You Must Remember This

Harry stretched and yawned as he and Ron left Remus' office. Ron had filled Remus in about the details of what had happened with Fleur, but Harry hadn't said anything to either of them about the bundle he carried in his pocket.

"I know I've been here a dozen times, but I can never get over how big this place is." Ron looked across the foyer to the long, elegant staircase that spiralled toward the guest rooms. "I'm glad I decided to come back tomorrow with reinforcements. My legs will give out if I have to make more than two trips up and down those stairs to interrogate suspects."

Ron was smiling in a way that made Harry grin in return. There was nothing Ron liked more than a good interrogation - Ron had shown a considerable aptitude for detective work, and that coupled with his acts of heroism during the War and his father's elevated position in the Ministry had helped him achieve his high Auror rank at such a young age. Hermione liked to tease that it was especially ironic considering how much of Ron's early teens had been spent in a perpetual state of cluelessness.

"That's what I get for letting Remus do the planning," Harry laughed. "I would have settled for a small place, more like a bed and breakfast. He said a regular hotel would be too boring, and a casino would make more money. He's a lot like you, in many ways." He looked over at his friend with a teasing grin.

But Ron wasn't looking at him. Ron was staring fixedly at a point over Harry's shoulder, his expression incredulous.

Harry quirked an eyebrow at him. "What?" Getting no answer, he turned, following Ron's line of sight to the front door, where a tall man in black had just entered the lobby.

Harry felt as though he'd been sucker punched in the stomach. A familiar ache spread across his chest into his lungs where the air used to be, and he could only stare as Draco Malfoy walked into the hotel, pulling back the hood of his travel cloak and shaking the rain from his umbrella like it was the most normal thing in the world for him to be standing right there after having practically disappeared from the face of the earth for three long years.

Seeing Draco again so unexpectedly brought up a whole lot of things that Harry really didn't want to think about at that moment. He took the rising memories and quickly pushed them back into the far corner of his mind.

"Isn't this an interesting new development," Ron murmured beside him.

The door of the security office opened suddenly and Rico came out, walking quickly over to them. "Mr. Potter," he said quietly. "Gerry just floo-ed from the gate and he says to tell you that Mr. Draco Malfoy is on his way up."

"Yes, I can see that, thank you," Harry said. He watched as the bell captain had a few words with Draco, then took his cloak and led him upstairs toward the guest rooms. Harry and Ron stood quietly until the pair had disappeared into the upper hallway. Harry didn't think Draco had seen them.

"Is there anything you want me to do, Mr. Potter?" Rico asked.

"No, no. I understand Gerry's concern, but Mr. Malfoy was on our side during the War, after all." Harry managed a weak smile. Rico didn't look entirely convinced, but he nodded and went back into his office anyway, sparing one last curious look up the stairs.

"Harry," Ron said carefully. "Do you really think it's of no concern that Malfoy shows up out of nowhere just when something interesting is happening?"

"I don't," said Remus, and Harry jumped, startled. He'd been so distracted that he hadn't heard his business partner come up behind them. Remus held up a hand and ticked off a list on his fingers: "Plenty of money, pre-established interest in objects of dark power, Death Eater family ties - I think it's anything but coincidence."

Harry didn't know what to think. The bundle in his pocket suddenly felt like it weighed five times as much as it had before.

"Well," Ron said briskly, clapping Harry on the shoulder and jolting him out of his thoughts. "I'll be back in the morning with my investigations team, and we'll have a nice chat with Malfoy then. Meanwhile, just have Rico keep an eye on his room - take note of any visitors, and make sure he doesn't go anywhere."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The clock on the shelf chimed midnight, but Harry didn't feel like going to bed. Nerves had his stomach all tied into knots and he was tired, but he knew from experience that trying to go to sleep with his mind in such a state would be more frustrating than it was worth. He'd tucked the pouch with the mysterious Key into his sock drawer. It seemed as good a place as any to keep it until he could figure out what to do next.

He held onto a cup of tea, feeling the warmth spread through his hands. Drowsily he watched as steam rose from the surface, ghostly tendrils spinning upward, echoes of things past ... potions brewing in a dungeon classroom ... puffing breaths on a cold Quidditch pitch ... Hogwarts burning, columns of thick smoke rising above the Forbidden Forest like thunderclouds. For weeks afterward, no matter how hard he had scrubbed himself in the bath, the stench of ash and fire had clung to his skin, his hair, even the inside of his nose.

There was almost no way for Draco not to have known Harry was half owner of The Phoenix, even though the Malfoy heir had been keeping well out of the public eye - so well out that his absence still warranted notice in the gossip columns from time to time. The grand opening of the hotel and casino had been on the front page of every major Wizarding newspaper and magazine, as well as being broadcast live over the Wizard News Network. Harry and Remus had cut ribbons and popped champagne and smiled broadly for the cameras for what seemed like days. And yet he had come anyway, for reasons unknown to anyone but himself.

Harry supposed he should go with Ron to question Draco, although he didn't know how Malfoy would react to his presence. Harry wasn't sure if his presence would be a help or a hindrance. Maybe Draco wouldn't care one way or the other. He wasn't sure which of those possibilities he was more anxious about. The last time they had spoken to each other had ended very, very badly. Harry snuggled back into the plush armchair with a sigh and let himself remember ...

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Draco's conversion to the Order of the Phoenix in their Sixth Year had always been a mystery to Harry. One night he'd been summoned to Dumbledore's chambers, where he'd been faced with the unexpected sight of a wounded Snape being tended by Dumbledore while an anxious Draco looked on. Two sets of Death Eater robes lay discarded on the floor; both were torn, and one was streaked with blood. Harry had just enough time to catch the look of naked concern on Draco's face over the Headmaster's shoulder as Dumbledore bent over to apply a healing salve to a deep wound on Snape's forehead. Draco's left eye was bruised and blackening but he stood without complaint and watched his Head of House being tended.

"Harry," Dumbledore had said calmly, without looking up. "Mr. Malfoy will be joining us at tomorrow night's Order meeting. While I see to Professor Snape's injury, would you be so kind as to instruct him in the proper passwords, and see that he gets to the infirmary. Poppy will want a look at him, even though he claims to be just fine."

Harry had been too shocked to ask questions, and Draco hadn't said a word other than to curtly repeat the passwords back to him on the walk to the infirmary. They had gone quickly through the dark, and Madame Pomfrey had been anxiously waiting for them, hustling Draco off into an exam room and closing the door behind her with barely a glance at Harry.

The next night, Draco had appeared at the Order meeting, white-faced and silent, the bruises around his eye standing out in stark contrast to his pale skin. Harry remembered the stunned silence that filled the room, how everyone had stared at the Slytherin when he'd walked in calmly with his head held high and his usual air of disdain. But Dumbledore had said nothing as Draco took one of the empty chairs against the wall. He just started right in with business as usual, and no one else made any comment after that (although Sirius had fidgeted a lot). Draco came to nearly every meeting from that day forward, until their school days ended. He would sit next to Severus, often staying behind with the Potions Master to talk to Dumbledore in private long after everyone else had left.

Harry never found out the reason for Draco's change of heart, but the younger Malfoy had proven to be an invaluable spy. It was a purely one-sided arrangement, of course; Draco told them what he knew of Voldemort's plans when he could, but once he had left Hogwarts it was far too dangerous for him to go to Order meetings, and owling their plans back to him was out of the question.

"It's not that we don't trust you," Albus had said one day, within Harry's hearing. "It's too much of a risk. You understand." And Draco, dignified as ever, had simply said he did and left it at that. It was never mentioned again.

As the war continued, Voldemort grew increasingly impatient as he failed to make significant headway against the Ministry and the Order of the Phoenix. Led by Lucius Malfoy, the Death Eaters had begun launching attacks on towns of Muggles, trying to draw Dumbledore's followers out into open battle. Lucius didn't like or trust Severus Snape, and so by that time Dumbledore's lead spy was being left out of many of the more devious schemes. If it hadn't been for Draco's inside knowledge and the steady stream of coded information that he secretly sent back to Hogwarts, many additional lives would have been lost and things would have been much worse for the Order.

After graduation, Harry - always a target of the Death Eaters - had stayed on at Hogwarts at Dumbledore's request, where the protection was strongest. Harry's presence encouraged parents to continue to send their children to school even after the war had broken out in earnest. He'd helped teach Defence Against the Dark Arts, and he'd practiced wandless magic with Dumbledore and Sirius. They'd begun having drills for the students in case of attack, getting the younger children used to the idea of running, hiding, and defending themselves. He'd trained hard, every day, for the battles they knew would eventually come to their doorstep. He had received regular owls from Ron and Hermione, comfortably settled in their new jobs with the Ministry, and remained a distant third party to their growing romance.

The final attack had come during the spring of Harry's twenty-first year. He remembered very few details about the actual day that Voldemort's followers finally cracked the security wards around Hogwarts. He knew the standard accounts, of course, the ones that made the newspapers and the ones written into the history texts: how both Hogwarts and the Ministry of Magic had been attacked simultaneously; how the faculty and students of Hogwarts had mounted a more than adequate defence under the experienced leadership of the Order members while the Ministry Aurors fought more fiercely than anyone had ever anticipated they could, pressed into unexpected heroism by Ron's unceasing encouragement. But there were many things that the new history texts left out, like Draco's final desperate message that nearly came too late ...

The official accounts never effectively captured the sounds of screaming panic and the confused swirl of bodies running and diving for cover as masked figures blinked into the Great Hall in the middle of lunch, hours earlier than expected. There were no swaying photographic images of Voldemort's Abatamancers breaking down the protective wards with their murmured chants, no pictures of Snape turning over tables and shoving Dumbledore to the ground behind them, no front page headlines telling how Remus had leapt from his side and hurled himself bodily at the nearest Death Eater. Only in Harry's dreams was there any replay of the sickening crunch a man's head made as it connected with the stone floor, propelled toward the bone-splintering surface by Sirius's furious fists.

Those few things Harry could remember with startling clarity, even years later. But everything after that was a blur of ducking and dodging and hurling curses, stumbling into and over bodies, chasing and being chased. The only other image that stood out clearly from that day was a set of sea-grey eyes staring hard into his own, a deep, piercing pain within them that was all Harry's fault. On the nights that he dreamed of these things Harry would wake up shuddering and gasping for breath, covered in a cold sweat and tangled in his blankets.

The clock struck half twelve. Sipping his lukewarm tea, Harry remembered the awards ceremony that had been held not long after the final battle, where he'd been awarded the Order of Merlin - the highest honour given to a Wizard. Others had received the honour as well, including Ron. At the same time Snape, Draco, and Sirius (posthumously) had been given special pardons from the Ministry in acknowledgement of their "delicate" work in the service of the Order of the Phoenix.

Draco had sat next to Snape and stared straight ahead through the whole ceremony. He'd refused to look at Harry at all.

He'd finally caught up with Draco at the end of the night, after the reception and a few too many cocktails. One glimpse of a pale blond head had sent Harry running to the back door, desperate to catch Draco before he left.

"Malfoy, wait!"

"I've nothing to say to you." Draco had opened the door, and Harry followed him out into the damp night.

"But I just wanted to -"

Draco cut him off. "You don't have to worry about me, Potter. I'm fine."

"Why won't you talk to me?" Harry blurted out. He had the feeling Draco wasn't quite as drunk as he was, and it put him even more off balance.

Draco's laugh was bitter. "I'm sorry, you know; sorry that I - wait, no I'm not." Draco looked at him for the first time, and his eyes were hard. "I'm glad, as a matter of fact. I wouldn't change a thing."

"Just my luck. You're finally talking, but you're not making any sense."

Draco smiled, but there was no warmth in it. "Well. Anyway. If I'd just gone straight back for help, if I hadn't been in shock ... if I hadn't let him get to me so, I'd have gone on my way, and you'd have gone yours, and it never would have happened. But at least now I know where I stand. The mystery is gone."

Harry held his hands up, pleading. "Look, I've never asked you to -"

"Oh I know, Potter. You never ask anyone for anything. You're perfectly content as you are, with your little gaggle of perfect friends and your hundreds of fawning admirers. Don't misunderstand, I know where you're coming from - you have a reputation to think of, after all. It won't do for you to be seen traipsing about with the enemy. But there's also something that I won't do."

Harry stared at him, confused. "What's that?"

"Get burned twice in the same place." And with that Draco Apparated away, fading out slowly like a half-remembered dream. It was the last time that he was seen by any wizard for the next three years.

And now he was sleeping quietly in Harry's hotel just like any other guest.

Harry swore softly, pinching the bridge of his nose. His tea had grown cold, and he set it aside. He would have to talk to Draco in the morning, there was no way around it. But it wasn't something he was looking forward to at all.