AN: I found this challenge pretty hard, despite having two weeks to complete it. Clearly I'm incapable of being concise, so every fic I wrote exceeded the upper word limit and I had to keep thinking of something new to try. This was the result of late night drinking and my own mediocrity. I'm still not happy with it, but I'm all out of time. Libre Office says 4,886 (which is cutting it fine), so I hope it's right. The best thing to come out of this is that I learned a new word, therefore acquiring a better, less annoying pename. Yippee for that!

Sorry about the perspective...and the jolty stream of consciouness.

Title: Erasure

Author: Wintercearig

Challenge: Test Your Limits II, round one

Prompts: Lethe, Umbridge, ephemeral

Status: Complete(ish)

Summary: She had left him with nought but a name, in the end. And that wasn't even his own… It felt as if she had taken everything from him, from his mind to his heart to his soul. And then she'd rebuilt from scratch until he was once again a functioning human being. It might have been the most extensive and elaborate use of mind magic in history, and certainly some of the most advanced, but nobody would ever see it. Some would see the result, however; Harry, for example, and that was what truly mattered.

Erasure.

"I'm so sorry, Harry, but you'll be happier this way…"

A soft, feminine voice reaches your ears, tone filled with both determination and a regret so palpable that you can feel the weight of it crushing your chest.

It's a struggle to remain in this waking world, painful and pulsating as it is. It is impossible to unglue your eyelids, leaving your vision trapped by an eternity of red-tinged light and bright spots of white… You can't find the will to move…

"If it's any consolation," the sad woman murmurs placatingly (perhaps more for her own benefit than yours), "you won't lose yourself. Fundamentally, at the basest level, you'll be the same person," she stated matter of factly. "Just without some of the baggage. I know it's not what we discussed, but...it's for the best."

There is a faint sob.

Disoriented, you give up on the tantalising hope of movement, finally allowing the inevitable darkness overtake the throbbing headache coursing through your skull...and there to greet you from the swimming depths of unconsciousness, like a hated foe, is an incessant pounding. You screw your eyes shut against the agonising onslaught to your temples, though it makes no difference in the slightest. You mouth has the taste and consistency of sandpaper, as though you've passed out after smoking an entire pack of fags.

Though a small voice at the back of your mind insists that it is winter, you can feel the stark, overwhelming heat of sunlight permeating the flesh of your back. It's hot-too hot. Coughing through a valiant attempt to swallow, all you succeed in doing is breathing in a mouthful of dry dirt. Hacking and spluttering against the interloping soil, you struggle to turn over. You discover more soil shifting beneath your fingers and groan lightly in confusion, rolling onto your back.

You are outside...and you don't know why.

Your first instinct, as the thrice-damned irradiance of day blinds you, is to throw one arm over your face. Some light still cuts past your sleeve and over your eyelids, even as the heat of the too-bright sunshine washes across your form.

Where are you? What happened?

Through the awful, overzealous marching band that has taken up residence somewhere above your ears, you push into the murky depths of memory, trying to call forth the events of the night before. Thinking through your headache, which cheerfully pounds away, you come up blank. Are you hungover? Did you get knocked-out in a fight? Perhaps you got lost and, on the way back to wherever, passed out from exhaustion?

You simply don't know. How that can be is even more of a mystery than the lack of knowledge itself.

The fact is, before this there's nothing. Before the sticky heat and faint scent of leaves, before the sunlight and the arid, waterless earth, there is nothing more than the darkness of your own mind. Here, amongst the thin, spindly trees and the gentle, caressing breeze, you have been born. There is a faint hint of salt on the wind, as if it has been blown in all the way from the coast, and the song of chirping little birds surrounds you.

There is no doubt: you're a blank slate...and that terrifies you.

You slip out of time, unsure of how long you lie there on your back, face shielded, not unable to move for fear of injuries, but unwilling to on account of the heart-stopping confusion and panic welling up inside you.

You wonder who you are...staring resolutely out of the window. Your tired eyes skim across an unordered plethora of slate roofs. The sky is as grey as those roofs—its depressing, flat form threatens to unload a cargo of biting rain on the city below.

You sense her approach, more than hear. A tingle of power brushes against your own, the magic of her vorðr wrapping around you half a minute before her physical arms do. She rests her chin on your shoulder.

"How do you deal with it?" you ask, heart overflowing.

"I don't," is her soft, simple reply, and you don't understand her rationale. She continues quietly, saying that sometimes the only way you can deal with something is to not, to avoid it. "It's not healthy, but it's the only way we can manage the loss. We'll have to confront it one day, but not today…"

"Ron-" you hear yourself begin, as if from a distance. Suddenly the room feels as cold as outside looks, trapped in snow as it is.

"Died for a noble thing. He will not be forgotten by those he saved."

"And now you're all alone."

"That's not quite true—I have you.

You offer up a pained but caring expression. "If I'm gone one day," you tell her, "I want you to find yourself somebody to love, marry them, and fill this horrible house with a great big family. It would do Sirius an honor, to defile the House of Black with muggle things and laughing children."

If she thinks that your words are odd, she doesn't say. Rather, you allow yourselves to lapse back into silence. Four eyes stare resolutely out of the window, though none truly see it, lost to the past that you can't even recall falling asleep, but you are startled awake by a loud cry. It is a shock to your overwrought system, causing your current predicament to flood back to you all-too-clearly; it is the only thing to have happened in your life, so you have no other memories jostling for position.

"...uk, man, are you alright?! Do you need an ambulance or something?"

An unfamiliar, male voice is babbling away at twice the speed of light, worry colouring it's too-fast words. You can do no more than groan in response, wondering idly if you do need an ambulance.

Everything's uncertain.

You're slipping again, though this time you can feel it happening. You shift in your seat, leaning forward to catch her earnest words.

"You can't just take away magic. It's not a tangible, touchable thing that can be ripped from you."

—ever so slightly, trying to sit up if you can. You fail horribly and the unknown voice exclaims "Shit!" loudly.

An arm, presumably attached to the voice, shakes you gently as if to rouse you. Having little luck at getting anything noetic out of you, the man swears again, repeatedly and colourfully.

"I'm gonna go get help. Stay here!"

You sigh at her unhelpfulness.

"But it will be suspicious, me showing up in our world [new identity or not] just as 'Harry Potter' disappears."

"I realise that," she says, affronted for a moment. "Your magic can't be gotten rid of, though, but...perhaps it can be suppressed. If you're going to live as a muggle, you need to practically be one—to take away temptation."

The sound of feet beating against the ground in a jog, reaches your ears.

You turn, not to the sound but to the small, disfigured looking creature before you. The goblin has greenish-brown skin and wickedly sharp teeth. It seems to be smiling, though it's hard to tell.

"You understand the laws regarding inheritance, Lord Black?"

You nod. "I merely want to ensure that in the event of my disappearance [but not death] she will get what is owed to her as a blood-bound sister of the Lord of the Houses Black and Potter."

"You wish to ensure her safety from certain persons in the government, I assume?" the goblin asks for clarification. "Namely, a rather nasty specimen that goes by Madam Umbridge?" You nod again and your account manager snarls in reply, "I understand completely."

The goblin's anger is not toward you, but somebody else entirely. It is a shared enmity for another person, rolling between all three of you.

Beside you, your best-friend turned blood-sister frowns at the inference that that nasty toady could interfere with any business of yours. The woman has been shunted sideways into the Department of Magical Inheritances since the war's end… It is a place from which she has been sadistically causing all sorts of problems for the surviving members of many families.

As you and your sister leave the goblin behind in the safety of his office, you pass the Terrible Toad herself in Gringotts' entrance hall. You smirk secretly at her and she offers a malicious, saccharine smile back, heading for a teller. You ignore her, musing on how loud Kermit's screams will be when she realises what you have just done: With such specific instructions left at the bank, there is no way that the Ministry will be seizing the inheritance that rightfully belongs to your blood-sister. Your quick thinking has kept the money out of Umbridge's coffers.

You grin at the thought of the Toad's fury when she realises that the monies of two Ancient and Noble houses are to go to a muggleraised woman.

"But Harry, Sirius obviously meant this for you," your aforementioned sister says for the thousandth time, as you step past Umbridge and back into Diagon Alley.

"And I'm giving it to you," you return, the words well practised to the point of muscle memory. "It's my gift, for all that you're doing for me-for all that we've been through. I won't pretend that this can bring Ron or your parents back, but... it's a start.

You struggle against your unending headache, trying to make sense of things. You still don't remove the arm from your face, knowing subconsciously that if you open your eyes then this will all be real. That thought scares you more than anything.

Everything's broken and everything's wrong, you tell yourself, gazing out the grimy window yet again. It is sudden, when you wonder aloud, "Are you ever going to bring them home?"

No explanation is needed between you, despite the non-sequitur; the pair of you know one another so well at this point that elaboration is rarely required. You're sister gets what you mean instantly and for that a sharp burst of affection rushes through you.

"No."

A moment passes between you, stretching out into eternity.

"I'm not certain that I could," she admits, the wintercearig of the world beyond the window reflected in her tone. "Even if I did, I doubt I would be able to just slip back into their lives. No, it's probably for the best that I leave them be—they're happy."

"But they don't have you," you point out quietly.

Your blood-sister chuckles lightly, bitterly, and the sound is so very world-weary in her throat that it breaks your heart all over again. "They said more than once that they felt they were losing me, with Hogwarts. I barely even saw them anymore. By the time I obliviated them, we were practically strangers, in many ways."

You don't tell her that you're sorry, though you are. You don't want her to know just how much you regret that your presence in her life has lead her here, to a place where loneliness is her only stable companion and everything she's ever had has turned to shit. She's cast aside her parents, lost her fiance, her friends, and her chances of completing the education she fought so hard to receive. All that is left for her is you; and you're just a depressed, washed-out joke of a wizard who overindulges in fags and whisky, trying to rid yourself of the memories of a war that stole away all your hopes and dreams.

So, unable to articulate that satisfactorily, you say nothing. Neither of you are content with the lack of conversation, but instead are resigned to it in—

"Mrs. Wilkins! Mrs. Wilkins!"

A beat. Then a muffled, replying voice.

"God crikey! There's a kid out in the lanes!"

The voices drop away to a lower level and you sigh gently to yourself, not really knowing what to do. How can you evaluate a situation that you've never been faced with before? (How can you evaluate a situation when you've never been faced with a situation before?)

"Hey, are you alright?! Son, are you okay?"

The air about you is disturbed and you feel nimble fingers drag your arm away from it's post guarding your face. Your eyes remain tight shut, not yet ready to be acquainted with this strange, unfamiliar world. One of the delicate, clearly feminine hands runs across your forehead in a soothing, maternal gesture.

This is all the coaxing it takes, this kindness, for you to finally pull back your eyelids and introduce your neglected vision centres to the world for the first time.

Above you, bordered by the azure of the sky, is a woman. She is middle aged, you would guess, and the softness of her heart-shaped face seems familiar to you. There is something recognisable, too, in the wildness of her curls, which are the a very dark brown. Her eyes are quickly assessing your form but, as a moan slips up your throat, they rush back to your face, locking on your own. The woman's eyes are a soft green colour, the exact shade of mint ice-cream, and hold such a gentle, concerned warmth that you wonder if she is your mother.

You try to thank her for her care, but fail, because your eyes are slipping out of focus again... Another woman, so similar to the one above you, is asking, "This is it, isn't it?" her smile overcome with a softly spoken sadness, though her eyes are fond.

"Not exactly. I'll still visit, but we'll be leading very different lives. I might go to college, I think-you know, catch up on my Muggle education."

"That's a good idea, Harry. I don't think that you'd do very well in the Muggle world without one [especially not when you consider that you're nearly eighteen]. I hope that you find everything you're looking for out there," she whispers at the end of her previous, stronger sentences.

"I'll visit," you swear.

Your sister nods, blinking tears out of her coffee coloured eyes. "I suppose you want me to do it now?" she asks tentatively.

"Yes," you reply excitedly, anxious for it to be over and done with now that the day has finally come. Very soon you will take up an assumed name and set forth into the world of muggles, pretending to be just like them. You will be free to live anonymously, with no obligations; to learn, to work, and maybe even to start a family.

Confidant in your decision, you whisper, "I give my life into your hands…"

"...sn't seem to be any real injury. Dehydration. We don't know how long he was out there for. Could have been hours—overnight, even. Lucky he didn't get eaten by something," a new voice chuckles lightly, before carrying on in what seems to be an Aussi accent. "He's in relatively good health. Bit on the light side, but nothing a couple of good meals wouldn't fix."

"Thank you, Greg. And for coming so quickly…"

"No worries. Not a prob, I'm just doing my job."

Perhaps Greg is a little flustered by the genuine warmth the woman is directing toward him, because all of a sudden he announces, "Ah, you're awake!" in a loud voices, turning all the attention on you instead.

Inside you groan, forcing your eyes open. Beyond your lids you find muted colours and a room draped in shadows—the curtains are shut tight and you strain for a moment, your eyes adjusting to the half-light. Refocusing, you see two occupants in the room with you.

The first is a strapping guy with wide shoulders and shortly cropped, curly hair the colour of dishwater. There is a clipboard under one of his arms and a pen stuffed behind his left ear. He looks friendly and your first assessment of him is favourable.

The second person has the first face you ever saw. She moves to switch the light on and you take a second look at her. Though her face is ever-imprinted on your mind, you appraise her other aspects: she is wearing an almost-knee-length dress of pale green, with white roses chasing one another across its span; small, she can be no more than five five, with a frail frame that sweeps out at the shoulder and hip; supple white leather boots sit on her feet, well cared for though still slightly scuffed.

"It's good you're awake, kid," Greg announces. "Can you tell us what happened to you? You scared Monica something fierce when you weren't responding."

You frown at the Doctor's question (deciding that he must be a medical professional, if the stethoscope flung around his neck like a scarf is any indication) and flail about in an attempt to find the needed words.

Eventually, with much prodding and comforting (the woman sits on the edge of the bed, placing a hand on you stressed shoulders), you manage to explain to them that you can't explain. You tell them that to you the world is as blank as a starless night. You tell them how scared you are because of that...

"It's quite alright," the woman—she says she's called Mrs. Wilkins—reassures you. "Don't you worry now. I'm sure we'll find out what happened."

Doctor Greg speaks up then, saying, "She's right, you know. Amnesia is very rarely permanent, so you should find out why you're here eventually."

But you don't find out what happened to you, because your memory doesn't come back. You don't have a clue why, but the trauma (be that physical or psychological) has wiped your mind clean of personal memories. Oh, you can still recall your times tables and how many planets there are, but you don't know your mother's name, if you have siblings, or where you go to school.

It is decided that you are about fifteen years old (based on your looks), though it is quickly apparent that you aren't local. Your cadence, while matching up with that of the Wilkinses, is foreign. It is explained to you gently, as if you're a skittish colt that might flee if approached too quickly, that you are British. You are from Britain but nowhere near home. When you finally learn where you are, on an emotional level the words mean little to you. Several miles southwest of Williamstown, Australia, is a small vineyard called The Southwold. Owned by Mr. and Mrs. Wendell Wilkins, who bought it just a few years earlier, you were found half-dead in amongst their property's grapevines.

In the weeks after you wake, you meet Marty again. He's a Valley native and the workhand that discovered you, you learn, and an all-round cheerful kind of guy.

Whilst Greg and the Wilkinses are contacting embassies and the local police, your new friend spends time teaching you to play dirty at cards and how to properly take care of the crop. It turns out that you're pretty good with plants and, when it comes time to harvest a couple of months later, The Southwold's yield is higher than it's ever been before.

Happy with things as they are, you don't let yourself worry about the fact that there have been no missing persons reports put out that match your description. It's after five months, during a long, lazy Sunday afternoon you are whiling away with the soon-to-marry Marty, that some kind of news finally comes back from the British Embassy: two off-shift police officers explain their findings and you fall silent as they are shown out of the house.

Retreating to the room you've been given as your own, you're feeling distant as your sister whispers, "It's done. You're magic is bound. And now for the truly tricky part…"

You sit on your bed cross-legged, staring dispassionately at the wall. Though you have tried not to be too worried about the lack of useful information before, content to be, well...content in the moment, the confirmation that nobody can find out who you are weighs heavily on you. You are nobody, it seems—to be be presented with undeniable evidence of such really bangs it home.

With a soft, sad smile, Mrs. Wilkins enters your room and peers down at your saturnine form. You try to smile back at her, you truly do, but your efforts are wasted as she clearly doesn't believe it. Your bravado is worth nothing to her, because she sees through you as if you are glass. Lying has never been your strong point, you are certain, and all your emotions are laying clear on your face for the entire world to see and judge.

"Don't worry, Henry dear. We'll find somebody."

You want to express a genuine hope that she is right...but it would be just another failed lie.

The chances that they will ever find your family (or where you came from) are slim and losing weight every day. Hope doesn't seem to be an emotion that comes readily to you and you fear that, deep down, you are a pessimist by nature.

"And even if nobody steps forward to claim you, we'll make sure that you're well looked after," Mrs. Wilkins continues, catching sight of your downtrodden expression. "We're quite well off here [especially after this year's bumper crop!] and seeing as you know nobody else in...well, anywhere, I'm sure that a petition for your continued guardianship would go uncontested." Her ingenuous smile is infectious and so radiant that you find yourself reciprocating even against your own fears. "At your age they take your wishes into account. That is," her face fell a little, "if you would want to stay here?"

Observing some sort of distant, wistful pain crossing through Mrs. Wilkins' expression, you hurry to assuage her. "Of course. I love it here, I really do! I just…"

You trail off and she deftly picks up the tail-end of your sentence, "...want to know who you are."

You nod, an uncomfortable feeling crawling around in your chest like a hive of bees. "I wonder if anybody's missing me, looking for me," you say in a small voice. "Was I abandoned or lost? Do I even have a family to go back to?"

The kindness on the woman's gently lined face does not diminish. If anything, a world of understanding rises in her eyes. "Any family who abandoned you, Henry, don't realise the value of what they've thrown away. You have a home here, for as long as you want it. And…" her voice broke a little and you choke up. "And I will be your mother… Am your mother."

Though you wish to stay composed, her promises and words cut deep into your soul. Somewhere deep inside it feels as if she is offering a new thing, as if a home and mother is a foreign concept to you, and you offer her an emotional, crinkled smile. A few unbidden tears track their way down your cheeks and you flush, embarrassed.

Your self-declared mother is unfazed and just leans forward to capture you in the safe enclosure of her arms. Idly you wonder how she, one so small, can hold so much strength. Like a venomous insect, her tenacity is belied by her apparent fragility.

She tucks you under the blankets, then, and opens the windows, knowing how you love the open air.

As your mum departs, her meliorism leaves a warm imprint in your chest. One person at a time, Monica Wilkins brings sunshine to life—transmuting it from hard, glaring light and into joy. You don't think that she intentionally took up this one woman crusade, but you love her for it all the same. Comfortable in this knowledge, and putting your niggling concerns aside for the night, you slip away into sleep.

She has you bound to the floor, irrevocably breaching your trust.

"You wouldn't be any happier in the Muggle world, Harry. It's not the Wizarding World or its people that make you miserable: it's your past. It's just who you are…" Your sister falters for a moment, indecision clear on her face. "You have to change, if you want to be happy. Your magic...you'd come back to it in the end, you wouldn't be able to let go. You need to let go…"

Many years after gaining your family, you stare off into the distance. There is an idle hoe in your hand as you watch the sun set over silhouetted hills. The sky is blushing pink-blue, radiating peace across the Valley.

Having been known a Henry Wilkins for the past four years, you are soon to turn nineteen. Despite your mother's complaints of how far away your new college is (though Adelaide is no more than a couple of hours drive from The Southwold), you know that she is proud of all that you've accomplished in the time you have been with the Wilkinses.

Somewhere at the back of your mind, understanding creeps in. Mind magic is your sister's speciality and you're about to suffer an encounter with the end of her dangerous wand.

"E-Erosorus."

Earlier that evening, you just smiled at her when she looked at you as if she was about to cry, and offered to go out to do some weeding. (Marty's on paternity leave, so your mum needs all the help she can get whilst you're still around.)

The first of many spells overtakes you and you begin to feel dizzy. As if from a distance, you hear yourself begging her to rethink this, to just 'Stop God dammit, I don't want this!' You planned to become a Muggle, not to forget your past...but your sister always believes she knows what is best and doesn't relent.

Sometimes, like now, when you're alone and the world is silent, you sense a caress of something down your spine and a feeling of greatness stirs behind your eyes. It's as if you were destined for far more than this—a simple, quiet life working on your parents' vineyard and getting a little rowdy after yet another evening testing the most recent vintage…

"Erosorus. Eroder. Erosorum. Eroder…"

You usually ignore that feeling, when it comes. You practically breathe disjointed thoughts and deja vu a lot of the time, given your unique situation. You have worked through the emotional problems the loss of your memory brought you, your therapist having been very patient and understanding. After so long, the distant, unsettled feeling in your soul has all but faded. Your family have closed the cracks in your heart and you are ready to go out into the wider world, all alone and standing on your own two feet at last.

Her words are a hypnotic, lulling chant and slowly you begin to forget that you are angry with her, under the onslaught of that beautiful voice. You forget that you've never been so scared in your life, not even when facing down Voldemort. Like she did with her parents, she is going to take everything from you.

That spine-tingling feeling of power is still there, you notice as the sun dips below the horizon. As ever, you ignore it. Shrugging against the power you grasp your hoe, dismissing the sensation as unimportant. You're mum'll be annoyed if you don't manage to get all the lanes in this quarter weed-free by dinner.

"I'm so sorry, Harry, but you'll be happier this way," she tells you. "If it's any consolation, you won't lose yourself. Fundamentally, at the basest level, you'll be the same person—just without some of the baggage."

You look down at the are of ground that you were working on, only to find there isn't a weed in sight. Instead you are met only with the strong, fresh shoots of healthy vines. You smile even though you don't recall having finished the job.

"I know it's not what we discussed, but...it's for the best."

You can't speak and the urge to is slipping further and further away, alongside the world you know.

Images and faces fade…

Smiles and laughter are washed from you….

Tears and bloody slaughter slip away...

Snatches of conversation are lost in time…

The vibrant red locks of your lover begin to turn grey…

The matching hair of your best friend, caked in sanguinary and mud, falls to the floor…

The memory of your sister is unwound, along with that of your childhood…

Until eventually nothing of the past remains within you. All you've been left with is a name: your name...

Turning away from the sunset and to the house, which is lit up brightly in the red glow of twilight, you smile to yourself and begin to walk toward home. A cheerful whistle slips past your lips as you go.

Somehow, you completely fail to notice that there is a young woman standing near the gate at the end of the west field, her ephemeral body shadowed by the final shocks of sunlight escaping from between the distant hills, watching as you leave. There is a bittersweet smile across her lips and a certain look of satisfaction in her brown eyes.

With a pleased nod to herself, she turns on the spot and vanishes into the aether with a small 'pop' as if she'd never been there at all—and to you, she hadn't.