Please Be There If I Remember

Chapter Fifty-Four: Torn

No, not Harry, don't you dare hurt him, you bastards—

He got covered in darkness and hands pulled him taut against a body, a long object finding its way to his neck, and he was flying, flying...

Light appeared through the mist, and Draco almost started panicking again. Everyone in the group had been caught, wands against their throats by people Draco knew, who had been in his house before, all except for Harry, who was crouching in the middle near the archway with his hands over his head.

"Give me that prophecy," Lucius snarled at Harry, stepping out from the door on the far side of the room and striding up to him. His hair was in a flurry of disarray, strands poking out every which way. His eyes looked haggard and tired, and Draco could tell that Lucius was avoiding him from his stance to the way his gaze skipped past him when he scanned the group.

It was the most dishevelled Draco had ever seen his father look.

"Give it to me, or else I'll kill all of your silly friends."

Neville, across from him on the other side of the room where Bellatrix was holding his hair back—yikes, I'm glad I'm not the one with Aunt Bella's wand to my throat—yelled out in fear, his face so pale it was almost translucent.

"Don't give it to him, Harry!"

"Shut up, boy!" Lucius yelled back before glancing at Harry. "It's alright. If you give that little sphere to me then all will be right again. You can have those friends of yours given back unharmed. All you have to do is hand it over."

Harry raised an eyebrow at his father, and Draco's heart skipped at the defiance in his eyes.

No Harry, don't defy him. All he'll do is hurt you, I should know—

"I'm fine, thanks," he retorted.

Lucius slapped him.

Draco saw red.

"Don't you dare touch my boyfriend, you jackass—let go of me!" Twisting out of the firm grip the Death Eater had on him, Draco ran forward, sliding himself in front of Harry. "You get away from him."

For the second time that night, Lucius' eyes locked onto him with shock, his pupils widening against the grey that was the same colour as Draco's.

"You—you're defending him." He stated bluntly. Dumbstruck.

"If you touch him again I'll kill you."

Harry's hand gripped his, and words that sounded like, "Draco, what the hell are you doing?" were whispered in his ear, but Draco paid no attention to it. Beside him, Avery, the Death Eater which had been holding him, pointed his wand at the group, but Lucius silenced him with a hand.

Then he laughed. It was hysterical, and Draco was pretty sure he'd never heard his father laugh before, let alone like that, the sound like a train screeching to a sudden stop.

"I can't believe it," Lucius said, and everyone in the room seemed to be holding their breath. "My—my own son. And Harry Potter. All because I obliviated him."

There was a collective gasp from every corner of the room, Harry's the loudest.

"It was you?"

"Oh, Potter. It was always me." His laughter stopped abruptly, and he seethed. "And now that prophecy is mine. Avada Kedavra."

Green light soared towards him, and for a second, Draco was frozen. Time slowed almost to a halt, and he was shoved back to when that stray firework had neared his head when the Weasley twins had wreaked havoc through the school, and he ducked. His arm dragged Harry down with him subconsciously, and the light continued to fly, hitting the far wall where, thankfully, there was no one being held at wand point.

A cry sounded from an edge of the room, a noise like pain, ripped from the throat of someone with a wand to their own. Draco almost fainted at the wave of adrenaline that had washed over his senses and forced himself to breathe after noticing belatedly that he had stopped.

He felt light, like he was floating, flying, feeling free for the first time in his life, and when he stood up, his legs wobbling and shaking so hard underneath him that his whole body trembled with it, he raised his wand back at his father. At Lucius.

"I told you not to hurt him," he said, his voice sounding detached and far away. "I told you, but you didn't listen."

"Draco, stop! What are you doing—"

"I'm no longer going to be your puppet. I can't—no, I won't do it anymore. I'm done." He lifted his wand, pointing it straight at his father's slack-jawed face, and began to cast—

Someone bowled him over. Draco toppled, head smacking the ground with a loud thump, and there was another crash along with it like the shattering of a snow globe. When he tried to groggily open his eyes to the sudden noise that had erupted like flames around him, there were white blurs clouding his vision. Except, when he looked closer, Draco realised that they weren't white blurs at all.

They were Aurors. They had come. His Patronus had worked.

Moaning, he lay still on the ground for a moment.

"Draco? Draco, are you okay? Sorry, I didn't mean to run into you, but I didn't want you to kill your father, and, oh Merlin, I'm such an idiot, I'm sorry—Expelliarmus!—really, I didn't mean to knock you over." Someone's hand gripped his shoulder, and he forced himself to open his eyes, to get up, to blow away the shadow that had fallen like a blanket over his thoughts.

Shouts rang in his ears—or were his ears actually ringing? Draco couldn't tell anymore—and when he found himself able to understand things again, to let the blanket slip off with a flutter, he noticed the pandemonium that had appeared around him. It was a completely different scene from the one he had seen a few seconds ago.

There was fighting, white against black, light against dark, and the group that had gone on this mission had all freed themselves from their captors, wielding their wands like weapons.

It was like a switch had been flipped.

Harry had to erect a shield charm suddenly, stopping a wayward spell from flying and hitting them, and he held it up, the light shimmering and making everything that was happening outside of the new bubble seem far away and distant.

"Are you alright?" He asked again, worry lacing his voice and eyes scanning his face.

Draco grunted as he fully sat up, wincing as his head throbbed and his side burned something fierce. "Just dandy," he grumbled.

Harry grinned.

"Malfoy's back, I see." Oddly enough, he didn't sound afraid. Merely relieved.

Still, though, Draco wondered about how much he had changed—to Harry, who was used to his chaotic and unbiased character, and to him, about how he had never felt so carefree until after he forgot.

What makes a person? He asked himself idly. Their memories and past? Or their present?

Draco didn't know which version of him was the real one.

Slowly, he stood up, carefully placing weight on his shaky feet.

"Come on," he said lightly, as if talking about something as mundane as the weather. "Let's go fight some Death Eaters."

Harry's shield fell, and they joined the chaos with their wands held aloft, together.