A heavy drop fell on glass. It did not separate - it froze into a dense transparent hemisphere. Perfect! Not a single extraneous thought would be ablate enter the Weasley's empty head. As Granger had planned it. But the Disarming Charm will not work on him. We'll have to get out of here.
I corked the bottle and took it to the pantry. What to do in the remaining hours of the evening? There was nothing to do in the lab. What remains is theory. I can prepare a description of the created drug for the League of Potions. However, that is a pure formality. Slughorn will push through any of my proposals, even if I apply in Chinese, and during the verbal report I dance the pasodoble.
So, I'm writing another article.
"... The principle of simultaneousness was observed throughout all stages of preparation" ...
Oh yes. Granger approached the implementation of the task assigned to her with all of her responsibility.
"…As a result of the modification of the base mental potion, the susceptibility of consciousness to the residual images of memory is activated…"
It's amazing how logical it looks now written on paper. In a year when Lucius was blowing bubbles and mumbling Nursery Rhymes, the solution wasn't as obvious. Until the luck potion pushed me towards it. Not very sporting. But effective. Lucius is now enjoying a ocean view in the company of his caring wife, and I am trying to cash in on the consequences of this story. Well, to each his own.
My pen scratched the paper with a disgusting squeak. How has this not bothered me before?
"…thanks to which a qualitative impact on the deep layers of the mind became possible…"
Influence on the deep layers of the mind ... Individual representatives of the human race are able to exert it without any potion and mental magic - through simple, but tedious sermons. A month without Occlumency. Inefficient. Unusual. Painful. And in addition - a disgusting feeling that I made the wrong decision, that I was not noticing something important.
Withdrawal syndrome. Or, more simply, quitting cold turkey. Like a Muggle addict not getting his drug...
No. Today I'm not writing anything.
I went to the window.
"Homenum revelio".
She is at home.
Granger finally heeded my demands. The curtains completely concealed what was happening in her apartment. An ordinary house. Regular windows. Ordinary curtains...
How could you be neighbors in a Muggle city of eight million? It was ridiculous and incomprehensible. However, this time the case did me a favor.
An invisible knot gently squeezed my wrist, responding to that thought.
"..."I am asking Severus Tobias Snape to help my friend Hermione Jean Granger restore her magical powers, if this task is not associated with a risk to his life, health, heavy sacrifices and actions that he considers unacceptable for himself... I will accept this attempt in payment of the Life Debt".
This evening, either way, it's over. Even if Ollivander is finally out of his mind, and his theory are nonsense. Even if Granger remains a squib. It doesn't matter. The magical contract is fullfilled.
She will be heading to Australia soon. New chores - just what she needs.
Maybe I could also do with a little travel?
I tried to imagine where I would like to be. But all I saw was the sun rising over the Forbidden Forest and the spires of the castle. Another side effect of living without Occlumency? Has Professor Snape forgotten that there are herds and packs of juvenile dunderheads at Hogwarts? Or was his final exit through the window slightly erased from memory?
However, the school had its advantages. For example - the endless corridors. The journey from the dungeons to Albus' office took seven and a half minutes. When he was in a bad mood - four. This was enough time to use speech rather than hiss in the subsequent conversation with the Headmaster.
"Use what you have," Salazar Slytherin advised his students. Today my corridors will be the streets of London.
At first it seemed to me that it was difficult to choose a less successful day for a walk. The wind climbed into the narrow streets, hummed in the wires, howled in the chimneys, bent the trees and rattled the tiles of the roofs. But after a couple of blocks, I liked it. The wind blowing in my face created the illusion of a struggle, offering a clear and understandable goal.
Two teenagers shied away from me, getting in my way. Like the bad old days. Professor Snape rushes through the corridors, instilling fear in immature children's minds.
In front of the park gate, I slowed down. Should I bypass it? However, the alleys are no worse than the streets, and before six in the evening I still have time to wind many miles around the city.
The park was empty and lifeless. The winter lawns were dark with dead grass. Only a restless wind, escaping from the labyrinth of houses, ruffled the trees with special zeal, drove garbage along the paths and rippled the water on the surface of the pond. How did that impossible romanticist write?
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like wither'd leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth
And here is the memorial alley. Here Granger ran into me, successfully solving the problem of our necessary "chance meeting" ... On the corner bench sat a shabby-looking old man. It was too late to turn, so I quickened my pace. The old man watched me approach with benevolent curiosity.
"Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd
One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud".
he suddenly quoted as I passed by.
I stopped.
"Did you say something to me?"
"The wind, I say, is wonderful today," he answered readily. - "The west wind".
The old man's mind succumbed easily to Legilimency.
Annie is waiting for him at home, but he will sit in the park for another half hour ... And this guy has such black eyes and hair, as if they were painted with black mascara. He can play Dracula in a movie with such a face ...
Well, at least it's Dracula. In any case, this is not another visit from my past. I walked on, but the old man spoke again:
"Sit down, young man".
"Thanks, but I'm in a hurry".
"Nobody walks through the park when they're in a hurry. Sit down. You have to be able to stop".
Surprising myself, I sat down on the bench. The wind, delighted with the new victim, dug into my back with sharp needles. I wrapped my coat around myself and turned up the collar.
"Are you a lion tamer?" the old man suddenly asked.
" Why, do I look like one?"
" I had a friend from the circus. He, too, was always looking for a whip with his hand. And these scars are not left to you by a man. So you're still a tamer?"
"No. No lion tamer came out of me".
"It happens," the old man agreed. "Jack didn't mess around with the animals for long either. He said that it was bad for them in the circus and became a magician. He showed me some wonderful magic tricks ... He used to come to visit us and right out of the sleeve - at forty-two! - he'd get out a bouquet of flowers for Annie. Are you into tricks too?"
The conversation was beginning to amuse me.
" You can say that".
"But then you left?"
" Why did I leave? Maybe I'm still ... a magician?"
" No. You yearn for a time without all this pandemonium. You're bored? And you don't want to admit it".
I checked his mind again. Just an ordinary old man. Not a drop of magic. Happy marriage, adult children. There is a tendency to fantasize, memory problems are a common onset of senile dementia. Comes here often. Waiting for someone.
Do I miss it? I remembered Tom and Albus. No. I don't miss it. Predators rarely miss their tamers.
" That's it!" - the old man made his conclusions, - "You're silent, it means that you are yearning for something".
He turned to me, gave me an appraising look, thought.
"What are you doing now? Wait, don't answer. I'll guess! Are you writing a book? That's right, a book!"
" Nearly".
""The book is good," the old man nodded. "It fixes your memory".
I did not want to get up from the bench blown by all the winds. The old man himself was not annoying. But Dumbledoretherapy developed a persistent negative reaction in me.
"Tell me about your magician friend," I suggested.
" Jack? He was a good guy. We knew each other since we wore short trousers. I remember how he climbed a neighboring apple tree ... Well, you are unlikely to be interested in this. He and I studied at different schools. We only saw each other during the holidays. And after that, we were always together. I remember how surprised I was when he started talking about the circus. It always seemed to me that Jack dreamed of serious things: power, money, saving the world ... And he went the circus, on the road. And he did it so well. Others fight since childhood - and all to no avail; and Jack, after a couple of weeks, began to enter tiger's cages. And the tricks - the audience gasped ..."
"How many times had he put his shoulder on mine. Yes, and I told him, what is there. Annie didn't exactly dislike him, but she didn't particularly like him. Especially after one day he and I bar hopped so well ... She's strict with me, little Annie ... Yes. And in the summer we usually played chess. On this bench here. And here I was not inferior to him ... He himself married late. Betty marinated him for a long time. It seems like he gave her some kind of word, but she still didn't believe him. Well, then they got it right. They lived nearby... before. It's a strange story".
The old man took a checkered handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his watery eyes.
"What are you going to tell me? That this old man went nuts in his old age - that's all! I don't trust myself right now. I remember visiting them that evening. Jack was sorting through his old photos. We were joking. Remembering old times. And in the morning I received a letter. 'We are leaving, do not remember us'. I couldn't write to them. I went straight to them, but the house was gone. Right - yes, left - yes. And in the middle - nothing. Not even an empty space. Nothing. And a week later I lost the street it was on… I don't remember, and that's it! Annie looks away, shakes her head, and in her eyes there is fear, as if I had gone crazy! The doctors said it happens sometimes. Some tablets were prescribed to me. Only… there is something else here. I remember Tennyson's poetry as I remembered it at school. I can repeat my bank statements up to the figure. And the house is gone. I already began to think - did MI6 do something here? Or someone like these," the old man looked at my clothes, "men in black…"
I had no idea about MI6 and the "men in black", but what my interlocutor described fit well with the familiar scheme ...
"Jack disappeared in 1995—1997?"
The old man straightened up and carefully leaned back on the bench.
"June 1995. Does that say something to you?"
" Maybe".
" Frankie! Where are you! I'm starting to worry!"
From the side of the main alley, a breathless elderly woman ran up to the bench. The old man put his head in his shoulders and muttered:
"What are you thinking, Annie. What can happen to me?"
"Go home! Do you want pneumonia? Get up immediately. You must've hurt your back ..."
Frank cautiously got up, leaning on his cane.
"I am here almost every day. If you ever find out about Jack..."
"I'll try," I promised unexpectedly.
"Good luck, young man! A good book will come out of you, I think", - he waved his hand at me and, limping heavily, went to the edge of the park.
His wife touched my sleeve with her fingers and said in a low voice:
" Forgive him, sir. He is ill. Thanks for talking with him. He usually avoids people".
She smiled guiltily and hurried after her husband. And I was left to think about the relativity of age, circus directors, Muggle-born wizards and the Fidelius Charm.
Percy Bysshe Shelley "Ode to the West Wind"