Hogwarts—Psychology: Psychology of Memory
Task 2: Write about trying to forget something.
Word Count: 2972
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter; all rights go to J.K. Rowling.
Special thanks to Elizabeth and Lizzy for beta'ing!
Warnings: Canon character death, trauma/PTSD symptoms
Every time he closed his eyes, Fred's lifeless face haunted him. The remnants of a smile, red hair clumping with dried blood and dust, lifeless brown eyes staring at nothing. Countless scratches and bruises marred his freckled face, and droplets of water marked where their family's tears had fallen onto his cheeks. George couldn't stand the sight of it. He didn't want to see the gashes on his twin's body, didn't want to hear the wailing of their brothers, sister, and parents. He didn't want to see his twin dead.
George stared up at the ceiling of their—his—bedroom. It had been two months since the Battle of Hogwarts, and he hadn't been sleeping very well since. He feared the horrors that lurked behind his eyelids in the recesses of his mind, and George knew that his family was starting to worry about him, more than they already were given the circumstances.
He thought that if he could only get the image of his twin's corpse out of his head, he could learn to function again. He could mourn Fred in a healthier way, one that didn't involve nearly having a panic attack. George could do what he had been trying to do for weeks: remembering Fred as he was in life, not in death. But no matter what he did, he couldn't shake the memory.
Sighing, George reached over to his bedside table and grabbed the Sleeping Draught sitting there. Hopefully, he would get a good night's sleep tonight.
Enough was enough. During his break the following day, George left Weasley's Wizard Wheezes and made his way over to Flourish and Blotts. He rummaged through the section labeled Memory for a while. Soon enough, he found what he was looking for. It was called Forgetting the Unforgettable by Mnemosyne Martin. Grasping the spine of the book tightly, George made his way over to the nearest employee to make his purchase.
The man, whose name tag read Henry, smiled bitterly when he saw the title of the book George was buying. "That book has been very popular lately," he remarked.
George couldn't quite meet his eyes. "I can imagine."
George handed over the two sickles due and then exited Flourish and Blotts. Upon returning to his own shop, George walked toward the back room, making sure that his purchase was hidden from Ron's line of sight.
Once he closed the door, he set the book down on the table and began to flip through it. Reading wasn't a favorite pastime of his, and therefore George skipped over the introduction. He scanned the pages for something to help him. There must be some kind of trick, magic or otherwise, that could help him forget that one memory. The man at Flourish and Blotts had even said that this book was popular nowadays, so surely that meant it was helpful; George hated to think that he'd wasted two sickles.
The end of the first chapter was nearing when a passage caught George's eye:
Sometimes to get rid of a memory, we have to block it out piece by piece. Don't try to shut out the whole experience all at once, but focus on one background element at a time.
That meeting at the Ministry where you embarrassed yourself in front of your superiors? Don't focus on blocking out yourself knocking over the refreshment table. First, forget what the tablecloth looked like.
That didn't sound too hard. He just needed to come up with a detail easy to forget about. It would, unfortunately, mean thinking about the memory on purpose, however. At the end of the day, though, it would make a big difference.
But what could be blocked out? George needed to find a small detail, but nothing about that night was insignificant. The screams still rang through his mind, spells still flashed behind his eyelids, his own blood, sweat, and tears still clouded his vision—
"George? You in there?"
George blinked, coming back to himself. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm here."
Ron poked his head in through the doorway. "So, could you remind me which shelves the Weasleys' Love Potions go on?" He grinned sheepishly.
George smirked at his younger brother. "I'd've thought you'd know where the Love Potions go better than anyone," he teased.
Red tinted Ron's ears. "That was in sixth year," he protested, "and you know that it was meant for Harry. I just have bad luck," he muttered darkly.
George laughed. "Put them beside the Ten-Second Pimple Vanishers."
"Thanks," Ron grumbled. Ears still burning, he went back out to the main part of the shop.
It was nice to have someone else working in the joke shop with him, even if George and Ron's dynamic was vastly different from his and Fred's.
Fred—vivacious, hilarious, charismatic, and devilishly good-looking. But also lifeless, cold, still, and marred. It was like death had taken everything that Fred had been and replaced it with its inverse. George had been struggling for months to reconcile his twin with his corpse, but it was nearly impossible. Everyone in the Weasley clan seemed to have been able to do it besides him. There was only one Fred that George really wanted to remember, and there was one that was always getting in the way.
George turned back to his book. A small detail couldn't be that hard to find, could it?
Apparently, it could.
That night had changed everything about his world. This wasn't an embarrassing event at the Ministry; this was George's world being flipped inside out. He didn't have a tablecloth. What he did have was the sound of heartbroken sobs, the taste of salty tears, and the feeling of losing something that meant so much to him it was a part of him.
So nothing felt insignificant about this memory. Every piece, no matter how small, contributed in changing his life, and it wasn't for the better. No, there wasn't a thread George could pull loose from this memory. It was all woven too tightly together.
George slumped back in his chair with a sigh. He wasn't going to get anywhere with this.
Picking Forgetting the Unforgettable back up again, George began flipping through the pages for another method. There had to be something in this book that could help him. He did not waste money on a book that proved useless to him. That was Percy's job.
Frustration and despair rose in him as he found himself rejecting every solution the book had to offer. A Forgetfulness Potion? Too unpredictable. An Obliviate Charm? Too risky. Was there really nothing that could remove just one image from his mind?
Then, on one of the last few pages, George spotted it.
There wasn't much said about it, like Mnemosyne Martin hadn't really thought it was particularly useful. In truth, George wouldn't have found it useful if he didn't remember something Harry had told the remaining members of the Order after the war, when he was explaining everything Severus Snape had done for their cause.
"Mundungus didn't come up with the idea to use the Polyjuice Potion to create multiple me's. Dumbledore did, and he told Snape to present the idea to the Order without telling them himself. Snape ended up using the Confundus Charm on Mundungus. He told him the plan he needed to tell us, and then Snape instructed Mundungus to forget about their conversation, which Mundungus did."
George knew that he was of a stronger mind than Mundungus Fletcher, but he also knew that this spell could be his only hope. All he had to do was find someone willing to cast the charm on him, tell them the memory he wanted to be rid of, and make sure they understood that that was the only thing he wanted erased.
It would have to be someone he trusted enough not only to cast the spell properly, but who would understand perfectly what George wanted. This someone had to be smart, good at magic, precise—
George smiled, a triumphant gleam entering his brown eyes. He knew just the person.
George was standing outside the door to Percy's apartment in Diagon Alley the next evening. It felt weird, because for all that had changed since the war ended, Percy was still reconciling with their family. Everyone was making an effort, though, and George figured that that was what mattered the most.
He knocked, rocking onto the balls of his feet as he waited for his brother to open the door. George knew that Percy had to be home; Ministry working hours were over, and it wasn't as though Percy was a social butterfly.
Sure enough, George heard someone shuffling around inside the apartment after a moment. He could hear footsteps getting louder and louder until Percy unlocked and opened the door. "George?" Percy's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "What are you doing here? Is something wrong?" He frowned and bit his lip.
"Not at all, Percy," George replied cheerily. He pushed past Percy, who was too surprised to protest, into the apartment.
The inside reflected Percy's personality better than George would have ever thought possible. The walls were adorned with a few pictures, all situated in an aesthetically pleasing way and sitting perfectly straight. Though there was a stack of papers on the kitchen table, it was an immaculately neat stack, and nothing else was out of place. It may as well have been a picture from one of the Muggle magazines their father collected, and George barely managed to keep himself from wrinkling his nose at the prospect. It practically screamed git, not that George was going to tell Percy that—today, at least.
He heard the door click shut, and then Percy moved so that he was standing in front of him. "So…" he drawled, "would you like any tea, George?"
George really wanted to laugh at how awkward the situation was, but he needed to stay on Percy's good side. "Nah. Thanks, though." George cleared his throat. "Anyway, Percy, I wanted to ask something of you."
Blue eyes regarded him curiously, and slightly warily. "Okay..."
"I need you to perform a Confundus Charm on me," George blurted out. Was that too abrupt? It probably was. George held back a groan. He should have asked about Percy's job and new apartment first.
It was silent. Then Percy asked stiffly, "What?"
George took a deep breath. "I have a memory I want to forget. Just a small one—only one image. I remembered what Harry said about Snape Confunding Mundungus so he'd forget a conversation they'd had, and I figured it'd be the safest way to make sure none of my other memories are forgotten in the process."
Percy stared at him blankly, and George bit his lip. "I'm not saying you're wrong in your reasoning," Percy said at last, "but what is it you want to forget? More importantly, why do you want to forget it?"
George looked down at his feet for a moment, steeled his resolve, and decided that the best course of action was to be completely frank with his brother. "Everytime I close my eyes, I see Fred's face. Well, no, not Fred's face; I see the face of his corpse." The image flashed through George's mind again. He forced himself to continue. "I...I don't want to think of him like that, Perce. I want to remember him as he was in life, but I can't do that if I'm haunted by that image. It's been months since he died, and the memory isn't even fading. I need to forget that memory of seeing Fred's corpse's face in the Great Hall. Nothing else, just that."
Percy still looked uneasy. "Why'd you come to me?" he asked, half in suspicion and half in bewilderment.
George shrugged. "You'd approach it rationally, you're good at magic, you'd understand the appeal, I trust you to perform the spell—what else do you want me to say? You just seemed like the best candidate."
"George…"
George looked his older brother square in the eyes. "I'm begging you, Percy."
They stared at each other for some time. So many different emotions flickered across Percy's face—understanding, sympathy, indecisiveness, worry. Finally, a look of resolve settled upon it, and George breathed a sigh of relief.
"Great! Let's get to it, then—"
"I won't Confund you, George."
George blinked. He'd been so sure that Percy would help him. "I'm sorry, what?"
After walking over and placing a hand firmly on George's shoulder, Percy guided him over to the loveseat. "Sit down." George obliged, and his brother sat across from him on the edge of the coffee table. Percy placed his second hand on George's other shoulder and said quietly, "I won't Confund you. I know…I know how hard Fred's death must have hit you. Believe me, I do. But any spell or potion having to do with memory is unpredictable, and even dangerous, to a certain degree. Snape Confunded Mundungus during a time of war, when people's lives depended on it. A calculated risk was taken. This isn't worth it, George. I—I know about nightmares and images that haunt you during the day. I watched Fred die. But even if I had the opportunity, I wouldn't forget about that."
As Percy spoke, he appeared to have aged at least ten years. His blue eyes, normally bright with intelligence and pride, had dulled with unimaginable sadness and grief. Normally, George would have made a joke about how the lines on his forehead made him look like their grandfather, but right now he was too numb.
"George...You can't block out the fact that he's gone, no matter how much you want to. You can't block out his death."
"I don't want to, Percy, I just need the image of his corpse removed from my mind! I won't forget that he died, just what he looked like dead!"
Percy's grip on his shoulders tightened. "But can't you see? That is blocking out his death. You're trying to give yourself some kind of illusion that he's still alive, but you can't do that, George. You can't. As horrible as it sounds, you need to see Fred dead in order to come to terms with his death. You, more than anyone else in this family, needs to see that."
George started to rise up angrily, but Percy's hands kept him in place. "Why?" he demanded.
"Because you're his twin," Percy said calmly, "and you didn't see him die. Because if you spend your life only being able to see Fred alive, then you spend your life with a part of you thinking that he is alive. But he's not."
"It wouldn't be like that."
"But what if it was? What if you are always trying to talk to him because you're living in memories, and no one answers? What if you drive yourself crazy and start thinking you hear his voice, see him in a crowd, or think he's talking to you? What if you draw away from your family to be with him?
"Say I do perform the Confundus Charm on you. What happens if it erases too much of your memory, or not enough? What if it somehow messes with how you perceive the event? I can't risk something like that George. Not even for you."
George sighed heavily. "I want to always remember him the way he was when he was alive."
"You still have that," Percy told him softly. "You just have to learn to sift through the bad images to find the good."
George didn't respond.
Percy started to rub circles against his shoulders. "You know, it could help to talk to someone about this."
George narrowed his eyes. "I don't need therapy," he stated stiffly.
"It doesn't have to be a professional," Percy said, raising an eyebrow pointedly, "although that would probably be best. You could start small; talk to someone in the family. Mum, Dad, Bill, Charlie…me," Percy added softly. "We're all here for you."
George clenched his fists. Still staring at his lap, he asked, "Do you talk to someone about this?"
"Yeah," Percy replied. "I go to see someone who works at St. Mungo's and specializes in helping with traumatic events. I can give you her information, if you'd like."
"Are you sure this won't work?" George asked. He wanted the easy solution, the fast one; instead it felt like he was being directed towards the long and arduous road of recovery, one he wasn't sure he even needed to be on.
"I think it's a bad idea," Percy reaffirmed.
There was no response from George for a long while. "I'll think about it," he replied at last.
A huge smile crossed Percy's face. "That's all I could ask for." He clapped George on the shoulders and then stood up. "How about you go and sit at the table, and I'll make us a quick dinner."
George nodded, barely noticeable at first, but becoming more visible as his conviction grew.
Maybe Percy was right. Maybe he couldn't move on fully if he forgot how Fred looked in death. Maybe Percy was wrong, and he'd never move on with that image still in his mind. But for this moment, he was willing to keep trying to move on with the aid of something much more powerful than any spell or potion: his family.
Maybe the hard path was the only path worth taking at the end of the day; maybe it would turn out to be the wrong choice. But George knew that he had to take a step down one of those roads, and right now there was only one path that guaranteed he'd have someone to walk beside. That was what he needed, he decided, and so he stepped forward.
"Yeah, Percy. Thanks. I'd appreciate it."