Scars That Heal (Dramione Fanfiction) [COMPLETE]

21 - Broken China

There was a pause as the figure beside the bed turned. Hermione's mother was so similar to her, yet there was no recognition in her eyes as she looked over her daughter.

"Why did you call me Mum?" she asked. Hermione's heart sank a little more. After all her efforts, they still couldn't remember. She'd found them in Australia, where she had sent them with their memories removed, as Monica and Wendell Wilkins. But she had managed to reverse the spell to the best of her abilities, and spent all summer trying to teach them how to be Kath and Patrick Granger again.

"You don't remember, do you." It wasn't a question. Hermione felt herself beginning to cry, but stopped herself. She couldn't cry, she had to be stronger than this.

"Why are you here? I know you, but I don't know how."

"I am the daughter of Katherine and Patrick Granger. I am Hermione Granger." Hermione's voice shook as she spoke, and watched as her mother's face didn't change.

"So you're my daughter. You are the one who bought Crookshanks, aren't you?"

"Yes, Mum. Do you remember me?" Hermione urged, trying to see if she knew.

"I think I... No. No, I know you are my daughter, and that I know you, but I can't remember you. You were with Patrick and I in the summer, weren't you? Because I remember a person but not why I knew them." Kath was confused; her eyes showed no love, no maternal bond. Hermione had lost.

"Yes, I looked after you. Do you know why you can't remember things?" Hermione asked.

"No." Kath was too bemused by the situation to ask more, and she looked back at her husband. "Why is he not awake? Why is he ill?"

"I'm not sure, Mum. Can you remember what happened to him?"

At that moment, Penny Clearwater came back, with another Healer whose badge read 'Beth Simmons'. They asked Kath to sit down, which she did, and they started to take Patrick's temperature and other pieces of information.

Hermione tried to question her mother about what had happened to her father, and eventually learned what had happened the night before.

Her dad had been reading a newspaper when he suddenly started shaking. He was shouting, and had gone very red. Her mother walked in and saw him and assumed he was having a fit when he started convulsing. She called an ambulance, and they went to the Muggle hospital near where they lived. They took tests and managed to stop him fitting again, but they had no explanation for what was wrong with him. Fortunately one of the doctors was a Squib who had seen signs of it being a magical condition, and organised for him to be taken to St Mungo's where he could be properly assessed and cured. 

Hermione listened, and started silently sobbing. She knew what had happened. Even while she was staying with them over summer her mother and father had not been well. They had literal mental blocks, where one would stop in the middle of a sentence and carry on talking, or they would drop something and forget to pick it up. Once her father had even frozen in place for a full ten seconds before he carried on peeling potatoes as though nothing had changed. It was the memory removal that had done it. By unstringing their minds she had made them lose parts of it, and Hermione wasn't sure they'd ever be whole again. It was her fault.

When she had calmed down enough that she had stopped crying, Hermione told Penny what she had learned. Penny nodded as she listened, and made a few notes on her clipboard. She frowned when Hermione mentioned that she had been forced to remove their memories, but just continued to make notes.

"OK, Hermione." she said, taking a slow breath. "That all makes sense and fits with what you've told me about the memory removal." She gave a heavy sigh. "This is why there are strict regulations around using magic on Muggles, and on Obliviate being used only in authorised circustances. I understand that you did this in a very troubling time, but if there hadn't been a war on there could have been a Ministerial investigation. Now, however, we are focused on making your dad well again."