Asper

There was a ringing in her ear that made her eyes squeeze shut and her mouth fall open. The ground beneath her was cold and she wanted to move away from it, but she couldn't move. The only warmth she had was running down her neck and along her spine.

As soon as she realized that she was awake, the headache began. Pain rested just behind her eyes. The girl felt as if there was a rock where her skull should have been. Eyes still screwed shut, she tried to pry herself from the floor.

By the time she managed to sit herself up, her headache had multiplied a hundredfold. No longer a rock just sitting there, it now felt like someone was pounding the rock repeatedly against her head. Something stung the back of her head, but her arms were too weak to reach up and feel it. Her breathing was heavy, chest rising and falling without rhyme or rhythm.

She felt a hand press against her neck, which caused her to gasp, eyes flying open. Even though the room she was in was dark, what little light there was burned her eyes and made her head hurt even more. Rocks rose around her, creating a platform in the middle of the room. An empty archway stood proud in the middle of it all.

"Bloody hell," the voice breathed beside her. Forcing her eyes to focus on the form in front of her, she found that it was a boy whose hand was on her neck. His other hand was touching her wrist, delicately, as if she was fragile and going to break beneath him. His hair was orange and his face littered with freckles. She could barely see the blue of his eyes in the darkness of the room. What his eyes lacked in color, they made for in emotion. She may not have known this boy, but she could see fear in his eyes.

Something exploded to her left and the girl jumped at the sound. The orange-haired boy put an arm around her to protect her.

"You're alright, Selwyn," he said to her, holding out a stick in front of him. She wanted to ask him what it was for, but her mouth wouldn't move. "You saved my life."

The girl looked at the boy again, her eyebrows pinched together. A figure in black appeared in front of them, popping out of thin air. If the girl had any strength in her, she might have screamed. The figure shouted something, holding a stick similar to the boy's. To the girl's utter suprise, a flash of blue lightning exploded from the figure's stick, hurtling toward them. The boy shouted back. Instead of lightning, his stick sprouted a blue haze around them, off which the lightning bounced. It was a shield.

Tearing her gaze from the figure in black, she tried to look back at the boy's face, to see try and remember who he was. But her vision began to haze as pain blasted through her brain. Her eyes fixed on the boy's hands, one of which had just been resting on her neck, keeping her head up. That had was covered in a dark red liquid, something thick that ran up his sleeve. Blood. Her blood.

Pain blackened her vision, tears choking her. A moan escaped her lips, followed by a quiet cry of pain.

"Selwyn," the boy said, speaking as though through water. "Bloody hell, Harry's going to kill me if you die."

Harry. She found herself thinking. Who is Harry?

"We have to get her out of here," the boy said, no longer speaking to her. "She's badly hurt."

"She's bleeding!" This voice was a girl's. She forced her eyes open just enough to see this new girl squatting in front of her. Her skin was dark, hair curly and bushing out around her head.

"I know that, 'Mione."

"What happened?"

"She was hit by depulso. It sent her into the wall."

"Merlin's beard."

"Look out!" The boy shouted. There was another shout and a burst of blue lightning hit the bushy-haired girl, 'Mione, square in the chest, which sent her sprawling backward. "No!"

The boy stood, stick raised to defend himself and 'Mione, but the same lightning hit him and he hit the ground as well.

The girl breathed heavily, wanting to call out to the two on the ground not very far from her. She tried to lift her hand toward them, but her body would still not listen to her command. Fear seized her heart as the figure in black crouched in front of her. Her breath came out rapidly as she turned her face away, prepared for whatever this figure would bring.

"I won't hurt you, sweetheart," the figure said. It was a woman, older than the boy and 'Mione by many years. She had brown hair like melted chocolate and green eyes like tree leaves. There was a smile on her face, a soft one, a protecting one.

The girl's breathing began to steady as she met the woman's kindly gaze.

"I'm going to take you away from here," she said. "Can you stand?"

The girl shook her head slowly, only moving side to side once.

"That's okay. Take my hand." The woman offered out her hand, palm up.

The girl looked over to the boy and 'Mione who were still on the floor but slowly starting to stir.

"Don't worry about them, sweetheart. I'm going to take you home."

Home.

"Who...?" The girl tried, her mouth dry. She smacked her lips a few times. "What...?"

"I will explain everything. Just take my hand."

The girl used as much strength as she could muster to raise her hand and place it in the woman's. The woman pulled her close, causing pain to shoot through her skull and neck and eyes, traveling to every portion of her body. The woman put her lips close to her ear.

"Asper," the woman whispered. "You are Asper."

In that instant, she felt consumed by a vacuum, pressure building up on every bit of her body before releasing. This feeling happened time and time again, adding and taking away from the pain in her head more than once. When it finally stopped, the darkroom was gone, the boy and 'Mione was nowhere to be found.

Instead, they were inside what seemed like a living room. Light flooded the room from a fire behind her, illuminating deeply colored sofas, pillows made of velvet, a carpet the color of emeralds lining the floor. Past the brightest of light, she could make out very little. After a few moments of trying, sharp pain like a dagger shot through her eyes. She closed them, turning her face into her own shoulder.

The woman was still crouching in front of her, now cradling her head which had no more support from the wall that had been behind her.

"Let me bring you to the couch," the woman said.

Though she was slight, there was strength in the woman's bones. She scooped the girl up in her arms like she was nothing, though the action was enough to cause her pain. The woman set her down on the soft couch, keeping her sitting upright.

"I need to turn you over," the woman said. "Your wound is still bleeding. Once I heal it, it will hurt less."

The girl nodded her head, allowing the woman to roll her onto her stomach. She grimaced the entire time, but only groaned once.

"You're doing such an amazing job, sweetheart," the woman told her. "This will hurt just a little bit. Here, squeeze this pillow."

The girl nodded and grabbed holding the velvet pillow as the woman separated the hair away from the wound on the back of her head.

"What did you say my name was again?" She asked, mouth pressed against the pillow.

"Your name is Asper Selwyn." The woman breathed in deeply. "And you are my daughter."

Asper. Asper Selwyn.

She wasn't sure what exactly the woman, her mother, was doing, but she knew that it hurt. Her hands curled around the pillow, teeth digging into the velvet as she tried to prevent herself from screaming. To take her mind off the pain, she repeated the name the woman had given to her over and over again in her head.

Asper Selwyn. Asper. Asper Selwyn. My name is Asper.

She didn't stop repeating until she no longer felt the pain in her head. Until the name was ingrained in her head. Until the name was hers once again.

Asper.

~

"Where is Asper?"

Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger glanced at each other. Hermione chewed at her lip, afraid to look to Harry. They were sitting in a muggle taxi, just the three of them. With Sirius' death and his encounter with Voldemort, neither had the heart to tell him that Asper had been taken.

"Where is she?"

"Harry-" Hermione started, but Ron interrupted her.

"Her mother got her," he said, expecting an outburst, as had been Harry's usual reaction to bad news in the past year. Instead, Harry dropped his head into his hands and fell incredibly still.

"What happened?" He asked finally after many long moments of silence.

"We had been fighting off a Death Eater when she got hit. She went flying into a wall and just crumpled. I couldn't go to her until I finished the duel, but she was barely awake when I got there." Ron swallowed a lump in his throat. "There was so much blood. Merlin's beard, there was so much blood."

Hermione put a hand on Ron's wrist to give him the last bit of courage he needed to keep going.

"I tried to help her, 'Mione and I both did. But her mum came and she just took her."

"Took her? Just like that?"

"Just like that."

"We tried to protect her, Harry, we really did," Hermione interjected, leaning forward.

"I know." He let out a shaking breath. "You did everything you could."

"You're not angry?"

"Not at you." Ron and Hermione glanced at each other, letting out deep sighs of relief. "But we're going to get her back. Whatever it takes."

"Of course we are, Harry," Hermione said, reaching over Ron to grab Harry's hand.

"Yeah, Harry, we'll get her back," Ron added.

"I thought you didn't like her, Ron," Harry said, eyebrow half raised.

"That was before she jumped in front of a spell for me," Ron said, crossing his arms and leaning back against the seat.

The three fell silent, feeling the bump of the cab as it drove through London. Hermione stared out the window, wondering where on earth Asper had ended up. Ron found a loose thread on his seat and was desperately trying to pull it out. Harry gazed at his hands, his leg bouncing to the beat of whatever muggle song played on the radio.

He had just lost Sirius, a pain in his heart so deep it squeezed out of his eyes as water. He held tears back now to save face in front of his friends, but the wound was so deep. He couldn't lose Asper, too. She was too important to him.

No one else would die for him, starting with Asper.

~

Life burst through Asper as she gasped, pushing herself off of the pillow. A dull pain resonated in her head, but Asper ignored it. She stared at her hands which shook violently. Clasping them together, she pulled her hands together in hopes to stop the shaking.

She was no longer on the couch with the velvet pillows, but in a normal bed with a vibrantly colored quilt and white sheets. A canopy of blue tool waterfalled from the top of the bed frame. Asper may not have known much, but this was a bed fit for a queen, not for her. She sighed heavily and pressed her fingertips to her eyebrows, hoping to press away the pain.

"Good morning."

Asper jumped, nearly falling off the bed backward. Sitting in a chair not far from her bed was a boy. Not the orange-haired boy from the dark room with the archway, no. That boy seemed panicked, afraid, skittish. This boy had hair white as snow and breathed elegance. He held a book in his hands as he lounged in the chair, his legs hanging over one arm.

Asper cleared her throat, praying that she finally had the strength to speak.

"Who...who are you?" She asked, her face heating. She could speak well enough, but the words were raspy and weak. The boy in the chair closed the book and threw his legs to the ground. Walking around her bed to where she sat, he offered her a hand with a grin.

"The name's Malfoy, Draco Malfoy." She hesitated, glancing between his hand and his face. Draco Malfoy cleared his throat, his smile fading. "That's alright. Happens more often than you think."

"What are you doing in my-" Asper was going to ask him what he was doing in her room, but she wasn't sure if the room was actually hers at all. "What are you doing here?"

"Simple," he said, throwing himself back into the same chair he had just been reclining in. "I'm here to help you get your memory back."

~

Here you have part one of Asper's story completed! I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope that you will continue to read! If you have any suggestions or you see any errors, please drop a comment below. I love to interact with my readers, so please don't be afraid to let me know how you are feeling about this story (and any of my stories, really).

Thank you all for your time and love,

Caroline

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