Chapter 11:

Nightmares

Hestia Jones fiddled with her knitting needles as she waited for James Potter. She had got to Headquarters so early that she caught the Centaur and the Goblin Generals using their soldiers as chess pieces in a large-scale version of Wizards Chess. It only lasted for a second, and then they noticed her and hurriedly fired off catapults at each other, causing the war to begin once more.

She had told herself that she needed to come so early because she had to check on Percy (the Veritaserum potion), but the potion had entered its second phrase where instead of "feeding" it every day, she and Lily fed it once every three days, giving it plenty of time to ripen. Yesterday, Lily had given it twenty eight grams of unicorn hair, and after a day, the potion had finally changed its color from eggshell white to light silver. Recording this change, along with the viscosity and smell of the potion took roughly fifteen minutes. After that, there was no deceiving herself much longer. She wasn't so early because of the potion it was because she was nervous. Hestia liked to people watch. And James Potter was an interesting subject, one Hestia had frequently observed from afar while they had overlapped at Hogwarts and now in the Order. But this time, she wouldn't be observing him from afar; it would be up close, the most extreme invasion of privacy.

So, to distract her from panicking about what would surely be the most awkward hour of her life, she had taken out her knitting needles and some yarn, and was trying to make a pair of socks for her little brother that he would probably never wear. To be fair, the yarn was a rather unfortunate shade: a vivid, bubotuber pus kind of yellow.

What had happened was this: it was now seven weeks since Alice, Moody, and Fabian fell into a coma, and they hadn't showed any signs of regaining consciousness yet. James Potter had woken up at six weeks. Maybe something was wrong, or maybe nothing was wrong, but passing Potter's deadline left everyone on edge. It didn't help that after a week of experimentation, the Ministry still couldn't understand what kind of poison was used in the muggle attacks. And nothing more had happened as they'd been following Knapton. They were all stalled while they waited for the Veritaserum to mature. Lily explained this all to Hestia one evening, as she paced around in Hestia's apartment, twisting her hands. So—Lily, in the name of the Order—decided that they needed to try something more radical on the three comatose Phoenixes: Legilimency. Apparently, it had caused some reaction in James Potter (though not without some negative side effects), and it would be worthwhile to see how the others would react. Enter: Hestia.

Was she proficient at Legilimency? Yes. One had to be in order to be accepted into the Oblivator department. But, did she use this particular gift frequently? No. In fact, she only used this as a last resort when she was working with muggles. Going into someone's memories wasn't like opening up a filing cabinet, where all the memories were neatly categorized; it was like suddenly drowning in a tangled, murky swamp. If you weren't careful, you could lose yourself in the flood of sensations and images and start blending your mind with theirs. Sometimes, if you could maintain your focus, you could locate a specific memory. But sometimes, it was all you could do to remember who you were and who they were. And that was in the best conditions, when the other person wasn't stuck in a hellish nightmare and trying to gouge your eyes out. Before Hestia could fully refuse Lily, she had switched tactics:

"Look, you don't have to decide now, if you are comfortable using Legilimency on Alice or any of the others. But, what if you started with James? He's— well, you've heard him talk about what it was like for him when he was in a coma. But, he's still having those same nightmares. He's still getting triggered and having to see all of those lies in his memory. You could Obliviate them, make it so he'd never have to relive those memories again. "

"Well—" Lily didn't give Hestia a chance to respond before she hit her with:

"Think about Alice. When she wakes up, she's going to need help to come to terms with what happened, and work through the trauma her mind has gone through. If this works with James, it could help her too."

So Hestia agreed. How could she not, when Lily played the Alice card?

Hestia paused in her knitting and stretched her arms, rolling out her wrists—and knocked into the Pensieve Dumbledore had loaned them, causing it to clatter to the floor. She picked it up and studied it. Being an Obliviator, Hestia was not unfamiliar with Pensieves. The head of the department had a rather ostentatious gold Pensieve that he had them use to test the effectiveness of their memory charms. But, the Hogwarts Pensieve felt different to her. Emptied, it looked like a decorative stone basin that had been treated quite badly. The bottom was shallow, just the slightest dip from edges that threatened to crumble. The ancient runes carved around the rim seemed more like cracks and scratches in the granite than the artistic script of her department head's. It wasn't impressive—at least visually—but holding it, one could feel the thrum of old magic running through it. Hestia set it carefully back on the table next to her.

She took up her knitting again, and was halfway through a new next row when the fireplace flashed green. In a moment, James was on the threshold, shaking ash out of his wild hair.

"Hullo, Hestia. You beat me! Sirius tapped me out earlier than I expected—I thought I'd get here first," He said, sitting down in the armchair next to her.

"I needed to check on the potion," Hestia lied, still looking at her ugly sock. She had dropped a few stitches when he came in. The whole row was useless.

"Right. So—how do we get going then?" James asked, sounding more business-like.

"Well, before I can erase them, I need to know what your nightmares are like, so we'll do Legilimency and then move on to Oblivating them. Lily thought it might be a good idea for you to take this before we start." Hestia reached into her yarn bag and pulled out a flask of calming draught. Lily had given her five doses and an injection of sleeping draught, extra strength, just in case.

James grunted, but took it.

"She might be right." He pulled off the stopper and drank it down in one go. He made a face—a painted sort of grimace and clutched the flask tighter in his hand.

"Alright?" Hestia said, trying to sound casual.

"Yeah. I'm good. It's just a surprise. I forgot that she flavors them, her potions. Peppermint." His face became unreadable. Hestia raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. Instead, she handed him the Pensieve.

"If there's anything you'd rather I not see," Hestia said, delicately. James nodded, and closed his eyes, pressing his wand to his temple. He pulled out long string of slivery, quavery material, and dropped it in the basin. The wisp of memory began to twirl and the depression of the basin deepened, becoming more substantial. With each new strand added, the runes around the edge brightened, and the chisel marks sharpened. Hestia turned back to her ugly sock (to give James a bit more privacy), ripped out the ruined row, and redid it. She added four more rows by the time James cleared his throat, and carefully set it back on the table.

"What about you?"

"Oh, my life isn't really that interesting. If the spell rebounds, I doubt you'll really see anything that wild." James half smiled at that. He stretched his hands, and Hestia noticed, for the first time, that his right one was shaking. "Ready for the first attempt?" She asked. He nodded.

"Legilimens."

Utter blankness. Dark. A squeezing pressure—almost like she'd dived too fast and too deep underwater. Hestia pushed back, trying to get past the ink black cloud she was in. For a second, she felt it give slightly, and as she leaned in she caught a blur of color, of light then—a jolting, sharp pain. Hestia opened her eyes to the world sideways, the right side of her face resting on the warm hearth of the fireplace. She straightened, wincing, and leaned against the base of the fireplace, trying to catch her breath. James was standing with his wand outstretched, looking stunned. Hestia carefully started to stand back up. Nothing felt broken which was good. But her back definitely felt bruised. Her movements seemed to wake James up.

"What the fuck did I do? Shit. Shit. Shit!" He dropped his wand, and backed over to his chair, keeping his distance from Hestia as she came closer.

"James—"

"I-I'm so sorry. I don't know what happened. Are you okay? I-I thought I could do this, you know? I thought I could handle it. But maybe I can't. I can't. I just—fuck, I'm sorry." Both of his hands were trembling furiously. His face was pale, and his breathing had quickened. He seemed close to a panic attack, and Hestia felt helpless. She wasn't the right person to offer any comfort to James Potter. She didn't know what to say. She didn't know him, not really. This was the most they had ever spoken. And she wasn't really trained in medicine. Was this the point where she should inject him? Force him to calm down? He took off his glasses, and rubbed his face, threading his hands into his hair. Bizarrely, it made her think of her little brother. How he looked when, years ago, he had been convinced that there was a monster hiding in their cloak closet. It ended up being a Gnome who got himself wedged halfway down one of their father's Wellingtons.

"Hey: I'm okay. Just sit down, and breathe. It's not all your fault—I think I probably pushed you a little too hard there." James wasn't listening. He stared blankly in front of them. Hestia grabbed his wrist and pulled him down to his chair. "Come on." He unfroze, obeying her directions."Do you want to try another calming drought?" She handed him one, and he took it, but did not drink it. Hestia decided not to push him, and brought out the ugly sock once more to distract her from the silence.

"Does this happen a lot when you do Legilimency?" James asked, breaking the silence. His voice was a little more steady than what it had been.

"Not a lot. Muggles don't usually fight back, and I don't use it on wizards too often. But, it has happened before. I think it's natural to fight where you feel someone going into your head."

"How did you get into all of this?"

"It's a bit of a long story."

"I could do with a story."

"Ok," Hestia took a deep breath—she wasn't sure quite where to begin. She didn't talk about childhood very often. Frankly, she tended to avoid talking much about herself in general. But, James seemed like he needed something to distract him from himself. She cleared her throat, fixing her eyes on her knitting, and started talking:

"My growing up wasn't too nice, I guess. My parents were lovely individually, but together they didn't get along. Before they divorced, their fights got pretty nasty. I was okay, but my younger brother had a harder time. He still does. I wish that I could've protected him from the worst of it," she said this all rather quickly, trying to trick herself that she wasn't actually speaking. "So, when I learned about Oblivators, it kind of felt like an answer. You know, I couldn't protect him then, but maybe I could help him now. I don't know. I think that it's not always bad to forget the bad." She finished a little awkwardly, not once turning to look at James.

"I get that." James said. " But what about the muggles? How do you feel about modifying their minds when maybe what they see isn't all bad? Or even if it is bad, wouldn't knowing there is danger out there help them be more safe?" These questions were more in Hestia's comfort zone. Ever since the Oblivator department opened in the Ministry, they always had some Pro-Muggle group protesting it. But, James didn't sound angry; he was curious. Hestia turned to look at him, and saw that his hands had stopped shaking. Had he taken the calming draught?

"Honestly, with the war, most of what they see now is bad. I haven't had to erase a positive memory since I began. Maybe when the war ends, that will change, and I'll feel differently about what I do, but right now, I think modifying their memories is for the best. If they actually knew about You-Know-Who and his Death Eaters, they wouldn't be able to cope. They'd feel a lot more scared, and who knows? Maybe they would try to fight Him with us, but that could put them so much more at risk than they are now."

There was a pause—much less awkward than when they first began—and Hestia added another stitch in her sock. Soon, she'd move on to knitting the heel of the sock. Out the corner of her eye, she saw James retrieve his wand.

"Let's give it another go." He said, handing her his wand.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Just—do you have any tips on how not to, er, attack this time?"

"Maybe just try to think about your nightmares first. Focus on remembering as many details about them as you can. Then, let me know when you're ready."

"Right." He said shortly, and shook out his arms nervously. He closed his eyes and clenched his hands. Hestia looked back at the sock, trying to give him a moment of privacy. "Alright. I'm ready."

"Legilimens."

Darkness, but this time, less opaque, less rigid than before. Hestia carefully leaned into the fog and fell into color. Snapshots of painfully bright, twirling color. It blinded her, but eventually she began to process what she was seeing.

She saw a woman with red hair—Lily— crying, screaming: "James, what have you done?" Her green eyes were vivid, but the rest of her oddly faded. She was shaking, arms holding herself tightly together. And she needed to hold herself together: her entire outline was blurring, the edges curling up into smoke. James reached out to touch her shoulder, but his hand went right through it, causing ripples throughout her image, and as she screamed louder, the form that was Lily Evans disappeared into smoke. Hestia moved forward through the space where Lily Evans had stood.

She saw James leaping over a fallen wall, a Hogwarts tapestry crumpled beneath his feet. The whole castle was shaking—tables and chairs skidding to the side, books falling out from the shelves, paintings crashing down from the walls, glass shattering. There was a student in Hogwarts robes pinned underneath a statue, but James ignored their cries. He made it to the moving staircase when suddenly the stairs split apart, the steps rotating to form grotesque teeth. Some students lost their balance during the movement and fell into the gaping jaws, disappearing in the darkness. James teetered on his stair, looking around for an escape, Hestia supposed, when suddenly he saw Sirius precariously balanced on another step. The steps spun in a dizzying circle, swinging James closer to Sirius, then apart. The second time the stairs twirled together, James leapt to Sirius. He made it, but barely, and as he was attempting to maintain his balance, James flung out a hand—to steady himself—but ended up pushing Sirius off the stair. Against the gaping void below, Sirius's face was lit up for a moment, his handsome face twisted in terror and betrayal, before the blackness devoured him. Hestia let herself fall, eyes closed, after Sirius.

When she opened her eyes, she saw blood on James's hands, smeared on his shirt, his robes. She looked down and saw that the once white carpet was drenched with blood, and unable to take any more, it pooled on the surface, rising up over his shoes. James started to run, leaving squelching footsteps in his path. By the time they made it to the door of the room the blood was knee deep, thick, and still warm. The moment James grasped the doorknob, a hand rose out of the red flood and clutched his robes, dragging him down to his knees. He scrambled to find his footing again, but another hand broke through the surface, reaching out to pull him further in. He fell, the blood now up to his chest. A head surfaced. It was a woman with eyes clouded with cataracts, and she wore glasses not unlike James's: "You can't run away from your mistakes, son." Blood bubbled out of her mouth as she spoke. James frantically reached out to grab her, but she was already sinking back down. He stopped fighting the hands, and let himself slip under the surface. Hestia was drowning, her mouth full of the salty, iron taste of blood then—

James running in the night, away from a forest, pine straw, dead leaves crackling with every step. Panting, then screaming: "Avada Kedavra." The green light stretched out in one jagged bolt, pulsing with power—and hit Peter in the chest. It hit Remus. It hit Sirius. Lily. Dead. Dead. Dead. Their faces were a ghastly pale white, bloodless, but their eyes stared accusingly into his—hers—theirs? The scenes sped faster:

Dumbledore pointed his wand into their face and ropes bound their body. They fell on damp earth and saw rows and rows of black headstones stretched out before them, endless.

They sat before the Wizengamot: chains winding around their legs, their arms, then their throat. Guilty. So Guilty. Dementors gathered around them. "I did everything you told me to do," they said in one voice. The hooded figures blocked the judges from view as they reached out with their decayed hands. "You told me to do it," they called once more, desperately. As cold fingers began to pry their mouth open, the edges of their vision faded into black.

The first thing they could make out after the darkness dissipated was a woman with red hair, crying.

A/N: Thanks to all who have read, favorited, and followed this story! This was a fun chapter to write—I hope you all enjoyed it. The next chapter is going to take me longer to write, but it will be partly in Hestia's perspective and partly in Lily's.