Chapter 1

He was running. Running through a dark tunnel, there was a light at the end, but it was so far away. Too far… but he had to carry on. He didn't know why, something, someone, needed him to get to that light. He had never let anyone down before, he wasn't about to start now. The light was getting closer, his heart was pounding so hard in his chest he felt as if it was breaking his ribs. He was in pain, but the light kept him going, they needed him. Lily and Harry needed him.

Suddenly he felt himself hit the cold stone ground. He had stopped running, he had escaped. Escaped from the blackness, he had made it to the light. He would be able to save them. He felt a pang of pain in the back of his head, he couldn't remember who they were. He couldn't remember who he was.

He opened his eyes, and realised that he was in a house. He couldn't see properly, and on instinct reached to his side, and found a pair of glasses. He put them on. Something had happened here, he knew it. Something bad had happened. The carpet on which he was lying was covered in rubble, which had fallen from the ceiling above him. The door had been forced open, and the banister torn down. It must have been early morning, as the light was pale and cool on his skin, like fresh snow. The house was on the verge of falling down, and he knew he had to get out, before he was crushed beneath it. He didn't know who's house it was, though, what he had been doing there, why it was damaged. Had he broken in and destroyed it? Had it been his house?

He stood up, and found himself immensely tired, his head was pounding, and his arm bent out of place. Something had happened to him too. He felt as though he had been run over by a truck, he hadn't felt like that since he and Sirius had drank a whole bottle of Firewhiskey. Who was Sirius? Was he a friend? Maybe if he found him he could ask him. But how could he ask him? He didn't know who he was, and although Sirius was an unusual name, how could he possibly find the right one. He stumbled from the wreckage of the house, and walked through the garden to the quiet, country lane on the other side of the hedge. He caught a glimpse of a ghost-like face, before collapsing on the ground, unconscious.

The next thing he remembered was waking up in hospital, how he got there, he had no idea, obviously someone had found him in the street and called an Ambulance. He wasn't surprised, he had been in a pretty bad way. The room he had been lying in for the last week was entirely white. Actually, he had been there for far longer than a week, only he had just woken up. He had been in a coma for nearly a year. When he woke up, the doctors had swarmed him, asked him questions he couldn't answer.

"Can you remember how you got here, sir?" asked Doctor Holmes for the seventh time.

"No." he replied, "As I told you yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that, I cannot remember what happened, because I was in a coma."

Dr. Holmes simply chuckled, and wrote something on his chart, "Can you remember your name?"

"No." he replied through gritted teeth. He hated his doctor, she was infuriating, always asking him questions she knew he couldn't answer. She was quite pretty though.

"You might want to think one up, I can't go on calling you 'sir' forever," she said, placing his chart on the end of his bed, "Until you woke up, we called you John Peters. Best we could come up with, I'm afraid."

"Well," he said, sickeningly sweet, "I guess I'll stick to that then won't I? Now if you'll excuse me, I'd like to sit here and wallow in self pity."

"John! That's not a very positive attitude at all! Can you tell me again how you got here." she repeated.

"I woke up in a falling down house," John recited dully, "walked out, fainted, and woke up a year later."

"When you woke up, did you remember anything? Any names, places? Even an image of someone?" asked Dr. Holmes.

"A name," he said, he hadn't told any of the doctors this before, "Sirius. I think he was a friend, because I could recall being drunk on Firewhiskey."

"Firewhiskey?" asked Dr. Holmes, "I've never heard of it! Are you foreign?"

"I don't know." said John, through gritted teeth, "I have amnesia."

She turned to leave, and then thought better of it, "You had a wife, you know John."

"Huh?"

"When we found you, you were wearing a wedding ring," she dived into the pockets of her white lab coat, "here."

She handed him a thin gold band ring, it was impossibly shimmering, as if enchanted. Inscribed upon it were two initials, J.P~L.E.

"That's where we got your name from," said Doctor Holmes, John had forgotten she was there, "John Peters, J.P."

"Thank-you." he croaked, on the verge of tears. She smiled at him and turned to leave again, closing the door behind her.

John couldn't believe it. His wife must have been the person he wanted to save, when he first woke up. She must have been in that house, the one that was falling down. She was probably dead, he thought bitterly, and I can't even remember her name to mourn her properly. At that John broke down in tears. A soft voice next to him distracted him.

"Are you OK?" asked a red-headed woman in the bed by his side. Her face was warm and comforting, it felt familiar to him. She had the most beautiful eyes John had ever seen (not that he could remember seeing many eyes), they were a deep emerald green.

"I'm fine," John smiled weakly, and held up the wedding ring, "I just got some tough news."

"Tell me about it!" said the woman, far more cheerful than John expected of a woman in hospital, "They moved me here last night from a ward upstairs. I was in a coma until about a month ago, they still won't let me leave, apparently amnesia patients are special cases," she huffed angrily, "what are you in for?"

"Coma, and amnesia" he chuckled, "Maybe this is the 'Coma/Amnesia Recovery Ward'.

"Maybe," she giggled, and smiled a wide grin at him, "I'm Linda Edwards."

"John Peters," replied John, "it's a pleasure to meet you Miss. Edwards."

15 years had passed since John met Linda Edwards, and she had changed his life. They started going out as friends when they were both released from hospital, until they became more than friends. They fell head-over-heels in love, but it wasn't exciting and new, it felt safe and comforting, but every day was an adventure. They were married on the 27th March 1985 in the small village of Ottery St. Catchpole, where they later bought a small house on the main street. They lived a quiet life, not having much money, but Linda always managed to help them scrape by. She had taken a job as a teacher's aide in 1982, and had since become the English teacher at the local Primary School.

John had for many years been unemployed, as he had no schooling records with which to base a job, and no real gift with children as Linda did. However he had a gift for writing, and children's wrote books. Books about wizards and witches. He had no idea how some of his ideas came to him, he wrote about Quidditch, a game played on broomsticks. He wrote about castles in Scotland where wizards went to school, he wrote about magic wands, and dark curses. He books were never published though. No one was interested in the ramblings of a man with amnesia. But when John wrote his stories of wizards, he felt safer, at home, when he wrote these stories, he felt like he was recovering his past.

Linda too was struggling to remember anything, but since the birth of their son 10 years ago, she hadn't looked so much into it. She had given up searching for the man to whom she had been married, she never told John of him, and all she had to remember him by was a ring, bearing the initials L.E~J.P.

Linda always thought it was funny how she had married a man with the same initials as her previous husband, but to her he was nothing more than a name. John was her life now.

John never told Linda that he had been married before, but thought it was funny how she had the same initials as his previous wife, but to him, she was not important. Linda was his everything.

But Linda had only one regret of her past life, which she could not remember. When she had gone into hospital to have her son, Sirius, named for the only man John could remember in his past, the doctors had told her something sickening. She had had another child, at least 6 years previously. The thought haunted her, what had happened to her baby. Had it been lost when she had her accident? She, unlike John, could remember nothing before waking up in hospital. He could remember a wrecked house, and a longing to help someone. All she could remember was blackness… well that wasn't strictly true. Linda could also remember a flash of green light.

Hello!! Please review and tell me what you think :P I'm considering whether or not to continue this story, as it is quite an over-written theme… I just had the idea in my mind and needed to write it down xxx