Author's Note: This is more the length I'm expecting for each chapter. As always, all credit goes to JKR for her wonderful world!

Chapter 1

Draco stretched his arms above his head as sunlight poured through the window on the opposite wall. His eyes still closed and his mind still groggy, his fingertips felt his way across the headboard of the bed.

An unfamiliar headboard of an equally unfamiliar bed.

Oh, no, he thought to himself. What did I do this time? Or, more specifically, whom?

He tried to remember the night before. Judging by the pain in his head, he had been out drinking, but he couldn't remember where or with whom. Had he and Greg hit the town? Or was this a business dinner that had gotten wildly out of hand? And whom had he gone home with?

Not daring to open his eyes yet, he struggled in vain to piece together the previous evening's activities.

Next to him, Hermione Granger also awoke, but in a much more peaceful state. She gazed at her husband's befuddled expression and found herself trying not to laugh. Was he trying to remember what day it was? Was his mind already on work? Or was he worried he had missed their anniversary?

She sat up and kissed his cheek. He froze and she leaned back, confused.

"Draco, what's wrong?" she asked.

Draco's eyes flew open and he leapt out of the bed.

"Hermione Granger!" he shouted, wrapping the sheet around him as best he could.

Hermione chuckled nervously, wondering what had gotten into him.

"Yes?" she asked.

"Why am I in your bed?!" he screamed.

"Well last time I checked it was our bed," she responded hesitantly, suddenly worried.

Draco's eyes darted around the room. He looked like a cornered animal.

"What are you talking about? What am I doing here? How did I get here?" he spurted. As he grew increasingly desperate, Hermione found herself reaching for her wand, in spite of her complete faith in her husband.

"Draco, what are you talking about? This is your bed, your bedroom, your house!" she responded, trying to calm him down.

She was met with silence and a confused stare.

"And I'm your wife for heaven's sake!"

Draco backed away from her and reached for a pile of clothing he guessed he had discarded the previous evening. The room was spinning as he tried to take in everything he was seeing and hearing. He found his wand in his pants pocket and spun on the spot, disapparating out of there as quickly as he could.

Hermione jumped up in alarm.

What had just happened?

She raced for the fireplace.

…

Draco stood outside his apartment building, confused. For some reason, he couldn't apparate into his apartment and he was desperate to get home and piece together what had just happened. Fortunately, he realized what was happening while he was traveling and changed course before being splinched. Now, however, he stood outside the building, looking up. Well, he would have to enter through the main door.

He used the main entrance from time to time, especially when coming back from a run, so he wasn't entirely unfamiliar with the protocol. The entry was luckily keyless, so he typed in his code and waited for the door to unlock.

He reached for the handle, but the door stayed put. He typed in his code again, but again no luck. As he tried (and failed) for a third time, a young woman came up behind him with a grocery bag on her hip. He stepped aside for her to enter her code.

"I don't think the door's working," he told her.

But she typed in her code, and the door opened right up. He flashed her a charming smile, portraying far more confidence than he actually felt, and she begrudgingly held the door open for him. He thanked her and headed for the lifts.

He got out at the fifth floor and walked down the hallway to his apartment. When he got there, he pulled out his wand and tapped on the door.

Nothing: it wouldn't budge.

What was going on?

It was probably something to do with the apartment management team, an ever-incompetent group of 3 old wizards who were forever causing him headaches.

He turned to leave and apparate to their main office, when suddenly the oddest thing happened.

He was a few steps down the hall when his apartment door opened – and someone else came out. It was a young man in his mid-twenties, carrying a backpack and sipping from a bottle of water.

Who the hell was in his apartment?! The only other people who had access to his wards were his parents and Greg – and this guy wasn't Greg.

Draco went to confront the man, but caught sight of the interior of the apartment, and realized it wasn't his. The walls were a different color and none of his possessions or furniture were there. Had he gone to the wrong apartment? He looked at the nameplate: 518. That was his!

Now he was beyond confused. It was becoming clear, however, that he was alarming the other apartment residents. The young man who had exited his apartment was staring at Draco and the young woman who had let him in had come upstairs to investigate as well.

Draco quickly ran past them and back out onto the street.

He would go to his office and check with his secretary – maybe the apartment management team had moved him to a different apartment? Even as he thought it, he realized how preposterous the idea was, but he didn't have a more logical alternative at the ready.

…

He apparated to his office, arriving with a sense of relief that something had finally worked.

He sat down in his office chair and rested his head in his hands. He was overwhelmed, confused, and exhausted. He wasn't sure which was more alarming – Hermione Granger claiming to be his wife or a stranger living in what he thought was his apartment.

Wait a minute, this wasn't his chair… who had swapped his chair? He looked up, and noticed other things that were different – a different painting on one wall, a different sofa – had someone been redecorating?

Then, he saw it: a framed photograph of himself and Hermione Granger on his desk. He backed away from the desk, keeping a wary eye on the photograph, wondering how someone could have created such an impressive fake.

Someone had to be playing the world's most epic prank on him, he decided.

He called out to his secretary, but realized that it was Saturday – there was no one else at the office.

He decided to sit at his desk and do some work, hoping that the distraction would calm him down. He looked for the files he had been working on earlier that week, but they weren't where he had left them. He peeked into his desk drawers, but they weren't there either.

This was getting annoying and ridiculous.

What to do now? He sent a quick owl to the apartment management team, explaining the situation and asking if they had any idea what had gone wrong. He told them they could get back to him at his parents' house, and then he stood to travel there.

Now he was traveling with confidence: Malfoy Manor was a place where he would always be welcomed with open arms, where he could get a hot shower, a good meal, and a place to rest while he figured everything out.

…

When he arrived at the manor, the first thing he did was to take a long, hot shower in one of the guest wings, where he knew he wouldn't be disturbed. He felt far more human after that.

He cleaned his clothes with magic and put them back on – he would have preferred a fresh set altogether, but this would have to work until he sorted out exactly what was going on.

He headed down the main hallway, looking for his parents. He expected to find his mother lounging somewhere, reading a book or answering correspondence. His father would most likely be in his study and Draco dreaded the judgmental stare he would get after confessing his previous evening's activities to him. As Draco rounded the corner, however, he found Narcissa frantically running around the house, calling out instructions to house elves and rushing to the fireplace to place floo-calls. He could feel the alarm in the air.

"Have you heard anything yet?" he heard her shout to someone through the flames.

"Nothing yet" came a familiar voice, but Draco couldn't totally place it. Wait a minute, was that Harry Potter? It couldn't be.

"Mother?" he called out.

When Narcissa saw him, she clutched her heart and ran to him.

"Oh Thank God you're ok! I'll just call Harry quickly to tell him you're safe," she told him, turning back to the fireplace.

Draco stopped her.

"Why are you calling Potter? Who is worried about my safety? What's going on?" he asked her, confused.

Narcissa looked at him incredulously.

"You disappeared this morning and Hermione has been terrified for hours! She said you were acting strangely and she couldn't explain why you were asking where you were. Everyone has been out looking for you, with Harry naturally leading the search as the head of the Auror Office," she explained.

"I hook up with a girl for one night and she sends out a huge search party? I always knew Granger was high-strung, but this seems extreme even for her. What is going on?"

"What do you mean 'hook up?' Did you have an affair? Is that what this is all about?" Narcissa asked, now looking suspicious and disappointed.

Draco rolled his eyes. His mother could be such a prude.

"I'm pretty sure you have to be married to have an affair."

"You are married, Draco," Narcissa told him.

"What are you talking about?" Draco asked. "Why is everyone saying that? Who is behind this prank?"

"What prank? You're married to Hermione, Draco," Narcissa answered, with new urgency in her voice.

"Stop saying that!" Draco practically shouted. "I mean, obviously we hooked up last night or something, but I'm not married to that woman!"

"Draco, let's sit down," Narcissa said gently. "Let me call Harry and let's sort this all out."

"Sort what out? I just want to get to my apartment, figure out what's going on with my life, and forget this whole thing ever happened."

"You don't have an apartment, Draco. You're 28 years old, have a beautiful house with an enormous garden, and you're married to Hermione Granger."

Draco didn't know whether to laugh or scream.

"I'm 20, mother – goodness, don't you even know your own son's age? Where's Father – he won't put up with all of this nonsense."

Narcissa's hands flew to her mouth. She looked around, searching for something she could use to show him his error. Finally, she led Draco to a mirror and he realized that it was the first time he had seen his reflection all day – even before and after the shower he had been too distracted to look at himself.

The familiar reflection greeted him, but he instantly noticed changes. His hair was shorter and… was it a touch thinner? Had the stress of the day gotten to him that quickly? But then he noticed the tiny, subtle changes around his face. For the first time all day, he also realized that he did not recognize the shirt and slacks he was wearing.

What was happening?

While he examined himself, Narcissa cautiously moved to the window and sent an urgent patronus to Harry, explaining what had happened.

"What is happening?" Draco asked, with a new tinge of fear in his voice.

"I don't know, Draco, but we're going to sort it out, I promise," Narcissa reassured him.

…

Several hours later, Draco found himself sitting in a room at St. Mungo's waiting to see a doctor. He looked warily around the room. His mother was there – she hadn't left his side since she had initially found him. Hermione and Harry had now joined them as well and Draco was trying not to look at them. He couldn't remember the last time he had been in a room with the two of them – maybe graduation? And now they were all insisting that Granger was his wife? He kept waiting for the big reveal – for Greg or someone to pop into the room and laugh at his absurd day. His mother's face, however, seemed to confirm that this was no joke.

The doctor knocked on the door and returned to the room, carrying a folder with the results of the various tests Draco had been put through for the past hour or so.

"I'll start with the good news first," the doctor announced. "You're basically entirely healthy. Your brain is functioning normally and we have no signs of any kind of mental trauma or stroke."

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief at this news.

"But the bad news is that there's not much I can tell you beyond that," he said to everyone. "It appears that your memories of the past eight years have simply vanished."

"Did someone curse him?" Harry asked.

"That's a possibility," the doctor responded, "Although typically in that case we would be able to detect some trace of a recent trauma. It could honestly be a lingering effect of a curse issued a long time ago – we know that some curses during the Wizarding War were emitted with planned delays, and this could be a consequence of something like that."

"And that would have been right around a decade ago, give or take," Hermione reasoned.

"Draco, can you remember anyone hurling a curse at you during the war that you might not immediately have felt any impact from?" his mother asked.

Draco rolled his eyes.

"Are you serious? Hundreds! It was war!" he responded. Harry and Hermione nodded along with his reasoning.

"Yes, it does seem sort of useless to pinpoint a specific curse – I can remember days when there were so many flying from different sides that it was impossible to even know where they were coming from," Harry recounted.

"And, unfortunately, recognizing the curse's source is not really going to help us," the doctor added. "Because, you see, that's the worst news I have for you: I don't know that this is reversible."

At that announcement, the room fell silent.

These were witches and wizards – they were used to everything being somewhat healable, with even the seemingly worst injuries not turning out to be that serious. Hell, Ron had even survived an attack of strangling brains in the Department of Mysteries, emerging with only a few welts afterwards. How could this be unfixable?

After a tense moment, Hermione spoke up, her voice more hesitant than before.

"I'm not quite sure I'm understanding you – completely irreversible? Like Draco will never remember the last eight years? Our marriage? Our friends? Our… life?" Everyone could hear the heartbreak in her voice. Narcissa reached out for her hand, and the gesture left Draco even more confused. He had missed a lot, apparently.

"Well, we're sort of in uncharted territory," the doctor answered. "It's possible that his memories might come back, but I doubt that it will happen in any sort of controllable magical way. There's no potion or charm we can use, in other words. But if you walk him through familiar places, memories, show him photographs, things like that, you have a chance of something working."

"Well why don't we just get a pensieve out?" Draco asked. "That seems like the easiest solution."

Harry nodded his head.

"Oh, I would extremely discourage that," the doctor said urgently. "At the moment, your mind is in a profoundly fragile state. Seeing yourself in memories that you don't remember could trigger a complete psychotic break. I would even urge you to be careful with photographs – I'd say to wait a couple of days before even looking at them. You want to do this slowly. Think of it like getting into a swimming pool – you want to start with your toes and ease yourself in, rather than jumping right in."

"This whole thing seems like a waste of time," Draco answered. He didn't feel particularly "fragile" and didn't like the doctor implying that he was seconds away from a psychotic break that could be triggered just by looking at a stupid picture or memory. "Why can't we just try the pensieve and if that doesn't work, I can get my apartment back and go back to the life that I know right now."

The room was silent. It occurred to him that the others were just as invested in him getting his memories back as he was – probably more so. That annoyed him, for some reason.

"How long could it take, Doctor?" Hermione asked, choosing to ignore Draco's suggestion.

"If it's going to work, I think you have about a week or two," the doctor answered thoughtfully, rubbing his chin. "I'd say if by the end of 10 days, Draco has recovered no memories of his past, then we are probably out of luck."

Hermione wiped a tear away, refusing to acknowledge it. Narcissa held tightly to her hand.

"What if I don't want to do any of this?" Draco asked. Everyone turned to look at him. "You all seem to be ignoring my wants here – and it's my mind! I was perfectly happy yesterday and I have no interest in being married to this annoying Gryffindor know-it-all. Maybe this whole thing was a blessing disguise and now I can get back to being actually happy. Forget all of this, I'm out of here."

With that announcement, Draco hopped off the bed and walked out. Hermione tried to run after him, but Harry stopped him.

"Give him some time, Hermione. He needs to want this too."

She knew he was right, but she hated watching Draco walk away.

…

The sun was beginning to sink by this point and Draco walked through the park next to St. Mungo's, his hands in his pockets. He kept expecting the world to look totally different, now that he knew it was eight years later, but it honestly didn't. Perhaps there was a new parking lot over to his left, but he couldn't even be sure. It occurred to him that he hadn't paid that much attention to the world around him.

As he walked, he mentally reviewed the day's events and allowed the reality of his situation to settle over him. After ten minutes or so, he sat down on a bench to try to plot his next move.

He could move back to the Manor or stay with Greg while he searched for a new apartment. He could be settled within a week. He could buy new possessions – that wouldn't be a problem. Clearly, he still had his job and, judging by the condition of his office when he was there earlier, he was doing pretty well. With some orienting, he was confident he could step back into it.

So, he could have his 20-year old life at 28. He could pick up as if he'd never lived 8 years and forgotten all of it. He would have a place to live, a job, a mother that he was confident would continue to love and support him no matter what, though he was starting to wonder why he hadn't seen his father that day… he gulped and pushed that out of his mind. Not now, he thought, forcing himself to compartmentalize.

Did he want his 20-year old life again? That seemed to be the most pressing question. He thought about what he had seen of his 28-year old life today: the big, beautiful house, the picture of himself happy with his wife on his desk (and after what the doctor had said, he was happy he hadn't looked at it too closely or for too long), and the affection between his mother and Hermione.

Then, he remembered why he had first thought this morning might have been an after-effect of a night out with Greg. He had been doing that a lot lately. He remembered how hard it was to be in his apartment alone night after night, how even hook-ups left him feeling empty. He remembered how hard he had been working to right the family name and to earn the respect of his colleagues and competitors.

And he thought about Hermione Granger, who he couldn't remember seeing since their graduation ceremony after the conclusion of the war. Surely there was a story there. He wasn't opposed to being married to her because of any sort of blood status issue – he had made a firm decision on that when he turned 17 and joined the Order the day his trace was no longer in place. He had even worked with her a bit on missions towards the end of the war. They hadn't been friends or even acquaintances, really, but he knew they also weren't the enemies they had been in their youth.

Yet she was still Hermione Granger – annoying, infuriating Hermione Granger who always knew everything and made sure you knew it too. Hermione Granger, whose raised hand in class had always caused him to roll his eyes, whose voice grated on him day in and day out, and whose self-righteousness was overwhelming and exhausting. Hermione Granger, with awful hair that could never be tamed, too many freckles for her own good, and a wardrobe that looked like it was selected by his elderly neighbor Mrs. Hopkins.

It was impossible for him to believe they were married.

He finally came to a decision on the bench in the park, and the decision was… to stall before making a decision. He knew a lot about his 20-year old life. He knew its advantages, as well as its drawbacks. Let's learn a little about what I achieved in eight years, he thought, and make the decision down the road.

Having made up his mind to at least try to learn more about the life he had built for himself over the past eight years, he abruptly stood up, took one last look around the park, and apparated to the Manor.

…

When he arrived, he found Hermione, Harry, and Narcissa sitting quietly in the drawing room, a small fire dwindling in the hearth. They all looked up as he entered the room.

"I've made a decision," he announced. "I want to try to get my memories back. I'm not making any promises, though," he stressed, "and if it doesn't work, I'm probably going to back to living on my own. I need you all to understand that. I won't be forced into any relationship, especially not a marriage."

They nodded slowly and he could tell Hermione was blinking back tears.

"I just have one more question, and then I want to pass out for the next twelve to fourteen hours," he said, turning to Narcissa. He didn't really want to know the answer, but he also knew it couldn't wait. He couldn't sleep tonight without knowing.

"Where's Lucius?" he asked.

"Oh Draco," Narcissa responded quietly, "He passed away 4 years ago."

Draco nodded, too exhausted to respond, and headed back to a guestroom. He wanted to sleep somewhere completely free of any memories or associations, where he could be anonymous – a place where he could temporarily avoid thinking about how old he was, what year it was, who he was married to, where he lived, and other details about his life. He felt like he was in limbo between two worlds, without fitting into either one.

Note: Next chapter will hopefully be up next week! And the flashbacks will start in that chapter - get excited!