#altered memory

Her wand was firm in her palm as she leveled it at him.

“I’m sorry, Tom, but I don’t have a choice.”

“Don’t say that. We both know that you’re doing this of your own volition.” 

“I have to preserve the timeline.” she insisted, as if that made it better.

As if anything would make this better.

“Preserve all the lives of those people, for what? For them to be persecuted? Tortured? You’re condemning all those people-” his hiss was cut off.

“I am condemning no one. I wasn’t supposed to be here! Everything I’ve done, good or bad, will alter the timeline! There’s a chance I won’t be born, that someone worse will come along! I have to preserve the time-” she rapt out heated.

“The bloody timeline?! It’s blown to fuck already! I am different, you’ve changed me. You’ve shown me what happens when I go too far! I don’t need horcruxes! We can make the world a better place: a place where orphans and muggle-borns don’t have to face the scrutiny we did!” he explained breathlessly, desperately.

She didn’t speak, and his hands fell to his sides.

“A world where... where I can just love you. Bugger the timeline, bugger the world, bugger immortality, Hermione, I want you. You can kill me, you can Obliviate me, but that won’t change the fact that these hands have held you and this heart beats for you. It won’t change the fact that I fell in love with you, Hermione Granger.” his gut wrenched and his heart lifted into his throat as his eyes misted over.

Tears blurred her eyesight and cascaded down her cheeks, the ache in her heart pulsating so vibrantly it gave her a headache. Sobs escaped her throat as she grappled to gain control of the insurmountable pain. 

“Hermione-”

“Obliviate.”

She could see his mind being purged of her, wiped clean and replaced. She whisked away from his memories of their meals, moments in the library, stolen kisses, magical achievements, all of it. Whisps of her disappeared until there was nothing left but a blank space.

The RK series was Cyberlife’s prototypical series, developed personally by Elijah Kamski on a floor dedicated to the task.

AU in which Connor and Markus knew each other at Cyberlife before Markus went to live with Carl.

♦♦♦♦♦

….My memory has been - altered. 

The ‘Telephone Effect’ in memory recall. Every time we remember something – we are actually remembering the last time we remembered it.