Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters in the following story. They all belong to the very talented J.K. Rowling.
Chapter 1
Willow opened her eyes, seeing a high, starch-white ceiling above her. She tried to get up, into a sitting position, but a firm hand held her down.
"You need your rest," said a strangely familiar voice. She looked around and saw a very old man, with a long silver beard, and even longer hair. On the other side of the bed she was lying in, Willow could see a young handsome man with brown hair and brown eyes. He was wearing black robes, with a crest sporting a badger sewn on the front. His eyes were hollow, his skin colorless. It was obvious he had done a great deal of worrying recently.
"Where am I?" Willow could hear herself ask. Her voice was strange, new. "How did I get here?"
"Oh thank goodness she's okay," said the young man, sinking to his knees and gripping Willow's hand.
"You're in the hospital wing of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Do you know your name?" said the old man.
"Yes. My name is Willow Turner. Witchcraft? Where are my parents?" Willow was starting to panic.
"Shh. You need to answer my questions first," said the old man. "Now, what's the last thing you remember?"
Willow thought. "The last thing I remember is playing in my backyard. My mum called me into the kitchen, and then I woke up here." The old man nodded slowly.
"And how old were you?" he asked. Willow was getting very confused.
"Eleven years old. I remember, because I was playing with a toy I got for my birthday."
"You don't remember anything since then?" Willow shook her head. She realized she was no long eleven. Her voice was more mature; her toes were brushing against the end of the bed. But she thought. The only things she could remember were random, fuzzy snippets of memory. A train whistle, moving paintings, and a strange saying….
"I remember…nothing in detail. And a saying…draco dormiens nunquam titillandus. That's about it." Both the men looked at each other, both wearing an expression of mixed happiness and anxiety.
"What? What is it?" Willow asked. The old man opened his mouth and began to tell her a fantastical tale –- her past.
That day, the last day she could remember, when Willow's mother called her into the kitchen, it was to give her a letter, a letter telling her she was accepted into the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Willow's mother, Scarlet Turner, was a witch from a pureblood family, who fell in love with a Muggle actor, Xavier Turner, Willow's father. Her mother was very proud of Willow, her only child. Willow was determined to come to the school, and make her mark. Her mother had been a great witch, and the pride of all her teachers, and Willow wanted to carry on the tradition. She excelled in all of her classes, and made friends with everyone.
She was the smart, popular girl the first two years, but the summer after her second year, both her parents died in a car accident that only she survived. Being an only child, she was suddenly all alone in the world. Ron, Fred, and George Weasley, her best friends, convinced their parents to let Willow stay at the Burrow. She was welcomed into the Weasley family with open arms and sympathetic ears, and yet, Willow couldn't help but feel guilty. She should have died with her parents, and she started to come up with absurd excuses of how she could have prevented the car crash. She started having "episodes" and Madame Pomfrey -- the school nurse – diagnosed her with clinical depression. Halfway through her third year, she began cutting – they found her scars while she was in her coma. She had only gotten worse, loosing interest for school and friends. And then, at the beginning of December of her fourth year, she reached a new low.
"This is Cedric Diggory," said the old man, gesturing toward the younger one. "He found you."
"Found me?"
"Yes. He found your body on the ground outside the school. As best as we can figure…" he trailed off.
"Yes? What is it?" Willow was panicking again.
"As best we can figure, you jumped. Probably from a third or fourth floor window. We found the word 'Goodbye' written on your palm in black ink."
No sooner had these words left his mouth, when Willow was hit with such an intense and overwhelming headache, she let out a scream. She felt like her head was about to explode. But with this headache, visions and pictures, came. She could remember pain, blood, and crying. She could faintly remember walking through dim, cold hallways. Suddenly she was standing on a windowsill, and everything went black.
Her headache left her as quickly as it had come. She pulled her hand away from her head, and gasped. It was connected to a wrist crisscrossed and patterned with scars. She looked at both arms. They were both covered with cuts, some old and faint, some new and just scabbing. The sight was ghastly. Almost too painful to take in. Willow started to cry.
The old man took her arms, and placed them at her sides, and when he spoke his voice was calm and understanding.
"As you did fall quite a ways, and you don't remember anything, Madame Pomfrey is sure you have amnesia. But it seems it's only for your time here at Hogwarts. In which case, I shall need to fill in some of the blanks. My name is Albus Dumbledore. I am headmaster at this school. You are the house of Gryffindor, where the brave dwell. You are a chaser on the Quidditch team, although Captain Wood had to put you on the reserve team when you stopped coming to practice, and Captain Johnson had made no move to put you back on the team since she became captain.
"Harry Potter, Ron, Fred, and George Weasley, Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy and Blaise Zabini have been to see you. You have been in a coma for almost a week. You are fourteen years old. You will need to be checked by Madame Pomfrey, and if she says so, you are free to go. We'll have Mr. Diggory escort you back to the Gryffindor common room. Rom there, I'm sure you're friends and fellow students will help you as best they can."
Willow nodded, absorbing all this information. But she had just one last question for Albus Dumbledore.
"Uhm, sir? Mr. Dumbledore?"
"Call me Professor."
"Professor…. Is there any way you can make these scars disappear?"
Professor Dumbledore just chuckled, shook his old head and said, "Not until you remember."