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"I mean - it depends on what the person doing the memory charm wants to take. If it's only a little thing it's not as bad as if it was - a whole year, or all your memories of your friends, or something. But it's more likely that somebody will want to Obliviate me than that somebody will want to torture me, now that Voldemort is gone, I think. Obliviator is a government job that people can get."

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Emma considers this. She's still much more fundamentally terrified of being tortured, but it's Miranda, she's so smart. So probably she's just- thinking about it wrong. Or missing something. She's not the one who makes Silverlight spells.

"Yeah," she says slowly, trustingly. "You're probably right." She looks around. "What classroom are we going to, anyway?"
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"This way." Miranda leads on. They get there before Hermione does. Miranda sits and takes deep breaths.

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Emma sits next to her. Back to comforting shoulder pats. "It's okay. You can do Silverlight! You can do this."

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"They're really not the same thing."

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"You have been studying lots and lots and you're really good at magic in general. Like how you did Silverlight. You'll be good at this too, I bet."

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"Silverlight seems like it's more of a mindset thing than a studying thing."

The door opens and in comes Hermione. "Hello, Miranda - who's your friend?"

"This is Emma. Emma, this is Hermione. I brought Emma along because - I might not be able to throw off a Confundus and I'm scared and I might need to be brought back to Ravenclaw."

"All right, she can sit in," says Hermione. "It's nice to meet you, Emma."
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Emma stares at her briefly- it's Hermione Granger- but remembers her manners and smiles. "Uh. Hi. Nice to meet you too."

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"I don't know for sure if I'm actually ready but I think it's probably time to try it anyway," Miranda says.

"Well, remain calm as you can - I understand you have a fear of mind magic, but the fear itself won't help," Hermione says.

"I know," sighs Miranda. "Give me a minute."

"I won't Confund you hard. Just a little bit. Even if it hits, it'll be like walking into a room and forgetting what you needed there," soothes Hermione.

"I know. That's why we picked it. I'm just." Miranda shivers and shakes her head and closes her eyes and takes more deep breaths.
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Emma locates the closest Miranda hand and holds it. Miranda's not usually touchy-feely (for that matter, neither is Emma), but this seems like exceptional circumstances.

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Miranda's not going to complain.

"Okay," she says after a minute, "go."

Hermione points her wand at Miranda's head and says gently, "Confundus."





"That was weird," says Miranda. "I - I don't think I'm Confunded. I don't think so. How do you tell whether I'm a little bit or not at all?"

"Let me have a look at your eyes," says Hermione, and she compares the size of Miranda's pupils and concludes, "Not even a little bit. That's amazing, good for you!"
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"Seeeeee, Silverlight? Great job!"

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Miranda giggles in relief. "Okay. So I can throw off a little Confundus."

"When we were in fourth year our Defense professor had special permission to cast the Imperius curse on us," muses Hermione. "I don't think I can get that, but if you want to try something that's stronger but doesn't have the side effects I could ask...? But then, some people throw that off even without Occlumency. Harry never learned any Occlumency to speak of and he could do it every time."
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Emma's "List of Ways Miranda is Cooler than Harry Potter" just got slightly longer.

"Is there, uh, anything else she could try?" Emma asks timidly. While she somewhat hero-worships Hermione Granger and trusts her to Not Be Evil, the fact that Imperio is an Unforgivable Curse is currently winning. "You said you didn't do it hard... maybe just. Um. Again?"

Not Imperio, not an Unforgivable, not on her friend.
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"If we got some Veritaserum that would be safe too but we'd have to talk to Professor Slughorn about that. I can brew it but I don't have any other uses for the batch and it doesn't keep indefinitely," says Hermione. "The Confundus done too hard can be seriously damaging, in the short to medium term, so I don't want to increase the power, with exams coming up. Perhaps Veritaserum will be on my NEWT and I can keep some... I don't know Legilimency or know anyone who does. The Memory Charm -"

Miranda shakes her head.

"- is reversible, you know. I cast it on my parents once -"

Miranda looks at Hermione in total horror.

"- but then I fixed it when it was safe for them to come back into the country and they're entirely back to normal."

"Not that," says Miranda, "thank you."
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"Well... it's probably easier to get Veritaserum than try Imperio? Right?" Emma says questioningly (hopefully). "So, maybe that?"

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"Yes, probably. Miranda, do you want to ask him or shall I?"

"I've got it," says Miranda. "I wouldn't even need you for that, right? Just to taste it and see if I can beat it."

"You could do it with someone else asking you questions, although someone should ask you questions," says Hermione. "If you have the right dose, and I'm sure Professor Slughorn would help with that."

"Okay. Thank you. Um, I won't take up any more of your time I know you have NEWTs." Miranda gets up and shuffles to the door.

Hermione waves.
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Emma follows Miranda out, looking somewhat confused. "What was that face you made?" she asks. "When she mentioned her parents?"

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"I just finished explaining how I think memory charms are awful - and - she did it to her parents. To get them to leave the country. Instead of - telling them that they better had, or - or anything."

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"I- thought it was the war," Emma says weakly. "The Death Eaters were torturing anyone they thought had information-" she shivers.

The one time she'd gone into the Ministry with her parents, to prove that they were purebloods, they asked her a lot of probing questions. Do you know anyone who might have stolen a wand from a Real Wizard? Have you met any Muggles pretending to be witches or wizards? They had seemed to think children were worse liars than their parents, worth interrogating to make sure the adults' stories held up; but Emma barely knew other pureblood children, certainly no Muggle children, and she wasn't old enough to be allowed to talk to her parents' friends. The questions just confused her and scared her, and she spent most of the ordeal afraid that they would decide she was lying and do Unspecified Horrible Things to her, and she still remembers the whole ordeal vividly. Enough to- get it. Kind of. That was just the polite questions, the ones they ask verifiably pureblood children. What would they have done to Hermione Granger's parents?

"She was with Harry Potter. What if they'd, they'd, left but gotten caught? And had to tell where Harry Potter was?"
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"They left without getting caught with a Memory Charm on them, I don't think it would have been very much harder for them to get on an airplane in on the pretending to be other people plan - and what if Hermione had died in the war, who would have put them right? She - she said they were in Australia then, she'd mentioned that before, like me and Mum, but who would have put them right if Hermione had got herself killed? They'd have forgotten forever. They'd have been dead too basically. They were until she undid what she did to their heads. Made-up people were walking around in Australia in their bodies. And if they'd left knowing why they were going they still wouldn't have known anything about where Harry Potter was! Why would they know anything about that? Why would she tell them? She didn't even care about them knowing who they were, why would she tell them what their daughter was up to!"

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"Nobody's perfect," Emma says in a small voice. "She just wanted them safe. No one was really... thinking straight, then. It was a war."

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Miranda can't really speed up and storm off through the halls. She stalks, instead, silently.

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"Miranda, wait up, I'm sorry," Emma calls with a gulp, hurrying after her. "I don't- it's still bad, I just-"

She doesn't disagree that Memory Charms are bad, and Miranda's probably right that there were better ways to handle it, but- it's Hermione, she helped save everyone, what if knowing her parents were Charmed was the only way Hermione could do it? Emma doesn't want to second guess Hermione or Miranda.

"I don't really... she helped defeat Voldemort! It's hard to think of her that way, she's a hero."
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"I don't need you to agree with me as long as you never try to cast anything bad," says Miranda. "But I don't want to argue about it. It's like trying to argue about whether it's really that bad to - fling primary schoolers out of windows or slip somebody love potions or kidnap people's children so they'll do what you want. Maybe later."

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