V
Obliviate
"…And so I left. I walked out of that hospital and I set out to find the counter Curse."
Ron stood by the fireplace, his gaze fixed steadily on an open window as he recalled. He had begun his long overdue explanation to his family with a plea for silence until he finished his story, and so far they had respected that. He was grateful. This was not an easy thing to tell.
"…I knew it was going to be difficult, perhaps even impossible. I knew that hundreds of wizards far wiser and more learned than me had tried and failed. But I knew I had to do something. I just couldn't stand one more minute of helplessness, of inaction. But I scarcely knew where to start so the first place I went – and you'll be proud of me, Hermione - was to the library. I started reading everything I could about the nature of the curse, and where it originated, who developed it… to see if I could accumulate clues as to how it could be combated."
Hermione sat on the arm of a couch in the crowded Weasley family room, watching Ron incredulously. She still couldn't get over the changes in him. He was even speaking differently. She'd always known he was intelligent, but he'd never really applied himself at school. Now he was speaking like a … like a scholar!
Of course, if he had truly spent the past two years researching a cure for Harry's curse, then perhaps it was no wonder… She had so many questions for him! She practically had to bite her lips to keep them from spilling out.
"…The information was hard to come by in published texts. So I decided I'd head out and find the most ancient branch of wizards in Britain, and ask for their help. I found them in Ireland - the Druids.
They were secretive, and difficult to contact. When I did manage to get an audience with one, he was suspicious of me and answered all my questions in riddles. It took a long time to learn that their ancestors had not actually developed the Obliviate curse, but the knowledge of it had in fact come to them from the south, millennia ago.
So I travelled south, and found myself in Egypt, where the wizards have records dating all the way back to the era of Menes. When I explained to them what I sought, they were much more forthcoming than the Druids. They're a scholarly bunch, and my cause seemed to interest them. I spent almost six months with them, and learned a lot… but made very little progress with the Obliviate Curse."
A small sigh of disappointment escaped Mrs Weasley, and her sentiment was shared by most of the room. They had promised not to interrupt Ron's explanation with questions, but from the moment he had named his reason for leaving them two years earlier, they had all felt one question burning more fiercely than all the others – did you manage it - do you know the counter Curse?
But Ron was giving nothing away.
"Finally we traced the Curse even further back. The total Obliviate Curse is a crude and ancient form of magic - very different to refined and specific spells we use on Muggles and the like. It was developed by the very earliest wizards that ever existed – the witch doctors of Africa.
So I left Egypt and journeyed south again, arriving in Kenya. I asked around and managed to locate the oldest tribal wizard still living. Like the Druids, the Africans were suspicious of me, and wanted to know what my business was with their venerated witch doctor. Wizard and Muggle societies aren't separate there, you see. Wizards live within tribes of non-magic people, and are respected by them. So the people I met were very protective of their aging mystic.
Finally, someone agreed to take my message to the old man, and to their surprise, he indicated that he would grant me the honour of an audience. When I was lead into his presence, however, I found the Translation spell I'd been using to understand the foreign languages around me was not sophisticated enough to deal with the ancient wizard's dialect. He spoke with me for a long time about Obliviate, and how his ancestors discovered and mastered the spell. I did my best to understand him, but there were some phrases I just couldn't decipher.
Eventually he said he was tired, and waved me away.
I knew I was close now to unlocking the secret of the counter Curse, but there was no way I could get another meeting with the old doctor and it probably wouldn't have helped anyway. I returned to my friends in Egypt, and resumed my study of a much-expanded pile of research notes and findings.
It was so frustrating, knowing that I was so close and at the same time so far from uncovering the answers. There were times when I just wanted to give up, wanted to come home. But I knew I couldn't. I'd made a promise to myself, and to Harry. I'd been gone so long, with barely a murmur of explanation. I just couldn't go home empty handed. So I just kept at it, day after day, week after week.
It was almost twelve weeks later that a young buzzard turned up on my window still, with a crumpled piece of parchment in its beak. As soon as I removed it, the bird flew away. I wondered why it had seemed familiar to me, but didn't dwell on the thought. I was too intent on unfolding the parchment, expecting some kind of letter or note.
Instead it was drawing, etched in charcoal. In the centre was an uneven sphere, which seemed to be glowing brightly. Around it were shards of many different shapes and patterns, all spiralling towards the central sphere. I turned the page over and saw another picture, this time of a complete sphere made up from all the shards.
That's when I remembered where I'd seen the buzzard before – it had belonged to the old witch doctor. The drawing was from him. Needless to say, I began to study the sketch much more intently. I returned to my desk, and went over my notes again with more enthusiasm than I'd felt in weeks.
I looked over the passages of dialogue which had seemed hopelessly encrypted before, then placed the drawing next to them. And slowly, bit by bit, things began to fall into place.
See, the everyday Obliviate curse shatters one tiny memory, but leaves the rest of the mind intact. The uncontrolled, total Oblivate curse just shatters every memory and disables the victim's ability to form new ones. The victim lives, but they can function only in the immediate present. The damage is supposed to be irreversible."
At this point Ginny leaned forward in her chair, her eyes unnaturally bright. Her voice was shaking as she asked with almost unbearable intensity, "Supposed to be…?"
Ron looked at her, and gave a very small smile. Then spoke the words that everyone had been holding their breath to hear:
"There is a way to reverse Obliviate. But - "
The room erupted into voices, crying and shouting and questioning all at once. Ron help up his hand and Mr Weasley's voice took on an uncommon note of sharpness as he demanded they return their attention to Ron.
"- But there's no guarantee that it will always be successful," Ron finished. This won him absolute silence. He took a deep breath.
"It works like this. Every person has one memory that they treasure above all others. One golden moment that is always with them, that they never – never – forget. If someone else shared this moment with them, then this person and this person only has the power to repair their mind.
They must chant a special incantation over the afflicted wizard's bedside, and focus intensely on the moment they shared. The words of the spell are simply the reverse of Obliviate – Etai Vilbo, repeated over and over, together with the Latin phrase Commeneo Ego: 'remember me'.
If the caster has guessed right, and the moment they recall really was the most treasured memory of the afflicted wizard, then a sort of - magical magnetic field forms around the glowing core of that memory that is formed by their linked minds.
The core… draws together all the fragments of the wizard's memories and they begin to repair themselves. When the reformation is complete, the Obliviate Curse is countered. The wizard's mind totally regenerates, and they remember everything - from the moment of their birth right up until the present."
"The downside of all this," Ron continued, his expression twisting slightly, "Is that the spell can only be performed three times. If it is cast three times and fails each time, it is rendered useless. And the risk of failure is high. Besides the technical mistakes that may be incurred by casting an unfamiliar spell, there is the uncertainty surrounding the selection of the right memory to focus on. There is only one which will work the magic. It's possible that no one shared the memory – it's possible that Harry's most treasured memory is of a moment he spent alone, or some poignant moment he shared with a stranger. It may be of his parents. There are a hundred possibilities – a hundred things that could go wrong."
This pronouncement was met with a long moment of sobering silence as they all considered the implications of failure.
It was Hermione who spoke first. "Well… we have to try, don't we?" She looked around at her surrogate family, her eyes slightly pleading. "It's the closest we've come to having hope in almost two years…"
At her words, Percy seemed to shake himself. "Of course we have to try," he said firmly, taking charge like the Percy of old. "There's no question of that. In fact, I propose we go to St Mungo's right away. There's no point in waiting, is there? And if there's three chances to discover Harry's most treasured memory, then we will give each of those closest to him one chance. Ron, you should try first. Then you, Mr Black. And if there is still no effect then Hermione can try."
He looked around, peering over the top his glasses. "Is everyone agreed?"
One by one, everyone nodded. Hermione looked terrified, Sirius determined, and Ron resigned. Ginny stared at the floor, but she too inclined her head in acquiescence.
Those who could Apparate did so. The others lined up at the fireplace with Floo powder pinched between their fingertips.
A few minutes later, a small crowd had gathered in the corridor outside Harry's room. They all looked at one another, tense and uncertain and almost torn in half by conflicting feelings of fear and hope.
Then Ron took a deep breath, and opened the door.
He disappeared into the dimness of the room.
The others held their breaths, and waited.
