Recuérdame

The first thing James notices is that the ceiling is ugly. Not in a particularly interesting way either. Just a boring, clinical sort of ugly. Off-white with tiny cracks in the plaster like it’s pretending not to be falling apart. He blinks once. Twice. His eyes feel like they’ve been glued shut for a week and someone finally pried them open with a crowbar.

His head hurts. His body hurts. His everything hurts. Which is exactly the kind of post-match drama he lives for.

Must’ve been a bludger. A good one. Maybe Gideon finally learned how to aim.

The second thing he notices is the smell. Not the comforting must of broom polish and adolescent sweat that clings to the Hogwarts Hospital Wing. No, this is something sharper. Like antiseptic and fear. It makes his stomach turn.

He tries to sit up, fails, and decides lying here might actually be a strategic choice.

Footsteps. Somewhere nearby.

“—think he’s waking up,” someone says. The voice is muffled, like it’s coming from under water. It’s familiar. Calm. Tired. British. Definitely not Pomfrey.

“Course he is,” someone else snaps. “He’s James bloody Potter. You could drop a building on his head and he’d still manage to look smug about it.”

That one he knows. Sirius. Which is comforting. Except Sirius sounds wrong. Like he’s been crying, or not sleeping, or maybe both.

A shadow leans over him. Pale face. Greying at the temples. Worry lines where laugh lines should be.

“Moony?” James mumbles. “Why do you look like someone’s dad?”

Remus lets out a choked laugh, but it sounds like he might be swallowing glass. “Merlin, it really is bad.”

Sirius pushes him aside. “Oi. Prongs. You in there?”

James blinks up at him. His best mate. His absolute twat of a soulmate. Still here. Still gorgeous. Still wearing that leather jacket he definitely stole. That’s good. That means the world’s still spinning.

“Course I’m in here,” James says, trying for a grin. “Took a bludger to the face, didn’t I? Tell Gidgeon he’s off the team.”

Neither of them laughs.

Remus looks at Sirius. Sirius looks at the floor.

This felt wrong. He didn’t die, did he? They looked past him with their hands holding each other, and it gnawed at him. He didn’t like it. Didn’t like the look they exchanged. The feeling that crawled up his hands to reach out, to not being able to, made the urgency to know what happened unbearable, he could’t see his friends like that.

Before he could ask, before he could demand to know what happened, the door opened sharply, cutting through the quiet.

A woman in a nurse’s uniform stormed in, brisk and precise. Her face was tighter than any Hogwarts teacher he’d ever met, the kind of face that said “I don’t care if you’re James bloody Potter you’ll do as I say.” No softness. No kindness. No warmth.

This wasn’t Madam Pomfrey.

His stomach sank.

“Up.” she commanded eyes flicking towards the bed like she was directing an animal instead of a student. James a little too stunned to do much else, made a face at the demand.

And then it hit him.

“Where’s Peter?” he asked the words coming out too quickly. The room felt smaller all of a sudden. Too tight. It wasn’t just Remus and Sirius, Peter should’ve been there. Peter was always there. Where the hell was he?

Sirius and Remus both stiffened. Even the nurse hesitated, her eyes darting to the door before she gave a single deliberate nod.

“I fear he should be visited by Mister Monrose now.” she said.

Monrose. James frowned, he doesn’t know anyone who wears that name. But Remus, of course, seemed to know exactly who that was. James caught the flash of recognition in his friend’s eyes.

Sirius’s lips tightened, his brows furrowing with something close to frustration. “Why would he need that? See, It’s our James, no need to be extreme.”

Something was off. Sirius seemed… older. His hair was longer and when James let his eyes travel down his body, he seemed to have… ink on his skin.

“Wait” James’s voice cracked as he pushed himself up with a jolt, wincing at the dizziness that swirled behind his eyes. “Is that the scary new teacher you talked about yesterday?” He remembered how Sirius spoke of that man, like he was dangerous, the methods he used to teach children were close to insanity.

His voice pitched higher than he wanted it to. “The one who makes those weird potions and has those scary visions?”

Sirius’s eyes widened for just a second, like he’d been caught. Then he seemed to settle, but it wasn’t the same confident Sirius. He looked uncertain, like someone who had seen too much. Too much for someone still seventeen.

And that did something to James.

But it was the way Sirius grabbed Remus’s hand then tight, like his lifeline, that made something in James’s chest tighten painfully.

Sirius’s eyes, those bright, cocky eyes
were not the same. Something in them had died.

“How hard did that bludger hit me?” James groaned, sinking back onto the bed. His head fell back against the pillow with a dull thud, his mind racing to catch up with the reality that wasn’t making any damn sense.

The nurse just stared at him, impassive.

And suddenly, it felt like the room wasn’t just unfamiliar, but suffocating. Like he was out of place, and everything he knew was being pulled out of his grasp. The weight of it sank in. Too heavy. Too final.

———————————————-

The tests at St. Mungo’s were an endless loop of poking and prodding each one more ridiculous than the last. They asked him to recall things, childhood, Quidditch matches, holidays, like somehow that would fix everything. But nothing worked.

Not the lights they flashed, not the words they whispered to him, not even the way they looked at him like they were expecting him to be something he wasn’t anymore. Something he didn’t even know if he was anymore.

And after all that, after they’d checked his pulse and counted his blinks, they left him in that sterile too-white room again. Just him and Remus and Sirius. Except, it wasn’t just him, was it? It was them. But not the right them.

Maybe Snape finally took his revenge on them. Making James be in a forever coma, or perhaps this is an afterlife already.

Remus looked at him like he was a stranger. He had that look in his eyes, the one that said, I wish I could make this easier for you, but that wasn’t something anyone could fix, not this time.

Not with a few words. And Sirius… Sirius, who was sitting on the other side of the room, arms crossed, staring straight ahead with that same stubborn, unreadable expression, might as well have been a statue.

James fidgeted with the hospital blanket, pulling it over his legs like that would somehow make him feel better. He needed to know what happened. He needed to understand.

“So” he started, voice tight and strained, “Anyone feel like telling me what the hell is going on? Where’s everyone? What’s this- room” He paused, swallowing down the rising tide of panic, the dread he couldn’t shake. Why does nobody want to tell him what happened?

The silence stretched out. The kind of silence that drips with unspoken things, things that were better left unsaid, but James needed to know.

Remus sensing that exact emotion, finally cleared his throat, but before he could say anything, the door opened. In walked the doctor, clipboard in hand, looking as though he was too busy for this. Too busy to care that James was clearly falling apart in front of him.

The doctor glanced at the three of them James, Remus, and Sirius and let out a quiet sigh. “Right, Mr. Potter. Let’s get to the point, then.” He looked back at James, like he was deciding if he should be kinder or just get it over with.

He went with just getting it over with.

“You’re suffering from memory loss.”

There it was.

Memory loss.

James stared at him. “Memory loss?” The words didn’t fit right in his mouth. He wasn’t supposed to be here. He wasn’t supposed to forget. Forget. How could he forget? Forget what? Forget them?

James bit his lip. His eyes were betraying him.

Remus looked at the doctor, his face unreadable. Sirius, stayed silent. No explanation. No answers. Nothing. He was his best friend, isn’t he at least feeling any need to reassure James he’s not going mental? It certainly felt like it.

“What does this- What do I do?” James’s voice cracked. “I feel like I’m okay.” He tried. If he’ll just tell them he’s fine, they perhaps open up a little.

The doctor’s face softened just enough to make James feel like the tiniest bit of human decency was left in the world. He shook his head.

“James. You’ve lost parts of your memory, some more than others. What we suggest now, is that you stay with your friends.” He nodded towards Remus and Sirius. ,,You’ll need time. It’s not unusual, but you might find that some of your memories come back slowly, over time, if you’re around familiar faces.”

“Wait, stay with them?” James repeated, voice thick with confusion. “What does that mean?” We share a dorm.

And it started now, that he said things that were so familiar to him, felt so wrong, he was unsure if they were right.

“How many years in the future are we?” The question slipped out before he could stop it, the words sounding almost foreign to him.

The doctor didn’t hesitate. “You’re twenty-one, James” he said, like it was the most normal thing in the world. “The war ended a few weeks ago. And you were… in an accident. A terrible one. Something happened that put you in a coma. We don’t know all the details yet, but… that’s what we’re working with.”

James’s heart slammed against his chest. ,,What happened.” His voice was desperate now, raw with something he couldn’t quite name. “Can I at least know what happened?”

The doctor paused, his gaze flicking to Remus and Sirius before looking back at James. “We’re not sure if you’re in the right state to handle that right now. We’ll have to wait and see.”

The answer- we’ll have to wait and see- was not good enough. It wasn’t even close to being enough.

James closed his eyes for a moment, feeling the anger and sadness boil up in his chest. He didn’t remember, yet the strangest sense of loss gripped him. Something terrible had happened. And he couldn’t even begin to understand it.

Sirius was still silent.

Remus sighed again, a deep, heavy sound. “Come on” he said, his voice soft but firm, “We’ll take you to our flat. We’ll try and help you… get settled. You’ll see. It’ll be okay.” Remus kissed Sirius temple softly, whispering into his ear. Sirius immediately complied, packing James stuff.

James was set in a wheelchair and pushed out of the sterile hospital room, trying to ignore the lump in his throat, trying to ignore the gnawing feeling that something was missing, something so painfully obvious that it stung every time he thought about it.

————————————

James stood in the middle of the flat, staring at the unfamiliar yet strangely comfortable space. He ran his fingers along the smooth edge of a table, trying to feel something. Anything. They lived in a small muggle area close to london.

“This place is… it’s really you guys” he muttered, more to himself than to anyone else. The walls were adorned with quirky art, records scattered on shelves and plants crammed into every corner, the light that barely made it through the thick curtains. It was oddly charming. It felt like home, except it didn’t.

Home was a place he couldn’t quite reach, no matter how hard he tried to stretch out for it in this moment.

He wheeled aimlessly through the flat, his eyes darting over every little detail as though trying to anchor something in his brain. He caught sight of a picture frame across the room. A photograph, the edges a little worn. Something about it tugged at him.

Curiosity pulled him towards it. His arms felt sluggish as he reached out, as though they weren’t quite working the way they should. Before he could touch it, however, Sirius had swooped in and grabbed the frame with a little too much haste.

“Careful, mate” Sirius said, offering a smile that was just a little too tight around the edges. “We don’t need any accidents right?”

James blinked. “What’s in it?”

Sirius hesitated for a moment and his eyes flicking briefly to Remus, who was standing in the doorway, arms crossed, watching quietly.

“Just… a photo” Sirius muttered, then added with a forced laugh “I just look a little to rubbish innit.”

James frowned. There was something off about the way they were acting. They were hiding something, and it made the pit in his stomach grow colder.

“I’m just trying to remember, you know?” James said, his voice low and frustrated. “Something- anything- that’ll make sense of all this.”

Sirius and Remus exchanged a glance, both of them clearly struggling to maintain their composure.

“Yeah, well” Remus said stepping forward, “sometimes it’s best to take things slow.”

“Fine.” he muttered, feeling the weight of everything pressing down on him again. “I’ll take it slow.” He knew it probably wasn’t easy for his friends either.

As they settled into the living room, James sat in one of the armchairs, staring out the window at the streets below.

He could hear Remus and Sirius talking quietly in the background, but their words were nothing more than white noise now. James closed his eyes, letting the silence stretch between them.

But as the minutes passed, the unease only grew, swirling in his chest like a storm he couldn’t escape.

And yet, despite the silence, despite the unanswered questions and the gnawing emptiness inside him, one thing became painfully clear: no matter what they said, no matter how much they tried to protect him, something had happened. And sooner or later, he was going to remember.

What that meant, he wasn’t sure yet.

But he would find out. It’s not like he has much of a choice either.

There was a voice humming to him, later. It was a woman, first he thought it was his mamá, but he quickly came to realize, that it was one of his friends, Lily. She always sings to her girlfriend, she did, in past, does she still? Sometimes James sneaked into the common room too late after a night out in the castle, but lingered even longer just enjoying the sound of the warm voice.