A/N: Hello!

Some explanations:

I picked a London hospital at random to use as background, so descriptions are probably going to vary from reality. I've never been to England so everything I write about comes from books, TV and le internet.

Rochester: I only picked the suburb because a house in that area caught my eye while I was looking for a place to house Hermione. The Protected Persons Services are very secretive about what they do, and for good reason, but I managed to glean enough to realise I should have relocated Hermione to another part of England entirely, but I'm attached to Rochester now and that's where she'll stay :)

Calling Hermione by her 'amnesia' name: I tried referring to Hermione by her new name once she chose it, but it felt really weird so I went back to using 'Hermione' from a narrator's perspective and using her new name when people talk to her, etc. Hope this makes sense.

Rochester, London

Hermione stood awkwardly in the sitting room of a haphazardly-furnished narrow storied house, sitting cheek-by-jowl alongside a good half a dozen of the same in a short cul-de-sac that had a dark-bricked church of some sort at the end of it. Inside, the carpets, walls and curtains seemed determined to compete against each other for what must be the 'Loudest Furnishings in Rochester' contest.

"Oh, isn't this lovely?" an upbeat, motherly voice cooed behind her.

'This' was a house owned by the Police's Protected Persons Service*, and the motherly cooer was Geraldine ("call me Gerry, dear") Toogood, a social worker with short brown hair with tipped-blue ends from the local chapter of Social Work England.

Hermione recalled how she happened to be standing in this eclectic room of odds and ends. It was quite a journey...

The Royal London Hospital

While Hermione's physical injuries slowly healed, her memory stubbornly stayed mum. Since she couldn't loll about in a public hospital bed forever, the hospital, police, and social workers put their heads together and sussed out some suitable room and board.

Despite the Police analysing the blood on Hermione's clothes and checking Missing Persons listings, they were no closer to identifying her or her attacker, singluar or plural. Releasing Hermione into the wild blue yonder when she didn't even know where she lived wasn't something the hospital and social workers would countenance. Therefore, provision was made to accommodate her with Protected Persons until 'something' happened. 'Something' was either the Police putting her attacker/s behind bars, or she recovered her memories – whichever came first. "No pressure," the Chief Psychiatrist said kindly.

Hermione smiled weakly.

But even before this significant development developed, Jane Doe needed a name. Protected Persons ordinarily assigned new names to their charges, but the Chief Psychiatrist wanted Hermione to choose her first name.

"'Ere, this might 'elp," said one of the ward nurses, proffering a well-thumbed book of babies' names she got from a mate in Maternity.

Hermione flipped through the book, selecting pages by closing her eyes and flipping through, stopping at random points. Nothing seemed to stand out stand out until she got to a page that began with He:

Hea...

Heb...

Hec...

Hed...

Something tugged at her mind, then a snowy-white owl in full flight flapped into her mind. But before she barely registered what the hell it even was, the image disappeared in a trice.

Well. That was... unexpected. Did she know an owl with a name that started with Hed...?

Why would she know an owl with a name that started with Hed...?

The answer remained frustratingly elusive.

"How are you going dear?" That was Detective Constable Schiller, liaising with the Protected Persons crowd, who were tasked with finding her a place to live and a new identity, among other things.

Startled, Hermione scanned the other four-syllable names. None of them 'spoke' any louder to her. So she chose a name at random: Henrienna, or Henri for short. She closed the book and left it on the Nurses' Desk.

A pity she hadn't turned the page... to where name 'Hermione' lay.

'Henri' was discharged from the hospital, but she had mixed feelings. The hospital had been her home for many weeks; the only home she knew, really. Now she was embarking on a journey into the unknown.

At the main entrance, waiting for Gerry to rescue her government-issue electric vehicle from the extortionately-priced car park, Hermione picked at her clothes. Her own clothes were evidence, sitting in a locker at the Metropolitan Police HQ. So the nurses took her to a small windowless office called 'Lost Property' and together they foraged for something approaching presentable for Hermione to wear.

Here she stood in a diaphanous cream silk skirt cut on the bias and ending at her knees; a black t-shirt with Marilyn Manson's unforgettable features on the front and a list of tour dates for 2013 on the back; a long-sleeved knitted pink cardigan that she assumed last belonged to a blue-rinsed grandmother; and a pair of blue and white Scholl sandals. A nurse loaned Hermione her spray deodorant to take the edge off the worst of the musty aroma.

She politely declined the underwear, but she wasn't enjoying the feeling of these strange clothes brushing against her skin. In fact, her skin was beginning to crawl.

Gerry screeched to a halt outside the hospital. "Come on, duck!" she shouted through the open passenger window. "Let's get yer a decent wardrobe, eh?"

Hermione couldn't agree more. She flew down the steps, jumped into the car and braced for dear life as the vehicle roared off and directly into the mental merry-go-round that was London traffic.

Rochester

The clothing bonanza boomed mostly at that most British of institutions: Marks and Spencer. Gerry insisted the retail assistant scan the last lot of clothes Hermione tried on in the changing room: jeans, a pleated neck t-shirt, tennis shoes and a comfy bra and knicker combination with the plastic hygiene sticker still attached to the gusset.

The retail assistant eyeballed the overflowing trolley Gerry was pushing, got out her scanner scanned away.

"Er... what will madam being doing with her original clothing?" the hovering retail manager asked, looking askance at the orphaned clothes Hermione kicked to all corners of the dressing room.

Hermione avoided Gerry's eye. She supposed it wasn't appropriate to confess that she was planning on a vast ceremonial burning of every filthy item. "Um, can you put them in a bag?"

Yes, they could. A recyclable tote available for a small fee.

They needed a lot of totes.

Next step was the local Sainsbury's. Gerry was a veteran of housing people who had to leave town in a hurry. Under her calculating eye, the pair filled another trolley to the brim with food, cleaning gear and toiletries.

"Who's paying for this? And the clothes?" Hermione asked, biting her lip. Even if she remembered where she banked, and what her PIN was, she had a feeling her account would be looking mighty slim.

"Not to worry, dear," Gerry said breezily while she held a credit card to the EFTPOS machine. "Your set-up is paid by the government. You'll receive a benefit to help with bills going forward... but it would be good if you could get a job rather smartly."

A job? Hermione wondered. What on earth would she do? What on earth could she do?

"Or study!" Gerry tacked on.

Study? A warm feeling tool hold of Hermione's limbs. She quite liked the sound of 'study.'

Gerry went beyond the social worker's call of duty by helping Hermione put her domestic comestibles away, snipping tags off clothes and checking for errant loose threads and buttons. All accompanied by her constant stream of consciousness patter that spanned the weather, TV shows and her daughter's latest boyfriend dramas.

After a restorative cup of tea at the wood-scarred kitchen table, accompanied by a light meal of scrambled egg and bacon on toast (made by Gerry), she reached into her voluminous bag and pulled out a stout, white, rectangular box with a flourish. "Ta-da!"

Hermione furrowed her brows and stared at the image on the box's surface. "What is it?"

Gerry laughed. She laughed at lots of things. "Sorry duck, I forgot about your poor memory for a moment! This here is a mobile phone! You can make calls, play games, watch TV, read books, send messages, gamble (not that I recommend it) and probably all manner of other things I haven't a clue about!" She pushed the box across the table to Hermione. "You look like you thrive on puzzles, sweetheart. I'll leave this with you, along with my business card. I expect to receive a text from you! In any case, I'll stop by tomorrow with some study options."

After that, Hermione what soundly enveloped in a cloud of Believe by Britney Spears as Gerry gave her a big, encouraging hug. "See you tomorrow!" she cheered, sailed down the corridor and out the front door.

Leaving Hermione in the echoing silence, feeling rather empty.

The Afterlife: Cruise Ship

Sporting his thong (in case we forgot), Draco eventually located his cabin, his temper growing exponentially by the second. Hurling open his compact wardrobe, he pawed through lurid Hawaiian shirt after lurid Hawaiian board short until he found a pair of olive green cargo pants and a black polo shirt.

Pulling them on, he left his cabin and did his best to orient himself with a map of the ship he snagged from a stand he passed two or three times on his mission to locate his quarters. Giving the map a most thorough squint, his mood darkened further because he couldn't see where they'd parked the bloody scrying screens.

Stomping around the main deck, he finally located Diggory lying, sunglassed and shirtless, on one of the sun loungers surrounding the ship's massive swimming pools (complete with water slides). Draco loomed menacingly over Diggory's form until Cedric realised the temperature had descended a degree or two. He removed his sunglasses.

"Ah, glorious, cheers mate" – then sat up when he saw Draco. "Oh. Hello. Enjoy your time with Lucy?"

If there was a slight edge to Cedric's voice, Draco neither noticed nor cared. "Diggory," he snapped, not enjoying the way the balmy sea breeze ruffled his hair. "Where does this tin tub keep the scrying screens?"

Diggory was saved from replying by the sound of two piña coladas and the glasses they came in smashing to the deck. Draco turned around, wondering who the clumsy clot that dropped the drinks was. But all he saw was a cloud of red before a sharp pain bloomed on his cheekbone. Following the momentum of the blow that accompanied the pain, Draco tumbled, in a most undignified manner, into the pool.

Diggory put his sunglasses back on. "You remember Draco Malfoy, then?" he asked his new companion.

Fred Weasley scowled, rubbing the hand that collided rather forcefully with Draco's face. "How the fuck did that bastard get here?" he spat.

Cedric turned over to toast his back. "Wouldn't we all like to know?"

* known as Witness Protection in some countries