June Week

II: Memory Lapse

Wake up! What's wrong with you?

Sugar flapped around the seventh-year Gryffindor girls' dormitory agitatedly. He'd woken hours earlier than usual, in full daylight, with a strange feeling of disquiet. It had taken him a while to work out what was the matter: the girl hadn't come to visit him the night before. Ever since the old man had given him to her (well, "given" was a generous term -- in truth, Sugar had decided he simply preferred her company, and the old man had yielded to his wishes), she had stopped at the Owlery every evening to indulge him with treats and caresses. She was a creature of habit, like Sugar himself, and he couldn't imagine what would have made her deviate from their usual routine.

He'd told himself that he was going to the dormitory to peck her in retribution. But he had been worried, as much as an owl ever was, and had grown even more worried when he'd flown through the window and found her still asleep at nearly noon, lying fully dressed on top of her bed and positioned at a very awkward angle. To Sugar's sharp eyes, it looked as if she had fallen there, not as if she'd lain down to rest. And he couldn't wake her, no matter how he screeched and beat at her with his wings.

Wake up, girl! Minerva! Wake up, WAKE UP!

~~~

Brightness and heat. Those were the first things she was aware of. Then pain, mostly in her head, but in other parts of her body too. And finally nausea; horrible, gripping nausea that made her dry-heave before she even opened her eyes.

When she did open them, the feeling of disconnection was so strong she could hardly focus. She was in her room, on her bed, with brilliant summer sunlight falling on her. But an instant before, she'd been walking up the staircase to Gryffindor Tower, on her way back from the prefects' dinner. And it had been night. Late at night.

She put both hands to her aching head and tried to think. The group had finished dinner ... a few of them had stood about talking for a while ... and then she'd said good night and left. Then -

The transition from there to here was like a flicker in her mind, with no memory of darkness or unconsciousness. She played the sequence over and over, trying to capture anything that would tell her what had happened. Dinner. Talking. Walking away. Here. In between, there was nothing.

Sugar landed on her bed with an almost weightless impact and stared at her, his golden eyes as wide as they could go.

"How did I get here?" she asked him helplessly. "Did you see?"

No. I wasn't here. You're hurt; I smell blood on you. You need help. He shifted restlessly from foot to foot.

Minerva struggled up into a sitting position and gagged again, crossing both arms tightly over her stomach. She looked around the empty dormitory. Everyone had probably gone to Hogsmeade for some last-minute shopping, as it was Saturday. It wasn't surprising that they hadn't woken her. They wouldn't have dared. She was notorious for being irritable in the morning.

Even if she'd been a morning person normally, she wouldn't have been one now. She rarely drank anything stronger than butterbeer, and knew she hadn't done so last night - but despite that, she felt exactly as if she had a very nasty hangover. Except that in addition to the sickness, she ached everywhere. And, she realized, sliding off the bed, there was a dreadful raw pain between her legs, as if - as if what? What could she have possibly done to hurt herself there?

Maybe you didn't do anything, said a small voice in her head. Maybe something was done to you.

No. Impossible, she thought.

You'd better make sure of that, said the voice implacably.

Hunched over and trembling with shock and fear, she made her way to the bathroom and investigated. It was true. She was spotted with dried blood - not much, but enough - and traces of another, horribly organic substance, which she'd never seen firsthand before, but recognized nonetheless. All the strength she had summoned up to get there ran out of her like a spilled potion, and she slid down to sit on the cold tile floor.

Rape. Even thinking the word made her wince. She tried to distance herself from it by dwelling not on the what, but on the how, by puzzling the logistics out as if this were a difficult classroom exercise.

There were certainly compounds that could render a person incapacitated, and even affect memory. She'd heard scare stories last year about girls in Hogsmeade being drugged and assaulted, left to wander the streets not knowing what had happened to them. So it was possible that someone could have tampered with her food or drink. How that someone (or someones - but she didn't want to consider that possibility) had returned her to her dormitory without anyone noticing was a problem to ponder later.

The last time she'd eaten or drunk anything was at the prefects' dinner. Whatever had happened, it had started there. She considered who might have done such a thing, and the image of pale, smiling Tom Riddle - Tom with her stolen hair ribbon still tied to his bag - immediately leapt into her mind.

He wouldn't. He couldn't. He's only a fifth-year, practically a child. And to do it now, when everyone's attention is on him, when he's still the hero - it would be mad.

But that was just it. Tom was a bit mad. No one seemed to realize it but her, and Professor Dumbledore, but there it was.

Dumbledore. She would have to go to Dumbledore. He'd asked her to report anything suspicious that Tom did, but she was sure he'd never imagined something like this happening. The idea of telling him - of telling anyone - was terrible, but she couldn't keep it a secret.

Wait. That little voice was back again. You don't have any proof that it was Tom. You don't even know what really happened.

I know what didn't happen! she thought back indignantly. I didn't leave the dinner and suddenly decide to lose my virginity with the first person I met in the halls. And I didn't drug myself, either! And Tom took my ribbon ...

The ribbon proves nothing. After all, you said he could take it. And you weren't walking with him when you left last night, were you?

She strained to remember. No, she hadn't been walking with anyone. But that didn't matter. Professor Dumbledore could find out what had happened. He could use Veritaserum -

You know better. It's not that easy. He can't just run around using Veritaserum whenever it suits him. He'd have to get permission from the Ministry. That means he'd have to go to the Headmaster first, and Dippet thinks the heather blooms wherever Tom Riddle walks. Dumbledore would believe you without question, but would Dippet? Would anyone else? Or would they think you were just trying to bring the hero down?

"I don't know," she moaned. Her voice echoed hollowly off the tile walls of the bathroom. "I don't know what to do!" Surely she had already misjudged once, somewhere in that blank black period of time; had made a mistake that had allowed someone to get the better of her. What if she made another one now? How could she tell what was right when she felt so ill?

Until yesterday, she would have had a ready answer: report it, and let the professors handle it. If another student had come to her and told the same story, she would have insisted on doing so. Somehow it all seemed different when the troubles were happening to her instead of someone else.

Here's what you can do. You know now that you'll be working here next year, and Tom will still be a student. So do what Dumbledore asked you to and keep watching him. And if you catch him out at anything, anything at all, then you can talk. Then you can ask for the Veritaserum - there's no time limit, it'll work as well ten years from now as it would today. Just be careful, and make sure he doesn't get the chance to try this on anyone else. You can do it.

It seemed a poor compromise, but what other choice was there?

Minerva rubbed both hands hard across her eyes and stood up, swaying a little as another burst of sickness hit her. Her horror at having been attacked was still there, but fury at her attacker was beginning to grow alongside it. She welcomed the feeling in all its familiarity. The infamous McGonagall temper had carried her through many a humiliation. It could get her through this one.

Hold that thought, she told herself, and turned on the hot-water tap full blast to wash the evidence away.