Challenge #102: Memory Charm // Challenge#97: Artistic license
Title: Under your spell
Rating/Warnings: PG
Characters/Pairing: Draco/Neville.
Summary: Someone has been messing with Neville's memory
Word Count: 1493
Author's Notes: Sorry the ending's a bit abrupt, my fingers were hurting my the time I finished this, might have over-stretched myself a bit idea wise :)
Registered purchases?: Both
It wasn’t in Neville’s nature to be suspicious. He’d never been before, but, well, it had gotten past the point where he could tell himself that nothing was wrong with any sense of conviction.
He couldn’t remember Tuesday again.
He had vague memories of going out, of doing something in the greenhouse, but he had no clear idea what he’d done and nothing seemed to have been moved from where he remembered leaving it on Monday. Also, he remembered Monday. And Wednesday. Just not Tuesday.
Something was wrong.
If it was once, that would be bad enough, but it had happened before. He’d always written it off as him being fuzzy of drinking too much at the pub or, well, everyone had always told him he wasn’t so bright but...
Once he realised there was a problem, he knew he was going to have to do something about it, which presented a problem in itself. His first instinct would be to talk to Draco. After all, as they were involved, as Draco would say, if anyone would be able to tell him what had happened on Tuesday and help him work out why he couldn’t remember then it’d be Draco. The problem was Draco was...he was a little crazy sometimes with his paranoia, and Neville knew the idea that someone had been poking around in his head would probably upset Draco more than it did him, so that was out.
He could ask Luna, but she was...possibly not the most likely person to be helpful. In fact, there were an entire host of ex-D.A. people he COULD ask, the problem was that the majority of them though he was absolutely insane for even looking twice at Draco and that the other man must have used some kind of spell to seduce Neville, so admitting that he was missing time wasn’t the best thing.
In the end, he went to Hermione.
~*~*~*~
“Oh, Neville, how lovely to see you!” Hermione exclaimed, leaping up from her desk and rushing to greet him. Neville grinned and bypassed the handshake she offered, pulling her into a quick hug.
“Hello, Hermione,” he said, trying to sound as cheerful as he could. “Have you got a minute or am I interrupting?”
“Not interrupting at all,” she said, gesturing for him to take a chair and returning to her desk. Neville couldn’t help but think her ministry job as a muggle liaison suited Hermione, it was about time they had a muggle born in the post at least and she had the most ordered ministry office he’d ever seen. It wouldn’t surprise him if she was minister of magic by forty.
“Actually, this isn’t so much a social call as, well, I need your help with something,” Neville asked, sinking into the chair.
“Oh,” Hermione said, cheerfully, “What can I help you with?”
“It’s...well...I think someone’s been using memory charms on me. And not very well, at that. I’m missing days here and there and it’s starting to scare me a bit.”
“That is worrying,” Hermione said, standing again and moving around the desk, giving Neville’s head a thoughtful look. “Do you have any idea who could have done it? I mean, is there a pattern at all?”
“I don’t know,” Neville said with a grin, glad Hermione’s first response hadn’t been to suggest Draco. “I’ve lost entire days so whoever’s done this must have wiped out my meeting them as well as whatever we did that won’t want me to remember.”
“That makes sense,” Hermione said, “There are a few spells...well...are you sure you wouldn’t rather see a specialist about this? We would go to St Mungos...”
“No,” Neville said, firmly. “I’m not...I have reasons I don’t want to go there with something like this. And, well, I think if I told anyone else the first thing they’d suggest would be Draco being responsible and I can’t see why he would?”
“I can see why he’d hide things from you,” Hermione said, frowning, “But...I see what you mean. I...it’s not as though I’m ever going to be in the Draco Malfoy fan club but, well, you care about him and you’re a good person so...”
“I just know him,” Neville said with a shrug. “He’d hide things from me by being sneak, yes, but a memory spell isn’t his style and, besides, if he’d done it I wouldn’t know about it.”
“He did do well in school,” Hermione agreed. “There are a few diagnostic spells I can run, they might not pick anything up but if this is a bit of sloppy spell casting then I might be able to undo it. Would that be ok? They might take a while to complete.”
“Sounds fine,” Neville said with a shrug, sitting back and letting her cast. In the end, it took about an hour and two cups of tea for the spells to find anything, but they did find something, something that made Hermione purse her lips in annoyance.
“Yes,” she said, “there is...something...I just can’t see what. It’s not...it’s not normal, whatever it is. It’s not a normal magical signature. It’s...it’s...maybe a creature?”
“A creature?” Neville asked, raising an eyebrow at her.
“The test isn’t as precise as I’d like,” Hermione said, “But there isn’t a wand signature and, well, it looks like house elf magic to me, but why would a house elf be modifying your memory?”
“No idea,” Neville said with a shrug. “Can you remove it?”
“There are a few...I might be able to remove the latest one but, Neville, I really think you should see a professional with this. I hate the idea of messing around with your memory.”
“You’ll be fine,” Neville said, forcing himself to sound confident though, in truth, having Hermione poking around in his memories was less than idea. “Unless I remember we’re not going to work this out, are we?”
“I suppose,” Hermione said with a sigh. “I’ll try.”
He sat staring into space for the next ten minutes, fighting the urge to ask Hermione questions and generally disturb her, when his memories came flooding back.
Lying in too late, being annoyed all day as he’d missed a window for harvesting a valuable plant he had an order for the seeds from and it would be months before he had another chance. Arguing that evening about it...
Of course.
“Thanks, Hermione,” he said, standing up. “I remember now, it’s...I’ll take care of it. Thank you.”
“Neville, are you sure...”
“I’ll, look, why don’t you come over some time and I’ll explain it over tea? I just need to get this sorted out NOW, if that’s ok.”
“Of course,” Hermione replied, looking nervous and Neville wasn’t sure if that was because he was running off without solving the mystery for her or because she’d just been invited for tea at Malfoy Manor.
~*~*~*~
“Draco,” Neville shouted, striding through the foyer. Normally he’d be a bit intimidated in here but today he had a mission. After a few second Draco emerged from the drawing room, looking confused.
“Yes,” he said, raising an eyebrow.
“I want to talk to you,” Neville said calmly. Draco nodded and went back through into the drawing room, where he’d clearly been working, notes on invisibility potions, his latest brainwave, spread over every surface. It was still a bit surreal to Neville how Draco treat such a nice house like any old place, but he hadn’t been living her long. In the shock on them starting their relationship Draco’s parents had decided to take a long break somewhere sunny and Neville had found himself moved in. He was getting better at treating the house like a house and not like something that might bite him but he wasn’t quite there yet.
“Draco, we argued on Tuesday, right?”
“Yes,” Draco admitted, biting his lip a little. Neville smiled encouragingly and reached over to squeeze his hand. He knew Draco didn’t do well with relationship stress, having had enough turmoil in his life already, he said.
“And...a week last Monday?”
“Yes ...”
“Right, can we talk to your house elf? The new one.”
“Mipsy? Why?”
“I think...I think she’s been using memory charms on me.”
“What?” Draco asked, looking shocked.
“I don’t remember those fights,” Neville replied. “Or, honestly, anything about Tuesday until Hermione lifted the spell, and she says there was a house elf’s magical signature.”
“I’ll kill it,” Draco hissed, standing, but Neville grabbed him before he could go far and pulled him into a hug.
“No, you won’t. You’ll warn it against doing it again and, look...I’m not going to leave you. Definitely not over some silly little argument, and I know it’s hard but you need to try not to get so worked up over them, ok.”
Draco nodded, and Neville kissed him softly before finally letting him go yell at the house elf. He was relived the next day to remember the entire episode.
Word count points: 1493/30 = 49.7 50 points
Bonus points: 10 pts
Title: The story of my life
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 - Some swearing
Characters/Pairing: Draco/Harry
Summary: Draco discovers the Harry Potter books
Word Count: 875
Author's Notes:
Registered purchases?: Both
“What the hell is this?” Draco asked, holding the book out between his thumb and forefinger as though he was afraid he might be contaminated if he touched it too much.
“It’s a book?” Harry asked, Draco glared, Harry shrugged, then reached up and took the book from Draco. He flushed a little when he was what it was, the first Harry Potter book. He’d been wondering how long it was going to take for these little gems to filter down to the magical world.
“Care to tell me how it came about?” Draco asked in a lazy drawl. Harry winced a little. Clearly Draco had already decided this was his fault and, well, it wasn’t like he was wrong.
“Well, you remember when I was working up in Edinburgh? Well...there was this cafe...and this lady. She was writing a book and she was so frustrated and I, I helped her out a bit.”
“You told her this. All of it, all seven of these atrocities.”
“Only the outlines,” Harry said quickly, grabbing for Draco’s hand but Draco was already moving away. “And I didn’t tell her they were real or anything, I just told her about some of my adventures, as plot ideas and she...”
“How much of this, exactly, is what you told her?” Draco hissed. “Because I certainly remember things a little differently. In fact, my version involved far more me and far less Ginny bloody Weasley. You’re not telling me that was a mix up because you managed to get just about every damn obscure member of the bloody orders name in there and right but you seem to be shagging the wrong person.”
“I didn’t...ok, so I didn’t exactly tell her about my relationship with you but I certainly never said anything about Ginny. I guess she just thought the hero needed a lot interest is all. And it’s not like you’re not important in there, you’ve got this entire tortured soul thing going on, some people find that very sexy.”
“Why, exactly, didn’t you tell her about us?” Draco asked, refusing to be distracted. Harry sighed.
“It’s a children’s book, Draco. And the muggle world has different ideas about what it’s appropriate to tell children. Even if I had told her about us she’d have changed it because a muggle children’s book with a gay hero would...people would be up in arms!”
“I don’t know why,” Draco sniffed. Harry rolled his eyes. He knew Draco had some idea that the muggle world was much less comfortable than the wizarding world with homosexuality. He’d watched Harry struggle with it in their sixth year.
“And, well, I did tell her about you...just not about the bit where I lost my virginity in the boys bathroom...and it’s mostly accurate apart from, well, after people found out about us and you joined the D.A. I started saying the person I loved instead of your name and I guess she just...wrote you a different story.”
“A story where I betrayed you.”
“A story where you cared about your family right up until the end,” Harry argued. “There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s not like it’s saying you were evil or anything, just under pressure.”
“I just don’t...you do realise that muggle borns coming to Hogwarts are going to bring these stories with them, don’t you?”
“Yes...”
“And they’re going to believe them. And I’m going to have to bloody put up with this thing for the rest of my life? You know I only found out about it because a student told me about it, asked me some ridiculous question about something I didn’t actually do in the war and then leant me a copy. I would have liked, at least, to have found out from you.”
“I didn’t want you to be angry?” Harry said, though the excuse sounded just that, an excuse. Draco rolled his eyes, Harry blushed. “Look, I knew you’d be upset. I just...I just don’t want to fight.”
“You don’t want up to fight about you writing me out of our life?”
“About some women who means nothing not realising that the person who’s important to me was you. And, ok, maybe I should have told her but...it’s not like she can do anything about it now. Did you read the end? Apparently we’re both married with children.”
“Children with hideous names,” Draco agreed, quirking a smile. “I wouldn’t worry, though, I’m sure we’re shagging each other behind our wives backs.”
“Probably,” Harry agreed with a grin. “In fact, there are people who think that.”
“What,” Draco asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Well...” Harry paused for a second, thinking how to explain it. “The fans of these books...well...some of them write stories. Like, about the characters.”
“And some of them write about me screwing you?” Draco asked, eyebrow raised.
“Yes,” Harry admitted. “Some of them are a little...disturbing...but some get it nearly right, which is more disturbing in its own way but still...”
“Sound fascinating,” Draco said, “Though I can think of something better then people writing porn about us, are you expecting anyone?”
“Not for another thirty minutes...”
“Good,” Draco said, his smirk turning seductive. “I’ll make it so you never forget to include me in your story again.”
Word count points: 875/30 = 29.2 29 points
Bonus points: 10 pts
Total word count points: 50 + 29 = 79 points
Bonus points: 10 + 10 = 20
Total points: 99 points for Hufflepuff
Emma//Hufflepuff
Rating/Warnings: PG
Characters/Pairing: Draco/Neville.
Summary: Someone has been messing with Neville's memory
Word Count: 1493
Author's Notes: Sorry the ending's a bit abrupt, my fingers were hurting my the time I finished this, might have over-stretched myself a bit idea wise :)
Registered purchases?: Both
It wasn’t in Neville’s nature to be suspicious. He’d never been before, but, well, it had gotten past the point where he could tell himself that nothing was wrong with any sense of conviction.
He couldn’t remember Tuesday again.
He had vague memories of going out, of doing something in the greenhouse, but he had no clear idea what he’d done and nothing seemed to have been moved from where he remembered leaving it on Monday. Also, he remembered Monday. And Wednesday. Just not Tuesday.
Something was wrong.
If it was once, that would be bad enough, but it had happened before. He’d always written it off as him being fuzzy of drinking too much at the pub or, well, everyone had always told him he wasn’t so bright but...
Once he realised there was a problem, he knew he was going to have to do something about it, which presented a problem in itself. His first instinct would be to talk to Draco. After all, as they were involved, as Draco would say, if anyone would be able to tell him what had happened on Tuesday and help him work out why he couldn’t remember then it’d be Draco. The problem was Draco was...he was a little crazy sometimes with his paranoia, and Neville knew the idea that someone had been poking around in his head would probably upset Draco more than it did him, so that was out.
He could ask Luna, but she was...possibly not the most likely person to be helpful. In fact, there were an entire host of ex-D.A. people he COULD ask, the problem was that the majority of them though he was absolutely insane for even looking twice at Draco and that the other man must have used some kind of spell to seduce Neville, so admitting that he was missing time wasn’t the best thing.
In the end, he went to Hermione.
~*~*~*~
“Oh, Neville, how lovely to see you!” Hermione exclaimed, leaping up from her desk and rushing to greet him. Neville grinned and bypassed the handshake she offered, pulling her into a quick hug.
“Hello, Hermione,” he said, trying to sound as cheerful as he could. “Have you got a minute or am I interrupting?”
“Not interrupting at all,” she said, gesturing for him to take a chair and returning to her desk. Neville couldn’t help but think her ministry job as a muggle liaison suited Hermione, it was about time they had a muggle born in the post at least and she had the most ordered ministry office he’d ever seen. It wouldn’t surprise him if she was minister of magic by forty.
“Actually, this isn’t so much a social call as, well, I need your help with something,” Neville asked, sinking into the chair.
“Oh,” Hermione said, cheerfully, “What can I help you with?”
“It’s...well...I think someone’s been using memory charms on me. And not very well, at that. I’m missing days here and there and it’s starting to scare me a bit.”
“That is worrying,” Hermione said, standing again and moving around the desk, giving Neville’s head a thoughtful look. “Do you have any idea who could have done it? I mean, is there a pattern at all?”
“I don’t know,” Neville said with a grin, glad Hermione’s first response hadn’t been to suggest Draco. “I’ve lost entire days so whoever’s done this must have wiped out my meeting them as well as whatever we did that won’t want me to remember.”
“That makes sense,” Hermione said, “There are a few spells...well...are you sure you wouldn’t rather see a specialist about this? We would go to St Mungos...”
“No,” Neville said, firmly. “I’m not...I have reasons I don’t want to go there with something like this. And, well, I think if I told anyone else the first thing they’d suggest would be Draco being responsible and I can’t see why he would?”
“I can see why he’d hide things from you,” Hermione said, frowning, “But...I see what you mean. I...it’s not as though I’m ever going to be in the Draco Malfoy fan club but, well, you care about him and you’re a good person so...”
“I just know him,” Neville said with a shrug. “He’d hide things from me by being sneak, yes, but a memory spell isn’t his style and, besides, if he’d done it I wouldn’t know about it.”
“He did do well in school,” Hermione agreed. “There are a few diagnostic spells I can run, they might not pick anything up but if this is a bit of sloppy spell casting then I might be able to undo it. Would that be ok? They might take a while to complete.”
“Sounds fine,” Neville said with a shrug, sitting back and letting her cast. In the end, it took about an hour and two cups of tea for the spells to find anything, but they did find something, something that made Hermione purse her lips in annoyance.
“Yes,” she said, “there is...something...I just can’t see what. It’s not...it’s not normal, whatever it is. It’s not a normal magical signature. It’s...it’s...maybe a creature?”
“A creature?” Neville asked, raising an eyebrow at her.
“The test isn’t as precise as I’d like,” Hermione said, “But there isn’t a wand signature and, well, it looks like house elf magic to me, but why would a house elf be modifying your memory?”
“No idea,” Neville said with a shrug. “Can you remove it?”
“There are a few...I might be able to remove the latest one but, Neville, I really think you should see a professional with this. I hate the idea of messing around with your memory.”
“You’ll be fine,” Neville said, forcing himself to sound confident though, in truth, having Hermione poking around in his memories was less than idea. “Unless I remember we’re not going to work this out, are we?”
“I suppose,” Hermione said with a sigh. “I’ll try.”
He sat staring into space for the next ten minutes, fighting the urge to ask Hermione questions and generally disturb her, when his memories came flooding back.
Lying in too late, being annoyed all day as he’d missed a window for harvesting a valuable plant he had an order for the seeds from and it would be months before he had another chance. Arguing that evening about it...
Of course.
“Thanks, Hermione,” he said, standing up. “I remember now, it’s...I’ll take care of it. Thank you.”
“Neville, are you sure...”
“I’ll, look, why don’t you come over some time and I’ll explain it over tea? I just need to get this sorted out NOW, if that’s ok.”
“Of course,” Hermione replied, looking nervous and Neville wasn’t sure if that was because he was running off without solving the mystery for her or because she’d just been invited for tea at Malfoy Manor.
~*~*~*~
“Draco,” Neville shouted, striding through the foyer. Normally he’d be a bit intimidated in here but today he had a mission. After a few second Draco emerged from the drawing room, looking confused.
“Yes,” he said, raising an eyebrow.
“I want to talk to you,” Neville said calmly. Draco nodded and went back through into the drawing room, where he’d clearly been working, notes on invisibility potions, his latest brainwave, spread over every surface. It was still a bit surreal to Neville how Draco treat such a nice house like any old place, but he hadn’t been living her long. In the shock on them starting their relationship Draco’s parents had decided to take a long break somewhere sunny and Neville had found himself moved in. He was getting better at treating the house like a house and not like something that might bite him but he wasn’t quite there yet.
“Draco, we argued on Tuesday, right?”
“Yes,” Draco admitted, biting his lip a little. Neville smiled encouragingly and reached over to squeeze his hand. He knew Draco didn’t do well with relationship stress, having had enough turmoil in his life already, he said.
“And...a week last Monday?”
“Yes ...”
“Right, can we talk to your house elf? The new one.”
“Mipsy? Why?”
“I think...I think she’s been using memory charms on me.”
“What?” Draco asked, looking shocked.
“I don’t remember those fights,” Neville replied. “Or, honestly, anything about Tuesday until Hermione lifted the spell, and she says there was a house elf’s magical signature.”
“I’ll kill it,” Draco hissed, standing, but Neville grabbed him before he could go far and pulled him into a hug.
“No, you won’t. You’ll warn it against doing it again and, look...I’m not going to leave you. Definitely not over some silly little argument, and I know it’s hard but you need to try not to get so worked up over them, ok.”
Draco nodded, and Neville kissed him softly before finally letting him go yell at the house elf. He was relived the next day to remember the entire episode.
Word count points: 1493/30 = 49.7 50 points
Bonus points: 10 pts
Title: The story of my life
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 - Some swearing
Characters/Pairing: Draco/Harry
Summary: Draco discovers the Harry Potter books
Word Count: 875
Author's Notes:
Registered purchases?: Both
“What the hell is this?” Draco asked, holding the book out between his thumb and forefinger as though he was afraid he might be contaminated if he touched it too much.
“It’s a book?” Harry asked, Draco glared, Harry shrugged, then reached up and took the book from Draco. He flushed a little when he was what it was, the first Harry Potter book. He’d been wondering how long it was going to take for these little gems to filter down to the magical world.
“Care to tell me how it came about?” Draco asked in a lazy drawl. Harry winced a little. Clearly Draco had already decided this was his fault and, well, it wasn’t like he was wrong.
“Well, you remember when I was working up in Edinburgh? Well...there was this cafe...and this lady. She was writing a book and she was so frustrated and I, I helped her out a bit.”
“You told her this. All of it, all seven of these atrocities.”
“Only the outlines,” Harry said quickly, grabbing for Draco’s hand but Draco was already moving away. “And I didn’t tell her they were real or anything, I just told her about some of my adventures, as plot ideas and she...”
“How much of this, exactly, is what you told her?” Draco hissed. “Because I certainly remember things a little differently. In fact, my version involved far more me and far less Ginny bloody Weasley. You’re not telling me that was a mix up because you managed to get just about every damn obscure member of the bloody orders name in there and right but you seem to be shagging the wrong person.”
“I didn’t...ok, so I didn’t exactly tell her about my relationship with you but I certainly never said anything about Ginny. I guess she just thought the hero needed a lot interest is all. And it’s not like you’re not important in there, you’ve got this entire tortured soul thing going on, some people find that very sexy.”
“Why, exactly, didn’t you tell her about us?” Draco asked, refusing to be distracted. Harry sighed.
“It’s a children’s book, Draco. And the muggle world has different ideas about what it’s appropriate to tell children. Even if I had told her about us she’d have changed it because a muggle children’s book with a gay hero would...people would be up in arms!”
“I don’t know why,” Draco sniffed. Harry rolled his eyes. He knew Draco had some idea that the muggle world was much less comfortable than the wizarding world with homosexuality. He’d watched Harry struggle with it in their sixth year.
“And, well, I did tell her about you...just not about the bit where I lost my virginity in the boys bathroom...and it’s mostly accurate apart from, well, after people found out about us and you joined the D.A. I started saying the person I loved instead of your name and I guess she just...wrote you a different story.”
“A story where I betrayed you.”
“A story where you cared about your family right up until the end,” Harry argued. “There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s not like it’s saying you were evil or anything, just under pressure.”
“I just don’t...you do realise that muggle borns coming to Hogwarts are going to bring these stories with them, don’t you?”
“Yes...”
“And they’re going to believe them. And I’m going to have to bloody put up with this thing for the rest of my life? You know I only found out about it because a student told me about it, asked me some ridiculous question about something I didn’t actually do in the war and then leant me a copy. I would have liked, at least, to have found out from you.”
“I didn’t want you to be angry?” Harry said, though the excuse sounded just that, an excuse. Draco rolled his eyes, Harry blushed. “Look, I knew you’d be upset. I just...I just don’t want to fight.”
“You don’t want up to fight about you writing me out of our life?”
“About some women who means nothing not realising that the person who’s important to me was you. And, ok, maybe I should have told her but...it’s not like she can do anything about it now. Did you read the end? Apparently we’re both married with children.”
“Children with hideous names,” Draco agreed, quirking a smile. “I wouldn’t worry, though, I’m sure we’re shagging each other behind our wives backs.”
“Probably,” Harry agreed with a grin. “In fact, there are people who think that.”
“What,” Draco asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Well...” Harry paused for a second, thinking how to explain it. “The fans of these books...well...some of them write stories. Like, about the characters.”
“And some of them write about me screwing you?” Draco asked, eyebrow raised.
“Yes,” Harry admitted. “Some of them are a little...disturbing...but some get it nearly right, which is more disturbing in its own way but still...”
“Sound fascinating,” Draco said, “Though I can think of something better then people writing porn about us, are you expecting anyone?”
“Not for another thirty minutes...”
“Good,” Draco said, his smirk turning seductive. “I’ll make it so you never forget to include me in your story again.”
Word count points: 875/30 = 29.2 29 points
Bonus points: 10 pts
Total word count points: 50 + 29 = 79 points
Bonus points: 10 + 10 = 20
Total points: 99 points for Hufflepuff
Emma//Hufflepuff