Eyes flittering open, a blur of color and voices met him through the distant screams. Oh hell, why did he have to be so confused? What was going on here?

"Potter... come on boy, open your eyes."

And now somebody was slapping his face as he fought to stay awake. Hands grabbed at him, pulling him back into blissful unconscious. Or so he would have liked as a particularly rough slap cracked through the air, the sound rather than the pain of it jolting him to the present again.

"Don't die again. Come on! Open them! Stay with us!"

There was something familiar about that voice, but it sounded wrong... aged somehow. He opened his eyes and tried to focus the blur and met a sallow face with curtains of black hair. Since when did Severus play Quidditch? He shouldn't have been out on the pitch!

He laughed then at the silly thought of Severus Snape on a broom zooming through the air, and allowed himself to break away once again from the conscious world. Let them worry about whatever the screaming was about. Let him sleep in peace.

* * *

"He is fortunate to be alive."

"Yes, although hardly worthy of it after a stunt like that. What possessed him to leap from his broom to go after the Snitch? He was a hundred feet in the air! He has no sense of self preservation!"

Groggy and confused once again, he reached up to probe his throbbing temple. Was his head even still attached? And who had leapt from their broom for the Snitch?

"Wassat?" His voice came out a whisper and his throat was a thousand knives as he rasped the slur out.

Suddenly there were multiple blurred figures beside him and there was more poking and prodding and words that made no sense.

"Harry my boy, you're awake."

"Huh?"

He squinted, and suddenly his vision came into focus as a pair of glasses was roughly shoved onto his face by a pale man with shoulder length black hair.

"That was the most idiotic thing I've ever seen Potter," he scolded suddenly, to reproving looks from the aging man and woman standing on the other side of his bed. "Perhaps you will enlighten us as to why you felt the need to take a death dive from a hundred feet up."

He rubbed his aching head again as his brows furrowed, trying to make sense of what was happening.

The three adults stared at him silently, and he thought that he recognized all of them, but again had the feeling that something was off, and the man with black hair was strange to him somehow.

"Mr. Potter, do you know what's going on?" It was the man with a long beard and kind face.

"I'm confused," he said, staring around the sterile room, not unfamiliar but somehow not right.

"Let us start at the beginning then dear boy."

"Ok." He waited expectantly as the elderly man sat down on the edge of his bed and conjured two purple overstuffed chairs for the other man and woman. They were not bade to sit, but forced to as the chairs hit them in the legs and knocked them backwards.

"You were in a Quidditch game out on the Pitch. This is Saturday by the way. Your team was down forty points when you saw the golden Snitch. Suddenly you dove off of your broom and snatched it from the air, realizing too late I presume, that you had no safe mode of transportation back to the ground. You were dead when we found you."

"D-dead?"

"Yes," the man with black hair spat with a glare that was somehow tinged with relief.

"Professor Snape and I were able to retrieve you from the afterlife before it was too late, although you lost consciousness shortly thereafter."

"Your body was very damaged from such a fall Harry dear. We've had to remove nearly every bone in your body and re-grow it. Your magical core was severely drained after such an extensive healing process, but in the last week has managed to restore itself again.

"How- how long have I been here?"

"Nine days," the motherly woman answered.

His brows furrowed again as he tried to piece it all together. He gave another look to his visitors and the room around him, but could still not place himself in the world, if he was indeed on the earth.

"And where is here?"

He watched as the three around him exchanged worried glances and then the older of the two men asked, "You do not know where you are?"

He shook his head. Of course not, hadn't he just said that?

"You are in the Hospital Wing at Hogwarts Harry. Do you remember who we are?"

"You seem familiar... this place seems familiar but it's like I can't place anything. Certain things don't seem right... mismatched sort of, like they don't belong."

"Such as?"

He sighed and gave a fleeting glance to the man with black hair. "Him... he seems familiar but different... like he doesn't fit."

The man rolled his eyes and said, "Clearly he retains some of his feelings Headmaster."

"Harry, look at me." He did as the old man bade, and met piercing blue eyes and a smile. "I am Headmaster Albus Dumbledore. This is Madam Poppy Pomfrey, the mediwitch, and Potions Master Severus Snape. You are Harry James Potter."

"I know," he said. At the surprised looks he received, he said, "Well you keep calling me that, so I figured I must be him. But I don't feel like him. I feel different too."

"You are still full of potions dear," Madam Pomfrey said.

"Severus, is there a potion to restore his memory?" Dumbledore queried.

"Unfortunately there is no potion that can be used safely to restore full memory to a person who has lost it. There is a potion that can restore ones sense of self, but it takes at least a month to brew, and I do not have the needed ingredients."

Dumbledore sighed then and said, "It appears that you will have to recover from your amnesia on your own Harry. At least until we can find another way to help you."

Madam Pomfrey pulled out her wand and ran a diagnostic spell on him before saying, "He will be fit to leave by tomorrow, but I don't believe he should return to his common room."

"The reason being..." Snape drawled, fearing she would come up with some inane idea that he needed to be watched closely by a professor. It would not be the first time.

"If he is to recover his memory, it needs to be done on his own. If he is constantly told things that he should already know... such as his name, then he will always feel that something is amiss. Gendwort and Balsam studied the matter extensively at St. Mungos. His memory will return as his magical core did in time if exposed to familiar surroundings, but not told of things he should know."

"Then he should return to his common room," Snape said, still not liking where this conversation was going.

"You know his house as well as I do. His friends can be persuaded to keep their mouths closed," here Snape let out a snort, but she continued, "but an entire house cannot. Headmaster, I suggest he be given one of the guest rooms in a centrally located part of the castle. When he remembers the password and location of his house, then he can enter."

Dumbledore nodded and said, "I will have the house elves perform the necessary alterations on his robes and things so that his house symbol and colors are not present."

"Excuse me sir?"

The adults stopped and looked down at him.

"Yes Harry?"

"Won't I know which house I'm in because my friends will be in that house?"

Another eye roll from Snape, and then in a snide tone he said, "Surely you, the king of popularity knows that you have friends from almost every house. No doubt your fan club will be falling all over themselves to help you recover." He paused, and then turned to Dumbledore, and said, "I suggest you place a non-disclosure spell on certain information you wish for him to find out for himself. Placed on the grounds and any incoming mail it will stop any student or staff member from telling him."

"A wise idea Severus. What information should be restricted?"

Madam Pomfrey was quick with a list of details, including: his house, his allegiances, his favorite activities and foods, his goals, the people he disliked, and any past history with revealing details. When Snape had nothing further to add, Dumbledore preformed the spell and it was done.

"Try to reveal something from the list please Severus."

"Potter, you lemon drop me." With an annoyed look at the Headmaster, he continued, "You're in lemon drop house, and lemon drop from lemon drop house is your school enemy."

Pomfrey held a hand over her mouth to cover a laugh and Snape shook his head.

"As you can see Harry, whenever someone tries to reveal certain things to you, key information will be replaced with ‘lemon drop.' When we are satisfied that you have regained enough memory to live normally, the spell will be removed.

"And what if my memory is full of lemon drops?"

"You are immune from this spell. Fear not dear boy, we will figure things out." He patted him on the leg and rose to leave along with the others.

By himself now, he thought, they keep calling me Harry, but I don't feel like Harry. I feel like... I feel like... but the answer never came to him, and he lay back down, trying to recover any details he could from his life.