Whatsername

Chapter One

The Picture

Thought I ran into you down on the street
Then it turned out to only be a dream
I made a point to burn all of the photographs
She went away and then I took a different path
I remember the face
But I can't recall the name
Now I wonder how Whatsername has been

It had been eight years since the memory charm, but it seemed like many more to Harry. That was because he completely lost his memory that day. He had woken up three days after in the long term ward in St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries with an anxious healer looming over him. He didn't remember a thing, including all of the schooling he'd gotten in many years. He had woken up with the intelligence and maturity of a five year old and it he had been seventeen.

Now he was twenty five, and though he was still recovering. He was basically going through a second school, but being taught by special tutors. He had gotten his wand when his intelligence had reached that of an eleven year old: two years ago. But his maturity developed twice as fast as his intelligence, probably as the effect of a memory charm. He pretty much acted his age, give or take a couple of years.

Harry had recently taken to drawing pictures, mainly of the people he saw every day. It was nearly eight in the morning on a Saturday and he was sitting with his pencil and colored pencils drawing. The healer, Madam Almeise stepped into the room.

"Good morning Harry!" she said in a singsong voice. She still treated him like a nine year old. "What are you drawing today, sweetie?"

"Hold on," he said, "I'm almost finished… there!" He moved aside to let her see.

"Who is she?" said Madam Almeise. Harry tilted his head and looked at the picture thoughtfully.

"I don't know," he said, "She's pretty though."

"Yes she is," said Madam Almeise in her annoying singsong voice, but at the same time she was jotting down something in Harry's memory record notebook. She was told that drawings could reflect a memory comeback. "Well, be good Harry, I'm going to eat breakfast!"

"Fine," He looked down at the picture and had a peculiar thought. After he lost his memory he had been told that he hit his head while running from a fire that burned his house down. They gave him some "remains" consisting of a sneakoscope and a few burned photographs, but he had never really looked at these. He kept these in one of the many boxes under his bed. He looked down under his bed and began to search. Finally he found them. He looked through the pictures one by one.

There was one of a younger version of him and a bony blonde woman with a long neck, a few of himself Ron Weasly and Hermione Granger, who had visited him at the hospital for a few years before falling out of touch, one of a woman with long red hair in a wedding dress and two men with black hair, one who looked almost exactly like Harry and one who Harry didn't recognize, but who was laughing. Then he saw the last one in the pile and gaped. She looked exactly like the girl in his drawing. She had long red hair like the woman in the previous picture, but hers was less orangey, and her eyes were dark blue, rather than green. She was very freckly and was smiling sincerely. He knew that girl form somewhere.

But who was she? What was her name? Harry strained his poor memory.

Annie… no… Ally? Nuh-uh, um, Jenny? No, that's not it either…

After a while he gave up on the name but the face of the girl just kept floating into his head. He remembered a dream he once had, but only one part, a flowery smell, a hand on his face, and something poking his forehead. It was a bit random, but somehow he knew it was connected with the red haired girl. He spent the rest of the day wondering about the pretty girl with the red hair.