Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. . . . If you're expecting a cute little elaboration on this idea, don't hold your breath. It's early. I got nothin.'
A/N: This chapter mostly consists of a more in-depth explanation of the side effect that has resulted in the link between Hermione and Malfoy. I apologize because I know it's boring in some places and that some of the information is, in fact, completely irrelevant to the storyline, but I promise there's a method to my madness. A few things that are mentioned will be crucial to the rest of the story, so I ask you to bear with me.
Because I feel so bad about this chapter, I will post the next one tomorrow morning, and I promise it will be considerably more interesting than this one is. With that said, on to the (crappy) chapter!
Chapter 3: The Iunctus Mens Effect
As Hermione moved quickly through the halls, she was oblivious to the annoyed and curious stares she received from the students she was pushing past. She had all but sprinted from the Potions dungeon when class had ended, intent upon avoiding Harry and Ron and getting to the library as quickly as possible. She was relatively certain that no one had yet figured out what had happened to Malfoy and her, and she was hoping to keep it that way, at least until she was more informed on the subject.
She stepped into the library, finding it wonderfully empty. Madame Pince was barely visible on the second-floor balcony, sorting books in what Hermione knew to be Muggle Studies section. Careful not to be seen so that no awkward questions might be asked, Hermione darted into the towering stacks of books toward the far left corner, where she had once discovered a small section of books on Magical Accidents, Coincidences, and Mysteries. Upon reaching the area, she quickly found a likely candidate: Unintended Magic: A Guide to Magical Side Effects. She sat a nearby table and opened the enormous volume to the index. In a chapter entitled "What No One Will Tell You about Love Potions and other Emotion Magic," an extensive article was dedicated to Partis Sensus and its side effect, which the author referred to as the Iunctus Mens Effect.
Hermione flipped furiously through the pages to find the correct passage. A curl escaped from the messy knot she had tied her hair into, and she brushed it behind her ear impatiently. She made a small sound of triumph when she found what she was looking for. The first few paragraphs were devoted to the history of the Partis Sensus potion, but Hermione knew more from her textbook than the author had included in the text, so she skipped over until she found mention of the side effect that was wreaking such havoc on her life. Her eyes raced feverishly over the lines of text, her heart tightening with each word she read.
The existence and use of the potion itself is widely known in the wizarding community, but less well known is a rare and mostly un-researched side effect, the Iunctus Mens Effect. The first documented case of this phenomenon was in 1945, when Hilda Green, a young Healer in Britain, hysterically reported to her advising Healer that she had been hexed by another young Healer with whom she had an ongoing rivalry. When the girl was calmed down, she explained that she believed she had been placed under a curse that forced her to experience the horrible events that had damaged the psyche of a patient she was treating. She was also convinced that whatever Dark magic had been performed on her was also warping the effects of the Partis Sensus potion she had been using to treat said patient. The empathic link of the potion usually lasts for an hour at most; the young Healer had been tormented by the pain of her patient for almost two days by the time she reported it to her advisor.
At the time, no one associated the young Healer's experiences with the Partis Sensus potion, and it was not until 1953, when a similar incident occurred to a Miss Sandrine DuBois working as a Healer in a wizard hospital in France, that anyone saw the connection. Both women were interviewed extensively by famed Potions expert Cractacus Hopper. He found that their experiences were surprisingly similar, which reinforced his hypothesis that the cases were connected and mostly likely the result of the Partis Sensus potion gone wrong.
While those interviews were being conducted, another accidental case of the phenomenon was reported, this time by two American students who had been creating the potion for a class assignment. During the same period, Hopper enlisted several pairs of volunteers to attempt to create the effect purposefully. Two of the teams were successful, and Hopper credited their careful notes on the subject as his most helpful source of information.
Hopper's research led him to become the only person who might be considered an expert in the subject. He compiled the following list of the conditions that must be present in order for the Iunctus Mens Effect to occur:
1. The potion ingredients, which are measured so minutely and are so hard to duplicate that every batch of potion made is considered universally unique, must all be present in the correct amount with a margin of error of no more than .001 percent.
2. The people who drink the potion must have a deep personal connection to one another. Usually, this connection is a mutual love. Only two exceptions to this rule have ever been reported: the first was that of one of Cractacus Hopper's teams of volunteers, who were actually his protégés and his official assistants in the research and were connected by a shared hatred for one another; the second, which took place in Prague in 1971, concerned a pair of fraternal twins who had been separated at birth and were unaware of their relationship until after the incident had occurred.
3. The wizard(s) and/or witch(s) involved must both be exceptionally powerful magical beings. Everyone who has experienced the Iunctus Mens Effect, with the exception of the little girl in the 1953 case, who died at the age of 6, has led a life of exceptional glory and distinction. The data collected by Hopper's teams of volunteers led him to believe that this was not a coincidence, and that their power was partially responsible for causing the effect.
Hopper also provided the most definitive description of the Iunctus Mens Effect. The phenomenon is triggered when someone under the effects of the Partis Sensus potion has physical contact with the person with whom he or she is connected. In all reported cases, the person who initiates the contact is then transported into the memory of the other. The clearest existing account of this experience is that of Elena Greunwald, a Potions master at Zwilling Stäbe Akademie in Germany, who, along with her husband, was one of Hopper's two successful teams of volunteers. The following is an excerpt from her research logs:
"When it first begins, the world spins around me and I am unable to breathe. Once I am actually inside the memory, I am both myself and Jakob, both an invader and a part of him. Only the small part of me that remains my own is an observer; mostly I am Jakob, feeling and thinking and doing everything he does, though I have no control over his actions. When the memory is over, I experience no swirling lights or difficulty breathing. I am simply back, as though I had never left at all. It is not what he does that seems most vivid when I am back in my mind and in my body; it is what he felt. The emotions remain with me far after the actual events seem far away and long ago."
The memories that are relived are generally of the most important and defining moments of each person's life. Often these events are characterized by trauma and pain, though joyful memories that have made someone who they are can also be subject to the influence of the Iunctus Mens Effect. After the initial incident, both linked people can experience the memories of the other. These incidents are always triggered by touch and usually occur during moments of intense emotional stress.
People who are linked by the Iunctus Mens Effect experience other symptoms besides the extraordinary phenomenon of sharing memories. The temporary empathic link that is created intentionally by the Partis Sensus potion is made permanent. Its effects are also intensified, and are reported to be indescribably powerful when physical contact is made.
While most people who experience this phenomenon do not initially welcome or even accept their new link, it has the almost invariable effect of creating a bond between the two people that lasts their entire lives. Of the eleven reported cases of the Iunctus Mens Effect, six of the seven male-female pairs were eventually married, if they were not already. The remaining four pairs maintained unusually deep and life-long friendships.
The only pair that proved to be an exception to this rule were the aforementioned protégés of Cractacus Hopper. Delilah James and Edward Flannigan, both twenty-four when their link was established in 1955, had been rivals during their education at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Flannigan reported in a 1974 interview that their shared experiences had not been enough to overcome their shared hatred, so Miss James, who would eventually create some of the most useful potions and charms used in modern Healing, began to investigate ways to sever the connection between them.
Flannigan then made the thus far-unsubstantiated claim that while Miss James failed in her attempt to completely undo the effects of the Iunctus Mens Effect, she had found a method that allowed her to block Flannigan's awareness of her feelings. He claimed, with no small amount of bitterness, that she had not shared her methods with him. He assumed that she had created a potion to counteract the effects, but this is mere conjecture. Unfortunately for researchers and the wizarding community at large, Miss James married in 1959, and thereafter stopped her research into potion making and cut off all contact with the academic community. It is generally assumed that her personal journals, which have been lost since her death in 1991, contain not only notes on what could be valuable Healing magic but also her secret method for blocking the Iunctus Mens Effect. It is quite possible that they will remain lost forever, along with this invaluable information.
The article ended there. Hermione sat back in her chair, feeling as though a very large train had rushed by her at a very fast speed. To have found the answer and then to have lost it again . . . On top of everything else that had happened to her today, she thought she would be perfectly justified if she had herself and nice, long, soul-cleansing cry right there in the library. Instead, she ripped the page from the book with a blatant and somehow satisfying disregard for school property. She returned the book to the shelf and glanced around furtively, unsure if she was worried that someone would see her and somehow figure out what she had been doing, or if she was feeling guilty for tearing out the page.
She skipped dinner, feeling neither hungry nor up to facing Malfoy again. The Gryffindor common room was mercifully empty, but Hermione did not linger there. She went to her dormitory, spent a fruitless half-hour re-reading the same paragraph in her Transfiguration book without comprehending a word of it, and then went to bed. She lay awake for hours, long after Lavender and Parvati and come up to bed and fallen into easy sleep. It was only in the young hours of the morning that she finally slept, and even then her dreams were strange and uneasy, filled with visions of frightened children and angry eyes as grey as the sea before a storm.