With The First Ray Of Light

“Minister,” she heard Lorraine call as she opened the door to the office. “Miss Granger is here to see you.” She couldn’t hear his reply, but after a few seconds Lorraine turned around with her trademark smile and said, “You can come in, dear.”

“Thank you,” she said, walking past her and into the office, hearing her close the door a moment later.

“Hermione, I was getting worried about you, love,” Caleb said, walking to her and giving her a quick kiss. “I think this is the first time in all the years I’ve known you that you’ve been late for anything,” he told her with a smile. “I was beginning to think I’d have to cancel our reservation for tonight.”

“I’m sorry I’m late; the meeting with your friend, Healer Thompson, took longer than I had anticipated.”

“I’m sorry about that,” he said with that smile he used when he knew he’d done something wrong, and he was trying to charm his way out of trouble. He knew it didn’t work on her, but still he never stopped trying. “You look upset, why don’t I apologize about it over a drink? We still have a little time before dinner.”

She watched him in silence as he slipped the files he’d been working on into a drawer, stood up and walked to the cupboard where she knew he kept his best bottles of liquor. He took two glasses and poured his most expensive firewhisky in, then returned the bottle to the cupboard and closed it, taking his time. She waited patiently for him to sit back down, and when he offered her a glass, she reached for it and took a long sip. She really wasn’t looking forward to saying what she had to say.

“I know I shouldn’t have told Thompson about you, especially without discussing it with you first, but if you’ve seen the files you know why I thought you should be involved in this.”

“I haven’t read the files yet. That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about, in fact.”

“What was it, then?” he asked, then took a sip of his drink.

“Did you tell anyone I would be at St Mungo’s?”

It took him a second to get over the shock at her question. “Of course not. I didn’t even know when you’d be going.”

“Do you think Thompson could’ve told anyone about it?”

He sat up straighter in his chair, a worried look on his face. “I don’t think he would have. I made it very clear to him that your involvement in this should stay strictly between the three of us, or there would be no deal. I know perfectly well the reasons why you insist on those terms, Hermione, and I would never risk your safety,” he assured her, reaching forward and taking her hand in his.

“Someone found out I would be there today.”

His hand tensed around hers, and his worried frown deepened. “Did anyone attack you?” he asked. “I didn’t hear of any incident, I haven’t-”

“No, there was no attack, Caleb. Whoever it was, they didn’t approach me directly. They left this there for me,” she said, reaching inside her pocket and pulling the small box out.

He hesitated for a second, then took the box with his free hand and opened it. “A memory?”

She simply nodded.

“Have you watched it?”

“Yes,” she said. She was finding it hard to form longer sentences. Just the memory of what she had seen-

“Well?” he said, after a few seconds of silence, and she closed her eyes, trying to push those images away.

She licked her lips, unsure of how to explain. Finally, she said, “I think you should see for yourself.”

“You’re starting to worry me, love. Just tell me what this is about.”

“Please, Caleb, just…just watch it.”

He stared at her for a few moments, searching her eyes for a sign of what was going on. Then he squeezed her hand and let go, reaching for his wand and summoning his Pensieve.

He poured the memory inside and looked up at her again for a second, as if waiting for some kind of reassurance, before finally touching the smoky surface. She didn’t need to watch those memories again; once had been enough.

It took Caleb almost half an hour before he was ready to pull away from the Pensieve, and when he sat back again she noticed his eyes were slightly glazed over, his face pale. He looked as shocked at what he had seen as she was sure she had.

“Do you have any idea who could’ve sent this to you?” he asked after a few moments, and she could tell he was finding it hard to focus after what he had seen.

“No,” was all she managed to reply. She knew what he had seen, and she had to blink back the tears that quickly welled in her eyes as she tried to focus on what really mattered now.

“I…” He took a deep breath, and then started over in a soft voice. “We don’t even know if those memories are real.”

“They are, Caleb,” she whispered. “No one meddled with them, we would’ve seen it.”

“But they…the most recent ones have to be at least three years old. Since the end of the war no one…” He trailed off.

She had seen horrible things in her life, she had seen more pain, more death and suffering than any person ever should, but still this…Watching those witches and wizards being tortured by Death Eaters, hearing them scream and cry, begging their captors to stop, even when they knew they wouldn’t…it was too much.

Knowing it was only a memory didn’t help, either; it only made her feel more impotent, forced to stand there and watch it all happen without being able to do anything to help, to make their pain stop. To silence their screams.

“Was there any other message?” Caleb asked, and she gave him the small piece of parchment they’d left. “Why would they send you this?”

Her eyes wandered to the Pensieve, as if it would suddenly give her an answer. “I have no idea, but there has to be a reason.”

“You’re not an easy person to find, and it would be nearly impossible to follow you without you noticing. Whoever sent you this, they went through great efforts to do it. I doubt anyone would do something like that just to mess with your head.”

“I’ve been thinking about it since I first saw the memories. They said they would contact me again soon. What could they want from me?”

“I have no idea,” he said, absently touching his wand to the Pensieve and pouring the memory back into the glass phial. “I couldn’t see many details in the memory, the Death Eaters were wearing masks, and the others…it was too dark to make out any faces, and the different memories were moving through too fast.”

She took the phial, put it back inside the box and buried it into her pocket, as far as it could go. “I tried to slow them down, and to increase the light, but it didn’t work.”

“Yes, I couldn’t do that, either.”

“Do you think they’re…do you think they still have them?” she asked, not sure what answer she would rather get.

“I have no idea, but why would they send this to you if they didn’t?”

“I thought we’d put virtually every Death Eater in Azkaban, but whoever sent me this…I don’t think this was done by one person alone. What if they-”

Caleb reached forward again, taking her hand again and squeezing it reassuringly. “It’s all right, you don’t have to worry,” he whispered. “We’ll figure this out.”

She suddenly felt like a child again, so afraid, so vulnerable, so helpless. She’d done everything she could to be strong, had worked hard to leave that silly child she’d once been behind and be old beyond her age, do what had to be done. Now some bastards were making it all crumble down with just a memory.

She took a deep breath, pushed all emotions out of her mind, and focused solely on the facts. “Those memories came from someone who was there while they were being tortured.”

“I doubt there’s a way to know who from just the memories, all the Death Eaters were wearing masks. And those memories could come from more than one person,” Caleb said.

“Either way, it’s clear that they wanted me to know they had taken prisoners over the years, but they didn’t let us see who they had.”

“Everyone I saw was wearing the Order’s robes. They could have put them on other prisoners, but it wouldn’t make much sense.”

“No, you’re right. They wanted us to know they had people from the Order. Perhaps by not showing us their faces they are trying to fool us into believing they have more prisoners than they really do? But still, they only sent these memories, there was no other message, no demands.”

“They did say they would contact you again,” he said, and she nodded.

No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t make sense of what had happened, of what they had sent her. If they wanted something from her, why didn’t they make any demands? And if they didn’t, then why send those memories at all? It seemed to be a lot of hard work, getting them to her, for the sole purpose of just messing with her head.

“Perhaps they want us to wonder, and to talk to the rest of the Order before they tell us what they want,” Caleb said, after a few moments of silence.

“Unless that is what they really want,” she suddenly said, and saw him frown in confusion. “It’s been years since all the surviving Order members have met. What if they’re just using this to make us contact everyone, and then they attack us?”

“I guess that’s a possibility, but I doubt it’s what they’re planning.”

“Why?”

“You haven’t read the files Thompson gave you. If you had, you’d understand. All the victims were part of the Order during the second war.”

“They’re all Order members? Why didn’t he say so? Everyone knows I was with the Order.”

“Thompson doesn’t know,” Caleb explained. “You know we kept the identities of many members a secret during and after the war, Hermione. In fact, he doesn’t know I was part of the Order, either.”

“Then why didn’t you tell him?”

“Because it’s not relevant, not to him. Knowing the connection between the victims won’t change the fact that the healers can’t figure out how to help them. That’s why I told him to contact you. And that’s also why I don’t think they want to get us together to kill us; if they did, they wouldn’t have started those attacks, they had to know we would see the connection.”

“So not only did they find out where I’d be and managed to deliver the memory without leaving any tracks, they also attacked people only another member would know were once part of the Order,” she said, and he nodded. “Then what could they want?”

“I don’t know, but I’m not sure we should contact the other members until we know more.”

“We should at least warn them about the attacks.”

“I did. I sent them a message this morning, as soon as Thompson left my office.”

She was about to ask him why he hadn’t contacted her, too, when she heard the door behind her open.

“What is it, Lorraine?” Caleb asked with a frown, quickly letting go of her hand.

As she turned around to look, Lorraine’s gaze met hers. Her eyes looked slightly glazed over.

“You’re Hermione Granger,” the witch said in a flat tone. “I have to deliver a package to you.”

Hermione was out of her seat before the last word had left the witch’s lips. She ran past her and out of the office, performing every tracking spell she could think of. There was no sign of anyone but Lorraine having entered the outer room in the last half hour. If they had entered before then, there was no way to track them down.

“Hermione, what’s going on?” she heard Caleb ask from behind her, and when she turned around she saw he had his wand out, too.

She walked past him without a word, back into the office. It didn’t seem Lorraine had moved an inch since she’d left.

“Who sent you here?”

“You’re Hermione Granger, I have to deliver a package to you,” the witch repeated, as if she hadn’t heard her question. Hermione watched her reach inside her pocket, and knew what she was going to pull out before she even saw it.

“What’s going on?”

“They left another message,” she told Caleb as Lorraine pulled a small box from her pocket, identical to the one they’d left for her at St Mungo’s.

She saw Caleb move closer, and reached out to stop him just before he could summon the box to him. “Don’t,” she said. “The moment I summoned the box from the other wizard this morning it seemed as if he’d come out of a trance. We have to see if delivering the box is what triggers the Memory Charm; if it does, then by searching the memories without taking the box from her we might be able to see who gave it to her.”

“You really think they’d leave the memories intact until the box was delivered?”

“Not really, but it’s worth a try. They could’ve wanted to minimize the danger; why perform two Memory Charms when they could do only one?”

Caleb took a step back to give her some room, but she shook her head. “You’re better at Memory Charms than I am. If there’s still something useful in her head, you’re more likely to find it.”

“Are you sure?” he asked, and she nodded, managing a small smile.

She watched him aim his wand at Lorraine, and then he started muttering the words to different Memory Charms, going from the basic ones to the more complex, his expression darkening as the minutes ticked by.

Lorraine’s face remained calm, empty, her eyes still glazed over, but as the power of Caleb’s magic grew stronger, small beads of sweat started forming on her forehead. Soon colour began draining from her face, and her lips turned blue, as if she were rapidly freezing. With the last spell her eyes widened and she fell backwards, not even trying to break the fall with her arms.

Caleb stumbled slightly and lowered his wand. Only then did she notice he looked every bit as pale as Lorraine did. His knees suddenly gave way, and he fell forward. She barely managed to grab him before he hit the ground face-first, keeping him on his knees as she reached for the wand she'd just dropped and started casting energizing spells on him. She waited until she was sure he was strong enough before moving on to Lorraine, crawling closer to her and going through the same spells all over again.

“What happened?” she asked Caleb as she tried to revive the witch. She'd seen Memory Charms performed more times than she cared to count, she'd cast them herself dozens of times, and never had she seen them affect anyone this strongly.

“You were right,” he said, his voice almost a rasp. “They hadn't erased the memories yet.”

She watched him slowly slide closer to the wall, resting his back against it, then tilt his head to the side so he could look at her. “Did you see anything useful?” she asked, touching Lorraine’s cheek and noticing how cold her skin felt. She hoped it had been worth it.

“My attempt to see the memories triggered the Memory Charm. It seemed to go from the most recent ones to the older, so I tried to go faster than the charm did, but the more power I put into my charms the faster theirs went. It took me a few moments to notice they had set another spell, one meant to attack whoever tried to break into Lorraine’s mind.”

“That’s why she fainted?” she asked, and he nodded, then cringed at the movement and rested his head back against the wall, closing his eyes for a few seconds.

“The more power I put into the Memory Charm, the stronger their spell got. If I’d gone any longer, it probably would’ve killed us both.”

Hermione looked down at Lorraine again. She still looked pale, and her skin was still cold, but her breathing and pulse were strong. “Will she be all right?”

“I think so, but we should still get a healer to see her, just in case. I didn’t use any magic that would hurt her, but there’s no way to know how the other spells affected her.”

With a small nod, she summoned a quill from his desk, turned it into a Portkey and sent Lorraine to the infirmary. Once the witch was gone, Hermione leaned closer to Caleb, reaching out to touch his face. “You’re cold. Perhaps we should take you to a healer, as well.”

He laughed at her words, then waved his hand dismissively. “I’m all right, just give me a few minutes to recover. It might not show, but I’m not as young as I used to be.”

She rolled her eyes at his comment, and he laughed again. He was only seven years older than her, the second youngest Minister for Magic in England’s recent history; he just loved complaining.

Suddenly his face grew serious, and she followed his gaze to the small box Lorraine had been holding. It was lying open on the floor, and another glass phial had rolled out of it.

“Another memory,” she said as she reached for it.

“So it seems,” Caleb said, summoning the Pensieve to him and then patting the floor beside him, waiting for her to sit next to him before taking the phial from her hand and pouring it into the basin.