Chapter 96: Lost Memories Part 1
Disclaimer:
Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
I own only the original characters I create.
"Dialogue"
'Thoughts'
-Author notes-
Chapter 96: Lost Memories Part 1
The Potter Castle library was extremely vast, and it contained knowledge accumulated over many generations. Its shelves stretched from floor to ceiling, filled with thousands of books on every subject imaginable.
But tonight, Harry was not interested in duelling spells or combat magic.
Books on memory-related magic surrounded him.
Books like: The Mind's Architecture: A Study of Memory and Magic by Alaric the Wise.
Occlumency and Legilimency: A Complete Guide by Isolde Blackwood. Restoring the Shattered Mind: Techniques for Memory Recovery by an anonymous author.
A dozen others lay open on the large oak desk before him.
Harry had been studying for hours. His eyes were red, his neck ached, and his mind was filled with diagrams of neural pathways and incantations for memory charms. But he couldn't stop. He had to find a way to help his friend, and this was the only path he could take.
Dibble appeared beside him with a soft pop, carrying a tray of food: a bowl of soup, a crust of bread, and a cup of tea.
"Master Harry should eat," the house-elf said, his voice gentle but firm. "Dibble has noticed that Master Harry has not eaten since breakfast."
Harry didn't look up from his book. "I'm not hungry."
"Master Harry said the same thing yesterday. And the day before."
Harry sighed and pushed the book away, rubbing his tired eyes. "How is she? Pansy?"
Dibble's expression softened. "Miss Pansy is in the gardens again. She has been there since the morning."
Harry nodded slowly. He had noticed that Pansy spent most of her time outdoors. She would sit on the stone bench near the rose bushes, staring at the trees, the flowers, the sky. She never spoke much. She simply existed in the quiet beauty of the castle's grounds.
"Is she... is she talking at all?" Harry asked.
"A little," Dibble said. "She says 'thank you' when Dibble brings her food. She asked for water once. But she does not start conversations. She does not ask questions. She just... watches."
Harry ran a hand through his hair. He had expected this. The Re-Education centre had stripped Pansy of everything that made her who she was. Her memories, her personality, her emotions...all of it had been erased or suppressed. What remained was a shell, a body that could function but could not truly live.
'It could be worse,' he told himself. 'She could have been turned into a Ministry agent.'
That was the worst-case scenario. If the Re-Education process had been completed, Pansy would have been reprogrammed...her old self destroyed and replaced with a new, loyal servant of Dumbledore. She would have been a danger to herself and everyone around her.
But that hadn't happened. The process had been interrupted by them, before they had the chance to complete it. Pansy was left in a state of limbo...empty but not hostile. Aware but not truly awake.
And that meant there was still a chance.
Harry had observed fragments of memory in their conversations. Pansy vaguely remembered parts of Hogwarts, like the castle or the lake. She remembered looking for something in the water. These were pieces of her old life, buried deep beneath the layers of conditioning.
If he could reach those fragments, if he could bring them to the surface, he might be able to help her remember.
That was why he was studying so hard.
<>
After several days spent studying in both the castle's library and inside his grimoire, he felt ready enough to make the first attempt.
Mind magic was not something he could practice with target dummies. So after gaining as much knowledge as he could, he had no choice but to go for it.
It was late afternoon when Harry found Pansy in the inner gardens of the castle.
She was sitting on a stone bench near the rose bushes, her dark hair loose around her pale face. She was staring at the distant trees, her expression blank and unreadable.
She looked so peaceful, and for a moment, this made Harry hesitate about what he was doing.
What if bringing back her memories causes her more pain? He wondered. What if the memories are too traumatic?
But then he looked into her eyes...empty, hollow, devoid of any spark of life, and he knew he couldn't leave her like this.
He sat down beside her, and she didn't speak a word. She simply continued staring at trees and plants with her black eyes.
"Pansy," he said gently. "I want to try something. Something that might help you remember who you are."
She turned her head slowly, her brow furrowing. "Remember?"
"Yes. You told me you remember Hogwarts. The lake. But there's more. So much more. And I think I can help you find it."
She stared at him, confusion in her eyes. She didn't understand. She didn't know what it felt like to be whole.
Harry realized it was pointless to explain this to her. So he simply raised his wand.
"Legilimency." The word came in a whisper. And just like that, he was inside her mind.
He found no resistance or any sign of the defenses that the books had warned him about.
Harry could guess that the current Pansy was completely unable to defend her mind.
"What...is this?" His vision shifted around this new environment as his mind processed it all.
Harry found himself standing, or floating, inside a completely black void. A seemingly endless space of empty darkness.
"This is wrong." He realized it immediately.
According to the books, the part of the mind he was currently in should be filled with thoughts, emotions, and memories. But there was nothing here.
"No...wait..." He was wrong.
In the distance, he saw tiny sparks of light. They flickered like candles in the darkness, faint and fragile. It wasn't much, but there was something still in Pansy's mind.
Harry moved towards them.
As he approached, the sparks grew larger and clearer. They were bubbles...translucent spheres that floated in the void, each one containing a single image.
"Memories." He realized.
Harry reached out and touched the nearest one.
He was inside a small, cramped room, the same room where they found Pansy.
The walls were bare and grey, lit by a single flickering lightbulb. Pansy was sitting on a hard chair, her wrists bound with glowing cuffs.
She was crying, thrashing around and screaming.
A man stood over her, his wand pointed at her head. His mouth was moving, but Harry couldn't hear the words. Pansy's pain was so overwhelming that it swallowed everything else, so there were no memories of what the man was saying.
Harry immediately pulled himself out of that memory, his heart pounding hard.
"Fuck..."
He had seen this before, during the Ministry raid. He had seen the other children locked in the re-education center. He had seen the Ministry men dressed in white robes entering the children's rooms and casting spells on them.
"Is this what they did to you?" Did they just torture her every day for the year spent in there?.
He touched another memory. And another. They were all the same...pain, fear, confusion. Workers in white robes performing horrible experiments on her mind, trying to erase who she was. Every last piece of it.
Harry's anger burned like fire. He wanted to find those people and make them pay. But he couldn't. Not now.
He had to focus again; otherwise he could not help his friend.
He continued searching, looking for something, anything that wasn't pain. Some piece of Pansy he could bring back to make her remember who she was before all of this.
But then, he found something strange.
A memory that was different from the others. It was still of the same room, but what called Harry's attention was the person in front of Pansy.
This was not one of those white-robed men, but someone he knew very well.
Albus Dumbledore.
Harry touched the memory, and the world around him shifted.
He was inside the same grey room, but it felt different. This memory was older than the others. He could feel it had a faded quality, as a photograph left too long in the sun.
Pansy was sitting in the same hard chair, but she was different. Her dark hair was shorter, her face less gaunt. She still had that fire in her eyes...the fierce, defiant spark that Harry remembered from their first year at Hogwarts.
Her wrists were bound with glowing cuffs, but she held herself with a dignity that the other memories lacked.
And standing in front of her, calm and composed, was Albus Dumbledore.
He was dressed in robes of deep purple, his silver beard flowing down his chest, his half-moon spectacles perched on his nose. He looked every bit the kindly grandfather the world believed him to be.
But Harry knew better.
"I don't know why you're here," Pansy spat, her voice shaking with rage. "Did you come to gloat?"
Dumbledore smiled in a way that made Harry's skin crawl. "My dear girl, I came to see how you were adapting. The reports I've received have been... concerning."
Pansy laughed bitterly. "Concerning?!" She spat at him.
"You're torturing me!. You're taking everything from me. My memories, my thoughts, my-" Her voice cracked. "I can't even remember my brother's face anymore."
The saliva hit Dumbledore's cheek, and he paused. For a moment, his expression flickered into a flash of cold, controlled anger. Then the mask returned, and he calmly raised a handkerchief to wipe his face.
"That was unwise," he said quietly.
"I don't care," Pansy snarled. "You killed him. You killed Alistair. I know you did."
Dumbledore did not deny it. He simply conjured a chair and sat down, crossing his legs as if he were settling in for a pleasant conversation.
"Your brother was a curious young man," he said. "Too curious for his own good. He asked questions that should not have been asked. He went places he should not have gone."
"He was investigating you!" Pansy shouted. "He knew you were hiding something in that corridor. Something terrible."
Dumbledore was silent for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was soft, almost gentle.
"I did what was necessary for the Greater Good. Something that your family doesnt seem to understand. Your brother was a threat to the stability of our world. He would have exposed secrets that could have torn our society apart. I could not allow that."
Pansy stared at him, her eyes wide with horror. "You admit it. You actually admit it."
"I admit nothing," Dumbledore said. " You have made certain... assumptions. I have not confirmed them."
"You might as well have."
Dumbledore smiled again...that same gentle, grandfatherly smile that made Harry want to scream.
"You see, my dear, this is why you are here. This is why you are being... re-educated. Your emotions cloud your judgment. Your attachments make you weak. You cling to memories of a brother who was, frankly, a fool."
Pansy flinched as if he had struck her.
"Alistair was a good person," she whispered. "He was kind and brave. He was everything you're not."
"He was foolish," Dumbledore said calmly. "And now he is dead. And you are here, being given a chance to become something better. Something useful."
Pansy's hands clenched into fists. "I will never be useful to you. I will never serve you."
"We shall see."
Dumbledore leaned back in his chair, studying her with the cold, calculating gaze of a man who had already won.
"But that is not why I came here today," he said. "I did not come to discuss your brother. I came to discuss one of your dear friends...Harry Potter."
Pansy's expression changed. "Harry?..."
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