"Is it to your liking?"

Life turned, becoming face to face with- "Sister Time," they greet. Their tone is tense, and they shift uncomfortably on their chair made of nothing. Time has always been an odd one, and Life was less than comfortable with her around. "Is what to my liking?'

"Their happy ever after," Time prompts. "Is it to your liking?"

"I would say so," Life says, their voice dripping in hesitance. What, Life thought, is her game? She is so alike her closest sister in that regard- Hope and Time play games. They are unstable; irrational, so unlike brother Triumph who is calm, considerate. There is something mysterious in Time's tone- mysterious and frightening. Time does not stop by just to visit. Her reasons are never idle.

"I would like to show you something," her accent, polished and strong, echoed throughout the room that is not a room, a room in which nothing echos. "I can see every possiblity, every outcome of the slowly creeping present-- a multitude of alternative realities compared to the one you're so obsessed with following. I want to show you something, a happily ever after that is still happy, yes, but different. I want to share it with someone. It is ever so lonely not sharing, you know."

Ah. So that was what she was playing at. "You wish to show me a different outcome of these events?" Life asks, just for clarification.

"Yes," Time confirms. "The better question is, would you like to see?"

"Lady Hope would be more interested-"

"More interested," Time says hauntingly, "But less empathic. Less entertaining. So what do you say, dear sibling?"

"There is nothing better to do," Life says lightly, and is immediately swept into the past, the moment Harry wakes up after a very eventful Quidditch match.

∆¶∆

Harry snaps his eyes open, his mind whirling but face blank. There are people surrounding him, blurry figures staring ecstatically at him. Who the fuck are they? Harry thinks, searching in his mind for some sort of recognition. His mind becomes even more panicked when he realizes he can't even vaguely recall who these people in front of him are- for he cannot recall anything.

"Harry, thank Merlin you're awake." It is the voice of a brown haired female, but Harry cannot make out much more detail than that. He glances around briefly- seeing if she could possibly be referring to anyone else, but sees no one else in the hospital, where he's clearly setting, who is waking up.

He must be Harry, then.

"My glasses," he states simply, deciding he would like to be able to see and THEN figure out what the hell is going on. A redhead girl, who looks strikingly similar to a redhead boy in the group, hands him the glasses, which he slips onto his face.

A woman, in nurse attire, asks, "How are you feeling, Harry?"

"Fine," he lies, burying the sense of fear rising in him at being surrounded by people who he has no idea how to classify. "My head hurts a bit, though."

He puts hand to the back of his head, as though to demonstrate, and the pain sparks something in him. A memory. The burnette girl notices, and perks up a bit. "Is there something else wrong, Harry?" He voice is taunting, coated in fake kindness, and Harry decides that he does not like or trust her in the slightest.

He makes the decision then to hide the fact he now has amnesia (it will make him seem weak; painting a large target on his back that he is not interested in having, thank you very much) and says: "Nothing at all. I believe I'm ready to be dismissed, then?" He suggests. He wants out of there as soon as possible, hoping to get away from these strangers as soon as possible.

Most everyone in the group looks happy to see him well and ready to leave (that is good, he decides. Perhaps he'll be able to trust them in the future) but there is, again, the brown haired girl who's expression does not match the rest of them. She looks surprised, mildly upset as well. "Madame Pompfrey, " (Harry takes note of the nurse's name for future reference) "Are we sure it's safe to just let him go? Shouldn't you run some more diagnostics?" Her voice, though it not noticeable unless you are looking for it, is laced with what Harry could only describe as magic. (A complusion charm, though Harry does not know it.)

Madame Pompfrey blinks. "I don't see how it could hurt-" she raises an arm with a stick in hand (a wand, perhaps? Harry speculates) but Harry sticks his hand up to stop her.

"I'm really fine, Pompfrey, " he give what he hopes is a reassuring smile and swings his legs out of the bed. He stands, gritting his teeth for a moment as unconsciousness fights to overtake him, and relaxing when it doesn't. He gives one last smile toward the nurse, thanking her for her help, before turning on his feet and making his way out of the infirmary. The group of strangers (who Harry can safely cater give as "friends" now, excluding the bushy haired girl) follow him out. They disperse, for the most part, giving him small goodbyes, "glad you're alright"s, and hugs. The red head boy and the sus as fuck girl stay by his side. A red headed girl gives him a kiss on the check, saying she has homework to catch up on, before bidding him adue.

The ones he's walking with... his best friends, he supposes. But that didn't explain the girl's strange behaviour. They engage him in small talk filled with information that Harry absorbs greedily ("That was a hell of a Quidditch win!" "You really are the seeker of the century!") as they make their way to what Harry assumes is their dorm room. The comment of "you should've seen Malfoy's face" is the only thing that perks his interest, but he does not let it show on his face.

Draco Malfoy. The only thing he can remember. There's a mystery there, one Harry intends to unravel.

¶∆¶

Harry finds it exceptionally easy to fit into the role of the Before Harry. He learned people's names quickly enough– people refer to each other all the time– and was able to scratch by in school because people apperantly just gave him answers if he asked for them. Perks of being a "hero," he assumed. He was able to explain away any inconsistencies of his character with the claim "War changes people, dude." Harry was very glad that he wasn't able to remember the often mentioned war, one of the only good things of his predicament.

Harry avoided the bushy haired burnette (who he later learned was called Hermione) to the best of his ability.

He spent his time researching his predicament, certain that this memory loss was not natural. Finding a book on a spell that sounded eeriely similar to the one that he was likely hit with, Harry's theory was proven true. He ordered the sequel in the series, desperate to find a way out of the prison that was his mind.

It was one in one of his routine visits to the library that Harry came across a book titled "Wiccan and Witch Relations."

He found himself immensely interested in the book that would not come down. But throughout his hours of effort, nothing came of it. He recognized the magic of the wards, an empty feeling in his soul that's reaching for something he cannot find. (Like someone's magician reaching out to him, though that theory doesn't make much sense.) He thinks a thought that he doesn't think is his own; this magic is whoever cursed me's.

He pushed the strange warded book out of his mind and pushed Draco into it.

He... doesn't think Malfoy's the one who cursed him. He was also on a broom at the time he was cursed, wouldn't someone have noticed if he whipped out his wand and started firing?

And, as much as Harry hated to admit it, Malfoy wasn't a moron. If he was truly the culprit, he wouldn't be so foolish as to make him only remember him. He's heard of that evil what's-his-face-- Voldemort, he'd be a better option. 

So Harry remains fairly certain Malfoy's relatively innocent... but quite obviously not entirely unconnected.

Harry grabs the blonde by the sleeve one evening, tugs him into an empty corridor, and puts a wand to his jugular.

"Well," Malfoy says, after a pause, "Hello to you too, Goldy."

"Shut it," bit Harry. "Do you have any idea who cursed me?"

Malfoy raised a polished eyebrow. "I beg your pardon?"

Harry released him, tugging on his hair and pacing back and forth, ignoring Malfoy's growing expression of amusement. "I know it wasn't you who erased my memories--"

"Your memories were erased--?"

"--but you're the best shot I've got. The smartest wizard around, if you exclude Granger, who's the fastest thing from trustworthy as of now--"

"You don't trust Granger?"

"No," hissed Harry. "I do not."

"Let me get this straight," Malfoy said while holding back an obvious laugh, "Your memories are erased-- not that I believe that, mind you-- and you come to me for help?"

Harry stopped his pacing and resisted the urgue to bury his head in his hands. "I don't remember nothing-- just you. And you've proved yourself not out to kill me, so," he muttered.

Malfoy studied him with a calculating eye. "You're serious," he concluded.

"I wouldn't come to you if I wasn't."

"Let me run a few diagnostic tests," said Malfoy. "To confirm you're telling the truth, and all."

"I," said Harry slowly, "don't see why not."

Malfoy waves his wand, muttering spells Harry recognizes only vaguely from the Poppy fellow, and after a few minutes of awkward silence announces: "Your mind certiantly seems fucked up-- evidence of a curse, eh? And who do you reckon did it?"

"I have--" he hesitanted, thinking of a burnette who Harry has yet to come close to placing his trust in, "--not the slightest idea."

Malfoy is silent a moment and Harry thinks, just for those few borrowed seconds, that Malfoy will be open to helping him.

But it is borrowed seconds cut short, too small to begin with, when Malfoy barks out a laugh and casts a bond bind charm in Harry, who falls to the ground with a muffled oof. "I could curse you silly and leave you trapped on the floor," said Malfoy as he made his way out of the corridor, "But since we're not on as bad as terms as before, I'll just leave you trapped on the floor. Ta-ta."

Harry struggled against the invisible ropes, to no apparent progress, and yells are Malfoy's retreating figure: "I hate you, you stupid bitch."

But the following events-- which Harry thinks consists of Malfoy's sneering gave and arrogant laughs, but can't be sure enough to say for certain-- are a blur to Harry. As he said those damning words (and damning, were they not?), a wave of magic washed over him.

A door. Crashing. Swung open-- a bookcase of a mind refilled at a rate that's almost nauseating.

And then Harry is, well, Harry, memories and all.

He ponders for a moment before stating, to no one in particular, "I guess I won't need the sequel after all."

∆¶∆

Draco Malfoy may be petty (he could sure as hell admit that) and he may be self assured ("arrogant" was not fitting,) but he's not a bully, and is not known for taking things too far.

.... Okay, so maybe he wasn't being the most honest with himself but whatever, sue him. It's not that he feels bad about the rash way he treated Potter, and it's not that he even wants to help him-- he's just... he's not sure what he is, but it's left him a bit of a stalker of Harry Potter.

He finds himself-- for no clear reason-- getting close enough to run another diagnostic test on Potter. The results are unexpected (he had thought Potter wanted his help with the situation?) but Malfoy is not unhappy with the sight of them... An odd reaction, given the circumstances, given the fact that he's a little less than fond of Harry Potter, but he does what's easiest-- ignores it.

Because he's a stalker (a fact he would deny to all but himself and you as the reader,) he noticed what none other seems to. Harry Potter had previously stated that he didn't trust Granger and his actions seemed to reflect that even now, with his memories back.

Harry Potter seems more downfallen than when after the Quidditch match and spends most of his time huddled in the library-- hiding from both people and his problems. Malfoy notes that Potter seems particularly fascinated with a yellow book that is mildly intriguing to Malfoy, if only for the reason that he can't use magic to get it down.

But the stalking led Malfoy to no leads about who could've cursed Harry. However, Malfoy notes, one evening when Luna and Harry are chatting idly while sitting in the middle of the hallway, that something is Off. With Loony, that is. She seemed skittish, upset, as if she knew something Harry didn't.

How hooking-- the theory that Loony could be the one that cursed Harry and is anxious about being caught floods Malfoy's mind. So he wastes no time in following her, under a disillusionment charm and a silencing ward to hide his labored breathing and rapid footsteps, when she hasitly dismisses herself from Harry.

The new Headmaster's office is her location-- the one remodeled for when McGonagall took over. Malfoy watched with silent amusement and wondered what in the world she was doing as Loony pressed her hands and feet hard against the floor and walls in the general vicinity of the Headmaster's office.

And then CLICK-- a panal in the floor breaks open. A secret room. Loony mutters something suspiciously like "thank you, Quizbits" and grips her wand tightly before slowly lowering herself into the newly revealed compartment.

Malfoy's curiosity is rising in his throat and he's half convincing himself that he was going to follow her in there as the minutes passed. One. Two. Bordering on four as threw passes and then--

A blood curling scream. Real, genuine, horror. Loony scrambles out of the room, as if it had done her some great injustice, and starts knocking frantically on the Headmaster's door.

McGonagall soon makes an apperance, listens to a tale Malfoy can't hear, and enters the room, too. And then he learns what had caused all the ruckus-- because he sees it. He sees the corpse of Hermione Granger leviated onto the tiled ground. The same Hermione Granger who he saw ten minutes ago eating lunch with Harry.

∆¶∆

A few days after the arrest of one Jackson Smith, Luna (Malfoy thinks she's learned the title) approaches him.

"He'll forgive you, you know," she said, conversationally... as if Draco was supposed to know who she was referring to (and maybe he did, he couldn't tell.)

"Excuse me?" he voices.

"Harry. He'll forgive you if you apologize." Draco's about to ask what made her think he wants forgiveness when Luna continues, "And you want him to forgive you. I know you do. I know that like I know you were days away from cracking open the case yourself."

What the fuck, Draco thinks, not out of maliciousness but more out of shock because holy shit she's totally right.

"Just thinks about it, will you?" she says, then leaves, as if she hadn't just shattered Draco's entire worldview as he knew it.

A few days later, Draco would take her advice to heart. (And it would be one of the few things he'd never, ever regret.)

~fin.