A/N: Sing sorrow or sing joy,

But keep your head up little boy,

You are the future, a true scout.

Don't talk, just be about.

Keep your eyes set on the mountain,

For when you climb you'll be alone.

Then you'll reach the youthful fountain,

And journey into the unknown.

Reset

Chapter 3: Reset Our Memories

Fleur had apparently lost all recollection on how to care for the injured. She was no medic. She knew nothing of medical magic, much less things fairly common. RICE? That was a food item. Not an acronym for rest, ice, compression, and elevation. All Fleur knew how to do is cook, which was sufficient for Hermione until she began to notice she was oozing out of her torso bandages. The patch of questionably colored fluid had been growing more unbearable day-by-day, Hermione complaining at Fleur to change it, each day getting rejected. Well today, Hermione would not hear of it.

"Fleur! Please, I implore you! Change my damned bandages! I'd hate to die from something as preventable as an icky bandage!"

"Non. You change it." Fleur whined from her resting place on her brown suede couch.

"I know you see me rendered immobile!" Hermione growled from the opposing couch where she had been glued since yesterday. "Change me!"

"Non."

"Change. Me."

"Non."

"Change me, damn you!"

"Non!" Hermione raised her voice at Fleur, angry.

"Did you forget how to care for people? You nursed me back to health so well at the Shell Cottage! Where's Fleur when you need her?" Fleur sat up quickly and marched over to Hermione, her cheeks flushed hot in anger.

"Look, I am not this person you keep on describing. I am Fleur Delacour, one-fourth veela, graduate from Beauxbatons—"Fleur was interrupted.

"No, no, no. Wrong, wrong, wrong! You came to Hogwarts for the Triwizard Tournament and there, there we saw you lose! No wonder you're so bloody useless!" Hermione's eyebrows knit immediately into confusion following her outburst. Why in the Hell had she said something so insensitive… Again? Fleur's eyes twitched and watered, her jaw tight and angry. Her blue eyes were smoking and burning, something like heated flames; attractive, oddly, to the bedridden Hermione.

"I am not USELESS!" Fleur's voice had raised in pitch and volume, wavering dangerously. "I will change your damned bandages!" Fleur got up, and ripped at Hermione's tight and damp wraps. Hermione cried out in pain as Fleur ripped all the cloth off, revealing the oozing yellowish wound underneath. She barely batted an eye at it, retrieving more cloth and raising Hermione slightly to wrap the cloth around her torso quickly, albeit messily. Fleur huffed at the mediocre job, and to Hermione's surprise, tapped the bandages, muttering ferula under her breath so the bandages would wrap up neatly. Hermione's widened.

Had Fleur cast a healing spell? The witch had acted as if healing magic was foreign to her over the last past week that Hermione had brought it up. Surely, such magic had to be learned in school. Hermione had remembered this spell being cast sometime when Ron had broken his leg, but she was sure the spell summoned a splint with it. How would Fleur know such magic?

"Fleur, where did you learn healing magic?" Fleur huffed at Hermione looking away.

"I don't know… I picked it up somewhere. What does it matter? You are bandaged. You're welcome, 'Ermione." Fleur sounded miffed. Hermione, however, was not put off the case.

"If you know healing magic, why didn't you heal the scars on your arms?" Hermione intoned.

Fleur's eyes glossed over strangely to Hermione. "Scars?" Hermione scoffed.

"Yes, scars. The ones I touched yesterday. Y'know, you freaked out and yelled something about Bill." Hermione said exasperated.

"Bill…" Fleur's eyes widened and she looked like she was trying to remember something distant from her mind. "So familiar, non?" Hermione had to prevent herself from moving her arms to slap herself on the forehead. Blondes were vapid but jeez.

"Your husband. God, why don't you remember anything?" Hermione asked bewildered. She added slowly after some silence passed, "What did he do to you?"

Fleur kept shaking her head, her eyes moving rapidly, her arms rubbing up and down her soldiers fretfully. "Husband…"

Hermione then had a revelation. When she had went to put her parents under the charm to falsify their memories for their protection, initially she had forgotten she had cast the charm in the first place. She had been talking to them, bringing up things they really have ought to remember as loving parents, but the two acted strangely. They had begun shaking their heads, sweating, and looking as if they were trying to remember something in a far off dream. They had kept repeating her name as if she were familiar too when she had introduced herself. Upon lifting the charm, her parents were shaken being that they remembered both the lie of memories and the truth. Completely reversing the charm took hard work, as Hermione spent days with them attempting to sort truth from lie.

Fleur was behaving just as if someone had tampered with her memories. But oddly, there was memories added… and taken away.

Obliviate. That was the incantation used to add and take away. But why… why would someone do that to Fleur? What in the bloody Hell happened?

Hermione, deciding that she wanted to find out for herself, grabbed her wand from the side of her bed and said, "Obliviate."

Fleur's memories scattered across her vision, memories of Hogwarts missing and significantly more snapshots of Fleur banking without Bill there. There was no trace of Bill whatsoever. Hermione reached out to touch this timeline of memories and before she could, she was pushed, physically and mentally, away from Fleur.

Hermione cried out as she was tossed onto the floor. She looked up to see a bloody Fleur-like creature roaring at her.

It was as if Fleur had sprouted painful, needle-like feathers from her face and hands, and her bones had contorted into a monstrous creature. Her shoulder blades cracked and extended, bloodied flesh tearing to make way for the creature that had yet to emerge. Her face was sharpened, blood streaming from her rabid eyes, her facial muscles morphing to a distinctly beak-like shape. The most alarming thing was her back and talons, pushing and breaking through muscle like a train. Blood spurted onto the floor while spinal bones readjusted with a sickening crack. Her fingernails bled excessively as they lengthened, coming to a point. Fleur was screeching now, in pain, blood flowing and drying just as quickly all over her body.

Hermione was alarmed, scrambling off the floor, allowing the adrenaline to mute the pain from her body. Hermione grabbed her wand as she hobbled away from Fleur. Fleur roared at her attempted escape and dug her clawed hand into Hermione's leg. Hermione screamed in pain as Fleur dragged Hermione closer to her by her impaled leg.

Hermione fumbled with her wand, reeling in pain, finally working up the words to say, "Everte Statum!" Fleur was knocked back into the kitchen, knocking over glassware onto the floor. Hermione breathed haggardly as she whispered, "Expecto Patronum" and sent her otter patronus to find Malfoy as quickly as possible. She watched as Fleur twitched from under the glassware dangerously and she prayed her patronus would hurry.

Hermione sighed, feeling her consciousness slip. She closed her eyes to the sound of shattered glass being crushed and a low growl in the background.