Asper

Once Draco left her room, Asper collapsed in the closest chair to her. She was suddenly grateful that her old self had so many chairs in her room. Asper wanted to explore her shelves and try to rediscover who she was, but her energy had been sapped completely. Names and faces and relations rattled about in her head. Whatever it had been that Pansy had tried to talk to her about had seemed interesting at first. Asper felt like a horrible friend for not actually listening. She would apologize to Pansy the next time she saw her.

Sitting in the green upholstered chair with her head in her hands, Asper wondered what she could have done to make such wonderful friends. It didn't seem like they were even remotely upset that they had to reintroduce themselves to a friend they had for years, or that said friend couldn't remember a single happy memory with them. She preferred the way they handled things, it was better than immediately pulling out an album of photos and trying to force her to remember things she could.

Thinking of photo albums reminded Asper of the one Draco had left on the chair. Forcing herself to stand, she grabbed the album from the chair and crawled back into her bed. Despite the ringing in her ears, she avoided closing her eyes and falling asleep. Instead, she opened the album back to that first page with the picture of the wiggling babies. Asper traced her fingers over the face of the baby girl that had once been her.

"Who are you?" She whispered to the picture.

She turned the page. On the opposite side wasn't a picture, but a drawing. This drawing moved just like the picture did, only it was obviously done by a very small child. There were two figures in the drawing, one a boy with yellow hair and the other a girl with brown hair. In the drawing, the boy was running after the girl, their crooked smiles wiggling like worms.

Asper flipped through the book, smiling and almost laughing at many of the pictures. They were all of her and Draco when they were younger. One pictured them at seven, so the annotation said at the bottom, throwing snowballs at each other outside. The first snow of the year.

Another showed Draco half-buried in sand, Asper trying to pour sand in his mouth. Their first ever trip to the beach.

In one they were trying on robes, Draco laughing at the enormity of the sleeves and Asper giving little half spins to see the back swish.

Sooner than Asper could have imagined, she found herself at the end of the album. When she closed the back cover, thirsting for more, she found that her face was wet from tears. Once the realization dawned on her that she was crying, the tears came heavier and sobs began to shake her body.

The girl in those pictures, she wasn't sure if that was her. She wanted to be the girl that was Draco's best friend, that could listen to Pansy when she talked, that could take Blaise's dry humor, that could win an eating contest against Crabbe and Goyle like they said she could. She wanted to be the friend that they all remembered, but she was afraid that she wouldn't live up to their expectations.

Asper cried until she couldn't anymore. Clutching the album close to her chest, she pulled her sheets and quilt up to her neck and let her eyes finally close. Despite the light flooding in through the window, she fell asleep.

When she woke a few hours later, she found that once again, the room was not empty. Instead of only Draco standing at the foot of her bed, Pansy and Blaise were there as well. Eyes wide, Asper tried to carefully slide the photo album under her pillow before they could see it.

"We weren't supposed to give this to you yet," Pansy said, looking excitedly at Draco, who had his hands clasped behind his back.

"But what's a witch without her wand?" Blaise finished, his arms crossed over his chest, still wearing his grin. Asper's face must have been one of utter confusion because Draco laughed. It wasn't a mocking laugh and it reminded her of his face in the pictures in the album. He held what Blaise called a wand out to her. To her, it looked like a stick. Her head twinged as she thought she could recall a dream where a boy and a girl with a stick like that one stood in front of her, a dream with blue lightning.

She shook the dream away.

Uncovering herself, she shuffled across the bed toward Draco's hand, where her wand rested.

It was less stick looking up close. Its color was a golden yellow, two vines overlapping at the base and climbing their way up the wand, stopping less than halfway up. It had been carved, the attention to detail was stunning. Asper was drawn to it. Her hand lifted of its own accord to reach up and take the wand from Draco, who was smiling.

"It's pearwood," he told her. "Unicorn hair. Ten and a half inches, pretty firm."

"I don't know what any of that means," Asper said, not looking away from the wand in her hand as she pointed it upward. None of the three in front of her responded, they simply watched. A breeze stronger than the one coming through her window blew past Asper, making her hair shudder. Warmth spread through her and throughout the entire room. Asper's eyes closed her heart filling with peace, the pain in her head easing. The feeling passed, but not entirely. The warmth stayed with her and the pain was gone. Still, the change was enough to pull Asper from her self made trance. She looked at her three friends with an open mouth.

"It means," Draco said with a smile. "It's time for you to remember what you are."

Asper had been right about the overcast before. Though not as cold as the rest of her house, the garden outside her window was rather chilly. Still, Asper wore no shoes. She held her wand in her hand, highly confused about what her friends expected of her.

"You're a witch, Asp," Pansy explained, walking by her side, swinging her arms.

Being a witch wasn't so hard to accept. It would explain the sticks from her dream and the blue lightning, too. She just wasn't sure what to do with the information now that she had it.

They walked through the beautiful garden (though Asper wanted nothing more than to stop and look at every plant she could) and toward the trees. They stood beneath the willow, the one she had seen from her window, the one that had appeared in more than one of the pictures in the album.

She gazed up at it with wonder, listening to the wind rustle through the vines and leaves.

"Asper!" She turned quickly on her heel toward Draco, who had been trying to tell her something.

"Sorry," she said, both the cold and embarrassment turning her cheeks pink.

"Everything we're going to tell you is in your head somewhere," he told her, lifting his own wand. "But it's also in your muscles. You and your wand both know this, you just have to trust yourself."

Putting on her game face, Asper nodded. She lifted her wand, holding it in front of her like Draco was.

"We'll start easy."

Draco set an apple on the root of the willow. With a swish and a flick, he said something that Asper didn't catch. Her eyes widened as the apple began to levitate from the root and into the air.

"Bloody hell," she breathed. All three of her friends looked at her in surprise.

"Where'd you learn to talk like that?" Blaise asked, obviously amused.

"I don't know," Asper said honestly. "I heard it somewhere, I guess."

Draco laughed and looked back at his apple, which he set back on the root.

"You try," he said.

"I have no idea what you did."

"Here," Draco walked up to her and fixed her grip on her wand. "You just 'swish and flick' like that and then say 'Wingardium Leviosa'."

"Just don't forget to say it properly or you'll blow your eyebrows off," Pansy said with a snicker.

"Is that something I did when we learned this?" She asked, worried that she might in fact burn her eyebrows off. Draco shook his head, shooting a glare at Pansy.

"No, just a kid in our year. Now, shut up, Pansy, or you'll distract her," Draco said, focusing Asper back on the apple. "Just do it like I did."

Furrowing her eyebrows together, Asper nodded. She faced the apple, not taking her gaze off of it. She did the maneuver that Draco had shown her and said the words, as clearly as she could. The apple wiggled, but never left the root. She scowled.

"For that being your first time, that was good," Draco said, though she knew he expected more from her. Asper breathed deeply, letting the tension fall away from her. The warmth and security she had felt before in her room when she first held the wand came back to her. She let it envelop her, closing her eyes, feeling it in every part of her body. Once every ounce of her was warm again, she opened her eyes, focusing on the apple.

"Wingardium Leviosa," she murmured, her voice barely audible. She did the movement again. The others stood back and watched the apple rise in the air. Asper grinned to herself.

"Look at that!" Pansy said, pointing at the apple. Asper motioned slowly for the apple to go to Draco and it did, falling into his hands.

"Good job," he told her, taking a bite.

"You can do the first spell all first-years learn, congratulations," Blaise said with a sigh. He rolled his eyes, pulling his own wand from his boot. "Let's see how much you really remember."

Asper swallowed, backing away from Blaise as he stepped in front of her.

"Blaise," Draco's voice was low, warning.

Blaise said something, a spell that Asper didn't hear. She was quick enough to dodge it, but not the second one he sent her way, which threw her wand from her grip.

"You used to be good at duels, you know?" Blaise said, taunting her. "I guess that skill was lost along with everything else."

Asper glared at the back of his head as he turned away, playing with the tip of his wand. She snatched the wand from the grass and let the warmth it gave her take over. A spell came from her mouth, the matching movement following without her even realizing it. Blaise blocked it without looking, but he turned slowly, a smile on his face.

"There's the little Asp I know and love," he said, his voice more a growl than spoken.

"Blaise, stop," Draco said again.

"Oh, let them play, Draco!" Pansy said. "Asp's just getting warmed up."

Blaise fired and Asp blocked it, not taking a moment to fire a spell back. The two went back and forth, testing each others' limits until Asper began to see his pattern. Blaise put on a bold front, and his spells were powerful, but he was sloppy in his footwork, disorganized in his movements. She moved around him, allowing herself to go on defense and give him the upper hand to put him where she wanted him.

Blaise thought he was winning, but he was back up against a large root. One wrong move and he would tumble over. Once she had him on the ground she could disarm him and the duel would be over.

He sent a powerful spell her way, one that set him off balance. Asper threw up her shield, but instead of bouncing it off in a random direction, she rebounded it back at him. It was never going to hit him, but he panicked and tried to step back, away from it. The root stopped him and he stumbled over it, hitting the ground. Before he had even fallen completely, Asper was already casting her next spell.

"Expelliarmus!" Blaise's wand tore from his grip, flying toward Asper. She caught it in the air.

"Way to go, Asp," Pansy said, smirking down at Blaise. Blaise stood, brushing dirt off of his clothes. Asper tossed him his wand. As soon as it was in his hand, he raised it as if to attack her again, but Draco grabbed his wrist.

"That's enough, Blaise," he said, his final warning. "She's done enough."

Asper breathed out heavily, but not from exhaustion. Strength coursed through her. This was the first thing that actually felt right since she had woken up this morning.

"We knew that all your knowledge was still in there," Draco said, tapping Asper's temple gently. "Now you do, too."

"Can we get food now?" Pansy asked, leaning against a tree.

"I imagine Crabbe and Goyle have been raiding the pantry for the past hour?" Asper asked, an attempt at a joke. Draco scoffed and started back toward the mansion.

"Try since leaving breakfast."

Walking side-by-side through the garden, Draco had his hands shoved in his pocket while Asper ran her fingers over as many of the plants as she could touch.

"You cultivated most of this garden," he said, leaning closer but not looking at her.

"Really?" She asked.

"Yeah. You're good with plants."

"I hope I still am."

"You are the same girl, Asper," Draco said, looking at his shoes. "Memories or not."

"Blaise said I used to be good at dueling," Asper ran a fallen rose petal between her fingers.

"You were very good. Most wizards duel thinking they have to be more powerful than their opponent and that will help them win. You were one of the few that figured out it didn't matter how strong you were, if you could out think someone, you would win. And very few people could out think you," he told her.

Asper's face heatened again, pouring her focus into the crumbling petal in her fingers. The rest of the walk back to the manor was silent. Silent except for Pansy mocking Blaise for losing.

~

"Where could she have taken her?" Harry asked. Back in the Gryffindor Common Room for the last few days of school, the trio sat on a set of couches, Ginny at Hermione's feet as the older girl braided her hair.

"Most likely back to their manor," Hermione said.

"But we don't know where that is," Ron said, slouched back into the sofa.

"Did Asp really never tell any of us where she lived?" Ginny asked, knees pressed against her chest, her eyes flitting between Ron and Harry.

"She didn't want us to know," Harry sighed. He stared at the palm of his hand, leg tapping once again.

"Would your parents know?" Hermione asked Ron, who shrugged as he dropped his hand onto his face. "Well?"

"Maybe," Ginny said. "But even if they did, I doubt they would tell us."

"Would could tell them what happened, couldn't we?" Hermione said, finishing Ginny's braid.

"We don't want to worry them," Harry said. "They have so much on them already, why add something else?"

"Besides, if we start talking about Asper being kidnapped by her own mother, things might get dirty," Ron said. "Jezebel Selwyn is extremely powerful, especially within the Ministry."

"So we keep it between the four of us," Ginny agreed. "We could ask McGonagall or Dumbledore, they're bound to know if her mother is keeping her from her last few days of school. And it won't raise alarms because we're her friends, right?"

"It's a start," Harry said with a sigh. He leaned back on the couch, wishing for nothing more than to have Asper sitting beside him.

~

Here's another chapter for you guys! I hope it doesn't disappoint.

Let me keep hearing from you! I look forward to every vote and every comment.

I wanted to say that if any of you ever have something on your mind that you just feel like you can't to anyone about, I am 100% open all the time. I know it's sometimes hard to talk to people you know about problems you're having. I am more than willing to listen and give advice or just simply listen if that's all you need. Please, don't be afraid to DM me any time! I want to be there for you all.

have the most wonderfulest of days,

Caroline

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