So, this was originally written in case I didn't get a chapter up but as it turns out I did. However, my wonderful friends expected that story and I didn't have plans to post it until I was out of idea again. Now how could I take that from them? And so, with no intentions to own or profit from Harry Potter, I bring Another Past Through Another Eye, the sequel to Through The Eyes Of Another.
"Goddamn that Malfoy," Harry Potter sighed as he came home late from work.
"Harry James." Ginny snapped, pointing her spatula at the child sitting impatiently on a stool in the corner.
"Right, sorry Gin." Harry apologized, hanging his cloak up.
"Dinner's in five minutes!" Ginny reminded him as he walked up the stairs.
Harry stripped himself of his work robes and put on something more comfortable. Work had been hell that day, ever since he recruited Malfoy to the Auror department, he had gotten complaints from other aurors about not being able to coöperate with Malfoy.
The weirdest and worst part was that Malfoy simply took all the hits. Harry would've liked that Malfoy had fought and that Harry could nail him, but he just looked like he was okay being there. That made Harry have to watch Malfoy endure each snide comment and rude gesture for no reason.
Harry went into the bathroom and turned on the sink, looking at his reflection. He was too old for his age. Sure his messy black hair, sloppy posture and trademark smirk would make his seem still a child, or a young adult at least, but his eyes held the age of a war and the worries inside.
Those very eyes wandered the medicine cabinet until he saw something odd. It was a five-inch, crystal vial of translucent, silver fluid. Not quite a liquid, not quite earthly. Now, being the Head Auror, and a once nosy Hogwarts student, Harry knew exactly what this was- this was someones memory. Who's, Harry did not know, of what remained unsolved and why was the biggest question.
"Harry I told you dinner!" Ginny called louder than the last time (in which Harry hadn't noticed).
"Right," Harry replied, slipping the vial into his robe pocket.
Ginny had grown up a wonderful cook and mother, and this time she had outdone herself in her chicken.
"So," Ginny said, "tell me about work."
"Nothing much is happening these days," Harry shrugged. "We're basically rounding up whatever is left of the Death Eaters from the war. Interrogations and motives, we've recruited Malfoy but nobody else wants to work with him."
"So does that leave you?" Ginny asked.
"Nah," Harry took a sip of his drink, "I'm working with the other half of the recruits."
"Then who's working with Malfoy?" Ginny asked, exasperation in her eyes.
"Oh," Harry said, just realizing her question. "That would be Ron, not the brightest choice if you ask me."
"You would think." Ginny began to clean the table.
"Hey Gin," Harry said. "I just- uh- remembered I had left something at the office, I'll just go get it..." Ginny made no attempt to both look like she believed him nor did she attempt to stop him.
One floo trip later, Harry was in his office with the crystal vial, walking until he found the pensiev. He dumped the silvery, translucent fluid into the bowl and stuck his head in.
The shaped drifted into the scene, turning it into a mansion guarded by obsidian gates. It was the only manor that Harry had ever seen, and that was when Hermione had gotten tortured in seventh year. It was Malfoy Manor.
"Why am I here?" Harry asked himself, was this the Death Eater Lucius Malfoy's memories, for his trial? (Which had proven him guilty and thrown in Azkaban.)
Either way, Harry walked past the gates and in through the manor's mahogany doors. He didn't know what he would find, or what he was looking for. Hell, he didn't know which Malfoy's memories these were.
"I'm going out, Narcissa, Draco." A cold voice said from the sitting room.
"Have a good time, Lucius." Narcissa's voice replied, but she didn't seem to mean it.
"Goodbye, father." Who must have been Draco said in a small voice.
Harry watched as Lucius put floo powder into the fireplace and cried out his desired destination. "So it's not Lucius' memory." Harry muttered, for the memory did not change.
"Now Draco." Narcissa whispered, once Lucius left. Young Draco Malfoy, probably only nine or so, walked happily to the cupboard and pulled out what must have been an antique muggle radio.
"What if daddy catches us?" Draco whispered, almost fearfully.
"Then let me take the blame." Narcissa replied, taking the radio gently. She twisted all sorts of wires and pressed buttons until a song begins to blast on the radio.
-catch your heart
Is like trying to catch a star
Draco smiled and laughed and, soon enough, a smile found its way to Harry's face.
So many people love you, baby
They began to dance, not a waltz or stupid one, just a sort of rocking back and forth, smiling.
That must be what you are
Waiting for a star to fall
And carry your heart into my arms
Smiling mother and son.
That's where you belong
In my arms baby, yeah
Green flames erupted in the fireplace and Harry could only remember one thing that Narcissa promised, "Then let me take the blame."
"I'm home," Lucius called, brushing soot out of his eyes. Once his vision was clear, his eyes immediately found the muggle radio. "Narcissa," He snarled, snatching it up, "What is this filth doing here?"
"Next is If I Could Turn Back Time by Cher!" The man on the radio said.
If I could turn back time
If I could find a way I'd take back those words that hu
The radio crushed under Lucius' fingers. "I thought I had taught you better Draco," He sneered and stomped off to his room. "We will talk about this, Narcissa."
"Let me take the blame."
The scene shifted. Suddenly, Harry was watching himself and Draco Malfoy interact for the first time, at Madam Malkin's.
"Oh," Draco said. "I've heard of him. He's a sort of servant, isn't he?"
"He's the gamekeeper." Harry had told him, Harry remembered not liking that Malkin's boy.
"So, this is Draco Malfoy's memories."
"Yes, exactly. I heard he's a sort of savage- lives in a hut on the school grounds and every now and then he gets drunk, tries to do magic, and ends up setting fire to his bed."
"I think he's brilliant." Harry told him coldly.
"And I still do."
"Do you?" Malfoy began the sneering, "Why is he with you? Where are your parents?"
That had stung Harry, it did then and still did.
"They're dead." Harry told him shortly.
"Oh sorry," The boy didn't seem sorry but reliving it, from Malfoy's point of view, it seemed that he really was sorry, just didn't know how to express it any other way. "But they were our kind, weren't they?" Okay, screw sorry, Harry thought, that was low and just disgusting.
"They were a witch and wizard, if that's what you mean."
"I really don't think they should let the other sort in, do you? They're just not the same, they've never been brought up to know our ways. Some of them have never even heard of Hogwarts until they get their letters, imagine. I think they should keep it in the old wizard families. What's your surname, anyway?"
"If only you had known." Harry smiled, almost in a smug way.
Before Harry could answer, Madam Malkin said, "That's you done, my dear," and Harry hoped down from the footstool.
"Well, I'll see you at Hogwarts, I suppose." Malfoy said. Even though memory Harry stayed.
Malfoy groaned, "I'm terrible at making friends. Thanks a lot father," That last part he muttered.
His father? Harry thought, that's why he couldn't make any friends other than annoying Pansy, normal Blaise and bodyguards Crabbe and Goyle.
Draco was in his room. His room was plain, green walls, oak desk with his school books and a king size bed in the middle. There were no decorations on his walls, no windows to let light in. Nothing that indicates he had been spoiled like many would have thought.
Malfoy held his head in his hands as he let out a... sob.
Malfoy crying? Harry was taken aback.
"Draco," Narcissa's small voice said, muffled from behind the door.
"Go away, mother." Draco muttered.
"I am your mother Draco Lucius Malfoy," Her voice went from stern back to soft, "and I care."
Draco laughed bitterly, "You didn't seem to care when he assigned me to kill someone."
"The summer before sixth year." Harry muttered.
"Of course I did," Narcissa said. "After I went and begged to change the assignment, to make me do it. They wouldn't."
"You shouldn't have done that either." Draco frowned, "What if he had agreed?"
"It would have been worth the risk." Narcissa came into full view and she wrapped her arms around Draco, maybe pretending he was six instead of sixteen.
She was being a mother, Harry looked happily at the scene. She cared.
Harry pulled himself out of the pensieve and looked around the empty office he owned. He sighed, scooping up Draco Malfoy's memories and labeled them that. He put some floo powder into the fireplace, intending to call home. Instead, he found himself floo calling a, "Draco Malfoy at the Leaky Cauldron." Draco had refused to go back to Malfoy Manor after the war and instead took up a room in the Leaky Cauldron.
"What." A sharp, irritable voice on the other side snapped as the head of Draco Malfoy shown in the flames.
"Come here, I want to give you something." Harry said after a moment.
"Look, Potter." Malfoy stepped out of the flames, "Unless it's a pay-raise or mission, I'm really quite busy." He brushed the soot from him and looked at his surroundings. When his eyes found the vial of memories that was labeled with his name, he went to grab them. "Those are mine, Potter!"
"Then why'd you give them to me?" Harry asked.
"What do you mean?" Malfoy had no time for games, his mother was talking to him and she herself was very busy.
"He means that I gave them to him." A voice from the fireplace answered, it was Narcissa Malfoy.
"But, why mother?" Draco asked, "Those were very private."
"Because he deserved to know." Narcissa told him gently.
Draco Malfoy remembered one thing: Sixth year, he was breaking down and insulting Granger more than ever. One night, he went to bed and dreamed of three things: the past of Granger, Weasley and Potter. And none of them were happy.
"Just, don't do it again." Draco told his mother, taking the vial and stepping through the green flames, arm in arm with his mother. "The Leaky Cauldron!"
Harry added one more pinch of floo powder and, this time, called out. "Potter Mansion!"
Of course, the next day he went to work, it would be different. Harry would not tell the others of his discovery yet he would demand they treat Malfoy an equal. Why? Should you ask. Because Harry simply saw another past through another eye.
Yeah, yeah, stupid ending, I know. Well, inspiration only works so far and I really struggled this week. The songs I used were Waiting For A Star To Fall by Boys meet Girls and If I Could Go Back In Time by Cher.
Also, if you want to see more work I did this week, check out Olympic Gold Penguin's "Everything Wrong With Your Favorite Elf Prince". It's Lord of the Rings but I wrote chapter 6 for her.
~Arknox443275