Enharmonic

Chapter 01: Four Days

Wednesday, November 4, 1981

Claudia Estrobes strode down the hospital corridor, her briefcase in one hand and her head bowed in puzzlement. She had never come across a case like this before; in fact, there wasn't even a precedent for it. How did one deal with a young couple who only remembered their names and the name of their son? How could one explain that only the wife -- Lily -- had proper documentation and the husband -- James -- none at all?

Sighing, she opened the door of the hospital room and briefly asked the nurse where Lily and James Potter lay. The nurse answered, "Last two beds on the right," and Claudia saw that the curtain between those beds was drawn aside. A woman with lank auburn hair was sitting up on the right, watching a man to her left who was putting his glasses on. Claudia halted in front of them and cleared her throat. They both looked up at her at the same time.

"Lily Evans and James Potter?" she asked. They nodded. "I'm Claudia Estrobes, a social worker. I'm working in conjunction with the police on your case." She shook each of their hands briefly.

"Pleasure to meet you," James managed. Claudia cut him off with a sharp nod. This was a purely introductory meeting; all she had to do was say who she was, tell them when and where to meet with her, and then she could leave. She didn't know why she felt so impatient. Perhaps it was because she was in a hospital. The smell of antiseptic and illness was making her feel slightly nauseous.

"Your case is very puzzling," Claudia said, barely resisting the unnecessary, irrational urge to open her briefcase. "I would prefer to discuss it in private." She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out two business cards with oddly trembling hands. "Would it be possible for you to come at 3:00 next Wednesday?" She wrote down the date and time on the back of the cards. "That's one week from today."

She watched as the couple exchanged a glance. "That would be fine," Lily answered, taking the cards and handing one to James.

"Please let me know if there is any change in plans," Claudia said, standing up and grasping her briefcase. Her breath was coming more rapidly now. "Thank you." She waited for an answering nod from both people, and then, fighting the itch to flee, she turned and strode quickly out of the room, her heels clicking sharply against the hospital floor. As soon as she made it out of the hospital, she took a deep breath of smoggy London air and sank down onto a bench. What's wrong with me? she wondered, trying to calm herself down. I don't act like this every time I go into a hospital. In fact, I don't ever act like this. Those two feel...familiar, for lack of a better term. She shook her head. No. No, that's silly. Calm down, Claudia.

She hailed a taxi, pushing away her unsettled feeling, and returned to the office to continue working.

***

Thursday, Nov 5, 1981

Lily gingerly touched her head, grimacing at the greasy feel of her hair. The bandage around her head had been removed yesterday, and her head was still slightly tender. The stitches on her arm -- and James' -- were to be removed tomorrow. James, she noted with a distant amusement, had to wait another day for the head luxury. The doctor had said something about more severe head injuries, or more severe injuries overall, or something to that effect. James had grumbled a little bit, but he let it go when he caught Lily's smile, and the doctor had nodded at Lily before leaving.

They were already being treated like a couple, Lily noted, and she tried -- and failed -- to ignore the confused feelings that sprang from this thought. Lily was not so foolish as to think that love was an eternal, singular bond that could survive any hardship. Maybe it could survive any hardship when you had a history of disagreements and agreements and romantic gestures, but she and James had none of that, now. Love couldn't survive amnesia, not when you forgot why you fell in love in the first place. She liked James well enough, as well as you could like a fellow patient in a hospital, but she didn't know him at all. Often she got the feeling that he didn't even know himself.

Of course he doesn't, she reprimanded herself suddenly, he lost his memory. You don't know yourself any better.

No, it wasn't fair to blame James for not knowing himself. The strange thing was that he seemed to not know anything. He was well-spoken; in fact, he had a hint of a posh accent, though from what region Lily could not tell. He could certainly read and write. He had good manners, as far as Lily could see; he was always greeting the nurses and doctors respectfully. But he asked the most inane questions, such as what an IV was, and what in the world were stitches, and why weren't doctors called healers, and why wasn't the room lit by torches instead of electricity? Lily answered all of his questions - who else would he ask? - and then she wondered what kind of upbringing James had had. Even old, rich families who valued tradition would know of such simple things like electricity. However sheltered someone might be, he couldn't be that sheltered.

Maybe he suffered very severe brain damage, she thought, so severe that he forgot everything he learned in school except for his manners and how to read and write. Maybe the parts of his brain that stops him from going into fantasy worlds (where torches light rooms) -- maybe those parts are damaged.

Lily sighed and rubbed her forehead, her eye catching the golden band on her left finger. She hadn't wanted to take it off; it was the one object of the past she could cling onto, even if she didn't want to remain married. What will it be like when we are released on Saturday? she wondered. What will we do? She glanced at James, who was absorbed in a pamphlet on memory loss that he had requested from the nurse. How will I live, and how will he?

Frowning, she ran her fingers through her hair again, pleased to feel that her head was less tender than before. Her hair, though...it was disgusting. The grease was truly bothering her now. It felt like it was weighing down her hair and making it stick to her head. Maybe she could ask for some hair bands and keep it in two pigtails. It was a rather girlish style, but it kept her hair out of the way. That was a trick she had learned from --

"Katherine?"

The girl sitting on the bed jerked her head up suddenly, tossing back her long, straight brown hair. "Yes?" She smiled tiredly and closed her book, rubbing her bright blue eyes. "You woke me up. I nearly fell asleep over Charms."

"Good thing I called you, then," Lily said, grinning at the girl before examining her reflection in a small hand-held mirror. Her wet hair was dripping down onto her nightgown. "I'll help you with Charms in a bit. What was that trick you mentioned about keeping wet hair out of your way?"

"Two pigtails," Katherine answered promptly, scrambling off of her scarlet bed and onto Lily's. "Do you have some bands?"

Lily nodded and held out two black bands.

"Want me to do one of them?" Katherine asked. "You can do the other."

Lily shrugged. "Sure." She evenly parted her hair with a comb and grasped the left bunch of wet hair. "I can't believe James Potter pulled that trick on me," she said conversationally, as Katherine tightened the right pleat periodically.

"You're taking it remarkably well," Katherine observed. "You know," she said seriously, "he really likes you." She stopped pleating for a minute as if waiting for Lily's reaction.

Lily rolled her eyes. "I have a plan for him. And please. James only likes girls who dance in front of him naked." She gave her pleat in a particularly vicious yank as Katherine giggled and grimaced simultaneously.

"That's disgusting," Katherine gasped. She began looping the band around the end of the pigtail.

"It's not like I have to go out with him just because he likes me," Lily said, similarly looping a band around her left pigtail. "Thirteen-year-old boys are so..."

"Immature," Katherine finished. She grinned at Lily's grimace. "Now how about that Charms homework?"

Lily gasped and reached for the pen and paper next to the table on her bed. "Katherine," she scribbled frantically under "Severus" and his description. "Brunette girl with blue eyes, friend, roommate from boarding school. Memory - 13 years old. Scarlet beds. Charms? Charms homework? (Charms - a class? Maybe a business/social class? a nickname?) Taught me to braid pigtails. " She banished the silliness she felt at putting the last fact down. Hesitating, she then wrote: "James: classmate? Apparent husband. Prankster (at 13)?" Lily paused, and then put the paper and pen back. She couldn't think of any more to write.

Lily looked to her left. James was watching her curiously. "Is something the matter?" he asked.

Lily glanced at the paper next to her bed and hesitated. "I think I'm having flashbacks," she said slowly. "I...apparently we knew each other when we were thirteen. In boarding school."

James looked thoughtful. "Boarding school. That would explain where my roommates came from." He looked down at the open amnesia pamphlet in his hands. "I've been trying to figure out which kind of amnesia we have," he said.

Lily furrowed her brow at the "we." "Maybe we have different types of amnesia," she said, though she knew that probably wasn't the case.

James gave her an odd look and then shrugged. "Maybe. Anyway, I think that we both have 'retrograde amnesia,' which is when someone can't remember things because of a severe blow to the head. That sounds like us, doesn't it?" He looked at her hopefully. Lily made a non-committal noise in the back of her throat. He grinned. "Maybe I was a -- what d'you call 'em -- a psychologist before the accident," he joked.

Lily smiled weakly. "Maybe."

"Ah, dinner!" James sighed, as the smell of food wafted down to their corner. "What would you like, my lady?" he asked, smiling charmingly at Lily. "Some sprouts, perhaps, to brighten the green of your eyes? Or some...potatoes to heighten your porcelain complexion? Perhaps some red-hot peppers to add to the fire of your hair. And freckles. Oh, I think all those on one dish would do nicely. As for drinks..." He stroked his chin. "May I entice you with some pure distilled water, oh pure lady of my heart?" He batted his eyelashes.

Lily giggled despite herself. "Stop it," she said, resisting the urge to smack him on the shoulder playfully. Their beds were too far apart regardless. She whispered, "You'll scare the nurse. She'll think you're talking about her."

"Oh, but that would never happen!" James exclaimed in mock-horror. "How couldst thou think me such an infidel? Fie, fie, on my heart I do swear it! Accept my loyalty, my lady, oh do accept!" He held out his arms in a pleading gesture, slipping off his wedding ring and offering it to her. Lily thought that if he were allowed to get off of the bed, he would be kneeling next to her right now. She let out a genuine laugh and shook her head. "Dinner's coming," she said, still smiling.

James sighed dramatically and slipped his ring back on. "I shall have to convince thee another way," he muttered, sneaking a glance at her from beneath lowered eyes. "Do not fear, my lady, my heart shall be thine."

Lily burst out laughing.

The dinner did not, unfortunately, consist of sprouts, potatoes, or peppers, but the drink was indeed water. Lily smiled. At least James had got that part right.

***

Friday, November 6, 1981

James shifted restlessly in his bed, unable to sleep. The ward was quiet at night, full of soft breathing and occasional snores. He glanced over at Lily. Her long red hair was nearly blue in the darkness. James wondered what it had been like, being married to her. She seemed to get along with him well enough; she laughed at his jokes, which was good, and she answered his questions. James still felt slightly embarrassed when he remembered trying to ask the nurse questions. He had asked where the light in the ceiling came from, and she had answered from electricity. He had then asked what electricity was, and the nurse had given him a funny glance and asked if he was feeling all right. Not wanting to embarrass himself further, he had nodded. When the nurse left, Lily had tried to explain what electricity was through some long, convoluted statement about lightning bolts and natural power. James had asked why people didn't just use fires and torches, wasn't that the proper way to get light? And Lily had sighed and said, "Not anymore," and then dropped the subject.

It wasn't his fault that he felt so lost, was it? It wasn't his fault that nothing seemed familiar. It had to be the memory loss. There was no other reason that nothing made sense when everything was supposed to make sense. He had just forgotten everything, everything that he had learned in school such as electricity and silly things like IVs and stitches. He had severe head damage, as the heal--doctor had said ("healer" made more sense, didn't it, doctors were supposed to heal people), so he'd forgotten even basic things he'd learned in his childhood. Or maybe there was some traumatic issue associated with things like stitches and electricity, and he was repressing those memories. The pamphlet on memory loss had said that that was possible. So he had to go see a psychologist and get the memories back. And then things would be normal.

James sighed and rolled over. He didn't much fancy spending the rest of his life trying to piece his memory back together so that he could function normally in society. Maybe he'd be better off shutting himself up like a recluse and letting people think that he was merely eccentric. He'd known someone like that, he thought vaguely, but he couldn't remember who. He didn't much fancy being a recluse either, though; he needed people, or at the very least, he needed Lily...

And so it was back to Lily. He must have loved her at some point; he couldn't say that he loved her now, but that was, of course, because of the memory loss. He certainly liked her. She was pretty and unique, her features all contrasting red and green and white, and she seemed fairly intelligent, and, well, she was his wife. They had had a baby. They must have had sex at some point. Although James knew that this was neither the proper time nor place to be thinking about such things, he found himself doing it anyway. Lily had to be good in bed, otherwise he wouldn't have married her. That red hair...she was probably fiery, passionate, a veritable tiger. All hard kisses and sparking green eyes and...God knew what else. He didn't know. He hadn't tried yet. Of course, he tried to reason, he might never get a chance to try. How could they stay together if they didn't even know each other, much less go to bed? There would be plenty of opportunities, too, if they didn't; he was young, he was fairly attractive, he made girls laugh. Then James thought, But I don't care about other girls. I want to stay with Lily. She...she and I are connected. We were married once and although we don't remember each other, we must have been perfect for each other to get married and have a son. Plus, no one else can understand me like she does. They haven't lost their memory like we have. Yes, we. We're still married, aren't we? And she seems to like me well enough. I don't know if she'll want to stay married -- no, she will. She must. I...I really hope she does.

He turned over and looked at Lily once more. "I love you," he whispered, yawning, and in his now drowsy state and the darkness of the ward, the words somehow didn't seem as absurd as he had thought. "I love you, even if I don't know why yet."

He pulled the sheets up around himself, and fell asleep.

***

Saturday, Nov 7, 1981

James winced slightly as his right leg gave out beneath him. He grasped the chair next to him and stood upright, again trying to stand on his own two feet without needing support. The nurse gave him an encouraging smile. She was an old, kind, matronly woman, her face full of wrinkles the bespoke many laughs. "That's it, dear," she said, "it'll be a little bit hard at first, but a strong man like you should get it in no time. If you want, I can get a wheelchair for you in case you need when you leave the hospital."

James shook his head, wishing he could ask Lily what a wheelchair was, and once again tried walking. This time, he managed a few steps before his other leg gave out. "Who ever knew that not walking for a week could affect you like this?" he gasped.

The nurse's eyes twinkled. "Remember to focus, dear," she said. "Strength is half of what you need. Will is the other half."

James nodded, his eyes drawn suddenly to the curtain that separated his and Lily's bed. She was changing into real clothes, he knew, and he missed her sharply, even though he had just seen her ten minutes ago. This would be easier if she were here.

The nurse followed his unhappy gaze, and a smile appeared on her face. "I'll just go check on her then, shall I?" she said, and dashed off. James could hear voices through the curtain, and then it was drawn back, and Lily stood in front of him wearing loose-fitting jeans and a faded purple T-shirt. She was clutching the nurse's arm. James felt a little better.

"James," said Lily, smiling, tossing back the two pigtails she had managed to make within the ten minute period. "Ready to leave this place?"

James nodded and drew himself up to his full height.

The nurse clucked her tongue. "You two lovebirds better walk before leaving," she said genially. Lily flushed. "Now, Lily dear, let's see how well you do..."

Lily, it turned out, had just as much trouble as James in walking, although she did create a technique in which she focused on putting her heel on the ground before her toes. They continued practicing for an hour until noon, until the nurse shooed them back to bed to eat their lunch. After lunch, the nurse told them to rest a bit before trying to walk again, and then she left. An hour after she left, James swung his legs to the right and stood up slowly. Lily, who had been dozing, started at the sudden movement. James grinned at her. "Want to walk?"

Lily grinned back. "Sure." She got out of bed slowly and stood up. They practiced walking back and forth along their beds, holding on to the chairs and the bedstand until they could walk completely upright. Lily had the wall for additional support.

"If there is one thing I'll do before I get out of this hospital, it is walk," James muttered to himself. Lily looked up and smiled at him.

"Want to switch sides?" she asked. "I think I might need more of a challenge."

James looked up, flushed and sweaty. "Sure."

Lily edged along her bed until she reached the open space between her bed and James'. James did the same. "Ready to cross?" Lily asked, raising an eyebrow challengingly. James nodded.

They collided.

"Oof!"

"Agh!"

When James opened his eyes, he was clutching Lily by the shoulders, and Lily was clutching him by the arms, and it was a very awkward position, because and her forehead was against his chin, and as she slowly straightened up, her forehead went up to his nose, he could feel her heartbeat, and they were so close --

Close enough to kiss.

James pulled back, still holding Lily by the shoulders, but far away enough that he could see her face clearly instead of just her lips. "I'm sorry," he said breathlessly.

"No -- it's all right," she gasped. "Perhaps this wasn't such a good idea."

"No -- it is," said James. "You should get your challenge." Awkwardly, he reached over with his right arm and grasped the edge of Lily's bed. Lily reached behind her and grasped the bed with both hands as James let go of her other shoulder.

"Well," said Lily, "That was fun." They were standing right next to each other now, but facing in opposite directions. James nodded awkwardly. Lily said, "Perhaps we should rest for a bit." She stepped away from the bed and grasped the chair next to James' bed, sinking down into it. James managed to turn around, ignoring his shaking legs, and caught her gaze. Her face was flushed with exertion, and he suspected his was too. He wished he could say something to her.

"Lily," he said. "I...er. Do you know where we are going to stay after this?"

Lily shook her head. "The social worker, Claudia, is supposed to take care of it."

James nodded to show he understood. He took a deep breath, unsure about how to approach the subject. "Erm," he managed, "you know...how we're married. Do you -- do you want to stay married?"

Lily looked away and bit her lip. "I don't know," she said. "Let's talk about that later, all right?"

"All right," said James, somehow relieved that she hadn't given an answer. He didn't even know the answer to it himself, really.

"Well," said Lily brightly, with a smile that didn't reach her eyes, "shall we walk again?"

***

At exactly 6:00 PM, Claudia Estrobes met Lily and James in the lobby of the hospital. "Pleasure to meet you again," murmured Claudia, slowing her pace to match theirs as they went to the front door. She opened the door for them and let them pass onto the London sidewalk. "Welcome to the real world."