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Mary began to cry as she held the wand to her temple, splinters digging into the skin as her hand trembled.
She had come this far. She could do this final step. She could do this.
“Obliv-”
–
“Yes, coming! Just grabbing the last box!”
Mary trudged up the stairs, rugged from dragging boxes upon boxes into the moving truck waiting below. It had been a while since she had moved last; she struggled to remember the last time, but she knew it was a major one.
Walking into the attic, dusty and webbed in its unused state, she crawled her way to the far corner where a small box sat, unassuming in its simpleness. Its walls were damp and moulded - it had been here for a while. She reached for the lid, curious to see whatever trinkets were inside. Perhaps it was some old family heirlooms she had forgotten about, or musty old kids toys she could get a laugh out of.
Peeking inside, there was only a stack of picture frames, some looking older than others but all smothered with a thin layer of dust. Carefully picking up the first in the stack, Mary blew softly to dispel the dust, seeing nothing but a background. She was sure that this photo should have people - some part of her knew that it must have once, but it was as if the subjects had been erased and forgotten. She stared for a moment more at the willow tree, and the indent in the long grass where two children must have been laying, leaves fluttering all around them. So it was a wizard's photo - she wondered whose.
–
Lily giggled as she pressed the photo into Mary’s hands.
“Don’t you think we look so stupid? The wind blew my hair into my face!”
–
Pushing past the strange feelings that arose, she picked up the second. It was animals playing in the snow at sunset - for whatever reason, a dog was chasing a deer, which was chasing a rat, which was chasing a blurred spot in the photo above footprints in the snow. Mary stared closer at the photo, and thought she recognised the archaic building swaying in the background as snowflakes fell in the foreground, lit by the emerging moonlight.
–
“Sirius, stop barking! You’ll get us caught!” Mary giggled from where she stood to the side with Lily.
–
The next was of a quidditch field, the stands filled to the brim with Hogwarts students as a match between Hufflepuff and Slytherin flew through centre field. One of the Slytherin brooms was empty, flying around in a manner that could only be a Seeker’s, but Mary supposed the player must have fallen off.
–
“Hey! Sirius, stop moping. Look! Regulus is so close to the snitch!”
Mary, James, and Lily cheered loudly in Sirius’ ear to spite him when Slytherin won the match.
–
The next was of a dorm room - Gryffindor’s, she assumed, if the warm coloured clothes littered across the floor were any indication. There were snacks arranged in a circle along with a pack of cards being bet on, but the money appeared to be thrown simply by the air. There was one figure in the background of the photo, but Mary couldn’t figure out who it was. For some reason, she felt a pang of bittersweet reminiscence as she stared at the looped photo, though she didn’t remember it at all.
–
“Pah! You’re all betting stupidly,” the girls mocked.
“Says the ones who don’t know how to do anything other than ‘go all in’,” James retorted.
–
Photo after photo, she was met with strange, censored photos, subjects blurred and hidden by objects as if the creator was terrified of them being seen. Mary felt almost disappointed - as if somewhere deep inside of her she had expected to see something, though she had no idea what these photos were. Perhaps a wizard's strange photography project that she accidentally took with her when she moved away.
There was one last photo at the bottom - this one unframed, and simply folded into four quadrants. These faces weren’t blurred - at the front was a pretty redhead girl, whose name was on the tip of Mary’s tongue. She felt like she knew this girl - no, she knew that she knew this girl. Yet she didn’t.
There were others in the photo, but only a few stood out to her. Alongside the pigtailed redhead was a pretty boy, tall and thin with wiry glasses, hair untidy and a mischievous grin. On his left was a man with shaggy hair, his stance gaunt. Behind them was a ratty blond boy, and behind him was another cute couple, and behind them was what looked like an emo Slytherin. Standing in the corner, as if uninvited, or invited but unwilling, was a darker man with black hair and robes, staring not at the camera but at the redhead.
Mary felt like she knew these people. No, something inside her screamed, telling her that she shouldn’t remember, couldn’t remember, needed to remember. She didn’t pay it any attention. What she paid attention to was the last main figure in the photo.
Her.
Standing right there. Right there next to the redhead, arm slung around her as if they were the bestest friends in the world. She never remembered having a friend like that. She knew she would remember, surely she would remember. That was her, why couldn’t she remember, this was clearly her past-
She flipped the photo over in frustration, and as the paper fluttered she saw the inked writing on the back.
to remember what you forgot
And somewhere, in the back of her mind, a spark of memory flickered.