The Weasley twins stared at Draco Malfoy, dumbfounded. He knew them, knew who they were, knew them by last name. But only a day ago he had not. Something had changed in him, just as it had changed in them two years prior, before they had gotten their own memories back.
Wordlessly and without debate or snide remark, the three men sat down at a table in the lobby. It didn't matter that the twins and Draco had grown up hating each other, that the twins had each felt anger boiling in the pits of their stomachs as they saw their sister for the first time in more than a decade, with him. Married to him. This was bigger than that - so much bigger - and they didn't have a choice but to cooperate with one another.
They were, after all, family.
Draco was conscious of the fact that Ginny was alone in the car with the kids, and he felt guilty about leaving them there, but she couldn't know what he was doing. When he had kissed her in the car, everything had become clear. He could remember everything - their life, their love, their happiness - but what stood out the most frightened him, chilled him to the bone. He recalled what the woman he now realized was Luna Lovegood had told them. They were all in great danger, and the fact that he had gotten his memory back could only make things worse.
Once you remember, you can't go back. You'll know, and you won't be able to fix it.
"So what did it for you?" Fred asked Draco, breaking the latter from his reverie.
"I beg your pardon?" Draco responded, honestly not understanding the question.
George smiled kindly, a gesture which felt quite strange when directed at Malfoy. "He wants to know what made you remember who you are," he clarified. "For us, it happened pretty quickly once we found each other."
Draco's face suddenly felt hot. When his memory came back, he was having sex with their sister. Even if the two nimwits could have deduced for themselves that he and Ginny had shagged before, something about it felt private, inappropriate.
"I was with Ginny," he stated simply.
This answer did not do much to satisfy either man's curiosity. Simultaneously, the twins' eyebrows all disappeared into their respective hairlines.
The blond cleared his throat. "We were fighting," he said. "And then we talked about it, and then we made up."
Fred did not look convinced. His face scrunched up. "Don't you two ever fight? I'd have thought with Ginny's temper the two of you would barely ever have a quiet moment..."
Draco clammed up slightly, knowing well enough that discussing one's marital problems so openly was rather impolite and unseemly. "We have had our share, I suppose."
"So what was different about the fight?" George asked, unwilling to let the matter go.
The blond could feel his calm front wearing thin. "It was a big fight," he said through gritted teeth.
And then Fred went on. "But there was nothing that happened that made this one different?"
Draco sighed impatiently. "Look… I don't know what this has got to do with anything. The fact of the matter is, I had no memory before, but now I do. Ginny still thinks she is a bloody Muggle, and I have a son who recently blew up one of the windows in my car with his untamed magic, which means it won't be long before I'm going to have to figure out a way to explain to my wife that our son is a wizard."
The corner of George's lip flitted upwards into a smirk. "Your wife," he said, as if rolling around the words on the tip of his tongue. "Who would have ever thought Ginny would have been the one to turn you back."
Now it was Draco's turn to be utterly clueless. "She what now?"
"Turned you back," George answered.
"Made you Malfoy again," Fred added.
"What I don't get though, Malfoy," the first twin continued, "is why it took so long for you. I mean, if our little nephew is developing his magic, he's got to be near ten years old, yeah? So you must have found Gin at least ten or eleven years ago."
Draco nodded. "That's right. In Iowa, we met in a bar, not too long after our memories were taken."
"When George and I found each other, it only took a second for us to remember who we were," Fred said. "We have been trying to research the curse that affected us. The closest we've come to something that makes any sense was a very dark spell, which would make sense given what has been going on across the pond for all these years."
"The curse, basically, takes away your magic as a punishment," George went on. "Because magic is supposed to be what makes us all special. It's why we were spared, right? We're all purebloods."
"But the punishment can broken, see?" the other twin interjected. "That's why the two of us know who we are and you know who you are."
"And Loony Lovegood knows who she is…" Draco supplied.
George cracked a smile at this, but it only lasted a moment. "Obviously the spell didn't wear off with time. You and Gin and the rest of us were all cursed together. If it had worn off, she would be fine. There has to be something. A trigger, if you will."
"And for you two, it was… it was finding each other?" Draco asked.
They both nodded in unison.
Draco leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest as he tried to wrap his brain around all of this. The Weasley twins had found each other, and it had taken no time for them to get their memories back. Even though it had taken twelve years, Ginny was the one to trigger his memory. But if Ginny had been the key to his memory, why had it taken so long for him? And why hadn't it worked for her? Fred and George finding each other and suddenly remembering their lives couldn't have been the complete story.
All he could think about was helping Ginny - helping her, getting her memory back, making her whole again, even if it might mean more danger. It was killing him, shredding him apart from the inside out, that she was not herself, and she would be far less helpless if she weren't fighting blindly. He hated the thought of anything ever happening to her. It had taken him years of struggling and compromise - even infidelity - before he had come to this point, but he knew right then that he would rather die a thousand horrific deaths than to think for one moment that she may be in pain. She was, aside from his children, the most important person in his life.
And then it came to him.
Maybe that was the difference.
"I have a theory," Draco announced. "Can the two of you skive off?"
The twins grinned simultaneously. "Can we ever," they proclaimed unanimously.
The garden wasn't nearly as beautiful as it had once been. Her mother, though still just as wonderful of a homemaker as ever, had had more things to focus on of late, and the garden had been pushed to the side as a result.
She sat on the porch swing facing the house, her knees pulled up against her chest, hugging herself protectively. It was a cool autumn afternoon, and she had so many thoughts rushing through her mind. The level of noise going on inside was deafening to her, and all she wanted to do was to take a moment to breathe and to think.
A raven-haired man with the greenest eyes she had ever seen sat beside her on the swing, startling her. She had been so lost in her own world that she had not noticed him coming out the back door. Her eyes met his, and on his face was a smile so sincere that it made her heart ache.
"It was getting a bit loud in there," he said to her, resting his arm around her shoulders.
"Tell me about it," she answered with a grin.
They remained in silence, her head laying gently against his arm, seeking comfort from the man she loved, despite the tension coursing through her entire body.
He kissed the top of her head, running his long fingers through her brilliant red hair. "I know there's something going on with you," he said quietly, his lips very close to her ear. "I know there's something you don't want to tell me."
She blanched. "No, it's - it's nothing," she said, putting on her most convincing smile. "I promise, nothing's wrong."
He let his fingers trail down over her arms, his fingernails barely grazing her skin. "Gin, you know you can't lie to me. Ever since we… we… well, you know…. You have been avoiding me. It's been ages since we've talked or been alone together."
Her body stiffened. He wasn't stupid; he had obviously noticed the change in her behavior, but she couldn't tell him the truth. She couldn't. "Harry, I swear to you, I'm not avoiding you." She tried so desperately to mean it. "It's just that there's so much going on lately, with You-Know-Who, with everything…. I'm just distracted is all. But it's got nothing to do with you, all right? You haven't done anything to upset me."
His smile did not quite reach his eyes, but he nodded, knowing well enough that he would have to let this go for now. "Okay." He kissed the top of her head. "I'm going to go find Ron and Hermione."
She watched him go, her smile fading as soon as he stepped through the door back into the house. Her hands instinctively wrapped around her middle.
A single tear slid it's way down her cheek. Nothing would ever be the same again.
Four weeks went by, and there was still no sign of Drew.
Gwen woke at quarter past four in the morning, her head pounding and her stomach was agitated. The nausea she had experienced nearly every day since her husband had left was getting to her, the stress was unbearable. But she would persevere, as always, because she had to, because her children depended on it.
Or at least her daughter did.
Jeremy had grown up quite a bit in his father's absence. He had always helped out with caring for his sister, but he had begun to take on more and more responsibility. He made sure that their hotel room remained clean, that Jill went to bed on time, and he was always there to wipe away his mother's tears when he would wake to find her crying. He was far too mature for his age, and it broke Gwen's heart to know that she was to blame for him growing up so fast.
Jill, on the other hand, had retreated into herself completely. For the first week, every morning she would cry because Drew wasn't there. But once she realized for herself that he was gone, she stopped showing any emotion at all, barely ever speaking to her mother or her brother. The once vibrant, fiery little girl had become a shell, and it took constant battling from Gwen and Jeremy to even get her to have dinner a few times a week.
Gwen wasn't sure which of her children had taken it worse, but what she did know was that she had tried her very best to move on with her own life. After day three, she had gone to the hotel manager and begged for him to let her stay longer, even though she couldn't afford it. The twins had disappeared the same day that Drew had - a detail that did not slip by her in the slightest - and so the manager had agreed to let her stay in the room free of charge if she could take their front desk shifts. When he told her that the early morning rotation even offered child care, she realized that there was no way she could turn it down.
So she had moved on - or at least she had pretended to. She had tried as hard as she could to forget him, tried to help her children deal with it as best she could, but there was only so much she could do. She was only one person, and she had only had four weeks to learn to be a single mother. She liked to think that things were starting to become easier to deal with, but she wasn't fooling anyone. Least of all her children.
All she had to help her cope were the memories that were slowly coming back to her in her dreams.
The sky was pitch black.
The tower was tall, and she wasn't afraid of sitting on the ledge, her legs dangling dangerously over the side. She wasn't afraid of anything anymore.
Down below she could see the marvelous grounds that surrounded the ancient castle, the spectacular view allowing her to pretend that there was still something left to live for. She could imagine, if she closed off her heart and tapped into her imagination, that she was a princess, living in a land far away. This could be her kingdom. Her life could be so much simpler.
But it wasn't.
So much had happened, so many had died. She was awake in the middle of the night, trying to indulge in her own fantasies because that was all she had left.
She heard the door opening behind her. Slowly, she turned around to see who had disturbed her. She was irritated to see who it was.
"What are you doing here?" she asked, her voice cold.
His eyes remained impassive, blank. "Same as you, I'd guess."
"Doubtful," she spat. "I'm trying to get away from all the death and destruction and war, and you… well you're just reveling in it, aren't you?"
He barely even flinched. "You don't know anything about me."
Her eyes narrowed into thin, serpent-like slits. "I know plenty. I know everything you've shown about yourself for as long as we have been classmates. I know you're an awful, irredeemable, horrible monster."
"And you're a righteous, know-it-all cow, but I'm not really one for name-calling."
"Since when?" she asked sardonically, her voice still just as angry.
"Since I grew up," he answered, the words slipping from his tongue before he could stop them. "Since I had to to survive." And after a breath he added, "You're lucky you haven't had to."
She swung her legs over from the ledge of the tower and got up, immediately taking several menacing steps toward the man who was causing her so much irritation. "You cost my brother his life. You hurt countless others. You have never been a decent human being, and you have not grown up. Grown ups aren't reckless and irresponsible, and you haven't got even a shred of decency in you. How dare you act like you're superior to me in any way. You aren't."
But his expression remained vacant. "You're right, Weasley," he said emotionlessly. "I've done a lot of bad things. But not because I wanted to. I did what I had to to make sure I woke up each morning, to make sure my actions weren't used against my family. I'm glad you've never had to make decisions like I've had to. I envy you for being able to stay a kid."
He turned to leave, but she had halted him with her words. "Draco, stop. Wait."
He turned towards her, their gazes locking.
A chill ran through her, and her heart ached as she looked into his cold, vacant eyes. Something within her stirred - recognition. Recognition of someone like her who had to mature too quickly, who had far too much to lose, who had no one to turn to, who had no where to run and who was instead forced to deal with what life had thrown in their face on their own. She hated feeling so close to the enemy of her best friends - of her lover - but she somehow felt more relaxed around him than she had around her own boyfriend for the last several weeks.
"I'm sorry for what you've had to go through," she said, choosing her words carefully. "I know how awful it feels to have your life be completely out of your control."
"You're right, Ginny," he said, his voice so low and hoarse that she could barely hear him. "It is awful."