Fear of a Name

Chapter Fifty-Seven: Real or Fake?

I stayed sitting at the base of the Whomping Willow until it was nearly dark, immobilising it again periodically. To be honest, I was surprised it had taken that long for my father to try and threaten me into getting the Dark Mark. It wasn't going to work though. No matter what he and Mother said or did, there was absolutely no way I was going to let it happen. They were just going to have to kill me instead.

When I finally couldn't take thinking about it anymore, I got up and walked back to the castle. I was well aware I wasn't supposed to be out this late, but to be honest, I really didn't care. I was more than capable of defending myself against anything that tried to attack me. Still, I didn't particularly fancy getting a detention, especially from Snape, so I made sure to stay in the shadows as I walked back up to the common room, stopping and hiding every time I heard a slight noise.

As soon as I entered the common room, Harry and Ron came over.
"Are you ok?"
"Yeah, I just had to get my head around my situation," I muttered, nodding my head slightly.
They looked at each other, obviously not quite sure what to say now.

"I think I'm going to go up to bed," I said. "Tell me if you hear from Hagrid, he should be finding out the date for Buckbeak's appeal any day now."
They nodded, then I turned and walked up to the dormitory, resigning myself to a sleep full of nightmares.

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I was awake well before everyone else the next day. As I'd expected, I'd been plagued by the nightmares every time I'd drifted off, so I'd only slept fitfully. Sighing, I got out of bed and went down to the common room, taking with me a book on false memories. Recently, I'd been entertaining the notion that these might be real memories I was seeing rather than false ones; memories that my mother or father had removed for some reason, and that the necklace was now restoring somehow.

I sat down in an armchair by the fire and opened the book to a page titled 'Real or Fake? The Common Defining Factors'.
"This is exactly what I need," I muttered to myself as I started to read.

'If the memory is packed full of unnecessary details, it's most likely fake. These details are anything that generally isn't remembered. They're insignificant things like bugs on plants, or scratches on the floor. They're things you wouldn't normally notice, such as the number of grains of salt on your dinner, or the exact amount of time it takes you to do something. You should note that just because a memory is rich in detail, it doesn't mean it's definitely a false memory, although it's very likely.

'Other reasons a memory might contain such details are:

-The person seeing it has a photographic memory. This is a Muggle term used to describe people who can remember information or visual images in great detail.

-The memory has previously been removed from your mind and it's only just been restored. When you think of a memory, you're actually remembering the last time you thought of the memory rather than the original memory itself. Because of this, memories tend to lose their details over time. If a memory has just been restored, it's as if it's your first time remembering it, so you actually are seeing the original memory.

'Because of these things, it can be difficult to know for sure whether the memory is real or false. If you're still unsure, it might help to talk to anyone who appears in the memory and see if they remember it (although you should remember that they might have had the same memory implanted in their mind(s) as well).'

"Ok, that really wasn't as helpful as I thought it was going to be," I said to myself, sighing in exasperation. "Why can't there just be an easy way to see if it's real or fake?! Why can't there just be a spell, or a... a potion..." My voice trailed off as I suddenly thought of all the books I had in my purse, all the books which could contain the spell or potion I needed, if only I could find it.

"I'll have to look," I muttered. "I'll spend all of today looking, and—" I stopped and groaned. I couldn't spend all day looking; I'd promised Ron I'd try and find some more stuff for Buckbeak's appeal today so that he wasn't having to do that as well as his revision.

By now, a few people were coming into the common room to get some revision or homework done before breakfast, Hermione among them. I quickly closed the book and walked over to her.
"Hey Hermione," I said cautiously, because she was liable to explode when interrupted these days.
She just smiled exhaustedly at me.
"Listen, I need to talk to you," I muttered so that only she could hear me. "After breakfast but before we come back up here, come down to the kitchens, ok?"

"Why can't you just say it now or at breakfast?" she asked, somewhat irritably.
"Because nobody else can hear what I'm going to tell you," I said quietly. "Ron and Harry know, so I obviously need to tell you as well... unless you'd rather not hear, of course," I added.
"I do want to hear! It's just I'm not sure how much of my study time I can give up—"
"It'll only take a few minutes," I assured her.

She nodded, then started moving the piles of parchment around on the desk she seemed to have claimed.
"Have you seen my copy of Numerology and Gramatica?"
"No, I haven't," I said. "Ask Harry and Ron when they come down, they might've seen it."
"Yeah, I will."

As she was moving the parchment around, still searching for the book, she knocked something off the desk and onto the floor. I picked it up. It was an exam schedule, and a very confusing one to anyone who didn't know about the time turner. I looked at the first column:

Monday
9 o'clock, Arithmancy
9 o'clock, Transfiguration
Lunch
1 o'clock, Charms
1 o'clock, Ancient Runes

"Hi, Ivory; hi, Hermione," someone said from behind me. I spun around to see Harry and Ron standing there, both looking a little awkward. I could tell they were thinking about what had happened the day before.
"Oh, hi, you two," I said, putting the schedule back on the desk.
They both looked at it, confusion etched into their faces.

"Hermione?" Ron said cautiously. "Er — are you sure you've copied down these times right?"
"What?" snapped Hermione, picking up the exam schedule and examining it. "Yes, of course I have."
"Is there any point asking how you're going to sit for two exams at once?" said Harry.

"No," said Hermione shortly. "Have either of you seen my copy of Numerology and Gramatica?"
"Oh, yeah, I borrowed it for a bit of bedtime reading," said Ron, but very quietly.
Hermione started shifting heaps of parchment again, still looking for her book. Just then, there was a rustle at the window and Hedwig fluttered through it, a note clutched tightly in her beak. I winced slightly. So far, my experience with letters hadn't been the best, to say the least, so I was anxiously waiting for Harry to open this one and tell us the horrible message it most likely contained.

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A/n: I know I said I would publish this chapter last night, but my WiFi stopped working. Sorry!