#updates often

It did not echo, but seemed to vibrate through her bone marrow. It was a low, silken baritone that crept through the mist and pierced into her skin, the cadence flowing through her veins. It carried the dark, resonant acoustics of the stone dungeons she so loved, however laced with a gravity. A terrifying detachment.

Unmistakably her Head of House: Professor Severus Snape.

"Do you blame yourself?"

Liesel turned around sharply, her heart giving a strange, irregular thud within her chest. The damp grass soaked immediately through her bare feet as if her socks had suddenly been exposed. She scanned the empty expanse, her mossy eyes darting around, wide, in an attempt to see through the thick mist around her. The source of the voice was nowhere to be seen.

She was completely along.

"What?" Liesel called out. Her voice stumbles over itself, choking halfway through her message.

"Well, I'd imagine someone in your place…" Snape's disembodied voice continued. The tone was maddeningly calm, but unhurried. It rang out from everywhere and nowhere all at once, drifting over her shoulder, whispering past her ear, "…would feel a sort of… guilt. After all, one doesn't forget a whole person."

Liesel's brow furrowed deep into a V. The cold was no longer just on her skin; it was beginning to seep directly into her blood. She wrapped her arms tightly around her diaphragm, tucking them under her biceps to shield them.

"… Who?" She called out, her teeth beginning to chatter, "What are you talking about?"

The mist stopped moving.

"The accident."

The world snapped.

It was a violent, sensory whiplash. The pale morning light was instantly extinguished, replaced by a suffocating, pitch-black darkness that felt was if it would drag Liesel with it. The freezing air turned stifling and impossibly hot, humid, in a microsecond. It smelled sharply of scorched earth, sweat, and the sickeningly sweet, coppery tang of fresh blood.

A chaotic, roaring noise exploded in her ears.

The screeching of brass instruments stopping at once.

Weeping. Screaming. Panicked, overlapping shouts.

Liesel stumbled forward, her bare feet hitting hard, dry earth instead of damp grass. The creeping dread of the fog was gone, replaced by the pure, high-octane terror of the people around her.

She was suddenly surrounded. A massive, thrashing crowd pressed in on her from all sides. They were a sea of faceless bodies, moving in jerky, frenzied motions, huddled so tightly together that they formed an impenetrable wall of shoulders and backs, completely blocking her view of whatever was lying on the ground in the center of their frantic circle.

A heavy, primal panic seized Liesel's chest. Her lungs constricted. She didn't know what was on the ground, but her heart was hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird beating its wings against a cage. She had to see it. The urgency was a physical, burning compulsion. She needed to see it.

Two arms grabbed at her shoulders and she was suddenly pulled to meet the eyes of Draco Malfoy, whose eyes pleaded with her as he begged, "Liesel, stay with me. Don't go over there."

"Draco, what's happening? Who is that?" Liesel asks, her eyes still trained on the heap of vile bodies pushing and shoving violently against each other. Suddenly, a scream echoes through the darkness.

"MY BOY!" A grown man’s weeping sounds above all.

"Move!" Liesel shoves at Draco's chest. She threw her weight forward, trying to get past Draco's stone grip, "Let me through! Move!"

Draco stumbles as her attempt to hold Liesel fails, "Stop! Stop, Liesel!"

Liesel pushed against the dark, indistinct shoulders of the crowd. But the crowd pushed back. They surged against her, their waves of grief and anger hitting her between every heartbeat. When she looked up, the faces of the people around her blurred into terrifying, distorted masks. Their mouths stretched unnaturally wide in screams she couldn't quite decipher. Even their eyes started deep into hers, hollow and dark.

"It's your fault!" A voice shrieked directly into her ear, so loud it made her eardrum pop. "Why didn't you stop him?!" another demanded. A heavy, invisible hand slammed into her chest, shoving her backward.

"It's your fault!" "It's your fault!" "It's your fault!" The chanting began as a disorganized roar, forming into a rhythmic, deafening drumbeat. She fought harder, her breath coming in ragged, desperate, tearing gasps. She scratched, shoved, and clawed her way through the mass of bodies until she finally burst through to the front of the circle.

She looked down…

But there was nothing there.

Not grass. Not dirt… Nothing.

It wasn't that the ground was empty. It was as if a piece of the world, a specific, human-shaped segment of reality had been violently ripped out of the universe. Liesel attempted to stare at a patch of grass that her brain simply refused to render.

She could see the dark, wet blood staining the earth around the edges. She could feel the absolute, world-ending devastation radiating from the empty space like heat from a furnace. She could sense the phantom, heavy weight of a boy she was supposed to know… A boy who was supposed to be right there… but her eyes physically could not focus on whatever it was.

Visual static, that's all it was. A terrifying, gaping blind spot in her own mind.

A sob tore from her throat, a sound of pure agony for a ghost she couldn't see. Liesel looked up, tearing her eyes from the agonizing blur.

Standing just on the edge of the frantic, wailing crowd, perfectly still and completely untouched by the hurricane of panic… was Professor Snape.

He was observing the scene with dark, unreadable eyes. The chaotic movement of the crowd seemed to flow around him like water around a rock. When Liesel looked at him, his head cocked a fraction of an inch and their eyes locked.

"Professor!" Liesel screamed over the cacophony of screams. She reached a shaking hand out toward him across the empty void. "What's happening? What is it?"

Snape didn't blink. He just stared at her. Slowly, an expression of cold, profound, inescapable tragedy settled over his pale face. He looked at her not as a student, but as a causality. He didn't answer.

Liesel froze. In a split second an absolute paralyzing confusion washed over her.

Before she could muster up a scream to get his attention once again, a part of hands, cold and desperate, slammed flat into her chest.

They shoved her violently backward, off the edge of the world, and straight into the dark.

Liesel woke with a violent, gasping start, her fingers digging into the velvet of the armchair she's resting in. Her eyes dart around, assessing the threats that may have followed her out of her subconscious and into her current world. However, all she saw were four Head Professors staring at her with concerned, calculating stares… and Professor Dumbledore gripping his wand in one hand, and feeding Fawkes with the other. The regular twinkle that appeared in his kind, blue eyes were now faded, replaced with a slight sorrow.

"Fascinating." said Professor Snape, who was just about leaning over her, his black eyes observing her soul.

Liesel softened her grip on the armchair, one by one, the color returning to her knuckles, and slowed her breathing. She wasn't in the damp grass anymore. She wasn't falling through the dark. The clammy sweat sticking to her skin reacted with the warmth of the Headmaster's office, sending a shiver down her spine.

"What have you done, Miss Ollivander?"

The mechanical sounds of Dumbledore's spindly tables ticked, clicked, and whirred, spinning in meaningless circles. Liesel blinked slowly as she studied those around her. They all looked like mourners at a wake.

Professor Sprout was wringing her dirt-stained hands so violently that her skin was a raw, bright red. Professor Flitwick stared gravely at the floorboards, seemingly unable to bear meeting her eyes. Professor McGonagall's face was ashen, her lips pressed into a thin, deeply terrified line.

Liesel smoothed the heavy fabric of her wool skirt over her knees. In the span of her one deep breath, she gathered herself and slowed her trembling. Her spine straightened into a polite confidence.

Snape held her gaze. He didn't ask again.

The next intrusion as immediate, though not as vivid. He swept into her mind, surprisingly gentle. It was as if a draft of wind brushed between her eye and socket, filling her mind with a breeze. Snape's consciousness swept past the mundane and surface-level thoughts… the texture of her favorite cardigan, the scraping of wands in the back of her grandfather's shop in Diagon Alley, the lingering taste of pumpkin juice on Harry's lips. He droved straight toward the foundation of her psyche.

But the world had stopped here.

Where there should have been a vibrant variety of her adolescent love, grief, loss, and memory… Snape hit a wall.

Snape severed the connection violently, taking a sharp, staggering half-step backward. Her Head of House, a man who had stared into the minds of the darkest wizards of the age, looked profoundly… fundamentally disturbed.

"A simple Obliviate, Severus?" Dumbledore's voice broke through the heavy silence, offering a lifeline of logic, "It is not the first time children have played with spells far beyond their depth. A misguided attempt to ease a friend's burden, perhaps?"

"No," Snape breathed. His eyes remained fixed on Liesel's serene expression. he looked back at Dumbledore, his tone grim, "A standard memory charm is blunt. It leaves jagged edges. Tear lines where the memory was violently ripped away. With Obliviate, the mind attempts to heal over the damage, but this is not that. The gaps in her memory are cleanly cut."

Snape hesitated, a rare flicker of bewilderment crossing his face, "If I am not mistaken… it appears Morganachian in nature."

McGonagall let out a sharp, rugged intake of breath. Dumbledore's eyes narrowed slightly, "Morganachian?"

"A myth," Snape said dismissively, though his voice lacked its usual piercing certainty, "An ancient theoretical magic of memory eradication. I have only heard of it. No books exist on the topic. It's simply an oral tale… The ability to cast a Morganachian spell is physically impossible for a modern witch or wizard. There has to be another explanation."

Behind the Slytherin Professor, a furious, hushed whispering broke out. The pacing of the room suddenly accelerated as Professor Sprout and Professor Flitwick leaned in toward one another, their voices escalating from a discreet murmur into a heated, urgent exchange.

Snape pinched the bridge of his nose, his patience snapping. He spun around, his black robes flowing behind him, "What, pray tell, are the two of you bickering about while we are in the middle of a psychological crisis?!"

Professor Sprout puffed up her chest, her unusually warm, earthy face flushed with indignation, "We are simply discussing the obvious, Severus! Everyone in this castle has heard about the state of your common room. The duel between her and Mr. Malfoy… Perhaps he is capable of such a spell! He has been acting erratically all year and it is unwise of you to ignore-"

"That is entirely ridiculous, Pomona," Flitwick squeaked defensively, cutting her off before Snape even could. He gestured a small hand toward the eerily calm girl in their chair, "She has bested seventh-years in dueling without breaking a sweat! Liesel has retained the title of champion duelist since she disarmed Diggory in front of half of the student body- and let's not forget half the student body of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, too!"

In the armchair, Liesel's head cocked to the side like a curious bird.

Diggory.

The name brushed against the massive crater in her mind. A chill ran down her spine as if someone walked over her grave. It felt exactly like she imagined a phantom limb would feel… a sudden, sharp, blinding ache in a space where nothing existed. Her eyes glossed over for a fraction of a second, staring blankly at the edge of Dumbledore's desk. Her breath hitched.

Snape, however, looked entirely livid.

"This is not a matter of that blasted duel," He snarled, his voice a lethal bite that forced Flitwick to take a physical step back, "Both parties were thoroughly questioned. Both confirmed that no wands here involved, that it was merely an argument that escalated into an accidental loss of magical control. The matter has been investigated and closed!"

He glared between the Herbology and Charms professors, his upper lip curling into a fierce sneer, "And yet, here you stand, eagerly pointing fingers at a boy while a young girl sits in this very room in desperate need of help! Where are your priorities?!"

"We should not dismiss the possibility entirely, Severus," Dumbledore said mildly, his blue eyes watching the exchange with heavy calculation.

Shelled whipped around to the Headmaster, "With all due respect, Albus, it would be impossible for a sixteen-year-old boy to perform such magic. The structure of the void in her mind requires a mastery of magical theory that Draco Malfoy simply does not possess."

"Albus, perhaps we must consider the possibility of--" McGonagall began, her hands trembling so violently that she had to grip her own robes to steady them.

"Thank you, Minerva," Dumbledore interrupted smoothly, raising a hand to silence her before she could voice the horrifying though that was slowly dawning on all of them: that Liesel had done it to herself.

Dumbledore bypassed the arguing professors entirely and leaned over his desk, addressing Liesel directly. The gentle, grandfatherly warmth returned to his voice in full force, "There is nothing to worry about, Liesel. We will find out exactly what has caused this blockage. We will reverse it, and I assure you, you will be back to normal very soon."

"I must strongly advise against any immediate intervention, Headmaster," Snape interjected. His voice cut through the Headmaster's reassurances with cold, clinical precision. He stepped closer to him and the phoenix, his dark eyes flashing with warning, "The mind is currently balanced perfectly around his void. If we attempt to pry the edges open before we know the exact incantation that sealed them, the ensuing cognitive collapse would be irreversible. She will not simply remember. She could collapse."

Dumbledore's expression darkened with sorrow, "A delicate approach, then. We shall proceed with the utmost caution."

”Any approach whatsoever to recovering her memory would place her back in the state she was before! Doing so could-“ Professor Snape’s voice lowered to a volume in which he thought Liesel could not hear, “It could kill the girl.”

But Liesel heard. And what Dumbledore said next in the same lowered tone is what made her mind go completely blank in fear.

”If that is what we must do, Severus.”

The room fell dead silent. The tension was thick, metallic, like the smell of blood in the air from Liesel's frightening experience earlier. Liesel sat perfectly still, listening to the arguing of those that teach her from day to day. She looked at Dumbledore's heavily lined face. She looked down at her own steady, unblemished hands resting gracefully in her lap. Her fingertips… Her palms… She listened to the pristine, unpolluted quiet in her own head.

"No."

The single syllable dropped into the center of the room like a heavy stone Liesel had tossed into the Black Lake. Those around her went rigid, pale.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Ollivander?" Dumbledore asked, his voice losing it's softness.

Liesel looked up, once again meeting the Headmaster's gaze. She didn't look like the traumatized teenager that they saw her as, "I said no, Headmaster," Liesel repeated, her voice perfectly even, "I do not wish to be… fixed, as you would so politely put it."

"Liesel," Dumbledore stepped forward, his voice now even softer than before, "You don't understand what you are saying. You are missing pieces of your own life. You are missing… people who cared for you very deeply. It may not be an easy journey, but it is a journey that is necessary to take once we understand it better.”

"Surely I must consider it a mercy…" Liesel whispers to him.

Dumbledore’s eyes lost a bit of their kidness, "What are you implying?"

"Whatever I am missing, it is clearly something that was causing me a great deal of distress."

Snape took a slow, deliberate step forward and sat down on a wooden chair right beside her. He looked her with an intriguing mix of intelligence and bitter understanding. He was a man who had spent his entire adult life drowning in his own memories and he was looking at a girl who had hers ripped away.

"ignorance is not a cure, Liesel." Snape said, his voice low, "It is merely an anesthetic. Eventually, some of this magic will wear off. And when it does, the pain will not just return. It will break you in ways we cannot even properly predict."

Liesel looked at her Head of House, entirely unfazed by his dark warning.

"Then I suggest," Liesel murmured, her voice dropping to a mature tone, "that we do not try to speed up the process. I am quite comfortable as I am, Professor. I can work in my grandfather's shop just fine. And unless my academic performance begins to suffer, I would ask that my mind be left entirely to my own management."

Liesel stood up suddenly from the armchair, adjusting the cuffs of her blouse. She looked at Dumbledore, who was watching her with an immense sadness, "If that is all, Headmaster, I really must be getting to the library. Harry is expecting me to help him review his Potions essay."

Without waiting for a formal dismissal, Liesel turned on her heel, grasping at her satchel of books as she fled. The heavy oak door clicked softly shut behind her, leaving a suffocating, horrified silence in its wake.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ 1 MONTH EARLIER - 6th YEAR

"Liesel"

The voice was choked, seemingly on the edge of a sob. A shaking hand reached out from the dark and hesitated before brushing the pale fignertips against her shoulder.

"Liesel, wake up."

She didn't move. Her mousy brown curls, once tied in a braid but had broken free, fanned out in a chaotic halo against the freezing stone of the Slytherin Common Room floor. Her skin was terrifyingly, unnaturally pale in the deep emerald lighting from the Black Lake. Draco's heart hammered against his ribs with a frantic, sickening rhythm as he knelt beside her as if his lungs refused to take in air.

He had done it.

He had killed his best friend.

He had only meant to erase her.

A moment later, Liesel gasped.

It wasn't a gasp of terror, but the soft, sudden waking from a particularly deep sleep. Her eyes fluttered open, shining in the watery light. She blinked up at the vaulted stone ceiling, her brow furring in mild confusion. Slowly, moving with a strange, languid grace, she pushed herself up into her elbows, wincing slightly as her hand drifting to the side of her head.

"Draco?" Liesel murmured.

Draco stopped breathing entirely. Her voice lacked the heavy, exhausted, bleeding edge it had carried for months. It sounded impossibly light. Airy. Dreamy. Entirely stripped of the crushing gravity of the war. She looked around the room, her dark eyes skimming over the splintered remains of the leather armchairs, the shattered ceramic of the historic vases, and the violent scorch marks singed into the ceiling and antique Persian rug.

Her eyes widened, but only in mild, detached surprise, "Merlin, what happened to the room? … And why does my head feel like it's been split open?"

Draco stared at her. He waited for the screaming. He waited for the panic, the tears, the furious realization of what she had lost. Or even a desperate kiss just to have a taste of someone's skin. But she didn't look angry, or desperate. She didn't look terrified. She just looked… lost.

He swallowed hard, shoving the crushing guilt of what he had done down into his stomach. He had to build his story. He had to start orchestrating the perfect lie right now, before the empty spaces in her mind realized they were empty.

"You…" Draco stammered. He aggressively cleared his throat, forcing a mask of casual composure, "You had too much Firewhiskey. We both did. We had a misunderstanding. We were arguing, and we both lost control of our magic."

Liesel looked down at her own hands, turning them over as if checking for soot, and then looked back up at him. A soft, incredibly trusting frown touched her lips.

"Did we?" Liesel asked softly, her words slightly slurring in magical exhaustion, "I don't remember fighting, I'm sorry, Draco. Snape will have us in detention for weeks for ruining the common room."

The unburdened innocence in her apology felt like a jagged knife twisting directly between Draco's ribs. She was apologizing to him, the boy that just erased her memories.

"Don't worry one bit, Liesel. I'll speak with him," he whispered, his voice cracking horrible. He couldn't look at her eyes anymore. He stood up, offering her his trembling hand, "Come on. You need to sleep."

He hauled her gently onto her feet. She swayed, her balance entirely off, and Draco immediately wrapped an arm tightly around her waist to keep her upright. He guided her away from the destruction, stepping over the shattered glass, and began the long, agonizing walk up to the dark steps to the girls' dormitories. As they walked down the corridor, the sound of rushing water from below their feet echoed between the stone walls, Liesel leaned her head against his shoulder. She was so entirely unbothered by the state of her own mind that she began to hum. It was a slow, old wizard crooner melody.

Draco couldn't remember the last time she hummed. Surely not since the end of their 4th year. Two years. Draco felt as if he wanted to scream until his throat bled.

When they finally reached the heavy oak door of the sixth-year girls' dormitory, Draco raised his fist and knocked three times. And then another three times. And then anoth-

The door swung open between the final three knocks, accompanied by a shrieking voice and a chestnut wand shoved between Draco's eyes, "What in Merlin's name are you doing knocking at our door at 3 in the morning, Draco? I've got to-"

Pansy Parkinson's eyes widen and the words die in her throat upon taking in the image in front of her. Liesel looked entirely wrecked. Her jaw was unclenched as her eyes struggled to remain open. Her chin was covered in a series of small, red scratches, and the ends of her curls were visibly singed, smelling faintly of smoke. But it wasn't Liesel that made the blood drain from Pansy's face.

It was Draco.

Pansy stepped closer, her sharp eyes staring daggers at his appearance. The untouchable, aristocratic Draco Malfoy was completely gone, leaving behind a boy who looked entirely feral. Draco was trembling so violently his teeth were practically chattering. His skin was coated in sweat, rendering him the color of old parchment. His silver eyes were bloodshot and darting frantically around the empty corridor like a cornered animal waiting for a killing blow. The pulse at the base of his throat was beating so fast that Pansy thought it was about to burst.

He didn't look like a boy who just had a spat with a friend. He looked like a boy who had just committed a murder and was holding the corpse.

Pansy knew the secrets Draco had been harboring all year. She knew the pressure he was under. Liesel knew. And looking at him now, she knew with a chilling certainly that he had crossed a line that he could never uncross.

"Draco, what did you do?" Pansy asked, her voice dropping into a dangerous, yet empathetic whisper.

"Please."

Draco didn't explain. He couldn't form the words if he wanted to. His chest heaved in a ragged breath as he gently pushed Liesel forward, out of his own grip and into Pansy's waiting arms.

"Please."

It was a fractured, desperate begging.

"Please, just take her. Make sure she gets to bed okay."

Pansy was entirely shocked into silence. She caught Liesel by the shoulders, her hands steadying the swaying girl, "I- Draco…" Pansy isn't sure what to say. What could she ever say to Draco? "…Alright. I've got her," She wrapped her arm around Liesel's waist and leans back toward the door.

Draco didn't wait to see the door close. He didn't say goodnight. He turned on his heel and half-ran back across the common room and to the boys' dormitory. With him, he carried the full weight of the Tragedy of Liesel Ollivander all on his own.

After all, she wouldn't remember it.

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