Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I do own a very nice cup of tea - and am drinking it now while I post. Ahh...

Author's note: Wow! Such lovely reviews! And so many people have stuck around since the first story! I love you all and appreciate your kind comments.

OoOoOo

Five years ago...

Bill headed back into Malfoy Manor and found Fleur sitting in one of the many drawing rooms. She was actually using it for its named purpose, drawing. She had an easel set up, a host of colored quills, pencils, and pens beside her, and Lukas napping contently in a carrier by her feet.

"The children get off to school?" she asked, looking up from her work.

"All safe and sound," said Bill. "Well, Draco had some business to do, but it's not like his schoolwork will suffer for missing another day." He walked over to her side and laid a quick kiss on her lips. He let out a bit of sigh, content in the quiet that followed the absence of a multitude of teenagers, and then considered her sketch. It was a dress in purple, but beyond that, Bill couldn't say if it was an evening gown or a day dress. Fashion was not his strong suit.

"How long shall we stay, do you think?" Fleur asked.

"It is tempting to stay a while, isn't it?" Bill asked, taking the seat next to her and considering the room. He wondered if it would be possible to get used to such luxury, or if he would forever be surprised and pleased by it.

"I understand Draco is letting the Order use his home, but it feels… intrusive to stay while he is away."

"Agreed," said Bill. "I think my folks are planning on heading back to Grimmauld Place shortly. And we should probably see about our flat. I don't want to move back until it has a few more wards on it though."

Fleur sighed a little. "You are never happy with our wards."

"Curse breaker," Bill said. "Habit of the trade."

"Just because you can get through wards, does not mean everyone else can." Fleur picked up her pen and added some sort of bow to the dress. She considered the addition with a frown. Bill leaned in to kiss the frown away, but she pushed him back. "I have work."

Bill laughed a little, but stood to leave. "I'll find Mum. See what she says about packing. Maybe we'll hang out until tomorrow, in case Draco stops by after he's finished with whatever business he had."

Fleur nodded in agreement. Bill took a moment to kneel by his son, and stroke his cheek, but apart from rooting a little in his sleep, the baby didn't wake. Bill stood, and nearly stumbled over Tolly when the elf appeared with a small pop.

"A message for Mister William Weasley," he said, presenting a silver platter. A letter was sitting directly center on the polished surface. His name was on the front of the letter. It was Draco's handwriting.

"Thank you," said Bill.

The house elf disappeared again. Bill quickly unsealed the letter and began to read, a frown forming on his face as he read the contents.

Bill –

I'm writing to inform you that I'll be gone for a while. I can't tell you why I'm leaving, or where I'm going. Suffice it to say, it's important. And I would tell you if I could.

I haven't told anyone else that I'm leaving. Except for Potter. But he doesn't know the particulars either. He told me that I should write a letter – that you deserve that much. I suppose he's right. He's better at the 'friend' thing.

I don't know how long I'll be away. I'm hoping no more than a year. It might take two. Possibly it could take three. If it takes longer than that… well, either my work is getting the best of me, or something went wrong. I don't intend for things to go wrong, so I'm not about to turn this into a farewell or 'last wishes' type of drivel, which is better suited for melodramas. I just wanted to let you know that I was gone. And that I will miss your company.

Your friend,

Draco

p.s. I'm naming you temporary guardian for Malfoy Manor. Don't go too wild.

Bill re-read the letter, slower this time. Fleur put down her pencil.

"William?"

Bill shook his head, pulling his eyes from the letter onto his wife. "So… we might be staying a while," he said, and handed the letter over for her to read.

OoOoOoOo

Present Day...

Draco made a cup of coffee. Instant coffee. It was gross, to be sure, but it was quick and easy and he could make it as strong as he wanted. He grabbed some too-sweet coffee creamer from the fridge, because it was the only way the drink the foul-tasting stuff, and snagged a piece of cold pizza as well. He stuck the slice between his teeth while he stirred his coffee from black to pale beige.

He grabbed a paper towel to use as a plate, and then brought his dinner back to the table. Bill was watching him with something akin to revulsion on his face. Draco ignored him. He'd offered Bill a cup of coffee, but when Bill had seen the can of instant, he'd declined.

Draco took a bite of pizza, washed it down with the coffee, and said, "So, magic exists, but hidden from the 'Muggle' world, and right now there's a war going on in England and apparently I left for some unknown reason that should hopefully turn the tide of battle?"

"Yes," said Bill.

"And this 'Chosen One'-,"

"Harry Potter," Bill filled in.

Draco rolled his eyes a little – because he remembered the name, thank you very much – he was just using the title to show ridiculous this was, "is prophesized to destroy 'the Dark Lord'-,"

"Voldemort," Bill said.

Draco rolled his eyes again. Same concept. "But, you haven't, I don't know – just stuck them in a boxing ring together, maybe an MMA cage, and let them duke it out?"

Bill looked a thrown by the slang. "I think I know what you're asking. But yes – or rather, no. When Harry and Voldemort have faced each other in battle, it's… it's like a stalemate. Neither of them have been able to kill each other."

"And you think that's what I was working on," said Draco. "Finding a way that they can kill each other?"

"I think you knew about this problem before we even started," said Bill.

"And you think the code can help?"

"That's my guess."

"Okay," said Draco. He was pretty sure he'd wrapped his head around the gist of the story. "You want to see the code?"

Bill nodded, emphatically. "Yes."

Draco took his coffee mug and pizza with him. He led Bill into the bedroom that he had turned into an office. There were papers everywhere. Some crumpled on the floor, some in stacks, some tacked to the walls. There were books as well, language books and reference books and archaic scrolls, and a great deal of math books – primarily focused on statistics and algorithms.

The only neat area of the room was the desk, and that was only because everything that had been on the desk had been swept off to leave room for one journal.

It was a tattered journal now, but the cover was a good-quality of leather that had held together, and the paper was thick enough not to tear. It was stuffed full of pages ripped from other notebooks and notes scribbled on napkins and old receipts.

"That's Harry's Parseltongue journal," Bill said.

"Sorry, a what?" Draco asked around a mouthful of pizza.

Bill blinked at him, like he was more startled at his bad manners than the fact that Draco didn't know what the journal was. Draco shrugged. He was a young male, living alone. What did he expect?

Bill stepped forward and opened up the journal. Draco had perfect recall, so he knew what Bill was looking at on the first page. Even if he hadn't had perfect recall, he'd stared at the instructions long enough to have them ingrained in his mind.

"Your name is Draco. When you read this, you will not know who you are. You will not know who your family is. You will not know where you're from, or where you are going. And I can't tell you what happened or why this was necessary.

"Understand that this was the absolute last option available. If you want to remember who you are, if you want to remember anything, then you must decipher the code.

"But you aren't safe. Not completely. There will be people who want to code – who want you. Keep this book. It will protect you. This book is the only thing that will stay with you, so use it wisely.

"Trust only William Arthur Weasley. He is a friend."

Bill looked up from the book. His face was pale and he looked shaken. "Draco," he said, and then stopped, like he wasn't sure what to say.

Draco shrugged. "It took a while to realize that every couple of months I'd wake up in a different city, and that the book was the only thing that traveled with me. I had to keep all of my notes in it, all the work I'd done, or I'd lose it."

He finished his pizza, and then drained his coffee mug. "I kept a few notes for myself in the back, just things I learned."

Bill flipped to the back pages, and again, Draco knew what he was looking at, hastily jotted sentences, or sometimes cautiously written lines of inferences he'd made about himself.

"I'm in Boston. I don't think I've always been here."

"I don't know why I don't remember."

"I have a British accent – maybe I'm British?"

"I'm in Moscow. I think I'm moving – but I don't remember how."

"I'm good with languages."

"I speak very good French. Sometimes I think in French. Am I French?"

"Math comes easily to me."

"I remember everything."

"I'm in Quebec now."

"I think I might be a genius – or narcissistic for thinking that if it's not true."

"I'm definitely a genius."

"I can't remember anything before this. I don't even know if I have a family."

"I don't know if anyone's looking for me."

Bill closed the book. "We didn't look for you – not at first."

Draco frowned. "What do you mean?"

"You told us you were going away for a little while, and that it was necessary. Well, you told us in a letter, one for me, and one for Ginny."

Draco stood up a little straighter. "Ginny?" He fished a necklace out of his shirt. It was long enough to pull over his head. The chain was simple silver, and the ring that was hung on it was plain as well, but it was made out of platinum. He handed it over to Bill, who tipped it to read the inscription inside, just one word, 'Ginny'.

"What's it short for?" Draco asked. "Virginia? Regina? Ginnifer?"

"Ginevra," Bill corrected.

Draco screwed his face up slightly, because that was not a name he'd ever considered. "Ginevra," he repeated. He waited for the word to strike something in him, to bring some memory into focus, but nothing happened. He shook his head. "Are we married?"

Bill spluttered a little. "Married?"

Draco narrowed his eyes slightly. That was a bit of an over-reaction from the red-haired man, wasn't it? He shrugged. "It looks like a wedding ring."

Bill opened his mouth to say something, then closed it, and his face turned a little red. Draco laughed, pinning his odd response then. "Don't tell me," he said. "She must be your sister."

"My baby sister," said Bill. "You'd better not be married – sixteen! She was sixteen when you left, Draco!"

Draco raised his hands in a placating gesture. "I have no idea what happened. Just asking. You have a problem with us, or something?"

"No," said Bill. "Just…,"

Draco shook his head. "Whatever, so the journal? You going to tell me what it is, and why it's so important that I spent five years of my life, with no memories, working on it, and no one bothered looking for me?"

"We did look for you," Bill corrected. "Just not at first." He sighed a little, and rubbed his face. "Look, you know you're a genius."

"Yes."

"Well, you often got it in your head to do things, sometimes crazy things, and you were seventeen, and an adult -,"

"Wait – what?"

"Seventeen's an adult in the wizarding world," Bill explained. "So, when you left, we couldn't really do much about it." He sighed a little. "And in your letter, you said it might take a couple of years, maybe even three years. And so it took us a while to get nervous. Towards the middle of the third year, we started sending out searchers, tried tracking you, and tried getting help from the Ministry. Kingsley's still in office, and he helped some… but then, things got bad."

That was an ominous line.

"What things?" Draco asked.

"We lost Grimmauld Place as headquarters," said Bill. "And then we started losing people. Remus was the first - or nearly so. He's still in the incurable ward."

Draco didn't know who Remus was. Or what Grimmauld Place was, but it was obvious Bill was shaken.

"And then… then was the battle for Hogwarts. We lost Dumbledore in that battle, and after losing him… we couldn't hold onto Hogwarts, either." Bill shook his head. "And then, it was like the tide turned. We lost Wizengamots – well, it shut itself up after the Death Eaters attacked, and half of St. Mungo's was destroyed. We lost people too. Ted and Andromeda. McGonagall. And then when the coup was attempted…," Bill stopped. He blinked and cleared his throat. "We lost the Ministry building, and nearly the Ministry itself, and during the attack, we lost Charlie."

Bill turned away, and scrubbed a hand over his eyes.

Draco waited for a moment, not knowing what to say, but feeling somewhat awkward in the knowledge that he should know what it meant, that he should feel something. But he didn't.

"I don't know what any of that means," he said. Bill turned back, something hurt in his expression even though his eyes were understanding. Draco shrugged. "I don't know who those people are, or what those places are."

Bill stepped forward to clap a hand on his shoulder. "I know. Maybe that's why… maybe that's why I'm telling you this now."

"Charlie," said Draco. "He's a family member of yours?" He had to be, with the way Bill reacted.

Bill nodded. "He was second oldest, after me. None of us… well, after Percy left home… it feels like we've been cut in half somehow. We used to be such a big family, and now, we're pretty close to average. It feels… smaller." He shook his head. "But all of us have lost someone by now."

Draco wanted to ask, 'What about me? Have I lost anyone?' but Bill hadn't talked about his family, and Draco was pretty sure he could guess what that meant.

"So – the code," he said, redirected the conversation. "What's it for? How does it work?"

Bill hesitated.

Draco realized what the hesitation meant. "Are you shitting me?"

OoOoOoOo

Draco swore. "Are you shitting me?"

He was indignant. Bill would be too, if he'd just wiped his memories and spent five years of his life deciphering a code, only to find out no one knew what it meant.

"You didn't even tell us why you were leaving," Bill said, trying to make Draco understand why he was so flummoxed. Draco liked keeping secrets, and he wasn't always good at communicating what he was doing, or why he was doing it. "And I didn't even know what you were working on until now."

"But you recognized it," said Draco.

Bill nodded and picked the journal up. "Harry gave you this, as a bit of a 'thank you' after you saved the life of his godfather. It's a Parseltongue journal, the language of the snakes. You're the only person cocky enough to think you can learn it, instead of being born with the ability to speak it."

Draco rolled his eyes. "Okay, is it a magical world you live in, or is it Disney? Talking animals, now? Really?"

"Just snakes," said Bill. "And not all of them."

And now Draco looked downright testy. "Are there actual rules in this universe of yours, or are you just making it up as you go along?"

Bill couldn't help but laugh a little, because that was very much the Draco he knew. Draco narrowed his gaze, looking offended at his laughter, and that was very much Draco as well.

"Sorry," said Bill. "It's just… you sound a lot like yourself right now."

Draco muttered something under his breath, but Bill ignored him in favor of flipping through the journal.

"No wonder you fried your computers," he mused. "Magic and technology don't get along – but this… this is really old magic here. This is…," he stopped, because the end of the code – he remembered those symbols. He'd studied those symbols, and so had every curse breaker since the 1600s. "Draco, do you know what you did?"

Draco spread his palms. "Not a fucking clue. Memory loss, remember?"

Bill disregarded the irritation in his voice. "You decoded the Merlin tomb. The Merlin tomb. It's… it's gone unsolved since it was first discovered, and you… you realized it was Parseltongue. The language of the snakes. They had a written language!"

"That's just stupid," said Draco, crossing his arms. "They don't even have hands; how can they write?"

Bill jumped forward, ignoring the way Draco stiffed, and pulled him into a crushing hug. "This is amazing! Draco – I can't even fathom how you did this – this is astounding."

Draco sighed a little, and Bill stepped back quickly. "Sorry. You and your personal space issues."

"I have personal space issues?"

"You can be a little… prickly," Bill said. "But seriously, this is the discovery of the century!"

"Great, cool, awesome," said Draco, and he sounded anything but excited. "But now that you know what it is, do you know what it's for?"

Bill looked at the notebook, looked at Draco, then back at the notebooks. He shook his head. "I still don't know what it's for."

Draco threw up his hands in exasperation. "Is there anything you do know?"

He was frustrated, and angry. And again, Bill completely understood that. So he closed the journal and said, "Your name is Draco Lucius Malfoy."

That caught Draco's attention. He looked at Bill.

"You're twenty-two years old as of June," Bill continued. "You're a genius with perfect recall, you play piano, you're something of a know-it-all, and you saved my life in your sixth year at Hogwarts."

Draco leaned back against the door frame, looking a little less annoyed.

"We're going to figure this out," Bill promised.

OoOoOoO

So - a few questions answered about what happened during those five years, and a whole lot more questions to go. Please leave a review!