Fear of a Name

Chapter Fifty-Two: Options

"There you are," Ron said as I sat down opposite him and Harry. "You took forever!"
"Yeah, Malfoy felt the need to threaten me," I muttered, rolling my eyes and grabbing a slice of pizza. "And before you ask, I have no idea why."

"Listen, Ivory," Harry said, "we wanted to ask about what you've been doing in the library."
I frowned slightly.
"I was researching, I told you that."
"Yeah, we know that," Ron said, "but we want to know why you were researching false—"
I quickly cast a silencing spell on him and hissed, "Not so loud! We can talk about this later, when there's nobody else around, ok?"
They both nodded, and I removed the spell from Ron.

"That felt bloody weird," were the first words out of his mouth. They were quickly followed by, "Merlin, Ivory, you could've just told me to be quiet."
"Sorry," I mumbled, before quickly changing the subject. "Where's Hermione?"
"In the common room, either doing homework or asleep," Harry said.
"Nice. Well, I'm going down to the kitchens, come down if you still want to talk," I muttered.

I stood up and went to the common room, where Hermione was fast asleep, her head resting on an Arithmancy book. I ran up to my dormitory, grabbed some of the books from under my bed, then went down to the kitchens.
I barely noticed the house elves all running around, sending plates of food up to the great hall and bringing back the empty plates.

I sat down in the worn armchair in the corner of the room, and tried to work out what I was going to tell Harry and Ron. I obviously couldn't tell them anything about the necklace, that could lead to some awkward questions being asked.
"I'll tell them about the nightmares," I muttered to myself. "I'll say that I think either Mother or Father has put a curse on something of mine. I'll say I'm researching this stuff to find out what curse or curses they've done, and if there's any counter-curses I can do to stop the nightmares."
With that decided, I opened one of the books I'd brought down with me and started to read.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Hey Ivory!"
I glanced up from the book I was reading.
"Oh, hi Ron, hi Harry."
"So," Harry said, "we've come to talk about what you've been researching."
"Yeah, I kinda guessed that," I muttered, conjuring up an armchair for each of them, which they promptly sat down in. "What do you want to know?"
"Well, first of all, we want to know why you're researching false memories," Ron said.
"Ok," I nodded. "Just so you know though, it's kinda complicated."
"Go on..."

I took a deep breath, then started to explain.
"I've been having nightmares. Not normal nightmares, these feel more like they've happened before in real life. All the nightmares have been pretty much the same so far; I'm at the Manor and I can hear a girl being tortured. I think she's about ten, and I seem to be about six or seven. So far, I haven't actually seen the girl at all, just heard her screaming. I'm pretty sure they're not real memories, because I'd remember them, so I think either my mother or father has put a curse on something of mine, most likely my clothes, though I can't tell for sure. I've been researching false memories to try and find out what curse or curses they've done, and if there's any counter-curses I could do to stop the nightmares. I'm also trying to find out as much as I can about restoring memories — just in case they're real memories that I've been seeing, though I'm pretty sure they're not — as well as magic-induced nightmares and hallucinogenic spells."

"Whoa," they both said at the same time.
I grinned, then said, "Anything else you want to know?"
"Yeah," Harry said. "How are you so sure that they're not real memories when Voldemort or Bellatrix could've just removed the memories from you? Then you wouldn't remember them at all..."
"Because if they had, they wouldn't have wanted me seeing those memories again, and that means they wouldn't restore them," I explained.
Harry nodded.

"I've got another question as well," Ron said.
"Fire away."
"How are you going to do your homework, revise for the exams, help with Buckbeak's appeal and research all this stuff at the same time without having a mental breakdown?"
I shrugged.
"I guess by sleeping less, eating quicker and doing literally nothing else," I muttered.
"Ivory, you're barely getting any sleep as it is," Harry said, sounding a little exasperated. "If you get any less, I don't think you're actually going to be able to function at all."

I sighed.
"Well, what other options are there?"
"For starters, don't help with Buckbeak's appeal," Ron said firmly. "I'll handle that by myself."
"I'll help with that as much as possible," Harry said, "but at the moment, Wood's making us do Quidditch training as much as possible, I barely have any free time."
Ron shook his head.
"Don't worry about it. I can handle it on my own."

"Ok, thanks Ron... any other ideas?" I said.
"You could just use your spell to do your Homework," Harry suggested. "You know, 'integrum opus'."
"No, I can't," I said, shaking my head. "The homework we've been given is to help us prepare for the exams, I need to do it properly."
"Well then, why don't you just not revise for another month or so?"
"Because I need to revise!"
"But the exams are ages away!" Harry half yelled.
"Less than two months," I said. "I can't afford to put off revising for even another week if I want to get good grades."

They both sighed in exasperation.
"Ivory, you can't revise, do your homework, research all this stuff, eat properly, sleep for a normal amount of time and keep up with class work. You're going to have to choose which is more important to you," Ron said.
"Honestly Ron, I'll be fine," I said firmly. "Come on, we should get up to the common room before we get detention for wandering around after dark."
"Yeah, we really should," Harry muttered.

I closed my book and stood up.
"Come on then."
They both stood up as well, and I quickly vanished the armchairs they'd been sitting on, then lead them out of the kitchens and all the way up to the common room, where I sat down again to do more research. No matter what they said, I wasn't going to not do some things I needed to do. After all, when I was doing all of them, what's the worst that could happen?

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A/n: wow I haven't updated in so long! I'm so sorry!
This chapter's a total mess, but I just wanted to actually update 😂 I know I say this every time, but hopefully updates will be more frequent now!
~Charlie 🖤