avant

I remember the sound of footsteps on cold floors.

I remember the sinking worry feeling in my stomach.

I remember the smell of rain and the cut grass of the field. Scotland is wet. I know that, I remember that.

I remember kind eyes. What colour were they? They were kind, inquisitive. A child's eyes. But they knew too much to be a child's eyes.

I remember the taste of pepper, heavy on my tongue.

And then I don't remember.

one: je ne comprend pas

"Hermione?"

I'm sleepy. Go away.

"Hermione?"

A boy is looking at me. Expectant. Is that my name? Hermione? It's an ugly name. It's like Magdalena. Too many syllables that try to be all of the sounds at once in the way that brown tries to be all of the colours at once and just ends up muddled.

There are strands of brown hair on the sheets.

My hair?

They're frizzy and the ends are split.

"Hermione?" The boy furrows his eyebrows and adjusts his glasses. They'd been slipping down his nose. He is resting his thin face on the end of my bed. Creases in his pale cheeks from the folds in the sheets look like a cat's whiskers.

I feel a surge of motherly fondness for this boy, and I smile at him. "Hello?" My heart is heavy in my stomach just looking at him. He looks tired.

"You're awake, then? Good." He stands and smiles at me. "Good. How are you feeling?"

"Hm?" I smile back at him. Who is he? Do I know him? He knows me, I suppose.

This is very strange.

I'm very, very, inexplicably worried right now. I think I'm panicking. I think that's what this insanity bubbling up in my head is.

"Are you…okay?" The boy raises his eyebrow at me. "I'm going to go get Madam Pomfrey."

"Who's that?" I blurt.

He's surprised. Shocked, even. That's not good. "Er. What?"

I feel very small. "It's just that I have no idea who you're talking about." I say all of this very quickly.

The boy blinks. "Hermione, do you know who I am?"

"Yes, of course," I say. Where did that come from? "Well. No. I don't."

His breathing is deep and erratic, like he's trying to calm himself down and failing. He pulls his glasses off of his nose in a swift motion and with his free hand, he scrubs his face. He begins pacing, footsteps echoing hollowly against the white walls of—where am I?

I sit up, and the striped nightgown I'm in is thin and gooseflesh rises on my arms. I gnaw on my bottom lip.

The boy stops pacing and faces me. "I'm Harry. You don't remember me."

I shake my head.

"Your name is Hermione Granger. We've been best friends for seven years. This means nothing to you." His voice falls flat, like the last sentence should be a question but he doesn't have the energy to raise it.

I shake my head again.

"Ron Weasley. Ginny. Any of the Weasleys. George, Fred, Percy, Molly, Bill, anyone? Neville Longbottom. Lavender Brown. Parvati Patil. Seamus. Dean. Colin. No one?"

There are all of these foreign names attacking me and Harry, who was pale to begin with, has gone as white as a sheet.

"There must be some mistake, because I don't know any of these people," I say. "I know—"

Wait.

No one.

Do I have a mother? What does she look like? Why can't I remember?

I don't know anyone. I must know someone. Do I know anyone? Where am I? I don't know what's going on.

I feel very faint. "What's going on? Who did you say I was?"

He doesn't answer me. Harry slides his glasses back on his nose and closes his eyes very tightly. He plops down in the chair and slumps forward. When he speaks, he does so quietly. "She said this might have happened, but I didn't believe her."

"About what." My voice is very tight and I ask the question more like stating a fact.

"I'm not so sure—"

Well. He certainly doesn't look it, all tension and long, pale limbs, and furrowed brows. But I'm sure. I'm sure I want to know, that is. I'm not really sure of anything else.

"Please."

"I'll go get Pomfrey." He seems eager to make this hasty exit. He's uncomfortable being around me. Hell. Holy, holy hell. I would be uncomfortable around me, too. I'm a confused shell—thing—entity, I suppose, but barely. I will be dependent on these people, I already know, and this taste in my mouth is disgust. I wave him off and he practically leaps towards the door.

My skin feels greasy, like I haven't had a proper shower in too long. I smell medicinal, but not clean, necessarily. What is going on? There is a row of empty beds to my right, all apple-pie bed sheets and starched pillow-covers. The nightstands in between them are bare, except for a box of tissues and a silver tray on mine. The tissues are unopened. There is a silver spoon on the silver tray, and a small pool of pale purple liquid inside of that. To my left is a blank white door. Nondescript. I like it.

When I move to swing my legs off of the bed, my joints are creaky and my bones feel brittle and heavy. I have to slide in order to reach the floor; I'm tiny. I didn't expect to be this tiny. I move to the door, and it's the toilet. I stare the plain mirror above the sink. This is me. This girl is me. I'm so unfamiliar, and although I've been asleep for—as long as I can remember, really, the shadows under my eyes tell me that I haven't been resting well. I have a high widow's peak and a strong jaw with a pointed chin. But there's a softness to my heart-shaped face, in my weak cheekbones and my wide nose and brown eyes.

This frizzy hair is mine. These rosebud lips are mine. I touch my cheeks. This is mine. These seashell ears are mine. This collarbone is mine. There is a small brown splotch of a birthmark like an island just above my right collarbone. And it's mine.

I touch the mirror. It's cool and smooth. And it doesn't belong to me.

I peel some loose skin off of my bottom lip and reconsider. I don't know whose lips these are. They can't belong to me.

I am Hermione, maybe.

I am in limbo. Unequivocally.