Retrieval of Modified Memories

[oryx_leucoryx]

On my InsaneJournal duj pointed out how odd that both Morfin Gaunt and Hokey died not long after Albus Dumbledore managed to retrieve from them true memories that had been modified or magically suppressed. Morfin died within weeks (if we believe Albus) from when Albus extracted the suppressed memory with difficulty. And by the time Albus traced Hokey and extracted the memory, Hokey's life was almost over. How fortunate that he got those two memories just in the nick of time! Or is it?

Neither Morfin nor Hokey were in sound mind by then. I don't think they could have consented to Albus' tampering with their minds (nor do I believe he cared about their consent). There is one more canon example of extracting a suppressed memory by force: Tom did that to Bertha Jorkins. He tells the Death Eaters "but the means I used to break the Memory Charm upon her were powerful, and when I had extracted all useful information from her, her mind and body were both damaged beyond repair. She had now served her purpose. I could not possess her. I disposed of her."

Were Morfin and Hokey damaged in the same manner as Bertha Jorkins was? Is such damage inevitable when one retrieves suppressed memories by force? (Bob Ogden also died after Albus had obtained his memory. We don't know how long after, nor do we know anything about the circumstances of their encounter.)

If so, that would be the true reason Albus wanted Harry to persuade Horace into giving him the true memory of his conversation with young Tom (rather than obtaining it by force himself).

And maybe that is why nobody (to our knowledge) went to track down Gilderoy Lockhart's victims. They were beyond help already, the moment Gilderoy was done with them.

And now consider that wizards routinely use memory modification to protect the secrecy of their world. How many memory-modified non-magicals are walking around? If a wizard with any knowledge of Legilimency were to find any of them and suspect there was a magically-suppressed memory hidden in their minds they are toast. That includes, of course, a couple named Wilkins.

Of course we know that voluntary retrieval of memories is harmless (as far as we can tell) - we see Albus, Severus, and Horace retrieving their own memories voluntarily, with no apparent change to their mental acuity or their personalities. Is there any evidence that a suppressed memory can be restored safely?

Comments

[vermouth1991.livejournal.com]

The implicaions are there, but I think in Morphin's case he was half-dead already.

"Is there any evidence that a suppressed memory can be restored safely?"

Well, considering how well real-life non-magical awakening of suppressed memories goes, no.

[sunnyskywalker]

Lockhart's fate might be a clue as well. Three years after being hit by his own backfired "Obliviate," he's still in a closed ward at St. Mungo's re-learning rather than remembering basic skills. We get no indication that the Healers are trying to retrieve any of his memories, though we don't see enough to be sure they aren't. If they could restore any of his memories without harming him, wouldn't they have gotten a bit more done in that much time?

Terri also had that chilling theory about what really destroyed the Longbottoms' minds. If she's on the right track, that suggests that trying to retrieve suppressed memories might not kill you, if the interrogators let up at the right time, but it won't leave you fine after a cup of tea either.

One problem is that we don't know just how many "memory modification" spells there are or how they work. Bertha Jorkins was probably Obliviated by Crouch Sr., possibly with a small patch of false memory stuck on top so she wouldn't suspect what had happened to her. But can memories be altered without first being suppressed/erased? When Tom made Morfin "remember" killing the Gaunts, did he first wipe Morfin's memory and then substitute his own, or did he somehow merge his memory of the murder and one of Morfin's own memories and change the date stamp, as it were? Did Slughorn suppress his own memory and then stick the fake one on top, or did he try to twist the real memory? (Ugh, this is so hard to talk about. I don't think I have a proper vocabulary for dealing with memories as "things" in the same sense that documents or files are "things.")

And of course, what exactly did Hermione (or one of the adult Order members if she's lying about who actually performed the spell) do to her parents, and is it the same thing Slughorn did to himself or Tom did to Morfin, and do any of those start with Obliviate?

I'm also not clear on how Slughorn's memory modification worked, exactly. By all appearances, he remembers what happened in the memory (he knows to be afraid to reveal it), and has access to the real one any time he wants, even while totally smashed and not at his spellcasting best. So did he modify the memory he gave Dumbledore after he took it out of his head, or in the process, rather than while it was still in his head? In that case, whether Dumbledore is trying to avoid breaking Slughorn's mind depends on whether he knows if Slughorn modified the memory inside or outside his head.

[jana-ch.livejournal.com]

My impression was that Slughorn modified his memory after he removed it. He seems to have given Dumbledore a falsified recording rather than having tampered with a "living" memory in his own head, then extracting a copy for Dumbles to view. If only a copy was modified, the true memory was left intact for Slughorn to make a later true copy for Harry.

Hermione's parents, on the other hand, would have to be possessed of living, functioning falsified memories in order to live their lives as Monica and Wendell Wilkins. Unless their memories as the Grangers have been locked away somehow in a form that can be opened and recovered intact, their former identities appear to be gone. There is no evidence in canon of anyone having memories blocked and later safely un-blocked and recovered intact.

[sunnyskywalker]

I think the only hint that you can restore memories might be that Hermione claims this is her plan if things work out? But then we don't know for absolute certain that she's even telling the truth about what she did, let alone whether she can restore the memories as she implies she can. And she might also be mistaken about exactly what is possible. (Suppose she's basing her assumption on some propagandistic text that reassures the kids that of course modifying Muggles' memories doesn't really hurt them or cause long-term consequences? The way the History of Magic textbook reassures them that Muggles hardly burned any witches, when Dumbledore's note in Beedle says actually they killed a bunch of magical children?)

[jana-ch.livejournal.com]

Hermione is good at research and learns well from books, but she's still only an eighteen-year-old school drop-out. I wouldn't count on her knowing everything there is to know about memory modification and recovery. Creating functional new identities for her parents (assuming they ARE functional) is an extraordinary accomplishment for a beginning mind magic practitioner. Considering what happened to Lockhart and Jorkins, I think her notion that she'll be able to undo it safely and completely is sheer hubris.

[sunnyskywalker]

The difficulty of creating complete, functional new identities is one of the reasons I think Hermione didn't do any such thing. It was extraordinary that Tom could seamlessly modify one of Morfin's memories at that age, we're told. Even if Dumbledore is exaggerating a little, what Hermione supposedly did is several orders of magnitude greater than anything we see anyone else do. Just making Mr. Roberts forget one single night made him forget what time of year it was, and that was with experts working on him. I can't see Hermione trying a total memory re-write on her parents and not noticing something was wrong.

So, either Hermione's parents are actually fine and fully in possession of their memories, or Moody or Shacklebolt did it and told her they're fine, or her attempt failed horribly and she buried them in the backyard. Or maybe they're drooling in a Muggle psychiatric facility and she knows perfectly well they won't be getting their lives restored.

Anyway, point being, no I don't trust that vague hint from Hermione as any sort of evidence that it's possible either.

[jana-ch.livejournal.com]

I am trying to keep as positive an image of Hermione as possible, so I am refusing to admit into my headcanon the Grangers buried in the backyard or warehoused in a nursing home, even though Occam’s Razor makes one or the other the most likely outcome of Hermione’s mind-games.

Bringing in Moody or Shacklebolt will work, but adds unnecessary complications; neither is known to be skilled in mind magic. Snape is, however, and some fanfics bring him in to do the job. In Grangerous’s “Phoenix” trilogy, Snape insists that the Grangers have to agree to the modification voluntarily, then he and Hermione perform the operation as a team, with Hermione spinning the tale of the Wilkinses’ new identities while Snape does the heavy lifting of blocking their memories in a way that can be un-done later.

My favorite variant is Wolfwillow’s version: Hermione persuaded her parents (identities intact) to take the round-the-world trip they’d been dreaming about for years, then lied about it to Harry, whose mind leaked like a sieve directly into Voldemort’s, and who had flat-out refused to learn Occlumency.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Kingsley did *something* to Marietta's mind, and that was entirely improvised on the spot.

[jana-ch.livejournal.com]

True. It may have been a simple Confundus, but it's still more than Hermione had ever done.

----

Correction: Hermione *had* used Confundus before, on Cormac McLaggen, but it simply caused general confusion, rather like drunkeness. It was nothing like as complex as erasing or planting specific thoughts. Shacklebolt's spell on Marietta need not have been particularly complicated, but there was more to it than what Hermione did to Cormac. Marietta appeared to actively deny what she had previously asserted; what she was actually thinking when she switched from nodding to shaking her head we can't say. The spell might have been a form of Imperius, simply causing her to take a certain action without modifying her thoughts.

[sunnyskywalker]

Yeah, I think simple lying is probably the solution with the least difficulties. No need to invent variations of magic we haven't seen, or drag in other people who might have been able to help... I like the trip around the world idea!

[dracasadiablo.livejournal.com]

I think that it either was a case of Hermione lying or being confunded into thinking she did it.

She did read / research memory modification (used later in book on those DE in the cafe. Btw, did they have their memories restored?) in preparation of goign on the run. That might have given her the idea for spinning that story to Harry "WiFi" Potter. So, maybe she was so nervous when she had to obliviate those DE because she was doing it for the first time?
If she knew she was able to give her parents the memories of different lives then she should have been sure she can just erase DE's memories of seeing the trio.

The second option I see is that Snape did the same things as with Mundungus Fletcher "getting the idea" for 7 Potters.
I just don't think that Moody, Shacklebolt or anybody else from the Order would give a damn about Hermione's parents.
To me Snape is the only one who might have cared enough to do anything to protect them.
So, confound the parents into taking a long holiday somewhere (under their-own names and far from Australia) and then confound the little overachiever and know-it-all into thinking she gave them new identities.
She is arrogant enough to think she can do it, her stupid little frineds will be happy to believe her and ignorant enough to not question it and older order members won't even think to ask about her parents.
He might have even given her enough knowledge to pull being able to do Memory Charm later.

[sunnyskywalker]

Interesting idea! If you're going to be careful about Harry's leaky mind, being really careful and making sure his friend can't accidentally blurt out the truth even if she wants to is definitely an option to consider. (She might even have agreed to it beforehand, if Moody did it rather than Snape - out of paranoid caution that they'd be used to lure Hermione and thus Harry if available rather than any concern for the Grangers themselves.) Especially since Snape knows that under the right circumstances, Harry (or Voldemort-through-Harry?) can use Legilimency. If there isn't anything in her surface thoughts for him/Voldie to accidentally see, he's unlikely to try to dig deeper.

[nx74defiant.livejournal.com]

Hermione's parents, on the other hand, would have to be possessed of living, functioning falsified memories in order to live their lives as Monica and Wendell Wilkins.,

Even if she did their memories right, what about the muggle paper work?

I can image the "Wilkins" getting arrested unable to explain why they were trying to use the Granger's credit cards and why they had no IDs with the name Wilkins only Granger.

[jana-ch.livejournal.com]

And Hermione doesn't have a good enough relationship (or ANY relationship) with Mundungus Fletcher have him help her make contact with someone who deals in magical forgeries. There have to be people in the wizarding world who can supply you with any muggle IDs and associated background papers you need, but I expect it's a fairly specialized skill.

[vermouth1991.livejournal.com]

I think the spell has different levels, the Muggles made to forget stupid Arthur Weasley or Ludo Bagman's f*&£ing slip-ups get the "set for stung" obliviate, while Bertha and Ron/Harry get the "shoot to kill" degree treatment.

[sunnyskywalker]

Probably it does come in different "dosages." Mr. Roberts seemed to get a high one, due to circumstances, but "forget the funny-looking clothes" probably doesn't take as much, you're right.

I wonder if part of the issue too is who is trying to retrieve the memories? In the cases we see -- Voldemort and Bertha Jorkins, Dumbledore and Morfin -- the person doing the retrieving is not the person who originally altered the memories. So they are trying to "break through" barriers in the person's mind which they can't precisely locate to even try to undo. (Well, Dumbledore might have had some guesses about Morfin's, which may account for Morfin not expiring immediately?)

Can the person who cast it originally undo it more easily? We never see wizards undo Obliviates on Muggles for obvious reasons, Crouch and Voldemort had no reason to undo theirs, and Lockhart made himself incapable of lifting any spells. So I don't think there's evidence either way. But it might at least be a possibility. Or at least maybe it's easier if you do it relatively soon, and harder if the person's new memories have had time to "take" and their mind has started re-growing around them, as it were.

[vermouth1991.livejournal.com]

I don't think we ever see anyone undo their own Obliviate's ever.