Plot is mine. All else is property of J.K. "Muggle Bling" Rowling.

Part Three: Memories

Draco woke alone in an unfamiliar room. It was, he guessed late morning, or maybe afternoon-around 2 PM. He groaned, rubbing his temples, and tried to remember what had happened. For a euphoric moment, he thought he was home again, sleeping in his own bed. His mother would come in with a breakfast tray-one she hadn't made, of course, she was a terrible cook and they had a maid for such things now that Dobby was gone-but his mother would bring the tray and begin to chat about what, exactly, had happened last night. He indulged the fantasy; she would be beaming and graceful, and open his curtains. He would groan perfunctorily, and she would tease him gently about his odd sleeping habits. She would sit down next to his bed and stroke his hair for a moment and smile that smile that made her look foolish, the smile that opened her face to him as wide as the moon, the smile that told Draco that she loved him very much.

He closed his eyes and kept the shimmering picture in his mind to the exclusion of the rest of the world.

There was the sound of rustling cloth, and an Invisibility cloak met the floor. "Er . . . Malfoy?"

Draco's eyes snapped open, and he fumbled for his wand. "Potter!" he gasped. His eyes narrowed, and he crouched defensively on the bed. "What are you doing in my house?"

Harry snorted. "I should ask that of you. Look around. This is my room."

Draco glanced around and saw nothing of his own. Instead, he saw an owl cage, and a snowy owl-Potter's snowy owl, Hedwidgeon or some idiotic name-perching on the bedpost. "Fine. Not my house." He didn't move from his crouch. The events of the past few days hovered at the edge of his perception, but he pushed them away.

Harry sighed and scratched his head. "Well, er, it's complicated, and it would be better if Snape were here to explain, but I'll have to do. You're . . . ah . . . going to be me."

The past few months came flooding back. Memories of Hogwarts crept through his mind. The opal necklace, the poison . . . Dumbledore. Running with Snape across a cold field and Disapparating . . .

Harry looked on as Draco's face melted from threatened to afraid. "Draco?" Harry asked cautiously. "What . . . happened?"
"You mean after I killed your precious father figure, Dumbledore?" Draco said scathingly.

Harry would have been annoyed, or laughed, at any other time, but he understood somehow that this was not a place where either was appropriate. Malfoy was delicate, at the moment, and valuable information could be coaxed out. He felt, for a second, as if he had taken Felix again. Harry replied quietly, "You didn't, though. I was in his office, invisible and paralyzed. I saw everything."

Draco flushed, his pale complexion flooding with blood. "Well, then, you understand why I'm on the run, then, don't you?"

Harry measured his words with care. "I understand why you're on the run. I'm going to help you." He paused and watched Malfoy's tension slacken slightly. "But I'd like to know what's happened in the past few weeks. Where's Snape been taking you? What have you been doing?"

Draco sneered, again on the defense. "Not your business, Potter."

Harry removed the Pensieve from the bedside table with care. "You're going to go into my memories, Draco. Some of them my most cherished thoughts." He swirled the bowl and Ginny's face rose to the surface. "Some of them are very private." The tip of Voldemort's wand, and his mother and father climbing out, falling to the ground. Sirius, falling through a curtain. Harry looked up, face slightly tinged with pain. "You're going to know everything about me, Draco. I don't think knowing this about you is asking too much."

Draco appeared at a loss. "It is," he snapped, and snatched the Pensive out of Harry's hands. Draco shoved a hand into the diaphonous surface of the memories, and stood still. He was sucked into the bowl through his hand, pulled, and it came to rest on the bed with a soft thump. It was like watching someone Disapparate.

Harry sighed. Now all he could do is wait. To pass the time, Harry picked up the book he had been reading while Draco slept. Hermione had sent him home with a number of books on dueling and combat. As tempted as Harry was to get some practical training on Dudley, he knew it would be imprudent. This summer, however, Dudley and the Dursleys left Harry alone. Petunia even left plates from meals covered in the fridge, labelled with a note in her spiky script: Harry. Dudley didn't even try to pick at the plates. That much fear was a pleasant power to hold over the boy who had tortured him almost all of his life. Still, it was lonely, since owls were not as safe as they used to be, and Harry feared for Hedwig. She had taken to tearing out some of her leg feathers recently, out of stress and, Harry was sure, a certain degree of neglect on his part. She would be staying with Malfoy now, and who knew what that boy would do to her out of revenge for all the perceived slights he had given to Malfoy-and actual slights, Harry thought with shame, remembering Draco trembling, covered in blood, on the bathroom floor. With any luck, they could forge some sort of bond-friendship, he knew, was asking a bit much on such short notice-but a bond that could entice him to help. Hermione and Ron could not possibly be persuaded to not pursue the Horcruxes, Harry mused, that much was certain, and insisting against it would only make them suspicious. Draco would simply have to tag along in lieu of himself.

So now Harry sat, flipping idly through a book he had already read twice and still not understood. After Dumbledore's death, Harry had barely been able to sleep for a week and, instead of lying in bed, staring at his ceiling-which was his custom with insomnia-he instead read the books and practiced his nonverbal spells. He had the Summoning and Banishing charms, among other simple spells, down almost perfectly nonverbal; his aim was sometimes off, but mostly, he hit his mark. With a smile, he recalled Flitwick's class, where he and Ron had had such trouble learning the verbal spell. Harry was now quite taller, broader across the chest, and had lived through more than most wizards had ever seen. His name was appropriate. "The Boy Who Lived," indeed. The words of the prophecy chilled him, though: Neithershalllivewhiletheothersurvives . . . but the Boy who was Barely Getting By didn't have the same ring to it.

Draco's return was heralded by a gasp, and a pant, and Harry was woken from his brooding.

"Potter-" Draco stuttered out, gazing at the Pensieve in a mixture of horror and awe. "Potter . . . your . . . Sirius- And your parents!" Draco shuddered. "That Basilisk!"

Apparently Harry hadn't managed to exclude all of his-what had Snape called them?-adventures. They were an integral part of who he was, though. They couldn't be ignored just because Snape disliked them.

"So," Harry said colloquially. "Hungry?"

"What?" Draco said, looking dumbfounded.

"We can talk while we eat," Harry said, rising. He went for the door and considered for a moment-Dudley would be out and about with this friends; Petunia would be elsewhere as well, and Vernon would be at work. It was safe, and Harry had set an Intruder Charm on the door to tell him if anyone returned early. "Come on."

Draco stood, smoothing his rumpled robes, leaving the Pensieve. Draco followed, mute, into the kitchen, and Harry cracked some eggs and laid some bacon in a pan. While the food sizzled, Draco spoke up.

"Harry," he muttered. "I didn't know. I never would have . . ." He gripped his forearm, where Harry knew the Dark Mark to be burned into his skin. "I . . . I didn't want to hurt anyone."

Though a small, vindictive voice in him that sounded rather like Sirius wanted to pipe up and chastise Malfoy, Harry's better judgement interfered. "I know. It wasn't about you. Your family."

"Yeah," Draco said, looking at the table, voice low. "My family." He took a deep breath. "Well, that's all shot to hell," Draco muttered, running a hand through his hair. "My dad's in Azkaban, and my mum . . ." A certain degree of cruelty entered his voice, a cruelty that Harry suddenly recognized as a defense mechanism. "You wouldn't understand, Potter. You never had a mother."

Harry slid the food onto two plates before answering. "Everyone has a mother, Malfoy. Even Voldemort." Harry placed bread in the toaster.

Draco winced at the name. "I doubt that."

"You shouldn't." Harry explained succintly what Dumbledore had shown him in the Pensieve, including the Horcruxes. Malfoy listened, rapt, but devouring his food hungrily. They were both finished by the time Harry was through explaining. "And that's what we have to do-find and destroy the remaining Horcruxes."

Draco shook his head. "If that potion weakened Dumbledore that much, who knows what's in the other hiding places? You'll never manage it."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "I thought you hated Dumbledore."

"I can respect that he's a powerful wizard. If V . . . You-know-who is afraid of him, then you should respect him." Draco shook his head. "I thought . . ."

Harry waited.

Draco looked up, and appeared to have made a decision. "I thought I was choosing the right side. The powerful side, you know? The side that could keep me and everyone I cared about safe. My Dad told me so, and when he went to Azkaban, I wanted to . . . I had to protect my mum." He let out a slow breath and spoke to himself, hatred in his voice. "Didn't manage that too well, now did you, Draco?" He laughed humorlessly.

"After you left Hogwarts," Harry nudged softly, carefully, trying not to make Draco throw his walls up again. "What happened?"

"I . . . I Disapparated. Back home," Draco said, toying with a crust of toast on his plate. "Found my mum and told her what happened, but she didn't care, she was just happy I was alive. We started packing. I didn't even know where we were going to go, but she insisted . . . 'We have to bring these things, Draco,' she said. 'These are our family heritage. These are what is important.' So . . . we packed. And before we got a chance to leave-" Draco shuddered. "They came. Dementors . . . more dementors than I've ever seen. There's this horrible hollow feeling you get . . . "

"Like you're sinking and never going to breathe again," Harry said, his voice low, toying with egg.

Draco swallowed and noded. He kept cutting his piece of egg into smaller and smaller bits. "Potter, I thought of you, and your stupid Patronus. I tried to do it, but I . . . I couldn't make one. I tried attacking, even, but they didn't care. They reached right through the Shield charm and . . . took my mum." He drew in a shaking breath. Draco saw it all too vividly; his mother, in the embrace of a Dementor, leaning in. She turned her face to Draco and whispered, "Run, Draco. I love you." Draco turned, and the Dementors were closing in . . . "They performed the Kiss." Draco took a deep breath. "And I ran."

Dumbledore's promise returned to Harry. EvenifIsaytorunandsaveyourself, youwillobey . . . "Sometimes," Harry said, "Running is the bravest thing you can do." After a moment, he added, "And I'll teach you how to do a Patronus, if you like."

For the first time Harry had ever seen, Draco Malfoy was smiling-not in sadistic glee, or smirking in delight, but actually smiling. That must be the smile he gives to his mother, Harry though. Gave to his mother.

"Thanks, Potter."