Monica Wilkins sat in her front garden in Charters Towers and flipped though the novel she’d checked out of the library that morning. It was nearly four hundred pages long, and while the author was unfamiliar to her as well, Ms Collins, the barber’s wife, had strongly recommended it. Ms Collins was a nice woman—about forty, blonde hair, and tiny, very white teeth that gleamed like fake pearls—yes, she was a nice woman, so Monica thought she’d try the book. She could always take it back if she didn’t like it, and get something less…less sentimental.
…they had everything they’d ever wanted, and thought they’d have forever, but all too soon it had quite literally fallen to pieces. Dan waited anxiously beside the hospital bed until the medical team had patched his wife’s body up the best they could.
‘She’ll live,’ the doctor told him grimly, pulling up the latex gloves. ‘She hit her head pretty hard, though. Can’t say how much she’ll remember when she wakes up.’
‘Lucy’ll remember me,’ Dan said, trying to sound confident. His voice cracked on the last note anyway, and he stared pleadingly at her still face as he gently raised a finger to her pale cheek…
The postal truck pulled up by the curb and Jerry the mail-man got out—a tall bloke, dark, with large, crooked teeth and an irreparable overbite, but he was a polite fellow all the same. He started up the front walk with a wrapped parcel in his hands and, somewhat relieved at the interruption, Monica marked her page and went to meet him.
‘Something from jolly old England for you, Ms Wilkins,’ Jerry announced brightly. ‘I didn’t know you had friends in London!’
‘Neither did I,’ said Monica, perplexed, as she held out her hand for the package. ‘Perhaps it’s from our old office…Do I need to sign for it?’
‘No, no need. Have a good afternoon, Ms Wilkins.’
‘You, too,’ Monica replied, and wandered back to her lawn chair.
The parcel was rectangular and about two and a half inches thick. If it was something from the old office in England, she didn’t really want to open it at the moment. She set it aside. Back on the street, the mail truck started up with a low rumble and trundled off down the street, and a young girl with unusually thick brown hair wandered past. Monica grew bored of watching the street and returned to her book.
…Lucy’s bright blue eyes fluttered open. With a cry of joy, Dan flung his arms around her and kissed her softly, but pulled away when she stiffened in his arms. When he stepped back, her expression was wary and there was no flash of recognition in her dulled irises—no anything, except for perhaps a reflection of the despair in Dan’s own…
The girl was back, heading in the other direction and squinting at the numbers on the houses as she went along. She was obviously lost. Monica, far from absorbed in Ms Collins’ new read, marked her page again and went to intercept the girl, calling as she approached, ‘Hullo, love! Are you lost?’
The girl’s eyes widened, and her mouth fell open. Her teeth were straight and even, and had the sort of healthy sheen that suggested they were very well-cared for. Monica approved of the girl at once.
‘Um, yes,’ the girl said hastily. ‘I was—looking for—for this address…’
She held out the paper in trembling hands. Monica glanced at it and laughed. ‘Twenty-four, York Street? That’s where I live, love. I think you have the wrong address.’
‘I think that—that I knew the people who used to live here,’ the girl said, staring at Monica with wide, pained brown eyes. They were a nice, warm shade of brown, a lot like her husband Wendell’s.
‘The Cavanaughs?’
The girl nodded.
‘They moved to Sydney last summer,’ Monica said. ‘I have their new address in my desk, if you’d like it.’
‘No, it’s all right,’ she said. She ducked her head to hide the sudden, inexplicable tears that had formed in her eyes. It didn’t make sense for the girl to cry, or not to want the address, but Monica felt bad for her anyway.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. It’s been a long time…I don’t think they’ll remember me anyway.’
‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ Monica offered encouragingly. ‘Sometimes even just seeing someone you used to know is enough to bring back memories. I’m sorry you came to Charters Towers for nothing, though.’
‘It wasn’t for nothing,’ the girl replied firmly. ‘Take care, Ms Wilkins. I wish you the best of happiness.’ She hugged Monica, who stiffened in surprise, and then turned to dash off down the street. Wendell, who was coming back up the front walk with his golf clubs over his shoulder, collided with her abruptly. She hugged him too.
‘What—’ Wendell demanded, but the girl was running off down the street. The ‘crack’ that reverberated through the air seconds after she had rounded the corner hung on the edges of Monica’s mind, along with the girl’s strange ‘take care, Ms Wilkins’—she had not given the girl her name.
At last, Wendell shrugged off the shoulder strap and propped the golf bag up on the stoop. ‘Who in the world was that?’ he inquired good-naturedly of his wife.
Still gazing up the street, Monica shook her head bemusedly. ‘I have no idea.’
As It Is by Pendraegona
Story Notes:
Oh, a shout out to solemnlyswear_x, who did some top-notch, fast beta work on this piece!
Chapter Endnotes: In case there was any confusion, the girl was Hermione.
Memory Charms have no counter-curse, but we often think lightly of them because Voldemort proved with Bertha Jorkins they can be broken through (though not without great cost). Hermione did a selfless thing when she Obliviated her parents, but even if she had found them after the war and told them the truth (they had a daughter who was a witch and they never actually wanted to live in Australia) or even showed them her own memories of their family in a pensieve, the fact would remain that they were still HER memories, and not THEIRS. Their memories were very much gone, in a very permanent way.