And So Life Goes On...

Chapter Twelve
Second Tide

Harry doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know how to handle everything, his memories, or his magic--or his life. Everything's a mess and he doesn't know what to fucking do about it. He doesn't, and if he's supposed to--he still doesn't.

So he goes back to his daily routine, with some modifications of course. Because his magic has been volatile and his memories incapacitating, he asks Severus to give him something that will calm him down, drug him into a state where he won't be so emotional, where he doesn't feel so much.

Severus doesn't say anything, but gives him a Calming Draught. When Harry drinks it, he feels light and less burdened, detached from everything, even from the memories that are whirling around and compressing into his being. He can think now, without zoning out. He's here and not there. He's solid, grounded for now.

"Are you sure about this?" Draco asks, handing Harry his keys and wallet.

"Yes," Harry says, pausing to look at both men. "I need to do something else."

"But you also need to be protected," Severus says sharply, folding his arms with disapproval though he does nothing to stop Harry. His critical tone is enough to make Harry cringe, though it does not change his mind.

Harry knows he has to get out of the house, and besides, he's fine. He is as well as he has been the past two weeks. He's getting his memories back and if anything, he's finally going to be whole and real again. He won't be a fake, partial Harry anymore. He'll be as much himself as he ever was.

"From what?" Harry asks softly. "From my friends, from Albus?"

"Yes!" Severus exclaims, his eyes darkening. "Yes from them. They will find you should you leave, and they will harass you and they might perform that spell on you again. Do you want to risk that?"

"Severus is right," Draco adds, swallowing with difficulty. "They did it once."

"Albus did it once," Harry corrects. "Not my friends, not Ron, not Hermione, not the rest of them."

"But they allowed it," Draco whispers.

"And they knew," Severus includes. "And they did nothing to stop it." He grabs Harry's sleeve. "You don't think they'll let you remember, do you? They're afraid of you Harry, you must know that. And considering who they are... they have every right to be scared of what you are. They are ignorant and closed-minded, but that is the way they are and you cannot hope to change that."

"You cannot protect me forever," Harry says, pulling his arm from Severus' grasp. "It's been more than a week now. It's Monday, and I should go to the shelter. Despite everything they've taken from me, all that I've lost, there is one thing I've gained." Harry smiles a little. "The children there, they need me like I needed them. I was lost too, like them, but now that I'm finding myself--I want to help them even more. To do that, I must go back and I must not let them think I've abandoned them, because a lot of them have been abandoned by family members. And some of them probably will think I've left them. I can't do that to them, especially not to Teddy."

Harry's smile wanes and saddens. "And it's not the end of the world should I see my friends or Albus. I have to confront them sometime, and the reprieve you two have given me by casting an obscuring spell on my apartment has helped buy me time. I thank you for that, but I don't need that kind of help anymore. Maybe I should have confronted them on Friday when they came by, but I didn't. Now if they come, I will. I must. You understand, don't you? I've faced my past, Severus, in my mind, but I need to do it in person too."

Severus purses his lips and nods once. "So be it, if that would make you happy."

-

"Harry, you are happy, aren't you?" Hermione asks him.

He looks at her, unsure of what to say because he doesn't really know. Sometimes, late in the night when he's alone and unsure of exactly who he is--he would get so sad that he feels like nothing could fill the void in him. But when he's at the shelter, with the kids... he remembers why life is worth living.

"You aren't unhappy, right?"

He looks at her, really looks at her and sees the worry etched into her face. He thinks about what she had been rambling on when they went to the shelter the first day, how she was hoping he'd finally find a place where he'd be comfortable and happy. Why is his happiness so important to her? It's strange and comforting that she cares so much. It's always as if... as if... she needs him to be happy for her own peace of mind.

What a good friend she is, he reflects. She wants him to be happy so badly that he wants to be happy for her. He remembers the time when he's with the children, with Teddy, and it's not so hard to say, "No, I'm happy. Don't worry about me."

-

"I need to confront them," Harry declared. "I need to, I need to," he chanted. He fidgeted with his hands, trying to dispel some of his nervous energy. It wasn't working though. Nothing was. He was on edge, had been ever since his friends had called and said they were coming over. "But..."

"But what?" Draco inquired, looking at him with gentle eyes. "What, Harry?"

Harry wondered as he often does, what he will think of Draco when all his memories return. Will he still look at Draco for reassurance and with trust when he recalls their schooldays when they were enemies? He almost dreaded to remember them, much as he shuddered when he remembered some less than pleasant aspects of his past. But he had to, he reminded himself, he needed to.

"But I'm scared. I'm..."

It was hard for Harry to admit this, admit that he was frightened. He guessed that it was just a part of who he is, not being able to admit anything. He remembered something Hermione had said a long time ago: "You know, you don't have to keep everything inside of you. It helps to talk about things, that's why we're here, to help you."

Was that the reason why they did this to him? Because he wouldn't talk? Wouldn't tell them his problems? Sinking so far into his depression that he was not himself anymore? Changing so much that they were afraid of who he was?

"You're what?"

"I don't know," he whispered. "I don't."

Draco slid his hand over and tentatively touched Harry. This time Harry managed not to flinch and even bumped his hand against Draco's. "It's all right to be afraid," Draco said, his eyes reflecting Harry's face, submerged in grey. "I felt the same way when my father was sentenced to Azkaban, afraid of what it would do to my mother."

"And?"

"And you have to get over it and move on, or it'll drive you crazy like it did to my mother," Draco murmured. "If only she had been able to let go, to accept her sadness, and not let it rule her life--she would have been all right. It's hard though," he remarked, squeezing Harry's hand, "because it's never easy. But if you ever need someone that isn't connected to this," he said, his eyes drifting to the door where Severus had left early this morning to deal with the others, "I'm here."

-

"YOU'RE BACK!" Teddy exclaims and launches himself at Harry. "You're back! Oh god, you're really, really back and it's not just Becky saying you'll be back, but you're really, really back and it's not a lie at all. Not like the stuff that Uncle is always telling Aunt Pat when he's trying to get her off his back. I thought Becky was just saying things like that, to get me off her back and that you really weren't coming back because--because you didn't want us anymore."

His arse hurts, where he landed on it, but his heart aches even more. Harry wraps his arms around Teddy tightly and hugs him fiercely. "No, why would you ever think that? Of course I want to be here with you guys," Harry says, looking up and smiling at the other kids that are crowded around him. "What could be better than this?"

"Then where were you?" Teddy asks in an accusing voice, pulling away and yet clenching Harry's shirt. "Where were you when you should have been here? Huh? Why were you gone?"

"Yeah!" Vera adds.

Racquel prods him and says, "We thought you were just like the others that come and go and never come back again."

Harry sighs and gestures with his hands for the two girls to come close. "Haven't I proven by coming every day for more than two years that this is the place that I want to be? That I am not like the others?"

"Then why were you gone?" Teddy demands. "Why, Harry?"

Harry lowers his eyes and drops his head onto Teddy's shoulder in the way the boy always does when things become too much of a burden. "My past came back to haunt me. Life screwed up and then I got my memories back. It's been shitty since then."

"Potter! Language!" Becky shouts, though her smile does little to reinforce her words. "And do get inside. Don't you think you've spent enough time out of these doors?"

Teddy hops off while Harry grins and then groans as he gets up. He hobbles along like an old man until he adjusts to the pain. He walks up the steps to the Eastside Children's Shelter and gives Becky a hug. "I'm sorry."

She rolls her eyes and echoes the sentiment of every child in the nearby perimeter, "I'd rather have the story than the apology."

-

"I'm sorry, Harry," Ron whispers, brushing back Harry's hair until his unusual scar is revealed. Harry remembers feeling Ron trace his scar briefly before drawing his hand away. Harry wants to open his eyes, wants to tell Ron that he's fine--that he had stupidly overstressed his body--that everything is good. Okay. "I'm so sorry."

What was he sorry about? He thinks fuzzily. There's nothing for Ron to be sorry about. Harry struggles and fights, but he feels himself losing. It really wasn't Ron's fault that Harry had overworked himself. It was his fault, all his, so why is Ron blaming himself?

"I shouldn't have done that. I shouldn't have, but..." Harry feels his mind drifting away like Ron's words. "Oh Harry, I just wanted the..."

And he's out.

-

"They're here," Severus had declared three days before.

Harry felt the knots in his stomach--the whirling butterflies--clench and tighten. He thought he was okay. He thought he was ready, but he was wrong. He wasn't ready, he couldn't face them. What had he been thinking when he said to just let them come? Severus was right, he really wasn't ready. It was much too soon, and he needed more time to think, to settle, to be.

"Harry," Severus said sharply, dragging Harry's attention back to the older man, "they're waiting for you."

Harry turned panicked eyes toward Draco, who smiled reassuringly. "It'll be all right."

How could Draco know? Harry thought unkindly. It wasn't as if Draco had ever been betrayed. It wasn't as if Draco had been living a lie for the past four years. It wasn't as if Draco had to face all his past once more! No! All Draco had was pettiness, cruelty, banishment, and ostracism. He wasn't wanted, but he'd never been forced to make a paradigm shift in his life, to have what he once knew be proven to be nothing more than a fabricated lie. It was--remarkable and unbelievable. How could they? And how could he see them?

"How would you know?" Harry snapped. "How could you even begin to know what I'm going through? It's not as if you ever had--"

Draco's hand cracked against Harry's cheek. Harry was too stunned to do anything but stare at Draco, watch his arm get seized by Severus and then dropped. "I don't have to put up with your shit," Draco warned in a low voice. "But I understand where it's coming from. You're angry at them," Draco spat out, his eyes glaring at the door. "You should be taking it out on them, not me. Or even Severus. I know how you've look at him, shrink away from him, but the potion wasn't anything sinister. You can trust him, and you know you can trust me.

"I won't lie to you, Harry."

"No," Severus sneered, "Draco won't lie, he'll only twist the truth around to suit his own purpose, and it's up to you whether to believe him or not. Regardless, you have to make up your mind, Harry. Do you or do you not want to see your friends?"

Harry's eyes shifted from Draco to Severus in a pendulum-like movement until he finally decided it was easier to stare down at his hands. It was just easier, he thought, looking at the complicated lines blending and mixing, diverging and converging. They were so chaotic, the lines on his palms, but still much less than his life. At least this he can grasp, he reflected as he clenched his fists. His hands weren't slipping out of control like his life was.

"If I said no?" Harry asked. "What then?"

"Then we perform another Obscuring Spell," Draco remarked calmly, looking toward Severus, who nodded once. "Severus and I have been maintaining a spell that keeps this location impermeable to wizards or muggles. The spell has been lowered so they can find us, but if you say you aren't ready then we will redo the spell. It's up to you, and I would think carefully about it. Can you trust your friends, Harry? Really trust them?"

The problem was, Harry didn't know. Could he? Or could he not? His dream made him think he could, but it was just a dream. Severus had confirmed he had only regained and lost his memories once. And it made sense that Harry wouldn't be having a flashback whenever he was knocked out. It wasn't the same as a flashback, which needed something--even if it was a small thing, an obscure thing--as a trigger.

"We need an answer Harry," Severus stated in a clipped tone. "They'll be here in any minute."

Harry swallowed hard. "I'm not ready."

-

"Harry?" Becky calls, knocking on his opened door. "Um... there are people here to see you and--err, I forgot to catch their names. I know I've met this woman before, but..."

Harry looks up from the chess game he's playing with Teddy and sees Hermione and Ron standing behind Becky, their faces tense and anxious. "Thanks, Becky," he answers with a kind smile. "Everyone knows you have a terrible memory."

Becky scowls at him and if she had been standing near anything she could grab, he's sure he would be ducking. "You are such a brat at times," she mutters and rolls her eyes. She turns to Hermione and Ron and smiles sweetly. "Don't listen to anything he says about me, everything's false. He likes to make up wild stories. Just ignore him," she says and throws him a glare out of the corner of her eyes. "So Harry, would you like to meet with them here in your office or go to the café down the block?"

Harry gazes toward Ron and Hermione, locking eye contact with the latter and her eyes settle on the room. He nods once, almost imperceptibly, and says, "No, we'll stay here. If you could make sure we aren't disturbed, that'd be great."

"Come on Teddy," Becky urges, "let's leave Harry alone with his grownup friends."

Teddy stands up and puts the knight down on a white square three spaces from Harry's king. "Check."

Harry lets out an audible groan. "Great, he's going to beat me again," he mutters affectionately, reaching out and ruffling Teddy's hair. "You're just too good, too good for me anyway, but Ron here," Harry remarks, looking toward his best friend, "would give you a run for your money. He's brilliant."

Shifting his gaze toward Ron, Teddy studies the redhead with a curiously tilted head. "Have you ever lost to him?" Teddy asks, pointing at Harry. "At all?"

"Nope," Ron responds. "Not once."

Teddy grins. "Me too." Teddy turns around and grins impishly. "You suck."

Harry reaches out and pinches Teddy's nose. "Watch your mouth, young man, or else there will be no more demolishing me in chess anymore. There's only so much my fragile ego can take."

Teddy laughs and leans slightly toward Harry, saying, "In two more moves I'll have you in checkmate."

Looking at Ron, who nods in confirmation, Harry sighs. "I guess we'll have to start a new game then, eh?"

Teddy nods in all seriousness. "We will unless..." he remarks, looking at Ron, "he'd like to play."

"Maybe some other day," Harry replies quickly, "when there's more time."

"All right," Teddy agrees. "We'll probably only have enough time for you to lose one more time before I'll have to leave."

"Come on Teddy," Becky states in a more urgent tone. "The faster we go, the faster you can get back to whipping his sorry arse."

"Becky!" Harry exclaims in a highly scandalized voice. "Language!"

"Oh shut it, Potter!"

Becky shoos Teddy out of the room and clicks the door close politely after them. It leaves Harry staring at Hermione and Ron with a less than certain face, which matches the uncertainty he sees in their own expressions. Their eyes, he notes, are rimmed white as if they're scared of how he'll react, if he'll blow up. He supposes they have a good reason to be like this. After all, it has happened once. And he does have a right to explode. But this time... this time he wants things to be different.

"I knew you two would find me," Harry remarks, gesturing to the two child-size chairs in his office. "And I've been expecting you."

-

"I've tried enough times already!" Harry cried out in frustration, gripping the wand so tightly that his knuckles were turning white. "And absolutely nothing's happened! It's not your wand or Draco's! It's me. Me," Harry whispered in anguish. "My magic is just not working."

"It is working!" Severus snapped. "How could it not when you've thrown Draco and me repeatedly away from you when you wanted us far away? You have magic, you must have it if you've been performing the feats of accidental magic that you've been doing!" Severus reached out and grabbed Harry by the shoulders and shook him deliberately. "Once we retrieve your wand from Albus' possession, you will be fully capable of using it. You've always had a great deal of magic, Harry, and such magic requires a special wand with a special core that is as rare as you are. The core of your wand isn't anything mundane like a unicorn hair or dragon heartstring. It comes from a phoenix and they are the rarest of magical creatures.

"Your wand is special and so are you, and it only makes sense that unless you have your wand, your magic can't be controlled when you have not utilized it for the longest time. But it'll be under your control, and if you can master it with my wand or Draco's," Severus remarked, glancing briefly toward the younger Slytherin, "then I'm sure your wand control with your own will be impeccable. Would you like to give it another shot, or are you giving up?"

Harry gritted his teeth together and nodded once fiercely. "What spell should I try this time?"

"How about a Summoning Charm?" Draco suggested where he stood in the far corner of the room. "I remember you once used it in your 4th year to bring your Firebolt to you, and it was... I have to admit, rather brilliant, even though you were stupid back then."

-

"Remedial Potions again, Potter?" Draco sneers. "My, my, the Boy Who Lived might be Albus Dumbledore's precious protégé, but you are rather on the dim side aren't you? I mean, Potions, a precise and orderly subject, and you're failing it? How dense are you? It's a wonder that Snape doesn't kick your sorry arse out of his class. I wonder what Dumbledore must be bribing him with to keep you in there. Maybe--"

Merlin, he hates the way that Draco always manages to get under his skin. It makes him feel uncomfortable, especially with the way that Draco's eyes always seem to be staring at him, studying him to catch whatever little mistake he makes to ridicule him with at the first opportunity. Doesn't the bloody Slytherin have anything better to do than watch him all the sodding time? Get a fucking life!

"Fuck off, Malfoy!"

"I never thought such crude language would ever grace precious Potter's lips," Draco murmurs sinisterly, his eyes hungry. For what though? His blood, like what his father wanted? And Voldemort? Harry clenches his fists at his sides. Draco might as well join the bloody party line. "What would your fans think, Potter? If they knew you wanted me to, what was it again? 'Fuck off?' Hmm?"

"Damn you, Malfoy!"

"Is that the best you can do?"

No, the best he could do is walk away and leave Draco standing there, staring at his back.

-

"Have a seat," Harry says.

Ron and Hermione look at each other before taking a seat. Harry laughs as he sees his friends scrunched into weird positions, with their knees stuck in the air, sitting in chairs way too small for them. Ron looks alarmed, Harry notes, while Hermione looks worried. Is Ron startled by his reaction? Hermione anxious about his sanity? How kind of them.

"You know you could have done an Enlargement Charm on the chairs before you sat down," Harry remarks, taking a seat behind his desk table. "It's okay to do magic in front of me."

They both rise. Ron holds out his arm and his wand slides into his hand. He smiles with more uncertainty than surety and waves his wand, muttering, "Engorgio!"

Immediately the chairs grow into the proper size for an adult to sit in. They sit down again and stare at each other for a moment in silence before Hermione says, "We're sorry, Harry. We're so very sorry." She looks at Ron briefly before turning back to Harry. "We know what we did was wrong, but we thought you were happy. But... I should have seen that you couldn't be you without your magic, without knowing about the magical world, and without your memories. I--"

"We did what we thought was best," Ron adds. "You lost it before, and we thought--we thought that if you forgot everything it could go back to the way things were when you were starting to smile again, really smile like you used to before Remus died. You don't remember, but you were so sad Harry, so incredibly depressed that it was painful to watch you torment yourself over something that wasn't your fault. Even though years went by, you still looked like you were lost without him."

Had he really been though?--Harry wonders--uncertain of what to think. Could he really have been lost when he was supposedly in a relationship with Severus? Unless there had been no love between them, and that was always a possibility. And yet, Harry stares down at his hands, not able to look at his friends, he did think there was something between him and Severus, but he's not sure what. Is it love or is it just a need, a simple lust?

"Harry?" Hermione says, leaning forward almost out of her chair. "We're sorry for what we've done, and we hope that one day you'll be able to forgive us. I don't know what to say to you. I don't know what I was thinking when I agreed to keep your former life a secret from you. We thought we were doing what was best, thinking you were much weaker than you are. It's silly of us to think that, that you weren't strong enough just because you gave into your grief like any logical human being would!"

She collapses back into her chair, deflated. "I would have done the same in your circumstance, I can see that now. But saying that doesn't change the fact I did what I shouldn't have, and I'm sorry for it. And as much as you probably hate us now, please... please trust that we will always be your friends until the end. We won't let you go, Harry, even if you let go."

Harry lifts his eyes up and stares into her watery eyes. "I don't hate you," he whispers and turns to Ron. "Or you."

Ron's face, far too colorless for him, blanches a little in relief. "Harry... I--I don't know what to say. I suppose Hermione's said it best, and she's always been better at words than me. But you do know what she says goes for both of us, don't you? We'll always be there for you even if you don't want us there. And you can trust us. And maybe--things can go back to the way they were?"

Harry sighs and leans back into his chair. "Things can't ever be the same again."

"Why not?" Ron cries. "Why?"

"Because even though I can forgive you, it doesn't mean I can just forget about what you two did, what the rest of my friends did, and what Albus Dumbledore did. But at least I'm trying to understand that you all thought you were doing the best for me even if it was all a huge mistake." Harry takes a breath. "You will need to give me time, and keep Albus away from me." He aims a fierce gaze at both of them. "I don't want to see him until I'm ready. Keep him and his plotting away from me. I don't care what he says, that it was in my best interest or because he was protecting me, I don't want to see him. I might never want to see him, and right now I'm not ready to deal with it. I...

"I was almost not ready to see you guys, but," Harry remarks, raising his arms and gesturing to the room around them, "this place reminds me that I have to move on, like these kids are doing. They're strong, despite bad family situations and difficulties that they didn't ask for. If they can survive through their lives at their age, then I can deal with the betrayal of my best friends." He smiles a little. "After all, I'm not a child anymore, am I?"

"No," Hermione says, "you definitely aren't."