"Why did you do it?" Jack asked. "Wipe my memories, I mean."
"I didn't want to, believe me, but I had no choice," Pansy said. "Once you get the memories back, you'll understand. I think you'll understand Sam a little better too."
"That girl said Sam was remembering things," Jack said as he watched Pansy pull out a small vial of glowing liquid out of her bag. "How can she remember things but I can't?"
"We'll find out together," Pansy said. She opened the vial and set it on the coffee table next to them as they sat in Jack's living room. Pansy liked his house. It wasn't the estate that she grew up in, but it was much warmer. A lot of wood and leather, not marble and stone. No house elves, but Jack did a good job of keeping it clean. It was the kind of place she could live in and be happy, she thought.
"Am I supposed to drink that?" Jack asked as Pansy pulled that carved stick from her coat again.
"No," Pansy said. "Relax and let me do the work."
Pansy delicately dipped the tip of her wand into the glowing liquid and gently pulled it out from the vial. It was like a fragile, glowing spider web that clung to the tip, threatening to fall off at any moment. Pansy performed the same motions that she did when she left Jack in the plane, only in reverse. She touched her wand with the glowing liquid to Jack's temple, and it seeped back into his memory.
"Oh," Jack said simply before he passed out.
"Are you back?" Pansy said as she stroked Jack's hair. He'd been out for a minute as she'd expected, and now she was a little nervous about his recovery. She hoped that he would still feel the same way that he did when she took his memory two months ago. If he didn't feel the same, then all this was for nothing.
"Oh, man. My head," Jack said as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. It didn't hurt, it just felt like something was out of order. Memories were flooding into the empty spaces in his brain and it was a lot to take in. He couldn't concentrate on them, where he was, or what was going on. It was like his mind was rebooting. The plane crash, the castle, the Quidditch match, the Great Hall, meeting Pansy, kissing Pansy, falling for Pansy and then having to say goodbye. "I remember," Jack said as he grabbed Pansy and kissed her. Then he pulled away and said, "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't think…maybe you didn't want to…"
Pansy kissed Jack back, and Mrs. Chuffney backed through the foyer wall to give them some privacy.
"Jack," Pansy said a few minutes later, "We've got to go get Sam. We'll have time to get reacquainted later."
"You are right, yes," Jack said. "She's going somewhere in London, you said?"
"I'll get us there ages before any train, but first, where's that housekeeper of yours?" Pansy asked.
"Who?" replied Jack.
"The lady with the push broom. Your ghost. You haven't seen her?" Pansy asked as she walked into the foyer.
All at once, Jack saw her, an old lady in a brown, floral housecoat. "What the Hell?" Jack said quietly.
"Excuse me," Pansy said as she addressed the ghost. "Sam, the girl. Did you see her doing anything unusual lately?"
"These rooms are not fit for livin' in!" Mrs. Chuffney said authoritatively.
"Now, we're not talking about cleaning, please," Pansy said. "I want to know if you've seen anything unusual going on with Sam. Anything at all."
"She talks to her mother," Mrs. Chuffney said. "She talks to her too much!"
Jack couldn't believe what he was hearing but before he could question it, Mrs Chuffney spoke again.
"It's that rock. She turns it over and over and then the woman appears. She is a ghost and they aren't happy to see each other," Mrs. Chuffney said. "It's like magic, I don't like it at all."
"What does the rock look like?" Pansy asked.
"Small, dark, shiny," Mrs. Chuffney said, "but it is cracked. Very odd."
Pansy thought for a moment and then said, "Jack, we've got to make a stop before we get Sam."
"Where are we going?" Jack asked as he grabbed his coat off the hook and then locked the front door behind him.
"To the Ministry of Magic," Pansy said. "As much as I don't want to, I have to talk to Harry Potter."