A/N: Hello! (Please don't hate me). I know it has been such a long time, but I was finishing up my Master's degree and all…but there is finally an update! Yay! I'm happy to get back to writing and thanks for sticking with me and poking and prodding me along the way. I owe you guys a lot. Love.

~o0o~

"You are responsible for this, Narcissa. You put her in this position and now look at her…"

"You lied, Remus, to all of us! How could you…"

"She's my daughter. Someone needs to tell me what is going on…"

"That was completely irresponsible, Gin. Why didn't you just wait? What you told him can't exactly be taken back!"

Fred had left the hospital room and entered into a shite storm of over a dozen people yelling over each other and at each other. The nurse behind the desk was looking on, starved for entertainment otherwise. He knew he had to say something, especially since a Healer was now rushing into her room, having been alerted to her waking up, and Harry had turned to see what was going on.

"Is she?" Harry asked Fred, who still couldn't find the words to explain. One by one, everyone stopped their arguments and looked to him.

"She's awake and you didn't say anything you idiotic little…" Lucius grumbled, pushing past Fred none too kindly to go into Lacey's room, but the twin just shook his head, sniffing back the emotion that had been threatening to bubble over in him the moment he realized her condition. Liam and Aislinn followed Lucius, but Colin stood completely still, realizing that the look on Fred's face couldn't mean anything good.

"She doesn't remember what happened. Her last memories are from years ago…" he explained, and with a pained look, Ginny followed the others into room, finding the worst-case scenario unfolding before her eyes.

"Dad? Ais…what happened?" Lacey asked, as Lucius hovered right behind her family.

"You fell, Lace, at your Quidditch match. It's a lot to explain but you are okay now" Aislinn touched her sister's hand before moving to the side to allow Lucius to grasp her other one.

"What the hell are you doing here? Ginny…what the…get away from me!" she yelled at Lucius, pulling her hand away from him as if burned.

"We are all here to make sure you are alright. We are all so glad you are awake," Ginny stepped forward, trying to comfort her best friend, whose wide eyes were still trained on Lucius.

"She really doesn't remember…oh Merlin, no…" Lucius whispered, backing away and giving her some space.

"Lace, what is the last thing you remember?" Ginny prompted her.

"Our match…Harpies versus Puddlemere. You were right besides me Gin, did I get hit by a bludger?"

The room went silent. Everyone knew this was very real, that this wasn't just a little bit of disorientation from waking up.

"How long ago was that match, Ms. Weasley?" the Healer interjected, carefully checking her vitals.

"Over two years ago, sir," Ginny sighed and Lacey looked around frantically.

"Does someone want to tell me what the hell is going on? Now?" she demanded but no one move to speak.

"You just need some rest, Lacey, why don't the rest of you give her some air?" the Healer looked around at all of them, but Liam desperately shook his head 'no'.

"It wasn't an option," the Medi-witch said as she came into the room, "She's been through a great trauma. Her memory loss could be temporary or permanent. It is really too soon to tell unless you let us do our jobs. Now please, a moment alone with our patient?" the Medi-witch asked.

"Memory loss? What are you saying?" Lacey panicked, reaching out for her father but the Medi-witch took her hand instead.

"It's going to be alright, Lacey. We'll just be right outside," Liam promised with a forced smile and they slipped back out into the waiting room where a silent truce had fallen over the rest of the group as they waited for more information. Fred had told them what she had said when she had first woken up, but they were all hopeful that whatever was going on with her was already reversed.

"Well?" Colin asked, his voice shaky.

"She doesn't remember anything between now and when she used to play for the Harpies," Lucius sighed.

"Is it permanent?" Sirius looked ready to collapse.

"I don't know, they have to do some tests," Ginny struggled for the words.

Hermione looked around at the crestfallen group, "Look, it isn't the best case scenario, but she's alive, and that is what matters right now. Her memory loss could only last a few hours. I think it is best if we all get some rest and some food and help make sure that Pansy Parkinson doesn't get any farther than she already has."

Remus seconded her decision, which helped ease the tension in the room as the group dispersed: Harry, Hermione, and Ron headed back to the Ministry; Molly, Arthur and the Twins to the Leaky for a bite; and the rest lingered awkwardly in the waiting room.

"Someone has to say something…" Ginny finally broke the silence, looking up at her angry boyfriend, his exhausted looking best friend and equally exhausted lover and the thoroughly depressed Draco and Lucius standing next to Lacey's family.

"What is left to say? The woman I want to marry only knows me now as the awful Mr. Malfoy of her youth and I've been lied to for months…" he sighed, sinking into a chair.

"It's not hopeless. We can explain everything to her. She'll love you just as much as she did before the accident…" the second Aislinn said that, she knew it wouldn't work, they all did.

"You can't force feelings on someone. You are her sister so I assume you know how stubborn she is. She won't be told what to do," Draco reasoned.

"What I don't like is the fact that we've been lied to as her family. Faking a relationship with someone and then bringing him home and having us think it is going to last forever is not okay!" Colin glared at Lucius as if it was his fault and Aislinn punched him hard in the arm.

"It's not fake…yeah she lied to us, but she's in that hospital bed because of some psycho bitches, not because of Lucius!" the youngest Delaney said and her father looked for a moment as if he was going to scold her for her language, but sighed and let it slip by.

"I really think it is best if we all tried to get some rest and approached this fresh in the morning," Remus suggested, reiterating what Hermione had said earlier, to which most of them begrudgingly agreed. Narcissa left with Draco, who, when passing by Remus, couldn't look at his old Defense Professor, and the Delaneys sought sleep as well.

"Are you alright?" It was tough for Sirius to ask Lucius this, and his hesitance came out in the form of gruffness. The blonde, who looked miles away, startled back to reality at the question.

"No. I'm going to say goodnight to her, and then Ginny, we need to finish what I promised you. Tonight," he said, without caring that Sirius was right there and walked back into Lacey's room.

"Any news on her condition?" he asked the Healer, who was gently waving his wand over her sleeping body.

"I do not believe the memory loss is permanent nor is it associated with any of the spells placed on her. Which, I hate to admit, I owe you and Ms. Granger a great debt for breaking and I should have listened. However, there is no telling if she will regain the memories of the last two years gradually or all at once, or how long it will take. In some cases I have seen amnesia that lasts up to a year in the short term."

Lucius sank down into a chair at her side and took her hand in his, feeling the softness of her skin, "There are really no spells? No potions?"

"Nothing but time, Mr. Malfoy. Goodnight," he nodded and left the couple alone together.

"I should have proposed to you sooner. I just should have left Narcissa the second I knew you were the one. Then this wouldn't be such a mess. I could have heard it from you, not from anyone else. And now, I'm nothing but a man from your best friends' past. And what if next time, you feel nothing for me? You were always running. Always keeping something hidden. And now, ironically, sleeping and helpless I can't even read your mind because you have no memories of how you felt about me left. Ginny says you loved me, but I feel utterly lost in all of this and I wish I knew what was real," Lucius whispered his inner fears to the pale figure of his lover lying before him before standing up, "Goodnight Lacey. I love you. And I think I always will."

He left the peacefulness of her room and found himself bombarded with an argument between Sirius and Ginny, growing increasingly loud by the second.

"You were just going to let him fiddle around with your brain?" Sirius was wide-eyed as he looked at his girlfriend as if he didn't even know who she was.

"I trust him!" Ginny defended her decision and Lucius cursed himself for not thinking enough when he said something in front of Sirius.

"Enough. The dog should know," Lucius rubbed his temples but the insult just drew Sirius into a more crazed state.

"Just because you are involved with Lacey does not mean you can call me 'dog'. Because I can start addressing you as 'Arse-faced prick'. Trust me, I have no problem with that," Sirius took a step toward Lucius.

"Do you not listen to anything I say, Sirius? I asked him to make the vow. This is what I want. I've thought about it for a while," her eyes darted between the pair of them, "And it is better that you know so you'll realize that part of me is missing."

"I know what I am doing, Black. You can be present for it or not," Lucius offered but Ginny shook her head.

"I'm fine alone" she told both of them and Sirius tried to hide his disappointment as he ran his hand through his shaggy hair and strung together some words that amounted to him heading the Ministry. As she watched him leave the ward in a huff, Ginny knew she wouldn't be speaking to him soon, but she only had one thing on her mind, "Shall we go then?"

Lucius nodded and the pair headed to one of St. Mungo's floos, stepping out from the fireplace in his study a few moments later. He left her standing there as he went to his desk, pulled something from a drawer, found a small, black book in the shelf behind his chair, and then poured himself some whiskey.

"It is rude not to offer me any," Ginny crossed her arms and tapped her foot nervously on the expensive rug across the floor.

"You may have some after. We can't have anything altering your mind. I do have to remind you Ginny that, although I am capable, this is still dangerous," Lucius said, offering her a seat in one of the leather chairs by the fireplace. He took out his wand, opened the book, and placed the object he had pulled from his desk drawer into her hands. It was a small glass vial.

"I understand. Will it hurt?"

"It shouldn't. But you have to be relaxed and open your mind to me. Now, I will not only be destroying the memory of the rape, but also the memories of you telling people of it, and the memory of you making an Unbreakable Vow with me. So, once that final memory is removed, you are going to feel very confused being here with me, but we can easily remedy that. You are also going to be confused as to why you and Sirius are fighting, but I assume that is a normal occurrence between the pair of you. Now, please describe to me the memories of when you confided in people about this."

"Well, I told Sirius. We'll have been in his bed, crying…should be easy to find…we are never crying in bed," she laughs, "I also told Harry. We were at the Burrow, in my yard. And Lacey, in the girls' dormitories".

"Simple enough. It will be easiest if you can push those memories to the forefront of your mind. The less time I spend in there, the better. Now, are you completely sure about this?" Lucius looked into her eyes, looking for her first instinctive reaction. He saw it immediately, the anger and fear and resolution he had seen on the night she asked him to make the Vow.

"Absolutely."

"Close your eyes," he instructed. He checked and double-checked the incantation, memorizing it before he dove into her mind. That was the easy part. She was completely open, so unlike the hard wall he met every time he tried with Lacey. He vividly saw the memories of her telling her loved ones about that horrendous night. Sirius' was the first she was thinking about. He didn't look hard at it, but saw the couple embracing, and with the old spell, drew it from her permanently and placed the wisp of it into the vial in her hands. He went back for the one with Harry. He dreaded the one with Lacey, knowing he wouldn't be able to help lingering over it. She was younger, still in school, sobbing with her best friend. Next came the night he made the vow with her. The vial filled up with the memories and because they were no longer in her subconscious, any other mention of that incident that she had ever experienced would just fade away without any context. He ended the spell, left her mind, and quickly put a stopper over the vial, removing it from her hands.

"What is going on?" Ginny looked up at him. This was the most dangerous part of his promise and he knew that any verbal misstep would lead to disaster.

"Your boyfriend went to the Ministry, no doubt to help pursue Pansy and we are here to talk about Lacey, but you fell asleep in my chair," Lucius said calmly and moved to get her a glass of whiskey. The poor girl deserved it, he thought.

"Hmm…I don't remember that," she frowned.

"It's been quite an exhausting day. You just drifted off," he handed her the glass of amber liquid and something deep inside of him wanted to embrace her. She'd never know it now, but she was free of the demons that haunted her and he was glad he could help. He was also thankful that nothing went wrong, "Now. You and I need to have a very serious talk about Lacey".

A/N: What do you think Lucius wants to talk about? Thanks for reading!