"I'm afraid Mr Malfoy is in rather bad shape, Madam," a low, masculine voice said. It spoke in quiet and slow tones, as if scared that any sudden news might make the hearer alarmed.

"Miss," corrected an equally soft but distinctly feminine voice. One pictured a fairy, or an angel of disarming beauty and ethereality. "I've never married." A pause. "Are outside guests allowed?"

"Not normally for long-term patients, Miss, and especially since you- you say you've known each other before?"

Another pause, very still. The female seemed to be taking some time to take everything in. Then- "Yes." A very quiet but very firm affirmation. "Yes, I knew Draco Malfoy."

Mnemophobia. That was the term, he knew, of what he had; a term he had heard the Healers toss around as if it were as insignificant and easy a word as 'bee', or 'cat'. A rather tricky word to pronounce, he figured, rolling it around his mouth and relishing the taste. He liked words. Always had.

"The fear of memories," he remembered his Healer telling him. Many months back, it seemed, when he was first taken here, led quickly and quietly in the middle of the night as if anyone who saw him would be taken by a sudden plague. Perhaps it was just as well, for he couldn't quite stand the looks that people gave him, and the words that they whispered. Evil words. Draco Malfoy. Draco Malfoy. Heir. Sick. Mad. Draco Malfoy. Draco Malfoy.

They all milled about in his head and made him quite dizzy. It was like the dreams he had, nightmares, really, sometimes when he wasn't even sleeping. They were like –what was the word again?- films, quick moving images that blurred at the edges, no faces distinct, but voices, over and over like a tape reel. Occasionally he saw glimpses of details, robes or colour or hair- and once, a pair of very brown eyes. Like chocolate, almost. Like dark chocolate you could melt into.

He remembered those eyes and at the same time he hated the remembrance. He hated his dreams. He hated the way he reached his fingers out sometimes in his sleep, always reaching, always reaching, never touching. He hated the way his dreams made him feel. Once like he wasn't good enough, another like he was evil-bad, and several times like he'd let down someone he loved.

Someone he loved. He couldn't quite remember the details. He supposed he'd stored them all away somewhere, deep in the recesses of his brain, locked it up and threw away the key. Every time he reached he shuddered convulsively and couldn't stop, and his Healer would come in and open his mouth and force in a potion that was grey with specks of vivid blue. And then he'd come to a great gasping shock, and go to sleep with a pain in his chest, like there was a hole no one could fill.

It was strange that such unclear memories could stir such deep emotions. Guilt, and remorse, and hate, and love. He knew love was there somewhere. He knew it by the way his heart skipped a beat when a certain image flashed in his mind, or something in his stomach swooped like he'd fallen down a couple of stairs. Or the way his eyes instinctively closed and his hands curled around something he couldn't see, couldn't touch. A hand, he guessed. A hand slender and pale and fair, with fingers he'd memorized.

And then a scream, and he jerks awake, but his eyes don't see. "Please. Please. I don't know, I didn't take it- please!" The same voice, the same screams, the same sobs, replaying over and over in his head and there comes feeling like a tidal wave and he can't stop it, didn't stop it, never stopped it-

And then silence, a little piano melody, and his toes would curl up under the covers. Grass under his feet, a girl in a pale blue dress, and chocolate-brown eyes. Seemingly innocuous memories, but it makes his heart burn and eyes spill tears, and triggers the same reaction that makes his Healer come running. He knew her then, and he knows her now, and he knows she's not coming.

So he locked up his memories again, and vows never to touch them if he can help it.

"Just this once, Miss," the low voice said. Just outside his door now. He could hear every word, every step. "At this time he's normally sleeping. I'll go in first, just in case, and if anything happens, I'm really sorry but you'll have to leave."

"I understand." A level voice that made his heart thunder dangerously.

A sigh, and then a few knocks. Three, in a pattern, the way they'd devised so he would know who was coming. Then the door opened and the Healer stepped in. "Mr Malfoy," he said slowly, "you have a visitor."

Again speaking as if to an idiot, but then he stepped aside and his heart almost stopped beating.

There she was.

There she is, he thought, heart pounding, mind whirring, there she is and oh God she's so beautiful and she's just the way I remember her and she is here.

"Draco," she says, coming forward at once and sitting on his bed. Instinctively he leaned in close and put a hand on her hair. Curly, bushy even, just the way he liked it. Just the way he remembered it. He closed his eyes, and then opened them again just to make sure she was really there and not just a figment of his imagination. "Draco," she says again, and there's joy in her voice, but tears in her eyes, and yet- a smile, a brilliant smile that stretches from side to side.

She's so happy, so happy, and so is he.

"You came," he said, finding his voice.

"I came."