( The Questioning Mind )

As Harry sat down to unload the product of his morning gatherings, he heard a muffled groan from the lone figure amongst the flattened grass bedding. The green-eyed boy smiled, picking fruit after fruit, vegetable after vegetable, from the fold of his shirt.

'Good morning,' Harry said cheerfully as he inspected a tomato, rolling it over in his palm. 'Sleep well?'

As the blond boy sat up, he groaned again, resting his head on his knees. A few blades of grass had wormed themselves into his pale hair, sticking up in places. Harry had the urge to pick each of them out, one by one.

Just as Harry bit into his tomato, Draco reached up to his shoulder with a hand. 'That was not comfortable,' he grumbled out, pressing his fingertips into muscles for some measure of release from the stiffness.

Harry watched him for a moment, then placed the rest of his foodstuffs onto a flat stone. He walked over, then sat down next to him, batting away Draco's hands and let his own take their place. He rubbed the blond's shoulders deftly.

'Don't worry, you get used to sleeping like this,' Harry said, rubbing circles with his thumbs down his back. 'The stiffness goes away after a good walk.'

Draco tried to straighten his back. 'It better.'

Harry chuckled. 'There. Just rub your legs and arms a bit and you're good to go.'

'Thanks,' Draco murmured, rolling his shoulders back, then forward again repeatedly. He glanced over at the pile of food on the stones. 'When did you get in?'

'Just before you woke up. We hiked up to the garden to get some onions and tomatoes.' Harry grabbed a fruit and proffered it to Draco. 'Hungry?'

'Somewhat,' Draco said, running a hand through his hair. He stared at the grass with distaste. 'Where are the others?'

'Still gathering,' Harry said. 'They'll be down in a while. Here.' He threw a tomato to him.

Draco caught it, then held it with both of his hands on his lap. He stared at it, before looking up at Harry. 'How long have you been here?' he asked quietly.

'Don't know really,' Harry replied, shrugging a shoulder. 'We used to keep track of the days – well, Hermione used too, very tenaciously indeed – but now no one bothers. There's too much to do, too much to find and explore.'

'An estimate then?'

'A few months?' He shrugged again. 'Long enough for us to dig out this place certainly.' Harry gestured around the room. 'And time enough for three or four week long trips in search of civilization.'

Draco nodded once, and did so slowly, his face thoughtful. After he bit into his tomato, chewed and swallowed, he asked, 'Were you the first to come here?'

'Nope, Ginny was.' Harry looked down at his hands. 'That's why she remembers the least . . . it's why she's not governed as much as us by our feelings of a past life.' The boy shook his head. 'Anyway, it was Ron next, then me and finally Hermione.'

Draco opened his mouth to say something, but he stilled when he heard voices and laughter from above, from through the roots of the tree they were sheltered by. He turned his gaze to the entrance, just in time to see a head of bushy curls and a wide toothy smile below it.

'We're going to build a raft!' Hermione exclaimed the moment she saw them. There was such surety in her voice that Draco momentarily felt compelled to comply, not to mention startled.

'Oh no,' came a weary, but amused voice from behind the girl. 'Another one of Hermione's projects. We're doomed.'

Hermione glared at Ron over her shoulder. ' Shush, you.'

Ron put a hand to his mouth and whispered loudly, 'Draco, mate, you'll have to get used to her projects. They are many and they are random and she does not rest.'

Hermione laughed merrily at his side, grinning as she fondly said, 'You idiot.'

A silly grin came onto Ron's face. 'Okay, I concede defeat.' He gave a bow, and a few fruits fell out of his bulging pockets. 'My lady.'

They were laughing when Ginny entered. She dumped her load of onions onto the covered ground, sending the pile a glare before she turned to face them, looking none too pleased. 'Come on, let's go to the river already. I smell like onions.'

Ron sniggered. 'All right, sis. Just stand downwind from us, okay?'

xXx

On their way to the river, they showed Draco a series of paths they had created. After a bewildering set of pointing fingers and confusing mess of voices and instructions, he decided that he'd figure it all out by himself when he got there. Asking questions came with multiple answers that sometimes contradicted each other. But Draco couldn't really blame them – they were filled with an almost contagious excitement, and there was something about their eyes that made it difficult to tell them that they were repeating themselves or had made no sense all together.

'Are we there yet, Potter?' Draco asked, the words leaving his mouth like a habit. He frowned, feeling a strange ache in his skull.

Harry gave him a side-long look, 'Why do you keep on calling me 'Potter'?'

Draco's frown deepened. 'Because . . . that's you name, or at least part of it.'

'When? Why?'

'I don't . . . know. I can't remember why,' Draco finally admitted, looking up across the fields.

'If you have no reason, then you're just being annoying, frankly. Call me Harry. Just Harry.'

Draco glanced back to the boy at his side, a reluctant apology on his tongue. A feeling in his gut told him that he shouldn't say sorry, that should never say sorry to anyone. But Harry didn't deserve that - none of them did. They had given him a place to sleep, food to eat and company so he wouldn't go insane. And most of all, they had given him answers - of a sort.

But it was better than nothing.

'Sorry,' Draco murmured. He tried to smile at Harry, but he was sure it came out more as a grimace. 'It just comes out sometimes. I'll try to stop it.'

A smile widened on Harry's face. 'That's all I can ask for, I guess. You just arrived after all. Sorry that I snapped at you.'

Draco nodded, not sure how to reply. Ahead of them, Ginny was balancing along a fallen tree trunk, her feet in front of one another and her arms perpendicular to her body – with an over-protective Ron in full big brother mode hovering about below her.

'Who was that man?' Draco asked suddenly. 'The one that took my shadow?'

'We actually don't know,' Harry answered, then paused before finishing, 'For sure, that is.'

'Haven't you asked him yet?' Draco said in disbelief.

'Well,' a strange smile flittered onto the green-eyed boy's face. 'You can try if you want.'

'I'd like to.'

'Oi! Guys! We're going to make a detour!' Harry yelled, taking Draco's hand in his, tugging him off the path and into knee-high grass. The shock of the touch made Draco's hand shake, something that he was sure Harry had noticed, but he didn't want to ponder that. He tried not to think about the warm feeling inside, the one that made him want to grin giddily, as he followed Harry.

The long grass brushed their legs as they walked, against bare legs and bare feet. When he looked behind, he noticed Ron, Hermione and Ginny in their wake – they were humming together a tune that he didn't recognize, but seemed to flow with the wind like a natural thing. Draco had the inexplicable urge to smile with them, to join their making of music.

When they came to the edge of a copse of trees, their footsteps became soft and wary. The little light that filtered from above in showed them a path of sorts, one they followed in single file. They stopped before a tall tree and gathered round it.

'Here he is,' Harry said. 'We've tried everything – but he doesn't change unless someone, a person like you, appears.'

Sitting against the tree was a man made of stone. His face was serene, his eyes closed, as if he were merely resting. He had a long beard that fell to his waist, and a long robe-like cloth around him. Draco crouched down next to him, and stared thoughtfully.

'Who is he?' Draco asked, looking up at the other four.

'Don't know,' Ron said promptly. 'He's the Stone Man, the Shadow-Taker. The name 'Merlin' comes to mind though, doesn't it?'

'Personally, I think it's more like 'Dumbledore',' Harry said, smiling. Hermione gave him an exasperated look.

'You just like that name because it's similar to bumble-bee. Harry, don't be silly.'

'I think it's cool,' Harry protested. He caved in a few seconds later, smiling with his hands raised in surrender, when he became the target of Hermione's glare. 'My guess is as good as any, right?'

Draco watched their bickering for a few moments longer, before cutting in, 'Why did he take our shadows?'

Four pairs of eyes fell on him. He resisted the urge to squirm.

'That,' Ginny started, 'is the enigma – our conundrum.' She suddenly giggled. 'Isn't that such a cool word? Conundrum. . .'

Ron rolled his eyes. 'Ginny,' he said warningly. She grinned up at him, then spun around in a circle, her long red hair spiraling out around her like strands of copper.

'Come on, let's go!' she exclaimed. 'The river awaits!'

xXx

Ron, Draco and Harry dragged the last of the logs to the river, to find the girls testing the strength of the vines they had chanced upon. Sweating under the heat of the mid-day sun, Draco sat down next to Harry on the sandy bank. On the edge of his vision, he saw Hermione directing and yelling orders as to how to build the raft – arguing loudly with Ron now and then over the placement of the logs.

The blond brought his gaze to the flowing water of the river. The water was not murky as such; it was clear but brown like water that is found on mountainsides. From Ginny's squeals and bouts of laughter, he knew the temperature was bitterly cold.

Draco glanced at Harry, taking the windswept hair, the beads of sweat sliding down the side of the boy's face, the relaxedness of his body, the looseness of his hands resting on his knees, and that small scrape on the top of a knuckle.

He shook his head, averting his gaze from those green eyes that were staring at him. Questions buzzed around in his head, and feelings that he didn't quite recognise swirled around in his gut. The silence they sat in was so pregnant and intense that Draco had to break it.

'We have no memories, but why were we left with these 'feelings'? With a sense of déjà-vu, of rightness and wrong?' Draco quickly asked. 'It makes no sense.'

Harry's expression turned thoughtful. 'In a way, it does make sense. . . The memories are gone, but the body experienced things that it can't forget – like how to walk, run and breathe. We can't lose our natural reactions, like the link between smiling and happiness.'

'But why do I have these feelings, these phantom memories, of my life before coming here?' Draco asked quietly, his hands bunching into fists in his lap. 'The details are gone, the clarity of the reasons are gone too. I feel like I'm treading water without a shore in sight.'

'I don't know, Draco,' Harry said, sadness echoing in his voice. 'It's like that for me too. For all of us. Even though I don't have any memories, I know I did something important, something I didn't like before coming here. Maybe I had my reasons for not remembering.' He smiled at Draco, his strange little smile. 'But even as I feel lost and empty – I have this feeling, deep inside, of who I am. That sense . . . it makes me what I am. It's the mark, the footprint left by our memories. It's an instinct of sorts.'

They sat in silence after that, listening to gurgle of the river and the swishing of the reeds in the wind. He closed his eyes, the chirping melodies of passing birds and chattering of insects surrounding him, soothing his mind. Draco nearly started when Harry chuckled at his side. He opened his eyes and gave the boy a questioning look.

'Oh, Ginny and Hermione always argue like that,' Harry said with a smile and a vague gesture of a hand. 'Over the same things. Just listen.'

Draco looked over at the half-finished raft to see a very bored-looking Ron in the shade of a tree and the two girls glaring at one another heatedly. Hermione's hair looked even bushier than before.

'Maybe there is a reason we lost our memories,' Ginny insisted. 'Maybe they were bad, hurtful. Maybe they would've broken us. Why would we need them then? We're happy here, right?'

'But our memories may hold the secret why we're here!' Hermione countered. 'If we had them, we'd know who we are!'

'So? Why do we need to know – truly need to know who we are? To know a few words, a surname – petty labels? We are here, we are who we are right now.'

'The past makes us who we are.'

'Then let's live and collect a past together. Here we have freedom and happiness and each other. Do we need any more?'