Watch the mind run far away
Way ahead of us
And everything that will be and was
Here and now
Ásgeir - "In The Silence"
"Mione, you've got to relax."
Hermione scowled fiercely over her shoulder as she sweated over the hob. She had a frying pan full of sizzling bacon, sausage, and a saucepan of baked beans warming. There was a pot of boiling water in which she had carefully slid several eggs to poach. Into a skillet she slid halved mushrooms and tomatoes to begin sauteeing.
"My parents will be here any minute!" she exclaimed, wiping sweat from her brow with one forearm.
She couldn't see him, but she knew Ronald was rolling his eyes at her.
"You know anything you make will be fine. I'd bet they'd be just as happy with a plate of flatcakes, rather than having you stress yourself out making a full English with all the trimmings."
"My dad loves a full English…" she said by way of explanation. It was something she treasured growing up. They always had a big breakfast after church on Sundays, but once a month her mother fried up a full English breakfast with all of her father's favourites. For the past year, she and Harry hadn't had the money nor the supplies to make elaborate meals like this, but every sunday without fail, Hermione did her best to make them a decent breakfast. They had traded off cooking dinner in the evenings, but breakfast was entirely Hermione's domain if they had anything more than toast or porridge, that is.
She had spent all morning prepping the food to make her father his favourite meal; a tangible sign that she cared about him. That she had never stopped thinking about them once in all the years that they'd been gone.
"'Course he does; who doesn't? But I doubt your parents are going to wash their hands of you because of brunch, is what I'm saying."
Hermione sighed. "Ron, you don't understand. I know you're probably right, but you don't know how it feels to have to prove yourself worthy of your parents' affections. At this point, anything could be the thing that makes them decide it's not worth it. I need to let them know I'm serious. They need to know that I…" she let out a shaky exhale. "Right now everything is a test and I cannot fail. Make the tea, would you?"
Ronald set about preparing the tea and then all too soon there came a knocking on the apartment door.
Ron, the angel, met her parents at the entrance.
"Hello! How was church? Mione and I would have gone, only I needed a bit of a break if I'm honest, and Hermione has spent all morning preparing for breakfast," he took their jackets and hung them on a built-in hook by the front door. "Hullo, little man," he crouched down to greet the toddler - her brother, "May I take your coat? Are you hungry?"
She looked up to see Hugo nodding shyly as her mother helped him out of his jacket.
"Is that a fry-up I smell?" her father asked, inhaling deeply.
Hermione gave a small, nervous smile. "That's right! I had to search around a little for the black pudding, but I found it. Bacon, sausage, eggs, beans… I was just about to have Ron toast some bread for us."
"Hermione," her mother said, impressed, "you really didn't have to go to all this trouble!"
Hermione shrugged, stirring the vegetables before reaching for a slotted spoon to fish out the poached eggs. "That's all right, I don't mind." She didn't deny that it was an effort. She wanted her mother to know that she would go to an effort for them. She would do anything if it meant her family was safe and well, and had. Now she had to prove what she would do to get them back.
"Are there any scrambled eggs? Only, Hugo won't eat anything but scrambled."
Hermione froze. "Oh, um. No, I didn't scramble any. So sorry, I didn't even think to ask. I'll do one up now," she offered. She pictured her mother pursing her lips disapprovingly inside her mind, mentally giving her a strike. How could she forget about Hugo? 'Oh, sorry, I don't actually care about this other child you have now. I'm back so he doesn't matter.' Yeah, that will win them right over.
"No, don't bother," her mother replied casually (was it casually?), "Hugo doesn't eat much anyway."
"Two apiece?" Ron asked, breaking the tension as he pulled out the loaf of bread.
"Yes please," replied her father as he and Hugo took their seats at the dining table.
The flat had actually come with a table, but it had only boasted two chairs and Hermione was once again thankful they had brought the tent with all its furnishings.
They may be cheap and common by wizarding standards, but they weren't factory-made, particleboard, IKEA flat-packs like what had been here when they'd arrived.
And there chairs to fit the whole Weasley family if the table were stretched.
"Do you need any help?" Simone asked, coming to stand by Hermione who shook her head, grinning a little manically.
"No, that's all right, it's mostly done now." With a flick of her wand, the food levitated over to the table, already made with place settings.
"Whoa!" Hugo squealed, giggling in delight and clapping his hands. Hermione grinned.
"That's incredible," her father admitted with a little awe.
Hermione blushed. "It's first-year stuff," she said modestly as she took her seat.
Ron joined them a moment later with a plate of toast that got passed around as each of them loaded up their plates. Hermione was starving after being up for so long, but she knew the knot in her stomach wouldn't let her eat a full plate of rich, greasy food. She took an egg and some toast along with a piece of sausage and loaded up on mostly vegetables instead, as Ron and her parents availed themselves of the full spread.
"It's absolutely delicious," Winston praised, biting into the blood sausage, Simone cutting Hugo's food into bite-sized pieces. "So, what exactly do you learn at magic school?"
Hermione gave a silent and grateful sigh of relief. "Well…"
Monica opened the door with trepidation to see a short Asian man about her age.
"Mrs. Granger, I presume?"
"Wilkins, actually," she corrected automatically before she stopped to think about it.
"You're not Simone Granger, then?" the man asked, checking his notes.
"No, I -I suppose I am, uh, 'Simone Granger'," she tested out the name as if it were a foreign language but she was unable to make it fit the image she had of herself. "Only, I don't remember being that person. My name is Monica Wilkins. I suppose that's what you're here for… You're a doctor, right? The one Dr. Quicke recommended?" she stepped aside to let the man in and took his hat when he handed it to her.
"The proper term is actually 'healer', for wizards, but yes, I'm healer Huynh. I specialise in memory alteration," he explained as he toed off his shoes.
Monica gestured for him to take a seat on the wide reclining chair while she took the seat next to Wendell on the sofa.
"Now, Healer Quicke's notes say you've had these false memories in place for ...three years? That your daughter altered them? Do you know anything about that?"
"Hermione; that's our, uh… our daughter. We met her for the first time just the other day. She erased our memory of her and of our lives back in England. She said our names were Winston and Simone Granger but we have no memory of that life," Wendell looked to her for verification and she nodded before he continued.
"As far as we are aware, neither of us have any living family around. We didn't really have anything keeping us in England and we'd been discussing moving here for some time, so we just… went."
"My memory of before that is a bit fuzzy," Monica contributed. "I know facts about my life and I can answer questions, but they're like book notes. I can't see what actually happened. I know my parents died in a car crash ten years ago, but I can't remember their funeral very clearly. These last few days I've tried remembering things from Before, but my mind just seems to… slide away. I never noticed that until these last few days."
Wendell nodded, "Yeah, me too. Like trying to remember a dream."
Healer Huynh was writing down notes as they spoke. "Yes that sounds like classic memory alteration. I'll bet the facts you remember for certain are the ones that your daughter specifically planted. Details around those things, your imagination takes over and creates memories that it knows should be there, vague as they may be, while other events are simply gone - poof! Thankfully, it sounds like there definitely are memories there, only your minds keep shying away from them. If they were truly erased as I had feared then there wouldn't be anything there at all.
"So first what I'm going to want you to do is start going by your real names. I know those names don't sound right to you now; in fact, you might instinctively cringe away from them because of the magic at work, so it might help to think of it as make-pretend. Imagine you're actors playing the characters of Winston and Simone Granger. It might be hard to put this into effect at work but if you can manage it, I'd definitely recommend doing so. If not, that's all right, but try to make an effort to use those names with each other. Say, 'Winston could you pass the salt?' etcetera. Wear nametags if you need to.
"I'd also recommend looking at any old pictures you have. Talk with your daughter about past events; vacations you've taken, holidays you've celebrated. Make sure you ask about any family members that you may have forgotten about. If you have parents, siblings, cousins, even friends out there, get in contact with them. Any links to your old life will help break down the blocks in your mind."
"We had brunch with Hermione yesterday," Wendell offered.
Healer Huynh nodded encouragingly. "Good! Keep that up. But you want to try to extend past just your daughter. What you need to do is clear up any lingering doubt about your true identity. As long as you're just taking her word for it, there may always be a part of you that just doesn't believe. If you can fill in as much of those blank spaces as possible - or better yet, if you can disprove those certain facts you have about yourselves outright, you'll have a better chance of recalling your true memories."
"It won't make us go mad or anything?" Monica asked worriedly.
"That's what I'm here for. I'll be here to help cement those facts into your psyches and untangle the planted memories from the real ones. You might experience some confusion and probably some headaches in the meantime from the mental strain, but I'll make sure there's no permanent damage."
"And we wont forget the last three years?"
"No, no," Healer Huynh denied. "That would have been the easy road," he explained. "We would have erased everything you remember now and then unblock the walls that were put up in your minds. Everything clean and simple. Instead what we're going to do is dismantle those false memories one by one without touching the new ones that you've made in the meantime while we unblock the ones that have been suppressed. That's where it gets tricky. If I just remove the block, you'll have thirty-some years of conflicting memories and that very well may make you go mad. So first what I'll do is go in and get rid of the magic cementing the false memories in place, then it will be your jobs to actually disprove them. You won't remember the details right away, but you'll be better able to integrate your real memories later. It will be slow going and frustratingly difficult on your end as we essentially dismantle everything you know about yourselves, but in the end you should have a seamless transition from before to now. How does that sound? Do you think you can do that?"
Monica - Simone, looked at her husband who nodded back, determined.
"Yes," she said with conviction she didn't quite feel yet. "We need to know the truth."