The next day, the boys were walking through the halls hand-in-hand. Draco felt self-conscious because of all the open staring, but Harry's strong hand in his was reassuring. Surely if Harry could defeat the Dark Lord on several occasions, he could defend them both from whatever might come their way.
They had a potions test that day, so the seating arrangement was altered so nobody was close to anyone else. Draco recalled the answers easily, but his mind was elsewhere. He thought about Harry's scars and what people might say now that he wasn't hiding them anymore. He thought about if he really wanted his memories back, and why.
If all he had forgotten was his interactions with Harry after the war, surely there was something significant buried in his memory? He couldn't remember falling for Harry the first time, and with the animosity that used to be between them, Draco imagined it was an interesting twist.
He swallowed and set his quill down. He rubbed his eyes and focused on what he did remember.
He remembered Harry in the Manor with a misshapen face. Still recognizable to Draco, but something in his gut told him to lie. The Battle of Hogwarts itself was a little fuzzy, but he remembered getting the news that he'd have to return for his eighth year. He remembered the genuine surprise at being invited back, what with his father in Azkaban and the Dark Mark on his forearm just recently faded.
As he sat with his hands over his eyes, straining to remember, blurry impressions arose behind his eyelids. The Hogwarts Express, an overwhelming anxiety about facing Harry again for the first time after he had spoken at his hearing. He saw himself lurking through the crowd at Platform 9¾, keeping a wary eye out for the golden trio. When he found them, he dodged them until he could sneak into his own compartment on the train.
Draco opened his eyes in shock. He was still seated in Slughorn's class, with his half-completed test before him. There were fewer people in the class, but Harry was still hunched over his test. Draco shook his head to clear it, and resumed his test.
He hastily finished, turned it in, and left. Five minutes later, he found himself in the library, trying to reach more lost memories. He sat in the emptiest corner he could find, and replicated the position he had been in.
He saw only darkness for the first few attempts, and then when he stopped trying to focus, and just relaxed enough to let the images reappear, they did. He was freshly off the Hogwarts Express, making his way to the castle itself, when a figure pushed past him and knocked all of his belongings out of his hands. The person didn't stop or look back, so Draco knelt down to retrieve his things. He wasn't mad or offended. Even if the individual knew exactly what they were doing, he couldn't blame them.
Darkness clouded his vision again. He growled in frustration and pushed his hands even harder into his eyes in an attempt to force the images back. However, it wasn't until he had cleared his mind that they returned.
The Great Hall, dinner on the first night back. Blaise Zabini walking towards him as he carried a plate and glass to the empty end of the Slytherin table. Blaise purposefully knocking Draco's meal out of his hands and all down his front. Draco saw Blaise walk around him and away with a silent smirk. So this is how it's going to be. I'm a coward for not killing Dumbledore, but I'm too evil to be accepted by the "good" side. I guess I'm alone.
He heard his own voice in his head as clearly as if he was having this train of thought presently, but he knew it was part of the memory. Suddenly he had Snape's voice reciting the killing curse in his head. He saw a flash of green light behind his eyes and Dumbledore tumbling over the side of the Astronomy Tower. He winced.
He never had anything personally against Dumbledore, no matter how much his father hated the headmaster. Draco himself always just thought the old man was eccentric and very Gryffindor. But he did regret his death. He regretted so much.
He had been gradually getting memories back regarding the war and its events. Because of the incantation Longbottom had cast, Draco had only had his love of Harry and all good memories of Harry taken. Whenever he tried to recall Harry's face before the incident, or any of their interactions at the beginning of eighth year, he drew a blank.
It was maddening.
Later that night, Draco confessed his recollections to Harry in the Great Hall as they were finishing up their meal.
"Interesting." Harry commented. "But the memories of me, at the beginning of the year…?"
Draco met Harry's hopeful eyes and shook his head sadly. Harry nodded. They ate the rest of their meal in silence.
Later, as they were walking back to the dorms, McGonagall stopped Draco in the hall.
"Mr. Malfoy?" Draco winced at the sound of his father's title, but turned toward the voice. "I've some information for you regarding your… Predicament. Come to my office?"
Draco looked to Harry, who nodded.
"I'll see you later." The Gryffindor planted a chaste kiss on Draco's cheek and left. The blonde turned back to the headmistress with flaming cheeks, but followed her into her office.
Once inside, McGonagall went to the Pensieve and Draco stood on the other side, facing her.
"I have good news and bad news. Which would you like to hear first?"
"Um… Good news I guess?"
"The good news is that I may have found a way to recover your lost memories."
"And the bad news?"
She arched a single grey eyebrow.
"It will be difficult, arduous, and possibly painful."
Draco nodded and looked down at the illuminated liquid of the Pensieve.
"Naturally."
"I've been reading through Professor Snape's records." Draco's heart rate spiked when he heard the deceased professor's name. "As you might know, Professor Snape was adept in the art of Legilimency, and he recorded many of his findings."
"Are you saying you'll perform legilimency on me?"
"Fortunately, no. Toward the end of his life, Professor Snape was investigating self-legilimency. This is a highly experimental concept, but he seemed confident that, with the assistance of a magical object such as the Pensieve, one might achieve… Self-examination." She paused to allow Draco to consider this. "I believe this method may help you unlock or recover your lost memories."
Draco gazed down into the seemingly fathomless depths of the Pensieve with trepidation. However, he was willing to try, if it meant he might remember the very moment and reason he fell in love with Harry in the first place. As it stood, he was having trouble forming a connection that felt genuine, which he so desperately wanted.
"Alright, how do I do this?"
McGonagall went to her desk and returned with a loose leaf leather journal, and donned her half-moon glasses. She opened it and flipped a few pages before finding what she was looking for.
"Once submerged in the Pensieve, you must look within. In your case, I'd imagine there would be an empty chasm or wall, blocking you from what you seek. Once you find this barrier, you must focus a spell of Legilimency toward it."
"And just hope it works?" McGonagall offered a small smile. Draco took this to mean yes, and looked back down into the Pensieve. He swallowed before bracing himself. "Alright, here goes."
Hesitantly, he lowered his face to the swirling liquid, then with a deep breath, he dipped his face into it.
Almost instantaneously, he felt as though he was falling. When the feeling subsided, he opened his eyes to his surroundings. He found himself in a room of mirrors. Looking around, he saw himself from all ages looking back at him. 10-year-old him caught his attention, but as he watched, the scene changed. He watched as his 10-year-old self locked himself in his bedroom closet in the manor. Of course he knew the situation, he had hid in the very same closet countless times. A moment later, his father, red-faced and furious, burst into the room, looking around for the little blond boy. Draco didn't want to relive this, so he closed his eyes and focused on the room with the mirrors.
When he opened his eyes, he was back in the room. The reflection he faced stared back at him expressionlessly. He focused on this reflected version of himself, closed his eyes, and he was suddenly enveloped in a fathomless darkness. Small glints of light were the only things illuminating his surroundings, and what he saw in the brief flashes of light were strange, disjointed images and impressions. He realized he must be in his own mind – a disorienting realization. He almost lost the connection, but he calmed himself and focused on the sparks of light around him.
These little bubbles of light popped in and out of existence, twinkling for a moment before vanishing. He found he could move around a little, and decided to explore. He wasn't sure how long he drifted in this shapeless form, looking through little illuminated images. He found he could select a bubble of light, and that, once selected, it expanded to show him a memory – happy memories. One in particular expanded and he saw himself sitting at the Slytherin table for the first time. He remembered how he felt at home, how he immediately dispelled the fear of being sorted into the wrong house. Such pressure to be a Slytherin, to follow in his father's footsteps…
His distraction brought a different memory forward; not a bubble of light, but one of the memories drifting in the darkness. He saw flashes of his father, fist raised, he could almost smell the brandy on his father's breath. He winced, and found he experienced actual pain. He didn't know it, but his body in McGonagall's office twitched. He shied away from this dark memory, finding it to be not smooth and round, but rather sharp and spiked.
With a practiced motivation, he centered himself and disconnected from the memory. He had to look around for something out of the ordinary. The darkness seemed truly fathomless, and he wasn't sure how much time passed, but eventually he caught sight of something bright and struggling in the darkness. As he approached it, he realized it was a bundle of happy memories, contained in a larger bubble of darkness. The darkness shrouded the light, dulling it, but not extinguishing it. He could still make out the shape of what must've been hundreds of little bubbles of light, all fighting for space in the tight quarters, full to bursting. This must be what he was looking for.
He had never been particularly skilled at Legilimency, but he had experienced success with other people, so he knew what to do. He focused on the black shroud, uttered the spell in his mind, and tried to push through the darkness. It felt like reaching out a hand, though he had no physical form to speak of in this state. He knew he was doing something right, though, because he was met with resistance. The darkness holding these memories from his consciousness wasn't sharp and shifting like his bad memories. It was constantly in motion, and it felt more like watery, heavily layered spider web. The harder he pushed, however, the firmer it became.
He tried to focus his Legilimency to something like a point – maybe localized pressure would tear through the shroud. Surprisingly, he was met with pain, as if his brain was being pricked with a needle. So this is what McGonagall meant by "possibly painful." He felt the darkness giving way, however, so he persisted. The harder he pushed, the more pain he experienced. In McGonagall's office, his body was twitching, and his hands were going white-knuckled on the rim of the Pensieve. The attentive Headmistress stood by his side, ready to catch him when he returned to himself.
Unaware of how his physical form was being effected, he continued piercing through the layers. He cried out in pain, and it echoed through the darkness for what seemed like an eternity. McGonagall was shocked to see bubbles rising from Draco's face in the liquid of the Pensieve. She continued flipping through Snape's records, hoping for some insight into how to help the ailing Slytherin.
Meanwhile, Draco was making some headway. Though in excruciating pain, he was only a few layers away, he could feel it. And he wanted to break through so badly. He let out a blood-curdling screech as he forced his way through the last few layers. His body fell lax in McGonagall's office, but she caught him and kept him upright. He couldn't disconnect from the Pensieve until he consciously chose to, or else it could kill him. She just hoped he was finding what he was looking for, and that it would all be worth it.
Inside his head, the shroud had been pierced. Blinding light was shining out of the small hole Draco had pierced through it. He stared at it in awe before reaching out with his mind. His arm wouldn't have fit through the tiny hole, but with his will, he could reach through and pull them out one at a time. The first one he pulled out opened before him like a flower, and he saw its contents.
What he saw was… Harry. His face filled Draco's vision, bright and smiling. The scene backed out and he could see Harry was walking with the Golden Trio, an arm around both their shoulders. They had just gotten off the Hogwarts Express, following the crowd with an ease they hadn't known in years. He was watching them from a window of the train… He remembered. He was loathe to join the crowd, afraid of their reaction to seeing an ex-Death Eater in their midst. He was the only one of his original group of peers who worried about what the other students would think, so he was a pariah to the entire school, even before the year started.
Suddenly, Harry caught his gaze through the window. They shared a moment of tense eye contact, and the memory slowed. Draco watched his own eyes widen, his own jaw tighten, remembering the unintentional clench in the pit of his stomach. He watched Harry's smile begin to fade, and remembered the sensation of his heart falling into his gut. However, before Harry's expression could reassemble into what Draco assumed would be disgust or shock or hatred even, it settled into a small, reasonable smile. Gentle, unassuming… Accepting. Draco's heart lifted from his gut to his throat at astronomical speed, both in the memory and in his witnessing form.
The memory ended and the ball of light floated away. Draco wanted to keep pulling them out and watching them, but the inside of his mind began to fade into bright light. He was pulled back into the room with mirrors, and he caught a brief image of his reflection. Tears were filling his reflection's eyes, spilling over down his cheeks, but a smile illuminated his expression. Then, a tugging in his gut, backwards. He was being pulled out – why?
Suddenly and with a stomach-churning quickness, he was thrust back into his body. He straightened with a gasp, before immediately losing consciousness. McGonagall caught him and called Madame Pomfrey to help carry him to the hospital wing.