Meritorious Service of an Extraordinary Nature

Meritorious Service of an Extraordinary Nature

Part One: Questions

I am Librarian-in-Chief at the British Archives of Magic, which is the sort of job the Ministry reserves for a particularly trying brand of war veteran - the one who is too proud to accept charity when it's labeled as such. They must have had quite a time finding me a position so unimportant that nobody minds that I'm too ill to work several days a month, and rather vague and forgetful the rest of the time. I've been Memory Charmed, you see.

Excuse me. Creeping cynicism is one of the many faults I've picked up over the years. The truth is that I enjoy my job most of the time, and I don't believe it is altogether unimportant. I am a passable supervisor now that I've come to terms with the fact that not all my staff members have to like me, and Hermione Granger says I have a positive genius for hunting up obscure documents about the history of house-elf enslavement.

Hermione means eloquence. A fitting name for the youngest-ever member of the Wizengamot. I do think names and their meanings are interesting. They're one of my favorite things to research. My job at the Archives is slow-paced and leaves me with quite a lot of free time for looking up useless facts.

Sorry, I'm rambling. Memory Charmed people tend to do that. Anyway, Hermione isn't the sort of person to flatter, so I know she genuinely appreciates my work. So does Luna Lovegood, her journalist friend and partner in the campaign for house-elf rights; so do most of the other people who do research here.

One of the regulars at the Archives is a fellow Memory Charm victim, the Herbology professor at Hogwarts. He stops by my office for tea most afternoons when he isn't teaching. Neville, of course, has never known a life without random moments of amnesia, so he doesn't find them as disorienting as I do, but it's comforting to have somebody else around who understands what it's like. We laugh about our lapses: the time I filed one of my daughter's picture books away in the Archives and started reading her the Proceedings of the Sixty-Fourth International Conference on Arithmancy as a bedtime story; the time he forgot where his office was and spent six weeks holed up in the Room of Requirements - which obligingly filled itself with student essays and Herbology texts - before he noticed that none of his students seemed to be able to find him during office hours.

We perform Memory Charms on Muggles for the sake of secrecy; we perform them on our own people for the sake of mercy. It was clearly better, in Neville's case, to grow up a bit forgetful than to have his parents' screams ringing in his ears forever. But I wonder what knowledge could be so terrible that someone thought I could not bear to live with it.

I believe I know who those lost memories involve, and something of what and why. When I think back to my school days, my best friend is always slightly fuzzy. If you asked me to close my eyes and picture his face, I couldn't do it. But I remember a pair of blue eyes meeting mine, and a laugh that had not yet taken on a nervous edge, and hands with a gift for draftsmanship; and I feel sure they belong to the boy I loved and the man I killed. I am aware, on an intellectual level, how this paradox came about; I know why he had to die and why it was fitting that I should be his executioner.

But there are pieces missing. I do not remember striking the blow, and I don't understand why I am not permitted to remember. For I am satisfied with my reasons for killing him and I am certain I would do it again if I had the chance.

I hope the person who put the charm on me had an excellent reason for it, because absent-mindedness is particularly dangerous in combination with my other condition. I have a wife and a foster son of sorts, and they are both careful to make sure I take my potion. Even Irene is getting quite good at reminding me, although she is not yet six.

Irene means peace. She was born just before the final battle, just before I was Memory Charmed. It was a good thing we'd already chosen a name, because they tell me I went a bit silly during the first few months and kept suggesting that we re-christen her something completely absurd, like Crystal or Sapphire or Roxanne. (My wife, who has an even more impossible name, pointed out that our daughter might someday aspire to a career that doesn't involve standing in fishnet stockings on the corner of Knockturn Alley.)

Irene has light brown hair and a heart-shaped face. She is the most beautiful person on earth.

Being Memory Charmed doesn't change the essentials of a person. It leaves you capable of love and laughter and friendship and gratitude. It doesn't even really damage the intellect, although it certainly makes you look completely daft sometimes. (My family has never stopped teasing me about the time I went out to do the marketing and returned with nothing but an armful of poppies, a bottle of firewhiskey, and a vague explanation that the Muggles would be celebrating Armistice Day in a week and a half and I felt like getting an early start.) Virtually everything that matters in life has been left intact, and I feel blessed to have it.

But I don't like knowing that someday Irene will ask, "What did you do in the war, Daddy?" and I shall have to admit that I haven't the foggiest idea. Perhaps it was something very classified and my superiors decided I wasn't trustworthy enough to keep it secret - but in that case, why would they have trusted me with the mission in the first place? I think it is more likely that someone was trying to protect me; but I don't want to be protected. I am used to facing hard things.

What troubles me even more is the suspicion that my nearest and dearest know exactly why I was Memory Charmed, and perhaps even did it with their own hands. Not that they have ever let slip so much as a word to suggest this. I live in a family of Aurors, you see. Even Irene wants to be one when she grows up. When they decide to keep a secret from a mere librarian, he doesn't stand a chance.

And yet the Archives hold many secrets, some set down in black and white and some written between the lines, and I've come to be rather good at tracking them down over the years. I've had an odd feeling, lately, that the answer I've been seeking is not so far away.

I know it won't tell me anything I don't already know, but every now and again I take the Record Book of the Order of Merlin down from the shelves. I turn to the list of entries for 1998, which is the longest one of all, surpassing even 1945 and 1981.

The medal on my dressing table is the Order of Merlin, Second Class, the highest honor that can be awarded to a living person in British wizarding society. Nobody in their right mind wants to be awarded the Order of Merlin, First Class; it is reserved for those who have sacrificed their lives. This strikes me as a fair and sensible policy, although it leads to the occasional absurdity, such as my foster son's entry in the Record Book: Potter, Harry J. Order of Merlin, Second Class, for defeating the Dark Lord Voldemort.

Idly, I scan the other entries. I am in no hurry to look up mine; I have read it before.

Weasley, Frederick H. and George K., Order of Merlin, Third Class, for their ground-breaking innovations in the field of espionage. Needless to say, the Order of Merlin went a long way toward reconciling Molly to their choice of career.

Weasley, Ginevra M. Order of Merlin, Second Class, for leading the aerial assault during the final battle. Ginny is a professional Quidditch player these days. At least some of the kids came out of the war with useful skills - the ones who came out at all.

Weasley, Penelope C. Order of Merlin, First Class, for outstanding courage during the attack on the Ministry of Magic. Percy does research at the Archives sometimes. He walks quickly, eyes fixed straight ahead, and he carries a briefcase bulging with government documents and speaks to nobody. Their child would be Irene's age if it had been born.

Weasley, Ronald G. Order of Merlin, First Class. That's why the youngest member of the Wizengamot hasn't married.

I feel a twinge of old, old guilt as my eyes fall on an entry farther up the page. Snape, Severus S. Order of Merlin, First Class, for meritorious service of an extraordinary nature. That's the formula they use when they're not allowed to say what you did.

Here's another one like that, toward the top of the opposite page. Nott, Theodore W. Order of Merlin, Second Class, for meritorious service of an extraordinary nature. Our man in Slytherin. He sends me postcards from Paraguay and Mongolia and New Caledonia sometimes. It sounds like an exciting life, but it cannot altogether compensate for the loss of the friends and family he was compelled to spy on. I know, for I was another young man who traveled far and alone.

McGonagall, Minerva M. Order of Merlin, Second Class, for coordinating the defence of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. She voted against it, saying it looked wrong for the committee to be handing out awards to one of its own members, but the rest of them overruled her.

Where am I? They would tell me if my entry were expunged, wouldn't they? Oh, right, I'm looking at the wrong page. I'm tempted to blame the Memory Charm for that, but even in the old days I managed the occasional flash of idiocy on my own.

I flip back a page. Longbottom, Neville F. Order of Merlin, Second Class, for defeating Bellatrix Lestrange. They generally say "defeating" instead of "killing." It sounds nicer.

Lovegood, Luna P. Order of Merlin, Third Class, for training the first Crumple-Horned Snorkack ever to be used in combat. Most of the entries are sobering, but I smile at that one, remembering the sight of the enormous three-humped beast cutting a swathe through the ranks of Death Eaters with its spiked tail. They never knew what hit them - literally.

Lupin, Nymphadora T. Order of Merlin, Third Class, for heading the investigation that led to the capture of Lucius Malfoy. Not bad for someone who was eight months pregnant at the time.

Lupin, Remus J. Order of Merlin, Second Class, for meritorious service of an extraordinary nature.

I've read it over a hundred times and it's still a puzzle. I don't think I was a spy - and even if I was, spies don't usually get Memory Charmed. I shake my head, feeling bemused. What could I have done that was so secret or so horrible that even I'm not allowed to know about it?