Authors note: This is just something that I found while looking for another one-shot on my computer – I wrote this almost a year ago and I had actually completely forgotten this. Not a literary masterpiece, but I liked the idea so I decided to post it...
Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley had just finished their training for the Magical Law Enforcement Squad and they were discussing their first mission; some muggle had got wind of their world and was publishing books about it, and they were supposed to do something about it.
"So, we just Apparate there and Obliviate the muggles?" Ron asked.
"We can't do that, Ron!" Harry argued. "Obliviating several years of memories almost always has nasty side-effects," he explained.
"Honestly, Harry, sometimes you sound just like Hermione," came Ron's rebuke and Harry couldn't help laughing at that. "What? What did I do now?" Ron asked, puzzled.
"You're the one to talk," Harry replied in an amused tone and continued with a high falsetto. "Honestly, Harry," he said and then continued with his normal voice. "You sounded just like them, yourself."
"Well, if we can't Obliviate her, then what do we do?" Ron asked, ignoring Harry and going back to their original subject.
"We should find out where she has got the knowledge about our world and then Obliviate that. Then she'd just think that she's imagined it all," Harry said like it was obvious.
"Well, if you're sure," Ron said with a shrug.
"I am. Let's go," Harry said and Apparated.
He appeared on a muggle street that was lit with orange-coloured street lights. The street was lined with a row of similar looking, two-storey houses and Harry couldn't help remembering Number Four Privet Drive. But to his relief, he noticed that while the houses looked similar to others, the yards and the décor of each house was different and the whole place looked much more alive than Privet Drive. He stood there waiting for Ron and after a few seconds he sighed. After a few more seconds Ron finally appeared.
"Read the Apparition coordinates wrong again?" Harry asked Ron rather needlessly – after Ron had learned to Apparate decently, he had quickly become infamous for always reading the Apparition co-ordinates wrong when he was going somewhere he hadn't been before.
"I just don't understand why they have to be so long. A dozen numbers!" Ron said with a tone of exasperation. "At least I appeared in the middle of a forest this time and not in someone's bathroom."
"Well, let's go," Harry said, ignoring Ron's usual complaint and doing his best to hide his amusement at being reminded of the incident.
They walked carefully to the yard of the house closest to them and where their target was supposed to live. The house was silent and dark, meaning that the occupants were most likely sleeping. Judging by the small bicycle and some toys on the yard, they were quite sure that the muggle they were supposed to Obliviate had one or more small kids.
When they reached the door to the house, Harry and Ron stopped, Disillusioned each other (the spell was very difficult to do on yourself), and opened the door with an Alohomora Charm. Carefully and quietly they crept inside the house.
It was dark inside but there was just enough light to see once their eyes got used to the near complete darkness. They carefully checked the downstairs and they found the bedroom where their target was fast asleep with someone they presumed to be her husband. Ron had his wand in his hand and he looked at Harry questioningly, but Harry just gestured for them to get out of the room and Ron looked perplexed.
"What?" he whispered to Harry once they were out of the bedroom.
"Let's see if there are any traces of our world here," Harry whispered back and started making his way carefully to the upstairs. When they got there, the first room they encountered was a study.
"Look!" Harry whispered urgently to Ron and pointed to an old bookshelf that didn't seem to fit to house that was otherwise furnished with new furniture.
"What?" Ron asked perplexed.
"The books!" Harry offered as an explanation.
And now Ron saw it too; besides being old, the bookshelf was also full of books from the magical world! Most of it was history, but there were also some textbooks about various subjects they had studied in Hogwarts.
"Let's just take the books and then Obliviate all the memories of them from the minds of everyone in here," Harry whispered and they got to work.
They shrunk the bookshelf and took it with them and made sure that there weren't any of the books left anywhere in the house and then they Obliviated the muggles. When they finally got out of the house, Harry saw that Ron was reading a book that he had obviously nicked from the house and it looked like a muggle one.
"Ron! We were only supposed to take the wizarding books!" Harry admonished him.
"Oh, but look at this," Ron replied, showing the cover of the book, which read Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and Harry looked somewhat interested. "She's got the facts a bit wrong though," Ron mused.
"Well, what do you expect? You've seen what they publish as history about our years at Hogwarts," Harry replied with irritation. To his grief the history written in the magical world only differed from the papers in that they didn't publish outright lies, just something that seemed like the truth, but often wasn't really.
"Yeah, I know. But she's forgotten Harmony completely! She's written Hermione as an only child," Ron said, aghast. "I wish there had been just one of them, but of course they had to be twins!" he then added with a groan.
"And still, you're engaged to one of them," Harry chuckled with a teasing grin.
Ron got a blissful look on his face. "Yeah," he said fondly. "But then again, so are you," he added.
There. What do you think? (And yes, I know Mrs. Rowling doesn't really live in a two-storey house in a suburb, but I just wanted to write it like this...)
