Mask of Oblivion

MASK OF OBLIVION

Chapter 7 - The Project

"What have you done?" Even behind a closed door, Simon could clearly hear the anger and concern in Sirius Black's voice. "This is not some ordinary Muggle for you to pick up and screw with then walk away consequence free. Memory or no memory he is still Severus Snape!"

"I am well aware of that, Sirius." Hermione sounded calm and controlled. "I know you care, but I am a grown woman and quite capable of looking after my own personal life."

"I know," Sirius sighed, "But dammit! Mia, it is so unprofessional."

Hermione let out a loud whoop of cynical laughter. "That would be really funny if you had no idea of the sorts of things I do in the line of duty. You are well aware that I do whatever is necessary."

"But it is not necessary this time. Is it?"

Simon decided at this point to open the bedroom door and let the two people in the other room realise he was awake. What he had already overheard was startling enough information to digest, without seeing where else the conversation might lead.

He opened the door and cleared his throat. Hermione and Sirius jumped and turned towards him. Sirius's face was flushed and he made no attempt to hide his scowl. "Good morning," he said curtly to Severus. "Hermione, I have a class in a moment. I shall leave you to entertain our guest." With that he abruptly left the room.

The morning sunlight was streaming through the windows into the bright airy living room. There was a small dining table near the windows with two chairs, one on either side of the table, and some empty dishes and a half empty cup of coffee on it. Hermione looked a little nervous, but she smiled at him and her voice betrayed nothing. "Good morning, Simon. Would you like some breakfast?"

"I could murder for a pot of tea." As he finished speaking a pot of tea miraculously appeared on the table. "Toast and blackberry jam?' he inquired. Instantly the plate was laden with slices of toast and a large pot of jam appeared on the table. "How did you do that?" he asked in admiration.

"I didn't do it. The Hogwarts house elves did."

They sat down and Simon started to eat. Hermione finished her coffee. "Simon, how did you sleep?"

"Restlessly. I had several dreams."

"Did you write them in the book by the bed?" She inquired, her eyes lighting up with interest.

"The last one."

Simon had not noticed the large note book and pen by his bed the night before, because he had been so tired. He had finally realised this morning that it was there to record his dreams so that Hermione could use them as keys to his past.

"Sirius did not seem too happy with you this morning," he asked suddenly, "is there something between you two?" He gave her a searching look.

"Good grief! No, not like that."

"He strikes me as a bit of a surly character. Why on earth did his daughter decide to stay here and work with him?"

"His daughter?" Hermione looked perplexed for a moment, then realisation dawned and she shook her head grinning broadly. "Ginny isn't his daughter. She's his wife! I am amazed you did not notice her family resemblance."

"Her family resemblance?" It was Simon's turn to have to think back on the appearance of the red head. "Oh! Is she another Weasley?"

"Full marks, Mr. Smith."

"She is a bit young for Sirius Black then, don't you think?"

Hermione looked a little aggravated. "Sirius is the same age you are and Ginny is only a few months younger than I am." She stared at him pointedly. Simon stopped with his tea cup in mid air and then slowly lowered it looking back at her. "They happen to love each other very much. I don't understand how they make it work, but I am very happy for them."

Simon reached over and covered her hand with his. Just for a moment there was a look in her eyes of something, vulnerability, regret? Simon wasn't sure, but he did not know how to respond to it. For a long while they just sat there looking at each other. Simon was searching for signs of that vulnerability. He had no idea what Hermione was looking for.

"It is nearly nine o'clock, Simon. Neville will be joining us in the classroom next door. We don't want to make him wait." She slowly withdrew her hand.

"Neville Longbottom? What is his problem? He looked absolutely terrified when he saw me last night."

Hermione looked at him with a sympathetic expression on her face. "Severus Snape was not a very nice person."

Simon was starting to get a bit impatient. "So you keep telling me. But what does that have to do with Neville?"

"At school Neville was a little uncoordinated and he was not very confident. Snape had a tendency to be unnecessarily hard on Gryffindor house students and Neville was an easy target. So Snape bullied and victimized him for the whole seven years."

"Ah, that would explain it then." Simon did not feel very comfortable with the thought that in his previous life he had a reputation as a vindictive bully.

Hermione got up and went to her room to finish getting ready, so Simon decided to go through into the class room by himself. The curtains had been drawn open; otherwise the room was the same as the night before. The only furniture in the room was the round table and its eight matching chairs.

As Simon was moving towards the table he heard a sound from behind the other door. It glowed momentarily and then opened slowly. Neville Longbottom entered the room hesitantly, clutching a couple of very large books. As he put the books on the table he glanced quickly at Simon. "Good morning Prof... er... Mr. Smith," he stammered.

Simon strode over to the table to stand a short way from the other man, facing him. He stared hard at Neville's face. Neville looked like a rabbit caught in the glare of car headlights.

"Good morning, Neville. My name is Simon," he said in what he hoped was a friendly tone. He paused and took a deep breath. "As far as I can remember we only met yesterday. Hermione tells me that your relationship with Professor Snape was not good. That means nothing to me. We need you to help me start putting the pieces of my past together. I need you to try to forget any problems you had with Severus Snape in the past."

The younger man looked at him doubtfully. "You really don't remember anything?"

"Neville, I really don't remember."

"You have no idea how hard it is. You still sound like Professor Snape. You move like him. All the facial expressions are the same."

Simon put out his hand. "We need you to try. How can you help if you are too terrified to talk to me?"

Neville seemed to think hard for a moment then took Simon's hand and shook it. "I will try, Simon. I will try." A small smile crept across his face.

Neville was pleased that Simon had already started reading 'Hogwarts : A History', so they started by looking at the relevant parts of that book first. Shortly after they sat down Hermione entered the room. Simon suspected that she had listened to the whole conversation. By the end of the first two hours Neville seemed a little more relaxed, but it was still obvious that Simon's mere existence made him uneasy.

Simon spent the rest of the morning working systematically through the sections of the book that Neville had set for him to read. While he was doing this Hermione excused herself and left the room on some errand. At noon Simon decided it was time for a break.

He stood up and went over to the windows. From here he was looking down into a large rectangular courtyard. Below he could see groups of students passing to and fro. From this height it was difficult to distinguish any facial features on the students below. The sight of the students reminded him of Bella. His daughter could be down there in plain sight and there was no way he would know.

As he was standing there he heard Hermione enter the room. "You're back already?" he said without turning around.

"How did you know it was me?"

"You have a distinctive presence."

She moved across the room and stood beside him. "What are you looking at?"

"Just looking." He lifted his hands and placed the palms against the glass. "I feel like a prisoner."

"I am sorry about that," Hermione said sympathetically, "but we can't just let you wander around the school."

He turned towards her suddenly and grabbed her arm. Hermione's response was instantaneous. She spun around, twisting his arm and somehow managed to sweep his feet out from under him. Simon fell to the ground and as his head hit the floor he blacked out for a moment. When he came to he was in great pain, his back was sore, his head throbbed and the sharp stabbing pains in his wrist seemed like a good indication that something was broken. Hermione was kneeling next to him. The look on her face was hovering somewhere between wariness and concern. "That was a really stupid thing to do. Are you OK?"

"Does it look like I am OK?" He scowled up at her. "I am not exactly going to attack you, am I?"

She shrugged. "It's a conditioned response."

Simon tried to sit up but nearly blacked out again. "What sort of magic was that?"

"No magic that time, Simon. Just simple application of Muggle martial arts."

"A woman of many talents, I see." He winced as the pain in his wrist intensified.

"Let me have a look at that." Hermione gently took the wrist in her hands and felt it. Simon felt like he was about to pass out again but managed to maintain consciousness. "Yes, that is definitely broken." She cradled the wrist in one hand and reaching into her robe pulled out her wand. "Ermendum!" Simon saw the red glow pass from the wand into his wrist and could feel spreading warmth, almost a burning, but not quite. As the warmth died away he realized the pain was also gone. "Try and wriggle your fingers."

Simon did so and felt no pain, just a slight tugging ache as if from scar tissue. "That is amazing!"

"It is just a little basic first aid."

"Mending broken bones is first aid?"

"In my line of work it is." Simon sat up slowly and Hermione examined his head carefully and checked him for signs of concussion. "I think you will survive. Sorry about that." She said as she shone a light from her wand into his eyes to check for dilation.

Simon was acutely aware of how close together they were as he sat on the floor with Hermione kneeling next to him. Their thighs were touching and as she leant forward to check his eyes, he could feel Hermione's breath on his cheek. As the light went out he lifted his good hand up and touched her cheek, he heard a slight catch in her breathing.

He moved his hand slowly around to the back of her neck and pulled her head towards him. There was no resistance and their lips met in a hard passionate kiss.

Hermione pulled away first, but it seemed as if she did so reluctantly. "Its lunch time," she said as she stood up.

"So?"

"So, I can't let you starve, that would be dereliction of duty."

Simon stood up and looked down at her. "What if food is not what I want right now?"

"And what do you want right now?" She returned his gaze with an intense stare. Her eyes appearing to glow golden with reflected sunlight."

Simon did not reply. He leant down and kissed her again, a hungry, searching kiss. Her arms snaked up around his neck. When they finally broke apart to breathe, Hermione took his hand in hers and led him through the living room and into his bedroom.

In the privacy of his room, she slowly, casually removed her robe and then undressed Simon. As they explored each others bodies, he marveled at her raw sexuality. Hermione Granger was not a classically beautiful woman, but in the throes of passion she shone with an inner beauty. And more than this she seemed to know all his sensitive zones, what to do and where to do it. As he surrendered himself to the pleasure of their love making, he knew that he was lost, that no matter what her motives he could no more resist the charms of Hermione than a moth could resist a flame.

The next few weeks fell into a well defined pattern all their own. Each day Neville would spend some time with him working through modern history. For the most part Simon found it quite fascinating, but when they covered the direct involvement of Severus Snape in various events, it had an element of surrealism that made him feel totally disorientated and slightly nauseous.

Neville, for his part, seemed to become more and more relaxed as time went on. He was always patient with Simon's questions and comments and extremely understanding of Simon's reactions to Severus Snape's role in recent history. As Neville relaxed and let more of his own personality show, Simon found himself enjoying the time they spent together more and more. Simon did not make friends very easily, but he was beginning to feel that Neville was someone he could consider as a friend.

He would also sit with Hermione each day and they would dissect his dreams. He was definitely having more dreams now that he was exposed to the highly magic charged environment of Hogwarts. But it was surprising to find that were some happy memories, as well as the bad ones. Hermione and Neville between them were able to determine when the memory was for every dream and the events that had surrounded it in his past life.

And when the nightmares came and he woke screaming, scared, angry and in pain, Hermione was always there to comfort him and to calm him down. There were few nights where he slept alone.

Every so often Ginny, Anna or Sirius would come in and ask questions or run their wands over him, looking for clues to aid their research. He was starting to get a very clear feeling that this was not turning out to be the easy job they had first thought. Ginny and Anna were always friendly, if somewhat reserved, but Sirius continued to treat him with a high degree of suspicion.

Twice a week in the evening the full team of eight would assemble in the conference room and report to Minerva McGonagall and Bill Weasley on progress so far. After a couple of weeks it was starting to become painfully obvious how slow that progress really was. Simon could still not consciously remember a thing although he now knew a lot, but none of it was his own recollection. The project team was working their way through a whole plethora of possible cures and each one so far had been rejected as too long, too risky, or impossible to do.

To Simon's amazement and confusion the sexual relationship continued. Hermione was an amazing lover, Simon marveled at her innate ability to make his body respond, to overcome all his normal objections to this unlikely intimate involvement. He was a logical man and he soon deduced a likely rational explanation for the existence of the relationship. From the snippet of conversation he had overheard the first morning it was apparent that in her normal line of work Hermione used sex as just another tool in her arsenal. It occurred to him that the first time they made love had been when he had been undecided as to whether to go to Hogwarts or not. So Simon decided that Hermione's answer to the unanswered question Sirius had posed -

"But it is not necessary this time. Is it?" - would probably be,

"If we are going to keep the Muggle co-operative and happy then it is."

Simon's conclusion was that Hermione considered having a sexual relationship with him a tool to ensure the eventual success of the project. It was not a happy conclusion, but he could not see why else this vibrant young woman would take such an interest in him.

He could feel his own obsession with the young witch growing with everyday. Everything about her fascinated him; she made him feel alive for the first time that he could remember. If he was not in love it was very close. There was a growing sense of fatalism in his mind. She did not love him, and he still had a wife. When 'the project' was complete, he would have to be resigned to walking away from this amazing woman who was dominating his life.

It was the first week in December. Simon had been at Hogwarts for over four weeks now and the weather outside the window was showing the first grey signs of winter. In all probability it would snow before morning. This evening he was alone. Hermione had left that day for a short trip to London. The main purpose of which, Simon presumed was to spend time with her good friend, Ron Weasley. She had said she would be gone no more than two days, but he was missing her already.

As he usually did on the rare occasions when he was alone, he was standing at the window of the living room looking down into the courtyard. There were not many students there. At this hour most of them would be in the Great Hall eating dinner. Just a few stragglers could be seen rushing quickly across his vision, moving fast in their haste to get inside where it was warm.

He heard a gentle knock on the door. "Come in." he said, not bothering to turn around.

Ginny Black entered and came over to stand next to him. She just stood there her gaze following his line of vision down into the courtyard below. "Not many students out there this evening, Simon."

"Why are you here? Do you need to do some more checks?"

"No. Hermione left for London today and I thought you might like some company."

"Well, you thought wrong. I am fine by myself." A very slight smile hovered on his lips. "I am sure your husband is not to happy at you coming up here."

"He did not think it was necessary, but I am my own person and he knows that." She grinned at him cheekily. "I told him to join us here for dinner."

"Oh, I bet he is really looking forward to that."

"He will be here, he promised." Simon could see the look of steely determination in the young woman's eyes.

Faint sounds from outside drew their attention back to the courtyard below. A couple of younger students were racing across the courtyard, obviously running late. Girlish laughter filtered in through the window.

"I miss her." He turned to look at Ginny, hoping that the pain was not too visible in his face. "My own daughter is somewhere in this building and I haven't seen her since September. I miss her so much." He sighed.

Ginny looked at him. Understanding and sympathy were clearly visible in her eyes. "Isabella is fine. She is a lovely girl and very good at her studies. I believe she has inherited her father's sharp, inquiring mind."

He grabbed her hands. "Ginny, I want to see her."

She slowly shook her head. "It is not possible. You are a very carefully guarded secret. None of the students can know you are here or why." She stopped and looked thoughtful for a few moments. "However, would it help if you were able to see her, without actually talking to her?'

"Anything is better than nothing." Simon said desperately.

"Then I might be able to arrange something. Leave it with me."

At this point Sirius joined them. Dinner that evening was an interesting experience. Sirius was obviously only there at his wife's command and did not join in the conversation to any great degree. Ginny seemed determined to make up for her husband's reticence and bombarded Simon with questions about his Muggle life. While she was eager to discuss his daughter, Simon noticed that she carefully avoided the subject of his wife and he appreciated this courtesy.

Simon's view from the window the next morning was all frosted with a thick layer of snow. Winter had indeed come to Hogwarts overnight. The students crossing the courtyard were swathed in winter cloaks and scarves against the chill and frost.

When Neville entered the class room Simon was still by the window looking out. He turned as the outer door opened and was surprised to see not just Neville, but also Anna, his wife, and Ginny Black. Neville was levitating a small side table in front of him which he positioned on the side wall next to the inner door. Anna was carrying a large wooden box which she set down on the side table.

"Good morning Simon," said Neville, "I hope you don't mind but Ginny approached us regarding your concerns about your daughter and we think we have come up with an idea that may help." At this, he waved his wand around the box and the top and sides of the box disappeared to reveal what looked like a large crystal ball about thirty centimeters in diameter on an intricately carved wooden stand. He then stood back beaming at Simon and presented the ball with a flourish.

"Er, very nice," said Simon hesitantly, "What is it?"

The others all looked at each other then Anna stepped forward. "It's a Palantir. A seeing stone," she explained, "This one is set to see vision from a small group of viewing stones. It is one way traffic only."

"We have tuned the viewing stones to be activated when Isabella is near them," said a beaming Ginny. "There are four stones. We have hidden them in the Great Hall, Charms, Potions and Defence Against the Dark Arts class rooms."

"With Minerva's permission, of course," said Neville.

"And Sirius's permission as well," added Ginny.

Anna motioned to Simon that he should come and stand next to her in front of the ball. She took his right hand. "Now, when you place your hand on the side of the stone it will activate and if Isabella is near one of the receiving stones, you will be able to see her." She held his hand to the side of the ball. In contradiction to its glassy appearance the ball felt warm and his hand seemed to sink into it. Anna continued speaking, "it is still breakfast time so she may still be in the Great Hall."

As she was speaking the interior of the stone was filled with a picture, like a TV but without sound. Simon was looking out across a large room. There were four parallel tables running across the room half filled with students of various ages, eating and talking and some apparently doing last minute homework. Immediately in front of him, on the opposite side of the first table, was Bella. She was eating a piece of toast and listening to the thin blonde girl sitting next to her. Simon stayed there watching until she finished her breakfast and left the table, at which point the image faded. He had not even noticed Anna and Ginny leave the room.

When he finally turned away there was only Neville left in the room holding one sheet of parchment. "We thought this might be helpful," he said holding it out, "It is a copy of Isabella's schedule with the periods when she will be near the stones highlighted." Simon took the parchment and gazed at it like it was some exquisite piece of art. "Thank you. This is truly a wonderful gift."