Title: Remember To Forget
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Towards the end of a very strange seventh year, Hermione is attacked late one night by an unknown assailant. It is this attack that causes her memory to reset, taking her mind back six months… back to when she was dating Ron, not Harry…
Authors Notes: Two updates in a matter of days! Yay! Only cause my partner has gone away for a bit longer this weekend so I'm alone for longer to be able to update! Yay! To all the people who are reading this, thank you! To all those people reviewing, thank you even more! I love nothing better than to check my e-mails and see lots of new reviews! I promise that I will eventually reply to every review, but it takes time. I swear I will but!!!
Six
Walking briskly across the grounds, she checked her watch, before quickening her step.
'Shouldn't have stalled for so long,' she muttered to herself, breaking into a jog, her feet barely touching the dewy grass. She could see the outline of the gamekeepers hut and there were lights on inside. He was waiting for her.
They came out of nowhere. There was three of them, in masks. She couldn't see them. She tried to scream, but they had muted her voice. She tried to kick, but they had pinned her legs.
They lifted her easily and carried her into the forest. She was trying to scream and trying to reach for her wand, but she couldn't. Her arms were pinned, like her legs.
She felt a curse hit her chest and her whole body burned in pain. When it stopped, she could hear voices… voices that seemed so familiar…
'Hello, Granger,' the person with black eyes hissed to her. She tried to scream their name, but her voice was muffled. 'I'm going to enjoy this.'
All three of her attackers raised their wands and pain beyond any pain that Hermione had ever felt soared through her body. She couldn't scream, she couldn't do anything. Her mind was slowly fading on her. She tried to fight back in her mind, but she couldn't. She could feel herself slipping away.
And then it stopped. The magic stopped. Her limbs all felt like they were shaking and filled with hot lead.
The first hit with the branch came out of nowhere. She still couldn't scream. Over and over again they hit her all over her body and she couldn't take it… it just hurt so much…she tried to scream but she couldn't… she had never been so scared… why wasn't anyone coming for her… how did they get in… she was in so much pain as the branch hit her again and again and the spells were relentless…
Harry's face swam in her mind and her heart soared slightly… he would come for her… surely he would…
Her voice came back, very briefly, enabling her to give out one loud scream. This startled the attackers, so much so that the mask fell off one of them.
The black haired man hurriedly put his mask back on, but the damage was done. She had seen him.
Watching fearfully, her voice once again muted, she watched him stalk over to the one holding this stick. He grabbed the stick roughly and came back over to her. He kicked her hard in the side and with such force that she rolled over.
She didn't see him raising the stick into the air, but she felt it collide with the back of her skull, before she blacked out…
With a scream, Hermione sat up in bed and panted for a few seconds. For the first time, she had dreamt about her attack. She was still shaking as she looked around the dark room, noticing that neither Parvati or Lavender had awoken with her screams. Which was good.
Quietly as she could, she slipped from the bed, drew on her dressing gown and headed down into the common room. The dawn was grey and the rain was still hanging around, although quite misty. She made her way to the fireplace and picked up the poker and began shifting through the ashes.
She was surprised when she found the note that had been given to her last night. It had hardly been singed. She opened it again and reread the words.
Drop everything, start it all over. Remember more than you'd like to forget.
She slipped it into the pocket of her dressing gown and ran towards the portrait hole. Her feet seemed to guide her themselves and she found herself climbing the stairs towards the astronomy tower. She burst out the door to the top, into the rain, and found Harry standing there, watching over the side.
He turned around, in shock. It was very early in the morning and he wasn't expecting anyone to come up this way.
'I have to ask you something,' she said, stepping out and letting the rain crash on to her. Within seconds she was drenched, but she didn't care.
'Yeah?'
'When… when I was attacked… did it… did it do something to me… something inside?'
'What?' Harry's heart was thumping so loud he was surprised she couldn't hear it.
'I think I know why everyone has been avoiding me for the past three weeks,' she said and Harry turned to face her. 'I just had… had a dream, about my attack… the whole thing… every detail…'
Harry stepped closer towards her. She looked at him, tears slowly falling from her eyes and mixing with the rain on her face.
'They hit me… with a branch… over the head… and…' she paused. The look on her face said the words she couldn't say. She didn't know how she had figured this out… she just had. Her dream had made pieces click into place in her mind and she knew. She knew.
Harry didn't speak and she started to cry even harder.
'I've… I've been having… odd thoughts… weird things… I can't explain…' she began pacing, not noticing her tears that were mingling with the rain. 'Like why are we heading into Christmas, without snow? Why isn't everyone excited about the holidays?' Why is Lavender's hair so much longer?'
Harry said nothing. His fists were clenched.
'Harry… I think… I know… I lost… something… something is different… you all know it but… but I don't… and I think I… I think I know…' she paused whilst she walked over to him and looked him in the eyes. She was crying her hardest yet. 'Have… have I lost… my memory?'
Harry made no noise or movement and she fell to her knees on the wet stone, almost screaming.
'How… much…' she managed to gasp.
'Si… six… six months,' Harry said, his voice breaking up.
She cried even harder, falling sideways onto the stone wall and drawing her knees up to her chest, burying her head in them.
'C'mere,' he said gently, bending down beside her and taking her in his arms for the first time in almost a month.
~*~
Harry held onto Hermione until the tears had subsided. The rain still beat down on them steadily and he let her cry herself hoarse. When she finally couldn't cry and longer, he led her down the stairs, through the castle, into see Minerva.
And it was outside Minerva's office that he had been waiting for almost three hours. He had promised her that he would wait outside for her. He wondered if Minerva was telling her everything, or whether she was explaining about why she had lost six months of her life in an instant.
The office door opened and Harry jumped to his feet. Hermione looked even worse than she had in the hospital. Her face was red and tear stained, her hair was frizzy from being out in the rain and she just looked miserable.
She walked straight past Harry, in a daze. Minerva looked at him softly, before moving aside from the door and indicating for Harry to enter, which he did, his mind more focused on the footsteps he could hear running down the stone corridor.
'So…' he said, looking Minerva straight in the eyes.
'Miss Granger is aware of her condition,' she answered hastily. 'However, she did not wish to be told anything.'
'What?' Harry was confused. If it was him, he'd want to know everything straight away.
'She wants to remember on her own,' Minerva reached into her pocket and pulled out the crumpled up piece of parchment. 'However, she did give me this.'
Harry took the note from Minerva and read it slowly.
'What does this…'
'It's a good question, Harry,' Minerva said, taking off her glasses and rubbing her eyes. 'Miss Granger does not know who wrote the note. However, I have a feeling of who it might have been.'
'Who?'
'Ginny.'
'Ginny?' Harry repeated, staring at the note again. 'Why?'
'Miss Weasley has changed over the past few weeks, something I know you would have noticed. Perhaps, part of this change, involved growing up and realizing that the love of her life… loved someone else.'
Harry stared at the note. Only the day before Ginny had been trying to get him back… surely she wouldn't have gotten over the fact that Harry no longer thought of her that way overnight…
~*~
Hermione just ran. She forget Minerva's dire warnings about being on her own on the grounds. She bolted for the only safe place she knew, Hagrid's. She wished that Hagrid was there, but he had been away for almost the entire year. Dumbledore's death had hit him as hard as it had hit Harry, if not harder. And he and Grawp had gone on a 'mission' at the start of the school year.
Of course, Hermione didn't know why they weren't back yet. She had to know, on some level, but it hadn't come through.
She was so unfocused that she didn't see Ron calling out to her as she ran past him, nor did she notice him following her. She reached the hut and run inside, throwing herself on Hagrid's giant bed and just sobbing her heart out.
Ron entered the hut moments later and waited in the doorway until her tears had subsided. When her moans became hiccups he approached gently and sat on the edge of the bed and patted her arm gently. She looked up and smiled meekly at him.
'Hi,' she said hoarsly.
'Hi,' he replied. 'Rough morning?'
Ron had been coming down the boys stairs when he had seen Hermione pull something out of the fire and then run out of the common room almost in tears. He had spent the morning looking for her, without any success. That was why he had followed her from the castle- he was worried about her.
'Not the best,' she said, rolling onto her back and staring at the ceiling. All the crying had bought back the headache she had had for the first few days in the hospital wing. 'I just never… I mean, it's so hard… it's like…'
'Can you speak in normal sentences?' Ron said and she almost laughed.
'You've always made me laugh,' she sighed. 'And you've always made me mad.'
'That's me,' he said with a chuckle. 'One extreme to the other.'
'Ron, I,' she looked at him and he felt his heart clench up tight. He knew that look…
'Ron, can we talk?'
It was late. The common room was empty. Ron had been sitting up, staring into the fire. He and Hermione had rowed, earlier before dinner and he had stomped up here in a bad mood. Everyone had avoided him all night.
'Er, sure,' he said, not taking his gaze from the fire. She had only said four words and his heart had already packed its bags and left him. His stomach was on its way and he knew his brain wouldn't be too far off it.
She sat down next to him and stared into the fire.
'When… when we, you know, talked this summer…' she paused and sighed. 'We agreed, to, well, give this a go… and then… if, you know, it didn't, just, well… go back to being friends…'
Ron took his gaze from the fire and stared up at the roof, willing the tears that had sprung up to roll back into his head.
'I guess that's what you want,' he muttered. She placed a reassuring hand on his knee.
'Sometimes two people just aren't suited for each other.'
Ron couldn't speak. He got up and slowly walked out of the common room and up to his dormitory. He put a silencing charm on his four poster before he dared let the emotion out.
He cried every night after that. Always with the silencing charm on.
'I think we're better as friends,' she said slowly and carefully. Ron shook himself out of the memories of the last time they had this conversation.
'Oh, ok,' was all he managed. She sat up and took his hand and looked into his eyes.
'I just…. I just don't think it's a good idea… what, with me thinking it's November…' she said and Ron almost fell off the bed.
'What?'
'Ron- it's ok,' she said, smiling properly for the first time. 'I know. I know I'm behind a little.'
'And what else do you know?' he asked carefully.
'Aside from the fact that I'm missing six months of my life, not much,' she sighed. 'I've just got to focus on remembering what I've lost. And, well, I just think…'
She looked at Ron curiously.
'I get the feeling…' she said softly. 'That we had a very similar conversation.'
'We did,' Ron said honestly. 'We did.'
Hermione just nodded.
'Come on,' he said, standing up and offering her his hand. 'Let's go back up to the castle.'
She allowed Ron to lead her outside and back up to the castle, all the while thirteen words going through her mind.
Drop everything. Start it all over. Remember more than you'd like to forget.