Yes, I haven't posted anything here in a looooooooong while. Yes, it was entirely my fault. Yes, I will make no excuses. But aren't you glad my writers block is over and I'm back now? -grins- Inspiration for this oneshot hit this afternoon and I was so engrossed in it that I skipped my Art Studies class. Take that ArtStud. Hah.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
Remember
Don't go far off, not even for a day, because -
because – I don't know how to say it: a day is long
and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station
when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.
Don't leave me, even for an hour, because
then the little drops of anguish will all run together,
the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift
into me, choking my lost heart.
- Sonnet XLV, Pablo Neruda
Harry
Sometimes I remember things – brief glimpses through my mind's eyes. I am there watering the flowers, jogging in the streets, even playing video games with Dudley and they will come. Sometimes they are mere flashes of light (red, green, too fast and too bright). Sometimes they are words that make absolutely no sense at all. (Quidditch, Occlumency, Kneazles... what are they supposed to mean?) Sometimes I even hear voices. Harry, my boy... Think that's funny, do you Potter?... Come on, mate, time to board the train...
It is the voices that evoke strange emotions in me. But before I can pinpoint the emotions, Dudley or Aunt Petunia's voice would jar me out of my trance-like state. They would ask me if I was okay and I'd respond with some inanity that would make them feel better. Dudley of course would retort something and pretty soon we'd be arguing or laughing. And I'd forget about the memories as soon as I remembered.
In the darkest hour of night, though, when the shadows are at their most deceiving, I lie in bed and will them to come to me again. Sometimes they do yet more often they don't. But there is one memory that never fails to come to me every night, like a secret lover creeping through the windowsill.
A memory of strange gray eyes. They are glittering with mirth, icy with disdain or stormy with rage. But it is when they are filled with longing that they become heartbreaking.
Come back to me, they seem to be saying. And I can say nothing in return but let the tears slide down my cheeks.
Who are you? I sometimes want to scream. What do you want from me? Why do you keep haunting my memories?! But the eyes vanish and the next thing I know, it is morning.
And I will have forgotten all over again.
Draco
It is painful to be the one to keep the memories. To know that you are living your life free of the knowledge of me, that I am now nothing in your universe. Even when we were enemies at least you knew me and we shared something. Now even our worlds are different. You know nothing of me while I am all too aware of you, even at times when I do not want to be.
Sometimes I sift through the memories, too desperate for anything that has you in it. The mere remembrance of the moments we had is enough to make the pain of loss ache a little duller and I am grateful. But when the longing becomes too much, I shove away the memories for they become a knife that tortures me.
When you lost your memory at the end of the war, and they decided to let you live as a muggle with your aunt and uncle, I was stunned. I demanded that – at the very least – they let you stay in the Wizarding World. But McGonagall turned to me with those world-weary eyes and said sharply,
"Hasn't he suffered enough, Mr. Malfoy?"
And you have. I should know. I was there. I held you on the nights that you cried out of sorrow for your fallen comrades, and fear that you are not the Savior they all worship you to be – fear that in the end, you cannot defeat Voldemort, that you will fail and the world will fall with you. I held you because you are as fragile as you are strong and I fervently hoped my own fragility was enough to keep you together. I heard the things you were too ashamed to say, saw the moments of cowardice you tried to hide and spoke the words no one else dared speak.
But you are not here anymore and those moments are only moments. I held you when you were breaking but who will hold me now?
Come back to me, I want to cry out. But I know you will never hear.
Harry
The Dursleys act strange when I ask about my past. Aunt Petunia starts crying, Uncle Vernon gets up and walks away and Dudley will desperately try to change the topic but not before I catch a glint of something in his eyes. He is afraid. Why would Dudley be afraid of mypast? I find it strange and somewhat disturbing.
I have learned not to press the topic. They tell me my parents were killed by a murderer named Tom Riddle, the same one who gave me a scar on my forehead. The same one who tried to kill me again a year ago in the car crash that ended in my amnesia. There is no mention of strange lights, stranger words and I have never met the people whose voices I hear in my head.
Sometimes I feel like for the past seventeen years, I have never existed.
And those eyes... those silver gray eyes that taunt me in my memories. I have tried searching for those eyes. I look into the eyes of people everywhere I go, everywhere I am. At the university, at the mall, in the football stadiums. There were many there with gray eyes. But I could tell, I could just tell they weren't who I was searching for. The beautiful longing is absent, making the eyes seem dull.
Why do I sense that those eyes will lead me to a past I have never known?
Because it is hard not to remember, to have no sense of self. It is like I am empty and am only being filled up again. There is something hollow in me, heightened by instances when total strangers would stop in front of me and I see the spark of recognition light up their faces. But, as if they remember something else, the spark fades to a look of regret and they walk hastily away looking back towards me every once in a while.
It's almost as though the world knows me, but I myself am oblivious in the dark.
Draco
It surprised all of us how your relatives didn't complain at taking you in again. How your aunt and uncle treat you like a human being this time around. How well you get along with your cousin, even becoming friends with him now. I think to an extent this hurts Weasley, who has always been your first and best friend.
The Ministry has issued instructions that no wizard or witch approach you, that we are to let you live in the peace you deserve. But you do not deserve peace, this I know with utmost certainty. You deserve happiness.
Is this flimsy reason enough, I sometimes wonder, to justify my actions? I follow you, like a jungle cat that stalks its prey. I would stand invisible just outside the windows of your house, watching you do chores or play or just laze about. I would walk just behind you when you go to the grocery store and stare at you from across crowded hallways in your university. I cannot unbind myself from you, though I do not think I would want to even if I could.
Sometimes when I am standing close enough to see the beads of sweat kissing your skin, I have to hold back the tears and frustration. The closer I am to you, the farther away I feel.
And when temptation gets the better of me and I reach out to touch even just one inch of your skin, I am always a second too late. You have walked away and I am left with thin air and the faint scent of you still clinging like a gently winding vine.
You are there but you are not there. It is as though you have died.
Harry
And sometimes... just sometimes, I wonder whether my silver-eyed memory is searching for me too.
Draco
Sometimes I wonder if you remember anything at all. Anything.
Harry
And when the longing in those eyes that echo my soul becomes so great the air trembles...
Draco
...I wish that fate could tangle us in its threads and weave us back together.
Harry yawned and checked his wristwatch for the umpteenth time. He was at King's Cross station waiting for Dudley to arrive. Uncle Vernon had pressing business so he'd asked Harry if he could fetch Dudley from the train station. As a train rumbled in, Harry jumped to his feet. That had to be Dudley's. He didn't notice the car keys that fell from his back pocket and to the floor with a soft clink.
Elegant fingers picked up the keys from the floor and the eyes of their owner followed the black-haired boy. Eyes that narrowed in decision.
"Excuse me." Harry hadn't gotten very far when a smooth voice called from behind him. Strangely enough, the voice sounded faintly familiar and a shiver of something Harry could not name danced up his spine. "You dropped your keys."
Checking his back pocket, he found sure enough that he'd dropped the car keys. With a sigh, he slipped on an apologetic smile and turned to face the stranger who'd picked them up.
"Thank - "
Green eyes stopped in their tracks and stared as they met silvery gray.
The blond who was proffering the keys willed himself to stay nonchalant and he noted a flash of something in the black-haired boy's eyes but before he could identify it, it had gone.
Harry opened his mouth and what he said made the gray eyes widen in shock.
"Draco?"
End
H: I have found you.
D: You are finally here.
Sigh. Well writing that felt nice. Was worth it, skiving off class. Please read and review.