A/N: Wow. It has been too long since I've update any Harry Potter stories or anything. Right, since quite a few people were asking for a sequel for 'I Will Remember You', here it is! I'm really sorry it took so long to come out! Please bear in mind that I wrote it a couple of years ago and finished it, like, yesterday, so it might be a bit, well, crap, to be honest. Please don't forget to review and let me know - if it was good, bad, etc, etc, whether you want a sequel to answer any questions you may have (hint hint) ...
By the way, it's not necessary to read 'I Will Remember You', this story will still make sense without reading the previous one.
Warnings: A bit AU. Also, Draco is a little bit out of character, but I only wrote him like that to keep it similar to the Draco in the story before this one.
Disclaimer: I own none of the Harry Potter characters, spells, schools, etc etc. I also do not own London. Although that would be kinda cool.
Still Remembering You
I still remembered you.
After seven whole years, I still remembered you.
Your beautiful green eyes, your coarse jet-black hair, your full, soft lips ...
It was tearing me apart inside.
Seven years had passed, and I still wasn't over you. I mean, how long does it bloody take?!
In my seventh year at Hogwarts, I had convinced myself that I would get over you. Of course I would – I had to. I knew that I'd remember you (you're a hard person to forget, after all), but I'd never dream that after seven full-blown years of a dull, numbing pain, I'd still love you.
Love you. Be in love with you. As much as ever.
Yeah, sure, I dated other people. Well, tried to. There were only two, actually.
The first was a British wizard named Ed I had met at a bar in Amsterdam. I was really drunk, and started talking to him (glad to have found someone who could speak good English), and the next thing I knew, I woke up next to him in bed. We went out for around two weeks.
The second was called Warren, who I met about two years after that. He was an older and more experienced wizard than I was. I had gone out with him for three months. His friends had always thought that he'd get bored of me and dump me, as I was over a decade younger than he was, but actually, it was the other way round. I broke it off with him. I just couldn't carry on seeing him. I mean, he was nice – hell, he was lovely – and he cared for me, and looked after me, but …
He wasn't you.
I remember our graduation so well.
Not much happened. We sat down and listened to Dumbledore drone on and on about how we were all mature and ready to go out into the real world and things about 'missed chances'. And then Granger, the Head Girl, read out a speech about how friends and loved ones were so important, and how you should protect them no matter the cost.
And that actually made me feel a little bit better.
Granger's speech, I mean.
Because seven years ago, a few weeks before graduation, I had cast a charm on you. A memory charm, to be exact.
We had been lovers. Had been, and I erased it. Because I knew that you would never end it with me. I wasn't strong enough to end it, because I wanted you, you wanted me, and we were meant to live all happily ever after.
But you don't always get everything you want.
We had each other ... but only for a little bit.
So I cast that charm on you to erase all the memories and love for me that you ever had.
And Granger's speech reminded me that I was doing it for your benefit, because how would the world have taken the fact that their hero was dating a 'Death Eater wannabe'? Not very well, I can tell you.
And seven years later, I was still mourning over you.
Still remembering you.
Still loving you.
I couldn't do anything about it, of course. I had always loved you; and always shall. Until the end of time, no doubt.
Merlin, I've turned into such a drama queen.
The war with Voldemort just ended a mere three years ago – and yet not that much has changed. Not with me, anyway.
After I left Hogwarts, I didn't become a Death Eater, as was expected of me.
But I didn't fight for the Light side either.
I was on MY side. The neutral side. The Draco Malfoy side.
There to pick up the pieces of those who had fallen.
Seven years of just walking around, brooding, thinking, trying to keep myself occupied with new things, new people, yet not really living. I was ... just a shell. Just a shell of what I used to be.
And all because of you.
Not that I hated you, resented you, or loathed you for it. I still loved you. That was very much the reason for all my brooding.
And also the fact that you were probably a hundred miles from where I was, teaching your little red-headed children how to ride broomsticks.
But there was nothing I could do about that; you lived your life, and I lived mine.
Only now I realised that neither of us really had any proper lives during that time.
Despite the fact that I was on the neutral side, I did take part in the final battle. I killed Death Eaters. I killed my father. And I felt no remorse whatsoever. I still feel none. As far as I'm concerned, they all deserved it.
And then you saved my life.
I was wearing a dark cloak, pulled up over my head, so you couldn't see who I was, and I had been pushed to the ground by some Death Eater, and that Death Eater was about to cast the Avada Kedavra curse on me, and you stopped him. Killed him, actually.
You held out your hand to me, and helped me up.
There was a small electric shock that passed through our hands, but I paid no heed to it. I couldn't let you know who I was. All I said was a whispered, "Behind you," then turned around and fled.
Just like the coward I am.
I had warned you about Voldemort, who had been about to cast the Killing Curse. But you were quick. You jumped out of the way, and wrestled his wand out of his hands.
Then you got out Godric Gryffindor's sword out of the belt tied around your waist and stabbed him with it. Right in the heart. Only, as it turned out, he had no heart.
Sweet irony is the phrase, I think.
So you saved my life; I saved yours. What a quaint little last meeting, I thought.
But, as you tended to do sometimes, you proved me wrong.
I was walking through the streets of London, keeping well away from Diagon Alley to avoid bumping into anyone I knew (most of my old friends wanted my head on a platter due to me abandoning 'the cause', and everyone else just hated me anyway), but while I was preoccupied with looking at a pair of gorgeous leather shoes in a shop window, I accidentally walked smack into someone.
The man fell to the ground and I rolled my eyes at his clumsiness.
That should have been my big clue. After all, how else did we keep meeting in Hogwarts?
I extended my hand to help the man up, and what I got in reply was a suspicious/curious look … from a face with familiar green eyes and messy black hair that was longer than I remembered it, a slightly haggard expression and what was that under the fringe? Oh yes, a lightning bolt scar …
My eyes widened and so did yours.
I withdrew my hand, turned around, and walked briskly away in the direction I had come from.
All that was going through my head was I can't believe it's you I can't believe it's you I can't believe it's you.
"Malfoy!" you yelled. "Hey, wait!"
I could hear footsteps behind me, so I sped up. You sped up.
So I ran.
I've always been a coward – I can't help it. It's in my nature. I was terrified of seeing you. Terrified of increasing the feelings that I still had for you. It would just hurt more, and I didn't want to hurt more.
I expected you to think 'oh, what the hell', turn around, and walk away.
But you didn't.
You chased me, grabbed my shoulders and pushed me against the wall.
"Malfoy," you puffed. "What the hell was that?"
I shrugged, trying not to look into your eyes.
"I …" I said. I cleared my throat. "Fancy meeting you here, Potter. I just didn't want to be reminded about the Scarhead I left behind at Hogwarts, you know."
You frowned a bit and loosened your grip on my shoulders.
The skin under my shirt burned where you had touched me.
"Come on, Malfoy, you have no reason to run from me. I know you weren't involved with the Death Eaters. I have no reason to hurt you."
Well, not intentionally, but you will. Just talking to you and me wanting you and you not wanting me is hurting me.
I shrugged your grip off me.
"Well, Potter, as fun as this chat was, I best be going," I said, and pushed past you slightly, but you put a hand on my shoulder.
"Where?" you asked.
I quirked an eyebrow in question.
"Where are you going?"
It was as though you were asking me about my life. I felt incredibly small all of a sudden, under your piercing green gaze.
"I don't know," I admitted softly.
To my surprise, you smiled at me, and said, "Let me come with you."
There was something very odd going on here.
"Come on, Malfoy, let's get a coffee or something. You know, old school nemesises – or is it nemesae? – catching up."
You grinned and my resolve melted away.
I gave you a half-smile back.
"Sure."
So, we sat in a café, right opposite each other, and I noticed that you still had some of the same habits that you had back at Hogwarts. Like, running your hand through your hair when you were agitated, chewing on your bottom lip in that delicious manner when you were thinking, squinting your left eye a bit when you were nervous.
So we sat, and we talked.
You told me about your life; I told you about mine.
I found out that you had, unsurprisingly enough, married Ginny Weasley and had three kids, just as I had always thought you would.
Only you also kept having arguments with her, and they had got so frequent and so hurtful that you had finally decided to get a divorce, and it would be finalised next week.
I found out that you had also bought a house in the country, and did indeed spend time there teaching your children how to ride broomsticks.
Only it turns out that you had actually been staying there to get away from Ginny, hadn't you? The 'cold-hearted bitch'? And I had always thought that you'd fall in love with her, get married, and live happily ever after.
There's no such thing as happily ever after, though. And I knew that. Fate just wouldn't allow it.
But I also thought that Fate might cut the Boy Who Lived a bit of slack, but what do I know?
I was just an unemployed, lonely blonde, with way too much time on my hands. And I told you as much.
Obviously I couldn't tell you how I had spent the last seven years brooding and moping and crying (yes, sometimes I cried) over you, so I just told you that I felt like I had no point in my life.
"So … no other half, then? Wife, girlfriend … boyfriend, maybe?"
I looked at you sharply. It was as if you … remembered, somehow. I knew that was impossible (I was bloody good at my memory charms), but still, there was something in your voice … something hopeful …
We talked for a bit more, and I noticed that your hand movements kept getting jerkier, and your left eye was twitching more than usual. You also couldn't leave your bloody hair alone.
Suddenly, you slammed your cup of coffee down on the table and exclaimed, "For crying out loud!"
"Ants in your pants?" I asked, fairly amused by your behaviour.
You looked a bit embarrassed.
"Err … Malfoy, I've … I've got to ask you something," you said quietly.
"Go on," I said, curious as to what you were going to ask.
"Malfoy ... do you know what the 'Obliviate' spell is?" you asked, although your green eyes were asking some different sort of hidden question.
"Yes, Potter. It's a memory charm." I answered. Surely everybody knew that?
"Exactly. A memory charm. It erases memories, Malfoy," you said slowly, as if trying to get a point across. A point that I had been too blind to see all those years ago.
"I know that, Potter!" I snapped, slightly irritated (well, I had to act slightly irritated, when in truth I didn't care what you were doing as long as you were here, talking to me) by you repeating something ten million times.
"Memories, Draco ... "
There was a pregnant pause, in which I had time to feel confused.
Why were you calling me Draco?
"Not feelings."
And with that, just like it had happened exactly seven years ago, you pulled me towards you ... and kissed me.
The End.
A/N: Sequel, anyone?
