Inconceivable
Hermione doesn't bat an eyelash at the exorbitant cost of a suite at The Neptune Grand. She's made quite a few lucrative investments in the American markets, and she's more than comfortable. Plunking her AmEx Card down on the counter, she taps her nails impatiently as the receptionist sneers at her.
It isn't until the elevator doors close behind her that Hermione catches a glimpse of herself in its reflection and remembers she is still dressed like a tramp.
Hermione enters the suite and does a slow spin to take in her surroundings. This was the suite where so much had happened over the years. She'd observed it, of course, but to be here in person somehow makes it that much more real. What a thrill.
Then a realization strikes her and she pauses. The fact was that Dick Casablancas had also inhabited these hallowed halls. Hermione pulls out her wand and performs a complex cleaning charm. She learned it from Molly Weasley herself and, as usual, the results are perfectly adequate. It will have to do. But then her mind returns to Dick, and Hermione doesn't think there are enough years, or bleach, to get rid of the shame. She does the spell again for good measure and throws her bag into Logan's former room just to be safe.
Then, Hermione transfigures her clothes back into a simple t-shirt and sensible pair of jeans. Once that's taken care of, she pours herself a nice, stiff brandy from the hotel's stores.
Somehow, she has to figure out how to delve into Veronica and Logan's minds in order to decipher which memories Unspeakable Thomas altered.
Scowling into her glass, she concludes that it is most decidedly half empty. Filling it to the brim, she carefully walks to the couch, sipping along the way.
Merlin, how could she be so stupid?
She hadn't checked in on Logan and Veronica since their wedding day. She didn't think she had to, figuring they'd be naked for at least two weeks. Nothing to learn there. All right, perhaps a thing or two to learn, if the quick peek she got a few years ago was anything to go by. But nothing of value for The Department, so she had left the newlyweds alone.
And due to her misplaced faith that her colleague had a modicum of integrity and was doing the same, she'd failed them. Spectacularly. Only a massive amount of interference could cause a change as great as what she'd witnessed.
It's just...she hadn't considered that...why would he ruin the work? It is nonsensical. For fun? For attention? If he had wanted a new position he could have put in for a transfer, petitioned for a change, presented new research. Though, she supposes the thought never occurred to him. Unspeakable Thomas is, after all, a male pure blood; he's never had to work even half as hard as she has to garner influence and respect. Even with her quite notable history with Harry and the fight against Voldemort. It is infuriating.
Oh, look. Glass half empty again. Getting up, Hermione refills. She can deal with the 'why' after she figures out how Unspeakable Thomas has altered the minds of this particular couple. A feat she herself has found impossible. He can't possibly be more skilled than she. It's inconceivable.
There is no arrogance in saying that Hermione is especially gifted at mind magics. Her success in that area is well documented, even studied occasionally. But even she, with her years of experience and Master Legilimens status, cannot make heads or tails of Logan and Veronica's mindscapes, let alone make any changes of consequence.
The mind is not a book to be read; it presents as a complex landscape of information.
Some resemble winding trains, each car holding precious memories. Some a map, easily navigated.
Her own mental landscape is a library, each book carefully filed using her personal cataloging system. As an added precaution, she's even switched all the book jackets in case anyone gets too meddlesome, as Dumbledore was wont to do. In her opinion, if a person searching for secrets ends up immobile under the Black Lake, it's their own fault.
Muggles, however, do not possess the ability to manipulate their mindscapes in such a way. Reading them is fairly easy for a proficient Legilimens. But when have Logan and Veronica ever done anything they're supposed to do?
Years of manipulation and trauma have made them both so bloody resistant to the influence of others. So while Hermione can still see their relationship bonds, as well as accurately discern their strong, unspoken emotions; that's the extent of her abilities. The couple have learned to hide information and choose their words carefully, and as a result, they're both natural Occlumens, able to produce a metal layer that throw off a Legilimens. Forcefully.
With a half laugh, Hermione runs her free hand over her face then rests her head on the back of the couch, gripping the brandy like a security blanket as she recalls her personal experience with each.
Logan's mindscape is a wash of aquatic images. Blue and gray, tepid and storming. To plunge in feels almost like drowning. The one and only time Hermione tried to access his mind it had taken her ages to realize that she was not in fact drowning and focus on the task at hand. When she did, the first memory that swam to the surface was of tender skin being seared under a blunt cigar.
Torture. She'd tried to stay, do her job. Tried to watch, learn, understand. But scars marring her smooth skin, letters carved by Bellatrix's knife, began to itch. Hermione's breath had left her like a punch to the gut and she'd begun to shake. You can't smell in mindscapes, and still the scent of burning flesh stayed with her for days. She'd never tried again.
Hermione leans forward and places her glass on the table with a thunk. She'll need a clear head to work this through. Veronica's mindscape is less aggressive, but it is infinitely more tedious and frustrating.
Logan and Veronica were among her first assignments at The Department. She had been so excited to be recruited, and subsequently so disappointed when she was assigned to the Love Chamber. Like most, she had considered the subject to be trite and, well, girly. With her grades and extensive experience in keeping "The Boy Who Lived" alive, surely her talents were better suited to studying Thought or Death. But she'd soon consoled herself that every job is an opportunity to prove oneself—she had done the work, and done it well.
For weeks she examined couple after couple. Dutifully arriving at their sides, entering their minds, examining cause and effect. Silently moving through their lives, hoping to find some shred of learning she could take back to her superiors: look what I found, brightest witch of my age. She thought she understood all there was to know, ready to move on to more interesting Chambers.
And then, one day, she had read a file at random and her curiosity had instantly ignited. This couple was included in the Chamber, and yet they were not a romantic couple. Their time together seemed to be marked only by tragedy and death. Perhaps they were misfiled.
Eager to catch an error, she had Disillusioned, poured the pink and blue essences into the device, dipped a finger in, popped up on a dreadfully sunny beach in southern California. And observed as a tall, lean boy took a tire iron to an old beat-up convertible.
Logan was destroying Veronica's property and she kept baiting him.
Hermione watched, so utterly absorbed in the scene before her that she forgot to do her job.
Logan edged into Veronica's personal space and she invited him, welcomed it.
Dark and complicated emotions rose between the two. Rage...betrayal...something heavier…hate? Lust? Love? At that precise moment, Hermione could not be sure.
If Logan unwrapped his hands from the tire iron to reach for Veronica, would those hands bruise or embrace? Would Veronica pull him in or push him away? Either way, surely they would both go up in flames.
Then the gang member had punched Logan in the face, and everything changed. Veronica's core emotions spiked dangerously and Hermione snapped to attention, remembering her purpose.
By rote, Hermione stepped in front of Eli Navarro, and raised her wand to Veronica, allowing a small flick of light to flare. Muggles assume it's a floater, a trick of the light, and glance. Which gave Hermione one second, just one, to catch their eye and dive in. For a Master Legilimens such as herself, a second is all she needs.
Never before had Hermione seen a Muggle so well suited for Godric's house, and she was eager to catalogue and interpret. She had waltzed into Veronica's mindscape, but instead of memories, Hermione was met by an endless hallway of beige doors. Exactly the same, with no delineation. Almost like a hotel, but without even room numbers to distinguish them.
Turning the first knob, Hermione had found a memory of Lianne Mars teaching a young Veronica the recipe for biscuits. No Logan. The next door revealed the bloodied body of a beautiful blonde, prone by the pool, her unseeing eyes looking into the distance. The next, an empty room with Newton's Second Law written on the wall.
No less than twenty doors later, not only could Hermione not find any thoughts pertaining to the current situation, but no memories of Logan. At all. Which meant that Veronica was subconsciously working very hard to hide them.
From that day on, it was always the same. Hermione had never seen anything of note in Veronica's mind. With one exception. The night of Cassidy Casablancas' suicide.
It's too early for this walk down memory lane. Shaking off the introspection, Hermione gets up from the couch and readies herself for bed. It's the middle of the afternoon, but without a proper Pepper Up Potion, the jet lag and, she supposes, the Time Turner lag, is getting to her.
She finds the hotel-provided amenities in the bathroom and makes a note to locate the magical area of Neptune as she prepares for sleep. Who knows what supplies she'll need. A Calming Draught at the very least, to be certain.
Focusing on her ablutions, Hermione studiously attempts to keep her thoughts on her tasks. But, of course, it proves impossible. She's in the same building, for Merlin's sake. How could her mind not drift to the night Veronica pointed a gun at the little rapist?
The minute she had spotted it, Hermione had entered Veronica's mind again. Why, she couldn't say. Ron and Harry would likely tease that it was her habit to fall back on proper procedure when nervous, but she likes to think it was her Gryffindor courage that compelled her to ignore her racing heart and step in front of Cassidy to look down the barrel of the gun.
Hermione's hand had trembled as she raised the wand. And when she entered Veronica's mind, for the first time, instead of stepping into a hallway she was plunged into a dim room with a spotlight at the center.
Under that single beam was the open mahogany casket of Keith Mars, and next to it, the black, gaping pit of rage that was Veronica. Thick, inky tendrils of fury crept off her, slithering to the furthest corner of the room, blending into the shadows, rendering the room impossibly darker.
She had seen that sort of darkness before. Veronica was going to pull the trigger.
But then.
"You're not a killer, Veronica."
The sound echoed through the room, and on its heels came light. Not bright. Not white. As handsome as he is, Logan is no one-dimensional prince charming.
But it had been enough.
Logan's unshakable faith had woven around Veronica, and the darkness recoiled, snapping inward, solidifying in her center, leaving her edges frayed, but clear. And she lowered the gun.
Such is the power of Love, and why Hermione finds it endlessly fascinating. Why she finds this couple fascinating. Because in that moment, Logan was wrong.
Veronica very much could have become a killer.
With a newfound appreciation for her position, Hermione had gone home and written pages upon pages of data, and perhaps she's been favoring the couple, just a little, ever since.
She personally cheered their successes, lamented their stubbornness, threw herself a celebration when they finally got their heads out of their arses and reunited for good.
Even after they had settled, Logan and Veronica were endlessly fascinating. Without their mindscapes to fall back on, deciphering their sarcasm and quips was an exhilarating challenge. And for a couple who does not like people, their effect on others is vast. It's intriguing work. And pointless work if any moron with a robe can just ruin it.
"Ugh!" Hermione throws her tiny rectangular toothbrush into the sink. Then thinks better of it and fishes it out, placing it neatly in the stand. She's not an animal.
Waving a hand, her murumuru butter and rose face soap flies into the room. She works it into a lather, massaging gently onto her skin for exactly thirty seconds before rinsing. Hermione dries her face on a plush towel and flips off the lights to crawl under the covers in Logan's old room. And stares at the ceiling.
Instead of agreeing to marry Logan, as Hermione's visit to the previous timeline showed, Veronica is going to say no to Logan tonight. The very fact that Logan is proposing suggests that he is still on the right track. Which means Veronica is the one Hermione needs to examine.
Since she is sans Ministry resources, and cannot follow Veronica's essence to the correct location, Hermione will have to place a tracking spell on her (and perhaps her car and purse).
Then every time she pins Veronica down, she'll have to engage in the arduous task of checking all of Veronica's mental doors to find which memories were modified.
Hermione naps eventually, though fitfully, but she pops out of bed with fresh determination.
Figuring Veronica can't have changed that much, Hermione Disillusions and Apparates to the apartment to wait for Veronica to literally run from Logan's proposal.
The minute the blonde flies down the sidewalk, Hermione follows her to a town meeting, and slips inside, working her way to the front of the room to face the audience. Once she is certain that Veronica is engrossed in the discussion, Hermione sends a flick of light, catches her eye, and enters her mind.
Instead of the empty hall with rows of doors she expects, there are people loitering, murmuring on a loop. Hermione's pulse kicks up and she takes slow, deep breaths. This is very wrong. Veronica's thoughts don't just bleed all over the place.
Just relax. You don't know what has happened yet. Do your job. Observe.
Squaring her shoulders, she moves amongst crowd, catching wisps of whispered conversation.
"...normal. Unlike her," Shea Fennel mutters to her husband.
"Best to keep Noah away from her," Wallace agrees, hugging his daughter close.
Shocked, Hermione passes them and walks further down the hall. Impossible. There is no conceivable way that conversation happened. But... it's not an altered memory.
To the person with an altered memory, the recollection might simply seem fuzzy. But for a wizard in the actual mind, changed memories are fairly obvious to spot. If pieces are removed, the scene skips like poorly edited Muggle video tape. If something is added, the additional portion sounds labored and garbled, like speaking underwater.
These memories are crystal clear.
While Cliff gives his shoulder a consoling pat, Keith shakes his head. "...such a disappointment… could have been so much more…" Lianne grabs Keith's hand in both of hers. "It's why I left, Keith. Started a new family."
The simple fact that Lianne does not have a bottle in her hand is proof enough that this particular "memory" is a lie.
Almost afraid of what she'll find next, Hermione keeps up her journey.
"She's so needy," Mac discloses to Weevil. "Istanbul isn't far enough."
Weevil laughs cruelly. "She's a self-righteous bitch. You gotta look out for number one." He thumps his chest with a fist. "I did."
Spotting Logan at the end of the hall, Hermione pushes past the ridiculousness before her.
Logan is lying on a couch, hands folded over his chest, listening in earnest while his therapist sits in a chair beside him.
"She's a mess, Logan," Jane insists, tucking a strand of reddish hair behind her ear and pushing her glasses up with an index finger. "She's broken. You're better than her now."
Logan unclasps his hands and leans forward. His face—full of understanding and agreement—cuts through Hermione's panic.
There is no way, in any timeline, in any lifetime, that Logan agrees he's better than Veronica. None.
You're the brightest witch of your age, Hermione. Think.
Closing her eyes against the travesty before her, she lays out the books in her mind like a puzzle. She fits the pieces here and there, adjusting, shifting, comparing her memory of their lives to the ones she's witnessed in Veronica's mind.
Her eyes snap open as understanding shoots through her like lightning.
Hermione is viewing remembrances, but Veronica has never met Jane. Certainly Veronica does not know what the woman looks like, wouldn't be aware of her mannerisms. And yet, there is a perfect replica of Logan's therapist before her.
Which means Unspeakable Thomas did not alter Veronica's memories. He simply implanted new ones, without any regard for what already existed.
She hadn't even considered… who would do such a thing? It's barbaric.
Hermione spins in place, taking in the landscape with fresh eyes.
When Hermione spelled her parents into leaving England before the most recent Wizarding War, she'd had to make them believe they were childless. It took her months to work out the details, giving them a rich history, years of memories to draw from.
She'd changed her first birthday to that of a neighbor's child, the loss of her first tooth to that of a family friend, and the trips to the bookstore were for a favored patient of theirs. On and on until there was a reason for everything. Watertight with no holes.
This is a bloody sieve. False, negative thoughts scattered through what used to be a tightly controlled mindscape. These memories have no catalyst, no proper backstory to latch on to. Work like this causes havoc, and can be damaging to the overall psyche. And Veronica thinks they're real.
She must seem like a pod person to her loved ones. Unfeeling and aggressive, missing that key marshmallow center: Veronica without the Veronica.
Hermione spends several more minutes examining the additions, and as far as she can see, there is no rhyme or reason. The memories seem to have been chosen with the sole purpose of dismantling everything Veronica struggled to gain.
There must be something more going on here than Unspeakable Thomas wanting attention or a new position. To play God like this speaks of something bigger.
Hermione considers her options. Since the memories are shoved in where they don't belong, a simple obliviate might work. A surgical excision of sorts, cutting out the tumor to leave the healthy tissue intact. Luckily, Veronica's mind is compartmentalized enough for that. But that would only work if the memories are truly isolated, otherwise Hermione risks cutting away too much and affecting Veronica's real memories.
Though torture has been known to break a memory charm, she dismisses it. Things aren't quite that bad, yet.
It's possible Hermione could build new memories on top of the false ones. That would take more time and intense observation to accomplish properly, but she's prepared to do it.
Then there's the matter of bombs to consider. According to the newspaper she had swiped at Logan's funeral there was more than just the one car bomb, and the thought of things exploding around her while she attempts to fix this disaster does not appeal.
Perhaps she should take out the pizza guy first. Written reports suggest that Penn Epner was in remarkably plain sight the entire time.
These are not decisions to be made rashly. She needs time to apply her mind to the problem. And she officially needs backup.
Hermione exits Veronica's mind. Pulling out her mobile, she slips out of the NUTT meeting, and dials as she strides into the night. Gritting her teeth impatiently through the ringing, she lets out a breath of relief when Harry answers.
"Mione! Are you back yet?"
"No, Harry. I'm still abroad. I need help."
The line goes silent. Looking at the phone, Hermione confirms they're still connected and brings it back to her ear.
"Hello? Harry?"
"Is this Hermione? Hermione Granger? Calling for help?"
"Put Ginny on the phone."
"You know she won't go near the mobile," Harry reminds her. "Ever since she read that the radiation affects fertility."
Oh, honestly! "That's only in men, Harry."
Honestly, Harry and Ginny are halfway to a Quidditch team already, as it is And also, disgusting. As far as she's concerned, the stork dropped off Harry's babies.
"Hey, you're the one sending her pamphlets on Muggle healthcare."
Distracted, Hermione stops to stamp her foot. "Because wizards don't believe in preventive care! Can you imagine how many resources it would save if—"
"Hermione." The familiar long suffering tone gets her back on track.
"Sorry." Priorities. She continues walking, eyes peeled for a discreet apparition point. "As I said, I need help. Can you—"
"Do you need us to come?"
"—send Crookshanks?"
Harry huffs. "Crookshanks?"
"Yes, Crooks is exactly the kind of help I need right now."
And once they repair the damage, she's going to eviscerate Unspeakable Thomas, that loathsome little cockroach.