Chapter One Meeting On A Train
"What is your name Miss?" asked a boy, around her age, politely. He was marking names in a little yellow pamphlet in a bright blue wizards robe.
"Flower." She replied blushing from her roots.
He looked back up at her, "Is there a last name for that Miss?"
She gave him a little nervous smile, "Well...I s'pose there might be one to it but I don't remember it. Sorry."
The boy sighed impatiently, "Well Miss, why don't you just give me a name please. You can deal with that when your settled."
She glared at him and thought really hard, Mrs. Cunningham had never thought of a last name for her, "Potter. Go with that." She had no idea where that had come from.
She always thought about that name, it sounded so magical and familiar. Potter. Flower Potter. It had a nice ring to it.
Flower wasn't even her name either. She was given that name when they found her.
She was claimed at St. Mungos when no one else did, from a lady who owned an orphan down in Wells, England. She only stayed there a year though. She was seventeen when she was found, and the rule was you left at eighteen. Flower was twenty now.
'So, how did you end up at the hospital?' questioned Mrs. Cunningham.
'I-I don't remember,' she replied, looking down.
'Right, so what is your name?' She asked again.
She shrugged, 'Look, I woke up a week ago and I don't remember how I got there and I don't remember anything, I'm sorry. But, if it helps I do know my name was a flowers.'
'So it's settled,' she rang impatiently. 'It's Flower.'
Flower sat in the seat still, she was waiting for what the boy might say next. She was trying to buy a ticket to London. She hadn't learned how to apparate, they don't teach that sort of things at the orphanage.
Mrs. Cunningham always snapped at her and asked how could she remember all this magic but she couldn't remember her name. She s'posed magic is just the sort of thing that stays with you like the ability to talk, you're born with it and a name is just given to you after a while when you're born.
"Well, Miss, here you go. Have a nice trip?" The boy handed over a ticket and she excused herself.
"So do you have your ticket Flower?" asked Heather, her friend from the orphan.
Flower nodded, putting her red hair in a pony tail, "I'm all set to leave tomorrow. I hope I can actually make it to the train this time."
Heather snorted, "Normal People have fears of spiders or heights but you have a fear of trains, that's strange Flower dear."
Flower gave her a sheepish grin, "Well, Heather, if you haven't noticed yet, I'm not exactly normal."
"I'll drink to that." Heather said putting on her coat. "So, you're really leaving tomorrow, huh?"
"If I don't faint when I see the train, then yes, I expect I will leave."
"Well, if everything doesn't go your way and you don't find anything. You come back, all right." Heather said embracing her friend.
She hoped with all her might that something in London will help her find a way. She clutched the necklace on her. Heather noticed that and then said very quickly, "You're not going to France, right?"
"Of course not." She lied, looking away. "I have nothing there, I mean if I ended up in an orphanage is because the people who gave me this necklace didn't want me."
Heather gave a satisfied smile, "Good, and you know that girls don't shave in France,"
They burst out in giggles.
That wasn't Flower though at all, she didn't have enough money to go to France so she was going to go to London to learn how to apparate. She figured her family couldn't find her.
"What are you thinking about?" questioned Heather curiously.
Flower looked down at her and smiled, "Nothing."
"So you never saw her again?" questioned James' new shrink.
"Nope. My fault really, I haven't gone back to actually look for her."
James replied sadly, he looked out the window. He had been there for a while now.
"Do you blame yourself for what happened?" Professor Jacque asked in a rich French accent.
James scoffed, "Who wouldn't blame me? If I hadn't let go of her hand, everything would have been fine. If I would have jumped off after her right away, she would have been fine. If-"
"Mr. Potter, your problem isn't mentally and there clearly isn't something medically wrong with you. You are facing what most human beings face when they lose someone special." He paused and rubbed his temple. "You are holding on to the past. I am not telling you to forget this person, because she was part of your life but maybe you just need to the face the facts. You didn't jump off and you didn't hold on. What's done is done. You'd think all those warrants would have told you already."
James shook his head, "She's alive Professor. I've kept in touch with the London Wizardry Press and there has never been an article about her dead and they would have written one, believe me. All they did was set a missing person ad and that's it. She's alive."
He set his eyes on James, "If she was missing, don't you think that they would have found her James?"
James didn't reply, he just laid there, without emotion.
"Our session is over James, I'll see you another day. But for now, please rest and just be grateful for what you have."
James didn't excuse himself, he got up and left. He placed his coat on and walked toward his house. He walked towards an empty street, where a door was well hidden behind bushes.
"Marie, love, are you home?" James questioned, he might have been home but his mind was else where.
A brunette peaked over a couch, her eyes were small and narrowed, "How did it go?"
James shrugged, "He's the same as the other shrinks. I don't think he'll do anything for me."
She groaned, "That's what you always say! Maybe if you stuck around him some more, it can actually do something."
James shook his head frustrated, "You make it seem like I'm mentally ill or retarded or something. I'm not."
Marie scoffed and threw her arms up, "You're not the one who's woken up by your constant muttering."
James glared at her, "You always kick in your sleep, it doesn't mean I'm going to call you retarded."
Marie blushed crimson, "Do whatever you want James, my say never matters to you anyway."
James rolled his eyes. He met Marie at this French class, he sat next to her. She was the only girl who was as lost as he was. They've been seeing each other for four months now and to him, she had been becoming too clingy and pushy.
If only he could get out. This life wasn't his. He belonged to someone else, his heart was with another. If only he could find her.
"What do you want to do tonight?" Marie asked.
"I don't know. I'm going to go for a walk," James muttered. He grabbed his coat once again, then walked out the door. He didn't even bother to listen to what Marie had to say about it.
Mulling his thoughts over in his head James silently ambled his way to the park only a few blocks away from where he and Marie lived. More and more of late had he taken to the park benches to cool his foul mood after coming home from psychiatrists, only to be disappointed that none could help him.
Maybe he should just give up, give in, and just move on. Marry Marie and live with the fact that he lost his best friend. He shook his head. He couldn't, he just couldn't.
Flower walked to the train in ratty jeans with a green cloak, she felt driblets of sweat roll down her head.
"Ticket?"
"Here." she murmured silently.
"Flower Potter?" he questioned to himself, she nodded, "I knew a Potter. James Potter. Any relation?"
Flower thought hard, it sounded so familiar, but remembering things gave her a head ache, "I'm sorry, no, but I'll ask my aunt anyway. She might tell me."
"You look awfully familiar, have I met you before?" he continued, ignoring her answer.
"Probably, but I don't remember." She said getting very uncomfortable.
The boy kept peering at her and then returned her ticket, "Have an enjoyably trip Miss and hopefully we can talk later."
Flower gave him a polite smile and went to the farthest room in the train, the only empty one; and as soon as she sat down she closed the window.
It felt like forever had passed by when she saw a head peak in through the door.
It was the ticket boy again.
"Hi, I wanted to know if we could talk, I'm sort of bored." He gave her a sheepish grin.
"Ummm...well...sure..." Flower answered indecisive, she never really met anyone that forward and she enjoyed it.
"Did you go to Hogwarts?" he asked as he sat down.
Flower rubbed her neck, she felt her face grow hot, "I probably did, since I'm British but...I don't remember."
"I'm confused..." the boy started saying.
"I was found in the hospital, I must have hit my head pretty bad because I don't remember anything up to when I was seventeen." Flower explained slowly.
"That must have been tough..." the boy nodded. "How did your family cope?"
Flower shrugged, "I've never met them, they didn't come for me. I don't think I even have a family, to tell you the truth. I lived in the orphanage in Wells for a year and then my friend and I traveled to the downtown of town and lived there."
"You are one interesting person to know, Miss Potter," he said smirking.
"Flower, please," she smiled at him warmly.
"I need to smoke a fag, do you mind?" he walked over to open the window.
"No." she said too quickly. She looked away from the window as he smoked. She closed her eyes momentarily.
"Okay all done." He said moments later. "I'm sorry, gross habit."
She smiled at him, "So tell me something about yourself."
The boy thought, "I went to Hogwarts, then after that I went to France for a year but my mum was missing my father so we had to come back. I haven't seen my Hogwarts friends in two and a half years, and one of them lives here in England. London."
"You've been to France!" Flower said excitedly. "How is it? Is it beautiful?"
"Its all right." He nodded smiling.
"I've always wanted to go." She blurted out.
"Why?" He asked curiously.
She gave him a weak shrug. "Who wouldn't want to go?"
"Well, lovely talking to you Flower, but the train is almost coming to an end."
Flower looked at him, "Wait, what's your name?"
He smiled, "How rude of me, Remus Lupin."
"Remus..." she suddenly felt a very thick head ache come on.
"I'll talk to you later."