Can Love Survive...

Harry and Draco watched silently as the next scenes played themselves out infront of them. It was hard for them to believe that the children they were watching, following on that fateful day, were themselves...one and the same. That they had ever been that happy, carefree, and full of laughter while together, when apart they were miserable and tortured souls.

At the booksellers, Harry and Draco heard the conversation between their younger selves, and Harry found himself shocked at his views on magic back then. How instilled it had been from his Uncle Vernon that magic wasn't real, and that the very world he now belonged in, which his parents should have raised him, was nothing but lies and rubbish. Draco on the other hand saw how disappointed he had seemed when Harry spoke of the wizarding world like that and he could almost see the question that burned in his younger mind when Harry had walked off to the mystery section.

They followed the boys back to the park now, and watched their younger selves have their picnic. How they had laughed and enjoyed the 'feast' that Draco had brought. With a sick feeling inside him Draco realized this must have been the moment that in the future, would make him cringe everytime someone would mention anything of picnics, or even when he would see a 'basket' resembling the one he'd brought to the park. He never knew why that had been, but now he did.

It was with almost detachment that the older boys watched as the picnic ended, and with words spoken between the boys, something else happened. They watched in almost horror as the young Draco brought out the cheese knife, how each boy cut the others wrist, and the fateful words spoken that sealed them forever into this supposed bind. It was when the scars closed in the way they did, that both boys realized this really hadn't been a dream, that this was a real memory, and it had happened to them both.

Neither of the older boys had said two words to each other since they had arrived, really it hadn't been needed. They watched their younger selves clean up the picnic, and Draco run off, Harry soon behind him, and finally they were once again alone in the park. Harry walked back to the spot in which the boys had had their picnic, and with a hard sigh sat down on the grass, even though he couldn't feel the physical grass beneath him, he felt his legs just could no longer hold him up.

Draco came over and did the same, realizing that he and Harry were sitting in exactly the same places as they had years ago. Looking down into the grass, almost afraid to speak yet, he saw tiny crimson dots, obviously remainders of the blood that they two younger boys had just spilled from each other. He traced a ghosted finger upon a petal in which the blood was, thoughts swirling through his head.

"We really did this then...didn't we." Draco said softly, looking up at Harry now.

Harry turned his gaze from the blood drops he too had seen, to Draco's eyes, a sadness seemed prevailant within them. "I guess so."

Draco let his gaze drift over the park, strange feelings were beginning to bubble back up to the surface now, and he was trying to make sense of it all. Memories he didn't realize he'd had began to suddenly crop up, almost making him sick with the thoughts. He had had all this...the fun, the laughter, the Saturday mornings to spend with someone who actually liked him for himself, someone who wanted to be nothing more then his friend. And closing his eyes he tuned everything out, he didn't even realize when Harry almost sensed something was going on, and took hold of Draco's hand in his own...closing his own eyes as well as it all flooded back....that last day they'd seen each other....

They had just come back from exploring an old building just off the high street when they ran into those awful 'painted women'. They managed to find a back alleyway, and with pains eventually made it back to their little park by the shop, out of breath, but laughing, and flopped down onto the blanket they had left there earlier with the basket on top of it.

"Did you see her face Harry? How can any bloke go for something looking like that?" Draco said grinning.

"I know, it's ruddy horrible." Harry said controlling his laugh. "That's it, I swear that I will never end up with a woman...especially if they're like those women and my Aunt Petunia!" Harry said groaning now.

"On that I dont blame you....not that I've seen you're aunt, but from what you've told me of her." Draco said finally getting hold of himself.

"What bout you Drake? You gonna grow up and get married?" Harry said thoughtfully picking at a blade of grass.

Draco thought bout this for a moment. "I'd rather have just one of you Harry, then all the women of the world. You're 100 times better then any woman!" Draco said then grinned up at his friend.

"I'd think you're bout 100 times better then any women I know myself. Cor though, can you imagine if we'd both be forced to grow up and marry a woman? I think I'd rather die then that." Harry said lying down now to gaze up into the clouded sky.

Draco did the same thing and replied, "I think I'd do the same thing Harry, I really do. Hey, let's eat eh? It must be getting late by now, dont want it to go to waste." Draco said sitting up and dragging the basket over to him.

Luckily Harry wasn't paying attention at the moment, or he'd have seen the saddened look in Draco's eyes when he for just a moment, watched his best friend in the whole world. He was going to miss Harry...and it hurt him that Harry wasn't going to remember him after today. Slowly, so that Harry would't noticed, he pulled out of his pocket a small vial, and after pouring Harry a cup of the extra fizzy lemonade that they loved so much, he tipped half the contents of the vial into the drink, and gave it to Harry. He quickly stopped the bottle back up and put it back in his pocket, then poured himself some lemonade.

"Thanks Drake. A toast then...to us?" Harry said raising his glass.

"To us. To the best friend a person could hope and dream for." Draco said raising his own, then watched as Harry drank his lemonade and fell into a trancelike state almost immediately.

"Gods Harry, I wish it didn't have to be this way. You have no idea how much I'll miss you in my life, but it has to be this way. I dont regret binding with you, I never will....but it's safer this way, trust me. I'll always miss you Harry, and I'll always regret that I had to do this, and throw away a perfect friendship. I wasn't kidding Harry, I'd trade every woman or man in the world, just to be your friend forever. I could have grown up to love you Harry...I'm sure I could have...but..." Draco said with sigh, not quite able to continue.

He knew he had to do this, time was of the essence before Harry would come out of the trance. "Harry, after today you wont remember me, nor any of this. Anything that involves me rather you'll forget forever. You wont remember how you got your scar, or when or where. When you fall asleep tonight, you will have a dreamless sleep, and when you wake up it will be gone. I"m sorry Harry...I"m so so sorry my friend..." Draco said, a tear running down his cheek.

Draco had just enough time to wipe it away when Harry came out of the induced trance. He blinked a few times as if foggy headed, and gave his friend a small smile.

"That's odd...did I nod off or something?" Harry asked.

"Daydreaming...you do that sometimes remember?" Draco said with a forced grin.

"Right, sorry bout that. Anyway...so where were we?" Harry said, and the two boys continued talking bout other things.

As the morning wore on, the older boys watched as the two younger boys packed up the picnic basket, only this time it was Harry who heard himself being called first to leave.

As Harry ran over to the gate he called back, "Next weekend right?"

Draco nodded, and forced himself to respond with a small grin, "Right. Goodbye Harry."

"Bye Drake!" Harry said, not understanding the poignancy of the last words he would hear from his friend, and ran round the shop corner to face his aunt.

Meanwhile Draco returned back to collect the picnic basket and knelt by it, his heart broken into a thousand pieces. He didn't know it was going to hurt him this much to say goodbye to Harry. Even though their friendship was only a few weeks old, it had been so perfect to him, it had dulled the torture of his daily life, of being a Malfoy.

The tears came freely this time. His father wasn't here to tell him that Malfoys do not show emotions like pain or hurt, Malfoys were strong, only showing anger and dominance...and right just then Draco couldn't have felt less like a Malfoy. He allowed the tears to run it's course, and when he was done he came to a decision.

Reaching into the basket he pulled out the bottle of what was left of the lemonade, and gently getting the vial out of his pocket, poured the remainder of the potion into the bottle, mixing it up well. He couldn't survive without Harry in his life, he knew that, so there was only this left to do. He wouldn't be able to go on at home with this pain and heartbreak, of knowing he'd broken a promise to never leave Harry...and the only way he would be able to go on was if he too didn't remember.

He cleared his mind then, and focused on his goal. He hoped this would work, the book didn't exactly say if it would on self inducing, but he prayed it would. Making sure to keep his mind on the one goal, to forget..to forget the park, forget the time spent, and to forget Harry..he drank the lemonade down to the last sip.

He didnt rouse again until he heard his name called almost 10 minutes later. He looked at the bottle in his hand, then at where he was, and wondred why he was there, and holding the bottle. Shrugging and feeling a little sluggish, he threw down the bottle and got up, walking towards his mother's voice. He didn't even remember to bring with him the little basket, for it had held no meaning to him.

* * * * *

"So that's how it was." Harry said opening his eyes and looking at Draco, who's eyes were now open as well. Neither even realized still that Harry still had Draco's hand in his own.

"Oh gods Harry....all these years lost...we could have....it's my fault, all my fault..." Draco said, a catch in his voice as if there was a knot there.

"No Draco...or should I say Drake..." Harry said giving him a little smile, "It's not your fault. You did what you had to do. You thought I was a muggle, how were you to know I wasn't? That all this...." Harry said pointing to the blood drops still crisp and wet. "All this was destined for us from the start..."

"It was...wasn't it. Harric and Draconus...you and I...it was all meant to be." Draco said gazing now into Harry's eyes.

Harry nodded, "Seems so. Question is...what do we do now?"

"I dont know Harry, I dont know. We have to get home though, we have to know what happened...to them.....to Harric and Draconus...and why I've been feeling..." Draco said, then started as if he had said too much.

Harry looked at him sharply now, tiny bits of suspicion in his mind. "It's the potion wasn't it. For some reason whatever you used to wipe our memories...it was breaking down with us."

Draco nodded slowly. "Yes. Since last year actually, but over the summer holiday it got worse. Every time I'd think of you my scar hurt, being near you made it even worse when we got back. I'd been having dreams...but I never could remember them..."

"You're not the only one Drake, I was too. The pulsing, the dreams...never knowing what they were, but I knew it involved you. You killed off any ideas I ever did have regarding Lisa you know." Harry said with a chuckle.

Draco looked at him then and grinned. "Not that I'm going to say I'm sorry, I'm not. She doesn't deserve you anyway. Not that I"m saying I do mind you P-Harry...but...I"m willing to...investigate matters further...if you are..." he said with a questioning look in his eyes.

Harry smiled, "I think we'll have little choices now in that Drake. You dont mind if I call you....Drake...will you?"

Draco chuckled. "No, I dont mind. We've got to get back, but how?" he said worried now. Before they'd had the snake to send them back and forth, this time there was noone.

"I think we can be of assistance there." a voice said from off to the side, nearly causing the two boys to jump out of their skins.

Two men were looking at the boys with somewhat grins on their faces, and they seemed more then awfully familiar. "It's bout time you realized all this, was beginning to think it would never happen." the man with black hair and twinkling green eyes said.

"I know you! You're Godric Gryffindor!" Harry said jumping up now and walking over to the sandy brownhaired man with the brown eyes. "And you're Salazar Slytherin!" he said turning towards the raven haired man with the green eyes.

"Points to Gryffindor it seems this round Godric, after all he is one of you're own." Salazar chuckled.

"What do you mean by that Slytherin?" Draco said getting up and walking over to stand next to Harry now, suspicion in his mind.

"I cant believe by now, with all the clues Dumbledore and that blasted hat have dropped to you both, that you still cant figure it out." Salazar said leaning against the tree. Unlike the boys, these two men were not ghostlike to their surroundings, they were quite solid.

"Do shut up Salazar, it's no wonder the boy gets muddled with half you're blood running round in him. Harry, if you hadn't known by now...there was only one reason you could pull my sword out back then from my hat...can you figure it out now?" Godric said smiling down at Harry.

Harry thought on this a moment. "Harric...Harric was your son...and...I guess am I too then in a sense...I"m you're heir aren't I." he said then, not as a question, but as statement.

"Yes Harry, as was your father James. If you're wondring on the Potter name, that's quite simple. My other son, Garic, had a son and a daughter. The girl married an englishman named Potter, and every child born from them were boys, so the name stayed as it was. It is actually from them you are descended, but when you were born from James, I knew my son had returned again, that you indeed were Harric. It was my own idea to implant into James's mind when you were born that you should be called "Harry"."

"But why? Why now and not all this time before now?" Harry said puzzled.

"You weren't needed to return till now. The Tuatha De Danann race, in which you are a blood descendant, always know when they are needed, and Harric's soul must have sensed the need, and returned as you. My wife, Helga Hufflepuff, was also part faerie, though not a direct Tuatha, she was a sylvankind, who loved hard work and were very loyal to their needs."

"What bout me though? What bout Draconus?" Draco said now cutting in.

"That was a fluke actually, Draconus being born to Lucius." Salazar said then, looking at Draco. "Tobias, my other son who was even more rotten to the core then Voldemort ever could be, unknownst to anyone had given life to a child with a veela woman he married in secret. He abandoned the veela to raise the child on her own, and not a very good job I'd wager. 100 years later, the daughter of the child born married a man who promised her riches beyond what she ever could fathom, and a place in which to carry on with the dark arts in which she was accustomed to. Do you know young Malfoy, who that man was?"

"It....he...was my ancestor, the one who had come from France..wasn't it." Draco said now in a quiet voice.

"Exactly. They married and a new bloodline of Malfoys and Slytherin's were born, each generation becoming more and more twisted. Some of them realized this however, and broke off from the Malfoy family. 100 years ago, one woman did that. Battered by her father, your grandfather, abused in every possible way, she left the Malfoy Manor, and swore never to return. She went into the muggle world, living in shame and with almost no magic but what she had learned in her 15 years. She eventually changed her name and married a muggle man, and 65 years ago they bore a son. When the man found out she was a witch when the son received his letter from Hogwarts, he abandoned her and his son."

"The son was outraged, he couldn't believe that this man, this muggle, would do that to his mother. Although he was a harsh and bitter child, he cared for his mother deeply, and swore revenge on his father, and all of his fathers kind...all muggles and muggle borns. They were just as bad in this boy's eyes, for they were still muggles by any other right. The more his hate festered, the worst it got. By the time he'd left Hogwarts, he had no heart left, and like my own son Tobias, he had become tainted, and twisted. There was no chance left to save him." Salazar said with almost a regret.

"You're...you're talking bout Voldemort aren't you." Draco said now.

'Sadly Draco, yes. It is my worst regret I didn't destroy Tobias when I should have. He was never a good son, evil and malicious from the day he was born. If it wasn't that he loved his mother Rowena so much, he would have probably murdered us both in our sleep. Unlike you Draconus. You were everything he wasn't. Kind, gentle, more Gryffindor then Slytherin. It was no wonder you and Harric fell in love as you did, and that's why I allowed it. Everyone always thinks I was the one who destroyed it all, I wasn't. It was Tobias...always Tobias...." Salazar said with a dark look.

"I dont understand...how?" Harry said now.

"You're histories of my supposed attack on Hogwarts and against Godric are wrong. Written by fools who knew nothing of the truth. I was never against Godric, or the school, I helped create it because I wanted to, not because I was forced to. Godric however wasn't as blinded as myself. He saw Tobias for the threat he was, I wouldn't listen. By the time I did, it was too late." Salazar said sadly.

"What do you mean too late?" Draco said.

"It...it was your wedding day. Salazar and I had been talking bout adding in some new courses to the school, including Defense Against the Dark Arts. Noone knew a traitor was in our midsts. We had been a bit lax on the castle security due all the arrivals, allowing the spell for apparition into the school to drop for the day. Tobias made his move then. Using polyjuice potion from hairs he'd gotten hold of without anyone knowing it, he disguised himself as his own father, and he and his minions attacked right before the wedding started, while you were still both in the upstairs room." Godric said, a catch in his voice as he remembered.

Salazar continued. "He killed his own brother, and Harric..and because I was in another place in the castle discussing things still with Godric, I hadn't know what had happened. Before I knew it I was being seized upon at wand point, even Rowena, my mate, threatening to kill me for what I had done. In protest I swore I hadn't done it, why would I kill the son of my best friend? A friend that I too had forged a blood bind with years ago as a child? Why would I even dream to kill my own son? But my protests fell on deaf ears."

"Tobias had been clever, apparating out as soon as he had attacked, leaving behind his father to be judged, and sentenced for a crime he never committed. Salazar was imprisoned in the newly built Azkaban, and he died there alone, forever swearing his innocence. I alone believed him of course, having known he couldn't have committed it. The proof was too hard to avoid though, the witnesses that saw Harric and Draconus killed swore it had been Salazar and no other. And it was known Salazar was gifted in the dark arts, he could have easily created a doppleganger to do his dirty work." Godric said softly.

"For 5 years I languished in Azkaban, a shell of my former self. Dementors as you know are not kind beasts, even though I had a helping hand in making them what they were back then. I was a criminal to them now..not a founder of Hogwarts, not one of the most powerful wizards in the entire wizarding world, but a cold blooded killer, and that was my fate. When I died, it was a release, but I couldn't leave yet, my soul, my conscious wouldn't let me go. So here I am, 1000 years later, attempting to fix what I created...what my son did...and that's why we were the ones who did this to you both." Salazar said gazing at each boy deeply.

"Now that you remember, now that you know what you've done, and who you were, it's time to fix the wrongs. Harry, you are an heir I am proud to say is mine, as I did of Harric long ago. The two of you have to finish what was started, you must seal the binding, and defeat Salazar's heir Voldemort. Harry, it wasn't because of Voldemort the sorting hat wanted to put you in Slytherin you know. The transfer of power did not transfer the bloodline to you Harry, that alone wouldn't have done it." Godric said turning to Harry now.

"He's right Harry. The sorting hat sensed 'blood' of a Slytherin in you, not 'power'. Draco's blood...my blood." Salazar said now.

"So that's why then. I never did understand why it wanted to put me in Slytherin back then, and only after I realized I shared a link with Voldemort I thought that was reason. Guess I was really wrong on that huh." Harry said actually giving a small grin.

Godric chuckled. "It's not as bad as you think it is Harry to have Slytherin blood within you. It's up to you now how you want to proceed with this knowledge that you've learned. We can only do so much, and once you return to the present time, we cannot physically help you. We started you on the path by getting you to bind, it's up to you to do the rest. We have faith in you both, we know you can do this."

Harry turned to face Draco, a determined look on his face. "Well Drake? What do you think...should we give this a shot?"

Draco looked at Harry a moment as if in debate, then smiled. "It's going to take some doing, no question there...but yes, I suppose so."

"Right then, what do we do next?" Harry said turning back to Godric and Salazar.

"Now you go home. The rest is up to you. Remember the days together you shared, and what you should have had if Tobias had not attacked. We wish you could have seen those days of your youths as Harric and Draconus, but I can assure you, you were best friends, then very much in love with each other, even died trying to protect each other." Godric said.

"Goodbye boys. You wont see us again, but know that we are with you in spirit, and we'll be praying to the gods that you can succeed where the past failed. Go now, return to the present...and be safe..." Salazar said, and raised his hand towards the two boys who found themselves suddenly misting away like vapour.

Godric sighed, hope in his heart. "It will work this time wont it Salazar?" he said turning to his friend.

"It has to Godric, it has to. I wish Rowena could have been here to see her son as he is now, she would have been proud." Salazar said glancing at where Draco had been standing.

"Pity she didn't know until she died and Tobias told her the truth at what he'd done. It could have saved you all those years of torment my friend. You know I tried..."

"I know Godric. It wasn't your fault, Rowena and Helga were stacked against me, as was everyone else at the castle. Over 1000 witnesses saw 'me' laughing as I held the bodies of my son and his lover in my arms, dripping with blood. You did what you could." Salazar said with a soft voice.

"Come my friend, let's return to the boys. I am anxious to see what happens, and now we have to set work on the other issue we started." Godric said with a knowing twinkle in his eyes.

Salazar chuckled, "You're incorrigible Godric Gryffindor, you know that? It's no wonder Albus is such a meddlesome man, he takes after you. Two more to convert to the cause this night eh?" Salazar grinned.

Godric nodded in response, then waved his hand slowly, creating a mist round the two men. Slowly their forms began to fade, and then nothing was left but a faint stirring in the leaves where they had stood. The past could not be changed, but the future was still there and untouched, and now the future had hope.

* * * * *

Whew...two chaps in one day :groans: Tomorrow night I do work but I think I can swing another chapter before then, atleast i'll try! :)

2002-03-16 1:31:43 AM