Hey, everyone. This is Alia.dreamer. Just thought you might want to know that my friend, Mandi, wrote this story. She just hasn't figured out how to use yet. Have fun reading the story.
Disclaimer: Harry and his friends and foes belong to J.K.Rowling. However, Claire and this plot belong to my dear friend, Mandi. So NO STEALING!
Lost Memories
Chapter One
She's Returned
Claire walked quickly down the street to her home. It was almost noon and if she didn't get back before lunch time she was sure her mother would have a fit. She had been hoping to have a little more trust from her mother when she turned eleven the previous week but that didn't happen.
She turned and ran up her driveway and through the front door. 11:58. Perfect. She made it with minutes to spare. She walked into the kitchen and set the table for her mother.
It was a bit quiet, she didn't understand why. Where is everyone? Claire thought to herself. Usually she'd hear her mother cooking or her brother in his room with the radio cranked up so loud the windows shook. But she didn't hear any of that.
BANG.
Claire jumped. "What was that?" she said aloud to herself. She walked to where she thought the noise had come from, the window in the living room. She opened it and looked through.
A baseball sat in the grass a few feet from the side of her house. The neighbor boy ran and picked it up.
"Sorry," he said looking up at her, "I don't have very good aim."
"That's okay." Claire replied, with a small smile. She watched him run back to his yard before she closed the window and walked back to the kitchen.
She glanced at the clock. 12:05. She sighed and took the soup from the stove. She carefully poured it into a bowl and set it on the table.
She sat down and waited. Minutes later she heard the door open and saw her mother and fourteen year old brother Jeff enter the room. Jeff had a cast on his left arm.
"I'm so sorry Claire." Her mother said to her. "Jeff had a bit of an accident and I had to take him to the doctor. I thought we'd make it back before you came home. You were all right weren't you? Not worried or anything?"
Claire looked up at her with relief. "No. I was fine."
"I see you got lunch ready." She said to her, smiling. "Very good."
They sat down and began eating. During their meal Jeff explained how he had climbed up the tree in the backyard to get his cat down and slipped. He had fallen right on his left arm and broken it. Claire just laughed. He had done that so many times it wasn't at all surprising anymore.
After lunch Claire went up to her bedroom and took out her diary. She wrote what had happened to Jeff and smiled. She had gotten the diary for her eleventh birthday. It was a very pretty shade of blue and she had written Claire's Diary across the top in red letters. When she had finished recording the day's events she locked it and put it under her bed. She turned to leave the room just as a brown owl soared through her window.
Claire gasped. The owl promptly dropped an envelope at her feet and flew back out. Claire bent down to pick up the letter. She saw her name on the front in emerald green letters along with her exact address. She turned it over. Sealing the envelope was what looked like a sticker of a shining letter H surrounded by four animals and colors: a lion in red, a snake in green, a bird in blue and a badger in yellow. She carefully lifted the sticker and took out the letter inside...
"Where was she found?" an old man's voice asked quietly.
"In the entrance hall, right by the door." a woman's voice replied.
"Was she conscious?"
"No."
"Who found her?"
"Hagrid."
"Did he see anyone else around?"
"No one."
"Does anyone else know she's here?"
"Not to my knowledge."
"I see," there was a long pause. "Who was the last to see her before she disappeared?"
"I believe it was Ron Weasley."
"And he didn't know what happened to her?"
"Not at all. He said they had a fight, she ran off, and that was the last he saw of her."
"Thank you. Can you go get her friends for me? I think it'll be good to have them here when she wakes up. And send an owl to her mother, she's been worried sick."
"Certainly, headmaster."
"Ow..." Claire muttered, rubbing the back of her head. It felt as if she had just been hit with a baseball bat. She tried to open her eyes but the light in the room was too bright. She waited a few seconds then sat up. She rubbed her eyes, opened them, and gasped.
She realized she was in a room with many beds in rows along the walls. There were five people sitting around the bed she was laying on. At the foot of the bed sat a very old looking man with bright blue eyes and long, white hair and beard. He had his hands folded under his chin and he looked at her through his half-moon glasses.
To the left of the man sat three teenagers, looking to be about seventeen or eighteen. There was a very dark haired boy with glasses and Claire could see a scar on his forehead. The boy next to him had bright, red hair and freckles and was looking at her with a look of mixed worry and relief. The next was a girl with long, straight brown hair and looked as if she was about to cry.
On the other side of the old man was a woman who looked quite angry about the crowd being there. She held a bottle of some odd looking liquid that Claire hoped she wasn't about to make her drink.
The old man at the end of the bed spoke quietly, startling Claire, "Are you all right?" he asked her calmly.
"Who... who're you?" Claire asked them all.
The woman muttered, "Worse than I thought," and hurried off through a door at the end of the room. The dark haired boy's eyes widened, the girl sobbed and tried to hold back her tears, and the red haired boy looked as if his mother had just died in front of him. But the old man sat calmly and said "Claire... do you know who you are?"
"Of course I know who I am. But I just want to know who all of you are and where I am."
"We're your friends." The dark haired boy told her. "You don't recognize any of us?"
Claire shook her head. "Should I?"
"We've been your friends for six years," he replied calmly.
"Six years? I've never seen you in my life." She saw another tear slide down the brown haired girl's face.
The old man said, "Perhaps our names might remind her? Hm?"
The three around him nodded. The dark haired boy said, "My name is Harry." Claire stared blankly at him. "Harry Potter..." he continued.
"Uh huh..." Claire said, unconvinced.
"And I'm Hermione Granger," said the brown haired girl said with great difficulty.
"I'm still not understanding any of this." Claire told them, a little annoyed, she turned to the red haired boy, "And you are?" she said a bit rudely.
"Ron... Weasley..." he seemed to be having the most trouble with the whole situation.
"And I am the headmaster of this school, Albus Dumbledore." The old man told her.
"I'm in a school? But it's summer!" she told them.
"I'm afraid it's not." he said, shaking his head sadly. "Tell me, where do you last remember being?"
"In my bedroom."
"What were you doing?"
"I was opening a letter that an owl had dropped in my room."
"Do you remember what the letter said?"
"I didn't have a chance to read it. I had just been pulling it out when I found myself here."
"Claire... how old are you?"
"I turned eleven last week. What does that have to do with this?"
"Eleven?" Ron said completely shocked. "ELEVEN?"
Dumbledore put his hand up and Ron shut his mouth. "Claire, you're not eleven. You're seventeen."
Claire looked at him as if he were crazy. "Seventeen? No I'm not! Are you out of your mind? I'm eleven years old. I'm going into the sixth grade. I've never met any of you in my life and WHERE'S MY MOM?" she said bursting into tears.
"I understand this is very hard for you." Dumbledore told her calmly. "But you have to understand. How about you rest a bit and I'll explain this a little later," he told her as she cried.
The woman that had left earlier reentered the room. She gave Claire a glass of a new liquid and watched her fall asleep.
Dumbledore turned to Harry, Ron and Hermione who all looked completely horrified.
"This is my fault." Ron said quietly. "This is all my fault."
"It's not your fault in the least Mr. Weasley." Dumbledore told him, "Now I recommend that you all go relax. It's Saturday after all. We'll sort everything out later. I promise. We'll find out what happened. Who took her and why. Where's she's been. And we'll make sure she gets her memory back. Leave this all to me."
The three of them nodded and turned to leave. When they had left the room Dumbledore turned to the woman and said "Keep an eye on her. Notify me the second she awakens."
The woman nodded. "Of course." And Dumbledore left the room.
"I can't believe this. It's my fault. It's all my fault." Ron was saying as he, Hermione and Harry sat under a tree on the grounds.
"Don't be silly," Hermione said, "of course it's not your fault. You didn't take her, you didn't erase her memory. You didn't do anything to her."
"But it's my fault she was out there. If we hadn't fought she never would have run outside like that and gotten herself kidnapped in the first place."
"Ron," Harry said, "you had no idea that she would disappear. There's no way you could've known or prevented it. The important thing is that she's back now."
"Yes," Hermione agreed, "and Dumbledore said he'd sort everything out. She'll be fine."
"I suppose you're right." Ron said, staring out over the lake. "But I can't believe this is happening. She thinks she's eleven. Eleven! She doesn't remember the Hogwarts letter. She doesn't remember us. She doesn't remember her classes or anything from the past six years! How are we gonna explain everything to her? She's muggleborn, like you Hermione," he said turning to her, "she won't know any of this. Quidditch, charms, potions, transfiguration, Hogsmeade, Zonko's, Honeydukes, us, magic... She won't even remember magic."
"Ron, calm down." Harry said, putting his hand on Ron's shoulder. "It'll be fine. Dumbledore can take care of this. If you can't trust Dumbledore to fix this then you'll go completely crazy."
"I'm already going completely crazy!" Ron yelled. "She doesn't even remember me. ME. Her own BOYFRIEND."
"You know," Hermione said, "memory charms don't just pick and choose certain memories. If she can't remember the past six years, she's not gonna remember you..."
Ron sighed and closed his eyes. "Isn't there anything we can do? Can't we help her remember anything?"
"I don't think so." Harry said sadly.
"Wait," Hermione said, her eyes lighting up. "Maybe there is something we can do!" She jumped to her feet and ran toward the castle.
"And she doesn't even tell us what it is." Ron muttered before climbing to his feet and running after her with Harry close behind.
Any ideas for writer's block? (I think she is already writing chapter 8.) Read and Review.
