Three people were sitting in the waiting room. Harry always thought that it was odd. You go to see a mind healer. They talk about confidentiality and privacy, but here they are, three complete strangers sitting in the waiting room. They all know that they are all waiting to see a mind healer. They also know that Harry Potter is waiting to see a mind healer. This isn’t in the public area where anyone can get treatment, this is in the high-priced private practice office.
The three of them were totally different. There was a neatly dressed young professional wizard. He could be a lawyer or a business executive. There was a young woman who probably graduated from Hogwarts two years ago. She was pretty but also looked like she had slept under a bridge last night. Her clothes were expensive and dirty. Her hair was long and unwashed. There was a forty-something man who was neatly dressed, and who looked permanently worried and distressed.
Harry put his fellow whackos out of his mind and tried to work out what to say to his mind healer.
His first wand had been put in the fire a week ago. Harry had felt something untangle itself in his chest when that was done. Then he did not really detect any dramatic changes. His feelings of infatuation with his lawfully married wife continued to fade away. His feelings of respect and trust for Albus Dumbledore had crashed and burned years ago. Ronald Weasley had suffered the same fate. He was being honest with himself when admitted that he was having trouble with his memories of Hermione Weasley nee Granger. He was saved from crippling obsessions because he didn’t use his holly and phoenix feather wand since the fight at Bathilda Bagshot’s house. He kept it but used other wands. He had regularly touched the wand, but he seems to have gradually thrown off the enchantments. His training and experience as an auror helped him to build his resistance to the mind magic. The compulsion to touch the wand diminished over the years.
There were other problems. Harry’s secret thought life had been totally secret. He had learned to do this at the Dursleys. Any admission of weakness in front of Dudley resulted in more emotional and physical abuse. Harry found that the safest way was to be secret. This was not addressed when he went to Hogwarts. He never told anyone that when he started life in the wizard's school, he was certain that he would be excluded and abused by everyone. The assumption that Harry had come to Hogwarts after being raised in a caring, nurturing home meant that his problems were not discovered.
His horrible early life actually built into Harry his own odd form of Occlumency. The Passive Legilimency used by Dumbledore and Snape only showed what they wanted to see. Dumbledore saw an adventure-seeking normal boy. Snape saw a confused mess of insecurities and desire to be accepted, perfect for bullying. These mindscapes were weak and could not help Harry fight off the Legilimens spell cast by Snape. Dumbledore and Snape could see into Harry’s thoughts if they maintained eye contact.
Despite his crippling problems, Harry learned to defend himself and fight back. He learned to use his temper outbursts to get control of his associates and keep them at a distance. He responded to attacks by bullies like Malfoy with more anger and rash verbal and physical responses to keep them at a distance.
There was no understanding of his closest associates. Harry accepted Ron’s friendship, but he did not understand why Ron wanted to be his friend.
Hermione was a deeper mystery. On the surface, she seemed to want to be Harry’s friend because that was what she wanted. Harry also never understood this. He could not accept in his secret thoughts that Hermione’s friendship was freely offered with no hidden motives.
Hermione had urged him to put more effort into his studies. He started at Hogwarts under the constraint placed on him in his old school. He was not to do any better than Dudley. The abuse he received for getting higher marks than his cousin fixed in place the policy Harry had concerning schoolwork. He aimed for a pass mark and nothing more. This seemed to satisfy Ronald as well, so he continued to drift along.
Something different started to grow in Harry in his first year. When he saw that someone else was in danger, he acted to try to save them, without any thought for his own safety. He might have thought of himself as inferior but that didn’t stop him from saving people.
In later years, Hermione referred to it as his “saving people thing”.
Did my ambition to become an auror spring from my “saving people thing”?
Now, more than twenty years later, he still kept some of his secret thoughts secret.
The worst secret was that he had wanted to become closer to Hermione. Before the Goblet of Fire ruined his life, he was going to ask Hermione for a date. That never happened. He was going to ask her to be his partner for the Yule Ball. He could not get over his inferiority feelings. He was afraid that she would laugh at him. Then she went to the ball with Viktor Krum.
Then in their fifth year, things changed. He never knew what it was. Now, twenty years later, he knew. He had been given the equivalent of a Hate Potion keyed to Hermione. It was renewed every day. His feelings for Hermione became confused and conflicted. Then she made Ron her boyfriend. That was the end of that.
--ooOOoo—
Healer: “How are you coping with your nightmares, Harry?” This was the usual opening question from his mind healer.
Harry: “My nightmares have dwindled. I still wake up sometimes with feelings of falling from a great height, as though I have fallen off my broom in a Quidditch match. I have really done that. I know what it is like.”
Harry shrugged and gave a small smile.
Healer: “Are there any lifelike dreams of you being killed or others being killed in front of you?” The next standard question.
Harry: “No, I haven’t had anything like that for months.”
Healer: “Tell me about any significant changes in your life.” Her eyebrows twitched.
Harry: “What can I say? Let’s make a list.”
“First, my wife of many years walked out on our marriage and will not come back.”
“Second, I discovered that my three children knew that she was planning to do this.”
“Third, they told me that their main concern was that she would insist on taking them with her. They did not want to go. They wanted to stay with me.”
“Fourth, I discovered that my first wand, which I used at Hogwarts, had been hacked by one of my professors, Severus Snape.”
“Fifth, as a result of this interference, I have been subjected to the equivalent of Loyalty Potions, Hate Potions and Love Potions each time I touched that wand. Whenever I got an attack of sentimentality, I used to get it out and hold it. I did that for many years after I replaced it with my new wand, and I didn’t use it anymore. It looks like the Love Enchantment was still working.”
“Sixth, after getting advice from curse-breakers, I burned the wand, crushed the ashes to dust and left the dust outside to blow away in the wind.”
“Here is a list of the rune sets which had been put into my wand and summaries of what they did.”
Harry presented the list.
Healer: “Can you please explain ‘hacked’?”
Harry: “It’s a mundane term. It means that an electronic computer or device has been secretly and maliciously changed to the advantage of the ‘hacker’, a person other than the owner.”
Silence prevailed while the list was read and considered.
Healer: “This explains a lot.”
Harry laughed. “But not everything.”
Healer: “No, it does not explain everything. There are a lot of answers you gave to my earlier questions which concealed rather than explained what you were doing at Hogwarts and after.”
Harry jerked back, “I concealed things?”
Healer: “You certainly did. Do you want me to tell you exactly what it was that you concealed?”
Harry sighed. “No! I will tell you.”
“I always had the feeling that I was inferior. I lacked what it was to be accepted as a normal person.”
“I never understood why anyone wanted to be friends with me.”
“I still do not understand why any girl or woman would want to have a romantic relationship with me.”
The healer put her hand up to stop Harry.
“That is enough. That is why you had to look for help. You realize that what you are saying is repeating what your aunt, uncle, and cousin hammered into you from when you were eighteen months old.”
Harry: “Yes. I remember only too clearly.”
Healer: “You might have been told to forget them and move on, but it isn’t that simple is it.”
Harry: “No, it isn’t. Am I doing anything wrong?”
Healer: “Spoken like a typical scapegoat.”
Harry: “OK, can you please explain that?”
Healer: “The people who were supposed to care for you, the Dursleys. We are still talking about them, aren’t we?”
Harry: “Yes, the Dursleys, why am I still stuck with them?”
Healer: “They continually told you that you were the cause of their problems, is that right?”
Harry: “That was a theme that was repeated daily, with slight variations.”
Healer: “The result is that you are now trying to avoid those accusations. You have become Mister Fix-it for everyone else. You have become the caretaker, the problem-solver, the protector, the truth-teller, and when all else fails, the rebel, in order to save people and to stop causing problems for other people. This is what people like you, who have been made a scapegoat, do to escape those accusations, even long after your accusers are all gone from your life.”
Harry: “I have been accused of having a ‘saving-people thing’.”
Healer: “By Miss Granger, is that right?”
Harry: “Yes!”
Healer: “What else did Miss Granger say to you?”
Harry: “Lots of things, she was the reason I passed any exams for the first five years at Hogwarts. She badgered me to work when I wanted to drift along and aim for only a pass mark.”
Healer: “What else do you remember?”
Harry: “She told me that I was a great wizard.”
Healer: “What did she really think about your ‘saving-people thing’?”
Harry: “I think that she didn’t always approve. She thought that I overdid it. I did overdo it. I insisted on launching that raid on the Department of Mysteries that resulted in Sirius Black dying and her being wounded and nearly dying. She told me that she was certain it was a trap, but she went with me anyway.”
Healer: “Another thing that you blame yourself for. Do you still get nightmares about it?”
Harry: “Yes, not all the time, but there are still a few. What do I have to do to fix this?”
Healer: “You, Mister Fix-it, will not fix anything.”
Harry: “What has to happen then?”
Healer: “This was done to you by other people. Perhaps you should let another person fix it for you.”
Harry frowned.
What did that mean?
Healer: “Let’s have a look at these enchantments that the low-life fraudulent sneaks pushed onto you.”
Harry: “Sneaks?”
Healer: “You don’t imagine that Snape did anything to you unless Dumbledore ordered it. You told me yourself that Dumbledore owned Snape’s vassalage.”
Harry: “Ah!”
She read out the list.
- A Compulsion enchantment that is causing the wand owner to seek out the wand and touch it at least once a day, thus renewing the enchantments. It was made on September 2, 1995.
- A Loyalty enchantment keyed to Albus Dumbledore was made on September 2, 1995.
- A Loyalty enchantment keyed to Ronald Weasley was made on September 2, 1995.
- A weak Hate Enchantment keyed to Hermione Granger was made on September 2, 1995.
- A mild Hate Enchantment keyed to Hermione Granger was made on December 17, 1995.
- A mild Love Enchantment keyed to Cho Chang was made on December 17, 1995.
- An Amortentia Love Enchantment keyed to Ginny Weasley was made on May 8, 1997.
Healer: “Do you remember letting Snape do anything to your wand?”
Harry: “No! Never!”
Healer: “He must have obliviated you after he did it.”
Harry growled.
Healer: “You must have been obliviated on September 2, 1995, December 17, 1995, and May 8, 1997.
This explains your attitude toward Dumbledore and Ronald Weasley. You say that you had a crush on Cho Chang but that died a horrible death. You mistrusted Hermione Granger and then you married Ginny Weasley.”
Harry: “That is all correct, and all powered by enchantments created by Severus Snape.”
Healer: “Tell me what you felt, what you experienced when you had any thoughts or dealings with these people.”
Harry: “The loyalty feelings towards Dumbledore and Ron were pretty consistent. After my first wand was broken, I suppose the feelings started to diminish but it took years before I noticed that I could think negative thoughts about them. Eventually, I would say that my feelings towards them became neutral, neither good nor bad.”
“Cho Chang was obvious; I was crushing on her but then it became obvious that my feelings were shallow and then non-existent. The crush was opposed by my real hostility to her.”
“I am unhappy about the whole thing with Hermione. I felt inferior to her, but I kept getting signals from her that she liked me. I was getting ready to ask her out at the start of our fifth year when after the first day of lessons I started feeling annoyed with her. This war between liking Hermione and then thinking negative things about her started and stayed. It obviously got worse when I started to connect with Cho Chang. I was arguing with Hermione a lot, mainly about The Half-Blood Prince and his potions textbook. Despite that, we still worked together. Now, I am starting to think about her again. I know she can’t stand me; I can’t help that.”
“About Ginny, that was all Amortentia Love Enchantment, nothing else. She is the mother of my children, wow! I don’t feel a thing for her. I love my children so much! That is wonderful. Ginny may be partying with all sorts of men right now and I don’t care. I feel so messed up.”
There was a short silence.
Healer: “About Miss Granger, now Mrs Weasley, she was most likely given the same sort of treatment as you. The enchantments will be deeply embedded by now. Don’t expect her to be able to shake them off and turn the clock back to 1995.”
Harry: “No, maybe not.”
Healer: “Do you know why the youngest Weasleys wanted to marry? They were obviously not ready for it.”
Harry: “I suspect that at some time before he died, Albus Dumbledore told Molly that he wanted Ginevra and Ronald to marry the people he had picked out for them. That was me for Ginevra and Hermione for Ronald.
She passed that suggestion on to them. Because of the control that the vassalage gave him, that was enough to push them into it. I’m sure he didn’t expect me to survive. It was done to help keep me under his control.
I also suspect that Dumbledore told Molly to pass it on to Ronald that once they were married, he could order Hermione around and she would obey him.”
Healer: “That sounds horrific. I have heard a lot of evil things. This sounds bad. He ruined your lives to make sure his plans worked. If there is one thing that I am certain about, plans rarely work the way that they are planned. There is always some other way to do the job. Dumbledore could only see his way and he would not allow another.”
Harry nodded.
Healer: “At this stage, I would recommend that I help you recover those obliviated memories.”
Harry: “OK”
Harry agreed to the healer’s treatment and lay back on the couch. The sleep spell washed over him. The obliviation reversal spell clicked into his mind. It was very precisely done. The marker left by obliviation in the memory is absolutely precise. The obliviation is marked by date and time as well as the number of the obliviation in the series of all the obliviations ever performed on the subject.
Harry slowly awoke. The memory was as fresh as if it had just happened.
Healer: “How are you, Harry?”
Harry: “Fine.
I know I’m always fine, even if I have two broken legs. Really, I’m fine. It is pretty well what I expected.”
Harry took a breath.
“At the end of the first Potions class, Snape called me back.
Snape said, ‘Potter, a moment of your time.’
I went back into the Potions classroom. The door closed behind me.
Snape said, ‘The headmaster has asked me to check your wand.’
I asked why, as insolently as I could.
Snape said, ‘Don’t argue with me Potter, place your wand on this parchment.’
I put my wand on the parchment Snape had laid out on his desk.
He muttered a spell, and the parchment wrapped itself around my wand and vanished.
Snape said: ‘Pick it up!’
I picked up my wand and a delighted feeling flooded through me.
Snape said, ‘When I tell you to leave, open the door, step out of the room, close the door and then you may wake up.’
He pointed his wand at me.
Snape said, ‘Obliviate!’
I woke up outside the door and went on my way. “
The other memories were reversed. They were all nearly the same.
Harry: “Why did you call me a scapegoat?”
Healer: “In the bad old days, a scapegoat was a goat taken from one of the herds owned by the tribe. A spiritual transaction would take place which placed the penalty for the sins of the tribe on the goat. The goat would then be driven away. The goat was left to wander in the wilderness where it would be eaten by the wild predators. The penalty for the tribe’s sins would be taken by the goat.”
“The Dursley’s made themselves feel better by blaming you for something wrong in their lives. You let other people do that to you since then, haven’t you?”
Harry: “Yes! Bad things are happening, let’s blame Potter.”
Healer: “You are also a Doormat.”
Harry: “Huh!”
Healer: “Those people hurt you and abused you. They did that time after time. They might have occasionally apologized, but they showed no signs of stopping. You forgave them and let them go on hurting you. You were a Doormat.”
Harry: “Who did that?”
Healer: “Oh Harry! Think! I’ll give you a hint. Ronald Bilius Weasley!”
Harry: “How am I going to get over this?”
Healer: “I can talk to you and help you in a limited way.
What you really need is someone who will be with you every day. Someone who will willingly say things like
‘You are a great wizard, Harry’ and
‘You are a great man, Harry’ and
‘You are a great father, Harry’ and
‘I want to be with you for the rest of my life, Harry’” and mean it.
They also must say
‘You don’t have to fix everyone else’s problems, Harry’ and
‘It wasn’t your fault, Harry.’
I can’t do that. You must find someone who will willingly do that for you.”
--ooOOoo—
Hermione's new wand was still made of vine wood and dragon heartstring. It also felt much more powerful than her old one. She had been deeply bonded to her old wand. She had lost it at Malfoy Manor and had to use other wands including Bellatrix’s wand. She hated that. After the battle, she did not rest until she had her old wand back in her hand.
The new wand was different, and at the same time, oddly familiar.
Maybe it was her that was different. She performed all her usual household spells. They all flew from her wand with what could only be called enthusiasm. Maybe her old wand was slowing down. It might have been doing that for years and she didn’t notice. No, this wand was much faster and cleaner than her old wand.
Hermione was also different. She was working on some arithmancy for an investment group. A company formed by rich wizarding families wanted forecasts of commodity prices for potion ingredients. Hermione’s arithmancy had given them useful results three months ago. Now they had written to her again, asking for another forecast. This time their letter had come directly to Hermione instead of Ronald. She was stunned by the letter and amazed by the fee that they were willing to pay. For the earlier jobs, Hermione had never seen the letters or the fees that she had been paid. If Hermione had been able to claim the fee, then the children and she would have got all new clothes for every occasion with enough left over for a two-week holiday.
Ronald had gambled it all away.
There were a few different visitors to Bill and Fleur Weasley’s house to see Hermione and Hugo. Angelina and Audrey came with their children. The children played well together. The other regular visitor was a surprise. Lady Pimlico came with her two youngest to be introduced to the Weasley cousins. Fleur had persuaded Daphne to come. The Pimlico children were cousins by some family rules. The Pimlico children were Sirius Black’s grandchildren. Harry Potter was Sirius Black’s adopted son. The Potter children were the Weasley's cousins. Angelina visited Potter Manor to collect Lily for these play dates.
Hermione had never had such free and easy socialization with her in-laws. They had regularly met before except for the Pimlico family, but Ronald and Molly had closely supervised Hermione.
Hermione approached Fleur. “I must go back to my own house soon Fleur. I don’t want to continue to impose on you.”
“Bill and I want you to go on living here permanently Hermione,” Fleur replied. “We insist.”
“Living on your own will be the worst thing that you could do right now. You are still learning how to use your new wand. You are also still learning how to behave like a normal family member. I don’t understand what happened to you. From the day you and Ronald married, you were cut off and imprisoned in a strange little world. We could all see it. We couldn’t reach you.”
Hermione nodded. “The wand enchantments were the start of it. There was something else as well. I must talk to Healer Brown again.”
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