Bad Romance

Ignorance

-From your POV-
I woke up early the next day, still not having slept well at all that night. I was eager to get to Slughorn before I had to go to class so I could ask him about memory loss from incorrect spells. I got dressed in my uniform and robe and started making my way to his room.

I lightly knocked on the door a few times since it was still relatively early in the morning. I heard heavy footsteps and then the door creaked open. "Y/n? What are you doing here so early?" He asked while stepping aside to open the door so I could come in.

"I need some guidance on something and I trust you the most." I tell him as I side-step into his classroom.

"Go on..." he says as he puts his hand up to his chin and slightly squints his eyes.

"If someone were casting a spell meant to liberate someone and it were cast wrong, would it mess with the person's short-ish term memory?" I ask him.

"Y/n... what spell are you talking about?" he asks. I look around the room and tap my foot. "Y/n..." he pushes on.

"Are the minor details really important?" I ask in a flat tone.

"Y/n."

"Ugh, fine. Can you please keep it a secret?" I ask him hesitantly.

"It's a good thing Tom is one of my favorite's." he sighs as he crosses his arms.

"Oh so I'm not a favorite?" I ask him. He lowers his head. "Okay okay, so hypotheticals, right, the spell that was needed was 'liberatus expellon', but someone else used 'liberatus expellian' and now the target of the spell has lost most of his short-ish term memory. His surface memory, if you will." I watch as Slughorn's jaw slightly drops at my words. He picks up his wand and flicks it, sending his door slamming shut. He lowers his head and his voice.

"Y/n, who in the hell summoned Galamite?!" he asks.

"I know! I know! It's really bad. I'm too smart to do such a dumb thing, ironically, it was a Ravenclaw." I tell him. He sighs and rubs the bridge of his nose.

"Who was the target, may I ask?" he says. I feel a lump forming in my throat, so I pick up my wand and write out the letters T-O-M in the air. He watches and his jaw drops even more as he goes back to clenching his eyelids shut and rubs the bridge of his nose. "Who, in their right minds, would do such a thing?? To the half-blood prince, of all people!" he exclaims. I nod my head in agreement and understanding.

"Oh trust me, I know." I gulp hard so the lump in my throat softens some. "The wrong spell was used, and now Tom doesn't remember much.... he doesn't remember..." I trail off, remembering most people don't know about us.

"What doesn't he remember?" Slug asks. Hell. He already knows everything else, might as well toss some salt in that wound.

"Tom and I were dating. We were really involved with each other, it was just kept a secret for some personal reasons. And he has no memory of it. " I say as I fight back and forth with the lump in my throat. Slug doesn't say anything. He just looks at me for a moment before sighing and shaking his head.

"Good thing I love Tom like a son." he goes to his bookshelf and knocks five or six books off the shelf to reveal one specific one that had been stored horizontally at the back of the shelf. He came back to his desk and blew the dust off of it and opened it to a specific page, moments after he read through the table of contents. He points his finger on the page and starts reading aloud. "When a reversal is needed for a backfired spell, the safest bet is the incorrect spell being said in reverse by the sorcerer that used the wrong spell." he stopped and then darted his eyes up to me. "That's all you're getting out of me." he says. I feel my eyes light up as my brain starts working at a million miles per hour.