Memories - Dramione story

Chapter 22

Draco's POV

In the safe was a smaller safe, similar to the first safe, along with a leather notebook and two phials with keys in them. The thief immediately went past me and grabbed the leather notebook before opening it and starting to read very fast.

I felt strangely calm. After several minutes of reading, the thief dropped to his knees, letting the notebook fall on the floor. Confused by this reaction, I picked it up carefully and started reading. Explanations were written in it in my own handwriting. Hermione started reading over my shoulder. The text in the notebook explained that the keys could unlock a memory that had been locked by the owner of the memory. A key could only work for its owner. The keys were created using a special spell that made the memory inaccessible, but still present in the owner's head, which meant that the owner didn't really forget, but still couldn't really remember. To unlock the memory, the owner would need to pronounce an incantation, memoriae resero.

To my disappointment, there weren't many more explanations. I looked at the phials in the safe. The keys were trying to escape, like trapped bees in a glass. I took the phial that seemed to contain my key, which was trying its best to reach me. I opened it and took out the key, that calmed down as soon as it was in contact with my hand. This key was different from the keys that weren't in the safe. It had different colors and looked as if different keys had been cut out in pieces and assembled together to form one key. There seemed to be a little bit of fog inside, which made the key less transparent. I pronounced the incantation. The key melted in my hand, before easily getting absorbed by my skin.

For a split second, I couldn't see anything else than a white flash of light. Then, pictures started to scroll very fast in my head; a memory was unlocking. No... Several memories were unlocking. I concentrated on a memory. I was sitting in the library, many opened books laying around me. All the books were about memory charms. I was holding a book in my left hand. I didn't have the dark mark on my forearm yet. Many other memories scrolled in my head, a lot of them featuring Hermione. In some of them, I had conversations with Dumbledore. Finally, the memories stopped flooding my mind. 

I stayed still for a while, trying to process the information. Before becoming a death eater, I had been secretly trying to help people and ruin Voldemort's plans. I had been trying to find a way to block my memories to prevent Voldemort or death eaters from knowing what I had done. I had talked about it to Dumbledore, who was the one who had told Hermione so that she could help me find a way to partially erase my memories in a non-permanent way without it being overly obvious. The keys were a solution that I had created with Hermione... Hermione had helped me because she had thought that this would be a good solution to protect her parents if needed...

I had spent so much time with her in the library trying to find a solution. We had worked together and created the keys. It had been hard in the beginning, but a friendship had clearly started to develop. Now I knew why I had had such a feeling of déjà vu when I had carried Hermione in my arms the time she had stolen my pen. I had already done it before because of how often she fell asleep in the library after working until very late. The time that we had spent together before we locked our memories was probably an important reason why I had felt so bad when Bellatrix Lestrange had tortured her. 

Now I understood how the memory keys worked better... When a memory was locked, the owner didn't remember it, but the owner's emotions still fitted the memory because it was still present. This was why I had felt so stressed when the keys had been stolen at Gringotts. I didn't know what had been stolen but knew that it was important because of my locked knowledge about them. Hermione had reacted in a much more serious way, which meant that she probably had keys to very important memories hidden somewhere. I knew that a lot of the memory keys belonged to the ministry... Some belonged to students and teachers from Hogwarts. I now remembered that Dumbledore had recommended me to lock everyone's memories about the keys, even my own memories to make sure that they would be safe. This was why no one knew about them.

________________________________________________

Hermione's POV

This explained a lot of things, but I was very preoccupied by a very important detail. Now that I had unlocked important memories, I knew what the small safe contained: my parents' memories. I had to give them back to them. 

For so much time, I had thought that I would never be able to talk to them normally again. I had been sure that they would never remember me again. Now, I had some hope. I reached towards the small safe, putting my hand on the circle on its front. I felt a numbing sensation in my hand, and the door opened. I felt Draco's eyes on me. He probably knew what was going on and how important it was for me. In the little safe stood two more phials, the keys lying in them staying still because of how far their owners were from them. Now I knew that the closer the owner of the key was, the more excited the key would be. 

I had a chance. I had a chance to help my parents take back their memories. I could barely believe it.