AN: So this is just a weird idea I had a while ago, and I wanted to try writing something short, so I went for it. Enjoy!
I also don't own Harry Potter, even a little bit.
"You're going to forget this."
Harry found it wedged back behind the bookshelf as he was boxing up the last of Neville's herbology encyclopedias. He paused his task and held up the clear, marble-sized orb, grinning fondly as it caught the light.
"Hey, Neville! I thought you'd lost this?"
Neville looked up from the houseplants he was placing in crates and blinked in surprise at the found object. "Would you look at that! It's my old remembrall—I have no idea how it got here!"
Harry tossed it up into the air once and caught it again, and then twisted it in his hand, inspecting it. "Strange to think that this little thing was responsible for starting my career as Gryffindor seeker."
"Careful with that, mate!" Ron exclaimed, leaving behind his own task to come stare at the innocent little sphere. "That's a piece of history, that is! It led to Gryffindor winning the Quidditch cup!" He grinned. "Maybe we should donate it to the Harry Potter Museum."
Harry blushed slightly. "The museum was just a desperate idea Rita Skeeter made up to flatter me into forgiving her. It's not really going to happen. I hope not, anyway."
Hermione frowned at the pair of them. She, Ron, and Harry were helping Neville move from his bachelor flat in London to the lovely little cottage gifted to him and his new wife Hannah by the bride's parents. The couple had originally planned to make their move in the two week period after their honeymoon, before their rent agreements mandated they vacate their respective flats. However, while on their island vacation, Neville had stumbled upon some rare magical plant previously thought extinct, and extended their trip by almost a week and a half in order to collect specimens. Thus, when Hannah and Neville returned to Britain, they'd enlisted the help of their old friends to make the three day deadline.
While Luna had joined Susan Bones to help pack up Hannah's tidy, well-organized flat, Hermione had taken it upon herself to go with Harry and Ron and move Neville's home, which was a mess of unshelved books, Hogwarts memorabilia, and piles of fan-mail from adoring witches across Britain, all caught in the tangle of vines and roots that permeated the veritable jungle of an apartment. Being magical houseplants, about half of them would have harmful effects if handled in the wrong way, and since they were dispersed at seemingly random intervals amongst Neville's non-living possessions, maneuvering around them was proving to be a challenge. Ron had already set off the mimbulus mimbletonia once, and still reeked of stinksap.
It didn't help that every single time one of the boys found something related to their Hogwarts days, they would get sidetracked and start reminiscing, drastically slowing their progress. Hermione was getting frustrated by how slowly they were moving, and how she had to constantly remind them to stay on track. They were all adults now. Why she had to continue to berate them and keep them on task, just like in their school days, was beyond her! Harry and Ron were both successful Aurors, Neville had been offered the position of Herbology Professor next fall, and she herself was a rising star in the Department of Magical Creature Relations. Harry and Ron had both been married in the last two years, Harry to Ginny and Ron to Lavender; both couples were expecting their first child. Neville had, of course, just married Hannah Abbott. They all supposed to be responsible without her prompting!
"Oh, stop messing around and give me that!" she snapped, walking over to Harry and snatching the Remembrall away. "We'll never finish if you can't stay focused!"
She had started to turn away and slip the glassy orb into her pocket when Ron exclaimed and pointed, "Oy! Looks like you've forgotten something, 'Mione!"
"Huh?" Hermione looked down at the sphere and was surprised to see the inside filling with crimson smoke. She furrowed her brow. "That's odd." She quickly did a mental run-through of all the things she had to do that day, and all the things she needed to have with her; everything was accounted for. She'd finished preparation for all her meetings this week, and the next birthday she had to remember was her mother's next month. She'd even paid all of her bills early for once! "I can't think of a single thing I've forgotten."
Despite having stressed over all the little details in school, know-it-all Hermione Granger did not forget anything important enough for a Remembrall to pick up on.
"That's the problem I always had," Neville said, smiling sympathetically. "What's the use of knowing you've forgotten something, if you can't remember what you forgot?"
"No, that's not it!" Hermione said, shaking her head. "There's nothing I've forgotten! The Remembrall must be broken!"
But as soon as she said it, she felt a nagging itch at the back of her mind, like there was something she was missing. Something important.
Neville just shrugged. "Either way, you can throw it in the pile to give away. I don't have much use for it anymore; Hannah's a lot better at keeping track of me than the Remembrall is," he joked. Harry and Ron laughed.
Hermione forced herself to smile, but she was still staring intently at the red smoke shifting inside of the little glass ball. The way the silver band joining the two pieces of glass together glinted in the light almost seemed to be taunting her, as if it knew something she didn't. The moment she tried to capture the elusive tendril of thought in the back of her head, however, it vanished.
When she walked over to the box containing items Neville wished to donate, she held her hand out, ready to discard it and be done, but then stopped. Biting her lip, she glanced behind her; the boys had returned to packing and weren't watching.
Quickly, before she could question the decision, Hermione pocketed it.
Eventually, after a lengthy debate over keeping an album of Chocolate Frog Cards and a solemn remembrance of Trevor the toad when they'd found his old tank, they finished packing up Neville's belongings and stacked all the boxes neatly so that the movers could easily attach portkeys to them the next day. They were supposed to go as a group and meet with the other girls at the Leaky Cauldron so that Neville and Hannah could thank them all with a meal, but Hermione fibbed and said she had too much work to catch up on after her most recent work trip to the Centaur colony. She knew herself well enough to admit that she wasn't going to be able to have fun with her friends with the weight of the activated Remembrall in her pocket.
After bidding them farewell, she returned to her own flat, changed into comfortable clothes, and fed Crookshanks before retrieving the Remembrall for closer inspection. When she first took it out, it was clear, but at her touch it quickly filled up with the bright red smoke again.
What the hell was she forgetting?
She turned it around in her palm for a few minutes, unable to stop staring intently at its swirling, bright red contents, trying to figure out what it meant. Her mind wandered in frustrating circles, before she scowled and set it on her desk. There she sat and pulled out a notebook and pen. As the crimson cloud in the orb slowly dissipated once more, she proceeded to make a list of all her activities, social engagements, and work responsibilities, but still came up with nothing. She even started randomly trying to quiz herself on old material from her school days, but even that she had no problem recalling. Her mind was a veritable steel trap.
And yet, every time she was about to just declare the stupid thing dysfunctional and be done with it, she would be overcome once again with the distinct feeling that she was missing something. It was an itch she couldn't scratch, a word on the tip of her tongue. Frankly it was driving her mad, and the longer she sat there unable to resolve the feeling, the worse it got.
Eventually she was so overcome with frustration that she growled loudly and crumpled up her neatly bulleted lists before destroying them with an overzealous incendio. She grabbed the offending glass orb and shoved it out of sight into her desk drawer, and then left it behind to prepare herself dinner. But even out of sight, the cloudy Remembrall haunted her mind for the rest of the night.
When she went to bed, her sleep was pitiful, filled with distant, ephemeral echoes that taunted her through the night, her dreams shining with the right red smoke of the Remembrall...
"A nightmare, you say? I can make that happen."
The next day was Monday. As was her habit, Hermione rose earlier than she needed to so that she could be the first one to the office. She liked to arrive before her colleagues and have a few moments in the quiet office to herself, to regather peace of mind before a busy work day. She got herself ready quickly and then headed out the door. As she stood on her threshold, about to close the door and lock up, her gaze briefly paused on her desk.
Perhaps if she had it with her, she would be more likely to jog her memory and solve the mystery?
No, she told herself, what would people think of a grown woman, a war heroine and a prestigious ministry employee, carrying around a faulty gimmick item in her robe pocket as she went about her day? It would be embarrassing!
Besides, the stupid thing was probably broken anyway. Faulty. Worthless. There was no way an enchanted piece of glass could know something about herself and her life that she didn't.
She closed her door and inserted her key, ready to turn the lock. And then that horrible nagging feeling in the back of her mind started up again. Was there something? Could she be wrong? She wanted to say no, most definitely not, but… she couldn't.
Something compelled her to open her door, cross the room, and pull open the drawer of her desk. The Remembrall was just where she had left it last night, nestled amongst some rubber bands and paper clips. The morning sun streaming in through her window caught in the crystal clear glass, and it flickered, almost seeming to wink at her.
Hermione scowled. She should donate it like Neville said. Or toss it in the trash. Or even smash it, break it down into a hundred tiny, harmless shards that would just stop.
Instead, she she used the sleeve of her robe to pick it up, preventing it from clouding up, and then slipped it into her pocket, before hastily closing the desk drawer and heading back out of her flat, trying to pretend she wasn't bringing something as silly as an old Remembrall to work.
Once out of her building, she apparated herself to the secluded alleyway next to the Ministry entrance. After flushing herself and entering the atrium, she made her way over to the elevator. While she waited for it to arrive, she was joined by a familiar face.
The young blond man sidled up to her, smirking obnoxiously while giving her an appreciative once over with his leery eyes. "Hello, Granger."
She hardly glanced at him before turning back and staring resolutely at the closed elevator doors. "Good morning, Smith," she responded, keep her tone as neutral as possible.
Zachariah Smith sneered at her. "That's Unspeakable Smith to you, is it not?"
The obnoxious former Hufflepuff had only gotten more insufferable since graduating and receiving one of the most coveted and prestigious apprenticeships in the still palpably nepotistic ministry.
She smiled thinly. "Of course, Unspeakable Smith," she corrected, trying not to sound too insincere. What he likely didn't know was that Hermione herself had been offered that very same position before him, but had declined it in favor of joining a department that would allow her to actively pursue her social justice aspirations. "I do hope you're finding your work satisfying?"
"Oh, even more than!" he exclaimed, his chest puffing out. "Why, the other day, Zabini and I were given the most exciting and important task, and we completed it without any supervision! Of course I had to correct Zabini a couple of times, but he got there in the end!"
Hermione hummed politely. "That sounds lovely."
"It was more than lovely! It was interesting, rewarding, challenging—"
"You're not talking about how we reorganized the junk closet last week, are you?"
A smirking Blaise Zabini sidled up behind them as Smith winced and blushed slightly.
"Good morning, Zabini," Hermione said, smiling. Unlike his colleague, graduation and subsequent employment in the Department of Mysteries had made the former Slytherin much more tolerable, especially after he finally put down his prejudiced ideals of blood-purity, after they'd been proven unviable in the war. She had a bit of pleasant rapport going with him, as they were usually some of the two earliest arrivals at the Ministry. While not exactly friends, they were on their way to a rather amicable acquaintanceship.
"Morning, Granger. Everything went well this weekend, I trust?"
"Yes, Neville and Hannah have finished moving everything."
"I still can't believe that Longbottom managed to score a girl like Hannah!" Smith interjected, crossing his arms. "She went to the Yule Ball with me in fourth year, remember?"
Of course, some days Smith got there just as early, and subjected them to his odious presence… Hermione rather pitied Blaise, actually; at least she got to leave him behind when the elevator reached the fourth floor.
Blaise rolled his eyes. "We were fifteen. Hermione went with Viktor Krum, but that never turned into anything."
Zacharias looked back at Hermione, his expression once again taking on a lecherous quality. "Ah, yes. I remember. You looked incredible that night, Granger," he said, eyeing her appreciatively. She shifted her weight and crossed her arms over her chest to divert his gaze. "Say, how are you doing recently? You didn't have a date for Hannah's wedding."
Hermione scowled at him. "As I've said before, my love life is none of your business!" she snapped. He hadn't said anything excessively rude, and with anyone else she might have had more patience, but this was about the dozenth time he'd broached the topic with her, clearly wanting to involve himself in said personal sphere. He'd ignored all her polite dismissals, and so recently she'd started getting more antagonistic in her responses.
A loud ding announced the arrival of the elevator, and Hermione pushed herself forward into the waiting car with a huff, the two boys following behind her.
"Well sorry for showing a little bit of polite interest in other people's lives!" Smith sniffed, his lips turned down into a pout. "Can't a guy be curious?"
"Give it a rest, Smith," Blaise said tiredly, and Hermione gave him a small, thankful smile. Smith crossed his arms and grumbled something unintelligible under his breath as the doors slid closed and the elevator began its descent.
"How's your department, then?" Blaise asked, turning his attention back to Hermione. "Have you finished your negotiations with the Centaurs?"
"Yes, the final treaty revisions are going before the Wizengamot this week," she replied, relieved to have something to talk about other than her love life, with Zacharias Smith of all people. "Honestly it'll be a relief not to have to go between all the tribes every month. I'm sick of traveling."
Blaise nodded. "If the Wizengamot passes it, doesn't it go to before the International Confederation?"
"Yes, but that's above my pay grade," Hermione grinned. "I don't have to deal with them. Anyway, Albania, Bulgaria, and Greece are all on board, and since they're the countries this treaty will most affect besides Britain, it should be fine. And after all that business wraps up, I've finally got the approval I need to begin drafting the House Elf reform bill I've been pushing for!"
Blaise hummed politely, although she knew that he, like most of the members of the old pureblood elite, viewed her crusade for house elf rights with a mixture of bemusement and derision. Unlike, say, the Malfoys, however, he had the decency to not express that to her face. Instead, he gave her an indulgent smile and said, "That sounds nice."
She rolled her eyes, and then asked playfully, "What about you? Anything exciting happening down in the good old Department of Mysteries?"
Blaise's signature smirk returned. "Oh, more of the same. Unmentionable projects, unrelatable conversations. Can't really talk about it, you understand."
"You were organizing a junk closet," Hermione remembered, and Blaise winced.
"Yes, maybe don't tell anyone I said that? It's not much, but there's a story they tell us in training about how a Junior Unspeakable was fired for telling an Auror what they served at the Department Luncheon..."
"Oh, you don't actually believe that, do you?" Smith finally spoke again, sneering at his coworker. "That's just a rumor. They're trying To scare us. Really, what harm could knowing the ninth floor has a closet of debris do? All that's in there is broken prophecies and boxes of Remembralls—"
Blaise lunged across the elevator, shoving his hand over Smith's mouth, sending them both crashing into the wall. "Those are specific details, you idiot!" he hissed, glowering at the former Hufflepuff. "Do you want to get us both fired?"
Hermione stared at them, eyes wide. "Remembralls?" she echoed softly, her mind reeling. Why would the Unspeakables have Remembralls in their closet? They were novelty items, cheap baubles that didn't work half the time.
Why, she was more than fifty percent sure that Neville's Remembrall was a malfunctioning piece of junk…. But still, what were the odds that her coworkers would bring them up the very day after she'd had her strange encounter with one? Just like that, she was incredibly conscious of the slight extra weight in her pocket.
Blaise looked back over to her, his dark brows knitted together. "Please, forget that! It's not important—"
"Let's Obliviate her!" Smith exclaimed, snapping Hermione out of her stupor. Glowering, she drew her wand out of her pocket and held it up defensively.
"Don't you even dare!"
Blaise looked between the two of them, and the conflicted expression on his face told Hermione that he was considering it. She couldn't let that happen; she wasn't sure why, but the fact she'd just learned felt incredibly important. As if it were the key to her mystery. Or, part of the key.
"I will disarm you the moment you go for your wand!" she hissed. Before Blaise could make a decision, however, the elevator came to a stop and the door slid open onto the fourth floor. She shot out of the elevator, trying to maneuver so that she didn't have her back to the two agitated Junior Unspeakables in the elevator, lest they try to hit her with a Memory charm from behind. Blaise called for her to wait, but as soon as she was out of the line of fire she took off running down the hallway towards her office.
She safely reached her glorified closet of a work space and shut her door behind her. As she leaned back against the wood, panting heavily, she wAs hit with a realization:
She was being ridiculous.
She had just sprinted down the hallways of her workplace, the Ministry, to avoid letting the two most junior members of the Department of Mysteries clean up a misstep that could cost them their jobs, and for what?
The knowledge that there were Remembralls in the Department of Mysteries. And that they were considered junk down there.
What the hell?
This was going too far.
She furiously yanked her own Remembrall out of her pocket and held it in her palm, glaring darkly. Mere moments after it touched her skin, it of course started filling with its swirling red smoke. Was it just her, or was its reaction starting to happen even faster?
And she still didn't know what it meant!
"Stop that!" she hissed, before shaking her head and groaning. She was talking to an inanimate object!
She shouldn't let this thing affect her so! It had no agency, it was just a thing, it didn't know anything about her! Sure, it could create smoke when its (more than likely malfunctioning) spells picked up on a fault in someone's memory, but beyond that, it had no power! A sudden wave of anger washed over her and she lifted her hand above her hand, mere seconds away from throwing it to the ground and letting it shatter.
At the top of her reach, her fist stalled, shaking slightly.
A loud bang sounded just behind her ear and she shrieked, spinning around and whipping out her wand again.
"'Mione?" Harry's concerned voice called from the other side of her door.
Hermione lowered her wand and blinked, furrowing her brow as she came out of a daze. When Harry started knocking again, she reached out and yanked the door open. Her best friend stood there, dressed in is Auror robes. "Hermione, what's wrong?" His eyes moved over her wand, still drawn, and the crimson Remembrall still clenched in her fist. When he saw the orb, he frowned. "Is that Neville's Remembrall? Why do you still have it?"
She scowled at the annoying little reminder of her strange problem, before slipping it into her pocket again and forcing herself to smile at Harry. "Oh, nothing. I just thought I'd try to figure out what's going on with it. What about you, why are you here?"
"Someone told me they saw you running down the hall looking distressed," he said, eying her suspiciously. "What was that about?"
Hermione bit her lip. Should she try to explain? Explain what? That she might have forgotten something, or she might just be obsessing over a broken bauble? That all she had to go on was a weird feeling she got, nothing concrete? She'd been so frenzied she'd drawn her wand on Zabini and Smith! For absolutely nothing! No, Harry didn't need to hear about this. It was silly, immature. Both she and he had much better things to be doing with their time.
"It's fine, Zacharias Smith was just hitting on me in the elevator again," she said, refusing to meet his eyes and instead focusing on his cheekbones. "I might have overreacted a bit, but he is such a creep!"
Harry visibly relaxed, a small smile playing at the corners of his lips. "You can say that again! And you're alright?"
Hermione nodded. "Perfectly fine. Zabini was there to help keep him in line, and really, he would be no match for me if it came to wands."
"Well, good… If that's the case, I've got some work to finish up…"
Hermione smiled. "Go ahead. Thanks for checking in, though!"
"Anything for you!" Harry grinned and started to walk away, before stopping abruptly in the hallway and spinning around. "Oh, I almost forgot why I came here in the first place! Ron and I are being taken on a field assignment at eleven, so we're not going to be able to have lunch today. Will you be alright?"
Hermione rolled her eyes. "I'll be fine. Enjoy the assignment, I'll see you later."
"Later, 'Mione!" Harry called, before heading back down the halls.
Hermione closed her door with a heavy thud and pressed her forehead against it, eyes closed. What was she doing? Lying to her best friend? But she hadn't been lying, had she? Because there was nothing going on…
She groaned loudly, letting her fist come up and slam into the door, just once. The sharp sting of her hand against the wood was enough to relieve some of the tension she felt. She was tempted to take out the Remembrall again, but she resisted. Instead, she steeled her resolve to put this whole mess behind her. At least until she was done with her work.
She sat down at her desk and shifted through the paperwork, trying to pay no mind to the light weight in her pocket and pretend that this was just another Monday, that nothing had happened… Because it hadn't, right?
"Things will be different this time."
She tried to be productive that morning. Really, she did, but her thoughts kept moving unbidden to the whole question surrounding the Remembrall. She wouldn't call it a mystery; a mystery mean there was something hidden, something unknown and important, and there clearly wasn't. But there was a question: why did Neville's Remembrall turn red when she touched it? And now, she had a new question: why were there Remembralls kept in the Department of Mysteries?
By lunchtime, she'd admitted that until she'd gotten at least one of her questions answered, she was likely to keep getting distracted. The first one hadn't been solved by an entire night of brainstorming and obsessing, so she felt it prudent to move on to the next one, which she actually might be able to make some progress with.
She made her way to the communal dining area where the younger employees took their lunch. Usually she would snag a table in the middle of the room for her, Harry, Ron, and whomever else they invited over, but today her friends were gone, and she had a new mission in mind.
She spotted Zacharias Smith sitting and eating his lunch alone in a corner. She sidled up to his table and smiled charmingly. "Hello, Zacharias. Has your morning gone well?"
Smith looked up from his meal, his eyes narrowing. She could see a bit of anger and tension in his features, likely left over from this morning. "Granger." he said coolly. "What do you need?"
Hermione beamed. If the situation were different, she would probably have sniggered over his drastic change in attitude now that she had some information that could get him fired. But, she needed to charm him, not alienate him further. "Harry and Ron are out on an assignment, so I was wondering if I might join you for lunch."
Smith scowled "If you've come to ask more questions about this morning, you can forget it."
"Really?" She pulled out the chair across from him and plopped herself down, smiling and batting her eyelashes. "Such a shame. I suppose if you can't answer my questions, I can just go to one of the senior Unspeakables and ask…"
Smith's eyes grew wide. "You wouldn't."
Hermione shrugged innocently. "Maybe I will, maybe I won't." She wouldn't; the senior Unspeakables would be more likely to Obliviate her first, ask questions later if she even hinted that she had found out one of their precious secrets, even something as seemingly useless as their old debris.
Zacharias stared at her for a minute before shaking his head. "No, you wouldn't. They'd wipe your memory, and you're clearly adverse to that. You wouldn't risk it..."
Hermione smirked. "They probably would, yes. And then I'd be free to go about my days, none the wiser. But don't you think they would investigate how I'd come by that knowledge in the first place? It wouldn't take very long to find the source of the information, given that you and Blaise were working there so recently, and we're former classmates and all..." she let her voice trail off, laden with unspoken implications.
Smith had gone visibly pale, and he glanced around before dropping his voice low enough that Hermione had to lean in to hear him. "Ok, look. I'll answer one question, and that's it. And you can never speak of it to anyone. But not in here, alright? Too many people around…"
"Of course."
She took a step away from the table and watched him expectantly. Slowly, he rose from his seat. Once he'd stood, he gestured for her to lead the way. She smirked and strode out of the room with Smith on her heels.
They walked through the halls of the Ministry, going down a couple of floors until they reached a supply closet that Smith decided would be "secure enough." They stepped inside, and Smith pulled out his wand. He then scowled at Hermione.
"Well? Are you going to help me make this safe? This is a huge risk I'm taking, and if anyone hears..."
Hermione rolled her eyes, but pulled her own wand from her robes and joined Smith in shielding the door. Once the room was secured with a variety of anti-eavesdropping spells, she turned back to him and said bluntly, "Tell me about the Remembralls. They're useless toys that don't even work half the time. So why does the Department of Mysteries have them?"
Smith gaped at her. "Remembralls? Of all the things in the Department of Mysteries to ask about, of all the things to get me fired for, you pick the sodding Remembralls?"
Hermione gritted her teeth. She knew it was ridiculous; she just wanted to get this over with and move on. "Just…Answer my question, please."
Smith scoffed and shook his head. "Whatever boils your cauldron, I guess. The boxes we have aren't the same ones you can buy in a store. They're the original prototypes developed out of the Chamber of Thought."
She cocked her head. "The Chamber of Thought?"
"It's… I haven't been in there, but it's where they study, well, thought, and magic that affects it. You know, Legilimency, Occlumency. Obliviation," he added, narrowing his eyes and putting his hand in his pocket, no doubt fingering his wand.
"I see," she said softly, drumming her fingers on the side of her arm. "And how do the Remembralls fit into this?"
Smith curled his lip and sneered at her. "Haven't figured that out yet, Granger? I thought you were supposed to be all Wonder Witch. Remembralls detect flaws in people's memory, right? Well originally, they were made to find magical flaws in someone's memory, like Memory Charms. We were worried about spies at the time, I think."
No way. That couldn't be what was happening, could it? She hadn't had her memory wiped, she would have remembered something like that! Well, actually, depending on how skilled the caster of the spell was, she wouldn't….
The possibility was deeply disturbing.
Unaware of her inner turmoil, Smith continued on. "Anyway, that blew over and they fell out of use until they were picked up by the commercial sector. That's where you'll find them these days… Say, Granger, are you going to tell me why this is so important in the first place?"
"I think not!" she said firmly, crossing her arms. "Is that all you've got to say?"
Smith scowled at her. "Just about. There is one more thing."
"What's that?"
Smith whipped out his wand and pointed it at her. "Obliviate!"
Hermione had no time to dodge or block it, but the spell was so poorly cast that it did little more than cause her mind to go fuzzy for a brief moment. She remembered everything about their conversation, but she had sense enough to play along and gave Smith a blank stare. "Smith? Why are we in here?"
Smith slipped his wand back into his pocket and smirked, looking far too pleased with himself. "You tell me, Granger. I was just walking innocently down the halls when you suddenly pulled me into this closet and started kissing me like a woman possessed!"
What an asshole. She glowered at him. "That did not happen."
"Then you tell me why we're in here."
She shook her head. "I don't… I couldn't… Don't we both have work to do?"
Smith grinned and opened the door, throwing her a wink. She pushed her way out of the closet and stomped into the hallway. Unfortunately, one of the workers from the mail department was walking down the hall just in time to see her exit the broom cupboard with Zacharias Smith. The two men exchanged knowing looks, and she looked up at the ceiling in disgust. That wouldn't happen for all the Galleons in the world!
Hermione returned to her office rather than the cafeteria. There, she spent the rest of her lunch break considering the situation in light of the new information.
She stared down at the Remembrall cradled in her palm. Did it really have the power to detect a Memory Charm? She didn't think that Smith would be clever enough to think on his feet and make a story up like that, but you never could tell. And besides, who was to say that this Remembrall wasn't just malfunctioning? It hadn't turned red for Harry when he'd picked it up yesterday, but what if that had been some sort of fluke? She needed to test this theory further. She had to find someone else to hold the Remembrall, someone who'd suffered from a Memory charm….
"Have I been forgotten already?"
Four o'clock found Hermione standing outside of the door to the Memory ward of St. Mungo's.
"I've come to visit Gilderoy Lockhart," Hermione informed the ward nurse, as she looked through the small window towards where the patient in question was busy scribbling at his desk.
"You've come to see Gilderoy?" The kindly looking woman beamed at her. "Oh, how wonderful! He just loves his visitors!"
"Yes, I'm looking forward to it," she said, hoping her voice didn't sound too flat. Then, out of politeness more than anything else, she asked, "How is he doing?"
"Oh, most days he's quite content," the woman replied, looking over towards the blonde wizard with a fond smile. "The only problems he has are when people try to force him to jog his memory…"
Hermione frowned. "What do you mean?"
The nurse sighed, a touch of sadness filling her eyes. "Well, nothing can ever be entirely erased from a mind, you see, just pushed beyond the point of recollection. If your brain looks for a memory it knows should be there and isn't, there's dissonance, which is mentally jarring. So sometimes if a victim of the Memory charm realizes they've forgotten something, they become agitated or frustrated. And poor Gilderoy over there has forgotten lots of somethings, you see? We do our best to keep him happy by not bringing that up."
"I see." She found this new knowledge to be disturbing, both because it perfectly described her feelings recently, and it brought up the question of her parents. Had they felt this same intense frustration while they'd been in Australia? Had they been nearly driven out of their minds by the inability to recall their daughter? Her research into Memory Charms had been rushed, and she'd focused more on how to pull it off rather than the long term effects. She hadn't known it could be like this… But was it only like this when triggered? Maybe she would ask them about it. Or maybe she wouldn't, they were still a bit angry with her about that whole episode…
Still, this was something to mull over later, once her present business was complete. The nurse opened the door for her and Hermione entered the ward. She approached Lockhart's desk, where he was busy scribbling his autograph on a stack of photos of himself from his glory days. When she was close enough, she cleared her throat to get his attention.
"Excuse me, Professor Lockhart?"
He turned to look at her, staring for a long moment, before blinking a few times. "I'm sorry, do I know you?"
She smiled and shook her head. "Probably not, we met only briefly, years ago. But you see, Sir, I have a problem that only you can help me solve."
He cocked his head and blinked some more, before shaking his head and shooting her a bright grin. "I was the only one you could turn to, was that it? No one else can match my expertise? Of course, I'd be delighted!"
"Thank you, Sir." Hermione lowered herself into an empty chair at his bedside. Carefully she pulled the length of her robe sleeve over her hand and then slipped it into her pocket, trying to avoid letting her skin make contact with the glass orb as she grasped it. After the Remembrall was secure enough that it wouldn't fall, she drew it out and held it out to him.
"Would you mind telling me what you make of this?"
Her former professor reached out and grasped the glass ball with his well-manicured hands. Immediately, it began to well up with crimson smoke. Lockhart's eyebrows furrowed a second as he regarded the Remembrall clouding in his hand, before he seemed to reach some conclusion, and his self-assured smile slipped back into place. "This is a crystal ball, yes?" he asked, looking up at her eagerly. "You would like a prediction? Well, I must be exceptionally gifted in divination, do you see how eagerly it's responding to me?" He grinned at her, showing off his perfect dimples and his twinkling blue eyes. "As you can see, we are in for a lovely sunrise tomorrow!"
Hermione was staring at the Remembrall, eyes wide. Zacharias Smith hadn't been simply talking out of his ass. Remembralls really could sense the presence of a Memory Charm. This made it official, right? Someone had Obliviated her, that's what all the frustration and paranoia had been about. She was forgetting something! And while that was a deeply unsettling thought, she still found herself flooded with a sense of profound relief. Now that she knew what her problem was, she could find a way to fix it! She even already knew how to perform the counter for the memory charm, because she'd done it for her parents.
Lockhart continued on with his predictions, making outlandish statements that would have made Trelawney proud. Hermione felt a bit guilty about using him as a guinea pig for her experiment, so she forced herself to sit through his theatrical ramblings. It was a bit sad, really, to see him so mistaken and completely taken in the wrong direction, but she was not about to ruin his happiness by correcting his delusions. The truth can be cruel, and is sometimes best avoided altogether.
Eventually Lockhart's speech ran down, and she held out her hand. "Thank you for that, Professor Lockhart. You certainly are quite skilled."
Lockhart beamed. "Aren't I?" He deposited the Remembrall into Hermione's outstretched palm. This time she wasn't even mad when it remained red. She slipped it into her pocket again, and bid her former teacher farewell.
As she was leaving, the ward nurse came up to her, beaming. "How was your visit with Gilderoy?"
"Informative."
"Excuse me?"
"I'm sorry, I meant lovely." Hermione forced a tight smile. "He seems to be doing well."
The nurse smiled in Lockhart's direction, a little wistfully, before looking back at Hermione. As she inspected her, the witch's eyebrows drew together in a concerned furrow. "Are you alright, dear? You look a bit pale."
Should she ask someone in 's to undo the charm? No, that wouldn't do, who knew what sort of memory she might unearth? Perhaps it wouldn't be something she could share with the Healers and nurses.
"I'm fine," she said, smiling tightly. "Thank you for letting me come."
"Of course, dear, come back any time!"
Hermione nearly ran through the halls of St. Mungo's and then through the twisting London streets that led to the nearest Apparition point. She was surprised she didn't splinch herself in her eagerness to get home, to be somewhere private where she could undo the spell. Finally, this incessant nagging would go away, she could go about her life as before, she would defeat the stupid little Remembrall!
Once she did arrive at her flat, she was almost giddy with anticipation, but she had the presence of mind to seat herself at her desk before doing anything; who knew how the memory would affect her once revealed? She might need a minute or two to adjust to it.
On a whim, she took the Remembrall from her pocket again and watched as it filled with its crimson smoke, hopefully for the last time. She stared at it for a second before closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, savoring the moment. Then, she pointed her wand at her temple, and drew it in a slow circle, concentrating on the elusive feeling she felt when tracing the tendril of lost memory. "Memini."
The spell shot out of the wand tip and struck her. It caused a brief, intense pain that sent reverberations deep into her core. For a moment, she felt as if she were falling backwards as some unremembered but completely familiar images flashed before her eyes.
A high pitched laugh and a sinister grin. Blood red eyes and unimaginable, unending pain. Guilt so powerful it choked her, made her retch.
The memories came tumbling forth then—
Her pride had been her downfall. She'd heard rumors of an ancient magic, an impossible spell that only the greatest of magicians could perform. A rejuvenation ritual, one that could repair the earth, bring forth a bounty to feed the populace. But it was lost to the ages, none since Merlin himself had succeeded in working it. Her hubris colluded with her academic interest, and she latched onto the idea. A way to prove them wrong, prove them all wrong about the worth of a muggle born witch...
—She'd never been known as the reckless one; that had always been Harry. But that was because she controlled herself when it came to accusing other people or doing brash deeds. People didn't know how her thirst for new knowledge had led her on more than one quest through tomes of ancient magic, not all of it safe. Not all of it light. But something had always held her back, prevented her from actually performing the spells. She was hesitant, afraid to be labeled as a dark witch, no better than the Death Eaters she was fighting against—
Here, in this foreign country, this empty night with no company, why shouldn't she just try it?
It probably wouldn't work. And if it did work, then… Wouldn't there be much to gain? And there was so little to lose… What a fool.
The clearing stood ready at dark midnight. No moon overhead, only a jury of constellations to witness her actions, flashing their judgement with disapproving light, white and blue and cold. She should have turned back.
But she didn't.
The runes had been hard to find, even harder to carve into the stones encircling the clearing. She worked tirelessly, inscribing their too-tempting promises: Power. Fate. Reversal. Rebirth. Mixed with some benign runes, things she'd written off as mere structural elements: Memory. Circularity. Origin. And some runes that she had never seen before, couldn't find out their translation, but had carved anyway.
It shouldn't have even been a question; never perform runic magic unless you know exactly what forces you're summoning.
The words recited in a low, reverent, almost heady whisper. As she spoke on, it was almost as though it wasn't her talking; the ritual began speaking itself. Light, shooting out from the stones, weaving a web of magic and energy and starlight. Pulsating energy crackled over her skin, making the air around her thick, humming with latent power.
And then the final step, the bond. She'd lifted the pure silver ritual knife—borrowed from one of her Albanian acquaintances, since she'd forgotten this night, had she ever returned it?—and drove it into her palm, intent on drawing forth a single drop to bind her into the web of the spell. Not nearly enough for anything to go wrong. Except just then there was an extra strong pulse of magic and her hand slipped, slicing open the skin of her hand in a deep, stinging, crimson gash..
Blood, pouring forth from her hand, spilling onto the ground and leaking into the runes. With it, a slice of her soul—only not her soul, but a hitchhiker, bound to her since she'd worn that cursed locket next to her heart—The sky shattering with the force of the ancient magic, the spell ripping through the veins of the earth. Her eardrums throbbing.
The blood flowing from her wound congealing. The pool of red liquid growing and filling even after she'd sealed her cut hand. Was the earth itself bleeding? Then, it darkened, solidifying as it slowly took on form. Dust, swirling down from the heavens, mixing with the puddle of vital liquid, giving it shape. A corpse. Then, more than a corpse, as the spell seeped into his veins and began to fill him with magic, with essence, with life.
She surged forward desperately, only to be held back by the suffocating shield of the spell. The body that was slowly taking shape from the dust and the starlight was breathtakingly beautiful… impossibly pale skin, stark against the pitch black silk of his hair. Sharp cheekbones and a nose worthy of a Grecian sculpture. His face closed in serene sleep… angelic, almost. She hadn't recognized him, not right away. She'd never seen him like this. If Harry or Ginny had been there, they would have done whatever necessary to abort the spell. But she'd been held, literally spellbound, staring in wonder as he reclaimed his life.
When it was finished, the spell collapsed, and his eyelids flew open, revealing a set of crimson irises that locked with hers. They were the exact same shade as the Remembrall smoke.
They blinked at each other for the space of a minute. Then, still prone on the ground, he raised his arms. She shrieked as she felt a sharp tug on her throat, but it was only her cloak being ripped away from her person by his magic. He caught it and sat up, slinging it around his body as a covering. Then he pushed himself fully off the ground and began to stalk towards her.
Too late, she reached for her wand, before realizing it had been summoned into his hand. He must have summoned it with the cloak and she hadn't noticed, how had she let herself get so distracted?
He stopped just a few steps away from her and leveled her own wand at her throat.
"Miss Granger," he purred, with a smirk that sent chills down her spine. "It's such a pleasure to finally be conversing with you in the flesh."
She should have known already, because who else could it be, but instead she'd asked.
"Who-who are you?"
He clicked its tongue once, sounding vaguely disappointed. "Have I been forgotten already? One would think that single-handedly starting two wars in the space of a few decades would achieve just a smidgen of notoriety."
No. Yes. "You-you can't be him!" she stammered, taking a step back, trying to put some distance between herself and this predatory figure claiming to be the Darkest wizard of all time. "He's dead. We-we killed all of the Horcruxes!"
He watched her, his eyes looking almost bemused. "It was easier to let you believe that, yes."
She lifted one quivering hand to her mouth as she collapsed back against a tree. Shaking, she slid against it until she hit the ground. She should have fled, run, gotten away quickly. Instead, she'd sat there in denial while a murderer held her wand. Stupid girl! "No. Not possible! This can't be happening, this is a nightmare…"
His grin was feral as he looked down at her, twirling her wand between his long fingers. "A nightmare, you say? I can make that happen. It's been so long since I've cast the cruciatus on anyone, and well, you're right here..."
She was tortured for the better part of an hour, until her throat was so raw that her screams of pain became silent. She sobbed relentlessly, still unable to comprehend this reality. She hadn't been prepared for this, the war was over, it couldn't be happening, whispering no no no no no no no and stop and you're not real like a life-saving mantra. "But if I weren't real, would you be in this much pain?" And finally she was forced to admit it.
Voldemort had returned.
—This happened months ago, he was out there right now, somewhere, who knows what he's been doing since—
But she did not admit defeat. Once the truth had sunk in, she gathered her courage and stared up at him in defiance.
"You've failed twice already. We've defeated you twice. We've done it before and we'll do it again."
He'd smirked, unbothered. "Well, third time's the charm, isn't that what they say? Things will be different this time. You'll see." He'd raised her wand again, pointing it at her, a malicious gleam in his eyes. "Starting with tonight. It was Potter's witness that ruined my last resurrection, yes?"
She'd faced death before; the rush of cold that swept through her bones as she looked out and saw the end of her mortal existence was unfortunately familiar. "Do it, then," she croaked. "Kill me. But know that it will be worth nothing in the end. Harry and the Order will—"
He rolled his eyes and waved her wand, causing her voice to stop with a silencing spell. "Save the inspirational speech, Miss Granger; I'm not going to kill you. Not tonight, anyway."
She stared up at him in shock, Why wouldn't he kill her? The Mudblood friend of Harry Potter who'd been instrumental in bringing about his downfall… He was a petty creature, motivated by revenge…
He must have seen the question in her eyes because he smirked and said, "You're too famous to go missing, and stubborn Potter would surely insist on investigating your death. No, it'll be for the best if this just all went away…" And it had, by Merlin, up until now she'd had no idea that the monster was on the loose once more.
He knelt before her, reaching out to brush some of her hair out of her face. When his bone cold fingers made contact with her skin, she flinched, and he smirked. "You're going to forget this…. For now," he murmured, close enough so she could feel his breath on her face. She squeezed her eyes shut, and he chuckled, "But don't worry; I want to see the look in your eyes as your world burns down around you, and you realize that it was all. Your. Fault." He breathed the last three words directly into her ear. She couldn't stop the pathetic whimper that sounded in the back of her throat. "One day, you will remember all."
Remember all.
Remembrall.
—Hermione watched the blood colored smoke in the glassy orb disappear until it was empty once more, the first time it had been so since she'd touched it yesterday. She stared at it, her eyes wide and her hand covering her mouth.
Then she threw it on the desk in front of her, grabbed the nearest book, and smashed it, leaving behind a pile of glittering, razor-edged glass.