Into the Dark

Chapter II: Prologue, part 2: Technicalities

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One need not be a chamber to be haunted;
One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.
~Emily Dickinson, "Time and Eternity"

“How does this actually work?” she asked, biting her lip lightly as she fidgeted in her seat while looking up at him wide eyed, anxiety radiating off of her.

“We'll go from the beginning to the end…”

“How exactly?” she pestered.

He paused for a second, eyeing her oddly and she almost thought that he might kick her out, saying that she wasn't ready for something like this. Thankfully, though, he didn't. “See those blue potions aligning the wall behind you?” he asked.

She tuned towards the wall, scrutinizing it for a minute before turning to him and nodding sharply.

“It's called memoria novus ordo,” he informed her.

Hermione winced. “Memory new order?”

The doctor shrugged, immediately comprehending her silent question. “Someone wasn't feeling particularly creative, I suppose. It truly is an atrocious name, isn't it?”

Hermione laughed lightly despite herself. “Yes, I suppose it is,” she admitted with a shy nod.

“Well, either way, it is effective,' he assured her. “What it does is while you're on the potion you will reiterate stories of your time together and it will manipulate them, deciding whether to erase them completely or reorganize them so someone will take this person's place in your mind.”

“How does it do that?” she asked, thoroughly intrigued. “How does it know when?”

“It really all depends on how important of a lesson it was, if it's something that had a great impact on your maturation or mental development it merely alters the memory so someone will take this person's place in his stead… ergo why we call it safe brain damage. How, exactly, it does this though, no one quite knows.”

She nodded slowly. “And once… once I do this…”

“No turning back. If you go off the potion too soon it will leave your psyche so disrupted that you'll incapacitated and he'll be out off your mind either way since you're going to put something with the essence of him in that potion… it'll just immediately erase him and anything associated to him if you try to stop the process after drinking the potion.”

“Why?”

He shrugged regretfully. “No one truly understands the exact workings of the potion to tell you the truth; I suppose people are just too thankful for the miracle that they're afraid to rationalize it. I, however, believe that that might be the first step in the process, deleting his face and name and any situation where he comes up before it moves on to rebuilding the memories… but this is the mind, no one can really find all of the answers to the brain, it's just a theory.”

“But is it safe?”

He nodded. “I've never had a misstep with it save for when people tried to break free of its influence; we've begun restraining people though, to stop them from trying to… I figure it's better to take away their choice then leave them permanently brain damaged.'

She swallowed, trying to rid herself of the growing lump in her throat. “So it's all or nothing?”

He shrugged. “Pretty much, yeah… so are you sure you want to do this?”

She sighed, letting out a deep breath as she looked at the potions. “Hand me one, will you?”

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author's note: this is another short chapter, but I don't want it to be with the memories so I decided to separate it. Anyway, so sorry for the wait, and I do hope you'll forgive me, but please review, good or bad it's always appreciated!

p.s. last chapter I posted a notice asking for a beta, but it's been so long that I'm not sure if people's schedules have changed so I'm reposting the request just in case.

Thank you!