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“-. ??? .-“
The room had a concave floor that rose up into one round, edgeless wall outwards and upward so high that it tapered off in hazy darkness. But barely a spot of it could be seen past the bright, whitish silver light all around him, a cloud-like wind made solid, like light turned liquid moving ceaselessly. There was something in his hand. Raising it, he saw an unassuming wand made of unadorned elder wood with a handle formed of two conjoined spheres. The white mist tangled like gossamer at its passage. Curious, he waved a hand in front of himself. The effects were the same. Trying to catch the strands made them disperse like smoke. Doing the same with his wand tugged on his brain, somehow. Cradling his head, it felt bizarrely empty and light, though he didn’t know why.
He looked around. There was food and drink on a table to the right. There was a stone vault with a sign on the door designating it as a sanitary. Turning his head made him feel as if his skull was dragging along a snare built straight through his brain. The cloud-like light crimped at his movement as if tugged upon, making his hair and long beard seem as if they broke off into vapour.
The light is the snare, the man deduced. It’s rooted in my head. Or it came out of my head. Is coming out…
The man noted mildly that he had a basic concept of everything around him even though he lacked any manner of memory. How very curious.
For lack of a better idea and because he felt slightly peckish, he made for the table.
He finally realised just what the gossamer mist was when it didn’t move with him and his head overlapped the strands immediately in front of him.
Oh, the man thought as his surroundings changed around him and he felt like he should be tumbling forward instead of just stepping up to the sight of a young girl running at three wizards with wands drawn.
Now what could possibly be going on? Also, why was this going on?
Actually, who was he for this to be happening to him?
“-. Sirius Orion Black, Islington, London .-“
OLDEST WIZARD IS 756!
by Uno Highest
Barry Wee Willie Winkle celebrates his 756th birthday in style today, and is determined to set the record that he tried and failed to achieve last year. This year’s party promises to be an even more extravagant affair, with invitations sent to all the wizards and witches he has ever known, plus one! Sources close to the matter are confident in the intended recipient of the last and foremost invitation. Will Harry Potter make an appearance? We will brave the 30 million-long guest list (plus one!) to answer that very question tonight!
The Daily Prophet had become an even slimier rag than before, if they dared use his Godson’s name like this, especially so soon after their positively saccharine arse-licking at the end of February. Unless, of course, this was a ploy by the Ministry to both attract and distract from this eternal scam, while the DMLE worked to finally expose the culprit behind this blurb appearing in some form on the front page of the paper every year on the same day. A culprit that surely wasn’t Nicolas Flamel. He didn’t seem the sort, even before he had Harry to exploit like this. Also, this scam predated his birth by almost a hundred years.
Sirius Black tossed the paper on the table in disgust and his eyes fell on the single newspaper clipping in that entire dreary house that was framed. Well, ever since he destroyed all the ones his not-at-all-dear mother had put up all over the house.
HARRY POTTER, THE SECOND COMING OF MERLIN, OR BRITAIN’S HUNTER KING REBORN?
By R. ALMEIDUS
Sirius didn’t even have to read it anymore, he knew it by heart. It had done a lot to let him keep his wits about him while the law slogged its way to his trial. While hearing of Harry being put in danger made him want to strangle everyone involved in his case, the news only ever reached him after the fact, so Sirius was able to keep a hold of himself. With some help from the fallout from that and everything else, all of which the Prophet kindly chronicled for him as well. Not with the usual slant either, even the press was confused about whose arse to kiss this time. Complicit or Ignorant: The Minister’s Dubious Job Record; Cornelius Fudge and the Fudged Obliviates: Malice or Just Foolishness? Did Fudge Fudge Facts by Obliviating Valuable Witnesses before the Aurors Could Take Statements?
Now that he was a free man with a clean bill of health, Sirius was looking forward to meeting Harry again. Even if he wasn’t looking forward to how that reunion would ultimately end. At the risk of his godson feeling betrayed to the point of not wanting to have anything to do with his own Godfather, Sirius Black wasn’t any more inclined to let Harry stay in Hogwarts than Flamel was.
Before that, though, he had the matter of claim to discuss with his benefactor.
“The Alchemist’s Outhouse!” He stepped through the Floo and came out the other side into a rundown shed whose only purpose was to house the Floo and whatever wards there were to judge newcomers. Flamel hadn’t given him details when he shared the Secret. Exiting to the sight of a rundown forest cottage, he looked around for the overgrown cobble path. “He said fifth stone after the second gap in the kerb on the left.” It took several tries – he hadn’t spotted the right gap because of the dandelions – but eventually he found the right portkey stone. Now for the password. “Mistletoe killed the sun and mistletoe renewed the sun that ever walks in time, bright, mighty and deathless.”
The hook around his navel yanked him vaguely northeast.
He landed just outside a pair of rusty, vine-covered gates. When he passed through them, they turned into a tall, pristine gateway of a sprawling property with a homestead far atop the central hill, next to a donjon without the adjoining castle. Sirius made for it, but Flamel’s owl showed up before the minute was out and flew around him in a bid to follow.
He found the alchemist behind the second hill, talking to burial mounds. “Alchemist!” He called dramatically as he always did when he needed to pretend he wasn’t stressed. “I have come to – alright, what are you doing?”
"Informing my descendants that they might have a visitor soon. Wouldn't do to have them torment little Harry too badly when he's sitting out."
Right. Sirius carefully didn’t ask. He’d probably get derailed before he actually got to what he came here for. “Whatever, that’s not what I came here for.”
“No indeed.”
“I have just one question before I decide.” Which is to say, decide whether they would collaborate or fight over Harry.
“Go ahead.”
“What are you even doing here?” Sirius demanded, but he should probably be more specific. “I don’t mean right here right this moment, I mean in general. Why did you move from France? To Britain of all places? We get along like cats and dogs.” It might seem like a strange thing to get hung up about, but he’d tried every other avenue to find issue with the man – he didn’t trust things too good to be true anymore – and this was the end of his rope.
“Ah.” Flamel stopped his French muttering and turned to him. His mood was… very grave. “That is a question with a very dark and simple answer.”
“Let me have it then.”
“I used to live in Vendée.”
Eh? “That tells me absolutely nothing.”
“You can find the answer in any public library. Or just ask a portrait. I’m sure your family has one dating back long enough.”
“Right,” Sirius grunted. What did ‘long enough’ even mean? Six hundred years was a long stretch to guess through. “Thanks for your lack of help.”
“Bring some quidditch hoops when you drop by next. All I have is baskets.”
“Baskets!?” But that meant there hadn’t been a single game of quidditch played on this property since early 1800s! “How do you expect Harry to live in this place!?”
“With great attention and thoughtful care. Please have your final answer ready by then as well.”
Right.
Later that day, when Sirius was back in his not-at-all-dearly-departed parents’ home, he wondered at the strange turn his life had taken, when something like that was still less annoying than dealing with Dumbledore. Also, he still wasn’t in on the secret of the Flamel property proper, despite visiting it several times now, which he grudgingly agreed was very good security.
Guess he had some reading to do now.
Sirius looked around at the old, dreary, decrepit state of Number 12 Grimmauld Place.
Maybe some housecleaning first.
”-. ??? .-”
The strands of misty light were each a memory, and he couldn’t seem to be able to hold more than one in his head at a time.
Once he figured out he could will the things away from his head, he was able to take a closer look at the runes on the walls. They were many and intricate, but he could puzzle them out with patience, and there was nothing indicating that the memories should belong to anyone specific. He was an odd mess of amnesia and knowledge he didn't know he possessed until the environment prompted it to surface. He assumed the memories were his, because he was the common denominator in all of them. But he'd yet gone through very few, and he couldn't be sure it wasn't a coincidence yet, not when the memories were experienced in third person. For all he knew, these were not even all the memories of the same person. His brain seemed to be woven into this non-weaving, but most of the memories drifted alone, disconnected, often without any context at all. Though he'd begun to notice that they tended to spontaneously bunch up and form clouds of interconnected threads that nearly looked like something, in that short moment when he emerged from the latest experience.
As he seemed unable to cast any actual magic wherever he was, though that could be due to his lack of knowledge of actual spells, he worked with what he had. This room allowed him to interact with the floating memories and little else. Some trial and error let him figure out (remember?) how to pull specific strands with his wand, so now he had some nominal control on when to delve any particular memory, even if they all looked the same from outside. The headaches he got during or after delving seemed related to how closely connected the next one was or wasn’t to the one before. Also to their length and how long a break he took between viewings.
He’d be more worried about all this, except the table got regularly restocked with new drink and food. He’d started to use it like a timekeeping device. Between the three meals intersped with sleep in the bed that always appeared whenever he needed it, he was fairly comfortable with his current ability to count the days.
Little emotion had emerged so far besides a vague sense of ennui. Something was keeping him calm. He’d have more intellectual misgivings about that if not for how confounding or outright offensive many of the memories were to his intelligence. He’d taken to experiencing and exploring each memory several times and then having a relaxing snack and even a nap after he thought all he could about them. The epiphanies that came to him in the hours after he stopped thinking about them were not entirely reassuring.
If this was supposed to be a way to absorb and process information and experience without personal bias, it was definitely working.
He was less sure about what this room was actually intended to achieve, though. The beginning of an outline of a preliminary observation was beginning to form in his mind, but contemplating it seemed least likely to cause any clouds of association to form out of the pale floating gossamer. Either that meant he was wrong, or whatever mind had been unravelled here had been weighed down by very much bias indeed.
This would all be so much easier if whoever was responsible for this had at least left him a note with explanations. He could only speculate on why that was not the case. To avoid tainting the experience?
Or perhaps the experiment.
Hopefully whoever set it up was not too adverse to unexpected results.
“-. Lucius Malfoy, Wiltshire, England .-“
> HARRY POTTER, THE SECOND COMING OF MERLIN, OR BRITAIN’S HUNTER KING REBORN?
>
> If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
>
> By R. ALMEIDUS
>
> The boy who defeated He Who Must Not Be Named may not be a normal child by any stretch of the imagination. Shocking reports have recently come to light about Harry Potter's astounding adventures and capabilities, which cast doubt on all the theories that his parents were responsible for what actually destroyed the Dark Lord that night.
>
> Potter, the Daily Prophet can categorically reveal, regularly performs advanced feats, even spells from forbidden or ancient magics. On Halloween last year, Hogwarts first-hand witnesses say, Potter not only performed necromancy to subdue a belligerent intruder at Nearly Headless Nick’s deathday party, but he also overcame the disguise magic of Peter Pettigrew is that same night and exposed him for the murderous imposter rat he is. This was immediately followed by a running battle through Hogwarts, which concluded with said Death Eater quite literally disarmed with the Sword of Gryffindor (see a summary of the ensuing Sirius Black Scandal on p.6).
>
> Potter then seemingly spent the following months investigating the matter of the heir of Slytherin, even past the point where everyone else, including Albus Dumbledore himself, dismissed the petrification on October 31 as a prank.
>
> Things, it seems, finally came to a head on Valentine’s Day, though not in any way that readers who kept up with our coverage of Potter’s disappearance might believe. Despite rumors that his vanishing meant he was the heir of Slytherin (which the double petrification immediately after seemed to support), the opposite has now turned out to be the case. Harry Potter, it seems, not only discovered the true identity of the heir of Slytherin, but defeated both it and Slytherin’s monster!
>
> This all would be amazing on its own, but the manner in which this was achieved is more remarkable than the achievement itself.
>
> “Potter can astrally project,” reveals Cedric Diggory, a Hogwarts fifth-year. “We were camping on the seventh floor, just studying while watching the latest attempt to draw Gryffindor’s Sword from the wall, when Potter’s ghost comes up riding a shining white stag, walks up and pulls the thing from the stone quick as you please. Godric Gryffindor’s portrait gave his blessing and everything, right there for all of us to see. Even helped him slay the Basilisk later, way I hear it.”
>
> “The faculty tried to hush it all up,” added Cho Chang, a Ravenclaw third year. “But it’s kind of hard when Potter goes and leads the Wild Hunt through half the school to exorcise an evil wraith that had been possessing that poor Weasley girl.”
>
> The Heir of Slytherin, it seems, was not a Hogwarts student at all, but someone using a sentient dark object to possess a student for his own nefarious aims. Ginevra Weasley is the only daughter and seventh child of Arthur Weasley, head of the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts office at the ministry of Magic. His youngest son, Ronald Weasley, is by all accounts Potter's best friend. Neither were available for comment, although their Mother told reporters to clear off or she'd set the family ghoul on them.
>
> A member of the Dark Force Defence League, who wished to remain unnamed, stated that he would regard any wizard who could walk around bodiless and lead the Wild Hunt astride the legendary White Hart “as either the second coming or inheritor to the legacy of either one or both of those legendary figures.”
>
> The White Hart is associated with Herne the Hunter, a legendary king of the Britons (see page 3) whose disappearance drove Merlin to the edge of his patience and perpetuated the downfall of the last Fairy Kingdom and the punitive reduction of the Little Folk into the House-Elves of today (p4).
>
> Albus Dumbledore has, to date, blocked all our attempts to reach out to Potter directly, but a letter delivered by owl – a majestic Snowy Owl indeed – provided the alleged name of the heir of Slytherin, one Tom Marvolo Riddle Junior. Investigating on this former alumnus are only beginning, but preliminary information already suggest a potential link with He Who Must Not Be Named (p5).
Lucius tossed the paper into the fire in disgust. Even the way the cinders danced in the flame seemed to mock him, so lively and jolly they were. “Dobby! Bring my tea to the study!” He was in too foul a mood to inflict himself on Narcissa right now. He also didn’t want to risk her soothing him too soon, he needed the anger. He needed the anger or he’d go back to fear he felt when Dumbledore revealed to him just what his Lord had entrusted him with and was now-no, no. No.
No. He wouldn’t think of that now, he couldn’t.
Unfortunately, the quiet and privacy of his study did not give him the usual feeling of control.
Curse Potter. Curse Dumbledore. Curse Weasley.
If the blood traitor hadn't shoved his Muggle Protection Act down their throats, if the muggle-loving wretch hadn't used it as a pretext to conduct raids on their homes, none of this would have happened. Lucius had been perfectly content to remain within the bounds of polite backroom skulduggery, but as always the blood traitors just couldn't leave things well enough alone. No one else would have driven a Malfoy to the last resort of putting his own son at potential risk, but Weasley had to be discredited in the Ministry, and Albus Dumbledore had to be removed from his position as Headmaster of Hogwarts. The survival of their families depended on it. The continued existence of their world depended on it. If only his Lord had actually told him what the item was, instead of just claiming it was a charmed object that Lucius wouldn't think twice about-no.
No. The Dark Lord had his reasons, and no doubt his own plan to use the… object to open the Chamber of Secrets would have been different from Lucius’ own. It certainly wouldn’t have ended with Lord Voldemort’s soul anchor destroyed, making Lucius personally liable if the Dark lord ever returned and learned that Lucius had gotten it destroyed for his personal vendetta-
His wine glass shattered on the floor, spilling wine every which way like blood as he fell to his knees in the shards. He felt lightheaded, his heart was pounding in his temples and he couldn't seem to get his lungs to pull in air.
Breathe out! He mentally screamed. Breathe out, out, out.
Barely, slowly, he managed to collect himself, using every last scrap of Occlumency to banish his newest, worst terror from his mind. When he could open his eyes without swaying, Draco’s handwriting was in front of him. It had fallen off the desk when he scattered his paperwork on the way down. Even his son’s complaints about Potter had changed in tone from annoyed to disbelieving. Fearful.
Like father like son, Lucius thought bleakly. Then he truly felt angry. And angrier still when he realized he was feeling grateful for the anger.
How did it come to this? Lucius seethed as Draco’s words mixed with the Prophet’s and Lucius’ own memory of the ghastly experience that his meeting in Dumbledore’s office on Halloween had turned into. Potter has no friends, no connections, no influence, but somehow he’s protected and favoured by forces no man can stand against and live.
Albus Dumbledore. The Wild Hunt. Godric Gryffindor from beyond the grave across a thousand years of history.
Nicolas Flamel.
What even was Flamel’s stake in all this?
Was I wrong to dismiss Potter? When Draco returned home from his first year at Hogwarts, he spoke long and loud about Potter's refusal of his offer for friendship in favour of his allegiance to the Weasleys through their youngest Ron. Lucius had been disappointed. Their hopes that Potter was another, better Voldemort had been admittedly wild, but it was still a blow to have them shattered. Did my son lie to me? He’d still discouraged Draco from seeming less than thrilled about the Potter boy, as open hostility towards him could prove potentially disadvantageous to their social standing. Now it looked like he might have been wrong to trust his son all. If even a tenth of what had come to light was true, Potter was everything but unremarkable.
That Nicolas Flamel, of all people, was dabbling in politics for the first time in his eternal life was certainly a conundrum as well, but not as large as Potter acting out in such a spectacular fashion. Out of nowhere. Normal children did not do these things. And these things did not come out of nowhere. How did Draco miss all the signs? Had Draco missed all the signs?
Was I wrong to trust my own son?
No, Draco was loyal. His wife and son were loyal and devoted to the family name.
Did I overestimate his discernment?
That… seemed much more plausible.
It didn’t make the burning weight of his mistake any easier to bear. If Lord Voldemort ever returned, Lucius life would be forfeit. Morgana only knew what would happen to Draco and Narcissa then.
Not long ago, he'd thought that seeing the Minister's career collapsing from all the revelations in Black's trial would be the biggest upheaval since the end of the war. He'd thought that playing kingmaker would be his biggest and most rewarding challenge of the decade.
He’d been a fool. The power games hadn’t just been swept clean, the board game had been flipped and smashed to pieces. That his whole life had come apart at the hands of a child was galling, but it was not the place of mortal men to argue with Old Powers.
I need to get a handle on this, Lucius thought without knowing where to even start. But I can’t do that by going ahead as normal. I need to watch my step.
When Old Powers stirred, mortals stepped lightly or got stepped on. He was not going to be stepped on.
Especially not by a child.
“-. ??? .-“
He had been here for many days. He knew that because fresh food appeared on the table at what he assumed was a rate of three times per day, with a longer break for him to take care of his bodily needs and sleep. He’d made tremendous progress in that time, though he was certain said progress was not the progress intended by whoever was behind this experiment. Which was probably himself. It seemed more and more like something he would do. He was apparently fortunate enough to have wise friends and was himself wise enough to listen when they told him he needed to take a good look at himself.
Eventually.
Unravelling his entire memory to force himself to repeatedly and neutrally examine them was a tad extreme, but he was beginning to agree that it had been necessary. He was looking forward to remembering what spells or potions he devised to make the unraveling process benign and painless, instead of it being painful and potentially mind-destroying as memory extraction typically was.
He wasn’t looking forward to everything else.
That he'd been planning for the murder of a child since said child was one year old was quite unconscionable. That it wasn't the worst thing he was actively aiding and abetting was much worse. That he was completely oblivious to the latter was a disaster rivalled only by the collective ignorance of everyone else.
Voldemort wanted purebloods to rule all others, and eventually to stop hiding and take over the world.
The wall was covered in snapshots of reports, assignments, newspapers and segments of his own experiences put to photograph. It made the entire bowl look like a detective's investigation board gradually mutated into the worst version of itself until it became one big conspiracy wall. Albus Dumbledore got the impression that his non-amnesiac self never thought much of muggle intellect. Occasionally, a detective, intelligence agent or even the odd tinfoil hat guessed the true reason behind all the strange turns of mind and action that their family, friends, local businessmen or political representatives exhibited. But he'd never paid them mind past making sure such intrepid investigators had their evidence and memories adjusted. Beyond that, he indulged in 'harmless' chuckling at the poor muggles' antics with the old crowd. Wishing them luck chasing their new interests in secret royals, banker bloodlines and aliens.
It never occurred to him to consider the implications that those people were all right.
The Magical World is a Global Shadow Conspiracy.
Even on the surface, this was less hyperbolic now than it had been just twenty years ago. The Magical World would not be able to remain entirely secret without complete oversight of the muggle authorities and their avenues of information dissemination. Increasingly so the further their technology advanced. It was why there was no real concern over the increasingly destructive capabilities of muggle means of warfare – it didn't matter how terrible or how may bombs you had when the enemy was mind controlling the person with the hand on the button.
Past the surface, though, the consequences of the methods used and abused to maintain the separation of the two worlds were disturbing in the extreme.
The power dynamics in case of an unexpected masquerade failure were the first stunning blind spot. Albus hadn’t yet regained his usual feelings on the issue, but the him of now was glad that the purebloods didn’t know or disbelieved all claims of muggle weaponry and nuclear weapons. But not because he was worried about the outcome of a magical-muggle war. He wasn’t. He was relieved because it kept the radicals and dark lords from taking those weapons for their own use. That Voldemort never did such a thing spoke to the single-minded obsession that ruled him in his later years. Somehow, though, it never occurred to anyone on the sane side to neutralise the threat in advance. All it would take would be to transfigure or switch the nuclear triggers for authentic-looking duds.
But short-sightedness and ignorance underpinned their whole society, didn’t they? How else could they, the masters of the mind and all its workings, fail to conceive that memory alteration and brainwashing on a global scale would have horrible repercussions?
Perhaps he was being hyperbolic, but then his eyes fell on QUEEN'S CORGI TURNS INTO HAMSTER and it really didn’t feel like it. That was the least tone-deaf of the myriad news, reports and confidential information he had spread on his wall, including the dozen directly linked to this very title. ‘The International Federation of Warlocks is meeting to discuss the incident’ is all well and good, as was ‘The Daily Prophet will keep you up to date on further news on that story tomorrow.’ But the follow-up was nothing more than ‘situation resolved, here is the next scandal.’ ‘The real corgi of course will not be found’ indeed. ‘Muggle ‘accidentally’ gains entry to Diagon Alley.’ ‘Muggle ‘accidentally’ gets stuck in magical painting.’ ‘Muggle's fantastical accomplices.’
We already have the ultimate extreme of the worst misrepresentation of Voldemort’s lofty vision.
When they had a criminal to find, wizards knew the moment a muggle communicated about them via television or telephone. When someone reported a magical to the muggle Crime Watchers Hotline, the Ministry of Magic Witch Watchers were immediately informed. When a new minister of magic gained office, the prior appointments of heads of state were rescheduled on a whim so that the new Minister or his toadies didn't have to wait on mere muggles. Every match in the Quidditch League came with rote brainwashing and abuse of the muggles who actually owned the land. Even Arthur Weasley's Muggle Protection Act was condescending by nature, treating muggles like quaint little creatures. And even that law was ultimately just a means for the 'muggle lovers' to indulge in some tyranny of their own for a change. Random raids on people's homes with no warrant or cause beyond blood status, what was Albus Dumbledore thinking condoning such a thing?
Grindelwald himself didn’t have ambition as brazen as this.
The only saving grace of magical society was that they usually installed permanent controls only were they needed to. But that was the rub, wasn’t it? The higher you went, the more it was necessary, to the point where the highest levels of muggle power were bespelled on the regular. Treated like toys on a playgrounds, even. Wizards played tricks on the Queen of England and saw no trouble for it.
What effects could this be having on muggle society? Their cultures? Their politics? How much of the elected officials’ failure to follow through on their mandates traced back to them? How much of the erratic behaviour of those in the halls of muggle power could be blamed on wizards? How many wars had been started because the US President’s next appointment was rescheduled because wizards didn’t feel like waiting to disclose magic to the Russian President, complete with obliviates and confundus charms to make sure he never thought they were of consequence? What happened when those so subverted and those who elected them had no one to blame for the consequences? Other than each other.
What will happen if this goes on much longer?
Gellert Grindelwald got the support he got because muggle wars had already caused collateral damage and death to wizards and beings. Do wizards think the same won’t happen when their cavalier mistreatment of the mind’s sanctity caused the breakdown of muggle society again?
The Statute of Secrecy is destroying humanity.
Albus Dumbledore turned away from the wall and beheld his free-floating memories. “I have contemplated enough.”
The food on the table made room for his private journal. Leafing through it, he found thorough and exacting explanations for everything that he had done to himself, from the potions he used to minimise cognitive risk, to a complete breakdown of the ancient runes and spell weaves he'd etched and cast to turn the Room of Requirement into a giant pensieve. Well familiar with how his non-amnesiac self worked at this point, Albus Dumbledore skimmed through the pages until he found exactly which of the runes on the walls to scratch out so that the unravelling could be reversed.
Will I remember myself, he wondered. Will I care about any of this?
Hesitating, he made a final circuit around the chamber, speaking aloud all his conclusions up to that point. He spent awhile writing it all down as well, with full referencing where at all possible. He felt ragged by the end, but also freer. He went back to the table then, conjured several vials and extracted the memory of his final summation, then as many more as he could of what he considered most important until he couldn't hold his wand because of the headache anymore.
Then he had one last meal and good night’s sleep.
He’d find out how much of a death sentence the resumed continuity of his pre-amnesiac consciousness would be in the morning.