Life as I Knew It

Chapter 31--Mutually Beneficial

Pansy gaped at Harry. No one had remembered sixth year, and now, with hardly any prompting, Harry had. "No, he doesn't know that."

She glanced over to where the headmaster was standing, thinking that surely he would want to know whatever it was that he did not know. However, Professor Dumbledore was staring ahead, unseeing, much as Sirius Black had before he returned to death. She rushed over to his side. As much as she had tried to prepare herself for this, Pansy was not ready to see the man dead. She shook his arm, and Dumbledore snapped out of his reverie. Pansy almost cried out with relief. "Oh, I must have dozed off there for a moment," he said.

When she looked back at Harry, he was lost in his own daze. He wrote in the air with his finger as if trying to do a complicated Arithmancy problem in his head. Pansy turned back to the headmaster. "Sir, he remembers sixth year. Just like that." She stopped him before he respond to this good news. "And the thing is, you remember how I said on the first night that it would be best for you to remember things on your own?"

Professor Dumbledore nodded. "I suppose that does still hold true. I will leave you two to have your talk then, but remember, Miss Parkinson, I am counting on you."

Pansy almost had shivers as he walked away. It seemed odd to her, but she felt so strongly that she did not want to let Professor Dumbledore down. She wondered again what it was about him that he was able to make her feel this way. It struck her that it might be as simple as that no one else had ever counted on her for anything. She felt important and needed for the first time, and it was an intoxicating feeling, but it also felt like a heavy weight on her shoulders. She wondered if this was how Harry Potter felt all the time.

She forced herself to focus, for there was now a task at hand. Professor Dumbledore had had a point when he said that Harry Potter was the key to everything. If the headmaster thought that she needed Harry to help her, then she would try to go about it that way.

Harry had already started toward the portrait. Pansy stopped him by grabbing his arm with both of her hands, dropping her book in the process. "There's more that we need to discuss."

"Er, right. No offense, Pansy, but I don't really want to discuss this with you." He tried to pull his arm away from her, but she held tight. "Really, I need to figure out what is going on here, and I--"

"I know what's going on. Or I at least have a fairly good idea. I realize that you usually go to Hermione for all the heavy thinking, but she's not the same as she was then. In fact, Hermione gave me that book--" She gestured toward it. "--to help me solve this problem. Dumbledore brought me here because I was the one who could make you remember. All the people you rely on for help have come to me. So..." Here Pansy ran out of steam, and she let go of his arm. "You have to talk to me."

Harry smiled wearily. "I don't believe anything that comes out of your mouth."

She did not really blame him for that. "These are facts that you can check up on. Hermione will confirm all of it. One,--" She held up a finger. "--I was never part of this crazy world. So I am the only one who really remembers everything, without be tainted by the false memories. Two,--" Another finger shot up. "--no one else remembers sixth year. If you ask Hermione about something that really happened in the Non-Moonshyne world, she won't remember it. Dumbledore doesn't know that he died because his memory stops at the end of the summer before."

"Those may be facts. I do know that you weren't here during the Moonshyne years, so I understand that you don't have this conflicting dual memory. And that might help you stay clear headed. And maybe no one remembers sixth year with Slughorn and the Death Eater attack, which your boyfriend masterminded, by the way. But so what? How does any of that mean that you are going to help me?"

"I don't exist in this world. My parents are just gone. Maybe you can understand how difficult that might be to deal with. My boyfriend, who I admit did do that, doesn't remember me, but he does remember having sex with Moonshyne. And probably Ginny, too."

Harry's face turned red. "Ginny would never--"

"Your Ginny wouldn't. But in this world, she did date Draco, right? And she doesn't have dual memories; she just remembers that. Maybe they don't have any false memories of having sex with each other, but when I talked to her, she was still in love with him. I think you'd rather if she was still in love with you. We can make that happen."

Harry walked to the portrait, then walked back. Shaking a finger in her face, he started to say something, but he stopped himself. Finally he said, "You are playing on my emotions like a serpent in the garden, but that's just another reason not to trust you."

Pansy had no idea what garden he was talking about. "You don't exactly have to trust me. But if you just come with me, you can learn things for yourself. What could possibly be wrong with that?"

Harry looked at her with suspicion for a long time. "I heard everything you said, but I'm still confused about the whys. Why me, first of all?"

Pansy considered giving him the short answer, that it was all Dumbledore's idea, but that would not help matters. She was used to telling people what they wanted to hear, to saying whatever it took to expedite matters, but now she felt the need to be really open and honest with Harry because it seemed like he would know otherwise. "Okay, but you have to really listen to me. Before... I went straight from the summer to here. I mean, I didn't go to limbo or anything; it was all quite linear. Things were normal and then they were really messed up. And whatever goals or agendas I had then, they're not important now. However I feel about the Dark Lord, it doesn't make any difference on the fact that he has not been defeated. I want my life back, and you want your life back. So, we can both get what we want and go back to living our lives.

"But that doesn't answer why you. I came here tonight because Dumbledore dragged me here. I was supposed to help him stay lucid, because I have that affect on people. But then he sprung it on me that I was going to do all the talking, and that's... I did it for him, but then you remembered. No one remembers. Even the people who do, they don't remember sixth year. Dumbledore said you were special, and I guess he was right. But I'm not going to tell you what I know and let you go off to solve this with your merry band, like how it always happens. I'm part of this. We need each other, Harry. And that's all the answers I have about why."

Harry still looked suspicious. "Maybe. I'll go along with you for now, but I'm going to tell Ron and Hermione about this."

"That's fine. Hermione has been invaluable to me." Pansy could not believe she was saying that. "But right now, she's in there getting Ron back to himself." She picked the book up from the floor. "So while they're doing that, we'll go to the Slytherin common room and talk to Daphne."

"Why Daphne?"

Pansy took a deep breath. "I'll explain on the way."