
---
Tuesday, October 31, 2017
Harry snorted and poured another glassful of firewhisky, staring into the dancing flames. Like that could ever happen. Especially after what I did...
---
He could almost see it, now. The missing memories shivered in and out of existence before him, too insubstantial to make out in the gloom. Their edges frayed, wavered, bleeding out into one another. Harry snarled, frustrated, then sighed and closed his eyes. Maybe he should give up on trying to remember. Draco obviously didn't want him to. Maybe Hermione was right - maybe he should try to let it go and move on.
The only problem with that was that, without Gin and the kids, he felt so adrift. If he let go of this too, left Hogwarts, let the memories fade, let go of Draco... He would have nothing. He would be nothing. Just Harry, the way he'd always wanted. Only, he'd wanted to escape the fame - not his friends and family. Not his entire life.
Something nudged his shoulder, and Harry's eyes flew open, instantly alert in the way that had never left him, after the war. He smiled and relaxed as the great silver stag shook its antlers at him and pawed the ground with a snort. He reached out to pat its nose, but the stag danced out of his reach, tipping its head insistently to the left.
Harry's eyes followed the motion, widening as he saw the shining silver river that wound through the clearing he stood in. He followed its meandering path, saw it enter the trees and change, suddenly, into a silver ribbon that twined around and through nearly all the trees, bathing the forest in its luminous glow. Moonlight, he thought, and looked up, but the sky was dark. He looked back at the silver ribbon, the trees, and saw that they weren't trees at all, but memories. The insubstantial memories were wrapped lovingly in the ribbon, and Harry turned, slowly. The silver ribbon was wrapped up in almost all the memories. He sank to the ground then, overwhelmed.
He'd never be able to let Draco go, let this go. He was wound too tightly into Harry - cutting him out would destroy everything.
---
Harry fell out of the vision - and out of his chair - and landed in an unsteady heap on the floor before the fire. He blinked blearily as the half-empty glass - his fourth? he'd lost count - fell from his limp fingers and wobbled across the floor, leaking a slow trickle of amber liquid as it rolled.
He dropped his head to the bare floor, too weary to fight his way back to his feet, and let the welcome blankness of sleep claim him.