After checking Miss Potter over, Pomfrey shooed Severus out of the room so they could whisper in the corridor.
"She appears stable." Pomfrey's whispering voice sounded profoundly relieved. The sliver of her face that he could see from the light of the waxing moon looked hopeful. "Vitals, magic, cerebral activity—thank Rowena. Though she's far weaker than I'd like, it's to be expected, after everything—"
"How did she break your bindings?" he demanded.
"As to that," Pomfrey said after a slight pause, "I don't know. It's possible there was a little magical surge when she came out of it. . . well, what does it matter? She will be well again, I'm sure. Exhaustion seems to be the greatest trouble at present. With proper convalescence, she should be right as rain before too long."
Famous last words, Severus thought.
Either of them could have been right. All the medical signs pointed to Pomfrey taking home the trophy in accurate predictions, whilst Severus' cynicism had no real grounds other than its stake in his personality. . . and his knowing that Miss Potter had the ability to get caught in the middle of a hailstorm on a sunny June day. In fact, all things considered, Pomfrey was the one who should have been right.
She wasn't.
Where am I what
A light up ahead
is going on
bright and silver and beautiful walking ever-so-carefully ahead of
what is
her she couldn't see what it was but she knew that when she caught up to it what was broken would
it
become whole again she would be
who
whole again, safe again
am I
Severus scraped his way into a light doze round dawn, but not for long: it seemed he'd no sooner shut his eyes than he was jolted awake by a loud crash and a pain-filled cry. He was up in a flash, rather before his brain was fully engaged, and bolted to Miss Potter's room (where, of course, the noise had come from) to find Pomfrey trying to soothe her while she lay in a heap on the bed, clutching at her head and sobbing. Her eyes were squeezed shut, but tears were running out of them; she looked and sounded as if she were in extreme pain.
"Call the Headmaster," Pomfrey urged, lighting up the room with another of her diagnostics. "And that Patil woman, now!"
Mrs. Patil must have been expecting another call, because she walked in with Dumbledore less than half an hour later, though it was barely past dawn. She was dressed for the weather, which was sleeting miserably against the diamond-paned windows, and carried a large leather satchel slung over one shoulder. Severus, skulking agitatedly in a corner, found that in spite of his resentment of her Gryffindor daughter, who was the cause of all this mess, she reminded him more of the Ravenclaw. The girls were identical, true, and took after her, but her face was intelligent—quite unlike the Gryffindor Patil's.
"I can't help her," Pomfrey said to Dumbledore and Mrs. Patil before they'd made it halfway down the ward. "I've put monitoring spells on her, and she calms when she's alone, but the minute I walk into the room it throws her into a fit!"
"Did you go in, Severus?" Dumbledore asked.
"Not since I first heard the commotion half an hour ago."
"How is she now, Poppy?"
"Stable and resting."
"I will see her," said Mrs. Patil, pulling a scarf off her shoulders and draping it over her head. "I may have more success, as she has never met me." Then, without explaining anything more, she pulled the scarf across her face so that only her eyes were visible, and vanished into the quarantine ward.
"I think," said Dumbledore thoughtfully once she had gone, "that those who walk in the future sometimes forget the rest of us have yet to catch up."
When she heard the door open, she squeezed her eyes shut. Whenever that woman came in, it felt like her head was going to explode. It hurt so badly, worse than. . . than. . .
She didn't know. Everything inside her was empty.
"Harriet?" said an entirely unfamiliar voice, another woman's.
Harriet? Was that her name? She almost opened her eyes in to see who this new woman was, to see if she could remember her, but she didn't want it to hurt like that again. The voice didn't sound familiar at all.
"Who are you?" she asked, breathing heavily, eyes still tightly shut.
"My name is Anaita. You haven't met me before, so you needn't try to remember me."
Her head throbbed. "I. . ."
"You've experienced a time-accident," Anaita said. It was nice to have a name for someone, at least. Her voice was very soothing, like—like—something; she didn't know what. Nor did she know what a time-accident was.
A moment later, cool fingers touched her forehead, smoothing back her hair. She wanted to lean into the gentleness of that hand. Anaita said, "You don't remember anything, do you?"
"No," she whispered.
"What does it feel like?" asked Anaita.
"I. . . don't know. Empty. Until—until suddenly it's too full and it. . ." hurts.
"That is the work of your memories. They are all trying to reach you at once, and it pains you. We must make them slow down."
She digested this. She didn't know what it meant, but it was nice to know that someone knew what was going on. It calmed some of the huge, frightened feeling in her chest that felt like it would expand out into every empty corner inside her.
"Is my name Harriet?" She winced when pain spiked in her head, as a swirl of vivid, blinding color tried to flood the nothingness behind her eyes.
"It hurts to remember even that much?" asked Anaita as she rustled about. "Well, that's a good sign."
"Doesn't feel good," she muttered.
"No. You're right." There was an odd sound and a scent, something so familiar that made her head throb with trying to remember what it was.
"I am going to help you fall asleep," said Anaita. "A deep sleep, and when you awake, you will feel better. Is this all right with you?"
She didn't know. "Might as well. I have to keep my eyes closed anyway. Whenever I look at people. . ."
"That is from trying to remember who they are and how you know them. Their relationship to you. These things are very complicated. It will all come back to you in time. For now, don't worry about them."
Anaita brushed the hair off her forehead. Being touched in that gentle way was the nicest feeling of all.
"Listen to my voice," said Anaita. "Think of nothing but my voice. If another thought comes, acknowledge it and let it go. Return to my voice. . ."
She tried. It turned out to be easy. Anaita's voice was soft, soothing. Sometimes, a burst of color stabbed through the darkness behind her eyes, but she listened to Anaita's voice and it went away. . .
She sank beneath the cool black nothingness, and it was peaceful. If it seemed to be missing something, she didn't know what.
Harriet? she thought, and then there were no more thoughts at all.
"Her timeline has aligned itself physically," said Mrs. Patil, "but not mentally. She has returned to the present, but all of her memories have been jumbled up. Thank you," she added, accepting a tea cup from Dumbledore.
In true Dumbledore fashion, while Miss Potter lay in some undefinable agony in the next room, the Headmaster had set up a table for breakfast. There were eggs and rashers, kippers and tomatoes, porridge and toast, with an assortment of jams and marmalade. The smell turned Severus' stomach.
"No, thank you," he said rudely when Dumbledore tried to hand him a cup.
Mrs. Patil glanced at him and then away again. No doubt she had heard glowing reports from her two daughters for the past two and a half years.
"We frequently remember by association," she said. Severus didn't know her credentials, but she had a manner similar to the most confident academic he'd ever encountered, mixed with an air of gravity that might fail to arrest the attention of Gilderoy Lockhart, but not many others. "It's a process that involves a lot of. . . sorting-through, shall we say. We have all met an old acquaintance and known they have a son, but not what his name is or what he does. The information is there in your mind, but you have to jog your memory to reach it. But everything in Harriet's case is unnatural. While we must sift through countless memories that clog the wheels, so to speak, her mind is trying to give her all the information at once. Her mental state has been so disrupted that there is no order, no filtering."
"You speak as if this happens frequently," said Pomfrey, sitting ramrod straight in her chair. "I thought I understood Miss Potter's case to be unique?"
"The circumstances of her case are unique," Mrs. Patil corrected. "A child should not have been capable of doing this to herself, but memory disorder is a frequent outcome of disrupting one's timeline. In my line of work, people strike themselves down like flies. They recover, in time, so you need not despair—though we shall have to proceed wisely. Harriet's case is especially acute."
"Because of the power she channeled?" asked Dumbledore.
"Possibly," Mrs. Patil hedged. "I cannot tell you. Divinations is not really about the power of one's magic but the state of one's mind. Harriet, however, seems to have channeled power in order to achieve a mind-state that should only be capable of being reached after years of focus and discipline." She set her teacup down and folded her hands on the table, lacing her fingers together. "We may take heart from the fact that she is trying to remember, almost entirely without prompting. It means her mind is strong and healthy, and healthy minds can recover astonishingly quickly."
Pomfrey was checking the heavy brass pocket watch through which she kept an eye on her patients. "My monitoring spells suggest she's asleep for the time being."
Mrs Patil nodded. "I have guided her to sleep. She needs to dream. Dreams, as I'm sure you are aware, are necessary for maintaining the health of one's mind. They sort through the events of the day so that we can process them. When she wakes up she will be a little better, though it will take her some time to sort out thirteen years of memories."
How much time? Severus wanted to know.
"Won't it be more? Since she saw her own future?" asked Pomfrey. Severus thought this was entirely the wrong question to be asking. His own had been much better.
Mrs. Patil shook her head. "If she is like most people, those experiences will be forgotten. We aren't meant to live so far outside our own present. The mind always reverts to what it has already experienced. It takes a great deal of training to retain experiences that have yet to happen, and Harriet hasn't had that training. In time, her past memories will realign themselves and she will be as she was, and whatever knowledge of the future she acquired will fade into her subconscious."
"Completely?" asked Dumbledore.
"She may retain a few scraps of information, but they will be like dream fragments," said Mrs. Patil. "Like deja vu, you know. They will only become clear once she has already experienced them—if even then."
Severus would have liked to know why, if all this were true, Miss Potter had not only seemed perfectly lucid when she first woke up, but also quite certain of things that had not yet happened (unless she'd learned to cast a Patronus without his knowledge). But he didn't want to demand an explanation if it meant the others knowing what had passed last night. He was quite certain he hadn't done anything to make her like this—Mrs. Patil said it was typical outcome of time-disorder—but it would make for awkward conversation. More than that, something about it felt private. He wouldn't hear it bandied about by a school nurse, a meddling pseudo do-gooder, and a fortune-teller.
And Pomfrey would want to know why he hadn't called her immediately. He wasn't explaining that, either; particularly because he couldn't.
I wish it was mine. Then I could see it whenever I wanted.
"What should we do now?" Dumbledore asked. "Since you have dealt with this before, Mrs. Patil, perhaps you have an idea?
"In cases like these, the best way is to let the mind fix itself. She shouldn't be given any magical aides. It's vitally important to let her sort it out for herself. If you like, I may remain on hand to help her. I have been in this situation myself, though it was a long time ago. Many of my colleagues wind up here frequently."
"We would be in your debt," said Dumbledore.
"Nonsense. One cannot bear to see the poor child in suffering, especially when one has daughters of one's own." Then Mrs. Patil's eyes took on a steely look. "That Divinations professor, Headmaster—I don't wish to tell you the business of your own school, but I must have a word about her with you."
"Please," said Dumbledore, looking for only a moment faintly surprised. "We may discuss it in my office."
Severus cursed his eyes. Anything relating to impugning Trelawney was a matter dear to his heart. But Dumbledore whisked Mrs. Patil away before she was able to drop a single derogatory word.
With a wave of her wand, Pomfrey cleared the breakfast things away.
"You didn't ask whether I was finished," Severus said.
"You hadn't touched a thing," said Pomfrey. "It had all gone cold while you sat there stewing about whatever-it-is. If you want something—now the Headmaster isn't here to see you taking food and drink like a normal person—you may call upon the house-elves, as well you know."
She bustled off. Severus retreated to his room to brood and insult everyone he could think of. He wound up sitting in his chair beside the window, chewing on his thumbnail in lieu of having a smoke, and watching the icy rain dribble down the glass.
What would it be like, to forget everything? Would you forget your hatred when you forgot its sources? When you remembered them, would it rush back like the oncoming tide, stronger than ever? Or would the hate drift through you, sourceless, because it had grafted itself to your soul?
He doubted Miss Potter would have that sort of hate in her heart; but misery, betrayal, loss, neglect. . . she had known those. He hoped (without much confidence) that remembering, even in this unnatural way, wouldn't be like living it all over again. Some revelations should only be experienced once, and she had already endured them time and again.
The return of Harriet's memories was—would be—a long and laborious process.
When Hermione first learned that Harriet was awake again, she almost strangled Neville's bouquet. Ron, who'd walked down with her to the infirmary in the vague hope of wheedling his way in, let out a whoop that had Pomfrey shushing them sharply.
And then, everyone crushed their hopes.
Professor Dumbledore explained Harriet's state to them, but he did not allow them to see her. It was Mrs. Patil's belief that Harriet should be reintroduced slowly to reminders of her life, and first to come should be those things and feelings that would have a lesser impact on her. In this case, Hermione and Ron's significance kept them away from Harriet entirely.
"I am sorry," said Dumbledore, with a gentle gravity like Mrs. Patil's. "She will remember you in time. I must beg you to be patient."
Hermione had no choice but to leave the flowers. She wasn't even able to accompany them, that time.
The mood in the common room was in flux all the rest of the day. At first it was elated, as Hermione and Ron had been; then dejected in the same form; and then patches of optimism cropped up, interspersed with pockets of doom. Hermione dug her fingers into her hair and pressed the palms of her hands into her ears to block out Romilda Vane's carrying voice, which was telling a story about an aunt of hers who'd lost her memory and spent the rest of her life thinking she was a donkey named Daisy.
"Load of bollocks, if you ask me," Ron said as he crushed the fourth draft of his Herbology essay and chucked it at the wastebin (missing by at least a foot).
"I know, but that doesn't make it any easier to listen to," Hermione muttered.
"Eh?" Ron blinked, then seemed to hear Romilda for the first time. "Oh—not that load of bollocks. I meant us not getting to see Harriet. We're her best bloody friends."
"Mrs. Patil thinks it will hurt her," Hermione said. Her own essay was only fourteen inches long, exactly meeting the requirement. No matter how hard she tried, she hadn't been able to write more. "I've hurt Harriet enough this year."
"More bollocks. It was an accident," Ron said sharply. "You might have saved her life, you know. She's gone a bit off it for now, but who knows what might've happened if you hadn't been there? That spell could've killed her, for all we know."
Hermione was desperately grateful for his saying it, but despised herself for seeking comfort in platitudes. Over a week had gone by since the night of that disastrous spell, and yet the guilt still sat in a knot beneath her heart, as poisonous as ever. "It wasn't supposed to—"
"Wasn't supposed to have done this, either. Look. You can't beat yourself up over what could've happened, because better or worse, you don't know. That's the whole point of all this time-turner and Divs rubbish, isn't it? How mad things get if you mess with time?"
Hermione was rather speechless—this coming from Ron, of all people—but (thankfully) before she could blurt out anything stupid and alienate him (for the hundredth time that year), he went on:
"You were just trying to help. Harriet'd be the first person to tell you that. 'Spect she will," he added darkly, "when they let us in to see her." Then he perked up. "Say, we could take the Invisibility Cloak—"
"No." Hermione tried to soften her tone. "I won't put her in any danger. Mrs. Patil knows what she's doing. She's dealt with this before."
"All right, all right," said Ron. "I'll sit tight. Honestly, the barmiest thing about this whole business is you going back in time to take extra classes. That's the part she won't be able to get over, bet you anything."
"Curious," said Dumbledore, looking over the scroll Severus had copied out. "Most curious."
"Thank you for that estimable observation. I would never have thought of it on my own."
Dumbledore only smiled at him. Severus was not in any mood to be smiled at.
"I'm sure you would never be so insipid, my dear boy."
"Well?" Severus folded his arms as tightly across his chest as they would go. "What do you think?"
"I think you've done very well. This was an excellent insight."
"I'm not asking for a performance evaluation," Severus snarled, his fingers tightening on his arms until his joints ached, "I want to know if you think it's accurate."
"If there is one thing we've learned from this unforeseen fiasco," said Dumbledore, starting to roll up the parchment, "it's that the past is all we can know. The future is most uncertain—conveniently so, at times."
"Which is of absolutely no help whatsoever!"
"But that is part of the trouble of Divinations." The scroll disappeared up Dumbledore's billowing sleeve, as Severus had known it would (which is why he'd made a copy for himself). "I've been having many thoroughly enlightening chats with Mrs. Patil. It's only too bad she has a job already. . .
"At any rate," he continued, perhaps sensing that Severus was only one droll remark away from releasing his death-grip on his own arms and transferring it to Dumbledore's neck, "even when the future has been accurately predicted, we never see exactly what that prediction meant until it's already happened."
Severus' gut twisted. You know that, Dumbledore didn't say; but he didn't have to. Severus knew it better than anyone. That truth had destroyed more life than one.
"I don't think you should let her go to the Quidditch World Cup," he said.
Dumbledore blinked. "My dear boy, we can hardly prevent it—"
"If you can send her to live with Petunia, you can stop her haring off to a bloody game of Quidditch that's set to double as a Death Eater reunion!"
"She came to no harm," Dumbledore said, his tone so inappropriately placating, the words so disturbingly inadequate, that Severus didn't know where to begin.
"That isn't the point!"
"Severus, you cannot keep Harriet locked up in a room where nothing can get at her." He paused, for a fraction of a moment, before saying, "No one can," but Severus thought there was something meaningful in that silence. "She has got to be free to live her life—"
"Free to live her life involves her nearly getting herself killed!" Severus thought his grip on himself was probably restricting his own blood flow. "Even when there are no servants of the Dark Lord in the case—Merlin and Salazar, look at what happened to her during a simple fortune-telling spell!"
"Yes," Dumbledore said thoughtfully. "But you know, in general, Harriet seems to emerge relatively unscathed from life-threatening situations."
"All it takes is once!"
"Severus, you are rattling the windows. Impressive, given that Pomfrey is maintaining her dampening spell, I believe?" Before Severus could snarl a reply, Dumbledore went on, "It is good that you worry about her. To see you so fulfilling your duty to Lily's memory—it truly humbles me."
Severus was so outraged and mortified that he couldn't speak, not even to swear.
"But now that Harriet is growing up, she must not be so constrained. In a short time," Dumbledore glanced almost sadly down at the scroll, "she will have a great deal to contend with, and we may not always be there to assist her. She must learn to stand on her own."
There were a thousand denials Severus could have dashed against that. What was the good of pushing her away, of deliberately withholding assistance— She'd already had a lot to contend with— What good was achieved by starting early, too early— And above all, she knew what it meant to stand on her own. When you'd learned self-reliance from childhood, what you really wanted was people to stand with you; even if you knew, at heart, you would always be alone, because everyone was at the end.
It was no good telling Dumbledore. It had taken every caustic scrap of Severus' bloody-mindedness to make the Headmaster concede to the set-up last summer. Severus still wasn't sure why he'd succeeded. One could never make Dumbledore do what he didn't approve.
And Severus remembered that little conversation they'd had at the end of last summer, when Dumbledore had frowned upon their Scrabble-playing and delicately maneuvered Lupin toward her and himself away from her. No, Dumbledore wouldn't waver, this time.
In that case, Severus would find his own way round.
They said her name was Harriet. She believed them—she supposed. She tried to answer when they called her that, but sometimes she forgot.
Alone at night, she would say the name to herself, looking into the mirror over the washbasin. She would look into her own eyes, thinking, This is me, and saying, My name is Harriet, waiting for it to feel right.
She waited and waited.
People sent her flowers. Her favorite were the blue ones with glowing centers that chimed so beautifully. Anaita showed her card after card, all unsigned, but all addressed to Harriet. Hope you get well soon. Love. We miss you flying circles around us at practice. We're so, so, so sorry.
"They're from your friends," said Anita.
But she felt like she was spying on someone else's gifts.
She spent a lot of time talking with Anaita, who kept her face covered with a soft-looking white scarf for the first few days. When at last she took it off, a rush of memories poured into her—into Harriet's—head, so many and so much at once it hurt, and she squeezed her eyes shut. It didn't do any good, though: everything she was seeing was in her bloody head, after all.
"Tell me one thing you see," said Anaita's calm voice, the way she always did when this happened.
"Sun," she gasped, seizing on the first thing that became clear, as she'd been taught. "Moon—orange and blue—"
"Is it a blanket?"
"Yes!" A blanket on a bed in a round room, with crimson drapes— "My dorm. . .?" Gryffindor. Girls. Long dark hair, talking about spells, lilac, no, lavender—
"Breathe evenly," said Mrs. Patil. "What do you see?"
"Parvati." The swirl smoothed out, like a tornado turning to water circling down a drain, and she relaxed. She didn't open her eyes, but watched the memories revolving in her own mind. "You're Parvati's mum, aren't you?"
"I am. Very good, Harriet," said Anaita.
"There's something else." She kept returning to a book, a book Parvati was poring over, excitement shining in her face. "Something. . . with a book. . . I can't remember." But it burrowed at her head, like knuckles pressing into her temple, something important. "Parvati and a book, and something to do with me. . ."
"What sort of book?" asked Anaita.
"I don't know. . . I can't read anything on it, she's always got it in front of her."
"What does it look like?"
"It's big and heavy and made of leather. . . there's gold lettering on the spine. I. . . I don't think I was really interested in it. . . like I didn't care what was in it, but I cared that she was always reading it. . ."
"Well, we can leave it for now," said Anaita. "It will become clear when you remember other things."
"But I want to remember," she said, frustrated. "It feels important."
"You will, in time. For now, it's best not to force it. We shall take a break, and you'll eat something."
She sighed and opened her eyes. The memories buzzed in the back of her mind, trying to take over. There were no real breaks for her. She remembered something new at every moment—or at least felt she ought to remember.
More often, it was that one.
Lunch was poached salmon on white rice, which for some reason made her think the words summer and gray, foggy, shivering and imagine she was in a dark, dank place with someone she couldn't see, whose name she didn't know. She felt she ought to know them.
"Would you like to have a visitor this afternoon?" asked Anaita, and she almost choked on her fish in the hurry to gasp:
"Yes!"
She never had visitors because new people knocked her for such a loop, but she was ready to meet someone new, anyone. It was so monotonous in this little room. The structure of her day did not vary. In the morning, Madam Pomfrey (she remembered her now: mediwitch, always fixing me up, scolding) came in and checked her over, and then she had her breakfast alone. After that, Anaita came. They started with a short walk along the corridor outside the hospital wing, a little further each day, while everyone else was in classes. They did not speak; only walked. It made the world seem silent and empty, like her knowledge of her own life.
Then they returned to her room and drank a flowery tea while Anaita introduced her to pictures and drawings and asked what they made her remember until it was lunchtime.
After lunch, she always had her guided meditation, where for an hour she did nothing but try not to think about anything at all. By the time they got to it, she was grateful; her head always felt so full of scraps and questions. The meditation seemed to clear it away. It was a good kind of emptiness.
Then Anaita read to her from various books, and had her read from them, until dinner, and after that, more meditation until she fell asleep for the night.
Then the next day started it all over again.
They said that eventually she would remember everything and it would all be normal again. She didn't know how. It felt like she'd be like this forever. There was so much to find again.
Minerva was quite prompt in replying to the letter he'd sent her:
Dear Severus—
I must admit your reply took me off-guard—not that it took you days to send it, but that you replied at all. Which is not to say I'm not pleased. Shocked, but pleased.
Your refusal to permit visitors is not shocking at all, though I think it foolish to keep yourself locked away in a tower, quite literally. I think you don't want to see anyone, Severus. That's your prerogative, but let us not pretend that your condition requires such isolation from anything other than curmudgeonly misanthropy. It's a shame, at your young age.
I won't incense or insult you with platitudes, Severus. I am watching the moon calendar anxiously. We all are.
I expect your reply snubbing my concern by breakfast tomorrow morning. Do not disappoint me.
-MG
The dishes always disappeared when they were done eating. Whenever this happened, her mind couldn't decide whether it was a strange or normal thing to see.
"Where do the dishes go?" she asked as the table cleared itself.
"To the kitchens," said Anaita, smiling slightly, and handed her a folded slip of paper.
"This is the name of the one who will be visiting. I'll leave you to remember what you can. She will visit alone with you. You'll see me again in the evening."
Then Anaita did something she had never done before: she kissed her cheek and smoothed her hair. Then she left.
An odd feeling billowed through her because of that tenderness, something sad and. . . lonely. Why?
Shaking it off, she unfolded the paper. The name written on it sizzled through her head like wildfire, startling and painful. She tried focusing on the window and breathing evenly, as Anaita had taught her, to ride it out. It wasn't as bad as the first time she'd seen Pomfrey, though. Was that because it was only a name or because she was slowly getting better?
By the time the storm in her head had settled, someone knocked softly on the door.
"Come in," she said. Harriet, Harriet, remember you're Harriet, it'll upset them if you forget you're you.
The door clicked open and her visitor peeped in.
"Hi, Asteria," she—Harriet—said.
Asteria pushed the door open, her head hung down so her hair fell round her face, but she was smiling shyly. Now that Harriet could see her, more memories rushed in, filling in the gaps left by the pieces before. Boys, house-elves, Hallowe'en, the dungeons—
There, again, the feeling that something important was missing. But she couldn't get at it.
Blinking, she focused on Asteria. She'd stopped in the doorway, clutching a leather folder to her chest, looking stricken.
"It's okay," Harriet said quickly. She's scared, she's nervous, she's shy, she doesn't talk—
"Did I—did I make you remember too much?" Asteria asked anxiously. She had a high, sweet voice that Harriet really felt she had never heard before.
Her thoughts tripped over each other, confused.
"They told me I might," Asteria said, her face falling.
"I'm fine," Harriet said, rubbing at her forehead. "I only—sorry, I think I might have you confused. I thought you didn't talk."
"Oh!" Asteria blushed. "I-I never did before," she said in a smaller voice than before.
"Oh." Harriet was relieved she'd got that much right. "Er. Don't you want to come in?"
Asteria seemed to realize for the first time that she'd rooted herself in the doorway. Blushing again, she turned and shut the door behind her, very carefully, as if she was afraid of making too much noise.
"Have a seat?" Harriet said.
Asteria nodded timidly. She sat with extreme care in the tatty old armchair, the only chair for all of Harriet's (two, now three) visitors, and rested her folder in her lap with even-more-extreme care.
Harriet didn't know what to say or to do. Surely this fearfulness wasn't normal? She looked at Asteria, trying to pull the memories out of the tangle in her head. She was very pretty, like Anaita. They didn't look anything alike—Anaita was dark and Asteria fair, for starters—but they had beautiful faces, and something about the both of them seemed. . . kind, almost grave.
"Does it hurt terribly?" Asteria asked. Her fingers tightened on the edge of her folder.
"Does what hurt?"
"The—they told me that when you remembered too much at once, it caused you pain. They thought I should see you because you wouldn't have to remember as much about me as your friends."
"That seems a rude sort of thing to say," Harriet said, frowning.
Asteria shook her head, but she didn't reply.
"It does hurt," Harriet admitted. "But I'd rather remember. I'd rather know as much as I can. It's maddening, really, the way they baby me." She frowned at that, too. Did that sound ungrateful? To make up for it, she said, "Anaita's awfully kind."
"You're very brave," said Asteria quietly, looking at her lap. "That's why you feel that way."
Harriet felt something pulling at her with tidal force. . . the edges of the room were blackening, the light warping and starting to tilt around her. . . it was stronger than any memory-influence she'd had before, so strong—
"I have something for you!" Asteria cried suddenly, and the sound of her voice jerked Harriet back to the present.
"Eh?" Harriet shook her head, as everything tipped back into place.
"In here." Asteria fumbled with the flap of the folder. "I—I made it."
She pulled out a piece of paper painted—it was painted, wasn't it?—it was dark blue, with white spots. Harriet squinted at it.
"What is it?"
"It's part of a puzzle." She pulled out another piece, also dark blue, and another dark green and light blue, and one that was slate gray. "It's a picture. For your wall. I—I was making it before I knew what had happened, but Mrs. Patil said we should try to put it together—together. Do you. . . do you want to—?"
"Definitely." Harriet took the dark blue piece and turned it round, trying to make out what it was. Would she have been able to tell if she wasn't all mixed up?
"It's something you've never seen before," Asteria said. "Not in real life. You've only seen paintings. But you very much want to see it."
Harriet wished she could remember.
Asteria took a piece of pale blue paper and stood on the chair. Reaching up—she was rather tall, taller than Harriet—she stuck it to the wall as far up as she could stretch.
"That piece goes at the bottom," she said over her shoulder.
Piece by piece, they put the painting together. Harriet took the dark blue pieces and lined them up along the bottom, and Asteria pasted the light blue pieces along the top. On the left the green and gray pieces went.
Bit by bit, with each new piece she picked up and pasted on and watched Asteria fix on the wall, Harriet felt something come back to her and stick there, in the echoing unknown in her mind.
When they were done, they stepped back until they stood against the opposite wall, so they could see it properly, all at once.
"It's the sea," Harriet said. There was no rush of memory, no overwhelming muddle of thoughts. The knowledge pushed at her gently, almost like a sigh, as if to say, Yes, that's right.
The dark blue sea ran along a rocky coast and unfolded toward the horizon until it melded with the bright sky. A little square house sat on a strip of dark green grass dotted with wildflowers, and an ancient tree twisted up out of the earth.
"It's beautiful," she said. "The painting, I mean. You're brilliant."
"This sort of thing is all I can do," Asteria said, quietly, like before. She lowered her head so that her long yellow hair swung across her face and Harriet couldn't see her expression. "I'd. . . I'd rather be brave, like. . . like you."
Harriet was silent for a bit. Thoughts washed through her, like the sea in Asteria's painting.
"I helped you, didn't I?" Harriet said slowly.
"Yes," said Asteria, even quieter than before.
"And you're helping me, now. With this stuff you can do."
Asteria was quiet for what seemed like a long time. Then she raised her head and pointed her wand at the painting.
"Vivido," she said in a clear, firm voice.
A sort of invisible ripple passed across the painting, from the center out to each corner. The water shifted into living waves; the tree on the green bent in the wind; even the curtains in the windows of the little square house billowed, and the heads of flowers on the bending grass moved.
"This is my home," Asteria said. "This is where I grew up. I miss it terribly—my mother, my sisters. . . Leto was married this Christmas, and she promised we would all be at the wedding. But we weren't, and I don't know when I shall see her again. . ."
And Harriet listened as Asteria talked to her for ages, almost certain they'd never done this before.