6 January 2012 at 8:34am
Chippenham, Wiltshire, England

Nicholas apparated onto a quiet street in Chippenham.  He didn't hate this part of his job, but he really hated how there was always a spike of red sparks being sent into the air after the Prophet published bad news.  And as far as he could tell half of them were false alarms.  And wixes weren't as isolated from muggles as their lack of knowledge about muggles would imply.  Even when there were a few families living near each other they were usually surrounded by muggles.  Muggles who weren't blind.  Who knew what fireworks looked like.  And some knew that the red sparks that wixes kept sending up when someone sneezed near the full moon weren't fireworks.

When they brought that to someones attention, Nicholas got to go on a tour of muggle England and deal with memories.  Usually it was simple enough to modify a memory to make it so the muggle remembered fireworks and annoying teens setting them off.  That last part hurt a part of his soul though.  If it weren't for the wand being put in his hand when he turned eleven, he'd have probably been one of those teens with fireworks annoying neighbors.

Then again, with the number of times he and the other obliviators had to deal with muggles seeing the damn sparks, there might not be teenagers with fireworks.  Just wixes with wands.  Giving a bad name to muggle teenagers all across the country.

He checked the parchment where he'd written the address and the woman's name before walking up to the house and knocking on the door.  "Mrs. Moore.  Sophie Moore?"  Nicholas asked the middle aged woman who answered the door.  Thank Merlin his notes were right.  He hated having to track them down to a more public location.  It was always easier when they were at home.

"Yes.  Can I help you?" Mrs. Moore said.

"Yes, ma'am. I'm here about the fireworks-"  He pulled out his wallet to show her a badge that always seemed to be whatever it needed to be to get them to trust him but she interrupted before he could do even that.

"They were not fireworks."

"I'm sorry, I had written here that it was fireworks."  Nicholas said referencing the clipboard with his paperwork. "Can you tell me what happened?"  He kept himself from sighing, this was part of the job.  It was better to get their story, to get them thinking about what happened before he obliviated them.  He wondered if it would be easier if he had Virgil's abilities.  It wasn't that he didn't do a fine job without seeing their thoughts.  But maybe it would be easier.

"Of course I can, would you like to come in, it's cold out here."

"Yes, ma'am."  He entered and took off his coat, draping it over his arm when she motioned for him to have a seat on the sofa.

"You're a little young aren't you?"

Nicholas chuckled, "Yes, but they trust me to take reports.  Keeps them working on finding whoever was setting off the fireworks.  Or whatever it was."

Taking the cue, Mrs. Moore frowned at his questioning tone before launching into her story.  Nicholas wasn't surprised when she described a couple walking alone in the evening, with questionable fashion sense of course.  A neighbors dog had gotten out of the yard and ran up to them, the man had shrieked and sent the not-fireworks into the sky. Nicholas dutifully wrote down notes on her story.  It was about what he expected.

He slipped his wand out from under his clipboard.

"That's it, he had a stick-"

"Obliviate!"  Nicholas said, focusing on the memory she had just described.  Mrs. Moore's eyes glazed over as she stared into the distance.  He took the opportunity to cast a false memory charm and add the one he had ready.  Teenagers, fireworks, the whole shebang.  Her own mind would fit the new story into the times she told the old story.  He could be more heavy handed and get rid of more, but for something relatively minor, like seeing a wizard panic and send up red sparks, he could let her own mind fill in the blanks with the new story.

And thankfully his notes showed no one else had said anything, or believed it was anything but fireworks already.

"Thank you, Mrs. Moore.  I'll make sure this gets followed up on. The kids will probably run out of their New Year's Eve fireworks soon if they haven't already."  He put his coat back on and left Mrs. Moore to her new memory.  Nicholas checked the block before walking past a few houses, turning around a corner and apparating to his next minor obliviation.  He had 5 more stops before he could head back to the Ministry write up his report and then go let Level 2 beat him up under the guise of training him to deal with more volatile situations.  Though they kept insisting the training was for his own safety, not for him to jump in and help.  Which he was perfectly fine with. He didn't want to be a auror. He was fine with being the damsel-in-distress for Fauna to save.

Nicholas checked the next address, sighed and walked up to another house on another quiet street.