The day with Harry and Ron came to an end quicker than planned. After leaving the bookstore they started walking towards the ice cream parlour but a photographer had spotted the trio and started to follow them. When Hermione noticed they were being followed she excused herself. Harry handled the press well and Ron took to fame like a duck to water but for Hermione, it was the worst. She hated her privacy being intruded on. If she spoke to a man it would be in the gossip rags that she was dating him. A photo of her eating ice cream would inspire a story of her not caring about fat. It never ended. Since having anything to do with that awful Rita Skeeter in the fourth year Hermione has hated the press.
She returned to the school a while before dinner and decided to go spend it in the library. Hermione decided as she walked in that today was finally as good a day as any to start to tackle the subject that she had been avoiding since getting back. Memory Charms. Hermione had not spoken to many people about what she had to do to her parents during the war to keep them safe. In fact, Harry was the only living person who knows. She wanted to ask Mcgonagall for help with it and she would… the moment she worked out how to speak about it without becoming a mess. She was happy that her parents were still alive after the war, they still lived in Australia, blissfully unaware that they ever had a daughter.
Hermione picked out a selection of 10 books and dragged them over to her table. As she opened the first book she noticed that the name of the last person who had checked the book out was nonother than Draco Malfoy. She checked every single one, Malfoy had read each in the last week. Hermione wondered why he would be reading up on memory charms. She laughed at herself for a moment, in the past it had always been Harry that was wondering what Malfoy was up to.
Transfigurations class on Monday saw another group project and all the learners rolled their eyes. This was definitely some plan to build bridges between the very scattered houses. Hermione and Draco once again found themselves on a team together and quickly set about getting the project done. After an hour of working peacefully together in the library, Hermione pulled up her Gryffindor courage and approached the subject. "Draco, I was studying up on memory charms Saturday night and noticed that you had checked out all the same books"
Draco looked like he had been caught in a trap. "What of it?" He asked. His face was hard as he put up his emotional shield. "Is it a subject you know a lot of? I have questions and I am struggling to find the answers." Draco looked at her confused. He wondered what the golden trio's princess could possibly want to forget. He knew exactly what he wanted to forget. Maybe it was the same for her he thought. The pain of torture played as a loop in his head.
"The brightest witch of our age has questions? I'm honored. Let me hear it then." He said with a smirk to hide the emotions that were ripping at his chest.
Hermione moved her weight from one foot to the other and fidgeted with her hair. Draco could see the stress signs all over her. " hypothetically if someone had removed themselves from someone's memory completely during the war in an attempt to keep that person safe. Is there a way to get them back or are they lost forever?"
Hermione looked everywhere but at the man standing in front of her. She looked down at the floor feeling shame for what she had done. Draco's smirk disappeared. He could sense this was serious. "Whose memory did you alter Granger?" Her eyes snapped to his just as a tear ran down her cheek. "No one. Never mind." She said fast as she jumped up from her seat and excused herself before practically running away.
Draco sat at the desk utterly confused. He was using the books to try to find a way of forgetting everything that happened while Hermione was trying to do the complete opposite. His mind wondered about the books he had read. There were all kinds of charms for bringing one or two memories sure and even those were really hard to do but undoing all of that type of magic would be almost impossible.
Draco thought back to a book he had once read in the Malfoy manor library about undoing spells on wizards. It was not about memory spells specifically but he wondered if it might help the witch. He sent his mother a letter by owl asking for the book. He did not know why he felt the need to fix this problem for Hermione but he felt compelled to. Maybe it was the hurt he saw in her face when speaking of it, maybe it was the shame he felt every time he saw her arm and the mark his aunt had caused, he could not place it but it was clear in his mind that he should help.