Chapter Text
Sleep was reluctant to let go.
Breathing felt hot.
A lazy warmth pulsed beneath his skin, spreading through his entire body, while beneath the blanket the air had become so thick and humid that he desperately wanted to escape. Every breath required the slightest bit of effort, as though his lungs had forgotten how to work without being reminded.
Draco slowly pried his eyelids open. For several seconds, he simply lay there, unmoving. His awareness returned reluctantly, piecing the world back together one fragment at a time: the heavy blanket, the rumpled sheets, the grey morning light slipping through the half-drawn curtains…
Since when had there been curtains in his miserable little flat on the outskirts of Sarrow? And ones that were so shamelessly scarlet, no less.
Draco frowned.
It had to be a dream. There was simply no other explanation. Apparently, his mind had not fully returned yet, still keeping him somewhere between reality and nightmare. Because only in a dream could his flat look as though someone with questionable taste and far too much money had decided to play a cruel joke on his usual sparse interior.
He tried to focus on that feeling — the strangeness, the heaviness, the vague sense that something was wrong — but after a few seconds, his heart suddenly dropped.
First into his stomach. Then it slammed somewhere beneath his throat, and then, apparently, decided to stop inside his skull before giving up and rolling off somewhere entirely wrong.
Because there was no stone pressing against his chest, making it impossible to take a full breath.
Not a real one.
Not an imaginary one.
Not the kind that could be blamed on the aftermath of some strange dream.
It was a hand.
Not his hand, Draco’s — thin, pale, too familiar with ink, parchment, and cold. Someone else’s. A completely unfamiliar, broad palm rested on top of him with such natural ease, as though it had every right to be there.
Tanned skin. A rare scattering of old scars. A rough callus from years of constant wand use… And warmth. Real. Alive.
Draco stopped breathing.
Maybe he had drunk so much yesterday that he had brought some stranger home?
The thought was so absurd that for a moment it almost seemed believable. After all, the past few months working at the private laboratory attached to the local branch of the magical hospital had given him more than enough reasons. Endless reports, approval of potion patents, people looking at him as though the Malfoy name itself were a separate kind of crime that, for some reason, had simply not yet been added to the law books.
Maybe he really had snapped. Maybe he had drunk more than he should have. Maybe he had done something so utterly idiotic that now this very idiotic thing was lying beside him and holding him in its sleep.
Only…
Draco frowned. He had forbidden himself from spending evenings in the company of complete strangers a long time ago. More than that — he did not even remember yesterday evening. An unpleasant thought brushed against the edge of his consciousness, but it was immediately pushed aside by a far more urgent problem.
He turned his head toward the bedside table and promptly forgot about the stranger’s heavy arm, as well as how long he had been lying in that position. Because the moment his eyes landed on the alarm clock, Draco realized with absolute horror that it was already a quarter to nine. And at nine sharp, he was expected at the potions workshop on the other side of town, where, without renewing his Apparition license, he had absolutely no chance of arriving in time.
He sat up abruptly, not caring in the slightest about the unfamiliar arm that immediately slid from his waist and curled sleepily in the air, as though its owner was trying to reclaim the lost warmth even while unconscious.
Draco noticed that. He simply did not have time to process it. Because at that moment, for a number of reasons that were surely entirely beyond his control, there was only one thing he could remember clearly: at nine o’clock, Barkley’s workshop was waiting for him.
— Hey, where do you think you’re going… — a low, sleep-heavy voice grumbled from the pile of pillows, pulling Draco back.
The movement was so familiar that, for a moment, the world around Draco became horribly wrong.
As though someone had taken a painting that had long since settled into place and, without warning, inserted a foreign detail into it. The worst part was that this single detail immediately robbed his limbs of any certainty, leaving his skin covered in feverish goosebumps.
The stranger’s hand found him again — more deliberately this time, blindly searching. Fingers brushed over the fabric of his pyjama shirt and came to rest against his side. The gesture was so natural that it was precisely that which frightened Draco the most.
No, no, no. There was no possible mistake: the black curls scattered sharply across the pillow, the warm tone of skin with an olive undertone that he could have recognized among thousands of others, and, worst of all — the voice.
The proper thing to do would have been to throw himself out of bed right now and run wherever his feet carried him, without looking back, still wearing nothing but his pyjamas and entirely ignoring any concept of dignity. Because the person beside him was not some stranger…
“Draco?” One green eye opened lazily.
He could have convinced himself of anything. That he was imagining things. That his brain, exhausted from lack of sleep and overwork, had decided to show him an extremely elaborate hallucination. That he really had done something completely reckless last night and was now suffering the consequences.
But the green eyes were real — far too real. Draco had looked into them for seven years. In the corridors of Hogwarts. At the table in the Great Hall. During duels. From a distance, when Potter thought no one was paying attention.
He knew that colour.
Knew it far too well.
And that was precisely why, at that moment, he wanted the bed to swallow him whole.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” The suddenly far too grown-up former Gryffindor mumbled sleepily.
“What the hell, Potter?! What are you doing in my bed? How did you even get here…”
Potter pried his other eye open, already grinning.
“Oh, so that’s today’s scenario? We’re playing ‘breaking and entering’?”
Draco only managed to suck in a breath before completely losing track of the moment when he found himself roughly pinned beneath someone else’s body.
None of this made any sense!.. He must have inhaled too many potion fumes yesterday, and now he was having some ridiculous dream brought on by suddenly overactive hormones?!
There was no other possible explanation.
Potter only smiled wider. The very same smile that had appeared on his face at school right before he was about to do something completely reckless. Except back then it meant breaking school rules. Now — judging by the circumstances — it meant something far worse.
Draco did not even have time to protest. One moment he was still sitting there, trying to find words for the most absurd situation of his entire life, and the next his back was already pressed against the mattress, with Harry above him, bracing himself on one hand beside Draco’s head. Too close — so close that Draco could no longer understand what frightened him more: Potter’s very presence or how natural this all seemed to him.
“You’ve lost your mind!” He breathed.
Harry looked completely unfazed. More than that — he looked pleased. As though he had not invaded the personal space of someone he had considered his sworn enemy only a few years ago, but had simply returned to a familiar place.
“Possibly,” he agreed. And that calm certainty finally knocked the ground out from under Draco’s feet.
Because Harry Potter was not supposed to be like this.
He was supposed to argue.
He was supposed to become irritated at the mere sight of Draco.
He was supposed to look at him with that impossible mixture of stubbornness and compassion that was so uniquely his.
But he was not supposed to know exactly how to place a hand on Draco’s waist.
He was not supposed to know that this touch made Draco freeze.
He was not supposed to lean so close, as though there had never been a war between them, never been mutual hatred, never been seven years spent on opposite sides of the corridors.
“Potter…”
His name came out almost as a warning. But Harry only tilted his head slightly.
“What?”
And the worst part was that he was genuinely asking. He was not mocking him, he was not provoking Draco. He simply… did not understand?
As if it were completely normal for him to see Draco like this — confused, angry, embarrassed, while shamelessly wrapping his legs around him and pressing him into the bed.
Merlin…
Draco felt as though someone had stolen several years of his life and dropped him in the middle of someone else’s story.
He carefully drew in a breath. Harry’s scent was far too familiar. It was impossible — Draco could not possibly know what he smelled like after sleeping. Could not possibly know that Harry always scrunched up his nose slightly when he was trying to hide a smile. Could not know that he looked much younger when there was no one he needed to save.
And yet he knew. He knew as though he had lived with this person for more than one night.
More than one month.
More than one year.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Potter asked quietly.
And the question was almost painful, because Draco did not know the answer.
How was he supposed to explain to someone that they were behaving as though they belonged to each other when they did not?
How was he supposed to explain that every one of Harry’s movements was both terrifying and impossibly right at the same time?
How was he supposed to explain that Draco Malfoy had spent seven years wishing, just once, to receive a look like this from Harry Potter…
…but had never imagined that he would one day get it so easily?
“You…” He faltered.
Harry waited, as though he had all the time in the world.
“Don’t touch me!” Draco squeaked in one final, pathetic attempt at protest. But his hands seemed far less obedient than his voice, and his legs had apparently stopped belonging to him altogether, remaining pinned helplessly against the mattress beneath Harry’s weight.
And Potter did the exact opposite. He leaned closer, burying his face in Draco’s hair, his breath brushing against Draco’s ear as his fingers slipped beneath the edge of his pyjama shirt. He laughed quietly — barely noticeable, almost soundless — and Draco felt it irritate him even more.
Because there was no mockery in that laugh. No triumph. Only… Tenderness? The very kind Draco had never received from him. The very kind he had never believed he deserved.
“You’re doing it again,” Potter murmured.
“Doing what?”
“Trying to convince me that you don’t like the things you actually like.”
Draco froze. Because it was horrible. Horrible, because it did not sound like a guess or a joke. It sounded like a fact known to both of them.
“You know exactly how much this turns me on!” Potter laughed, his eyes narrowing fondly. “Merlin, Draco, just like that time!” He laughed again, pressing his chest against Draco’s and forcing all the air from his lungs.
Potter was right. Yes, exactly “Merlin.” Because there was no other way to describe it.
“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about,” Draco ground out.
It was a lie. He understood too much. And at the same time — nothing at all.
He understood that the person in front of him knew him better than he had any right to.
He understood that this Harry Potter was not looking at him as Malfoy. Not as a former Death Eater. Not as a school rival. But as someone whose silences he had learned to read — incorrectly, obviously, but apparently this other version of Harry Potter had an entirely different interpretation for certain words.
And the worst part was that this ‘other version’ looked far too real. Not a perfect copy pulled from a nightmare, not a fantasy his exhausted mind had pieced together from seven years of obsession.
Real.
With habits.
With mannerisms.
With that infuriating confidence of someone who had somehow lived an entirely different life and now looked at Draco as though he were the simplest and most understandable thing in the world.
“You’re strange today,” Potter noted quietly.
And that was almost insulting.
Draco blinked slowly.
“Excuse me?”
“Strange.” Potter pulled back slightly, studying him more carefully, and this time there was genuine concern in his eyes. “You do remember yesterday evening, right?”
Draco felt something inside him turn unpleasantly cold.
There it was.
Finally.
The question that should have been asked from the very beginning.
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Because the answer was painfully simple and, at the same time, completely impossible.
No.
He did not remember.
He did not remember anything.
Not how Harry had ended up here. Not when exactly this had become normal. Not why the person whose voice he had once dreamed of hearing directed at him without contempt was now looking at him as though Draco was his home.
“Of course I remember” — he lied.
The lie came automatically, an old habit. A school habit. One formed over years spent around people who could never be allowed to see weakness.
But Harry only narrowed his eyes, and Draco realized that this, too, was familiar. Far too familiar.
“We did agree yesterday to move all of this to the morning, but I’m not going to die if you’re not in the mood again today, okay?” he smiled with a kind of painful honesty.
And Draco forgot how to breathe.
No.
Absolutely not.
He had not agreed to ‘move anything’ from yesterday to today. Not yesterday. Not before that. Not at any point in some future he apparently knew nothing about.
“Potter…”
“Harry.”
Draco fell silent.
“What?”
“You haven’t called me Potter in a couple of years. Is this some kind of game again?”
He said it so calmly that Draco almost became angry. Almost. Because anger required certainty. And Draco had none left.
In front of him was someone he should have known better than anyone else. And at the same time, someone he did not know at all.
Potter sighed and finally removed his hands, giving him space. For some reason, that movement was the most alarming of all, because Draco suddenly realized just how much he disliked the distance between them. Only a few centimetres, but it felt as though something important had disappeared.
“Hey,” Harry said quietly. Draco looked up. “Are you sure you’re okay? Your head again?”
And it was the most terrifying question of the entire morning. Because answering ‘no’ would have been far too honest. And saying ‘yes’ would have been too great a lie.
So Draco did the only thing he had ever been good at. He frowned. Lifted his chin. And tried to become Draco Malfoy again.
“I’m late for work. And when I get back this evening, I hope you’ll have dropped this idiotic joke and left my house!”
Harry looked at him with an expression of gentle, unfamiliar bewilderment.
“Love, you haven’t worked in three years.”
Draco went completely still.
‘Love’? Such a simple word. So ordinary. And that was precisely why it was the worst thing Harry could have said.
Slowly, Draco turned his head. “What?”
Now Potter frowned for real.
“Draco…” He said his name carefully, as though he were afraid of doing something wrong. And that was impossible. Harry Potter had never been afraid of doing something wrong around him. The Harry Potter Draco knew had charged headlong into Killing Curses at school. Chased criminals. Broken rules. Argued with professors. But now he was looking at Draco as though the worst thing that could possibly happen was accidentally hurting his feelings.
“I work for Barkley,” Draco said slowly.
Harry blinked.
“No.”
Simple.
Certain.
Without the slightest hesitation.
Draco felt the familiar irritation begin to rise inside him.
“Potter, I’m supposed to be at the workshop in five minutes!”
“Draco.” Potter sat up, resting his back against the headboard. And that, somehow, was even stranger. Because he did not look like someone who had caught Draco in a lie. He looked like someone trying to understand why the person he loved had suddenly forgotten something utterly obvious. “What Barkley workshop?”
Draco opened his mouth. He wanted to answer. He wanted to say that it was a potions laboratory, that they were inspecting a batch of antidotes today, that he had spent the last two months improving the stabilizing formula.
But the words caught in his throat. Because Harry was looking at him with absolute certainty.
“You quit,” he said quietly.
“I’d remember that.”
“Exactly.” The reply came instantly. And somehow, that made it worse. Potter reached out and gently touched his hand. “You quit three years ago, when you realized you didn’t want to spend the rest of your life in a laboratory.”
Draco stared at him.
“I would never do that!”
Harry smiled. Sadly. So faintly it was almost invisible.
“You did.” A pause. “You said you were tired of having to prove every single day that you deserved to be there.”
Draco felt his fingers grow cold. Because that… That sounded like him. Not the Draco everyone had known at school, not the one his colleagues saw at work. The one he had never shown anyone.
“Then what exactly do I do now?” he asked. He had wanted the question to sound sarcastic. It didn’t.
Potter looked at him as though the answer were the most obvious thing in the world.
“What you’ve always wanted to do, of course.” He said it so simply that, for a second, Draco did not even understand the words.
“What?”
“You make your terrible spaghetti for dinner,” Harry continued, counting on his fingers as though listing the most ordinary facts in the world. “Then you complain that I chop the vegetables wrong. Then you swear you’ll never cook again. And two days later, you’re back in the kitchen anyway.”
He smiled too warmly. Far too… familiar.
“And you pick Teddy up from his origami club whenever I’m working late.”
Draco stared at him. Just stared. Because his brain refused to process the new information.
Not because of the job, not because of the spaghetti — because of a single name.
“Teddy… who?”
Potter froze only for a fraction of a second, but Draco noticed. Of course he noticed — he had always had an infuriating talent for catching the smallest changes in other people’s expressions. Once, it had helped him survive among Slytherins. Now, it forced him to see the flicker of fear that crossed Harry’s eyes.
“Draco.” His voice became softer, more careful. “You really don’t remember?”
And that question hit harder than anything else. Because Harry hadn’t asked “Are you joking?” He hadn’t said “Stop pretending.”
He hadn’t laughed — he was frightened.
Draco looked away. Because he did not want to see that expression. He did not want to see someone looking at him as though they were afraid of losing something precious.
“Who’s Teddy?”
Silence. Very brief. But to Draco, it stretched into eternity.
Harry let out a slow breath.
“So… You’re serious.” Not a question.
Draco clenched his jaw.
“If I knew the answer, I wouldn’t be asking twice.”
Potter ran a hand over his face, and for the first time that morning he no longer looked sleepy. No longer relaxed, no longer like the Harry who had happily lain beside him, smiling. He looked like Harry Potter, the one who had always searched for a way forward, even when there wasn’t one.
“Teddy Lupin.” He spoke the name carefully. “He’s Tonks’ and Remus’ son.”
Draco said nothing. Of course he knew those names, but they belonged to the past, to the war. To Hogwarts. To the chapter of his life he had spent years trying to leave behind. But Potter spoke of them as though they belonged to their present.
The worst part was that some small part of Draco’s mind…
Some utterly impossible part…
Wasn’t surprised.
“You love him,” Harry said quietly.
Draco’s head snapped up.
“What?!”
“Teddy.” His smile was almost imperceptible. “You keep saying he’s hopelessly spoiled, but you never deny that you’re the one who spoiled him in the first place.”
Potter smiled again. Worse than that, his strong arms wrapped around Draco once more, and he rested his head trustingly against Draco’s shoulder.
“Are you feeling unwell? Another migraine? What potion should I get you?” Harry offered at once.
Draco felt a strange pressure somewhere beneath his ribs. As though there were a memory inside him struggling to break free. Not his. And yet… His.
“I…” And he stopped.
Because for the first time that morning, he could not bring himself to say, “This is impossible.”
Because what was impossible was not Harry in his bed, not the curtains, not the missing job, not even the child he had never met.
The truly impossible thing was that all of it fit together. Into a single picture. Into a life — their life. And Draco was standing in the middle of it like a man who had forgotten his own name.
“I’m fine…” he lied at last.
No, Draco had never complained about migraines before. After surviving a couple of Cruciatus Curses, who didn’t get the occasional headache? That was hardly worth mentioning. He could still hold a wand, after all.
But memory loss? Like this? No. That was something else entirely. Then again, he had never had memory lapses before — certainly nothing this extensive.
How could someone forget that they had spent the last three years unemployed and helping raise someone else’s child? And what if that child belonged to Potter? What if Potter was soothingly stroking his cheek while he couldn’t even remember how he had ended up in any of this? Could all of that still be called a memory lapse?
“I’m fine,” he repeated, more firmly this time. For some reason, it sounded utterly unconvincing.
Draco Malfoy had always been good at lying. It was one of the few skills he had acquired not through education, but through sheer necessity — through years of surviving among people who treated honesty as weakness. But Harry Potter, apparently, had learned to recognize his lies better than Draco himself.
“Of course” Potter said quietly. And he did not believe a word of it.
It was almost insulting. And somehow… that made it easier.
Draco had expected mockery. He had expected the familiar ‘Malfoy, you’re a terrible actor’, or at least an exasperated sigh. Instead, Harry simply kept stroking his cheek with his thumb, studying his face in thoughtful silence. As though he were trying to memorize every detail. As though he were afraid that, if he looked away, Draco would become someone else all over again.
“Are you sure nothing hurts?” The question was asked far too gently.
Draco was already about to brush it off out of habit, but he stopped. Because that was strange, too. Potter wasn’t asking out of politeness. Or obligation. Or because it was simply the right thing to do. He was genuinely worried. About him.
“No.” The answer came out quieter than he had intended.
Harry frowned.
“Then why are you looking at me as though I’ve just told you we’re married?”
Draco’s heart skipped a beat.
“What?!”
Harry blinked. Then, to Draco’s immense irritation, he let out a quiet laugh.
“All right. Bad comparison.”
“Potter!”
“Harry.”
“Don’t correct me right now!”
“All right.” He was smiling. Smiling as though Draco grumbled at him every single morning. And the worst part was that Draco was beginning to suspect he probably did.
Slowly, he raised a hand and touched the place on his face where Harry’s fingers had rested only moments before. The gesture was completely unconscious, and that frightened him. Because he was already beginning to adopt someone else’s habits. Or perhaps… remember his own.
“How old am I?” he asked suddenly.
Harry’s smile disappeared.
“Draco...”
“How old?”
For several seconds, Harry said nothing. Then he answered:
“Twenty-seven.”
Draco closed his eyes.
Twenty-seven.
He remembered being twenty-three.
He remembered his job.
He remembered the laboratory.
He remembered earning his independent Potions Master’s licence.
He remembered yesterday.
Or rather… he should have. Instead, there was a vast chasm separating those memories.
Four years — four entire years. And somewhere inside that missing stretch of time were Harry. Their home. This bedroom. This life.
“Draco?”
He opened his eyes.
Potter was looking at him with the concern one reserved for someone who was ill.
“Tell me honestly.”
Draco swallowed.
“What?”
Harry gently took his hand.
“Do you even remember me?”
And the question was so simple that it became the hardest one of all. Because the answer was neither yes… Nor no.
He remembered Harry Potter — the boy from Hogwarts. His rival, his enemy. The hero. But the man who was holding his hand now? No. That man, he did not remember. And the thought left him colder than any spell ever could.
Draco quickly came to the conclusion that there was no point in being embarrassed.
First, if this was some sort of multiversal mishap, someone would surely sort it out sooner or later and return pathetic third-class Potioneer Draco Malfoy to the life where he belonged.
Second, Potter seemed genuinely convinced that there was nothing unusual about Draco being in his house, in his bed, and in his arms.
If all of this was destined to end as suddenly as it had begun, then why not play along with the rules of this universe while it lasted?
“Sorry you missed out on your morning sex… or whatever it was you and yesterday’s version of me had planned.”
Potter was already sitting on the edge of the bed, lazily pulling off his T-shirt. His Auror uniform hung over the back of a chair, hopelessly rumpled, waiting for its irresponsible owner to put it back on. But he made no move to hurry, as though deliberately taking his time, the muscles of his back shifting smoothly beneath his skin.
“You really don’t remember anything, do you?” He looked back over his shoulder, genuine concern flickering across his face.
Draco merely shook his head, hoping Harry hadn’t noticed the way he had been shamelessly staring at his half-dressed body.
He had.
Harry’s gaze followed Draco’s for a moment before lifting back to meet his eyes. Then he smiled. Not the playful smile from earlier — this one was different. Understanding.
“You’re looking at me like you’re seeing me for the first time.”
Draco swallowed. Because “I am,” nearly escaped his lips. Instead, he gave an awkward shrug.
“Maybe… in a way.”
Harry let out a quiet huff.
“Well, at least your taste hasn’t changed.”
Draco felt heat rush to his ears.
“Potter…”
“Harry.”
“Whatever.”
“It matters to me.” There wasn’t a trace of teasing in his voice. He said it as calmly as though this were the hundredth time he had corrected Draco. As though years of habit lay behind that single, simple name: ‘Harry’.
For several long seconds, they simply looked at each other in silence. Then Harry sighed and ran a hand over the back of his neck.
“All right. This is… actually pretty terrifying.”
He got out of bed at last, pulling a clean T-shirt over his head from the one draped across the back of the chair. To his own surprise, Draco felt an almost childish pang of disappointment.
Merlin…
He swore inwardly.
Get a grip, Malfoy.
This was Harry Potter. The same Harry Potter he had spent seven years hopelessly loving from afar while convincing himself it was hatred. Only this one… This one, for some incomprehensible reason, loved him back.
Harry stepped closer and, as though afraid of startling him, gently took hold of his wrist.
“Draco.”
“Mm?”
“If this isn’t a prank…” he trailed off, searching Draco’s face. “…then you have to understand… I’m worried about you.”
The last words were almost a whisper. As though Potter had finally stopped trying to convince himself that this was just another ridiculous game and, for the first time, allowed himself to believe that something was genuinely wrong.
Draco slowly raised his eyes to meet his. In seven years, he had seen Harry angry. Annoyed. Stubborn. Confused. He had seen him grieve. Seen him grit his teeth and walk straight into danger. But never… Never had Harry Potter looked at him like this. As though he were afraid of losing him.
“I know,” Draco replied quietly. And he realized that it was probably the only truthful thing he had said all morning.
Harry let out a small breath of relief. Just a little. As though that admission alone meant Draco was beginning to find his way back.
“Then tell me what you do remember.”
Draco looked away.
“Hogwarts.”
“Mm-hm.”
“The trial.”
“That happened.”
“Working in the laboratory.”
Harry frowned almost imperceptibly.
“What else?”
“And I woke up this morning.” He fell silent. Then, with a crooked half-smile, added: “And discovered that Harry Potter was, for some reason, sleeping in my bed.”
This time, Harry didn’t smile. He was silent for a long time — far too long. Then, very carefully, he asked,
“What year do you think it is?”
“Two thousand and three?”
Silence.
Draco could almost physically feel something change in Harry’s expression. Not panic. Not horror. Something worse.
Slowly, Potter sat down on the edge of the bed beside him, never taking his eyes off Draco.
“No,” he said very quietly. “It’s two thousand and seven now.”
Draco did not answer. Not because he didn’t want to — oh no, — his mind was already boiling with a dozen theories about what had happened, and each one was more ridiculous and impossible than the last.
But he did not dare follow any of them through to the end, because he suddenly realized one simple thing: if Potter was not lying… Then he had not lost the memories of yesterday evening. He had lost four years of his own life. And judging by the way Harry was holding his hand, those four years contained the most important thing that had ever happened to Draco Malfoy.
“I’ll come back from the Auror Office, and we’ll go to St. Mungo’s, okay? This could be something serious. You literally don’t remember anything…” he spoke too quickly. As though if he kept talking, panic would not have time to catch up with him. “I’ll write to Kingsley. I’ll take a day off. No, forget the day off, I’ll just leave. Then I’ll contact the healers. No, first the healers, then Kingsley…”
He was already thinking out loud. Walking around the room, mechanically fastening the cuffs of his uniform shirt and immediately forgetting whether he had actually fastened them.
Draco watched him silently.
Strange. He had always imagined that if Harry Potter ever worried about him, it would look… louder. More heroic, more decisive. Instead, standing before him was a person so overwhelmed that he could not even decide what problem to tackle first. And somehow, that was far more frightening.
“Harry.”
He turned around immediately.
“What?” One word, but there was so much hope in it that Draco almost felt ashamed.
“Don’t leave.”
He did not even understand why he said it. The words slipped out as though someone else had spoken them using his voice.
Harry froze. And then, very slowly, he smiled. Not the cheerful smile he had worn half an hour ago when he assumed this was some kind of game. Something else. A careful, fragile kind of happiness — the sort that appeared when someone noticed the first sign that maybe, just maybe, everything could still be fixed.
He came back to the bed.
“Of course I won’t leave,” the answer came without the slightest hesitation. “The Auror Office can wait.”
Draco frowned.
“And if it can’t?” he asked suspiciously.
Harry shrugged as casually as if they were discussing a forgotten umbrella.
“Then they’ll have to wait without me.” He sat down beside him again. “Four years ago, you would’ve argued with me for twenty minutes. You would’ve tried to prove that you couldn’t abandon work because of one person.” He gave a sad little smile. “And then you would’ve made me stay anyway.”
Draco looked away. It felt as though every one of these sentences was taking another piece of him away. Not because Harry was talking about a stranger, but because that stranger looked strangely like the Draco he had always wanted to become.
The Draco from his most secret, most shameful dreams. The dreams he had never allowed himself to turn into fantasies.
Because Harry Potter would never choose him. That was one of the few rules of the world that required no proof. Harry had always had other people. The girls at Hogwarts, whom he seemed to get close to effortlessly and probably leave behind just as easily. Ron and Hermione, who had always stood by his side. The Weasley family, ready to accept him as one of their own. The Order and the Aurors. The entire wizarding world, in the end. And somewhere at the very edge of that enormous life, there had always been Draco Malfoy.
Sometimes an opponent.
Sometimes an obstacle.
Sometimes someone Harry had to save despite all common sense.
But never… never the person he came home to.
Draco remembered far too well how many times he had tried to convince himself that it was for the best.
That it was easier this way. That it was foolish to dream about someone who would probably never look at him as anything other than an irritation or a pity case.
So now… Now it was almost painful to see how naturally Harry sat beside him. As though all this impossible tenderness had not been built in a single day or one random night. As though it had been formed over years — from shared breakfasts, ridiculous arguments, reconciliations, habits known only to the two of them.
And the most painful part was not that Draco remembered none of it.
It was that Harry remembered.
Every little thing.
Every glance.
Every stay.
And now he looked at Draco as though all of it could disappear forever.
“Come on, let’s have breakfast. I’ll make your favorite pancakes, or we can order something from the bakery. The one you like, remember? The one in the Muggle district.”
Draco had never had a favorite Muggle bakery.
And this was not his flat on the outskirts of Sarrow.
Not his kitchen.
Not his life.
“And this child… Teddy?”
Potter was already busy mixing the ingredients for the aforementioned “Draco’s favorite pancakes.”
“He’s with Andy today. He really didn’t want to leave you, but I promised him you’d take him to that little children’s café on the corner once your migraine was gone. You don’t remember, do you? You spent a couple of days lying there with an awful headache and threatening to curse anyone who came into the room, and this morning you looked like it had passed, so I thought…” He rambled, words tumbling out unevenly, clearly pouring his own anxiety into the liquid splashing around in the bowl.
Draco stood in the doorway of the kitchen and watched him.
Potter.
Harry.
A person who should have been a stranger. And yet somehow knew that Draco liked his pancakes not too sweet. That he hated cinnamon. That he always left the first piece, even when he was hungry, because “you’ll definitely want another one later.” The last part was especially infuriating, because Draco had never told anyone that. He couldn’t have. They were too small of things, too insignificant to explain to someone. Those were the kinds of habits a person only noticed when they had lived alongside someone else for a long enough time. When they stopped looking at them like a beautiful picture… and started seeing them as a part of everyday life.
“Andromeda?” he repeated.
Harry froze for a fraction of a second, then continued stirring the batter.
“Andromeda.”
Draco nodded. Of course, Andromeda Tonks, he knew her. He knew her story. He knew she was one of the few members of the Black family who had chosen love over a name. But in his memories, she remained a woman from the war. From the past. And for this Harry, she was simply…
“She takes him every Friday,” Harry continued. “Says it’s good for everyone. She likes spoiling him, and Teddy likes pretending he’s far too old for his grandmother’s pies.”
He smiled.
And Draco suddenly realized that Harry was not smiling at Teddy. Not at the child. Not at the situation. He was smiling at the memory. He had an entire life filled with moments like that.
And Draco had nothing — a blank space.
“Is he like you?” Draco asked quietly.
Harry looked up.
“Who?”
“Teddy.”
A soft smile appeared on Harry’s face.
“Sometimes.”
He flipped the pancake.
“Stubborn.” A pause. “Sometimes he sticks his nose into places where nobody asked him to. But he’s not a little kid anymore. That’s normal for his age.”
Draco raised an eyebrow.
“Sounds familiar.”
“Very much.” Harry chuckled. But then his expression turned serious again. “Draco…” He placed the spatula on the counter. “I understand that this all looks insane to you. Right now.”
Draco almost laughed. Almost.
“Potter, this morning I woke up with a person I spent seven years considering my enemy in a bed that wasn’t mine, in a room I’ve never seen, with a child I’ve never met, and you’re explaining this to me by saying it ‘looks insane’?”
Harry blinked. Then, unexpectedly, he laughed quietly. A real laugh. And Draco hated how easily that sound made something inside him shift.
“He adores you! You’ll see! Draco, the man I knew spoiled that boy like he was his own!”
Harry was smiling.
Not with the smile Draco remembered from Hogwarts.
Not the reckless, defiant, victorious smile of a boy.
Something else, something older, the kind of smile a person wore when talking about something that truly mattered to them.
And Draco suddenly realized that he was jealous. Not of the child — that would have been far too ridiculous. He was jealous of the fact itself. Of the fact that somewhere, there existed a Draco Malfoy who could simply become part of someone’s family like that.
A Draco Malfoy who was trusted.
Who was waited for.
Who a small child could run into the arms of not because of his surname, not because it was expected, but because he wanted to. It was almost unbearable.
“You say that as though I’m some kind of exemplary parent” he remarked dryly.
Harry snorted.
“No... You’re a terrible parent. You bribe him with sweets!”
“That is slander. Probably?”
“You once bought him a potion-making kit when he was about six.”
Draco froze.
“It must have been for safety reasons. Those sets usually come with good gloves. Better than the ones sold separately…”
Harry laughed.
“He was six!”
“He needed to be prepared for the future, I guess.”
“Draco, he was trying to brew a potion out of water, daisy petals, and half of your shampoo.”
Despite himself, Draco felt the corner of his mouth twitch. And it was horrible. Because he was not supposed to smile.
Not in this situation.
Not here.
Not when every new fact about his life felt like a blow.
But Harry noticed — of course he did, he always noticed. The smile on his face became quieter.
“There. You smiled.”
“You imagined it.”
“No, I didn’t.”
Harry picked up the spatula again, but now he looked calmer. As though a small victory — just one genuine emotion — had given him back a little bit of confidence.
“I missed that.’
The sentence was so unexpected that Draco froze.
“Missed what?”
Harry looked at him.
“You.” A pause. “All morning.”
And that was the worst part. Not some grand declaration. Not some beautiful speech. Just a simple ‘I missed you.’ The kind of thing people said about things that had always been there.
About someone Harry left at home when he went to work in the morning and returned to in the evening.
About someone whose mug sat in the kitchen.
About someone he did not have to win over.
Draco lowered his gaze.
“I’m here.”
Harry smiled sadly.
“Yes.” A pause. “But not completely yet.”
And somehow, that was the most honest answer Draco had heard all morning.
As Potter had promised, after breakfast he sent a short note to Kingsley. No reply came, perhaps because this was not the first time Auror Potter had suddenly taken time off for “family reasons.”
Although Draco protested with all his strength, a few hours later they were already in the emergency department of St. Mungo’s with a ticket bearing his name and the note: “Sudden memory loss.”
Naturally, the healer on duty found nothing wrong.
“You are completely healthy, Mr. Malfoy,” he announced rather cheerfully.
“But he doesn’t remember anything!” Potter snapped.
The healer only shook his head.
“Perhaps the consequences of the war have left his mind somewhat clouded,” he continued calmly. — It can happen when someone experiences severe… circumstances at a young age. But I see no reason for intervention.
Draco remained silent. Because unlike Harry, he did not feel anger, only a strange, almost painful emptiness.
The healer was saying all the right things, even reasonable ones. The war really had left scars on many people. On him. On Potter. On everyone unfortunate enough to have been young enough to remember it.
But this explanation did not answer the most important question.
Why did he remember the war?
Why did he remember school?
Why did he remember every humiliating look directed his way at the Ministry after the trial?
But he did not remember how Harry Potter became the person holding his hand in the waiting room of St. Mungo’s.
“Excuse me,” Draco finally said. “What if someone has not lost a part of their memories, but…” He hesitated. “…several years?”
The healer looked at him more closely.
“Are you certain?”
Draco opened his mouth. Then stopped.
No.
He was not certain. He was not certain about anything. He was not even certain about his own life anymore.
Harry squeezed his hand a little tighter, just slightly.
“He is,” Harry answered for him.
There was so much exhaustion in his voice that, for the first time that morning, Draco did not see the hero.
Just Harry. A person who was afraid.
“Mr. Potter, I understand your concern, but memory magic is extremely complicated. Sometimes the mind itself blocks traumatic events. Sometimes memories return gradually.”
“And if they don’t?” Harry’s question came too quickly. Too quietly.
The healer fell silent. For a moment, the office became completely still.
Draco suddenly felt a strange irritation. Not at Potter — at himself. Because he wanted to say something. Wanted to reassure him. Wanted to tell him: “Stop looking at me as though I have already disappeared.”
But he had no right. Because to Harry, he was someone who had been lost.
And to Draco, Harry was someone he had never had. At least… not until this morning.
“We can perform additional examinations,” the healer finally said. “Check for magical traces, lingering curses, potions…” He looked at Draco. “But if everything is clear, then perhaps it will simply require time.”
‘Time’ was an incredibly useless word. Draco almost scoffed. Because he had too much of it, as it was. Four entire years he could not get back.
They left the office almost an hour later. Harry had been silent for far too long. Draco was just about to ask what he was thinking when Harry suddenly stopped in the middle of the corridor.
“I was sure they would find a reason.”
Draco looked at him.
“Potter…” He paused. “Harry,” — he corrected himself automatically. And froze at his own words.
Harry noticed too, but he said nothing, only exhaled.
“I thought that if they told me it was a curse or a potion, I could fix it,” he gave a humorless laugh. “You know how it usually works? You just have to punch some jealous idiot in the face and the spell breaks on its own…”
Draco raised an eyebrow.
“That is the most ridiculous and, at the same time, the most accurate way to describe you.”
Harry looked at him, and for the first time that day, something close to relief flickered in his eyes. Because that had been almost his Draco — only almost.
— And now I don’t know what to do, — he finished quietly.
And Draco suddenly understood. Harry Potter was not afraid of the Dark Lord, we was not afraid of death itself. He was not afraid of throwing himself into the unknown. But he was afraid of waking up one day beside someone… and having that person no longer know him.
“We could just…” Draco hesitated. “You know. Pretend that I’m still me?” He said it hopefully.
Harry looked at him, and it was perhaps the most painful expression Draco had seen on his face all day. Not fear, not despair — hope. Because Harry really wanted to believe. Wanted to cling to that possibility as desperately as someone grasping a lifeline in the middle of dark water.
“Pretend?” he repeated quietly.
Draco shrugged, trying to make his voice sound as casually indifferent as usual.
“Yes.” It sounded easier than it actually was. “If it’s just confusion or a curse, then it’ll pass. Either I’ll remember what the hell is going on, or…”
He stopped. Because the second option sounded far too frightening when spoken aloud.
“Or I’ll go back. Back to 2003. Back to my little flat on the outskirts of Sarrow. Back to my work. Back to my life where there were no red curtains, no unfamiliar hand around my waist in the mornings, and no person looking at me as though I was the most important thing in the entire world.
Where there was no Harry.”
“Or?” Potter asked carefully.
Draco turned away.
“Or it’ll turn out that I’m the one who went mad, not the world around me.” He tried to smirk. It didn’t work.
Harry was silent for a long time. Then he said:
“You didn’t go mad.” So certain, so simple, as if the answer required no proof at all.
Draco looked at him.
“How do you know?”
Harry shrugged.
“Because I know you.” Those words were spoken so quietly that somehow they hurt more than any accusation could have.
“I know you” — not “I knew you” — not “I was used to you” — not “I remember you.”
“I know.” Now. Today. Despite everything.
Harry carefully touched his shoulder.
“But I don’t want you to pretend.”
Draco frowned.
“Why?”
“Because this shouldn’t be a performance.” A pause. “I don’t want you to be afraid that if you don’t remember certain things, I’ll stop loving you.”
Draco froze. Because that was exactly what he had been doing without even realizing it, from the very first moment. He was trying to become the person Harry loved, the person who knew where the tea was kept, who remembered Teddy, who laughed at jokes whose meaning he didn’t understand. Because somewhere deep inside, he had already decided: If the real Draco Malfoy was not worthy of this life… then maybe this one — the Draco from Harry’s memories — could at least preserve it.
“What if I’m not him?” Draco asked quietly.
Harry frowned.
“Who?“
“That Draco.” He swallowed. “The one you love.”
The St. Mungo’s corridor suddenly seemed too quiet. Too bright. Too unfamiliar.
Harry looked at him for several seconds, then shook his head.
“You think I fell in love with you because you remembered where the cups were?”
Draco stayed silent.
“Or because you knew how to make breakfast?” Another step closer. “Or because you knew how to calm me down after nightmares?”
Draco did not answer, he couldn’t.
Harry sighed.
“I fell in love with you, Draco.” Simple. Certain. “Not a collection of memories.”
And that was what scared him the most. Because if Harry was telling the truth… then maybe, for the first time in his life, Draco Malfoy had been chosen not for who he was supposed to be. But simply for who he was.
Returning to Harry’s house turned out to be stranger than Draco expected. Although, if he was being honest, he was no longer sure he was even capable of being surprised by anything more.
The house greeted them with silence. Not the empty silence that filled his real home in Sarrow — there, silence was simply the absence of sound. Here, it was filled with life, with someone else’s things, someone else’s habits. And because of that… it felt almost painfully familiar.
A green child’s sweater lay draped over the back of an armchair. Pots with various plants stood on the windowsill, half of which Draco would not have been able to distinguish from ordinary weeds. On the table was a stack of books, among them he noticed his own notes on potion-making. He stepped closer, ran his fingers over the spine of one of the books.
“You read things like these, yeah?” Harry asked.
Draco turned around and Potter nodded toward the shelf.
“Every time, you complain that I understand nothing about potions, but you still leave your notes nearby in case I need to find something.”
Draco looked at the shelf. Then at Harry.
“I leave my notes for you?”
“Yes.”
“Voluntarily?”
Harry smiled.
“Sometimes I think you still don’t believe you’re capable of doing something simply because you want to.” The words hit far too accurately.
Draco looked away. He did not like how easily this person managed to strike exactly where it hurt. He should have been irritated, should have become defensive. But instead, he stood in the middle of a stranger’s living room and felt a strange longing for things he had never had.
“Where do I sleep?” he asked suddenly.
Harry froze for only a second.
“In the bedroom?”
“I mean…” He didn’t finish, because the question was too obvious.
Harry understood. And his expression softened.
“With me, of course.”
Draco felt something inside him tighten. Not because the thought was unpleasant, but because some part of his mind accepted the answer completely naturally. As though somewhere inside him there really was a person who knew this place. Who knew what it was like to fall asleep beside Harry.
“Remarkable,” Draco muttered.
“What?”
“I should be causing a scene right now.”
Harry smirked.
“And why aren’t you?”
Draco thought about it — it was a good question. Then he answered honestly:
“I don’t know.”
Harry looked at him. And smiled very quietly.
“My Draco usually doesn’t know either.”
Draco raised an eyebrow.
“Your?”
Harry realized his mistake immediately, but he did not take it back.
“Yes. The one who is you. The one who suggested we go to bed early yesterday, then fell asleep before I even managed to get his trousers off.”
Something dropped somewhere deep inside Draco. Yesterday they had apparently planned to… Then postponed it until morning. And then it turned out Draco was not that Draco at all. Which meant that now…
“So we… often?” Draco stumbled over the question. He immediately felt ridiculous. The question was so obvious that saying it aloud felt almost humiliating. “I mean… no, it’s logical, considering we sleep in the same bed, so…”
He stopped. Because Harry was looking at him. Not laughing, not teasing. Although, judging by the way the corners of his mouth twitched, he clearly wanted to.
“Periodically, yeah.” Harry paused. “In phases, I’d say. Sometimes I’m too busy with the Auror Office. Sometimes I get sent on assignments for a week or two… Or you have a headache. I mentioned the migraines, didn’t I?” He tilted his head slightly. “But when nothing gets in the way, you can spend days refusing to get off me.”
He said it so simply, so casually. People did not joke about things like that. Not like this. Who would even think to say something like that to someone they were not sure about?
“You don’t understand how strange that sounds,” Draco murmured.
“I don’t.” Harry was no longer smiling. “I understand that this is the first time for you.” A pause, very quiet. “Right now.” Another pause. “For me, it isn’t.”
The words hung between them, and Draco suddenly realized that Harry’s ease did not come from a lack of awkwardness.
It came from having already lived through it: all the conversations, all the touches, all the mornings, all the moments when they could simply be themselves. And now one of them had been thrown back to the beginning.
“I’m sorry,” Draco said unexpectedly.
Harry blinked.
“For what?”
Draco shrugged.
“I don’t know.” It was also the most honest thing he could say.
For forgetting.
For making him go through everything all over again.
For the fact that standing before him was someone he loved… but who was almost a stranger to Draco.
Harry shook his head.
“Don’t apologize for something happening to you.”
And again that same calm certainty, that impossible kindness — Draco hated it. Because it made his usual defenses useless. You couldn’t be angry at someone who looked at you like that. You couldn’t keep your guard up when nobody was attacking you.
“So,” Draco said slowly, “I have a version of my life where Harry Potter not only doesn’t hate me…” He paused. “But actually chooses to spend most of his time with me.”
Harry smirked.
“Sounds unbelievable, doesn’t it?”
“Horrifying.”
“Why?”
Draco looked at him.
Because the answer was too simple.
Because this life seemed impossible.
Because somewhere deep inside, it already felt lost.
“Because I don’t remember how I earned it.”
The smile disappeared from Harry’s face. He stepped closer.
“Draco. You were never supposed to earn it.”
And for the first time that day, Draco had no answer.