potentialities

:) i really like this. i think it's a really neat concept and you handle it well. just to note you fall out of the present tense in this section: Draco watches silently, with that inscrutable look, from across the Great Hall as Harry pushed away his third butterbeer and began looking for the harder spirits that the Leavers were perfectly within their legal rights to drink, although perhaps not so assiduously as Harry was.

also, i really think the fact that hermione is watching in the end detracts from the moment. it feels too voyeuristic and i'm not sure that that's what you're going for in those final images. i really like what you did with drunken!harry and the way the other students coddled him. i'm not sure if i buy that draco would be quite as influenced by hermione as he seems to be; i think i'd like a little more backstory on how that relationship came to be about if you choose to revise this (it seems like something you could be a bit more detailed about without compromising the deliberate vagueness of what happened to harry). i also really like the multiple meanings of the title--the obliviate spell/harry's obliviousness to draco's feelings/his drunken oblivion/his ultimate happiness under draco's hands, and his ultimate need to remember--the "dimly aware of a great satisfaction" is perfect in the way it refers obliquely back to the title, and it's one reason i think the story would be better if left there.

everybody is very in-character. i almost wish we had more of harry's emotional reaction to draco's revelation rather than one which seems primarily physical--but i like it the way it is because of the fact that you preserve the blurred oblivion of the drunkenness, his lost memories, and his confusion over malfoy. i think it's wonderful how you bring all those elements together.

for a first-time fic, i think this is great, and i hope you'll write more! :)