Chapter 12: Memory Games

A group of girls stood in the middle of the Beauxbatons common room, surrounded by the elegant finery of lavender sofas and arched windows gilded in gold. The scent of vanilla filled the air along with the lithe tones of a harp, but the best part of all was the brand new cappuccino machine surrounded by plates of macaroons. These were the reasons this dorm was the #2 hangout place, after the Durmstrang dorms. Those were popular because the men were often shirtless.

"Rock, scissors, paper!" the girls cried.

"Oh darn, looks like I'm out of the running," said Daphne Greengrass, while mentally high-fiving herself. She'd only participated in this challenge so no one would suspect who she really wanted to ask to the dance.

"Looks like it's between you and me, Ginny," said Romilda.

"May the best Gryffindor win," her friend replied. "Rock, scissors, paper!"

They threw out their hands, and Romilda cackled wildly.

"Yes!" she cried. "Dmitri Novak, you're mine!"

Ginny sighed with annoyance. "Well, great, that's the last Durmstrang candidate. Who else is left?"

Marguerite, lounging on the couch, raised her hand to call the coffee cart. "There's a few boys from Beauxbatons still unclaimed."

"Do they have cool tattoos, and ride tigers for sport?" asked Ginny.

Marguerite sighed, and helped herself to macaroons. "You're right, our boys simply don't compare."

In a corner of the room, a monotone voice emerged from behind a book. "It doesn't make any sense why you're doing this. The Yule ball hasn't even been announced yet."

"Oh my god, Padma," said Parvati, who was huddled on the floor with Lavender pouring over a moon chart. "First of all, quit being a creepy eavesdropper. Second of all, I told you, the stars said there will be a Yule ball. We've got to act now to get the good ones, because later it's open season."

"It's not eavesdropping, it's people watching," said Padma, her expression neutral. "And usually, one asks the intended if they're interested, especially since there's no reason your friends will hold to their promises."

"Well, unlike you," sneered Romilda. "We actually have loyalty—"

Ginny cut her off. "Romilda, dear, let's be nice to Padma. We should keep this a warm, safe space that's comfortable for everyone." Then, under her breath, so Padma couldn't hear. "Besides, if you ignore her, she shuts up."

Daphne was well aware of the rules of social hierarchy. She was a Slytherin, after all. In Gryffindor, Ginny and her friends were at the top, because they used their assets to make friends and destroy their enemies. Padma, on the other hand, couldn't care less about those things, which was why she was at the bottom.

That was also why Daphne could never, ever let her secret crush get out.

"Anyway, let's see," said Ginny, pursing her lips. "I suppose there's a few decent options in Gryffindor, but I'm bored of them, honestly."

"Oh, I've an idea," suggested Parvati. "How about the duelling champions? Cedric is quite handsome, and Neville isn't bad to look at either."

Susan Bones, who had won the right to ask out a Durmstrang boy and was in a helpful mood, said enthusiastically, "Oh, they both have six packs! No tigers, unfortunately."

Daphne laughed riotously. "Hufflepuff boys! Don't be silly! Who dates Hufflepuffs?"

Real smooth, Daphne, she thought, her face turning crimson. And you call yourself Slytherin.

"Well, Slytherins don't, that's for sure," said Ginny. "Who do you suggest, Marguerite?"

Marguerite sipped her coffee. "Well," she said, smiling like a Cheshire cat. "As a Veela, I can get any man I want, which means I don't particularly want anyone. However, there is a boy you haven't considered yet, who is a decent catch."

Daphne considered this. It couldn't be any of the boys in Slytherin, there were almost none she'd term "decent." She mentally sifted through the boys in Ravenclaw. "Anthony Goldstein?"

"Nope," said Marguerite.

"Michael Corner?" asked Ginny.

"The boy in question is not in Ravenclaw," said Marguerite.

"Ron Weasley?" asked Lavender.

"Eww, that's my brother," said Ginny.

"It's Dean Thomas," answered Marguerite, letting that suggestion hang in the air.

"Huh," said Romilda, after a moment of silence. "He's not really my type, but you might be on to something."

"Yeah," said Ginny. "I always thought of him as like a pair with Seamus, but when you think of him alone..."

"Imagine if he's like, getting out his art stuff, and asking to paint you," said Susan, cupping her chin in her hands.

Even Daphne could admit, it wouldn't be half bad. It was almost as good as the guy in Durmstrang who could play Weird Sisters on the guitar.

"Well then," said Ginny. "I'd ask him out. Anyone else want in?"

A few other girls joined the group, enough that Daphne felt safe to decline. Just as they were about to start, Padma approached from her sheltered corner of the room. Parvati rolled her eyes. "Alright, seriously, I know you're not interested. Get lost."

If that happened to Daphne, she would have retreated in shame, but Padma shrugged nonchalantly. "I'm just here to save him from you idiots."

Ginny declared that all could participate, and that was the end of that. "Alright everyone! Rock, scissors…"

Suddenly, Lavender Brown leapt to her feet, letting out a blood curdling screech that made Daphne's hair stand on end. Ginny swore violently, drawing her wand. That sort of thing belonged in horror movies, and it only got worse when her voice rose into a shout.

"I'm…doomed!" she cried, and fainted into the arms of Parvati.


The problem was memory.

Hermione and Harry had met up that weekend to start their research. They determined that their first step would be to find a spell that imitated the effect of a search and retrieve system. For example, in a series of multi coloured objects, the spell should be able to identify the one with the colour "white." After copious amounts of research, by the end of the day, they had a short list of spells they'd decided to try.

And on Saturday morning, they got one of them to work.

Sort of.

"Alright," said Hermione, pointing her wand at the blue stuffed animal. "I've coded it into the spell's database. Ready to test?"

Harry nodded, and pointed his wand. "Identificus,"

"Blue stuffed animal," said Hermione's voice, which they'd coded into the spell.

"Identificus," said Harry, pointing at another object.

"White stuffed animal," said Hermione's voice.

He tried it with the next three, and it worked, until he got to the sixth one.

"Identificus," said Harry.

The spell did nothing.

Harry tried again two more times. Nothing.

They tried the experiment using six red items and two blue ones. Each was identified. They tried it with fifteen animals of five different colours. Again, no problems. It was only when they started to add more than five items of different colours that the spell seemed to start forgetting things.

"Identificus," said Harry, pointing to a red stuffed animal.

"Blue stuffed animal," said Hermione's voice.

"Well…" said Hermione, shrugging. "At least it knows it's a stuffed animal now."

Harry got out his notebook and scribbled something down. "I think I might know why this isn't working," he said. "But just so you know, it's going to sound bizarre."

Hermione smiled a little. "Most magical theory is."

"Alright, so, I can't remember where I read this, but it said that humans have a vast potential for long term memory storage, but a really small amount of space for short term memory. If you tell a person a series of 10 random things, they are likely to start forgetting things about halfway through the list."

"So, you're thinking that it's running in short term memory mode, and that's why it can't hold more information?"

Harry shrugged. "It's possible. Magical theory fails sanity checks on multiple levels, after all. So at this point, nothing surprises me."

"Well, I don't know, I kind of like your idea," said Hermione, flipping through their notes on the spell. "Anyway, did you know there's theories that memory is strengthened through both intense emotion and sleeping? We'd better research those too."

Harry looked at Hermione, who was poorly concealing her grin. "Brilliant idea," he said. "What do you think, should we put our spell to sleep with a nightmare jinx? That's a two for one, emotion and slumber."

"Oh nice, I'll add it to the top of my research list," said Hermione, then headed for their piles of study materials. She plopped into one of Harry's library chairs, kicking her legs up under her and snuggling into the cushions. Harry gathered his note taking materials, then came to sit down beside her. She was already happily flipping through a book on charms.

"Well, I must say," said Harry, settling in with his book. "We haven't made much progress yet, but you seem to be enjoying yourself."

"Oh, but this is fun," said Hermione. "Books, research, analysing stuff."

Hermione let out an exaggerated contented sigh, which made Harry smile. Working with Hermione was easy. He liked having a competent research partner to bounce ideas off of. And while original magical research often ended in frustration and unanswered questions, having Hermione around made failure almost fun.

He felt this was the way things were meant to be. Harry and Hermione, research partners. He leaned forwards, elbows against his knees. "We should have a research team name."

"Harmony," said Hermione, and in answer to Harry's questioning look, "It's a portmanteau of our names. Or we could…umm…go with H Squared or something."

"How about Double Helix?" said Harry. "Though my personal favourite is Full Bridge Rectifier."

"What is that?" asked Hermione.

"It's an electrical energy converter. AC to DC. But in this case, it just means we're rectifying this place up. Showing magic who's the boss."

She smiled, and said like a commercial sales pitch. "We're rectifying ignorance, one spell at a time."

Oh, I like her, said Ravenclaw.

They went on with their research for a while, until there came a solemn knocking on the door.

"Enter," said Harry.

The Weasley twins entered the room, nervous but determined.

"Harry, we have a situation and we need your help."

Harry sighed and stood up. "I'll be back soon, I hope," he said. "Don't solve the entire problem without me. That's cheating."

Hermione just smiled and waved at him as he left.


Hermione sat in the library, turning the page to her book, and feeling annoyed.

It wasn't that Harry hadn't contacted her for over 24 hours, since running off with the Weasleys. She'd sort of expected that.

It wasn't even the fact that her mum and dad had sent her a ten page letter describing their vacation, the one she hadn't had time to go on.

The problem was that people were invading her sacred space.

Hermione had always liked the library, for many reasons. For one, she was within convenient access to a wide variety of books. Reading in the library was much more convenient than going through the process of checking the books out, carrying them to her room, and returning them. For another, it was quiet, unlike most places in Hogwarts. The students were so terrified of the librarian that one intimidating glare was enough to strangle them into silence.

But that all changed, once Boris Krum had started passing his time in the library.

This same routine had been going on the last five days. He would sit down at the table across from hers, pull out a book, and begin to "read." Every time her head would turn in his general direction, his eyes would snap up from the page. He never talked, never smiled or tried to get her attention, other than the hesitant, forlorn looks in her direction that seemed to imply he was waiting for her to make the first move.

Hermione didn't know how to handle the situation. It was sort of sweet that he seemed to care so much, but mostly it just creeped her out.

The main problem wasn't him, though, but the hordes of Hogwarts students following him around. They would titter and giggle, and even if she cast a quieting charm (which she shouldn't have to do in the library) she could still see them flailing around in her peripheral vision. The librarian would level on them her sternest glare, and the students would quiet down and fade into the background. Then a few minutes later, Krum would raise his right pinky or something and they would start flailing again.

Finally, she'd had enough. She packed up her things and walked the long way around to go to the librarian, where she checked out her books (sigh) and walked back to the dorms. On the way, her Auror mirror chimed. She checked and saw Director Bones' stern face declaring, "We have a trainee Auror meeting in 30 minutes. You will all report in room 209 C near the potions classroom. Mentor Aurors, you are also required to attend. End transmission."

Hermione slowly put away her mirror, walking in a daze back to her room. She'd forgotten about the meeting, and she needed to change her robes and fix her hair. Madam Bones had been commenting on people not appearing "professional" lately.

What Hermione really wanted to do was use the time turner and go back in time for an hour or two. But, these meetings were like band-aids, it was better to just rip them off to get it over with.

As Hermione walked to the meeting area, she fell into step with the Aurors Crell and Mott. After a few moments of tense silence, she said, "Hello."

They nodded their heads in response, and that was the end of their conversation.

When they arrived outside room 209 C, Hermione was surprised to see Cedric Diggory waiting outside, hands stuffed uncomfortably in his pockets.

"Ahh, hello!" he greeted. "I'm Cedric Diggory, and I'm—"

"Trainee," said Auror Crell, nodding.

"Oh, yes, I'm the new trainee. It's very—"

"Nice to meet you," said Auror Crell, shaking Cedric Diggory's hand firmly. Then the Auror and trainee went inside, black robes swirling behind them.

Cedric shrugged, and then turned to Hermione. "I just found out I got accepted today. I didn't enter the Tri-Wizard competition because I knew I might get chosen, and I was worried I'd been passed over. I've been looking forward to this for so long, and I'm really excited to be working with you."

Hermione held out her hand, and Cedric shook it. "I'm excited to be working with you too. Welcome to the team, Cedric!"

"Eyy, Cedric," said a voice behind her, as Tonks came up and clapped him on the back. "Hufflepuffs in the hoouuuse!" He laughed, and she gave him a high five. "Congratulations, housemate, you finally made it. Excited?"

"Absolutely!" he said, and Hermione noticed his cheeks had flushed pink. It reminded her of how excited and scared she'd been, all those years ago.

"Come on," said Tonks. "Let's get inside before Madam Bones yells at me again. I hope you brought your duelling shoes, because it's time to dance, baby."

As Tonks had predicted, there was duelling. A lot of duelling.

But first, there were introductions. And next, lectures about how all the Aurors needed to stop slacking off on their training. Hermione supposed she deserved that, since she hadn't trained seriously since arriving at Hogwarts.

What wasn't earned, however, was the constant nit-picking from Madam Bones about her fighting style. She didn't say it in front of everyone, but would instead whisper in her ear, or move her wand to show her what to do. It made Hermione feel like she was a 1st year, and it was causing her to make the mistakes of one, too.

"Foot to the right, Hermione, I've said it countless times. Just because you're tough doesn't mean you can't learn proper defensive form."

Hermione did the move she'd done correctly countless times, Madam Bones inspecting her every movement.

"It's one, two, two," said Madam Bones. "I said one, two, two." Madam Bones grabbed her hand and led her through the motions. "Count. One, two, two."

Hermione didn't understand why she was being hovered over, considering they had a brand new trainee in need of guidance. When Madam Bones finally left to inspect Cedric's progress, Hermione breathed a sigh of relief. She saw Auror Tonks looking on with sympathy.

At the end of the practice session, they were all informed that they would be required to submit weekly logs of their mandatory training hours and have them signed by Auror Lee.

"Unbelievable," said Tonks, shaking her head. "She doesn't trust us at all. And the way she was treating you today, Hermione," she huffed a sigh. "I understand about the testing period, but seriously, what is wrong with her?"

"Something seemed off about her today," said Hermione. "Either that or she just…really hates me." Hermione bit her lip to keep it from trembling.

"Don't worry about her too much. I don't." Tonks put an arm around Hermione's back, whispering conspiratorially, "You should ask for a new mentor."

Hermione felt her stomach clench. "And embarrass her in front of everyone? She'd sooner kick me out." They walked on in silence for a few moments. "How did you deal with Mad Eye when he was being crazy?"

"Well…" said Tonks, shrugging. "It wasn't so bad. He's the same sort of crazy as me, so even if I didn't like what he was doing, I could still understand it. Sometimes he still puts me through tests, like that time he locked me in a box for a week. I technically won't have graduated from his mentorship training until I'm at least 30."

As was the case with Aurors, they continued to train after their initiation, and would climb the ranks from Rookie, Junior, Senior, and Executive. Each level required new training, several years of experience as well as an exceptional demonstration of skill (like, for example, capturing a dark lord).

Tonks was a Junior, and Hermione had the privileged rank of "Not Quite a Rookie Yet."

"Hey Cedric," said Tonks, calling to the Hufflepuff tagging along behind them. "Want to go to Hogsmeade and celebrate?"

"Yeah, sounds like fun," said Cedric. "Mind if I bring some friends? Like…maybe around 30?"

"Ha ha! The more the merrier, Cedric," said Tonks. "Hermione, you ought to come too."

"Of course," said Hermione, glancing at her Auror mirror. She hoped Harry was okay, wherever he was.


The Leaky Cauldron, Diagon Alley, October 20th

Paul Johnson stared into the amber depths of his third mug of beer. In his opinion, nothing was better than a cold pint. He certainly needed it today, now that his third job interview that month had come to nothing.

"See, you know you don't got the job when they're tight lipped as y'leave," he rambled to the man on a nearby barstool. "Giving you the squinty eye. I thought I might've got a chance at the last one, but then they asked for a background check." He sighed, taking a swig of his beer. "Soon as they saw the results, I was escorted out the door."

"What you're describing is discrimination," said the man beside him. "Plain and simple."

"Exactly, thank you!" cried Paul, sloshing his beer. "Nobody gets it. They see what I am, not who I am. I'm plenty qualified for the position, and I'd make a damn fine Floo inspector if someone would give me a chance." He scowled, draining his beer and ordering another. "See, this is what's wrong with society. They deny people legitimate employment, then they act surprised when half that population turns to crime or abusing the welfare system to survive. And they call us monsters."

"You're exactly right," agreed the man. "And for the record, I'd hire you as a Floo inspector."

"Thanks, mate," said Paul. He leaned forwards, whispering conspiratorially. "You know how in the Quibbler they keep saying that magic is dying and the world is gonna end? Well, I say, good riddance! The world's damned itself already. You got decent, hardworking people who can't pay the bills, while those rich pure bloods hog all the money and power for themselves. My brother lives in Russia, and he said he hates England for keeping the magical world behind the times. We don't even get elections for the Wizengamot like the Muggles do! How in Merlin's name are we supposed to get our voice heard?"

The man nodded. "I know exactly what you mean. Fortunately, there's another people who feel the same way." He stood to leave, shaking Paul's hand. "Let me know if you want to do something about it."

The man walked out of the pub, and Paul peered into his hand. It contained a white business card that showed a timer. It was counting down.