Selection, Post-7 Gen
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There was something there. Something left behind. Mrs. Weasley was not a woman to lose track of things, but there it was, the relic: something had rolled beneath the settee.
The children must have left it. The children mustn't find it.
Not a second thought but she had lassooed it with a tracio, caught it oddly heavy, warm and oddly heavy in her hand.
A spherical, glass pensieve. Overflowing with memories. Flicker of double vision, redundant language: a crystal ball.
Mrs. Weasley rested her wand against her hip and stared suspicion at the thing in her hand.
It wasn't like her to forget.
She had rows and rows of memories, libraries of memories meticulously catalogued in her mind.
It could, of course, be a trap. A message, perhaps, or a warning. How it might have gotten past the wards meant a shiver of fear.
Her husband would not be home for a few days. He would rampage, test, and refortify everything. He never trusted anything for very long. Not since the last war.
Mrs. Weasley pulled a stool up to her kitchen counter, selected a parchment from the childrens' homework supplies, and got to work on revelatory and protection spells.
The first smears of memory yielded nothing but pink flames and what sounded like the nickering, distressed whinnies of a unicorn.
Hermione remembered it shimmering, fluorescent: the gently bleeding unicorn, groaning and shivering throughout the entire procedure under that black moon. Black forest, black swamp, dying unicorn. They had needed the supplies.
That had been the second war.
The next bled across the parchment blue and yellow: an Eastern Europe sky. Krum had died that day. The day had been so cold, cold but so bright with winter sunlight. Krum died before they knew that they had won.
Whose memories were these? Who would think to send her these?
Fields. Cells. Screams.
The sixth set of silver tendrils exploded when she lay them down. Mrs. Weasley cast a containment charm and then healed the burns on her face and neck. She cast a cleaning charm.
For a minute, she stared at the orb resting on her table, and then she sat back down.
Hermione Weasley would never be a coward.
Three hours later she felt sick and she was shivering, but she had seen them all.
Who sent her these? Of course she had enemies, but... surely no one since the first war... No one outside of Azkaban, a roster of dead names and dead faces... The enemies from the old days had known theatrics and mind games. The later wars were only... aftershocks, outrage.
Was this a beginning?
The Ministry kept collections of memories. They had been compromised before, but now that everything, at last, was under firm control, she would send the orb there, let the warlocks puzzle over it.
Ron would buttress all the wards around the house.
Mrs. Weasley would bring the pensieve to her office in the Ministry, and she would puzzle it out.
Solving mysteries, after all, was her talent. Solving mysteries and sorting memories.
Ever since she was a girl.
Hermione already knew that she would not tell Ginny or Harry. No need to alarm anyone. Not Harry or Ginny or any of the children.
The next war could be a silent one.
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There was something there. Something left behind. Mrs. Weasley was not a woman to lose track of things, but there it was, the relic: something had rolled beneath the settee.
The children must have left it. The children mustn't find it.
Not a second thought but she had lassooed it with a tracio, caught it oddly heavy, warm and oddly heavy in her hand.
A spherical, glass pensieve. Overflowing with memories. Flicker of double vision, redundant language: a crystal ball.
Mrs. Weasley rested her wand against her hip and stared suspicion at the thing in her hand.
It wasn't like her to forget.
She had rows and rows of memories, libraries of memories meticulously catalogued in her mind.
It could, of course, be a trap. A message, perhaps, or a warning. How it might have gotten past the wards meant a shiver of fear.
Her husband would not be home for a few days. He would rampage, test, and refortify everything. He never trusted anything for very long. Not since the last war.
Mrs. Weasley pulled a stool up to her kitchen counter, selected a parchment from the childrens' homework supplies, and got to work on revelatory and protection spells.
The first smears of memory yielded nothing but pink flames and what sounded like the nickering, distressed whinnies of a unicorn.
Hermione remembered it shimmering, fluorescent: the gently bleeding unicorn, groaning and shivering throughout the entire procedure under that black moon. Black forest, black swamp, dying unicorn. They had needed the supplies.
That had been the second war.
The next bled across the parchment blue and yellow: an Eastern Europe sky. Krum had died that day. The day had been so cold, cold but so bright with winter sunlight. Krum died before they knew that they had won.
Whose memories were these? Who would think to send her these?
Fields. Cells. Screams.
The sixth set of silver tendrils exploded when she lay them down. Mrs. Weasley cast a containment charm and then healed the burns on her face and neck. She cast a cleaning charm.
For a minute, she stared at the orb resting on her table, and then she sat back down.
Hermione Weasley would never be a coward.
Three hours later she felt sick and she was shivering, but she had seen them all.
Who sent her these? Of course she had enemies, but... surely no one since the first war... No one outside of Azkaban, a roster of dead names and dead faces... The enemies from the old days had known theatrics and mind games. The later wars were only... aftershocks, outrage.
Was this a beginning?
The Ministry kept collections of memories. They had been compromised before, but now that everything, at last, was under firm control, she would send the orb there, let the warlocks puzzle over it.
Ron would buttress all the wards around the house.
Mrs. Weasley would bring the pensieve to her office in the Ministry, and she would puzzle it out.
Solving mysteries, after all, was her talent. Solving mysteries and sorting memories.
Ever since she was a girl.
Hermione already knew that she would not tell Ginny or Harry. No need to alarm anyone. Not Harry or Ginny or any of the children.
The next war could be a silent one.
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