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batsutousaiTitle: The Forgotten
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
batsutousai
Beta:magickmaker17
Pairings: OC/OC, Tom/Doo(Harry)
Warnings: SLASH/YAOI, Character death, OOCness, AU(we all know Jo won’t let this happen…), OCs, Angst(lots of angst), blood, war
Summary: What if Voldemort wins the “Final Battle,” but Harry Potter survives?
Living in the Muggle world with no memory of his past, can Harry find the key to saving them all?
Disclaim Her: 42!!! BITCH SET ME UP!!!
Key:
’Thoughts’
Writing
¤Another language, like Bulgarian¤
:Parseltongue:
-------------------
Chapter Nine
Answers
-------------------
“You know that we will protect our own until the day that we die without asking questions, but I would like to know what is going on here.” Radolf said calmly. He, the other two town elders, Doo, Tom, Hertha, Deva, Nick, and Tonks were all sitting in Doo’s sitting room above his shop. A tea tray with biscuits and a china teapot sat on the table in the centre of the group while each member nursed a cup of tea.
Doo sighed and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “That would probably prove to be a very long and very involved conversation.”
“We have time.” Hertha cut in, eyeing her friend cautiously.
“I seriously doubt they’d be telling the whole town the story, you know.” Nick offered from where he sat on the floor next to Deva. The Bulgarian nodded quietly.
Doo and Tom traded looks. The Dark Lord was obviously against the whole thing. :Tom, it will make things easier if they understand.: Doo pointed out gently.
:They are Muggles, Doo.: Tom hissed back.
:They are in danger because of us.:
“You know, I really hate it when people start talking in languages I don’t understand.” Nick said loudly.
Doo shot his friend an amused look while Tom scowled heavily at the Muggle. “You know, Ripley, I’m rather tempted to hex you right now.” The Dark Lord growled.
“You couldn’t hex me even if you wanted to.” Nick responded.
“Do they always do this?” Hertha inquired, hiding a smile. The elders and Tonks didn’t look much better off.
“Yes.” Deva and Doo agreed in unison. “Always.”
“Want me to get in the middle? I could stop the fight really easily.” Tonks offered brightly.
“Tonks, I’d rather not have to unhex you, thanks.” Doo sighed, before looking at the elders and deciding to ignore the two who were arguing around him again. “This whole thing started before I was born, actually.” He offered, smirking to himself when the man at his side froze mid-sentence. “There was a prophecy made about me and Tom, here.”
Tom let out a helpless sigh and sat back in his seat. “At the time,” He cut in, ignoring the sharp look from Doo. “I was power hungry. I wanted to rule the world and kill all Muggles - non-magical folk - leaving alive only the strongest, the best, witches and wizards. The prophecy told of a child who would be born who would be the one to destroy me. That child, was Doo.
“In an effort to end the threat before it began, I set out to kill the little monster. I managed to kill both of his parents, but his mother used ancient magic to give her life for Doo, keeping him alive. My spell rebounded and left me as nothing more than a spirit.”
“A ghost?” Hertha inquired, frowning.
“No.” Tonks slipped into the conversation. “If I recall what Albus and Doo told me, he was a true spirit. He didn’t really have a corporal form, but he had the ability to possess animals and humans. He lived off of that for...” She paused to think. “Right. Thirteen years, give or take a few months.”
“Aye.” Doo nodded. “During this whole mess, I grew up with my Muggle relatives until I was accepted to Hogwarts, which is the main wizarding school here in England. I went there for all of my seven years, but, in my fourth year, Tom over here got his body back, with my help.”
“You were quite unwilling, as I recall.” Tom offered in an off-handed manner.
“I’d hope so.” Nick snorted. He kept the rest of his comment to himself when Doo shot him a warning look.
“So, Tom here comes back and, what?” Hertha pressed. It appeared that the elders were allowing her to lead the storytellers.
“Well, the Ministry of Magic didn’t believe he was back.” Doo shrugged helplessly. “Albus Dumbledore, the Headmaster of Hogwarts at the time, and I tried talking them into believing us, but they weren’t going for it. They didn’t want to believe that such evil had returned. Instead, they did all in their power to discredit Albus and myself to the rest of our world, thereby giving Tom the time he’d needed to re-group and plan.”
“Not that you lot were helpless.” Tom rolled his eyes at Doo’s cheeky grin. “Dumbledore was also the head of a somewhat secret organization called the Order of the Phoenix, which had been created to get rid of me. As soon as Doo told Dumbledore I was back, the Order reconvened and started getting all the information they could.”
“At the end of my fifth year, my godfather was killed.” Doo continued, eyes hard. “He was hardly the first death of the second war, but it was through the attack that got him killed that the rest of the wizarding world finally realized that, yes, Tom was back and, yes, he was just as determined as ever to kill off all the Muggle-borns and leave only pure-bloods in his wake.” The pale-haired man’s fist was clenched so tightly in his lap that his knuckles were turning white.
“And, at that time, I was.” Tom agreed, voice soft.
Tonks gave the Dark Lord a strange look. “What changed that, anyway?”
“Age.” Tom shrugged mildly. “Doo reminding me more times than I can count that I was a half-blood myself. Take your pick.”
Doo blinked at the Dark Lord quietly for a moment before he continued, voice emotionless. “After that fight, it was all-out war, and the Ministry was poorly prepared. Tom’s people launched an attack at least once a week and, before school started up again, over half of the Ministry’s Aurors were dead.” Everyone winced, and Tonks rubbed at her eyes furiously. A hand on Doo’s back made him go on. “For every one of Tom’s men the Ministry caught, ten more appeared. They never seemed to stop coming, and they rarely ever died.”
“It would have helped, I think, if Amelia Bones hadn’t been so set on not allowing any of us to use Dark Arts.” Tonks murmured. “But, by the time we’d managed to convince her, it was too late. She was dead before she even signed the papers.”
“That was...” Doo rubbed at his forehead thoughtfully. “...near the end of my seventh year, correct?”
“Yeah. That’s when the Ministry building fell.” Tonks agreed.
“And St Mungo’s.” Doo nodded, then turned to their audience. “St Mungo’s was the wizarding hospital. We lost over five hundred people in that attack alone.”
“It was a nightmare.” Tonks said numbly.
Doo nodded again. “That summer, they got Diagon Alley, our main shopping centre. Gringotts was the last to fall. Not even the dragons we’d called in from Romania helped stop that one.”
“That was also the summer when we killed your relatives, as I recall.” Tom offered helpfully, his darkened eyes a sharp contrast to the cheery voice.
“It was, wasn’t it...” Doo shook his head. “It all started running together then.”
“Yeah.” Tonks let out a sigh. “That Christmas was when they found Order Headquarters. I remember that.”
Doo shuddered, recalling Molly and Arthur’s deaths. “Aye. At least everyone died quickly, though.” No one saw fit to comment on that. “After that, we moved what was left of the Order and the Ministry into Hogwarts and made it our new base. The school had been turned into a fighting arena, of sorts. Normal classes were cancelled to teach every able-bodied student how to defend themselves. If you weren’t able-bodied, you helped out in the infirmary, treating wounded fighters as they came back from failed attacks on Tom’s troops.”
“The ‘Final Battle’ came a few years later.” Tom slid in as he surreptitiously rubbed a hand on Doo’s lower back soothingly.
“We went in to the battle with a little over one hundred students, teachers, and Aurors.” Doo murmured, then glanced back at Tom. “How many came out?”
“Thirty, give or take a few.” Tom offered.
Tonks let out a choked sob and buried her face in her hands. Hertha immediately went over to sooth the older woman, eyes dancing with horror.
Theodore Bort, one of the elders, gave Doo a sharp look. “How did you come to be here, then?” He asked. He appeared to be the least shaken in the room, other than Tom and Doo, who were both masking their emotions.
Tom inclined his head to the man. “When I thought I’d killed Doo, I cast a wide-range spell that blocked the memories of all of those who’d fought against me. It touched all of Europe as well as parts of Asia, Africa, and North America. The spell allowed them to retain things like speech and other abilities they’d had before, but it blocked all their memories of how they’d learned those things. A very clever witch once pointed out to me that, if I killed off everyone against me, we’d have no one left and would, in time, die off.”
Doo gave Tom a sharp look. “Hermione told you that, didn’t she? That time you lot captured her.”
Tom inclined his head in agreement. “And she said it in a way that made sense to me.”
“She was very good at that.” Tonks managed, giving Hertha a look of thanks, as if thanking her for comforting her, not for saving her life.
“Those that lost their memories were left to do as they would.” Tom continued. “Somehow, Doo cast a spell that kept him alive, but he managed to get caught in my blanket spell anyway. He, too, became one of what we call the Forgotten. It was mere chance that we ended up meeting and seeing eye-to-eye.”
“If not for Wormtail, he’d still be one of your ‘Forgotten’.” Nick tossed at the Dark Lord.
“Nick, vill you ever learn to keep your mouth shut?” Deva asked in exasperation as Tom shot the Muggle a dark look.
“Nope.” Doo grinned at his friend brightly, all traces of former sorrow gone in the blink of an eye. “Of course, if he could keep his mouth shut, he wouldn’t be Nick, now would he?”
“I think we’d be better off without him, personally.” Tom grumbled.
“Wait!” Everyone turned to Hertha, who was frowning. “What about the prophecy?”
Doo grimaced. “The prophecy stated that one of us had to die at the hand of the other. I died during the war, really and truly died, but I managed to come back. However, if you compare the old me to the new me, I think the only similarity is my eyes.”
Tom nodded. “Your hair is a different colour and your face is shaped differently. Add to that the lack of those bloody glasses and the disappearance of your scar...”
“I wonder why the scar left, anyway...” Tonks murmured thoughtfully as she tossed a tissue in the waste can next to her chair.
Doo and Tom stared at each other for a long moment before Doo spoke his thoughts. “It was the prophecy scar.”
“And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal...” Tom nodded. “So, once the prophecy had been fulfilled, the scar faded, having served it’s purpose.”
“You know, that makes sense, in a twisted sort of way.” Tonks decided, grinning. “Doo, you’re brilliant!”
“And what about me?” Tom asked dryly.
“I’m sorry. Who are you?” Tonks gave the Dark Lord a bright smile before pulling Hertha into her lap to use as a shield.
Hertha let out an undignified squeal. “Tonks Black, unhand me this minute!”
“Can’t, love.” Tonks replied happily. “Old Voldie might hex me, else.”
“And you’d deserve it, too! Let me go!”
Doo snorted into his hand as everyone else laughed at the scene the two women were making. “Tonks, let her go. I promise I won’t let Tom hex you.”
“What if I curse her a little?” Tom pleaded.
“What are you, three?” Doo rolled his eyes upwards. “Gods help me! I’m surrounded by children!”
“You do know that Nick is the only person younger than you, right?” Tonks offered, finally letting Hertha get up.
“I’m well aware of that, thanks.” Doo scowled. “Prat.”
Hertha started frowning again. “How do you know how old I am?” She asked rather suddenly. Doo and Tonks traded looks. “I don’t even know how old I am.” She suddenly turned her gaze on Tom, who merely cocked an eyebrow at her in return. “I’m a Forgotten, aren’t I? And you knew all along.”
“Yes.” Tom agreed easily. “And I knew who you were the first time I saw you, too. Ms Granger.”
Hertha set her jaw. “Give me back my memories.”
Tonks let out a strangled sound and Doo shot up out of his seat. “Hertha, please, you don’t want this burden. You don’t want to remember what happened. Please, the memory loss is a gift.” The young man said softly, eyes pleading his friend to let it go.
Hertha shook her head. “I cannot go on living a lie.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking. You have no idea how bad it was.” Doo whispered. ‘I can’t let her do this! It will kill her!’ He knew. He knew Hertha Riddock and he knew Hermione Granger. They weren’t that different.
“Dooley...” Hertha started.
“Wait!” Doo’s eyes lit up as an idea came to him. “I’ll be right back.” He shot Tom a sharp look before dashing into his room. He tugged his shrunken paintings from his bag and shifted through them. When he found the right one, he resized it, then dragged it out into the living-room, turned towards himself.
“What is that?” Nick inquired.
Doo swallowed. “Before I got my memories back, I’d have memory flashes of my former life. Sometimes, images would stay with me. To get the images out of my head, I’d paint them.” He explained softly. “Zack, and then Tom, were the only ones who have ever seen any of my works.” He met Hertha’s frowning eyes evenly. “This is one of those paintings. I know now that the girl in this painting was you, Hertha, during the war.” Hertha’s eyes widened. “Look at yourself from that time and tell me if you really want those memories back.” Doo turned the picture around.
The room filled with gasps as everyone stared at the tear-stained face of Hermione Granger. Her eyes were haunted with terrors no person should have to face. She looked young, nineteen at the most, and had blood staining the parts of her robe and wild hair that were in the picture. Behind her was the infirmary at Hogwarts, filled with patients of all ages that were bleeding slowly and crying out in pain. Hermione, herself, seemed to be in the process of saying something, though the words were lost to the soundlessness of the painting.
“I knew you during the war, Hertha.” Doo whispered in the oppressing silence. “You were like a sister to me. Please don’t do this to yourself.” Hertha crumbled to the ground with a sob and buried her face in her hands. Doo set his painting to one side and knelt before the young woman. “Hertha?”
Hertha flung herself into Doo’s arms, sobbing. “A part of me needs to know, but another part of me is agreeing with you!” She cried, burying her face in Doo’s neck. “I don’t know what to do, Dooley... I don’t know what to do.”
Doo glanced up and met Tom’s scarlet eyes. The Dark Lord read the message there and sighed. “Doo’s right. I refuse to return your memories, Ms Riddock.” Doo nodded his thanks as he continued comforting the distressed Forgotten.
‘It’s for the best.’
-
-
A/N: Yes, yes, it’s short. Piff. It’s also another one of those chapters that’s chock full of stuff. Humph.
~Batsutousai
Chapters:
Prologue
1 - Hogwarts ||| 2 - Nicholas Wants Answers ||| 3 - Depression
4 - The Greatest Idiot ||| 5 - Another Clue ||| 6 - Discovered
7 - Harry Potter Lives ||| 8 - The Power Over the Dark |||9 - Answers
10 - The True Threat Becomes Known ||| 11 - Gathering Allies ||| 12 - A New Bond
13 - Culross and Her Staff ||| 14 - Courting Your Fate
Discontinued
Author:
batsutousaiBeta:
magickmaker17Pairings: OC/OC, Tom/Doo(Harry)
Warnings: SLASH/YAOI, Character death, OOCness, AU(we all know Jo won’t let this happen…), OCs, Angst(lots of angst), blood, war
Summary: What if Voldemort wins the “Final Battle,” but Harry Potter survives?
Living in the Muggle world with no memory of his past, can Harry find the key to saving them all?
Disclaim Her: 42!!! BITCH SET ME UP!!!
Key:
’Thoughts’
Writing
¤Another language, like Bulgarian¤
:Parseltongue:
Chapter Nine
Answers
-------------------
“You know that we will protect our own until the day that we die without asking questions, but I would like to know what is going on here.” Radolf said calmly. He, the other two town elders, Doo, Tom, Hertha, Deva, Nick, and Tonks were all sitting in Doo’s sitting room above his shop. A tea tray with biscuits and a china teapot sat on the table in the centre of the group while each member nursed a cup of tea.
Doo sighed and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “That would probably prove to be a very long and very involved conversation.”
“We have time.” Hertha cut in, eyeing her friend cautiously.
“I seriously doubt they’d be telling the whole town the story, you know.” Nick offered from where he sat on the floor next to Deva. The Bulgarian nodded quietly.
Doo and Tom traded looks. The Dark Lord was obviously against the whole thing. :Tom, it will make things easier if they understand.: Doo pointed out gently.
:They are Muggles, Doo.: Tom hissed back.
:They are in danger because of us.:
“You know, I really hate it when people start talking in languages I don’t understand.” Nick said loudly.
Doo shot his friend an amused look while Tom scowled heavily at the Muggle. “You know, Ripley, I’m rather tempted to hex you right now.” The Dark Lord growled.
“You couldn’t hex me even if you wanted to.” Nick responded.
“Do they always do this?” Hertha inquired, hiding a smile. The elders and Tonks didn’t look much better off.
“Yes.” Deva and Doo agreed in unison. “Always.”
“Want me to get in the middle? I could stop the fight really easily.” Tonks offered brightly.
“Tonks, I’d rather not have to unhex you, thanks.” Doo sighed, before looking at the elders and deciding to ignore the two who were arguing around him again. “This whole thing started before I was born, actually.” He offered, smirking to himself when the man at his side froze mid-sentence. “There was a prophecy made about me and Tom, here.”
Tom let out a helpless sigh and sat back in his seat. “At the time,” He cut in, ignoring the sharp look from Doo. “I was power hungry. I wanted to rule the world and kill all Muggles - non-magical folk - leaving alive only the strongest, the best, witches and wizards. The prophecy told of a child who would be born who would be the one to destroy me. That child, was Doo.
“In an effort to end the threat before it began, I set out to kill the little monster. I managed to kill both of his parents, but his mother used ancient magic to give her life for Doo, keeping him alive. My spell rebounded and left me as nothing more than a spirit.”
“A ghost?” Hertha inquired, frowning.
“No.” Tonks slipped into the conversation. “If I recall what Albus and Doo told me, he was a true spirit. He didn’t really have a corporal form, but he had the ability to possess animals and humans. He lived off of that for...” She paused to think. “Right. Thirteen years, give or take a few months.”
“Aye.” Doo nodded. “During this whole mess, I grew up with my Muggle relatives until I was accepted to Hogwarts, which is the main wizarding school here in England. I went there for all of my seven years, but, in my fourth year, Tom over here got his body back, with my help.”
“You were quite unwilling, as I recall.” Tom offered in an off-handed manner.
“I’d hope so.” Nick snorted. He kept the rest of his comment to himself when Doo shot him a warning look.
“So, Tom here comes back and, what?” Hertha pressed. It appeared that the elders were allowing her to lead the storytellers.
“Well, the Ministry of Magic didn’t believe he was back.” Doo shrugged helplessly. “Albus Dumbledore, the Headmaster of Hogwarts at the time, and I tried talking them into believing us, but they weren’t going for it. They didn’t want to believe that such evil had returned. Instead, they did all in their power to discredit Albus and myself to the rest of our world, thereby giving Tom the time he’d needed to re-group and plan.”
“Not that you lot were helpless.” Tom rolled his eyes at Doo’s cheeky grin. “Dumbledore was also the head of a somewhat secret organization called the Order of the Phoenix, which had been created to get rid of me. As soon as Doo told Dumbledore I was back, the Order reconvened and started getting all the information they could.”
“At the end of my fifth year, my godfather was killed.” Doo continued, eyes hard. “He was hardly the first death of the second war, but it was through the attack that got him killed that the rest of the wizarding world finally realized that, yes, Tom was back and, yes, he was just as determined as ever to kill off all the Muggle-borns and leave only pure-bloods in his wake.” The pale-haired man’s fist was clenched so tightly in his lap that his knuckles were turning white.
“And, at that time, I was.” Tom agreed, voice soft.
Tonks gave the Dark Lord a strange look. “What changed that, anyway?”
“Age.” Tom shrugged mildly. “Doo reminding me more times than I can count that I was a half-blood myself. Take your pick.”
Doo blinked at the Dark Lord quietly for a moment before he continued, voice emotionless. “After that fight, it was all-out war, and the Ministry was poorly prepared. Tom’s people launched an attack at least once a week and, before school started up again, over half of the Ministry’s Aurors were dead.” Everyone winced, and Tonks rubbed at her eyes furiously. A hand on Doo’s back made him go on. “For every one of Tom’s men the Ministry caught, ten more appeared. They never seemed to stop coming, and they rarely ever died.”
“It would have helped, I think, if Amelia Bones hadn’t been so set on not allowing any of us to use Dark Arts.” Tonks murmured. “But, by the time we’d managed to convince her, it was too late. She was dead before she even signed the papers.”
“That was...” Doo rubbed at his forehead thoughtfully. “...near the end of my seventh year, correct?”
“Yeah. That’s when the Ministry building fell.” Tonks agreed.
“And St Mungo’s.” Doo nodded, then turned to their audience. “St Mungo’s was the wizarding hospital. We lost over five hundred people in that attack alone.”
“It was a nightmare.” Tonks said numbly.
Doo nodded again. “That summer, they got Diagon Alley, our main shopping centre. Gringotts was the last to fall. Not even the dragons we’d called in from Romania helped stop that one.”
“That was also the summer when we killed your relatives, as I recall.” Tom offered helpfully, his darkened eyes a sharp contrast to the cheery voice.
“It was, wasn’t it...” Doo shook his head. “It all started running together then.”
“Yeah.” Tonks let out a sigh. “That Christmas was when they found Order Headquarters. I remember that.”
Doo shuddered, recalling Molly and Arthur’s deaths. “Aye. At least everyone died quickly, though.” No one saw fit to comment on that. “After that, we moved what was left of the Order and the Ministry into Hogwarts and made it our new base. The school had been turned into a fighting arena, of sorts. Normal classes were cancelled to teach every able-bodied student how to defend themselves. If you weren’t able-bodied, you helped out in the infirmary, treating wounded fighters as they came back from failed attacks on Tom’s troops.”
“The ‘Final Battle’ came a few years later.” Tom slid in as he surreptitiously rubbed a hand on Doo’s lower back soothingly.
“We went in to the battle with a little over one hundred students, teachers, and Aurors.” Doo murmured, then glanced back at Tom. “How many came out?”
“Thirty, give or take a few.” Tom offered.
Tonks let out a choked sob and buried her face in her hands. Hertha immediately went over to sooth the older woman, eyes dancing with horror.
Theodore Bort, one of the elders, gave Doo a sharp look. “How did you come to be here, then?” He asked. He appeared to be the least shaken in the room, other than Tom and Doo, who were both masking their emotions.
Tom inclined his head to the man. “When I thought I’d killed Doo, I cast a wide-range spell that blocked the memories of all of those who’d fought against me. It touched all of Europe as well as parts of Asia, Africa, and North America. The spell allowed them to retain things like speech and other abilities they’d had before, but it blocked all their memories of how they’d learned those things. A very clever witch once pointed out to me that, if I killed off everyone against me, we’d have no one left and would, in time, die off.”
Doo gave Tom a sharp look. “Hermione told you that, didn’t she? That time you lot captured her.”
Tom inclined his head in agreement. “And she said it in a way that made sense to me.”
“She was very good at that.” Tonks managed, giving Hertha a look of thanks, as if thanking her for comforting her, not for saving her life.
“Those that lost their memories were left to do as they would.” Tom continued. “Somehow, Doo cast a spell that kept him alive, but he managed to get caught in my blanket spell anyway. He, too, became one of what we call the Forgotten. It was mere chance that we ended up meeting and seeing eye-to-eye.”
“If not for Wormtail, he’d still be one of your ‘Forgotten’.” Nick tossed at the Dark Lord.
“Nick, vill you ever learn to keep your mouth shut?” Deva asked in exasperation as Tom shot the Muggle a dark look.
“Nope.” Doo grinned at his friend brightly, all traces of former sorrow gone in the blink of an eye. “Of course, if he could keep his mouth shut, he wouldn’t be Nick, now would he?”
“I think we’d be better off without him, personally.” Tom grumbled.
“Wait!” Everyone turned to Hertha, who was frowning. “What about the prophecy?”
Doo grimaced. “The prophecy stated that one of us had to die at the hand of the other. I died during the war, really and truly died, but I managed to come back. However, if you compare the old me to the new me, I think the only similarity is my eyes.”
Tom nodded. “Your hair is a different colour and your face is shaped differently. Add to that the lack of those bloody glasses and the disappearance of your scar...”
“I wonder why the scar left, anyway...” Tonks murmured thoughtfully as she tossed a tissue in the waste can next to her chair.
Doo and Tom stared at each other for a long moment before Doo spoke his thoughts. “It was the prophecy scar.”
“And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal...” Tom nodded. “So, once the prophecy had been fulfilled, the scar faded, having served it’s purpose.”
“You know, that makes sense, in a twisted sort of way.” Tonks decided, grinning. “Doo, you’re brilliant!”
“And what about me?” Tom asked dryly.
“I’m sorry. Who are you?” Tonks gave the Dark Lord a bright smile before pulling Hertha into her lap to use as a shield.
Hertha let out an undignified squeal. “Tonks Black, unhand me this minute!”
“Can’t, love.” Tonks replied happily. “Old Voldie might hex me, else.”
“And you’d deserve it, too! Let me go!”
Doo snorted into his hand as everyone else laughed at the scene the two women were making. “Tonks, let her go. I promise I won’t let Tom hex you.”
“What if I curse her a little?” Tom pleaded.
“What are you, three?” Doo rolled his eyes upwards. “Gods help me! I’m surrounded by children!”
“You do know that Nick is the only person younger than you, right?” Tonks offered, finally letting Hertha get up.
“I’m well aware of that, thanks.” Doo scowled. “Prat.”
Hertha started frowning again. “How do you know how old I am?” She asked rather suddenly. Doo and Tonks traded looks. “I don’t even know how old I am.” She suddenly turned her gaze on Tom, who merely cocked an eyebrow at her in return. “I’m a Forgotten, aren’t I? And you knew all along.”
“Yes.” Tom agreed easily. “And I knew who you were the first time I saw you, too. Ms Granger.”
Hertha set her jaw. “Give me back my memories.”
Tonks let out a strangled sound and Doo shot up out of his seat. “Hertha, please, you don’t want this burden. You don’t want to remember what happened. Please, the memory loss is a gift.” The young man said softly, eyes pleading his friend to let it go.
Hertha shook her head. “I cannot go on living a lie.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking. You have no idea how bad it was.” Doo whispered. ‘I can’t let her do this! It will kill her!’ He knew. He knew Hertha Riddock and he knew Hermione Granger. They weren’t that different.
“Dooley...” Hertha started.
“Wait!” Doo’s eyes lit up as an idea came to him. “I’ll be right back.” He shot Tom a sharp look before dashing into his room. He tugged his shrunken paintings from his bag and shifted through them. When he found the right one, he resized it, then dragged it out into the living-room, turned towards himself.
“What is that?” Nick inquired.
Doo swallowed. “Before I got my memories back, I’d have memory flashes of my former life. Sometimes, images would stay with me. To get the images out of my head, I’d paint them.” He explained softly. “Zack, and then Tom, were the only ones who have ever seen any of my works.” He met Hertha’s frowning eyes evenly. “This is one of those paintings. I know now that the girl in this painting was you, Hertha, during the war.” Hertha’s eyes widened. “Look at yourself from that time and tell me if you really want those memories back.” Doo turned the picture around.
The room filled with gasps as everyone stared at the tear-stained face of Hermione Granger. Her eyes were haunted with terrors no person should have to face. She looked young, nineteen at the most, and had blood staining the parts of her robe and wild hair that were in the picture. Behind her was the infirmary at Hogwarts, filled with patients of all ages that were bleeding slowly and crying out in pain. Hermione, herself, seemed to be in the process of saying something, though the words were lost to the soundlessness of the painting.
“I knew you during the war, Hertha.” Doo whispered in the oppressing silence. “You were like a sister to me. Please don’t do this to yourself.” Hertha crumbled to the ground with a sob and buried her face in her hands. Doo set his painting to one side and knelt before the young woman. “Hertha?”
Hertha flung herself into Doo’s arms, sobbing. “A part of me needs to know, but another part of me is agreeing with you!” She cried, burying her face in Doo’s neck. “I don’t know what to do, Dooley... I don’t know what to do.”
Doo glanced up and met Tom’s scarlet eyes. The Dark Lord read the message there and sighed. “Doo’s right. I refuse to return your memories, Ms Riddock.” Doo nodded his thanks as he continued comforting the distressed Forgotten.
‘It’s for the best.’
-
A/N: Yes, yes, it’s short. Piff. It’s also another one of those chapters that’s chock full of stuff. Humph.
~Batsutousai
Prologue
1 - Hogwarts ||| 2 - Nicholas Wants Answers ||| 3 - Depression
4 - The Greatest Idiot ||| 5 - Another Clue ||| 6 - Discovered
7 - Harry Potter Lives ||| 8 - The Power Over the Dark |||
10 - The True Threat Becomes Known ||| 11 - Gathering Allies ||| 12 - A New Bond
13 - Culross and Her Staff ||| 14 - Courting Your Fate
Discontinued
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Date: 6/9/05 18:37 (UTC)Stalking = Love
XD
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Date: 7/9/05 08:18 (UTC)Not that I stalk people... *innocent look*
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Date: 8/9/05 15:14 (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/9/05 23:05 (UTC)Of course not! Nobody ever believes me... *sniffle*
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Date: 11/9/05 00:35 (UTC)I believe you about plenty of things, m'dear. It's when I know for a fact that you're attempting to pull a fast one on me that I don't believe you. XP
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Date: 11/9/05 02:20 (UTC)no subject
Date: 11/9/05 19:26 (UTC)no subject
Date: 11/9/05 22:31 (UTC)But it's all for a good cause! Honest! If it became known that *I* stalked people, my stalker friend would feel upset... I'm sure that makes sense somehow...
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Date: 13/9/05 02:46 (UTC)*laughes hysterically*
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Date: 13/9/05 06:47 (UTC)