THEO
Upon arrival, I crash into two rubbish bins and upset them. A flash before my eyes: fallen bins, a cat hissing, blood dripping from my little left finger. But when I check again, there’s no cat around, and my finger is intact. Shaking my head, I head out of the alley and move along the road.
With every step, I’m convinced I’ve been here before. Perhaps, more than once. What intrigues me more is the connection between Parvati and this place. Had I known her before? Is she the faceless girl in my visions? But if she is, why hasn’t she talked to me about this?
The sense of foreboding increases as I reach the house, nevertheless I’m bent on uncovering the truth. After checking if anyone else is out on the road, I walk up the front steps.
“Alohamora.”
It swings open easily. One last look outside, and I am in.
THE HEALER
I can hear him going up the stairs now.
A single tear runs down my cheek. I hurriedly wipe it away and follow him inside. Then, I lock the front door and lift the Disillusionment Charm from my body.
THEO
The door is open.
“Homenum Revelio!”
Nothing. I’m alone. Taking a deep breath, I enter the flat and close the door behind me.
The living room is small and done in pale green. No pictures on the wall. Sparsely decorated. Nothing of interest in the kitchen either, save for unflinching tidiness. Finally, I walk into the remaining room, which turns out to be the bedroom. Next to the bed is a huge table, which immediately grabs my interest because something is lying on it.
The missing book.
I pull out the huge drawer and come across another copy. Upon reading the cover page, I realise this one belongs to Parvati’s twin. Below the book, I find a prospectus for St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, followed by a separate set of forms for CALM (Course in Accessing Latent Memory). The last content is a photo of two identical girls in their Hogwarts robes, a Ravenclaw and a Gryffindor.
It’s only after I’ve pushed the drawer back in that I notice the bookmark in Parvati’s copy. Not knowing what else to do, I open the page. There’s a whole section marked in red waiting for me:
Beth was looking at the tiny jumper.
“It stinks,” she snapped.
“Beth,” said the Healer. “That belonged to your son.”
“I don’t have a son,” she insisted.
“His name was Joshua. He drowned in a pond.”
“I never had a son!” she screamed. “If I had one, I wouldn’t forget him!”
“You can’t remember him because you erased the memories connected with him,” the Healer said emphatically. “Beth, please. We need you to try.”
My throat goes dry as I stare at the last line and read it repeatedly till my head hurts.
You can’t remember him because you erased the memories connected with him.
“But who am I supposed to have forgotten?” I ask aloud, raking my fingers through my hair.
“Are you sure you don’t know the answer already?”
I whip around and find her standing there. Before I can say anything, my wand flies out of my hand. She deftly catches it.
“Parvati,” I say, and my voice is shaking, “what is going on?”
In reply, she waves her wand around her. I can only gasp as the room swiftly dismantles itself, and then changes into another at the speed of light. The pale green paint is gradually replaced by a dull white; the well-made bed crumples and the pillows slip to the ground; the daylight dims so that it’s dark inside and illuminated only by two silvery orbs on the ceiling; a bunch of roses explodes and the petals fly everywhere; finally, to my horror, there is dark red blood splashed over the side of the wall where the bed stands.
I fall down, clutching my head as floodgates burst and the memories come rushing forth.
“Does that help?” she asks me coldly.
She danced her way into his life.
It was the first time Theo had come to a party, a really crowded party, and he wasn’t sure which one of his legs he was supposed to be shaking. Just when he had thought of giving up, she brushed against him, slightly drunk, and pulled his arms around her waist. He wanted to make clarifications, but she was grinding against him, her eyes locked with his, and he stopped thinking.
A few minutes later, they were in the back of the club, kissing feverishly, hands all over each other’s body. She broke off suddenly and asked him, “What’s your name?”
“Theo,” he panted. “Theo Nott.”
“Slytherin bastard.”
“Yes,” he replied without thinking.
“Fucking coward.”
“Damn right.”
“There’s nothing I’d like to shag more right now.”
He hesitated and asked her, just so he wouldn’t get into trouble later, “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” she said, leaning in, “I’m tired beyond repair of bloody heroes.”
That night, he fell in love with her, even though he didn’t expect her to return. To his surprise, she did. Again and again, he prepared himself not to expect her to knock on his door, and again and again, she proved him wrong. It went on until his despair was replaced by absolute faith.
“As long as it’s our little secret, I’m yours,” she promised him. He believed her.
And then, the trouble began.
“Where have you been?”
“None of your business.”
“Actually, it is my business to know if you’ve been seeing someone else.”
“You’re not my effing husband.”
“Then marry me,” he pleaded. “I promise I’ll keep you happy forever.”
She looked up at him incredulously. “You can’t keep me happy now, forget about forever.”
“Then tell me what I’m doing wrong!”
“It’s not you,” she snapped. “No one can make me happy. NO ONE!”
After that, she didn’t visit for days, and he had no clue where to look for her. When she came back, they fought and argued, and she blasted his things and cried afterwards.
“Please, please tell me what I can do,” he begged her.
“It’s Lavender,” she whispered against his chest. “And all those people who died. They haunt me, Theo. They follow me everywhere.”
“But, sweetheart …”
“If Padma comes to know about this, she’ll give me to the Healers. I don’t want to go to the Healers. I am not mad.”
He knew enough about St. Mungo’s and the Healers to understand her fears.
“Come with me,” he said earnestly. “ We’ll leave this place and settle somewhere. I’ve got money and I’m not unskilled. We’ll figure out something.”
“You don’t understand. I can never stay long enough at a place.”
That night, he finally put a Tracking Spell on her as soon as she had fallen asleep. When she had disappeared three days after, he followed her and found her entering a terraced white house at Battersea. It turned out to be her flat.
When she returned to him, he didn’t question her. They had two happy days together at the end of which, she told him, “I love you. I honestly love you.”
He thought that was the confirmation he’d been waiting for; he decided she merely needed to spend some time alone at her flat. So when she left the next morning, he tried not to worry about it. Two nights later, he was at the flat, armed with a bunch of roses, wearing the cologne she had recently got for him.
“You’re Padma, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” she says.
It’s only now that I realise how different she is from Parvati. Her eyes are less communicative, her lips more set. Less attractive, more dangerous.
“How did you know?” I ask her, genuinely curious.
“She could never hide anything from me,” she answers in a neutral voice. “I knew you were going out. I told her not to.”
“Why?”
“Because of this.”
The scroll of parchment hits me hard across the face. I pick it up and read it, and then laugh bitterly. It has to be a copy of my file at St. Mungo’s.
“You thought I was dangerous.”
“You were dangerous,” she snaps. “You exhibited all the tell-tale sign of a mentally ill person, no matter how carefully you hid it. I knew that my sister’s behavior would set you off one day. I kept warning her to stay away from you, but she wouldn’t listen to me.”
“She loved me,” I murmur, though I’m not sure for whose benefit I’m saying it.
“She loved the threat you presented,” she rationalises, now pacing around the room. “I was convinced it wouldn’t be long before you saw red and harmed her. That’s why I -”
“She loved me!” I yell at her suddenly.
Her wand moves quickly. Something sharp cuts across my face, and I taste blood.
“If she did, that doesn’t make you sound any better, you son of a bitch! You killed her!”
She opened the door and her eyes went wide with shock.
“What are you doing here?”
“Parvati,” he said in a soothing voice, “let me explain. I know “ ”
Glaring at him, she cut him off. “Get inside!”
He followed her to the bedroom, trying to explain from the beginning. There was no complaint until he mentioned the Tracking Spell. She went off on a rage. It was as though her wand had taken on a life of its own; again and again, it rose in the air, ripping the bedsheet, flinging the pillows around. He tried to stop her, but a jab of her wand sent him flying backwards. The bouquet he had brought blew up, showering the room with rose petals.
She threw herself down on the bed and broke into a high-pitched laughter.
“Parvati, please…”
“Theo,” she said, clutching her stomach, “Theo. I’m fucking deranged.”
“No, you aren't,” he said as he got up and crawled towards the bed. “You’re just fine, darling.”
“Am I?” she asked him.
“Yes.”
He had just reached the bed when she cried, “Immobulus!”
Instantly, his whole body froze on the spot. With his eyes, he beseeched her to free him, but she shook her head.
“Listen to me, Theo,” she said, “and you listen to me good, okay? I’ve lost my sodding marbles. I’m no good for anybody, okay? I thought I’d live between lovers as long as I could. Then I met you.”
The tears were falling down her face again as she kneeled in front of him. “You’re the best thing that happened to me. If I were okay, I’d spend the rest of my life with you.”
She kissed him softly on the lips and rested her forehead against his. “But I’m not. I’ve thought of everything, even erasing my memories…” With a giggle, she summoned a book from the side-table. “This fucking book here telling me I could blot out what I don’t want to remember. Nearly tried it. It’s not what I really want, though.”
Suddenly, he understood what she was going to do. In vain he tried to struggle against the charm. In vain he watched her raising her wand one last time.
“I love you,” she whispered, and then the wand struck.
Blood flew everywhere. Even if it hadn’t, he would still have known she was gone because he was screaming and holding her lifeless body in his arms.
“You thought you’d get away,” continues Padma, carrying me back to the present. “But I knew it was you, Nott. Her clothes stank of your cologne. Citrus and thyme. Unfortunately for you, we bought it together and I identified it right away.”
She pauses, as though expecting me to deny it. When I don’t, she resumes her speech. “I have to hand it to you, though. You’re thorough. You used her wand for the murder. And you knew that if you acted up your insanity card just a little bit, you’d get away from prison.”
He didn’t know how long he sat there embracing her; he only came to his senses when a Muggle car started honking right below the house. Something was expanding inside of him “ the crushing weight of helplessness that had dogged him for years.
He was ten and hiding under the table as his father raged.
“Come out, you imbecile! Show me that you’re the son of a wizard or I’ll be whipping you.”
His mother was crying in the adjacent room, unable to come in. Theo crept further inside the table, but he couldn’t hide from his father forever. The latter’s face appeared; so did his wand. Theo screamed as he felt his body consumed with invisible fire.
It went on for a few more seconds until the table exploded into a thousand splinters. His father lay ten feet away from where he had previously been crouching, face and neck bloody. Yet he was grinning. “There you are! I’m proud of you.”
Theo had eventually managed to show he was a wizard; he had also been scarred by the incident. For years, the magic inside of him often burst out whenever his father was around.
He was thirteen, and his owl’s name was Isis. She was bitten in the eyes by a snake one day. Theo was trying to help her but Isis screeched and attacked him with her claws. When his father found him, Theo was trying to hold her down. The man, however, seemed to think differently.
“You little rascal! You bleeding coward! You can’t take out your anger on me, so you turn to this owl instead? I won’t be wasting any more gold to get you a pet!”
He was fourteen when his mother, who had a Squib sister, suggested they take him to a Muggle Healer, as those at St. Mungo’s couldn’t figure out what the problem was. She was put under the Cruciatus Curse. Three weeks later, she died.
He was nineteen. It was nearing midnight. He was just leaving Diagon Alley when a man accosted him. The man’s hollow face was overrun with scars and he had hair growing all over his face, but Theo would have recognised him no matter how much he changed.
“Father,” he muttered.
“Get me out of here,” demanded the man in a husky voice.
“You should be in Azkaban.”
The man went purple-faced with rage. “You ungrateful swine,” he muttered. Theo could see him taking out his wand. “Cruci-”
“Protego!” he shouted.
Perhaps, his father had lost his touch. The force of Theo’s spell sent him sprawling, and he hit the brick wall of the entrance hard before sliding down and losing consciousness.
Theo spat on the body of the man he had detested since childhood, the man because of whom he was falsely assumed to be mentally unstable. He couldn’t care less that people were coming out, telling him to drop his wand as someone shouted for an Auror. When his father was pronounced dead from the injury, and later buried by the Ministry as an unidentified drunken tramp, he only felt insufficient relief.
Those were the worst times of his life. Yet nothing was more horrific than what he was feeling now. His hand automatically reached for the book lying on the bed. The cover had the image of a Niffler digging its long snout into a woman’s head. On the back page, it read: The spell-binding story of a witch who uses the Memory Charm on herself to forget her dead son.
As though on cue, he stood up and left the flat. His head was humming as he walked towards the alleyway which he used for Apparating. When he reached the spot, he tried to twist into the familiar darkness; instead, he fell headlong into two dustbins lying nearby, disturbing a cat that meowed and hissed irritably. A sharp pain told him he had cut the little finger of his left hand.
Getting up, he forced himself to clear his head. This time he succeeded at reaching his own flat. He sat down on his sofa, pointed the wand at his head, and cried, “Obliviate!”
He remembered no more.
“You’re right,” I say to her. “You’re absolutely right about everything. Just tell me one thing. How did you save my hide?”
“I found her dead body the next morning.” Her voice threatens to break, so she takes a deep breath. “I cleansed her clothes of the leftover scent of your cologne, wrote a suicide note and then informed the Aurors. As all of the damage was done with her wand, they bought it.”
The beauty of the irony makes me laugh. Once more, I’m hit with a spell across the cheek“ this time, a Stinging Hex.
“How dare you laugh?” she demands me. “How dare you!”
“Mad, aren’t I?” I say casually.
“Yes you are! You - ” She stops, perhaps because she’s become aware of losing control. When she speaks again, her voice has gone several octaves lower. “I’d have killed you right away, if only “”
“If only I hadn’t been admitted to St. Mungo’s,” I help her. “The perfect escape.”
“Correct. By the time I’d found out your address, you were already being treated. I wanted you to face death knowing why you deserved it.”
Her voice is confident, yet her fingers tremble ever-so-slightly as she traces the length of my wand. I can’t afford her to lose her resolve now.
“So you ran the long charade of the past few months.” I clap my hand in mock-congratulation. “Well done, Padma. Really. Your efforts have paid off. I’m here now and I perfectly recall everything. No lapse of memory, no gaps in my brain. This is the chance you’ve been waiting for. Take it before you change your mind.”
“Oh! I definitely am not going to change my mind, Nott,” she says simply, and I now believe her. I can almost see the muscles of her face tightening as she readies herself. “There’s no way I’m letting my sister’s death go unavenged.”
I look her in the eye, challenging her, goading her to hurry up. It seems to take her an eternity, but she lifts my wand at last and points it straight at my heart.
I try to imagine her as her sister.
A glorious eruption of green light, and it’s all over.
THE HEALER
They found his body in his bedroom two days after I had hit him with the Killing Curse, along with a note. That would be the last time I ever copy somebody’s handwriting.
They ruled it suicide. I felt nothing when I read the news and left for India the next morning.
I won’t be going back to England.
And I won’t be writing a book.
Lacuna Mentis by hestiajones
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