22 Sept 2012
Friday night
Autumnal equinox
Nicholas's flat in Diagon Alley

Figaro Sellaphix and Nicholas Bevans were hanging out, having some drinks and bemoaning how they'd become old and boring. They weren't even twenty-years-old yet.

"We should be out," Figaro said, his feet up on the balcony railing, "but I can't be arsed. Look at us with our careers and our wives and children. This beer doesn't even make you hallucinate. Embarrassing."

Figaro said all of this without any actual sadness, but the truth of it was, he had been busy. He took on loads of hours at the Daily Prophet and when he wasn't schlepping for them, he was being happily dragged around town by his much-older-girlfriend. She was busy for the week, and it left Figaro with a rare night 'off'. Nicholas Bevans was always good for a laugh, so Figaro naturally ended up on his balcony.

"What wives and children?"  Nicholas hadn't been with a witch since before Peyton, and no amount of trying had left Nicholas or Peyton pregnant, so Nicholas was pretty sure he was safe in that department.  Careers though, things with Peyton had fizzled out between them because of their burgeoning careers.  And today, work had taken a toll on Nicholas, which was why he also couldn't be arsed with going out. "I'm not sure its embarrassing, maybe just sad that we are wasting our virile years getting run down by..." He waved his glass, sloshing beer over the balcony. "Hope no one was down there," he whipped his hand a couple of times to sling off the beer.

"If you really want to hallucinate, I can make you hallucinate,"  Nicholas grinned.  He could also make Fig think he had hallucinated. That was actually why he was so worn down. The senior obliviators had been drilling him on more controlled and precise memory modification.  Erase and replace was standard practice and more than good enough, but apparently he needed to be able to modify tiny things inside a memory too.  He took a swig of their non-hallucinogenic beer.

"I can make your whole day feel like a dream.  Or make you forget you the glass in your hand," he boasted.

Figaro laughed when Nicholas sloshed his beer, and leaned forward to see if, indeed, Nicholas had sloshed on any down below. Nothing doing, Fig sat back to finish his own beer (in the bottle) in one go. As he was reaching for another, he spun around at Nicholas's offer, taking it utterly seriously. Fig swung his feet down off the balcony and turned in the chair to fully face his friend.

"No shit? You can do that?"

Figaro's mind alteration of choice had thus far only been beer and billywig, not enjoying gillyweed all that much, unaware of the Muse going around among his peers. But spell-tripping? He'd never tried that.

"Yeah. Yeah. Fuck it, I'll try anything once," he said eagerly, without a thought to risk. He took a long slug of his beer, set it aside, and then wiped his hands on his knees. "How do we do it? What do I do?"

"No shit? You can do that?"

Nicholas stood a little taller, that was the reaction that his own slightly exaggerated skills deserved.  And it was almost as heady as the beer.  "Yeah, of—"

"Yeah. Yeah. Fuck it, I'll try anything once."

There was a voice in the back of his mind that was saying this is a bad idea, but there was louder slightly slurred voice saying of course he could do it.  "I mean what do you want? A dream?  Change a memory.  Make you remember being a pink elephant yesterday?  You just have to think about the memory you want me to fuck with and I can change it, replace it, make it weird."

It was like Christmas; Nicholas was offering him anything. Figaro rifled through his memories trying to think of the funniest possible thing to alter. In the few seconds he was thinking he came to some rather dark moments in his recent past and veered sharply away towards lighter possibilities. His mind went to sports first.

"I got it. I got called up to coach Falmouth," he said clapping hands once, with resolve. "Their win last week - all my idea. Wiedman kissed me on the mouth, whole thing. Wipe over the last three days, I don't need them."

Fig braced his hands against his knees as if the spell had a knock-back.  "Alright. Whenever."

Things like this, best not overthink.

Of course Fig wanted something quidditch related.  At least it wasn't Tornados related.  Nicholas needed to focus though, or who knew what he'd put into Fig's head.

Nicholas rubbed his hands together, he held his wand delicately.  "Okay? Ready.  Think about the last three days, it will make it easier.  This isn't the permanent stuff, it will fade in a few days, maybe a week."  The little voice said that didn't matter while the louder voice said it made all the difference.

He thought through the the scenario that Fig had given him. He knew a little about professional quidditch and pulled those pieces into the memories.  Fig's own mind would spin them even more into a coherent, or not, memory. He also knew how players could be after a win.  At least one player.  He had to stay focused though, Fig wasn't asking for Nicholas's memories.  He wanted a story.  Nicholas could do that, he was good at this.

It didn't take him long to form the points of the story in his own mind and ready himself to implant the memory.  "Focus," he muttered as he tapped his temple and pulled the constructed memory from his own head, it felt more colored by his own thoughts than was usual for something that hadn't actually happened. He hoped whatever it was wouldn't be noticed by Fig. The little voice didn't even have to say told you so.  He suppressed the last few days of Fig's memory and then directed the memory across them.

"There done!"  Fig wasn't a drooling mess, so he hadn't fried anything. "How's it feel to be a winning pro coach?  Congrats on the win, by the way."

There was fuzz in Figaro's ears for a moment or two and he forgot what he was supposed to be doing. He'd never had his memory messed with before (that he knew of). He'd had been slug-vomit-cursed, turned blue and fuzzy, been punched in the face, and had his voice taken away for misuse, but never anything with his mind (unless we count taking a header into the hearth trying to do backflips on the sofa).  The summer night was cool and perfect, the night sky lit up by London's unsleeping lights. His eyes focused on Nick and his funny face and his voice - Figaro's face lit up in a smile. He'd forgotten!

That's what they were celebrating! Figaro stood up slowly, ceremoniously, and lifted his bottle in the air.

"Glory on my house...!" he declared loudly. "Glory for Falmouth...! And glory to a third thing...! Ey, ey, ey! Falcons go, Falcons go, Falcons go go go...!" He sang the team chant there at the end, shuffling his feet.

"Dom Wiedman, I told him, I said, don't play to win, play to survive. Play to save my life, right? Ref missed the blatching call, boom, that's the match! Kissed me right on my mouth. I'm never washing again."

Nicholas grinned, everything appeared to have gone alright.  "Really? Third thing?"  He asked laughing as Fig went into the chant.

"How exactly does someone play to save your life?" He hadn't come up with that, that was from Fig's own mind.  And as far as Nicholas was concerned it made no sense.  He'd have to ask... well there wasn't anyone else to ask now. Just Fig, who wasn't a quidditch coach what his not-real winning advice was that caused a make-believe Wiedman to win the game meant.

"If you never wash again, I expect there won't be a repeat performance.  Also don't forget— it never actually happened."

"Hmm? What?" Figaro asked absently, then he turned more fully. "Never happened? Bollocks."

His face went into thinking mode like he was remembering something, still a bit of a smile on his face. "Wait, what were we just doing? Just now?"

Fig scratched the back of his neck, not upset, just suddenly a little disoriented. "What were we talking about before we were talking about this?"

Nicholas frowned.  Shit.  "You weren't supposed to forget the conversation we were having."

Shit.

He could already feel his buzz disappearing under the rush of adrenaline.  "You wanted a new experience.  So um, I gave you one."

Shit.

"You being the great coach who led the Falcons to victory.  I don't know why, it was your fantasy.  I just made you remember it."

Shit!

"What's the last thing you remember before the match?"

There was still a trace of a smile on Figaro's ever-cheery face, despite the confusion.

"No, that sounds like something I'd do. Absolute Fig Move," he said.[1] He felt the need to reassure Nicholas who had a look on his face that said 'fun was not being had by all'.

Asked to think back before when he was apparently not at Falmouth, Figaro paced on the little balcony a little. He'd been out here many times for laughing, and shouting, and now, perhaps a bungled magical emergency between old friends. When he thought back, he realized he didn't remember arriving in Cornwall, or anything just before the match. Or the match itself. Just right after.

"Work, I think," Figaro said. It was a logical bet. "Or Wilhemena." Yes yes, his thirty-something cougar forbidden girlfriend, we've all heard of that by now.

"You know, I feel okay. You're an Obliviator right, just do the opposite."

1.	Upon edit, though, 'Fig Move' sounded like a euphemism for a hard time on the toilet.

Nicholas took a deep breath.  At least Figaro wasn't panicking or anything.  Whose idea had it been? Or was it just a perfect storm of an Absolute Fig Move and an Absolute Nicholas Move?  "Yeah, definitely a Fig move."  He muttered in agreement.

"You know, I feel okay. You're an Obliviator right, just do the opposite."

"That's easier said than done."  Nicholas knew how to do it, but it wasn't a skill he was as practiced at.  Those assignments weren't given to the younger Obliviators regardless of whether they there the star Obliviator of their experience level.  "It's probably better to leave it be.  What I did will start to fade over the next day or so."

Figaro snapped his fingers in a practiced flick of his wrist.

"Good idea," he declared. "Don't pick at it!"

Ancient wisdom; impossible to follow. He could have continued to think, work to inventory all he could remember about his recent movements, but he'd always found that difficult when it had been a mundane necessity. His school work had always been late and he forgot quickly any chores he wasn't dogged to do. Only now at the Prophet when getting fired and/or berated was the consequence did Figaro finally seem to be able to manage his short-term working memory for anything other than Quidditch stats and WWN radio-dramas.

"So you do this to muggles all the time?" he asked. That's what the job was on paper, though not how they'd sold it to them once at the career fair. Figaro had actually considered the trade before he found out how much more school that was needed. "Is that why they walk in circles?"

Nicholas picked up his beer and finished it.  He could barely contain his relief that Fig understood and was fine with what had happened given Nicholas had temporarily, he hoped, erased the part where Fig had agreed to it.  In fact asked for it.  Nicholas couldn't remember the last time a seemingly great idea had turned into an utter disaster.  He'd probably been drinking then to.  And showing off.

"I'm glad you understand."

His heart started to beat at a more normal pace as Fig asked about the day-to-day of his job.  "Not this exactly.  And what do you mean walk in circles?  Muggles don't walk in circles any more than wixes do.  There are cases where muggles have been obliviated too many times and they start to lose larger chunks of time. Usually its just erase once and move on.  I prefer altering, small things though. Not..." He motioned toward Fig.

"They don't?" Figaro asked a bit innocently. He'd always heard that was a thing, muggles walking in circles. Must be one of those old stereotypes that Figaro had never got around to unlearning. "Bollocks, learn something new every day, eh? You want another beer?"

Figaro reached into the shopping bag for another and charmed off the top with his wand. If Nicholas agreed, he'd do the same for him.

"Oh!" he snapped his fingers. "I forgot to tell you! I coached the Falmouth game over the weekend! Oh my god, how've we not talked about this!"