Chapter 97: Lost Memories Part 2
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 97: Lost Memories Part 2
Pansy's voice was hoarse, barely a whisper.
"What did you do to Harry? What did you do to my friends?. Did you-"
Dumbledore tilted his head, a faint smile appearing at the corners of his lips. "I think you misunderstand the situation, my dear. You are not the one asking questions here."
Pansy's eyes blazed with defiance. "I will tell you nothing."
"We shall see."
Dumbledore reached into his robes and produced a small glass vial, filled with a clear, colorless liquid that seemed to shimmer in the dim light.
Pansy's eyes widened. She knew what it was. Everyone knew what it was.
Veritaserum. A nasty potion that breaks the person's will and forces them to tell the truth.
"No," she breathed, struggling against her restraints. "No, you can't do that. Get away from me!"
Dumbledore stepped closer, his movements slow and deliberate. "I could have done this the easy way. You could have answered my questions willingly. But you chose defiance. So here we are."
He uncorked the vial.
Pansy clamped her mouth shut, turning her head away. But Dumbledore was stronger, faster. He grabbed her chin with one hand, forcing her to face him, and with the other, he tilted the vial to her lips.
Three drops. No more.
The effect was immediate.
Pansy's body went rigid, her eyes glazing over. Her jaw slackened, her resistance crumbling like sand in a tide. She stopped struggling. She stopped fighting. She simply... waited.
Dumbledore sat down across from her, his expression looking calm and patient now.
"Very well, Miss Parkinson," he said. "Let us try this again."
"What do you know about the Potter Grimoire?"
Pansy's mouth opened, and the words came out without her permission. "Nothing. I don't know what that is."
Dumbledore's eyes narrowed. "Really?, That is surprising. You were a close friend of Harry Potter. Surely he mentioned it."
"He never mentioned any grimoire. I don't know what you're talking about."
"I see...I guess you were not that close as I thought." The answer was truthful. Dumbledore could see it in her eyes, in the way her body did not resist. He frowned.
"Has Harry Potter been in contact with any strange house-elf? One that does not belong to Hogwarts?"
Pansy's brow furrowed slightly, as if the question confused her. "A house-elf? No. I don't... I don't remember any house-elf."
"Think carefully," Dumbledore pressed. "A house-elf that might have been helping him. Delivering messages. Providing information."
"I don't know anything about that."
Dumbledore's jaw tightened. "Has Harry Potter been in contact with a person named Bellatrix Lestrange? Or anyone who identified themselves as a member of the Knights of Walpurgis?"
Pansy blinked slowly. "Bellatrix... Lestrange? I don't... I don't know that name."
"Has he spoken of the Knights of Walpurgis at all? A terrorist organization that opposes the Ministry?"
"No. He never spoke of anything like that."
Dumbledore's fingers drummed against the arm of his chair. "Does Harry know about the Potter Castle? Does he know where it is located?"
"The Potter... castle?" Pansy's voice was distant, confused. "I don't... I don't know what that is."
Dumbledore was silent for a long moment. His expression, usually so composed, was beginning to crack. A muscle twitched in his jaw.
"You are telling me," he said slowly, "that you know nothing of the grimoire, nothing of the house-elf, nothing of the Knights of Walpurgis, and nothing of the Potter Castle?"
"I don't know anything about any of that," Pansy said. "I only knew Harry from school. He was my friend. That's all."
Dumbledore stood up abruptly, his chair scraping against the stone floor. He paced back and forth, his robes billowing behind him.
"This is useless," he muttered. "Completely useless. I should have guessed that much."
He stopped and turned to face Pansy, his blue eyes cold and hard.
"You are certain? You know nothing that could be of use to me?"
"I know nothing," Pansy said, her voice hollow under the influence of the potion.
Dumbledore stared at her for a long moment. Then he sighed, a heavy, disappointed sound.
"I had hoped," he said quietly, "that you might have some value. That your friendship with the Potter boy might have given you insight into his plans. But it seems you are as useless as your brother."
Pansy flinched at the mention of Alistair, but the Veritaserum kept her from responding.
Dumbledore walked to the door and opened it. A man in white robes stood outside, his face nervous.
"I'm done here," Dumbledore said.
The man glanced at Pansy, then back at Dumbledore. "How do we proceed, sir?"
Dumbledore's expression was cold. "I thought this girl could have some crucial information for me. But I was wrong. She knows nothing of interest."
He paused, then added: "You can take it all away."
The man's eyes widened. "All of it, sir? Usually, we leave a base to build on, as you know. It makes the process more... stable."
Dumbledore turned to look at him, and the man flinched.
"Take it all," the old wizard said, his voice soft but sharp as a blade. "Turn this girl into a blank slate. We can build something useful from there."
The man hesitated. "The process will be much slower..."
"I don't mind," Dumbledore said. "There is no hurry. Take your time with her. I want you to be very thorough. Do you understand?"
The man swallowed hard. "Yes, sir."
Dumbledore left without another word.
The man in white robes stood in the doorway for a moment, watching Dumbledore's retreat. Then he turned to Pansy.
"Looks like you made him angry," he said, shaking his head. "That was a bad call."
Pansy's eyes, still glazed from the Veritaserum, focused on him with desperate intensity. "Let me go. Please. Let me go."
The man shrugged. "You're not going anywhere. And soon enough..." He paused, a flicker of pity crossing his face. "There will be no you anymore."
The memory ended.
Harry pulled himself out of Pansy's mind with a gasp, his body shaking with anger.
He was still inside the void...that endless, black emptiness that was once her mind. The memory of Dumbledore's interrogation faded behind him like smoke, but the rage it had ignited burned hot and bright in his chest.
Dumbledore.
The name was like a curse to him. The more he learned about him, the worse he got.
'He did this to her. He ordered them to destroy her. To erase everything she was.' Pansy's condition was only so bad because of him.
Harry had known that Dumbledore was a monster. He had seen plenty of evidence of his cruelty already. He had experienced Dumbledore's manipulation firsthand, had felt the cold touch of his mind inside his own.
And he had watched Dumbledore murder his family.
But this... this was something else.
This was a different kind of violation. A different kind of cruelty.
Dumbledore had not just killed Pansy's body, he had erased her soul. He had taken a bright, fierce, loyal girl and stripped her down to nothing. He had ordered her wiped clean, not because she was a threat, but because she was inconvenient.
The Dursleys had died quickly. Pansy was being killed slowly, piece by piece, day after day, until there was nothing left.
'I'll kill him,' Harry thought, his rage burning so hot he could barely breathe. I'll kill him for what he did to you. I'll make him suffer the way you suffered. I'll-'
He stopped.
He forced himself to take a deep breath.
'Not now, he told himself. Not yet. First, I have to help her.'
The void around him was silent and cold, but it was not empty. The sparks of memory still flickered in the darkness, faint and fragile. Pansy was still in here somewhere. And if he lost himself to rage now, he would never find her.
He needed to go deeper.
'There has to be something left. There has to be.'
He moved through the darkness, past the bubbles of pain and fear, past the memories that Dumbledore's men had left behind. He went deeper and deeper, searching for something...any part of his friend that still existed.
And then he found them.
Broken bubbles. Fragments of memories that had been shattered but not completely destroyed. They were scattered across the deepest part of Pansy's mind, like pieces of a broken mirror.
They flickered weakly, barely visible in the darkness, as if they were trying to hide.
Harry approached one of them carefully. It was small and fragile, trembling like a candle flame in a storm.
He touched it.
A fragment of a memory played before his eyes...images of a young Pansy, no older than six, running through a garden. A woman's voice called her name. Her mother. Pansy laughed and ran faster, her dark hair flying behind her.
The memory shattered, pushing him back.
Harry reached for another fragment.
This one showed Pansy and Alistair, sitting on a windowsill. They were reading a book together. Alistair was smiling. Pansy was laughing at something he had said.
Gone.
Another fragment.
Hogwarts. The Great Hall. Pansy was sitting at the Slytherin table, rolling her eyes at something Ron Weasley had said. Draco was smirking. Crabbe was eating. And Harry was...
Harry was looking at her.
Pansy's memory of that moment was fragmented, but it was clear enough. She had noticed him looking and had smiled in return.
The memory faded, but it did not shatter. This one managed to hold.
Harry stared at it for a long moment.
'She valued those memories more than anything else. She buried them deep, protected them. Even after everything they did to her, she held onto them.'
He knew what he had to do.
He reached into his own mind, into his own memories of that moment. He had been there. He remembered Pansy's smile. He remembered the way her eyes had lit up.
He took that memory, that perfect, unbroken memory, and he combined it with her broken fragment.
The pieces clicked together like a puzzle.
The memory solidified. It was no longer broken. It was whole.
Harry felt a surge of hope.
He moved to the next fragment. And the next. And the next.
Some of them were memories of their time at Hogwarts...the train ride, the sorting, the study sessions in the library, the meals in the Great Hall.
Harry had been there for many of them, and he gave Pansy his own memories to fill in the gaps and to fix her broken records.
Other fragments were older...memories of her childhood, her parents, her brother. Harry didn't have those memories, but he did his best to stabilize them, using the techniques he had learned from the books and from the Founder's teachings.
It was slow, painstaking work. Each fragment required precision and care.
One wrong move, and the memory could shatter completely, lost forever.
But Harry didn't stop.
He worked for hours...maybe days. Time moved differently inside the mind. He repaired what he could, strengthened what was weak, and protected what was fragile.
Finally, exhausted and drained, he pulled himself back into the real world.
The garden was dark now. The sun had set, and the stars were beginning to appear in the sky. Harry was still sitting on the stone bench, his body trembling with exhaustion.
Pansy was beside him, still and silent.
Harry turned to look at her, his heart pounding.
For a long moment, nothing happened.
Then Pansy blinked.
Her eyes, which had been empty and hollow, flickered with something. A spark. A light.
She turned her head slowly, her gaze focusing on him.
"Harry?" she whispered. "Is that you?"
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