I never meant to make you people cry…jeez.

The next part of this story will be called Memories of the Heart. The title was suggested by Inner Cameron! Congrats!

By the way, seeing as none of you found the RJA allusion, this chapter is dedicated to (drumroll please) ME! Yay, IBG-chan! I may as well tell you the song and stuff…The song was Cat and Mouse, by the Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. Look up the lyrics, and then go look at the chapter, again. Happy face! You should listen to the song, too. It's absolutely beautiful.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed! We successfully reached—and went beyond—150 reviews! Today, I'm not going to specifically thank anyone…too lazy. Please read on and enjoy!

(As a side note, I'm experimenting with how I'm going to write this story. I really want to write the sequel in shifting points of view—a different pov per chapter, not paragraph. This is in Meg's pov. Do you guys like it, or should I stick to an omniscient narrator?)

Hogwarts Graduation. A time that was supposed to be filled with joy, and maybe some disappointment that it was over…

I didn't really care. I had no home to go to, since my parents were dead. The Weasley's had told me that I could stay with them this summer, as I was supposedly a 'friend' of Ginny and Ron. Whoop-di-doo. I wasn't sure if I really wanted to, but unless I could figure something out, it looked like that was the only option.

Speaking of my so-called 'friends', Harry, Hermione, and Ron all looked incredibly excited. Probably by the fact that they were finally getting out of here.

Like most things about Hogwarts, the graduation is remarkably low-key. There's not a formal assembly, no boring valedictorian speech, or anything like that. We all stood wherever we wanted to. So here I was, sandwiched between Ginny and Patricia Edwards, listening to a boring speech from McGonagall about how much our generation would be missed.

Uh-huh. I'm sure.

Patricia looked equally bored. I considered talking to her, but she wasn't one of my 'friends', so I decided against it.

My 'friends'. I should really get some real ones. I don't have anything against them, but whenever I hung out with them, I tended to feel a bit like a fifth-wheel. Not that it was even their fault. But since my father had passed, I tended not to really…be there. So eventually, they gave up trying to talk to me too much. I was just a prop in their group…

If I was honest with my self, it felt like I had lost so much more than just my dad, who I wasn't too crazy about, anyway. It was like…I'd also lost a best friend…and someone who was so much more. This was ridiculous. I tried to shake the feeling, but I couldn't.

I felt completely and utterly alone. Despite the fact that I was surrounded by people, I was alone.

Empty. I felt empty.

They were calling my name, now. I walked up to receive my diploma, or whatever it was. I think Mrs. Weasley might have clapped. Out of pity, I guess. That was probably why she'd invited me to stay with them—pity.

I didn't want pity. No one does.

Right then, shaking McGonagall's hand with a fake smile, I decided against going to the Weasley's. I wasn't sure what I would do, but I didn't want to spend my summer with people who pitied me.

Ah. The problem was there was no way to tell that to Mrs. Weasley. She'd probably insist on it. I could put it off, for a while. I had to go to my old home to get some things. I wondered how long I could put it off.

At last, it was over. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley wanted to take me with them in their car, but I declined, pointing out that even if they did have an enlarging spell on the car, eight Weasleys, a Potter, a Granger, and Teddy and his Grandmother was a bit crowded. They agreed in the end, and I headed out to the train.

Some of the compartments were empty, to my pleasure. Sometimes, it was nice to be alone. I preferred to ride the train that way, with just me in an empty compartment. That's how I'd come to school, and that's how I'd leave.

Something flickered in my memory. On the Hogwarts Express, riding alone. The door slid open and…

The memory was immediately cut short.

Huh. That was weird. I brushed it off, collapsing into a seat by the window. "I should probably put my bags up," I muttered to myself quietly. I sighed and stood to do so, sliding my bag into the compartment above my head. Before closing it, I took a book out. It was a long ride back home, after all.

A moment of déjà vu occurred as the door opened. I glanced up and saw Patricia. She smiled apologetically. "You don't mind if I sit in here with you, do you? I won't disturb you or anything." The smile she was giving me was empty. Just like mine.

"Yeah. It's fine." It wasn't, but meanness wasn't in my personality—I hoped not, anyway.

"Thanks." She put her bags up, too, and then sat down.

For a while, we rode in silence. Patricia looked like she wanted to ask me something. Finally, I got frustrated. "What?"

She blushed, the pink rolling upward across her pale cheeks. "You feel it, too, right?"

I was curious, now. "I feel what?"

"Like you've lost something." She looked at me, wanting me to understand. "Someone."

I skirted her question. "Of course I do. My dad just died."

She shook her head. "No, more than that. You lost your dad, I know, but does it feel like you lost more, a friend, maybe?"

I stared at her, at a loss. How had she so perfectly capture my feelings? "Yeah…and someone who was more than a friend, I think."

She smiled, looking a little relieved. "I was also wondering…"

"Go ahead." My interest was piqued, now. What else had she perceived?

"Well, don't take any offense, but before this year, you didn't even give Harry and his friends the time of day, and now you're all…best friends, or something."

I laughed. It was a surprising sound. I hadn't laughed since before my dad died. "We're hardly what you would call 'best friends'. I think they just tolerate me. But I get what you're saying. I guess the first time we hung out was in Hogsmeade. The first trip of the year." Another memory flickered. Being a bit more comfortable with Harry and Co. then was normal, because someone else was there…

Patricia was scrutinizing my face when I looked at her again. She spoke. "Do you…ever get these weird flashbacks? They're just memories, but then, they cut off, right at the climax?"

I gaped at her. "I've gotten two, today," I whispered. What did this mean?

Patricia looked excited. "I'm not going crazy!" She looked quite pleased by this fact, and I can't say I blamed her. She started babbling, now. "Okay, so I've been having these flashbacks since the Quidditch season ended. I went to Madam Pompfrey to see what was going on, but she had no idea. So I went to the library to see if I could figure anything out, but I couldn't find anything! I gave up for a while, and then I found this. I was actually doing research for the healing class they were giving as an extracurricular course, and I found something about being obliviated. It said if you were able to do the spell well enough you could block certain things, rather than blocking a person's whole memory! It said a person might experience a few flashbacks after a few months. So then I was thinking about it later. I wouldn't remember being obliviated, and no one else would for that matter, either, so I might have been. Everything fit!" She paused. "What do you think?"

I considered what she had said. It did fit. "I think, Patricia dear, you may be on to something." I hesitated. "How did you know that I might be experiencing this, too?"

She looked surprised. She thought about it briefly and then explained, "Well, sometimes, when I had a flashback, I would see you, right before my memory cut off."

"You know, you're kind of a genius. Why aren't you in Ravenclaw?" She shrugged. I continued. "This is all nice and dandy, but there's not a cure for obliviation, right?"

She smiled. "No. There's not a cure…yet."

I waited, sensing a challenge in her stance.

"Would you be interested in finding one?"

And that's a wrap! The plan wasn't for them to figure out that they'd been obliviated, yet, but hey! Spontaneity is good, right? Mostly, though, I just got carried away.

I will definitely tell you when I post the sequel…I'm planning on getting it up by February 19! (That's a month from now!) However, no promises! I might get it up before…maybe after! No bugging me until that date, though. If you want to be sure you don't miss it, you should add me to your author alert subscription. (Hint, hint) And if you wanted to be really nice, you could add me to Favorite Author, too…(we're going to ignore the fact that some of you already have me on alert/favorite.)

In the meantime, I've revamped chapter one! Check it out!

Toodleoo!

IBG out!