Nox Redux

Chapter 9

Remus was horrified. "He could never live with himself if he did that."

Snape sneered again. "That, I would imagine is the idea."

Then Remus put up a hand and shook his head. "No, it doesn't make any sense," he said. "Why didn't Voldemort plant a false memory, of how Sirius escaped? Why couldn't he remember how he got away? Surely Voldemort would have known that would have aroused our suspicions immediately?"

"If I could perhaps make a suggestion?" Rose asked, breaking into the conversation.

"If you have something constructive to add," Snape said unpleasantly.

Rose ignored him and spoke to Remus, "I think this Voldemort person probably did plant a false memory, but something went wrong with it. I don't know anything about your Memory Charms but it sounds to me as if Sirius has been brainwashed. That can usually be reversed."

"What makes you think something went wrong with the charm? A charm which you admit to knowing nothing about." Snape demanded.

She flicked an irritated glance at him saying, "When he first came to after I treated him, he couldn't remember anything at all. I wondered at the time if it was a side effect of the potion I'd given him or else simply because he couldn't cope with what had happened to him." She shrugged. "Perhaps it was a bit of both."

Snape snorted and muttered something contemptuous about Muggles under his breath. However, Remus looked thoughtful. He said to Rose, "You think rather than accept a lie, the injury or the potion gave Sirius the chance to remember nothing?" He thought for a moment then said eagerly, "That would make sense. And if the charm has already been damaged it should be easier to break without harming him."

"It was more likely the potion." Snape declared, as if anxious to prove that Rose was incompetent. "What did you give him?" he asked her.

"Does it matter?" demanded Remus, "Surely it's more important to figure out how to break the charm."

Snape glared at him, but said, "A strong Memory Potion would probably work."

Remus shook his head. "That could be dangerous given what's been done to his mind," he said.

"You're too involved here, Lupin. Everything's dangerous it's just a question of the degree of risk."

"What does a Memory Potion do?" Rose broke in, "I haven't come across one of those before."

"It's a perfectly elementary potion," sneered Snape. "It simply enhances the mind's ability to recall events. After all, a Memory Charm doesn't erase what was there - it overlays an existing memory. The Memory Potion can help the original memory to reassert itself."

"Oh, like hypnosis," commented Rose. "That's often used to help people recover lost memories."

"Yes, I suppose it is," responded Remus, thoughtfully. "Do you know how to do it?"

She looked a bit dubious. "I've used it occasionally. But I wouldn't say I'm an expert."

"Why not give Sirius a mild Memory Potion and use hypnosis on him as well?" suggested Remus.

"You could," said Snape, his tone suggesting that he thought it would be a waste of time. Then he continued, "I have Memory Potions at several strengths in my office, I'll go and get them all, shall I?"

Ten minutes later he returned, carrying three bottles. He put them on the table and said, "Well here you are, Lupin, you will see that they are clearly labelled." Then he frowned impatiently, "I really fail to see what further use I can be of here, and Black's mind is not a place I have any desire to explore."

Remus flicked an amused glance at Rose. "Oh I'm sure we can manage from now on, Severus. You've been most helpful."

Snape stared at Remus as if unsure whether he was being sarcastic or not, but he didn't say anything, merely sniffed sourly and Disapparated again.

"Oh thank goodness he's gone," said Rose, breathing a sigh of relief.

Remus grinned at her. "Come on, let's get on with this. Have you got everything you need?" As Rose nodded, the front door banged again and he added in an exasperated tone, "Oh what does he want now?"

However, the cheerful whistling they heard accompanying the footsteps that came up the hall certainly did not belong to Snape.

Rose went to the kitchen door and stepped out into the hall before Finn could come in. As she pulled the door to she said something too low for Remus to catch, but Finn's angry response could probably have been heard at the other end of the garden.

"Stop trying to get rid of me! I'm not stupid, Gran," he yelled, pushing past her into the room, "And I'm not a kid anymore either. For chrissakes give me credit for some -"

He broke off as his horrified gaze took in Sirius lying of the floor. "What have you done to him?" he demanded.

Remus went over to him saying, "Finn, calm down!"

Finn shook his head, "No! You bastard, what did you do to him? I thought you were supposed to be a friend of his!" He took a swing at Remus.

Remus grabbed Finn's arms. "Listen to me! He's all right. He's just out cold."

Rose put a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Finn, it really would be better if -"

"No!" he yelled at her, "I'm not leaving." He turned back to Remus. "This has all got something to do with what you were all shouting about this morning hasn't it?"

Remus sighed as he realised that Finn wasn't angry because he felt left out, he was angry because he cared about what happened to Sirius and wasn't going to be fobbed off. He should have guessed this would happen given his earlier behaviour.

"All right, perhaps you can help." he told Finn. "But you need to understand a few things first, OK?"

Immediately Finn's aggression disappeared, but he gave Remus a measuring look. "Such as?"

Remus pulled Finn towards the table saying, "You need to understand that some pretty dreadful things have happened to Sirius. Things that he needs help remembering because they're important."

Finn looked nonplussed for a moment, then said, "You're going to hypnotise him to help him remember?"

"Er, Rose is, yes."

"Cool." Finn looked impressed. "So what do I do?"

"You sit down and you shut up," Remus told him sternly. "One word out of place and you'll be out of here."

Finn sat down. He shut up.

Remus picked up the mild memory potion Snape had left. The instructions were written on the label in Snape's scratchy handwriting. He looked back at Finn and said, "You can give him this."

"What is it?"

"It's something that'll help him remember." He placed the bottle back on the table and said to Rose, "If you check the cupboard behind you, you'll find some glasses - oh and a bottle of Grouse. I think we're going to need some of that afterwards."

While Rose was doing that, he went over to where Sirius was still crumpled on the floor. He knelt down beside him and muttered, "Enervate!"

---

Sirius opened his eyes. For a split second, he had no memory of what had occurred, just the ordinary befuddlement of someone being brought out of a Stunning Curse. But then memory seeped back and the puzzlement he felt was instantly replaced with an overwhelming need to flee. He started to tremble violently and frantically stared at Remus. "Moony wha -? "

Remus took him by the shoulders, with a grip so strong it hurt. "Padfoot, listen to me! You've been cursed. Whatever it's telling you to do, fight it!" he said urgently.

Cursed? But that couldn't be right. Sirius shook his head and muttered, "No, got to get away…" He tried to move, but Moony still had him fast by the shoulders.

"Sirius, why do you have to run? You're safe here, among friends." Remus looked at him anxiously, eyes filled with concern.

Sirius blinked at his friend, knowing the other man was right, but still feeling that powerful urge to run. He tried to push it away and gradually it faded. He took a deep breath, making a futile attempt to clear the fog of confusion in his mind.

But Remus must have been satisfied that he wasn't going to try and bolt again because he said, "Come on, sit up at the table beside Finn." He put a hand under one of Sirius' elbows, prompting him to stand up and steered him to one of the kitchen chairs.

As Moony and Rose explained why they thought Voldemort had cursed him, he was horrified. Nevertheless, when they told him what they wanted to do, he felt a lurch of fear in his guts. "No!" he said. "I can remember as much about what he did to me as I want to."

Finn broke in, saying to Remus, "Hey if he -"

Remus shut him up with a look, and said to Sirius with an exasperated sigh. "Sirius, you know as well as I do that the only person that can throw off the Imperius Curse is you. But you have to remember it."

Sirius closed his eyes for a moment and sighed. "I know," he said eventually. "Do what you must."

---

There had been hissing laughter and a cold voice that sent his mind scurrying away in fear, until another voice replied, whinging and servile. That voice sent him slamming back into himself, fuelled by rage and hate. He opened his eyes, momentarily dazzled by the torchlight, but saw the cringing shape he sought. "Kill you, you bastard," he rasped out.

Then there had been nothing but pain. So much pain that rational thought had fled leaving a whimpering, mewling thing that pleaded and begged for it to stop. The cold voice sounded satisfied now. And then it said, "Imperio!"

The pain disappeared to be replaced with a floating calmness. Everything was going to be all right. There was nothing to worry about. But then, when the cold voice told him what he had to do, there was still a part of him that was rational enough to struggle; that refused to give in; that screamed, "No!"

The cold voice sounded intrigued, "He's stronger than I thought. We can soon remedy that, however. Crucio!"

And then there was nothing but the pain again. He prayed he would die, wanted desperately to die, begged to die, but the thin voice just laughed. And this time when the pain eventually stopped and the voice said, "Imperio!" the part of him that resisted and struggled was weaker, the conviction with which he refused to give in much less. But it was still enough.

Over and over again it happened, and each time his resistance was less until eventually it crumbled away to nothing and he whispered in defeat, "Yes."

"There, don't you see, Wormtail?" the thin voice sneered. What could be more artistic than engineering the death of the Potter boy by the person who loves him most? And then letting him realise the full enormity of what he has done? He will either kill himself or they will hunt him down like a rabid dog. Appropriate don't you think, Wormtail?" The hissing laughter echoed round the dungeon.

Then without even a backwards glance at him, Voldemort flicked his wand and muttered "Obliviate!"

The next thing he remembered was coming to, lying in a puddle on the hard shoulder of a motorway with trucks and cars screaming past him in the dawn light. And all he knew was that he had to run for his life.

---

Pulling himself back to the present with an effort, Sirius opened his eyes and put his head in his hands, struggling not to go to pieces. Now that the charm was gone and he had remembered, he could feel that warm, complacent glow at the back of his mind. Aware of it, he asserted himself and flung it off. No! I won't! And the warm, complacent feeling exploded into nothing.

Sirius looked up, at Finn sitting beside him, white faced and horrified, at Remus, eyes filled with concern and at Rose, looking at him with compassion. "Oh God, if I had never got shot, you would have believed my story and I might have killed Harry," he said in a hoarse voice, blinking hard to try and stop the burning in his eyes.

"Sirius," Rose said softly. "If? Might? You did get shot; Remus and that other man did know there was something wrong. Many bad things might have happened. Think about the good thing that did."

"I'm sorry, I'm not used to thinking about good things," he replied bleakly.

Remus picked up a bottle and poured three large shots and a much smaller fourth one. "I think we could all do with a drink," he said and pushed one of the glasses into Sirius' hands.

Sirius drank it without even looking to see what it was, the harsh spirit running down his throat leaving a numb trail all the way to his belly. It didn't make him feel any better. But then he couldn't bear to have Moony and Rose staring at him, pretending that they understood how he was feeling, when they couldn't ever understand, or Finn's teenaged face reminding him of what he might have done to Harry. So, he went outside and sat on the steps of the bus, fiddling with a couple of sticks to keep his hands occupied. He thought about consequences and guilt and responsibility. They were things he had thought a lot about over the years.

However, he knew from long experience that one of the bitterest sentences in the English language is the one beginning, if only… Now, as he tried to make sense of what had happened to him over the last few weeks, he realised that Rose was right, that wasn't something he wanted to say here, because things had worked out, the curse was broken. He carried enough guilt for things he had done to waste time beating himself up over things he might have done if it hadn't been.

And as the afternoon slowly wore on towards evening, he began to feel better, so that by the time Finn came out of the cottage he was able to speak to him with a degree of equanimity he wouldn't have thought possible several hours earlier.

The boy came over to where he was sitting, and stood looking at him with his head on one side. "You don't look quite so, I dunno, as if you just want to top yourself," he said.

Sirius grimaced. "Thanks."

Finn grinned. "You're welcome." Then he said, "Gran wants to start making the dinner, but she's getting all grouchy cos me and Remus are in the way. He said there's a really good pub in the village…" he trailed off hopefully.

Sirius looked at him sharply. "How old are you?"

Finn rolled his eyes. "OK, OK so I won't be legal for a few months, jeez." He looked down, scuffling his feet on the ground for a few moments, before looking back up and asking, "So, you coming?"

Sirius thought for moment. "Better not." Then he grinned. "But don't be surprised if Remus brings his dog."