Oblivisci | ONE
Title: Oblivisci
By: tea_diva
Chapter: One
Word Count: 8,524
Oblivisci: Latin, to forget
Knockturn Alley always feels cold and damp. The kind of cloying, stale chill that Nate associates with ancient crypts filled with the dusty, decaying bones of generations of ancestors, or the Slytherin common room in the dungeons of Hogwarts; places where he knows he is unwelcome, places where he knows he doesn't belong. It's not so much that the place gives him the creeps as every time he has to walk down the steps off of Diagon Alley, color leaching out of the world with every step and the light diminishing around him, he can't help but hear his mother's hesitant voice the very first time he ever saw the shadowed staircase: "That looks very much like the wrong side of the tracks. Don't ever let me hear about you wandering over there by yourself. Are we clear?"
"You know," Ray says as they head down the stone steps, the brick walls on either side of them turning rough and crumbled with age and neglect, stained black in places from the dirt and wear of centuries. "I really thought we'd be through with all of this, after Voldemort. You know?"
Nate raises his eyebrows, can't quite keep the amusement off his face. "You became an auror because you thought there wouldn't be any more dark wizards?"
Ray shrugs. "No, I just thought I missed my chance."
"There's always a dark lord rising or falling. Peace comes in short intervals, and it never falls everywhere all at once."
"Geez," Ray sighs. "You're really depressing to work with. Do you know that?"
The claustrophobic press of the alley speckled with cloaked figures skulking and scuttling about their business feels familiar and comfortable in a way that the atmosphere itself doesn't. Nate prefers his dark magic users looking unkempt, wearing dark robes, hissing and snarling at him the moment they see him. It's the ones that blend that are always the worse trouble. The ones you never see coming that cause the most damage.
"Usual rounds?" Ray asks. Nate discretely checks his wand, 10 ¼'' supple cherry wood with the heartstring of a hippocamp at its core, stowed safely in a holster strapped to his right arm, easily slipped into his palm with a simple gesture. He nods at Ray who says, "Right on, right on," and starts a purposeful stride across the street.
The 'usual rounds' begin at Borgin and Burkes because, they have discovered, news travels especially fast through these narrow, dark alleyways, and the proprietors of the shop have a tendency to take prolonged lunch breaks whenever they have even the faintest sense that aurors might be walking the alley, regardless of the precautions and disguises those aurors might attempt. Not that Nate has yet to receive the slightest bit of useful intel from either Mister Borgin or Mister Burke but protocol mandates every shop be inspected, and he follows his orders.
"Can I be the bad auror this time?" Ray asks as they wend their way through the bustle of the narrow alley.
"We're just talking to them, Ray. We're not interrogating." He focuses his gaze across the street at the faint sound of a chime. The black-painted wooden door of Borgin and Burke's is pulled closed by a figure in dark robes and a black turtleneck. Nate squints because there's something strange about the man, though he can't quite place what it is.
The man is tall, six foot four by rough estimate, and his posture is perfectly straight, not even the faintest hint of a slouch. What has Nate's attention, however, is the peculiar blurring that happens whenever he tries to get a good look at the other man's face, like he's a mirage appearing across the length of a desert.
The more Nate stares, the more he starts to see a hazy aura, bright and blinding haloing around the figure.
Distantly, he thinks he hears Ray's voice, "Hey, you okay? Nate?" but Nate is pushing through the lance of pain spearing directly into his head, squinting and focusing despite the hurt and he sees blond hair and coral pink bowed lips and then the bluest eyes are staring back at him and Nate can barely breathe past the ache in his skull, is doubled over and pulling at his hair and can't think. Can't feel anything beyond the agony, intense and sharp like the cruciatus, with his brain at the epicenter of it all.
He staggers back, stumbles against what he assumes is Ray because Nate is fairly certain those are Ray's arms that catch him and keep him from toppling onto the cobblestones. "Shit, shit," Ray's muttering, but it sounds as if it's coming from a long ways away.
"Did you see him?" Nate asks. "Did you see?"
"See who?" Nate can't tell Ray, can't describe the man he saw, the pain overwhelming his ability to speak. Out of the corner of his eye he sees the entrance to Borgin and Burke's. There is no one there.
The darkness overwhelms him and Nate lets his body go limp.
_____________________________________
When Nate first sees Hogwarts castle, the very first thing he thinks is: "I'm going to get lost here." He sees it from across the water, a constellation of flickering light coming from narrow windows set in a hulking shadowy form that stretches so wide and up and up into the night sky.
"This place is ginormous," a voice says from behind him. When he turns to look there is a very small, round little boy with dark hair. "No, forget that," the boy says as he comes to a stop beside Nate. "That dude is ginormous."
When he turns to look he sees an incredibly tall figure with a mass of bushy dark curly hair and the biggest, fullest beard he has ever seen, gesturing wildly. "First years this way!" the man beckons, his words slurring easily into each other. "Come on, now, best not to be late for the feast." His tone is friendly enough, even if he is very large.
Most of the other kids hang back, but Nate steps forward, his head tipping back as he meets the giant man's warm brown eyes. "Which way?" he asks, trying to see in the dark.
The man grins widely, holds up his lantern a little higher and tips his head to the right. "Down that path just there with ye' now."
Nate nods and thanks the man and starts walking, the other first years falling into step behind him. "Wow," the dark haired boy says as he catches. "This place is freaking awesome. I swear that guy must have been an actual giant."
The accent is difficult to ignore. It's lax and familiar and Nate asks cautiously, "Are you from America?"
"Darn skippy," the kid says, and then thrusts out his hand. "Ray Person, from Nevada, Missouri. I thought I was going to be the only one here from a real country."
"Nate," Nate says, smiling as he shakes the other boy's hand. "I'm from Maryland." He glances around. "I don't think anyone here would appreciate you slandering their country. Especially as you didn't technically have to come to school at Hogwarts."
"Are you kidding?" Ray scoffs with an exaggerated roll of his eyes. "The schools in the States suck hairy balls. The Salem school is so damned conservative they wouldn't even consider extending me an invitation. And Glorthumbol's Academy is so New Age I almost went gay just looking at the acceptance letter."
If Nate's mom ever heard him talking like Ray he thinks she might actually make him wash his mouth out with soap, even if she probably would agree with the sentiment being expressed. "You're education is what's important," she had said when they'd sat at the dining room table, his dad thumbing quietly through the various acceptance letters as Nate had swung his legs back and forth more excited at the idea of learning magic than the idea of traveling some place new in order to do that.
The path takes them down to a lake where wooden boats sit, bobbing in the water. Nate notes that there are no paddles anywhere to be seen but each boat has a brightly burning lamp attached to a post on the prow. "Hop in!" the booming voice of the large man calls. Nate can't place the accent, there seems to be so many for such a small country, nuances in pronunciations and tones that he wonders if he'll ever get the hang of it. One girl on the train was practically impossible to understand, though Nate did his absolute best to try.
He follows Ray into a boat and waits, his hands gripping the edges as he thinks about the dark, inky blackness of the water they will be crossing, imagines how cold it must be and how deep. Three other students cram onto the boat, the wood creaking as the craft rocks and suddenly Nate is terrified that they will upturn in the water and he will have to swim across to the opposite bank.
"We won't tip." This declaration is made from a boy with blond hair sitting directly across from Nate; the orange glow of the lamp casts half of the boy's face in shadow. "These boats are spelled to propel themselves across the water, but also to be steady and keep everyone inside. Go ahead," the boy says. "Try to tip it."
Ray eagerly begins throwing his weight around despite Nate's weak "Please don't" that may, in all honesty, have barely been voiced above a whisper because he is more focused on clutching to the gunnels of the boat for dear life, his fingers white. The little wooden vessel rocks left and then right, but nowhere near as drastically as Ray's weight should be moving it. After a moment, Nate eases his grip and starts to relax.
"See?" the boy says with a confident grin. "We'll be fine."
Frowning Nate says, "You're not from around here, either."
The blond boy shakes his head. "California."
"You're both Yanks?" one of the other boys asks, frowning like it's novel, which Nate supposes it kind of is.
"How many of us are there?" Nate asks.
There are two schools for magic in the U.S. as far as he knows. He received an invitation to study at both, but he'd picked Hogwarts because it seemed almost ridiculous not to. The Headmistress' letter clearly stated that she believed Nate's magical abilities would be better nurtured at a school with centuries of tradition and excellence behind it, and the prospect of some of the most skilled professors to instruct him had swayed Nate's parents, despite the fact that it was all the way over in Scotland.
"Only three starting this year, as far as I know," the blond boy answers. "I guess that's us."
Stretching his hand across the distance, he says, "I'm Nate."
Across from him, the corner of the blond boy's mouth quirks up into a wide, toothy, smirking smile. Nate thinks the other boy looks a little funny, something almost elven in his features. Maybe it's just his ears look a bit big. He reaches for Nate's hand, still grinning and says, "I'm Brad."
_____________________________________
"Sweet baby Jesus, I thought you'd kicked it!" Ray declares loudly the moment Nate opens his eyes. "What the hell happened back there?"
Shifting, Nate registers first that there is no residual ache in his body or his head. The world looks and feels as normal as it ever did, and he actually recognizes the room in which he is lying: a typical Auror safe house where he has sought refuge more than once in the past. "You didn't take me to Mungo's?"
"Well, you were still breathing. Plus, I couldn't be sure it wasn't some kind of attack. You kept asking if I saw someone, I thought maybe you spotted whoever cast the curse."
Nate shakes his head. "I don't think…" but he cuts himself off. He's not certain he can explain why he feels so confident that he wasn't hit with a curse. Mostly, it's just a feeling.
What he does know is that there is a memory, flickering tentatively at the corner of his mind like a candle spouting and guttering in a strong wind. A memory that wasn't there before, fragments and flashes of things that felt imprinted on him forever that suddenly just ceased to be. He never missed them until this moment.
"All they have stashed in these fucking cupboards is tea, can you believe it?" Ray grouses as he rifles around. "Oh, and some tinned tomato soup. What's up with that?"
Cautiously, Nate manages to pull himself upright and he realizes that he's been deposited on one of two narrow cots, a blanket has been pulled over his lower half and his shoes and outer robe are gone. Nate spots them by a chair in the corner.
"I guess it's a step up from sucking on an actual leaf," Ray is saying as he pours some hot water into a chipped mug, which he carries over to Nate. Ray hasn't steeped it long enough, he never gets the timing right but there's enough sugar that Nate almost doesn't mind the watery tinge. It's warm and familiar, taking another sip, Nate feels steadied.
"What spell do you think it was?" Ray's eyes are narrowed and considering, his head cocked to that side in that way it does when Ray is running events over and over in his mind, trying to parse data, figure out what he's missed. Nate realizes that he has managed to genuinely frighten his friend. "I couldn't figure it out based on your reaction. Do you think it's something new?"
Shaking his head, Nate busies himself with his tea and with carefully sorting through the jumble of disorganized memory. "Hey," he says, tries to make it sound casual, like it has no bearing on their situation. "You remember Quidditch?"
Ray scrunches his face, clearly suspicious of the topic change, but after a moment he shrugs and grins. "Uh yeah, I remember Quidditch. It's a fuck-ton of fun. I was pretty much the greatest Beater of all time, and if you make the totally crude joke I know you're currently biting your tongue on, I will literally punch you in the face."
Nate snickers. "You were a very good Beater, Ray," he says, as blandly as possible. Ray still narrows his eyes. "Our best games were always against Slytherin."
Ray shrugs like he doesn't want to admit that Slytherin ever did anything to improve his school years. Then he frowns. "Actually, you know, that's probably true. Their team was pretty good."
A curious little shiver runs along Nate's spine. He finishes his tea and hands it back to Ray, who crosses back to the kettle in order to refill the cup. "I remember," Nate hedges, "you would always try and kill their Seeker. Every game. Every bludger you could get close to you'd send careening straight at him."
The room goes quiet. When Nate glances over Ray's standing with the teapot in one hand, half-tipped forward though not enough to pour, his head tilted to the side and he's frowning. "Ray?"
Shaking his head, Ray refocuses on his task . "It was a healthy rivalry that has existed, I am told, since the dawn of time. Slytherin versus Gryffindor. If I recall correctly, Mister Chaser, you had more than a few fouls against those sly snakes as well."
"I didn't spend an entire game waiting for an opportunity to get nailed for snitchnipping," Nate points out. "You couldn't even see the snitch, and you still wanted to catch it before Slytherin did."
"Wait wait," Ray says, waving his hand and subsequently the teacup it's holding. "I never snitchnipped."
Sixth year, Gryffindor versus Slytherin, first match of the season. Nate can perfectly remember the triumphant sound Ray made when he leapt off his broom and curled his entire body into a ball in an effort to confine the tiny fluttering golden orb. He also remembers the death-defying dive the Slytherin Seeker spun into all in an effort to prevent Ray from cracking his skull open on the grassy pitch as he plummeted, broomless, toward the ground.
Nate holds Ray's gaze and thinks: "It's not just me." He closes his eyes and refuses to wonder 'why?'
_____________________________________
No one on the second level of the Ministry for Magic is terribly impressed with Nate's insistence that he wasn't cursed. "Look," Gawain Robards says as he frowns. "Go see the Healer, just to be certain. We've got a new dark lord rising and I'm not willing to start taking chances. Right now, we don't know what this bloke's capable of, yeah?"
There's no way that Nate can go against the head of the department so he says, "Yes, sir", and backtracks away from his cubicle to the hallway, turning in the direction of the Healer's office.
Ray gives him a wave in the hall. "I'm heading back out with Cordelia. If we find anything we'll let you know. Robards sending you off to see the wizard?"
"Yeah." Nate tries not to act as putout as he feels. He understands the need for caution, but Robard's sometimes goes to extremes and he encourages others to follow that lead. As a result, the Ministry healers have a bad habit of taking someone off active duty even when there's no sign of anything being wrong with them.
"That's the spirit!" Ray claps a hand on his shoulder. "If you're not in Mungo's by the time my shift ends, I'm descending on your place, and I'm bringing a feast fit for a king."
In the Healer's office Nate is subjected to a battery of tests before Healer Mudgeweather admits that she really can't see anything wrong with him. "A very bad migraine, you say?"
He nods. "It came on suddenly, but I'm fairly certain it wasn't a spell." She checks his outer robes to be certain but all the basic wards are still intact and give no indication of having been disturbed. Cautiously, Nate admits, "It felt a bit like memory modification."
The healer frowns and drops a Rememberall into his palm before he has a chance to continue. They both stare at the small glass sphere, a wisp of greyish smoke materializing but, though they wait longer than necessary, it does not change red. "Well," she says, taking back the ball. "You don't seem to have forgotten anything."
She runs her wand over him again, this time searching for any indication of memory charms but comes up with nothing. Nate isn't surprised.
Mudgeweather declares him in perfect health, but just as Nate is thinking he's in the clear, she continues, "Still, you should probably head home; maybe take a few days off to recuperate. It might have simply been stress-related." As Nate slips back into his robes, she turns to her desk jotting down a few notes in his file.
Clearing his throat, Nate hesitates. "Do memory charms ever break?"
"Hm?" she looks up from a notation she's making and then blinks. "Memory charms? No, they don't break. They don't 'wear out' at all, really. Sometimes a witch or wizard very skilled in the mental arts is able to remember bits and pieces of whatever was lost, but the charm itself only gains in strength the longer it is in place. Complete reversals are almost always impossible, and I have never heard of a charm simply releasing of its own accord. If it did, we'd be in a bit of hot water with the muggles, don't you think?"
_____________________________________
By the time Nate walks into his Defense Against the Dark Arts combined class he has heard all the stories about Slytherin House, and there are enough to form a suitable bias, which many of his classmates have done. Personally, Nate has had no opportunity to interact with any Slytherins. From distant observation he has ascertained that they mostly keep to themselves, more so than Ravenclaws, and that they are generally a quiet bunch.
Professor Belleficent has arranged the classroom into rows of two desks and the first thing she does at the start of class is assign seating so every Gryffindor is sitting beside a Slytherin. "Remember where you are sitting," she tells her class. "This will be your place for the entirety of the year, and I will not tolerate grumbling or complaints. If you have a difficulty with your seatmate we will settle it with a good old fashioned Wizard's duel."
"She doesn't do anything in halves, does she?" Nate whispers to himself, then glances at his new Defense partner. He ends up grinning. "Hey, it's you!"
"Me?" the other boy wonders. He blinks, and then smiles that same smile from the boat. "Me," Brad says, no longer a question.
"How have you been finding it?" Nate whispers, conspiratorially. So far, Ray has been enthusiastic about absolutely every aspect of Hogwarts. The rest of the Gryffindor first years are more than a little overwhelmed, but whenever Nate tries to broach the subject they shrug it off like the moving staircases, announcements regarding the possibility of grizzly and prolonged deaths should they wander out of bounds, and ghosts that slip through walls at unexpected and sometimes entirely inopportune times is exactly what they were expecting and nothing at all to be unsettled by. "Doesn't it freak you out?" he had asked one of his housemates, who had turned up the nose and said only, "I'm a Gryffindor".
"It certainly keeps me on my toes," Brad says. There's a pleased glint in his eye, like the chance to be put to the test like this is something he's been anticipating for a long time. Nate grins because for all that he keeps being perpetually surprised by just about everything, he feels precisely the same. "I've been waiting for this class, though. I think it will be my favorite."
In Transfiguration Nate had made a paperweight transform into an ornate music box that played Strauss' Blue Danube waltz while a little frog and rabbit dressed in fancy clothes danced. It took him only three tries and he had never been so happy or so proud in his entire life, but right then he answers entirely honestly and says, "Me too."
_____________________________________
Nate hands over Healer Mudgeweather's report to Robard and tries as much as possible to emphasize the part where she wrote: "In perfect health". All Robard can see, however, is her recommendation that Nate take some time off. "No unnecessary chances, Fick. Have a bit of a holiday. A few days can't hurt."
No one tells Nate that he has to go home and sleep, just that he shouldn't be at work, so he doesn't feel as if he is breaking any rules when he apparates to the mouth of Knockturn Alley and casts a modified Glamour spell that he hopes will be strong enough to fool Ray if they happen to cross paths. Glamour spells are never perfect, and are especially weak to people quite familiar with the person attempting to modify their appearance. It's what Nate suspects is responsible for the blurring effect he had noticed on the wizard earlier that morning, though he cannot actually be certain. The fact that Ray will likely assume that Nate has gone home, if not been sent to Saint Mungo's, will work to his advantage, so long as they don't end up in the same place at the same time.
Appearance suitably altered, Nate rolls his shoulders back, lengthens his stride and tips his chin up, jutting his elbows out from his sides just slightly so that he looks both arrogant and purposeful, and very unlike his usual self. He walks directly into Borgin and Burke's without hesitation and manages an appropriate lilting accent as he inquires of Mister Borgin the identity of a patron who would have been around just that morning.
Mister Borgin scrutinizes him closely, beady eyes taking in Nate's appearance before he says, snidely, "We have, I am sure you understand, many patrons, sir."
Nate's fairly certain the man is not only fully aware of the Glamour, but also certain that it is a certified auror lurking beneath the spell. Dark Wizards, even the ones flirting with the fine line, tend to have all sorts of tricks up their sleeves that Nate feels simultaneously envious of and angry at all at once. Sometimes the letter of the law can be terribly confining.
"You would have recognized him," he pushes, though he isn't sure why. It is an assumption based on the seemingly casual air about the man in that moment when Nate had spotted him. Like he was used to traversing the darkened alley, and familiar with this shop in particular. "Also, he wouldn't have looked like what he looked like, if you understand my meaning."
"Yes," Mister Borgin drawls. "We never do, do we?" he casts a pointed stare at Nate, but then Mister Burke comes out from behind a curtain in the back and Mister Borgin flashes crooked yellowed teeth in a sinister parody of a helpful smile and says, "This gentleman's making inquiries about a customer that might have been by in the morning."
"Not 'might have'," Nate corrects. "He was definitely by. The only question is whether you recall him." He knows it's a mistake the moment it's out of his mouth, because he knows never to give either of these men even an inch lest they abscond with a mile.
"We don't," Mister Burke says sharply. "Remember anyone coming by this morning. It's been a very busy day, I'm sure you can appreciate that."
Nate looks very long and very hard directly into Mister Burke's steady eyes, using all his ability with legilimency to his advantage. An image coalesces in his mind, a tall man in dark robes with long black hair and a square face, with the faint haloing Nate himself remembers seeing around the man on the front step. Then Mister Burke occludes his mind and sends an absolutely poisonous look in Nate's direction. "I think you should leave now, Mister...?"
"Thank-you for your help, gentlemen," Nate replies, not offering his own name. He is careful to speak with enough silken sarcasm that the two other men snap-to, realizing that they have indeed given him something to go on, whether they had wanted to or not. He turns on his foot and heads back out to the street.
He has managed to ascertain that Mister Borgin and Mister Burke are conniving, secretive liars, which is something he already knew. Nate has also managed to confirm that the man he saw on the front steps of the shop was not a hallucination. He has not, however, managed to figure out what he should do next.
Glancing back to the shop window Nate thinks about the network of communication that exists in this dodgy part of the district and pointedly turns back toward Diagon Alley. It is a long shot, but Nate has very few options available to him, so he orders a sizable ice cream sundae at Florean Fortescue's and settles into a seat on their outdoor patio, prepared to wait the rest of the day if he has to.
He has finished three of the five heaping scoops when a throat is pointedly cleared by someone standing over his table. When Nate looks up, it is into a pair of warm brown eyes that, for all the appearance of open friendliness, look nonetheless assessing.
"'Sup, dawg," the man says, which is not a greeting Nate has ever encountered in the Wizarding world. It catches him off guard, which, he thinks, is precisely the point of it. "Mind if I sit?" The man drops into the chair opposite him without waiting for permission. "So, I got a question for you."
"I imagine you do." Nate spoons another bit of ice cream up and feels mildly pleased with himself when his comment successfully breaks the stranger's stride.
"Yeah," the man says, his eyes narrowing. "Here it is: what were you doing, interrogating the proprietors at Borgin and Burke's?"
Another mouthful of ice cream that Nate takes his time swallowing before he asks, "Friends of yours?"
"Naw, man. It's not like that." He rests one arm on the table, leaning forward so he is almost though not quite intruding on Nate's personal space. "Just, a man can get to wondering if someone's maybe looking for trouble."
With only a few jumbled memories to go on, Nate is aware that he is working at a terrible disadvantage. He trusts his instincts absolutely, and his instincts tell him that he didn't just happen to forget, something made him forget, which means he is now in possession of memories someone doesn't want him to have. He can't just blurt out to a stranger that he's looking for a friend, or someone who used to be a friend.
Instead, Nate shrugs carelessly and says, "In my experience, no one entering Knockturn Alley does so because they are not interested in trouble." This gets him a grin. "I'm curious though," he continues. "I don't see how any of this is your business."
"My business is whatever I say it is." They stare at each other, neither one of them blinking until, finally, the stranger seems to capitulate. "When you ask questions about a friend of mine, that's my business. If it's trouble you're looking for, it's here and it's waiting for you."
There is no cocky arrogance in the man's tone. He's sitting casually in his chair, easy as you please. Nate knows that the wizard's wand is currently in a holster at his hip, that he can likely access it quickly and efficiently, but from the flicker of magical energy that Nate can feel tingling at the corner of his senses he also knows that this man has some ability with wandless magic, which means that Nate very possibly is one misstep away from an open wizard's duel in the middle of a busy street.
"It's not trouble I was looking for," he says. "Your friend reminded me of someone, that's all."
"Old school friend?" the wizard asks, too keenly. Far too keenly to be casual.
Nate keeps his breathing steady and thinks that the straight truth might very well get him killed. He can't lie, though, not when he's this close to someone who clearly knows in a way that Nate used to know. In a way that Ray knew, once, but doesn't anymore.
"A lover, actually," Nate flicks his gaze back to chocolate brown eyes but there is no opportunity to pry into the man's memories. The other wizard is occluding so perfectly that it takes Nate a moment to realize he's sifting through aimless thoughts and false memories.
The wizard laughs. "Old lover, ah. I know how that is." The tension has entirely leached from the man's body. "Well, I wish you luck with that then, dawg. See you around."
"If we do see each other again, should I pretend we've never met before?"
"Technically we haven't 'met'," the other wizard points out as he stands from the table. Then he grins, holding out his hands like they're suddenly friends. "Name's Tony."
"I'm…"
"Nate," Tony says, cutting him off. He shakes his head. "Man, you aurors. You make it so damned easy."
Tony disappears before Nate can ask what exactly it was that he made easy, how the man knew his name and could see past the Glamour he had left in place enough to recognize him. His stomach is twisting in knots and he pitches the rest of his sundae away. It's impossible to tell if that conversation went well or not. If Tony's strange demeanor is confirmation of Nate's concerns or proof against it.
He thinks about all the stories he ever heard of Slytherin House, thinks about the bias that exists to this day, of how the Ministry looks more closely at applicants who were sorted there based solely on the prejudice that all Slytherins have an inclination toward the dark arts. Nate had thought it was a ridiculous bias but suddenly he wonders if he has simply been blind. Avoiding seeing something he did not want to see.
Something that might have been there all along, right from the start.
_____________________________________
The only reason he waits outside is because Ray lost a bet that Gryffindor would trounce Slytherin at Thursday's game and the punishment for losing was no candy for the rest of term. Admittedly, Nate was more than a little relieved that Ray lost but since he knows his friend's abilities when it comes to stealth, Nate added an additional rule: Ray is not allowed inside Honeydukes for the rest of term.
So he's standing outside in the snow listening to Ray curse and mutter at the unfairness of life, insisting that Slytherin probably cheated so their Quidditch victory shouldn't count, when Peter Runcible comes over and accuses Nate of being a mudblood. He says a few other nasty things first, all of which Nate has heard before, but he saves the best for last.
Technically speaking it's true. It's been three generations since the Fick family produced anyone with any magical ability but that doesn't make the term any less offensive or insulting. Nate's wand is in his hand in a flash and it is somewhat gratifying to see that Ray is equally ready though, considering his situation is similar to Nate's own, perhaps he is not simply defending a friend.
Before the argument can continue, however, there is the happy jingling as the bells above Honeydukes chime and the door swishes closed. "Is there a problem here?" a familiar voice asks, and Nate stands a little straighter. Three against one. Those odds are greatly in their favor, especially considering the magical competency of the three.
"Not with you, Colbert," Runcible says. "With these Gryffindorks. Muggle-loving mudbloods, the lot of 'em."
Nate expects an argument of some kind, some witty rejoinder that will undoubtedly take Runcible the better part of a week to figure out. Instead what he hears is, "Caput mortuum," and then Runcible staggers back as if he's been pushed, blinking as he scratches his head and looks greatly befuddled by the world as a whole. After a second, he turns on his heel and toddles off along the road.
Nate is, of course, perfectly aware of the direct translation of the words: Dead head. He is not, however, familiar with those words in relation to any sort of spell, which is clearly what the utterance was if Runcible's reaction is anything to go by. "Did you make that up?" he asks, turning around to face his friend.
Brad flashes him a pleased grin in answer, slipping his wand casually back into the pocket of his robes.
"That was bloody fucking incredible!" Ray says, throwing an arm around Brad's shoulders. They all frown at Runcible, who actually appears to be drooling on himself. "Do you think anyone will notice a difference?"
"How long will the spell last?" Nate wonders as they watch the boy's meandering.
It lasts until halfway through Monday classes, and the only reason it breaks at all is because professor Belleficent can recognize a hex when she sees one.
Nate gets called to the headmistress' office, and it's a little bit of a relief to see that he's not alone there. "Gentlemen, I am very disappointed. In all three of you."
"Ma'am." Nate bows his head and tries to look suitably chastened as the headmistress glares at him disapprovingly. "We weren't picking on Runcible. It was the other way around."
"Yeah," Ray jumps in. "He called Nate and I mudbloods!"
"We only pulled our wands to defend ourselves if the situation escalated," Nate continues blithely. "We didn't intend to hex Peter. We just wanted…"
"Nevertheless," Headmistress McGonagall interrupts. "It was three against one, and hex him you did." Her lips purse as she eyes them over her glasses. "I am, however, fully aware of Mister Runcible's prejudices. Is this what happened, Mister Colbert?"
Brad nods once, sharply, his hands clasped behind his back. "Yes ma'am. Ray and Nate were merely defending themselves, that's the only reason their wands were drawn. I'm the one who cast the hex. I didn't know it was a real spell."
"That's because it isn't," the headmistress huffs. "Though I suppose it is now." She taps her fingers idly on the surface of her desk. "Mister Colbert, you are an incredibly gifted young wizard, but you must exercise caution and above all, prudence with your magic, or your abilities will only lead you astray."
Ray snickers as they leave the Headmistress' office. "I can't believe she gave you the 'with great power comes great responsibility speech'!"
"I can't believe I get detention and Runcible gets to nap in the hospital wing," Brad mutters.
Nate raises his eyebrows. "To be fair, he did spend three days dribbling on himself, completely incapable of forming words beyond one syllable."
"Explain to me how that's different from any other day for him?" Ray asks. "Anyway," he throws an arm around Brad's shoulders. "Thanks for the awesome defense. Not that Nate and I were helpless or anything, you know, but still."
Curious, Nate glances at Brad from the corner of his eyes. "Did you make up that spell and cast it on Peter without testing it first to see what it could do?"
"I knew what it would do," Brad says with a shrug.
"No you didn't. How could you, unless you tested the spell properly? What if it couldn't be reversed?"
Brad meets his gaze. "Runcible is already a bigoted, sister-fucking, inbred, slack-jawed, dark lord in the making. If the spell was permanent, how could that really be a bad thing?"
Nate can tell Brad means it as a joke but it only makes him wonder.
_____________________________________
Around the office, out on patrol or at the pub, or hanging out at Nate's apartment or Ray's, Nate can't stop asking questions. What does Ray remember about Quidditch? Defense class? Care of Magical Creatures? What was the worst punishment he ever had at school and what had he been doing to earn it?
Ray shrugs it all off, he has answers for everything but never the answers that Nate expects. Never the one's Nate knows are true. Years of friendship make some things into casual certainties but not, apparently, if your memory has been grossly modified. He tries to recall how he might have answered any of these questions before that moment in Knockturn Alley, but he never can. The subtle perfection of memory modification is this: how can you miss something you don't even remember?
The answer is simple: you can't, and Nate certainly hadn't.
It's a truth that makes him angry; at himself, at whoever took his memories, at everyone who doesn't remember what they should. He tips his chair back in his cubicle and looks across to where Ray is sitting, the cubicle on Nate's right. Ray's cubicle. Except that it isn't Ray's at all.
"Who was your best friend at school?" Nate asks.
Ray glances up from his papers. "Man, you haven’t finished with all this reminiscing and shit? I dunno. You, I guess."
"You guess?" Nate pushes. "You don't know?"
"Well…" Ray starts out, turning and smiling like he's about to make a joke and then suddenly his expression pinches, like he's just realized that he had said 'I guess' because he actually hadn't been certain. "I…"
"Nate!" Robards calls. Nate curses under his breath because Ray shakes his head and the moment is lost. When he glances at his boss the man is standing by the door waving him over.
"What have you done this time, I wonder," Ray teases.
Rolling his eyes, Nate gets up. There is a woman with Robards, standing outside the door. She is average height, not exceptionally beautiful but not unattractive. Her hands are petite but when she shakes Nate's hand her grip is strong. Robards introduces her as Amalthea Pelleas from the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad. Nate is presented with a badge that supports the claim, but there is something in the casual way Amalthea flips her hair over her shoulder that makes him suspicious. The thing is, Aurors receive a lot of training in concealment and disguise, and not all of it pertains to appropriate methods of shifting one's own appearance. Nate's pretty good at spotting concealments as well.
"What's this regarding, sir?" he asks Robards.
The man seems perfectly unaware of any subterfuge. Nate wonders if it's because he has no reason to suspect anything untoward. "Healer Mudgeweather noted that you felt a bit like your episode might have been related to memory modification of some sort."
Nate raises his eyebrows. "No unnecessary risks?"
Robards nods, rocks back and forth on his feet and says, "Precisely so."
"I'm a specialist," Amalthea says confidently. "The Obliviator in my squad."
"Just double-checking. Leave you two to sort it out, then," Robards says. "Probably nothing at all, you know, but no use taking chances when you're one of our best, Fick." He claps a hand on Nate's arm, nods once more, and then turns on his heel.
Nate follows Amalthea as far as the entrance to the Healers' office, and then halts. "You make a very striking witch, Tony."
Amalthea stops abruptly, then flashes him a coy grin. "'Sup, dawg," Tony says, his voice still notably feminine and soft. The disguise is absolutely perfect, which Nate finds worrying.
Tony is standing inside the Ministry with a disguise and paperwork forged well enough to fool the head of the Department of Aurors. There are security checkpoints that must be crossed to reach this level, not to mention that a call would have been placed to verify Miss Amalthea Pelleas' claim to be an employee of the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad because Robards is deadly serious when he says that he does not believe in taking unnecessary risks.
"I'm not going in there with you." Nate jerks his head toward the empty office.
"Frightened?" Tony asks, smirking
"Pragmatic."
Tony, in his disguise as Amalthea, raises a slender eyebrow. "What if I told you it was mandated by the Minister himself?"
Nate snorts. "What, Shacklebolt specifically told you to disguise yourself as a woman, pose as an Obliviator and get me alone in that office? To what end?"
"Won't know until you try."
"Well then I won't ever know," Nate says, and backs up a step.
"It's standard procedure," Tony says, his flippant demeanor vanishing as he faces Nate head on. "If what I suspect is true then you should know, you're risking a lot of lives by running away from me like a scared little bitch."
Nate jerks his chin up. "Give me one good reason why I should believe you." When Tony remains silent, Nate huffs. "You're going to modify my memories anyway, am I right? What does it matter what you tell me?"
"Put your wand away, you stupid motherfucker," Tony hisses. He steps forward, his purple robes swishing. "I'm not gonna modify a single fucking thing that doesn't need to be. You have to tell me what you remember, dawg."
"How can I possibly know what it is you want me to forget?" Tony doesn't look as if he has an appropriate answer, so Nate takes another backward step, eases around the corner and then full-out sprints for the elevator.
It is entirely overdramatic because the elevator is open and waiting for him, and Tony has already proven that he is unwilling to cause a scene inside the Ministry. The moment the doors close Nate flashes a sheepish look at the other occupants of the elevator. "Late for a meeting. Thanks for holding the lift."
He receives some understanding smiles in return, and when he steps off and marches toward the bank of floos he is relieved to see not a single sign of Miss Amalthea Pelleas, or Tony. He stoops slightly as he steps into the fireplace, tosses down a handful of floo powder and escapes quickly and directly to his very heavily warded apartment where he turns around and promptly apparates, appearing just outside of Gringotts Bank.
Nate has no idea where it is he is heading. He picks a direction and he walks, his eyes scanning for any sign of Tony or someone in disguise who is paying him too much attention. Outside of a few subtle glamours to hide warts, and one to make a wizard's Romanesque nose appear small and snub, there is no sign of anyone who might have something to hide.
His mind is racing, concern about returning to work now that he knows how easily the Auror office can be infiltrated derailing when he wonders how Tony managed to infiltrate it at all. There is no reason why Nate's memories should matter to anyone. No reason why one wizard should matter so much that he needs to be removed completely from existence, taken away from anyone who ever knew him.
All Nate has managed to come up with is that maybe his friend is in trouble. Wizard Protection, however, does not work like this. Not with such extensive memory modifications, that's unheard of. The only other option Nate can think of is the one thing he keeps shying away from.
He had entered Knockturn Alley looking for information regarding a dark wizard already rising in notoriety, well on the way to becoming the next Dark Lord. Nate remembers studying Tom Marvolo Riddle and writing a paper in his seventh year about how it was memory that led to the Dark Lord's undoing. If no one had remembered his inquiries into the Horcruxes or his fascination with the number seven; if no one had remembered the Elder Wand or the Deathly Hallows; if no one had remembered the curiously 'off' little boy who had always been fascinated with things that he shouldn't have been.
If they hadn't remembered…
He collides with something hard but strangely yielding, his hands coming up to prevent himself from falling over, and there are hands that catch on his elbows and keep him upright. When Nate looks up it is into impossibly bright blue eyes and he almost laughs.
For all his searching, it turns out all he had to do was take a walk down Diagon Alley and literally run right into what he is looking for.
"I apologize," the other wizard says. "Are you alright?"
Nate is still trying to swallow back his semi-hysterical laughter. They are standing in front of Slug and Jiggers Apothecary shop. There is a small black bag hanging from the other man's wrist, ornate silver script bearing the name of the shop. Nate thinks: "You always preferred to make your own potions…"
"I'm fine," he says. "Sorry. I wasn't looking where I was going."
"That's alright. There is every possibility that I was similarly distracted."
It isn’t until the other wizard steps back that Nate realizes his fingers are gripping the man's sleeve. Blue eyes shift down; observe Nate's pale skin against the dark fabric of the robe. "Are you alright?" Nate asks, the lump in his throat making the inane question sound heavy with meaning. He forces his fingers open, releases the clutch of fabric.
"I…" blue eyes blink as they hold Nate's gaze. "Do I know you?"
Nate sucks in a steadying breath, and then lies, "No, I don't think we've ever met before. I must have one of those faces."
Those familiar coral lips quirk upward. "Right. That must be it." Then he holds out his hand. "Brad Colbert."
Nate shakes it, offers his own name in return and then adds, "I was on my way to the Leaky Cauldron. If you have nowhere pressing to be I'll buy you lunch, to apologize for my lack of observation."
Brad smirks. "The collision was mutual."
"Mutually beneficial," Nate says. In a softer voice, he adds, "Please." He remembers that Brad never had been able to resist that tone. It's nice to know that some things, at least, never change.
_____________________________________
Most of Nate's housemates joke and call them 'the three musketeers'. The rest call them an anomaly.
"Whatcha want to be friends with a Slytherin for?" one of Nate's year mates asks him. "Specially the pureblooded ones. They get raised with all sorts of bogus ideas in their heads."
"What about the idea that all Slytherins are evil?" Nate says. "Is that bogus?"
"I'm not picking a fight," the boy defends. "I'm just saying: be careful. You can't trust snakes. Pretty sure there's a story about that somewhere."
Nate rolls his eyes.
When he invites Brad to the House Party to celebrate Gryffindor winning the Quidditch cup, Brad says, "No." He refuses to elaborate.
Nate refuses to be put off. "Look," he says. "If it's because you're sore about losing, I don't think that's very fair. We're not even old enough to play on the teams; I don't think you should take who wins and who loses personally if you weren't even involved in the victory. I'm certain Slytherin will do better next year."
"It's not that," Brad shrugs. "I appreciate the offer, but I'm certain your housemates don't want me there."
"How can you know that? Most of my housemates haven't even met you. How can they have an opinion? Besides, Ray's my housemate and I'm pretty sure that if you don't come, he'll track you down and drag you over anyway."
Brad narrows his eyes. Nate has never seen his friend get angry, but he thinks right then that if he keeps pushing, he might just find out what that's like. "Don't pretend to be naïve. It doesn't suit you."
Nate jerks his chin up. "I know a bunch of Ravenclaws who are coming. There's a handful of Hufflepuffs who have been invited. Why shouldn't I invite my friend, who happens to be in Slytherin?"
"You know why."
Nate does, indeed, know why. He refuses to be swayed by an age-old prejudice. Logic will not be enough to sway Brad, apparently, that much he can already tell. Instead, Nate sighs heavily and says, "I'm already considered weird because I hang out with you and Ray. Ray's going to eat too much sugar and you know how he gets. And then it will just be me sitting there by myself."
Brad knows that Nate has other friends. Perfectly good friends who enjoy talking and spending time with him. They are not, however, as close as Brad and Ray and Nate are. They're not best friends.
Nate says, "Please," and knows he's won when Brad sighs.
"We're not going to hear the end of this for weeks. I'm pretty certain this will be an historical first."
Nate grins and pulls his friend into a one-armed hug. "Thanks."
___________________________________________________
|| END PART ONE >>|
STORY MASTERPOST
By: tea_diva
Chapter: One
Word Count: 8,524
Oblivisci: Latin, to forget
Knockturn Alley always feels cold and damp. The kind of cloying, stale chill that Nate associates with ancient crypts filled with the dusty, decaying bones of generations of ancestors, or the Slytherin common room in the dungeons of Hogwarts; places where he knows he is unwelcome, places where he knows he doesn't belong. It's not so much that the place gives him the creeps as every time he has to walk down the steps off of Diagon Alley, color leaching out of the world with every step and the light diminishing around him, he can't help but hear his mother's hesitant voice the very first time he ever saw the shadowed staircase: "That looks very much like the wrong side of the tracks. Don't ever let me hear about you wandering over there by yourself. Are we clear?"
"You know," Ray says as they head down the stone steps, the brick walls on either side of them turning rough and crumbled with age and neglect, stained black in places from the dirt and wear of centuries. "I really thought we'd be through with all of this, after Voldemort. You know?"
Nate raises his eyebrows, can't quite keep the amusement off his face. "You became an auror because you thought there wouldn't be any more dark wizards?"
Ray shrugs. "No, I just thought I missed my chance."
"There's always a dark lord rising or falling. Peace comes in short intervals, and it never falls everywhere all at once."
"Geez," Ray sighs. "You're really depressing to work with. Do you know that?"
The claustrophobic press of the alley speckled with cloaked figures skulking and scuttling about their business feels familiar and comfortable in a way that the atmosphere itself doesn't. Nate prefers his dark magic users looking unkempt, wearing dark robes, hissing and snarling at him the moment they see him. It's the ones that blend that are always the worse trouble. The ones you never see coming that cause the most damage.
"Usual rounds?" Ray asks. Nate discretely checks his wand, 10 ¼'' supple cherry wood with the heartstring of a hippocamp at its core, stowed safely in a holster strapped to his right arm, easily slipped into his palm with a simple gesture. He nods at Ray who says, "Right on, right on," and starts a purposeful stride across the street.
The 'usual rounds' begin at Borgin and Burkes because, they have discovered, news travels especially fast through these narrow, dark alleyways, and the proprietors of the shop have a tendency to take prolonged lunch breaks whenever they have even the faintest sense that aurors might be walking the alley, regardless of the precautions and disguises those aurors might attempt. Not that Nate has yet to receive the slightest bit of useful intel from either Mister Borgin or Mister Burke but protocol mandates every shop be inspected, and he follows his orders.
"Can I be the bad auror this time?" Ray asks as they wend their way through the bustle of the narrow alley.
"We're just talking to them, Ray. We're not interrogating." He focuses his gaze across the street at the faint sound of a chime. The black-painted wooden door of Borgin and Burke's is pulled closed by a figure in dark robes and a black turtleneck. Nate squints because there's something strange about the man, though he can't quite place what it is.
The man is tall, six foot four by rough estimate, and his posture is perfectly straight, not even the faintest hint of a slouch. What has Nate's attention, however, is the peculiar blurring that happens whenever he tries to get a good look at the other man's face, like he's a mirage appearing across the length of a desert.
The more Nate stares, the more he starts to see a hazy aura, bright and blinding haloing around the figure.
Distantly, he thinks he hears Ray's voice, "Hey, you okay? Nate?" but Nate is pushing through the lance of pain spearing directly into his head, squinting and focusing despite the hurt and he sees blond hair and coral pink bowed lips and then the bluest eyes are staring back at him and Nate can barely breathe past the ache in his skull, is doubled over and pulling at his hair and can't think. Can't feel anything beyond the agony, intense and sharp like the cruciatus, with his brain at the epicenter of it all.
He staggers back, stumbles against what he assumes is Ray because Nate is fairly certain those are Ray's arms that catch him and keep him from toppling onto the cobblestones. "Shit, shit," Ray's muttering, but it sounds as if it's coming from a long ways away.
"Did you see him?" Nate asks. "Did you see?"
"See who?" Nate can't tell Ray, can't describe the man he saw, the pain overwhelming his ability to speak. Out of the corner of his eye he sees the entrance to Borgin and Burke's. There is no one there.
The darkness overwhelms him and Nate lets his body go limp.
_____________________________________
When Nate first sees Hogwarts castle, the very first thing he thinks is: "I'm going to get lost here." He sees it from across the water, a constellation of flickering light coming from narrow windows set in a hulking shadowy form that stretches so wide and up and up into the night sky.
"This place is ginormous," a voice says from behind him. When he turns to look there is a very small, round little boy with dark hair. "No, forget that," the boy says as he comes to a stop beside Nate. "That dude is ginormous."
When he turns to look he sees an incredibly tall figure with a mass of bushy dark curly hair and the biggest, fullest beard he has ever seen, gesturing wildly. "First years this way!" the man beckons, his words slurring easily into each other. "Come on, now, best not to be late for the feast." His tone is friendly enough, even if he is very large.
Most of the other kids hang back, but Nate steps forward, his head tipping back as he meets the giant man's warm brown eyes. "Which way?" he asks, trying to see in the dark.
The man grins widely, holds up his lantern a little higher and tips his head to the right. "Down that path just there with ye' now."
Nate nods and thanks the man and starts walking, the other first years falling into step behind him. "Wow," the dark haired boy says as he catches. "This place is freaking awesome. I swear that guy must have been an actual giant."
The accent is difficult to ignore. It's lax and familiar and Nate asks cautiously, "Are you from America?"
"Darn skippy," the kid says, and then thrusts out his hand. "Ray Person, from Nevada, Missouri. I thought I was going to be the only one here from a real country."
"Nate," Nate says, smiling as he shakes the other boy's hand. "I'm from Maryland." He glances around. "I don't think anyone here would appreciate you slandering their country. Especially as you didn't technically have to come to school at Hogwarts."
"Are you kidding?" Ray scoffs with an exaggerated roll of his eyes. "The schools in the States suck hairy balls. The Salem school is so damned conservative they wouldn't even consider extending me an invitation. And Glorthumbol's Academy is so New Age I almost went gay just looking at the acceptance letter."
If Nate's mom ever heard him talking like Ray he thinks she might actually make him wash his mouth out with soap, even if she probably would agree with the sentiment being expressed. "You're education is what's important," she had said when they'd sat at the dining room table, his dad thumbing quietly through the various acceptance letters as Nate had swung his legs back and forth more excited at the idea of learning magic than the idea of traveling some place new in order to do that.
The path takes them down to a lake where wooden boats sit, bobbing in the water. Nate notes that there are no paddles anywhere to be seen but each boat has a brightly burning lamp attached to a post on the prow. "Hop in!" the booming voice of the large man calls. Nate can't place the accent, there seems to be so many for such a small country, nuances in pronunciations and tones that he wonders if he'll ever get the hang of it. One girl on the train was practically impossible to understand, though Nate did his absolute best to try.
He follows Ray into a boat and waits, his hands gripping the edges as he thinks about the dark, inky blackness of the water they will be crossing, imagines how cold it must be and how deep. Three other students cram onto the boat, the wood creaking as the craft rocks and suddenly Nate is terrified that they will upturn in the water and he will have to swim across to the opposite bank.
"We won't tip." This declaration is made from a boy with blond hair sitting directly across from Nate; the orange glow of the lamp casts half of the boy's face in shadow. "These boats are spelled to propel themselves across the water, but also to be steady and keep everyone inside. Go ahead," the boy says. "Try to tip it."
Ray eagerly begins throwing his weight around despite Nate's weak "Please don't" that may, in all honesty, have barely been voiced above a whisper because he is more focused on clutching to the gunnels of the boat for dear life, his fingers white. The little wooden vessel rocks left and then right, but nowhere near as drastically as Ray's weight should be moving it. After a moment, Nate eases his grip and starts to relax.
"See?" the boy says with a confident grin. "We'll be fine."
Frowning Nate says, "You're not from around here, either."
The blond boy shakes his head. "California."
"You're both Yanks?" one of the other boys asks, frowning like it's novel, which Nate supposes it kind of is.
"How many of us are there?" Nate asks.
There are two schools for magic in the U.S. as far as he knows. He received an invitation to study at both, but he'd picked Hogwarts because it seemed almost ridiculous not to. The Headmistress' letter clearly stated that she believed Nate's magical abilities would be better nurtured at a school with centuries of tradition and excellence behind it, and the prospect of some of the most skilled professors to instruct him had swayed Nate's parents, despite the fact that it was all the way over in Scotland.
"Only three starting this year, as far as I know," the blond boy answers. "I guess that's us."
Stretching his hand across the distance, he says, "I'm Nate."
Across from him, the corner of the blond boy's mouth quirks up into a wide, toothy, smirking smile. Nate thinks the other boy looks a little funny, something almost elven in his features. Maybe it's just his ears look a bit big. He reaches for Nate's hand, still grinning and says, "I'm Brad."
_____________________________________
"Sweet baby Jesus, I thought you'd kicked it!" Ray declares loudly the moment Nate opens his eyes. "What the hell happened back there?"
Shifting, Nate registers first that there is no residual ache in his body or his head. The world looks and feels as normal as it ever did, and he actually recognizes the room in which he is lying: a typical Auror safe house where he has sought refuge more than once in the past. "You didn't take me to Mungo's?"
"Well, you were still breathing. Plus, I couldn't be sure it wasn't some kind of attack. You kept asking if I saw someone, I thought maybe you spotted whoever cast the curse."
Nate shakes his head. "I don't think…" but he cuts himself off. He's not certain he can explain why he feels so confident that he wasn't hit with a curse. Mostly, it's just a feeling.
What he does know is that there is a memory, flickering tentatively at the corner of his mind like a candle spouting and guttering in a strong wind. A memory that wasn't there before, fragments and flashes of things that felt imprinted on him forever that suddenly just ceased to be. He never missed them until this moment.
"All they have stashed in these fucking cupboards is tea, can you believe it?" Ray grouses as he rifles around. "Oh, and some tinned tomato soup. What's up with that?"
Cautiously, Nate manages to pull himself upright and he realizes that he's been deposited on one of two narrow cots, a blanket has been pulled over his lower half and his shoes and outer robe are gone. Nate spots them by a chair in the corner.
"I guess it's a step up from sucking on an actual leaf," Ray is saying as he pours some hot water into a chipped mug, which he carries over to Nate. Ray hasn't steeped it long enough, he never gets the timing right but there's enough sugar that Nate almost doesn't mind the watery tinge. It's warm and familiar, taking another sip, Nate feels steadied.
"What spell do you think it was?" Ray's eyes are narrowed and considering, his head cocked to that side in that way it does when Ray is running events over and over in his mind, trying to parse data, figure out what he's missed. Nate realizes that he has managed to genuinely frighten his friend. "I couldn't figure it out based on your reaction. Do you think it's something new?"
Shaking his head, Nate busies himself with his tea and with carefully sorting through the jumble of disorganized memory. "Hey," he says, tries to make it sound casual, like it has no bearing on their situation. "You remember Quidditch?"
Ray scrunches his face, clearly suspicious of the topic change, but after a moment he shrugs and grins. "Uh yeah, I remember Quidditch. It's a fuck-ton of fun. I was pretty much the greatest Beater of all time, and if you make the totally crude joke I know you're currently biting your tongue on, I will literally punch you in the face."
Nate snickers. "You were a very good Beater, Ray," he says, as blandly as possible. Ray still narrows his eyes. "Our best games were always against Slytherin."
Ray shrugs like he doesn't want to admit that Slytherin ever did anything to improve his school years. Then he frowns. "Actually, you know, that's probably true. Their team was pretty good."
A curious little shiver runs along Nate's spine. He finishes his tea and hands it back to Ray, who crosses back to the kettle in order to refill the cup. "I remember," Nate hedges, "you would always try and kill their Seeker. Every game. Every bludger you could get close to you'd send careening straight at him."
The room goes quiet. When Nate glances over Ray's standing with the teapot in one hand, half-tipped forward though not enough to pour, his head tilted to the side and he's frowning. "Ray?"
Shaking his head, Ray refocuses on his task . "It was a healthy rivalry that has existed, I am told, since the dawn of time. Slytherin versus Gryffindor. If I recall correctly, Mister Chaser, you had more than a few fouls against those sly snakes as well."
"I didn't spend an entire game waiting for an opportunity to get nailed for snitchnipping," Nate points out. "You couldn't even see the snitch, and you still wanted to catch it before Slytherin did."
"Wait wait," Ray says, waving his hand and subsequently the teacup it's holding. "I never snitchnipped."
Sixth year, Gryffindor versus Slytherin, first match of the season. Nate can perfectly remember the triumphant sound Ray made when he leapt off his broom and curled his entire body into a ball in an effort to confine the tiny fluttering golden orb. He also remembers the death-defying dive the Slytherin Seeker spun into all in an effort to prevent Ray from cracking his skull open on the grassy pitch as he plummeted, broomless, toward the ground.
Nate holds Ray's gaze and thinks: "It's not just me." He closes his eyes and refuses to wonder 'why?'
_____________________________________
No one on the second level of the Ministry for Magic is terribly impressed with Nate's insistence that he wasn't cursed. "Look," Gawain Robards says as he frowns. "Go see the Healer, just to be certain. We've got a new dark lord rising and I'm not willing to start taking chances. Right now, we don't know what this bloke's capable of, yeah?"
There's no way that Nate can go against the head of the department so he says, "Yes, sir", and backtracks away from his cubicle to the hallway, turning in the direction of the Healer's office.
Ray gives him a wave in the hall. "I'm heading back out with Cordelia. If we find anything we'll let you know. Robards sending you off to see the wizard?"
"Yeah." Nate tries not to act as putout as he feels. He understands the need for caution, but Robard's sometimes goes to extremes and he encourages others to follow that lead. As a result, the Ministry healers have a bad habit of taking someone off active duty even when there's no sign of anything being wrong with them.
"That's the spirit!" Ray claps a hand on his shoulder. "If you're not in Mungo's by the time my shift ends, I'm descending on your place, and I'm bringing a feast fit for a king."
In the Healer's office Nate is subjected to a battery of tests before Healer Mudgeweather admits that she really can't see anything wrong with him. "A very bad migraine, you say?"
He nods. "It came on suddenly, but I'm fairly certain it wasn't a spell." She checks his outer robes to be certain but all the basic wards are still intact and give no indication of having been disturbed. Cautiously, Nate admits, "It felt a bit like memory modification."
The healer frowns and drops a Rememberall into his palm before he has a chance to continue. They both stare at the small glass sphere, a wisp of greyish smoke materializing but, though they wait longer than necessary, it does not change red. "Well," she says, taking back the ball. "You don't seem to have forgotten anything."
She runs her wand over him again, this time searching for any indication of memory charms but comes up with nothing. Nate isn't surprised.
Mudgeweather declares him in perfect health, but just as Nate is thinking he's in the clear, she continues, "Still, you should probably head home; maybe take a few days off to recuperate. It might have simply been stress-related." As Nate slips back into his robes, she turns to her desk jotting down a few notes in his file.
Clearing his throat, Nate hesitates. "Do memory charms ever break?"
"Hm?" she looks up from a notation she's making and then blinks. "Memory charms? No, they don't break. They don't 'wear out' at all, really. Sometimes a witch or wizard very skilled in the mental arts is able to remember bits and pieces of whatever was lost, but the charm itself only gains in strength the longer it is in place. Complete reversals are almost always impossible, and I have never heard of a charm simply releasing of its own accord. If it did, we'd be in a bit of hot water with the muggles, don't you think?"
_____________________________________
By the time Nate walks into his Defense Against the Dark Arts combined class he has heard all the stories about Slytherin House, and there are enough to form a suitable bias, which many of his classmates have done. Personally, Nate has had no opportunity to interact with any Slytherins. From distant observation he has ascertained that they mostly keep to themselves, more so than Ravenclaws, and that they are generally a quiet bunch.
Professor Belleficent has arranged the classroom into rows of two desks and the first thing she does at the start of class is assign seating so every Gryffindor is sitting beside a Slytherin. "Remember where you are sitting," she tells her class. "This will be your place for the entirety of the year, and I will not tolerate grumbling or complaints. If you have a difficulty with your seatmate we will settle it with a good old fashioned Wizard's duel."
"She doesn't do anything in halves, does she?" Nate whispers to himself, then glances at his new Defense partner. He ends up grinning. "Hey, it's you!"
"Me?" the other boy wonders. He blinks, and then smiles that same smile from the boat. "Me," Brad says, no longer a question.
"How have you been finding it?" Nate whispers, conspiratorially. So far, Ray has been enthusiastic about absolutely every aspect of Hogwarts. The rest of the Gryffindor first years are more than a little overwhelmed, but whenever Nate tries to broach the subject they shrug it off like the moving staircases, announcements regarding the possibility of grizzly and prolonged deaths should they wander out of bounds, and ghosts that slip through walls at unexpected and sometimes entirely inopportune times is exactly what they were expecting and nothing at all to be unsettled by. "Doesn't it freak you out?" he had asked one of his housemates, who had turned up the nose and said only, "I'm a Gryffindor".
"It certainly keeps me on my toes," Brad says. There's a pleased glint in his eye, like the chance to be put to the test like this is something he's been anticipating for a long time. Nate grins because for all that he keeps being perpetually surprised by just about everything, he feels precisely the same. "I've been waiting for this class, though. I think it will be my favorite."
In Transfiguration Nate had made a paperweight transform into an ornate music box that played Strauss' Blue Danube waltz while a little frog and rabbit dressed in fancy clothes danced. It took him only three tries and he had never been so happy or so proud in his entire life, but right then he answers entirely honestly and says, "Me too."
_____________________________________
Nate hands over Healer Mudgeweather's report to Robard and tries as much as possible to emphasize the part where she wrote: "In perfect health". All Robard can see, however, is her recommendation that Nate take some time off. "No unnecessary chances, Fick. Have a bit of a holiday. A few days can't hurt."
No one tells Nate that he has to go home and sleep, just that he shouldn't be at work, so he doesn't feel as if he is breaking any rules when he apparates to the mouth of Knockturn Alley and casts a modified Glamour spell that he hopes will be strong enough to fool Ray if they happen to cross paths. Glamour spells are never perfect, and are especially weak to people quite familiar with the person attempting to modify their appearance. It's what Nate suspects is responsible for the blurring effect he had noticed on the wizard earlier that morning, though he cannot actually be certain. The fact that Ray will likely assume that Nate has gone home, if not been sent to Saint Mungo's, will work to his advantage, so long as they don't end up in the same place at the same time.
Appearance suitably altered, Nate rolls his shoulders back, lengthens his stride and tips his chin up, jutting his elbows out from his sides just slightly so that he looks both arrogant and purposeful, and very unlike his usual self. He walks directly into Borgin and Burke's without hesitation and manages an appropriate lilting accent as he inquires of Mister Borgin the identity of a patron who would have been around just that morning.
Mister Borgin scrutinizes him closely, beady eyes taking in Nate's appearance before he says, snidely, "We have, I am sure you understand, many patrons, sir."
Nate's fairly certain the man is not only fully aware of the Glamour, but also certain that it is a certified auror lurking beneath the spell. Dark Wizards, even the ones flirting with the fine line, tend to have all sorts of tricks up their sleeves that Nate feels simultaneously envious of and angry at all at once. Sometimes the letter of the law can be terribly confining.
"You would have recognized him," he pushes, though he isn't sure why. It is an assumption based on the seemingly casual air about the man in that moment when Nate had spotted him. Like he was used to traversing the darkened alley, and familiar with this shop in particular. "Also, he wouldn't have looked like what he looked like, if you understand my meaning."
"Yes," Mister Borgin drawls. "We never do, do we?" he casts a pointed stare at Nate, but then Mister Burke comes out from behind a curtain in the back and Mister Borgin flashes crooked yellowed teeth in a sinister parody of a helpful smile and says, "This gentleman's making inquiries about a customer that might have been by in the morning."
"Not 'might have'," Nate corrects. "He was definitely by. The only question is whether you recall him." He knows it's a mistake the moment it's out of his mouth, because he knows never to give either of these men even an inch lest they abscond with a mile.
"We don't," Mister Burke says sharply. "Remember anyone coming by this morning. It's been a very busy day, I'm sure you can appreciate that."
Nate looks very long and very hard directly into Mister Burke's steady eyes, using all his ability with legilimency to his advantage. An image coalesces in his mind, a tall man in dark robes with long black hair and a square face, with the faint haloing Nate himself remembers seeing around the man on the front step. Then Mister Burke occludes his mind and sends an absolutely poisonous look in Nate's direction. "I think you should leave now, Mister...?"
"Thank-you for your help, gentlemen," Nate replies, not offering his own name. He is careful to speak with enough silken sarcasm that the two other men snap-to, realizing that they have indeed given him something to go on, whether they had wanted to or not. He turns on his foot and heads back out to the street.
He has managed to ascertain that Mister Borgin and Mister Burke are conniving, secretive liars, which is something he already knew. Nate has also managed to confirm that the man he saw on the front steps of the shop was not a hallucination. He has not, however, managed to figure out what he should do next.
Glancing back to the shop window Nate thinks about the network of communication that exists in this dodgy part of the district and pointedly turns back toward Diagon Alley. It is a long shot, but Nate has very few options available to him, so he orders a sizable ice cream sundae at Florean Fortescue's and settles into a seat on their outdoor patio, prepared to wait the rest of the day if he has to.
He has finished three of the five heaping scoops when a throat is pointedly cleared by someone standing over his table. When Nate looks up, it is into a pair of warm brown eyes that, for all the appearance of open friendliness, look nonetheless assessing.
"'Sup, dawg," the man says, which is not a greeting Nate has ever encountered in the Wizarding world. It catches him off guard, which, he thinks, is precisely the point of it. "Mind if I sit?" The man drops into the chair opposite him without waiting for permission. "So, I got a question for you."
"I imagine you do." Nate spoons another bit of ice cream up and feels mildly pleased with himself when his comment successfully breaks the stranger's stride.
"Yeah," the man says, his eyes narrowing. "Here it is: what were you doing, interrogating the proprietors at Borgin and Burke's?"
Another mouthful of ice cream that Nate takes his time swallowing before he asks, "Friends of yours?"
"Naw, man. It's not like that." He rests one arm on the table, leaning forward so he is almost though not quite intruding on Nate's personal space. "Just, a man can get to wondering if someone's maybe looking for trouble."
With only a few jumbled memories to go on, Nate is aware that he is working at a terrible disadvantage. He trusts his instincts absolutely, and his instincts tell him that he didn't just happen to forget, something made him forget, which means he is now in possession of memories someone doesn't want him to have. He can't just blurt out to a stranger that he's looking for a friend, or someone who used to be a friend.
Instead, Nate shrugs carelessly and says, "In my experience, no one entering Knockturn Alley does so because they are not interested in trouble." This gets him a grin. "I'm curious though," he continues. "I don't see how any of this is your business."
"My business is whatever I say it is." They stare at each other, neither one of them blinking until, finally, the stranger seems to capitulate. "When you ask questions about a friend of mine, that's my business. If it's trouble you're looking for, it's here and it's waiting for you."
There is no cocky arrogance in the man's tone. He's sitting casually in his chair, easy as you please. Nate knows that the wizard's wand is currently in a holster at his hip, that he can likely access it quickly and efficiently, but from the flicker of magical energy that Nate can feel tingling at the corner of his senses he also knows that this man has some ability with wandless magic, which means that Nate very possibly is one misstep away from an open wizard's duel in the middle of a busy street.
"It's not trouble I was looking for," he says. "Your friend reminded me of someone, that's all."
"Old school friend?" the wizard asks, too keenly. Far too keenly to be casual.
Nate keeps his breathing steady and thinks that the straight truth might very well get him killed. He can't lie, though, not when he's this close to someone who clearly knows in a way that Nate used to know. In a way that Ray knew, once, but doesn't anymore.
"A lover, actually," Nate flicks his gaze back to chocolate brown eyes but there is no opportunity to pry into the man's memories. The other wizard is occluding so perfectly that it takes Nate a moment to realize he's sifting through aimless thoughts and false memories.
The wizard laughs. "Old lover, ah. I know how that is." The tension has entirely leached from the man's body. "Well, I wish you luck with that then, dawg. See you around."
"If we do see each other again, should I pretend we've never met before?"
"Technically we haven't 'met'," the other wizard points out as he stands from the table. Then he grins, holding out his hands like they're suddenly friends. "Name's Tony."
"I'm…"
"Nate," Tony says, cutting him off. He shakes his head. "Man, you aurors. You make it so damned easy."
Tony disappears before Nate can ask what exactly it was that he made easy, how the man knew his name and could see past the Glamour he had left in place enough to recognize him. His stomach is twisting in knots and he pitches the rest of his sundae away. It's impossible to tell if that conversation went well or not. If Tony's strange demeanor is confirmation of Nate's concerns or proof against it.
He thinks about all the stories he ever heard of Slytherin House, thinks about the bias that exists to this day, of how the Ministry looks more closely at applicants who were sorted there based solely on the prejudice that all Slytherins have an inclination toward the dark arts. Nate had thought it was a ridiculous bias but suddenly he wonders if he has simply been blind. Avoiding seeing something he did not want to see.
Something that might have been there all along, right from the start.
_____________________________________
The only reason he waits outside is because Ray lost a bet that Gryffindor would trounce Slytherin at Thursday's game and the punishment for losing was no candy for the rest of term. Admittedly, Nate was more than a little relieved that Ray lost but since he knows his friend's abilities when it comes to stealth, Nate added an additional rule: Ray is not allowed inside Honeydukes for the rest of term.
So he's standing outside in the snow listening to Ray curse and mutter at the unfairness of life, insisting that Slytherin probably cheated so their Quidditch victory shouldn't count, when Peter Runcible comes over and accuses Nate of being a mudblood. He says a few other nasty things first, all of which Nate has heard before, but he saves the best for last.
Technically speaking it's true. It's been three generations since the Fick family produced anyone with any magical ability but that doesn't make the term any less offensive or insulting. Nate's wand is in his hand in a flash and it is somewhat gratifying to see that Ray is equally ready though, considering his situation is similar to Nate's own, perhaps he is not simply defending a friend.
Before the argument can continue, however, there is the happy jingling as the bells above Honeydukes chime and the door swishes closed. "Is there a problem here?" a familiar voice asks, and Nate stands a little straighter. Three against one. Those odds are greatly in their favor, especially considering the magical competency of the three.
"Not with you, Colbert," Runcible says. "With these Gryffindorks. Muggle-loving mudbloods, the lot of 'em."
Nate expects an argument of some kind, some witty rejoinder that will undoubtedly take Runcible the better part of a week to figure out. Instead what he hears is, "Caput mortuum," and then Runcible staggers back as if he's been pushed, blinking as he scratches his head and looks greatly befuddled by the world as a whole. After a second, he turns on his heel and toddles off along the road.
Nate is, of course, perfectly aware of the direct translation of the words: Dead head. He is not, however, familiar with those words in relation to any sort of spell, which is clearly what the utterance was if Runcible's reaction is anything to go by. "Did you make that up?" he asks, turning around to face his friend.
Brad flashes him a pleased grin in answer, slipping his wand casually back into the pocket of his robes.
"That was bloody fucking incredible!" Ray says, throwing an arm around Brad's shoulders. They all frown at Runcible, who actually appears to be drooling on himself. "Do you think anyone will notice a difference?"
"How long will the spell last?" Nate wonders as they watch the boy's meandering.
It lasts until halfway through Monday classes, and the only reason it breaks at all is because professor Belleficent can recognize a hex when she sees one.
Nate gets called to the headmistress' office, and it's a little bit of a relief to see that he's not alone there. "Gentlemen, I am very disappointed. In all three of you."
"Ma'am." Nate bows his head and tries to look suitably chastened as the headmistress glares at him disapprovingly. "We weren't picking on Runcible. It was the other way around."
"Yeah," Ray jumps in. "He called Nate and I mudbloods!"
"We only pulled our wands to defend ourselves if the situation escalated," Nate continues blithely. "We didn't intend to hex Peter. We just wanted…"
"Nevertheless," Headmistress McGonagall interrupts. "It was three against one, and hex him you did." Her lips purse as she eyes them over her glasses. "I am, however, fully aware of Mister Runcible's prejudices. Is this what happened, Mister Colbert?"
Brad nods once, sharply, his hands clasped behind his back. "Yes ma'am. Ray and Nate were merely defending themselves, that's the only reason their wands were drawn. I'm the one who cast the hex. I didn't know it was a real spell."
"That's because it isn't," the headmistress huffs. "Though I suppose it is now." She taps her fingers idly on the surface of her desk. "Mister Colbert, you are an incredibly gifted young wizard, but you must exercise caution and above all, prudence with your magic, or your abilities will only lead you astray."
Ray snickers as they leave the Headmistress' office. "I can't believe she gave you the 'with great power comes great responsibility speech'!"
"I can't believe I get detention and Runcible gets to nap in the hospital wing," Brad mutters.
Nate raises his eyebrows. "To be fair, he did spend three days dribbling on himself, completely incapable of forming words beyond one syllable."
"Explain to me how that's different from any other day for him?" Ray asks. "Anyway," he throws an arm around Brad's shoulders. "Thanks for the awesome defense. Not that Nate and I were helpless or anything, you know, but still."
Curious, Nate glances at Brad from the corner of his eyes. "Did you make up that spell and cast it on Peter without testing it first to see what it could do?"
"I knew what it would do," Brad says with a shrug.
"No you didn't. How could you, unless you tested the spell properly? What if it couldn't be reversed?"
Brad meets his gaze. "Runcible is already a bigoted, sister-fucking, inbred, slack-jawed, dark lord in the making. If the spell was permanent, how could that really be a bad thing?"
Nate can tell Brad means it as a joke but it only makes him wonder.
_____________________________________
Around the office, out on patrol or at the pub, or hanging out at Nate's apartment or Ray's, Nate can't stop asking questions. What does Ray remember about Quidditch? Defense class? Care of Magical Creatures? What was the worst punishment he ever had at school and what had he been doing to earn it?
Ray shrugs it all off, he has answers for everything but never the answers that Nate expects. Never the one's Nate knows are true. Years of friendship make some things into casual certainties but not, apparently, if your memory has been grossly modified. He tries to recall how he might have answered any of these questions before that moment in Knockturn Alley, but he never can. The subtle perfection of memory modification is this: how can you miss something you don't even remember?
The answer is simple: you can't, and Nate certainly hadn't.
It's a truth that makes him angry; at himself, at whoever took his memories, at everyone who doesn't remember what they should. He tips his chair back in his cubicle and looks across to where Ray is sitting, the cubicle on Nate's right. Ray's cubicle. Except that it isn't Ray's at all.
"Who was your best friend at school?" Nate asks.
Ray glances up from his papers. "Man, you haven’t finished with all this reminiscing and shit? I dunno. You, I guess."
"You guess?" Nate pushes. "You don't know?"
"Well…" Ray starts out, turning and smiling like he's about to make a joke and then suddenly his expression pinches, like he's just realized that he had said 'I guess' because he actually hadn't been certain. "I…"
"Nate!" Robards calls. Nate curses under his breath because Ray shakes his head and the moment is lost. When he glances at his boss the man is standing by the door waving him over.
"What have you done this time, I wonder," Ray teases.
Rolling his eyes, Nate gets up. There is a woman with Robards, standing outside the door. She is average height, not exceptionally beautiful but not unattractive. Her hands are petite but when she shakes Nate's hand her grip is strong. Robards introduces her as Amalthea Pelleas from the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad. Nate is presented with a badge that supports the claim, but there is something in the casual way Amalthea flips her hair over her shoulder that makes him suspicious. The thing is, Aurors receive a lot of training in concealment and disguise, and not all of it pertains to appropriate methods of shifting one's own appearance. Nate's pretty good at spotting concealments as well.
"What's this regarding, sir?" he asks Robards.
The man seems perfectly unaware of any subterfuge. Nate wonders if it's because he has no reason to suspect anything untoward. "Healer Mudgeweather noted that you felt a bit like your episode might have been related to memory modification of some sort."
Nate raises his eyebrows. "No unnecessary risks?"
Robards nods, rocks back and forth on his feet and says, "Precisely so."
"I'm a specialist," Amalthea says confidently. "The Obliviator in my squad."
"Just double-checking. Leave you two to sort it out, then," Robards says. "Probably nothing at all, you know, but no use taking chances when you're one of our best, Fick." He claps a hand on Nate's arm, nods once more, and then turns on his heel.
Nate follows Amalthea as far as the entrance to the Healers' office, and then halts. "You make a very striking witch, Tony."
Amalthea stops abruptly, then flashes him a coy grin. "'Sup, dawg," Tony says, his voice still notably feminine and soft. The disguise is absolutely perfect, which Nate finds worrying.
Tony is standing inside the Ministry with a disguise and paperwork forged well enough to fool the head of the Department of Aurors. There are security checkpoints that must be crossed to reach this level, not to mention that a call would have been placed to verify Miss Amalthea Pelleas' claim to be an employee of the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad because Robards is deadly serious when he says that he does not believe in taking unnecessary risks.
"I'm not going in there with you." Nate jerks his head toward the empty office.
"Frightened?" Tony asks, smirking
"Pragmatic."
Tony, in his disguise as Amalthea, raises a slender eyebrow. "What if I told you it was mandated by the Minister himself?"
Nate snorts. "What, Shacklebolt specifically told you to disguise yourself as a woman, pose as an Obliviator and get me alone in that office? To what end?"
"Won't know until you try."
"Well then I won't ever know," Nate says, and backs up a step.
"It's standard procedure," Tony says, his flippant demeanor vanishing as he faces Nate head on. "If what I suspect is true then you should know, you're risking a lot of lives by running away from me like a scared little bitch."
Nate jerks his chin up. "Give me one good reason why I should believe you." When Tony remains silent, Nate huffs. "You're going to modify my memories anyway, am I right? What does it matter what you tell me?"
"Put your wand away, you stupid motherfucker," Tony hisses. He steps forward, his purple robes swishing. "I'm not gonna modify a single fucking thing that doesn't need to be. You have to tell me what you remember, dawg."
"How can I possibly know what it is you want me to forget?" Tony doesn't look as if he has an appropriate answer, so Nate takes another backward step, eases around the corner and then full-out sprints for the elevator.
It is entirely overdramatic because the elevator is open and waiting for him, and Tony has already proven that he is unwilling to cause a scene inside the Ministry. The moment the doors close Nate flashes a sheepish look at the other occupants of the elevator. "Late for a meeting. Thanks for holding the lift."
He receives some understanding smiles in return, and when he steps off and marches toward the bank of floos he is relieved to see not a single sign of Miss Amalthea Pelleas, or Tony. He stoops slightly as he steps into the fireplace, tosses down a handful of floo powder and escapes quickly and directly to his very heavily warded apartment where he turns around and promptly apparates, appearing just outside of Gringotts Bank.
Nate has no idea where it is he is heading. He picks a direction and he walks, his eyes scanning for any sign of Tony or someone in disguise who is paying him too much attention. Outside of a few subtle glamours to hide warts, and one to make a wizard's Romanesque nose appear small and snub, there is no sign of anyone who might have something to hide.
His mind is racing, concern about returning to work now that he knows how easily the Auror office can be infiltrated derailing when he wonders how Tony managed to infiltrate it at all. There is no reason why Nate's memories should matter to anyone. No reason why one wizard should matter so much that he needs to be removed completely from existence, taken away from anyone who ever knew him.
All Nate has managed to come up with is that maybe his friend is in trouble. Wizard Protection, however, does not work like this. Not with such extensive memory modifications, that's unheard of. The only other option Nate can think of is the one thing he keeps shying away from.
He had entered Knockturn Alley looking for information regarding a dark wizard already rising in notoriety, well on the way to becoming the next Dark Lord. Nate remembers studying Tom Marvolo Riddle and writing a paper in his seventh year about how it was memory that led to the Dark Lord's undoing. If no one had remembered his inquiries into the Horcruxes or his fascination with the number seven; if no one had remembered the Elder Wand or the Deathly Hallows; if no one had remembered the curiously 'off' little boy who had always been fascinated with things that he shouldn't have been.
If they hadn't remembered…
He collides with something hard but strangely yielding, his hands coming up to prevent himself from falling over, and there are hands that catch on his elbows and keep him upright. When Nate looks up it is into impossibly bright blue eyes and he almost laughs.
For all his searching, it turns out all he had to do was take a walk down Diagon Alley and literally run right into what he is looking for.
"I apologize," the other wizard says. "Are you alright?"
Nate is still trying to swallow back his semi-hysterical laughter. They are standing in front of Slug and Jiggers Apothecary shop. There is a small black bag hanging from the other man's wrist, ornate silver script bearing the name of the shop. Nate thinks: "You always preferred to make your own potions…"
"I'm fine," he says. "Sorry. I wasn't looking where I was going."
"That's alright. There is every possibility that I was similarly distracted."
It isn’t until the other wizard steps back that Nate realizes his fingers are gripping the man's sleeve. Blue eyes shift down; observe Nate's pale skin against the dark fabric of the robe. "Are you alright?" Nate asks, the lump in his throat making the inane question sound heavy with meaning. He forces his fingers open, releases the clutch of fabric.
"I…" blue eyes blink as they hold Nate's gaze. "Do I know you?"
Nate sucks in a steadying breath, and then lies, "No, I don't think we've ever met before. I must have one of those faces."
Those familiar coral lips quirk upward. "Right. That must be it." Then he holds out his hand. "Brad Colbert."
Nate shakes it, offers his own name in return and then adds, "I was on my way to the Leaky Cauldron. If you have nowhere pressing to be I'll buy you lunch, to apologize for my lack of observation."
Brad smirks. "The collision was mutual."
"Mutually beneficial," Nate says. In a softer voice, he adds, "Please." He remembers that Brad never had been able to resist that tone. It's nice to know that some things, at least, never change.
_____________________________________
Most of Nate's housemates joke and call them 'the three musketeers'. The rest call them an anomaly.
"Whatcha want to be friends with a Slytherin for?" one of Nate's year mates asks him. "Specially the pureblooded ones. They get raised with all sorts of bogus ideas in their heads."
"What about the idea that all Slytherins are evil?" Nate says. "Is that bogus?"
"I'm not picking a fight," the boy defends. "I'm just saying: be careful. You can't trust snakes. Pretty sure there's a story about that somewhere."
Nate rolls his eyes.
When he invites Brad to the House Party to celebrate Gryffindor winning the Quidditch cup, Brad says, "No." He refuses to elaborate.
Nate refuses to be put off. "Look," he says. "If it's because you're sore about losing, I don't think that's very fair. We're not even old enough to play on the teams; I don't think you should take who wins and who loses personally if you weren't even involved in the victory. I'm certain Slytherin will do better next year."
"It's not that," Brad shrugs. "I appreciate the offer, but I'm certain your housemates don't want me there."
"How can you know that? Most of my housemates haven't even met you. How can they have an opinion? Besides, Ray's my housemate and I'm pretty sure that if you don't come, he'll track you down and drag you over anyway."
Brad narrows his eyes. Nate has never seen his friend get angry, but he thinks right then that if he keeps pushing, he might just find out what that's like. "Don't pretend to be naïve. It doesn't suit you."
Nate jerks his chin up. "I know a bunch of Ravenclaws who are coming. There's a handful of Hufflepuffs who have been invited. Why shouldn't I invite my friend, who happens to be in Slytherin?"
"You know why."
Nate does, indeed, know why. He refuses to be swayed by an age-old prejudice. Logic will not be enough to sway Brad, apparently, that much he can already tell. Instead, Nate sighs heavily and says, "I'm already considered weird because I hang out with you and Ray. Ray's going to eat too much sugar and you know how he gets. And then it will just be me sitting there by myself."
Brad knows that Nate has other friends. Perfectly good friends who enjoy talking and spending time with him. They are not, however, as close as Brad and Ray and Nate are. They're not best friends.
Nate says, "Please," and knows he's won when Brad sighs.
"We're not going to hear the end of this for weeks. I'm pretty certain this will be an historical first."
Nate grins and pulls his friend into a one-armed hug. "Thanks."
___________________________________________________
|| END PART ONE >>|
STORY MASTERPOST