A/N: Thank so much for the feedback! Any kind of reviews still welcome. I only read OotP once, so if there are any glaring inaccuracies, let me know.
A faint low groan emitted from her slightly parted lips, and her eyelashes began to flutter. The light seemed far too bright, and an eruption of whispered voices broke out about the room. Slowly, she opened her eyes.
The first thing she noticed was the bright white spotlight hanging directly over her head. She lifted a weak hand to shield her eyes.
"Where am I?" Her voice was strained. She glanced at her surroundings. A white room. She lay upon a thin cot, also made up in white sheets. The rooms' sterile feel was unnerving. Several silver machines whirred in a corner. A long cord ran from one of the machines to her bedside, and was pushed into the flesh of her inner arm. A young woman, dressed in white, approached slowly.
"Your in a hospital. Your all right, just drink this and rest." The woman held a glass flask full of a deep red liquid to her lips. She took a sip, and coughed as the bitterness hit her taste buds. The young woman quickly grew impatient and tipped the remainder down her throat. She coughed again, and leaned her head back against the pillows, her eyes fluttering shut.
Her eyes opened again. She felt better this time, but still a little weak. Slowly, she pushed herself into a sitting position. The cord running to her arm stung as she did so. Hesitantly, she lifted a hand. Her skin was pale, and her hand small and slender. A paper bracelet encircled her wrist, which puzzled her. A tray of food sat at the foot of the sterile bed, and after a few minutes of looking around aimlessly she ate. The food was white and lumpy, blending unnervingly well with the white surroundings. Looking around, she noticed everything in the room had the same white or silver coloring. Only her hair, the dark ends laying around her, was different.
Quiet a while passed before a man in a long white coat with a clipboard under his arm hurried into the room.
"What happened?" She looked up at him, her head tilted to the side in question, long, unbound hair falling about her shoulders. A look of sympathy flashed across the mans face.
"We're not sure exactly. You were involved in the terrorist- uh, incident, at the carnival near a week ago."
"Terrorist incident?" She squinted and tried to clear her mind.
"Well, you see, no ones exactly sure how it happened." The man pulled up a stool by her bedside, and spoke in a brisk, almost hurried manner. He had better places to be then this. "A group of masked people appeared and some sort of bombing went on. We think they had guns, though no one saw any. Well, the thing turned into a panic. As of now, twenty five people are dead, another twenty unconscious or in critical condition." She looked confused. Silence hung in the room for several minutes. After a pause she shook her head, and passed a hand in front of her eyes.
"What happened to me?" The man let out a heavy sigh.
"Again, we're not quite sure. We believe you experienced some sort of concussion, but that shouldn't have kept you unconscious this long. There was some sort of outside variable, we just haven't been able to find it yet." She looked around again. The man frowned. "Now, I'm going to have to ask you a few questions, just to make sure you're alright." The man looked as if he seriously doubted she was alright.
"Ma'am, whats todays date?" She frowned.
"How should I know, I've been unconscious." A tone of cynical sarcasm shone through unknowingly. The man smiled weakly.
"True, true. Uhh, can you remember anything of the incident?" She concentrated, her expression lost in thought. She remained like this for some time and the doctor waited, looking impatiently at his watch every few minutes. Finally, she answered.
"No. I don't."
"Can you tell me what your name is?" Silent tears began to run down her face as she tried to focus her mind and remember.
"No."
"Can you tell me of anything that happened before you were brought here? Even events from the day before, or the week before? Even from childhood?" The tears flowed harder.
"No." The man frowned.
"Its just as we expected from your examinations. I can't be certain without testing, but it seems you've been affected with retrograde amnesia, or in other words, a loss of your memory from the accident and everything prior." He made a note on his clipboard. "It will come back to you, in a few months, but I'm afraid I can't just release you into the world. Without your help, I have no way of identifying you further then we already have, and I know of no living relatives without at least a last name. We are running a search by first names, but have yet to find anything worth while."
"I hate to ask this, but what is my name?" She was humiliated to ask it. But she had no other way of finding out. She had tried to remember, and it had been right there, dancing tauntingly just out of her reach. It hadn't come.
"Judging from an engraving found on a piece of jewelry, we believe its Bella." She contemplated that for a while. She hadn't heard the name before, but something about it just seemed right.
"What are you going to do with me?"
"There's an elderly couple that volunteers here on Sundays. They're children are now full grown, and they live by themselves nearby. They've offered to take you into their home until we know anything further about you. Its pointless just to keep you here, and we've learned that a patient of your type benefits from participating in daily life." Her head began to spin from an overload of information. She was hearing the mans words, but they were too hard to believe. It was all too much! She leaned her head back against the pillows and closed her eyes. The man stood and went to the door.
"I shall leave you to rest. I understand this must be hard on you." She wanted to throw something at him. He had no idea.
The doll landed with a splash in the fish pond.
"Bella! What on earth was that for!" The cry was shrill, and coming from the mouth of a small five year old girl. Her face was contorted in a pout, and her feet bare. A pretty shift, like a tiny version of a Victorian tea dress, was on her, the stiff white cloth and intricate lace matching her perfectly fair skin and white blond hair.
"Because you're being a pain, and thats what you get when you're being a pain." This girl was slightly older, seven or eight maybe, and wore a smug look on her face, arms triumphantly crossed. She watched the younger girl with critical dark eyes, as she lifted her skirts and delicately began to wade into the molded water, just far enough to reach the bedraggled dolly, pouting and huffing along the way. The older girls hair was braided and her clothes were also old fashioned, though dark green in color. Her fair skin seemed especially pale in contrast. A smirk was etched upon her face.
"Narcissa!" The highly exasperated call of the nursemaid echoed from the back door of the families summer manor. No one particularly wanted to be there, but it was a tradition the girls' mother upheld every year regardless. Then, the rest of the extended family would travel out to meet them, and the girl would be forced to endure an entire summer of her insufferable cousin.
The nursemaid hurried from the house and leaned over the pond, using long arms to scoop the girl from the water, doll now in hand.
"Look at you!" She exclaimed, holding her far enough away to prevent getting her own dress wet. Narcissa's feet and hem were coated in muck, and her doll was in dreadful condition, the blond hair tinted a horrific shade of green. The girl bit her bottom lip sharply to keep from laughing. By the time the nursemaid had carried the kicking Narcissa inside at arms length, the metallic taste of blood was apparent in her mouth. She turned away, smirk still in place, and carefully she lifted a finger to her lip. She pulled it away, momentarily memorized by the colorful liquid remaining there. She wiped her hand off on her skirt and looked back down at it. The blood was gone, only a streak of faint pink where it had once been remaining.
"That was a simply horrid thing to do you know." The matter-of-fact voice echoed from the stone bench sitting in the sun just outside the patio. The girl turned to face the speaker, smirk gone. In place of it, her dark eyes hardened and her lips turned to a sneer.
"And why ever is that, Andromeda?" An older girl sat upon the bench, her nose buried in a leather covered volume of lore. She didn't look up from it as she spoke.
"It just wasn't very nice. That green will never come out of the hair you know. And that one was Narcissa's favorite." The girl glared steadily at her, before whirling around and storming into the house. Andromeda lifted her gaze and watched her go, a sad look remaining in her eyes. She shook her head subtly, and turned back to her reading.
Bella awoke in a sweat, the covers twisted in a knot and her hands gripping the sheets tightly. It had seemed so real. Was it a memory? The doctor had said things would gradually begin to come back to her, but this wasn't how she imagined things would come back to her. Everything in it had contained an echo of familiarity, but had seemed entirely unreal at the same time. Had it just been an entirely meaningless dream? By why would the dream be so detailed. The situation was uncommon too. Why would she be dreaming of some random family? And ones with such an old fashioned life style and old fashioned names too.
Then she remembered what the little one had called the girl.
Bella.
The young girl was her.
