Sorry it's late - College (WhooHoo! - First week!)

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Total Recall

Draco hovered around near the broom shed for a good half an hour before Ginny arrived. Thanks to seventh-year timetables his previous lesson had been free, and he had spent the time in eager anticipation. Tucked into his pocket were three shallow jars filled with a silvery substance.

Leaning against the door of the shed, feeling the warm wood on his back, he watched the sun just over the Forbidden Forest, sinking towards the ground. He couldn't shake the wobbly feeling in his stomach, and it disconcerted him - nerves were not something that Malfoys became accustomed too.

He heard footsteps, and Ginny's cinnamon head poked around the corner of the broom shed. She smiled.

"You're early," she said, by way of greeting.

"No I'm not," he replied.

"Alright, you're not late, then."

The side of his mouth quirked up. "OK."

Ginny leaned beside him on the broom shed wall, following his gaze back to the forest and the lake and the surrounding mountains.

The sun, on the rebound from when summer had deserted her for autumn, had been stubbornly warm all day, and had pulled most of the moisture from the last few days' tumultuous weather into the air, making everything hazy and misty. The goalposts of the Quidditch pitch could barely be seen.

Draco glanced down at her. "Shall we walk?"

She nodded.

They started up the well-worn path between the broom shed and the Quidditch pitch, shoulder to shoulder. Draco was very aware that the path, which was usually undertaken single-file, was very narrow, and didn't easily accommodate two people side-by-side. The result was that they kept bumping shoulders, making him feel awkward and clumsy.

"Sorry," he muttered, for the thirtieth time, after bumping her particularly viciously. She didn't reply, just nudged him back. Had that been intentional?

Experimentally, he pushed her a little bit. She smacked her shoulder back into his with so much force that he stumbled clean off the path.

"Ginny!" he cried, exasperated.

"Draco!" she teased, mocking, and tipping her head to the side. He couldn't find it in himself to be angry - he hadn't been this happy in months, maybe years. Ginny chuckled merrily, and resumed her tread up the path. Draco stood still, staring after her for a second. Smiling, he shook his head and jogged to catch up with her.

They reached the pitch at the same time, and strode out onto the flood-lit grass. The sky was turning from a dull pink into a foggy blue, and tiny pin-pricks of light were beginning to twinkle. It was ironically romantic.

Ginny walked straight to the centre of the pitch and sat down in the centre circle. Draco eyed the damp grass, then joined her, sitting directly opposite her. It was weirdly symmetrical.

"So what did you want to show me?" Ginny asked, frowning gently in the soft light. Her eyes were picking up the faint reflections from the stars appearing slowly in the darkening sky.

He pulled the three jars from his inside pocket and lined them up, keeping the symmetry.

"Some memories."

He noticed that Ginny's frown had deepened. He didn't mention it her apparent unease.

"OK," she said quietly. He twisted the lid off the first one, and pulled his wand from his cloak, dipping it into the silvery substance. It spun very fast in the shallow dish, like a tiny Pensieve.

Draco looked across the silvery glow towards Ginny. She looked, for the first time, a little nervous, staring into the dish.

"You OK?" he asked soothingly. He'd never spoken soothingly before. She nodded.

"Fine," she said, firmly. He nodded.

"Alright then. Give me your hand..." She did, and he leant forward, dipping his other hand into the liquid light.

They fell forwards immediately, spinning through a kind of dark vortex that he was all-too familiar with. They landed, with a dull thud, on a bright, golden lawn.

---

In the distance sat Malfoy Manor, high above the swooping gardens on which they currently stood. It domineered over everything, shedding a long, black, evening shadow across the grass.

He turned around, knowing exactly what he would find: a smaller garden on the edge of a surrounding wood, fenced off and growing wilder - a meadow. He sighed, unable to stop himself. The air was cooling after a warm summer's day, dust floating gently on the breeze. Bright yellow light spread from the sinking sun, engulfing everything in a glow.

He also found Ginny, hyperventilating.

"What's wrong?" he asked, deeply concerned. Her hand was shaking in his. He raised his other, wrapping it around Ginny's. "What's the matter? Ginny? Tell me."

She closed her eyes, and he could see her visibly steadying herself.

"It's OK, I'm fine," she said, but her voice was trembling horribly.

"Tell me," he repeated firmly, stepping closer to her. She flinched.

"I've just got some... bad memories of some... more bad memories, I guess." She looked pale, paler then he'd ever seen her, and he didn't like it at all. He clapped his hand to his forehead.

"I should have thought," he said, realising. "You-Know-Who. Tom Riddle. Oh Merlin."

Ginny shook her head. "No, no, I'm OK. Really. I just need a minute."

"Here," he said, leading her over to the fence. "Sit here, calm down. I can get you out of here if you want-"

"No. I'll be fine," she said again. But this time her voice was sure and clear. He breathed again. "It's just the weirdness is coming back. It freaked me the first time but that was because You-Know-Who-"

"You can still feel his presence," Draco said. "I understand. Let's just say I've got parallels."

He saw her frowning at him.

Gritting his teeth, he tried to explain. "Once you've been probed by the Dark Lord, there's little that can make you forget."

He still felt, even all these months later, the sickening tendrils of someone else's presence in his mind. And not a blunt, simple invasion, but a permanent, insistent marring of thought and another, more slimy, wriggling, engulfing consciousness, physically invading him. Ginny had been talking to him.

"Draco?" she was very quiet.

"Hmm?"

"Don't worry," she said, smiling faintly. "Not important."

He tightened his grip on her hand. "Ginny, you once asked me to trust you. I did, you know. Still do."

She smiled more broadly, her eyes glittering in the fading sun.

"Now you need to trust me."

She nodded immediately. "Absolutely. I'm fine. Really I am. Now."

Draco squeezed her hand, then dropped it, and leaned on the fence, nodding towards the Orchard. "Any minute now," he murmured, as Ginny leant next to him.

A small, blonde-haired boy of about four charged out of the trees, completely naked.

Ginny gasped. "That's you!"

He smirked. "I'm aware of that."

She shot him a look of amusement, but was distracted when a second figure emerged from the woodland: a woman with short, cropped black hair, worn jeans and a yellow T-shirt.

"Who's that?" she asked. Draco swallowed.

"Neviera. My nanny."

"You had a nanny?"

He frowned in genuine confusion. "You didn't?"

She smiled, and rubbed her thumb and fingers together. Ah. Money.

"Draco, I don't care about money. Never have, never will. So relax."

He shrugged. "Alright."

"I don't want to get dressed!" he shrieked with laughter. "Nakey Drakey! Nakey Drakey!"

He was well aware that he was blushing furiously. Even in the dying sun his neck was burning. But Ginny wasn't watching him; her eyes followed his own, younger, smoother back up through the meadow towards a grassy mound, screaming.

"Ever the sophisticated pureblood, eh, Drakey?" Ginny whispered, teasing. He didn't even mind - that was weird.

"Draco Lucius Malfoy! Get back here now!" Neviera called, stooping to collect discarded clothes. "You little terror! You'll scare the birds away waving that thing around!"

Though un-mentioned, they were both perfectly aware what had been waved around. Draco had forgotten some of the details of this memory, he hadn't seen it in so long. Now it was all coming back to him. Vividly. His mouth was very dry, his palms had slicked. He was so incredibly embarrassed that he thought he might faint.

Ginny glanced at him.

"Don't worry Draco. I've got six brothers. You really think you have anything I haven't seen before?" and to his horror, she glanced towards his trousers. He nearly choked.

"You're so cute when you're embarrassed," she added. He wasn't sure how to take that. "Cuter than when you used to shout, anyway."

He couldn't help it. He laughed. "Thanks. I think. You're not so bad yourself."

They looked back towards Draco and Neviera. She had just, it seemed, rugby-tackled him to the ground, and was now in the process of wrestling him into an emerald green long-sleeved T-shirt and cream trousers. He was giggling like a lunatic.

"Are you really that ticklish?" Ginny asked, having apparently relaxed enough to tease him mercilessly from now on.

"That's for me to know and you to find out," he said shortly.

"Oh yeah? You really don't want to tempt me, Draco."

His head whipped around. Was she still teasing? Actually, was she flirting? All he could think was that her brother would kill her if he knew.

She was staring calmly towards Neviera and Draco, hand in hand, wandering up the sloping lawns in the bright sunlight.

"Come on," she said, clambering over the gate. "I want to see what happens to Nakey Drakey next."

---

They followed Neviera and Little Draco all the way up the lawns, around the side of the Manor and in through the kitchen door. Neviera dusted herself and Draco off and walked him through to the Library.

The Library was massive. Huge towering bookcases lined deliciously with leather-bound volumes, thick, crisp paper-backs and colourful, narrow story books. Tall windows let in the golden sunlight that had bathed the grounds, and the crossing trellises latticed the room in thin shadow lines.

Draco wandered across the room, and looked out of the giant windows.

"Why did we have to come inside?"

"Because," Neviera smiled, "you can have too much of a good thing, Draco."

"I don't know what you mean."

Neviera smiled enigmatically. "You will one day. Here," she added lightly, gesturing towards a particularly colourful area of some shelves. "Pick something to read for me, would you?"

Draco tore away from the window and poured eagerly over the spines, his grey eyes moving enthusiastically over the titles.

"This one?"

Neviera peered at it. "Alright," she said, nodding and pulling it down. "Sit, please."

He did. The older Draco watched him. Neviera opened the book, and started reading, but the words lapped and rolled over Draco without affecting him - he'd heard the story many times. It had a dragon in it. And besides... he knew what happened next.

Lucius Malfoy sidled in, a cane in one hand and a large, leather-bound book in the other. The cane was, of course, for decoration - his father was perfectly capable of walking without it, but it seemed to make him feel better to carry that stick. Draco had some very unpleasant memories relating to that stick.

Seeing his father, alive and kicking, hit Draco square in the face. He hadn't thought this far ahead when he'd decided he was going to show these memories to Ginny. He guessed he'd assumed his father would also be dead in his memories.

"Evening, Neviera," Lucius said. "Has young Draco behaved himself today?" he said it more as an accusation.

Quickly, Neviera answered. "Yes, yes, he was wonderful as always, Mr Malfoy."

"Good."

His father crossed the room and put the book back onto a high shelf. Young Draco, though, had been distracted by his father.

"Father!" he called, crossing the oak floor. "Father, what are you doing?"

"Putting a book back," his father replied, sneering slightly at what he obviously considered a stupid question. "What, exactly, did I appear to be doing?"

The child did not blush. "What book were you reading, father?"

"It was on the Arts, Draco," his father said softly. "When you are older I will teach you about it. But your mother will insist on restraint were the Dark Arts are considered, at least in your youth. Carry on, Neviera," he added, in a tone that suggested he didn't think Neviera was doing her job terribly well if this inquisition was the result.

"Are you OK, Draco?" he heard Ginny ask, for he had been staring at his father for as long as he had been in the room. It wasn't that his image brought on a painful memory. But it was rather his dispassionate-ness that worried him. Had he had no loyal feeling for his father at all? The hollow feeling inside him would seem to say no.

"I'm... fine," he said. "Let's go."

He grabbed her hand again and pulled her from the memory, and they landed in the centre of the pitch. Draco had thought he'd probably be able to get through all three pots tonight, but all he wanted to do was curl up in his room and sleep.

"We'd better get back," Ginny said, as though reading his mind. "You sure you're OK?"

"Yes," he lied. Now it wasn't his father that made him want to do anything other than open the second jar. It was the realisation that his mother was contained in the next jar. He'd not even thought about what it would be like to see them, how stupid was that? He was angry with himself. Why hadn't he thought of this? Why hadn't he prepared himself?

That night, when Ginny was safely back in the tower and he had rolled into his bed and sealed the curtains around him, he thought about that evening. Everything had just seemed so strange and disconnected and wild that he had trouble making sense of it. And why hadn't anything that he'd seen been the slightest bit relevant?

---

That's it for this one.