Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

Chapter One: Visiting Hours

Better by far you should forget and smile

Than that you should remember and be sad.

-Christina Rossetti

It isn't supposed to be like this.

It's only a vague sense somewhere in his mind, but he figures it isn't that far off the mark, considering where he is: an old Ministry outpost, magicked and converted into a war hospital. They tell him he was wounded in battle. They tell him he was lucky not to be killed. They tell him his name is Malfoy. He has a good enough understanding of French to be able to translate the name, and its meaning doesn't seem a good omen.

He's forgotten his entire life, but still has a facile grasp of the French language. How could it be a good omen?

Sometimes he wonders cynically whether the name Malfoy truly is the one he was born with, or one the Healers christened him with during his convalescence. He hasn't been a good patient; he knows this, yet seems unable to change. He grows impatient with hospital staff who poke and prod at him like an object. He is frustrated by his inability to remember anything prior to the past month. He is weary of lying in this bed, staring at the same four walls, willing his memory to come back. He is lonely.

A tall, red-haired Healer murmured to him yesterday that it is perhaps a blessing he cannot remember the war. He knows he has been wounded, outside of the memory loss. He bears a broad scar across the left side of his chest, a vicious magical burn with an asymmetrical border of conjoined convex curves, like a child's depiction of a cloud. The wound itself was treated, but the scar remains, dark and ugly against his pale skin, covering his heart.

The young Healer with the fiery hair has small, delicate features and troubled eyes. He thinks her name is Weasel, or something equally inappropriate. When she is on duty, she watches him with a mixture of trepidation and reluctant compassion. He wants to ask whether she knows him, whether she knew him before all this began, but he doesn't. The way she always hesitates--subtly, but noticeably--before she enters his room, the slight frown that puckers her brow when she says his name...all make him think he doesn't really want to know the answer to his question.

Today she has brought someone else with her, but it's not another Healer or Mediwizard. It's a thin, wiry man in wrinkled robes marked with what he recognizes as an Auror's emblem. He doesn't understand why an Auror would be in to see him, at least not at this point. He's already seen his share of Aurors. He has been dosed with Veritaserum, interrogated again and again, but there is nothing he can tell, for good or ill. Everything has been erased. And so he is kept in this ward, despite the Mark on his arm. No one has ever explained the Mark to him, but he has seen the shudders when the hospital staff glimpse it, felt it burn occasionally with a searing pain. He knows it is not a good thing.

The Auror pulls up a chair next to the bed, one hand idly brushing a lock of unruly black hair out of his face. The stark hospital lighting reflects off the lenses of his spectacles. He seems tired, lines of care worked already into an otherwise young face, but his gaze is unwavering as he looks at the man in front of him. "Draco Malfoy," the Auror says.

"So I've been told," he responds.

The Auror settles more comfortably into his chair, slides his palms along the metal armrests. "I'd heard you were here," he says slowly, "but it's something of a shock actually to see you."

Malfoy frowns. "Am I usually so unreliable?"

An intent expression flickers in the Auror's eyes, and one corner of his mouth twitches downward in what almost seems a spasm of pain. "No," he says, "if there's one thing I'd definitely call you, it is--in your own peculiar way--reliable."

Malfoy's eyebrows lower in perplexity. "You know me, then. Are we friends?"

The Auror sighs, and there's an odd sadness to him. "No," he says at last, "I can't say we were ever what you'd call friends."

"What, then?" Malfoy asks. "Neighbors? Brothers?" He hesitates. "Lovers?"

The Auror starts at this, and his embarrassed glance shifts toward the young Healer, who is flipping through Malfoy's charts. "No," he replies, clearing his throat. "Schoolmates. That's all."

Malfoy closes his eyes and tilts his head back. "See? I don't remember even that much." He gestures vaguely toward the Healer. "Weasel here could be my wife or my sister, for all I know."

She gives a small cry and drops the clipboard to the floor with a loud clatter. He glimpses pain in her eyes before she turns and darts out the door. He turns back to the Auror, who also is looking after the Weasel woman. "What did I say?"

The Auror shakes his head. "She's lost two brothers in this war." His voice has grown hoarse. "Another one is upstairs in the incurable hexes ward. He's--" His throat catches and he pauses to take a breath. "There's not much hope for him," he says at last.

"Oh." Malfoy looks down at his lap, long fingers plucking at the edge of the blanket. "I'm sorry."

"Yes, well," the Auror takes another calming breath, "it's been hard for everybody. Ron is...the closest thing I have to a brother." His knuckles are white, incongruously so against his tanned skin. "With so much death, year after year, you'd think you'd start to get used to it." He swallows. "You don't." Malfoy looks up, and the other man's eyes pin him. "You don't," he repeats.

Their eyes lock for a suspended moment, before the Auror's gaze slides away.

"What is your name?" Malfoy asks suddenly.

The Auror looks up in surprise. "Oh. Of course. It's Potter. Harry Potter."

It seems right somehow. It has a rhythm to it. Malfoy's mouth forms the words, lips shaping themselves around them. It fits. He considers. "I think I'm pleased to meet you, then, Potter." He extends his hand.

A small line forms between Potter's eyebrows, and he looks as if he is mentally flipping back through the pages of a book, and perhaps not a pleasant one. His hand reaches to clasp Malfoy's, and their palms meet. Potter's is warm and dry, well-creased and larger than one might expect of someone of his lean build. His grip is firm, and Malfoy narrowly resists the inexplicable urge to turn the handshake into a gripping contest, to squeeze in an attempt to wound the man before him. A vain attempt, he muses, as Potter's fingers are thicker than his, marked with calluses and small burn scars. His are the hands of a man inured to hard work and danger, Malfoy realizes. The countenance is calm, the eyes shadowed, and the hands tell yet another story. Harry Potter is a man of contradictions. Malfoy's interest is piqued and it is only reluctantly that he allows Potter's hand to slide from his. The room seems somehow cooler without that contact.

They look at each other for a few seemingly interminable seconds, then Potter says abruptly, "I have to go."

"So soon?" Malfoy mentally kicks himself for letting slip that note of disappointment. Potter's eyes are intent on his. "I just...well, I don't get many visitors here. Of the unofficial sort, anyhow."

The other man's gaze shifts away, and his expression is distant. "No, I suppose you wouldn't." He looks up again to meet Malfoy's eyes. "I'll come back," he says, and seems surprised at himself for saying it.

Before he can catch himself, Malfoy responds, "Is that a promise?"

Potter stills, a curious expression flitting across his features, and his tone is almost defiant as he says, "Yeah, I guess it is."

Malfoy eyes him, curious as to why he seems tensed for a fight. "Good," he says, and notes how Potter's eyebrows lower in confusion, quickly masked. "I'll look forward to it," he adds, holding Potter's gaze for a few long moments before the other man rises and turns for the door.

After Potter leaves, and a Healer ducks in check on him, Malfoy falls asleep. He dreams of stone turrets and a burning sunset and soaring through a vast, open sky in pursuit of a red-cloaked figure on broomstick.

But when he wakes, hours later, the dream has turned to mist.

* * *

Harry Potter stops on his way out of the hospital to visit with Ginny Weasley and make sure she's all right. As he strides through the brightly-lit hallways, he can hear moans of pain, the whisper of shoes against tiles, the hum of magic at work. Every room he passes is filled with the wounded, casualties of a war that has its roots in events that occurred long before most of these patients were born, and appears to have no end in sight. There is no greater means of arguing against war, Harry thinks now, than to showcase its human toll. Countless witches and wizards have passed through this portal, en route to convalescence or a different fate. Some have been Harry's friends. And one, he muses, has been his enemy.

He catches Ginny in the corridor between patients, and she gives him a tired smile, looking worn but still lovely. Every so often he feels a pang that they couldn't make a romantic relationship work between them, and this is one of those times. He knows few people as steadfast as Ginny Weasley.

"I'm sorry about running out like that earlier," she says.

He clasps her hand. "You have nothing to apologize for. I know how hard this has been on you."

"Still," she says, looking stern, "I have to control my emotions on the job. We all do." She gestures around her. "It isn't easy watching your comrades suffer and die every day. Every one chips away at you a little." Her other hand touches his shoulder. "It's similar for you, I imagine."

"Yes," he says.

Her grip on his shoulder tightens. "We just do the best we can."

He looks into her fierce brown eyes, and is aware suddenly of how very much he loves this woman. Not as a lover, no. But she is part of the bedrock of his life, the foundation that keeps him steady. Impulsively he hugs her, and she rests her cheek against his shoulder for a moment and they just breathe together.

Too soon, she draws away. "You'll be back?" she asks.

He nods. "I'll carve out whatever time I can this week." His throat is tight. "It's so hard, to sit there and know there's nothing I can do. But...I can't not be there. Even if he doesn't realize I'm there at all."

Ginny hangs her head. "I just keep praying for a miracle."

He touches her shoulder. "We all do, Gin."

"I miss him," she whispers, her voice choked with tears.

"So do I," he murmurs, his mind filled with images of Ron, from the first glimpse of his apprehensive face on the train to Hogwarts, to that fateful day--was it really only a month ago?--when everything changed. Harry refuses to contemplate that their friendship could be over in a matter of weeks, days, even hours. Ron was never meant to be the one to go first.

"I'll be back as soon as I can," Harry promises, but he knows it's a hollow thing. His presence or lack thereof hasn't made a difference. And the researchers are no closer to developing a counterspell, or even discerning what, exactly, caused his malady in the first place. So Ron lingers in suspended animation, and Harry knows he will return time and time again, to curse, and to grieve.

Ginny nods and touches a hand to his sleeve in farewell as she turns to go back to her rounds. He watches her depart, lithe and strong, her shoulders set in a line suggesting she just might be able to will her patients back to health, if that's what it takes. He has a lot of respect for Ginny's determination. She works as much against the powers of the Dark as any Auror.

Hunching his shoulders, Harry Potter slides his hands in his pockets and walks out the front door of the hospital, into the mocking sunshine.

* * *

The next evening, Harry is once again seated next to Ron's bedside. Technically, there should be no visitors this late in the day. But he has long since accepted that rules are bent for Harry Potter, and has no qualms about using that to his advantage. His hours are strange sometimes, his schedule beyond his control. What little free time he has now, he usually spends here, watching the still, freckled face of his best friend, and just talking. These one-sided conversations are painful, and sometimes he finds himself imagining Ron's responses. He so desperately misses the jokes, the flippancy, the brashness. His internal dialogues are a poor substitute.

"Three raids today," he says, elbows on his knees, fingers massaging his temples. "That's fourteen more Death Eaters in Azkaban awaiting trial. And it's still just a drop in the bucket."

In his mind, Ron replies, But that's still fourteen wizards who won't be Avada-ing innocent people anymore, right?

"Well, yes, I suppose you're right. But that's assuming they're convicted."

You have evidence against them?

"Yes, of course, we have evidence." He runs his hands through his hair, making it stand on end even more than usual. "But that doesn't always mean anything. You know how chancy the trials have become. Evidence tampering. Witnesses threatened. And--God!--the juror pool is practically nonexistent at this point...."

Let the courts take care of themselves for now. You have enough on your plate as it is.

"You're right. I know you're right." He lays a hand on Ron's still one, pressing gently. "I know you didn't want me to become an Auror in the first place."

None of your friends did, Harry.

"Of course, none of you did. The only people who were excited by my decision were the Aurors themselves and the Death Eaters who are out to kill me."

You always did have something of a danger fetish.

Harry cracks a wry smile. "Danger fetish? More like a death wish sometimes, I think."

Why is that, Harry? Why do you put yourself in the line of fire like that? I've never fully understood.

He bows his head. "How can anyone else understand what I don't entirely understand myself?"

The Boy Savior.

He laughs without mirth. "Boy Savior? You know better than to quote tripe like that at me, Ron."

If it's what the public want to believe...

He closes his eyes briefly. "But it's never been what I am."

Why join the Aurors, then, when there are other ways of fighting You-Know-Who?

"Like in Intelligence, you mean?"

Well, for one thing.

He frowns, a tense line forming between his brows. "And then I'd be off in some Unplottable, Untraceable location, just like Hermione, and not even know you'd been injured."

Ouch. Low blow there, mate.

"Sorry," he says wearily. "I am sorry. It's just...no, I couldn't be in Intelligence."

Why not?

"It's...too detached. Too mental. I need to be doing something hands-on."

So you can look Darkness in the eye?

He shrugs, unwilling to examine his motives too closely. "Something like that, I suppose."

Is it vengeance that drives you?

He sighs. "Vengeance. An interesting term, that."

Interesting to those who pursue it, at least.

"Am I out for vengeance, do you think?" he muses. "Whatever happened to the noble goal of vanquishing evil and making the world safe again for wizards and Muggles everywhere?"

Oh, of course you want that too. But you're Harry Potter.

"I'm Harry Potter," he echoes dully, "and when you're the Boy Who Lived, no battle with the forces of evil is ever impersonal."

Ron's voice subsides in Harry's head, and he sits in near-silence, listening to his friend breathe, watching the shadows grow long in the waning daylight.

"Your window faces east," Harry says, apropos of nothing.

You've mentioned that before. Doesn't do me much good if I can't see it, now, does it?

"If you were awake, you could watch the sunrise."

Harry can almost hear Ron make a rude noise in response.

"I know, I know," he chuckles. "Early morning is not your favorite time of day."

That's an understatement. I never understood how you could be such a morning person.

Harry's eyes shift toward the window again. "I like sunrises. I find them...comforting."

How?

His voice is low. "It's a promise. Every sunrise is a promise of a new day, and a confirmation that tomorrow has come, and will come again."

My friend, the philosopher.

Harry smiles, but it doesn't reach his eyes. "Sometimes I've felt sunrises were the only things I could take comfort in."

What about sunsets?

Harry's expression shutters. "Sunset is a betrayal."

* * *

Once again, he stops by Draco Malfoy's room on his way out of the hospital, and suppresses a small shudder of relief to find the other man asleep, long stripes of gold spreading across his bed from the western-facing window. The light glints off the flaxen strands of his hair, forming a curious halo around his still face. The room is otherwise dim, and Harry stands in the shadows, watching those aquiline features in repose. No smirk, no sneer, no frown of bewilderment, even. It seems strange to him to see Malfoy so at peace. Of course, he reflects unwillingly, it isn't the first time he's seen him so.

He leans back against the wall, and a wave of sensation washes over him. He refuses to admit it might be pain.

"Damn you," he grinds out through clenched teeth. "Damn you." His hands are balled into helpless fists. His knees buckle slightly and he feels himself sliding down the wall until he is crouched with his knees to his chest, fists kneading at his forehead. He can feel the ridge of his scar against his knuckles, smell the sun-warmed, antiseptic air.

"Damn you," he whispers. "How can you not remember?"