Meddling with Memory

“Death Eaters,” a folder was smacked down onto the desk of Hugo Weasley unceremoniously, as though he had nothing better to be doing with his time, was twiddling his thumbs, and needed direction. The redhead cleared his throat and looked up, arching an eyebrow at one of the senior law enforcement officers. The man had the grace to look a little bit embarrassed, seemingly seeing the Hermione Granger in the Weasley man’s glare. He, too, cleared his throat and he glanced down at his overly shiny shoes before endeavouring to go on and properly explain himself.

“A Muggle described men in black robes with masks on, carrying sticks, in her village. Fifteen people died.” Hugo sat back in his chair, shock writing itself across his features. “That, Weasley, smacks as Death Eaters. We retrieved her memories before one of your lot,” he shivered a little, unable to imagine bearing such a profession, “erased them. We want you and one of the Aurors to review the evidence and move from there.”

“The Death Eaters have been quiet for months,” Hugo pointed out, taking the folder and rising from his chair. “Why on earth would they start again now?”

“Beats me,” the other man replied with a non-committal shrug that made Hugo narrow his eyes.

“Sorry, what was your job description again, Fletcher?” Hugo asked with an airy snide-ness.

The man huffed and sidled away, slamming a flask of silvery memories down on the desk before he disappeared out of the office. Hugo smirked to himself and shook his head, his hands twinkling around the top of the flask. He lifted it up into the air and watched as the memories sloshed inside. Then, he shook his head and deserted the obliviation office, heading upstairs, instead, to the Auror Office where he asked after who was on the case.

“Not sure, love,” a distracted witch, in the middle of reading witch weekly, muttered.

“Well, love,” Hugo returned, impatiently. “Bloody well find out who is on this case. Now.”

She looked up, offended. Hugo didn’t shift. He stood his ground. They stared at each other for a few moments but it was she who relented and huffed, getting up to go and find a senior auror to tell her. She returned after around five minutes, complaining of having to track him down. Hugo thought that would be the last of her worries today but ignored her, looking pointedly at the woman, knowing that she had something to tell him.

“Louis Weasley,” she replied, watching as a grin stroked across Hugo’s face. “What’s so funny?”

“See you later, lass,” Hugo called over his shoulder before going to the auror offices.

He knew where Hugo’s was and he thought the aurors were particularly lucky given that they all had closed in offices. It didn’t take him long at all to find Louis’ and he rapped his knuckles on the door before opening it up, sticking his red head through the gap between the door and the frame, covering over his eyes playfully as he called out:

“Please don’t be shagging anyone in here, I don’t want to see your pale, freckled arse, Louis!”

He couldn't believe this was happening. Louis exhaled with his head buried in his arms.

He is helping them, Death Eaters. Covering evidences so no one can connect them with him. Helping murderers, his father would be devastated if he only knew. No, not only Bill, but whole his family. His lips tighten when he remembered the date of upcoming family meeting. Going on that silly thing like dozens of times before was something he couldn't picture now. Sitting there and chatting knowing that he betrayed them. Failed to protect innocent muggles and destroyed the evidences just to save his ass. Betrayal was much easier when he didn't need to see them in person.

"This won't help me." His voice echoed in the empty room returning to him drawn. With a wand in his hand, he moved hair from his eyes and reopened the folder.

The folder contained only basic information so he didn't need to fight hard to keep them a secret. He assumed that the officer who was on the field didn't do his duty properly. If the circumstances were different he would think about filing a complaint, after all, aurors weren't all-powerful, they needed evidences. Some basic place to start.

Location of the murders: England. Oh they must be kidding. If he wasn't where all that happened it would be very tricky to try to find something with such a superficial information. Fifteen people dead? Louis believed that the number was lesser. It wasn't that crowded, and he tried to reduce the number by dazing people, not killing them. The others were that occupied and morbidly empathetic so they didn't notice that the strip of light that was coming from his wand wasn't green like the rest of them. Offenders: unknown, assuming to be members of Death Eaters.

He could name all of them. Write down how many of them were there. Hell, he could probably find their addresses if he wanted to, and they would be caught till midnight. As well as him. Maybe?... No, that is not an option. Don't even think about that. Louis leaned back in his chair, his eyes immediately finding the old clock that was left by the previous owner of the office. It's too early to leave, thought staying here and rereading the file again was the last on the list of things he would like to do. When he only remind himself he volunteered for this case, practically begged his boss for this one. And they gave it to him, thought one or two older, more experienced aurors were free. It was odd and left him surprised, but he couldn't afford himself to lose this case, not when his head depends on it.

Knocking on the door startled him, leaving him just enough time to hurriedly close the folder before Hugo's head peered into the room. Sending one last glance to the desk, to confirm that nothing was out of the folder, he noticed that in his rushing to close all that he disrupted the order on the table. For Bill's son Louis had too much similarities with Percy.

"As charming as always." His lips fluttered with a hint of smile. "And just for the record - my arse is perfect. You're just jealous, admit it."

“Oh, yeah,” Hugo returned sarcastically, rolling his eyes. “Can’t you just feel the jealousy rolling off of me? The regret! It’s intolerable!” He brought the back of his hand dramatically to his forehead and chuckled before stepping fully inside, letting the door shut behind him. He dropped his hands down to his sides and approached the desk, dropping himself down in the chair opposite his cousin who he smiled at before handing over the folder he’d been given.

“Seems like we’re partners, mate,” he spoke seriously now. “I am unconvinced by what they’ve all been saying, though. I don’t think these are Death Eaters. I just don’t see why they’d want anything to do with something as benign and innocuous as this village. They might be sympathisers but I really don’t think they’d be interested. It seems too easy and too dull. I mean, if I was a Death Eater, I wouldn’t have.”

Hugo shrugged expressively and rolled his eyes. He reached into his inner robes’ pocket and took out the vial of memories he’d been given. He wiggled his brows with a half-smile and looked around in search of a pensieve. This would give them what they wanted to know. Reviewing the evidence was the only way, now, to work out what happened exactly. He took a breath and set the vial down on the desk before crossing one leg over the other.

“Haven’t seen you for ages,” Hugo pointed out fairly. “How’ve you been? Are you going to grandma Molly's over the weekend? She’s cooking up a storm, I’ve heard.”

Louis chuckled shaking his head. "Yeah, you'll soon reach the point when that becomes pathetic." Ignoring his sarcasm he pushed his chair back from the table stretching himself. "Maybe you need some help, you know, professional?" He added, trying to keep a serious face expression. "Just don't harm yourself, it's not the solution." Quoting an article about self-help from this week's newspapers probably wasn't the best option if he doesn't want to that Hugo throw something on him but he couldn't help himself. After all, he could read that all by himself if he read Witch Weekly, like Louis did yesterday when there wasn't anything else to do. He couldn't say that was completely useless experience, now he knows how to paint his nails with spell, if he ever get the urge to do it, in which he doubted.

"No, I'm not doing your homework again. You're old enough to do it by yourself no-." He stopped seeing cousin's serious face and took the folder from him. At the moment he opened it he realized it's the same as one they gave him earlier. However they didn't tell him he has a partner, his lips tightened as he scanned across the page; if he could choose a partner, Hugo would be the last person he chose. Not because he had anything against his cousin, well, not this one, but because they might find something, and hiding the truth was much easier task when your partner doesn't know you well. "I don't think they did it either." He added not looking in Hugo. Technically he said the truth, he didn't think they did that, he knew they did that, it wasn't lying, just telling half-truth, sort of.

"Only if there's pudding. Chocolate one." He didn't want to see his whole family, if he went there someone would notice he's acting different, and he surely didn't want to see pity in their eyes when someone ask him why he didn't come with Corrine.

Louis looked up as Hugo put the vial on the table. He really had no luck, that silvery threads could keep the track of him. It was just a possibility but he didn't want to risk of being discovered. "I'll find the bowl." He stood up, crossed the office and opened the cabinet trying to stop the papers that started falling out while his brain tried to find a way to escape. Interesting how you block out when you need to think the most. He pulled the bowl, that 'accidentally' slipped through his fingers and fell on the floor, breaking in small pieces. "Oops."

Sometimes, Hugo felt as though his cousins doubted his cleverness. Their grandmother in particular was a hard one to convince, sure that Hugo was exactly like her son as opposed to her daughter-in-law. More than once, Hugo wanted to point out grumblingly that he was an Obliviator for a reason and they didn’t just pop out of the air and graduates didn’t just fall into jobs like this – every time he looked as though that rebuttal was coming, though, his parents and sometimes his sister would step in to stop him landing himself in trouble. He didn’t want to bicker but he certainly wasn’t what they all thought he was. He had a feeling Louis sometimes had the same problem.

“Too late for me on the professional help front,” Hugo replied airily, shoving his hands into the pockets of his robes. He moved to lean against the desk as Louis got up and Hugo drew his fingers through his hair, trying to sort it out in his head. “I just don’t get why it’d be Death Eaters, d’you know what I mean? It’s not very interesting and it doesn’t send a message. It ruins peoples’ lives but other than that we’re inconvenienced and in a few years life is back to normal again. I can’t see the long game here. It feels as though they’re up to something else but they can’t quite decide what that is. Do the Aurors have someone on the inside anymore, do we know?”

Hugo pushed himself up to sit on the desk and his eyes widened as the pensieve smashed. He’d never taken his cousin for a butter fingers. He smirked and took out his wand, waving it and repairing the pieces. With an extra flick he brought it over and sat it on the desk beside him. Hugo poked his wand back into his pocket and he chuckled at Louis, shaking his head in mock-reproach, teasing: “I’m the one in need of professional help, am I?” He smirked again and pushed off of the desk before looking down at the pensieve, trying to discern whether it was safe to use. It didn’t look particularly solid. In fact, it didn’t look safe.

“We can use mine,” Hugo decided, letting the magic disappear from the bowl before vanishing it entirely. “Unless you’d rather wait? We could go and survey the village first.”

Louis bit his lip to stop himself of saying that it's never too late, maybe it's enough mocking his cousin, at least for now. They had a job to do, and although he'll try, he knew Hugo well enough to know he unfortunately won't give up before the job is done. "Yes, this is odd. Death Eaters used to do that in the past, but they stopped randomly hurting group of muggles after the Voldemort died. I can't even think about the reason. There was nothing important in that village, nothing that would led them there. Just a place as every other." He shrugged looking somewhere above Hugo's shoulder. Lying was never easy, but since Louis acted weird ever since Corrine disappeared he doubted Hugo will find his obvious impossibility to look into his eyes any stranger than usual.

A smile appeared int he corners of his mouth but he covered them with a hand. At the moment, Louis wanted to raise up from his chair, bypass, hell even jump over the table and kiss his cousin for giving him an excellent idea. "I'm not sure if any auror is their member, but if there's one his identity would be highly protected so I wouldn't know." In his mind he was jumping from joy cause Hugo gave him an awesome way out of it, if the other man founds out he was there when it happened, he could say he's the person aurors have in enemy forces. Hugo might be hurt thinking Louis doesn't trust him enough to say that, but at the end he would get over that.

"Well, we can go together, maybe go to the counseling for couples?" He blew a kiss in his direction. "We could even pass for a married couple, having the same surname and all that." He grinned and returned to the table. Looking down at the pensieve he frowned seeing it looks just like it looked before he broke it, thought he rarely used it, so he couldn't say for sure. It was Hugo's job to play with memories, not his. "I'm up for the village. If there are some evidences they might disappear till we're done with this, and since the vial will be here later, and the evidences might not, we can't take the risk. We doesn't have enough evidences." Louis doubted they'll find anything, but he didn't want to find anything at the first place, so he was just fine with that; and well, they'll spend a few hours walking all over the place, maybe when they're done Hugo will be too much exhausted to continue working in the office. Even since it was lousy chance, it's worth enough to try.