Okay so what if Harry’s just different after the war. But it’s not the different people would expect. It’s not trauma and pain and silence and loss … It’s this strange sort of normality, where he’s Harry … but not quite Harry.
At first Draco can’t pinpoint what it is. He can see Granger and Weasley haven’t figured it out either, from the way the former always has a little worried half frown when she sees Harry joking or laughing with that slightly wrong expression. Weasley on the other hand seems to be hurt by Harry’s ability to carry on life like none of it had ever happened. His face darkens when Harry casually skips past mentions of the brother he lost and Draco can’t help thinking the behaviour is very … un-Harry.
It takes him two months to figure it out. Two months of watching Harry - watching almost everyone around him accept this new smiling, laughing - shallow Potter. It’s not just that he’s happy … he doesn’t have the same sarcastic quips. He doesn’t eat his food so fast you’d think someone was about to take it from him. He doesn’t have that same razor awareness of his surroundings … he barely ever catches Draco watching him.
It’s the fact that they share a common room now that leads him to the secret. He sees Harry come out of his room one night, sadness floating across his face in a way Draco hasn’t seen all year - that depth of world weariness in his eyes. He’s got his cloak over his arm and the moment he leaves the room, Draco slips into his bedroom, determined to find whatever it was that had brought back a trace of the old Harry.
It takes half an hour of searching and multiple spells before he finds the chest hidden inside the window seat. He hesitates before opening it. He doesn’t really have any right to be spying on Harry … but this isn’t Harry. Not really. And he needs to know why.
When he cracks it open, he just stares, breath caught in his throat. It’s bottles … hundreds of tiny bottles, each glowing blue with a whisp of curling memory. He picks one up to read the tiny tag.
The words make his breath catch.
Punishment for ruining shirt. Iron burns. 8 yo
He puts it down as though it’s burned him and picks up another.
Locked in cupboard. Three days. No toilet. 7 yo
He feels bile rising is his throat as he picks up another.
Dropped breakfast. Ate off floor. 4 yo (?)
He scans the bottles. There are twenty or thirty of similar ages and he feels a horrified shock running through him. He wonders distantly if Weasley and Granger know this. Then he looks again at the bottles, more labels jump out at him.
Burned Quirrel’s face - first meeting with V. 11 yo
Accused by school. Spat at and hexed. 12 yo
Hunted by Basilisk. Bitten. Thought I would die. 12 yo
Draco feels a gut wrenching sadness run through him as he looks over the bottles. There are so many more. Years worth. He sees a larger one, the size of his clenched fist and picks it up, cradling it. At least twenty memories swirl around inside, mingling and then separating.
The tag simply reads, Sirius.
He’s sitting there when Harry comes back. The bottles are placed neatly around him and he’s seen the spread of Harry’s fear and doubt and sadness and loss and pain. He feels paralyzed by the magnitude of it.
When Harry asks what he’s doing, he doesn’t look up from the tiny vial in his hand.
The tag reads, My death, seventeen years old.
Harry doesn’t shout or hex him or do anything Draco would expect. Instead he picks his way through the bottles to sit down beside Draco, leaning back against the wall.
‘It’s better this way,’ he murmurs.
Draco does look over then, and Harry’s face has that look he’s had all year. And Draco realises why it bothers him so much. This is Harry without his childhood, without the trials he’s overcome, without the losses that have shaped and forged him. He still has shadows of the memories, sure, but he doesn’t feel them anymore.
‘It’s not better,’ he says, voice intense, not even questioning why he so suddenly needs to convince the boy in front of him.
Harry frowns then, breaks Draco’s gaze. 'It hurts too much to hold all of that,’ He gestures at the bottles that litter the floor and his voice holds a trace of bitterness.
Draco doesn’t know what to say to that. Who is he to ask Harry Potter - Saviour of the Wizarding World - to live with the trauma the wizarding world forced on him.
Then he thinks of the bottles he could make - the memories he could shed. He thinks of the Mind Healer his mother arranged for him over the summer break. He rubs his forearm absently as he thinks of tears and rage and shame … and the beginnings of healing.
He looks across at Harry. 'This,’ he says with the same gesture at the bottles. 'All of this - is you. You overcame it. You grew from it. You learned from it. You - you probably wouldn’t have done what you did without it.’
He looks down at the bottle he still holds.
'Remembering is hard,’ he says looking across at the bottles marked Sirius, Fred, Lupin, Dobby, Hedwig. He remembers what the Healer told him as he’d mourned his father.
'Forgetting the bad bits though, means you forget the good as well … it means you forget the person.’ He looks at Harry and sees the same sadness from earlier echoed in his eyes.
'I know it’s none of my business, but I don’t think you should forget them.’
Harry reaches out with shaking fingers to stroke over each of the bottles in turn. 'I’m scared to remember,’ he whispers.
Draco looks at him and the words are on his lips before he can think.
'I can help you,’ he offers.
