“Wait, so “ so Dumbledore wants you to steal something for him? From the Department of Mysteries?”
“James, keep your voice down!” Lily hissed.
“My voice is down!” he hissed back. “Besides, I did put an anti-eavesdropping charm on our table.”
“So did I,” Lily retorted, “but I just want us to be careful.”
The couple were sitting at a secluded table in Dorie’s, a Muggle restaurant that still managed rather good food. Over the appetizer, Lily had filled him in on what Dumbledore had told her to do, but his reaction had not eased her apprehension thus far.
“I still don’t understand why a memory of Dumbledore and Grindelwald will do anything to turn old Snivellus.”
Lily picked up her fork and clattered it restlessly against her plate. “Think about trust.”
“Trust?”
“Yes, James, trust,” she replied patiently. “Something where you will do anything someone says because you believe that it will turn out for the best, because they said so.”
“That’s not all trust is,” he pointed out.
“It’s the sort of trust Dumbledore hopes to cultivate in Severus.”
James snorted. “Fat chance of that.”
“Well, I believe that it can be done!” Lily responded hotly, cutting herself off as the waitress appeared bearing their dinners.
“Is there anything else I can get for you folks?” she said, looking a little puzzled as a result of the charm that had wreaked a little havoc with her hearing.
“No, thank you, we’d just like to be left alone right now,” Lily replied politely.
“All right,” the waitress said, shaking her head as she left as if she had water in it.
“Think about it, Lily. You’re risking an awful lot to do this, just for Snape. Is it worth it?”
“It’s not just for Snape. It’s for Dumbledore, for the Order, for the world!”
James smiled gently at her. “That’s my girl; out to save the world, one theft at a time.”
“Just call me Robin Hood,” Lily responded, rolling her eyes. “The reasons I’m doing this aside, James, do you think I can do it?”
“Yes. Tomorrow try and scope it out, see where and when the best opportunity is. Then we’ll come up with a plan.”
Lily toyed with her beans, mixing them up in her potatoes while she said quietly, “This is scary, James.”
“This from the girl who dangled fearlessly from the top of Gryffindor Tower? This from the girl who met You-Know-Who and escaped unscathed?”
“Shh!” Lily hissed. “That’s a secret!”
“Did we or did we not put anti-eavesdropping charms around our table, darling? The point is: you’re not going out to battle Lord Voldemort. You’re just . . . going to work with a detour. Now stop playing with your food and eat your dinner.”
“I’m just going to work with a detour,” Lily told herself as she made her way down to Level Nine, heart pounding. “It’s just a slight detour. Nothing to worry about.”
“Good morning, Miss Evans.”
“Oh! Mr. Bode! You startled me!”
“Are you all right, Miss Evans?” It was hard to tell if the prospect of her possible unwellness bothered him particularly as his voice was melancholy as ever.
“Yes, yes, I’m fine,” Lily replied distractedly. “Just...thinking.”
“About anything in particular?”
Lily looked sharply at him before she responded. “Well, you know, I’ve been working here for a few months now, and the Potions lab isn’t really my thing. I guess I was just thinking about something that interests me more.”
“What would that be, Miss Evans?”
“Well...” Might as well plunge right in she thought. “The Brain Room?”
“The Brain Room, is it?” Bode exclaimed solemnly. “Why on earth would you want to work there?”
“That’s just the thing!” Lily said in a rush. “It’s been so long since I’ve been in there, and seen what they do with the memories, I’m not sure it’s really the place for me.”
He looked at her thoughtfully. “I could possibly arrange for you to visit the Room sometime today, if you like. I have a friend who works there.”
“Oh, could you?” she gushed. “That would mean so much to me, thank you!”
“Stop by when you’re done working on that poison and we’ll see about another tour.”
“I owe you, Mr. Bode!” Lily called as she hurried to the Potions lab.
“Well, you took your time getting here,” Owen said as she ran into the room. “Fiancé didn’t want to say goodbye?”
“No, Owen, Mr. Bode was talking to me about visiting some of the other places in the Department after work,” Lily snapped, having no patience for his remarks today.
“You’d leave me, my bonny lass?”
Lily didn’t deign to reply, simply took out her cauldron and released the stasis spell. Her concentration on the task at hand wasn’t likely to be much better than yesterday, but she still ought to work as much as she had the mind for.
“What is with you lately, Lily?” Owen said at the end of the day. “I’ve never seen you so out of the loop.”
“I’m really sorry, Owen. I guess, with the wedding getting nearer, and You-Know-Who attacking more Muggles every day, I haven’t been thinking about my work as I should have been.”
“You’re Muggleborn, aren’t you?” Owen remarked, eyes dark with sympathy as he looked at her. “I can see why you’re worried.”
“Yeah,” Lily murmured, looking down. It was true “ she did spend a lot of time worrying about Voldemort. But that wasn’t her problem today. “Listen, I ought to go and see if Mr. Bode managed to get me a tour.”
“See you tomorrow!” Owen said, patting her on the shoulder as she left.
“We’ll see,” Lily murmured to herself as she navigated the rooms toward the place she’d met Bode earlier.
“Hello, Miss Evans,” Bode said sepulchrally when he saw her. “I’d like you to meet my associate, Fredrick Croaker.”
“Call me Fred,” the man said, shaking Lily’s hand. “So I hear you’re interested in our little brains.”
“I’m...considering it,” Lily said, torn between actually liking the man and wanting his good opinion and her nervousness at what she was about to do.
“Come along with me and we’ll see if it catches your interest,” Fred said jovially. “Thanks, Rick. See you!”
“Have fun,” Bode said as if he doubted it.
“Now, the main thing we do in the Brain Room is prepare the memories for archival. You can see here that there’s a specific charm that makes them into the movie-reel like strands that we put into the brains. You do know what a movie reel is, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir, I’m Muggleborn.”
“I am too,” Fred said, grinning at her. Lily smiled weakly back. She liked this man; he seemed like a good person. That made it all the more horrible that she was just doing this to...well, to case the joint, as it were.
“The brains themselves are specially charmed to keep the memories safe and undamaged, and the solution we keep them in also helps.”
“Does anyone ever want the memories back?” Lily asked.
“Yes, but it’s a very delicate process to return them,” Fred replied. “You see, when we insert the memories into the brains, a spell is put upon them where they will attack you if touched.”
“What do they do?” Lily asked, paling.
“Oh, they wrap around you like an octopus or a boa constrictor and won’t be removed even with Diffindo or any other basic spell. If you don’t succeed in removing them, they’ll suffocate you.”
“Oh,” Lily said quietly.
“But don’t worry!” Fred said, noting the paleness of her expression. “That hardly ever happens, and we’re very careful that, if we ever need to remove a memory, the proper precautions are taken.”
“I’m guessing they have to send a request through upstairs,” Lily said. “How long does it usually take to give the people their memory back?”
“It depends. It takes a long time for the paperwork to get down here, but once it comes down to actually extricating the memory, perhaps an hour.”
“An hour?” Lily said breathlessly. “What takes so long?”
“Just the extrication process, it’s delicate as I said.”
Lily repressed a sigh. “Do you think you could show me how it’s done?”
Fred looked at her. “Maybe when we’re done with the tour. There’s so much more I want to show you, and memory extraction doesn’t happen very often. Over here we have brain repairs, for the memory receptacles that have been here for a very long time and are due for replacement or repair. The brain that Sally’s working on right now has been in our possession for 150 years.”
“Wow,” Lily said faintly, very disappointed. “It’s amazing that it’s been kept so long. Whose is it?”
“Oh, just some man’s. Nathaniel Bonham, isn’t that right Sally?”
“He’s a descendant of Mungo Bonham, the founder of St. Mungo’s,” Sally replied, looking up from the scalpel she’d attached to the end of her wand. “But besides that, he was quite a nondescript man.”
“Do you...watch the memories?” Lily asked, interested despite her disappointment.
“Not as a matter of course,” Fred said, glancing down at the deactivated memory reels of Nathaniel Bonham. “Oftentimes they are too depressing and terrible to watch more than once; that is why they removed them in the first place, you know.”
“Of course,” Lily replied. “This is all so fascinating, Fred. Thanks for showing me around.”
“Oh, we’re not done yet. Don’t you want to see how we make the green potion we keep them in?”
Lily chuckled. “No, thank you. I think I’ve had quite enough of potions for a while.”
“That’s right, you’ve been working in Potions Dev, haven’t you? Not your cup of tea?”
“It’s fine,” Lily said, “but I don’t like making poisons.”
Fred laughed. “Soft hearted, are you? That’s a sort of girl that’s less frequent than she should be.”
She looked down for a moment. “Thanks, Fred. Hey, do you think you could show me the memory extraction process?”
“I suppose, since you’ve been a good girl,” Fred said, pretending to pat her on the head.
“How do you know which brain to remove?”
“Just Summon it with the proper name,” he replied. “Of course, you have to be careful not to let the tentacles touch you unless you say the deactivation spell, and “ ” he looked sharply at her “ “why so interested in this? Planning to steal someone’s brain?”
“Haha, um, no,” Lily replied uncomfortably. “I’m just curious about it, that’s all.”
“Uh-huh,” Fred said suspiciously, then grinned. “We’ll get you in here yet. Come over here and watch as I start the process “ we don’t have time to complete it tonight, since it takes a while to fully separate.”
Lily had never paid such close attention to anything in her life.
“And then once you sever it from its neighbors, you stick it in a vial, usually, and that’s what takes the rest of the hour,” Fred said finally, looking at his watch. “We close in just a few minutes. Want to watch everything shut down, while you’re here?”
“Sure!” Lily said, realizing that after they closed was probably the best time for her to complete her task. She watched with eyes wide as cubicles were closed and the giant green tank that held the brain was shut tightly, though she didn’t detect any locking spells.
This may be easier than I thought, she mused, thanking Fred profusely and running to her Apparition point. She was only 47 minutes behind schedule. I need to talk to James and borrow something from him.
She was almost ready.
Don't Get Caught by Cinderella Angelina
Chapter Notes: Lily cases the joint. I put yet another cousin into yet another fiction tale.