A FINAL CHANCE

By: Shadowedheart89

Disclaimer:I do not own any of the Harry Potter characters, nor do I claim to.

Chapter Twenty-Six: Forgotten Memories

"I'm exhausted," Draco said collapsing on his bed. His normally perfect appearance was rumpled and disheveled.

"Well so am I," I told him irritably. We had been working for three days straight to get him to effectively block his mind from Voldemort. It was taking its toll on both of us. Spending three days in a person's head or with them in yours, was a sure way to put any kind of relationship under severe strain. It didn't help that sometimes he would get pissed off at me and start sending me startling clear memories of us together just to through me off. "This is for you, you know. If you want to stop and have Voldemort discover you and kill you, then far be it for me to get in your way."

He groaned and looked at me with pleading eyes. "Can't we just take a short break?"

I thought about it for a moment. If we kept going on like this with at least a little bit of time away from each other, then we would sure to kill each other. "Fine, I'll be back later," I told him, ignoring the slightly hurt look in his eyes as he watched me walk out of the room. I knew that he was holding on to the hope that the time together would bring us closer once again. I had a headache, and it was getting difficult to distinguish from his feelings and mine. I needed to get away from him for a bit and relax before I did something that I would regret later. It was always too easy to do something impulsive with Draco.

I went downstairs to Harry and Ron's room. I found them there playing chess on Ron's bed. I felt my mood instantly get better at the sight of them. I had only seen a few glimpses of them over the last three days when they volunteered to bring up food, or when I snuck out to use the bathroom.

"Are you finished with Malfoy?" Harry asked, a trace of hope in his voice. He had a vague idea of what was going on with Draco, and while he didn't like it, he was trying to be understanding.

I groaned as I wrapped my arms around him. It felt good to feel the warmth of his body. "Not yet. We are just taking a break before we end up murdering each other. What time is it anyways?"

"Eleven," he told me after consulting his watch. "Why are you two about to kill each other? Learning Occlumency wasn't that bad with you."

I chuckled. "Well we weren't doing marathon sessions that lasted for days, and I wasn't digging around for your deepest darkest secrets. There is no time to take it easily."

"Why does he have to master it so quickly anyways?" Ron asked.

"I can't tell you." He frowned but let it go. It seemed that someone told him that he wasn't to push for information. "I'm going to take a nap. Can you wake me up in about twenty minutes?"

"Sure," Harry said watching me as I left to find my room.

The twenty minutes of sleep were blissful despite the odd dreams I had. I had spent so much of the last 48 hours in Draco's head that it seemed that his mind was still connected to mine. My dream kept twisting so that sometimes I was me, and other times I was Draco. Despite my exhaustion, I was glad when Harry woke me up and I could be sure of who I really was again.

"Are you okay?" Harry asked as he sat next to me as I tried to find the will to get out of bed. All I had managed was to sit up.

"I'm fine. Just tired." I leaned against him and buried my face in his neck. "Aren't breaks from school supposed to be filled with fun? Shouldn't we be having snowball fights and making snowmen right about now?"

He chuckled. "Maybe if we were normal they'd be fun," he said with a trace of bitterness in his voice.

I pressed my lips against his neck and felt him shiver. "I'm sure we can make the best of this though," I told him with a grin.

"Possibly," he told me capturing my lips with his own.

After a few minutes I reluctantly pulled away from him. "I really should get back to work."

He frowned. "Can't you wait ten more minutes?"

I shook my head. "If it wasn't something important, I would, but I really can't."

"You really have no idea how long this is going to take?"

I shook my head. "We'll be finished any time though." I kissed him one last time. "I really should go. Uncle Albus and Severus would kill me if they found out I was wasting time."

I made my way back up to Draco's room. He was passed out on his bed burrowed deep under his covers. Grinning to myself, I jumped on the mattress next to him scaring him awake. He sat up quickly, clutching his blanket to his chest and looking at me with dark smudges under his eyes contrasting darkly with his pale skin, and his silky white-blonde hair disheveled.

"How long has it been?" he asked his voice thick with sleep.

"About a half hour. I didn't want to waste any more time."

He groaned and covered his head with his pillow. "I can't wait for this to be over just so that I can sleep. How are you so awake?"

I grinned to myself, "Because unlike you, I don't need ten hours of sleep to look gorgeous."

After a moment's pause he sat up again, this time letting the blanket fall and revealing his pale, bare chest. "So you think I look gorgeous?" he asked with a smirk.

"No, you think you look gorgeous. Haven't we been through this before?" I responded trying and failing to keep my eyes off of his expanse of pale bare skin.

He noticed and his smirk became more pronounced. "Well what can I say? I am a connoisseur of beautiful things."

I rolled my eyes at him. "Just put your shirt on so that we can get back to work."

He stretched but made no move to get out of bed. "How am I supposed to explain why I'm so exhausted when I'm on break? I mean everyone expects a Malfoy to have nothing less than a perfect appearance."

"You've been busy working on your mission. You've been planning and setting things into motion. Who has time to sleep when you have a Dark Lord to serve?"

He winced at my tone but finally got into motion. He moved languidly as got out of bed and shrugged on a shirt. He took the extra time to smooth out his hair and perfect his appearance the best he could with his limited resources. He then took his place sitting on the edge of the bed and pulled the desk chair in front of him.

"Take a deep breath and relax," I told him. I watched as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He sat up a little straighter and when he opened his eyes his face became blank and his eyes turned to steel. "Are you ready?" I asked, aware that my voice was almost a whisper.

He gave me a slight nod. I closed my eyes and concentrated on his thoughts. He had gotten a lot better than he was when we had started. In fact it seemed as if he nearly had it perfected. He managed to keep sensitive information blocked without it being obvious that he was hiding things. We kept working thought because we had no idea of how deep Voldemort would be searching or how persistent.

I was initially met with a barrier, and it took a greater effort on my part to get through than it would have a few days ago. I scanned through what was on the surface of his thoughts and smiled to myself when I saw that his mind was consumed on his looks and how ragged he must look with his lack of sleep. He mentally recoiled in disgust when he thought about how long it had been since he'd had a proper shower.

I delved further into his mind trying to find traces of Dumbledore, the Order, or of where were. The only thing I was able to come across was a sense of contempt for the Headmaster and disgust that he still held the position of the head of the school. I tried from several directions and yet I still found nothing.

I moved on to try to find anything about Voldemort. I was trying to see if I could detect a sense of fear. I was mildly impressed to find that I couldn't. When we had first started the fear was strong and I kept seeing protectiveness of his mother. Now thoughts of Voldemort were only associated with a sense of pride at being honored enough to be giving a mission to be completed.

Finally I moved on to the subject that seemed to be the hardest on both of us: his love life. I tried to see who he was interested in and all I could see was Pansy. I had to suppress as shudder when I came across one of his more intimate memories with her. I hated to admit it but he did have a point in using Pansy as a cover up. In going to school with teenager boys, I found that they were always thinking about a girl. It would have looked susipicious if there was no girl on his mind.

I tried a different approach, trying to see if there was any trace of me in his mind. There was the awareness that I was with him at the moment. I saw a little bit of him thinking about the things I've told him about how to block his mind and how to get better results in his spell work, but unless I was specifically looking for myself, I wouldn't have noticed it. Then I noticed something that felt a bit weird. The best I could describe it would be looking though an opaque glass. I could see shapes and I could tell that it had something to do with me but I couldn't tell what it was. Somehow I could tell that Draco wasn't even consciously aware of it. I pressed against it and the barrier broke. Suddenly both of our minds were flooded with memories of us.

I pulled out of his mind and opened my eyes to see gray orbs reflecting the confusion I could feel in my own. "What was that?" he asked his voice sounding oddly raspy.

"How should I know? It was in your mind not mine." I rubbed my temples trying to put some order to the memories I had just uncovered. They were all from our summer together, all in the woods or in the cabin that we would escape to. One memory was of us performing a ritual. It was complicated and should have been more that what either of us should have been able to do, but somehow I managed to pull it off. It was a derivative of the Unbreakable Vow. If the vow was broken, instead of simply dying immediately, the breaker would have a long, painful death. It was simply inhumane. There were also some finer aspects of it that made the young Draco from the memories nearly quake from fear, but he couldn't remember what exactly they were. I couldn't tell why we decided to do the ritual either. It didn't make any sense.

"I couldn't have forgotten all of that," he told me, his voice shaking slightly.

"I don't think you did. I think someone put a spell on you," I told him, feeling myself start to tremble. "I think I must have the spell on me too. I don't remember any of that either."

"Who could have done it? There was hardly anyone around that summer."

I shook my head, trying to think. Suddenly something dawned on me. "Draco, do you remember ever thinking about me or that summer before you saw me on the train?"

His eyebrows furrowed. "Of course I did. I was frustrated because I never heard from you."

"Are you sure? Are you sure you didn't just remember that when you saw me?"

He became suddenly very still and I could almost see the wheels turning in his mind and pieces falling into place. "What going on?" he asked in a small voice.

"I think something happened that summer that we aren't supposed to remember. Someone put some kind of memory spell on us. I should have realized this earlier. I knew you went to school at Hogwarts. When I was told that I was going to come here, I should have known that I was going to see you again. But I didn't. I forgot everything you told me about Hogwarts too. It wasn't until Ron mentioned your name right before you came into the compartment that I started to remember. As soon as I saw you, it was like I remembered all along, but I'm pretty sure I didn't. Hearing you and seeing you must have somehow began to break the spell, but it didn't break completely. Every time we talked about our memories, it felt like there was something missing, something wrong with them. I tried to ask you about it before, but you changed the subject. You can feel it too. I know you can," I babbled.

"Why would someone do this?" he asked.

I shook my head, feeling the strength run out of me. Suddenly I felt like I had been awake for weeks instead of the better part of a couple of days. "I have no idea. It's not easy to tamper with the mind of a telepath. Whoever did it must have really known what they were doing. Maybe if I find a way to unlock my own memories, we'll get some answers."

He looked thoughtful for a moment. "Are you sure you didn't do it?" I gave him a questioning look. "I mean your greatest fear was the Dark Lord finding out about you. By completely erasing my memory of you until I saw you again it would definitely insure that. No one could know the mind of a telepath better than one."

"Why would I alter my own memories though? Besides I don't think I'd be able to do it myself. And what was with that ritual we did? I thought we did the Unbreakable Vow."

"So did I," he mumbled. "I'm definitely glad I didn't break it now."

"We should go to Uncle Albus. Maybe he knows something about this."

He opened his mouth to say something, but instead he hissed and grabbed his left forearm. He looked at me with fear in his eyes. "It's time."

"You can do this," I told him, taking his hands in mine. "Just calm down and concentrate. You'll be okay."

He smirked at me, his façade coming into place. "Are you a Seer now too?"

I grinned at him. "No, I just know that it's my job to torture you. I'm not done yet. You have to come back."

His mask fell again. "I think you like torturing me." He leaned closer to kiss me, and I turned my face away so that his lips fell upon my cheek. "I love you Marlene."

I shook my head. "Don't do this. You have to get going." I tightened my grip on him and teleported us down to the fireplace. "You are supposed to go to Dumbledore's office."

"I guess this is it," he said taking a handful of the powder that was sitting on the mantle.

He turned towards the fireplace, but I pulled him back to me and wrapped my arms around him. "Be safe," I mumbled into his chest.

His arms surrounded me for a moment before I felt him wince. "I have to go now," he told me gently pulling away. He gave me a sad smile before letting his mask of indifference fall into place and throwing the powder into the fire.

I watched as he disappeared into the flames. I stood there for a few minutes before just staring into the flames wondering what to do next. I felt like I should be doing something, and yet I felt oddly blank. I was still just standing there several minutes later when the flames flared and Severus stepped out brushing ash off of his robes.

"Dumbledore sent me to check up on you," he announced, his voice dripping with disdain. I just ignored him. He studied me for a moment before taking a seat. "Do you plan on standing there all night?"

I finally seemed to break out of my trance and took a seat near him. "So, are we supposed to just wait now?" I asked.

"What else do you suppose we do?" he sneered.

I simply shrugged. "Why aren't you there?"

His eyes narrowed. He didn't want to be discussing this information with me. "The Dark Lord only summoned Draco. He saw no need for me to appear before him today, so I am not there." I nodded, too drained to try to needle him for more information. "You look exhausted, you should get some sleep. How long have you been awake?"

"I took a nap earlier," I mumbled.

His eyes narrowed once again. "When was the last time you had more than an hour's worth of sleep?"

"The first night here."

He drew in a long breath. "Go to sleep. I will wake you when he returns."

"I'm not sure that I could sleep at this point," I told him folding my arms on the tables and lying my head on them.

I could hear the rustle of his robes and the delicate sound of vials hitting each other. After a few moments I felt his hand nudge my arm. I looked up to see him handing me a vial of some kind of disgusting green liquid. "Take this and sleep."

I took it and stared at it for a moment. I didn't even question what it was or point out that most sleeping potions didn't work on me. "Do you think he'll be okay?" I asked instead.

"If you have done your job effectively, he should return relatively unharmed."

I felt a small smile stretch my lips. "Of course, if he fails, then it will be my fault."

He shrugged. "He has a good sense of self preservation. He's not going to do anything that will get him killed."

"I hope not." I stood up and was about to make my way up to my room when I remembered the revelation Draco and I had. "Severus, how can you tell if someone has placed a memory charm on you?"

He stiffened. "Do you have reason to think that one has been placed on you?"

I nodded. "I think someone put one on me and Draco back when we knew each other before."

"What has brought you to this conclusion?" he asked, his expression tightly controlled.

Suddenly I felt uneasy talking to him about this. He was reacting oddly, and I was too out of it to properly analyze his reactions. "It's just a feeling," I mumbled.

His eyes narrowed. "I think you should talk to Dumbledore about your theory. I'm sure he'll be interested to know."

"Thank you Severus. You promise you will wake me up as soon as Draco comes back or you hear something?"

He nodded. "Get some sleep. Your work is far from over. It wouldn't do to have you drop dead from exhaustion before you can finish."

I headed to my room and took the potion Severus gave me. Within seconds sleep overtook me.