If I Could Remember

Chapter 1:

I awoke, my eyes dragging open as I looked around the room. My body felt weak and tired, I struggled to keep my eyes opened. It stung with the bright light and I blinked a few times to try to clear the blurry fog.

I glanced around the room, my head moving slowly. I laid in a bed with plain white sheets, in a hospital gown, the tips of my toes peeking out from the end of the thin blanket. The room was unfamiliar; I had never seen the tiny lamp that shone in the corner, nor the two small chairs that sat at the end of the bed.

There was a noise, a irritating ticking that beat steadily. It ticked on and on, growing louder in my brain. My fists clenched together as it beat repetitively, I was sure the sound would crumble me to insanity.

A loud scream echoed through the small room, it took me a while to notice that it was my own voice. The ticking was thumping like a drum, I strained my ears to find the source of the noise. There was a clock on the wall, it whined from the beats. I made to stand up and grab it, but when my feet hit the floor, I fell over, as my weight was too strong for my feet. I felt my body collapse inward, my head went to connect with the wall.

"Miss!" A soft voice, a female voice. Two thin arms caught around my middle and I never heard the sound that would be my head banging against the wall. "Miss- are you alright?" The woman was petite, with long and straight red hair and blue eyes. She was dressed in a long white coat, with a tiny sticker near the button. There was tiny symbols scrolled on it, but I didn't know what it was.

She urged me to the bed, and I felt a cushiony fabric against my bottom. I tried to fight her off, I didn't want a strange woman touching me. My hands pushed her away, she tumbled backward and I stood up again, rocking against the front of my toes.

My thin fingers reached out to grab the clock, I wanted to bash it against her scull. To my surprise, my hands never made it to the clock. I felt my feet rise up from under me and I fell onto the hard floor with a crash.

"Oh my!" the red haired lady shouted. "Miss, I'm so sorry. Please let me help you up." She reached out her hand and I took it. She managed to lead me back to the bed, my weight pressed against her shoulder. Her small hands pushed me gently against the fluffy pillow. I sighed from the softness.

"Who are you?" I asked suddenly.

She smiled warmly and pulled the blankets up around my waist. "I'm Cindy Leewood and I'm a doctor. You are at the Sunnyfolks Clinical Center."

I looked at her, confused. "What is a clinical center?" The word seemed much too big to understand.

"It's a hospital Miss. You were brought here unconscious." Cindy began to poke me with different instruments. She shone a light in my eye that made me wince, and stuck a wooden stick in my mouth.

I lay still as she pinched the sides of my jaw. "Why do you keep calling me Miss?" She looked up from my chin to my eyes, she looked surprised.

"I call you miss because I do not know your name," she answered, looking at the clipboard she had brought in with her. "There is no name on this sheet. Can you tell me your name?"

I thought about this, my eyebrows connecting with concentration. "I'm not sure," I proclaimed, shocked at myself. "Why wouldn't I know?" My memory strained to remember, but as much as I thought the correct answer seemed to be slipping away from me.

Doctor Leewood shook her head sadly. "I might have to run some tests." She said that more to herself than I.

"Why am I here doctor?" I began to play with the hemp of the bed sheets, twisting them around tightly. My fingers looked pale, too pale to well.

"Honey, you were in a coma." I tried to think if I knew that word. I knew it had to do with sleeping.

"For how long?" I realized I did not want to know as soon as the words escaped my mouth.

"Two months." The woman made it seem like it was not a long time. "Do you remember what happened before you fell into unconsciousness?"

I worried if I really was insane, as I could not even remember my own name, besides that I could remember nothing at all. "I can't remember," I gasped, scared of what was happening to me. Had I always not known who I was? Did I even have a name?

"Miss, I think you have amnesia." The doctor looked down at me pitingly. I knew it was not something pleasant, but feeling foolish I had to ask, "Is that a good thing?"

Cindy Leewood just smiled at me with warmth and sadness. "How about lunch?"

--

It was a while later, and I now sat with a fork in my hand and a small tray on my lap. The doctor decided it was better for me not to move, and I sat frozen, my hand only toying losely with the utencil. It had felt like a very long time since I had awoken.

More doctors came in to talk to me, and their voices banged into my head. Their voices were too alarmed, and their questions now sat crammed into my brain.

"Miss, Dr Leewood told me that you could not remember you name, is this correct?"

"Did you have any ID on you? Nurse Smith, check her clothes!"

"You can not remember anything? Nothing at all?"

"Miss, I am going to say some words and tell me if you can remember anything about them, is that okay?"

"Your mom's name? Your dad's name? Did you have a husband? A boyfriend maybe?"

"Do you remember where you live? Do you even live in Scotland?"

I had sat with my head shaking and shaking, confused by the words flowing out of their mouths. At first, I would open my lips to answer as if it were the simplest questions on Earth, but as my voice was ready to reply, the answers zoomed out of my head. It made me wonder if they were even there in the first place.

Soon Doctor Leewood came back into my room with a gentle look on her face. "Hello dear," she greeted and walked towards me a little slower than she should. She glanced down at my tray and noticed the unopened container of jello.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Do you not like jello?"

Again the answer seemed to lull in my head, and I would just have to reach out and grasp it. But it seems my mind was too weak and I was forced to admit that I did not know.

The doctor smiled sadly and pulled a chair from the corner of the small little room to sit down beside my bed

"How are you feeling?" she asked, patting her hand on my own.

"Lost," I replied. "And… and confused."

"You have a right to be. The doctors here have decided that your memory won't come back until someone has rejogged your past."

"What does that mean?" I asked, dropping my fork to turn my attention to the doctor.

"Well dear, we thought we'd post a few flyers up, put word around to see if anyone knows who you are," Dr Leewood answered.

"And you hope someone will identify me?"

"Hopefully," she said and suddenly she pulled a camera from behind her back. "With a picture maybe."

I looked at her with glass eyes and she stared back at me with a worried look. It was then that I remembered that I did not even know what I looked like. I felt like crying, how could someone forget something like that? My name, where I lived, and what I looked like weren't in my memory.

"Oh, would you like a mirror?" The doctor questioned and she walked into a bathroom attached to the room. She grabbed a small round mirror from the counter and walked back, placing it into my hands.

"Maybe you would like to freshen up before we take the picture?" she asked. "You came in with a few cuts."

I held the mirror in my hands, afraid of my own reflection. I could have laughed. Would I remember once I saw who I was? Lifting the mirror up, I gazed at myself.

Oh.

A large cut ran from my forehead to the side of my eye, and the tip of my chin was scraped and scarred. I flinched when I saw my reflection for the cuts looked far from healed. But behind the cuts, behind the blood, a face that looked back at me was beautiful.

Was it polite to call oneself beautiful? Would that even be considered vain? But the person that looked back at me didn't feel like it was me, for I hardly knew myself.

My face was heart shaped, almost even a child like roundness. But my cheekbones were defined and had a rosy tint to them. The lips, the bottom plumped out and eyes. Deep rich eyes with thin, dark eyelashes curling up. My hair swished down in curled locks in the same colour as my eyes, and slightly poofed out past my shoulders.

Hmm… was I called beautiful in my old life? For to me, it seemed that the life where I knew who I was seemed long gone in distance.

"Say cheese," the doctor ordered and took the picture before I could smile. "Hopefully someone will ID you. We will likely hear something in a few days."

So it was jello each day that ticked by and I'd sit in the bed, staring at the light from outside as I twirled my fork. The doctors would come in every day and take tests, x-rays and questions became my daily routine.

"How's it going?" I'd always ask Dr. Leewood.

"Still running tests," she'd answer. "It's good that you still remember me."

"Yes good."

And this happened, for two weeks and my memory didn't come back and no phone calls came in. No one knows who I was. I was an invisible face.

"How's it going?"

"Still running tests, I see you still remember me."

"Yes… but no one else seems to remember me."

The doctor sighed, and put her clipboard down to gaze into my eyes. "Don't worry, it will take a long time. The person who are waiting for just hasn't seen the signs yet."

"If anyone was looking for me, it wouldn't be hard to find me."

"Don't give up hope."

I was ready to, I was willing to jump out of this bed, sneak out the tiny window and be gone forever. Being stuck in a plastic bubble would not allow me to remember who I was.

It happened that day, when my hope was faltering, where I was about to give up all hope.

I was twirling my fork, looking at the sun fade down into the earth and disappear. Why hadn't anyone come to find me yet? Was I not worth it? Did anyone know who I was? Was I even loved?

The anger built up inside me, I could feel it. An emotion stronger than boredom, of worry and of doubt. My grip strengthened on the fork in my handand so fast that I had to blink multiple times, the fork exploded. It shattered into million of pieces with a soft thump.

I remembered then. I remembered that forks did not shatter. They could break and they could certainly snap, but they did not explode. But I remembered nothing else.

The nurse, Ms. Smith came into the small room and looked at my shocked face with confusion.

"More jello?"

I simply turned on my side and went to sleep. I did not dream. I never did.

Far Away in England…

The war was going on and Harry Potter was in the dead center of it all. He was worried, and his fingers drummed against the kitchen table of his godfather's house. Ron was across from him, flipping carelessly through the large book placed in the middle of the table.

He signed, scratching his freckled nose. "I wish Hermione was here," Ron huffed. "She'd love researching all this stuff. Her nose glued to the pages." Harry just looked back at him with a blank expression written on his face.

"Blood hell Harry, she's fine. I know she is fine."

"You can't guarantee that."

"Dumbledore wouldn't have sent her if he knew it wasn't safe," Ron argued.

The vain point in Harry's forehead was throbbing again. Luckily Ron was used to these tempers lately, for Harry worried about Hermione far too much since she had left three months ago.

"It's a war! No one is safe and Dumbledore knows that!"

Ron decided to remain calm, which was entirely different than he used to be, and recite what he had been saying over and over. At first, he and Harry would bicker, but Ron soon quickly got tired of this.

"She's a good witch. A great witch. Hermione wouldn't have taken the mission if she couldn't do it."

"It's Voldemort!" Harry roared and Ron flinched at the name. "It doesn't matter how talented you are if he wants you dead."

"You're still alive," Ron pointed out.

Harry ignored him. "She hasn't called, she hasn't sent owl, we haven't heard from her in three months."

"She can't. It could jeopardize her position. Do you want to get you-know-who's spies on her trail?"

"No, but she needs us there. I can feel it."

Ron sighed again, flipping the book closed with a thud. "She's a big girl. It's just a small mission. Trouble wouldn't be able to find her mate."

This seemed to anger Harry more and he stood up, beginning to pace back and forth in the tiny kitchen. "We have to do something, I can't just sit here and do nothing!

"And what are you suggesting? Sending your magic powers to Scotland?" Ron mocked.

Harry shot him a look of anger. "We have to go to her!"

Ron rolled his eyes and placed his feet on the rotting table, his hands behind his head. "Scotlands a big country Harry. How do you suggest on finding her?"

Harry's face fell and he slumped back into his chair. For Ron was right for once, and there was no way to find her without making himself known to Voldemort. They would have to wait for word on Hermione's safety.