Wizard Wars: Return of the Auror

Chapter One:

The Dam Breaks

Adrian yawned widely as he opened the front door and stepped inside at last. It had been a long night. He closed the door on the bitingly cold wind outside and delighted in the comfortable warmth of the house. They couldn't really afford to keep the heating on throughout the night, but he was sincerely glad they did. His cheeks were raw, his ears were scarlet and his fingers and toes were frozen numb. He pulled off his gloves, scarf and coat, which were all flecked with snow, and hung them on the radiator, then kicked off his shoes, feeling the soft carpet underneath his feet.

"That you, Adi?"

"No, it's Father Christmas with a sack full of toys. Can't use the chimney anymore, everybody's gone electric. 'Course it's me, you idiot!"

Reiley came down the stairs, grinning. "Have you still not grasped the fact that Christmas comes in summer in this part of the world?" Adrian grunted. "Good time at work?" Reiley asked innocently.

"What do you think?" said Adrian irritably.

"Ah well, could be worse."

"Worse?" said Adrian, raising an eyebrow incredulously as he took off his glasses to scrape the ice off the lenses. "The only thing worse would be to have a job cleaning the pavement by licking it! You try staying out all night in a bloody blizzard and see how you like it. Though, by the looks of things you're planning on finding out." He surveyed his friend with a mildly disbelieving eye. Reiley was dressed in a tracksuit and trainers. He shook his head. "How the hell you can say there's something weird about me when you go out jogging at six a.m. while it's below zero outside I'll never know."

"I have to get it in before work. Anyway, you know me, I never let a little thing like foot-high snow get in the way of my routine."

Adrian snorted. "Reiley, the sun blowing up wouldn't get in the way of your routine!"

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

"Well I have already nearly frozen to death and now I'm going to bed to thaw out. You do what you want, but I'll be hammering you out of a giant ice block later."

"Probably. Get the mallet ready. See you later, Adi."

Adrian grunted again and Reiley left. Barking, he thought, shaking his head.

He walked down the hall to the kitchen to put the kettle on. He needed something to make him stop shivering. He couldn't wait to get to bed. Every muscle in his body felt like he'd put it through a five day workout and his eyes were itching with tiredness. He had to force them to stay open, which made them water and sent a noise like wind rushing through his ears.

Working the graveyard shift meant that he kept very odd hours. In winter he hardly ever saw more than a couple of hours of daylight, coming home from work at six a.m., going straight to bed and waking up around three. How he loathed his job! As soon as he found something better he was going to quit. But then, he'd been saying that for over a year now.

Unable to support himself any longer, Adrian slumped down into one of the kitchen chairs and leaned back, closing his eyes wearily.

This was his life. It had been for almost as long as he could remember. 'A fresh start' the doctor had called it. A clean slate. Well, maybe, but Adrian wished he knew what had been on the slate before it was wiped off. Even after all these years, there still wasn't a day that went by when he didn't feel like this wasn't the life he was supposed to be living. That he wasn't supposed to be here. Of course this was obvious, he supposed. He wasn't supposed to be here. But he just couldn't move on. It was like an insect was constantly buzzing round his head twenty four hours a day, wherever he went, whatever he did. He'd told Reiley this, of course, but even though he sympathised with him he didn't know. No one did. No one knew what it was like to have a limited memory. To know that there could be people out there needing you but there's nothing you can do about it. How it felt to wake up in a hospital bed and not know who you were, where you were or why you were there. It was like the very first moment of his life and he didn't know what the hell was going on. He never celebrated his birthday, because he didn't know when it was. All he knew of his age was how old he looked. Adrian wasn't even his real name.

He had had very few clues over the years as to who he was. Certain names seemed to mean something to him, but he didn't know what. Sometimes someone would say something that would trigger off a vague image or sound in his head, but it never hung around long enough for him to try and figure out what it was. These things were of no real help to him. It was clear, however, that there was something odd about him. He said things, did things, that even he couldn't explain. For example, a few years ago, he and Reiley had been watching a football match on television, when Adrian had found himself saying, "You know, this game would be far more interesting if it were played up in the air." Reiley had looked at him as though he were off his rocker and said that it was probably best if he didn't mention that to anyone else.

And last week, while watching a soap opera, Adrian had responded to the revelation that a character had cheated on his wife for the third time in two months with, "Oh, for the love of Merlin!" He'd only realised what he was saying after it had left his mouth. Reiley had laughed and told him again what he had told him a hundred times before - "You're weird, Adi."

And then there was all the times he couldn't find his keys and had subconsciously muttered, "Accio keys." This one was particularly strange, because since when did he know Latin?

But these were all only small oddities. If it was just these then Adrian might not have minded. The thing that really puzzled him was all the unexplainable things that seemed to happen around him. For instance, several years ago at work, before he'd started doing the graveyard shift, his boss had been shouting at him for being late for the third time running, and Adrian, who wasn't listening to a word the man was saying, had been staring at his moustache. While his boss's hair was thin and grey (and practically non-existent), his moustache was think, bushy and auburn, clearly dyed to cover the grey that was almost certainly in that too. The whole package looked extremely odd. In fact, Adrian had just been thinking that it couldn't look odder if it had been bright green when, all of a sudden, it was!

Adrian had almost jumped in shock. His boss, of course, didn't notice... until people started gaping and laughing, and he had looked in a compact mirror his secretary had given him. Adrian, who had slipped out of the room so as not to be in the line of fire, had had to fight to keep from laughing himself stupid as he heard the horrified yell echoing after him.

This incident was one of a number of similar ones. Things would change colour, change size, appear, disappear, explode... but Adrian always felt sure somehow that they were connected to him. He couldn't explain it. But if he could just figure out why these things had happened, then it might give him a clue as to who he was and what had happened to erase his memory like that.

All he knew for sure was that he had lived in England. He'd been told by the doctors that he was found in the wreck of a house in a small village near the hospital; that they hadn't found anyone else there; that no one had come forward claiming to know him; that the wreckage was so bad some of it couldn't be safely shifted; that he had hit his head so hard it had been split open, giving him a concussion and erasing his memory; and that he was lucky even to be alive. The doctors had said that they couldn't possibly tell if his memory would ever come back. If it did it could be weeks, months, years... Much to Adrian's annoyance, they had seemed to be fascinated by him. A case like his wasn't very common, apparently.

They were also astonished at how quickly he had recovered. When he first woke up he had had speech and motor problems caused by the injury, but they cleared up so fast that the doctors were left amazed. They had expected extensive therapy to be needed. In the end, unable to come up with an explanation, they had just put it down as one of those odd things that happens from time to time.

The police had spoken to him. Obviously they were treating the matter as suspicious... a house being wrecked like that? What on earth could have caused it? But after a while, when it became clear that there was no information he could give them, they had dropped the case from lack of evidence. The press had reported on the incident and also wondered at his injuries (or lack of where the case may be) but he refused to talk to them.

Adrian had left hospital after nearly a month of recovery, by which point the white walls and the sights and sounds of the other patients had been starting to drive him mad. It had felt so strange to walk out into a world he knew nothing about, full of people he didn't know going about their daily routines, not knowing where to go or what to do. He had visited the wreck of the house, which had been roped off by the police, but it hadn't brought back any kind of memories. He'd even wandered around to all the neighbours' houses, asking in near desperation whether they knew him or not, hoping and preying that someone would open the door and gasp to see him. But no one had. He suspected they had thought him strange. Eventually, helpless and defeated, he had checked into a shelter for the homeless, completely alone and desolate.

After a couple of days he was able to think more clearly. The first thing he needed to do was get a job. This proved to be difficult, because he had no idea what qualifications he had. In the end, after making up a new name for himself, he had managed to get a job as a bartender in a pub. But it didn't pay much, and he would never be able to pay for his own place on his own. So he had looked in the local paper for people needing a roommate. That was how he had met Reiley. The two of them had become close friends and when, three years later, Reiley had got a job out here, Adrian had decided to come with him. There was nothing left for him in England. And yet he felt like a part of him had been left behind there, as though there was some place he was meant to be, someone he was supposed to be with. This was the reason he had never had any female friends over the years, despite the number of times Reiley had tried to set him up.

Although, there was another reason for that too, one that he'd never told anyone, not even Reiley, because he was half embarrassed.

The truth was Adrian was completely and hopelessly in love. Very early on he had been possessed by a reckless passion that invaded his sleep, stopped him from eating and even sometimes made him feel like he couldn't breathe, but at the same time made him feel about ten feet tall. The only problem was... she was nothing but a vision in a dream. She appeared in his sleep sometimes, and he didn't even know for sure if he'd met her, though he felt sure he must have done, otherwise why would he keep dreaming about her? Every time she appeared to him she got a little bit clearer, starting as just a vague blur of colour and growing gradually more focused, until he could see every minute detail. She was like a phantom, gliding in and out of his dreams as though just popping in to make sure everything was in order.

He knew it was crazy to feel so strongly about a person in a dream, but he couldn't help it. He'd lost count of the number of times he'd considered just packing up here and going back to England to look for her. But every time his common sense had gotten the better of him. The fact was he had no chance of finding her. How would he even go about it? He had no name, nothing. And if, by some miracle, he did find her, what would he say to her? "Hi. Listen, I have no idea who you are, but I've been dreaming about you for fifteen years, so could you please tell me who you are and how I know you?" Even inside his head the words sounded dumb.

There was nothing for him in England that he knew how to find. And however much he may despise it sometimes, he had a life here. He knew the people, he knew the surroundings, he had a job and at least one good friend that he could count on. He was no better off living in England than he was here. In fact, he'd probably be considerably worse off, because he'd have to start again for the third time, and he didn't relish the idea of that.

Sitting in the kitchen now, Adrian's eyes were dropping. He folded his arms on the table and rested his head against them. Five seconds later, he was fast asleep.

~*~

He was walking in darkness. His feet were making no sound on the ground beneath him. This was strange... how had he ended up here?

"Jaa-aaames..."

He froze. That voice... it sounded so familiar, and he didn't know why... It was like a memory from a previous life.

"Jaa-aaames..."

It was almost heavenly - gentle, welcoming, enticing and... ghostly, all at the same time. He wondered for a moment if maybe he had died, and she was calling to him from the beyond, guiding him to where he needed to go.

"Jaaaaames..."

And then he realised. He wasn't sure how, he just knew.

It was her.

He walked on, searching for her. Her voice seemed to reach inside his chest and wrap around his heart, creating within him this inexpressible longing to find her, hold her, keep her close and never lose her again. And yet he was confused. That wasn't his name she was calling... was it?

There was a light ahead of him. He broke into a run. It grew bigger and bigger and brighter and brighter until it almost blinded him. He stopped. Squinting, he looked up. There she was. The woman who had haunted him for fifteen years.

He had only ever seen her this clearly once before. Her fiery red hair was swept back off a face in a wind that he could not feel; her eyes were like two emerald stars so bright that they almost seemed to glow; her skin was perfect, smooth, unblemished and pale as the surface of the moon; she was dressed in a long white gown that was fluttering gently in the same breeze that moved her hair; and she was surrounded by a mystical white light that seemed to come from her herself. So beautiful... she was so beautiful he had to take deep breaths to steady his pounding heart, and beads of sweat broke out on his forehead. She was like an angel, and he loved her so much it caused him pain.

She was holding the baby again this time. He was nestled in her arms, so small and helpless that it almost broke Adrian's heart... he felt somehow that this tiny infant was in some kind of danger.

"James."

He started. It suddenly struck him that this was the first time she had spoken to him. Normally she would just stand and gaze at him out of those fathomless green eyes, eyes which, he now realised, had tears in them - pearly white tears were sliding down her pale cheeks. When she spoke again, her voice was quiet, gentle and mournful.

"He is dead, James. He is dead. Harry needs you now... you must go to him. Remember him, James... remember everything... Go to our son... He needs you... Remember, James... remember..."

From far away, he could hear a shrill whistle...

"Remember him..."

It was growing louder.

"Remember me..."

He could feel himself being pulled away. He panicked.

"Remember..."

He jerked awake. The whistle was the kettle. He was sitting at the kitchen table, chest heaving, sweat pouring from his skin. It was as though a dam had burst inside his head, releasing a tidal wave of memories that had been blocked from him for the last fifteen years, letting them rush over him in a torrent that made him feel as though he was drowning. The whole of the first twenty four years of his life flashed before him in a few seconds.

Lily... Harry... Voldemort... Oh God...

From far off, he heard the sound of the front door slamming shut.