RP: Consequences
Date: Thursday, July 13, 1998
Characters: Hermione Granger, Professor Flitwick [NPC]
Location: Professor Flitwick’s office
Status: Private
Summary: Hermione goes to see Professor Flitwick regarding his research
Completion: Complete
The owl arrived during breakfast. Hermione hadn’t even finished a cup of coffee before she heard the pecking on the window. It had been brief and to the point, though no time had been specified as to when she should meet with Flitwick. He was a clever man, though, and obviously knew that she wouldn’t waste time in getting to Hogwarts.
The fact that it wasn’t even eight in the morning didn’t really matter. She had been up for a few hours, after all, and it seemed pointless to lurk around Grimmauld Place when she wanted to know what Flitwick had found. Fortunately, she knew he was awake because he’d sent the owl. Still, she was quiet as she made her way through the castle to his office. It was early, so there wasn’t a buzz of activity, and she didn’t particularly want to be seen to have to explain why she was meeting with a professor at such an early hour.
When she reached his office, she was relieved to see the door open and to find him at his desk. He didn’t seem surprised to see her, but there was an expression on his face that sent cold chills throughout her body. It wasn’t the face of someone who had discovered good news or solved a complex charm. Of course, she might be displacing her own worries by seeing things in his expression that weren’t there, she decided. That hope gave her the extra push she needed to walk into his office and close the door behind her.
“Good morning, Professor,” she said, taking the seat that he indicated.
“Good morning, Miss Granger.” Flitwick peered over the desk at her and adjusted his spectacles. “As I mentioned in my letter, I’ve finished my research into your situation.”
Oh good. He wasn’t going to waste time with idle chit chat and small talk. He was getting straight to the problem, which was what she wanted even if her tummy felt like it was tied up into knots. “Thank you, Professor. I appreciate you taking the time when you’re so busy.”
“I have never been one to resist a challenge, Miss. Granger. I just wish that I had found a better solution than I did.”
His words weren’t positive by any means, but she grasped onto the word solution and tried to ignore everything else. “There is a solution, though? Oh, thank God. I’ve been so worried.”
He looked at her then in a way that she couldn’t describe as anything but pitying. She shifted in the chair and bit her lip, curling her fingers around the arms of the chair as she waited to hear what he said. “Miss Granger, Hermione, the charm that you used---while it wasn’t dark, necessarily, it was distinctly gray. It was also too complex to have been used without further research and understanding.”
“It wasn’t dark,” she said firmly. “I don’t know about the gray, because it was in a standard book of charms, albeit rare and unusual ones, but I know it wasn’t dark.” She hesitated and lowered her gaze. “And I know that it was too difficult for me to use, obviously, since I can’t fix it.”
“Many of the rare charms are gray, child. If they weren’t, they would be used more often and classified as common,” he told her. “You had to be aware of that when you found it listed, yet you chose to perform it anyway without asking for guidance or doing more thorough research.” He held up a tiny hand before she could protest. “I am not here to judge your choices, Miss Granger nor am I here to scold you for doing something that, in hindsight, should not have been done. I have a rather good idea what your life must have been like at the time, and I cannot in clear conscience say that I would not also have made a bad decision if I were in similar circumstances.”
Bad decision. Should not have been done. Hermione flinched which each word and felt the pressure on her shoulders increase. This was worse than the disappointment and the sense of failure. He was being honest, treating her like an adult, and she should be relieved, but all she could think about was how her parents had looked at her last week. Nothing he said could be worse than seeing her mother’s fear and hearing her father dismiss any idea of him having a daughter. Besides, hadn’t she thought these things about herself many times since returning from Australia?
Logic didn’t work in this case, though. It didn’t matter what she occasionally thought about herself because it was different when it was verbalized by a professor that she respected and someone she had admired since her first day of class. Each word made her feel worse, and she hated herself when she felt her eyes stinging. She didn’t want to cry in front of a professor.
“What did you find, Professor?” she asked as calmly as she could. Her voice wavered but she was proud that she had been able to ask.
Flitwick was a good man, and he obviously hadn’t intended for his words to sound so harsh because he looked upset. She wanted to tell him that it was okay, that the truth hurt but she’d preferred that to mollycoddling and being treated like a naïve child. Because he was right. She had known, even with the stress and worry at the time, that the charms she had been learning were complicated and there was a risk in performing them without proper instruction or research. At the time, there hadn’t been a better option, but she wondered during the past week if she just hadn’t tried hard enough to find one.
“You performed the charm correctly, Miss Granger. However, as it is with any charm that affects the memory, there is no simple removal. The text was misleading, regardless of your translation, and the fact that this charm is so rarely used because of the risk involved is not something you’d have known. It required me contacting other experts and researching in areas that you would have been unable to access to learn the true extent, after all.”
“But there is a removal?” She had to focus and not fall apart. This was too important. She reached up and wiped her eyes before she looked at Flitwick expectantly.
He sighed and shook his head slowly. “There is the possibility that an altered charm might work to release the enchantment. The one that you had originally used was incorrect, according to a colleague. It worked for a variation of the charm, true, but not for the exact wording that you used. Unfortunately, as I’m sure you know, this can happen, especially in older texts. I have little doubt that the proper release charm is in the book that you used; it just wasn’t placed in the appropriate place.”
“But that’s ridiculous,” she said. “I’ve heard of it, mostly in regards to Potions texts from the eighteenth century, but everything I translated fit with the enchantment that I used.”
“If someone intended to use that particular charm, it is not assumed that they would do so without very thorough research. In which case, they would have learned the mistake before performing it,” he said bluntly. “I am not discounting the work that you did, Miss Granger, but you are young and unlikely to know the extent to which you should have researched.”
She nodded slowly, biting her lip so hard that she could taste the bitter flavor of blood. For once, she couldn’t speak up about being called young because she had obviously made a mistake. “What can be done to fix them?”
He removed his spectacles and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Finally, he put them back on and looked across the desk at her. “The charm that I mentioned earlier could possibly work. However, the risk is great. The enchantment is a variation of a memory charm, and thus affects a delicate area of the brain. If the charm is performed and the enchantment is lifted, there is no guarantee that your parents will remember anything.”
“But no guarantee doesn’t mean that it isn’t possible,” she pointed out, grasping onto that hope as tight as she could.
“It has been over a year since you cast the enchantment, which also adds to the danger of removing it. It is not an enchantment that one casts with an intention to remove it, Miss Granger,” he continued. “If you attempt to do so, the chances of all of your parents’ memories coming back to them are very slight, and there is a risk of doing permanent damage to not only their memories, but also their brains.”
And just like that, her hope fled. Permanent damage. Brains. She had a vision of her parents lying in bed in hospital with tubes all over them as they stared blankly at the ceiling. What had she done? It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It wasn’t supposed to be anything but a complicated enchantment with a relatively easy release.
“If you choose to let the enchantment remain, it will last until their death. They will never remember, but they will live out healthy, normal lives. There is no risk in regards to it not being removed.” His voice was gentle, which made it worse. She felt horrible, sick to her stomach and scared, and he should be yelling at her or calling her names or something more than trying to make it easier for her. This wasn’t easy at all.
“What if I cast it again but gave them the right memories? Wouldn’t that work?” She was trying to think of something to fix this. She couldn’t just sit here and accept that there was no hope. Not without exhausting any possibility. It was too important, they were too important.
“I would not advise such an attempt. It is unlikely that their brains could handle that much magic, and the walls would collapse. The damage would irreparable. There are only two options. You can risk permanent injury by attempting to remove the enchantment or you can give up and allow the enchantment to remain.”
“No,” she said softly, shaking her head. “Maybe there isn’t a charm, but there has to be something.” She wiped her eyes and looked at him. “We have so many fields of magic, Professor. Isn’t there something else? A potion or another charm or , uh, runes or something?”
“I know this is difficult, Hermione, but I‘m afraid that you need to accept it.”
Of course. He wouldn’t likely know if there was a potion or runes. It wasn’t his field of study. And he hadn’t been familiar with the charm she’d originally used, which meant there had to be other charms out there that he didn’t know. It wasn’t hopeless then. There might be a way to bring them back, to fix this, and she knew she had to try.
“Thank you, Professor.” She stood up and smoothed down her robe, cringing when she saw how her hand was shaking. “I appreciate your assistance with this matter.”
“Should I call for Madam Pomfrey?” He looked at her with concern. “This must be stressing, child. Perhaps she can prescribe something to calm your nerves.”
“There’s no need, Professor. I’m fine,” she assured him, even if that word wasn’t appropriate at all for how she felt right now. “I’ll go home now and rest.” In the library with the potions books. Maybe there was something in them that could be used to help make this better. “Good-bye, Professor. Thank you once again.”
Before he could say anything except good-bye, she hurried out of his classroom. She managed to make it through the castle and outside the walls without falling to her knees and sobbing, though she kept her head down so no one could see her crying if they noticed her. Instead of Apparating, she went to the Three Broomsticks to use the Floo. With the state she was in right now, she didn’t dare take the risk of splinching herself.
When she got home, she went up to her room and fell onto her bed. Permanent damage. No chance. Give up. Bad decision. Flitwick’s words echoed in her mind as she pulled her pillow against her and hugged it. Regardless of what he said, she couldn’t just accept this. It was her parents, and it was her fault that they were living in that awful flat in Australia with no memory of their lives or their daughter. Maybe the enchantment couldn’t be lifted, but there had to be a way around it. There just had to be.
She refused to give up without trying. Magic was supposed to make almost anything possible; what good was it being a witch if she couldn’t even make her parents okay again? No, she wouldn’t just let it go and stop looking for an answer. She’d do more research, exhaust every possibility, see if she could find anything that might help fix it.
Characters: Hermione Granger, Professor Flitwick [NPC]
Location: Professor Flitwick’s office
Status: Private
Summary: Hermione goes to see Professor Flitwick regarding his research
Completion: Complete
The owl arrived during breakfast. Hermione hadn’t even finished a cup of coffee before she heard the pecking on the window. It had been brief and to the point, though no time had been specified as to when she should meet with Flitwick. He was a clever man, though, and obviously knew that she wouldn’t waste time in getting to Hogwarts.
The fact that it wasn’t even eight in the morning didn’t really matter. She had been up for a few hours, after all, and it seemed pointless to lurk around Grimmauld Place when she wanted to know what Flitwick had found. Fortunately, she knew he was awake because he’d sent the owl. Still, she was quiet as she made her way through the castle to his office. It was early, so there wasn’t a buzz of activity, and she didn’t particularly want to be seen to have to explain why she was meeting with a professor at such an early hour.
When she reached his office, she was relieved to see the door open and to find him at his desk. He didn’t seem surprised to see her, but there was an expression on his face that sent cold chills throughout her body. It wasn’t the face of someone who had discovered good news or solved a complex charm. Of course, she might be displacing her own worries by seeing things in his expression that weren’t there, she decided. That hope gave her the extra push she needed to walk into his office and close the door behind her.
“Good morning, Professor,” she said, taking the seat that he indicated.
“Good morning, Miss Granger.” Flitwick peered over the desk at her and adjusted his spectacles. “As I mentioned in my letter, I’ve finished my research into your situation.”
Oh good. He wasn’t going to waste time with idle chit chat and small talk. He was getting straight to the problem, which was what she wanted even if her tummy felt like it was tied up into knots. “Thank you, Professor. I appreciate you taking the time when you’re so busy.”
“I have never been one to resist a challenge, Miss. Granger. I just wish that I had found a better solution than I did.”
His words weren’t positive by any means, but she grasped onto the word solution and tried to ignore everything else. “There is a solution, though? Oh, thank God. I’ve been so worried.”
He looked at her then in a way that she couldn’t describe as anything but pitying. She shifted in the chair and bit her lip, curling her fingers around the arms of the chair as she waited to hear what he said. “Miss Granger, Hermione, the charm that you used---while it wasn’t dark, necessarily, it was distinctly gray. It was also too complex to have been used without further research and understanding.”
“It wasn’t dark,” she said firmly. “I don’t know about the gray, because it was in a standard book of charms, albeit rare and unusual ones, but I know it wasn’t dark.” She hesitated and lowered her gaze. “And I know that it was too difficult for me to use, obviously, since I can’t fix it.”
“Many of the rare charms are gray, child. If they weren’t, they would be used more often and classified as common,” he told her. “You had to be aware of that when you found it listed, yet you chose to perform it anyway without asking for guidance or doing more thorough research.” He held up a tiny hand before she could protest. “I am not here to judge your choices, Miss Granger nor am I here to scold you for doing something that, in hindsight, should not have been done. I have a rather good idea what your life must have been like at the time, and I cannot in clear conscience say that I would not also have made a bad decision if I were in similar circumstances.”
Bad decision. Should not have been done. Hermione flinched which each word and felt the pressure on her shoulders increase. This was worse than the disappointment and the sense of failure. He was being honest, treating her like an adult, and she should be relieved, but all she could think about was how her parents had looked at her last week. Nothing he said could be worse than seeing her mother’s fear and hearing her father dismiss any idea of him having a daughter. Besides, hadn’t she thought these things about herself many times since returning from Australia?
Logic didn’t work in this case, though. It didn’t matter what she occasionally thought about herself because it was different when it was verbalized by a professor that she respected and someone she had admired since her first day of class. Each word made her feel worse, and she hated herself when she felt her eyes stinging. She didn’t want to cry in front of a professor.
“What did you find, Professor?” she asked as calmly as she could. Her voice wavered but she was proud that she had been able to ask.
Flitwick was a good man, and he obviously hadn’t intended for his words to sound so harsh because he looked upset. She wanted to tell him that it was okay, that the truth hurt but she’d preferred that to mollycoddling and being treated like a naïve child. Because he was right. She had known, even with the stress and worry at the time, that the charms she had been learning were complicated and there was a risk in performing them without proper instruction or research. At the time, there hadn’t been a better option, but she wondered during the past week if she just hadn’t tried hard enough to find one.
“You performed the charm correctly, Miss Granger. However, as it is with any charm that affects the memory, there is no simple removal. The text was misleading, regardless of your translation, and the fact that this charm is so rarely used because of the risk involved is not something you’d have known. It required me contacting other experts and researching in areas that you would have been unable to access to learn the true extent, after all.”
“But there is a removal?” She had to focus and not fall apart. This was too important. She reached up and wiped her eyes before she looked at Flitwick expectantly.
He sighed and shook his head slowly. “There is the possibility that an altered charm might work to release the enchantment. The one that you had originally used was incorrect, according to a colleague. It worked for a variation of the charm, true, but not for the exact wording that you used. Unfortunately, as I’m sure you know, this can happen, especially in older texts. I have little doubt that the proper release charm is in the book that you used; it just wasn’t placed in the appropriate place.”
“But that’s ridiculous,” she said. “I’ve heard of it, mostly in regards to Potions texts from the eighteenth century, but everything I translated fit with the enchantment that I used.”
“If someone intended to use that particular charm, it is not assumed that they would do so without very thorough research. In which case, they would have learned the mistake before performing it,” he said bluntly. “I am not discounting the work that you did, Miss Granger, but you are young and unlikely to know the extent to which you should have researched.”
She nodded slowly, biting her lip so hard that she could taste the bitter flavor of blood. For once, she couldn’t speak up about being called young because she had obviously made a mistake. “What can be done to fix them?”
He removed his spectacles and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Finally, he put them back on and looked across the desk at her. “The charm that I mentioned earlier could possibly work. However, the risk is great. The enchantment is a variation of a memory charm, and thus affects a delicate area of the brain. If the charm is performed and the enchantment is lifted, there is no guarantee that your parents will remember anything.”
“But no guarantee doesn’t mean that it isn’t possible,” she pointed out, grasping onto that hope as tight as she could.
“It has been over a year since you cast the enchantment, which also adds to the danger of removing it. It is not an enchantment that one casts with an intention to remove it, Miss Granger,” he continued. “If you attempt to do so, the chances of all of your parents’ memories coming back to them are very slight, and there is a risk of doing permanent damage to not only their memories, but also their brains.”
And just like that, her hope fled. Permanent damage. Brains. She had a vision of her parents lying in bed in hospital with tubes all over them as they stared blankly at the ceiling. What had she done? It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It wasn’t supposed to be anything but a complicated enchantment with a relatively easy release.
“If you choose to let the enchantment remain, it will last until their death. They will never remember, but they will live out healthy, normal lives. There is no risk in regards to it not being removed.” His voice was gentle, which made it worse. She felt horrible, sick to her stomach and scared, and he should be yelling at her or calling her names or something more than trying to make it easier for her. This wasn’t easy at all.
“What if I cast it again but gave them the right memories? Wouldn’t that work?” She was trying to think of something to fix this. She couldn’t just sit here and accept that there was no hope. Not without exhausting any possibility. It was too important, they were too important.
“I would not advise such an attempt. It is unlikely that their brains could handle that much magic, and the walls would collapse. The damage would irreparable. There are only two options. You can risk permanent injury by attempting to remove the enchantment or you can give up and allow the enchantment to remain.”
“No,” she said softly, shaking her head. “Maybe there isn’t a charm, but there has to be something.” She wiped her eyes and looked at him. “We have so many fields of magic, Professor. Isn’t there something else? A potion or another charm or , uh, runes or something?”
“I know this is difficult, Hermione, but I‘m afraid that you need to accept it.”
Of course. He wouldn’t likely know if there was a potion or runes. It wasn’t his field of study. And he hadn’t been familiar with the charm she’d originally used, which meant there had to be other charms out there that he didn’t know. It wasn’t hopeless then. There might be a way to bring them back, to fix this, and she knew she had to try.
“Thank you, Professor.” She stood up and smoothed down her robe, cringing when she saw how her hand was shaking. “I appreciate your assistance with this matter.”
“Should I call for Madam Pomfrey?” He looked at her with concern. “This must be stressing, child. Perhaps she can prescribe something to calm your nerves.”
“There’s no need, Professor. I’m fine,” she assured him, even if that word wasn’t appropriate at all for how she felt right now. “I’ll go home now and rest.” In the library with the potions books. Maybe there was something in them that could be used to help make this better. “Good-bye, Professor. Thank you once again.”
Before he could say anything except good-bye, she hurried out of his classroom. She managed to make it through the castle and outside the walls without falling to her knees and sobbing, though she kept her head down so no one could see her crying if they noticed her. Instead of Apparating, she went to the Three Broomsticks to use the Floo. With the state she was in right now, she didn’t dare take the risk of splinching herself.
When she got home, she went up to her room and fell onto her bed. Permanent damage. No chance. Give up. Bad decision. Flitwick’s words echoed in her mind as she pulled her pillow against her and hugged it. Regardless of what he said, she couldn’t just accept this. It was her parents, and it was her fault that they were living in that awful flat in Australia with no memory of their lives or their daughter. Maybe the enchantment couldn’t be lifted, but there had to be a way around it. There just had to be.
She refused to give up without trying. Magic was supposed to make almost anything possible; what good was it being a witch if she couldn’t even make her parents okay again? No, she wouldn’t just let it go and stop looking for an answer. She’d do more research, exhaust every possibility, see if she could find anything that might help fix it.