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The Dust of Water	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 20655 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

Chapter List
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Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Seven—Secrets in the Shadows
            Harry opened his eyes slowly. He’d tried to spend time meditating since he got to Number Twelve. It seemed like it would be a good way to soothe both his overwhelming frustration and his racing mind.
            But he always ended up drifting off to sleep. The cushion that Kreacher had provided him was just too damn comfortable, even if it was also on the floor of the library.
            Harry stood up, sighing, and cast another glance at the books. He supposed he could try reading some more about memory loss. He’d asked Kreacher to bring him every book on memories and spells that affected them in the library, only to be staring at teetering piles of thick tomes five minutes later. The ancestral Blacks had really liked cursing people with spells that affected their brains, it seemed.
            Or he could Floo his friends.
            Harry cringed. No. After the fiasco of his conversation with Kingsley this morning, when he had tried over and over again to explain why he wasn’t coming back to Auror training and Kingsley hadn’t comprehended it any of his seventeen tries… He was ready for a little privacy.
            He’d just settled in a thick chair with an equally thick book when the door opened and Kreacher came into the library bearing a silver tray. Harry blinked and stared at the things on it. There was an empty bowl, a small pile of what looked like salt, and a silver hulking thing that appeared to be a cross between a teapot and a snake.
            “What’s that, Kreacher?” Harry waved his hand at the teapot.
            Kreacher set the tray down on the floor and gave him a look as old as the house. “That is being Master’s stimulant, Master.”
            Harry winced. Kreacher had called him “Master” since he got here. “What stimulant? Tea would be fine. And what are the bowl and the salt for?”
            “Master’s ways are not being for elves to know.” Kreacher put his hands behind his back and stepped away from the tray.
            Harry wanted to groan. He did lift his wand and cast a few spells on the monstrosity that ought to tell him what kind of “stimulant” was in it.
            Sparks drifted upwards from the thing, and Harry jerked his head back as an evil smell rose to assault his nostrils, too. It smelled like—well, burned sugar was the least of it. There was rotten eggs in there, and burned milk, too, and the same kind of scent that used to come from Hagrid’s hut when he was dealing with sick animals. Harry wondered what in hell it was, and why he’d been drinking it. Or smoking it. Or dousing it with salt and inhaling it. Whatever it was.
            But the spells had produced no answer he recognized.
            Harry closed his eyes again as he thought about that. He had come to terms with the fact that his memories would never come back, but this was more—and worse—than that. This was the fact that the lost memories still had the ability to ambush him, and then he would sit here worrying about what he didn’t know, whether he would ever be able to actually trust himself.
            How many lost caches of secrets were waiting out there.
            But Harry was tired of sitting around and worrying about what kind of person he had been. He had a confidant he could trust now, at least. He opened his eyes. “Kreacher, did my—old self hide any letters here? Any important papers? Did he entrust you with any secrets?”
            Kreacher frowned at him and squinted hard enough that his eyes seemed about to disappear entirely into the folds of his face. “Are you or are you not Master?” he asked, and the folds grew deeper.
            “I’m both him and not him,” Harry said, which felt like the most honest answer at the moment. “But I can’t remember where I put my secrets, and I can’t even remember what this was or why I drank it.” He nodded at the teapot-snake. “I need you to help me.”
            Kreacher seemed about ready to float off the floor, the way that Harry remembered Dobby sometimes being when Harry had asked for his help. “Kreacher is not being retired!” he said, and skipped around the library. “Kreacher is helping!”
            “Yes,” said Harry. “And I need you to tell me if I hid papers in this house. Or this room. Or anywhere that you know about, really.”
            Kreacher bowed his head. “Master is hiding papers in the lower shelves.” Harry didn’t know what he meant, but then Kreacher flipped one hand over, and the lowest part of the bookshelves where most of the tomes on memory magic had come from slid open. The panels seemed to disappear smoothly into the walls, which had probably been enlarged to hold them. Harry shook his head a little. Magic. “And Master is talking often of the secrets that are being hidden in Gringotts.”
            Harry felt a single vibration travel through him, as though he was a gong someone had hit. Of course. That would explain why he hadn’t found more. Not that there wasn’t more, but either it was too sensitive or old Harry hadn’t had the room in his house.
            “Would the goblins talk to me about those secrets even if I can’t remember what they are?” he asked.
            Kreacher gave him another ancient look. “Goblins is being loyal to the blood and the money,” he said. “Not the memories.”
            Harry supposed that had to be true, or no one could ever claim a vault they hadn’t known about, the way he’d had to when he went to Gringotts with Hagrid for the first time. He smiled at Kreacher. “Thank you, Kreacher.” He put the tray aside and started to stand up.
            “Master is not wanting his stimulant?” Kreacher sounded anxious.
            Harry hesitated once and looked at the stimulant. He’d been doing well enough without it. He could have tried it just to see what would happen, but he hoped he could act less recklessly than he had during the war even if he felt no older than he had been during it.
            “Floo Draco Malfoy and ask him if he can stop by this afternoon,” he said, suddenly inspired. “Make it clear that I’ll pay him for his time.”
            He hadn’t wanted to deal with Malfoy again, but on the other hand, it was the safest way to find out. And Malfoy ought to take money for something that was unconnected with the experimental potions work Harry had been having him do.
            Probably unconnected.
            Harry shook his head. He was still overwhelmed by the evidence of his hidden life, but at least now he stood some chance of uncovering what exactly he’d hidden, and from sources that wouldn’t reveal it to his friends.
            Even if I have to come clean eventually, Harry thought, as he spun his wand in a Scourgify to get his robes clean of dust, I’d rather do it when I know exactly what I’m supposed to be making up for.
*
            The goblins didn’t blink an eye when Harry walked into the bank, although some of the human customers turned around and stared hard enough that Harry wanted to cringe. There was one in particular, a tall wizard with a long silver beard and hair to match, who kept looking at Harry with wide eyes. Harry tried to make sure he was standing with his back to that wizard when he spoke to the goblins.
            The one who leaned forwards to study his key nodded and looked up. “You’ll want to speak to Harzok if you’re retrieving things from your vault,” he said.
            Harry half-relaxed as the goblin with golden eyes who seemed to be named Harzok came up to him. Ten years had obviously been enough to ease the tensions between him and the goblins, although Harry’s most vivid memory was still breaking out of Gringotts on the back of a dragon.
            The cart ride down to his vault was as thrilling as ever, although mostly silent. The cart bounced off the tracks at one point and Harry had to hang onto the side, but he found he was grinning as he did it. If he died from this, at least it would be in an honest way and in pursuit of an honest goal.
            He just didn’t understand what in the world his old self had been thinking, what would have got him into blackmail and all the rest of it. When had he changed his preferences about the way he did things, let alone what he wanted to do?
            But he didn’t have time to think about it, because the cart had stopped. Harry sat up, then realized that they weren’t in front of the vault he was used to. Of course, maybe things had changed in the past ten years and he’d started using the main Black vault, but none of the goblins had mentioned it.
            Then he realized they weren’t in front of a vault at all; the cart was just sitting in the middle of a split in the tracks. Harry turned slowly towards Harzok, his hand on his wand, in case those ten years hadn’t healed the tensions after all.
            Harzok, though, was looking at him with those intense yellow eyes and drumming his fingers on the side of the cart, not exactly threatening. “Which vault did you want to go to?” he asked.
            “There’s only one main Black vault, I thought?” Harry vaguely remembered Sirius saying something about that, or thought he did. The few Black heirs left had condensed everything into one vault as the family members dwindled.
            “There is only one main Black vault,” Harzok agreed, with a nod. “But there is the Shadow Vault that Mr. Potter established eight years ago.”
            Eight years ago. It was the first indication Harry had had of a timeframe, and he knew he couldn’t pass the chance up. “The Shadow Vault, then,” he said, heart pounding so fast that his throat hurt. “And what’s the difference between the Shadow Vaults and the regular ones?”
            The cart had turned down a track that was so steep it left them almost in freefall, and Harry had a hard time hearing Harzok as he answered. But some words came through clearly. “No one outside yourself can know you have a Shadow Vault. Your tongue would cramp up if you tried to tell them. The bank denies their existence outside this level.”
            Harry almost asked how Kreacher could know about it, but then realized Kreacher had never mentioned that kind of thing. He’d only talked about the “secrets” Harry had hidden in Gringotts, and for all he knew, they might be in the regular Black vault instead of somewhere else.
            The track turned into a long, spiraling swoop, and then they swept through a ringing curtain of what felt like silver chimes. Harry saw something long and thin pass overhead as the cart also began to slow down. When he looked up, he saw nothing solid, only a swarming mass of shadow changing shape until it resembled a dragon.
            “It’s not wise to pay too much attention to the Guardians,” Harzok’s voice said, abruptly enough to startle him.
            Guardians with an audible capital G, at that, Harry thought, and nodded his understanding. He watched as the vault doors next to them started to become visible. All of them were made of a dull grey material that could have been lead, although Harry wouldn’t have bet on it, and each one had a dial of shadow in the exact center.
            Finally, the cart jerked to a stop, and Harzok stepped out. “This is it,” he said.
            Harry stepped out beside him, only to see the shadow dial in the center of the vault animate and turn towards him. It was another creature, he thought, and froze for a second before Harzok murmured, “They lock with the unique vibration of the owner’s pain. You must hurt yourself briefly to get past it.”
            Harry grimaced and wondered for a second whether even his pain responses would be the same after he had changed, or erased, ten years. But he ended up putting his wand to his arm and murmuring a small Cutting Charm, because it seemed like the simplest way to get what the Guardian wanted.
            The blood flowed, the pain tore through him, and the shadow-creature climbed off the middle of the vault. Harry knocked the delicately-balanced door open with his palm, and peered through.
            The vault was a small, triangular floor hemmed in by stacks of shelves. Most of them were empty. Gazing up at the ones that weren’t, though, Harry made out several books, more stacks of bound letters, and a Pensieve.
            Harry swallowed, and felt something stir to life inside him. Yes, watching others’ memories from outside wasn’t enough to tell him what he had been feeling at the time or what had driven some of his decisions. But watching his own might be.
*
            Harry stepped through the front door of Number Twelve, carefully balancing the Pensieve on one hip. Although there was a flat, net-like cloth stretched across it that should keep the memory-liquid inside, Harry still didn’t want to take the chance.
            “Potter. I’ve been waiting for an hour.”
            All his precautions were almost for nothing as Malfoy swanned out of the kitchen. Harry managed to put the Pensieve down instead of dropping it, though. He took a slow breath that he hoped tamped down his irritation, and said, “I had some business to take care of, Malfoy.” He laid the shrunken package of books and letters down on a shelf beside the door and added, “I did say I would pay you for your time.”
            “I’ve examined that stimulant, as you called it,” Malfoy announced. He was wearing his hair bound back in a long braid that grazed his collar today, and a diamond pin that seemed to reflect the light in inconvenient, eye-hurting ways no matter how Harry moved his head. “It’s not just that.” He gave Harry a scolding stare.
            “Kreacher called it that, not me,” Harry said. “I didn’t call it anything, because I have no idea what it is.”
            Malfoy turned abruptly away and stared at the wall. Harry stared, too, wondering if there was too much dirt there for His Majesty’s liking, and then if Malfoy was about to have a conniption and storm off.
            What Malfoy did, though, was turn back with an uncomfortable expression on his face. “You really remember nothing, do you?” he whispered.
            “No,” said Harry, and managed not to snap because then Malfoy might leave and Harry had no idea what another Potions master might say about the drug. Or stimulant, or whatever. Malfoy at least had the advantage of not having revealed Harry’s illegal activities to everyone. “I told you that already.”
            Malfoy studied him one more time, then nodded. “I thought you might have been faking memory loss to get away from certain realizations about yourself,” he said. “But you’re not. Fine. Come into the kitchen.”
            Harry again bit his tongue, this time to tell Malfoy that he should be doing the inviting because it was his house, and went into the kitchen. He set the Pensieve out of the way, on the counter. It was an effort not to hover protectively over it.
            But although Malfoy glanced at the Pensieve, he didn’t seem that interested in it. He focused on Harry instead. “The liquid in that pot suspends inhibitions.”
            Harry blinked. “So it’s some kind of love potion?” That was the only category of potions he could remember immediately that made people do embarrassing things in public.
            Malfoy closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. “No,” he whispered. “It lowers the barriers of—conscience is an inexact and inelegant way to describe it, but it’s the word most people would use. It’s supposed to make the user objective, suspend them in a clear grey place where they can think of the best course of action without being bothered by emotional considerations.”
            “Or moral ones.” Harry said. He bowed his head. What kind of criminal was I?
            “Yes,” Malfoy said. He kept quiet until Harry opened his eyes and looked at him. Once again, he looked uncomfortable. “It’s extremely complicated to make, and not in much demand. Your house-elf said you took it most days you were here.”
            Harry shrugged. “I have no idea how often I was here.”
            “It sounds like it was at least several times a week.”
            When did I get the time off from work? Or was I coming here when I was supposedly at work and not telling Ginny? That seemed likelier to Harry the longer he thought about it.
            He made a decision then. He had to know more, and while his brain damage might prevent the memories from ever returning, there was a Potions brewer right in front of him who had already shown his willingness to use Harry as an experimental subject.
            “Malfoy.”
            “Yes?” Malfoy sat up in his chair, with alert but opaque eyes.
            “I have to know what the hell I was doing,” Harry said bluntly. “I know that you don’t know all of it.” Malfoy simply inclined his head. “But I want you to try to make an experimental potion that would—is there a potion that would let me travel back in time? Not physically, but with a kind of spiritual presence or something?”
            Malfoy’s face shuttered. “Where did you read about that, Potter? Is it a memory returning after all?” He sounded accusing.
            “I don’t know. Maybe some Potions book at Hogwarts.” Harry gestured randomly, not taking his eyes off Malfoy. “Look, it’s not that important. I have to know. I’ve already found four places I’ve hidden secrets, five if you count your house, and I don’t know how any of them connect or what was going on. And you’re my best hope.”
            “Why?”
            “Because you’re not going to question why I want the potion,” Harry said. He continued hastily, because Malfoy appeared to be opening his mouth to say that there were other people who wouldn’t question Harry, either, not with his memory loss so well-known. “And because you’re a little unscrupulous, and willing to experiment, and you’ll accept my money. Will you do it?”
            Malfoy looked off to the side. “It’s dangerous.”
            “I’ll prepare you a safe space and all the ingredients you need.”
            Malfoy abruptly swung to face him. “To you, idiot.”
            Harry waited until he was absolutely sure he had Malfoy’s full attention, and then he said, “The first morning I woke up without my memories, I wished I’d died instead. And now, I have to make up for mistakes that I don’t remember making, for motives that I don’t remember having. I can’t have any kind of life until I do that. My life is already forfeit, Malfoy. Pawned. This way, I’d at least have a chance at a different kind of future.”
            Malfoy clenched his hand on the table, but his eyes never wavered from Harry’s. “The potion is going to take blood, pain, and skin from you,” he said. “Among other things.”
            Harry simply nodded.
            “I want to find out who brewed that—stimulant for you,” Malfoy said, tone still like icy crystal. “And I want to take any you still have with me.”
            Harry nodded.
            “You can’t reveal anything about me to your friends. Or that we’re working together.”
            Harry nodded.
            Malfoy sighed a little through his nose. “You want this, don’t you?” he asked softly, seemingly convinced. “More than anything.”
            “Yes,” Harry said simply.
            Malfoy nodded in turn. “Good. Then we’ll begin.”
            Harry felt something warm and bright and alien unfolding in him, and it took him a moment to recognize it as hope.
*
moodysavage: Thank you! As you can see, there are ways to get Draco involved even if Harry doesn’t have a long-term crush on him. ;)
And Harry does intend to tell his friends everything, but he wants to sort out exactly what the fuck was going on first.
starr: No, he doesn’t think it would be fair when he apparently already did horrible things while he was an Auror.
SP777: Well, she would probably not want Harry to investigate further into his past, or really think he has to.
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The Dust of Water