Author's Note: Written for…
Ludo Game Challenge. Prompts: tickle-me-pink, caramel apples
Get Psyched Challenge. Prompt: Dissociative Fugue Disorder
Psychological AU Challenge.
One Prompt, Many Fandoms.
A Fragile Thing
It started with little things: going into work late, daydreaming all the time, forgetting to eat. Then suddenly she was gone.
The flyers went up all over Diagon Alley and beyond, sporting the smiling face of a pretty young redheaded woman.
MOLLY ELAINE TATE, it read. MISSING SINCE LAST TUESDAY.
The paper gave more insight into Mrs. Tate's condition:
Molly Tate, well known for the Sugar Witch bakery she opened in Diagon Alley last year, was pronounced missing this week after she was seen wandering away from her bakery hours before closing.
Mrs. Tate is the last surviving child of Transportation Management workers Percy and Audrey Weasley, whose youngest daughter died in a tragic and unexplainable explosion at her home last month.
Mr. Edmund Tate, journalist here at the Prophet, has said that he does not believe his wife would purposely leave her bakery unattended, or abandon her family. He is pleading for any information that witnesses may have.
When asked how Mr. Tate is fairing during his wife's absence, he has said that his main concern is caring for their five-year-old daughter, Theresa.
The flyers and the newspapers traveled across all of wizarding Britain. Molly's face stared back at passersby in shop windows and on garden fences, but none of them ever reached the girl herself.
No one had thought much of Hannah Longbottom reporting seeing Molly leave the Leaky Cauldron through the muggle side that afternoon. It hadn't led them any closer to finding her. Perhaps if they had taken the lead more seriously they would have found her sooner, wandering the streets of muggle London, but that was not the case.
:-:
Kiki Halloran owned what was possibly England's last antique bookshop. She knew this because every month she would have customers from all across the country. She also knew that it was a dying business, because her grandfather had urged her to sell the shop when he left it to her in his will.
Still Kiki persevered, waking early each morning to open Blank Pages and staying after hours to scour the internet for book auctions. But that still left a lot of hours in between in which dozens of people passed by her shop without entering, and Kiki sat at the front counter and watched them go.
She knew almost everyone by name. Even before she took over the shop, she was constantly hanging around, helping her grandfather. Every so often there would be a new batch of people – customers who had only just discovered the wonders their little street contained – and Kiki would come up with names for them.
Green Hat, so named for the green ball cap he was never seen without, visited on Fridays. As far as Kiki knew, he never actually entered any of the shops, but loved to look at the window displays. Then there was Granny Smith, who was always buying something for her grandkids, and would return to a shop the day after a purchase with treats: apple tarts, caramel apples, apple strudel, the list went one.
Pinky was a new addition to the street. It was hard to miss her, strolling up and down the pavement in a bright, tickle-me-pink apron that had Sugar Witch written on the front in a brighter pink. Kiki was somewhat fascinated by her, if only for the fact that she never seemed to leave the street, and there was no store matching her apron nearby.
"Poor girl," Granny Smith commented when she came to drop off her newest batch of apple cinnamon muffins to Kiki. "I think she's homeless. I caught her sleeping in the alley behind Donovan's last night."
With an unjustifiable interest in the stranger, Kiki determinedly set out to meet the girl with a basket of muffins in hand.
She found her sitting outside the deli a few doors down, curiously searching the faces of those who walked passed her.
"Is everything alright?" Kiki asked. She sat down beside the redhead with the basket of apple muffins between them. She plucked one up and began peeling back the paper wrapper as they spoke.
The girl seemed hesitant to reply, as if she didn't have much experience in talking with people.
"I don't think so," she answered, frowning. "Do I know you?"
"No." Kiki handed the girl the unwrapped muffin and picked a new one for herself. "I'm Kiki – Keira," she corrected herself quickly. No one but her mum called her Keira, but she had been making an effort to use the name more now that she was a businesswoman.
The redhead nibbled at the muffin thoughtfully for a moment. "I don't know my name." She tapped the nametag hanging from the strap of her apron. "This says 'Molly' so I suppose that's who I am. I'm Molly."
Kiki set the muffin down, suddenly losing her appetite. This was turning out to be a bigger mystery than she could solve on her own. "You don't know who you are?" she clarified.
"No. I was … I just remember walking down the street a few days ago. I don't remember how I got here, or where I'm from, or anything. I keep hoping someone will recognize me, or I'll remember something. But I can't."
"Alright, that's it. I'm taking you to the hospital." Kiki didn't leave any room for discussion, taking the basket in one hand and Molly's arm in the other, she stuffed both into the back of her tiny car and sped them to hospital.
:-:
"Amnesia," the doctor announced confidently after examining Molly.
Kiki sat at the other end of the room, fidgeting with her mobile and making the occasional note of what the doctor said.
"You're sure?" she asked, coming to stand next to the mysterious redhead.
"Oh, yes. Amnesia isn't as uncommon as you would think, but the causes and effects vary. There's no telling what prompted Molly's brain to erase itself, or if she'll ever remember anything." The doctor turned and scribbled an address on a business card and handed it to Kiki. "I'm referring you to a therapist. He'll be able to help more than I can."
The women thanked him and left, slightly deflated by the unhelpful diagnosis.
"Where will I go?" Molly asked, trudging along beside Kiki in the car park.
"You're staying with me. And you can come into work and we'll drive around the area, see if anything jogs your memory."
Kiki was just unlocking the car when a tall redheaded man rushed toward them from across the street.
"Molly?" he called. He stopped a few feet short of them, looking the redheaded girl up and down uncertainly.
"You know who I am?" Molly asked, smiling for the first time since she'd appeared on Kiki's street.
"Of course, I – where have you been? We've all been worried about you. We weren't even sure what to tell Teri."
"I'm sorry," Kiki cut in, stepping in between them. "Molly's having some problems with her memory right now. She has amnesia and can't remember anything further back than last week."
"Amnesia." He said it as though it were the first time he'd heard of it. It took him a moment to regain his composure and stick out a hand. "I'm Arthur Weasley, Molly's grandfather."
Kiki smiled brightly, shaking his hand. "Kiki Halloran. I was just trying to get Molly some help." She could feel Molly relaxing at her side, already trusting the man.
"Well, lucky I ran into you here. I had a job across the street." He checked his watch. "I should really be heading back, actually. If you like, Molly, I can take you home now."
She was already drifting closer to him, taking his extended hand. She turned back to smile at Kiki.
"Thank you for helping."
"My pleasure. Oh! Take these-" Kiki ducked into her car to retrieve the basket of muffins. There was a loud POP that she thought might've been a car backfiring, but it sounded close by. She hit her head on the roof of the car in her rush to come back out, but when she did Molly and her grandfather were already gone.
:-:
Memory charms were a common thing and reversible in ninety percent of the cases, according to healers Molly's family consulted the day after she was miraculously found.
It had been a long day, slowly reintroducing her to magic and to her immediate family. They could only hope there was a quick remedy to fill in the rest.
"Amnesia isn't something St. Mungo's has had a lot of practice with," Healer Jeffries explained to Molly's parents while Edmund ushered her down the hall for a cup of tea. "I would suggest a muggle doctor were it not for the obvious problem of them learning too much about us."
"Perhaps if we knew the cause, that could help," said a second, younger healer.
"She just lost her little sister," Audrey explained quietly. "It was very sudden."
"The mind is a fragile thing. Tragedies – war, disease, even grief – can wreak havoc on it. Mr. Tate was saying earlier how forgetful Molly was becoming in the week prior to her disappearance. It's likely that this is her body's defense against the unwelcome shock of her sister's death."
"So what can we do to help her?" Percy asked.
"Talk to her about her sister. Show her pictures, and if she starts to remember, get her to express her feelings. In the meantime, we can administer some basic memory-enhancers and see if they have some effect on her."
It wasn't a guarantee that she would heal, but it was the only chance they had.
-Two Months Later-
Kiki hardly recognized Molly the next time she saw her. For one thing, she was no longer wearing the pink apron that had become a common sight on their street. For another, she had chopped almost all of her hair off, leaving just enough that she could pull it back in a tiny ponytail.
The amnesiac had never been far from Kiki's mind since the day of the apple cinnamon muffins, but she'd had no luck in finding her through phone books and internet searches. Luckily Molly knew where to find Kiki, dropping into her shop just before closing one day with a platter of chocolate cupcakes fresh from the bakery.
"I came to say thank you," Molly explained after Kiki got over her shock. "If you hadn't tried to help me, Granddad never would have spotted me."
"You're alright, then?"
"Oh, yes. Better than ever actually. It was the shock of losing my sister, we think. Lucy died a little while before I lost my memory and it was completely unexpected. She was so young."
Kiki frowned, something tugging at her own memory. "What did you say your last name was?"
"Tate."
"Yes, but your grandfather…?"
"Oh, my maiden name is Weasley."
"Yes, Lucy Weasley." Kiki rushed behind the counter, digging through a box of receipts and order forms. "Was she blonde? Green eyes. Freckles."
"Yes. How do you know that?"
"She used to come in all the time. She bought loads last year, mostly for her granddad, she said. Last time I saw her was … maybe two weeks before I met you. She ordered a book for … well, she said it was for her sister."
Apparently finding what she was looking for, Kiki ran into the backroom with a little slip of paper in hand, returning moments later with a thick book. She handed it to Molly.
"It's all bought and paid for, so I suppose it's yours now."
Molly smiled down at it. Muggle fairytales like the ones their mum had read to them as children. Lucy had known how much they'd meant to Molly, and how desperately she wanted to introduce them to her own daughter.
She hugged the book to her chest. "Do you believe in coincidences?"
Kiki chuckled. "Not really, but then I'm not the one that stumbled on my sister's lost gift, so what do I know? It is pretty amazing though." She stopped to pick out a cupcake. "It's almost like magic."
Molly played with the hem of her dress, wondering what this girl – her savior, by all accounts – would have to say if she witnessed true magic.