A/N: Alright, I'm having typing issues tonight, can't belt out a coherent sentence without typing something oddly…

Anyway, this pretty much an angst fic, which I haven't done since the 20,000 word, three part series two years ago that never got finished….Mmmm.

Whoa, an hour later.  I got sidetracked there by making moving icons…anyway, watch for angst and a little gory memories…

Oh, right, disclaimer.  I own none of J K Rowlings characters or idea.  I do own Kaytlin Michaels, and anyone who reads this who has the same name as her I apologize. I got tired of obscure, fantasy like names…

So Cliché!

…One /day/ later…

And the deal behind my using all the famous artworks and poems in my titles is to create some sort of weird link to our world…and I don't own any of them, either!

~~~~~~

Persistance of Memory

Part One – In memorium…

Chapter One – Wake up.  Day calls you.

A pain beyond that I had ever experienced, a light so brilliant that it burned.  Tremors coursed through my body that accompanied an agony such as I had never sought in any nightmare.

My head throbbed, I could hear the blood rushing through my veins and roaring in my ears…

And then I realized I had done naught but open my eyes, and yet I could not see.

"Thank Merlin, she's awake…"  Who was awake?  The cool, alien sound of the adult voice broke my reverie of pain and fear, and unwittingly I twitched slightly, the movement driving daggers into my limbs.  Why did I hurt so?  "Do you know your name, sweetie?" The feminine voice crooned in a tone that soothed me, very close to my ear.  I dared not nod, as my mind was still cringing and trembling from the pain even the slight jerk I had just experienced.  But, yes, I knew my name…

"Kaytlin Michaels…"  A twinge of surprise broke through my pain and terror of white-blindness, for the voice which had spoke on my mental command was not my own.  Another gut wrenching pull of panic took me – what was happening?  What had happened?  Oh gods, why did I hurt so?  Wave after wave of pain flowed through my wrecked body, and through the whiteness that was my vision I began to make out dull shapes moving in the painful brilliance of the room I seemed to be cloistered in.  The soothing woman spoke again, though not to me.

"Her memory isn't damaged, at least.  She knows her own name."

"Good." So sharp.  That voice…that voice struck a harsh chord of pain in my temple.  "The ministry will be happy.  I need to question her, and she'd be useless if her memory has been damaged."  Something about his tone struck me as untruthful, yet I could not pick it.

I blinked, and a the scene improved in clarity enough for me to make out two women and a man judging by shape, before someone adjusted the bed sheets of whatever I had been laid on, sending another wave of white hot pain tearing through me.  Someone cried out, but I did not recognise the voice other than it belonged to whoever had spoken my name.

"Careful with her," The soothing woman exclaimed quietly, and a plump shape bustled over to me and placed a cloth over my face.  Something cool trickled into my eyes, and when the cloth was removed I could see again.

It crossed my mind to say thank you as my mother had always taught me, but when I tried the female with the unfamiliar voice obliged before I could get the words out.

The man snorted, "She has been comatose for three and a half weeks, and yet she persists with such inane pleasantries."

"Ssssshhhh!" The plump, friendly woman hissed, "She's in a delicate state, Sir!  If you aren't going to respect that I will have to ask you to-"

"I'm not leaving, the minister ordered me to stay."  Yet again, I sensed a lie there in his cold, businesslike tone, but fatigue was seeping in to replace the physical torture I was experiencing, and I drifted into blessed blackness.

~~~~

The next time my eyes opened, there was no pain.  No blindness and no friendly, plump and burry shape.

Just a white hospital room, a man, and slightly fuzzy, blurred feeling that lay over my mind like a woolen blanket, hindering my ability to think of anything other than the lingering memory of agony from my last awakening, and the distinct unpleasant appearance of the man before me.

"Hello, Miss Michaels." I shivered slightly, recognising the man's cold voice from yesterday, and I studied him with interest.  His greeting had been nothing more than a cold, routine statement, yet his face was unusually handsome with a swathe of pale hair and disinterested yet heavily lidded grey eyes.  He seemed disconcerted by my stare, and shifted nervously.  "I hope you're feeling better than yesterday.  Apparently you were in pain…?" He raise his eyebrows, calm eyes and callous tone betraying the smooth words.  I nodded, incapable of more.  "Dear me.  I am required to ask you a few questions, since your memory hasn't been…ah, damaged by the coma…"

"Coma?" I asked, flinching slightly at the sound of the unfamiliar voice, once again speaking for me.  What was that? "I…What's a coma?" The word sounded familiar, but the meaning escaped me.  I coloured slightly when the man raised his eyebrows again, this time in obvious mockery.

"Comatose, Miss Michaels.  Asleep without any certain time of waking?" Something shifted in his expression, and he sat forwards a little bit.  "Do you remember the night you fell into the coma, Miss Michaels?"  I shook my head, and he narrowed his stony, grey eyes.  "It's funny you don't know the term coma…I was under the impression that you were a bright young lady." He didn't give me a chance to snap at the indication that I was stupid.  "Tell me, how old are you Miss Michaels?"

"Five. Six this October." I replied immediately, frowning when the mature voice answered.

"Oh dear…" He sighed, fixing me with such an examining look that I glanced away – I couldn't understand what was going on.  I only looked back when he rose, picking a mirror up from the bedside table.  He sat back down with a degree of languid boredom that made me think instantaneously of a serpent, sliding the mirror into my hand that sat prone of the crisp white bedspread.  "I am…Sorry Miss Michaels…"

He didn't sound sorry at all, and it was the slightly triumphant tenor to his words that prompted me to pick up the mirror in a hand trembling from weakness.  I stopped before I had even flipped the mirror over, staring frozen at the hand which held it.  Bony with long, pale fingernails…elegant but spidery…And I did not recognise them as my own.

With a feeling of creeping dread I turned the mirror over and raised it to my face.

And the word dissolved around me once more.

Because the face in it was not mine.

I did not faint – I know I did not faint because I could still hear the plump, kind nurse yelling at the man who questioned me.  She was beyond irate.  Something about ignoring the prospect that I might slip back into coma from shock.  I wasn't concentrating on her words, though.  The face that I had seen in the mirror floated over my eyes.  Wide, hollow eyes framed with long lashes and sporting an odd, amber hue, a thick swathe of plain, pale mousey hair and a face that would normally be plain to look at, but had been wasted by illness into a hollow-cheeked wraithe.

A face that appeared sixteen years of age, and I was not sixteen.

Was I?

The face looked vaguely familiar – the eyes.  Same colour that I admired as my only beautiful feature in the mirror, every morning.  Same hair colour.  But I was not sixteen.  I could not be sixteen.

Yet damage to my memory had been mentioned as a possibility.

Which meant the last ten years of my life were missing from my knowledge.

This time, I did faint, and welcomed the descending blackness with all my soul.