Score
AN: Spent the better part of six months on and off writing this. Enjoy!
[1]
Harry muttered, "I can't believe I'm doing this shit."
Beside him, Ron asked, "Say what now?"
"Oh. Sorry, mate. Nothing."
"Okay."
The two of them were in Saint Mungo's. Like many Muggle hospitals, the design stressed form over function. Unlike Hogwarts, there weren't suits of armor and statues all over the place. There were no magic paintings, so doctors and nurses wouldn't be distracted by the ramblings of men and women dead for hundreds of years. Instead the walls were painted; simple blue Muggle paint and simple Muggle brushes.
The fourth floor of the hospital dealt with people who'd been permanently injured by curses. Neville's late parents had been among those taken care of here. The administrator for the floor, Dr. Padma Patil, led them through the hallway. They passed by Millicent Weasley, who waved at her brother-in-law on the way out. He pushed a wheelchair holding a vibrant but clearly insane old woman. She held a cane like a sword.
"Tally-ho!" she cried. "We'll face Grindelwald's army head on!"
"Yeah, I think the fresh air would be good for you, Ms. Rafferty." Millicent said.
"Merlin..." Ron muttered.
"Can I be honest with you, Harry?" Padma asked.
"Of course."
"I'm not really sure why you wanted to see Mr. Stevenson."
Harry thought: You and I are on the exact same page, Padma.
Padma said. "Willa already questioned him. He didn't remember anything. He still doesn't. Their memories are so wiped, we don't even bother hiding our magic around them. They don't know what a Muggle is, let alone a wizard."
"I was given a tip that some information might him…and all of us." Harry said.
Padma shook her head. "Outside of some new magic, I don't know what could help him. Or any of them, really."
"Well, we can always hope." Harry said.
"That doesn't sound very scientific."
"You sound like Hermione." Ron said.
"You sound like an idiot." Padma shrugged. "Still better than seeing you moping in a dress suit."
"You're…not still angry at me for that Yule Ball shit; are you?"
Padma turned and smiled at him, a wide smile that looked horrifying on her. "Of course not."
Ron just sighed.
"Children." Harry said. "Stop fighting. Padma, where's Stevenson?"
"Right here." Padma turned and went to the door for Room 409, opened it.
The inside was brightly lit with wall candles, with a single bed. A stack of Muggle books stood on the nightstand. Samuel Stevenson sat at the foot of the bed. In one hand, he held one of those Muggle stress balls. In the other was a book that he lowered to his lap when the three of them came in. Whatever he was reading, it had made him smile. But it faded when he looked at Harry and Ron.
"Let me guess." Stevenson said. "More tests?"
"Yes and no." Padma said, which just made Stevenson look confused.
"Shit, is this bad news?" Stevenson asked. "These guys don't look like doctors." He began to panic a little…or a lot. "Oh, no. Am I dying? Are these guys here to say a prayer for me?!"
"Calm down. My name's Harry Potter and this is Ron Weasley. We're with the Auror Department."
"Are those the guys that pray for you when you're dying?" Stevenson asked. He looked like he was about to cry.
Harry sighed.
"You're not dying, genius!" Ron said crossly. "And this has nothing to do with religion. Harry's got to ask you some questions."
Just one question, Harry thought.
"Okay."
Harry Potter breathed in. He felt stupid…but it was lovely in comparison to what he was about to feel. "Stevenson, what was the score?"
[2]
What he knew later, he didn't know then.
A couple years after the Equalist War had ended, an Egyptian woman named Rahi Taleb made the news all across the Wizarding World. She was a 79-year-old researcher with the EGMP who made it her life's mission to bring back memories to those whom had them stolen away.
She'd lived her whole life in 10th of Ramadan, a part of Greater Cairo. The hospital where she worked was called (and the Dursleys might get a kick out of this one…though it might come with a good dose of guilt as well) Saint Brutus' Secure Centre, named after one of its kind founders.
Four years after the War, Taleb discovered what she had known all her life: outside of external damage to the brain, memories could never be erased. The use of a Memory Charm, all it amounted to was a phenomenon similar to a child's mental repression of abuse. All the charm could do was lock them away. A strong, lock, a terrible lock; but only a lock. The memories were always there. So, how to get them out?
One option was torture. Tom Riddle, after all, broke through Bertha Jorkin's Memory Charm through Cruciatus. That obviously couldn't be done at an official institution full of people either ethical or afraid of going to Azkaban for the rest of their lives.
Rahi Taleb invented her own spell, the Recollection Charm or Cogniza, sometime in 2010. It worked somewhat, but the effect was limited. Instead of remembering nothing, the victim may recall some details, but usually too vague or general to be of use. Still, it was either that or nothing, so many medical wizards and witches began to use the charm. In Stevenson's case, after Padma cast Cogniza on him, he remembered a "red dress" and a then eventually "a bar," but didn't know the who, what, when, where or why of either.
Taleb continued research and she eventually discovered that key words, along with Cogniza, resulted in a dramatic and sometimes near instant recall of hidden memories. She discovered this when she told a Sudanese man, as a joke, "My how much you've grown" when he hadn't really grown much at all in the five years she'd known him. His eyes glazed over and he sang aloud, "Such a shame you'll die alone." It hadn't been a threat toward her. The Sudanese man, another Muggle, had remembered he'd been listening to a song about Legend of Zelda on Youtube when someone broke in and stole all his belongings.
Taleb called this phenomenon "pulling the loose thread."
[3]
All Harry knew then was exactly what he knew then. And it was that a look of strange realization washed over Stevenson's face. One hand dropped the book and the other dropped the stress ball.
"What?" Harry said, taking a step closer.
The expression of realization became a mask of utter horror.
"Do you remember something—" Harry began. That's as far as he got before Stevenson punched him in the face.
Padma cried out, backing up until she hit the wall.
Ron pulled out his own wand. Stevenson came forward and swatted it away, tackling Ron at the same time. They hit the ground hard.
"You fucking mages!" Stevenson spat. His eyes were wide, feverish, crying.
Padma opened the door and called for security.
"Get off me!" Ron yelled.
Stevenson started wailing on him. Ron blocked some of them, struck at Stevenson himself when he had an opening.
"Piece of shit! You won't take me back! I'll never go back!"
Harry pulled out his wand and struck Stevenson with Body Bind. His arms and legs snapped together and Ron roughly shoved him off. The two Aurors stood up. Stevenson had given Harry a cut lip, and it felt like he'd actually loosened one of his teeth. Ron bled from his nose but stated that it wasn't broken. Padma gave Ron a healing spell while Harry took care of himself.
Of course, security arrived now, two large men with bald heads, their wands already drawn.
"It's taken care of." Padma told them. "Wait by the door in case anything else happens."
"You sure?" one of them asked. Considering the scene, Harry understood the caution.
The door was closed. Stevenson lay face down on the floor. Harry turned him over. He was still hurling obscenities and insults at them. Harry had a fleeting thought of Alisha Corse, the Equalist kidnapper who had done much the same thing.
"Calm down, mate." Harry said. "We're not here to hurt you."
"Oh my God." Stevenson actually laughed, exasperated. "Hit the road, asshole. I've heard that song and dance before."
"From who?" Harry asked.
"Don't act like you don't know!" Stevenson shouted. Hot tears ran down his face. "It was some bitch with a box of wands! She was a mage just like you guys!"
"His memories…" Padma began.
Harry nodded to her. "They're back."
[4]
Not all at once, though. It took around ten minutes just to calm the man down long enough to talk. Even countering the Body Bind off of him, Harry, Ron and Padma had their wands drawn at all times. It was a long, agonizing hour in that patient room. Stevenson remembered the box of wands, being handed one after the other, the most vividly. She still can't picture the woman too clearly, so Harry asks him to walk back a little bit. What about before the basement?
So all three of them listened. Ron took the notes. Harry usually took the notes, but Ron was sharp enough. And Harry couldn't help but become increasingly concerned about the weight in his stomach. Where the hell was it coming from?
His name was Samuel Art Stevenson. He was born in the US, in Michigan. He had a decent amount of money. He was in the UK on a business trip for Google, him and another person, Sunderland. He and Sonny, as Sam called him, had gone to some bar in London. He couldn't remember the name of it. They had a few drinks. Well…in Sam's case, he had a few too many. Sonny left with a sexy Indian lady (Padma smirked ruefully at this point) and forgot to split the tab on the way out, leaving Stevenson with all of it, 60 bucks. The two of them liked the expensive shit. Now, 60 dollars of US wasn't a lot but it was the principle of the matter. It just didn't seem fair that Sonny was getting laid again while Sam wasn't getting laid again. That's part of the reason he'd wanted to go on this business trip. He thought there'd be more women in England who wanted a one-night stand.
You're an actual piece of shit, Sammy Boy. Harry thought. He glanced at Ron, who seemed disgusted enough that he'd say it aloud. A look from Harry silenced him.
So poor Sammy Boy was sitting at a booth by his lonesome, drinking and feeling bad for himself, wondering why women weren't shooting each other in the streets trying to get to him. Then, all of a sudden, a woman in a red dress does appear, sitting across from him. Stevenson thought that perhaps he'd seen her sitting by herself when he and Bobby first entered the bar, but he wasn't sure. She's got black hair…or maybe a very dark brown; hard to tell with bars, you know? Damn places are so dark, if you wore a black shirt, you'd look like a floating head and two hands from a distance. Anyway, the lady is of basically of medium build, cheeks full without being chubby. Her hair is done up in a ponytail with a single-braid, and Stevenson saw there was some gray in there, just like there was gray in the hair of Harry, and Ron and Padma. So he was guessing maybe 40s. Oh, she had a big nose too.
"Big nose?" Harry asked, his voice had seemed to lose all strength, so much that Stevenson told him to repeat himself. He did.
Yeah, a big nose. Not tall, like Cleopatra, but long, so if you kissed her wrong, you might lose an eye.
Harry swallowed hard. It was like choking down a whole orange. He didn't know if Ron or Padma noticed.
So this woman sits down across from him. She says hi and so does Stevenson. She says her name is Mary, which Stevenson now didn't think was true. They trade some small talk bullshit, and he notices she's being awkward, kind of fidgeting a little bit. He asks her what's up and she says she's just nervous, meeting someone like this. Stevenson asks meeting someone like what. She explains herself. She's got kids. She's got a husband. While they do love each other, the marriage is quite open and flexible. They're a rich couple. They're away from one another, on business trips, all the time. Sometimes they just needed to "take the edge off." That's how she describes it, like the way Stevenson would smoke a blunt just after work.
So Stevenson's hearing this and his whole body feels like it's going to burst into flames at any point. He's sweating not only buckets but whole rivers, and his chest is pounding. Today is the day after all.
There's a bit more banter, more flirting. At some point, she takes his hand and his body temp seems to rise even more, as if that was possible. She asks him about him about how many times he's done it. He says none. It's easier not to lie. She says, "That can change." His imagination runs not just wild but completely bonkers.
Then they're outside. Sam is drunk but not plastered. Mary pulls him into an alley. Says she can't wait any longer. She needs to "take the edge off" a little bit. Even as horny and eager and drunk as Stevenson is, he doesn't really want to do anything in a dark alley where someone could walk by and see them. He agrees anyway, and a flash of red light is the last thing he remembers before the basement. She did some magic thing where she made silver animals come out of her wand. It was a raven, but not just one…
"It was a flock?" Harry asked. Stevenson said that yes it was.
Ron looked at his best friend with growing concern. "Mate, you all right?"
He somehow managed to speak. "Yeah. Just keep taking notes."
Harry wasn't at all all right. He felt like he was about to topple over. Wouldn't that be a wonderful story for Padma to tell her sister?
"Sure thing." Ron said. "What about the score? Harry asked you something about that. Was Mary keeping a score or tally of something during these 'tests'?"
Stevenson shook his head. "Nothing like that."
He closed his eyes and put a hand to his head.
"Don't force yourself to remember, Sam." Padma said. "The memories will come when they come."
Harry thought: Please don't answer.
Stevenson raised his head. His eyes and mouth opened with newfound knowledge. "Her dress! It was her dress."
"A score for her dress?" Ron asked, completely confused.
"Yeah, when we were in the bar. I think she said she likes to wear green, but she was wearing a red dress for once to try it out. She wanted to know if I liked it. She wanted to know if it was a 9 out of 10."
