11 February 1983
Granger Residence, Hampstead
CRACK!
Apparating to an alley between a small tailor shop and a laundromat, Jean walked the quarter mile to her old street with Girl Guide uniform crisply in place and wagon of cookies rattling along behind her; the wagon wheels making a clickity-clack sound as she went. When she made it to the path that led to the door, her mother's old car parked out front, she had to pause to settle her nerves. Unlike with the Dursleys, there were far more witness and far more at stake for her here, tampering with the Granger's memories would not only alter Hermione's timeline, but everyone else she was ever involved with.
If things went to plan, then she would live in Luxembourg with her extended family, she'd attend Académie de Magie Beauxbâtons instead of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry and she would be nowhere near Britain, should the isles fall to ruin once more. Which was why Jean was out here in her (original) birthplace of Hampstead, where a triad of unsuspecting Grangers layer waiting. Although, she didn't particularly want to meddle with her family's (or her own) memories again, but it was something that needed to be done.
Even if it meant ridding her parents of the chance to conceive Julian & Romeo; (it still could happen, of course, the world's got a funny way of doing what it wants. You pull a rubber band & you can stretch it out, but sooner or later, it's going to want to snap back to the way it was. The universe is stubborn, that way). But the Potters were getting antsy about answers regarding her upbringing and she couldn't very well keep brushing them off with halfhearted answers of "I don't knows"
Taking a deep breath, she set her shoulders back and walked up the path with wagon trailing behind her. She nearly turned and left when her hand reached up towards the doorbell, hand hovering over the device in indecision. Shoving her roiling emotions into a box in the back of her mind, Jean stubbornly pushed the button to ring the bell. The sound trilled loud & high, singing in that familiar tone that pricked at something within the girl, making her heartache with the sound of it. Moments later, the door opened to reveal a primly-dressed young woman with kind eyes and ink-black hair. Jean froze; this was Sanji Munshi, her nanny. Someone who she had not seen since primary school, when she had mysteriously disappeared without a trace. Deported, the whispers at church had said, but no was certain.
"Can I help you?" Sanji asked, a confused look crossing her expression as she took in the sight of the neatly-dressed Girl Guide on the doorstep. "Priya [Sweetheart]?"
Jean shook her head before clearing her throat as she stared up at the innocent and patient expression upon her nanny's face. She had forgotten that her nanny used to looked after her when she was young, babysitting her through the days when both of her parents used to work at their dental practise. She hoped that she was still early enough that her parents had not yet left for work. "Um, sorry, I was wondering if you would you like to buy some Girl Guide cookies?" Jean asked, plastering a smile across her face whilst a distinctly childish lilt coloured her tone. "We're raising money for our next camping trip"
"Just a moment, why don't you come in? You can wait in here whilst I go get Mr & Mrs Granger" Sanji said, leading the Girl Guide to the living room off of the entryway, before she scampered off further into the house to find the aforementioned dentists.
Left to her own devices for a moment, Jean wandered about the room just looking at the photos that she had not seen, in what seemed, like a lifetime. There was no evidence of the twins being here as they had yet to be born, but the walls and the mantelpiece were slathered in neat photo frames containing pictures of her Mum, her Dad and a toddler version of herself in varying stages of play. It left a bittersweet taste in her mouth when she looked at them. According to her parents, Lawerence Granger, her father, had moved from Luxembourg sometime during his youth, to study dentistry in England. It was here, whilst at school, that he would meet his soon-to-be wife, Helen Johnson and the two had hit it off right away. Though the dream to move to Australia to set up their own private practise had not come until later, the two still visited the family home in Luxembourg every year; even when Jean was growing up.
Reaching into her beaded bag, Jean pulled out a small wooden cube that looked more like a paper weight or a doorstop. The Congreve Cube was an invention of the Weasley twins; a special device that would help muggleborns learn to focus their magicks on an item without triggering the Trace every other day. It had been something born of both Jean's own musing with accidental magicks and the damn-near disaster that was the Calamity. The fact that it had the added bonus of bypassing the Trace from the Ministry censors, also certainly helped her nerves. Because the last thing she needed was to be getting caught for something as benign as underage magic, when Jean was both (technically) of age and needed Hermione's name to remain on the magical student roster.
Carefully tucking the cube behind one of the larger photos, Jean returned to the couch where Sanji had pointed her to, and seated herself on the edge, looking like the proper house guest and nervous child she was supposed to be. Neither Sanji nor little Hermione were anywhere to be seen, but the sounds of dishes clattering about in the kitchen and the cheerful giggles of a happy toddler could be heard in that direction, dictating where they were. A few moments later, her (former) parents entered the room.
"Hello Ma'am, Sir" She politely greeted as she fiddled with the hem of her sleeves in attempt to keep her roiling emotions in check at the sight of her living, breathing parents. (It felt wrong to call them anything other than Mum & Dad). "My name is Jean and I'm with the Belsize branch of the Girl Guides. We're raising money for our next camping trip, would you like to buy some cookies?" The words all sort of rushed out together in a jumbled mess, tumbling one into the other as she tried to sell them on her lie. She just hoped that they would write off her nerves as something else.
"Girl Guides, you say?" Lawerence mused, clearly interested in the sell as he sat himself in a chair opposite the witch, Helen taking the other and leaving Jean on the couch all to herself. Jean smiled quietly to herself, her father had always been the one with a sweet tooth, despite his profession.
"Well, I've got thin mints…" She said, pulling around the little red wagon and placing it between them for the Grangers to look over. The moment they were both distracted with searching through the flavours—Lawerence heartily interested and Helen only feigning it—Jean cast a non-verbal Stupefy on the pair and slowly lowered them to the floor.
Once out, she quietly stepped around both wagon & parents, and made her way to the kitchen were the unsuspecting variant lay unawares of what was going on. Two more Stunning Jinx to the back of the head, found Sanji collapsing to the tiled floor of the kitchen as the kettle screeched in the corner, soap suds from the breakfast dishes danced in the sink and found a tiny toddler Hermione snoozed in her highchair. It was weird looking at herself like this; like the world's strangest out-of-body experience, one where she could reach out and touch that cloudy frizzy that you might call hair. "This is for your own good, y'know" Jean whispered to Hermione, one hand coming up to gently squeeze her chubby toes. "You'll thank me when you're older"
Heaving a bone-rattling sigh, Jean let go of the toddler's foot and instead knelt down next to Sanji's prone body on the kitchen floor. She'd forgotten about the Hindi girl, through her years of turmoil and stabbing guilt pricked at her heart for doing so. It seemed like such an inconsequential thing, to forget about a babysitter that cared for you in your earlier years; but she still had that pink elephant-shaped pillow which Sanji had gifted her only a day before she had disappeared. It was old and ratty by now, with the tail acting more as a string, but she loved it all the same. Still, she couldn't help but wonder if she knew she was going to leave; if the plushie had been her way of apologising.
Now, as Jean knelt next to the woman—who really looked more like a girl in her old eyes—she found herself remembering things that had seemed like a memory of a memory; ones led by faceless women and happiness. Like that one where some party-hire magician had come to the local library and she had been given one of those mood-reacting fish that curl in on themselves. Or the one where they had gone to some fair, wrapped in so many layers to protect them against the weather, that she felt like a walking marshmallow.
With everyone now under her spell, Jean moved onto the hardest part: modifying their memories. For her parents, there she had an extensive story laid out but for the likes of Hermione and Sanji, it would have to something a little less complicated. Much like with Dudley, Hermione's memory was simply wiped of today's interactions, but for Sanji, the task turned more towards erasing the incidents were Hermione had revealed accidental magicks to the muggle. These had been unexplainable incidents that Lawerence had just brushed off at the time, but Sanji still knew to be true and swore to the little girl in her care, that she would never ever tell anyone about them because she knew what it mean to be an outsider. It wasn't the best option but she needed to keep certain players out of the picture & safe, and to do that, everyone involved with her had to be "fixed"
It took Jean far longer than she would've cared to admit, to wade through the memories of Sanji's mind, if only because—unlike the Dursleys—she actually cared for this woman. But soon enough, both Hermione & Jean were wiped from her existence and Jean was free to move on to her parents. A gargantuan task that she was not looking forward to. Who would? Considering what had gone down the last time she had wiped her parents' minds…well, it would make anyone pause. But it had to be done.
Walking back in the living room where both Mr & Mrs Granger lay waiting, Jean paused to look over her parents where they sat slumped in their respective chairs, completely unconscious. Lawerence, her father, bore the same curly hair as herself and a box of shortbread cookies in his hand. Next to him sat her mother, Helen, in an equally unresponsive state and eyelids fluttering as if she were dreaming. With a rush, everything came back all at once.
Kneeling down between the two, Jean picked up her mother's hand first and clasped it tight in her own, bringing it up to her mouth for a chaste kiss. "I missed you, Mummy" She whispered softly, as if worried that speaking any louder would wake them. Next she plucked up her father's limp hand and nuzzled it close to her cheek, clutching it between her much smaller fingers as if he might've disappeared if she didn't. "You too, Daddy" Jean let out a shuddering gasp as her tears trickled down from the corners of her eyes and though she tried to staunch the flow, they continued unperturbed. Instead, she bowed her head and brought both of their hands in close, clutching them close to her heart as she whispered. "I'm so sorry"
"I know I can't be with you this time, but it's better this way. I'm going to make things right, I can promise you that" Jean sniffled, "Mummy, you're gonna go live that big dentist dream of yours, over in Australia, with the sunshine and the turtles, and the sun-tanned boys" She chuckled wetly at that, before she turned to her father. "And Daddy, you're going to live see Hermione graduate like she was supposed to and you'll be oh so proud of her. She'll go off & get married to some fella you'll scare with your shovel talk and they'll have lots of grandchildren that you'll spoil absolutely rotten. She's gonna be the daughter that I can't be anymore; I can't be there for you, not this time, but I can make sure that you are safe and far away from here"
She placed a kiss on each of their knuckles again and nestled in close, "I know I wasn't the best daughter the last time around, but this time, I'm gonna make sure that you and Hermione, and Harry and everyone else won't have to worry about stupid things like immortality stones, or snakes in the basement, or man-eating spiders in the forest, or death-defying tournaments, or political teachers and especially not war, itself" She snuffled again, this time leaning back so that she could soak up her last known image of them, in an effort to commit them as they were, to memory. "Goodbye, Mummy. Bye-bye Daddy, I love you so much"