Please Be There If I Remember

Chapter Fifty-Four: Torn

"I'm not going to change who I am for him. And nor will I for you, so just—" he sighed and sat down again so that his mother could continue healing him. "Just make it stop."—

Draco didn't know Harry was beside him until a hand rested behind his shoulder blades. "Draco? Draco, can you hear me?"

Draco burst into tears.

"I can't—It's too much. Just make it stop," he pleaded, burying his head deeper into his hands. "Make it stop, please. They're so loud and they won't stop."

—Draco swung the black cloak over his head as Potter whipped around in fear to where he was pointing, saying "Dementor, Dementor!" Potter's face was scared, and Draco laughed at it. "Ooh," he mimicked, wiggling his fingers menacingly. Merlin, his face...

The Granger girl pulled Potter away with a sneer, and cowed, Draco stepped back for a moment to let him go—

"What's wrong with him?" Someone asked past the ringing in his ears, and Draco struggled to centre himself, to bring himself back. Blindly, he reached out for Harry's hand, anyone's hand, just to have something familiar to ground him, even if it was bloody Potter.

For some reason, Draco wanted safe, and Green Eyes seemed like a lifeline.

A hand grasped his tightly, and he took a deep breath.

"What is it?" Harry whispered before sitting down beside him. Draco would have yelled at him to get back up and to keep running because Death Eaters were probably right behind them, but he could barely find it in him to do much except silently cry.

As the silence continued to suffocate the room, everyone waiting for an answer, he spoke, if only so that they could keep running—away from Father, away, away, away.

His words, quietly put in the large room, seemed to echo resoundingly off the walls and past the looming archway where nothing was held inside it.

"I remember."

"What?"

"I remember everything, Potter," Draco snapped, whipping his head up. "I remember our duel in second year, I remember meeting you in Madam Malkins, I remember your stupid face and those stupid green eyes, and you. I remember you."

Someone behind them dropped their wand and started scrambling to pick it back up.

Harry gaped at him, his mouth open, slightly resembling a fish out of water.

"You—You do?"

Draco closed his leaking eyes. "Yes."

"E—everything?"

"All of it."

"All of it," Harry whispered back, sounding shocked, and his mouth was still hanging open loosely. "So, you remember when I denied your handshake—"

"Yes."

"Oh. Okay. And us? Do you remember us?"

Draco grasped Harry's face in his sweaty hands and pulled him close. Their mouths met, messy and confused and scared, and against his lips, Draco said, "Yes. I still remember us."

The kiss was still going as if Harry couldn't find it in himself to pull away, and Draco was too far gone to even consider that as an option, when someone cut in.

"As cute and emotional as this is and all, we have a bigger problem than your love confessions."

Suddenly, as though on cue, the door from which they had entered in what felt like a forever ago burst open with a snarled curse, and black bursts flew into the room. Death Eaters, sheathed in what looked like cloaks made out of molasses, speared through the buzzing energy, and Draco felt himself getting ripped away from Harry—