Chapter Text
When he opened his eyes, he felt strange in his skin. As if he was another person. As if he drank some fucking polyjuice. His vision was blurred and he rubbed his eyes a handful of times before he could see clearly.
He thought he was dreaming. He thought he was having a bloody nightmare. Hermione Granger - of all people - was leaning over him with a sorrowful expression on her face. She looked like she was going to cry.
"What are you doing here?" He asked and he knew that his face was modeled on surprise. But not surprise in the good sense of the word.
Before he could look around, she hugged him. "Oh, Draco."
He felt her body shake and it wasn't even a handful of seconds before he brushed her away. "What the hell are you doing?"
She looked at him with eyes full of horror. "Draco?"
"And since when this confidence? Where am I?"
She opened and closed her mouth twice before speaking. "At St. Mungo, you had an accident. Don't you remember?"
An accident? The last thing he remembered was his office. He quietly taking his coffee in his office.
"I don't remember shit, Granger." She gasped at the harshness of his words. "Did you at least warn someone? My mother, for example?"
Granger put a hand to her mouth in dismay.
"Yes, she's on her way. She was the first person I spoke to," her expression went blank. "I'm going to call a healer," she murmured immediately after, adjusting the scarf around her neck.
He shot her a stern look on her shoulder as she walked out of the hospital room.
Draco cracked his neck and looked around. His wand was not there. Before he could even think of getting out of that bed, a healer with Granger at his heels rushed up beside him, a medical chart clutched in his hands.
"Great," he hissed through gritted teeth.
"Mr. Malfoy," the healer began gently. "I'll ask you a few simple questions to assess the gravity of your situation."
Draco rolled his eyes. "I don't seem to have anything broken, I have no pains, no visible wounds—"
"You drank a particularly potent oblivious potion, Mr. Malfoy," the healer interrupted. "From the blood test, it appears to have been corrected with ingredients currently illegal in the wizarding world. The Auror Department is investigating—"
"I'm part of the Auror Department, " Draco explained. He had been an Auror for three, almost four years. The healer observed him for a second and then wrote something on his chart. Draco looked at Granger standing next to the healer. Why wasn't she gone yet?
"Can you tell me what day it is?"
Draco snorted. "Really? Is this what you have to write down on that paper?"
Granger shifted her weight from foot to foot. Draco kept his eyes on the healer who didn't say anything, really waiting for him to answer that idiotic question.
"April 30, 2003," he said and then exhaled sharply.
"You already told me you're an Auror," the healer cleared his throat. "Any colleague you want to mention?"
"Potter. Harry Potter is my partner."
"Very well, Mr. Malfoy," and he scribbled again. "Let's move on to your personal relationships."
Granger exhaled and sat on the bed next to hers. He really wanted her to go. Why did he have to talk about that with her here? He scratched the back of his neck nervously.
"Your parents, for example," he continued.
Draco clenched his fists. "With my mother, I have what is called a civil relationship. With my father—" he broke off and looked up the room. "—We haven't talked to each other for a while."
The healer swung his pen. "Can I ask you why?"
Of course, he could ask him, wasn't that what he was there for? To ask idiotic questions? To gauge how mangled his mind was after he swallowed a pathetic oblivious potion? A potion freshmen learned at Hogwarts?
"Who gave me the potion?" Draco looked at Granger. If she was here, she was probably the culprit.
"Answer the question first and then I'll tell you everything, Mr. Malfoy."
Fuck. Of course, he would have answered the fucking question. He didn't talk to his father because—
His eyes widened. Why didn't he talk to his father?
"You don't remember, right?" Granger's voice was a whisper. The healer glared at her. She sighed sadly.
"No. I don't remember. Who gave me the potion?" He insisted, standing straight on the bed.
The healer blinked slowly, unsure whether to answer or not.
"Was it her?" Draco asked again, as if she were no less than two meters from him.
"No, Mr. Malfoy, otherwise she would be in Azkaban now," the healer squinted hard. He looked tired. "We think someone drugged your coffee. It's not a simple oblivious potion. It seems to last over time. The Auror Department is investigating to find the culprit," he tapped his pen on the folder twice. "It seems to be quite targeted as a potion, though."
He wanted to finish this immediately.
"Good. So have I answered right for now? Apart from my father?"
"Yes, Mr. Malfoy," the man in front of him touched the bridge of his nose. "Do you feel like continuing?"
Draco shrugged. "Of course."
Did he have a choice?
"Where do you live?"
Draco conjured up images of his home. Clear images, fortunately.
"A cottage in Little Gaddesden ."
"Oh, lovely," the healer sighed. "Isn't that a Muggle area?"
"East side only," Draco looked at the nightstand again, as if his wand might appear in that time. Before his eyes could return to the healer, he made them hesitate on Granger again. Now she was staring at her shoes, her eyelids seemed to be frozen.
"Do you live alone there?"
"Yes, of course."
And then there was a short gasp. From Granger’s throat.
"So you are not - let's say - accompanied at the moment?"
"No, I'm single."
Granger exhaled. "Can I wait outside?" She asked the healer. Her voice trembled.
"You may as well go, Granger," Draco broke in abruptly. "I guess we're almost done."
The healer looked first at him and then at her. He nodded his head lightly.
"I'll wait outside," she said in a whisper. "Your mother should be here soon."
Draco watched her staggering pace until she walked out without saying anything else.
The healer wasted no time. "Shall we talk about your friendships?"
"I guess so."
"Tell me."
"I don't have many friends. Pansy, Blaise, and Theo are the ones I see often. Sometimes I meet Greg for a butterbeer. I also see Potter. We go out once or twice a week, also with his wife, Ginny Weasley, now Ginny Potter, I guess. Although I'm not exactly a huge Weasley fan. "
"So are you three going out? You and Mr. and Mrs. Potter?"
It was a bit odd indeed. "Yeah?"
"Do you remember when your last relationship was?"
When had he been in a relationship? He had never actually had a proper one, not counting Pansy in school. After the war he had dated a girl whose name he could not remember. But only for a couple of months.
"I think it was January '99. I don't remember the girl's name. But it wasn't serious," he cleared his throat. Her name was Jenna or Jenny. "Then I had hookups. For a year, it seems to me."
The healer raised an eyebrow. "Hookups?"
"One night stand."
"So, let's say you haven't had any kind of relationship since the first months of the year 2000?"
Fucking hell. He hadn't fucked in three years. How the hell was that possible?
"From your silence I assume it's a yes," the healer glanced at the watch on his wrist.
"So is it really April 30, 2003?"
He scribbled again. "Correct, Mr. Malfoy," he declared with a little too much solemnity.
He kept asking harmless questions which he answered without problem. He snorted a couple times and the healer completely ignored him. For now, he didn't remember his father. The healer said the potion was targeted, so it was related to his father?
Another healer sneaked his head into the room after two powerful knocks on the door. "Jenkins, Mrs. Malfoy is here," big eyeglasses covered his face and Draco wondered how he worked like this.
"Five minutes. We're almost done," Jenkins dismissed.
"My mom will be worried," Draco crossed his arms across his chest.
"I'm sure Miss Granger is reassuring her," the healer smiled strangely. His mother - Narcissa Malfoy - having a civil conversation with Hermione Granger? Draco almost laughed at the thought.
"Speaking of which," the healer began casually. "What's your relationship with Miss Granger?"
"Gods," Draco exhaled. "Why?"
"Because she found you unconscious in your office," he explained, and it sounded like a pretty good bullshit. They weren't even in the same department at the Ministry. They weren't even on the same floor.
What were your relationships with Hermione Granger?
"We were at school together," he said simply, pulling off the sheets. "We hated each other."
"And after school?"
"We both started working at the Ministry in September of '99. Before that, she was back in school to finish senior year, from what I know. I had taken a sabbatical."
"At work? What relationship do you have?"
He hardly ever saw her. In fact, he couldn't remember the last time he'd seen her at the Ministry.
"We never see each other," he sighed, touching his chin absently. "We are in two different departments."
The healer sniffed. "But Miss Granger is very good friends with your partner, Mr. Potter."
Draco squeezed and released his jaw a couple of times. "Correct."
"Do you remember the last time you met her or when you spend time with her?"
"New Year’s Eve. 1999," he avoided telling him that he didn't really want to see her dead for a few months and that she looked particularly pretty in that golden halter-neck dress that night. He also avoided telling him that he had resisted the urge to apologize to her all evening. The words he had been holding inside since Potter had testified at his trial. He was really sorry, he realized. He should have done something when her Aunt Bellatrix tortured her, he realized that too. He remembered raising a glass of champagne in her direction at midnight and she blushed and returned the gesture.
"And didn't you see her again from there?"
"Not until today."
The healer wrote something more and then got up from his chair. "We're done, Mr. Malfoy."
"Can I get dressed?"
"Sure, your clothes and wand are in the back closet," he pointed theatrically to a humble closet at the back of the room. "In the meantime, I'll talk to your mother."
***
Draco pulled on his pants and shirt as his mind cleared. What exactly did he not remember? He tried to focus on that morning and think about what he had done before leaving for work. He did not remember if he had breakfast. Not at home, at least. He did not remember the way to get to work. He remembered talking to Harry before looking into a case. He remembered that he had complimented him on a wine. The wine from the night before. He had dinner at his house. Tuesday evening. He was pretty sure it was a celebration, but he didn't remember what it was due to. It wasn't his birthday. It wasn't any of his friend's birthdays. He cast a spell to fix his hair and put the wand back in the holster. It wasn't even a celebration of some sort of job promotion.
"Fuck," he gasped through clenched teeth as he straightened his collar.
He realized that he was missing some large pieces. Pieces of the day, necessarily linked to something. He didn't remember if he had showered that morning. Although he was sure he did it every morning to wake up properly. He didn't remember if he had lunch. Still, he wasn't hungry. It was four in the afternoon and he was not hungry. So he ate. But why couldn't he remember it?
"Mr. Malfoy," the healer had crept back into the room and interrupted his thoughts. "I'll be waiting for you in my study shortly, in the meantime, I'll let you talk to your mother."
Draco smelled his mother's scent before she could even wrap her arms around his neck and whimper his name. "Oh my God, Draco. I was so worried. Your dad was so worried!"
He hesitated in his mother's arms. He couldn't remember the last time she had held him like this. He remembered her giving him light pats on the cheek, and strokes on the forearm, but it had been a long time since she had embraced him like that. Maybe for years.
"I'm fine," he said briefly, with a hint of embarrassment.
Narcissa moved away for a moment to look him in the eye, a veil of concern made her frown.
"Your father was very worried too," she reiterated, just squeezing his shoulders. It seemed she was trying to convince herself rather than Draco.
He cleared his throat. He doubted it. "I don't doubt it," he murmured bitterly.
"That's true. He would have come if—" she broke off and pulled away from him with a shrug.
Draco inhaled his mother's familiar perfume before straightening his shirt. "If?"
Narcissa made a gesture with her hand. "Forget it. Shall we go and talk to the healer?"
Draco set his jaw. "Did he say something to you?"
Narcissa shook her head. Her blue robe stood out against the pale walls of St Mungo. "He just told me it's selective amnesia," she opened the door, turning her back to his son and the clamor of the corridors poured into the room. "His studio is over there."
***
You didn't have to be an Auror to understand that Hermione Granger had anything to do with this unsightly picture. She didn't even look at him when he walked into the healer's office, and she didn't even look at him when he sat down in the chair next to hers.
"Mr. Malfoy," said the healer without pleasantries. "I have a theory. But you have to answer one last question."
Draco felt uncomfortable as he looked the healer in the eye. "Come on," he said simply.
"Last Saturday night," he scratched an eyebrow. "Everything you can remember."
"Last Saturday? The 26th?"
The healer nodded and Granger exhaled sharply.
"I went to the theatre," he tried to conjure the evening in the back of his mind, but like everything else, he only remembered certain parts. He remembered the show, but he did not remember what he had done immediately after, when the curtain fell, when he walked to the exit.
"Alone?"
"Yes, sure. I was alone," he growled impatiently. Which of his idiot friends should he go with?
"And immediately after?"
"Then—" he looked up to remember. "I went to Trafalgar Square."
Trafalgar Square? Him, in Muggle London? Those words sounded absurd the moment they left his mouth.
"I don't remember well," he continued and then swore under his breath. Only then did he realize how much they had screwed him. He remembered nothing. A flash of Trafalgar Square and then nothing. He remembered nothing of the night.
"Mr. Malfoy," the healer began gravely. "Selective amnesia is characterized by forgetting only some of the events during a certain period of time," he looked at the chart in front of him with intensity. "But you haven't remembered anything connected with Miss Granger for three years now."
Draco was silent and then let out a low laugh. "What are you trying to tell me?"
"We've been together for nearly three years," Granger's voice was small, scared. Draco aligned his eyes with hers. "Last Saturday you asked me to marry you."
And his gaze fell, from the hazel irises to the sparkling ring on her finger.