Chapter Text
It was all so sterile.
There didn’t seem to be any warmth on the fifth floor. It was like the world had forgotten it and the patients it ensconced.
It was the ward that held the long-term patients, the patients who were irrevocably damaged by magic.
With a quick look around, Draco could see why these patients needed to be hidden away from the world.
There was what looked to be an area to converse and play games off to the left of him. A large window offered a magnificent view of London, but no one was looking out of it.
A young witch dressed in white scrubs sat next to a small table that was bolted to the ground. Her lank blonde hair hung in uneven clumps around her wan face.
He had heard the term “dead eyes” before, but he never had seen someone who embodied it so well.
She was facing away from the window. Instead of looking out of the window, the witch was staring at the white wall across from the table, her gaze achingly vacant.
The skin of the young witch’s neck held blackened burn marks that only magic could have caused. The fingers of her left hand were blackened, too, from fingernail to the first knuckle. It looked as if she had tried to—
“May I help you?”
A healer stood in front of him, her face devoid of all warmth. Just like the ward itself.
“I’m Healer Janus. Are you here to visit someone?”
Healer Janus had greying hair pulled back in a chignon at the nape and thin lips that were pursed.
“Um,” Draco cleared his throat and adjusted the bouquet he still held. “I’m here to see…”
Draco’s tongue felt leaden in his mouth, his chest tightening as the name begrudgingly formed on his lips.
He had known he would have to eventually say his name, but now that he faced the reality of it, he wasn’t expecting how difficult it would be to speak his name.
From his peripheral, he still could see the girl sitting stock still, her empty gaze still rapt on the barren white wall.
It was bothering him.
Why won’t she look out of the window?
“Well, I’m here to see…”
After eight years of trying to ignore the most painful, secret part of himself, it wasn’t easy to face it head-on.
His eyes flicked down to the bouquet of carnations he still held, the red of them appearing blindingly vibrant in the sterile white that surrounded them.
They made him think of his daughter and suddenly, his chest didn’t feel tight any longer.
“Harry Potter,” he finally croaked. “I’m here to see Harry Potter.”
The woman’s dark eyes widened slightly before returning to their narrowed shape.
“Forgive me, but he doesn’t receive many visitors. Are you of relation?” she asked, primly folding her hands in front of her.
Draco’s fingers tightened around the flowers in his hand, the paper that held them making a crinkling noise that sounded deafening in the surrounding silence.
“Yes, I suppose I am,” he murmured. “My name is Draco Malfoy.”
The recognition was instantaneous in Janus’ eyes, and he wished it wasn’t.
“Oh,” she breathed, her hard gaze softening into something he didn’t want to put a name to. “Mrs. Weasley told me you would visit soon. Right this way, Mr. Malfoy.”
She turned and began walking down the corridor. So Draco followed, his chest feeling hollow.
Even though he felt calm on the surface, on the inside, he was in turmoil. His footsteps were sure and corporeal, just like his fingers clutching the flowers to his chest, but he felt like he could float away at any moment.
Maybe he had made a mistake. Maybe he shouldn’t have come to London. Maybe Arlen had been right.
If there was anything left of the man he had once been held captive by, did he really want to know?
If… Harry resembled that poor girl who wouldn’t look out the window and stared at nothing, could he bring himself to even—
“Here we are,” Healer Janus announced, stopping in front of a closed door. “There are some things I should discuss with you before you see him, though.”
Draco shifted on his feet and nodded. “What sort of things?”
“The memory charm is not meant to be self-inflicted. Mr. Potter tried on three separate occasions to eradicate certain memories from his own mind.”
”That’s… that’s borderline suicidal,” Draco whispered.
Misuse of the Obilviation charm could cause detrimental damage and Harry had done it, anyway.
Healer Janus slowly nodded.
“By attempting to perform this completely reckless magic upon himself, he has caused irrevocable brain damage. He’s not the same person he was and will never completely return to… normal. His responses are limited, and he remains primarily mute. He’s able to care for himself, but the irreparable damage he’s done to his mind has taken its toll, I’m afraid.”
Draco swallowed thickly, trying to process what she was telling him. “Will he be able to recognize me?”
She sighed and offered him a tight smile.
“Sadly, I wouldn’t be able to predict that. We’re still uncertain what memories have been damaged in Mr. Potter’s mind and recovery has proven difficult for him. In short, I don’t think he wants to remember and shows no interest in trying to regain his lost memories. He won’t let any of the Head Healers perform Legilimency on him and refused all magical treatment and rehabilitation. The damage that has been dealt upon his mind remains unseen, Mr. Malfoy.”
Draco glanced at the closed door in front of them, a dull ache in his heart.
“Will he ever be able to return home?” he whispered.
“Mr. Potter has been here for quite some time now. He was admitted for safety reasons and protection against himself, but he has attempted no self-harm while staying in the ward. I think with an appropriate guardian to look after him after discharge, he could reintegrate into society and try to get back to a normal life. Only time will tell how much actual damage he’s done to himself.”
Draco nodded woodenly. “I’d like to see him now, please.”
Healer Janus gave him a solemn nod in response and stepped aside, allowing Draco to open the door and step inside.
The room matched the rest of the ward: barren, white, and dreadfully isolating. There was a small twin bed shoved up against the left wall and a nightstand next to it that held nothing—no flowers, no pictures, nothing that would denote that someone had been living in the room.
There was one solitary chair in the room, but it had been dragged in front of the only window, and in that chair—sat Harry Potter.
His back was to Draco, and unable to help himself, he took in every infinitesimal detail of Harry’s appearance as if it were the first time he had ever beheld him.
Harry’s dark hair held more grey than black now, the hair brushing the nape of his neck threaded with silver that shone under the fluorescent lighting.
He looked thinner, his broad shoulders slack and unassuming in a way that contradicted the cruel man Draco remembered from his captivity.
When he heard the soft click of the door shutting behind him, he could not tamp down the spike of fear that suddenly jutted within him.
Reflexively, his magic gathered around him like a shield. He hadn’t even called it forth, but it was a reaction he couldn’t stop.
—Won’t let him take it from again—
He thought that after so many years and after so many imagined scenarios and whispered mantras in the silence of his bedroom late at night, he could mask such a reaction.
But there he stood, clutching his daughter’s carnations like a lifeline, unable to speak. His throat felt lodged with thickening fear, rendering him mute.
Harry didn’t move. He didn’t even twitch. He just sat there, the collar of his white scrub top moving finitely against the back of his neck, showing that he was alive and breathing.
Alive.
Even though Draco had often wished he wasn’t.
He only had those thoughts when he was at his lowest, wallowing in the murky memories of the past abuse he wished he could forget.
Draco sucked in a shaky inhale. He pushed all his reemerging trauma and unpleasant memories to the back of his mind, doing so with precision he had mastered over the years when he needed to be strong for his daughter.
“Hello.” His own voice sounded foreign to him, strong and resolute, even though he was feeling anything but.
Draco slowly walked over to where Harry was sitting, until he was standing directly in front of him, blocking his view of the window.
Up this close, Draco could see how the years in Azkaban had changed him. There were more lines around his eyes and several silvered scars above his brow and on his temples.
Most likely from when he had tried to Obliviate himself.
The lightning bolt scar Draco remembered asking about was covered from view by Harry’s hair.
Draco knew the story behind that scar now thanks to Hermione. He knew why Harry had held such hatred for him and why he had held him captive.
Even though he now knew the truth behind Harry’s cruelty towards him, it didn’t make what was done to him any easier to accept.
“It’s me, Harry. It’s Draco. I came to see you.”
Harry’s eyes remained downcast, staring at the white floor beneath their feet.
Their bond pulsed weakly between them, making Draco’s breath hitch. It was dulled by so many years apart, but it was still there.
All that he could register from Harry’s side of the bond was… nothingness.
Static.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” Draco whispered.
Silence. Heavy, loaded silence that seemed to hook itself beneath Draco’s skin and tug insistently until it gave way to anger.
Draco gritted his teeth, stepping closer to him.
“You ripped me away from mother, tortured me, raped me, impregnated me, and now you won’t even deign to look at me?”
When Harry flinched, something withered within him, deflating his anger as fast it had arrived.
“Are you… are you afraid of me, Harry?”
Harry remained silent, his lids lowered over his eyes, his dark lashes casting shadows over his sunken cheeks.
He looked so… weak.
The shrunken man in front of him wasn’t the same monster from Draco’s past. This was a man that he didn’t recognize.
Draco knelt on the floor in front of Harry, setting the carnations on the floor next to him.
“They say your memories have been damaged,” he murmured. “That you may never recover them. The Healer told me you’ve refused to have Legilimency performed on you to assess the damage.”
Harry remained mute, not meeting his eyes.
“I thought after these years away from you, I’d feel nothing but contempt when I inevitably saw you again.”
Draco took a shuddering breath before he spoke again.
“But I don’t, Harry. I feel sorry for you. I feel sorry for everything that has happened to you in the past, and I feel sorry for you now.”
Draco stood, leaving the bouquet of carnations next to Harry’s feet on the floor.
“I think you’re a coward.” He noticed the subtle twitch of Harry’s fingers on his right hand, but the older man still didn’t look at him. “You should have to live with what you’ve done, just as I have to live with what you have done to me. Erasing your memories won’t erase what happened. It won’t erase your guilt. It won’t erase me.”
Draco turned to leave but was stopped when long fingers wrapped around his wrist in a firm grip.
He looked down, meeting reddened green eyes.
It was as if a battering ram had slammed into his heart, the weight of that intense gaze making him suck in a sharp inhale. Those haunting, familiar eyes dropped to his covered stomach.
Harry’s eyes flicked over his flat stomach with urgency, his gaze desperate.
Had he forgotten about her? Had he erased the memory of their child?
For some reason, that upset him the most, and he wasn’t sure why.
“Goodbye, Harry,” he choked out.
He wrenched his wrist away and fled the room, leaving the sad and pitiful monster of his past behind.
XXX
Draco stood in the entryway of 12 Grimmauld Place.
Or what was left of it, anyway.
He had gotten the key from Hermione.
“I just can’t go back there yet. Not after… everything that happened.”
Draco was now understood why Hermione hadn’t wanted to return to Grimmauld Place.
The place was wrecked beyond recognition. Furniture was strewn about the corridor and peeling, blackened wallpaper drooping from the walls. A thin layer of what looked like ash coated every tangible surface.
Pulling his wand out, he lifted it in front of him as the tip flared with soft light.
He walked further into the home, noticing how the damage worsened as he went.
Harry’s study was almost unrecognizable.
Miscellaneous pieces of burned parchment littered the top of his desk. The glass face of the enchanted grandfather clock in the room's corner was smashed in, the clock hands awry.
The bookshelves that held Harry’s book collection looked like they had caught fire. The titles on the spines of the remaining books were illegible, singed away by what he could only assume was magical fire.
Had Harry done all of this?
From what he could remember, Grimmauld Place had always been pristine. To see it in this state, he could only think…
It reflected the tortured man’s soul who had made it this way.
Reluctant sympathy took root in his heart, burrowing deep amongst the pain and hate he had harbored for many years.
He carefully stepped over the broken, burnt mess on the floor and stopped in front of Harry’s desk. Lowering his wand, he allowed it illuminate the top of the desk.
Burnt copies of the Daily Prophet littered the desktop. The headlines made his insides twist with nausea.
Harry Potter once lauded by all of Wizarding Britain now disgraced!
Minister Shacklebolt to stand trial for imposed breeding law!
Narcissa Malfoy escapes from Azkaban!
Draco’s own face stared back at him from one copy, his empty grey eyes making his heart seize with unpleasant memories of Harry’s trial.
He had been so young…
Pushing aside the remnants of the Prophet, Draco’s brought his attention to the desk’s drawers.
Knowing Harry, he had probably placed some kind of protective enchantment on the desk to dissuade anyone from snooping.
Unless…
Draco reached out and slid the fingers of his free hand along the bottom of the drawer, feeling for any kind of magical kickback.
The drawer remained inert beneath his fingers.
Silent.
Perhaps Harry had wanted someone to snoop.
Could Harry have possibly foreseen him coming back to Grimmauld Place?
Sliding the drawer open, he examined the contents. A quill, parchment, and other innocuous baubles. Nothing of great interest.
He slid some items aside, spotting an envelope tucked in the far back corner of the drawer.
Setting his wand down on the edge of the desk, he pulled out the envelope from the drawer. After opening it, he turned it over and shook its contents onto the surface of the desk.
It was… Muggle photographs.
And they were all of him.
He picked one up, a tremor to his fingers that he always tried so hard to hide from others.
It was of him, looking impossibly young. In the photo, he was sleeping on his side. His jaw was slack, lips parted as he slept. His stomach was slightly rounded, so it must have been in his second trimester.
He looked so small, curled up like that.
Vulnerable.
A broken boy.
He could remember that sleep had been the only escape for him during his captivity with Harry. The only time he had felt truly safe from him and the only time he felt he was truly alone.
But even in sleep, Harry had been watching him.
Draco began gathering up the scattered photographs, placing them back into the envelope.
They had all been taken when he was asleep.
Why had Harry kept these?
If Harry had only been using him to get revenge, why had he taken so many photos?
Everything else in the home was destroyed, but the photographs remained unscathed. If Harry wanted to erase all the memories of him, it only made sense that he would destroy the photographs first.
Why, why, why.
After he had placed all the photographs back in the envelope, he carefully tucked it into his trouser pocket to deal with later.
Picking his wand back up, he allowed it’s light to lead him to the stairs.
The upper floors of the home fared no better.
Everything seemed to be damaged in some way, whether it was by magical fire or looking as if it had been destroyed by human strength alone.
A tendril of shameful satisfaction curled within Draco at seeing the once beautiful home of Harry Potter in shambles. He couldn’t help but feel an inkling of pleasure at seeing his former captor’s home resemble the once illustrious wizard’s heart.
Was it wrong to feel that way after so many years?
He had never been a spiteful person—even as a child, but now…
Draco’s heart ached despite his satisfaction.
Halting in the corridor, Draco opened the door to the room that once held the peace he so often sought out during his captivity.
He was surprised to see that the room remained the same as it was all those years ago.
Harry hadn’t touched anything in the room.
Walking into the room, he lightly trailed his fingertips over the mantel above the fireplace. Everything in the room held a thin layer of dust, even the portrait.
“Master Potter told Kreacher to leave it be.”
Startled, Draco whirled around with his wand raised to see Kreacher standing in the open doorway to the bedroom. The gnarled-looking house-elf was watching Draco, lids drooping but gaze sharp.
“Told Kreacher not to touch Master Black’s bedroom,” Kreacher murmured. “Not to touch any of the mess he left behind. To let it all burn.”
Heart in his throat, Draco asked hoarsely, “Harry told you that?”
“Master Potter was maddened, destroyed everything in sight. Told Kreacher to hide. Kreacher hid.”
Draco knew he should be incensed to see the house-elf that had aided in Harry’s torture of him, but he couldn’t muster even a modicum of anger.
He just felt sorry for Kreacher.
The old house-elf had been much like him—held captive by Harry Potter and his self-destructive need for revenge. Being angry with Kreacher would do no good.
Draco was so tired of anger.
“I see,” Draco said thickly. “You’ve done well watching over Grimmauld Place in Harry’s absence. Leave me to think now, Kreacher.”
The house-elf obediently turned and began loping down the corridor, mumbling to himself.
Gaze returning to Sirius’ portrait, Draco ran his shaky fingers through his hair. His tenuous grip on his emotions was slipping.
Being back in the place where he had endured all of his abuse was more difficult than he had imagined.
“Everything is so wrong, Sirius,” he whispered hollowly. “I don’t know how to fix what’s been done. I have my daughter to care for now, but I find myself unable to let go of the past…”
Speaking to the portrait felt cathartic to him, long repressed memories and feelings emerging as he stood there.
Though he was older now, standing beneath Sirius’ portrait made him feel like he was back in the broken boy’s body that was pregnant and afraid eight years before.
Meeting Sirius’ dark eyes, a bolt of realization hit him.
Maybe…
He lifted his hand again, letting his fingertips graze over the raised skin on his throat from the scarred mating bite Harry had left.
It no longer hurt, but the memory remained.
The bond remained, weak as it was.
Dropping his hand, a wave of resolution settled over him.
Trying to hide from his past wouldn’t make it disappear. Burying his emotions wouldn’t help him heal. Erasing memories wouldn’t help him forget.
Draco pocketed his wand and strode over to one of the tall windows in the bedroom before pulling aside the thick curtains.
A shaft of mid-afternoon sunlight hit Sirius’ portrait, sending it awash in golden light. He noticed things about the portrait that he hadn’t been able to see in the darkness. Details that weren’t discernible before.
It was like he was looking at the portrait with new eyes.
He was ready to face his past.