Dust covers you, choking you with every breath. It is a small mercy that there was no sign of fire, or you were certain you would have perished within it.
Your surroundings are unfamiliar; your mind is a jumbled mess. A child's cry rings through the silence and you startle, wondering momentarily why a child had been left in this mess. Nevetheless, you stand, intending to find and comfort the child.
Crossing the room is an effort as you wade through the rubble and bits of ceiling that had misplaced themselves. The staircase is barely recognisable, and you make sure to test each stair before you place your entire weight on it.
For the disaster that lay in the floor below, it is only the hole in the floor that is out-of-place, and you easily step around it. The crying grows louder, and you pause at the scene that greets you.
A redhead lies in front of the crib of a crying boy, chest unmoving and you take a moment to wonder what exactly had happened here. You are certain she is his mother, and the question of who you are rises again, but the child stops crying at the sight of you. He hiccups once, twice, and his hands rise to be picked up.
You don't recognise the child, but the child recognises you. You hesitate in picking him up, believing he has mistaken you for someone else, but the child makes an impatient sound, and you remember the disaster that is the floor below.
He fits perfectly in your arms, and you turn to contemplate his mother. She was beautiful, you could tell that much from where you stood. Her fiery hair was something you thought would match her personality, and you silently mourned the loss of the woman. Carrying both her and the child would be an impossible task, yet you felt the urge to try – there was no way of telling how much longer the building would remain standing.
"James? Lily? Harry?" A frantic voice interrupted your thoughts, and you sighed with relief.
There wasn't a need to call back for a man was running into the room moments later. His wild expression told volumes of the depth of his fear.
"James, you're alive," the man sighed, relaxing almost immediately. "Harry too, where's...?"
You guessed the child's name was 'Harry', but was yours really 'James'? You couldn't tell, somehow your memories didn't extend that far back, but the relief on the grey-eyed man's face when seeing you made you want to believe him.
"What happened? Was You-Know-Who here?" Completing his check on the woman, Lily's, prone body, the man turned back to you, worry still at the edge of his expression.
"I don't know who you're talking about. I just woke up downstairs, and-" Panic was rising within you. You couldn't answer any of his questions. Your attempts at remembering anything drew blanks. "Take him. He was crying before. He's quiet now."
You force the quiet child into the man's arms, and he is too stunned to do more than hold the child in his arms. Once you're certain the child is secure in the other man's arms, you rush out of the house and into the darkness of the early morning.
The man in the house had clearly been mistaken. You weren't whoever he had assumed you were.
You ignore the growing crowd of people around the house.
You ignore the man's frantic calls of "James!".
You ignore the feeling of having lost everything.
Halloween Party: The Haunted House - Write about a time Hogwarts got damaged/write about the destruction of the Potter house; ceiling