papers & pens
Two years later
Eyes flying over the clipboard for the fourth time in less than ten minutes, Hermione wills herself not to cry.
She had cried the entire bus ride here. She didn’t need to continue, especially not when she met with Neville.
The waiting room for Brighter Days was the opposite of what she had expected it to look like. The walls were a deep brown, with limited decorations and mustard-yellow lights blinked from their holes in the ceiling. A receptionist with curly red hair sits at the front desk, her head bowed over paperwork and quill tapping absently against her chin.
Inhaling through her nose, Hermione turns her attention back to the questionnaire before her.
The questions were straight forward enough. Do you have all the items and artifacts associated with the person you are erasing? Yes. Are you prepared to inform loved ones of your procedure? Yes. Have you informed the person you are erasing that you will no longer have any recollection of them? Absolutely not.
She hadn’t even spoken to Draco since the breakup, much less months later as she contemplated erasing him. How would he even react? She can’t begin to fathom it.
“Hermione Granger?” Says a nurse, leaning against the doorway. Hermione sniffles, gripping the clipboard and cardboard box before she stands and shuffles forward. The nurse nods for her to follow as he takes the clipboard, looking over it quickly.
Following close behind, Hermione tries to focus on breathing slowly. He shows her to a room with a reclining seat, desks lining the walls. On the desks are a multitude of machines, wires spooling to the floor and she wonders if she’s making the right decision.
Then she remembers the ache in her heart and steels herself.
“Right, sorry I'm late!” Neville slips through the door of the operating room, glasses perched on his nose. He’s taller than the last she had seen him, with hair as obscene as Harry’s and eyes blue like sapphires. When he sees Hermione, he's visibly taken aback and she tries to smile.
“Hello Neville.” she says and feels breathless, her nerves working their way through her body. He pauses, his eyes flicking from Hermione to the clipboard in hand. Behind him, another nurse enters and begins to tinker with the machines. A yellow button began to blink with a gentle whir, and Hermione’s blood jumped.
“‘Mione, what,” Neville says, entering the room and sitting on a wheely chair. He scoots over to her, his brows squished together. “What're you doing here?”
Hermione tries to smile nonchalantly. “Oh you know, here to get my memory wiped!” she giggles and her throat is strained. “Draco and I broke up.”
Neville nodded. “I’m aware.”
Hermione sniffs and looks away. Of course he knew. Nearly the entire wizarding population knew, given that it had been printed on every gossip rag available.
Clearing his throat, Neville pushes his glasses up his nose, looking down at his clipboard. “Well I'm sure you know that I have to ask you a series of questions before we can continue the process.”
“This is the final step, right?” Hermione asks, twisting her hands in her lap. Neville frowns slightly, his forehead creasing.
“Not quite,” He replies, glancing at the paperwork. “Once I deduce that you're an acceptable candidate, we have to go through your memories and relive them to get your green light on whether or not they are memories to keep, or discard.”
Hermione feels her stomach tighten as he says ‘discard’, and she shakes her head slowly. “I thought… it was just erased. I didn’t know about the… viewing. Like a pensive?”
Pansy hadn’t mentioned that they had to go and rewatch her memories, like a highlight reel of the best years of her life. It makes her sick, and she swallows air like a guppy.
“Something like that,” Neville replies. “In a manner of speaking, yes. It’s imperative that the patient face these memories head on before deciding if they’re not wanted anymore.”
“I’ve done my research,” Hermione says quickly. “I understand what I'm asking, and I'm certain I want all of the memories gone.”
“All of them?” Neville counters, peering over the lines of his glasses at her. Hermione nods once. Neville sighs, leans the clipboard on the top of his thigh. “I’m sorry Mione but it’s protocol. I can’t make exceptions, not even for you.” He gives her an apologetic smile, and she chews at her cheek.
“Fine,” she says and clenches her hands in her lap. “Let's get started then hmm?”
Bringing the clipboard to his line of sight, Neville clears his throat. “Right, ok. So, I'm going to ask a series of questions, and I want you to answer them as quickly and honestly as you can, alright?”
Hermione nods once, and Neville leans over the clipboard.
“Are you still in contact with the person who you’ll be erasing?”
“No.” She answers coolly.
“Were you intimate with the person who you’ll be erasing?” Neville asks, and Hermione can see the tips of his ears go pink.
“Yes.”
“How long have you known the person that you’ll be erasing?”
She pauses, ticking off the years mentally. “Since I was 10.”
“How long have you considered treatment at Brighter Days?”
“I’m… not sure. A little over a year?” Hermione says, and Neville nods, scribbling on the clipboard.
“What made you choose Brighter Days?” Neville asks and Hermione gives him a confused look.
“I’m sorry, can you repeat the question?” Hermione says with an awkward laugh. “Brighter Days is the only facility that focuses on obliviation memory augmentation.”
Neville looks up from the board, blue eyes laser focused. “Why did you choose Brighter Days, instead of moving on from a breakup like everyone else?” Hermione is taken aback, and hopelessly wonders if this question is a real one, or one coming from her longtime friend.
Swallowing thickly, she looks down at her hands. “I tried,” she whispers, unable to look at him. “I really did. I tried all the things those stupid magazines tell you to do. Running, therapy, going out with friends, hooking up with someone new. I tried to make headway, but Neville,” She chokes out his name, her eyes pooling. “There’s no moving on from him.”
Neville gazes at her with sympathy and it tears at her heart. She cries quietly, brushing the tears away with the back of her hand. Standing, Neville hands her a napkin and she takes it graciously, dabbing at the corners of her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers and Neville shakes his head.
“Don’t be. This kind of thing is hard,” he says gently. “When a relationship ends, it's like… a death. You’re mourning the life you had with him.”
“Could've had.” Hermione mumbles into the napkin.
“Sorry?” Neville counters, and Hermione swears.
“I said, the life we could've had. He… he wanted to get married. But not just married, because Godric forbid anything normal be enough for him,” Hermione seethes, clenching her hands. “He wanted to be soul bonded.”
Neville quirks an eyebrow. “That's… interesting.”
Hermione snorts humorously, dabs at the last of her tears. “I couldn't do that.”
Nodding, Neville looks over the paperwork before he looks up at her. “Hermione, I feel like this might be a rushed course of action.”
Hermione feels her heart stutter, and a cold sweat breaks out on her brow. She needed this. She needs to be free from the constant reminders of what she’s lost, of what she’s given up. It’s killing her to remember, and she shakes her head quickly.
“Please,” she says and takes a breath. “I realize that… this is an unfixable procedure. But that is what I need. Even if he changed his mind about the soul bonded thing, we would never work. I need to stop remembering. Please.”
Neville chews the side of his lip, looks her up and down before sighing and pushing his glasses up his nose.
“Very well,” He says softly, and relief washes over her like a cold shower. “I’m not certain if this is my best call but… you are one of the brightest witches of our age. I trust your judgment.”
Hermione smiles thankfully with a nod, her hands pressing into her lap. Neville explains that a few nurses will come in and hook her to the machines, and that he’ll be back momentarily and for her to relax while she waits.
Sitting back, Hermione tries to focus on her breathing. The door creaks and the nurse from before enters, giving her friendly smiles before he gets set to work. As they place a headpiece atop the back of her skull, Hermione holds her breath.
“Soon as Dr. Longbottom returns, we'll begin.” one of the nurses says, and Hermione nods. The headpiece is cool on her temples, a dull red light on either side emanating from the other side that she can barely make out from her peripheral.
When Neville returns to the operating room, he’s flanked by another nurse with short hair that carries a clipboard. Sitting beside her, Neville takes a breath.
“We’re going to begin,” He says slowly, making sure she understands him. Hitting a button below her, the back of the chair begins to dip and Hermione breathes out through her nose. “It’ll sort of feel like being in a pensive, and watching your past self. You won’t be able to really move, and if you do, your body will still be in one place. I expect there to be crying, and lots of it,” he pauses, giving her a smile. “Don’t hold those tears back. They’re natural, and you need to feel them before they’re erased.”
Hermione feels her blood pumping in her ear and she nods, her tongue darting out between her lips. With a nod to the nurses, Neville scoots back a few inches. The lights on her temples begin to blink, and Hermione stares upwards, digging her nails into her palms. Hearing a rustle on the side, she glances at the nurses and her breath catches when she sees them rummaging through the boxes, and placing the items neatly out on the table.
A nurse grabs her hand and slips a plastic reader over her finger, a wire connecting the reader to a bigger machine while another nurse places a hive-shaped light before her. Hermione blinks, looking at the lighting before she turns away, watching the nurses moving around her.
Out of the box a nurse pulls a dark green scarf and Hermione feels her eyes moisten. The nurse places the scarf on a silver dish, moving it beneath a large microscope. From behind her, she feels a nurse press the device on her temples and the blinking red turns into a steady light of green. An image of a loading bar appears on the screen, the word linking showing up in text.
“So far so good?” Neville asks.
Hermione nods, shutting her eyes. “I’ll be alright.”
“We’re going to begin in five, four, three, two…” he says, and as he reaches one, Hermione shuts her eyes.