CHAPTER 5
When Hermione and Ginny got back to Hogwarts, the sun was sinking low, and the sky was blood-red and streaked with yellow, purple, and navy. The snow was looking pinkish in the glow on the sun, and the naked trees black against the sky. The night wind had started up, and was biting at their cheeks as they hastened across the grounds. As they passed into the Entrance Hall, Ginny let out a sigh of relief.
'It's good to be out of the cold.' she murmured. 'Well, I don't know about you but I'm not up got dinner.'
'Neither am I,' Hermione admitted. 'I'm going to get some soup or something and go to my room, and probably read a bit.'
'All right then.' Ginny said, swiftly kissing her cheek. 'See ya, Mione.'
Hermione waved to her and headed to the kitchens.
Fifteen minutes later, Hermione was standing outside the portrait of a large, grumpy sheep, holding a mug of soup in one hand and a large silver spoon in the other.
'Four Leaved Clover' she told the sheep. It grunted affirmatively, and the portrait swung open. She stepped into her warm room, and looked around her.
The bed was unmade; a sheet was draped artistically across the floor. Her pajamas had been strewn across the couch, her comb was lying under the bed, and a bottle of water was standing on her bedstead with its cap off. On her bed, the large blood-red book was thrown at a haphazard angle.
With a sigh she got down to cleaning her room. When her bed was made, the pajamas folded, and all the odds and ends tidied, and she was back in her dressing-gown she quickly re-heated the soup, and settled down on the couch, balancing the book on her knees. She took a sip of her soup, and opened the book.
CHAPTER 1- What is a Partial Memory Charm?
A Partial Memory Charm (or a PM Charm) is a complex charm which is brought about with the help of a potion, a spell, and the right conditions. It is a charm which enables the caster to ensure that the victim forgets only ONE part of an occurance. This part can he decided by the caster, by the use of a special spell.
RECIPE FOR A PM CHARM-
Step I: To Prepare a Memory Potion-
Ingredients-
Syrup of pickled brine cuttlefish (as a medium)
3 grams of powdered Bicorn Horn.
15 drops of Essence of Orchid Pollen.
One large white leek.
13 pellets of Caravacia.
2 Teeth of a Mother Dragon.
Method-
Pour the Syrup of pickled brine cuttlefish into a silver cauldron, and heat for thirteen minutes. Stir four times anti-clockwise, and then heat for another forty minutes.
Add two grams of Powdered Bicorn Horn. Allow to simmer for three minutes, add the third gram, and stir clockwise fourteen times. Allow to simmer for seven minutes.
Cut the leek into small pieces, boil them in water and add that water to the potion. It will turn a deep shade of blackcurrant.
Add the Orchid Pollen and allow to simmer for six days.
At the end of the six days, add the pellets of Caravacia, and stir twenty-three times anticlockwise.
The Potion is now ready. Preferably store it in a dark, cool place.
Step II: Mastering the Averentius Spell.
The spell is Averentius, pronounced, 'Avuh- en- shee- us.'
It is to be spoken with the stress on the first and third syllables.
The wand accompaniment is a quick drawing of the figure eight, thus: 8
Step III: Performing the Spell-
The spell may only be performed on a full moon night, or the day preceding it. The caster must say the Averentius spell with the required wand accompaniment over the cauldron containing the Potion. Using a simply Pensive charm, the particular part of the memory which must be omitted is drawn from the mind, and cast into the Potion (It resembles a thin, silvery thread, much like the making of a Pensive). The Potion turns a deep orange color. This potion must be ingested by the victim.
Hermione gently closed the book.
'That's one hell of a spell,' she muttered. 'It's so complicated.'
She wondered how he had got all the ingredients- perhaps from Snape's store?
She looked down at the page in front of her once again.
The potion must be ingested by the victim.
'So I'm the victim,' she murmured. 'How did he get me to ingest it?'
She looked down at the page once again.
The potion turns a deep orange color.
Something struck her. That sentence seemed to be trying to suggest something to her. Deep orange color…
Suddenly it struck her.
'My pumpkin juice!' she exclaimed. Her voice seemed oddly muffled in the silent room. 'Of course. He put it into my pumpkin juice at dinner time. And- and yesterday was a full moon!'
Everything was slowly falling into place. She tried to picture what the last dinner had been like. She had been sitting beside Ginny, opposite Harry and Ron. Her goblet had been to the far left, closer to Parvati's plate, than hers. With a sinking heart she realized that anybody could have tipped something into it and she wouldn't have noticed. The orange color of the pumpkin juice would have hidden the potion.
She sighed, and shutting the book put it by her bedside table.
She stretched out her legs, and leaned back on her couch.
Why would someone go through so much trouble to ruin my life?
With a little sigh, she leaned her head back on the arm of the couch, and closed her eyes. Soon, she was drifting off to sleep.
When Hermione woke up, the room was still warm. She glanced lazily around and saw that fire was still burning. Her legs and hands were aching from being cramped up on the couch.
Slowly, she swung her legs onto the floor, and stood up. She was still wearing her dressing gown, and on the table beside her was a mug of stone cold soup.
Sighing, she got up, and quickly gulped down the soup, not wanting to waste it. her stomach was rumbling; she was starving.
'Maybe I'll just pop down the kitchens.' she murmured to herself. Quickly sliding a thick white coat over her dressing down, and slipped her feet into bedroom slippers she left her room, and trudged down to the corridor to the kitchens.
Just as she was about to tickle the picture, she froze.
She had heard a noise- a very distinct noise of a footstep somewhere along the corridor. She drew her head back, and swung it in that direction- all she could see was darkness.
'Who's there?' she called out.
Was it her imagination or did she hear a sharp intake of breath from the darkness? She took a hesitating step towards the uncertain darkness.
'Who's there?' she called out again.
This time, she did not imagine it- a pattern of thudding footsteps, growing fainter. Someone was running away from her.
She cursed herself for forgetting her wand. Instead, she raised her arms and blundered into the darkness. The air in the corridor was damp and chilly, even more so away from the kitchen portrait. She moved her hands to the side and let them run along the wall, to guide her. All of a sudden, her fingers brushed across something cold and metallic.
She paused, and ran her hand over it, shivering when it touched her sensitive palm. It felt a lot like a latch.
Lifting her other hand, she glided it across the wall beside the latch, and discovered it to be woody and smooth.
A cupboard.
Screwing up her eyes, she tried to make out its outlines, and did so- dimly.
She quickly unlatched it and pulled it open. No doubt this was what the mysterious wanderer had been occupied with.
Still being primarily blind, she glided her hands along the shelf, and touched something smooth and round. Moving her other hand from the other side, she felt many such items.
Quickly, she pulled out one, and carefully slipped it into the pocket of her coat. She latched the cupboard, and hurried back to her room. Only when she was safely inside did she take it out.
It was a small, glass phial, filled with a dull orange potion.